Instant Gratification

I've been thinking a lot about instant gratification lately.

Our society is built on convenience and speed. We want everything to be right where we want it, when we want it there.

We can eat whatever we want, whenever we want and we are oblivious to the consequences. I want Taco Bell at four in the morning? Yeah, I can have that. I want to buy the latest Weird Al CD at 10:30 at night, sure no problem. The internet is open 24/7, granted, waiting for shipping is a pain, but I can order literally anything I want from the convenience of my couch without even getting dressed.

I can tell my followers what I am thinking at any given moment on any day. I can put something on my Facebook wall and within mere minutes see replies from a multitude of friends confirming my opinions. Laughing at my jokes. Sending me virtual love. It's awesome.

I can even see what the lead singer of my favorite band is up to. Bart Millard spends more time Tweeting and Facebooking than my teenage son. I feel like I know him personally. Which is nice. But I also know that I don't know him at all in any real sense.

So, what's the downside to all of this? You know there's a downside because you know me - there's always a downside.

The downside is that we don't know how to be patient. We can have anything we want day or night. We no longer have to wait for Christmas, or a birthday, or an anniversary for special things. If I want a new crock pot, I go to the store and buy one. If I need new clothes or a new color of chucks. If I need sheets, towels, blankets, a new couch, tires, music, fencing, a laptop, iPod, Ipad, Nook Color, guitar, saxophone, DVD, books, dishes, magazines, bird food, tractors, pizza, drain opener, or anything you could possibly think of, I'm limited only by my credit card limit and the towing capacity of my van.

If you can't find it at the store, it's online. If it's not online, it doesn't exist and you don't need it.

The downside is that nothing is special anymore. If I want a fancy steak dinner, I can just jump in the car and go. It doesn't have to be a special occasion and I don't have to drive more than 10 minutes to any restaurant, and heaven forbid I have to wait more than 10 minutes once I arrive.

The downside is that when there are things in our life that aren't instant, we're not satisfied. For instance. I'm going to finish writing this, post it to my blog, stick a link on Facebook and close the windows. Then, after about 20 minutes, I'm going to check my email to see if FB or the blog sent me a notification that someone left me a comment. Then I'm not going to believe that there are no emails, so I'll check the blog, I can look at the stats page to see how many of my friends popped over to see what brilliance I have spewed forth today, then I'm going to go to my Facebook page to see if anyone liked or commented on my link. Then I'll check my email again after an hour or ten minutes. Just to see if anything has changed. On average, I check all three about twenty times a day. Why? Because I need instant gratification. I need validation that my opinions matter, that I'm funny, smart, deep, not alone, socially relevant, and loved.

It's silly I know, but there are so many of us wired this way. or I should say that we've been rewired by the world to be this way. Why else would we invent Twitter? Why else would we need Facebook? YouTube? MySpace? Blogs?

We have a deeply ingrained need to be validated. We do silly things, embarrassing things, things that we would never in a million years want our grandmothers to know we've done, and yet we not only record them but we post them to the internet where literally everyone on the planet will have an opportunity to view our shame.

We write our deepest thought, our meanest thoughts, and our most sincere prayers in a forum that anyone with internet access can see. I've seen posts on  Facebook with language I wouldn't against a monkey, let alone another human, and then that same person post that they are praying for a sick friend, or having pizza for dinner.

Instant gratification is nice. It tells us within seconds of our doing something that it was fine to do...or it's too late to take it back so oh well.

It tells us that we're important, we can have what we want because we "deserve" to have what we want. Why else would it be available to me a 3 in the morning. Why else would Visa let me use their money to buy the shiny things I don't have yet? Why else would my best friend from second grade LOL at my random thought of the day?

What instant gratification won't tell you is that you have to have patience. At four in the morning when your loved one is crying from the pain. In the middle of the day when you just want to see your family, but you're at work. In the middle of a foreign country when all you want to do is see your home again, but you don't know if you'll even get that chance.

Patience with your friends who don't do exactly what you think they should. Patience with a world that isn't quite ready for revival. Patience for the small minded people that seem to rule the air waves.

I've often heard it said that nothing good comes easy. I can't add to that. It speaks volumes to my soul.