Sacred Sacrifices—Part 2

Let me turn to another type of sacrifice that my dictionary defines: ”An act of giving up something valued for the sake of acquiring something else regarded as more important.” This is another kind of sacrifice that seems to have gone out of favor these days. When I was young, people often purchased things from the store on so-called “lay-away plans.” You picked out something you desired, put some money down, and the store stashed the object in the back room. You made payments as you were able, until the purchase price was met and it was yours. Such a concept of delayed gratification is literally unknown today, as credit card companies encourage you to have whatever you want now—as long as you pay them usury charges of 22% or more on the balance.

In an classic experiment in 1970, Walter Mischel, a researcher at Columbia University, conducted a study in which young children were placed at a table upon which one marshmallow sat. The experimenter told the child that she had to leave the room for a few minutes. If, while she was gone, the kid could refrain from eating the one marshmallow in hand, a second marshmallow would be rewarded upon her return. The kids were filmed through a one-way mirror, and the torment they went through is hilarious to watch.

Mischel then followed the kids over the next decade or two. What he showed was that those kids who demonstrated self-control and won the second marshmallow were later more successful in life. Delayed gratification brought them greater achievement. As in the above dictionary definition, they were able to give up something of value (a single treat) to acquire something of greater value (two treats).

Michael Foley, in his book The Age of Absurdity: Why Modern Life Makes it Hard to be Happy, addresses this issue in a bit different manner. He describes Mischel's marshmallow experiment and uses it to make the point that if we can resist the desire for immediate gratification for anything (even yummy marshmallows), we have a better chance of achieving long-term fulfillment in our lives. He points out that fulfillment is hard work and that many people in modern society do not really want to do the hard work, because our culture teaches us that our desires can easily be satisfied with little effort.

So we no longer sacrifice—either in the sense of slaughtering an animal to the gods or by exercising self-control and delaying gratification. In either case, sacrifice is giving up something desirable today (like that delectable marshmallow beckoning me) for a bigger reward tomorrow. It calls for planning and letting go an immediate satisfaction for a happier future. It calls for hard work. Not many people are willing to wait.