Some researchers did a study of children in the 1960s, testing the kids' ability to defer self-gratification. They sat a little 4-year-old girl or boy at a table, then put a nice, tasty marshmallow on a plate. The tester told the kids that they could eat the single marshmallow right away, but that if they waited for the tester to return they would get two treats. The tester would then leave the room for 15 minutes.As you can imagine, most kids ate the marshmallow. Some waited a few seconds, some a few minutes and a few waited the quarter-hour to earn their reward. One of the psychologists who participated in the study decided to check up on the test subjects and find out how their lives turned out. Generally, those who were able to deny themselves had more successful lives, and the kids who gobbled the marshmallow immediately turned out to be all-time losers.
The doctor became interested in the kids who had been impatient at the age of 4, but who later developed the ability to discipline themselves. He has not concluded his research yet, but he is looking for emotional turning points in people's lives, times of stress or inner turmoil that the person somehow resolves and turns to his or her own benefit.
I was similarly tested the other day. Sometimes I meet a person who says he reads my column, and most such meetings are happy occasions. They say they like the column. Even if they are just being polite, it works. I thank them and don't give it a second thought, for I like my column, too.
But the other day was different. This person said she liked the column, then asked me, “Do you pretend to be stupid?”
By now I've come up with a dozen snappy rejoinders -- “No, I'm the real thing” -- but at the time all I could muster was, “What?” That's my autopilot response to gain time, to try to understand the situation and see if I can avoid coming off as a twit.
She said that I seemed nice and normal enough in person, but that my column gave the impression that I was sometimes stupid. There was my salvation, for I could easily admit to being sometimes stupid. But I ignored my salvation, and said instead, “Yeah, and your mother wears army boots.”
Another autopilot response, this one a juvenile insult dredged from my own schoolyard days. Readers may recall “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” the man who was born 80 years old and grew younger over time. I am a living example of the same syndrome, but emotional rather than physical. I was born a normal baby, to all appearances normal, but I had the wisdom of the ages. I was a regular Obi-Wan Kenobi even at 2 years old.
Born a yogi and evolving backwards, now at 50 I have the emotional maturity of a teenager, if not a third-grader. Also, my memory is going, for I don't even remember what's so bad about a mother wearing army boots. Is it that she's ugly, like a mess sergeant? Or is she too poor to afford regular women's shoes? I can lose sleep pondering such questions.
Now I realize that this gentle critic offered me a life-changing turning point, for I am regressing through my teens, emotionally. I choose to unlearn self-restraint and deferral of gratification. Also, I don't believe that anyone's coming round to give me another treat, so I'm going to eat this marshmallow right now, the whole thing, and I'm not going to share it with anybody.
What do you make of that, Mr. Big-Time Doctor Psychologist? Picking on little kids; you ought to be ashamed of yourself. Grow up already. Get a real job. Says who? You wanna step outside?
