Life Coach as Singer and Entertainer Bobby

Life Coach

As singer and entertainer Bobby Sherman once remarked, "As far as show business, it's the gratification of doing something that pleases the fans ("Brainy Quote")." As I have seen in so many representations of modern culture in my life, long-term effects are eschewed in favor of immediate results and the deciding factors, more often than not, are economic. As I frequently point out, shortsighted economic policies result in unforeseen long-term consequences. In this essay, the author will show that this is a possibly natural response for instant gratification that technology only heightens. As we shall see, we have to be doing something constantly, as long as it comes fast and furious. Haste does make waste and we should rush into anything before knowing the consequences just because of the need for instant gratification.

Analysis

Much of this has to do with the speed with which we expect things to be delivered. Whether it is technology or a horse whose owner is conning the public into thinking he can talk, Daniel Gilbert illustrates with the Clever Hans story, we want everything from "the horse's mouth" instantly (Gilbert 133-134). We want to have everything and we want it right now. We have to have everything in an instant from instant messages, coffee, email, food, fax, internet, etc. Instant is the way that we like to live our lives. The faster the better. We have to have our educations online for convenience, instant job notices, day trading for wealth. Our medical service has to come complete with a quick diagnosis and an instant cure. Families are made in a test tube, travel is done quickly. Everything has to be instant, including information and banking. Wrong or right, bad or good, we want it all and we want it now. Technology was supposed to make life easier, was it not? A proliferation of time-saving devices in theory should make our lives easier and free up leisure time for us to enjoy. However, we are more in a hurry than ever. Our instant gratification is like a drug. The more of it we have, the more we need. We can not even light our own matches anymore but have a special device to do it for us. One wonders if anyone even uses old fashioned matches any longer at all. Some people can't walk down the street without a cell phone to their ear. They can't drive a block down the street without calling someone. Kids can't communicate face-to-face because their fingers are too busy text messaging. Waiting on snail mail is unheard of, email, fax, express mail, same day delivery .

(Hamilton).

As James Leahy remarks "Certainly, not everyone is this way, but under the pressure of technology and socialization, we find it impossible to do anything but yield to the onrush of speed throbbing through out bodies. The psychological concept of instant gratification refers to the idea that humans like to have what they want right now; not later and they don't want to wait. You will notice that products and services that promise instant push-button results tend to do well (Leahy)." The most obvious evidence of this hard wired internal mechanism is the way humans use credit cards when they have access to them as. As a general rule; if a person has access to money, they spent it no matter what the future costs or implications are. This has led to the discovery that the inability to resist the desire for instant gratification may actually be hard-wired into the brain. The issue was originally looked at by a study in the late 1960s and early 1970s that used marshmallows and cookies to assess the ability of preschool children to delay gratification and those who could not. Later, brain imaging was used that showed key differences between the two groups in two areas: the prefrontal cortex and the ventral striatum. "This is the first time we have located the specific brain areas related to delayed gratification. This could have major implications in the treatment of obesity and addictions," said the lead author B.J. Casey, Ph.D (Nauert).

As we have seen, instant has definitive results in the areas of profits for clever entrepreneurs as well. Without it, people would not buy into get rich quick schemes or other quick solutions. This is why social media is so popular. As Kristin Dziadul remarks in her blog at Socialmediatoday.com, the so-called "millenials," that is, those who grew up transitioning into the 21st century were raised on technology and instant gratification. "If you put yourself in our shoes, though, can you blame us? We grew up on technology. I used a computer for the first time in the fourth grade, primarily for computer games, and grew up as the Internet evolved. We are extremely technologically savvy and love exploring the web." As she goes on to remark, this also spills over into other behaviors such as downloading songs instantly etc. (Dziadul).