Marshmallow Choices

When I get up in the morning I choose what I will wear, what I will say and what I will do. No one else is or can be responsible for my choices. I alone choose to act for myself within the bounds of the circumstances of my life. Those choices lead to results which lead to other choices. This circle of choice is unique to human beings and is what I believe to be the marked difference between us and all other life. However, good choices do not make us good.

Let me explain. We all seem to be born with an innate desire to make our own choices, from the time we are tiny and screaming, “I can do it myself!” to the time when we are tottering around with a cane shouting, “I can do it myself!” But just making choices is relatively mundane. Choice coupled with a purpose becomes powerful.

Statistically speaking, people who go to prison for whatever reason almost always repeat the offense and go back. But when they are released from prison the first time they are watched like a hawk by parole officers, social workers, judges, policemen and even the community. These people attempt to channel the person into right choices, teach them right choices, direct them into right choices and even compel them to make right choices. After all of that, nearly every one of them finds a way to again make the choice that brought them to prison. Why? It's not that they really want to be in jail. It isn't that they don't know what right choices are. So what could prompt them to keep doing what they know will result in a prison sentence when they know how to avoid it?

In a study done with small children, each child was told that they could have a marshmallow. Each child was delighted with the prospect. After the marshmallow was produced, each child was then told that they could have two marshmallows if they were willing to wait for fifteen minutes, not eating the first marshmallow until the time was up and the second one was given. Some children could not and would not wait, but simply ate the one. Some tried to wait and eventually gave up. And some waited the fifteen minutes and were given the two marshmallows. It was discovered that this ability in the children to wait for a reward was an indicator of successful living later in life.

There are marshmallows in our lives today. We can choose to eat our marshmallow and forget about a second one. However, if we do that, we may regret not having it, especially if we see someone else who is eating his. We can choose to wait for the second one while secretly trying to nibble a bite here or there, thinking that it won't be noticed, or won't matter, until we wake up one morning and the first one is gone and there will not be another. We can also choose to force other people to wait for their marshmallows. We can spend all our time and energy trying to make them do the right thing only to find that in the moment when we weren't looking they managed to devour the marshmallow anyway and all we did was to make them hate us for trying to force them not to eat it. Or we can choose to wait for our marshmallow.

In the study, the adult always left the room and the child was left alone with the first marshmallow. Each of us is a witness to our own behavior and choices. Each of us is left alone with the marshmallow and must choose what to do with it. If I do not police my own actions, no amount of policing from the outside will help me. If you do not believe that there is another marshmallow, then there is nothing to do but devour the one you have. If there is a second marshmallow to be had, then wisdom suggests that we wait the fifteen minutes. But you do not instill belief in a second marshmallow by forcing someone to wait for it. Forced right choices are not choices but force and they never lead to more right choices but only instill a greater desire for freedom, even the freedom to choose unwisely. Integrity in adults, I believe, is rarer than the ability to wait for marshmallows in children. Without it there is no amount of policing that can remedy the marshmallow-devouring consequences that destroy a society and I wonder who will be left holding an empty bag?