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In one of my criminology courses back in college I learned about a study that struck me so intently I’ve continued to think about from time to time ever since. It seems there is one key difference, typically, between criminal populations and law-abiding people. The difference is their mental orientations around time. I'll elaborate on that in a second. But equally interesting was a collateral finding around the differences between people who fail in life, and people who are successful. Obviously concepts like this would pique the interest of someone who has had a lifelong battle with weight gain.
It was a significant longitudinal study where they interviewed thousands of people from each group based on objective (as possible) definitions of criminal, successful person, unsucessful person. They discovered the common thread is that criminals are typically opportunists who are present-oriented thinkers and are incapable of deferring gratification. Criminals tend to think about this instant--this hour--how they feel today. They seem incapable of anticipating the future and measuring consequences. It’s like they “see something shiny” and they can’t control themselves. It's almost like they have an unevolved, animalistic inability to control impulses. But what the study also found is that this trait is also shared in some degree by people who typically fail in general at things they attempt to do. And you can probably imagine the characteristic common to successful people is that they unfailingly are future-oriented thinkers who visualize long term, and are able to defer gratification for even the possiblity of big rewards.
I’m sharing this I guess because I think about that a lot lately. I’ve drawn upon this simple concept many, many times in my life ever since that lecture. I tried to adopt the concept of “deferred gratification” as a cornerstone of my personal self-management framework. At first when I heard about the study I got worried. I was honestly thinking "Hmmmm…(more acurately, Oh Shit) which one am I?” I saw something of myself in all categories. But the beauty of these illuminating moments is choice. I realize now, 12 years later, that this particular learning forced a choice in me that I've been owning to ever since. The fact is, I wanted to be successful in life so I chose to be future-focused and learn to enjoy a perpetual condition of deferred gratification. And when faced by tough challenges, or long term goals I keep having to choose again. I want to be a good person, and I want to be successful.
While tihsi s perhaps a bit deep for "fat secret" I think it is very related to everything we're going through and each of us in that we've made the choice to step into an uncomfortable situation, relenting control over our very personal food choices, disclosing our weight to strangers -- all because we're committed to a long term journey of becomming better and healthier. Despite the frames we often use to rationalize people's tendencies and behaviors (nature, nurture, opportunity, etc.) it is all a choice in the end, Isn't it?
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