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The White Marshmallow of Success Commentary on “Don’t : the secret of self control” by Jonah Lehrer (All quotes are
from Don’t: the secret of self control unless specified otherwise) Is being a high delayer the only way to achieve
success? I do not think so. The word only plays a big role in my answer. Nothing is only black or white (and fluffy), there
are always shades of gray. There are always exceptions ‐ oops I meant to say there are ALMOST always exceptions.
“I’ve always been really good at waiting,” Carolyn told me. “If you give me a challenge or a task, then I’m going to find a
way to do it, even if it means not eating my favorite food.” A high delayer is someone who can be patient and wait (to
delay gratification) if there is an instant reward right in front of him (a marshmallow was used in the experiment in the
article “Don’t!: the secret of self control”) because a bigger, better reward (two marshmallows) is promised if he does.
The people who are high delayers, according to “Don’t,” have a higher level of success. Being a high delayer may make
it easier to achieve a certain kind of success, academic or job success for example. The kind of success that you get when
you do something that you may not like because the reward is much greater. This reward does not necessarily have to
be of physical substance. Some people go to college just to be accepted, and become accountants instead of poets
because their parents would disown them otherwise. Some people just delay good things because they like endurance
tests or believe good things come from pain, even if the pain is pointless. Sometimes being good at delaying
gratification is a necessary skill. You’ll have to be able to work at the bottom to get to the top. This requires patience.
Being able to delay gratification may help with other things, like writing a novel, or researching children eating
marshmallows and the effect that it has on their life. The latter is over thirty years of delayed gratification, and counting.
And it will, of course, help keep people in shape, self‐controlling themselves to skip the marshmallow and take a run. Of
course, there are extreme cases of high delayers. Workaholics get a certain thrill knowing there is something better
waiting for them that they do not enjoy what they have now. The workaholics may be successful financially, but they
never “stop to smell the roses”. Anorexics love the fact that they are waiting to eat; so that when they finally get to eat
it is more rewarding. These are examples of super duper triple scoop extreme high delayers. Also, even a naturally high
delayer will eat the marshmallow without waiting if they are starving. A high delayer will drop out of college if they need
to work full time to pay the bills right here right now. There is, sadly, no long run if you are starving. If we overlook
these unfortunate extremes though, high delaying makes it easier to achieve our classic idea of success.
“Do they encourage you to wait” Low delayers have been taught by life, I think, that if you don’t take the marshmallow
now, someone else will take it for you. They have been taught this as babies, when they are just figuring out the rules of
life. Yet they can still achieve success. Who says they can’t? In the article “Don’t: the secret of self‐control” there was
this story: “Carolyn Weisz is a textbook example of a high delayer. She attended Stanford as an undergraduate, and got
her Ph.D. in social psychology at Princeton. She’s now an associate psychology professor at the University of Puget
Sound. Craig, meanwhile, moved to Los Angeles and has spent his career doing “all kinds of things” in the entertainment
industry, mostly in production. He’s currently helping to write and produce a film” Carolyn Weisz has a Ph.D at an Ivy
League university and, by all means, she is successful. Craig (a low delayer) has a not so neat and tidy career, but I think
he is successful, too. Writing and producing a film! I would love to do that! Success is, according to Mirriam Webster the
online dictionary, “a favorable or desired outcome.” I certainly think writing and producing a movie is a favorable
outcome. So is watching TV instead of doing homework for some people. Success is like beauty. It is in the eye of the
beholder. “You see this marshmallow? You don’t have to eat it. You can wait. Here’s how.” The problem with
most of the strategies in Don’t is that they only apply to the marshmallow. Change that marshmallow into something
that actually relates to the real world and “pretending that the candy is only a picture, surrounded by an imaginary
frame” will not work. But the part about metacognition or “thinking about thinking” is important. If you keep on telling
yourself: “I am sad; this is horrible; it is hot outside; it smells bad and my ice‐cream fell on the floor,” then you will be
miserable. If you tell yourself: “gee, the heat is swell especially after that cold winter and those flowers are so beautiful
and I guess it’s a good thing my ice‐cream dropped I will be healthier or I could just buy a new one, you will be happier
and I will be happier because I won’t have to endure your complaining. I use this technique all the time and it works so
far, at least according to my parents. My other strategy to achieve success is to keep track of what I have done so far to
encourage me, like a prisoner that ticks off the days in jail. Well, except for the fact that I’m counting good things. You
get the point. Seeing the facts on paper make them seem more real. Encouragement is very important. If someone
thinks: this is hopeless, resistance is futile, I can’t wait a whole fifteen minutes to eat the wonderful, beautiful
marshmallow, so why even try what the hay, they will end up eating the marshmallow. You know, it’s the whole “believe
in yourself” concept we all know and love from watching Bob the Builder all the time when we were younger. “Can we
do it?” “Yes we can!” Yet another strategy is to be patient not just with yourself but with others. What might seem
stupid to you makes sense in the mind of the other person. It helps to remember that. And so my final strategy and
parting words are know that you have a choice, and you always have a choice. Knowing this, make the choices that you
feel are right for you and your ideas of success, and be confideant, because who cares what a bunch of scientists with
marshmallows think.
Comment:
Despite the very last words of this essay, it is clear that you have thought a lot about the marshmallow experiment. I like
the originality of your thinking, even when you push it to the point where you are risking absurdity, as you consider the
extreme aspects of the high delaying personality. You engage the text with a great deal of detail, such as when you
discuss the Weisz siblings and contemplate briefly the idea of “thinking about thinking.” My main problem with this
essay is its overly casual tone at times (I highlighted some expressions that would be out of place in formal expository
prose required in college level writing). This tone shortchanges the freshness and originality of your thinking, making you
sound a bit flippant and unserious.
Grade: B