PLEASE, SIR, I’D LIKE S’MORES
Thanks to the Biblical baby Moses, I learned as a child that bulrushes could be found in marshes. I had also seen beautiful water lilies growing there, with their pretty leaves spread on the surface. I learned in elementary school science class that muskrats, badgers, and frogs were plentiful in marshes. Thus, I had thought of marshes as rather cozy bodies of water, where Kermit might like to nestle with his banjo when he sang “It’s Not Easy Being Green” or “The Rainbow Connection”.
What a surprise it was to learn on our first family trip to Miami that the Florida Everglades is the largest freshwater marsh in the world. It covers an area the same size as the state of Delaware! We took a day trip to visit those Everglades near Fort Myers, and the park ranger spent an awful lot of time pointing out one particular type of prevalent vegetation: the mallow plant.
I was about to tune him out as he started lecturing on its fleshy stems and leaves. He was a pleasant enough speaker, but he was clearly no dynamic future-Me.
I did perk up when he mentioned that 4,000 years ago, the Egyptians boiled mallow root pulp with honey until it was thick. That concoction soothed coughs and sore throats and also healed wounds. And thanks to its honey base, it was also considered one of the first candies.
Hearing about such a sweet treat, my mind wandered to the night before, when our hotel held a campfire at their barbecue pit, and we kids were treated to making the perfect campfire dessert: s’mores. My favorite part was its gooeyness.
Suddenly, I was convinced that the park ranger must have moonlighted as a mind reader, because at that very moment, the ranger looked at us and said, “Now, kids, if you love hot chocolate, you should thank those ancient Egyptians. They figured out how to make a candy confection out of this mallow marsh plant. And we are still making it. We’ve simply reversed its name from “mallow marsh” to “marshmallow”. Wouldn’t your mug of hot chocolate be naked without those mini-marshmallows floating at the top?”
“AND WHAT ABOUT S’MORES?” I gleefully called out, drawing all the crowd’s attention to me. That’s one personality trait of mine that hasn’t changed in seventy years. I think Mom and Dad were delighted that day with my loud exuberance; I think my teenaged sister wanted to feed me to the Everglades alligators.
Ten years later, when I graduated from Indiana University in 1970, Stanford University was conducting what became one their most famous psychological studies: the marshmallow experiment. The study was simplicity itself. A pre-school child was told that he or she could receive a marshmallow to eat immediately or, if the child could wait fifteen minutes, they would then receive two — a classic example of deferred gratification.
For those children who opted to wait, the adult placed two marshmallows on the little table where the child was sitting and left the room. Then the researcher observed the subject during the fifteen minute interval through a one-way mirror. The assumption was that the child would intensely focus his attention on the two marshmallows, perhaps even being so sorely tempted that he might not be able to resist eating them.
But what the researchers surprisingly discovered was that most children spent all fifteen minutes trying to distract themselves from the temptation — making up quiet songs, hiding their heads in their arms, pounding the floor with their feet, even praying to the ceiling!
Although they were so young, these preschoolers had already figured out the effective suppressive and avoidance behaviors they needed to reduce their frustrations until that glorious moment when their reward had been fairly and finally won. Then they devoured the marshmallows with glee.
Psychologists point out that adults who practice this concept of deferred gratification do so using the same skills that we intuit as preschoolers. If we defer gratification to have a more successful professional life, we keep our minds on other distractions as we await our ultimate financial marshmallow; if we defer gratification to have a more successful personal life, we distract ourselves with one imperfect love after another until we find our ultimate romantic confection.
Wine, cheese, and antiques all become more valuable as they age. They are tangible proof that deferred gratification can create better investments. If we allow more time, we reap more benefits. As the adage says, time is a great healer. But I am discovering that it’s a lousy beautician.