field notes: the power of delayed gratification [archive]
A personal experiment to get closer and closer to my dreams and desires
Welcome to field notes, my casual blogging platform within my Substack Messy Dialectic. If you are looking for refined essays and discourse, check here for the latest posts. If you love rambling, brain dumps, and chit-chats about life experiences, then continue reading on.
Hmm, so this is fascinating. I was spring cleaning my drafts, and stumbled across this post that I fully wrote just about a year ago and had neglected to free into the world. I don’t know why I did that, but it’s still a perfectly good post that I figured I may as well publish and maybe do something different with. I’ll use this as a space to have a conversation with, and you all can just come along for the ride lol.
When I originally wrote this post, I was in a very challenging time of my life. My husband was preparing for a beyond huge career change, and we were drowning financially because of it. The world felt like it was constantly closing in on us, and somehow I managed to find a pocket of joy to cling on to that somehow made me extremely anxious to hold. It felt dangerous, like a threat to achieving anything good ever again. It wasn’t a big deal though, I just wasn’t well-versed in consistent positive notions happening in my life. This post became a meditation of that, of co-existing with the good feels as I reason with being an achiever without the extremist motivation of life-bad-must-work-hard-so-it-become-good.
Please, enjoy.
I have come to the realization that the gifts of ease and convenience that the modern era provides us has seriously damaged my determination. To get some feel-good dopamine, you no longer have to fight hard to earn a good moment, now you can literally just search for something that’ll make you feel good, and your wish is easily granted.
I am about six years post-undergrad, and I can feel laziness seeping in as I’m now old enough and resourceful enough to make my small, dopamine-induced wishes a reality. I genuinely can remember when I had to work so hard for the dopamine rush granted from getting all A’s during a semester, or from getting a banger summer internship opportunity. But now, funnily enough, as the judgmental glare of the institution of education has left my orbit and I’m now in the regular degular real world, I have come to realize that the stakes are much, much lower.
Maybe I bought into the systems and institutions too much, but growing up I really thought that good times would be so hard to come by. I really believed that I’d constantly have to earn and work so hard to enjoy a nice chat, a yummy meal, or even a great experience (I also blame all of these beliefs on two decades of hard times, but more on that trauma a different day). Now I know the truth: good times exist everywhere, all the time. And boy, have I been indulging in all of it.
I keep my calendar stacked with events to explore, my DMs filled with new, joyful connections, my attention kept with constant content and entertainment. I have become a dopamine fiend, a total dopamine goblin, and I’m here to chow down on everything that feels good as hell.
The issue with this is that now that I’m experiencing the good-feels of life, I have become oh so very indulgent, which is very new to me! I’m not used to having the opportunity to indulge, and so I have never had to learn how to pace myself or have boundaries in this area. If I want it, I buy it. If I want to experience it, I do it! The problem is that as a creative who sets her own schedule and does her own thing, it does lead to me getting less and less done as I solely fixate on what feels good.
In order to make space for achieving my goals, finetuning my habits, and just getting some goddamn work done, I have begun to practice delayed gratification, and man is it a powerful tool.
I decided to create a habit tracker bingo board. It’s a monthly 5x4 bingo board that both contains routine habits and goals that I wish to nail that month and mundane tasks that I would like to check off my list (like doing laundry or scheduling that doctor’s appointment). Each standard bingo that I achieve (so left-right/up-down, no diagonals for a 5x4) gives me one point, and each point contributes to a reward tree that I’ve built out.
Of course, it would be impossible to be perfect, so I’ve also added some “free passes” to allow myself some grace as I work hard to complete my board. If I read two books in a month, for instance, I get to check a box off my list even if I haven’t achieved it yet. If I complete a T shape on the board (5 across at the top, 4 going down the middle) then I get another free pass. This way, I don’t have to sweat the small stuff and I still get my delicious dopamine hit for having worked hard.
As we enter the second half of the year, I hope to work harder to be more dedicated to myself and my goals. I’m not used to having so much feel-good stimuli around me, so I hope to use my goals and achievements as a base where I can ground myself and come back to reality (yes, I know that’s very Virgo of me, sue me!). These days, I can get very swept away in what’s going on around me — honestly it’s to the point where I can’t even remember what it’s like to do everything in life all alone — and I hope to have a much smoother second half of 2025 as I have taken a real look at myself and begin to sink deeper into giving myself exactly what I need to be happy.
Now that I have this context of how delayed gratification works, it makes me realize why positive reinforcement for habit building didn’t work for me growing up: it’s hard to positively reinforce with something that you don’t know if you’ll be able to grant yourself. However, now that I know how to make life feel good at every step of the way, I love leaning into positive reinforcement and delayed gratification to achieve all of the good things that I’m hoping to get out of this life of mine.
Here I am, just a year shy from when I originally wrote this post. I think it’s so fascinating to speak to your past self in such a manner. I was asking and posing some serious questions and needs here; how do I coexist with happiness and productivity? Does delayed gratification actually work to achieve things whilst in this state? Can I conform to the rules and laws of “joy” and just become a person who enjoys living life and enjoys having nice things?
And most importantly, did that second half of 2025 clear up for me?
Well, to my past self, you end up figuring it all out. Delayed gratification works, but you aren’t so regimented with it like you thought you’d have to be. You find that flowing comes easier to you than you originally anticipated, and it leads you to a restful, but still chaotic end to 2025. You forced a lot of doors shut, so that way new, better doors could open. And, yes, you’re still indulging to the max. You get a better stride by the time 2026 rolls around, and despite the continued chaos of Q1 as you fight for your health needs, you’re still in a great position.
You don’t have to suffer just to find the will to achieve things. Now, is it hard? Most definitely. But, maybe it will one day become a language that you’re much better versed in, have some hope and optimism there. Your greatest works are still on the way, and yes, they will be birthed from a life well-lived, not from one that you keep having to suffer through.
Keep writing, keep savoring, and keep creating.
Love, me. To, me.