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Comment by srgseg | Hacker News Reader

> 2. Deferring your happiness to the future is a terrible idea

Every time I see this, I ask myself, how is this advice reconciled with the famous Marshmallow experiment? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_marshmallow_experiment

There surely must come a point where enough deferred future marshmallow gratification makes deferred gratification a recommended life strategy.

If I were always to choose not to delay my happiness, I'd eat unhealthy foods, not force myself to do exercise and never work hard to achieve anything.

As I heard a comic say, "I decided to live every day as if it were my last. Now I have really bad credit."

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They're different things. Marshmellow isn't about deferring satisfaction, but about using metacognitive skills to reach an outcome you _know_ beforehand is favorable (i.e. two marshmellows instead of one). If you just find a marshmellow on a plate somewhere, by all means, the best strategy is to eat it.

And then let me know where you were when you found it. I'm all about finding random marshmallows while I'm just ambling around.

"Life lessons" aren't formulas and aren't objective, so they don't need to be reconciled. Knowing when and how to apply them takes maturity and life experience. If that wasn't the case, then anyone could read a list of them and be equally enlightened and successful. A counter-example doesn't invalidate advice, or else there would be no legitimate advice.

Oh, easy: 1) Wait for the marshmallow (it may be 15 minutes) 2) While you are waiting, distract yourself. 3) Presto: you are now happy and waiting for the marshmallow.

You can read the article on the new yorker now (google newyorker marshmallow, article is called "the secret of self-control") but the key concept is "strategic allocation of attention".

I'm not sure what his point is...in fact the whole article is a little bit haphazard. The concept is usually stated as "deferring pleasure", which is completely different from deferring happiness.

no life changing advice survives any form of analysis.

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