4B What Inquiry Questions Do You Have?

                This week’s reading assignments brought up some interesting topics, like the idea that delayed gratification will bring success if taught at a young age, but the reading also brought some questions to my attention as well.

                Do you think as Americans we have a lack of delayed gratification because we are so used to not having to wait for a long time to get what we want?

                In my opinion I believe that compared to other cultures we do have a lack of delayed gratification. In the TED video it was said that only 1/3 of American children were able to not eat the marshmallow, but when he did the same study on Korean kids almost all of them did not eat it. In the article “Don’t, the Secret of Self-control, “they successfully delayed gratification…these kids wrestled with temptation but found a way to resist temptation”. I think the reason why only 1/3 of children could resist temptation is because as a society we lost the idea of how important that concept is and that’s due to technology.  While I feel that technology is replacing our basic, but important concepts in life, others could argue that technology isn’t hindering our success but instead improving it, because technology is the reason our country is so advanced and ahead of others.

                Another question I have was, does self-control have a greater correlation between delayed gratification of willpower? Or are the two the same thing?

                I don’t think that delayed gratification and willpower is exactly the same thing, but that the both play a role in self-control. In the article, “Resistance Training for your ‘Willpower’ Muscles”, it says “the power to resist temptation is our ‘greatest human strength’”, and that “people who exercise their willpower frequently have better self-control”. I agree with what this article is saying, the more you can resist the temptation and fight the struggle that comes with it, the more you will be able to resist temptation in the future. It also said that when you don’t exercise your willpower often your exhaust it all on one thing and then it leaves your body feeling drained and fatigued which is bad for your health. Whether you think self-control is only connected to either willpower or delayed gratification, or if you think it’s both, like I do, you can’t argue the fact that you can’t have self-control unless you exercise one of these concepts in your daily life.