Many years ago there was a study at Stanford University. Four years olds were left in a room, each with a marshmallow, and given a choice of eating it then or fifteen minutes later, when they were promised a marshmallow as an extra reward for waiting. When you are 4 years old, 15 mins is like entirety! Some ate theirs right away. Others waited. But the study's real significance came a decade later when the researchers discovered that the children who held out for the reward had become more successful adults than the children who had gobbled their marshmallows immediately.
The "marshmallow theory" answered a thirty-year quest to find a compelling explanation for why some people succeed and others fail. The key difference between success and failure is not merely hard work or superior intelligence, but the ability to delay gratification. "Marshmallow resisters" achieve high levels of success while the rest of us eat all our marshmallows at once, so to speak--accumulating debt and dissatisfaction no matter what our occupations or incomes. But it doesn't have to be that way.
