Sunday, March 14, 2010

There was a preschool study in 1960 now known as the Marshmallow Test.  Four year olds were left in a room, unmonitored.  There are marshmallows and the children are told that if they didn’t eat the marshmallows until the monitor returned they could have two.  The children resisted in all kinds of ways from games to staring.  Some of the children could not resist.  The two groups were tracked over the years and those who waited achieved more success; ranging from test performance to popularity.  I know that my biggest flaw is patience.  I lose it very quickly and achieve magnificent tunnel vision.  Often times the tunnel is focused on an object that may not be the most beneficial at the time, but sometimes it is.  I would have expected the results of the test to show leadership at an early age or initiative.  Many times capitalistic values are so ingrained in us that we forget the great capitalist of the 19th and 20th centuries had to take steps toward greatness and did not simply arrive at it or grab it from the marshmallow bag.  Similarly we also forget that to every story there is an opposing side.  If we are to blind to see the opposing side we may lose out on the truth.  I think the children who were patient had the ability to see both sides of the story.  Either the story would end here with one marshmallow, or it would end later with two.  Often we prefer the story to end now, for immediacy element; yet when we see others obtain their two marshmallows our story becomes what "could have been" instead of "what is." I pray my story is never the former and that life continues its pace towards my two marshmallows.

Golf was great this weekend.  I went out and hit a few on the range yesterday.  When i relax and focus on tempo the ball flies off the face of the club.  I am going to probably get out and play next weekend. 

Had my first moot court presentation.  It was scary, but the judges were very kind and gave very good feedback.  I hope that we get the same judges, that way they can see how I incorporate their suggestions.  But driving up to LA to talk for 9 minutes then fighting traffic to OC was rather annoying.  Well off to work on my Laws Paper, its due Monday.  cheers

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