If you had a magic lamp like Aladdin's, what would you most want?
How would you treat the wish that has already appeared in your mind?
Would you accept it, or tell yourself that it is just an unrealistic desire and that it is pointless to dwell on it?
We all have a natural fear of desires.
So we are accustomed to suppressing their sprouts.
We have never thought about where the acceptance of repressed desires comes from.
Or perhaps our desires are not ferocious beasts
But merely a longing for a piece of candy.
Perhaps we can start with the marshmallow experiment.
The experimenter gave each 4-year-old child a marshmallow and told them: if they ate it immediately, they could only have one; if they waited 20 minutes before eating it, they would get two. Some children couldn't wait and immediately ate the marshmallow, while others restrained themselves and resisted their desires, not eating the candy, and thus received two marshmallows.
Over a decade later, researchers found that the children who were able to wait for more candy were more likely to be successful than those who lacked patience. They had better academic performance and performed better in their careers.
The conclusion of this experiment is that the stronger the ability to delay gratification, the easier it is to achieve success.
So suppressing desires is almost synonymous with success.
Perhaps we have reversed cause and effect.
From an adult's perspective, it seems that there is no reason not to believe that the experimenter would give the child a second candy. Because candy is cheap and not worth deceiving with lies in the minds of adults.
In the child's mind, the power to eat candy is always controlled by the guardian, even at home, permission must be obtained, so candy is scarce. Therefore, the promise of a second candy from the experimenter needs to be weighed.
The difference in the results of the marshmallow experiment is precisely due to the difference in the trust patterns between children and the world.
"How can I believe that promises can come true."
The difference in trust patterns stems from the long-term attitudes of caregivers towards children.
Only those who receive timely responses as infants can establish a high sense of trust in the world.
As the first object of the infant, the mother provides timely and stable feedback, which makes the baby feel stable and the world stable.
A person can only exist with the belief that the world is stable, and then move forward.
People who trust the world in infancy have a high sense of security. They are more likely to stick to their own choices as adults and not be influenced by others.
I think this may be the reason why children who can delay gratification in the "marshmallow experiment" are more successful when they grow up.
It is the persistence of self brought about by a stable trust pattern and a high sense of security.
This has nothing to do with the passive training of deliberately suppressing desires.
The ability to suppress desires is just a manifestation of a high sense of security. Trying to achieve a high sense of security by suppressing desires is actually reversing cause and effect.
What happened to those children who ate the first candy?
When the initial trust pattern of life is formed, people will repeat and reinforce this pattern over and over again.
After countless times of waiting and disappointment, what is formed is learned helplessness.
People who do not trust the world in early life, even if they have evidence of a trustworthy world and stable intimate relationships as adults, deep down, they often have a feeling of "this is not real".
Even if they force themselves to believe at the conscious level, it is difficult to obtain a sense of security in the depths of their hearts.
Some traumas are not incurable, but unwilling to be cured.
If the world is trustworthy, then what was the pain of waiting that I experienced when I first came into the world? Why didn't the trustworthy world appear?
Deep inside everyone, there is a fragile baby.
I don't like to use the word "education" because education itself implies correction. The relationship between parents and children is like that of a farmer and a vegetable garden. How the farmer treats the vegetable garden is not right or wrong most of the time, but a matter of choice. What kind of seeds are sown will determine what kind of fruit will be harvested.
As long as you know what you are sowing and what you will harvest, you will not seek fish from trees.
People with a high sense of security are more self-oriented and not easily influenced by others' opinions.
People with a low sense of security rely on others' feelings, especially on their parents' feelings, which is a kind of superficial "filial piety".
We have all been chosen in our childhood, which is not our choice, but our parents' choice.
Now, as adults, can we look back and see the way we were nurtured, the reasons for the formation of our behavioral patterns?
To see those barriers and the reflection of the self, is our evaluation of our own abilities real or imaginary? Is it current or from childhood?
Perhaps when we look back, everyone will see those things that were attached to us from childhood that do not belong to us.