There was once an experiment done with two-year-old children, in which a sweet was put in front of the child and the child was told that he could either eat the sweet now, or wait and get two sweets. The experiment went on to follow these children through later life, and it was found that those children who waited for the two sweets tended to do better in life than those who had eaten the first sweet straight away.

Of course, the experiment was badly flawed. What it really proved was that the children who had learned not to trust adults and who therefore ate the sweet immediately – it was they who did less well in life, and you can understand why; succeeding in life takes a lot of trust. Delayed gratification is all very well, but you must trust that gratification will actually come to pass.

My friend Richard is in the same quandary as those two-year-olds. He is twenty-nine (not thirty yet, he says) and is a newly qualified lawyer. He has been studying and taking exams since he was eleven. And now he just wants to have an “ordinary” life. He wants to work during the week and have evenings and weekends to go hiking, rock climbing and go to parties. He’d like to have the time to meet that one special girl. However, he knows that his career would be helped if he has a PhD. Should he invest another two years in study, or should he go for a job in Government that will give him the free time he longs for? Having a PhD is desirable, but not necessary. If he doesn’t have one, however, then his CV will need to be extra good to compensate for that lack.

His situation is further complicated by the fact that his still fairly young father has early onset dementia and is now in care. This brings home to Richard the fact that tomorrow is not promised and that maybe he should do what he wants today and not wait. He feels old already, whereas I look at him from my immense age of sixty-three and see just how young he really is.

It’s a tough one. Taking a further two years will take him to thirty-one and he is already feeling that life is passing him by. He says it seems that all the nice girls are already taken, and working part time for a law firm while he pursues the PhD will inevitably mean there will be little time for leisure activities; law firms tending to demand your soul and much more time than just the nine-to-five.

I don’t have any answers for him. I thought I’d put his dilemma to you, wise people – I do have his permission of course – to see if you can come up with any good advice.

Mary

A Moodscope member