Jewish Life #37. Beresjiet serie 21: Gratification

In parashah Miketz we read about the dream of Pharaoh. He stood at the Nile, upon which all life in Egypt depended, and there were seven cows, fair and fleshed and seven other cows, unsightly and lean fleshed. Both groups of cows stood on the bank of the Nile. In his dream, the unsightly cows ate the seven fair and fat cows. In a second dream he was dreaming about seven ears of grain, plump and good and seven ears, thin and blighted by the dry east wind. The thin ears swallowed the seven plump and full ears. 
It was in the morning and Pharaoh’s spirit was troubled. He called all the magicians and wise men of Egypt, but no one could interpret the strange dreams. 
 
Joseph was released from prison to interpret the dreams. A miraculous turn of events, led by God. You can't make it up as a human being.
 
Joseph explains to Pharaoh that both night visions are actually one dream. He told him: seven are coming in which there will be plenty throughout the land of Egypt. However, seven years of famine shall arise after them. In short, some periods will be good and abundant, and some periods will bring scarcity and shortage.
 
The question that this wondrous history raises is this: how do you deal with periods of abundance and then, what does this mean for the periods of scarcity and difficulty?
When studying this parashah, I was thinking about the theme of gratification. The ability to delay instant gratification, as research in psychology shows, predict a better quality of life. 
 
In addition to the necessary trust in Hashem in better times, self-control in times of abundance, for example during a good job and a princely salary, or in times of a low mortgage on your house, is a character trait that can offer a person an advantage for future times of scarcity. Every person of age has experienced this intrinsic fluctuation given to life at some point. Good times and less good times alternate.
The ability to delay immediate gratification is associated with greater competence and success in later life. This was famously demonstrated by the Stanford Marshmallow experiment. In this experiment in which nursery age children were presented with a delicious marshmallow and were told that they could either eat the marshmallow immediately or wait several minutes and receive two marshmallows. A cruel experiment, you might say! Whether I would be up to the challenge is the question for those who know me. Marshmallows are after all irresistibly delicious.
 
In the follow-up studies many years later, those children that were able to wait were more likely to achieved greater academic success. The ability to delay immediate gratification is related to the character trait of frustration tolerance, a trait that determines the strength of one's personality. People with a low frustration tolerance are vulnerable to developing borderline personality disorders. In contrast, people with a high degree of frustration tolerance are more resilient and resistant to all kinds of temptations. These temptations are, as one can understand, omnipresent in times of abundance. Exactly, as many psychological experiments and my clinical experience show, the ability to postpone immediate gratification is a welcome character trait. People with the capacity for frustration tolerance and thus the quality of moderation in times of abundance are better protected when times of scarcity occur.
 
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