Is it delayed gratification or martyrism?

Why you should do the things that make you happy today instead of doing "the right thing" and getting the same reward later

Author

Jon Kalis
February 11, 2025 • Read Time: 9 minutes

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What’s on the agenda:

A verse I’m thinking about

Are you trying to do it alone?

Prayer can be intimidating and can feel weird and uncomfortable. To help, people have created guides to help people pray.

The two of the most popular guides are the acronyms are ACTS and JOY.

ACTS stands for adoration, confession, thanksgiving, supplication. It’s based on The Lord’s Prayer. It starts with praising who God is, confessing to him where you’ve messed up, thanking him for what he’s done, and finally, asking for his intervention.

The other is JOY. JOY is a bit simpler. It’s Jesus, Others, then Yourself. Essentially stating this is the order you should pray in. Thank God, and pray for others, then yourself.

I’ve used these dozens of times and they’ve been helpful, but I think there is something misleading or untruthful conveyed in these formats.

These formats hint at a belief that praying for yourself and asking God for things is secondary.

But that isn’t reality.

God tells us to come to him and ask repeatedly; throughout scripture, God rewards and blesses the people who ask him for help and blessings.

What are you trying to achieve yourself instead of asking God for?

Look, God isn’t a genie. You can’t put in wishes and get what you want, but the Bible describes Him as a Good Father.

A Good Father wants to bless his children, but he often waits for his children to ask.

Something I’ve been working through lately is “what are the big asks I should be asking God for, things for me, and how can I pray for them more often?”

I would encourage you to do the same.

The thing you want, like really really want… start praying and asking God for it and see what happens.

I’m having faith in His provision.

A lesson I’ve learned:
Do illogical things that make you happy

If you know me or follow me on social media, you know that last week was my birthday.

I’ve never been big on celebrating my birthday. I’ve seen it as a negative. I’ve always thought: “Wanting to take off work and do something for your birthday means you don’t love your life enough to just let your birthday be another day”.

Most years I just work, have a steak, a glass of whisky, and do a birthday triathlon, but this year when my wife asked me what I wanted to do I said “I want to eat at my favorite restaurant” and she said let’s do it (it’s in NYC and I live in Miami).

So, we flew to NYC for 48 hours to eat at Birds of a Feather in Brooklyn and go to Othership in Manhattan. That’s it, and it was awesome.

As a bonus, I got to see my brother-in-law and spend some time in the city.

Don’t give up joy today, for joy tomorrow

Chris Williamon has his “Parable of the Mexican Fisherman”.

You can watch the whole thing if you’re interested, but the TL;DR is

  • The fisherman catches enough fish to have a beer and spend time with his friends every day.

  • The Americans tell him he needs to work harder to catch more fish so that he can make more money.

  • The fisherman asks what the benefit of giving years of extra hard work would be

  • The Americans answer, having more time to spend with your friends and having a beer.

The moral of the story is, don’t get caught in the rat race. Don’t over-optimize. Don’t let life pass you by in the search of something better, or worse… in search of the thing you’re giving up to potentially achieve later on.

Takeaway and Action Steps:

My action step was going on this trip. I took a day off work (the horror!) and did something silly for myself - I even spent money on it.

The result.

I had a freaking awesome time and don’t even remotely regret it. Forget the memory dividends. The experience itself justified it.

My challenge to you is this:

Do the thing that would bring you happiness today, and don’t justify delaying it with copouts and excuses.

Sure, if you really can’t afford it, don’t do it, but if you can… live life today. Find big, small, and in-between ways to find happiness. You don’t need to always give up a better today for a better tomorrow.

An optimization to try?

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Surface area of accountability

I’m hitting the reset button… We had friends in town two weekends ago and I spent the last weekend in NYC eating gluttonously and being merry. My scale also died so I’m not entirely sure of the damage, but it’s not great.

I scheduled a call with my nutritionist for Wednesday and we are righting the ship.

Only 67 days till Hyrox Miami ✊

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