You’re on your way to Walmart. You keep repeating the same three words in your head as you drive: “Bread and milk. Bread and milk.” You walk into the store, say hello to the greeter, grab a shopping cart, and head to the bread aisle. “Bread and milk. All I came for is brea…”

Then you see it. The donut table. You try to look away, but you just can’t help yourself. There are sprinkled donuts, chocolate donuts, glazed donuts. Some are jelly-filled, some are crème filled. It’s like a bright, beautiful rainbow of baked goods.

Now, you know you just came for bread and milk, but I mean, a little dessert for after your milk and sandwiches can’t hurt anything, can it? So, naturally, you grab a few boxes and throw them in your cart. This happens about a dozen more times in a dozen different areas of the store, and before you know it, what was supposed to be a quick $5 trip to the store has turned into an hour long shopping spree that costs you $100 and your dignity.

Does this story sound familiar? I would venture to say this happens to you more often than you’d like to admit. In fact, I bet in the past week or two, you’ve found yourself in an almost identical situation at some point. Although this isn’t an extremely serious situation, the cause of it is something that is plaguing us now more than ever before in history: A lack of willpower. It’s not just effecting us in Walmart, either. It’s stealing our potential for success and setting us back. So, for the next few minutes, I would like to work through the causes of, the seriousness of, and the keys to defeating this claim: Our society is acting more and more out of impulse and exercising less willpower in everyday, as well as life-changing, decision making.

WHAT DO YOU MEAN?

Now, before we dig too deep here, we need to make sure we all are on the same page. What exactly am I talking about when I say “willpower”? Our friend Merriam-Webster defines willpower as “the ability to control yourself” and “strong determination that allows you to do something difficult.” Impulse is “a sudden strong desire to do something.” Let’s go back to my claim. Our society is acting more out of a sudden strong desire and exercising less of the ability to control yourself. Just like in the Walmart analogy, you went shopping with your goal in your mind, but you had a “sudden desire” for donuts, and you weren’t able to “control yourself.” This happened another dozen times and you just kept buying, buying, buying. It was a sudden desire for something. Really, that’s what it all boils down to. A sudden desire.

It isn’t an accident that I’ve been italicizing the word sudden so much. I want to prove a point to you that we act out of impulse because of something that happens in an instant, suddenly. The reason for this in psychological terms is- brace yourself for another vocabulary term- instant gratification, defined by entrepreneur.com as “the desire to experience pleasure or fulfillment without delay or deferment.” “I want it NOW.” Isn’t that the mindset of our society? That’s because we as humans are driven by instant gratification. Every decision we make every day has the same end goal: to give us satisfaction right now. That’s why you choose to eat the food that you do. That’s why you pick the clothes that you want to wear. That’s how you determine what you’re going to spend your day doing and who you’re going to spend it with.

WHY DOES IT HAPPEN?

Now that we’ve hopefully agreed that what I’m saying is a legitimate issue, we need to understand what is causing it. Why is our current society feeding into instant gratification more than others? The answer is really quite simple. Question: How long did it take for you to pull this article up? Chances are, if your internet connection is good, it didn’t take any more than a second or two, if that. When’s the last time you called, used FaceTime, or Skyped with someone who lives far away? You are able to talk to someone who lives halfway across the world and reach them in a matter of seconds. How many times this week have you eaten fast food? You got a good (although greasy) burger in a matter of minutes. Everything we want, we can have without much delay. We are even able to buy something from online with one-day shipping!

All of these examples feed in to our instant gratification. We don’t like to wait, and we don’t really have to anymore. With this in perspective, it’s really no wonder why we lack willpower. If we venture back to my Walmart scenario, I can add more to it. You want the donuts and don’t want to wait for them. Without taking time to think, you throw them into your cart. We live in a people-pleasing society, where everyone should get whatever they want when they want and it feeds into our psychological wiring of instant gratification. Our fast-paced society is what makes us so much more prone now than ever to acting out of impulse and lacking willpower.

WHY SHOULD I CARE?

Now, I understand what you might be thinking: "So what? That doesn't sound bad. Our society is progressing and we are getting things quicker. Who really cares if I spend a little more than I should at Walmart once in a while?" Well, thanks for asking, and the fact that you've had the willpower to read all the way through this article is a good sign. Believe it or not, a lack of willpower has serious consequences in our daily decision making.

In my Walmart scene (I know you said you don't care already, just hold on) you acted out of impulse and didn't take time to think through buying those donuts and other items. I said in my original claim that i would address not just everyday decisions, but in "life-changing" ones as well. Although I agree, Walmart isn't very drastic, there are many situations in which it can be.

For example, jobs. People are given job offers that sound really good, and so they jump on it. Without really weighing pros and cons, they sign themselves up for something that they may later regret. It could result in a loss of money, moving far from family and friends, harming relationships and making someone miserable for their life. All of this because someone chose a career path or job locations out of impulse without really thinking things through. The same could be said for college, where someone could say yes to the first college opportunity instantly and another, better school that you like more and would let you spend less offers shortly after. Another big area is marriage. So often today we see people agreeing to marry at an extremely early age or with someone they aren't ready to marry. They want instant gratification, and they make themselves miserable later.

THE MARSHMALLOW TEST

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, a man named Walter Mischel tested everything I've told you today on kids and it led to some of the most influential psychological developments ever. In fact, you can easily find new versions of this test on YouTube and see it for yourself. Mischel did what we now know as the Marshmallow Test, a series of experiments that has been mimicked many times. He took young children into a room and sat them down at a table with a marshmallow in front of them. He told them that he had to run an errand, and that when he came back in 15 minutes, if they hadn't eaten the first marshmallow, he would give them a second marshmallow and they could eat both. If at any time, however, they wanted to eat the first one (and only the first one) they just had to ring the bell and he would come back and let them eat it.

Mischel would then go into a neighboring room and watch the kids through a hidden camera. He reported that most children, after trying everything to take their attention from the marshmallow, only lasted a few minutes for ringing the bell and eating only one.

This experiment demonstrates and justifies everything I've been talking about. The kids couldn't resist the temptation in front of them (lack of willpower) and rang the buzzer (acting out of impulse) because they didn't want to wait (instant gratification). Just like I mentioned when talking about effects, their lack of willpower resulted in them missing out. When they could have gotten two marshmallows, they only received one.

WHAT CAN I DO?

If you're at all discouraged after reading this, don't be. You don't have to be subject to this forever. So, thanks for asking what you can do to and what solutions there are to this serious problem. First, train your mind to resist temptation and impulse. It, like everything else, requires practice. Don't beat yourself up when you give in, just use it to try harder next time. The last thing I have to say is this: Slow down. Our society is fast-paced. You don't have to be. Don't rush through life and think decisions have to be made right now, or that you need to have your mind made up right now. Always think through decisions and exercise the willpower I know you have.

Hopefully, you've gained some serious insight as to what fuels decision making and the consequences of not taking it seriously. I hope that I've taught you something and that you can take something away from it. As you can see, the lack of willpower is something that effects our decision making throughout life. So, next time you go to Walmart for bread and milk, fight the impulse and get what you came for. Who knows? Maybe because of it you could treat yourself to a donut, too!