CHAPTER 4
LONG-TERM PLANS, DYNAMIC PRESENT
Do you have the patience to wait until your mud settles and the water is clear?
—Lao-Tzu1
Here is an experiment. A four-year-old girl is sitting at a desk in a California school. An array of treats—marshmallows, cookies, and other confections—is spread out before her. A researcher asks her to select a sweet, and she chooses a marshmallow. Then she is presented with a proposition: she can eat the lone marshmallow now or have two if she waits for the researcher to come back after a few minutes. What does she do?
According to the New Yorker, she—a young Carolyn Weisz—waited. Her brother Craig, also a part of the experiment, didn’t. Decades later, the siblings are in divergent places: Carolyn has become ...
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