to think more people just have zero self-discipline now?

[catchingup1]

It genuinely feels like self-discipline has gone out the window lately.

So much is instant. Food, shopping, entertainment, attention. A lot of people so are not able to just sit with something uncomfortable anymore or stick at anything that requires effort. If something is a bit hard, boring or inconvenient it’s immediately abandoned. Diet? Too hard. Exercise? Can’t be bothered. Even basic stuff like replying to messages or turning up on time feels optional now.

Before anyone jumps in, yes life is stressful and people are busy, I get that. But that’s always been the case in different ways. It feels like the default response now is to avoid anything that requires a bit of discipline or delayed gratification.

Even kids, and I’m not blaming them, but they’re growing up in a world where everything is on demand. Patience and self-control aren’t being built in the same way.

I’m not saying everyone is like this. But the general attitude feels very “do what feels good right now” rather than “do what’s actually good for you long term”.

Exactly - not sure why someone is a better person for delaying it 🤣

Delayed gratification isn’t “good” in a virtuous, holier-than-thou sense. It’s more about outcomes. In a lot of areas, being able to tolerate short-term discomfort tends to lead to better long-term results such as with a course, building savings, maintaining health, or seeing something through when the initial motivation wears off.

But that doesn’t mean every situation needs that approach, or that choosing ease is somehow wrong. Sometimes the quicker, easier option is perfectly sensible, especially if already stretched.

For me it’s less about judging people and more noticing that the environment now makes short-term reward the default. That can make it harder to do the longer-term stuff when you actually want to.

Well that’s fine. The world is a speedy place though. We can get things lightening quick if we
choose to.

I don’t see how other people wanting things quickly affects everyone else though.

It doesn’t affect you in a direct “they’re doing it so you must too” way, but it can affect the baseline.

If most things move faster, expectations creep up. Replies are expected quicker, services are designed around immediacy, workplaces assume constant availability. Even if you personally want to take things more slowly, you’re often operating in a system that’s geared the other way.

It’s a bit like traffic speed. You can choose to drive slower, but if everyone else is going faster, it changes the overall feel and pressure of being on the road.

I am not saying people wanting things quickly is wrong, more that when it becomes the norm, it subtly raises the pace for everyone. You can still opt out to a degree, but it takes a bit more intention than it used to.

Well, I suppose I think that short-term reward actually makes unimportant things easier so that you have more energy to focus on the big things, if that makes sense. I’m definitely a classic delayed gratification type at big things (I have four degrees and write for a living — the current book will have taken three years) and am working on revisions to a deadline atm, so being able to get a comparatively healthy Lebanese meal that my very fussy child will eat is a better use of my resources at times than cooking something time-consuming.

Yep, same.

Agreed. I often want to tell people (usually online) just to get a fucking grip.

We all have to do things we don’t like, and some degree of stress and anxiety are perfectly normal.

Even if you personally want to take things more slowly, you’re often operating in a system that’s geared the other way.

I’m AUDHD - welcome to my world. I have always operated
in a world that is geared the other way.

Sometimes you just have to accept the world doesn’t revolve the way you want it to, unfortunately. There’s no point bemoaning the fact as you can’t change it.

FWIW I find the world easier now than I did 20-30 years ago,

600lb life is a very extreme show, designed to make you hate minorities or disadvantaged people just like benefits Britain etc.

leaving aside the fact 600lbs isn’t a thing in the uk you can’t possibly think people get to that weight without serious complex mental illness

I agree with this. MN is unique in that it’s so obsessed with food it becomes a moral judgement and a representation of everything that’s wrong with the world.

outside of MN, food is not a big deal and having a takeaway to save time because you are dedicating so much upfront hard work to your career- to reap later rewards- is perfectly normal and actually facilitating self discipline

MN is unique in that it’s so obsessed with food it becomes a moral judgement and a representation of everything that’s wrong with the world.

I think this is one example where the average user age really skews the responses.

And also maybe representative of people who don’t have anything else to dedicate self discipline to?

As many have said it's all relative and every generation says it about the last whenever there's progress.
I don't generally get takeaways , which you said you do sometimes - because I prefer to cook for myself - like our grandparents would have done 😉.

I do think there's been an increase in people who seem baffled by the concept of self-control. I've known a few people who have adult tantrums, behave unprofessionally at work when they're not getting their way etc, and then look at you like you've grown an extra head if you suggest they might exercise more self-control. There seems to be a genuine belief nowadays - not with everyone, but with more people than in the past - that their feelings trump everything else and there simply isn't any alternative to expressing them.

And while there's nothing wrong with the tech that now allows us to order things and get next-day delivery, I think it has bred a bit more of a tendency towards getting impatient with the things that aren't instant. I catch myself doing it. Filled in an online form yesterday (so Friday) to register with a new GP and the part of my brain that is broken by modernity is already wondering why I've had no response yet. The part that isn't stupid shouts back IT'S THE FRICKING WEEKEND, THEY'LL EMAIL NEXT WEEK, YOU BERK. (The pleasant surprise that I could do it online, while still in bed, and didn't have to go down the surgery, was forgotten in seconds).

I think there's also an increased tendency to not want to put in the work that achieving things takes and to attribute everything to luck, rather than accepting that if you want stuff you generally have to work for it. My mum was saying this the other day - friends of hers sometimes call her lucky as she's better off than most of them in her old age. Said it takes some effort for her not to say, "It's not luck, it's that you took ten years off when you had kids and then went back PT and I was back FT after three months, and that's why I have a better pension now".

I also think the amount of choice we have now and the ability to make a lot of things exactly as we want them has led to us treating everything like we ought to have it precisely to our own specifications, including things like relationships and religion. People going on OLD with their list of what they want in another person as if it was picking fixtures for your kitchen, and rejecting anyone who isn't perfect as if people were customisable consumer products. (Not just OLD, either - people who've been in relationships for some time acting as if the other person exists to please them and if they don't, well, plenty more choice out there). People refusing to get involved with religious organisations on the basis that they don't validate their own lifestyle choices or cater to their needs. (Perfectly valid to reject a religion on the basis that you just don't believe that what it teaches is true, obvs. Massively weird to talk about it as if it were a tourist destination or leisure activity). We do seem to have developed more and more of a tendency to think everything around us should be just as we like it, all the time. And I think modern consumer convenience is part of the reason.

Yeah you are correct. I shouldn't be on mumsnet slobbing on the sofa I should be doing excersise or something. CBA.

I think everyone is being pushed to the wire nowadays. It’s natural to use quick fix options when you’re short of time and knackered. Of course it’s possible to prioritise and do things differently. We rarely eat takeouts. Mostly because it’s expensive and we can’t afford to allocate money to that over other things. If money was no object, I’m quite sure we would take advantage of the convenience.

It’s a different world now and people have had to adapt. Gone are the days of one parent being at home to shop and cook. The only way I manage it is batch cooking and I work from home so can throw something in the oven or slow cooker at 5 when most people wouldn’t be home yet. I go to the gym very early in the morning, but that’s only possible because my kids are older and my husband is at home to start the morning routine. It’s luck that my circumstances allow me to live like that.

But we have never got takeaway at all, and think you going to collect takeaway is being lazy. Where's your bar? People who are less disciplined than you? Because compared to us, you are relatively undisciplined. There are millions of families never using Uber eats or having groceries instantly delivered. There are millions who save for things.

Perhaps!

I find it quite a weird concept tbh.

I exercise (because I enjoy it). we cook from scratch most nights, I save monthly (compound interest benefits) etc but I would never attribute this my self control. There are plenty of things I don’t do because I don’t want to do them! I have never spent a moment (that I can recall) measuring my actions against some arbitrary level of self control.

My biggest gripe with the old world was the emphasis on comfort, ease, convenience. We had all become entitled little brats.

I think there's also an increased tendency to not want to put in the work that achieving things takes and to attribute everything to luck, rather than accepting that if you want stuff you generally have to work for it. My mum was saying this the other day - friends of hers sometimes call her lucky as she's better off than most of them in her old age. Said it takes some effort for her not to say, "It's not luck, it's that you took ten years off when you had kids and then went back PT and I was back FT after three months, and that's why I have a better pension now".

But there is an element of luck in most cases. It doesn’t matter how hard I work my work pension won’t be as good as people older than me because they changed it whilst I was at uni.

I have always worked hard, lots of people do but a large part of why I have a nice home now & can work p/t with my dc in school is because I had significant family help with a house deposit. That’s luck

That is fine if you think me walking to get a takeaway is lazy. I did explain that unfortunately I have been in A&E a lot with a family member so I did walk and get a takeaway on numerous occasions.

I think it's a combination of two main factors: brainrot from short form content addiction, and the fact that life now is so difficult and so expensive that it's hard to not crack up. I tend to find that younger adults are better at emotional self-regulation though.

Why is walking to get a takeaway morally superior to getting it delivered? We had Wagamama last night, walking wasn’t practical.

I was criticised for using deliveroo and ubereats so I explained I walked.

I had a few friends run the marathon last weekend and the discipline and commitment they showed to training and raising money for charity amazed me, and of course there were thousands just like that. Then there’s my current intern and her cohort, and we were only just saying the other day we have never had a more hard working, motivated bunch. I think a lot of things like being able to order groceries quickly etc, and watching things you want on demand, for a lot of people are just a really great way of getting more time to commit to doing the things you really do want to do.