What ever happened to the pleasure of anticipation?

The things which have gone askew in society can probably be traced to several things, but it occurred to me recently that one of them is the unwillingness to delay gratification. There is this insatiable need to experience everything now, today, this minute, because there is too much impatience to wait for things to unfold gradually.

Do you remember that almost unbearable feeling of giddy excitement we experienced as kids in the countdown towards Christmas? I was speaking with a friend recently and we exchanged memories of how the real thrill of this holiday was not only the actual day, but the build up to it; that knot of anxiety as we waited, and waited (and waited) until Christmas day or eve, depending on one’s family tradition, when we could finally open those presents. Would we find that special doll we had been hoping for or that toy or game we had pestered our parents for over and over again, while they smiled mysteriously and murmured, “hmm, we will see…”?

There is no waiting around any more, heck we are not even waiting around for December to start getting into the Christmas spirit, as shops have started to put up their decorations as early as October

The wait was excruciating, as it always is when you are young and a month seems like six months and a year seems like, well, forever. That exact moment before your eager fingers ripped open the gift-wrapping was almost enough to make your heart stop – would the toy we wanted be there? And then the squeals of joy as we discovered that yes, yes, yes, there it was. No wonder that Christmas often loses its lustre as we grow older because, let’s face it, it’s pretty hard to re-capture that sheer excitement of anticipation as jaded adults when everyone already seems to have everything they need. That exquisite feeling of pure happiness is only really re-lived once you see it mirrored in the eyes of children experiencing their own first Christmases.

But, unfortunately, even children are sometimes losing that magical feeling of what it means to wait for a present. Anticipation has been replaced by the practice of receiving toys and gifts all year round, sometimes for no reason at all, which has completely diluted and dulled the pleasure of the whole experience. There is no waiting around any more, heck we are not even waiting around for December to start getting into the Christmas spirit, as shops have started to put up their decorations as early as October. October! Whatever for? What have we gained by seeing Santas and Christmas lights lit up out-of-season especially as our weather has remained stubbornly lodged in summer mode right through November?

It’s not just Christmas either. The news of that 12-year-old boy caught driving around in his parent’s BMW (not once, but twice) similarly had me thinking that here was another classic example of refusing to wait.

This boy was clearly not ready to wait until he was 18 when he would be legally old enough to drive, but just went ahead and drove anyway, law or no law. From what I read, his parents had no problem with it either. The same can be said for the Paceville phenomenon where the age group has declined sharply over the years because it is apparently unheard of to be told “you’re not old enough to go there, you have to wait.”

Instead of parents putting their foot down, and the authorities getting their act together by enforcing the “no minors” rule, which will make it virtually impossible for under-age kids to enter any club, pub or bar, leaving them with nowhere to go, we have a situation where everyone seems incapable of saying “no, not yet”.

Which brings me to that other scenario of saying “no” – underage teenagers having sex. I’ve thought long and hard about the age of consent argument and my final conclusion is that we have nothing to gain by lowering this age from 18 to 16.

I’m not being a prude here, and I am fully aware that many underage teenagers are going at it like rabbits (as evidenced by all the teen pregnancies) but that still doesn’t make it OK. I think the message still needs to be that emotionally and psychologically, girls (especially) are definitely not ready to start being sexually active before the age of 18, even if their physical urges are telling them otherwise. And obviously, the biggest problem with lowering the age is that you are opening the floodgates for adults to have sex with those under 18 and making that legal. Any which way you look at it, there is no way any good can come out of that. We have enough abuse of vulnerable kids as it is.

These days so many adults are likewise incapable of waiting around for what they want. Even if it means getting into debt up to their eyeballs, they don’t care.

And whether it’s clubbing in Paceville, drinking, driving or having sex, if you have “been there, done that” by the time you are 16, what on earth is there to look forward to?

It’s not just children and adolescents either. These days so many adults are likewise incapable of waiting around for what they want. Even if it means getting into debt up to their eyeballs, they don’t care. They want it, and they want it now. Forget anticipation, if possible they want it all, because like greedy children let loose in a sweet shop, they just want to gorge themselves as much as possible.

This is a trait which is particularly prevalent among those over 40 which I attribute to them having lived through the austerity of the Mintoff years when there were so many things lacking in the country. Those childhood memories of being “deprived” because there was a lack of real choice in what one could buy, has left a mental scar which they have tried to heal by going the other way – by spending like there’s no tomorrow. The paradox is that they will readily tell you that not having a lot when they were younger toughened them up and instilled a certain amount of character – they don’t fall apart at the first obstacle but just get on with it. On the other hand, I don’t know if the same can be said for those who were born at a time when they have taken everything for granted.

There needs to be a bridge somewhere between these two extremes of lavish indulgence and deprivation. There is certainly a lot to be said for bringing back that indescribable feeling of real anticipation.