Did you pay too much for your whistle?

Benjamin Franklin is one of the most colorful personalities in American history. Many and varied are the stories told about old “Ben,” but here’s one from Gary Regazzoli I had not heard before …

This is a story of a little boy who grew up to be a very wise man. His name was Ben. His full name was Benjamin Franklin. In our story today, he was a little boy who did something very foolish. When Ben was seven years old some of his friends gave him some money. It was quite a bit of money for a small boy. As Ben told it, “They filled my pockets with coins.” With his pockets full of money, Ben headed straight for a store where they sold toys. On the way to the store, he met a boy who had a whistle. When Ben heard the whistle, he liked the sound of it so much that he told the boy he would give him all of the money he had in his pockets if he would give him the whistle. The boy gave Ben the whistle and took the money. Ben headed for home and when he got there, he went all around the house playing his whistle. His brothers, sisters, and cousins asked Ben where he got the whistle and he told them he had bought it with the money he had been given. They all started to laugh at Ben and make fun of him. They told him that he had paid four times as much as the whistle was worth. Ben was so hurt and felt so foolish that he began to cry, but he learned a lesson that day that he would remember for the rest of his life. From then on, whenever he saw someone who had made a foolish choice in life, he would say, “That man paid too much for his whistle.”

Like so many of us, young Ben had acted impulsively, and as is usually the case when we act on impulse, he made a foolish decision.

The problem is, most of us live impulsively!

Instead of making time to think, and insisting on time to “think through” the decisions we need to make, we routinely act on impulse.

What’s wrong with that?

Well, here’s just a few of the flaws in acting impulsively:

• • Acting impulsively doesn’t allow time for praying about the decision to be made before making it, which means we often make decisions without first seeking God’s will and guidance in the decision to be made.
  • Acting impulsively doesn’t allow us to determine if there’s any biblical direction we should consider in our decision-making.
  • Acting impulsively doesn’t allow us to first make sure we’re thinking rationally. When we have too little time to consider a decision, our thinking can easily lean toward more irrational thinking than rational thinking.
  • Acting impulsively often means we make decisions emotionally rather than intelligently.
  • Acting impulsively will usually lead to feeding our selfish desires rather than considering others first.

Let me give you one more — acting impulsively often traps us in our own bad decisions, something scripture warns against:

“Don’t trap yourself by making a rash promise to God and only later counting the cost,” Proverbs 20:25.

Jesus personally urged people to “count the cost” of important decisions before making them. That means giving more careful, prayerful thought to our decision-making rather than acting impulsively. Jesus even suggested this to be important in our considering following Him! Read for yourself …

“A large crowd was following Jesus. He turned around and said to them, ‘If you want to be my disciple, you must, by comparison, hate everyone else — your father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters — yes, even your own life. Otherwise, you cannot be my disciple. And if you do not carry your own cross and follow me, you cannot be my disciple. But don’t begin until you count the cost …'” Luke 14:25-28a.

Jesus then used the examples of first calculating the cost of constructing a building before starting the project, or how a king consults with his counselors before going into war about the prospects of winning the battle. Impulsive decisions in such circumstances could be disastrous, just as making impulsive decisions in YOUR life could lead to senseless calamities. The Bible describes a person who acts impulsively instead of exercising self-control like this:

“A person without self-control is like a city with broken-down walls,” Proverbs 25:28.

In biblical times, a city with broken-down walls was exposed to the threat of its enemies and could be overrun by them. Likewise, our impulsivity leaves us vulnerable to our enemies as we don’t exercise enough self-control to make sure we’re making wise decisions. Daniel Goleman, in his book, “Emotional Intelligence,” contrasts the impact of self-control with that of impulsiveness:

The essence of emotional self-regulation is the ability to delay impulse in the service of a goal. The importance of this trait to success was shown in an experiment begun in the 1960s by psychologist Walter Mischel at a preschool on the Stanford University campus. Children were told that they could have a single treat, such as a marshmallow, right now. However, if they would wait while the experimenter ran an errand, they could have two marshmallows. Some preschoolers grabbed the marshmallow immediately, but others were able to wait what, for them, must have seemed an endless 20 minutes. To sustain themselves in their struggle, they covered their eyes so they wouldn’t see the temptation, rested their heads on their arms, talked to themselves, sang, even tried to sleep. These plucky kids got the two-marshmallow reward. The interesting part of this experiment came in the follow-up. The children who as 4-year-olds had been able to wait for the two marshmallows were, as adolescents, still able to delay gratification in pursuing their goals. They were more socially competent and self-assertive, and better able to cope with life’s frustrations. In contrast, the kids who grabbed the one marshmallow were, as adolescents, more likely to be stubborn, indecisive, and stressed.

Living impulsively leads to bad decision-making and less desirable outcomes — paying too much for your whistle!

How do you make decisions?

For many of us, simply increasing our self-awareness while applying greater self-control will effectively reduce our impulsiveness and improve our decision-making. Others have a greater struggle with impulse control and may need the help of a skilled Christian therapist to develop skills for overcoming impulsivity – if that’s you, get the help you need!

Scotty