Oh how we bribe ourselves! Sweet, luscious treats for a job well done.

Something annoyingly trivial, mind-numbingly menial, repetitively monotonous? Give yourself a tasty morsel or a fun reward when you get through it!

It’s not every day that you do something offhand and get immense praise and gratitude for basically doing nothing at all. If life were like that, we’d all be self-righteous.

Of course, this self-rewarding thing can get out of hand: “Didja see that? I just picked up that litter and threw it away! I deserve a cookie!”

So to balance us, we need to remember to get through dinner first. If we don’t eat our dinner, we don’t get dessert.

That said, self-discipline is hard to master. Skipping to dessert is so much more fun, less time consuming, and it feels more rewarding. The short term happiness feels nice. But then we kick ourselves because the job is still not done, sometimes people are angry, and we may even have to do it anyway, but now, the cookies are all gone.

And you can’t buy more.