When you're really looking forward to something, it is often particularly difficult to exercise patience. Just like waiting for your own birthday or the start of school holidays, the time seems to be so long before Christmas. How many times is it still to sleep before the presents? Why can't you unpack the presents now? Couldn't you even sping what is hidden under the packaging? Or at least pick up the gift briefly to explore what could be inside by feeling its shape, weight and pressure resistance?
As often as children may ask, the parents usually do not reveal what the presents are being given. Instead, impatient children are comforted with the sentence: "Anticipation is the greatest joy." I bet: the parents heard this sentence even as a child, and they didn't like it back then. And they would certainly not like him very much today if they long for the weekend on Wednesday in the strenuous day-to-day work and a child nosely gives the answer: anticipation is the greatest joy.
Adults and children are alike in this: For them, the problem of excruciating curiosity and the seemingly endless waiting time is by no means solved with this sentence. After all, what is so nice about being so excited about the torture and having to endure a long test of patience? Why should you wait for something beautiful when you could actually have it right away?
But the sentence has its truth, and if you don't have to be patient yourself, it quickly becomes clear what an important skill it is.
It is not easy to wait for something beautiful in a world where there is so much distraction and distraction.
The most valuable things in life often require that we do our best without being rewarded immediately.
If we were only to do what immediately gives us pleasure, we would never achieve what makes life really beautiful.
And also lose the joy of many pleasures because they would no longer be exceptional.
Luck and habit
If children spy on what they have been given beforehand, they can no longer be really happy when they unpack on Christmas Eve. If you already know exactly what you are getting, you will ruin the nice surprise. And giving and receiving not only include the gift itself, the thing, but also the whole thing: that everyone has come together, that the Christmas tree shines, that everyone is happy and excited.
Anyone who calls anticipation the greatest joy could also think that the fun of a Christmas present often doesn't last very long.
People get used to new things in their lives quickly.
What was once a long-awaited object often only increases happiness for a short time once you have it.
The happiness researcher Bruno Frey has found that an expensive sports car only increases the wellbeing of adults for about three weeks, after which it is perceived as commonplace.
And some owners are already starting to look again at the next better car.
It could be true for the parents
In contrast to the joy of new things, the anticipation can last a very long time. The imagination plays a major role in this. When you look forward to something, you think about it often and a lot. In your mind you think again and again of what you could do great with your presents, how nice the birthday party with friends will be or how many beautiful things you could do during all the free time during the summer vacation.
The anticipation helps to shorten the time that makes it seem so long.
Indulging in the imagination, painting a bright future shortens the time and reduces the reluctance and tension that waiting creates.
Because children are true masters of the imagination, many parents enjoy watching their children do it.
Seen in this way, there could be something to the old saying: For some parents it is the greatest joy to experience the anticipation of their children.
The gift of togetherness
But the imagination, which is so strongly stimulated by the anticipation, has its light and dark sides. Sometimes it can lead to expectations that are too precise or too great. When it finally comes what you have been looking forward to for so long and so much, the disappointment can be even greater: the gift is not exactly what you had in mind, a birthday party does not always go as well as you hoped it would had, and the big plans for the summer vacation do not quite come true. That is why the most beautiful experiences are often the ones that are completely unexpected and that one has not been looking forward to for a long time.
The imagination is especially beautiful when you can share it with others.
If you are looking forward to something that you will do together with others, a vacation for example, you can imagine together what beautiful things you will do.
The imagination of the other makes your own imagination even more vivid and richer.
And when, after a long wait, what you had in mind finally comes true, it is all the better to share the experience with someone, and not half bad if exactly what you wanted does not happen.
Perhaps the best thing about Christmas is not the gifts, but the time together that children can spend together without the stress of school and parents without those from work.