We want to hear that Facebook can substitute for the marriages we don't form, and that friends and pets provide more gratification than the children we don't have.
Most American buyers don't get exactly what they want but they do get instant gratification--they drive a car away immediately after deciding to buy it.
The wages that every worker presently enjoys are the result of past savings, so delaying instant gratification will increase our wages as businesses access what we don't consume.
We live in an instant-gratification, over-plotted era in which companies print Super Bowl champions T-shirts for both teams, because they want them on linebacker shoulders as the confetti falls.
And many young people don't have anyone in their lives to counteract that message -- to tell them that gratification that comes instantaneously usually disappears just as quickly, and that real success in life comes from commitment and persistence, effort, hard work.