My grandsons earn an M&M
by complying with potty training.
Decades earlier clerks at banks gave their dad
a piece of candy when he was in the car
going through the drive-through.
Small rewards for small people…
and perhaps not wise rewards,
ill-advised training for future compulsive eaters.
But we learn the lessons on our own
if not taught by the eat-more-cake cooks
in our lives. We reward ourselves for eating well —
by eating wrong. We choose to play games
when taxes need to be prepared.
We put off until tomorrow the journaling,
the prayer, meditation, telephone call…
anything less comfortable, knowing we should.
We get the reward of a child when we act childishly.
But when we’re grown we value more
that longed for result we earn
by choosing as a grownup knows to do.