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I’ve a bit of an issue with chocolate. More precisely, I’m a chocoholic. Love the damned stuff with a passion that is frankly disproportionate for a man of my age and alleged maturity.
That doesn’t sit especially well with my lifestyle. I’m extremely sporty, in decent shape for a guy pushing towards the big 60, and broadly disciplined about what I put into my body. So chocolate and I have an arrangement: I want it constantly, and I allow myself just enough of it to keep the peace. Unwilling restraint, but restraint nonetheless.
Once a year, though, I up my game considerably. From Shrove Tuesday through to Easter Sunday, I go completely cold turkey. No chocolate. I participate in the Christian tradition of Lent with the grim dedication of a guy who has something to prove. I’m also a bit of a sadist, so I throw alcohol and potato chips into the forty day bonfire for good measure. Why be miserable by halves.
My friends think I’m slightly unhinged for doing so. My wife Suzie takes it largely in her stride, having long since concluded that I’m slightly bonkers as a baseline.
Every year, somewhere around day thirty when I’m eyeing up a Hershey bar with genuine lust, I remind myself why I actually do this. And it has very little to do with religion, willpower, or punishing myself for crimes against nutrition. It’s a reminder of the single most underrated skill I’ve carried into retirement: the ability to voluntarily give up something you enjoy today in exchange for something better tomorrow.
I’m retired now, and the freedom it affords is real and wonderful. But it didn’t arrive by accident. It was built, year by year, out of the same discipline I flex every February through March walking past the candy aisle with my jaw set and my eyes forward.
Deferred gratification. The conscious decision to say “not now” when every instinct says “why not”. The brain is not naturally wired to get excited about Future You when Present You is hungry and there’s a perfectly good Snickers within arm’s reach. But Lent trains exactly that muscle. Forty days of holding a line you’ve drawn yourself, with no enforcement beyond your own stubbornness, until the habit becomes part of who you are.
That’s the deeper truth about retirement too. The people who thrive in it aren’t just the ones who saved enough. They’re the ones who spent years choosing the long term over the short term, and in doing so built a character that knows how to be patient, intentional, and genuinely satisfied with what they’ve earned.
Easter Sunday, when it comes, is genuinely wonderful, a pleasure entirely out of proportion to the thing itself. And that, I’d argue, is exactly what a well earned retirement feels like.
Now if you’ll excuse me, there are just three days left to go and there’s an extra large child’s Easter Egg in the kitchen cupboard with my name on it and a six pack of Budweiser sitting in the fridge, chilling patiently like it knows its moment is coming. We’ll be reunited soon. Suzie will have to deal with the aftermath of the sugar rush.
Great article, Mark!
My bride of 52 years gave up all sweets for Lent. I have a GIANT Easter basket full of all the “good stuff” hidden in my office closet, including a Roche Easter Bunny for myself nd a LARGE Reese’s Peanut Butter Chocolate one for her.
Me? I gave up Coffee for Lent. After the first 3-4 days of headaches, it has been manageable. It’s not really the coffee that gets to me… It’s the Sweetner and the Carnation Hazelnut Cleamer that I crave.
Only two and a wake-up!
Giving up coffee is a step too far for me, I have to say — I genuinely applaud your fortitude. That’s next level hardcore.
Love this article, Mark. I cannot get through a day without recurrent chocolate, not just the dark and healthy stuff but the milk chocolate dreck. You know how drug addicts go to Betty Ford for rehab? Well, I tell people that I went to the Betty Crocker Clinic. And they kicked me out.
But I can also say with gleeful truthfulness that for me, trash chocolate is also medicinal. Type 1 diabetes means I have occasional blood sugar crashes, especially working out. Most diabetics treat those with glucose tablets or fruit juice. Not me. I carry Kit Kats in my gym bag.
It’s all an excuse, of course, for indulgence. I have always rejected the concept of self-denial for the sake of self-denial, or worse yet for religious reasons like Passover or kosher dietary laws. Life is to be savored. And allowed to melt on your tongue.
Chocolate for medicinals purposes? You’re definitely on the pigs back! Totally awesome.
I can keep a Reese’s peanut butter egg atop my dresser untouched for months. It drives my wife crazy, which brings me great enjoyment!
My wife would eat it anyway, purely as a lesson in why I shouldn’t annoy her. 😳
You could put a lot worse things into your body than chocolate. If you want to make it ‘healthier’, and enjoy it more, make it dark.
I’m afraid I’m a cheap and cheerful milk chocolate man at heart. I’ve tried plenty of dark varieties over the years, but my childhood taste buds simply refuse to get on board.
Budweiser? Budweiser? I’m crushed, utterly flattened. Oh Mark😢
Oh my, I’m not talking about that Budweiser. I mean the real one: Budweiser Budvar, the classic Czech pilsner with actual flavour, character, and a brewing heritage that makes its watery American namesake look like play beer.
The backstory is fascinating. The two companies have been locked in a copyright dispute over the Budweiser name for over 120 years, multiple court cases with no end in sight. It’s possibly the longest-running brand squabble in history.
I know which side I’m on. I’ll be sticking with the European Budvar, thanks very much.
I’m sure glad to hear that, my faith in the Irish was shaken for a minute. 🍻
I have Guinness in my fridge FYI.
Don’t let those tins get lost in the back of the fridge and go out of date, I’d be very disappointed 😜
Tins? You will never catch me drinking beer from a can. Tap or bottle only. By the way, I have KerriGold butter and bangers too. 😳
Kerrygold and bangers? Your Irish roots are showing — in the best possible way! If you really want pub-quality Guinness at home, the nitrosurge can is the way to go. You do need to pick up the nitrosurge adapter separately to use it, but it’s a genuine step up from the old widget system. I think it’s safe to say I take my Guinness pretty seriously 😂
Last week i made Colcannon
What a lovely coincidence — my wife and I have just returned from a walk into the little village of Bushmills, near our vacation home, where we picked up scallions for the colcannon we’re making tonight… although we call it champ.
That surprised me a bit as well, Dick.
I still sold Bud when I visited Ireland many years ago. I noted that Bud occupied the center stanchion in nearly every pub I entered, still, I didn’t see anyone drinking it. The overall attitude I perceived was that they’d drink Budweiser when you could pry their Guinness from their cold, dead, stout drenched fingers.
US Budweiser is for the youngsters who haven’t developed any taste yet 😉
Yes, US Bud is to Guinness, as water is to Bud.
Mark, I think about delayed gratification a lot, and Jonathan wrote about it a lot. Many of my best thoughts are centered on the thankfulness I feel for saving back when it really hurt. Why did I catch a glimpse of a future so clearly better for doing so, while the guy beside me couldn’t see past the shiny new pick-up truck he craved?
My ten-year-old grandson and his friends have a phrase for someone who operates on a different wavelength from everyone else. It gets deployed with a knowing nod, usually something like: “Pops, you see that guy over there? He’s just built differently.”
High praise, as it turns out, from the under-twelves. I feel there’s a subset of the population who naturally exhibit the same characteristics…”just built differently” as my grandson would say.
I’m sorry, Mark, but as a fellow chocolate lover I have to take umbrage at “I’m eyeing up a Hershey bar with genuine lust”. That stuff barely qualifies as chocolate. I won’t eat it even if there’s nothing else left in the house.
My local British goods store is fully stocked with Easter Eggs and other goodies, and I’ve managed to stay away. I brought six months worth of stuff back from Ireland in December and it was gone by the end of January. Time for me to lose a few pounds!
David, can I level with you? I’ve never actually tasted a Hershey’s bar in my life. When I write for Humble Dollar I try to “Americanise” my prose for easier comprehension, but at heart I’m a Galaxy and Cadbury man. That said, my all-time favourite is a milk chocolate and whole almond bar made by a small local company called Tirma, based in the Canary Islands off the coast of Northwest Africa. I bring back dozens every time I visit… they never last long.
And what about the beer?
Lol, that makes me feel better! Hershey’s chocolate tastes like plastic compared to Galaxy or Cadbury’s. Hershey bought the rights to the Cadbury name in the US a long time ago, so the Cadbury’s chocolate we get here isn’t much good either.
I’ll have to look out for Tirma – doesn’t look like their milk chocolate is available here.
Whether it’s giving something up (we did Dry January this year) or taking something on (I’m 92 days into a Peloton 100-day workout challenge that started Jan. 1), making a mindful decision that involves a habit is good for building up those self-discipline muscles.
A 100-day Peloton challenge? That sounds tough. I have to admit, giving up alcohol gets easier as I get older — most of my social circle don’t drink anymore, and ordering a beer or a bottle of wine has started to feel like the odd move rather than the default. Funny really, I was never one to bend to peer pressure when I was younger, yet somehow I’m more susceptible to it now — just in the opposite direction.
I read an article recently, that said a child at age four, can choose to delay eating a cookie now, in order to have two later. Seems half right; for me the age was more like 44.
Beer, chips, chocolate (especially Snickers)? Are we somehow related? I actually think giving up beer with those other pleasures makes total sense. My snack inhibitions go right out the window the minute alcohol intercedes on their behalf.
I agree. Giving up alcohol makes sense to me: a cold beer almost inevitably triggers snacking. My friends find it bizarre that I have a penchant for chocolate and beer in the same sitting, though personally I think it’s the perfect combination. Then again, I’m not exactly known for my refined taste.
Great creative analogy. And boy, do I love chocolate too, especially with nuts!
I think exhibiting “deferred gratification” is easier for some people than others. Childhood upbringing likely has a lot to do with it. Possibly, some people are more wired towards that way of being? Others learn its strength over time.
Looking back, I see myself as tending towards that way of being from an early age…
Other people’s impulse control is something I find myself puzzling over. Last summer, we were in an ice-cream parlour with friends, and I was deliberating between the extra small (2 scoops) and really pushing the boat out with the small (3 scoops). Meanwhile, one of our friends went straight for the extra large — a container holding more ice-cream than I’d expect three people to comfortably finish in one sitting. What struck me was that he’s someone who constantly struggles with his weight, yet he seemed unable to see the connection, or to rein in the impulse for more.
There’s a great book about one long-term study on delayed gratification: The Marshmallow Test by Walter Mischel.
I’ve always been intrigued by it because I seem to be overflowing with self-control. And, for the longest time, I couldn’t understand why other people struggled with it.
Thanks for the book tip, I’ve just ordered a second hand copy from Amazon for the equivalent of $1.20, sounds interesting…hopefully I’ll be over my chocolate induced sugar rush by the time it arrives.