 The marshmallow spirit is this. They put a bunch of four or five-year-olds in a room. They placed in front of them a plate and one marshmallow. And they said that you have two choices. You can have this marshmallow now. I'll enjoy it. Or I'll be back in 15 minutes. And if I see the one marshmallow is still there, I'll give you two marshmallows. Four or five-year-olds. And the person leaves the room. The reports say that there were individuals who within three seconds devoured that marshmallow. There were other individuals who physically were fighting themselves to not eat the marshmallow. Some would close their eyes. Some would turn their back against the marshmallow. Some would hide under the table where the marshmallow was on. Some would pick up the marshmallow and stroke it like it was an animal. Okay? Some would pull their hair, their little pigtails. Some would walk back and forth. Anything and everything to do with the fact that I don't want to eat this marshmallow because I know there's another one coming. They say two-thirds of the children deferred and were able to eat two marshmallows. The one-third of them couldn't handle the 15 minutes. The experiment says that we followed these four-year-olds until they were 15, 16, 17-year-olds. And we find that those individuals who deferred the gratification of the marshmallow to have two of them were individuals who were more patient, had more resolve, had more willpower, had more self-recognition, were able to go through less divorces. They were successful in the higher SAT scores. All these things were there because they were able to train themselves to defer their gratification. Now, the problem lies, not the problem, the challenge lies in the fact that we were created to be haste individuals. What should be happening at the age of 15 and 9? What should be happening? Is that the intellect comes in, says, guys, guys, guys, look, you guys have been with this guy since day number one. I am now here. I'm going to run things, not things, we're run teens, and I'm going to lead the entire group. So, if you have shahua, if you have anger, if you want something, if you don't like something, you got to come to me, knock on my door, ask me for permission, I'll tell you, yes, you're allowed to like this thing, you're allowed to not like this thing. That's what should be happening. The reality is it's not happening. Our desires get bigger and bigger and bigger because we keep feeding this monster inside of us. Every time the desire says jump, we say, yes, sir, let me keep jumping up and down, like buffoons, and our desire gets bigger and bigger and bigger, and we wonder why our desire just isn't getting full. The more we feed it, the bigger it gets. And our intellect, bachata is somewhere in the corner saying, guys, remember me? Remember me? I'm the intellect. I'm the guy that's supposed to, you know, tell you what you should be lacking or what you shouldn't be lacking. He's been tripled and pushed to the corner because the time goes, dude, you've been, you've just arrived. I've been here since for the past 15 years. You're a rookie, man. I'm a 15-year veteran. You don't tell me what to do, right? I get on the plane. You get 20 minutes again. I get 40 minutes again. That's how it goes in sports, right? Same idea. You can't come in as a rookie and tell me, okay, you sit on the bench. I'll take your role. No, you won't. I've been here. This is my playground. This is my hood. You can't come here and tell me what to do. Go off. Okay? And this battle begins at 15 and 9, and it's a serious battle, man. Oh, my goodness. Several times a day this battle ensues. And the very, very special youth are those who weaken their desires and who strengthen their intellect. And the very, very special ones are the ones who actually allow their aqal and their intellect and their reasoning to govern their desires and their anger and their creativity. And to do that surrounded in this society is even more difficult. It's possible. But the ulama before I tell us that one of the areas that you can certainly gain this idea of deferred gratification is to weaken your desires. You don't always need to say yes to your desires, guys. If your desire is saying, look, I want this. I want to eat this food. I want to buy this person. I want to buy these shoes. I want to love this person. I want to marry this person. And all of that is bad news for you. God forbid we say no. You know what? I don't want that to happen. But this society will tell you to make your nafs your God. Whatever your nafs says, you do it. No one has any right to tell you that you can't love this person. You can't marry this person. Your parents are begging you. Your community is begging you. The alim is begging you. Look, man, she's bad news for you, bro. Don't marry her. Right? Don't get fooled by his blue eyes. His blue eyes will become brain in one second or become black in one second. Look at his duct-wine pliety. Not his hair. I'm not going to mention his hair. That's what's going on right now. Until we get this thing, desire, which is out of control. And when that happens, when that happens, when desire is out of control, we become habitual sinners. The same sin we do over and over and over again, to the point, can you imagine, to the point where we're doing this sin in the middle of the sin, we're telling ourselves we shouldn't be doing this. And we do it. Right till the end. And afterwards, we kick ourselves, we bang ourselves, we slap ourselves. What's wrong with you? You shouldn't be doing this. We beg Allah, Allah, stuff for the law to be wa'atuh. That's it. I'm done. Wa-lahi wa-lahi wa-lahi I'm done. No more God. No more God. You wake up in the morning. Bam, that sin happens again. And you kill yourself again. Because your desire is out of control. You no longer control your desires. It's like walking up the mountain and the donkey is on your back. And you're going up the mountain and something like that. The donkey was made to carry you off the mountain. Not the other way around. You have this load of desires on your shoulders. You're walking around. You're trying to get on the