Delayed gratification requires a belief in a better future prospect. Not all of us have learned to trust the future. Also, even if we trust, we also have to be willing to tackle hard tasks. Comfort is always alluring. Some of us feel oppressed.
Oppression is common in America, the land of the free, and comes in many forms.
African-Americans can make a case for being the most oppressed among the oppressed. If we are going to find the path to civility, then we must examine oppression's sources and root them out and have them wither in the light of truth and reason. Oppression will dry up and blow away if we don't let it hide and mask itself in varied forms of ignorance. It has an ever ready ally in greed and willing advocates who even create imaginative philosophies to support oppression. The path out of oppression leads to civility.