As humanity arose so arose the two poles of successful and unsuccessful humans and their communities. The first men were tumbling in the dark but, through generations and millennia, written word and stories emerged that all seemed to have similar structure and pattern – sacrifice. The stories verbalized a deeply rooted principle that crystalized itself – those who do only as they please perish, and those who sacrifice and are able to delay instant gratification are rewarded.

Though each of these stories and myths had an agenda of an overarching religious, cultural or political structure of the time and place weaved within them, nevertheless the story of worthiness of sacrifice was not there only to keep the masses in check. There is truth in it confirmed by modern science and behavioral psychology, experimentally proving that delaying a spoiled need to instantly obtain something in order to get greater gain the future does result in better life choices and more life satisfaction.

The stories we hear are metaphors and abstraction but they do hit a true principle that we all count on – sacrificing something in the present in order to have a better future, a sort of bargaining with the future via the innately human trait of having the choice to exercise your willpower and control your emotions. Sacrifices can come in many forms- be it money, time attention, leisure time, material possessions or temporary comforts and are actually one of the motors powering the social sphere – because the less selfish you are and the more you sacrifice your own personal agendas for a greater good of the whole in the future, things get better for the group.

But there is more to the stories still. A lot of them speak of the sacrifice needed as the thing you love best. Why would that be the case, why does this attachment to the thing you’re sacrificing matter? Because the things we love usually occupy our attention and what occupies our attention becomes the focal point that blinds us to all else. The fact of life is that things won’t sometimes go as planned even if we’re doing all the right moves. The reason it goes bad might just be a coincidence or more often because we’re clinging to something so much that we don’t see the reality at all but its wonky simulacra, while clutching to things we love in fear of losing them.

Sacrifice is ultimately about letting go of attachments in order to be able to live more freely and see better, they show commitment to a higher goal. We see the world through our values and if there is something wrong in the world and things are not going well maybe it is time to reexamine the values, which you can’t do if you don’t move back a bit, and you won’t move back if you’re not ready to let go and sacrifice what you love. Only in complete freedom from attachment can you really see the full reality. This is the goal of sacrifice and delaying gratification – to see, be freed, unbound, and make choices from this opened space which will have a greater ROI in life than the decisions based in clinging to things or a fleeting desire of the moment. You don’t sacrifice because the world, the deity or the universe are cruel – but because they are trying to teach you something.