Sign up for Ordinary Extraordinary, Ian Bogost’s guide to making everyday life vivid again. You’ll receive the first edition of the limited-run newsletter course in early July. Eating a pint of ice cream instead of improving a difficult relationship with your partner is easy. So is scrolling social media instead of completing a cardio workout at the gym. Simple and accessible delights seem like lures that drag you away from a better life, rather than tools to help you achieve a more meaningful one. Seeking gratification, we have been told, feels good in the moment but worse in the long run. But gratification is good—even though it gets a bad rap. People find the enjoyment that gratification offers suspicious, because it became associated with indulgence. And, yes, people sometimes do pursue pleasures such as food, alcohol, drugs, porn, social media, shopping, and gambling to their detriment. Those temptations offer an easy rise that can distract pleasure-seekers from engaging in more spiritually fulfilling long-term pursuits. Indulgences distract us from our goals—or even become sources of harm …