" He may have fooled himself about her loyalty, but he was smart during his journey to fixate on a “stay” and a “beacon” far removed from his grim surroundings. It was a more elaborate version of the successful strategy used by the children in the classic marshmallow experiment. Those who kept looking at the marshmallow quickly depleted their willpower and gave in to the temptation to eat it right away; those who distracted themselves by looking around the room (or sometimes just covering their eyes) managed to hold out. Similarly, paramedics distract patients from their pain by talking to them about anything except their condition, and midwives try to keep women in labor from closing their eyes (which would enable them to focus on the pain). They recognize the benefits of what Stanley called “self-forgetfulness.” He blamed the breakdown of the Rear Column on their leader’s decision to stay put in camp so long, waiting and waiting for additional porters, instead of setting out sooner into the jungle on their own journey. “The cure of their misgivings & doubts would have been found in action,” he wrote, rather than “enduring deadly monotony.” As horrible as it was for Stanley going through the forest with sick, "

― Roy F. Baumeister , Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength