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Lucky Charms: Marshmallows Only

On Delayed Gratification, Paying for Convenience, Everyone Gets a First Place Medal, and Coming Back After the Quiet

A couple months ago, around Saint Patrick’s Day, I kept seeing people on TikTok make Lucky Charms cereal milk lattes. The concept was simple enough: soak Lucky Charms in milk, let the milk get sweet and cereal-flavored, strain it, pour it over espresso and ice, and then top it with whipped cream, cold foam, or whatever festive little topping the algorithm decided we needed that week. And then, of course, you add the Lucky Charms marshmallows. Not the cereal. The marshmallows. Because the marshmallows are the point.



When I told someone I wanted to make one, they said, “You know they sell bags of just the marshmallows, right?” And I did know that. My plan was to buy a box of Lucky Charms, sort out the marshmallows I needed, use the cereal for the milk, and keep whatever was left over for later. Very normal. Very simple. Very “I have a cabinet and a little imagination.” But the more I thought about it, the more the marshmallows-only bag bothered me. Not because it exists. Of course it exists. But because it felt like such a perfect little example of where we are.


I did not buy the marshmallows-only bag, and honestly, I do not plan to. When I do make the latte, I am buying the cereal. The whole box. I want to soak the cereal in the milk, sort through the marshmallows, use what I need, and have whatever is left over for later. That small inconvenience is actually part of the point. Everything does not need to be separated out for me. Everything does not need to arrive already edited down to the exact part I want.


Everything is convenient. Everything is customized. Everyone can get exactly what they want, as long as they have the money to buy it. Everything is separated and repackaged so you can skip directly to the part you want. You do not even have to deal with the cereal anymore. You can just buy the reward. And everyone says, “It’s not that deep.” But it is. Not because of the marshmallows themselves. They are literally tiny dehydrated pieces of sugar. They are not the villain here. But they are a symbol, and I think we should pay more attention to the symbols.


And the part that makes convenience even more complicated is that convenience can be bought. That is where the gap starts to widen. There are people who know struggle intimately, not as a concept, not as a talking point, but as a daily reality. They understand waiting because they have had no choice but to wait. They understand making do because making do was not optional. They understand sorting through the cereal because nobody was handing them the marshmallows only. And then there are people who have been able to buy their way around inconvenience so often that struggle feels like a personal attack instead of a condition many people are forced to live inside of. That is political. Especially now, in a climate where people are constantly being told to pull themselves up, figure it out, work harder, be smarter, be more disciplined, while entire systems are built to make ease easier for the people who can already afford it. Convenience does not hit everyone the same. For some people, it is a luxury. For others, it is a survival tool. And for the people who have always had access to it, it can quietly become a worldview.


A lot of people like to talk about marketing like it is neutral, like marketing is just products, campaigns, trends, and cute little activations. But marketing is not neutral. Marketing is influence. It is behavior. It is psychology. It is what we are taught to want, what we are taught to value, and how quickly we are taught to believe we should have it. So no, a Lucky Charms latte is not political by itself, but the culture that makes everything instantly available, hyper-customized, and stripped of any inconvenience is political. It is cultural. And we are all subject to it, even when we can point it out, even when we think we are self-aware, even when we think we are above being marketed to. We are not.


That might be the funniest part: thinking you are exempt from being influenced because you can identify the influence. You are still in it.


James Baldwin once said, “I love America more than any other country in the world and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.” I think about that quote a lot because critique is not the same thing as bitterness. Sometimes critique is care. And I do care. I love the creativity of American culture. I love how people remix things, build things, brand things, turn small ideas into full trends, and make something as ridiculous as a Lucky Charms latte feel like a seasonal event.


That is also the tension. The same culture that gives us invention also gives us overconsumption. The same culture that gives us access also teaches us impatience. The same culture that says, “You can have anything,” rarely asks what happens when people start believing they should have everything immediately.


And this is where the Lucky Charms latte stops being about a drink and starts becoming about the way we are trained to move through the world. Because once you start seeing it, you see it everywhere. We do not just want ease anymore. We want the result without the process. We want the feeling without the wait. We want the sweet part without having to sort through the rest.


This is where Klarna and Afterpay come in, because buy now, pay later culture becomes more than accessible shopping. It is conditioning. Klarna, Afterpay, Affirm, Shop Pay installments, all of it has made it easier to separate the reward from the cost. You can have the outfit now. The furniture now. The skincare now. The vacation now. The aesthetic now. The payment can be dealt with later. And I am not saying that from a fake moral high ground. I have used convenience too. I am not sitting here pretending I do not understand the appeal of splitting a payment or having something arrive at my door in two days.


The point is not that convenience is evil. The point is what convenience trains us to expect. Because when you get used to having the thing before you have fully paid for it, waited for it, or worked through whether you actually need it, that starts to shape more than your shopping habits. It shapes your tolerance for waiting, for process, for limits, and for being told no. And this is where I think people begin to infantilize themselves. Not because they are incapable, but because so many systems are designed to treat us like we should never have to sit with discomfort.


The app will split the payment. The service will deliver the food. The algorithm will show you what you already like. The brand will customize the product. The marshmallows will come without the cereal. Everything is designed to soothe the want before the person has to sit with it. And eventually, people start expecting the world to operate that way too.


Everyone gets a first place medal. Everyone gets the personalized version. Everyone gets the shortcut. Everyone gets the marshmallows only. And again, I am not talking about cereal. I am talking about what happens when people are constantly taught that wanting something is reason enough to have it. That discomfort is automatically unfair. That waiting means something is wrong. That not getting the outcome they wanted means the system failed them. That everything should be easier, softer, faster, more accessible, more tailored, more convenient.


And to be clear, accessibility matters. Convenience can be necessary. Ease is not the enemy. But there is a difference between making life more accessible and removing every moment of friction that helps people grow up. That is the line I keep thinking about.


I think this shows up heavily in founder culture, and maybe that is why the marshmallows-only thing stayed with me longer than I expected it to. Because founder culture has its own version of this. People want the marshmallows-only version of entrepreneurship. They want the announcement, the launch, the press, the polished website, the viral post, the “built from scratch” story, the soft life founder photos, the booked-out calendar, the revenue screenshot, and the public proof that everything is working. But they do not always want the cereal: the messy systems, the boring admin, the proposals that do not get approved, the invoices that take too long to get paid, the content that flops, the offers that need to be reworked, and the moments where the idea is cute, but the structure underneath it is not strong enough yet.


And I get it. The cereal part is not always cute. It does not always make for a good post. It is not always easy to explain in real time. It does not give you the same dopamine as the announcement. But it is the part that actually feeds you.


With Sunday & Co., I intentionally stopped building the agency so loudly and publicly all the time, which is funny because founder storytelling is advice I give to founders and business owners often, depending on their goals, their audience, and the kind of trust they need to build. But for me, there came a point where I knew I did not want to confuse documenting the journey with performing the journey. Those are different things.


I have always thought of Sunday & Co. as an ecosystem. Not just an agency. Not just a service provider. Not just a place where people come to get a strategy, a campaign, or a better website. An ecosystem. And ecosystems take time. They have to root. Systems have to be built before they are scaled. Trust has to be earned before it can be leveraged. People have to understand where they fit before you can ask them to grow with you. Not constructed trust. Not falsified trust. Real trust. The kind that comes from doing the work, being consistent, and letting something become solid before asking the world to clap for it.


This is also our first article back after a long quiet season. The Brunch has been sitting for a while. Our Substack has been empty. The older pieces have still been living on LinkedIn, but we have not published anything new this year. And I think there is a way to look at that as inconsistency, but I do not really see it that way anymore. If anything, this season reminded me of something I say often: everything in time. Sometimes a pause is not a failure to show up. We are in a season where it is a choice to stop performing movement long enough to actually build something underneath it.


Everything in time. The table does not get built faster, and the dishes do not get served sooner, just because people are hungry.

That is what this return feels like for me. Not a grand relaunch, not a forced announcement, not a “we’re back” campaign with nothing behind it. More like coming back to the table with more clarity about what we are actually serving. Because Sunday & Co. was still moving. We were building, testing, learning, creating better systems, launching our first intern cohort this spring, and shaping clearer ways for people to join us, collaborate with us, learn with us, and build alongside us.


That does not mean visibility is not important. It is. One of my goals this year is to promote Sunday & Co. more intentionally, grow our following, build stronger visibility, and bring people back into what we are creating after being quieter for a while. This article is part of that return. But we are coming back publicly not because nothing was happening before. We are coming back because now there is more to say.



That is the part I think people miss about delayed gratification. Sometimes waiting is not a lack of movement. Sometimes waiting is preparation. Sometimes what looks like silence is actually structure being built. And in a culture obsessed with instant output, we forget that not everything needs to be announced the moment it begins. Some things need time to become real. That has always been at the heart of “a seat at our table.” It is not just a tagline. It cannot be. If we are going to say that, then there has to actually be a table. There has to be room, structure, and clear ways for people to step into what we are building. That is why we have been expanding Sunday & Co. beyond client work and into actual entry points for learning, collaboration, support, and community.


Fellows Table is our internship and early-career learning space. It is for emerging marketers, creatives, strategists, writers, and students who want to understand the work from the inside. Not just “make a few graphics and call it experience,” but actually learn how strategy, content, creative direction, research, client thinking, and execution connect. The first cohort gave us a real example of what it looks like to build a learning environment inside the agency, not as a side project, but as part of the ecosystem.


Espresso Club is for the collaborators. It is our creative partner network for freelancers, strategists, designers, writers, content creators, producers, and other people who want to plug into Sunday & Co. projects when the fit makes sense. It gives us a way to bring more voices and skill sets to the table without forcing everything into a traditional role. Sometimes the work needs a designer. Sometimes it needs a strategist. Sometimes it needs someone who can help with copy, production, research, events, or execution. Espresso Club is how we make room for that kind of collaboration as we grow.


Founders Club is still taking shape, but the heart of it is support for the people building. It is for founders, small business owners, creatives, and entrepreneurs who need more than a service provider. Some people need strategy. Some need accountability. Some need access to resources, conversations, community, or people who understand what it feels like to build something while still figuring it out. Founders Club is our way of creating more connection around the business side of building, not just the polished parts people see after everything is packaged.


Sunday School is also coming soon, and that feels like a natural next step. It will be our education space, a place for lessons, resources, workshops, and practical conversations around marketing, branding, content, strategy, and building with more intention. There is a lot people are expected to know, but no one really slows down to explain clearly. Sunday School will be one of the ways we make the work more accessible without watering it down.


Our Join Our Team page is where a lot of these doors live now. It will be home to see how you can learn with us, collaborate with us, speak with us, support the work, or become part of the larger Sunday & Co. ecosystem. Because building a table has to be more than inviting people to sit down,, we are creating real ways for people to participate, contribute, and grow.




And maybe that is the small practice here. The next time there is an easier option, do the inconvenient thing every once in a while. Not because suffering makes you better, and not because everything needs to be harder than it has to be, but because sometimes the inconvenience is where you remember your own capacity.


Sort the marshmallows. Make the call instead of sending the vague text. Ask the question you are avoiding. Read the thing all the way through. Let the idea sit before you announce it. Build the system before you sell the dream. Show up for the thing that does not immediately reward you.


That is part of how villages are built too. Not in the romantic, “everyone just loves each other and everything works” way, but in the practical way. Someone brings the chairs. Someone washes the dishes. Someone remembers who has not eaten. Someone checks in after the event is over. Someone stays a little longer because leaving everything for one person is not community.


A village is not just a place where people gather. It is a place where people practice responsibility to each other. And maybe that is what convenience culture keeps quietly taking from us. Not just patience, but participation. The ability to tolerate the small frictions that come with being part of something bigger than ourselves.


And I think that is the real difference. Convenience asks, “How can I get what I want faster?” Community asks, “What am I willing to help build?” Founder culture often wants the marshmallows-only version: the reward without the waiting, the visibility without the roots, the first-place medal without the actual race. But I do not think that is how anything meaningful lasts.


So no, I did not buy the marshmallows-only bag. And no, I do not plan to. When I make the Lucky Charms latte, I am buying the cereal. I want to sort through it. I want the milk to taste like the cereal actually sat in it. I want the process to be part of the thing. But I am interested in what our conveniences reveal about us. What they teach us to expect. What they make harder for us to tolerate. And what we lose when we are always trying to skip to the sweetest part.


Because sometimes the sorting is the point. Sometimes the waiting is the work. Sometimes the thing you are trying to rush past is the exact thing that teaches you how to build something that lasts. And maybe that is where I am now. Not rushing to prove that Sunday & Co. is growing. Not confusing quiet with absence. Not chasing the marshmallows before the foundation is built.


Just setting the table properly, and making sure there is enough there to actually feed the people. But first I have to nourish myself.


Miya C.

Your host at The Brunch


Subscribe to our Substack: https://thesundaybrunch.substack.com


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