[HN Gopher] You Are Not Lazy or Undisciplined. You Have Internal...
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You Are Not Lazy or Undisciplined. You Have Internal Resistance
Author : gala8y
Score : 152 points
Date : 2021-08-01 14:07 UTC (8 hours ago)
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| bserge wrote:
| I've read sooooooo much of this kind of shiitake, I am sick of
| it. It is bullshit. Or rather, it's written by people who don't
| even take into account the biological nature of the brain.
|
| Let me check... _of course_ he 's a "coach"... If you can't do,
| teach, I guess.
|
| All of this shit will act as a bandaid, a crutch at best. It's
| like the bullshit "imagine you're wealthy and you will become
| wealthy".
|
| No, that doesn't work. Nor does praying to God, nor anything that
| doesn't entail actual action. You can imagine whatever the fork
| you want, it won't make it real.
|
| Fortunately, people smarter than me and all of these self help
| coaches and theorycrafters have already started figuring out how
| to fix this problem _for real_ , by applying real science to the
| very real bio computer in our skulls.
|
| It's still a young science, with parts of the same core problem
| being labeled ADD, OCD, anxiety, depression. But there are real
| drugs that _actually_ work.
|
| The biggest roadblock is getting this accepted as a treatable
| condition by the mainstream medicine systems. They're still in
| the dark ages and treat it like they treat death - as inevitable,
| unfixable.
|
| Some people are already benefitting from it while the majority is
| laughing at them and calling the unfortunate ones who don't have
| access to good doctors and good medicine lazy.
|
| I hope one day humans look back at it and laugh at how
| ridiculously stupid their ancestors were.
| SubiculumCode wrote:
| Yes biology matters the most, but most of the time we don't
| have any control of the biological processes, and science does
| not own enough to do anything about it in this life. So we are
| left with: Talk, crutches, bandaids, frameworks, meta-knowledge
| of one's thought patterns, belief systems. Sure they are silly
| and full of contradictions, but funnily enough: All these
| things matter to biology. Not only do deeply held beliefs alter
| what biological organism does (I mean it moves some bodies
| attend services, right?), but it can also alter thought
| patterns and mental habits.
| hypertele-Xii wrote:
| > You can imagine whatever the fork you want, it won't make it
| real.
|
| Yet you also cannot make real something you didn't imagine,
| except by accident. _Priming_ works, hence "fake it till you
| make it".
| the-dude wrote:
| So what happened with all these people in the dark ages?
| tonyedgecombe wrote:
| They couldn't do office work.
| Xophmeister wrote:
| I might just being dense or, perhaps more generously, completely
| un-self-aware, but I genuinely don't understand the premise of
| this argument. Internal resistance is an
| attempt to avoid the pain we associate with successfully doing
| the thing.
|
| We subconsciously believe that succeeding in doing something --
| that we've presumably never done before -- will cause us some
| "emotional pain", thus we go to lengths to avoid it? If what
| we're attempting is novel, how could we possibly know that? Even
| if we were to assume that, why would this "pain" override the
| elation of success?
|
| I can understand the argument that people procrastinate because
| of the fear of failure...but the fear of success? I don't get it.
| hypertele-Xii wrote:
| Back when I was in school, I was consistently punished for
| succeeding too much. Finished with my tasks? Here's extra. Knew
| more than the teacher about the subject? Shut up mister wise
| guy. Understood the subject and wanted to discuss it? There's
| no time for debate.
|
| Made something amazing on the computer? Stop playing on the
| computer, go outside instead.
|
| Made a lot of money? Get robbed.
|
| Etc.
| rob_c wrote:
| Having written a doctoral thesis on particle physics, yes writing
| is hard. Sometimes extremely hard. (sleepless nights and
| depression inducing hard while you question your sanity and
| ability into you discover to trust your own judgement more than
| your peers, whilst taking on board their constructive input)
|
| From experience its usually better to ask people currently
| struggling to write what their problem is. It's usually so
| personal and unique that a blanket "you can do it" isn't as
| helpful as it might sound. If very nicely intended and being
| supportive.
|
| Aside, I don't feel the need to add the letters after my name for
| some reason, might be because I'm still engaged in research and
| find this off putting...
| adrianmonk wrote:
| Hmm, maybe I should try increasing the voltage.
| jgrowl wrote:
| In the villa of Ormen, Stands a solitary candle.
|
| In the centre of it all, Your eyes
| weregiraffe wrote:
| I have external resistance too, in the form of Hacker News
| articles.
| asplake wrote:
| Less mysterious: "Immunity to change", Kegan & Lahey (HBR, 2009)
| overthemoon wrote:
| I think a lot of people don't do the thing they want to do for
| many reasons, but I found this helpful. If nothing else it's good
| advice to be curious about what's going on inside your head, and
| not to jump to condemnation. Who knows, maybe it is a simple lack
| of discipline, but I haven't found that such an assumption brings
| me closer to the goal, which means that even if it's "right" it's
| not useful.
| joombaga wrote:
| No amount of metacognition or framing has ever gotten me out of
| a rut.
|
| > Internal resistance is not immovable -- it responds to
| reason, to alternative scenarios, to making space for the
| emotions that seem like such a threat
|
| This has not been my experience. My own internal resistance
| responds to people being impressed with what I'm doing and
| expressing that to me, or a eureka moment (which typically come
| when I'm watching Star Trek or cooking a meal or doing some
| other activity instead of the thing I'm trying to accomplish).
| The eureka moment trigger is a special circumstance though;
| most of the time if there's a puzzle to solve I won't disengage
| from the problem. Usually I just have seemingly random bouts of
| productivity. I feel very fortunate to have a job that allows
| me to work when I'm mentally able.
| tgv wrote:
| Any evidence that "[i]t holds a lot of knowledge about what we
| secretly believe we might be able to do", or that my "brain [is]
| so afraid of the costs of [me] doing the thing"? Any evidendence
| that it's on my side? How does internal resistance get
| operationalized anyway? Because it sounds suspiciously like
| "can't-do-it'-itis to me.
| swayvil wrote:
| Maybe it really is actually a bad thing.
|
| And by "it" I mean the important thing that you are resisting.
|
| It's actually a bad thing. And you have convinced yourself that
| it's a good thing. But you aren't completely convinced.
|
| Deep down you know that it really is a very bad thing. One more
| step on a march of doom that you have been trying to escape since
| forever. A special door that, once passed through, your waste and
| hell will truly and finally be LOCKED IN (relatively speaking).
|
| I mean, nobody dreams as a child of sitting on their office-butt
| playing mental legos forever. But it's very easy to convince
| yourself that it is great. And the whole world will help you in
| that endeavor. It will tell you encouraging stories and feed you
| big paychecks. It will tell you that you are a rock star.
|
| You will be helped at every turn to forget the life that you lost
| and to pretend that playing robot is a truly good and desirable
| thing.
|
| Maybe this great procrastination is your gut trying to tell you
| something.
| balfirevic wrote:
| > to forget the life that you lost
|
| What life would that be?
| agent327 wrote:
| A life of creativity, of choice, of mental and physical
| stimulation, of work that you feel is meaningful instead of
| simply required.
| [deleted]
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| As with most posts of this type, it assumes you are neurotypical
| and not dealing with other issues that compromise executive
| function.
|
| This isn't a bad thing, it's just important to point out there is
| a prerequisite condition that must be met before this advice
| becomes useful.
| echelon wrote:
| I've got ADHD _and_ this.
|
| I couldn't be happier this came across the HN feed today,
| because it seems to accurately answer so many questions I've
| had about my performance on personal projects recently.
|
| I spent months working on the next version of https://vo.codes,
| and I've only got about five hours of frontend work to do
| before launching it. I've sit on it for a month now.
|
| What I think is happening is that I'm worried about my next
| project in virtual production (which I'm picking back up). I'm
| worried I've fallen too far behind, that the incumbent powers
| have already won and that I'll be wasting my energy. But I
| still think I have tremendous value to add, and that there is a
| discernable path to success, and that I'm holding myself back
| by worrying about vo.codes. It's caused a sort of deadlock.
|
| This has helped me make sense of it and approach it a new way.
| Hopefully it's the nudge I needed to unblock myself.
|
| Anxiety, ADHD, internal resistance. I shouldn't blame myself so
| much.
| navjack27 wrote:
| I think you're worried that all of the stimulating part is
| over in launching it will be the boring part. I have ADHD too
| I hate the ending part of any project I've ever done and I've
| never finished anything. My favorite parts are setting up
| projects organizing projects and figuring out a workflow for
| projects. Making them and doing the actionable part is
| reasonable but actually finishing it and still having Steam
| and interest to finish is close to impossible and I haven't
| figured it out yet and I'm 32 years old.
| navjack27 wrote:
| But yeah for sure blaming yourself or calling yourself lazy
| or saying you don't know how or any sort of negative self-
| talk when you have this kind of brain is just not healthy
| and it's something that I wish a lot of other people with
| ADHD would realize that they should not be doing
| chrsig wrote:
| It's a challenge, because on the one hand, the negative
| self-talk can be motivating, in a not so great way (ie.,
| hyper-vigilance)...but also, we've got society
| continually calling us lazy, uncaring, unmotivated, etc.
| to the point of even denying that ADHD is a real
| condition.
| navjack27 wrote:
| I haven't read the actual article yet but whatever this
| internal resistance is I mean yeah... I have internal
| resistance about like everything at least what I'm guessing
| this person is trying to mean. I'll reply to this after I
| read it and see if I was right but I mean like... The
| easiest thing for me to do is to wake up sit on the couch
| take my meds and start watching YouTube. I'll know I want
| to work on my own personal projects or whatever on my
| computer and I'll be saying in my head over and over "get
| off the couch. Go work on that stuff you want to work on."
| And I just don't... Until I do and then when I do it's 12
| hours later and I've accomplished a whole bunch of work and
| I've neglected myself. It's a fun time
| echelon wrote:
| I can relate very closely. It's almost spot on.
|
| I think part of it lies with the final tasks being
| perceived as easy and routine, which is difficult for my
| brain to view as anything other than "busy work".
|
| Of course much of the nature of the work can be that way,
| but in aggregate can be challenging enough to spur
| interest. Until the end, that is.
|
| One hack I have is to have larger plans in mind for what
| needs to be done after launch. The next arcs of work. Make
| them big, and then finishing can feel like you're not even
| close to done.
| navjack27 wrote:
| Hahaha "busy work"! Yeah that's why in Middle School I
| basically failed every grade because I would argue with
| my parents for hours about the concept of homework being
| busy work. This obviously got worse after I overheard a
| teacher talking about some sort of a quota for homework
| that they were supposed to be meeting as teachers...
| navjack27 wrote:
| Okay I just read the article. Yeah this reads as some sort
| of a baby's first getting to know thyself kind of thing.
| I've already done that kind of personal soul searching for
| myself and that's why I don't beat myself up about these
| kind of things. Oh yeah I realized another thing that
| usually Sparks my motivation like if there's a technical
| article or a review of a piece of computer hardware that I
| want to do... Being frustrated at the current other works
| covering said thing not being good enough in my eyes...
| Frustration in general being angry in general motivates me
| in a healthy way. "You covered this this and this but you
| didn't say this about the windows install or this about how
| this was set up and you didn't cover this" and my first
| impulse is never too go to the comment section it's to go
| on Amazon or Newegg and buy the thing and then review the
| thing better. Not even just review stuff for my website but
| I mean a lot of other things are like that with me it's
| weird. I love finding stuff where other people explained it
| just wrong or did something just wrong in my eyes and then
| I go and do it better or correctly. That is if my
| motivation takes me all the way to the end and I finish it.
| codegeek wrote:
| How would you go about identifying whether you have ADHD or
| not ? Any tips ? I really really suspect I have it but I have
| never talked to anyone about it.
| kitsune_ wrote:
| Unexplained underachievement.
| echelon wrote:
| I don't think looking at outcomes is a fair assessment at
| all.
|
| I academically excelled, have a successful career, an
| early employee IPO exit, and a spate of really
| interesting side projects.
|
| Yet I struggle with leading a normal life, prioritizing,
| sporadic and extreme hyper-focus, and frequent loss of
| interest. (If something doesn't interest me, I just won't
| do it. I have to pay people to do taxes, and I sometimes
| wish I could pay people to do my job or parts of it.)
|
| Anecdotal, but I think your characterization could be
| misleading.
| codegeek wrote:
| Yea I agree. I am actually reasonably accomplished in my
| life and career but I procrastinate like hell and there
| are times when I am just not doing anything. Perfect
| example is today. Been browsing HN so far when I have a
| few tasks to complete for my business. My own business
| where I know this will be make an impact but I am just
| not doing it.
| JadeNB wrote:
| > I really really suspect I have it but I have never talked
| to anyone about it.
|
| Please let me add another to the voices saying that the
| advice you take on a medical matter should not be that of a
| random internet stranger. Please do talk to a professional
| about it!
| blktiger wrote:
| If you want to know if you have it or not you should go get
| tested by a professional. If you suspect you have it then
| either you have it and they can help, or you don't but they
| can help you improve whatever it is that makes you suspect
| you have it.
| echelon wrote:
| There are several different manifestations of the disease,
| so be aware of that. Some that present with hyperactivity,
| some that don't. Look up the symptoms and see if they ring
| a bell, then go to see a specialist.
| chiefgeek wrote:
| Work with a professional. From numerous anecdotal stories,
| if you do have ADHD, taking medicine such as Ritalin or
| Adderal will radically alter you (in a good way). 15+ years
| ago, I had a psychiatrist who insisted I had ADHD. I took
| Adderal for a couple years. It did absolutely zero for me.
| Not one iota of change. I know others who swear by it.
| There was another comment in the thread about anxiety and
| hyper vigilance being a problem with similar symptoms.
| After much work, it's safe to say this was more my issue.
| There's a book called "Driven to Distraction" that is
| decent as well.
| SubiculumCode wrote:
| The fear of finishing in real. The last push is always the
| hardest.
| mjburgess wrote:
| Many with ADHD also suffer from _this_ problem also. So it is a
| useful article either way.
| chrsig wrote:
| You say that, but as a person with ADHD, I couldn't help but
| just skim the article. Not useful at all ;)
| ttul wrote:
| In other words, the article leaves aside the possibility that
| you might have ADHD, which is present in an estimated 7% of
| people in a clinically significant way, and likely far more to
| a degree that wouldn't satisfy the DSM, but is still a
| handicap.
| moosey wrote:
| Anxiety will do it too. So will hypervigilance, which
| presents with ADHD like symptoms but arises from trauma.
| SubiculumCode wrote:
| My procrastination dropped a lot once I medically
| intervened on ADHD, Anxiety, and Depression. I wonder where
| I'd be now if I had taken these steps 20 years ago.
| ttul wrote:
| 20 years ago, the science was a lot less conclusive on
| ADHD. The drugs were far less sophisticated as well.
| Today, the condition is highly treatable (90%) with
| medication.
| bruce343434 wrote:
| I'm sorry but I find this incredibly vague. I'm not doing stuff
| because I fear the pain of success ? What pain??
| sumthinprofound wrote:
| no, sometimes I am definitely lazy.
| [deleted]
| gala8y wrote:
| ...and it's just great. Capacity to be lazy (being very
| important in itself) does not negate existence of this 'pro
| status quo' force, holding you back.
| audit wrote:
| WRT >"... 1. Recognise that internal resistance is on your side
| ..."
|
| I disagree somewhat, and I have a different explanation.
|
| ---
|
| Each one of us is born with talents (gifts) and some weaknesses.
|
| If we grow up, and then become adults in the environment that
| does not discover our talents, and, opposite, emphasises our
| weaknesses -- then we become: - unhappy,
| - dis-engaged, - often resort to cheating as a way
| to 'pad up' our weaknesses, - often blaim others.
| Sometimes rightfully so, sometimes not.
|
| The environment in which we grow up -- does not really depend on
| us. Depends on parents, state of peace, state of economy.
|
| Yes, we have to be adaptable, but when the adoptation requires us
| to compete in fields, eco-systems that does not emphsize our
| inborn talents -- we do not do well.
|
| We are not all meant to be technology visionaries, data
| scientists, lawyers, public speakers, and surgeons.
|
| But a society, an economic system that emphasises one of the
| above (as an example), is forcing the rest to 'adjust'.
|
| That 'adjustment' - _is the friction_. But it does not just
| depend on an individual.
|
| Really, a global solution is the one, that takes advantage of the
| different talents we have. That should be the purpose of
| statesman (not career politicians), that offer to dedicate their
| service to their country (or the world).
|
| And, certainly on a personal level - honesty,
| - work ethic - rejection of ideologies that justify
| 'achieve whatever using any means necessary', -
| rejection of unfair biases (biases based on inborn characterists
| that 'lock down person's fate)
|
| Would have to be part of that solution.
|
| Believing that you always have something unique, something
| specially good, specially powerfull about yourself -- has to be
| emphrasized, at a personal level.
| scotty79 wrote:
| That's very interesting way of thinking about those things.
|
| That success (defined as successfully completing required work)
| causes damage, causes pain, often not as a side effect of the
| work that needs to be put in to achieve success, but by the
| success itself.
|
| That parts of us recognizes the harm of success and resists when
| the other part pushes blindly for what it thinks the end goal
| should be.
|
| Also mitigation strategies seem novel. Discovering what you fear
| about successfully finishing your work and trying to lessen the
| strength of those fears. Or doing small steps like acknowledging
| that doing 30 minutes of work will not result in achieving
| success so you can do that amount of work safely.
|
| One common fear might be of that the result of you successfully
| finishing your task won't live up to your imagination about it.
| dmos62 wrote:
| It's never that you can't, it's that you won't. The distinction
| means a lot. It takes some luck to realise that all the I-can'ts
| are actually you trying to escape an internal conflict by putting
| yourself down. The internal conflict is about you wanting it and
| not wanting it at the same time. E.g. you want to be a success,
| but trying is scary. I don't really know how not to be afraid.
| It's something I'm working on. But, knowing that you're choosing
| not to do something because you're afraid is so much better than
| thinking that you're not capable. It's literally the difference
| between apathy or depression and discomfort.
| JadeNB wrote:
| > It's never that you can't, it's that you won't.
|
| While this sounds good, and I think is a reasonable guide for
| many life choices, it's simply not true. If I want to lift that
| enormous boulder over there, then it's not that I won't, it's
| that I can't. (Maybe this needs caveats: if I want to lift that
| enormous boulder over there only using my hands, etc.)
|
| I could believe something like "it's never that you can't try,
| but that you won't try", and that covers a lot of my
| procrastination; but I'm not sure if it's strong enough to
| cover the point you'd like to make.
| dmos62 wrote:
| Good points. What I said applies most obviously to situations
| like "I can't get out of bed", but I think it also applies to
| "I can't get this done", but maybe in more subtle ways.
| robot_no_419 wrote:
| "Ah, that's it. I'm not lazy, I have internal resistance. It all
| makes sense now", I said as I browsed HN and packed another bowl
| for my bong.
| exolymph wrote:
| Admittedly I didn't and will not read TFA, but this title... like
| yeah, "internal resistance" is what laziness and lack of
| discipline feel like from the insider! Those aren't the _only_
| possible attributions but they sure are common ones. (I speak
| from experience, both personal and otherwise.)
| infogulch wrote:
| Took a lot of words but it seems reasonable and resonates with my
| experience.
|
| I guess "internal resistance" is a kind of bias towards inaction.
| Not a bad trait if you're in a resource constrained scarcity
| environment, but it's not a great strategy outside of that. If
| there's anything to overcome its probably a scarcity mindset when
| it's unfounded.
| jchook wrote:
| If this article resonates with you, I recommend reading The War
| of Art by Steven Pressfield.
| beauHD wrote:
| For me, pertinent things seem to 'bubble up' and I will get them
| done regardless of resistance. Resistance doesn't mean the thing
| needs to be immediately done. The mind has a clever feature in
| that it surfaces subconscious goal-setting at the right time, and
| on an as-needed basis.
|
| In a professional and career context, however, you would be
| required to get tasks done straight away. But for artists and
| even dedicated loafers or those who enjoy being idle, the
| important stuff rises to the top naturally and it gets done.
| pm90 wrote:
| > The mind has a clever feature in that it surfaces
| subconscious goal-setting at the right time, and on an as-
| needed basis.
|
| I've heard of a strategy where you think really hard about a
| problem, and then you go and do other unrelated things and your
| mind will come up with a solution. I have found that this does
| happen in practice. By stepping away from the problem, I'm
| basically forgetting all the context that made me approach the
| problem from the original angle and thus my mind tries a
| different approach. Often this new approach will also not work,
| but there might be things I discover when trying these
| approaches that lead to yet another approach.... I guess this
| process goes on until either a good enough solution is found or
| I give up.
| the_only_law wrote:
| > "I choose a lazy person to do a hard job. Because a lazy
| person will find an easy way to do it."
|
| Unfortunately, in my experience, I'm more likely to just
| determine the hard problem is not worth the effort to complete.
| luckyandroid wrote:
| Big difference between 'someone who cuts corners' and 'someone
| who won't do the task at all' when it comes to the phrase 'lazy
| person'.
|
| The first person will do the task, they just deemed it not
| worthy of their focused effort. The second person will find any
| excuse not to do it at all, which is the 'resistance' the
| article talks about.
| onelastjob wrote:
| This is excellent! I've lived this experience with a graduate
| thesis project that has taken over a decade to complete. Stephen
| Pressfield's books (especially Do The Work) felt very close to
| the mark, but I also couldn't buy into the idea that the
| resistance should be thought of as something external (a
| malevolent force in the universe). I think this article solves
| the mystery of what the resistance actually is. This
| understanding of the resistance combined with Pressfield's book
| Do The Work could help a lot of people that are
| "procrastinating".
| kiba wrote:
| I came around to the idea that procrastination or other form of
| akrasia is an emotional problem, not a discipline problem.
|
| That said, it doesn't really give me new tools or tricks to deal
| with the problems?
|
| It's still the same: podomoro or timeboxing, giving oneself a
| reward for completing an objective, trying to complete a given
| task every week, and so forth.
|
| I supposed I could give mental health therapies a try, I guess?
| papandada wrote:
| I definitely see procrastination linked to emotional processing
| issues for me. Maybe it's possible that there are things which
| provide immediate benefits, but for me many things I tried
| evaporated and I was still left with this base note, so to
| speak, of myself. I went to therapy, I went to 12 step
| meetings, I read books, I journalled, I talked the hell out of
| my thoughts and feelings with certain friends, got divorced,
| took medication, found another amazing woman to marry, all
| along the way there was progress and regress, blind spots, lots
| of blind spots, lots of denial and resistance and fighting and
| turmoil and avoidance. The "answers" for me so far are
| absolutely nothing that haven't been said a thousand times in
| every place, but having met them myself in my own way at my own
| time. I'm not sure I could have gone any faster than I did, and
| I'm ok with that (now, at least).
| pm90 wrote:
| > The "answers" for me so far are absolutely nothing that
| haven't been said a thousand times in every place, but having
| met them myself in my own way at my own time. I'm not sure I
| could have gone any faster than I did, and I'm ok with that
| (now, at least)
|
| Don't want to play armchair therapist, but that's really the
| best anyone can really do.
| mrweasel wrote:
| It's a little like dieting really. If there was something
| someone could just say to make your weight, procrastination,
| whatever go away, then these problems would not exist.
|
| There are exercises you can do, mentally and physically,
| which can help guide you through self-improvement, but they
| all require that we actually do them.
|
| Some times is feels like I go years without making any
| progress with myself. Other times is just takes a small new
| action to gain remarkable results. Like you, I'm not sure it
| could have gone any faster and that's okay.
| luckyandroid wrote:
| Everyone's different. You can read a hundred different ways to
| get around the resistance, but doing them 100% the way they're
| described likely WON'T work for you. You have to find the
| things you do like about it, and discard the parts you don't,
| and continue to refine your personal routine over the course of
| a lifetime.
|
| The most important part of that process is continually (once a
| week or a couple times a month, in my opinion) taking a step
| back and assessing what is and isn't working for you, then
| taking the time to find a way around it.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Hmm, interesting idea. I'll try it out.
| jacksonkmarley wrote:
| > in my experience it is usually tied to some kind of predicted
| loss of love and connection
|
| This seems like a creative explanation that probably makes an
| article such as this seem a bit more quirky and interesting or
| something. Otherwise it's not a bad piece, but I don't think
| potential loss of love or connection is necessary to explain not
| wanting to do some difficult/annoying/time consuming task.
| luckyandroid wrote:
| I think the article is describing resistance not just in terms
| of 'difficult' creative processes but any excuse you could make
| for any action that would likely benefit you.
|
| Hence that line is more for people who resist finding new
| connections to people because of past problems. Learned fear of
| action is just that - learned. And it can be unlearned given
| the time and practice.
| jacksonkmarley wrote:
| Well the first example in the article was about the author
| completing her PhD, and it mentioned productivity and making
| use of talents, and seemed to be talking about fear of
| success, so I read it as a (strange) extension of that.
|
| If it was meant to be about more personal relationship type
| stuff the author could have discussed that explicitly. Maybe
| the piece needed an extra paragraph to explain better what
| the link was.
| luckyandroid wrote:
| Yeah I think their analogies are a bit mixed, but the
| general idea of 'learned reaction' is still there, even if
| the examples the author used didn't mesh well together.
| janandonly wrote:
| Reading this article made me wish there was a setting in Safari
| (or a good plugin) that can block curse words.
|
| Why on earth does an eloquent academic need to say f*ing or
| gorramit every couple of sentences? It is not just needles, it is
| also bad taste.
| hirundo wrote:
| Here's a sci-fi movie I'd like to see. A (space alien, mad
| scientist, corporation, imp) unleashes a (bomb, virus, force
| field, spell) that suddenly removes internal resistance from
| everyone. Whatever intention wins the internal vote gets full
| control of the rest of the psyche. Everyone immediately starts
| working full bore on their (world saving invention, romantic
| pursuit, profit plan, great novel, hare brained scheme) at once,
| and the (evil, well-intentioned-but-foolish) instigators watch as
| civilization implodes. Until (Hiro Protagonist) saves the day
| with a well timed (hack, antidote, counter spell). Making
| everyone boring again, but safe.
| avaldes wrote:
| Like an inverted "Serenity" movie.
| Andrex wrote:
| Sounds like the setting of The Giver. Their solution to prevent
| implosion was to give all memories of the old world to one
| person.
| hprotagonist wrote:
| > Until (Hiro Protagonist) saves the day with a well timed
| (hack, antidote, counter spell).
|
| Maybe Babel was the best thing that ever happened to us.
| bob33212 wrote:
| This is my biggest problem with all the people promoting
| entrepreneurship for everyone. If everyone took two years off
| to start a company there would be no one keeping the lights on.
| whatshisface wrote:
| If everyone started taking two years off to start a company
| the incentives offered by existing companies would rise until
| the tide was stemmed.
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| > there would be no one keeping the lights on.
|
| Why would that be? Two years is only four percent of a
| working lifetime and it won't be at the same time for
| everyone. And not every company takes two years to create
| anyway.
|
| Another way of looking at it is that two years is less time
| than it takes to get a degree.
| codegeek wrote:
| Doesnt' matter. Most people won't. I have worked
| professionally for 17 years now and last 6 running my own
| business. I can tell you with a guarantee that there are lot
| of people who just want a job, get a paycheck and get the f
| out (not that anything is wrong with that). They don't care
| about entrepreneurship or whatever. So there always will be
| "employees" for every "employer".
| greggman3 wrote:
| until UBI?
| codegeek wrote:
| I doubt UBI will make everyone stop working. As far as I
| understand, the point of UBI is to ensure that people are
| not homeless, have enough to put food on the table and it
| covers your absolute basic needs. Lets say we implement
| UBI at 1K/Month which is what people like Andrew Yang
| proposed. That is not enough to just sit at home all day.
| You still need to make money but hopefully with that 1K,
| you won't be homeless (or at least thats the idea).
| corvuscorvid wrote:
| I'm confident that there are many, many people who would
| choose to continue living with no permanent home (tent,
| RV, etc) and spend their UBI on oxy, meth, heroin or
| crack.
| SuoDuanDao wrote:
| At least they wouldn't need to turn to petty crime quite
| so often. And they'd have a means of getting some
| stability in their lives, which tends to reduce rates of
| addiction.
| vmladenov wrote:
| I'm still not clear on why UBI won't just raise the price
| floor on everything (rent in your example) to the point
| where it becomes ineffective again. In Mountain View,
| landlords raised rents when they heard companies were
| giving a bonus for people living within 15 miles. Some
| even included it in their advertising.
| james-skemp wrote:
| > Some even included it in their advertising.
|
| I'm really curious what the language/spin was to make
| _that_ something that was included in the advertising.
| armchairhacker wrote:
| I think that, instead of saying "you're not lazy", we should take
| the stigma away from laziness and say "you are lazy, but don't
| feel bad". Laziness is a character trait present in all humans,
| some more than others, and we should acknowledge it and work to
| become less lazy, without punishing it or being ashamed of it.
|
| You are "lazy" if you don't do something that would benefit you
| because it's too much effort. That sounds reasonable, right?
| Except according to this article, you're not lazy, you have
| "internal resistance." Or in similar articles, you're not lazy if
| you have depression or ADHD, because it's your mental illness.
|
| But then, who _is_ lazy? Where do we draw the line when someone
| is depressed vs. merely sad, or ADHD vs. merely inattentive?
| Moreover, since you can 't always tell of someone has a mental
| illness and you definitely can't see "internal resistance", you
| technically can't state that anyone is lazy.
|
| Now, I don't want to attack people with mental illnesses. If you
| have depression or ADHD or burnout or are overwhelmed, you're not
| a bad person. But you are lazy. Calling it something else is just
| beating around the bush.
|
| Instead, we as a society need to change how we look at laziness.
| Just because you're lazy, doesn't mean you should punish
| yourself, or consider yourself "worse" than someone with more
| discipline. Don't even try to just "power through" the laziness.
| None of those things work, and often actually lead to more
| laziness. Honestly, the author does a good job explaining what
| you _should_ do. But - if you 're lazy, you're lazy, and calling
| it something else like "internal resistance" is just sugar-
| coating it.
| hypertele-Xii wrote:
| > work to become less lazy, without punishing it
|
| But to laziness, work _is_ punishment.
| armchairhacker wrote:
| See, that's a fallacy people believe which prevents them from
| acknowledging their laziness. The key is to work smarter, not
| harder.
|
| Some things, such as getting fit or studying, are going to
| take effort. But the effort is an unintended side-effect of
| the work, not the goal. In my experience, if you work towards
| the solution and not think of it as "putting in X effort",
| the perceived effort is a lot less.
| jokoon wrote:
| It's weird how we don't want to admit we are overworked.
| Competition is such a horror show.
|
| I really disagree with the whole "procrastination" thing. It's
| normal to feel depressed, it's part of nature of being tired, our
| brains are fragile and require a lot of energy and sleep.
|
| I bet that I would generally would be much happier working at a
| moderate pace in a farm rather than using my brain to do some
| other complex thing.
|
| I went to do some military training for 2 weeks, it was quite
| difficult and demanding, but in a way, it has the good stuff of a
| holiday: you're outside, you use your arms and legs, you have no
| time to use your brain which often demands more energy.
|
| Do you really understand how stressful it is for a brain to
| perform programming? Our bodies are not made to sustain such
| mental effort. Brains are small but they consume a lot of energy
| to function.
| laurent92 wrote:
| In 2010 I went to prune trees in Australia. Immediately, my
| depression stopped. Almost as if using the full body made
| everything better than using only the brain and speaking to a
| computer all day.
| jdgoesmarching wrote:
| It's funny how many tech people are getting into trades or
| very manual hobbies. I keep ending up at the page for my
| local community college's woodworking program. Most of my
| hobbies now are DIY projects.
| balfirevic wrote:
| It sounds to me like it's not an entirely fair comparison.
| Pruning trees full-time for 10-15 years would be more
| comparable.
|
| I don't claim to know if conclusion would be different or the
| same, though.
| marttt wrote:
| +1, I've been an on-and-off brush cutter and tree planter for
| several years. I can fully confirm this: physical work
| outdoors does wonders to mental health.
|
| The interesting part is that I can be _really_ exhausted from
| a day in the woods, struggling to somehow get to the car, etc
| -- but after 7-8 hours of decent sleep, all of this is gone!
| No muscle pains next morning, no nothing. It is incredible
| how well our body can handle and cure physical stress.
|
| Coping with mental exhaustion or overwork, however, seems to
| be _way_ harder for me -- to the point of ruining the next
| day entirely. A deep explanation of this deviation (our
| abilities for physical recovery vs mental recovery) would be
| really interesting.
| zwayhowder wrote:
| One thing I found when I worked on farms clearing paddocks
| or putting up fences was you always had a sense of
| accomplishment. You could look back at your days effort and
| see it while you had a cold drink.
|
| I work 18 hours on a presentation for the exec at work and
| the next day it is like it never happened. I never get the
| real mental pay off that I would get if I spent 18 hours
| clearing a paddock.
| myself248 wrote:
| Concur 100%. I've always made sure my work has some
| physical component. Even if that's just soldering, I need
| to use my hands and know that something is different
| tomorrow because I did this work today.
|
| The quickest way to crush someone's spirit is to make them
| feel that their work is for nothing. Making prisoners break
| rocks in the prison yard, for instance. Or pushing
| spreadsheets and git commits endlessly, to no tangible
| change.
| marttt wrote:
| > I need to use my hands and know that something is
| different tomorrow because I did this work today.
|
| Mhm, in physical work, you _always_ see a result -- even
| if it 's a mess or failure. You get direct, no-bullshit
| feedback every single day. Mental work, in contrast, most
| typically ends in an abstraction: you work all day long
| and there _is_ a result, but you can 't always _see_ it
| the way you see a planted tree in the forest.
|
| Yup, I'm a primitive creature, devastatingly tied to the
| simplest of my senses: seeing, hearing, touching.
| coldtea wrote:
| > _It 's weird how we don't want to admit we are overworked._
|
| Or that evolution works to make big changes in cycles of 1000s
| of years, and that 6 million years of hominin evolution out in
| nature in accordance with pre-electricity natural day cycles
| (and more malleable schedules), are not compatible with the
| mandatory:
|
| (1) ass in the chair,
|
| (2) looking at a screen,
|
| (3) working with abstract information,
|
| (4) 9 to 5, 5 days a week,
|
| (5) inside an interior environment
|
| (6) with technical lighting"
|
| that's been "the norm" for a large part of the population since
| the 60s...
|
| (or with factory-style work, that's been imposed on populations
| since the 18th century).
| goodpoint wrote:
| > (4) 9 to 5, 5 days a week,
|
| A lot of people work more than 40 hours a week, plus
| additional time spent learning and so on...
| coldtea wrote:
| Which just makes it worse. And then there are commutes and
| so on to add to that.
|
| But I wanted to state the minimum typical requirement, and
| show it's bad enough already.
| jcims wrote:
| IMHO the problem with programming isn't the total stress on the
| brain, it's that there is very little observable output of all
| of that effort.
|
| I spent some time working with commercial HVAC and some of the
| problems there were on par with the most difficult technical
| problems I've worked through in information systems. The
| difference is that, with HVAC, all of that effort results in an
| outcome that connects with the limbic system in a way that
| doubling throughput or halving latency doesn't.
| _moof wrote:
| Indeed. It's amazing to me that in all the conversations about
| work/life balance, employers never consider the mind-blowingly
| innovative option of _working less._
|
| Instead we all get free subscriptions to meditation apps now.
| Thanks for the stopwatch. Can I go outside now?
|
| I left the software industry for several years to do a job that
| required getting up and moving around, leaving the building,
| interacting with people... it was tiring, but in a much
| different way than programming. A much better way, if that
| makes any sense. It's difficult to describe. But I'm convinced
| that office work is poison at the doses we take it.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| Unpopular opinion: I'll continue to work hard and have an
| advantage over others (not literally with my coworkers, but
| generally in my profession). Competition drives me and it fuels
| everything I do. Without it, I don't want to live anymore.
| Working and solving problems is extremely fun for me.
|
| Even if I am not writing code, fixing things in the house,
| personal projects, helping others, just _doing_ something is
| fun and challenging.
| ramphastidae wrote:
| I don't think the downvotes are fair here, but I'd just like
| to mention that this is basically what everyone in the early
| stages of burnout says ... just be careful not to attach so
| much of your self-image to your work ethic, because over a
| long enough timeline, you will get screwed over many times
| unfairly despite working harder and doing things better than
| everyone else, and that may deeply shock you based on your
| opinion above.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| I've been doing this for 20 years and haven't faced
| burnout. Quite peaceful mentally and physically fit. It is
| precisely not about self image for me.
|
| Competition is inherent to human experience. Watching
| sports wouldn't be popular otherwise.
|
| A world where everyone not competing to be their best would
| be an extremely depressing place.
| nzmsv wrote:
| In before the other comments to this effect:
|
| - You are weak
|
| - Your grandparents had it worse
|
| - Think of the people working for minimum wage
|
| - Some of us actually love programming so much we will happily
| sacrifice our health; this choice is morally superior because
| we say so
|
| - I haven't had a vacation in 20 years and neither should you
|
| /sarcasm off
| n8cpdx wrote:
| I really like society as it is. I, as rare as it is, identify
| as a neoliberal and I generally am invested in how things
| are. I like to see people working hard, I work hard myself,
| and aside from wanting a larger safety net, largely value the
| idea of a competitive market for labor.
|
| Those ideas, I suspect much more prevalent on HN than other
| sites, lead to defensiveness when antiwork or work-critical
| ideas are shared. Arguments about grandparents and weakness
| are generally missing the point or intellectually dishonest,
| and I know because I've made those arguments/comments many
| times.
|
| Looking past that defensiveness, I have a hard time arguing
| that everything above isn't right; modern work is taxing and
| when you're trying to work 8+ (I naturally tend towards 10+)
| hours a day, stay healthy, and also pursue hobbies and
| personal development, it is no surprise that people are
| breaking down.
|
| I want to see more serious engagement with efforts to make
| work more sustainable for people, ideally without limiting
| burnout. Maybe the right answer is to just do less, but I
| want to have my cake and eat it too.
| courtf wrote:
| Appreciate this comment, thank you.
|
| For many years I had a sort of ruthless determination to
| get ahead and work hard. It mostly helped me back then, as
| many obstacles then were the sort that could be brute-
| forced, and it was addictive in a way as well. I could feel
| myself improving, could see the progress happening etc. I
| made lots of money for a while, got myself and my husband
| ahead in life etc.
|
| A few things happened that sort of scuttled my motivation.
| The intrinsic rewards for the hard work I was doing stopped
| arriving. In order to keep progressing personally, I would
| need to engage in ever more competitive search for
| fun/challenging work. The competitive aspect might have
| excited me in the past, but I had by then been shafted one
| time too many by petty politics and discrimination to feel
| much interest in engaging with that aspect of the industry.
|
| I could keep doing senior engineer work, mobile/backend
| whatever, and occasionally find some new topic to excite
| me, but often spend most of the time rehashing similar
| ideas, or cleaning up other people's messes. So I burned
| out, took some time to address my depression and have
| gotten myself back together mentally, for the most part
| (some amount of madness is crucial to hold onto).
|
| But even now, when I look at new programming things I could
| work on, I can't help but see them all as simply paths back
| into a world that has lost its luster, full of people and
| situations that waste my time and energy. I can still work
| hard and build good software, but I just don't see why I
| should when it will inevitably lead me back to a place that
| almost destroyed me. Maybe that isn't true, maybe I should
| be better about forgetting the past and not presuming what
| my new experiences will look like. I'd love to be that
| foolish again someday, but I just can't afford to take that
| kind of risk anymore.
|
| My temporary solution has been to work on stuff that isn't
| programming, to become like a beginner again in some other
| field. Philosophy, political science, history,
| anthropology, classic literature and others have been great
| to explore on my own and I've grown from these
| explorations. So now I'm getting my rewards from new
| sources. I still have the urge to make money, like a
| survival instinct, but I'm fortunate to have a decently
| stable life raft that I can float on for the time being.
| thecoppinger wrote:
| This really resonated with me, thank you.
|
| "Some amount of madness is crucial to hold onto"
|
| I think I would like this as my epitaph.
| tonyedgecombe wrote:
| >I like to see people working hard
|
| That's the problem I have with neoliberals, they want to
| impose their ideology on the rest of us.
| nzmsv wrote:
| My own view is this: money is a metric that our society
| uses as a measure of usefulness of a certain individual for
| others in the collective. Like any metric, it is imperfect
| and doesn't capture nuance very well.
|
| When you optimize for any metric, be it lines of code or
| bank account balance, you generally get suboptimal results.
| Doesn't mean the metric is useless. It's just not the only
| source of truth.
| _moof wrote:
| > I like to see people working hard, I work hard myself
|
| Yeah, see, this right here is the problem. There's this
| belief that people objecting to current norms and standards
| around work constitutes "not working hard," which is a non
| sequitur.
|
| In my experience most people want to work. They just don't
| want to do it on the terms currently laid out for them--
| terms that employers like to pretend are inviolable laws of
| nature, not choices they make and are responsible for.
| myself248 wrote:
| I'm not anti-work, I'm anti-toil.
|
| The industrial revolution was supposed to free humankind
| from backbreaking labor and usher in an era of comfortable
| enlightenment.
|
| Instead, we got rampant inequality, environmental
| devastation, sociological manipulation, and the internet of
| shit. (Whose true effects we won't see until Cranky Bear
| decides to show us all at once.) And huge numbers of people
| still toil 50+ hours a week to keep their head barely above
| water.
|
| Work is fine, but the systems surrounding work have robbed
| us.
| spicyusername wrote:
| This article first says that this phenomenon is not "something
| that's wrong with us or our behaviour, something that needs to be
| controlled, eradicated, tamed, left behind or put in its place."
|
| Then it immediately defines a new term "internal resistance"
| that's exactly defined as something that's "a part of us" and
| explains how to work around it or "tame it".
| gala8y wrote:
| Maybe it isn't to clear, but the author tries to go in the
| direction of not fighting it.
|
| > 1. Recognise that internal resistance is on your side. Part
| of what is so awful about the cycle-of-not-doing-the-thing is
| that it feels so self-destructive. But internal resistance does
| not want to destroy us; it literally wants the opposite! It
| only exists to protect us from pain.
|
| also
|
| > There's another reason why I think we should treat internal
| resistance as a form of wisdom rather than a malevolent
| opponent. It holds a lot of knowledge about what we secretly
| believe we might be able to do.
|
| I think it is very beneficial to see this 'Resistance' as a
| force inside you, mostly trying to keep the status quo, for
| your benefit, unfortunately sometimes to the point of halting
| you in all things possible.
|
| Maybe I am reading to much into this article with my already
| set up view, but my view is to recognize this part in us, that
| does not want things done/changed and acknowledge its existence
| (which we often want to ignore, bypass), explore possible
| why's. This can be a really intimate experience, the a-ha
| moment. The first (and most important step) would be
| acknowledgment of its existence.
| zepto wrote:
| I think the article does just set up a new pathology. Your
| read is much more benign.
|
| The article's set up is actually quite harmful and
| disempowering. It identifies resistance as a bundle of fears
| and pain to be overcome in order to be able to 'just do' the
| thing you are trying to do.
|
| Obviously sometimes fear and pain do exist, and acceptance
| and awareness of them makes it easier to move forward.
|
| However most of the time I have found that the reason people
| find themselves 'resisting' things they want to do is that
| they lack some pragmatic knowledge of what the next step
| should be and how to incorporate the overall goal into
| whatever else they are doing. People who have learned that
| resistance means they need to let go of fear or pain can get
| caught in a loop of looking for emotional blocks where none
| exist, rather than just educating themselves on the problem.
|
| 'You aren't lazy, you just haven't done the necessary prep
| and planning to make the thing you want to do feel
| straightforward' might be just as useful advice.
| gala8y wrote:
| > Your read is much more benign.
|
| I think I wanted to see more in this article. I think the
| idea of acknowledging this part of us and seeing it as a
| positive force is not conveyed clearly enough, but it's
| there.
|
| > 'You aren't lazy, you just haven't done the necessary
| prep and planning to make the thing you want to do feel
| straightforward' might be just as useful advice.
|
| Yes. This would be a subset of "it's too difficult
| (emotionally, organizationally, in terms of ability/skill)
| for me to do all this stuff the way I never did before" -
| emotions of discomfort arise (said 'Resistance') and boom,
| you are back to square one (edit: ...of not doing things).
| zepto wrote:
| > and boom, you are back to square one.
|
| What do you mean by back to square one?
| naasking wrote:
| > The article's set up is actually quite harmful and
| disempowering. It identifies resistance as a bundle of
| fears and pain to be overcome in order to be able to 'just
| do' the thing you are trying to do
|
| I didn't read that at all. The author is suggesting you
| acknowledge and face those feelings and what they may be
| trying to tell you about how you feel about your goals or
| work.
|
| Sometimes the fears are that your effort will be pointless
| and unrewarded. In that case, assuming those fears are well
| grounded, the author suggests rethinking your plans and not
| necessarily trying to overpower your resistance.
|
| That matches my experience in some cases, though obviously
| not all.
| [deleted]
| joombaga wrote:
| I'm sorry, I don't get it. I want to accomplish tasks.
| "Internal resistance" is the label we're putting on the
| mental phenomenon preventing me from doing so. It is
| something I want to fight. When I do accomplish my tasks,
| it's because my internal resistance is not there to fight
| back. But if I had a way to fight it when it's there (e.g.
| medication with manageable side effects) then I would use it.
| I'd wield that weapon.
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