[HN Gopher] Call yourself titles
___________________________________________________________________
Call yourself titles
Author : josem
Score : 128 points
Date : 2023-03-25 15:11 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (josem.co)
(TXT) w3m dump (josem.co)
| Simon_O_Rourke wrote:
| I've been calling myself an astronaut since I was five, and all
| it's done is having morphed into others calling me a space cadet
| once I hit my 20's.
| lelanthran wrote:
| The big question ... Did you actually get the space cadet
| keyboard to match your nick?
| dylan604 wrote:
| My dad always told me the reason I was so fascinated with space
| was because I had so much of it between my ears. Gee thanks
| dad!
| rizzom5000 wrote:
| This is funny, but in common parlance if someone tells me they
| are an athlete; then I'm expecting they are either some sort of
| a athletic scholarship or are paid or sponsored in some way.
| Otherwise there is some strong probability that I will think
| they are a bullshitter.
| xlii wrote:
| I discovered quite opposite way for me enjoying the hobbies.
|
| E.g.: The fact that I enjoy photography and want to occasionally
| take out photo equipment doesn't make me photographer. The fact
| that I enjoy making contribution to OpenStreetMaps doesn't make
| me a cartographer.
|
| In the end, I can enjoy hobbies "sparsely" and I don't have to go
| all in nor frame myself in the role. Thus, article's advice would
| contribute to hobby burnout, thus - I don't need to be X to enjoy
| Y.
|
| With post topic: I don't need to be an athlete in order to enjoy
| going to a gym, I find being amateur works better most of the
| time (as sometimes it's always good to embrace the title).
| nigamanth wrote:
| If we believe in ourselves, our confidence increases, which
| increases our performance.
|
| The same way, if we don't, then we won't reach our full
| potential. This is why the concept of depression is so
| frightening, because once you stop believing in yourself, your
| performance goes down, which stars a vicious cycle that makes you
| think of yourself negatively.
| steven_pack wrote:
| This is similar advice to one of the Atomic Habits chapters about
| identity. You might find it a chore to go the gym if you frame it
| to yourself that way. But if you call yourself an athlete, or
| just "i'm a fit person" and that becomes part of your identity,
| it's easier to do. Works for me so far.
| croo wrote:
| I read a similar method called shapeshifting which tries to one
| up this game. You need several titles and persons you know that
| are good in it then shapeshift into that identity on demand -
| eg on the night you gonna present an hour lecture for your
| peers give yourself the identity of a great presenter.
|
| I never put it into practice I just find the idea interesting
| :)
| mmcclure wrote:
| I thought about Atomic Habits when I read this too. The flip
| side that I think was also interesting to me was a few chapters
| later when the author talks about not letting any single
| identity become too overpowering.
|
| > Avoid making any single aspect of your identity an overall
| proportion of who you are. Keep your identity small. The more
| you let a single belief define you, the less capable you are of
| adapting when life challenges you.
|
| (I think a piece of that is a PG quote iirc)
| gabereiser wrote:
| I'm all for the ideas behind this but the reality is, just
| because you go to the gym, you aren't an athlete. People who are,
| won't recognize you as such and you calling yourself one before
| you _are_ usually alienates you from that group you are trying to
| become.
|
| Call yourself one internally. Don't be public about it until
| someone else acknowledges it. You can convince yourself and
| that's all that is required to have the OP effects outlined in
| the article. Just don't go to the gym and tell the front desk
| you're there to "train" like you compete in athletic competitions
| (origin of athlete) when you brought in your 40lb weight in your
| stomach.
|
| I highly encourage anyone to try things. If you want to become an
| athlete or an artist. Call yourself one inside, internally, or
| write it down, post it's or journals, just don't go around in
| public with this "emperor's new clothes" mentality.
| arcanus wrote:
| I'm against gatekeeping. Visualize success. Be who you want to
| be.
|
| The sooner I called myself a scientist in life, the better.
| gabereiser wrote:
| Yeah, I'm all against gatekeeping too. If I called myself a
| scientist and I didn't have a degree (yet) would I still be
| recognized as a scientist? That's all I'm saying. So long as
| you _identify_ as one and pursue it, you'll become one. If
| you do the courses and earn it then welcome to the fold. I am
| not about to call myself an astrophysicist simply because I
| have an affinity for space and know the classifications of
| stars. That's my point.
| throwaway675309 wrote:
| Agree. Reminds me of the quote, "going to church doesn't make
| you a Christian anymore than living in a garage makes you a
| car".
|
| If you feel compelled to label yourself as X, then you're
| probably not actually X.
| 2h wrote:
| > calling ourselves with the new title very early in the process
|
| AKA lying. I have total respect for someone who wants to improve
| their life, but you dont need to lie, just be honest with
| yourself and others. the author even admits to it:
|
| > We become a runner when we start running a few days a week. An
| amateur one, a beginner in the world of runners, but a runner
| nonetheless.
|
| so you are not a "runner". you are an "amateur runner". and thats
| totally fine! I personally am an amateur runner. I dont go around
| telling people I am a runner, because at the end of the day, all
| I would be doing is lying to others, and lying to myself. Its OK
| not to be perfect at something from the beginning. just stick to
| it and try hard. when you really feel you've stepped up to that
| next level, then sure, go ahead and remove the "amateur".
| [deleted]
| MrPatan wrote:
| "Lying to ourselves" is arguably one of the main functions of
| our brains, and one of the reasons we ended up with such big
| brains at all.
|
| Who would object to using this built-in capability for positive
| purposes for once? Baffling.
|
| Remember, it's not a lie if you believe it
| klabb3 wrote:
| A wise man I know once said that the difference between man
| and animal is that while some animals like apes CAN be
| indoctrinated (the banana experiment) humans WANT to be
| indoctrinated.
| codazoda wrote:
| I disagree. Amateur runners are runners.
|
| I was able to run two Ragnar relay races, even though I'm a
| 275lb dude, partially due to this idea. I don't run anymore
| because of continued injury but I became a runner and did so
| for over a year. It likely helped my fitness tremendously. And,
| I wasn't lying to myself or anyone else. I was running three
| times a week and competed in two races. I was learning and
| designing my own interval running patterns. I was a runner.
| maxk42 wrote:
| I noticed you said "was" and not "am". I think that's the
| point others here are making. You put in the work and did
| what it took to become a runner. However, the author of the
| article is advocating calling yourself a runner once you've
| gone on one or two runs. That's not the same. The point of my
| first sentence being that you don't call yourself a runner
| when you're not running regularly and perhaps others
| shouldn't either.
| karaterobot wrote:
| I like the spirit of this advice, but I disagree with it for
| myself. I don't find that identifying as a role helps me commit
| to that role. And one of the most insufferable kinds of people is
| the one who says "I'm an artist" or "I'm a writer" or "I'm an
| entrepreneur" and it feels like an affectation, because they
| haven't actually sold a painting, or written a book, or started a
| business. Or, they've done these things half-heartedly, once, a
| long time ago. I'm not standing athwart the dictionary and
| declaring who is and who isn't what, I'm saying _I_ wouldn 't do
| that, personally, because I'd feel like I was insulting people I
| admire if I adopted their titles without feeling I'd paid the
| dues.
| MrPowerGamerBR wrote:
| I think a better way to think about it is instead of adopting
| the title outright, think about "what would an
| athlete/writer/artist/etc do in this situation?" instead
| throwaway675309 wrote:
| This is a ridiculously pretentious article with absolutely zero
| substantial evidence behind it. Furthermore I would actually
| argue this would probably have the opposite effect because it
| sounds very similar to a study that demonstrated if you brag
| about a project you want to work on, you're significantly less
| likely to finish it.
| toothrot wrote:
| Eschew labels, be yourself, be free.
| seattle_spring wrote:
| Please don't let all of those bootcamp grads calling themselves
| CEO of their personal projects see this article.
| a3w wrote:
| In my head, I call myself batman.
|
| I do not know yet, if that helps. But it should stop me from
| doing nonsense.
| Dazzler5648 wrote:
| I'm going to call myself a developer. Can't hurt!
| Bob2077 wrote:
| It's inspiring to see how embracing our new roles can positively
| influence our decisions and motivate us to stay consistent in our
| endeavors. This mindset shift can help us cultivate resilience,
| patience, and persistence, qualities that are essential for
| overcoming challenges and achieving success.
| johndhi wrote:
| Hmm. The meditation lineage I come from would suggest that
| identifying myself with external names is more counter productive
| than productive. Like most things I guess it depends how you do
| it and whether you get addicted to it.
| LeoPanthera wrote:
| United airlines once set my title to "Lord" in a mistake I can't
| even begin to comprehend, and I briefly thought this article was
| going to be about that kind of thing.
|
| I did have one fun flight though, during which I did not feel the
| need to immediately correct them.
| Kirr wrote:
| There is a dark side to this advice. Try calling yourself a
| thinker, a visionary, an ideas guy, a philosopher. Soon you start
| believing it, then it gets to your head and inflates your ego
| (already gigantic to begin with). And now your peers (or god
| forbid subordinates) are on a whole new level of misery when they
| have to deal with you.
| seattle_spring wrote:
| See: every other post on LinkedIn for an example of this in
| action.
| mise_en_place wrote:
| I've also learned it's ok not to be in the top percentile for
| that title. You don't have to be David Goggins or Jocko, but you
| can apply their techniques to your own athletic program.
|
| Similarly, when working with a trainer, I don't let them dictate
| everything, even when it comes to strength programming. I choose
| what works for me.
| nicbou wrote:
| I'd argue for the opposite. Don't call yourself titles. Keep your
| identity small [1]. Actions speak louder than words anyway. A
| writer writes, and a painter paints. It's easy to call yourself
| either of those things, and make up excuses not to produce
| anything.[2]
|
| [1] http://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html
|
| [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sz4YqwH_6D0
| klabb3 wrote:
| Hadn't read that Graham post but it's spot on (and very HN,
| lol).
|
| That said, it's not easy to see why he's "right" if you're
| operating under external validation. Getting out of that
| mindset is, imo, the most difficult challenge. I've had friends
| who have struggled for many years and want to change, yet are
| sucked back in. It doesn't exactly help that society is
| oriented towards that axis.
|
| Saying "don't do that" isn't very effective. Instead, I think
| it's better to express those ideas more clearly and see where
| it takes you. For instance, "I want to be recognized by my
| peers because..." and then follow along until you realize that
| you just want to be accepted and belong, and that's ok. But
| then you'll find it substantially easier and "truer" to find
| good people, instead of impressing a bunch of strangers who
| don't care about you even if you're cool. And _then_ focus on
| how you're gonna spend the rest of your time without worrying
| about other peoples judgments.
| andersentobias wrote:
| I think a big part of my personal development is not attaching my
| identity or self-worth to existing or established hierarchies.
| That's just status-seeking.
|
| Like, if you studied math or CS, or studied to become a MD...
| Maybe you're prone to take yourself to seriously because of it.
| There is and will always be a feedback loop in society because we
| are all humans and always seeking attachment (in the
| psychological sense) to other humans.
|
| I have self-worth because I do not try to justify it relative to
| something I do not control, like a Ivy Leage graduating class,
| FAANG, or whatever, but instead of accepting myself as I am.
|
| Thoughts?
| roflc0ptic wrote:
| Yeah, I think identifying into roles is unwise in the long
| term. In addition to the benefits author cites, it also tends
| to distort one's thinking in bad ways: if you identify into
| something, threats to your status in that thing matter. It's
| obvious in political identities, but more subtly true in other
| ways.
| cutemonster wrote:
| I think so too, and, sounds like:
|
| "Keep your identity small",
| http://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html
|
| I wonder if you've read it
| mikrl wrote:
| Same and so it is with most of my favourite people to work
| with: those who are very technically competent, collaborative
| and with amazing personalities.
|
| Unfortunately, this is a losing strategy in corporate
| environments and you will be outcompeted and replaced by
| relatively average and territorial status seekers.
|
| No I still don't play the game, yes I wish I could turn off the
| "ick" and just do it.
| dasil003 wrote:
| > _Unfortunately, this is a losing strategy in corporate
| environments and you will be outcompeted and replaced by
| relatively average and territorial status seekers._
|
| This is not universally true. I would agree that overall
| things trend in this direction over time, but as long as a
| company is still growing and has the opportunity to win in
| the market, then collaborative doers can still beat talkers.
| Of course, politics are still the inevitable consequence of
| trying to coordinate thousands of people to figure out and
| execute on the right priorities without any individuals
| having anything close a full picture. If you're more of a
| heads-down thinker and builder then it's true you will be at
| a disadvantage against the social climbers--in the short run.
| But over time, provided the right feedback channels, the
| doers reputation tends to increase, while the talkers
| reputation decreases. Bullshit detection is 90% of the job of
| upper management in large corporations, it's a tough job and
| rare skillset, but when done right it results in an
| environment where good work and honest collaboration is
| possible and celebrated.
| klabb3 wrote:
| > most of my favourite people to work with: those who are
| very technically competent [...]
|
| I'm similar but I would say that being curious is the
| fundamental trait, and competence usually falls out as a side
| effect. It's always fun to be around curious people,
| sometimes especially if they're not experienced.
| bee_rider wrote:
| I think there's a tendency to self-describe as an X and start
| throwing around the lingo of X, to stave off concerns that we
| don't really know what's going on under the hood. Fake it 'till
| you make it.
|
| Personally I have an aggressively bad brain for lingo, so I try
| to get people to describe what they want in little words. If
| actually describing what they want in easily understood terms
| _just happens_ to clarify things, well that's a nice side
| effect!
| candiddevmike wrote:
| Loving and accepting yourself benefits a lot of things around
| mental health. The phrase "you're your biggest critic" is too
| true.
| waboremo wrote:
| I agree with this, but I also don't believe that it's an
| exclusive alternative to what the blog is suggesting.
|
| Part of the path of acceptance is also accepting what your
| roles are in your life. These roles aren't about what is
| projected onto you, which is where a lot of the internal strife
| stems from, but instead how you are trying to see yourself.
|
| The blog mentions titles like "writer", and it's a great
| example of a role. You should absolutely refer to yourself as a
| writer if that's what you're doing. If you're in marine biology
| you should absolutely call yourself a marine biologist. You
| aren't status seeking here, you are recognizing part of your
| identity.
|
| The important bit of that is "part of your identity". You
| aren't "just" a writer or a marine biologist, so what other
| roles are core to your identity? Maybe you're a caretaker too.
| Again these are all parts of your identity and recognizing them
| isn't a bad thing, actually the bad part stems from the
| miscommunication.
|
| Often when people are meeting each other, they will single out
| the larger part of their identity, for simplicity sake. We
| misinterpret this and believe that they are just that one role
| and project all past ideas of their role onto them. Jake is no
| longer Jake the writer and other mysterious roles I don't know
| about yet - he just becomes Jake the writer. Remedying this
| miscommunication involves recognizing how all identities are
| formed of parts, not a lack of identity, so we can then start
| viewing others as the complex beings they are.
|
| So what roles do you play in life?
| DeathArrow wrote:
| > Thoughts?
|
| Some of the greatest achievers in human history like great
| scientists or artists were very modest. Some were the opposite
| and liked to brag.
|
| It does not matter much if you brag or not, if you have titles
| or not. What matters is if you achieved something important.
|
| There's a great half mad Russian mathematician who didn't take
| much part in society, lived with his mother and worked in
| complete secrecy. When the results of his works transpired
| somehow, he was awarded the Fields medal, the highest
| distinction a mathematician can get. That distinction came with
| a large amount of money. He rejected both the medal and the
| money even if he was poor. He achieved results and that is what
| matters.
|
| Depicting yourself something you are not is grave. It means
| that you are either insane or you want to deceive others.
| klabb3 wrote:
| > There's a great half mad Russian mathematician who didn't
| take much part in society
|
| Grigori Perelman, my personal hero:
|
| > A reporter who had called him was told: "You are disturbing
| me. I am picking mushrooms."
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grigori_Perelman
| DeathArrow wrote:
| I didn't want to nominate him. People here can be nasty.
|
| Anyway, guy is a lunatic from a legal or social perspective
| and a genius otherwise.
|
| Why can't people and the media respect his privacy?
|
| He doesn't have a signed contract with society to produce
| math.
| Tade0 wrote:
| I generally agree, but personally I don't think I have that
| much control over what is the source of my self worth.
|
| I mean, it was enough for me to spend a few months in 2020 on a
| contract where I had easily 4x my previous rate to forever
| shift my self-percepction.
|
| I've become a temporarily embarrassed high-rate contractor and
| I can't help it. Kinda shallow, but it's interesting that this
| feeling persists after three years.
|
| It wasn't even a high rate by SV standards - just really high
| for my corner of the world.
| jcutrell wrote:
| Lots of comments here are casually dismissing a ton of
| psychological research on this topic out of a sense of what looks
| like philosophical or intellectual superiority. That's too bad;
| this is unusually prevalent in our industry. When do you earn the
| title of software engineer? When you've written code? When you
| get paid for it? When you've published to ACM? When you make a
| million dollars off of an idea?
|
| Humans use labels all the time. A title is just a label with some
| shared cultural meaning. Anything else you load onto it is
| arbitrary, and withholding those labels until that arbitrary
| threshold is met is just as silly as assigning the title when
| nothing is done whatsoever.
| oidar wrote:
| These comments are interesting. Many commenters are noting that
| they wouldn't use a title for themselves because they haven't
| become high-level performers in that area, and that it is
| pretentious to do so. Others are saying that it is helpful for
| them in their performance in those areas.
|
| Is a beginner runner still a runner? Is it necessary to add a
| qualifier? When do they become a runner if they aren't one
| already? Why is there resistance to labeling a beginning runner
| as a runner?
|
| I think there is a vast difference between someone asking what I
| do for a living and replying "I'm a runner" versus someone asking
| "do you work out?" and replying "yeah, I like to run."
|
| However, the difference in the mindset of the person replying to
| the workout question: "I'm a runner" versus "I like to run" is
| pretty profound, especially in the beginning stages of becoming a
| runner.
|
| This effect has been explored.
|
| > Motivating voter turnout by invoking the self
|
| >Abstract: Three randomized experiments found that subtle
| linguistic cues have the power to increase voting and related
| behavior. The phrasing of survey items was varied to frame voting
| either as the enactment of a personal identity (e.g., "being a
| voter") or as simply a behavior (e.g., "voting"). As predicted,
| the personal-identity phrasing significantly increased interest
| in registering to vote (experiment 1) and, in two statewide
| elections in the United States, voter turnout as assessed by
| official state records (experiments 2 and 3). These results
| provide evidence that people are continually managing their self-
| concepts, seeking to assume or affirm valued personal identities.
| The results further demonstrate how this process can be channeled
| to motivate important socially relevant behavior.
|
| https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1103343108
|
| Additionally, affirmations (which what this particular
| intervention actually is) have been shown to be beneficial in
| many areas. This is a nice overview:
|
| >The Psychology of Change: Self-Affirmation and Social
| Psychological Intervention
|
| >Abstract: People have a basic need to maintain the integrity of
| the self, a global sense of personal adequacy. Events that
| threaten self-integrity arouse stress and self-protective
| defenses that can hamper performance and growth. However, an
| intervention known as self-affirmation can curb these negative
| outcomes. Self-affirmation interventions typically have people
| write about core personal values. The interventions bring about a
| more expansive view of the self and its resources, weakening the
| implications of a threat for personal integrity. Timely
| affirmations have been shown to improve education, health, and
| relationship outcomes, with benefits that sometimes persist for
| months and years. Like other interventions and experiences, self-
| affirmations can have lasting benefits when they touch off a
| cycle of adaptive potential, a positive feedback loop between the
| self-system and the social system that propagates adaptive
| outcomes over time. The present review highlights both
| connections with other disciplines and lessons for a social
| psychological understanding of intervention and change.
|
| https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/full/10.1146/annurev-psych...
| ethicalsmacker wrote:
| Got it.
|
| "rich, handsome, successful"
|
| Done.
| charles_f wrote:
| I'm not sure what this actually accomplishes, I can see how this
| can be counterproductive somehow. Somehow I think your giving
| yourself a title when you did not accomplish something is just
| acknowledging your own impatience and unrealistic goals.
|
| Either you actually want to become an athlete, or become an
| artist, or become a pianist, and you need to accept the
| mediocrity of beginners and the effort and commitment it takes to
| achieve something ; which you might fail at.
|
| Or you just want to exercise, draw, or play the piano, but don't
| want your life to revolve around that, not put too much energy
| into it, and accept to remain at an enthusiast level, and never
| become an athlete, artist or pianist, and there's _nothing_ wrong
| with that. And maybe at some point you 'll realize you really
| enjoy one of these and become athlete artist or pianist.
| Otherwise you can embrace your mediocrity and enjoy doing things
| for the sake of doing things rather than trying to become
| something.
|
| It feels like calling yourself early on sets the unrealistic
| expectation that you need to live up to that title, and become
| dissatisfied because athletes run everyday, artist draw everyday,
| pianist play everyday, and since you're one you ought to, but you
| don't want to so you don't like it, and what you should do for
| fun becomes a chore.
|
| Now maybe that's a framing because you really want to become
| something, and that's what carries you through pain, but I don't
| know how well that's gonna work when overdoing something will
| inevitably drive you away from it
| actionablefiber wrote:
| I feel like this is motivational when you use it on yourself and
| misleading when you use it with other people. If I call myself a
| pianist or a Japanese speaker, people will get the wrong idea of
| my skill level and be surprised and disappointed to discover I am
| a beginner.
| toxik wrote:
| Then that is not your title, it is amateur or novice pianist.
| wbazant wrote:
| Still a pianist, no?
| nohaydeprobleme wrote:
| With other people, you can give an accurate picture by
| describing specific accomplishments you've achieved.
|
| For example, with the piano, you might be able to say that you
| can consistently play a certain song from memory with
| occasional mistakes, while having trouble learning new pieces
| quickly (if you might have difficulty sight-reading).
|
| For a language, you might be able to say that you can have a
| half-hour conversation without using English/your native
| language without too much difficulty, but you can't speak about
| technical or philosophical topics, and you might still be
| working on understanding how to use certain grammatical tenses.
|
| Then, there's less reason for doubt from other people or
| yourself, as your skill level is communicated more objectively
| and less subjectively. The framing also gives you a nice clear
| path for what to work on next (for example, learning how to
| talk about a specific topic and understand a new grammar
| tense).
| tangjurine wrote:
| Author learns that you can force people to do things they don't
| want to do by giving them titles and a sense of responsibility.
| steponlego wrote:
| I don't have an engineering degree but I have called myself an
| engineer for years. I'm not licensed or bonded. But it's getting
| to be drab, everybody does this. So I stepped up my game and now
| I call my self "Doctor Professor." I'm thinking about trying on
| Father, Senator, and Colonel too.
| booleandilemma wrote:
| I think the message is positive and of course people should
| believe in themselves, etc., but at the same time, titles should
| mean something.
|
| At least prefix your title with "amateur" or just call yourself
| an enthusiast. Otherwise you're just lying to yourself and
| others, and that's how impostor syndrome starts.
|
| I like math. I read math textbooks on the weekends sometimes. I
| would never call myself a mathematician.
| jeffomatic wrote:
| I can see how this could be a helpful reframing for some folks,
| but IME centering your attention on how to title yourself can
| have the reverse effect, which is to encourage you to indulge in
| an identity that doesn't have much substance underneath.
|
| I had a phase where me and my friends all thought of ourselves as
| writers and artists. At the extreme, there was a buddy of mine
| who would answer simple questions by prefacing with, "Well, as a
| writer, I tend to X." And X would be many secondary tendencies
| you might associate with writers: look at the world differently;
| ask annoying questions at parties; overanalyze pop culture; drink
| too much caffeine; procrastinate; joke about procrastinating,
| etc.
|
| The problem is that most of us didn't do the only X that matters,
| which is to actually write. And I think we knew this on a
| subconscious level, and it was why we were so angsty all the
| time. (Being angsty is another X that writers are supposed to do,
| so it was a vicious cycle.)
|
| Writers who don't write seems like a niche phenomenon of a narrow
| and privileged set, but I feel like I see this elsewhere. I'm an
| engineer these days, and I occasionally come across junior folks
| who have a similar thing going on. Especially in bigger orgs, you
| can see people struggle for years with this: there's something
| about the job they like (perhaps what the job seems to say about
| them as individuals), but they have a hard time with the actual
| moment-to-moment work. I generally think it's not my place to
| judge people, let alone gatekeep or call people out on it, but I
| sometimes feel that I did those folks a disservice by not telling
| them: hey maybe this just isn't for you.
| danielmarkbruce wrote:
| There is also the opposite. Ie, people who seem to actually do
| a lot of a given thing, but dislike the culture of the people
| in said field and hence don't identify with them and would
| never call themselves that thing. It's probably not as common,
| but it's there.
| yakubin wrote:
| I'm often called an artist by people who know me IRL, which
| annoys me for a bunch of reasons. One is that I don't see
| myself this way. I just sometimes do stuff that is art-
| adjacent. Another is that making it a noun instead of a verb
| reduces me entirely to that one side of me and also suggests
| that it is something very stable, something that I'm going to
| be for the rest of my life, because well this is who I _am_
| after all. "I shoot photos" /"I make films"/"I write poetry"/"I
| write software" has a very different shade than "I'm a
| photographer"/"I'm a film maker"/"I'm a poet"/"I'm a software
| developer". The latter feels very reductive.
| CharlesW wrote:
| You are large, you contain multitudes. Different people will
| see you differently because your light is refracted through
| their experience with you.
| cutemonster wrote:
| I still wonder if "He (or she) is a poet ... And a software
| developer" causes a conflict to arise in many people's
| brains. They want it simple, pick _one_?
|
| Whilst "He writes software and poetry" doesn't? Or to a
| lesser extent?
|
| Personally I say I build software, not that I'm a software
| eng :-). (And that I practice the guitar ... for real)
| travisjungroth wrote:
| You can view it as a label and the nice thing about labels
| versus boxes is you can have a bunch labels at once. Labels
| and identities are also temporary. Being something doesn't
| inherently mean you'll be that way forever. I say "I was a
| pilot" since I don't fly anymore, even though I still have
| the licenses. Someday it will be that "I was a software
| engineer". Someday it will be "I was alive".
| cutemonster wrote:
| Nice that you think in that way :-) I wonder though if what
| you look at as labels, many others treat instead like
| boxes?
|
| F.ex. if they've classified you as a software engineer,
| then ... I'm thinking it doesn't occur to most people that
| you might be a writer and musician too hmm
| CharlesW wrote:
| > _I had a phase where me and my friends all thought of
| ourselves as writers and artists._
|
| The difference between this and what the article's talking
| about is that you never wrote, and you never made art. If you
| had, you could've credibly called yourself those things while
| you were doing them, even if sporadically and/or badly.
|
| > _" We become a runner when we start running a few days a
| week."_
|
| The article makes the point that it's okay to think of yourself
| as a _[title]_ once you start doing the things a _[title]_
| does. From that POV it 's not encouraging delusion, just
| generosity toward oneself.
| tpoacher wrote:
| The article actually seems to agree with you.
|
| The advice seems to be "as long as you're writing, you're
| allowed to call yourself a writer. don't have an ethereal
| unachievable standard that needs to be reached first before
| you're allowed to use the title."
| mjr00 wrote:
| > The problem is that most of us didn't do the only X that
| matters, which is to actually write. [...] Writers who don't
| write seems like a niche phenomenon of a narrow and privileged
| set
|
| Nah, I think this is super common across titles that people
| romanticize, mainly in the arts, since there's no real barrier
| to entry. (Unlike, say, claiming "I'm a lawyer" or "I'm a
| doctor.") I've seen tons of people say "I want to be/I am a
| musician" and then spend a bunch of time watching YouTube
| tutorials, hanging out in musician/producer Discords, etc. and
| not actually, you know, making music.
|
| For a lot of people, "I want to do X" actually means "I want to
| _have done_ X, " and then reap all of the benefits that comes
| from that: the sense of accomplishment, the fame, social media
| follows, whatever.
|
| These days I'm usually very suspicious of people who make big
| public pronouncements about how they're starting X task,
| whether that's going to the gym, learning guitar, building
| something in Rust, or whatever. If you wanted to do the
| activity, you'd just do it without all the pomp and
| circumstance. Every time I've seen a friend on social media
| announce they're going to start a grand new adventure, they
| fizzle out after a month or two. The ones who get shit done
| will show up to a party looking amazing and casually mention,
| "Yeah, I've been hitting the gym."
| pixl97 wrote:
| >titles that people romanticize,
|
| Very strange that right after the arts are two titles that
| are highly romanticized. Back in the days I owned my own
| business and had a sizeable medical client base, I cannot
| tell you how many doctors had to buy a BMW because their
| other doctor friend has a BMW and you're not one of the
| "doctor club" unless you own one.
|
| I come from a family heavily involved in the criminal justice
| system, and the lawyers, police, and judges I know have the
| same problems with falling in common tropes.
|
| And don't even get me started on engineers. Give them 10
| minutes and we'll tell everyone how liberal arts are the end
| of the world ;)
| scns wrote:
| Tribalism?
| TheMoonToMyLeft wrote:
| [dead]
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| > I cannot tell you how many doctors had to buy a BMW
| because their other doctor friend has a BMW and you're not
| one of the "doctor club" unless you own one.
|
| I've seen it as well.
|
| Also, medical professionals tend to only be around other
| medical professionals for most of their 20's and early
| 30's, which really helps create a kind of insular and
| closed culture. Having to match for residencies and
| fellowship doesn't help (you'll get shipped somewhere you
| know nobody and be forced to work long hours and your only
| support network will be colleagues). It's not that
| dissimilar to how a cult operates when you really think
| about it.
|
| It's no surprise they come to identify strongly with the
| tittle and will do things to fit in with the "club".
| away271828 wrote:
| > "I want to do X" actually means "I want to have done X,"
|
| I co-authored a book with someone, which ended up meaning I
| did 90% of the work and they could be prodded with
| considerable effort to contribute in a few areas and give
| feedback. But they were thrilled to have been an author and
| hand out copies etc.
|
| No real harm from my angle. I have no issue with them being a
| co-author. Doesn't hurt me. But a perfect example of this
| principle. A former boss at a small company was a somewhat
| similar example. They liked being a $X. They came to not like
| doing the work of being a $X.
| zamnos wrote:
| Yeah there have been studies that as soon as you tell someone
| about the thing you're intending to go, be it go to the gym
| or become a musician, that causes you to lose motivation. But
| in today's Instagram, pour your heart out online, hyper
| connected world, trying to build up that follower count for
| online clout world, narrating your own life is how you live
| in it. It's one thing to proclaim I'm going to go to the gym
| and become hella ripped like the Rock and then can't follow
| through, it's another thing to be a smartphone addicted
| person that's posts every time they're at the gym. Point is,
| some people _like_ the pomp and circumstance, others really
| hate the spotlight. What 'll blow your mind is the fact that
| those two groups often work together, with one person working
| behind the scenes and the other being the face of things.
| Ghostwriting isn't just about writing.
| eckza wrote:
| In short: _don 't talk about it, be about it._
| LoveMortuus wrote:
| I prefer it the other way.
|
| If you're not writing, you're not a writer, thus if you want to
| be a writer you need to write and just doing it once doesn't
| mean anything, you have to keep doing it, because if I once ate
| a vegan meal, it wouldn't mean that I'm vegan.
|
| You are what you do. While you're writing you're a writer. The
| more time you spend writing the more of a writer you'll be.
|
| If you want to call yourself a writer, you have to write.
|
| That's why I always say, judge people not for their words, but
| for their actions.
| DeathArrow wrote:
| [flagged]
| rickdg wrote:
| I'm a dabbler then, too many titles.
| rasse wrote:
| Better yet: don't limit your idea of yourself or others with
| titles and identities.
| jcutrell wrote:
| And yet, you will then adopt the identity of a person who
| doesn't limit themselves with titles and identities. It's a bit
| of a paradox but it works with how our brains operate: we use
| heuristics to understand the world. So labels will be applied
| by your brain one way or the other, and you will either
| consciously or subconsciously adopt or reject those labels, no
| matter what your chosen philosophy on the matter is.
| foxandmouse wrote:
| "Specialization is for insects". humans are capable of much more
| than being limited to a specific area of expertise. This idea can
| be a great starting point for anyone who struggles to try new
| things. However, becoming a first-principle thinker can be an
| even more powerful tool.
| rdtsc wrote:
| At a previous company as a joke on corporate bureaucracy and
| obsession with titles and climbing corporate ladders they let us
| pick our own titles: Staff Cat Wrangling Engineer E12, Architect
| XIV, etc It was kind of fun to see what people picked.
| cutler wrote:
| Wow. Great. I declare that I am now "teetotal". That was easy.
| acoleman616 wrote:
| would be good friends with james clear
| throwawaaarrgh wrote:
| I am a Senior Internet Commentator.
| jollofricepeas wrote:
| I am a billionaire.
| croo wrote:
| Fake it till you make it.
| DeathArrow wrote:
| Calling yourself titles isn't going to change the objective
| reality.
|
| Mental hospitals are full of people calling themselves titles.
| jcutrell wrote:
| Titles are not applied based on objective realities anyway,
| which is actually the point.
| DeathArrow wrote:
| Do you have any evidence to confirm this?
| jcutrell wrote:
| If you can point to a title that is _not_ backed by
| subjectivity, I'd like to know about it.
|
| The examples that tend to come up here are things like
| Lawyer or Medical Doctor. And yet, every person in those
| fields is still subjectively different from the next in
| terms of knowledge and qualification.
|
| I'm not claiming nothing objective is being used; I'm
| claiming that the title application is subjective, because
| humans determine when the title is applicable - not some
| external source.
| [deleted]
| lumb63 wrote:
| I think this principle is most useful in the negative, i.e. not
| calling oneself negative things.
|
| I recall seeing someone (I think in NY) trying to revolutionize
| math education by making certain that the concepts were easily
| graspable enough that students couldn't not get it. His idea was
| that if someone labels themselves as "not a math person", it
| becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.
|
| The labels we use to describe ourselves and others are very
| powerful and can impact our mindset and actions. We should be
| careful to use that to our advantage.
| DeathArrow wrote:
| The only true way to have a title is to be recognized by peers or
| the public. The rest is just delusion.
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| "Any man who must say 'I am king' is no true king at all."
| xyzelement wrote:
| I don't think this is about telling your titles to others but
| adjusting your self identification to align with your aspired
| values.
|
| It helps you be consistent.
|
| For example, at some point I went from "guy who happens to do
| yoga" to a "yoga guy." At that time, what would I do when landing
| in a new city? Look up a yoga studio. Because I was a yoga guy. A
| guy who happens to do yoga wouldn't necessarily do it.
|
| It's not about asserting who you are to others it's about
| facilitating your own decisions to be what you want. "a guy who's
| trying to be more active" may still eat a whole cheesecake. An
| "athlete" would not.
| djoldman wrote:
| I hope this helps people.
|
| At the same time, it feels a little bit like the secret or
| "manifesting."
| andrewflnr wrote:
| I think this is pretty close to the real mechanism that lets
| "The Secret" and its ilk appear to work.
|
| I suspect the world is full of "traditional" or otherwise
| "unscientific" beliefs where the supposed mechanism
| ("manifesting", "chi", etc) is objectively hot garbage but
| there's nevertheless a grain of truth in the inputs and
| outputs. The ones that persist today are the ones that are
| really hard to study. The relevant field here would be
| psychology; heard of this thing called "the replication
| crisis"? So I don't expect to get conclusive answers about what
| degree of truth or nonsense is in most of these ideas any time
| soon. As usual there are no easy answers, not even "science" or
| "common sense".
|
| They tend to be emotionally polarizing to boot, so probably not
| even unlimited money would solve them.
| marviel wrote:
| I really like (1) Your advice, (2) The simple formatting &
| conciseness.
|
| Have found your insights to be true for me.
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