[HN Gopher] Getting Stuff Done by Not Being Mean to Yourself (2010)
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Getting Stuff Done by Not Being Mean to Yourself (2010)
Author : herbertl
Score : 201 points
Date : 2023-05-19 23:38 UTC (23 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (openheartproject.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (openheartproject.com)
| dorkwood wrote:
| > Yesterday, I finally realized that this method would never,
| ever work. I was shocked. But it never, ever has. I've been after
| myself on this score for, what, like ten years? Had it ever
| worked once in that time, I asked myself. No!
|
| I had a similar realisation a few years ago. I used to try to
| come up with side project ideas by sitting down with a piece of
| paper and writing down every idea I could think of. Then, I'd
| decide which of these ideas seemed in the realm of possibility
| for me with my current skill set. Out of that whittled-down list,
| I'd then choose the idea that I thought would have the most
| chance of success.
|
| The problem? I could never remain motivated. It turned out that I
| had invented a formula for choosing ideas that neither extended
| my skills nor spoke to my inner curiosity. Things only changed
| when I asked myself the question "has this ever worked for me in
| the past? Even once?"
|
| I decided my new philosophy was to work on whatever I was most
| curious about -- even if it seemed way too hard for me, or if
| everyone else thought it was stupid. I haven't exactly made
| millions of dollars from this approach, but I've learned more in
| the past four years (and had more fun doing it) than I did in the
| previous 10.
|
| It makes me wonder what other things I might be doing out of
| habit that have never actually worked.
| itronitron wrote:
| >> writing down every idea I could think of. Then, I'd decide
| which of these ideas seemed in the realm of possibility for me
|
| This has actually worked well for me in the past, but the trick
| for me was to wait at least a month after an idea was written
| down before starting on it.
|
| Basically, while working on one thing, I would jot all my
| 'newer and better' ideas into a journal so that I could finish
| the current thing. After finishing the current thing I would
| read through my journal to decide what to start next, realizing
| that most of the ideas I had written down were pretty lame.
|
| The delay in time saved me from starting work on things that I
| would have abandoned soon after (albeit for good reason) and I
| developed more confidence and determination in finishing the
| things I started, since those ideas had proven themselves over
| the others.
|
| Another approach I take is to breakdown a large task into
| smaller tasks that I can complete in less than one or two hours
| since I deal with a lot of interruptions during the day. This
| allows me to recognize my progress on a task and makes it
| easier to remember the state of things at any particular
| stopping point.
| rikroots wrote:
| Discovering (in my late 20s) that I was a natural-born follower
| of Epicurus[1] was a revelation that helped solve some
| (seemingly insurmountable) mental and emotional problems I was
| going through at the time - once I realised I needed to stop
| self-imposing tasks, schedules and deadlines on myself and
| accept/work with my natural instincts towards life.
|
| I'm also, in a strange way, glad that I didn't discover
| Epicurus earlier. Choosing the more difficult path is also part
| of my personality - but I have found some incredible friends as
| a result.
|
| [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epicurus
| madaxe_again wrote:
| I spent much of my life doggedly clinging to the idea that if I
| managed to beat myself hard enough, morale would improve.
|
| It worked, insofar as it kept me going for years, and years,
| and took me places - but by the end I was a husk. This path
| leads to burnout.
|
| Post-burnout, the floggings continued until I finally got it
| through my thick skull that I was inflicting harm on those
| around me, as watching someone you love castigate themselves
| incessantly is apparently not easy.
|
| I've finally just about stopped, after a few years of therapy
| and a lot of time in nature. Turns out that the motivation I
| had as a small kid, before I was taught to be cruel to myself
| at age seven, was still there, but had been overlain with a
| system of brutality that was necessary for my survival in the
| boarding school environment.
|
| I once again find myself doing things with passion and joy,
| rather than drudgingly hauling my sorry ass through the thorns.
| hackyourbrain wrote:
| I think I started being very mean to myself at age 12. It's
| weird to find someone else who ended up in this situation. I
| hope I can go back like you did, one day :-)
| gretch wrote:
| I agree with you and have similar feelings about myself.
|
| There's a saying I like that I think captures this well -
| "strike when the iron is hot".
|
| Whenever I feel that spark swell inside of me, I drop
| everything else and immediately follow it. It's okay to put off
| the haircut or the grocery shopping or whatever other mundane
| day to day chore I had - this is what living is for.
| PikachuEXE wrote:
| I keep motivation as part of the "skill set"
| (capability/ability?) to work on something.
|
| I contribute to OSS for problems/ideas that troubles/benefits
| me the most. Sometimes it's just a bit tricky thing that
| requires some time to do the digging (e.g. dig the library and
| debug issue). Sometimes it's a feature I want on something I am
| using.
|
| I think much of the coding understanding learned by non-
| required tasks (OSS contribution included but not all) are from
| doing these kind of things bit by bit (some by reading, but
| practicing coding probably makes it much better).
|
| But not to dream about making millions or even pennies for
| doing what you are interested in. It's expectation management.
| Money does has certain kind of value, but might not be so
| aligned with your other interested sectors (e.g. fun, security,
| control of data)
| acalzycalzy wrote:
| In a sense this didn't work out for you either - financially
| anyway
| atoav wrote:
| First, finances are most of the time just a roundabout way of
| trying to be happy. So in a way doing things that make you
| happy directly instead of doing things hoping to gain money
| for that activity and then spending that money to hope to
| gain happiness will never work the same (provided you are not
| starving).
|
| Second, many people on this platform, me included, got good
| at the things they do for a living, because they did it for
| fun (and sometimes still do). Going for the fun project helps
| you learn faster and better. It might be "the wrong" thing to
| learn, but who is even able to judge that?
| beebmam wrote:
| > finances are most of the time just a roundabout way of
| trying to be happy
|
| If you consider not dying a form of happiness, sure. Seems
| overly reductive to me.
| wuiheerfoj wrote:
| I'd suggest ,most' people ,most of the time' are not on
| the brink of death due to their finances
| atoav wrote:
| I live in a nation where we consider it normal to not let
| those living around us die of starvation or illness. That
| includes me.
|
| Also: I made that caveat and you skipped right past it.
| Everything is a gradient of course. I am not suggesting
| you have to _never_ follow some discipline and _always_
| go for the fun route.
| jcadam wrote:
| I used to spend a lot of my spare time on side projects,
| thinking I'd hit on something successful eventually.
|
| Now, I'm in my 40s and I'm like "Done with work; I think I'll
| go for a walk and then take a nap."
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| _> Now, I'm in my 40s and I'm like "Done with work; I think
| I'll go for a walk and then take a nap."_
|
| I'm in my early thirties and never had any side projects.
| After busting my ass coding like hell for 6 years in
| university and after 8 hours of coding at work per day, I was
| always seeking to do non-coding activities in my free time:
| trying out new hobbies, going for a walk, having drinks with
| friends and going dancing, dating, witching a movie, jerking
| off, cooking, reading, hiking, SLEEPING! etc.
|
| This hurt my chances of getting into flashy well paying VC
| funded agile scale-ups where every applicant was a
| 20-something with a huge GitHub portfolio, but, and I hope I
| don't offend anyone, life is too short to spend my free time
| doing things I don't enjoy, just to look good in front of
| $COMPANY, that will lay you off the next day if 'line goes
| down', so I narrow my job search at companies where coding is
| done for the paycheck, not for the lifestyle.
|
| I do spend my free time sometimes tinkering with various
| linux distros and DEs, and sometimes reverse engineering, but
| moistly working on hardware projects to build to increase my
| comfort around the house like a tap-water to air apartment AC
| cooling unit for the summer. I've always been a hands-on kind
| of tinkerer, with physical things, not with code, since I
| can't touch it.
| kirso wrote:
| I think this is awesome. Side projects can be woodworking
| or selling fish after you caught it. Screw the current
| youtube side hustle conventions, do what feels right.
| vb234 wrote:
| Do you have a list of companies where employees code for a
| paycheck? Is it broadly, any company where technology is
| the main driver of revenue. I imagine coding for lifestyle
| values penetrate in these companies too.
| silent-but-taco wrote:
| Look for startups that have been bought by a big corp or
| startup style orgs spun out of a big corp. they typically
| combine the perks/permissiveness/culture of a startup
| with the benefits/lifestyle/pay of a big corp. very
| relaxing combo.
|
| Another good option is a uni gig in their tech
| department. You'll have to put up with absolutely scads
| of incompetence, probably a change control board, crap
| pay plus you'll get pay freezes during downturns, but the
| lifestyle and benefits are absurdly good -- I know people
| who show up for a couple meetings in the morning, leave
| for a three hour lunch and then go home every day -- and
| you'll usually be getting a pension. Highly recommend
| going this route when you've made your egg and are ten
| years out from retirement.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| _> I know people who show up for a couple meetings in the
| morning, leave for a three hour lunch and then go home
| every day_
|
| In which country is this? Where I live now in Europe I've
| never seen jobs that let you get away with that. Maybe
| those people you know are well connected with the bosses
| that they're allowed such lax work behavior.
| silent-but-taco wrote:
| America. Lol it's funny you think that but it's SOP for
| people working at universities.
| carlmr wrote:
| I spend my free time cooking, baking bread, climbing,
| hiking, skiing. I need something off-screen after work. All
| work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.
| jb1991 wrote:
| This person is talking about a revelation and habit changes that
| they did... yesterday. It's easy to make major changes that last
| a day or two. The trick is finding a way to change your daily
| flow in the long term, something that consistently feels right,
| indefinitely. I've created new habits and approaches to my daily
| schedule that lasted a day many many times.
| lazide wrote:
| In my experience, thinking there is some state where things
| consistently feel right and flow that is indefinite is a bit of
| a trap.
|
| It can lead to excessive sprinting and over work trying to get
| something 'fixed' which is fundamentally unstable.
|
| Life happens.
|
| Looking at it as a constant process of seeking balance, and
| getting to that state - then having it swept away - then
| repeating, can be healthier.
|
| Like a sand mandala, but our lives.
| civilized wrote:
| I have taken what feels like a strange path to more consistent
| productivity. Over the years, I have slowly lost interest in all
| my once-favored distractions. Video games went first; reading the
| news took much longer. Now, I keep at my goals because I no
| longer have any distractions that can hold my interest.
| boredemployee wrote:
| >> Once I get all my work out of the way, maybe I can do
| something fun or satisfying or just cuz.
|
| That's where I'm struggling recently.
|
| I barely find anything joyful lately. I tried many many
| "discipline" frameworks, I can commit more than 1 week.
| nicbou wrote:
| Maybe you're tired? Too much work kills your energy for
| anything remotely intellectual.
| dkarl wrote:
| I used to hate that I could never stick to things. I'd set a
| schedule for myself, feel good while I was on it, and then I'd
| fall off and go back to hating myself.
|
| One day I was making nasty fun of myself for being really good at
| starting things, and something clicked. "Sticking to" something
| is functionally same as starting it over and over again. Which
| I'm good at. Am I ever going to stop starting to work out? No. My
| only problem is that sometimes there's a significant interval
| between "stopping" and "starting." What am I doing during those
| intervals? Hating myself on one hand and also trying to whip up
| irrational confidence that the next time I start will be the time
| I actually stick with a schedule. I could dispense with those
| things and reduce the interval.
|
| It turns out I can reduce the interval between starting and
| stopping to basically nothing.
|
| This approach isn't systematic enough to produce amazing results,
| but I'm happy to now be working out 3-4 times per week, and more
| importantly, I'm happy that if I miss a few workouts, I'm back to
| normal right away instead of spending weeks or months licking my
| wounds.
|
| Later I made a connection to how people say that great athletes
| have short memories, in the sense that success and failure don't
| leave a lasting emotional mark on them. When a great athlete
| completes a difficult pass or gets it slightly wrong, strikes out
| or hits a home run, hits a shot or misses it, they process the
| information, but any sense of triumph or failure has to be gone
| in seconds _by necessity_ because it can 't be allowed to affect
| the next shot they take.
|
| I apply that attitude to a lot of my daily life. I'll have time
| to feel proud or downcast after the game is over. Right now I
| have to take my next shot.
|
| For me, I feel like that's a better emotional cadence. I don't
| instantly drop the judgment hammer on myself for a mistake. Not
| only does that stop knee-jerk emotions from wrecking my
| subsequent decisions, but my reactions at the end of the day are
| usually more moderate, thoughtful, and productive.
| wkjagt wrote:
| There's only one of these Good Things I regret never having
| succeeded at starting, and that's journaling. As I'm getting
| older, I realize there are more and more years during which I've
| been alive and it's getting harder to look back at them and make
| sense of them, or remember when a particular thing happened. I'm
| 45 now, which really isn't that old, but also not that young
| anymore. When I was younger, say 25, I had 5 years of (somewhat)
| adult life behind me, and they formed a relatively coherent and
| linear story. I now look back at 25 years of being an adult, and
| that story is now five times as long, way less coherent, and no
| longer linear, so remembering it all is becoming almost
| impossible. But the longer I live, the more often I find myself
| wanting to remember when a certain thing happened, or what my
| state of mind was at a certain point. I also have a wife and have
| three kids, so those add more stories to remember (or more
| characters in my own story).
|
| I've been thinking of catching up. To start an Excel sheet, with
| years in the left column, and then start filling in events that I
| can remember or verify with certainty (marriage, births of kids,
| buying the house, jobs, projects, travels). Hopefully this would
| trigger more and more memories that I can then fit into that
| context, until I get to a somewhat complete and coherent story of
| what's been going on until now.
|
| I think this might also make starting journaling easier because I
| would be continuing a story, instead of starting to write one at
| a random point in time.
| Wronnay wrote:
| That's one of the reasons why I started journaling back in
| 2018. I started trading with stocks in 2014, made some good
| gains but forgot how or why I initially invested in a specific
| stock.
|
| I mostly started journaling to analyse my own thought process
| in a later stage. I am now 27, started my own company last year
| and hope that my desendends one day can use my journal to see
| what things worked and which didn't - that way they may have it
| easier in their own life as they will know what to avoid and
| what can lead to success.
|
| I see it as a way to accelerate the trial-and-error process and
| this thought that it can be helpful for future generations of
| my family is something which motivates me more than anything
| else.
| j7ake wrote:
| I found the https://1secondeveryday.com/ app to be great for
| recording snippets of my day which I can look back on and
| quickly remember.
|
| There is a lot of information that can be captured in a one
| second video of your life every day for 25 years.
| bsenftner wrote:
| People need to read about Cognitive Distortions: that's the fancy
| pants term for "playing yourself", which is maintaining a
| negative or otherwise deceptive self conversation about what you
| are doing, thinking, and behaving. If you're self conversation is
| not honest, you're capable of literally anything, because your
| self deception is the vector you can be emotionally manipulated
| by irrational desires, the hypocritical values you may have been
| raised, or bad actors seeking to exploit others.
|
| All this can be avoided by seeking to audit one's own self
| conversation. If this sounds reasonable to you, I suggest you do
| a web search or ask ChatGPT about Dr. David Burns, the School Of
| Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and the checklist of common
| Cognitive Distortions (common self lies). In little more than a
| half hour of research you can begin your own self honesty
| revolution. It is HUGE and it is PERSONAL REVOLUTION that will
| remake you entirely as a significantly more rational, adept and
| capable individual.
| langsoul-com wrote:
| This approach works if the stuff you want to get done also is
| very enjoyable.
|
| Nobody wants to wash the dishes, do maintenance or clean up, but
| it has to be done.
|
| The question is how does this work for things you want to get
| done, but it's hard.
|
| Say I want to make some form of rubber duck app, but with an AI
| voice. The idea is great, I talk my programming ideas and she'd
| respond back, giving an illusion of listening. However, it's way
| more work and less immediately enjoyable than a game of Dota 2.
| atoav wrote:
| We are talking about enjoyable projects. Dota 2 might not be a
| project (unless you plan to become a pro).
|
| Doing something out of passion is a value in itself that should
| not be ignored. In music this is what often differenciates the
| true geniuses from those who are just very good: passion. If
| you have to sit down and practise an instruments for hours a
| day it totally helps if you are passionate about the
| instrument. It helps when you care about the music you are
| playing and how you are playing it. All of that can be reached
| via discipline as well, but there might be something lacking in
| the end.
|
| What is the difference between someone playing the same thing
| for 8 hours out of passion and another one playing the same
| thing for 8 hours out of discipline? It doesn't feel like work
| to the former, while it might drain everything out of the
| latter.
| j7ake wrote:
| Passion is definitely not what distinguishes the very top
| classical musicians with the tier below.
|
| At the very high end it's talent, recognisable brand, and
| having something to say to the world.
|
| At the very top, everybody works hard, but only a few are
| selected to have solo careers.
| wizzard0 wrote:
| Isn't washing dishes one of the few instantly rewarding actions
| available in todays' workspace?
|
| The feeling of warm water running over your hands, the
| immediate change, the purity that you create, the complex
| pattern of light reflecting in the water drops, the sound of
| it...
|
| To me, this is an immensely pleasant activity.
|
| Sure, if I'm in a rush, I just load the dishwasher and jump to
| other things, but otherwise this is a great time to relax and
| meditate.
|
| Compare that to waiting while the CI pipeline is chugging
| through over and over, only to end up with frustrating
| disappointment that another test started to fail, or that
| something has stuck in the cloud house-of-cards again
| boredemployee wrote:
| Man honestly, washing dishes was one of my favorite
| activities in the mid of the covid pandemic. It was like a
| therapy, where I would not be caring about looking at any
| screen or listening to all the (valid) drama.
| matwood wrote:
| You just described how to get many unpleasant things done -
| look for what is pleasant about the task. Also related is
| take pride in what you do, and being present in the moment.
| flangola7 wrote:
| This is polar opposite of my experience. The unenjoyable ones
| are precisely the tasks that I will never complete unless I am
| very kind and forgiving to myself. Beating myself bloody with
| "but it has to get done" is an exercise in hopeless futility.
| crooked-v wrote:
| On a similar note, I get a lot of "chore" tasks done by
| basically just being impulsive about them: if I have a free
| 15 minutes before a meeting or after breakfast or whatever
| and I'm feeling high-energy I'll just pick something off my
| long household to-do list and do it then. The results aren't
| all that consistent but everything gets stochastically done
| eventually.
| 2-718-281-828 wrote:
| > I will rise at 5. Meditate, 530-630. Journal 630-730. Breakfast
| 8-9,
|
| that is very ambitious if not pathologically ambitious.
|
| > Yesterday, I finally realized ... But I suggest ...
|
| s/he has been failing up until the previous day and is already
| giving public advice about how to do it better?
|
| that's not just questionable, it also shows a lack of self-
| reflection and unhealthy levels of impulsiveness.
|
| if that text wasn't 13 years old i'd suggest to the author an
| afternoon on /r/adhdmeme to have a good laugh before moving on
| with the revised plan. but back then this subreddit didn't exist
| yet and there was much less useful info on adhd available online
| or offline. so, from that angle this text might even have some
| historic raison d'etre.
| j45 wrote:
| >> I will rise at 5. Meditate, 530-630. Journal 630-730.
| Breakfast 8-9,
|
| > that is very ambitious if not pathologically ambitious.
|
| I guess that's what many parents are then? Meditating in the
| morning is one thing, for an hour, everyone can find their
| window. Same goes for an hour of journaling, and an hour of
| eating breakfast. The steps are OK, but the duration might be
| different for me.
|
| I'm a life long night owl, now morning miracling. It's
| different, waking up that early feels like still being up
| before anyone is like late at night, plus a clearer head from a
| full sleep cycle.
|
| Sometimes you accidentally fall asleep at 9, and wake up at 3-4
| without issue.
|
| I think I'm about to join the 5 am gym club, I don't even know
| who I am any more. That's the fun of continuing to discover
| things that weren't thought of as a possibility.
| [deleted]
| j45 wrote:
| >> I will rise at 5. Meditate, 530-630. Journal 630-730.
| Breakfast 8-9,
|
| > that is very ambitious if not pathologically ambitious.
|
| While that was an example of trying to do too much, waking up
| that early isn't super uncommon - I guess that's what many
| parents are then?
|
| Cultivating a healthy and positive inner dialogue is super
| important. No one is coming to help you to a greater degree
| than you picking yourself up and learning to treat yourself
| with care by being a friend to yourself. This is much different
| than being too self-involved.,
|
| Meditating in the morning is one thing, for an hour, everyone
| can find their window. Same goes for an hour of journaling, and
| an hour of eating breakfast. The steps are OK, and leave room
| to add more in.
|
| I'm a life long night owl, now morning miracling. It's
| different, waking up that early feels like still being up
| before anyone is like late at night, plus a clearer head from a
| full sleep cycle.
|
| Sometimes you accidentally fall asleep at 9, and wake up at 3-4
| without issue.
|
| I think I'm about to join the 5 am gym club, I don't even know
| who I am any more. That's the fun of continuing to discover
| things that weren't thought of as a possibility.
| hattmall wrote:
| Any tips for other night owls that helped you be able to make
| the shift to mornings? I'm being forced awake around 7 am now
| but can't fall asleep before 2-3 am. I just seem to get all
| my productive energy after about 10pm.
| dboon wrote:
| Try to spend fifteen minutes outside getting sunlight close
| to when you wake up. I've read that the day's first
| sunlight helps trigger the body's hormonal response
| resetting the internal circadian clock. Anecdotally, I like
| it! And even if it's placebo, getting a little sun to start
| the day feels nice.
| 2-718-281-828 wrote:
| do you get actually productive after 10pm? or more like
| being awake watching a movie, surfing the internet etc?
| haswell wrote:
| I'm a lifelong night owl in my late 30s and I recently made
| this transition. Here's what worked for me, YMMV.
|
| - I read "Why we sleep". Part of my issue was motivation.
| Learning more about the process of sleep and our growing
| understanding of how lack of sleep affects the brain later
| in life is eye opening.
|
| - Around the same time, I started a morning mindfulness
| habit. This was really helpful for seeing how my experience
| shifted over time.
|
| - I thought deeply about why I like staying up late.
| Realized some of this was a pattern I started as a kid,
| when the only time I could have alone was after everyone
| had gone to bed. Being a night owl helped me survive
| childhood. It wasn't clear to me that any of the old
| reasons still applied, and there were negative effects that
| were impacting my life.
|
| - I stopped consuming caffeine past 9AM. I didn't realize
| how much this was affecting me, but it turns out I'm pretty
| sensitive to caffeine and anything later in the day will
| keep me awake.
|
| - Stop using screens at least an hour before bed. This was
| hard until I found new outlets. Audio books and regular
| books have worked well for this.
|
| - I made a simple goal combo while making the change: try
| to go to bed earlier than the night before, or at least no
| later. Try to be earlier at least once/week. Ended up
| trending earlier at least several days each week.
|
| - Followed advice from the Huberman Lab sleep toolkit [0]
|
| I shifted from an average 3AM bedtime to a 9:30 wind down
| and 10:30 bedtime over about 3 months, and I've stuck with
| it for about 4 months now, with very little temptation to
| go back because of how much better I feel. I've found that
| morning solitude can feel just as good, and that the habits
| I've built in the pursuit of shifting this schedule are
| paying dividends in other aspects of my life.
|
| I had never really embraced the idea of a _consistent_
| morning routine, and when I stopped resisting that,
| everything else got easier.
|
| And I've gotten to take photos of more sunrises which is a
| nice side benefit.
|
| - [0] https://hubermanlab.com/toolkit-for-sleep/
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| _> s /he_
|
| It's a "she": https://openheartproject.com/about/
|
| _> has been failing_
|
| Not so sure about that. Read the page at the link (It's the
| "About" page on the site).
| 2-718-281-828 wrote:
| i know what you are getting at. but wrt to that article she
| self-assessedly has been failing up until then.
| cseleborg wrote:
| > s/he has been failing up until the previous day and is
| already giving public advice about how to do it better?
|
| This was my thought exactly. The internet is full of articles
| along those lines: I've been doing this new routine for 2 days,
| here are 8 pieces of advice for you.
|
| I recognize the enthusiasm for sharing new discoveries, and it
| can be inspiring, I just wish those who did would be generally
| less prescriptive about it.
| 2-718-281-828 wrote:
| it's my impression that a lot of life coaches sell a strategy
| that they themselves didn't really explore and verify and
| then basically use their customers and recipients to convince
| themselves that they know what they are talking about.
| chippy wrote:
| It's a variant of the classic book "how to make a million
| dollars" which contains the advice "sell a book giving
| instructions on how to make a million dollars by selling a
| book about the same".
|
| Here it's read life advice on the internet to be able to
| get stuff done to promote life advice on the internet.
| 2-718-281-828 wrote:
| i'm actually referring to something a bit different. i
| observed that many people seem to act especially preachy
| about certain opinions they objectively can't be truly
| convinced of (yet). my interpretation is that they
| actually preach to themselves to convince themselves.
| lazide wrote:
| That lines up with my experience as well, and I'be caught
| myself doing it too in the past.
|
| Interestingly, it can also be right, but 'new' - and just
| caught up in the excitement of learning.
|
| 90% of what everyone says (near as I can tell) is what
| we're saying to ourselves.
| 2-718-281-828 wrote:
| same here. also stumbled upon that via self-reflection.
| then observed that pattern with other people. as you say
| it's probably a normal and healthy impulse but one should
| not live it out and particularly not build a business
| around it. and yes, i also think that most communication
| is a weird form of soliloquy.
| the_only_law wrote:
| If I'm not mean to myself though, I get too arrogant.
| TheAlchemist wrote:
| That's an interesting opinion. I struggle with this a lot too.
| Would love to read some other methods people used and that worked
| out well.
| [deleted]
| fogzen wrote:
| Doing only what you enjoy prevents you from getting what you
| want, if what you want requires action you don't enjoy.
|
| If the pain of not being where you want to be is greater than the
| pain of remaining where you are, you'll take action.
|
| It's great if you enjoy what you're doing. But often we enjoy
| where we want to go more than what we have to do to get there. I
| want a clean house more than I want to clean it, which is why I
| take action to clean it every day.
|
| The problem comes when we aren't in tune with what we really
| want, and we can't make the choice about what's required of us.
| It's _okay_ to accept that you don't want to be someone who
| meditates every day. Or that you want to eat and drink more than
| you want six pack abs. Be honest about what _you_ want, without
| influence from the expectations of other people, culture, or
| tradition.
| CTDOCodebases wrote:
| > If the pain of not being where you want to be is greater than
| the pain of remaining where you are, you'll take action.
|
| Not necessarily. Some people don't feel deserving so they stay
| where they are. A victim of their own torturous mind.
|
| Also learned helplessness is a real thing.
| rpastuszak wrote:
| Some related and perhaps more practical materials on the subject:
| https://every.to/no-small-plans/how-to-do-hard-things
|
| (Incidentally a decent into to ACT)
|
| I also wrote about the subject:
|
| https://sonnet.io/posts/hummingbirds/
|
| and
|
| https://sonnet.io/posts/sit/
|
| I don't think I'm "good" at dealing with these sorts of problems
| but with the help of therapy I've developed tools to get
| gradually better.
|
| The first link deals with reframing judgements we make in a more
| productive way.
|
| The second article is a concrete case study.
|
| I hate productivity porn so I'm trying to leave the reader with
| concrete actions and sometimes more questions rather than
| answers.
| dan00 wrote:
| In way this shows what meditation has become in the western
| world, a tool to become more productive, to become a even more
| effective, harder worker.
|
| We don't get how our culture is making us sick, how we try harder
| and harder to get to the point of happiness and satisfaction, and
| never realize that this path doesn't work.
| kekebo wrote:
| Reminds me of "The Discipline of Do Easy" by William Burroughs.
| Turned into a short film by Gus van Sant:
| https://youtu.be/eoOUBETTyMI
| a_petrov wrote:
| The way I do it is the following. I daydream sometimes and paint
| a picture of myself where I want to be. That picture has been
| heavily influenced by a challenging hobby I enjoy.
|
| Two years ago by painting that picture I realized I need a
| fundamental change if I want to make it happen.
|
| I said, if you're consistent in wasting your time like that,
| let's see what will happen if you are consistent with not wasting
| your time.
|
| I identified a couple of priorities for myself. One of them is
| "income". If I need to do a task that might take me an hour to
| finish, but a week to start, I say to myself: that's part of your
| income. You need it, cut the emotions, drop the ego and do it.
|
| Surprisingly, it works for me not that bad.
|
| On the side projects, I recently counted the folders I did in
| 2023 - more than 40. Nothing live, but I keep on going because
| the picture I painted for myself is that these projects are the
| beginning of something great.
|
| I can totally relate to the author. I dropped all routine and
| started compare how my day evolves according to my fundamental
| priorities right now: health, income, hobby.
|
| All is about the motivation. People talk about goals and
| outcomes, but rarely I see someone truly questioning what they
| really want and more important - what they really don't want.
| That for me is the driver behind motivation.
| jodrellblank wrote:
| > " _If I'm not vigilant about making myself do stuff, I won't do
| anything. And my commitment to meditate is critical on every
| level._ "
|
| Alan Watts said that meditation shouldn't be a grim duty, it
| should be done for the fun of it, it should be a 'grooving with
| the eternal now'. "Getting meditation done" makes as much sense
| as "getting dancing done" or "getting music listened to" - the
| goal isn't to hurry up and finish playing music or dancing, it's
| to enjoy doing it for its own sake.
| eternauta3k wrote:
| On the other hand, I've noticed that the reluctance to meditate
| is a symptom of restlessness, and I usually feel better after
| not-so-eagerly meditating. But of course it's important to
| notice and disidentify from the reluctance, the restlessness,
| the desire to not be restless, etc.
| lazide wrote:
| That's all nice and good, but it takes _already being in a good
| place_ for that to be true.
|
| If meditation can help someone get to that place, that's a good
| thing.
| cinntaile wrote:
| Just because somebody says something doesn't mean it's the only
| way. It's just an opinion, no matter who said it.
| jodrellblank wrote:
| That's, just, like, your opinion, maaan. - The Dude[1].
|
| But I still disagree; meditation being to do with noticing
| where your thoughts arise, who watches the watcher, who is
| "I", it's fundamentally at odds with the hustle culture of
| productivity and economic return on investment and " _it 's
| critical that I meditate to keep up my image of being someone
| who meditates so I can maintain my suitably high status to
| impress my readers_". It's the kind of thing Buddha stepped
| away from his wealthy upbringing to realise, the kind of
| thing Zen Monks go to monasteries to get away from, the kind
| of thing rich people take meditative sabatticals to observe
| and introspect.
|
| Desire causes suffering; I forget what book I read it in but
| it was a normal person asking a guru about their office job,
| lots of phones ringing, lots of urgency, lots of stress, how
| can she meditate to be at peace in that kind of environment
| when she's so stressed she can't get in a peaceful mood to
| meditate at all? And the author's answer was not to stop all
| the phones ringing, to get into a peaceful mood first, but to
| notice that her _desire to be at peace_ was at odds with her
| life, said desire was where her suffering was arising - if
| she revelled in the activity, in feeling wanted and useful
| and never bored, she could end the day tired but satisfied
| believing she 'd helped as much as she could, instead of worn
| out and stressed believing she'd failed the workload.
| Meditation might be to notice that the phones ringing is
| stressing her and it needn't be a judgement about her not
| being good enough when she can't answer all of them, rather
| than meditation being about going to a quiet room to get some
| peace.
|
| Similar to the story of the guy rowing a boat accross a river
| and bumps into another boat and calls out swearing at the
| other boater for not paying attention and being careless and
| then looks over his shoulder and sees the other boat is empty
| and drifting and there's nobody to be angry at, the answer is
| not to go find the boat owner to be angry at the right
| person, it's to wonder why you are angry at all.
|
| I'm not claiming to be an authority, but a meditative state
| is more "laughing at yourself for wanting to be that
| important" than it is "improving writing productivity and
| readership by 15%". Like the fat man who is desperate to keep
| making vegetable soup recipes for YouTube so people accept he
| is an authority on dieting, the _recipes aren 't the diet_,
| the finger isn't the moon, the point of meditation[2] is to
| _notice your desperate desire_ to be a spiritual authority
| and your suffering when you feel you aren 't good enough,
| rather than to _turn you into_ a spiritual authority. Like
| the people who say they want to be musicians who are mixing
| up "being on stage and famous with a cheering crowd" with
| "playing instruments eight hours a day".
|
| [1] ( _everything_ everyone says ever is their opinion! Every
| internet comment is someone 's opinion, not a peer reviewed
| study - even then, peer reviewed study comments are the
| reviewer's opinion! Even measured experiments are someone's
| opinion that those are good measurements, that they were
| taken properly, recorded well, used in an appropriate model
| with appropriate assumptions! "That's just someone's opinion"
| - you should assume ALL internet comments, all articles, all
| books, have a honking great "IMO" on the front, or if you
| respect the author, make it "IMHO").
|
| [2] if there is any such thing
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