[HN Gopher] SOFA - Start Often Finish rArely
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SOFA - Start Often Finish rArely
Author : pabs3
Score : 147 points
Date : 2024-10-18 00:07 UTC (22 hours ago)
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| aliasxneo wrote:
| > Traditional marriage is the ultimate form of this ideal. You're
| supposed to stick to it until you die, no matter what, come hell
| or high water, even if it makes you and everybody around you
| miserable. That is neither sane nor healthy!
|
| An interesting philosophy, but I don't think marriage is the best
| place to apply it. Writing a README and then never starting a
| project has practically no consequences. Same for picking up a
| book and then ditching it after a few minutes. Marriage? That's a
| whole different ball game, especially when children are involved.
| Swizec wrote:
| SOFA works great for marriage, if you tweak the params a
| little. Most secular people arrive at this by default: You
| marry your 3rd serious partner sometime in your late 20's.
|
| Start a lot of long term relationships, finish the one that
| sticks when both partners are mature and more or less done
| growing up.
|
| I think there's another shakeup period (statistically) in your
| mid to late 40's. That seems related to when kids start being
| old enough that they don't act as a forcing function as much.
| triyambakam wrote:
| And that's when those couples often get divorced.
|
| There's strong value in staying with a first partner, like a
| high school sweetheart. Growing together through life's
| challenges creates deep emotional bonds and shared
| experiences. Long-term stability comes from building trust
| over time and avoiding the emotional toll of repeated
| breakups.
|
| Couples who navigate growth together often develop stronger,
| more resilient partnerships.
| aliasxneo wrote:
| I highly censor myself on HN as I know most of my views are
| in the minority, but I'm happy to see your response.
|
| To add to your point, I've also found that developing the
| relational skills necessary to bring a marriage
| relationship through tricky waters often leads to success
| in similar, but perhaps not so dire, circumstances.
|
| It's also been common knowledge for some time now that
| children tend to do much better when stability is present
| in the home. If a child always thinks one of their parents
| might just up and leave one day, they tend to act
| accordingly (read: exhibit undesired behaviors).
|
| I understand marriage isn't for everyone, and I certainly
| don't promote it as such, but I also wouldn't advise people
| to treat marriage as no more than something that can start
| today and end tomorrow, on a whim.
| eastbound wrote:
| > children tend to do much better when stability is
| present in the home
|
| Encouraging relation instability creates children which
| don't have the funding on their own to be students. It
| makes them great candidates for both student loans (US)
| and subsidies (EU). As a society, that's what we want;
| It's makes every individual miserable, but it fuels the
| need for public funding.
| olivermuty wrote:
| I think this take is weird in many ways, but I wanted to
| focus especially on the fact that in the EU where its
| free it costs the exact same to fund a student regardless
| of if parents are divorced.
| GTP wrote:
| We want to spend more public money? It's weird if you
| also say that this could be avoided.
| bigfudge wrote:
| There is massive confounding here. Think of the
| counterfactual -- kids who live in a house with a failing
| relationship, or one where the adults can't meet each
| other's needs.
|
| It's not at all obvious this would be better, and none of
| the research suggests it's better for kids for adults to
| stay in a troubled relationship. In fact the reverse -
| conflict in the home is a much stronger predictor of poor
| outcomes than divorce per se.
| andai wrote:
| Interesting, that's a great point. Last I checked the
| negative effects of fatherlessness were well studied, but
| I don't know if it's been compared with the alternative,
| i.e. being raised by someone who rather would have left!
|
| IIRC a low quality father is still better than none
| (barring abuse, though emotional neglect is now finally
| coming to be recognized as developmentally impactful),
| but I really don't know...
| reverius42 wrote:
| There is such a thing as coparenting while divorced; one
| need not assume that separation implies that the father
| ceases to parent.
| TimPC wrote:
| It's debatable to what degree they are as most of the
| studies have massive confounders. Couples that stay
| together tend to be more affluent than divorced couples
| because of only needing to pay for and maintain one place
| of living instead of two. And poverty is a massive
| confounder in the studies, kids in poverty do a fair bit
| worse than kids in middle class lifestyles.
| Nevermark wrote:
| > Couples who navigate growth together often develop
| stronger, more resilient partnerships.
|
| Nowhere in that wisdom did the word "first" appear.
|
| If at "first" you don't succeed, keep looking for that
| partner who, by character, and suitability to you, who will
| " navigate growth together".
|
| ----
|
| I feel like there is a stay-with-your-first crowd that has
| a lot of wisdom to share, but logically needs to recognize
| that commitment to an unworkable situation isn't really
| what they are trying to promote.
|
| Props to those that find that person, who will co-invest,
| can be co-patient, co-flexible, co-loyal, co-appreciative,
| co-vision the first time.
|
| But those things are just as great, and important to find,
| regardless of the ordinal.
|
| --
|
| I think I have that! Number 3. Wish me luck for the future,
| but 8 years in I am very and honored happy now.
| HKH2 wrote:
| > Props to those that find that person, who will co-
| invest, can be co-patient, co-flexible, co-loyal, co-
| appreciative, co-vision the first time.
|
| That's what dating is for. It's not magic if you've got
| your priorities figured out.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| > _It 's not magic if you've got your priorities figured
| out._
|
| I doubt most people have their priorities figured out
| before their 30s. I envy those who do.
| HeWhoLurksLate wrote:
| Religion seems to help a lot with figuring out a purpose
| in life at a young age, too
| bigfudge wrote:
| Provided you don't later conclude it's an unsatisfying
| account of many fundamental questions for modern humans,
| and then need to leave a community or repress interesting
| and valid ideas.
| matthewmacleod wrote:
| The impression I get--without being too dismissive--is
| that it gives you the opportunity to not bother figuring
| it out.
| Nevermark wrote:
| Priority number one must be seeing into the future.
|
| People change as they go through life. People who grow
| never stop learning how to be more themselves, less of
| what they were taught or expected to be, or finding new
| paths.
|
| Even the positive side of change can introduce profound
| instability and unhappiness into a relationship.
|
| The idea that if people would just do everything right,
| no relationship would need to break up is an unhealthy,
| and completely unrealistic, judgement.
|
| And it inadvertently prioritizes relationships over the
| people actually in them.
| lolinder wrote:
| To add to this--most of the marriages I've seen that have
| come after multiple serious relationships struggle with
| baggage from those previous relationships.
|
| Often it's obvious things like kids, but it's also more
| pernicious things like expectations, comparisons, and even
| just different worldviews. A couple that grows up together
| can end up substantially more unified than is possible when
| you're joining lives after a decade of adulthood shaped by
| multiple partners.
|
| There are obviously exceptions on both sides--first-timers
| that were toxic and 'experienced' partners who work well--
| but I certainly haven't seen an unqualified series of
| successes in the pattern described by OP.
| bee_rider wrote:
| I haven't seen any patterns, and I'm wondering where
| people are getting these kinds of insights.
|
| Like I have 1 friend that married somebody who could
| reasonably be described as like a first serious
| relationship. Other than that... everybody tended to
| settle down after college, after a few more serious
| relationships. Nobody has gotten divorced yet (late
| 30's). But (and this is being generous to myself), I'll
| say I probably only have like 5 friends who I'd really be
| confident in saying much about the health of their
| relationships.
|
| I think everybody in this thread is just making things
| up, tbh.
| pjc50 wrote:
| Our sample sizes are small, our circumstances vary, and
| people are too unique.
| lolinder wrote:
| Only counting marriages that I have very close
| understanding of: Between my wife's immediate family and
| mine I've had personal insight into 11 different
| marriages, a mix of both types. Still a small sample size
| relative to the population as a whole, but not nothing.
|
| In that set, the only healthy marriages are first timers.
|
| It's certainly not enough to draw any conclusions, but
| that's why all I actually argued is that OP's claimed
| success pattern doesn't seem to be true in my experience.
| dmje wrote:
| Strong disagree on the "childhood sweetheart" thing.
|
| In my experience / opinion there is more to be said for a
| (gentle) bit of "playing the field" when you're in your
| teens and early twenties. Get that stuff out of the way -
| get to know some different people, different ways of being,
| different dynamics in sex / friendship / beliefs. Get to
| know yourself, mainly - figure out the person you are.
| Because you sure as shit don't know when you're 16, and you
| probably don't really know until you're 20 or probably even
| 25.
|
| I'd say the same about getting out there and socialising -
| drink some drink, smoke some weed, take some mushrooms,
| travel the world. Don't get stuck in one thing straight
| away - in any direction, whether that's location or
| relationship or job or misc life situation.
|
| Obviously everyone's MMV and there may be some people who
| do find that person when they're 16, but even then you've
| got to ask "how do you actually _know_ that 's the right
| person if you've never experienced any _other_ kind of
| people? ".
|
| It's like travelling - say you got on a plane to an island
| on your first day of your first expedition away from home
| and had such a great time that you just stopped there,
| cancelling your future travel plans. Seems foolish and
| small minded to me.
|
| Obviously long and beautiful and balanced relationships are
| what most of us aim for - and that's great and a brilliant
| thing if you find it (I'm ~25 years into the best possible
| relationship and marriage I could possibly have hoped for)
| - but I (and my wife) got here via a whole bunch of teen
| and early 20s relationships - some brilliant, some silly,
| some deeply hurtful, some short, some long, some with
| people that really suited us, some with complete howlers
| that were destined for disaster from day one. And that
| whole journey enabled us to discover who we were
| individually - and then when we met in our mid 20s we had a
| much better understanding of who and where we wanted to be,
| both individually and as a couple.
|
| I've been immensely lucky in my journey but it's because of
| that journey, and it's because quite a lot of that journey
| was sometimes hard. Breakups and dating the wrong person
| and getting it wrong are part of that journey, and it
| sometimes hurts. So does life, and to expect otherwise is
| deeply unrealistic.
|
| I'm already fascinated as my two kids (20/17) do this
| themselves - but my strong advice to them and to anyone
| else is that getting to know who you are involves bashing
| into the world a whole bunch - it can be painful and
| difficult but that's what a satisfying and realistic life
| looks like.
| anal_reactor wrote:
| Honestly, I don't get it how people find relationships in
| the first place. I feel like at this point of my life I
| have developed my own personality and lifestyle which
| don't match other people, and therefore I can't really
| connect with anyone.
| auggierose wrote:
| I think that is just a cop-out born out of fear of
| rejection. If you don't _want_ to connect with anyone,
| that is fine. I doubt that you _can 't_.
| anal_reactor wrote:
| Yes, I'm afraid of rejection, but not of being rejected,
| but rather of spending my time rejecting people instead
| of doing something pleasant or useful.
| wiseowise wrote:
| Just like everything else in life - luck.
| bigfudge wrote:
| There is a strong winners history effect driving your
| thinking here.
|
| Marrying the wrong person and sticking with them does not
| make anyone happy. Some of us resist SOFA as late as our
| mid 40s on the basis that we made a promise, marriage is
| forever etc. it's a massive mistake in almost every case. I
| know nobody who regrets a divorce and isn't substantially
| happier after it.
|
| If you have kids don't blow up a relationship on a whim.
| But at the same time know that divorcing when kids are in
| their teens is absolutely no easier on them then when they
| are younger. In many ways my perspective is that it only
| makes life for the adults easier.
| lolinder wrote:
| I know at least one person who says they would have
| rather stuck it out in retrospect.
| pjc50 wrote:
| > Couples who navigate growth together often develop
| stronger, more resilient partnerships.
|
| Thinking of someone I used to know who sarcastically
| referred to her many relationship blowups as "another
| fucking 'opportunity for growth'".
|
| I see a lot of people talking past each other in this
| thread. There's several layers at work:
|
| - "marriage is good"
|
| - "people should make an effort to keep their relationship
| together"
|
| - "people should make an effort to keep their relationship
| together, even at the cost of their own happiness,
| regardless of whether their partner is also doing the work"
|
| - "marriage should be socially encouraged"
|
| - "marriage should be socially enforced with censure of the
| unmarried"
|
| - "marriage and its permanency should be legally enforced,
| regardless of harm including rape and domestic violence"
| (the pre-1950ish position)
|
| You can see poster A making one of these statements and
| another poster B replying as if they'd said another one
| down the slippery slope.
| 0xEF wrote:
| What about the "hey, marriage is just not for everybody"
| position? I did not get married until my very late 30's,
| having spend enough time with my partner to have built
| something worth keeping, but at least two of my friends
| have been married so many times that it seems like an
| occasional hobby they indulge in. The idea works for some
| people, but not all, and that's just fine. The arguments
| you listed all assume a one-size-fits-all solution, which
| I suppose is why they are circular and absurd.
| reverius42 wrote:
| I think you mean pre-1970ish position. No-fault divorce
| wasn't introduced anywhere in the US until 1969 in
| California. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-
| fault_divorce
| BriggyDwiggs42 wrote:
| Sheesh
| nonameiguess wrote:
| Nah, man, the people saying we all have too limited of a
| perspective and draw conclusions too readily are right.
| Every possible course of action involves risk and uncertain
| outcomes. My parents married at 18 and 20, a few weeks
| after my mom graduated high school. They're still together
| in their mid-60s, have a disturbingly great and loud sex
| life, are the epitome of lifelong friends. I tried to marry
| at 21 and my first wife descended into a drug habit,
| destroyed our apartment and got the lease terminated, was
| committed to a psych ward and left me temporarily homeless.
| That didn't work out, though arguably, maybe it could have.
| She'd be in her 50s now and I don't know if she's even
| still alive, but last I had contact with her a decade ago,
| she seemed to be doing well. I finally married someone that
| stuck later on and we're past a decade, inside of two
| still, and she's been in the ICU seemingly inches from
| death twice in that time due to alcoholism, but I guess
| it's just different being older, more experienced, somehow
| able to deal with that and not have your entire life
| necessarily spiral into complete chaos.
|
| My actual first girlfriend from high school isn't a person
| I kept in touch with, but from what I saw of the 20 year
| reunion a while back, she got really fat, became a
| bizarrely hardcore religious fundamentalist, and was
| extremely into Trump. I can't imagine a world in which a
| marriage with her would have worked. I don't see how you
| can possibly hope to imagine what a person might become
| decades later when you're 16.
|
| I agree entirely with you about growing together through
| challenges and creating deep bonds through shared
| experiences. I'm just not sure why you think those don't
| continue happening past childhood. My 30s were by far the
| toughest decade due to unexpected physical challenges from
| spinal degeneration, and having someone there for it made
| all the difference in the world. I will love and cherish
| her forever for that, no matter what else happens. I didn't
| need to know her in high school for that to be possible.
|
| And all the breakups of the past didn't take a toll on me.
| They taught me that loss isn't really that big of a deal.
| Life doesn't have to be constant and predictable. People
| come and go. Jobs come and go. The world turns, life goes
| on, and I'll be fine. Some other opportunity always comes
| along. More often than not, each one turns out to be better
| than the last one. I certainly don't want my wife to die
| and have no intention of ever divorcing her, but if
| something does happen, I have no doubt I'll be fine.
| Grieve, sure. Be crushed for maybe a year or two. But life
| is long as fuck and a year or two fades into nothing
| decades later when you're happy again.
| Ntrails wrote:
| > Long-term stability comes from building trust over time
| and avoiding the emotional toll of repeated breakups.
|
| I see the idea, but I turbo-fucked those relationships
| because I didn't understand _how to communicate_. It took
| me 2-3 LTRs to get a handle both on what I wanted, how to
| explain my needs /flaws/etc, and how to make space for
| somebody elses yada yada.
|
| I admire people who managed to get through that stuff first
| time, but i feel like they've _got_ to be the exception?
| dash2 wrote:
| >SOFA works great for marriage, if you tweak the params a
| little. Most secular people arrive at this by default: You
| marry your 3rd serious partner sometime in your late 20's.
|
| This doesn't really work great:
|
| * Some people get really good at starting and not so good at
| finishing. They hurt a lot of people, eventually including
| themselves.
|
| * Many people find it is too late to have the number of
| children they would have liked, or any children at all. This
| causes a lot of personal tragedy.
|
| * Birth rates are well below replacement everywhere in the
| developed world, which is causing serious social problems.
| BriggyDwiggs42 wrote:
| I'm not disagreeing with your other points, but I really
| dislike the last one. I'm uncomfortable with the idea that
| we'd try to implement social pressure/coercion to restrict
| people's freedom to date who and when they like on the
| basis of some abstract, top-down perception of trying to
| maintain the "stock" of humans or whatever. Also, far as
| I'm aware, the main issue with birthrates isn't desire or
| timing but that people feel unable to support kids, which
| is mostly an economic and policy problem.
| dash2 wrote:
| I never mentioned coercion - my point was just that the
| existing way we date doesn't work. As for feeling unable
| to support kids, a key part of that is having somebody to
| share the parenting with. Few policies or economic
| subsidies would be an adequate substitute for that.
| james-bcn wrote:
| > mature and more or less done growing up.
|
| People finish growing up?
| pb060 wrote:
| Use to do SOFA without knowing about it. Then marriage came,
| then children and boom, collapse of the wave function.
| circlefavshape wrote:
| > I think there's another shakeup period (statistically) in
| your mid to late 40's. That seems related to when kids start
| being old enough that they don't act as a forcing function as
| much
|
| Also menopause.
| rsynnott wrote:
| > Marriage? That's a whole different ball game, especially when
| children are involved.
|
| While, yes, it's more serious than writing a README, there is
| certainly often a point where it's better for all concerned to
| just pack it in.
| Melisa086 wrote:
| Dr Hope love spell, you just fixed my relationship. We have
| been fighting every day and you've just fixed it and I cannot
| thank you enough. Thank you Dr Hope for saving my broken
| relationship and my boyfriend is back to me. If you have any
| problem in marriage/relationship. contact him and i guarantee
| you that he will help you. Here's his contact: Email him at:
| marriagehelper91@gmail.com /WhatsApp him: +2349137446738 Thank
| you Dr you're the most wonderful spiritual Dr I have ever seen.
| jongjong wrote:
| I think pretty much everyone falls into SOFA by default. If your
| goal is to start a software business, it's almost impossible to
| achieve that. You don't need to aim for it. It will happen by
| default.
|
| To finish something in such a way that a customer will be willing
| to pull their credit card out and pay for it is a very difficult
| point to arrive at.
|
| I never tried this approach and yet I have 7 failed projects
| under my belt. Only 1 was a success but it only lasted for 3
| years.
| RajT88 wrote:
| As I age, I am getting better at finishing things. Partly
| because my side projects are intentionally more bite-sized.
|
| Rather than write am application, maybe I will just write a
| module, or a useful script someone else can use to build or
| improve an application. I am much happier with this approach so
| far.
| jongjong wrote:
| I finished all my projects, met all technical requirements
| which I set for myself but I only met user requirements for
| one project. Hence I got paid. Ironically, it was the one
| which required the least amount of work and where I
| contributed the least socio-economic value. 3 years of
| passive income literally fell on my lap. I didn't even write
| a single line of code for that one. Just spoke to a bunch of
| people a couple of times.
|
| It's definitely a lot easier if you set yourself goals which
| don't depend on other people. Having goals which depend on
| things that are outside of your control is a sure way to
| become miserable.
| tomjakubowski wrote:
| You completed your most successful project just by talking
| to other people -- your recommendation to go it alone seems
| to contradict that. Does it come from having had a bad
| experience?
| jongjong wrote:
| Yes that's true. The surest path to success doesn't
| generally align with happiness. People will frequently
| disappoint you. Yet unfortunately success in our current
| system is all about people and connections.
|
| But if you focus on building stuff for its own sake and
| don't worry about financial success, you will be a lot
| happier because those goals are within your control. You
| will build the product and you will achieve your personal
| vision. Nobody else will care but that's going to be OK
| because you will prove to yourself that you're a capable
| individual and that's satisfying in itself.
| sugarkjube wrote:
| The secret to success is not mentioning your failures.
|
| (Think about a famous photographer who's showing a few great
| pictures you could never have made yourself. Well, he isn't
| showing the 10.000 others he made but were not good enough)
| 0xEF wrote:
| I'm with you, although my personal acronym is SUFR; Start Up,
| Fail, Recover.
|
| I don't know about anyone else, but I have learned far more
| from my mistakes than I have from my successes.
| triyambakam wrote:
| I think this sounds good but is ultimately not good advice.
|
| Finishing, as in will power, focus, and vision, is like a muscle
| that you can take to the gym.
|
| This advice is the equivalent of going for a run one day and
| never picking up the habit. I don't think it will lead to
| fitness.
| ilrwbwrkhv wrote:
| Yes, a weak work ethic takes years to rectify. I had a very bad
| weak work ethic because of health issues when I was a kid and
| only in my 30s did I finally fix it.
| safety1st wrote:
| I think a better alternative is the concept of the minimum
| viable habit from James Clear's Atomic Habits.
|
| SOFA gets one thing right which is it reduces the pressure and
| the expectations. But it doesn't seem like an approach to life
| which results in anything permanent. This post literally says
| "nothing is permanent, nothing lasts" which is a nihilistic and
| self-defeating view of life - perhaps technically true but not
| useful. Contrast with "play long term games" which is the idea
| that good things compound over years and even decades and this
| compounding is how you can lead a truly extraordinary life.
|
| So with Clear's concept of minimum viable habits the focus is
| on building something permanent (the habit) but the
| expectations are removed, which makes it feel easy. If you want
| to be a runner, you start by setting an alarm and putting on
| your running shoes every day. That's it, once the shoes are on,
| you declare victory and you may take them right back off again
| and go on with your day, running is strictly optional (and even
| discouraged at the start).
|
| After doing this for a while it's going to be second nature. It
| will become an unconscious habit to put on those shoes at the
| same time every day, and it will also feel a little ridiculous
| that you're not even stepping out the door. It will then feel
| completely natural to take the next step and walk outside and
| enjoy the fresh air as part of the habit. Once you're doing
| that regularly, it's almost inevitable that you'll start taking
| a small walk or something and one day boom you've made it a
| jog. Three years later if it's really what you want you've
| become a serious runner and practicing for your first marathon.
|
| It really works in my experience (it got me going to the gym,
| improved my work productivity and improved my diet). The key is
| your perspective: you want to build an extensive new, permanent
| habit that will improve your life for many years to come. But
| this is hard to do so you're layering on one easy piece at a
| time, removing the friction.
|
| It doesn't require manning up and being superhuman. Just the
| desire for the change, some patience and the willingness to
| take the first step.
| trumpeta wrote:
| I think it's great advice, but the "finish rarely" part is
| maybe understated. The goal is to try as many things as
| possible, as quickly as possible in order to find your true
| calling. You'll stick with it once found.
| michaelt wrote:
| Personally, I'd say it's situational advice.
|
| I like open source software. And I _could_ write some code that
| works for me, then generalise it to be useful to more people,
| then increase the robustness so it 's easier for users who
| aren't the author, then clearly document it, then make a flashy
| website for it, then do branding and marketing to get users,
| then add support for OSes I don't use and languages I don't
| speak, then build a community of contributors and maintain a
| presence on reddit and twitter and stackoverflow and discord
| and github and mailing lists, then engage with the community
| with polite professionalism at all times, then do paperwork
| like choosing a license and a code of conduct and a security
| policy, then convince major distributions to package it, then
| maintain it for 30 years.
|
| So long as it's a recreational hobby, I'll do whichever steps I
| feel like. Marketing? Support? Fundraising? Test coverage? Nah,
| I don't think I will, I'd rather spend that time going on a
| bike ride.
|
| On the other hand, for things that _aren 't_ a recreational
| hobby? That might be a different matter.
| nonameiguess wrote:
| I hate to keep doing this to you, but I am yet again an
| existence proof that you're wrong about this. I've tried and
| played many sports in my life, on again, off again. Baseball
| and basketball mostly as a child, a bit of tennis. Lettered in
| high school in cross country, track (where I did hurdles rather
| than middle distance), basketball, and volleyball when I
| changed my mind from track. I did intramural soccer and
| dodgeball in college. Picked up running again in the Army and
| got into various outdoorsy stuff. Kayaking. Open-water
| swimming. Multi-day hikes. Alpine mountaineering. Rock
| climbing. I had terrible injuries through my late 30s and did
| next to nothing. In my 40s, picked up lifting, eventually got
| back into running, have recently started to learn how to surf
| and skateboard.
|
| I can assure you that, in spite of not really mastering or
| finishing any of these things and being kind of flaky about it,
| it has at least lead to very good fitness.
|
| In the same vein, I see no reason you can't simply practice and
| get in the habit of learning and being curious even if you
| never master a specific craft.
| mklepaczewski wrote:
| > Finishing, as in will power, focus, and vision, is like a
| muscle that you can take to the gym.
|
| That's not true, at least not for many procrastinators. I've
| been a procrastinator my whole life. It wasn't until my mid-30s
| that I found a method that made me productive (going from 2-3
| hours of work a day to 9-10 hours). Honestly, when it comes to
| productivity, I'm killing it. However, it hasn't trained my
| "finish it" muscle at all. As soon as I'm not body doubling, I
| revert to my old self and immediately start procrastinating.
| seba_dos1 wrote:
| I'm not sure why you're being downvoted, it certainly isn't
| true for people with executive disorders. It may actually
| make things worse if you don't approach it carefully.
| rakoo wrote:
| From TFA:
|
| > You can be finished with your project whenever you decide to
| be done with it. And "done" can mean anything you want it to
| be. Whose standards of completion or perfection are you holding
| yourself to anyway? Forget about those! Something is done when
| you say it is. When it's no longer interesting. When you've
| gotten a sufficient amount of entertainment and experience from
| it. When you've learned enough from it. Whatever, whenever.
| Done is what you say it is.
|
| If you already say the goal is fitness, you're not doing SOFA.
| The whole point is to accrue experience, experiment, discover,
| _not_ a predefined state. You don 't SOFA a specific sport to
| lose weight, you SOFA when you want to find a sport you like
| enough that you will be able to do it regularly.
| sundvor wrote:
| The antithesis of discipline, what could possibly go wrong living
| your life this way?
| hinkley wrote:
| Discipline is good for repetitive tasks. But it's hell on
| creativity.
| meisel wrote:
| When I start a lot of projects and only get halfway through them,
| I feel overwhelmed and frustrated by all the loose ends. I like
| to see projects through to release if I think they're worth it,
| but that also requires a bit of self-imposed discipline. I don't
| think there's any shame in having a lot of half-finished
| projects, but I find more happiness in pushing myself to finish
| at least some of them.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| > _I feel overwhelmed and frustrated by all the loose ends._
|
| I think the article is trying to help with exactly that: it's
| telling people to give themselves permission to abandon half-
| finished projects without guilt or frustration - so that you
| won't be immobilized by _expecting those feelings_ every time
| you think about dabbling in something new.
| strken wrote:
| It would be interesting to try the opposed but similar strategy
| of finishing absolutely everything but half-arsing the stuff I
| don't care about.
|
| Might give more psychological closure, prevent me giving up, and
| could yield good results if there are a lot of cases where I was
| overthinking it.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| That's interesting. FEATHER - Finish Everything And Triumph,
| Half-assing Every choRe[0].
|
| I think both this and the article's "SOFA" are useful
| frameworks to deal with perfectionism.
|
| --
|
| [0] - Which I should have done here, instead of spending 10
| minutes trying to find the right words for the acronym, and
| ultimately failing.
| rkachowski wrote:
| I like it, you have the FEATHER cushions of the SOFA.
|
| > I think both this and the article's "SOFA" are useful
| frameworks to deal with perfectionism.
|
| I feel it's understated how perfectionism and fear of failure
| are two sides of the same issue.
|
| SOFA "call it quits and win" vs FEATHER "get to the end and
| celebrate" ideas both fight against an internalised
| conscientiousness where a thing is only done right if it's
| thoroughly explored and completed in all dimensions. Which
| isn't normally possible or worth it IMHO.
| jan6 wrote:
| Finish It with Love & Interest But Undesired Stuff Therefore
| Exists Ramshackley
|
| also known as FILIBUSTER - where you prioritize finishing
| stuff you like, pushing back the things you lack interest in,
| indefinitely ;P
| kqr wrote:
| I'm trying to decide if I prefer
|
| - LIMP - Low-effort Implementation Makes Progress; or
|
| - FINAL - Finish It Now, Amplify Later.
|
| The first highlights how the point is to get somewhere, and
| floating around like a Brownian particle is not a good
| strategy for that. Setting up tiny gradients in the right
| direction will.
|
| I like the second because it makes it clear that just because
| one finishes for now does not mean one cannot re-open the
| project later.
| andai wrote:
| To extend the article's marriage analogy, in this case you
| would be highly invested in a small number of partners you
| really care about, but also having a bit of fun on the side.
| htyden wrote:
| > a work is never truly completed [...] but abandoned;
| ned99 wrote:
| What people calls 'love' is just a chemical reaction that compels
| animals to breed. - Rick & Morty
| youoy wrote:
| What people calls 'life' is just a chemical reaction that
| compels animals to comment on HN - Mick & Rorty
| luis_cho wrote:
| I haven't finished the reading of the post
| jan6 wrote:
| I have finished the reading of the comment
| sugarkjube wrote:
| I love it. This is going to be my new mantra.
| motyar wrote:
| Converted it to a short podcast.
|
| https://zenmic.com/podcast/0wou
| dash2 wrote:
| Look, this is a totally cool and fun _approach to projects_ ,
| always, and it's a totally cool _life philosophy_ in your
| twenties. I wouldn 't recommend it as a life philosophy for your
| thirties and beyond, and I suspect most people of that age know
| why.
| andai wrote:
| This is just my normal approach to life, owing mostly to low
| conscientiousness (and probably unmedicated ADHD).
|
| The result has been thousands of side projects but nothing I can
| actually put on a portfolio or monetize (and as a result,
| poverty).
|
| It's sort of bizarre and hilarious to see people glorify and
| promote it?
|
| Do normal people have to make a significant conscious effort
| _not_ to finish what they start?!
| slig wrote:
| > Do normal people have to make a significant conscious effort
| not to finish what they start?!
|
| I believe their issue is that they can't even start.
| andai wrote:
| Interesting. Is the thought "if I start this, I have to do
| this properly, and see it all the way through" a major part
| of that hesitation?
|
| The "I'm not allowed to have fun or make mistakes" mindset
| seems to be drilled into people hard by the education system.
| I also suppose the survival fear adds "this time and energy I
| invest should pay off somehow" to the balance, at least it
| does for me (when considering significant projects).
|
| My "backdoor" to working on many projects is that most of my
| projects only last a few hours, so the question of "is it
| worth the investment" never really factors into it.
| euroderf wrote:
| Maybe it's the 80-20 Rule in action. Do 20% to learn the 80%.
| ac29 wrote:
| > Do normal people have to make a significant conscious effort
| not to finish what they start?!
|
| No, some things are hard and take significant conscious effort
| to complete regardless of how "normal" you are. Especially
| things that pay well.
| tzury wrote:
| Let's procrastinate while telling ourselves we are onto
| something.
|
| Hacking?
|
| In my world, hacking includes hacking your brain to finish what
| you have started.
|
| This is more of a cracking.
| m0llusk wrote:
| Kind of reminds me of Crash Early, Crash Often:
| https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2017/07/13/crash-early-crash-ofte...
| INTPenis wrote:
| That's the story of my life, SOFA king deep procrastinator.
|
| It's like thinking of an idea, and fleshing it out just enough to
| understand that my idea was possible, gives me a feeling of
| achievement that makes it redundant to actually finish
| implementing the idea.
| dextrous wrote:
| SOFA works just fine with marriage, just tweak the vows:
|
| "... to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for
| worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love
| and to cherish, until I feel like this is done and want to move
| on. And done is when I say it's done."
|
| There won't be a dry eye in the house!
| turnsout wrote:
| This is what my 20s looked like... It took over 10 years in my
| 30s/40s to regain the ability to finish anything.
| sourcepluck wrote:
| Wow, this is brilliant! Sign me up!
| jnsaff2 wrote:
| It took me 40 years to realize that this is a really bad idea.
| Each project or hobby takes time. Each new skill takes a lot of
| time and focus to master.
|
| Half-finished projects clutter your space and your mind. The
| biggest satisfaction is what I get from a project that is done-
| done. Not finishing anything will rob the satisfaction of a
| project.
|
| Doing some Marie Kondo (deciding which things bring joy and
| getting rid of the rest) for your hobbies has been immensely
| liberating. Saying no to myself and not starting something new
| leaves space in my mind to enjoy other things much more.
|
| So I would say, be picky about which hobby to take on and once
| you do it, be ready to invest some serious time into it. The joy
| you get out of a nice coffee table you built yourself from
| scratch is immeasurably greater than some tools, lumber and dust
| blocking your garage for years.
| sofa2223 wrote:
| If only we could apply SOFA to every aspect of our lives, down to
| the core, I believe things would be radically different. For
| example, I firmly believe that Jesus was the ultimate SOFA king,
| and he would have applied SOFA to everything in his life,
| including both small and big things that we often feel are
| impossible to address.
| motohagiography wrote:
| it's a good anti-perfectionist manifesto, as avoiding things you
| can't do well enough to present for credit is stultifying. but
| moderation is key.
|
| the secret to SOFA may be to STFU about it, as if you're the
| person who talks about things they've maybe done once or are
| going to do but never finished, you're kind of dumb, but if you
| just do stuff, you end up having some surprising skills.
|
| the effect of not talking about it also creates an attribution
| bias in your favour, where after pulling a few surprise rabbits
| out of hats, you become the magic hat guy. if you talk about all
| the things you have kind of done, you're just opinionated. I've
| been both, and after more than a decade of being conscious of
| mostly STFU'ing, I can say that some humility can be a
| superpower.
| DonHopkins wrote:
| JD Vance porn clickbait!
| pcstl wrote:
| This just seems like a bad idea. Starting things and not
| finishing them is just... The default. Whoever thinks that our
| society is _too focused on commitment_ has really not been
| keeping up with social trends for the last few decades. Most
| people are cut loose from any kind of stability, community or
| enduring sense of identity.
|
| I get that they're trying to go with "done does not need to mean
| perfect", but this way of putting it is too aggressive and I
| don't feel like it'll have good outcomes.
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