[HN Gopher] Every action you take is a vote for the type of pers...
___________________________________________________________________
Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to
become
Author : jeremyeder
Score : 184 points
Date : 2022-08-23 16:50 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (jeremyeder.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (jeremyeder.com)
| macspoofing wrote:
| Strictly speaking that's not true. Much of our day is not a
| series of thought-through decisions, but rather cruise control
| without much conscious input.
| cammil wrote:
| Everything begets itself
| paulcole wrote:
| This guy's never going to list his "bad" votes lol.
| mcguire wrote:
| Ok, so let's see here.
|
| 1. Got a meaningless certificate. Also expanded his "wildly
| successful business leaders" network.
|
| 2. Added people to a project in order to get it completed faster.
| (The ghost of Fred Brooks is making it hard to type here now.)
|
| 3. Proposed re-orging Red Hat engineering.
|
| 4. Had a meeting.
|
| 5. Wrote strategy doccies.
|
| 6. Mentoring. (1 out of 7 isn't bad.)
|
| 7. Had a meeting about advertising copy.
|
| I'm afraid I absolutely, positively, do not wish to become
| whatever sort of person this is, thank you very much.
| hparadiz wrote:
| Seriously. How boring.
| Jaygles wrote:
| Fred Brooks is still around I believe
| [deleted]
| coding123 wrote:
| This reads like post of a teenager bragging about stuff they did
| - in a thinly veiled notion that it's about casting votes about
| the person they want to be. lol
| cortesoft wrote:
| No, it reads like a LinkedIn post trying to promote their
| personal brand.
| swatcoder wrote:
| Why is this getting upvoted?
|
| Even if you find the headline thought provoking, the article puts
| no effort into sharing it or exploring it.
|
| It's just a list of self-enrichment things the OP is proud of
| having done lately. This is effectively just resume spam.
| tailspin2019 wrote:
| Given the sentiment in the comments, the article upvotes are
| curious! Perhaps people are just instantly expressing an
| opinion on the title alone...
| mouzogu wrote:
| i would say the past has far greater bearing than the future on
| your actions...
|
| you might want to be confident and outgoing, but your ability to
| vote for or express that action, is constrained by your life
| experiences and even biological things.
| zuzuleinen wrote:
| I think I heard a similar quote: "Don't practice what you don't
| want to become".
|
| Sometimes trying to not be stupid is easier than trying to be
| smart. Maybe that's another quote I read from somewhere else.
| jensgk wrote:
| "... The tl;dr of this book is a set of strategies to get 1%
| "better" each day..." So after 10 years you will be 1.01^3650 =
| 5929448572069177.9 times better than you are today.. Good luck.
| birdyrooster wrote:
| lmao, the author doesn't explain how we naturally become 1%
| worse everyday so 1% daily improvement is just like an
| equilibrium point of net 0 improvement.
| felizuno wrote:
| I've always thought that trying to optimize life is the ultimate
| denial. In golf we have these people who spend hours on the range
| optimizing their swing but they seldom play a round because of
| course their score is never as "optimized" and that make them
| feel bad. They can max out point data but never in a way that
| changes the aggregate, which based on the invested effort turned
| into a feeling of defeat.
|
| Life is mostly out of your control, if you think that the
| solution is to try and assert more control you're the reason the
| myth of Sisyphus is popular.
| adamdusty wrote:
| I think the author might be missing the point of the book.
| Nothing on that list anything to do with forming habits. I
| suppose the mentoring bullet point could be a habit, but it's bit
| vague.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Yeah, that's the most annoying thing about this article. It's
| fine to make a recap about what he's working on and be all
| intentional about it... but it doesn't seem to have anything to
| do with _Atomic Habits_ at all. That entire list is projects,
| not day-by-day little patterns.
| thenerdhead wrote:
| TODO:
|
| - Survive
| kodah wrote:
| I feel like the author is moralizing something in order to make
| it _more gratifying_.
|
| > firm believer that structure dictates behavior
|
| So every action you take is a _vote_ and structure dictates your
| behavior. This sounds oddly familiar.
| mattgreenrocks wrote:
| This is insightful.
|
| Would the author do these things absent the post-hoc
| moralizing?
|
| Maybe we are seeing what it looks like when we concoct
| narratives to order our life, and it hits a bit too close to
| home. After all, how coincidental is it that the thing that
| brings ultimate fulfillment (career) is also the thing that
| we've been told all our life to put so much into.
| xwdv wrote:
| Our lives are not a democracy, they are dictatorships. You don't
| have to "become" anything, you simply are what you are at any
| given moment, and that's all you'll ever be. Just try not to be
| someone that makes other people want to punch you in the mouth.
| hsavit1 wrote:
| So every single action you take is supposed to be rational and
| conscious? This is peak neoliberal thinking
| nashashmi wrote:
| Every "choice" you make is a vote ... ???
| cortesoft wrote:
| Oh man this is such a perfect example of productivity porn. Every
| action you take isn't a vote for the type of person you wish to
| become, it is a vote taken by the person you are.
|
| I hate this mindset of "I am constantly working towards becoming
| someone else". When do we spend time as the person we are? When
| do we enjoy the fruits of our labor? I feel like some people who
| take this mindset see their lives as being two distinct phases...
| the building/growth phase where you grind and learn and work non
| stop, and then a later phase that comes after where you enjoy
| what you built.
|
| I don't think life works like that, and you will burn yourself
| out if you do it. Life needs to be built and enjoyed together,
| through your whole life.
| DiffEq wrote:
| I view life as a I do my farm. There is always work to do to
| make it produce; there are times of intense work and times
| where I enjoy just watching the chickens...not that I don't
| enjoy the intense work too; but sometimes I don't as well but
| it must be done. I am always looking to do things better and
| more efficiently...so over time the farm does produce more, it
| does get better, it is not the same farm as it was a year ago.
| The change is sometimes fast; sometimes slower but it is always
| there. I think the point here is to make the general direction
| of change for the better at a pace that is reasonable.
| nicbou wrote:
| The people who believe in these two-phase mentality rarely end
| up retiring early. They don't _know_ how to relax. If you
| derive meaning from work and the accumulation of wealth, what
| do you do after you reach your happy number?
| celim307 wrote:
| "Strong opinions held weakly" apply here too. Work hard, but
| constantly check in with yourself and ask if your current goals
| still make sense and feel good.
|
| I made a lot of ideals and goals when I was younger and didn't
| know myself or the world, and it caused me to chase things that
| ultimately didn't bring my happiness.
|
| I'm much better now loving my harmless, wierd, silly bits, and
| working on improving the prickly bits that hurt others around
| me and myself, but I'm still learning what those all are and
| that's ok. That's growth.
| aeternum wrote:
| By posting this, you are becoming a person that enjoys life and
| is unlikely to get burnt out.
| upupandup wrote:
| by posting on HN, you are becoming a person that spends time
| posting on HN
| just_boost_it wrote:
| I was thinking something very similar the other day when
| someone came to me extolling stoicism as a route to personal
| improvement. People need to read a bit of Epicurus or something
| to level out. Sure grind when it's time to grind, but make sure
| you set aside time to make friends and enjoy your life. In the
| end, whether you enjoy yourself or spend your life grinding
| away, this one life is all we get. No amount of grinding will
| allow you to vote for a second life after this one.
| frogpelt wrote:
| Your reaction is a somewhat natural push back against the
| prevalent idea of selling people on things they don't yet have.
|
| But you probably need to temper your reaction. Surely you would
| expect someone to work on improving themselves. That's what
| education is. That's how people develop skills.
|
| James Clear in Atomic Habits is definitely not just talking
| about productivity. He's talking about your health and fitness
| and your mental health too.
|
| Also, why do you have become "someone else" to be a better
| version of yourself?
| cortesoft wrote:
| Yes, I agree with this. I think a good life is finding that
| balance; how much of yourself goes into production, how much
| into consumption. How much do your push yourself to be
| better, and how much do you accept and live with your flaws?
| How much do you invest for the future verse consume in the
| present? Too much either direction will lead to a bad life.
| fatherzine wrote:
| The 7th day.
| Geee wrote:
| That's exactly what the title means, no? If you constantly just
| work, you don't become the person you want to be. You don't
| become the person who enjoys life. If you are in the spot that
| you're not spending time as the person you are, then you'll
| probably want to change, and framing every action as a vote is
| a pretty good way to think about it.
| vhiremath4 wrote:
| > Every action you take isn't a vote for the type of person you
| wish to become, it is a vote taken by the person you are.
|
| This is patently false. If you start smoking cigarettes
| occasionally and start doing it more, you are becoming more of
| a smoker. The actions you take or don't take are the clearest
| input to the person you become. It's true that this is also the
| person you are, but that distinction seems meaningless if
| you're trying to become someone better (whatever better means
| to you).
|
| On a more general note (and this is what you are saying), you
| can both prioritize the things you need to do to progress and
| the time you need for enjoying yourself and your current life.
| These things are only mutually exclusive if you're pushing past
| your personal limits and there's a lot of inputs to that
| equation and whether that's worth it to each individual.
|
| So my next question is: why such a strong aversion to people
| improving themselves? There is no problem with being
| competitive. However competitive you want to be, be. Do it for
| yourself. Don't know the author of the post, but people who are
| hyper competitive usually aren't telling others to also be
| hyper competitive (unless it's a Gary V or someone similar).
| From my experience, they're usually just doing their own thing.
| notyourwork wrote:
| > The actions you take or don't take are the clearest input
| to the person you become.
|
| They are the clearest input to the person you *are*. I agree
| with the OP you replied to.
| mistermann wrote:
| > There is no problem with being competitive.
|
| What if this is not true without exception?
|
| > From my experience, they're usually just doing their own
| thing.
|
| The "just" seems off - actions can affect the state of the
| system we all live in, and sometimes these effects are
| negative.
| cpursley wrote:
| > why such a strong aversion to people improving themselves
|
| crab bucket mentality
| rukuu001 wrote:
| In case people aren't familiar with crab bucket mentality
| (I wasn't) - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crab_mentality
| Apocryphon wrote:
| These trends shift back and forth. A few years ago,
| certainly a decade ago, everyone was into productivity porn
| and life hacks and optimizing one's lives. Right now people
| are just generally burned out after the last couple of
| years.
| wizofaus wrote:
| > There is no problem with being competitive.
|
| I'd say there definitely is if you do everything in life that
| way. You seem to be assuming it's possible to be meaningful
| competitive without it affecting how you interact with other
| people. But competitive-minded people often make it
| abundantly clear to those around them how much they're
| "winning" and even make it a point of pride that others
| aren't doing so well. So yes, there definitely can be
| problems with being competitive. But our competitive instinct
| can be positive motivating force - we've all pushed ourselves
| that little harder knowing the reward will be a higher spot
| on the results table. How to combine that with not being an
| asshole about it seems to be the challenge.
| darkerside wrote:
| Salience bias. You don't notice the competitive people who
| aren't assholes, but there are plenty of them. Some of them
| are even humble.
| P5fRxh5kUvp2th wrote:
| One wonders if you created this post to be come a better
| typist.
| karaterobot wrote:
| > This is patently false. If you start smoking cigarettes
| occasionally and start doing it more, you are becoming more
| of a smoker. The actions you take or don't take are the
| clearest input to the person you become. It's true that this
| is also the person you are, but that distinction seems
| meaningless if you're trying to become someone better
| (whatever better means to you).
|
| I don't know about 'patently false': it's literally true. The
| things you do reflect who you are when you do them, the
| person you are becoming is a hypothetical who does not exist.
| For example, I am the one splitting hairs in this comment,
| not the future me who wants to be named world's biggest
| pedant.
|
| What your example points out is someone who is doing more of
| something _over time_. A smoker who smokes more is a trend,
| not an action.
| stonemetal12 wrote:
| It is a false dichotomy. Every action you take today is a
| vote by the you who exists right now. Every action you take
| today does build the history of the person you are
| tomorrow. It is not one or the other, but both.
| karaterobot wrote:
| Describing any action as a vote about your future
| identity is a way of thinking about the world. It makes
| sense within the particular framework this article is
| presenting, but it is not a universally held belief, and
| it's not self-evidently true. It's a metaphor.
|
| Here's an example: if you choose not a rob a bank 10,000
| times, that's 10,000 votes for not being a bank robber.
| Then if you choose to rob a bank just one time, you're
| suddenly a bank robber. 10,000 to 1, the number of votes
| doesn't actually matter.
|
| That's a silly example, but what it means is that your
| identity isn't always the result of a bunch of small
| decisions. Often there's just one "vote", and that is the
| decision you make, the action you take.
|
| One objection to this may be "but being a bank robber
| isn't who you _are_ , it's just something you _did_. " If
| so, I wonder how to square that with the example of
| becoming more of a smoker by smoking more cigarettes? Can
| I vote not to be a smoker, even if I smoke a lot of
| cigarettes? Or to be less of a smoker by smoking more
| cigarettes? That doesn't make sense to me.
|
| Anyway, hope this clarifies my objection: "actions are
| votes about who you will become" is a _metaphorical_
| explanation, not a literal one, so that comment way
| upthread is not patently false in my opinion, even if it
| 's arguable.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| >It's true that this is also the person you are, but that
| distinction seems meaningless if you're trying to become
| someone better (whatever better means to you)
|
| Do, or do not. There is no try.
|
| This is a meaningful distinction, even if it is a nuanced
| one. There's a profound difference between focusing on who
| you want to be tomorrow versus who you want to be today.
|
| One mindset takes you out of the present and is an act of
| self denial. The other embraces the present and affirms
| positive self identity.
| mikkergp wrote:
| If the only reason a person is having a conversation with me
| is so they can be a better conversationalist tomorrow, than
| they can fuck off. I worked out today, I ate healthy today, I
| worked hard and did chores for my family, and praticed my art
| forms and I did it all for today. Who knows what tomorrow
| will bring. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with
| planning for tomorrow, but there is a problem with seeing
| "every action you take" that way.
|
| Why do you sense this as a strong aversion to people
| improving themselves, and not a strong aversion to people
| trying to guilt people into seeing only one mindset to self
| improvement?
| vhiremath4 wrote:
| I strongly agree with this. I think you really have to
| begin to love the journey if you want to improve at
| something with slow incremental gains over time. But
| everyone has to start somewhere, and, honestly speaking,
| most people don't want to work out. Most people don't want
| to work hard. Or eat healthy. You have to force yourself
| initially to see that this is going to lead to you loving
| to do these things you currently hate.
| dchuk wrote:
| I think the point is that if you aren't mindful and deliberate
| with your actions, you'll descend into behaving according to
| habits and desires instead of what is in the best interest of
| your future self.
|
| Without being mindful, you'll just have another handful of
| chips instead of remembering you're trying to be not fat.
|
| Without being mindful, you'll watch another Youtube video
| instead of doing something on your todo list.
|
| Without being mindful, you'll jerk off instead of reading a
| book or interacting with another human being.
|
| It's not that doing any of the above is inherently bad in
| isolation, it's that if you aren't mindful in the aggregate and
| just default to impulse, you'll find yourself drifting much
| farther from what you think you will eventually become than you
| otherwise realize.
|
| We live in a world where distraction and dopamine hits are so
| accessible (sometimes even out of our control) vs even just 50
| years ago, so we find ourselves needing to be more deliberate
| in our actions.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I think you made a false dichotomy between thinking of the
| future and mindless indulgence.
|
| You can be mindful of who you are and what you want now.
|
| A life of always suffering for tomorrow is arguably as bad as
| a life of mindless indulgence.
|
| You can get to the end without ever enjoying it.
|
| It is better to not want chips than always want chips and
| restrain yourself.
|
| It is better to enjoy exercise than suffer through it.
| swader999 wrote:
| Being born well helps too.
| tailspin2019 wrote:
| I don't have a comment on the article. But if I was the author,
| it would be pretty rough reading the comments here.
|
| I guess it's worth remembering that for every blog post out there
| that perhaps we don't like, there are a million that are never
| written in the first place for fear of being exposed to
| criticism.
|
| So maybe there is virtue in just having the courage to put
| yourself out there and invite the world to cast their judgement
| on you, if nothing else!
| mattgreenrocks wrote:
| I don't disagree with some of the comments here, but they fall
| into the "doesn't need to be said" bucket for me.
|
| Yeah, I can't say I've done as much as this guy, but the quote
| is helpful in framing small actions when building toward
| habits.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| The author was right and brave to put himself out there and
| express what he wants. (Even if the intention behind the post
| might have been to create vapid SEO content for the sake of
| furthering his Brand and to grow his Clout.) But others are
| right to criticize the blog post for its failings, as per their
| opinions. Everyone is just doing the best they can.
| tailspin2019 wrote:
| > Everyone is just doing the best they can.
|
| I can get behind that :)
| UncleEntity wrote:
| > So maybe there is virtue in just having the courage to put
| yourself out there and invite the world to cast their judgement
| on you, if nothing else!
|
| Poor guy...I'm voting to take a nap and not join in on the dog
| pile.
| bluetomcat wrote:
| If anyone is familiar with the quoted book, how does one quantify
| and measure the amount of "betterment", or even define static
| "goodness"? Life is a complex affair on many simultaneous tracks.
| Prioritising one track often impedes the performance on another
| track in the long run. If you define the "perfect state" of
| yourself as having gone through thousands of tickets, bullet
| lists or redundant self-help books, you will certainly suffer in
| other areas.
| number6 wrote:
| It's about atomic habits. Like do it 1% better and you will be
| 100% better in 100 Days. Expand all areas and so one. SMART
| Goals. He does also sell a journal to track everything, so this
| is this.
|
| I liked the book and the mindset. Reminded me of Arete [0]. But
| for me it's more like an ideal and a reminder. A bit of fake it
| till you make it and what would a person who already obtained
| the goal do or did do in my stead.
|
| [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arete
| edmcnulty101 wrote:
| I hate philosophies like this. It acts like humans are machines
| that need to be doing things.
|
| I like to relax and binge netflix occasionally to decompress but
| that doesn't mean I'm voting for myself to become a lazy bum.
|
| I also like to play music but I don't want to become a working
| musician.
|
| Life is more than ACTIONS there's also experiences and things you
| enjoy that have nothing to do with future planning.
| ravenstine wrote:
| It's not entirely wrong, but yeah, we aren't always making
| highly conscious decisions. There should be no shame in living
| a low-key yet morally integral existence and not always being
| intentional with every single action we take.
|
| My contention with that philosophy is similar to that of all
| the messaging we get on social media about success and how our
| lives are supposed to be. No, I don't travel and dine out as
| much as other people, and perhaps I'm not as conventionally
| successful as most others in my cohort, but I have enough life
| experience to inform me that I am both content and not really
| "missing out" on things like others might. To "live like you'll
| die tomorrow" seems stressful and unsustainable to me. I much
| prefer the chill feeling of knowing that I'll wake up with a
| new day and that I don't necessarily need to be hustling or
| achieving to be a human.
| GauntletWizard wrote:
| I think you're interpreting the advice overly agressively. You
| can take it as chill advice in chill situations.
|
| It's okay to want to be the kind of person who enjoys a show
| and watches it enthusiastically. It's great to be the kind of
| person who relaxes and takes care of themselves. It's wonderful
| to want to be musical without pushing yourself to do so
| commercially.
|
| Take actions to be the kind of person who enjoys being you.
| ProAm wrote:
| These blog posts are such low effort too it makes me cringe.
|
| 1) Read $popular_book
|
| 2) Have it tell you what to do
|
| 3) Blog about chapter, quote, section of said $popular_book
|
| 4) Keep you in the loop for SV/VC/Hacker/Founder-sphere because
| if you don't have a presence your startup doesnt matter.
|
| I'm overly generalizing a bit, and I think the blogger probably
| had good intentions (i.e. me overreacting) but I feel like
| these types of posts are more virtue signaling and a waste of
| time vs smart people wanting an online book club.
| mcbutterbunz wrote:
| Having a mechanism to express your thoughts, whether publicly
| or privately, can be beneficial to the learning process. You
| try to express your ideas to others and see if you really
| understand it, sort of like the Feynman technique.
|
| Beyond that, if its cringe to you or not worth your time,
| just ignore it and move on. Just because it's not worth your
| time doesn't mean its not worth the time of the author.
| ProAm wrote:
| I totally agree. Im not saying he shouldn't blog as for its
| good personal expression, similar to a diary. Just
| surprised to see it on HN as for it seems more that the
| author is someone seeking validation vs discussion.
| robcohen wrote:
| I don't see these as mutually exclusive philosophies. You can
| choose to make an action out of relaxing by voting to not be a
| strung-out stressed person that is pressured to do things all
| the time. That person isn't fun at parties. You can vote to de-
| stress for a few hours or a whole day on occasion.
|
| I personally find this philosophy useful and follow it myself.
| I intentionally choose what I spend my time on. I make a list
| of priorities, then I allocate time to those priorities on a
| spreadsheet. If I run out of time, I drop priorities and make
| more time. I factor in social time where I can choose to go out
| or stay in, depending on how I am feeling that day.
|
| What I don't appreciate it the philosophy that most people seem
| to embrace which is "externalize everything but my job and what
| feels good". I feel like it's important to hone a variety of
| skills, and sometimes doing that isn't exactly fun. I think
| it's more justifiable to delegate once you know how to do a job
| well. There are exceptions, but there really are not a lot of
| them.
| Eupraxias wrote:
| This sentiment has always made it through my brains like this:
|
| "you are what you do"
|
| ..which evokes the deepest ontological question - does being
| doing?
| neuroma wrote:
| Honestly thought this was going to be about making small
| momentary alignments to love, courage, presence, gratitude....
|
| Nope! Big career fireworks instead. Props to this guy anyway,
| sounds like he's enjoying whatever he's doing.
| nicbou wrote:
| This kind of content is better suited for LinkedIn.
|
| I'm not a machine. I need rest and recreation to function
| properly. I sometimes get sick or sleep poorly. I sometimes get
| bursts of inspiration. There's no telling what condition I'll be
| working with on a given day.
|
| But perhaps you're right. Perhaps I'm casting my vote against
| being some sigma grindset, 4 AM cold showers, audiobooks at 3X
| speed kind of guy. The other guy seems more chill.
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| Why would this perspective not be compatible with rest and
| relaxation?
| p_j_w wrote:
| Did you see the list of what the guy did? At no point did he
| include rest and relaxation. He's clearly fetishizing
| productivity.
| chasd00 wrote:
| why don't you take action to get some rest. Take action to do
| something fun for recreation. Vote by action to be happier.
| They key is just take action that gets you closer to who you
| want to be.
| nicbou wrote:
| I'm sick and my body needs rest
| pen2l wrote:
| Woah I didn't know doing audiobooks at 3X was perceived as some
| kind of a virtue.
|
| I do it out of pure laziness. Particularly, all youtube things
| (with 'Video Speed Controller ' extension) at 2 or 3x because I
| just can't _can 't can't_ put up with normal speed.
| nicbou wrote:
| It's part of the sigma grindset meme. A while ago Business
| Insider ran short videos about entrepreneur routines and it
| was a montage of this sort of nonsense. Then you look back
| and realise that all the guy did was answer two emails. It
| was derided and parodied.
| safety1st wrote:
| It's a gross post that wasn't worth the read. It's just a guy
| reciting his latest resume updates.
|
| Not sure if it was posted in earnest, but either way the dude
| is trying too hard. Hard work is a virtue, a bullet list of
| your own isn't.
| pineconewarrior wrote:
| You're voting for the You that takes care of themself. Good!
| johnchristopher wrote:
| What are these votes author says he's casting ?
| braingenious wrote:
| I have a relative that has fallen into several pyramid schemes
| and is perennially addicted to so-called "self help" books,
| spending hundreds of dollars on them per month, every month, for
| about two decades.
|
| I won't mince words. It is an embarrassing addiction. I often
| feel secondhand embarrassment when I interact with them. The
| level of naivete required is astronomical, but somehow there it
| is.
|
| It is also one of the funniest phenomenons to see on this
| website, because it's not just acceptable here, or even just
| popular here, but apparently _a critical part of the culture_ to
| the extent that weird articles about dealing with ~Being super
| smart~ or ~Optimizing your life~ make it to the front page on a
| nearly daily basis, beating hundreds of submissions every day.
|
| I am happy to see that people are being critical of it today
| though!
| DubiousPusher wrote:
| Unchained of any social responsibility, void of compulsory
| passions, maybe. I'm not going to run anyone down for the way
| they organize their life and I do take on conscious actions to
| form habits. However, these kinds of aphorisms do give me the
| willies a bit.
| sdoering wrote:
| Exactly this. I just can't deal with this (I call it)
| SEOfication of the world.
|
| Content like this always rubs me the wrong way. Not genuinely
| written because it must be said, because of a deeply felt need
| to express oneself. But to present oneself in a very specific
| but essentially superfluous and artificial way.
|
| Maybe it is me being more and more disillusioned by all this
| kind of superficial content. Maybe it is just me having a
| different opinion was I could regard as deep content.
| robotnikman wrote:
| I feel the same way. It seems like a good chunk of content
| online is published just for an ultimately superficial
| purpose. One just has to take a quick look at LinkedIn to see
| many examples, but by no means is it limited to just there.
| Errancer wrote:
| I really dislike this type of thinking insisting that everything
| we do has some importance to it. I used to think like this in
| moral terms, my every action has consequences and I should be
| mindful of those consequences. And if anyone watched "The Good
| Place" then they know it is not a good way to live. I am
| paraphrasing but microoptimalisation is the root of all evil. I
| find it much better to just get a good understanding of what I
| wish to be and set a long time goals around it (Like a decade or
| lifetime long). Then every now and then I can asses if it is
| working or not. Since life is not a race and I am not competing
| with anyone I can settle for slow progression towards the good. I
| am the judge, the executioner and the audience of my life and
| therefore every aspect can be adjusted independently.
| patientplatypus wrote:
| [deleted]
| AndrewKemendo wrote:
| Humans do not have the capacity to be perfectly consistent with
| their long term goals. Therefore, as you take actions through
| life you are also voting for the person you don't want to be
| simply through failure or randomness.
|
| Luckily there is a REPL for human behavior: feedback from the
| environment that the decision you made did or did not support
| your long term goals
|
| This REPL allows you to iterate toward increasing the percentage
| of your effort that goes to long term goals.
|
| This assumes you have measurable long term goals.
| caycep wrote:
| For some reason this reminds me of that whole deep reinforcement
| learning / "policy" algorithms
| Gooblebrai wrote:
| If someone wants to read some science fiction related to this
| topic, I recommend: "Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom" by Ted
| Chiang
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| I ate cereal for breakfast this morning. I'm sure I could analyze
| this decision, judge my future self, and change what/when/how I
| eat. But I'm not interested in that much introspection or self
| improvement. I'm just trying to get through the day.
| LanternLight83 wrote:
| People who practice intermittent fasting often report that
| their body's hormonal rhythms adjust to their eating habits
| over time, so it's only by skipping the meal and bearing
| through the hungar that one can become the type of person who
| simply doesn't think to eat before 10-12 (leaving out a lot of
| debated science, personal variance, and assorted nuances for
| the sake of time and contrarianism).
|
| Edit: Ah well, you've edited your comment now, can't argue with
| just getting through the day -\\_(tsu)_/-
| synu wrote:
| I find it a little strange that it seems like so many people are
| working so hard, all the time, to run away from the person they
| are today. I'm ambitious as anyone, but some of this stuff is too
| much.
| mb_72 wrote:
| No mention of 'voting' to spend time with friends or family,
| getting outdoors, giving to charity with one's time or money,
| painting or trying to learn how to? Perhaps the author does these
| things or perhaps their context was restricted to work, but this
| kind of life seems a little hollow to me.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| It's great when a person finds something that works for them, but
| evangelists are annoying at best and creepy at worst.
| dudul wrote:
| Go touch some grass
| tspike wrote:
| Thanks for the reminder.. I vote to stop reading bland, boring
| tech blogs for today.
| glitchc wrote:
| Seems like a new form of humble-brag to me.
| imwillofficial wrote:
| This post makes me want to watch The Hustle again until I level
| up my life. https://youtu.be/_o7qjN3KF8U
| causi wrote:
| _The tl;dr of this book is a set of strategies to get 1% "better"
| each day._
|
| Yeah, you can keep that. I'm focused on getting 1% happier each
| day.
| chrsig wrote:
| Yeah. I've personally been on a mission to throw 'bad',
| 'worse', 'good', 'better', and words to those effects out the
| window. They're meaningless and lazy at best. They need to be
| defined in every context, so it's easier to just skip to saying
| the definition.
|
| At worst, they sound incredibly judgmental, presumptive, or
| pushy. It irks me to no end when others try to decide what
| _good_ is on my behalf.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-08-23 23:00 UTC)