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"Don't you dare waste your fucking time"

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Re: "Don't you dare waste your fucking time"

#21

Post by Tichy »

megamark16 wrote: post #17
Tichy wrote: post #11

The problem is, despite all good intentions (which famously pave the road to hell), I am still not sure how to live a meaningful life. It is easy to make decisions on the spot, but really hard to stick to something over the long time. I don't have any working system for staying on track. What do you use to manage your life? I have at times put down my goals on paper, but those sheets of paper just got lost under the…

This might sound lame but for me it's Twitter. I'm back on Weight Watchers try to drop the 20 pounds I put over the holidays and new year, so I'm tweeting my weigh ins every Friday. I slipped up a little yesterday; everybody at work brought in their superbowl leftovers. But you can bet that I'm back on today, because I'd really like to have something positive to tweet about Friday, and "the whole world" is watching :…

Doesn't sound lame at all. I've actually tried Twitter, too. But I have created a separate account to tweet about my progress in programming - what I have learned today, what I am currently working on, stuff like that. Unfortunately I let that slide, too, but I want to take it up again.

Of course with the separate account I don't have the social pressure, which might be essential.

Re: "Don't you dare waste your fucking time"

#22

Post by Confusion »

wallflower wrote: post #3

A darker story: I was out of state, at a friend's house party, a few years ago and the discussion got non-superficial late in the night, as it sometimes does. His friends were talking about a friend who was not there. Some time prior, this woman had an argument with her mother that escalated into all-out shouting, petty criticisms, damning accusations, anger. The last thing she yelled to her mother was "F * y !!" The…

Given a healthy parent-child relationship, things would probably have been mended again a few days later. If she realizes that, I don't see why that last goodbye should be such a regret: it is a normal and essential part of life together to fight.

In fact, you might even view such a thing as a shining example of the way you and your parents loved each other: despite strong emotions, despite your mutual passions for life clashing, you know that you would still reconcile, because you loved each other.

Re: "Don't you dare waste your fucking time"

#23

Post by btipling »

Tichy wrote: post #11

The problem is, despite all good intentions (which famously pave the road to hell), I am still not sure how to live a meaningful life. It is easy to make decisions on the spot, but really hard to stick to something over the long time. I don't have any working system for staying on track. What do you use to manage your life? I have at times put down my goals on paper, but those sheets of paper just got lost under the…

Making your life meaningful and managing it are not the same thing in my opinion. Intrinsically, from the perspective that we live on a pale blue dot, our life doesn't have meaning, but we give it meaning, and we'll give it meaning no matter what we end up doing. Your life is both never and always meaningful.

Managing time requires some understanding of how our bodies work and personal motivation. The greater the change, the harder the work, the longer the ramp up, and the longer it will take. Not always the case, but usually. Once you fail, and many of us fail all the time, the further the regression the harder it will be to try again. Failure is easy to achieve, although denial may hide it from us, exacerbating the regression. Success is not so easy to achieve and even harder to identify.

The good news is that the hardest part is the first step. One small action makes the next action easier, and eventually if you persist the change will become routine. If the change takes too great a toll on the limited amount of willpower we all have, or on our physical body (lack of sleep, energy, etc) you'll hit a wall and probably regress because physics is an uncaring bitch. Nature doesn't care about what we want, you have to work on her terms. Figuring out what those terms are has been at least for me trial and error.

A Marine General once said to my battalion that you never stay static, you're either improving or deteriorating. You're either getting stronger or weaker, you're never not moving in one direction. My high school principal said, if you fall down, get back up again, and don't ever stop trying to get back up.

That's all I got. Anyone know better please let me know.

Re: "Don't you dare waste your fucking time"

#25

Post by simplegeek »

F_J_H wrote: post #20

Reminds me of "Instantes" by Jorge Luis Borges: If I were able to live my life anew, In the next I would try to commit more errors. I would not try to be so perfect, I would relax more. I would be more foolish than I've been, In fact, I would take few things seriously. I would be less hygienic. I would run more risks, take more vacations, contemplate more sunsets, climb more mountains, swim more rivers. I would go to…

Upvote isn't enough, I've to say this: "Beautiful writing".

Re: "Don't you dare waste your fucking time"

#26

Post by emmett »

tpyo wrote: post #6

But... but.. I have to go to school! And write essays no one will ever want to read, essays that don't even aspire to be something interesting!

Treat school like your day job. You only have to be there like 6 hours a day, 5 days a week - it's a pretty easy job.

Re: "Don't you dare waste your fucking time"

#27

Post by jeffcoat »

simplegeek wrote: post #25
F_J_H wrote: post #20

Reminds me of "Instantes" by Jorge Luis Borges: If I were able to live my life anew, In the next I would try to commit more errors. I would not try to be so perfect, I would relax more. I would be more foolish than I've been, In fact, I would take few things seriously. I would be less hygienic. I would run more risks, take more vacations, contemplate more sunsets, climb more mountains, swim more rivers. I would go to…

Upvote isn't enough, I've to say this: "Beautiful writing".

You have excellent taste; go now and grab a copy of Borges's _Ficciones_ for more.

http://books.google.com/books?id=4dPBlkL1dkIC

Re: "Don't you dare waste your fucking time"

#28

Post by keeptrying »

philk wrote: post #19
Tichy wrote: post #11

The problem is, despite all good intentions (which famously pave the road to hell), I am still not sure how to live a meaningful life. It is easy to make decisions on the spot, but really hard to stick to something over the long time. I don't have any working system for staying on track. What do you use to manage your life? I have at times put down my goals on paper, but those sheets of paper just got lost under the…

Very interesting point. I think one has to be aware of one's inbuilt limitations; it's not possible to be doing meaningful stuff all the time as you'll burn out. Hence it might be better to simply aim for a somewhat meaningful life; choose a goal you think is worthwhile and do something towards it every single day. Over time, if it's making progress and bringing you a measure of happiness you can slowly tweak your li…

Supporting an underpriveleged childs college education for 4 yeas in engineering or medical school is meaningful work. Its costs only $2000. Give a bit every month and your doing meaningful (really meaningful) work. http://www.ffe.org Whatever you do is meaningful as long as it helps someone.

Re: "Don't you dare waste your fucking time"

#30

Post by keeptrying »

hopeless wrote: post #9

As one of those that has lived (through a car accident) this resonates so strongly. There are elements of my life that I'm deeply unhappy about but I'm working on changing them. These changes won't overnight but what scares me more than anything is that it won't happen quick enough. I've seen the end game and it isn't scheduled months in advance or decades away in our future... ...it might be that you kiss your pregn…

Help someone out on a constant basis and then whatever your doing is meaningful ... www.ffe.org
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