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The Ultimate Guide To Getting Nowhere In Life

garyharan.com

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Re: The Ultimate Guide To Getting Nowhere In Life

#31

Post by _delirium »

khelloworld wrote: post #24

"(CNN) -- Lars and Jens Rasmussen were broke and jobless -- with only $16 between them -- when they made it big in the Web world by selling their idea for Google Maps." SOURCE: http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/10/27/rasmussen.brothers.google... I'm pretty sure these guys got somewhere even without a cushion of money under their bums.

I'm not sure just how poor and underprivileged they were; it sounds like not getting a job and doing a startup instead was a choice, and that initially at least there was a cushion of money. Lars Rasmussen got a PhD from Berkeley in 1998, and then by 2003 somehow ended up in Australia, where he founded a tech startup and sold to Google within the year. Most actual poor people can't buy a plane ticket to Australia!

Re: The Ultimate Guide To Getting Nowhere In Life

#32

Post by BoppreH »

araneae wrote: post #18
BoppreH wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading makes you better at reading (duh) and writing. Two essential skills that are used daily. What skills does your TV gives to you?

That would be a good point if I were 8 years old. However, my vocabulary is unlikely to increase anymore.

The brain gets lazy if you don't exercise it. Sure, you might be getting it from somewhere else, but reading is still a good source to as least practice your vocabulary.

Re: The Ultimate Guide To Getting Nowhere In Life

#33

Post by xutopia »

smiler wrote: post #5

How demeaning. Agree with some of it but notice how there is nothing here about anything else you might like to do with your life outside of having a job and owning a business. Like a wife and a family. A 9-5 job is pretty much great in those circumstances if you just want to enjoy life - I work for a 10 person company and I've seen what the owner has gone through in the last 10 years it's been going - he has no life…

(Disclaimer I'm the author of the post)

Having a family and moving forward in your career are not incompatible. I should have used "dead end job" instead of "9-5" job. I didn't mean that working more hours and spending time away from your family is something you should be doing. Sorry about making it sound that way.

The post was about not waisting your potential, stopping bad financial habits and living your passions.

Re: The Ultimate Guide To Getting Nowhere In Life

#36

Post by argv_empty »

azanar wrote: post #25
kyro wrote: post #22

I know many people who have/do the first 3 things on that list and probably find more joy in their lives than this guy gets out of looking at the temporary traffic spike hitting is blog because of a really demeaning post he wrote up in no more than 5 minutes. Happiness and life fulfillment are very much found in the 9-to-5, pay-check-to-pay-check demographic of society. There are things in life one must attend to tha…

Happiness and life fulfillment are very much found in the 9-to-5, pay-check-to-pay-check demographic of society. I wish this were true. The impression I get is more of numb, passive contentment, at least from enough people in this demographic that it is bothersome. They seem to have traded happiness and fulfillment for the image of happiness and fulfillment, and it is difficult to tell the difference until you ask th…

They seem to have traded happiness and fulfillment for the image of happiness and fulfillment, and it is difficult to tell the difference until you ask the hard questions that make them feel uncomfortable and defensive.

Or perhaps a person took such a job because his life goals simply do not relate to work. Being another cog in a cube farm may not be interesting itself, but it can be used as a source of funding for things that genuinely are. A 9-to-5 isn't my weapon of choice here (since some things I find interesting also happen to be readily marketable skills), but it is an effective one.

Re: The Ultimate Guide To Getting Nowhere In Life

#37

Post by BoppreH »

nostrademons wrote: post #11
BoppreH wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading makes you better at reading (duh) and writing. Two essential skills that are used daily. What skills does your TV gives to you?

Passively sitting down with the latest Dan Brown novel won't make you any better at reading or writing. Sitting down with a novel that's just beyond your comfort zone (say, Dostoevsky if you're used to Dan Brown) will make you better at reading, and sitting down with any novel and actively paying attention to how the writer shapes the story with words will make you better at writing. But that's an apples-to-sushi com…

> Passively sitting down with the latest Dan Brown novel won't make you any better at reading or writing. Well, I disagree. I think that any practice improves you, even if by a marginal amount. But I could be wrong, so let me rephrase that sentence as "reading serves as a practice for your reading and writing skills". I think it does not affect my point in the "reading is inherently better than TV" discussion.

> Basically, you get out of any activity what you put into it. I'm going to write this one down. Thanks.

Re: The Ultimate Guide To Getting Nowhere In Life

#38

Post by argv_empty »

natrius wrote: post #13
araneae wrote: post #7

I think his offhand implication that reading books is superior to TV is wrong. Most fiction has exactly the same purpose and function on TV, which is to entertain. Yes, reading some books makes you "cultured" but so does TV; just to a different culture. I consider watching all the latest sci fi to be just as "culturing" as reading all the latest sci fi.

Reading is entertainment that requires thought and imagination. While you're reading, it's easy and common to stop and reflect over what has just been said. Not so with video. When you watch a sci fi movie, you see the world the filmmaker has built. When you read a sci fi book, you build the world the author describes in your head. Value judgments aside, they're very different experiences.

And if the sci-fi is good, then regardless of medium, I stop and reflect on the world or situation being described and the questions it raises.

Re: The Ultimate Guide To Getting Nowhere In Life

#39

Post by BoppreH »

zackattack wrote: post #9
BoppreH wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading makes you better at reading (duh) and writing. Two essential skills that are used daily. What skills does your TV gives to you?

Ability to connect with strangers through mutual ties to 'pop culture'

Although it answers my question, you could say that any practice (maybe with the exception of breathing) gives you "mutual ties".

Re: The Ultimate Guide To Getting Nowhere In Life

#40

Post by xutopia »

kyro wrote: post #22

I know many people who have/do the first 3 things on that list and probably find more joy in their lives than this guy gets out of looking at the temporary traffic spike hitting is blog because of a really demeaning post he wrote up in no more than 5 minutes. Happiness and life fulfillment are very much found in the 9-to-5, pay-check-to-pay-check demographic of society. There are things in life one must attend to tha…

I wished I wrote that blog post in just 5 minutes. I actually spent a couple hours on the first draft but was told it wasn't punchy enough. The second draft took almost as much time the first.

The main mistake I made in this post is using the term 9-5 instead of dead end. I didn't mean that you should work 90 hours a week, far from it. As my short bio on my blog says "I'm a passionate father" and I think that moving forward in your career are totally compatible with that.

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