Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why Am I So Lazy?

thecut.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 243 posts

Re: Why Am I So Lazy?

#151

Post by ta76567656 »

iandanforth wrote: post #145

Warning - rant. I wish HN would ban BS psychology articles. There are real, scientific, actionable steps to understanding perceived motivational deficit and this article doesn't get close to them. It retreads stigmatizing labels, regurgitates useless advice, and provokes high confidence low value anecdotes. 1. Motivation is a chemical state. You can induce motivation generically through dopamine reuptake inhibitors.…

Stealing from my favorite retired blogger: "I can make you sad forever just by whispering a few words into your ear."

The brain may be "just chemicals" but it's an incredibly complex system of them, to the point where high level abstractions, like "psychology" can be useful.

To expand on your model, I would argue that things described in this article, like your fundamental assumptions about yourself and the world are "part of your environment" and therefore part of something which you seem to agree can have an affect on your behavior.

Re: Why Am I So Lazy?

#152

Post by trevyn »

allsunny wrote: post #149
iandanforth wrote: post #145

Warning - rant. I wish HN would ban BS psychology articles. There are real, scientific, actionable steps to understanding perceived motivational deficit and this article doesn't get close to them. It retreads stigmatizing labels, regurgitates useless advice, and provokes high confidence low value anecdotes. 1. Motivation is a chemical state. You can induce motivation generically through dopamine reuptake inhibitors.…

I hear you but any suggestions on what can we do to increase our motivation short of Adderall and bears? Is it a diet thing or.. genetic lottery?

Imagine an angry bear following you around! :-)

Re: Why Am I So Lazy?

#153

Post by iandanforth »

Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #147
iandanforth wrote: post #145

Warning - rant. I wish HN would ban BS psychology articles. There are real, scientific, actionable steps to understanding perceived motivational deficit and this article doesn't get close to them. It retreads stigmatizing labels, regurgitates useless advice, and provokes high confidence low value anecdotes. 1. Motivation is a chemical state. You can induce motivation generically through dopamine reuptake inhibitors.…

How about banning BS psychology HN comments, too? It sounds like you're basically talking about ego depletion, which has come under fire in the past few years, with what little evidence there was for it coming into doubt: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ego_depletion

I respect the spirit of your response but no. Here are some interesting studies.

One of many candidate drug evaluations - https://academic.oup.com/ijnp/article/17/12/2045/2910067

Dosage dependant effects and tolerance - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/2530095/

Environment protecting against addiction - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/22157144/

Edit - Couldn't find a good source for the bear thing. Apologies!

Re: Why Am I So Lazy?

#154

Post by trevyn »

ta76567656 wrote: post #151
iandanforth wrote: post #145

Warning - rant. I wish HN would ban BS psychology articles. There are real, scientific, actionable steps to understanding perceived motivational deficit and this article doesn't get close to them. It retreads stigmatizing labels, regurgitates useless advice, and provokes high confidence low value anecdotes. 1. Motivation is a chemical state. You can induce motivation generically through dopamine reuptake inhibitors.…

Stealing from my favorite retired blogger: "I can make you sad forever just by whispering a few words into your ear." The brain may be "just chemicals" but it's an incredibly complex system of them, to the point where high level abstractions, like "psychology" can be useful. To expand on your model, I would argue that things described in this article, like your fundamental assumptions about yourself and the world are…

Reference for that quote? Having trouble finding it.

Re: Why Am I So Lazy?

#155

Post by somethingsimple »

bambax wrote: post #52

> I see this shit every day in other parents: “She hates to read!” “He’s lazy!” “She’s bad at math!” You are imprisoning your kid with your words, fuckers! That's spot on. It's really upsetting to hear people say that about children, especially people with authority (parents, grandparents). DON'T DO THAT! Or, if you have to do that (!?!) at least be positive. Don't tell a kid she's bad at math, tell her she's good at…

> Don't tell a kid she's bad at math, tell her she's good at math and you're surprised she doesn't get good grades

I think one must be careful with this. I'd use that approach if my kid got a single bad grade among otherwise great grades in math. But I wouldn't tell her that if I knew she wasn't good at math - that would just be dishonest, and kids can tell.

My approach with my daughter is to praise her for things I've observed she's good at, and to make comments about the thing itself when I see her struggling. When she struggles with something, I encourage her by telling her that the thing itself is hard, instead of downplaying her ability to accomplish it. When applicable, I tell her it's hard even for me, as in "it's hard even for a 30-year old grown ass dude like me, so don't fret over it."

And finally, if I see her struggling with something I believe she shouldn't at her age (e.g. handwriting), I look up resources that will help me help her, or ultimately seek external help.

Re: Why Am I So Lazy?

#156

Post by hartator »

Weirdly, a management book - a sense of urgency by John P. Kotter - was also one of the best book to get things done in my personal life as well.

A quick summary: It’s kind of easy, if you don’t feel a true sense of emergency, you’ll natuaraly not do it.

Re: Why Am I So Lazy?

#157

Post by ta76567656 »

trevyn wrote: post #154
ta76567656 wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stealing from my favorite retired blogger: "I can make you sad forever just by whispering a few words into your ear." The brain may be "just chemicals" but it's an incredibly complex system of them, to the point where high level abstractions, like "psychology" can be useful. To expand on your model, I would argue that things described in this article, like your fundamental assumptions about yourself and the world are…

Reference for that quote? Having trouble finding it.

Can't remember the article, but I'm paraphrasing http://thelastpsychiatrist.com

Re: Why Am I So Lazy?

#158

Post by jv22222 »

I have a theory that the reason I am so lazy is because being a programmer teaches me to find the fastest short cut way to do things.

Actually the less code I use to get a task done the better the code is and I get a dopamine hit.

Also, if I write a great script that saves me hours on a boring manual task, I get another dopamine hit.

As a 10x coder I wonder if all these dopamine hits (20+ years) have short circuited my brain and made me want to do everything with the least amount of effort as possible.

Or, maybe I'm just lazy ;)

Re: Why Am I So Lazy?

#159

Post by oceanghost »

My wife is very similar to the person who wrote this article. She will not do anything she can procrastinate. Nothing. I personally think its some sort of insidious depression. It's destroyed our lives together, and I'm on the verge of asking for a divorce for the... 3rd time, except this time, I'm going to just file.

It is absolutely impossible to have the energy for both people in a relationship. My health is suffering from the stress. Things are so bad that I have to make sure she eats.

Nobody but me knows this side of her, she projects an image of a healthy, successful person.

edit: A marriage is a zero-sum game. Any chore she doesn't do, I am forced to. I've gradually had to give up everything that makes me happy to fund this depression of hers. I used to be a serious lifter, I was well into writing two novels, I did electronics projects, had an active night life, went to concerts. Now, I'm just a robot that does chores.

Re: Why Am I So Lazy?

#160

Post by sizzle »

Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #147
iandanforth wrote: post #145

Warning - rant. I wish HN would ban BS psychology articles. There are real, scientific, actionable steps to understanding perceived motivational deficit and this article doesn't get close to them. It retreads stigmatizing labels, regurgitates useless advice, and provokes high confidence low value anecdotes. 1. Motivation is a chemical state. You can induce motivation generically through dopamine reuptake inhibitors.…

How about banning BS psychology HN comments, too? It sounds like you're basically talking about ego depletion, which has come under fire in the past few years, with what little evidence there was for it coming into doubt: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ego_depletion

His response is sound neuroscience.
Post reply on HN