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

Improving Ourselves to Death

newyorker.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 109 posts

Re: Improving Ourselves to Death

#51

Post by adamsea »

0xcde4c3db wrote: post #8

> Duckworth doesn’t think you need talent in order to become, as another of Duhigg’s books puts it, “Smarter Better Faster,” and neither do any of these other experts. According to their systems, anyone can learn to be more efficient, more focussed, more effective in the pursuit of happiness and, that most hallowed of modern traits, productivity. And if you can’t, well, that’s on you. The thing that really gets me ab…

I dunno about the no-consensus thing. It's kind of like saying "there's very little consensus about how to do frontend development with javascript." Well, perhaps in one sense, but in another sense there are some obvious paths (proven frameworks whether Angular, React, Vue, etc, proven and well-documented patterns/approaches - SPA, REST, etc), best practices, and things to avoid. And context matters, of course. When would it not? Surely life is not less complex than software development.

A couple things which I believe there are consensus about, at least within the clinical psychology field:

Exercise is the most obvious thing that comes to mind. And getting into nature. And meaningful relationships.

Cognitive behavioral therapy generally seems to have good results.

Meditation.

Coffee is good for you (just kidding, that one flips back and forth every week).

Re: Improving Ourselves to Death

#52

Post by Jemmeh »

jcadam wrote: post #4

tl;dr - I made it about two paragraphs in before I started skimming. It's a rambling an uninteresting rant against the self-help industry, which ends with a recommendation for another self-help book. I fail to see what point the author is trying to make. What is life but a struggle to become the best person one can be? And who cares if the quest kills us? We're all going to die anyway. What else were you going to do…

How to Win Friends and Influence people is still my favorite book on self improvement so far. I'm big on improving myself and I've read a lot on the subject, and often make some suggestions to others. Part of the problem is different people need different advice.

But there are also a lot of scammers/bad advice in the genre that people are wary of. I think specifically because I often listen to self improvement, educational, and entrepreneurial videos on youtube I get a lot of ads for it. Promises that if you just follow their system you'll be rich, in perfect health, adored by all...and they'll let you know their secrets for the low price of $100/month. Even with good intentions sometimes the advice is just to be ridiculously optimistic and some of it is just about wishful thinking. Sorting through it all to find the good stuff can be hard for people. Although internet reviews do help somewhat, I think people get a bit tired of trying to find the answers that work sometimes.

Re: Improving Ourselves to Death

#53

Post by adamsea »

hodgesrm wrote: post #33
taneq wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TBH, and I say this as a pretty staunch atheist, Jesus sounds like he had a lot of his shit sorted. Most of what I've read about him is just him being fair and advocating respect of everyone involved.

Between about 1000 BC and 0 AD it seems as if humans worked out how to get along in life. I'm on your side in following Christian scripture but I think you can use any of the major texts that emerged during that time and get reasonable results. In fact my main beef with self-help programs is that they tend to regurgitate a lot of basic lessons that already exist in ancient texts in cleaner and more direct forms, such…

I'd go even further and say human beings have worked it out multiple times - the little bit of Buddhist literature I've read, or, from the Chinese angle, the Dao De Ching (Tao Te Ching) both contain a lot of wisdom. I'm sure other cultures have worked out part or all of it too.

The sad thing is so much good stuff is out there, however people often don't listen, or take it to heart.

Re: Improving Ourselves to Death

#54

Post by jcoffland »

tonystubblebine wrote: post #48
graphitezepp wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I could write this out word for word and it would be true for me as well. Generally, I think interacting with self help stuff is bad and can lead to being overly self critical. But when you take a hard look at your self and truly acknowledge that you aren't being who you feel like you are, what else is there to do?

From an insider's perspective (I work in self help), there are a couple of hidden things that contribute to you feeling self-critical that aren't your fault. 1. The field is very competitive and so everyone in the field hypes up their success stories. It's easy to go in to a self help book thinking it will work 100% of the time. The truth is that it probably only works 10% of the time. 10% is great unless you were ex…

> there are a couple of hidden things that contribute to you feeling self-critical that aren't your fault.

This is the start of 100s of self-help books. Mainly, IMHO, because it's such an attractive pitch, not because it carries any truth.

Re: Improving Ourselves to Death

#55

Post by jcadam »

goodroot wrote: post #49
thwawaywaq23498 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> tl;dr - I made it about two paragraphs in before I started skimming. It's a rambling an uninteresting rant against the self-help industry, which ends with a recommendation for another self-help book. I fail to see what point the author is trying to make. An essay of this length should communicate something that is not necessarily digestible into a single point. In fact, it's arguable that a good essay cannot be sum…

I agree with you, poster. I'm baffled as to why you felt you needed a throw-away, though. If you don't think you can speak in earnest within this community, it probably isn't healthy for any of us to be here. Back to your point, though, I think that the mark of an effective essay on the Internet is whether or not it drums up interesting conversation. This one has.

> I agree with you, poster. I'm baffled as to why you felt you needed a throw-away, though.

I know, this isn't a political topic, we should be able to have a reasonable discussion :)

In any case, I like a good long-form essay on occasion - this one definitely failed to 'hook' me in the intro.

Re: Improving Ourselves to Death

#56

Post by walshemj »

hodgesrm wrote: post #33
taneq wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TBH, and I say this as a pretty staunch atheist, Jesus sounds like he had a lot of his shit sorted. Most of what I've read about him is just him being fair and advocating respect of everyone involved.

Between about 1000 BC and 0 AD it seems as if humans worked out how to get along in life. I'm on your side in following Christian scripture but I think you can use any of the major texts that emerged during that time and get reasonable results. In fact my main beef with self-help programs is that they tend to regurgitate a lot of basic lessons that already exist in ancient texts in cleaner and more direct forms, such…

Have you read any classical history ? Thucydides records death camps in his history of the peloponnesian war.

Re: Improving Ourselves to Death

#57

Post by byproxy »

stinkytaco wrote: post #7

Here's a related article some may find interesting if you like this one: https://www.theawl.com/2011/04/inside-david-foster-wallaces-... It's about the writer David Foster Wallace's annotated self-help library. I think it's fascinating to see the energy with which someone who is brilliant consumed low-brow self-help literature. Alas it seems like it did not work in the end.

When you're in such a bad spot you'll look to anything for a way out.

Re: Improving Ourselves to Death

#58

Post by mikeokner »

> 2017 was a pustule of a year, politically and personally; the general anxiety around the degradation of American democracy made it hard to get much done.

If you're the type of person to make excuses for your lack of personal achievement due to the Twitter ramblings of politicians, then I have news for you: you're never going to be successful.

Re: Improving Ourselves to Death

#59

Post by Individualist »

the_greyd wrote: post #2

Very Interesting read. I'm someone who has been reading some self-help literature for the past year. Topics include Mindfulness, Buddhism, Stoicism, Social skills, Positive psychology, Habit forming, Assertiveness. I'm in my early 20s, and I justify this phase as un-learning the coping mechanisms/bad habits I formed in my childhood/teen years. Well intentioned but highly critical parents damaged my self-esteem; I als…

There is no such thing as self help. It's what you do, outside information can only be a guide. And the only way to truly change is to put yourself in a new situation with responsibilities, and allowing yourself to fail till you get it right.

Also the only difference between an extrovert and introvert is when they empathize with themselves. And the problem with the "introverted approach," is you are thinking about who you think you are versus through the eyes of those around you. None of you will ever have all the infromation as to who you are. Instead shift your focus on how to help move the conversation between people subjects and shared experiences, instead of question response, etc... Hard to do that when your concerned about your internals mind, when that is only a vapid simulation of who you think you are.

Re: Improving Ourselves to Death

#60

Post by kristofferR »

RobertRoberts wrote: post #26

I know I will likely catch a lot of downvotes for this, but I found the teachings of Jesus to answer questions of how to run life. As well as the Proverbs of the old testament, and many other scriptures. Seek and you will find. When I get stuck, I found in the past I would look for excuses on why something isn't working, or why is this happening to me, or when will this end. But when I started to actually "seek" I al…

There's absolutely nothing wrong with being inspired by Jesus, the problem is only when people disregard all other inspiration other than the "main one" they have chosen. Christian teaching is good in a lot of ways, but it's also completely lacking in other ways.

People should be inspired and take the best from Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha, the Hindu gods, ancient philosophers, modern philosophers, self-helpers and all other sources they can find. When people believe they have found the truth they are destined to never find it, because they stop looking.

Truth is never found, it is a never-ending and eternal process of discovery that should last until death. A lot of people stop living way before they die.

Post reply on HN