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Time anxiety: is it too late?

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Re: Time anxiety: is it too late?

#101

Post by sosuke »

Fr0styMatt88 wrote: post #99
rland wrote: post #51

The single consistent thing I have noticed in dealing with this type of anxiety is that if I spend time with people I actually like being with, it completely disappears. It's impossible to be so self-directed if there is another person in the room who I care about or love. To that end, the fix is simple: surround myself with people that I love. Friends and family. Easier said then done, especially in our modern world…

Somewhat related -- and boy I never thought I'd say this! -- some stuff started changing in my life for the better recently and I decided to get back on Facebook and get involved again (I hadn't deleted my account or anything, I just hadn't posted or interacted in a very long time). I joined a bunch of groups that interested me and more importantly for me, I started making an effort to like and comment on posts of ex…

Woah, that is a pretty compelling story to me. Makes me think about Facebooking a little.

Re: Time anxiety: is it too late?

#102

Post by dag11 »

Grzegrzolka wrote: post #18
programmerdude wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a software eng who has always had a lot of hobbies, it's almost alienating how so many people in the office are only into TV shows, super hero movies, sci fi books, video games... It's like, there's a whole world out there people!

Serious question, what other hobbies can one have?

Personally, this year I started getting really into Scuba diving--a sport/hobby I hardly thought about for my entire life until I tried a single "Discover Scuba Diving" dive four months ago. Lately I've been diving deep into the hobby (hah) at home and in Thailand. I've been connecting with so many other people here in Seattle and discovered a whole community that's otherwise invisible. Most excitingly, turns out there's a whole new world down there under the waves! No need to search for alien life when it's already here on earth :D

Finding this hobby has given me pretty great happiness this year. I suffer from a fair bit of existential time anxiety, and anxiety over having too many consumptive "hobbies". Diving isn't exactly a constructive hobby, but it's opened up a new avenue of happiness that isn't strictly input/output for me.

Re: Time anxiety: is it too late?

#103

Post by nexuist »

Fr0styMatt88 wrote: post #99
rland wrote: post #51

The single consistent thing I have noticed in dealing with this type of anxiety is that if I spend time with people I actually like being with, it completely disappears. It's impossible to be so self-directed if there is another person in the room who I care about or love. To that end, the fix is simple: surround myself with people that I love. Friends and family. Easier said then done, especially in our modern world…

Somewhat related -- and boy I never thought I'd say this! -- some stuff started changing in my life for the better recently and I decided to get back on Facebook and get involved again (I hadn't deleted my account or anything, I just hadn't posted or interacted in a very long time). I joined a bunch of groups that interested me and more importantly for me, I started making an effort to like and comment on posts of ex…

I feel like your description of Facebook is what all the employees who worked on it circa 2004 were envisioning it would become. It seemed so groundbreaking yet so serene. A brand new way to do the same things.

I wish we could have all the good without the bad, but I suppose that's what makes this field so insanely hard.

Re: Time anxiety: is it too late?

#104

Post by Fr0styMatt88 »

sosuke wrote: post #101
Fr0styMatt88 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Somewhat related -- and boy I never thought I'd say this! -- some stuff started changing in my life for the better recently and I decided to get back on Facebook and get involved again (I hadn't deleted my account or anything, I just hadn't posted or interacted in a very long time). I joined a bunch of groups that interested me and more importantly for me, I started making an effort to like and comment on posts of ex…

Woah, that is a pretty compelling story to me. Makes me think about Facebooking a little.

One hint I can give you is that joining groups seemed to be the thing that really turned my news feed into something else. I've joined groups related to game programming, music production, Arduino and a bunch of others related to local music gigs (plus some support groups that I feel I can contribute to) and now there's actually a lot of interesting (and pleasantly technical) stuff in my feed. The other effect this had is that the ads I see are a lot better as well.

Re: Time anxiety: is it too late?

#105

Post by Fr0styMatt88 »

nexuist wrote: post #103
Fr0styMatt88 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Somewhat related -- and boy I never thought I'd say this! -- some stuff started changing in my life for the better recently and I decided to get back on Facebook and get involved again (I hadn't deleted my account or anything, I just hadn't posted or interacted in a very long time). I joined a bunch of groups that interested me and more importantly for me, I started making an effort to like and comment on posts of ex…

I feel like your description of Facebook is what all the employees who worked on it circa 2004 were envisioning it would become. It seemed so groundbreaking yet so serene. A brand new way to do the same things. I wish we could have all the good without the bad, but I suppose that's what makes this field so insanely hard.

I think the exact same thing too. I know I'm in a relative minority in being able to keep my Facebook privacy settings in check, for example. It's a really tough problem.

Re: Time anxiety: is it too late?

#106

Post by athenot »

dag11 wrote: post #102
Grzegrzolka wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Serious question, what other hobbies can one have?

Personally, this year I started getting really into Scuba diving--a sport/hobby I hardly thought about for my entire life until I tried a single "Discover Scuba Diving" dive four months ago. Lately I've been diving deep into the hobby (hah) at home and in Thailand. I've been connecting with so many other people here in Seattle and discovered a whole community that's otherwise invisible. Most excitingly, turns out the…

A friend of mine has the same story. Went on a intro dive during a vacation in Hawaii because "why not?" and 3 years later he's a certified Master Diver, teaching classes and doing very technical dives & rescues. All as a hobby.

Re: Time anxiety: is it too late?

#107

Post by l_t »

abvdasker wrote: post #96
l_t wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a personal comment, but if you're like me, I bet that anxiety is not just related to time. I would be telling myself: How can I commit to a lifelong project like children? How can I decide what career path to choose, when there are so many options and I can only pick one? How can I work out, when its basically signing up to humiliate yourself? How can I take these _risks_? In my experience, anxiety pretends t…

I am pretty cynical when it comes to the attitudes people seem to have about children (I don't have kids so it's possible I don't know what I'm talking about). You and many others use the same language to talk about attempting to publish a book or starting a company that you use for having children: words like "project". In general I don't agree with this conception of children since failure in that endeavor often ha…

Thanks for calling that out, I'm not trying to imply that these are only personal risks. In fact, it's often the risk to others that causes anxiety. So I wouldn't read too much into my use of the word "project" there. It's just meant to imply something that's a daunting, long-term commitment. (I don't have kids either, for what that's worth.)

Re: Time anxiety: is it too late?

#108

Post by phodo »

Fr0styMatt88 wrote: post #104
sosuke wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Woah, that is a pretty compelling story to me. Makes me think about Facebooking a little.

One hint I can give you is that joining groups seemed to be the thing that really turned my news feed into something else. I've joined groups related to game programming, music production, Arduino and a bunch of others related to local music gigs (plus some support groups that I feel I can contribute to) and now there's actually a lot of interesting (and pleasantly technical) stuff in my feed. The other effect this h…

On a related note : That’s also how I use Twitter - carefully curated. I’m more of an occasional user, a lurker more than a tweeter. And the resulting recommendations, ads, and tweets are relevant and useful to me in the topics I like. It’s not perfect but it makes general discovery - breadth and depth - meaningful to me, whenever I go thru my feed.

Re: Time anxiety: is it too late?

#110

Post by archagon »

hinkley wrote: post #3

I know there are some people disproving parts of Malcolm Gladwell's theories, but sometime in the last year or two it occurred to me that one of the consequences of the 10,000 hours theory is that you actually have time to get expert-level good at three or four things in your life even if you spent part of it 'fucking around'. I've expanded that into a philosophy about 'Software eats the world": the only way that doe…

I always think back to this comic when I'm feeling the passage of time: https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2012-09-02
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