This is excellent! I’ve lived this experience with a graduate thesis project that has taken over a decade to complete. Stephen Pressfield’s books (especially Do The Work) felt very close to the mark, but I also couldn’t buy into the idea that the resistance should be thought of as something external (a malevolent force in the universe). I think this article solves the mystery of what the resistance actually is. This understanding of the resistance combined with Pressfield’s book Do The Work could help a lot of people that are “procrastinating”.
You Are Not Lazy or Undisciplined. You Have Internal Resistance
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Re: You Are Not Lazy or Undisciplined. You Have Internal Resistance
#42Reading this article made me wish there was a setting in Safari (or a good plugin) that can block curse words.
Why on earth does an eloquent academic need to say f*ing or gorramit every couple of sentences? It is not just needles, it is also bad taste.
Re: You Are Not Lazy or Undisciplined. You Have Internal Resistance
#43It's weird how we don't want to admit we are overworked. Competition is such a horror show.
I really disagree with the whole "procrastination" thing. It's normal to feel depressed, it's part of nature of being tired, our brains are fragile and require a lot of energy and sleep.
I bet that I would generally would be much happier working at a moderate pace in a farm rather than using my brain to do some other complex thing.
I went to do some military training for 2 weeks, it was quite difficult and demanding, but in a way, it has the good stuff of a holiday: you're outside, you use your arms and legs, you have no time to use your brain which often demands more energy.
Do you really understand how stressful it is for a brain to perform programming? Our bodies are not made to sustain such mental effort. Brains are small but they consume a lot of energy to function.
Re: You Are Not Lazy or Undisciplined. You Have Internal Resistance
#44Here's a sci-fi movie I'd like to see. A (space alien, mad scientist, corporation, imp) unleashes a (bomb, virus, force field, spell) that suddenly removes internal resistance from everyone. Whatever intention wins the internal vote gets full control of the rest of the psyche. Everyone immediately starts working full bore on their (world saving invention, romantic pursuit, profit plan, great novel, hare brained schem…
This is my biggest problem with all the people promoting entrepreneurship for everyone. If everyone took two years off to start a company there would be no one keeping the lights on.
If everyone started taking two years off to start a company the incentives offered by existing companies would rise until the tide was stemmed.
Re: You Are Not Lazy or Undisciplined. You Have Internal Resistance
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've got ADHD and this. I couldn't be happier this came across the HN feed today, because it seems to accurately answer so many questions I've had about my performance on personal projects recently. I spent months working on the next version of https://vo.codes , and I've only got about five hours of frontend work to do before launching it. I've sit on it for a month now. What I think is happening is that I'm worried…
How would you go about identifying whether you have ADHD or not ? Any tips ? I really really suspect I have it but I have never talked to anyone about it.
Unexplained underachievement.
Re: You Are Not Lazy or Undisciplined. You Have Internal Resistance
#46Hmm, maybe I should try increasing the voltage.
Re: You Are Not Lazy or Undisciplined. You Have Internal Resistance
#47> in my experience it is usually tied to some kind of predicted loss of love and connection This seems like a creative explanation that probably makes an article such as this seem a bit more quirky and interesting or something. Otherwise it's not a bad piece, but I don't think potential loss of love or connection is necessary to explain not wanting to do some difficult/annoying/time consuming task.
I think the article is describing resistance not just in terms of ‘difficult’ creative processes but any excuse you could make for any action that would likely benefit you. Hence that line is more for people who resist finding new connections to people because of past problems. Learned fear of action is just that - learned. And it can be unlearned given the time and practice.
Well the first example in the article was about the author completing her PhD, and it mentioned productivity and making use of talents, and seemed to be talking about fear of success, so I read it as a (strange) extension of that.
If it was meant to be about more personal relationship type stuff the author could have discussed that explicitly. Maybe the piece needed an extra paragraph to explain better what the link was.
Re: You Are Not Lazy or Undisciplined. You Have Internal Resistance
#48no, sometimes I am definitely lazy.
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Re: You Are Not Lazy or Undisciplined. You Have Internal Resistance
#49Here's a sci-fi movie I'd like to see. A (space alien, mad scientist, corporation, imp) unleashes a (bomb, virus, force field, spell) that suddenly removes internal resistance from everyone. Whatever intention wins the internal vote gets full control of the rest of the psyche. Everyone immediately starts working full bore on their (world saving invention, romantic pursuit, profit plan, great novel, hare brained schem…
> Until (Hiro Protagonist) saves the day with a well timed (hack, antidote, counter spell).
Maybe Babel was the best thing that ever happened to us.
Re: You Are Not Lazy or Undisciplined. You Have Internal Resistance
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've got ADHD and this. I couldn't be happier this came across the HN feed today, because it seems to accurately answer so many questions I've had about my performance on personal projects recently. I spent months working on the next version of https://vo.codes , and I've only got about five hours of frontend work to do before launching it. I've sit on it for a month now. What I think is happening is that I'm worried…
How would you go about identifying whether you have ADHD or not ? Any tips ? I really really suspect I have it but I have never talked to anyone about it.
If you want to know if you have it or not you should go get tested by a professional. If you suspect you have it then either you have it and they can help, or you don’t but they can help you improve whatever it is that makes you suspect you have it.