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

You Are Not Lazy or Undisciplined. You Have Internal Resistance

medium.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 146 posts

Re: You Are Not Lazy or Undisciplined. You Have Internal Resistance

#111

Post by goodpoint »

coldtea wrote: post #95
jokoon wrote: post #43

It'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 t…

> It's weird how we don't want to admit we are overworked. Or that evolution works to make big changes in cycles of 1000s of years, and that 6 million years of hominin evolution out in nature in accordance with pre-electricity natural day cycles (and more malleable schedules), are not compatible with the mandatory: (1) ass in the chair, (2) looking at a screen, (3) working with abstract information, (4) 9 to 5, 5 day…

> (4) 9 to 5, 5 days a week,

A lot of people work more than 40 hours a week, plus additional time spent learning and so on...

Re: You Are Not Lazy or Undisciplined. You Have Internal Resistance

#112

Post by thecoppinger »

courtf wrote: post #100
n8cpdx wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really like society as it is. I, as rare as it is, identify as a neoliberal and I generally am invested in how things are. I like to see people working hard, I work hard myself, and aside from wanting a larger safety net, largely value the idea of a competitive market for labor. Those ideas, I suspect much more prevalent on HN than other sites, lead to defensiveness when antiwork or work-critical ideas are shared.…

Appreciate this comment, thank you. For many years I had a sort of ruthless determination to get ahead and work hard. It mostly helped me back then, as many obstacles then were the sort that could be brute-forced, and it was addictive in a way as well. I could feel myself improving, could see the progress happening etc. I made lots of money for a while, got myself and my husband ahead in life etc. A few things happen…

This really resonated with me, thank you.

"Some amount of madness is crucial to hold onto"

I think I would like this as my epitaph.

Re: You Are Not Lazy or Undisciplined. You Have Internal Resistance

#113

Post by coldtea »

goodpoint wrote: post #111
coldtea wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's weird how we don't want to admit we are overworked. Or that evolution works to make big changes in cycles of 1000s of years, and that 6 million years of hominin evolution out in nature in accordance with pre-electricity natural day cycles (and more malleable schedules), are not compatible with the mandatory: (1) ass in the chair, (2) looking at a screen, (3) working with abstract information, (4) 9 to 5, 5 day…

> (4) 9 to 5, 5 days a week, A lot of people work more than 40 hours a week, plus additional time spent learning and so on...

Which just makes it worse. And then there are commutes and so on to add to that.

But I wanted to state the minimum typical requirement, and show it's bad enough already.

Re: You Are Not Lazy or Undisciplined. You Have Internal Resistance

#114

Post by james-skemp »

vmladenov wrote: post #108
codegeek wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt UBI will make everyone stop working. As far as I understand, the point of UBI is to ensure that people are not homeless, have enough to put food on the table and it covers your absolute basic needs. Lets say we implement UBI at 1K/Month which is what people like Andrew Yang proposed. That is not enough to just sit at home all day. You still need to make money but hopefully with that 1K, you won't be homeless…

I’m still not clear on why UBI won’t just raise the price floor on everything (rent in your example) to the point where it becomes ineffective again. In Mountain View, landlords raised rents when they heard companies were giving a bonus for people living within 15 miles. Some even included it in their advertising.

> Some even included it in their advertising.

I'm really curious what the language/spin was to make that something that was included in the advertising.

Re: You Are Not Lazy or Undisciplined. You Have Internal Resistance

#115

Post by ramphastidae »

systemvoltage wrote: post #107
jokoon wrote: post #43

It'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 t…

Unpopular opinion: I'll continue to work hard and have an advantage over others (not literally with my coworkers, but generally in my profession). Competition drives me and it fuels everything I do. Without it, I don't want to live anymore. Working and solving problems is extremely fun for me. Even if I am not writing code, fixing things in the house, personal projects, helping others, just doing something is fun and…

I don’t think the downvotes are fair here, but I’d just like to mention that this is basically what everyone in the early stages of burnout says … just be careful not to attach so much of your self-image to your work ethic, because over a long enough timeline, you will get screwed over many times unfairly despite working harder and doing things better than everyone else, and that may deeply shock you based on your opinion above.

Re: You Are Not Lazy or Undisciplined. You Have Internal Resistance

#116

Post by systemvoltage »

ramphastidae wrote: post #115
systemvoltage wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unpopular opinion: I'll continue to work hard and have an advantage over others (not literally with my coworkers, but generally in my profession). Competition drives me and it fuels everything I do. Without it, I don't want to live anymore. Working and solving problems is extremely fun for me. Even if I am not writing code, fixing things in the house, personal projects, helping others, just doing something is fun and…

I don’t think the downvotes are fair here, but I’d just like to mention that this is basically what everyone in the early stages of burnout says … just be careful not to attach so much of your self-image to your work ethic, because over a long enough timeline, you will get screwed over many times unfairly despite working harder and doing things better than everyone else, and that may deeply shock you based on your op…

I’ve been doing this for 20 years and haven’t faced burnout. Quite peaceful mentally and physically fit. It is precisely not about self image for me.

Competition is inherent to human experience. Watching sports wouldn’t be popular otherwise.

A world where everyone not competing to be their best would be an extremely depressing place.

Re: You Are Not Lazy or Undisciplined. You Have Internal Resistance

#117

Post by hypertele-Xii »

armchairhacker wrote: post #109

I think that, instead of saying "you're not lazy", we should take the stigma away from laziness and say "you are lazy, but don't feel bad". Laziness is a character trait present in all humans, some more than others, and we should acknowledge it and work to become less lazy, without punishing it or being ashamed of it. You are "lazy" if you don't do something that would benefit you because it's too much effort. That s…

> work to become less lazy, without punishing it

But to laziness, work is punishment.

Re: You Are Not Lazy or Undisciplined. You Have Internal Resistance

#118

Post by hypertele-Xii »

Xophmeister wrote: post #106

I might just being dense or, perhaps more generously, completely un-self-aware, but I genuinely don’t understand the premise of this argument. Internal resistance is an attempt to avoid the pain we associate with successfully doing the thing. We subconsciously believe that succeeding in doing something — that we’ve presumably never done before — will cause us some “emotional pain”, thus we go to lengths to avoid it?…

Back when I was in school, I was consistently punished for succeeding too much. Finished with my tasks? Here's extra. Knew more than the teacher about the subject? Shut up mister wise guy. Understood the subject and wanted to discuss it? There's no time for debate.

Made something amazing on the computer? Stop playing on the computer, go outside instead.

Made a lot of money? Get robbed.

Etc.

Re: You Are Not Lazy or Undisciplined. You Have Internal Resistance

#119

Post by hypertele-Xii »

bserge wrote: post #55

I've read sooooooo much of this kind of shiitake, I am sick of it. It is bullshit. Or rather, it's written by people who don't even take into account the biological nature of the brain. Let me check... of course he's a "coach"... If you can't do, teach, I guess. All of this shit will act as a bandaid, a crutch at best. It's like the bullshit "imagine you're wealthy and you will become wealthy". No, that doesn't work.…

> You can imagine whatever the fork you want, it won't make it real.

Yet you also cannot make real something you didn't imagine, except by accident. Priming works, hence "fake it till you make it".

Re: You Are Not Lazy or Undisciplined. You Have Internal Resistance

#120

Post by zwayhowder »

marttt wrote: post #77
laurent92 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In 2010 I went to prune trees in Australia. Immediately, my depression stopped. Almost as if using the full body made everything better than using only the brain and speaking to a computer all day.

+1, I've been an on-and-off brush cutter and tree planter for several years. I can fully confirm this: physical work outdoors does wonders to mental health. The interesting part is that I can be really exhausted from a day in the woods, struggling to somehow get to the car, etc -- but after 7-8 hours of decent sleep, all of this is gone! No muscle pains next morning, no nothing. It is incredible how well our body can…

One thing I found when I worked on farms clearing paddocks or putting up fences was you always had a sense of accomplishment. You could look back at your days effort and see it while you had a cold drink.

I work 18 hours on a presentation for the exec at work and the next day it is like it never happened. I never get the real mental pay off that I would get if I spent 18 hours clearing a paddock.

Post reply on HN