Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you never felt you needed it, what motivated you to do it in the first place?
Girlfriend suggested it.
Why did she suggest it? I feel like im your therapist now.
Ask HN: Have you invested in self-development and done inner work?
91–100 of 105 posts
Re: Ask HN: Have you invested in self-development and done inner work?
#92yes
Re: Ask HN: Have you invested in self-development and done inner work?
#93Two book recommendations, to refresh your mind if you've been too deep in "investing in inner growth" (can be a trap). - the Zhuangzi, translation by Burton Watson, which I've read many times. See the last two paragraphs of https://terebess.hu/english/chuangtzu.html about the useless tree - Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism by Chögyam Trungpa, which I haven't read except extracts, but it could be relevant to you…
Definitively a good idea to disconnect, it's really important, and definitively need to do it more.
Do you mind if I email you directly at hello@...?
I have a few thoughts to share and questions to ask about your search.
Re: Ask HN: Have you invested in self-development and done inner work?
#94Be careful with thinking that deep work, expanding your mind, culture, emotional and spiritual literacy, philosophical, psychological and political understanding will make you better. You will become different. Whatever measures by which you discern 'better' before, will be irrelevant, almost laughable to the person you become. And beware too that growth can itself become a preoccupation. If you have goals like be mo…
I discovered I don't enjoy programming at all and I was only ever trying to prove myself smart, because my father had hang ups about being stupid after getting brain damage. Programming itself is horrible, now I'm stuck in a career I hate (or rather I am now aware of my prison). I'm not sure knowing is better.
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Re: Ask HN: Have you invested in self-development and done inner work?
#95Be careful with thinking that deep work, expanding your mind, culture, emotional and spiritual literacy, philosophical, psychological and political understanding will make you better. You will become different. Whatever measures by which you discern 'better' before, will be irrelevant, almost laughable to the person you become. And beware too that growth can itself become a preoccupation. If you have goals like be mo…
> Be careful with thinking that deep work, expanding your mind, culture, emotional and spiritual literacy, philosophical, psychological and political understanding will make you better. After watching my friends go to Peru to trip balls with shamans (or just go to Burning Man yearly) and "expand their mind" -- but not really change their lives in any meaningful way -- I'm highly skeptical of the "deep understanding"…
Did they drink Ayahuasca? [1] I know a person that changed their personality with it, and a shaman that was poisoned by another shaman with adulterated ayahuasca and almost lost his mind.
Re: Ask HN: Have you invested in self-development and done inner work?
#96There is a greater self worth developing, don’t listen to this unhappy self undiscovered lot.
Self development is like getting a PhD in yourself. Can you spot the difference between someone with a PhD and someone without?
It is a decades long development. Decades. A few years here, a few years there, a few years loosing your way, a few years reevaluating and restructuring your life.
You do this thing so that there is more self. A capacity expands within you, in the same way you have more capacity of mind emotion and character as an adult than as a child. So too is the difference between an ordinary person and a developed and fulfilled self.
Here’s what will come to you in time:
Your body, some minimal competent exercise (if only outdoorsy activities) and a better diet (free of junk which clouds your mind and corrupts your body.) You thought your mind would expand while your body withers? It is no small thing that these developments accompany yoga or outdoors or martial arts or something. The journey is yours, competence and self reliance is the demand.
Your mind; your capacity for awareness, internal introspection, and cognitive strategy. Taking yourself seriously is no joke. Intensive and persistent mental engagement on the issue of self is educational and developmental. The mind is like a fractal, learning to learn, learning well, and learning some specific useful thing are all separate parts of the same journey, and these affect each other.
Spirit, okay let’s call it “capacity of self”, and say one who can sit quietly in a room for fifteen minutes without compulsive distraction (self sabotage) is spiritually more sound stable and capacitive than otherwise. Is practicing your patience and inward composure for beyond ten years worth while? Hmm?
You will find emotional and intellectual support through yourself, you must combat the voices in your head and loose that obsessive sense within you that there is something more exciting and purposeful anywhere else but where you are and what you are doing. This while meaningfully restructuring life to be whatever that is supposed to be for you.
The mistake everyone is making is that they expect immediate gratification, or even direct correlation. You will see change in self capacity over time, yet it will be in years not months. You might not even care about the same things in life through this development (ambition, outside recognition/validation, meaning itself may change.)
A fulfilled self is an exalted self, not necessarily a “happy” self!
Re: Ask HN: Have you invested in self-development and done inner work?
#97No post body was provided.
Re: Ask HN: Have you invested in self-development and done inner work?
#98Be careful with thinking that deep work, expanding your mind, culture, emotional and spiritual literacy, philosophical, psychological and political understanding will make you better. You will become different. Whatever measures by which you discern 'better' before, will be irrelevant, almost laughable to the person you become. And beware too that growth can itself become a preoccupation. If you have goals like be mo…
> Be careful with thinking that deep work, expanding your mind, culture, emotional and spiritual literacy, philosophical, psychological and political understanding will make you better. After watching my friends go to Peru to trip balls with shamans (or just go to Burning Man yearly) and "expand their mind" -- but not really change their lives in any meaningful way -- I'm highly skeptical of the "deep understanding"…
consider perhaps that your perception of your friends may be incorrect, their lives may have more depth then you can readily perceive. Or any other possibility that doesn't put you on moral highground. Its odd that you even bring up drugs, neither OP nor parent comment mention psychedelics at all.
Re: Ask HN: Have you invested in self-development and done inner work?
#99For professional development, I highly suggest a Kolbe A index assessment to better identify your natural energies for “doing things” (working style) and learn to harness those rather than force them to comply with external notions of “how it should be done.” I have considered mine daily for 7 years. It seems you are actively exploring the type of job you direct your attention towards and (hopefully) derive fulfillme…
The article was a good read, thank you for sharing. In the Wealth Dynamics profiling, I am a Mechanic (really close to be a Creator), so that would mean that I am more of an Improver, but my process of improving is through the process of Thinker and Builder. Basically, taking what already exist to create something that would be better down the road. Would that make sense?
Yes, these are also not exclusive and many jobs evolve, of course. If you think up something people want and build it, you might then spend time improving it. Or you might let others do that while you go back and build something new again.
You get to choose what you do. And as another commenter suggested you get to choose your values too.
Use your time.
Re: Ask HN: Have you invested in self-development and done inner work?
#100Everything I create is for my own personal growth. For example, I work with a vulnerable population, in an environment where gossip is rife.
It was the impetus behind Tongue Trainer: https://tonguetrainer.com.
Tongue Trainer combines Jewish laws of ethical speech (Chofetz Chaim) with Buddhist mind training (Lojong). I speak better and feel better because of it, and I don't hurt others either.
TLDR: Make every self-improvement a project.
P.S. For inner work, check out another project of mine, Critical Stimulus: https://criticalstimulus.com