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The Top Of My Todo List

paulgraham.com

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Re: The Top Of My Todo List

#131

Post by yukyukyuk »

What a bunch of self-absorbed bullshit.

When you're rich, you can obsess over this sort of nonsense. The rest of us have lives to lead, pg.

Choose happiness? Did George Washington choose happiness? Did Oppenheimer or von Neumann choose happiness? Or Stanley Kubrick? Or Faulkner? How about Steve Jobs or Ken Thompson? Or Bill Gates or Linus Torvalds? Or Elon Musk?

Why not choose obsession? Why not choose dedication, and commitment?

I say choose fulfillment.

Saying "choose happiness" is like saying, "I've built this great foundation for a magnificent building, but I don't feel like building it. I'll just sort of hang out and let people admire this great foundation." Of course you need to be happy to achieve anything. Unhappy people do not get very far in life, same way buildings with no foundation do not stand for very long.

Re: The Top Of My Todo List

#132

Post by john61 »

biot wrote: post #100
melvinram wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I struggle with this from time to time. I'm building a business that I plan/hope will allow me to have the freedom to do whatever I want with my time at some point in the future. Today, however, I work. I work a lot. 12 hours is the low end for a day. I've put work ahead of lot of things. If I were to truly close my eyes and do what I feel like, I'd be headed to a river/lake or getting on a plane. But I have clients,…

My only advice would be: work hard, play hard. It sounds like you've got the work hard part down pat. Take at least a couple weeks off a year. 50 weeks at 12+ hours a day of work is more than 99% of people do. Spend at least 2 weeks at 0 hours a day of work unwinding with your friends on a vacation. Your work will still be there when you get back, and you'll have renewed enthusiasm for it.

When running, you are getting faster in the breaks in between running sessions. Running all the time leads to degeneration.

So if you want to excel, work hard and make enough breaks.

Re: The Top Of My Todo List

#133

Post by femto »

pg wrote: post #129
femto wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A question, which hopefully doesn't come across as facetious, as it isn't mean to be: Do you do whatever you want? I ask this in the context of having been through the start-up mill in the 90s and watched other people make 10 figures off the technology (WiFi) I worked on. I still work 9-5 for someone else, and need to. Eventually I came to the conclusion that I have to "live for today". If a firm opportunity presents…

No, that's a good question. I can do whatever I want. But doing things one wants at large scale often entails not doing it on a smaller scale. As for the more general question, overall it was certainly worth it. If I were in the same situation again, I would do the same thing.

Thanks.

Re: The Top Of My Todo List

#136

Post by sigs »

mmatants wrote: post #34
koji wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this can also defined in the level of risk one's willing to accept. Fear-based is having a low risk tolerance. It's so easy to choose the safe route; steady corporate job, work your way up the ladder, etc. It's predefined and historically tested. But I fail to see a lot of happy people at the end of this line. Making big life changes is hard, and a risk. The more I talk to people about this topic, though, the…

You have described a much more "realistic" model for this - it's a spectrum of risk-aversion, not a binary attribute. A complementary attribute is the level of "abundance mentality" present in the person. The difficult thing, though, which is what everyone glosses over, is that it is difficult to achieve abundance mentality . It's a good metric to look at, but there is much, much more work necessary to improve it. An…

Abundance mentality is an excellent term, I'll happily rip it and use it from now on.

Indeed, the "safe" route could be called survivor mentality; to maximize the chances of not dying without offspring. What about a world where you are not really in danger? When you already have food, clothing and a house, and no one is preventing you from procreating at will?

Those who in that position still want a bigger house, more food, a yacht, expensive sports car and a harem; they're still in survival mode _after already having survived_ past any meaningful definition of survival.

They're over-survivers; and indeed, it's not a binary thing but a spectrum.

Hence, try to enjoy the abundance, and let others enjoy it; develop your attitude towards abundance mentality. We all have already survived.

Re: The Top Of My Todo List

#138

Post by olliesaunders »

If you put anything at the top of your to-do list that you don’t _have to_ read and pay attention to you’ll ignore it sooner or later.

Ever invited someone new to your home and been surprised at the things that caught their attention? The things we make permanent fixtures in our environment—unless we have to interact with them or they change—ultimately get accepted and forgotten. Many people really hate to accept this because it means that any positive changes that we create in our life will ultimately be eroded. A solution to this problem is one of my main preoccupations.

In the mean time, the question that should be being asked is how _exactly_ will you live your life differently in order to adhere to these standards? And apply that question to tomorrow, next week, next season, next year, and the next five years. You could try writing a plan but then plans fail because they speculate. Sorry I don’t have any real answers.

Re: The Top Of My Todo List

#139

Post by javert »

sigs wrote: post #136
mmatants wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have described a much more "realistic" model for this - it's a spectrum of risk-aversion, not a binary attribute. A complementary attribute is the level of "abundance mentality" present in the person. The difficult thing, though, which is what everyone glosses over, is that it is difficult to achieve abundance mentality . It's a good metric to look at, but there is much, much more work necessary to improve it. An…

Abundance mentality is an excellent term, I'll happily rip it and use it from now on. Indeed, the "safe" route could be called survivor mentality; to maximize the chances of not dying without offspring. What about a world where you are not really in danger? When you already have food, clothing and a house, and no one is preventing you from procreating at will? Those who in that position still want a bigger house, mor…

Those who in that position still want a bigger house, more food, a yacht, expensive sports car and a harem; they're still in survival mode _after already having survived_ past any meaningful definition of survival.

I don't know that I agree with you at all on this.

I don't think a healthy person ("abundance mentality") can ever have too much of whatever it is they value. That's not to say that you're not happy with what you have or always unsatisfied. Only that you're always seeking to expand your "life," whatever that means to you. To make your life abundant. For many healthy people, that might include yachts, cars, more travel, more pursuit of hobbies, growing their business, improving their love life (for this, having a harem is probably not a great strategy), improving the world's political situation, expanding knowledge, etc.

I think the viewpoint you're advocating really just reduces to giving up on values, i.e., asceticism.

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