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The Top Of My Todo List

paulgraham.com

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Re: The Top Of My Todo List

#141

Post by javert »

alanbyrne wrote: post #79

What's so bad about being a cog? I work 9-5 for a large company (100,000+ employees). I clock on each day, they pay me a great daily rate and I enjoy the work that I do. Work doesn't define who I am and I am definitely not unfulfilled. I take French classes, dabble in photography and build the occasional web app. Once a month I take a 3 day weekend and go somewhere I've never been before. So far this year I've been t…

It's possible to actually be a cog, but I doubt you're one. Even if you're not actually cynical about what you do, describing yourself as a "cog" probably breeds cynicism in others.

Re: The Top Of My Todo List

#142

Post by toomuchtodo »

vbtemp wrote: post #109
alanbyrne wrote: post #79

What's so bad about being a cog? I work 9-5 for a large company (100,000+ employees). I clock on each day, they pay me a great daily rate and I enjoy the work that I do. Work doesn't define who I am and I am definitely not unfulfilled. I take French classes, dabble in photography and build the occasional web app. Once a month I take a 3 day weekend and go somewhere I've never been before. So far this year I've been t…

In some ways being a european cog is better than being an american cog. I wish Geneva, Brugge, Rejkjavik, and Madrid were weekend destinations for me! I also wish I had a european-cog vacation allotment!

Reasons why you don't need to be a millionaire in Europe (vs being a millionaire in the US):

-- Guaranteed healthcare -- A sane amount of mandated vacation/family leave time -- A safety net for being unemployed/retired

More basic needs are met in EU than in the US, so money has a much lower "value" there than it does here in the US.

Re: The Top Of My Todo List

#143

Post by jiakeliu »

davemel37 wrote: post #116
edw519 wrote: post #61

When I first saw the title of this essay, I thought I already knew what I was going to say... Something about how my own todo this now has only one item on it, the single most important thing to do next. I gravitated to this based on the great quote by chess master Jose Capablanca: [When asked how many moves ahead he looked while playing]: "Only one, but it's always the right one." (from http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/…

My mother went through years of taking care of her aging mother with Alzheimer's and made many sacrifices. So much so that she made each of my siblings and myself promise her that if she ever got Alzheimer's we would put her in a home and move on. She can't bear the thought of putting her children through the pain she endured. Odds are, if G-Forbid this ever happened, we would be by her side every day, telling oursel…

There's an old Chinese idiom that says "事到万难须放胆，宜于两可莫粗心" which roughly translates to "A difficult decision for an important matter requires bold action, but it's worth it to consider carefully and deliberately when the two options are equally viable."

So for a difficult situation like that I think it's always right to be steadfast and follow the heart.

Re: The Top Of My Todo List

#144

Post by jonmb »

alanbyrne wrote: post #79

What's so bad about being a cog? I work 9-5 for a large company (100,000+ employees). I clock on each day, they pay me a great daily rate and I enjoy the work that I do. Work doesn't define who I am and I am definitely not unfulfilled. I take French classes, dabble in photography and build the occasional web app. Once a month I take a 3 day weekend and go somewhere I've never been before. So far this year I've been t…

IMO, you are not a cog. Working a 9-5 doesn't make someone a cog. You've evaluated your options and made a conscious choice. Who can find fault in that?

Going through life on "auto-pilot" is what would someone a cog. That's how I would define it. Though, personally, I don't like describing other people with words like "cog" or "sheep".

Re: The Top Of My Todo List

#145

Post by hasenj »

dhruval wrote: post #40
japhyr wrote: post #14

There are two ways of living: fear-based, and love-based. People who live fear-based avoid things. They avoid things that might cause heartache, pain, difficulty, etc. but all of the most interesting pursuits in life have the potential to cause these things sometimes. People who live love-based move towards things that bring happiness and satisfaction in the long term. They work hard and play hard, and when they hurt…

To make this more relevant to entrepreneurship and startups... It is possible to get a pretty good idea of how someone will behave under times of stress by just talking to them for a few minutes. Then gauging if most of their worldview is driven by- - Shame / Guilt / Apathy - Fear / Anxiety - Anger / Hate - Pride - Courage - Joy - Compassion Now we are often taught to 'be compassionate' or the 'enjoy life', but there…

Very interesting.

What's the difference like?

I mean, what kind of responses do you see from people whose world view is driven by pride/courage/joy/compassion ?

Re: The Top Of My Todo List

#146

Post by mdda »

elviejo wrote: post #10

Objectives in the negative have a bad effect on the brain according to NLP so "Don't ignore your dreams; don't work too much; say what you think; cultivate friendships; be happy." Can be better expressed as: " pursue your dreams, get appropriate rest and relaxation, say what... " (if you believe in NLP)

I'm not sure whether belief in NLP is a matter of taste : The techniques are basically a distillation of what therapists (notably Erickson) have uncovered during hypnosis. To further amplify your point, the unconscious mind doesn't seem to be any good at parsing logical statements - so things that one 'says to oneself' should be cast straightforwardly.

At its most basic, the command "Don't think of a pink unicorn" brings to the surface exactly what you don't want. Drilling yourself to process 'bad stuff' unconsciously is (as you said) counterproductive.

Re: The Top Of My Todo List

#147

Post by maigret »

dkrich wrote: post #23

At the risk of sounding cynical, I wonder how much it actually matters. We tend to live our lives thinking as we go that we should be striving to end up at some optimal place and that the purpose of our lives is desperately trying to keep us exactly on that course. If we don't ask the girl to the dance, or give up on an idea, or spend extra nights at the office to get a promotion instead of hanging out with our famil…

>We tend to live our lives thinking as we go that we should be striving to end up at some optimal place and that the purpose of our lives is desperately trying to keep us exactly on that course.

This is very US (and now occidental) thinking. Many cultures in the world don't have people thinking like that. You've got to have a family and integrate well and support the community. The rest is not as important as our current society wants us to think.

Re: The Top Of My Todo List

#148

Post by jc123 »

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.

Can you clarify, perhaps with some examples, of doing something one might want at large scale and not doing it on a smaller scale? Thanks

Re: The Top Of My Todo List

#149

Post by maigret »

gms wrote: post #46

"Don't ignore your dreams; don't work too much;" Aren't these two mutually exclusive? My feeling (caveat: I'm only in my late 20's) is that it's impossible to simultaneously eliminate all the regrets on Ms. Ware's list. If you work really hard in order to chase your dreams, you end up neglecting friends and family for a bit. Stick around among your family and friends, and you don't get to chase your dreams as much. I…

Depends what your dreams are. One of my dream was to fly planes. I did learn all that without getting burned out - would not help me much keeping my medical certificate for flying!!! Actually, this was quite some time taking learning, but that doesn't made me put my other social activities aside. How do you define a dream? Do you define your dreams compared to the others, so you have to better than anyone else, and so you have to work like crazy? Or do you define your dreams by achievements you would like to get to yourself, in which case I'd ask you why you can't just adapt your pace to your life?

Re: The Top Of My Todo List

#150

Post by gosub »

This article is so unsubstantiated...

1. These are the regrets of the dying. Maybe that it's not the best state of mind to make decisions about your life.

2. The regrets are so generic that every one could see himself in these circumstances, like with oroscopes.

3. It's not explained what it means to be a cog. Am I a cog? Is it possible to never be a cog? How?

4. It is implyied that having a family, dreams and feelings as priorities is a good thing. Maybe it's not.

5. In general, it makes the same error it is trying to avoid, omission. If you are living your life and you are not happy, don't have a family or many friends, maybe it's because you are doing something more important than those.

6. You could be happy and, at the same time, not doing the right thing.

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