If You Don't Prioritize Your Life, Someone Else Will
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If You Don't Prioritize Your Life, Someone Else Will
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Re: If You Don't Prioritize Your Life, Someone Else Will
#2Having been in this situation before (albeit never missing something as monumental as the birth of my child), I would add another reason for this type of faulty prioritization : vanity.
It's so easy to be tempted by the notion that I am in fact so crucial and important to the business at hand that I have to attend. Flaunting the notion of my own importance was even bizarrely empowering. It's of course completely hollow and meaningless, and ultimately self-defeating.
Re: If You Don't Prioritize Your Life, Someone Else Will
#3The title reminds me of this quote (which entrepreneurs will appreciate) from Christopher Morley's Where the Blue Begins:
"There is only one success ... to be able to spend your life in your own way, and not to give others absurd maddening claims upon it."
Re: If You Don't Prioritize Your Life, Someone Else Will
#4Having been in this situation before (albeit never missing something as monumental as the birth of my child), I would add another reason for this type of faulty prioritization : vanity. It's so easy to be tempted by the notion that I am in fact so crucial and important to the business at hand that I have to attend. Flaunting the notion of my own importance was even bizarrely empowering. It's of course completely holl…
So true, many times when I've lost sleep over a decision before ultimately saying, "no" I've been surprised that the other party is completely OK with it - I had assumed my saying yes was waaaay more important to them than it really was.
Re: If You Don't Prioritize Your Life, Someone Else Will
#5More posts like these need to go up on HN. I became a developer during the first boom (97) and spent countless all-nighters working on products for companies that simply no longer exist. I remember sleeping at the office, being up for days in a row, all that work for software that is probably stored in an IT closet, or purchased and used simply for the patents.
With this second boom and it's Hackathons and 2-week-challenges I find myself saying "No" quite often. "No, this is my daughter's soccer practice.", "No, I have a dinner date with my wife." and so on.
I stil work on startup ideas and I tend to take on more than I can chew. But now if I've got to make a choice between finishing a product or being a good parent/husband I'll take the latter.
Re: If You Don't Prioritize Your Life, Someone Else Will
#6The title reminds me of this quote (which entrepreneurs will appreciate) from Christopher Morley's Where the Blue Begins : "There is only one success ... to be able to spend your life in your own way, and not to give others absurd maddening claims upon it." http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1402/1402.txt
reminds me of another quote...
“If you don't design your own life plan, chances are you'll fall into someone else's plan. And guess what they have planned for you? Not much.”
~ Jim Rohn
Re: If You Don't Prioritize Your Life, Someone Else Will
#7The title reminds me of this quote (which entrepreneurs will appreciate) from Christopher Morley's Where the Blue Begins : "There is only one success ... to be able to spend your life in your own way, and not to give others absurd maddening claims upon it." http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1402/1402.txt
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Re: If You Don't Prioritize Your Life, Someone Else Will
#8[deleted]
Re: If You Don't Prioritize Your Life, Someone Else Will
#9For my wife's 30th birthday our inlaws paid for a mini vacation in probably the nicest hotel we'll ever visit. We had a fancy dinner planned for the first night and it had been a long time since my wife and I had gotten away from the kids.
As we are pulling into the hotel the system for one of our largest clients goes down. I'm the only developer on this particular system (we're a small company) and we end up cancelling dinner so that I can work all evening to get the system back up.
I still don't know if I made the right choice there. Yes it could have meant my job if I ignored the pager, but maybe I shouldn't be working for a place that has no respect for my other priorities.
Re: If You Don't Prioritize Your Life, Someone Else Will
#10How much of this is caused by the "asker/guesser" (http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/may/08/change-li...) misunderstanding? Probably a lot, since the main example in the article seems like one.