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The Anatomy of Determination

paulgraham.com

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Re: The Anatomy of Determination

#81

Post by subbu »

wr1472 wrote: post #27
ankeshk wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good point. I think it would also be interesting to ask religious folks how they get willpower to fast. Fasting means lack of glucose in your body. Yet fasting is a showcase of willpower. So maybe some interesting answers may come from them...

I am fasting at the moment from around 4am to 8pm. I was very apprehensive before I started this year as the days were longer this time round - I thought I would really struggle. However I have to say food has been the least of my worries. It is all in the mind not in the stomach. Once you know you can't do something you don't consider it as an option. I didn't have to mentally or physically prepare I just got on wit…

I do know though that if I break one of my fasts because I got hungry it will be very easy for me to break the next.

That's how I quit smoking :)

Re: The Anatomy of Determination

#83

Post by eru »

timwiseman wrote: post #60
harshavr wrote: post #33

As a grad student in math, i would say that determination still plays a important role. For me, there have often been periods where you lose motivation and dont see why you are doing what you are doing, and then sometimes there are moments of clarity. (someone aptly compared this to mountain climbing). I imagine this happens in lots of other fields,(music, to pick a random example) where there is a prequisite of lear…

I certainly hope you are right. I am just starting my own graduate studies in math, but having limited apparant innate abilities in mathematics I am counting on practice and study to correct that deficiency.

Having fun helps a lot.

Re: The Anatomy of Determination

#84

Post by silentbicycle »

gaius wrote: post #76
nico wrote: post #29

In highschool there was this guy who used to study a lot. Everybody said he was studying too much, and that he needed to study that much because he wasn't that smart. Finally he graduated with one of the best averages in our class. Then he got into the best engineering school in Chile, and I remember thinking that maybe he wouldn't be able to make it, or that he wouldn't have such good grades. Well, I was wrong. He g…

Reminds me of one of my classmates from undergrad. We were in the same hall in the first year, then we were housemates for the next two (in the final year he went back to halls and I, ermm, dropped out). Anyway, dude was a machine . He was smart, too, mind, but he put the hours in, working late into the night studying. And during the day he dominated every class, and make it look effortless. His elder brother was a t…

> So there's some nature vs nurture there.

Not necessarily. Particularly if there was a couple years between them, there might have been an element of, "I'd better study hard - I want to accomplish stuff, not just goof off like my brother". I've seen the reverse a couple times, where a younger sibling grows up in the shadow of an older sibling widely considered to be really smart, so they try to compete by being really artistic or something instead.

Re: The Anatomy of Determination

#85

Post by marvin »

davidw wrote: post #9
sharpn wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's willfull. Having the discipline to wait until spring (no matter what the cost) would have been determined.

If you're "ambitious", you may be going where no one has gone before. These days, everyone knows that getting into a land war with Russia is a bad idea, but it may not have always been so. Same thing with lots of other people whose ambition caused them to push the limits (mountain climbers?). If you're at the limits, you may not know when 'determination' means pushing on despite everything to achieve some great succe…

This contains some good points concerning development in dangerous areas: aviation, extreme sports, mountain climbing etc. In order to push the field forward, you have to do stuff where the risks are not known beforehand. So choosing to push in a given direction can cause great improvements in the entire field, or kill you. This is one of the reasons I will never try to become a world-class glider pilot.

Re: The Anatomy of Determination

#86

Post by pg »

bigmac wrote: post #66

This essay seems to be somewhat at odds with http://www.paulgraham.com/hs.html from January 2005. Now, PG argues that discipline is an important component of determination. For startups, determination is called "the most important predictor of success." In the earlier essay, these comments were made: Now I know a number of people who do great work, and it's the same with all of them. They have little discipline. They…

I talk about this in the last two paragraphs. You need more discipline in a startup, because you have to work on what other people need rather than what you want.

Re: The Anatomy of Determination

#87

Post by wr1472 »

zaidf wrote: post #77
ankeshk wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good point. I think it would also be interesting to ask religious folks how they get willpower to fast. Fasting means lack of glucose in your body. Yet fasting is a showcase of willpower. So maybe some interesting answers may come from them...

If you're talking about Ramadan, I'd say it's mostly habit reinforced from an early age. I have lots of will power in general but limited self-control. Yet fasting is a piece of cake. It wasn't always like it. I remember when I initially started around the age of 9 I would fast till noon instead of sunset. Then gradually by the time I was 11 I could fast till sunset. I've read in several places about monks and their…

There is an element of habit from an early age, but I would argue that it is not the biggest factor. We only fast for one month out of 12 a year, the habit is broken for the other 11. If it was fasting day in day out from a young age then yes habit would be a big influence.

Re: The Anatomy of Determination

#89

Post by zaidf »

wr1472 wrote: post #87
zaidf wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're talking about Ramadan, I'd say it's mostly habit reinforced from an early age. I have lots of will power in general but limited self-control. Yet fasting is a piece of cake. It wasn't always like it. I remember when I initially started around the age of 9 I would fast till noon instead of sunset. Then gradually by the time I was 11 I could fast till sunset. I've read in several places about monks and their…

There is an element of habit from an early age, but I would argue that it is not the biggest factor. We only fast for one month out of 12 a year, the habit is broken for the other 11. If it was fasting day in day out from a young age then yes habit would be a big influence.

At the same time it's not random, meaning your brain knows very clearly from the get go that this is something that will be done 1) every year 2) for 30 days 3) based on moon sighting.

IMO this aids as opposed to random unpredictable nature where I pick up something, drop it then try to come back to it one day.

Additionally, I'd argue that every time I pray I am somewhat reaffirming my faith and thus fasting that is to come later in the year. Premise here that fasting becomes easy because your body is mentally prepared from years of programming and the constant reenforcing of my religious values when I'm not fasting. Remove those two elements(faith + practice) and fasting will be very difficult.

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