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Procrastination and the fear of not being good enough

swapnilchauhan.com

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Re: Procrastination and the fear of not being good enough

#171

Post by uoaei »

rsktaker wrote: post #105
hshshshshsh wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it would be really hard to understand without experiencing it. But I will write down anyway. So before dilution I had this strong idea of who I was. I had this back story. There were certain things I do. And certain things I don't do. I used to judge everyone. I had a very high opinion about myself and used to constantly do or find things to validate that. Now I don't have a story in which I live on. Each and…

> Now I don't have a story in which I live on. Lately, I've had this intuition that we change by sort of tricking ourselves. The mechanism for that change is by settling on like this one kind of character, like someone out of a movie that’s playing in your head, and acting like that person. Then, as time passes, we simply forget who we were before we started acting and the only way we know how to act is as this one c…

I share your theory. I understand it best in the converse, i.e., we can delude ourselves into thinking we will never be able to understand X or do Y. Not that many can personally identify with the experience, but a huge part of why people think they are "bad at math" is because they tell themselves so. They expect it based on stories they hear from others and then they reinforce it by getting nervous in critical situations and getting flustered. It is the same with positive change -- after a certain point you have to come to terms with what you have been telling yourself about your downsides and how arbitrary and mean that is, and then you can find some distance from that characterization of yourself and begin to work on a new one (which should be expected to be ultimately supplanted by the next, etc.).

Re: Procrastination and the fear of not being good enough

#172

Post by slibhb »

uoaei wrote: post #168
slibhb wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard to get more ironic than farming upvotes on the internet talking about how you transcended ego or whatever.

Moreso than riding a moral high horse while violating etiquette and explicit guidelines?

I haven't transcended my ego!

Re: Procrastination and the fear of not being good enough

#173

Post by Jerrrry »

asdfman123 wrote: post #152

My tricks for beating procrastination are: 1) Give yourself permission to do bad work. If you're stuck, just start writing whatever junk is in your head. Make it hilariously bad! Write like a total idiot. But often that alone is enough to unstick you. Having very rough work is infinitely better than staring at a blank page. 2) Procrastinate "a little bit" Rebrand some procrastination as manageable short breaks, stop…

How do you know you're not in a local minima?

the whole one digs can be deepened similar to Zeno's Paradox by procrastinating a little bit with bad small distractions allowing time to exponentiate small problems into untractable ones.

It is a little reductionary, almost akin to telling depressed people to have a slightly better today than the day before; not necessarily wrong but just rephrasing the problem.

It is correct, but only by definition.

Re: Procrastination and the fear of not being good enough

#174

Post by psychoslave »

speakfreely wrote: post #148
vasco wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that you have this grandiose idea about yourself that you transcended ego and are beyond basic judging of others or of yourself and so on doesn't give you pause to say that maybe that's a bit naive and ego-centered? How can someone declare themselves done with this? It's like someone telling me they achieved a state of never having a bad thought again, I know they are lying.

Lol I was just about to say this. It seems unlikely that someone that has transcended their ego would choose to spend their free time telling others what an accomplishment it has been. Everyone typically has their imagined "edge", the thing that they believe makes them special and unique and superior in some way. Nerds look at jocks and say "they're athletic, but I am the smart one." Blue collar people look at rich p…

>Lol I was just about to say this. It seems unlikely that someone that has transcended their ego would choose to spend their free time telling others what an accomplishment it has been.

Currently I’m reading "La marche à la lumière – Entretiens du Bouddha"[1]. What is laughed at here precisely describe what the Buddha is making through the whole book. While apparently, just like Socrate, Buddha didn’t let any directly written legacy, it’s clear he has been attached to the notion of an egoless person discussing the topic with whoever would like to ask about it.

Now of course it doesn’t necessarily mean that the person laughed at went through some accomplishment. But whether they did or didn’t is not relevant. What matters here is can it be believed that some human accomplish an egoless experience of life and still continue to discuss with people who didn’t.

[1] https://www.babelio.com/livres/Shantideva-La-marchea-la-lumi...

Re: Procrastination and the fear of not being good enough

#175

Post by tmnvix »

svara wrote: post #142
tmnvix wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't know what it means to think this through ego. I think most people are familiar with the feeling of being in a 'flow state'. Contrasting this with times when we indulge in a stream of 'self referential thought' is, in my opinion, a good way to grasp how ego influences our state of mind. Try to imagine being in a flow state without actually doing anything other than observing. It's something I experience at t…

> Try to imagine being in a flow state without actually doing anything other than observing. It's something I experience at times when I'm in a beautiful natural environment. I try to bring this feeling into my everyday life. I think you explained this very clearly and beautifully. I think I know exactly what you mean. I used to find a lot of comfort in being able to get myself into this state of mind easily, usually…

I've sometimes heard this state of mind described as 'silent awareness'.

I agree that modern life often doesn't seem amenable to it. However, something I've noticed about this state of mind is that it's not dissimilar to an overwhelming sense of contentment or satisfaction.

I think that deep down, contentment - and not necessarily happiness - is something we all strive for. With that in mind, I've formulated an approach to life that I try to remind myself of regularly. It could be summed up as "meaning in life is found through doing the things that are necessary for life". It can be liberating at times. Mundane things like washing dishes or cooking which I might otherwise put off in favour of some hedonistic activity are given more priority because I recognise that they are an important source of contentment.

A lot of modern life is designed to instill a sense of discontent. Advertising and social media are obvious examples. These things are best avoided. Even the things that provide convenience work against contentment because they preclude you from doing the things that are the source of that contentment.

When I feel more content, it is easier to slip into that state you might call 'silent awareness'. Interestingly, this is very much how I feel immediately after meditation.

Re: Procrastination and the fear of not being good enough

#176

Post by MichaelZuo »

masspro wrote: post #165
slibhb wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard to get more ironic than farming upvotes on the internet talking about how you transcended ego or whatever.

Or maybe they just wanted to share something connected to the article

It’s a signalling problem, a 31 day old pseudonymous account is pretty always going to enjoy vastly less credibility than say a 10 year old account with hundreds of thousand of karma.

If the latter wrote the above comment, nobody would question if the real intention was farming for this or that, since it would make practically no difference for the account holder or the passing reader.

Re: Procrastination and the fear of not being good enough

#177

Post by physicles »

theaussiestew wrote: post #157
sn9 wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The karmic traditions developed this most completely and thoroughly. You don't need to buy into the supernatural claims to benefit from them. A great starting point can be Shinzen Young's The Science of Enlightenment and/or Sam Harris's Waking Up . After that, you might look into Why Buddhism is True or The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali or Mindfulness in Plain English . The Healthy Gamer Youtube channel also has great vid…

One doesn't need to distance themselves from the origins of all this literature on meditation and self-realisation. Taking only the scientific bits and discarding the rest is a very partial view.

You say “origins”, but someone who takes a more skeptical stance would say “extraordinary supernatural claims for which there’s no evidence at all.” In my case, I absolutely need to discard that stuff if I have any chance of taking what’s left seriously.

Re: Procrastination and the fear of not being good enough

#178

Post by snozolli »

hshshshshsh wrote: post #99
Etheryte wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Happy to hear that worked out for you, that sounds like a great place to be. What facilitated the change though, or how did that happen? Was there a catalyst?

Sorry. I can't write it down because I think what I did was reckless and stupid and I don't want to give any ideas in a high visible thread like this. For a lot of people this is triggered by something unexpected happening in life which breaks the narrative one has been building their entire life. You can search for Spiritual Awakening and find a lot of examples. Buddha at the Gas Pump is a great podcast to listen to…

Sorry. I can't write it down because I think what I did was reckless and stupid and I don't want to give any ideas in a high visible thread like this.

It's infuriating that you write all that about how enlightened you supposedly are, then conceal the manner by which you got there.

This just feels like trolling or a creative writing exercise.

Re: Procrastination and the fear of not being good enough

#179

Post by Gud »

MichaelZuo wrote: post #176
masspro wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or maybe they just wanted to share something connected to the article

It’s a signalling problem, a 31 day old pseudonymous account is pretty always going to enjoy vastly less credibility than say a 10 year old account with hundreds of thousand of karma. If the latter wrote the above comment, nobody would question if the real intention was farming for this or that, since it would make practically no difference for the account holder or the passing reader.

Wouldn’t it make more sense to suspect the account with hundreds of thousands of karma points to be the karma farmer?

Re: Procrastination and the fear of not being good enough

#180

Post by shrubble »

hshshshshsh wrote: post #79

I suffered from this. The issue is the ego. Ego has a lot of ideas about itself and others. Ego has such high opinion about itself it only can do great work. Which prevents it from doing anything. It's kind of a way of avoiding failures. Because failures will break the grant ideas about himself OP has created. I accidentally went through a spiritual awakening which diluted ego. I have no problem in doing any kind of…

It’s an interesting concept; I am in the process of learning Scheme and I am not very good at it at the moment.

I can see that my ego is getting in the way of doing more practice; the reading of Scheme books is much easier than writing some simple programs such as the practice ones at RosettaCode…

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