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Step one is admitting you have a problem

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Re: Step one is admitting you have a problem

#41

Post by prpon »

stingraycharles wrote: post #9

This couldn't come at a better / worse time for me. I finished college 3 years ago, and spent the last 3 years building a startup. It's an extremely stressful time at the moment, and we're in talks with our first "big fish" (> 1 million / year) clients. Basically, it either needs to work out in the next 6 months or the plug will be pulled. Lately, I've been feeling socially isolated big time. I've been neglecting a l…

There is only one failure and that's not trying. You could tweak a million things to perfection and stress yourselves about it but, I doubt the outcome would be much different. Whether or not this works out for you, you will have learnt a great deal both personally and professionally. Good luck to you.

Re: Step one is admitting you have a problem

#42

Post by GHFigs »

fizx wrote: post #35

From the wikipedia article on Paul Erdős: His colleague Alfréd Rényi said, "a mathematician is a machine for turning coffee into theorems", and Erdős drank copious quantities. (This quotation is often attributed incorrectly to Erdős himself.)[6] After 1971 he also took amphetamines, despite the concern of his friends, one of whom (Ron Graham) bet him $500 that he could not stop taking the drug for a month.[7] Erdős w…

I wanted to post a quote about the millions of other amphetamine users in the world, but most of them don't seem to meet Wikipedia's notability guidelines.

It's almost as though taking amphetamines doesn't make you as smart, productive, and famous as Paul Erdős. Weird, huh? What's weirder is that this seems to be true of all vices and all famous people!

Re: Step one is admitting you have a problem

#43

Post by dunstad »

Psyonic wrote: post #24
jhancock wrote: post #20

advice from an old mentor... Take care of: 1 - Your health 2 - Your family / relationship with God 3 - Your work The advice was given to me at a time when I was working 100 hour weeks. I was told that even a 40 hour work week is unacceptable if I don't take care of items 1 and 2 ahead of my work. As with most quality advice, it took years to sink in.

Your mentor really put your health above your relationship with God? I take it Job went about things the wrong way?

Not everyone values their relationship with God as much as you appear to. It's called choice.

Edit: I see I've missed the point. The important part of the order is where work is placed on it, not where religion is placed. My bad.

Re: Step one is admitting you have a problem

#44

Post by fjabre »

My first startup was a success and pays me a hefty salary now..

For the first year I was working late into the night while I had a day job and it paid off. I didn't tell myself I need to work long hours to get this thing done - it just happened that way. It took me that long to get everything done and ready for release.

The real debate going on here sounds something more like this:

Camp Zen: Balance your life, family, and work and put it in perfect harmony. After all - my team and I developed Google in just 1 hour per day in 5 weeks. Either we have the right philosophy or you're just not smart enough to keep pace.

Camp Starbucks: All else be damned. Stay up til 5am, get up at 6am to goto your paying job - then start working on the project again when you get back home at 5pm.. The project is the last thing on your mind before going to bed and the first thing on your mind when waking up.. Health failing? Not to worry - I'll be eating sushi and drinking green tea for the rest of life when I cash out at the end of all this..

I think Camp Zen likes to think they have the superior philo.. They like to point out that you shouldn't work just for the sake of work.. I completely agree.. However, if your idea and project are of any real value to society and have any chance going somewhere - then in most cases- you'll have plenty of work to do and plenty of health to exchange for that payoff later. The work is obviously cyclical in that sometimes you'll just happen to have a lot of downtime and other times you'll be wishing you were dead but in general you'll be putting your heart and soul into it..

Re: Step one is admitting you have a problem

#45

Post by GHFigs »

swombat wrote: post #36
mechanical_fish wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you spent 16 hours a day painting. You produce the greatest masterpieces man has ever seen... The cultural bias is staring at us right here: You've implicitly assumed that working 16 hours per day is the way to produce great work. Not necessarily true. There are, of course, artists who do their work in intense sleepless binges, because when the spirit moves them they forget everything else, even food and sleep. There…

I haven't stated that spending 16 hours a day painting is the only way to produce great work. But it certainly has worked for some people. How many geniuses do you know who were not insane by someone's definition? The reality of the universe we exist in is that genius and insanity are not very far apart (and sometimes hard to tell apart). There are no doubt exceptions, but for most geniuses, insanity is part of the d…

The problem being addressed is one of people choosing to do "insane" things in the expectation that they will be geniuses. It's mimicry. It's behavioral affectation. It's fashionable nonsense in every field, consumed and parroted not so much by the driven and the passionate as ambitious poseurs who don't yet have a strong sense of who they are.

It's just like our collective demand for "tips" and "hacks", except instead of focusing on the trivial details, we focus on glorifying vices and unusual habits as secrets of success rather than ways of coping with personality and mood disorders. Ways which were often not conscious or willful choices at all. Ways which were often sources of misery. Ways which were often ultimately failures. We forget these things and we forget that we are not so different from our fellow man that we are immune to the same fates.

Re: Step one is admitting you have a problem

#46

Post by pyre »

stingraycharles wrote: post #9

This couldn't come at a better / worse time for me. I finished college 3 years ago, and spent the last 3 years building a startup. It's an extremely stressful time at the moment, and we're in talks with our first "big fish" (> 1 million / year) clients. Basically, it either needs to work out in the next 6 months or the plug will be pulled. Lately, I've been feeling socially isolated big time. I've been neglecting a l…

> Failure is not an option, because otherwise I completely blew it with a huge part of my social life, and will have nothing left.

That's the same logic that compulsive gamblers use.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_cost#Loss_aversion_and_the...

No matter how many friends you may have lost, there's lots of people in this world. And the internet makes it easier than ever to find people to 'socialize' with (though not necessarily 'hanging out' in the physical sense) outside of your immediate area.

There have been numerous times where I have basically cut all ties with everyone I knew (even family) because I felt I was in a bad position (failing classes, not 'making progress' towards 'success', etc). But I still have friends and family that I'm in contact with now that I've 'cut off' before. Unless you've really cut people off in the sense that you've pissed them off to the point that they no longer want to be friends with you, you may be surprised. Just reconnect with people, it's not as difficult as you might think. (I just suggest against reconnecting with old girlfriends/boyfriends unless you keep your expectations low though)

Re: Step one is admitting you have a problem

#47

Post by lutorm »

bumblebird wrote: post #6
rudd wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Enjoying yourself such that you lose track of time -- when it happens all the time -- is a bad thing. Imagine yourself saying the same thing about anything else you can get addicted to. "I watch 14 hours of television a day because I genuinely just enjoy it." "I drink 14 bottles of beer a day because I genuinely just enjoy it."

It's not the same. Beer has an effect on your liver, your general health, wallet etc. Sure, everything in moderation, but if you enjoy something, do it. If you suddenly realize that you had neglected something/someone else, then that's another matter.

And doing other things to excess doesn't have an effect or your health?

Burnout from work is a real thing, and working "because you love it" does not inoculate you from it.

Re: Step one is admitting you have a problem

#48

Post by pyre »

At my current job, I don't always feel the 'need' to go home, but that's especially apparent when I'm working on something and I feel like I'm 'in the zone' and being productive. I just want to ride out, since it's not always there.

If I hated my job though, I would just be biding the time until I could clock out and leave it at that.

Re: Step one is admitting you have a problem

#49

Post by cakesy »

GHFigs wrote: post #42
fizx wrote: post #35

From the wikipedia article on Paul Erdős: His colleague Alfréd Rényi said, "a mathematician is a machine for turning coffee into theorems", and Erdős drank copious quantities. (This quotation is often attributed incorrectly to Erdős himself.)[6] After 1971 he also took amphetamines, despite the concern of his friends, one of whom (Ron Graham) bet him $500 that he could not stop taking the drug for a month.[7] Erdős w…

I wanted to post a quote about the millions of other amphetamine users in the world, but most of them don't seem to meet Wikipedia's notability guidelines. It's almost as though taking amphetamines doesn't make you as smart, productive, and famous as Paul Erdős. Weird, huh? What's weirder is that this seems to be true of all vices and all famous people!

I don't think anyone was implying that taking Amphetamines makes you smart. But if you are already smart, they may seem to have an effect at improving creativity, inducing new ideas, causing you to think differently. Most people don't use amphetamines to do their work though, or had you not realised that?

Re: Step one is admitting you have a problem

#50

Post by Psyonic »

jhancock wrote: post #30
Psyonic wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your mentor really put your health above your relationship with God? I take it Job went about things the wrong way?

The ordering of health/family/God is certainly debatable. This was his ordering and I don't always do it that way, but the point that your work can't be sustainable or offer your life much value without the right priorities is the key. I've been fortunate to have had quite a few great mentors in my life.

Makes sense. Unless your work is a "higher calling," health and family should be above it.
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