Most addictions are flights from rather than flights to. I realized embarrassingly recently that I am a mental coward---if I don't like the implications of som

Most addictions are flights from rather than flights to. I realized embarrassingly recently that I am a mental coward---if I don't like the implications of something, I just don't think about it. This is surprisingly non-disabling in a classroom setting, especially if you enjoy learning. It is a no-good for homework, though. I was everyone's favorite student---and failing. My fear of unpleasant mental work ( http://paulgraham.com/schlep.html http://paulgraham.com/schlep.html) led to an inexperience with mental work, making the fear worse. When I untangled all this, the solution manifested itself in a few different pieces: 1. I gave up on the entitlement of always being in a flow state. This was scary, and my faith helped. 2. I started my days by planning them. I am actually not very good at this, and often I just write "coding" for a significant portion of the day, but the biggest benefit here is that I force myself to think about whatever it is I don't want to think about. 3. At the end of the day, I write down what I did that day. This forces me to confront myself about whether I'm planning badly or not. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6906843 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6906843