7 ms·

It seems to me that the author is missing the core problem here. The problem isn't trying to improve oneself, but tying your self-worth to the success (or failu

It seems to me that the author is missing the core problem here. The problem isn't trying to improve oneself, but tying your self-worth to the success (or failure) of these improvement efforts, or hoping for magic habits like IF or polyphasic sleeping or a specific schedule to fix your life. I don't stress about not achieving personal goals immediately, as long as I'm making progress, or at least learning. My diet, for example, is pretty much a model of what many people would ideally like to eat. I didn't do this by going cold turkey, but rather by a decade of trying without judging myself for each failure. By contrast, I've failed pretty hard at trying to wake up earlier over the last decade: instead of forcing myself to do so, I've made sure that my time commitments allow for it. It turns out this was a pretty great way to handle it, as I just found out I've had a sleep disorder for pretty much my entire life. Now that I've addressed it, waking up earlier has become a lot more feasible. If I had pushed myself and judged myself for failing the way the author does, I feel like I would've failed at both those endeavors.

achompas 9y ago
This part about sleeping sounds a lot like me. What was the issue, if I may ask?
- Erlangolem 9y ago
  I’m guessing sleep apnea, as the most common culprit leading to difficulty getting up in the morning. Apnea also frequently is misdiagnosed as ADHD.
- wutbrodo 9y ago
  I have unusually sensitive sleep, which I haven't yet addressed, but there were a couple of physical things that were combining with that to make it so that I pretty much never got a restful night. I apparently have GERD, as well as bad enough allergies that my nasal passages weren't open enough. So I started using H2 blockers and nasal strips and the immediate improvement in my quality of life is insane. It manifested in a pretty unintuitive way: the fact that I had to exert a certain amount of pressure to continue breathing through my nose was apparently enough that my body would keep me from ever resting very well. At its worst, I would spend 11 hours in bed and still feel way less rested than _5 hours_ makes me feel now.
  - graeme 9y ago
    Interesting. What were the GERD symptoms, and what did the H2 blockers do?
    - wutbrodo 9y ago
      The main symptom would be that I've had a low grade cough my entire life, which was also the main issue when sleeping. I'd also always have a mildly sore throat I was constantly having to clear. More recently, even mild triggers (one or two alcoholic drinks, not eating until late in the day) would give me some pretty horrible heartburn for hours, which is what made me see a doctor about GERD. She directed me to an OTC medicine (Zantac) and I've been taking it once or twice a day for a few weeks. I'm at the pt now where I only take it if I'm going to eat a trigger (alcohol, caffeine, spicy food). My mom has actually had GERD and taken Zantac for about a decade, so I probably should've thought of this earlier. H2 blockers lower your stomach's response to histamine. I believe antihistamine allergy medicines are H1 blockers: they work slightly differently but have roughly the same mechanism of action.
      - Nomentatus 9y ago
        Right, H2 blockers also mimic the effects of H1 blockers (antihistamines). Thus, they will reduce swelling, including in the nasal passages by blocking histamines. Amongst other side effects - antihistamines inhibit/block tanning.
  - achompas 9y ago
    Thanks for sharing. My wife (a medical professional) has commented that I seemingly have trouble breathing through my nose. I'll give strips a shot.
    - wutbrodo 9y ago
      Honestly, they're incredible. I had a weird home environment as a kid and it turns out there were a few medical problems I've been dealing with my whole life as a result; I've been addressing these recently and am mildly uncomfortable with having a drug regimen, as pretty much every drug has the possibility or certainty of side effects, in either the short or long term. Nasal strips, by contrast, are literally just holding your nose open. The worst I can imagine is that my skin might get irritated from regular contact with the adhesive, but so far that hasn't happened. They also work insanely well for me: Occasionally when I'm trying to get back to sleep, I remember that I can now take full breaths and I do it, and I IMMEDIATELY feel my brain sinking into sleep mode.
RobertRoberts 9y ago
I had a similar experience, I couldn't get myself to exercise, at all. So one day I told myself I don't have to do any more than one. One situp, one pushup, etc... whatever I wanted for my routine. This was easy to start, easy to maintain, and fantastically simple to overcome the mental block to do it. I started 3 months ago and I am still not great at exercising, I do 2 minutes at a time at most. And I'd do this a couple times a day. But no excuses allowed because it's too dang easy to do, and I sound like a tiny baby complaining about one single pushup. Within a couple weeks of doing this, my sleep improved. I fell asleep a lot easier, and woke up more refreshed. There's a freedom you get when you can truly say "something is better than nothing", and then stick to it. A number of times I have literally done one single pushup for my workout. :P And it's just fine. Edit: Actual routine (2 min) 20 pushups (maybe), 20 squats (maybe), halfass jumping jack things (30 secs?), 20 crunches (maybe), 20 stupid looking back crunches (not a real thing, but I like them), swing my arms around (monkey exercise?), twist my next (feels good). I attempted a pullup multiple times a day,finally after 2 weeks of this, I did a full pullup! Today I did 2 pushups. :)
- __blockcipher__ 9y ago
  I recommend doing negatives (jumping up to the pullup bar off a box or something and lowering yourself down steadily) to rapidly improve your pullups. You can quickly get to being able to do one after never having been able to, or in your case, you should be able to get from 1 pull/chin up to 3-4 fairly quickly. Good luck, and keep up the good work
  - RobertRoberts 9y ago
    I like that idea, I will try it. I did get up to 4 though, but I am not trying. :P I am doing the absolute minimum that I can handle. I don't break a sweat even, and my breathing is barely elevated. (part of goals, not to over do it) Also, another rule I have, if it hurts, I stop. Period. So one day I did a few squats, my knee felt funny on one, a little pain on the next. I stopped. The next day it was fine and I did 20 squats again. Thanks for the suggestion.
    - 9y ago
dvddgld 9y ago
> My diet, for example, is pretty much a model of what many people would ideally like to eat Can I ask what this consists of?
- lsh 9y ago
  Just imagine what you would ideally like to eat.
  - oculusthrift 9y ago
    steak, lobster, a milkshake, a baked potato and some cake?
    - root_crontab 9y ago
      would you like a scoop of icecream with the cake?
- wutbrodo 9y ago
  I should clarify that by "what many people would ideally like to eat", I meant, "for the purposes of health". It just so happens that over time, my preferences have aligned with exactly what I was targeting for health reasons. Something to do with gut flora? I dunno. Given that nutritional science is such a dumpster fire, I basically end up with a hybrid diet that's based on the parts of nutritional science that aren't too controversial: high in fiber, low-GI carbs only (and less carbs than most eat), fats are almost all "healthy fats", mountains of vegetables and fruit, and I try to minimize red meat. I eat a LOT (and a variety) of vegetables, quite a lot of beans and lentils, quite a bit of fish, eggs fairly often, a low to medium amount of meat (about 50% poultry and 50% lamb and pork). I get some additional fats from olives (which I cook with fairly often) and nuts. Whole grains make it in there to round out fiber intake, but not in particularly large quantities. I don't enjoy or eat much dairy (excl plain yogurt, I love it), fried stuff, or processed carbs. The only thing I would change about my diet for health purposes would be to go fully vegetarian (for a combination of health and ethical reasons), but I just find that whenever I weightlift regularly, it can be difficult to get enough protein without meat. This sounds like I'm unusually ascetic about food, but I actually LOVE food: before I started cooking, I would eat a different cuisine everyday, and now that I cook regularly, I try to rotate through at least a handful of cuisines (keeping every cuisine's ingredients around is tougher). My relationship with all the unhealthy foods that people crave tends to be analogous to how you probably feel about Pixie Stix: yes, to some degree we're wireheaded to enjoy it, but once you're out of the habit of it, it actually starts tasting pretty gross. The flavors are unsubtle and uninteresting, once you stop being used to the dopamine hit you get from it. This is how I feel about (eg) grilled cheese, or bread-heavy dishes, or the cheese and dough part of pizza.
kolbe 9y ago
My guess is that the author thinks that you are missing the core problem here. What if being insecure with who you are is the real problem? What if having a limited understanding of what constitutes 'improvement' is the problem? I would think, for example, that the author would look down very much on your definition of success in eating, given that your standard appears to be "a model of what many people would ideally like to eat."
- wutbrodo 9y ago
  > I would think, for example, that the author would look down very much on your definition of success in eating, given that your standard appears to be "a model of what many people would ideally like to eat." That was perhaps oddly phrased, but I believe you're misunderstanding me. The way I eat is 1) extremely enjoyable to me, 2) feels _really_ good from a health perspective, and 3) _is_ healthy, at least according to the best guess nutritional science has to offer. Could you clarify what exactly you think the author would find to look down on? It sounds like you misinterpreted me to be saying that my goal was _per se_ to eat in a way that people would think I'm awesome. I really couldn't care less what people think of my diet, as evidenced by the fact that I consistently deal with mild social pressure around my diet (eg, that it's super weird to not like pizza or fried things). What I actually meant was that I don't really suffer much from succumbing to food cravings that I believe aren't healthy for me, because my dietary preferences happen to align with my best understanding of what healthful eating is. (The main exception here, as noted in my other comment, is that I'd ideally eat less meat).
  - wright08 9y ago
    The author would find nothing reasonable to object to in your statements. I find this article frustrating because it fails to reiterate a common point bestowed by all self-help pundits worth their salt. Results are highly subjective in many domains. This pseudo enlightened take on interacting with capitalism at large can be concisely boiled down to a simple question. If all of your friends jumped off a bridge, would you jump too? The guy got played by the system and he's mad about it, plain and simple. There's no new information in this article, just a somewhat novel and ironic perspective of how capitalism is a 'terrible' thing. Because we've never read about how people earn money taking advantage of the uninformed before. In all of my research of self-help it's usually very clearly stated somewhere in big red text 'INDIVIDUAL RESULTS MAY VARY' and somehow this genius missed that. His shortcomings from blindly following in the footsteps of others is now the fault of an entire industry interested in offering perspectives to those who wish to grow.
pgsandstrom 9y ago
The author is making the point that our way of obsessing over self improvement is making us unhappy. You note that with a certain attitude you dont necessarily become more unhappy from it. I dont see a conflict here. The author would most likely not disagree with you, but simply point out that most people simply dont hold the attitude that you recommend. The reasons for this is another big discussion.
- wutbrodo 9y ago
  We're in perfect agreement on the substance of the issue. But my point was that, from the title to the content, my perception is that the author emphasizes self-improvement as the issue per se, instead of an unhealthy attitude towards blindly plunging into instant-fix "lifehacks", etc. He's behaving as if a modest, incremental, low-judgment approach to self-improvement doesn't exist, instead of simply being harder to do. I've always had a strong drive for self improvement; in fact I'd go so far as to say it's one of my primary drives. The reason I haven't really faced the issues that the author is describing is because what I do has nothing to do with "productivity porn" or "disgusting consumerism". I buy books to learn things or use the library, I weightlift regularly in the school issued gym shorts from my high school soccer team, and everything I've learned and practiced about mindfulness cost me nothing but my time. I don't have a problem with the author's castigation of productivity porn, but rather with his lazy conflation of all efforts at self-improvement. Hell, look at the verse he chooses to quote from Fitter, Happier[1]: it's about eating well and exercising regularly. [1] incidentally, I had an OK Computer poster with this songs lyrics on my wall in college, so it's not like the complaint about productivity porn doesn't resonate with me.

achompas 9y ago

This part about sleeping sounds a lot like me. What was the issue, if I may ask?

Erlangolem 9y ago
I’m guessing sleep apnea, as the most common culprit leading to difficulty getting up in the morning. Apnea also frequently is misdiagnosed as ADHD.
wutbrodo 9y ago
I have unusually sensitive sleep, which I haven't yet addressed, but there were a couple of physical things that were combining with that to make it so that I pretty much never got a restful night. I apparently have GERD, as well as bad enough allergies that my nasal passages weren't open enough. So I started using H2 blockers and nasal strips and the immediate improvement in my quality of life is insane. It manifested in a pretty unintuitive way: the fact that I had to exert a certain amount of pressure to continue breathing through my nose was apparently enough that my body would keep me from ever resting very well. At its worst, I would spend 11 hours in bed and still feel way less rested than _5 hours_ makes me feel now.
- graeme 9y ago
  Interesting. What were the GERD symptoms, and what did the H2 blockers do?
  - wutbrodo 9y ago
    The main symptom would be that I've had a low grade cough my entire life, which was also the main issue when sleeping. I'd also always have a mildly sore throat I was constantly having to clear. More recently, even mild triggers (one or two alcoholic drinks, not eating until late in the day) would give me some pretty horrible heartburn for hours, which is what made me see a doctor about GERD. She directed me to an OTC medicine (Zantac) and I've been taking it once or twice a day for a few weeks. I'm at the pt now where I only take it if I'm going to eat a trigger (alcohol, caffeine, spicy food). My mom has actually had GERD and taken Zantac for about a decade, so I probably should've thought of this earlier. H2 blockers lower your stomach's response to histamine. I believe antihistamine allergy medicines are H1 blockers: they work slightly differently but have roughly the same mechanism of action.
    - Nomentatus 9y ago
      Right, H2 blockers also mimic the effects of H1 blockers (antihistamines). Thus, they will reduce swelling, including in the nasal passages by blocking histamines. Amongst other side effects - antihistamines inhibit/block tanning.
- achompas 9y ago
  Thanks for sharing. My wife (a medical professional) has commented that I seemingly have trouble breathing through my nose. I'll give strips a shot.
  - wutbrodo 9y ago
    Honestly, they're incredible. I had a weird home environment as a kid and it turns out there were a few medical problems I've been dealing with my whole life as a result; I've been addressing these recently and am mildly uncomfortable with having a drug regimen, as pretty much every drug has the possibility or certainty of side effects, in either the short or long term. Nasal strips, by contrast, are literally just holding your nose open. The worst I can imagine is that my skin might get irritated from regular contact with the adhesive, but so far that hasn't happened. They also work insanely well for me: Occasionally when I'm trying to get back to sleep, I remember that I can now take full breaths and I do it, and I IMMEDIATELY feel my brain sinking into sleep mode.

RobertRoberts 9y ago

I had a similar experience, I couldn't get myself to exercise, at all. So one day I told myself I don't have to do any more than one. One situp, one pushup, etc... whatever I wanted for my routine. This was easy to start, easy to maintain, and fantastically simple to overcome the mental block to do it. I started 3 months ago and I am still not great at exercising, I do 2 minutes at a time at most. And I'd do this a couple times a day. But no excuses allowed because it's too dang easy to do, and I sound like a tiny baby complaining about one single pushup. Within a couple weeks of doing this, my sleep improved. I fell asleep a lot easier, and woke up more refreshed. There's a freedom you get when you can truly say "something is better than nothing", and then stick to it. A number of times I have literally done one single pushup for my workout. :P And it's just fine. Edit: Actual routine (2 min) 20 pushups (maybe), 20 squats (maybe), halfass jumping jack things (30 secs?), 20 crunches (maybe), 20 stupid looking back crunches (not a real thing, but I like them), swing my arms around (monkey exercise?), twist my next (feels good). I attempted a pullup multiple times a day,finally after 2 weeks of this, I did a full pullup! Today I did 2 pushups. :)

__blockcipher__ 9y ago
I recommend doing negatives (jumping up to the pullup bar off a box or something and lowering yourself down steadily) to rapidly improve your pullups. You can quickly get to being able to do one after never having been able to, or in your case, you should be able to get from 1 pull/chin up to 3-4 fairly quickly. Good luck, and keep up the good work
- RobertRoberts 9y ago
  I like that idea, I will try it. I did get up to 4 though, but I am not trying. :P I am doing the absolute minimum that I can handle. I don't break a sweat even, and my breathing is barely elevated. (part of goals, not to over do it) Also, another rule I have, if it hurts, I stop. Period. So one day I did a few squats, my knee felt funny on one, a little pain on the next. I stopped. The next day it was fine and I did 20 squats again. Thanks for the suggestion.
  - 9y ago

dvddgld 9y ago

> My diet, for example, is pretty much a model of what many people would ideally like to eat Can I ask what this consists of?

lsh 9y ago
Just imagine what you would ideally like to eat.
- oculusthrift 9y ago
  steak, lobster, a milkshake, a baked potato and some cake?
  - root_crontab 9y ago
    would you like a scoop of icecream with the cake?
wutbrodo 9y ago
I should clarify that by "what many people would ideally like to eat", I meant, "for the purposes of health". It just so happens that over time, my preferences have aligned with exactly what I was targeting for health reasons. Something to do with gut flora? I dunno. Given that nutritional science is such a dumpster fire, I basically end up with a hybrid diet that's based on the parts of nutritional science that aren't too controversial: high in fiber, low-GI carbs only (and less carbs than most eat), fats are almost all "healthy fats", mountains of vegetables and fruit, and I try to minimize red meat. I eat a LOT (and a variety) of vegetables, quite a lot of beans and lentils, quite a bit of fish, eggs fairly often, a low to medium amount of meat (about 50% poultry and 50% lamb and pork). I get some additional fats from olives (which I cook with fairly often) and nuts. Whole grains make it in there to round out fiber intake, but not in particularly large quantities. I don't enjoy or eat much dairy (excl plain yogurt, I love it), fried stuff, or processed carbs. The only thing I would change about my diet for health purposes would be to go fully vegetarian (for a combination of health and ethical reasons), but I just find that whenever I weightlift regularly, it can be difficult to get enough protein without meat. This sounds like I'm unusually ascetic about food, but I actually LOVE food: before I started cooking, I would eat a different cuisine everyday, and now that I cook regularly, I try to rotate through at least a handful of cuisines (keeping every cuisine's ingredients around is tougher). My relationship with all the unhealthy foods that people crave tends to be analogous to how you probably feel about Pixie Stix: yes, to some degree we're wireheaded to enjoy it, but once you're out of the habit of it, it actually starts tasting pretty gross. The flavors are unsubtle and uninteresting, once you stop being used to the dopamine hit you get from it. This is how I feel about (eg) grilled cheese, or bread-heavy dishes, or the cheese and dough part of pizza.

kolbe 9y ago

My guess is that the author thinks that you are missing the core problem here. What if being insecure with who you are is the real problem? What if having a limited understanding of what constitutes 'improvement' is the problem? I would think, for example, that the author would look down very much on your definition of success in eating, given that your standard appears to be "a model of what many people would ideally like to eat."

wutbrodo 9y ago
> I would think, for example, that the author would look down very much on your definition of success in eating, given that your standard appears to be "a model of what many people would ideally like to eat." That was perhaps oddly phrased, but I believe you're misunderstanding me. The way I eat is 1) extremely enjoyable to me, 2) feels _really_ good from a health perspective, and 3) _is_ healthy, at least according to the best guess nutritional science has to offer. Could you clarify what exactly you think the author would find to look down on? It sounds like you misinterpreted me to be saying that my goal was _per se_ to eat in a way that people would think I'm awesome. I really couldn't care less what people think of my diet, as evidenced by the fact that I consistently deal with mild social pressure around my diet (eg, that it's super weird to not like pizza or fried things). What I actually meant was that I don't really suffer much from succumbing to food cravings that I believe aren't healthy for me, because my dietary preferences happen to align with my best understanding of what healthful eating is. (The main exception here, as noted in my other comment, is that I'd ideally eat less meat).
- wright08 9y ago
  The author would find nothing reasonable to object to in your statements. I find this article frustrating because it fails to reiterate a common point bestowed by all self-help pundits worth their salt. Results are highly subjective in many domains. This pseudo enlightened take on interacting with capitalism at large can be concisely boiled down to a simple question. If all of your friends jumped off a bridge, would you jump too? The guy got played by the system and he's mad about it, plain and simple. There's no new information in this article, just a somewhat novel and ironic perspective of how capitalism is a 'terrible' thing. Because we've never read about how people earn money taking advantage of the uninformed before. In all of my research of self-help it's usually very clearly stated somewhere in big red text 'INDIVIDUAL RESULTS MAY VARY' and somehow this genius missed that. His shortcomings from blindly following in the footsteps of others is now the fault of an entire industry interested in offering perspectives to those who wish to grow.

pgsandstrom 9y ago

The author is making the point that our way of obsessing over self improvement is making us unhappy. You note that with a certain attitude you dont necessarily become more unhappy from it. I dont see a conflict here. The author would most likely not disagree with you, but simply point out that most people simply dont hold the attitude that you recommend. The reasons for this is another big discussion.

wutbrodo 9y ago
We're in perfect agreement on the substance of the issue. But my point was that, from the title to the content, my perception is that the author emphasizes self-improvement as the issue per se, instead of an unhealthy attitude towards blindly plunging into instant-fix "lifehacks", etc. He's behaving as if a modest, incremental, low-judgment approach to self-improvement doesn't exist, instead of simply being harder to do. I've always had a strong drive for self improvement; in fact I'd go so far as to say it's one of my primary drives. The reason I haven't really faced the issues that the author is describing is because what I do has nothing to do with "productivity porn" or "disgusting consumerism". I buy books to learn things or use the library, I weightlift regularly in the school issued gym shorts from my high school soccer team, and everything I've learned and practiced about mindfulness cost me nothing but my time. I don't have a problem with the author's castigation of productivity porn, but rather with his lazy conflation of all efforts at self-improvement. Hell, look at the verse he chooses to quote from Fitter, Happier[1]: it's about eating well and exercising regularly. [1] incidentally, I had an OK Computer poster with this songs lyrics on my wall in college, so it's not like the complaint about productivity porn doesn't resonate with me.