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There is an important heuristic to make it much more pleasant though: do the things you like and celebrate the successes. Looking back at some of the things I l

There is an important heuristic to make it much more pleasant though: do the things you like and celebrate the successes. Looking back at some of the things I learned, yeah it was tedious and downright frustrating sometimes. But doing these things now I also feel the reward. Pick the things you think are fun and enjoyable, there is no greater frustration than learning something that ultimately doesn't pique your interest. In my case, especially in high school, I disliked learning foreign languages (apart from English, of course), but I enjoyed chemistry and philosophy. Obviously I put more time into the latter, and worked through all the hurdles and headaches, but it was fun getting to know that stuff. I still only speak two languages. If figuring out T-shirt math isn't your cup of tea, then just don't. I often feel that people see hardship as a virtue. You /must/ feel shitty, otherwise you're not worthy. And, I don't think that's even remotely true in the long run. Really my only advice to anyone who wants to learn a new skill: if you start to feel reluctant; just stop. Really. Only do the things you ultimately enjoy. Why put yourself through tedious things in your adulthood. The world is a big place, I'm sure there is something you like doing. Just do that. Don't beat yourself up over it. I've never learned to play an instrument, and suck at countless things; and that's fine. You'll notice that you will quickly become better at the things you enjoy, compared to the tedious ones.

orev 9y ago
> Only do the things you ultimately enjoy. Why put yourself through tedious things in your adulthood. The world is a big place, I'm sure there is something you like doing. It’s too easy to interpret that advice as doing things that are easy. Easy things don’t require effort, and people who are not inherently driven to explore or be creative point to advice like this as ways to justify spending all day watching Netflix or posting on Instagram. Those things are easy and give some level of enjoyment, but they are ultimately empty and eventually result in deeper sadness. Hardship is not the right word but struggle is. Struggle is not pleasant but leads to deeper satisfaction, and that’s what people mean when they talk about “hardship” as a virtue.
- goldenkey 9y ago
  Ultimately this whole issue of "what action to perform for deepest satisfaction" comes down to the brain's reward system. Actually tangentially related to ML. I am in the process of withdrawing from opiates that were prescribed for an injury. Over time I realized that my wear-withall to do hard and long term rewarding tasks was being degraded by the opiates. I still have pain but narcotics training my brains' reward system are so much worse than pain can be. We all have seen movies and have that visceral image of the executive or city slicker who does hard drugs but still has drive to take care of their family, pay the bills, and do the hard things -- as if they lived in two worlds and were somehow hardened against mixing the pleasure rewards of drugs and the real rewards of life. Well it is pure bullshit. For only one reason if any: the brain physically changes..no matter how tough mentally a person is. Ultimately, if one doesn't reinforce medium length promises of rewards and doesn't de-emphasize short term rewards like Netflix, drugs, and other consumables..then the brain has much larger of a reward gradient to scale..a steep cliff that is likely to require mental reserves that are likely to be exhausted, failing to push through. The only way to do long and hard tasks that have worthwhile rewards is to...train for them..by consistently going against the empty vapid consumption culture. It is just dopaminergic biology. Don't get used to easy and hollow pleasures. Because though day to day pleasure might be dictated by simple chemical concentrations of catecholamines, happiness is a complex thought..a function of memory and past effort... nothing easy gives real happiness. Only pleasure. And cheap pleasure is something we end up becoming stale and miserable over, wishing we hadn't reinforced our weakness to fleeting and short term, short sighted, moments of incredulity. Happiness comes from knowing we did the hard things that went against our feeble reptilian neurological reward system. That we truly defeated easy and thoughtless inclination. https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/best-life-advice https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/best-life-advice
- anon1253 9y ago
  Agreed. I was not trying to imply watching Netflix or doing heroin is the correct way to go about this. But I sorta implied the context of learning a new skill. Like the sibling-post to this indicated: it's about the reward mechanism. But all too often I see people struggling to do something and not really get any satisfaction out of it. The key to learning anything, for me at least, is that it has to be self-rewarding or at least be self-motivating. Just today I did some SMD soldering to try and fix my SO's old discarded Macbook Air, will it fail: probably. Is it hard? you bet ya. At least for me right now. But, I thought it was fun to learn and fiddle with it. I could just as well have decided to learn to play the Cello, or some other thing. Which would probably have been equally "hard", but not as enjoyable for me. And that's the thing I guess: find some heuristic or compass for things that make you go "hey, that would be fun to be able to do" and then push through it. The reward will be greater, and ultimately the energy spend will feel less. For me personally, I know I have very little energy in me. I get 2-3 hours of good concentration per day. Tops. Then it's back to solid sleep. I don't know how people can do hard things for 8 hours straight, but I know it's not for me. (tangentially I think most people can't, they just lie or goof off, and sleep deprivation/burn-out/depression is I think the biggest culprit in our modern society). So I've become very aware of the things I'd like to put my energy in. Like fiddling with electronics, machine learning, philosophy, or astrophotography. But I bet most people would find those things tedious and annoying. So it's up to you :-)
erikb 9y ago
That's actually bad advise. Nothing worth learning will be finished learning before you run out of joy for it. The best example from my experience is learning songs in a foreign language I'm studying. First you listen to a song you really enjoy and partly understand. Then you sit down and translate it. For most songs this will not just be tedious work, but also take out some of the joy of this song, because if you understand it you realize some of the text is outright stupid. That's normal. Then you go and learn the song. That's not hollywood romantic stuff, with exciting background music and action heavy cutscenes. That is sitting down and repeating line 1 until you hate it. Then repeat it a few times more. Then do the same with line 2. Then do the same with the combination of lines 1 and 2. Then line 3. Then line 1+2+3. Then line 4. Then line 1+2+3+4, [...] then repeating line 1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8 but sadly by doing that you completely forgot line 2 and you always reorder line 5 according to your mother language's grammar instead of the one used in the lyrics. In the end, you really hate the song. And you sing it quite badly if you just spend time learning the lyrics and no time on the melody and composition of the whole thing. When you can really sing it for other people to enjoy listening, even the slightest bit of magic for it will be gone for you. And only after you done this multiple times and you start to have a collection of songs, ready to apply to different circumenstances, able to apply the feelings of the moment for a unique interpretation of your own, then you will find joy in it again. And I can promise you, if you can get to that point it doesn't really matter anymore if in the beginning it was something you enjoyed or not. You made it your own, and that is what is much more enjoyable.
- anon1253 9y ago
  I'm sorry you had such a bad experience learning things. Really, that's probably the worst way to learn a language. Ideally language is acquired, not learned. It's a passive process governed by exposure, rather than repetition. http://www.utesinternationallounge.com/language-acquisition-versus-language-learning/ http://www.utesinternationallounge.com/language-acquisition-... But even with skills that do require solid spaced-repetition (like factoids, and probably only factoids) if you run out of joy: what even is the point. Maximize misery in life?
  - erikb 9y ago
meko 9y ago
Seems like good advice, but harmful if followed through to it's ends. How do you approach it when you want to learn many things, but videogames are what give you the most pleasure? or drugs? social media? I agree that life is too short to not being doing the things you love, but how do you reconcile that when the things you love are not practical and can never lead to a bigger paycheck? are you just expected to do work you don't love to make rent and have some pocket change for food? long term be damned? I love music, I've stuck with it for most of my life, I also recently found a deep interest in programming. but like music, programming takes work to get better at. But you know what gives me a rush beyond both of these? videogames. Should I set aside my lofty interests (which I won't improve at without frequent experience) and just do what gives me short term pleasure? Maybe in a society where I didn't have to work to live. If music could pay the bills (lol) then I could envision not even diving that deeply into programming. But as far as life goes, I'm hellbent on finding a place in society that doing something I love, that will not leave me impoverished.
dgreensp 9y ago
Exactly! I think the OP read a comment that was really just encouragement in the form of, “You may not understand any of this now, but any time and energy you put into learning more will be rewarded with greater understanding; good luck!” which was not meant to be pressury or judgmental or moralistic, and read his own meaning of “no pain no gain” into it.

orev 9y ago

> Only do the things you ultimately enjoy. Why put yourself through tedious things in your adulthood. The world is a big place, I'm sure there is something you like doing. It’s too easy to interpret that advice as doing things that are easy. Easy things don’t require effort, and people who are not inherently driven to explore or be creative point to advice like this as ways to justify spending all day watching Netflix or posting on Instagram. Those things are easy and give some level of enjoyment, but they are ultimately empty and eventually result in deeper sadness. Hardship is not the right word but struggle is. Struggle is not pleasant but leads to deeper satisfaction, and that’s what people mean when they talk about “hardship” as a virtue.

goldenkey 9y ago
Ultimately this whole issue of "what action to perform for deepest satisfaction" comes down to the brain's reward system. Actually tangentially related to ML. I am in the process of withdrawing from opiates that were prescribed for an injury. Over time I realized that my wear-withall to do hard and long term rewarding tasks was being degraded by the opiates. I still have pain but narcotics training my brains' reward system are so much worse than pain can be. We all have seen movies and have that visceral image of the executive or city slicker who does hard drugs but still has drive to take care of their family, pay the bills, and do the hard things -- as if they lived in two worlds and were somehow hardened against mixing the pleasure rewards of drugs and the real rewards of life. Well it is pure bullshit. For only one reason if any: the brain physically changes..no matter how tough mentally a person is. Ultimately, if one doesn't reinforce medium length promises of rewards and doesn't de-emphasize short term rewards like Netflix, drugs, and other consumables..then the brain has much larger of a reward gradient to scale..a steep cliff that is likely to require mental reserves that are likely to be exhausted, failing to push through. The only way to do long and hard tasks that have worthwhile rewards is to...train for them..by consistently going against the empty vapid consumption culture. It is just dopaminergic biology. Don't get used to easy and hollow pleasures. Because though day to day pleasure might be dictated by simple chemical concentrations of catecholamines, happiness is a complex thought..a function of memory and past effort... nothing easy gives real happiness. Only pleasure. And cheap pleasure is something we end up becoming stale and miserable over, wishing we hadn't reinforced our weakness to fleeting and short term, short sighted, moments of incredulity. Happiness comes from knowing we did the hard things that went against our feeble reptilian neurological reward system. That we truly defeated easy and thoughtless inclination. https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/best-life-advice https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/best-life-advice
anon1253 9y ago
Agreed. I was not trying to imply watching Netflix or doing heroin is the correct way to go about this. But I sorta implied the context of learning a new skill. Like the sibling-post to this indicated: it's about the reward mechanism. But all too often I see people struggling to do something and not really get any satisfaction out of it. The key to learning anything, for me at least, is that it has to be self-rewarding or at least be self-motivating. Just today I did some SMD soldering to try and fix my SO's old discarded Macbook Air, will it fail: probably. Is it hard? you bet ya. At least for me right now. But, I thought it was fun to learn and fiddle with it. I could just as well have decided to learn to play the Cello, or some other thing. Which would probably have been equally "hard", but not as enjoyable for me. And that's the thing I guess: find some heuristic or compass for things that make you go "hey, that would be fun to be able to do" and then push through it. The reward will be greater, and ultimately the energy spend will feel less. For me personally, I know I have very little energy in me. I get 2-3 hours of good concentration per day. Tops. Then it's back to solid sleep. I don't know how people can do hard things for 8 hours straight, but I know it's not for me. (tangentially I think most people can't, they just lie or goof off, and sleep deprivation/burn-out/depression is I think the biggest culprit in our modern society). So I've become very aware of the things I'd like to put my energy in. Like fiddling with electronics, machine learning, philosophy, or astrophotography. But I bet most people would find those things tedious and annoying. So it's up to you :-)

erikb 9y ago

That's actually bad advise. Nothing worth learning will be finished learning before you run out of joy for it. The best example from my experience is learning songs in a foreign language I'm studying. First you listen to a song you really enjoy and partly understand. Then you sit down and translate it. For most songs this will not just be tedious work, but also take out some of the joy of this song, because if you understand it you realize some of the text is outright stupid. That's normal. Then you go and learn the song. That's not hollywood romantic stuff, with exciting background music and action heavy cutscenes. That is sitting down and repeating line 1 until you hate it. Then repeat it a few times more. Then do the same with line 2. Then do the same with the combination of lines 1 and 2. Then line 3. Then line 1+2+3. Then line 4. Then line 1+2+3+4, [...] then repeating line 1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8 but sadly by doing that you completely forgot line 2 and you always reorder line 5 according to your mother language's grammar instead of the one used in the lyrics. In the end, you really hate the song. And you sing it quite badly if you just spend time learning the lyrics and no time on the melody and composition of the whole thing. When you can really sing it for other people to enjoy listening, even the slightest bit of magic for it will be gone for you. And only after you done this multiple times and you start to have a collection of songs, ready to apply to different circumenstances, able to apply the feelings of the moment for a unique interpretation of your own, then you will find joy in it again. And I can promise you, if you can get to that point it doesn't really matter anymore if in the beginning it was something you enjoyed or not. You made it your own, and that is what is much more enjoyable.

anon1253 9y ago
I'm sorry you had such a bad experience learning things. Really, that's probably the worst way to learn a language. Ideally language is acquired, not learned. It's a passive process governed by exposure, rather than repetition. http://www.utesinternationallounge.com/language-acquisition-versus-language-learning/ http://www.utesinternationallounge.com/language-acquisition-... But even with skills that do require solid spaced-repetition (like factoids, and probably only factoids) if you run out of joy: what even is the point. Maximize misery in life?
- erikb 9y ago

meko 9y ago

Seems like good advice, but harmful if followed through to it's ends. How do you approach it when you want to learn many things, but videogames are what give you the most pleasure? or drugs? social media? I agree that life is too short to not being doing the things you love, but how do you reconcile that when the things you love are not practical and can never lead to a bigger paycheck? are you just expected to do work you don't love to make rent and have some pocket change for food? long term be damned? I love music, I've stuck with it for most of my life, I also recently found a deep interest in programming. but like music, programming takes work to get better at. But you know what gives me a rush beyond both of these? videogames. Should I set aside my lofty interests (which I won't improve at without frequent experience) and just do what gives me short term pleasure? Maybe in a society where I didn't have to work to live. If music could pay the bills (lol) then I could envision not even diving that deeply into programming. But as far as life goes, I'm hellbent on finding a place in society that doing something I love, that will not leave me impoverished.

dgreensp 9y ago

Exactly! I think the OP read a comment that was really just encouragement in the form of, “You may not understand any of this now, but any time and energy you put into learning more will be rewarded with greater understanding; good luck!” which was not meant to be pressury or judgmental or moralistic, and read his own meaning of “no pain no gain” into it.