4 ms·

Or, to quote PG: "That's what leads people to try to write novels, for example. They like reading novels. They notice that people who write them win Nobel prize

Or, to quote PG: "That's what leads people to try to write novels, for example. They like reading novels. They notice that people who write them win Nobel prizes. What could be more wonderful, they think, than to be a novelist? But liking the idea of being a novelist is not enough; you have to like the actual work of novel-writing if you're going to be good at it; you have to like making up elaborate lies." (http://www.paulgraham.com/love.html http://www.paulgraham.com/love.html) The real trick is to find a job, who's work you enjoy.

quickpost 16y ago
Or as Heinlein puts it: Happiness lies in being privileged to work hard for long hours in doing whatever you think is worth doing. One man may find happiness in supporting a wife and children. And another may find it in robbing banks. Still another may labor mightily for years in pursuing pure research with no discernible results. Note the individual and subjective nature of each case. No two are alike and there is no reason to expect them to be. Each man or woman must find for himself or herself that occupation in which hard work and long hours make him or her happy. Contrariwise, if you are looking for shorter hours and longer vacations and early retirement, you are in the wrong job. Perhaps you need to take up bank robbing. Or geeking in a sideshow. Or even politics. Source: Jubal Harshaw in To Sail Beyond the Sunset
- semipermeable 16y ago
  Another Heinlein quote (from Starship Troopers): "Happiness consists in getting enough sleep. Just that. Nothing More."
  - pjscott 16y ago
    Those sound like the words of someone who hasn't been getting nearly enough sleep recently.
- donaq 16y ago
  Along the same lines: http://blog.figuringshitout.com/nov-5th-day-23-three-types-of-passion/ http://blog.figuringshitout.com/nov-5th-day-23-three-types-o...
d_r 16y ago
Another great quote by PG: When you can do whatever you want, you get a variant of the terror induced by the proverbial blank page. There are a lot of people who think the thing stopping them from writing that great novel they plan to write is the fact that their job takes up all their time. In fact what's stopping 99% of them is that writing novels is hard. When the job goes away, they see how hard. From "What would you do with FU money" thread: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1511104 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1511104

quickpost 16y ago

Or as Heinlein puts it: Happiness lies in being privileged to work hard for long hours in doing whatever you think is worth doing. One man may find happiness in supporting a wife and children. And another may find it in robbing banks. Still another may labor mightily for years in pursuing pure research with no discernible results. Note the individual and subjective nature of each case. No two are alike and there is no reason to expect them to be. Each man or woman must find for himself or herself that occupation in which hard work and long hours make him or her happy. Contrariwise, if you are looking for shorter hours and longer vacations and early retirement, you are in the wrong job. Perhaps you need to take up bank robbing. Or geeking in a sideshow. Or even politics. Source: Jubal Harshaw in To Sail Beyond the Sunset

semipermeable 16y ago
Another Heinlein quote (from Starship Troopers): "Happiness consists in getting enough sleep. Just that. Nothing More."
- pjscott 16y ago
  Those sound like the words of someone who hasn't been getting nearly enough sleep recently.
donaq 16y ago
Along the same lines: http://blog.figuringshitout.com/nov-5th-day-23-three-types-of-passion/ http://blog.figuringshitout.com/nov-5th-day-23-three-types-o...

d_r 16y ago

Another great quote by PG: When you can do whatever you want, you get a variant of the terror induced by the proverbial blank page. There are a lot of people who think the thing stopping them from writing that great novel they plan to write is the fact that their job takes up all their time. In fact what's stopping 99% of them is that writing novels is hard. When the job goes away, they see how hard. From "What would you do with FU money" thread: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1511104 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1511104