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To piggyback off your example to make a point, 1) public speaking: preach to the choir or speak your mind? 2) picking up women: be a nice guy or be assertive a

To piggyback off your example to make a point, 1) public speaking: preach to the choir or speak your mind? 2) picking up women: be a nice guy or be assertive about your needs? 3) socializing/making friends: manipulate to get ahead or be loyal and get snubbed? 4) lifting weights: long day at work, go to the gym anyways? 5) starting a business: when to quit your job or when to admit that your project is a dead-horse 6) doing sales work: where is the fine-line between lying and marketing? 7) learning to program: programming before hoes or the other way around? (sadly I took up this ill-advised vocation at an age before I realized the importance of women). Pushing ourselves beyond the comfort zone most likely reveal ugly truth about ourselves that our ego have been trying to protect ourselves from. I found that what I thought were world's injustices directed at me were really my own insecurities and sheer laziness; or my notion that I'm a nice and considerate person is really sour grapes that I didn't have X; and in the position of getting X, I could be as selfish and manipulative as the next guy who has X, whom I previously vilified. Stepping out of comfort zone reveals who we really are and sometimes the truth is ugly.

ericb 16y ago
I see a lot of straw men in your examples. They are almost all cases of how to handle the success you receive from leaving your comfort zone. In all of these things, you strike a balance and find what is moral or healthy--that is part of the journey. I wouldn't want to use possible straw-men morality as an excuse for continued ineptness. Like white hat security pros, you can know how to do something but choose not to do it.
malloc 16y ago
mind telling more about your experience on this? how far would you say "getting out of your comfort zone" did you reach? how did programming affected your life (seems like you meant you spent too much time doing so before getting to that... how was it?)
- noname123 16y ago
  Personally after college, I had four goals: 1) be able to bench-press 200lb, 2) play guitar in a band/be able to improvise, solo, play at performance tempo etc., 3) be able to play pick-up basketball and win more games for my team than lose, 4) to approach women and other people in bar and other urban scenario's and f-close or the social equivalent. No, I haven't completely achieved all of my goals although I have gone very far in all of them. But I'm not as anxious about them nor about admitting on my shortcomings on my goals in public; like in programming, at a point you develop a sense of confidence that even on a long programming project, it's only a matter a time that you will finish it. It's just a sequence of iterations of coding & debugging. How did programming affect my life? It made me a nerd with inferiority-superiority complex who on one hand views average human beings as automatons who let their sense of social insecurity get in their way; and who on the other hand is insecure himself, requires constant social re-assurances, stroking of the ego and (most importantly) sexual gratification. And for that, I'm eternally indebted to programming.

ericb 16y ago

I see a lot of straw men in your examples. They are almost all cases of how to handle the success you receive from leaving your comfort zone. In all of these things, you strike a balance and find what is moral or healthy--that is part of the journey. I wouldn't want to use possible straw-men morality as an excuse for continued ineptness. Like white hat security pros, you can know how to do something but choose not to do it.

malloc 16y ago

mind telling more about your experience on this? how far would you say "getting out of your comfort zone" did you reach? how did programming affected your life (seems like you meant you spent too much time doing so before getting to that... how was it?)

noname123 16y ago
Personally after college, I had four goals: 1) be able to bench-press 200lb, 2) play guitar in a band/be able to improvise, solo, play at performance tempo etc., 3) be able to play pick-up basketball and win more games for my team than lose, 4) to approach women and other people in bar and other urban scenario's and f-close or the social equivalent. No, I haven't completely achieved all of my goals although I have gone very far in all of them. But I'm not as anxious about them nor about admitting on my shortcomings on my goals in public; like in programming, at a point you develop a sense of confidence that even on a long programming project, it's only a matter a time that you will finish it. It's just a sequence of iterations of coding & debugging. How did programming affect my life? It made me a nerd with inferiority-superiority complex who on one hand views average human beings as automatons who let their sense of social insecurity get in their way; and who on the other hand is insecure himself, requires constant social re-assurances, stroking of the ego and (most importantly) sexual gratification. And for that, I'm eternally indebted to programming.