35 ms·
Do whatever you can't stop thinking about
- jsjddbbwj 7y agoWhen you're quitting smoking, that's exactly what you have to do: light a cigarette!
- tenaciousDaniel 7y agoMy problem is that I get excited about different things with far too much frequency. This past week I've become obsessed with a video game idea. The week before I was obsessed with a design app that I'm working on.
- sidcool 7y agoI came here to say the same thing.
- david_draco 7y agoThat's okay! Accept that many projects started will not go until completion. But many times, you will learn something on the way that you can recycle in a future project. PS: if you don't tell anyone about your "failed" projects, this strategy will make you look like a genius.
- eterm 7y agoI'm similar to OP in that I'll get excited about something but I don't usually get past the very intro before I get bored or frustrated and stop. So I learn very little, and often restart the same things over and over. Eventually I give up and play computer games because they steer the focus and drip-feed novelty and reward compared to actually doing anything more productive.
- Garvey 7y agoThis pretty much sums up my experiences. I've noticed my frustration tends to stem from a feeling of not progressing quickly enough, or getting bogged down in architectural details before strictly necessary and then abandoning the whole thing due to the assumption it's too complex for my knowledge level...
- zhdc1 7y agoI think that boredom also plays a role.
- birdyrooster 7y agoImposter syndrome plays a role here. Only a tiny fraction of the population will be wired in such a way that the tedium of reresearching and reimplementing is obviated by near photographic or eidetic memory. Those people can rattle off entire APIs with all of their classes and methods for things that they haven’t seen in years. It should be no surprise that these people are the leaders of our industry and make us feel shame for our pittance of knowledge. “I know everything, just not at the same time.” But for our most gifted engineers, it’s practically as if they know everything.
- sircastor 7y agoThe same way social media tends to amplify only the good parts of one's life...
- jraby3 7y agoI had this problem but then realized that’s the way to get nothing done. Makes much more sense to commit to ideas for a specified period of time before moving onto the next thing. Some things will stick and some won’t. But I suggest testing each project you’re excited about for at least a month with a daily habit before moving onto another one.
- tenaciousDaniel 7y agoYep. I was stuck in that rut for years. But the design app has been my sole focus for almost 3 years now. It feels really good. The temptation is always there though.
- nprateem 7y ago> This past week I've become obsessed with a video game idea. The week before I was obsessed with a design app that I'm working on. But why? What was special about the video game idea that interested you, and the same about the design app? In my experience I often fail to see things through because they only interest me superficially or are primarily orientated around making money (quickly!). But I know what I actually want to do (and I'm working towards it), and the reason is that I feel that activity has merit on so many deeper levels than just making money or the intellectual challenge of solving a problem. It aligns more with a sense of purpose than anything else. So for me now, that's my yardstick. I may still do side projects that don't align with that core goal, but I don't expect too much from them - in fact if they were to actually take off they may get in the way of my core goal which would make the "success" seem pointless. Perhaps through questioning yourself and digging into your motivations you'll be able to find something that you'll be able to stick with when other things come along competing for your attention.
- rdgthree 7y agoFor me, those side tracks are often closely related to a core goal, but still act as distractions that I have to avoid. For example, my business is in the residential real estate industry. I think a lot about rent prices as a result. I have a pet theory that there's a bubble in the world of big building financing. I would love to spend weeks just digging into the data and trying to find out what's really going on, but that's not going to help my business succeed. I resonate with what you said re: a sense of purpose. I think the way rental housing is done on the whole planet is a trainwreck, but a fixable one. I think it could improve the lives of millions of people if someone could shake off some dust and introduce some new ideas. It's huge and exciting. I guess the fundamental problem is that there are many interesting and viable angles to solve the problem, but if you want to succeed, you really have to focus on a much smaller cohort of those angles (if not just one). So yeah, I don't think it's as simple as having a better sense of purpose unless your sense of purpose is extremely narrow in scope.
- topaztee 7y agothis would make for an interesting blog post.
- TeMPOraL 7y agoI do that too. The top slot in my mind flips between ideas on a weekly basis. Last week it was a videogame. This week it's worldbuilding. Next week it might be something for the job, or it might be an Emacs mode, or who knows. One thing I've noticed though - regardless of whether or not I do something about my current top most exciting thing, these things come back. The same videogame idea has been visiting me regularly for the past six months. This means that even if I lose steam after a few days of working on something, it's not work lost - I'll probably resume it for a bit a few weeks or months down the line. On top of that, I've learned to not consider any hard intellectual work as wasted. Things I've researched for random harebrained ideas I later flaked on often find a way to become useful in my dayjob, or a different harebrained idea.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- zhdc1 7y agoThe last point needs to really be emphasized. I've had a couple of pretty major career breakthroughs over the last year simply because stuff I worked on in the past suddenly became relevant to my research. I've also noticed that I become a lot more committed to a project when I bring other people on board.
- weaksauce 7y agoa lot of the things you do aren't useful in and of themselves but lead to new opportunities as you expand your skillset.
- dcsan 7y agoI've started writing down those ideas of interest so I can see if there are themes, or better still a meta-idea that connects some cluster of them, to start work on.
- kingludite 7y agoMy "joke" is to abandon them professionally. Ideally they are left in a state where someone else can pick them up. (could be me 10 years from now)
- davidjnelson 7y agoWhat I do is write them all down in an evernote note. I have 50+ ideas in there. At one point I went through and decided which was most interesting. I still add new items to the list, but at least it's out of my head and I can go back to the one I decided I'd focus on :-)
- jlelonm 7y agoThat's my problem as well. The docs told me I have ADHD. Maybe you do, too?
- frfl 7y agoIf the author is reading this, please make your font higher contrast (darker color), it's barely readable in good lighting conditions
- overcast 7y ago11am, plenty of natural light, and a calibrated desktop monitor. Looks completely readable here.
- frfl 7y agoYes, but not everyone has perfect eyesight and perfect monitors or perfect lighting conditions. Thin font, plus a 5:1 contrast ratio (text #606f7b to white bg) isn't ideal for reading. Original vs higher contrast, objectively, one is easier to read https://i.imgur.com/kDMPhfx.png https://i.imgur.com/kDMPhfx.png
- overcast 7y agoStrange, mine looks like the one on the right, except a shade darker and without the horrible aliasing. That one on the left looks like your display has the brightness maxed out. I agree people should be more conscious of typography legibility, but what you're seeing on the left looks like there is something wrong with your display. Viewing on my iPhone 11 Pro is crisp and dark as well.
- frfl 7y agoInteresting. But that image I've attached is a software screenshot, not a picture of my screen, so calibration should have no effect when you view it on your screen. Maybe it's just superior macos/ios having font/color rendering and not the display itself. Edit: Opened it up on Android, it's better there than pc for sure. Might just be font rendering on on system that's crap.
- overcast 7y agoYes, Windows font rendering is famously bad compared to MacOS. Though the color should not be affected like that.
- mateuszf 7y agoSuicide?
- speedgoose 7y agoIt's a terrible title for people who can't stop thinking about bad things, such as suicide or smoking as mentioned by other in this thread.
- teekert 7y agoYeah, whenever I get this advice I always answer (stole from some comedian): Great! But where do I get a Camel, a Midget and a Clowns-costume?
- saagarjha 7y agoThis ends up becoming “work on small side projects and distractions all the time, to the detriment of everything else” for me.
- omeysalvi 7y agoSo... premeditated murder?
- purple-again 7y agoSuicide...thanks for the daily push to do it. Not today.
- mikestew 7y agoThe author is quoting someone else: “Because every minute spent doing something other than what you love most today is a minute you’re more likely to regret when you’re 80.” Depending on how literally one takes that, you’re going to be one sorry motherfucker when you’re old. I like taking a shit, but I don’t love it. But I gotta do it, my Yelp review on “taking a shit” notwithstanding. Personally, I quit being so spoiled that every moment must be filled with things I “love” and have a “passion” for. Oh, I pursue those things. But I’ve also learned to love the mundane. There’s more to washing dishes than you think. But enough shit talking the post, the take away stands: if you’re not being paid, select your activities carefully. I would add that one select from those one is willing to commit to, if only for a little bit. Keeps you from being flakey: “do not love, next!”
- the_gipsy 7y ago> do not love, next! Ha yes, how will you find anything if you already have everything figured out?
- Wowfunhappy 7y ago> But I’ve also learned to love the mundane. There’s more to washing dishes than you think. When I was looking for an entry-level New York studio apartment four years ago, one thing I absolutely insisted on having was a dishwasher. Screw the overall size of the kitchen or the square footage of the apartment, or even whether I had a stove or an oven—I needed a dishwasher god damn it! My parents and a lot of my friends told me I was being silly. Washing dishes doesn't take that long, they said, and dishwashers take up a lot of space you'll want to have in a tiny kitchen. Every day when I use my dishwasher, I'm glad I didn't listen to them. I do have exceedingly little space in my kitchen, but I don't mind, as long as I don't have to wash dishes. My point here is, there's a lot of ways to cut down on mundane tasks, and it's really worth prioritizing that effort over other concerns.
- wayne_skylar 7y agoAlso live in NY and I bought a portable dishwasher 10 years ago and have brought it with me during every move. It's on casters and functions as a countertop (which I need anyway) when not in use. I went for a few years without using it in my newest apartment because my adapter didn't fit my new faucet. For some reason it took me a few years to think to look for a different adapter. Anyway I very much appreciate using my dishwasher. It feels like it makes an impact on my life in a way that most other tech doesn't. It feels like magic. You put in dirty dishes and out come clean ones. I liken it to having a washing machine that you put dirty clothes in and they come out clean, dry, and folded.
- teekert 7y agoMy problem is that I get excited about my current job (at a very large company). I'd love to do my current job, but my way. Open source part of the work, run Linux on my development machine, focus more on the tech, less on the market analyses (we did them but management is not buying in, while I am a firm believer myself). I love to build my own front end, with modern technologies. Too bad the company does not appreciate side projects that potentially compete with them. I understand it of course, I have 0 risk and get to do what I like and they pay me quite well. Sadly I can't afford risk right now. I'd love to start working 80% and spend 10-20% doing it fully my way, and alone, at least at the start.
- clouddrover 7y agoI try. Regrettably, my wife very much can stop thinking about sex. It's like a superpower.
- p0nce 7y agoAlternative: stop thinking about what you can't do
- coolyd 7y agoI love this. Reminds me of other articles about "flow" when you are so engaged you lose track of time. This happens for me when solving hard problems. I can't stop thinking about it and work from the moment I wake up to when I go to bed. It looks like hard work, but it's energizing.
- BossingAround 7y agoI like what Uncle Bob said about "the flow" (or "the zone"): > Here’s a little hint from someone whose been there and back: Avoid the Zone. This state of consciousness is not really hyper-productive and is certainly not infallible. It’s really just a mild meditative state in which certain rational faculties are diminished in favor of a sense of speed.
- rtkaratekid 7y agoI mean this is true. But it does feel good to be in flow and it’s undeniable that if engaged in physical activity it’s beneficial.
- jotakami 7y agoI used to constantly read articles like this about how to get motivated to do all sorts of things I thought I needed to do. Then I was diagnosed with ADHD and found a suitable medication.
- bravoetch 7y agoHow about learn to manage your mind so that your life is enriched from within.
- BossingAround 7y agoSeems like the author did X one time, and he felt great about it, so he decided to write an article about the life-changing experience of X. It might be true, but from only one data point, can you really say? > I wasn’t tired, I was excited afterwards. I've neglected my other habits because of it. Let's see how you feel after cranking out your 10th side project after working 8-hour-or-more days. Who knows, you might absolutely love it, and decide to start a second business while working. You might also discover that your partner is starting to feel neglected, your apartment is a mess, and you have gained 10 pounds, because exercise is not what you love. Either way, I would not recommend the approach described in the article.
- dm319 7y agoThis caused me a brief moment of reflection. I realised I can't stop thinking about riding my motorbike and trying to have sex with someone.
- xwdv 7y agoEveryone is going to be shit talking this article because it’s just so horrible and bad advice, so here’s my two cents: A mind shouldn’t be what controls your life, because really your mind isn’t you. Your mind is mostly noise and chatter and sometimes we observe that and think we must do what our mind says, but it’s not true. We must do what we must. The way to live is to discipline yourself to do the things that must be done. This requires pulling in context from the world and people around you. You know what you have to do, so do it, and lay down whatever excuses or distractions your mind is thinking about. Let instincts and intuition guide you, not “thoughts”. They are not the same thing. Iron sharpens iron. I didn’t think much about this post, I just posted it because I knew I had to, so I did, and now I will probably never think of it again. That’s how it is.
- deepGem 7y agoBeing totally honest here. I don't find any work that I totally can't stop thinking about. There is always something that I need to get done that I don't relish, that I don't enjoy. Here's how it goes - there's an idea that you think is really nice, you start talking to people then you are hit with reality - no one gives a shit about your idea. Some do, but most of them are like meh. There comes the first punch and you either think they are all dumb or ascribe some positivity to what others are saying and start talking to more people or start working on a prototype. Then you realize you have to build a front end. Welcome to front end hell. You have no fucking clue how CSS has evolved over the last 6 months. The npm package you thought was useful is now outdated or not maintained. So by now you are more or less exhausted. What started as a fabulous idea in the head has now boiled down to 'shit let me get done with this CSS crap and move on'. At this time, I don't even want to think about CSS, let alone HTML. Rinse and repeat this until you find success. At least, this has been my experience.
- qmmmur 7y agoI realise this is anecdotal but have you considered there is a whole territory of work that never requires html npm css front end madness?
- spiderfarmer 7y agoYes, it’s called vanilla css.
- deepGem 7y agoYep, but I have only worked on market/users based ideas which invariably need a front end prototype to start with, hence the bias.
- vinc 7y agoI'd suggest sticking to Bootstrap for a prototype with maybe changing the colors for a bit of customization and that's it. Of course that may not be possible depending on your project but when it's possible it saves a lot of work to reach MVP level without burning out.
- tiborsaas 7y agoGreat advice, but I'm hesitant to enter the adult entertainment business yet :)
- spurdoman77 7y agoSo, cocaine, hookers and booze?
- tus88 7y agoBut only in that order :D
- pdimitar 7y agoGosh, the dismissiveness of the average HN comment in this thread! I am surprised. Whatever you might think of the author's age or number of data points or whatever other platform you choose to berate him on, he still has a very solid argument: there are things that simply exhaust you when you are doing them. That's a fact. Haven't you all ever experienced this? And no, I never grew to like doing the dishes or cleaning the apartment. At 40, I still need some good music and a hole in the schedule of both me and my wife for us to actually not grind our teeth while doing it. So yeah, please only talk for yourself, guys.
- tluyben2 7y ago> I am surprised. I think this all turns to reddit (the comments are very much Reddit like) because this is the 20billionth article about 'following you passion' basically. And this title really seems to annoy people who have seen it all before; most people cannot just drop everything and do whatever. No matter if you are thinking 24/7 about playing in a bluesband; most (by far and wide) people cannot and will never be able to do that unless they win the lottery. And then you have all the negative thoughts; the anxiety attacks and the cravings that you really should not give into... It is all not so surprising response wise, but I thought it would just drop out and be dead before this went so much Reddit. That usually does not happen.
- pdimitar 7y ago> I think this all turns to reddit (the comments are very much Reddit like) because this is the 20billionth article about 'following you passion' basically. Sure, I get that, but this bring the nuance of the point of view of a working programmer. For a long time I had a hustling voice inside me that was very toxic and insisted on me working on things it thought were useful but I hated doing (sadly I was used to hate doing everything in my life back then so I couldn't tune out the noise and pinpoint any particular problem). Took me like 10 years until I finally said "f that crap" and just started working on whatever I found interesting. Almost immediately, I felt better (even with a health condition that I now have to actively fight to cure). So okay, we've all seen such posts and maybe we grew cynical about it but anything that adds a bit of a further nuance might help others reduce the toxicity in their lives by at least commanding some happiness in their leisure time. > And this title really seems to annoy people who have seen it all before; most people cannot just drop everything and do whatever. No matter if you are thinking 24/7 about playing in a bluesband; most (by far and wide) people cannot and will never be able to do that unless they win the lottery. Not many have the chance to make a U-turn late in their careers, true. The eternal pessimism and cynicism don't help as well though; and they might even set your brain up on a path where it doesn't actively look for opportunities to give you a better life. Depression in general desensitizes you so if you can avoid that you're already ahead compared to many. > And then you have all the negative thoughts; the anxiety attacks and the cravings that you really should not give into... Here I can agree (if I got you correctly) -- giving in to fantasies is very toxic and makes your landing back in reality extremely painful. But we shouldn't cut it off entirely; some day-dreaming helps us push forward.
- AzzieElbab 7y agoMost people can't stop thinking about instant gratification of some form
- zhdc1 7y agoThis is a good point. One thing that has helped me is removing other sources of instant gratification, such as social media and television, that condition me to expect an instantaneous high whenever I do something.
- Dansvidania 7y agoWhat a simplistic way to put things in. You need to do a lot of things you do not love before you have the skills, the vision and the attitude to actually do what you love, and accomplish the goals you want to accomplish... As a millennial, I think this kind of attitude is the problem with our generation. I mean both simplifying things into instagram-quote-sized senteces like "always do what you love" and also convincing ourselves that if you are not doing what you love, you should be doing something else. Maybe we should focus more on how to be able to still motivate one-self to do things you do not love so much, but that are necessary. Often, things that I really do not want to do are necessary for me to achieve things I really want to achieve. Articles like this, and the beliefs they seems to want to propagate, are probably a big source of depression and failure in young adults (and not so young adults) these days.
- paulryanrogers 7y agoFor my side projects I try to start with things I can't stop thinking about, but with a low bar of daily/weekly effort. It's that low bar that helps with the grind. Especially when the next shiny thing comes along, or other priorities prevent a 'real' effort. Some days I can put in hours. Though in practice I have too much else going on. So the baby steps help maintain momentum without feeling like I can't finish anything. It also helps to look back at milestones that were satisfying to me even if no one else noticed. And to remind myself it's OK to walk away if my original goals proved too far out of reach.
- Dansvidania 7y agoI tend to have a similar approach and experience to yours. My point is that to get me where I am today, so that I can even put a finger on WHAT it is that I love, i had to go through many hours of doing things I did not love.
- freehunter 7y agoAgreed. I see a lot here and on Reddit, any time something comes up that the person doesn’t want or like, the suggestion is to quit and move on. Work problems? Quit and find another job. Boyfriend problems? Leave and start a new relationship. Landlord troubles? Move out and find another place to live. My sister in law went to college and started working in the job she wanted at the company she wanted but at a location she didn’t want. She couldn’t get a transfer to the more prestigious location within her first year of working so she said it was a waste of her time and everyone was holding her career back. She’s now stocking shelves at a grocery store at 29 years old. You gotta shovel a lot of shit before you get to the top, but that stuff isn’t Instagram friendly so it’s not glorified in the media.
- surfsvammel 7y ago“Because every minute spent doing something other than what you love most today is a minute you’re more likely to regret when you’re 80.” I think the opposite is true. Most things that I hated doing when I was 20, I’m today at 49 happy that I did. Workout, do the homework, even my military service. Many things I loved doing in the moment, play video games all through university, for example, I’m not so sure about.
- cthaeh 7y agoIf 80 year old thinks that not playing video is more regretful than not working out, then nothing anyone says about living a good life or being productive applies to you
- qplex 7y agoI'm absolutely glad that I did things _my way_ instead of succumbing to some general false conceptions of "doing the right thing". This includes things like skipping military service and basically living as an outlaw for many years because of that. I've also played a lot of video games and consider that time well spent.
- dcsan 7y ago“I spent half my money on gambling, alcohol, and wild women. The other half I wasted.” - WC Fields
- HugoDaniel 7y agoBoobs ?
- ulisesrmzroche 7y agoMore productivity porn. War on leisure! Only this one particularly bad because it’s trying to say “no pain no gain” is a lie. That if the gains come with pain, the gains must not be worth it He’s not strong enough to squeeze the orange (rails contributor life perks) so the juice must not be worth squeezing Basically, that hard work ain’t worth it. Fun Uber Alles But it’s like, the process of building a sexy body is not easy or fun. It’s gonna be at least a year, maybe more, till ppl start wondering what you look like shirtless. you’re telling us the Payoff isn’t worth it? Becoming a rails contributor was a worthy goal, no one said it would be fun. plus, what about when your personal project gets bigger, you don’t like maintenance work? You can’t be a developer. Developers maintain software. Youre going to work on toy software and tutorials all your life? You should enjoy your leisure time and you should not shy away from hard work and you should take care of your health above everything else. This guy even dropped a humblebrag about neglecting his personal life. Some rich ppl wake up early. That had nothing to do with their success. Hard work doesn’t determine success either. Basically what I’m trying to say is feeling productive will not guarantee success. Productivity is the new prayer
- eshyong 7y agoExcept that's the opposite of what he's saying. Instead of valuing feeling productive, he now values feeling energetic and excited every day. I think you may have missed that part. Not everyone wants to get swole or be a rails core maintainer.
- khallo 7y agoreplace "productive" with "feeling energetic and excited" in that response and their arguments are still valid. If you want to work on something, anything, there are going to be days where you are energetic and excited, and days you will feel like shit. The author of the article is suggesting to quit when the days are shit, and that is a bad advice. There is nothing that will keep you excited forever.
- qplex 7y agoReally, when your mind tells you that you are bored and sick, you should do something else. If the circumstances force you to eat shit, it's still not the right thing to do.
- pansa2 7y ago> Never work on anything you would regret looking back on your deathbed and spend as much time you can on doing whatever you can’t stop thinking about. What if the thing “you can’t stop thinking about” would lead to regret later? In my case, the project I really want to do right now is to start a blog and write about video games. But, I worry if I look back on this time later, I will regret spending time writing about what others have built when I could have been building something myself. So, I’m trying to balance my time between the writing, and also a programming project that isn’t as enjoyable, but which will hopefully be more fulfilling long-term.
- dorkwood 7y agoThis is something I've been thinking about a lot lately. I think there's a distinction between "do whatever you can't stop thinking about", which I believe to be good advice, and "find your passion", which I believe to be well-meaning but ultimately misleading advice. Something like "find your passion" implies that you have a single passion hidden away inside you that you need to unearth. Once you find that thing -- knitting, sailing, whatever it is -- then you can do that activity for the rest of your life and be happy. This, in my experience, is wrong. If rather than searching for your passion you instead focus on following your curiosity, you give yourself permission to play. This may end up leading you from domain to domain, but you'll find yourself energised and intrinsically motivated to do the work. This is the feeling I personally try to cultivate. It lifted me out of a depression 10 years ago and has seen me grow my skill set considerably since then. I think the problem with this generation is not that they don't want to do hard things, but that they've lost touch with what they're even curious about.
- seattle_spring 7y ago"Doing what you can't stop thinking about" is exactly the reason we have unemployable 25 year olds with $275k in student loan debt from private art schools.
- drbojingle 7y agoI get where the author is coming from but it's a message that can easily be said wrong. I don't obsessive people, drug users, impulsive people or people with anger issues should do whatever they can't stop thinking about.
- a7b3fa 7y agoI found this article really useful. It's important to note that the author is explicitly talking about what you do in your leisure time, not what you do for work. I have often found myself trying to start side-projects that I didn't really care about, because I had some abstract, perhaps irrational idea that I "should" be working on this particular thing. Usually it's something that will teach me a new skill. Recently, I've gotten a lot better about evaluating whether or not something is worth doing in my free time, but I still don't really have a good criterion for when I should pick one thing over another: When should I spend my free time learning about X, and when should I learn about Y instead? One suggestion may be to pick whatever is the most useful or the most likely to help you earn money in the future, and indeed this is more or less the rule I have been using in the past. I posted this article because I thought it gave some remarkably actionable advice for picking between different side-projects, namely: > The basic idea of personal energy management is that you should focus on increasing your personal energy and lifting up your mood in your leisure time, instead of working on things that drain your personal energy. Hobbies should lift your mood, not drain you. This makes you better perform all the other tasks. This is a different outlook from what you usually hear, but it makes a lot of sense to me when presented in those terms.
- throwaway98797 7y agoEveryone likes to masturbate. And with side projects and ideas there is no refractory period. Plus you get positive attention, but the end result is the same. You haven’t accomplished shit and now you’re tired.
- beamatronic 7y agoI can’t stop thinking about Coronavirus
- HellDunkel 7y agoTo start doing what you can‘t stop thinking about is play. To finish all the things involved that you hate to do is work.
- lazyant 7y ago"I decided to work on a side project last weekend." not to be an idiot but author should wait a few months before writing any strong conclusions; if he's anything like me he may get bored of the side project in a few weeks. There's nothing wrong with that, we had our fun and learnt stuff but this "follow your passion" theme is framed the wrong way imho.
- tuckerpo 7y agoI constantly think about taking a 6 month sabbatical and writing a game engine or hobbyist OS for fun, but it seems unrealistic financially.
- deltaveedaddy 7y agoYall, let's be real. Realizing your dream into reality will entail hundreds if not thousands of hours of suffering, in some form or another. It will cost you, there ain't nothing coming to just drop your dream lifestyle into your lap. Even if you have skin in the game, you will lose battles and you'll be forced to remember the war, you'll be tested boundlessly, endlessly. That being said, whatever you are fixated on, that may be a good place to discover what direction to work in. If you dream of writing a groundbreaking video game, I can promise you that you'll spend a lot of time coding it all, but you must also consider your rent, your car note, your family, etc. It ain't simple, but you CAN dream your dream. And if you feel, you SHOULD.
- droithomme 7y ago> Do whatever you can't stop thinking about Hm, so that means I should live in an underground bunker with filtered air, hydroponics, and a decade long cache of provisions until the pandemic passes.
- leonroy 7y agoI obsess about some real nonsense, from buying a Leica to moving to San Francisco and building a startup there. I mean sure, they're not impossible but they take money, planning and no small amount of sacrifice. Maybe it should be do whatever you're most scared of. Obviously if it's driving across Syria might want to give that one a miss but I mean more if it's public speaking attend a Toastmasters, if it's job interviewing stick your CV up on Hired and attend at least one interview, if it's selling do some prospecting on LinkedIn or it could be that hairy bug on your backlog which you keep putting off.
- z3t4 7y agoWhen I must work on something I dont want to do its like the solution to all world problems reviel themselves. My brain goes like this: Should I cure HIV and cancer, build a FTL and anti-gravity engine, or should I do this thing I dont want to.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- danschumann 7y agoCaveats being: every inspiring side project eventually becomes the draining monsters that cause us to find new side projects. The true key to happiness is to constantly pursue it, because there is no key, there is only chase. Sure, spend time on inspiring things, but also be able to sit down with a check list and do stuff you've been putting off, and be able to take a project from inspiration build out, to checklist maintenance, in good spirits.
- mlthoughts2018 7y agoThe only thing I think about is leisure time, vacation, indefinite amount of time in front of me with no obligations, commitments, or constraints to acquire resources that meet my biological, psychological or social needs. Any behavior that I engage in that has productivity as a side effect that I rely on, ie to be paid money or to retrieve food or to nurture relationships, even if that productivity is not a conscious focus or stress, is inherently upsetting and painful to me. If I had complete financial and commitment freedom, I literally would not do anything (and that sounds amazing). I know myself well and have introspected on it very much, and truly I would not do anything if I could. I would just sit there like a bump on a log and watch nature. I would not spend time with people. I would not busy my mind on any kind of puzzle or reductionist exploration of nature or myself. I would just sit there for years and years and years. That’s all I want to do.
- agentultra 7y agoI wish more people, ultimately everyone, was privileged enough to think like this and act on it. If I didn’t need to provide for a family I’d probably study pure mathematics and work on developer tools for writing, checking, and proving mathematical models of software systems. I would probably also read a lot more and spend a year or two now and again writing. Or I might spend it becoming a cabinet maker and getting better at fiddle so I can join the jam down at the pub. However modern capitalism isn’t structured in a way that enables most people to think this way. Many people don’t have time outside of work to think of anything but their dependents and getting enough sleep. Many more have it much worse: working in Bataou or in a Foxconn factory; any hope of a life writing the next great novel or chasing proofs is not even a possibility. If you do have the privilege though: use it as much as you can. We never know where the next breakthrough comes from. And maybe think about the layers of people, processes, and externalities that have come together to put you where you are.
- m463 7y agoThat reminds me of the opening to The Great Gatsby... In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since. "Whenever you feel like criticizing any one," he told me, "just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had."
- simonblack 7y agoThat sounds like it might be a good philosophy, except that it runs afoul of our normal, day-to-day living and the social mores we live amongst. What if you can't stop thinking about 'that tall, slim blonde from Accounting'? The #me-too crowd will have something to say to you if you decide to go and 'do' her. What if you can't stop thinking about how to commit the perfect murder? Same problem. The cops would soon have a few questions for you. Note that the two examples I have given you above are also perfect examples of 'side projects' and have nothing to do with your day-to-day job. <grin>