18 ms·

Are we too busy to enjoy life?

336 points by anthilemoon 6y ago

acd 6y ago
If people worked less and spent more time with their friends and loved ones they would be happier. As a consequence anti depressants would go down, happiness and well being go up. For that we need to change the banking system which puts people in debt. Ie working to pay of debt is voluntary wage debt enslavement. The previous sentence is controversial. Most still want status quo vs radical change.
- indigochill 6y ago
  >For that we need to change the banking system which puts people in debt. The banking system doesn't put people into debt by itself. People voluntarily take on debt for reasons such as to attain a college degree because they are told the long-term benefit is worth it. So rather than go after the banking system, I think it would be more fruitful to go after the reasons people voluntarily take on debt. What are those, and how can we make them more affordable with something other than debt?
  - hugey010 6y ago
    I'd argue that many people aren't being paid enough to participate in the society they were born into. Therefore taking on debt for daily expenses is involuntary.
    - dv_dt 6y ago
      A growing underclass isn't paid enough to get basics of life like healthcare or being consistently fed - it's beyond not being able to participate, for many to even exist is backsliding.
  - jbay808 6y ago
    Hmm, sort of. Let's look at mortgages. If I want to buy a house without a mortgage (or with a limited, affordable mortgage), I still need to be able to outbid other buyers who might have no qualms about taking on an unaffordable debt. So even if I'm just making an individual decision for myself not to go into debt, I'm severely influenced by the behaviour of other members in society, and how much banks are willing to lend to them.
    - indigochill 6y ago
      >I still need to be able to outbid other buyers who might have no qualms about taking on an unaffordable debt It's still not the bank's fault that people will voluntarily enter unsustainable agreements because they think they need to live in overpriced areas. The banks in this scenario are merely an accessory to financial suicide. So I think my point still stands: how do we break up this obsession with living in overpriced areas? Improved remote work opportunities? Better cultural opportunities outside major metropolitan areas?
      - derg 6y ago
        Build more housing in the major metropolitan areas to meet demand is a fantastic start to it all. Look at how much is built in the big desirable cities. It's not enough, which is driving up prices to absurd levels (looking at you specifically San Francisco in particular). Decommodify housing where possible and take away it's ability to devolve into strictly a monetary investment vehicle. >Better cultural opportunities outside major metropolitan areas? There is so much historical inertia behind the cultural opportunities in many places that this one will be hard to do and take an inordinate amount of time I think.
      - karatestomp 6y ago
        > It's still not the bank's fault that people will voluntarily enter unsustainable agreements because they think they need to live in overpriced areas. Difficulty: houses are more expensive near good schools, because demand is higher, so you can't get away with cheaper housing without harming your children's future prospects. And no, it's not mostly a funding thing, so just distributing funds more evenly won't fix it. It has a lot more to do with selection bias, of which housing prices are a major part.
        rrrrrrrrrrrryan 6y ago
        Housing prices haven't been based on the underlying asset for decades. An expensive home is a place to live and sleep, but it's also: 1) a ticket of admission into a good school district 2) a ticket of admission to a local economy with well-paying jobs 3) a retirement investing account I do think changing the way schools are funded will help the first point, and the rise of remote-work will help with the second point, but as to the third point - who knows. There are too many government incentives to buying a home that I don't think it'll change any time soon.
  - z2 6y ago
    Debt to me is just something that buys time by making things immediately available. I think it's healthy only if it supports real growth. For a person, if they need money now to buy an education, home, or other thing that will be put to productive use, debt is valuable they don't need to save up for years at a less productive state first. Same for companies -- 'responsible' debt can unlock growth by meeting obvious and pressing demand today. The future is unclear, so this is of course riddled with traps and competitive pressures, but at least there is a chance that money today rather than tomorrow is a good thing, if your returns can beat the interest rate you pay. The more predatory side of taking on excessive debt, because one's back is against the wall or one wants to make an impulse purchase, gives you very little additional time (e.g. weeks or months instead of years). This kind of debt is dangerous.
    - CalRobert 6y ago
      True, and indeed swapping a $2k a month rent payment for a $1k a month mortgage payment (that ends after 15 or 30 years) can make sense. But people have different tolerances for risk and to me securing multiple years of debt with the roof over my head scares the shit out of me. I bought my house about 60% cash, 40% an unsecured personal loan I could default on without losing my house. This is only because my house was insanely cheap, though.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- ecoled_ame 6y ago
  not everyone has or wants friends and loved ones. time spent alone would increase happiness too.
- wdn 6y ago
  What we need is rewrite the law to reward saving instead of penalize savings. In the US, there is no incentive to save, because it got penalize first by inflation, then you happen to have a capital gain, dividend or interest on your savings, you get tax again. However, if you get into debt like a mortgage, which lock you in for 30 or more years, you get to deduct your mortgage interest. Property tax is deductible as well.
  - chameleon_world 6y ago
    Are there other countries that have some kind of system like this in place?
    - wdn 6y ago
      I think Canada has the same systems. Singapore don't penalize saving and you see how competitive they are. More importantly, they have a lot of savings.
      - pbourke 6y ago
        Canada has the Tax Free Savings Account, which can be used like a Roth IRA (long-term investing without taxes due at withdrawal) or like a regular savings account. It's an after tax account, but earnings are, as the name says, tax free regardless of type. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax-free_savings_account https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax-free_savings_account
  - rrrrrrrrrrrryan 6y ago
    Tax policy isn't sexy but it's really at the heart of most of our problems. Personally, I'd love to see a political push to ease back income taxes and capital gains taxes (why are we disincentivizing working and saving?), and implement either a VAT or a progressive consumption tax instead, which discourages spending beyond one's means. We could also take away corporate income taxes, and replace them with hefty Pigovian carbon taxes (to offset negative externalities), and land value taxes (as they're non-distortionary).
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 6y ago
  I just want a salary high enough to retire at some point and not have to worry about surprise medical costs in the short term. Oh, also enough for a family, oh also enough for good schooling for my children, oh also enough to live in a good area. At the end of the day this all adds up to millions of dollars for what my parents and grandparents could easily afford on mediocre pay by today's standards. It means I spend all day every day thinking about career moves. If I'm sittin here on Slacker News I'm not gaining knowledge or skills to move ahead. I can easily see this causing one to feel isolated and trapped which isn't good for mental health.
  - saiya-jin 6y ago
    > I just want a salary high enough to retire at some point and not have to worry about surprise medical costs in the short term. Oh, also enough for a family, oh also enough for good schooling for my children, oh also enough to live in a good area. You've unfortunately picked up a wrong country to continue living (and possibly retire). Many european countries offer all of this, US currently none. Unless you jump into career rat race, but even then you are 1 severe illness/accident away from financial ruin. Apart form the last point about good area. Depends on what is good for you. If its good for everybody, its unreasonable to expect that it can be available to many. That's unrealistic... anywhere
    - CalRobert 6y ago
      The jackpot is being European, working in the bay for a while earning a huge salary with 8 roommates and socking away savings worth a lifetime's income or more in, say, Greece, then heading back to Europe to have a family.
- ketamine__ 6y ago
  > If people worked less and spent more time with their friends and loved ones they would be happier. Daniel Kahneman argues that people optimize for satisfaction over happiness. If we had UBI many parents would choose to spend extra time with their children instead of friends. That may not make them happier. https://qz.com/1503207/a-nobel-prize-winning-psychologist-defines-happiness-versus-satisfaction/ https://qz.com/1503207/a-nobel-prize-winning-psychologist-de...
- CalRobert 6y ago
  Debt is dangerous. Debt, combined with artificial constraints on necessities (like housing) doubly so. We pretty much tell people "it's illegal to build a cheap home" and "btw we can offer you a 30 year mortgage on these nice fancy homes". It feels a bit like the supply of housing and the supply of debt are both manipulated to make sure people work as hard as possible but without revolting. Living free and clear of debt is extremely hard; the places you can build a home without restriction are generally not near decent jobs, and the places near decent jobs make it more or less illegal to build homes (and those you are allowed to build have to meet labrynthine requirements about outdoor space, parking, density, etc. - certainly the sorts of homes normal people could afford to build with the cash they have aren't allowed in the major metros). Of course, those who already own homes have a strong incentive to preserve the housing cartel, as it increases the value of their asset (which they can then sell when they retire and move somewhere cheap with no jobs) So far as I can tell the best path out is remote work and a low cost of living area, but that's open to rather few people and I have a suspicion wages will drop as more people gravitate towards this option and there's more competition. Not to mention that we explicitly encourage young people to throw away 4 years of their life _and_ take on massive debt before starting. I'm not sure a degree, a pile of debt, and 4 years of opportunity cost are worth more than your wits and a clean slate.
  - ip26 6y ago
    It's mostly illegal to build a cheap home because they can be deathtraps. I believe house fires used to be one of the top killers in the country; today, firefighters only spend 1% of their time fighting fires. In any case, property prices in high CoL locations is mainly the cost of the land. I've visited homes in the midwest nicer than almost anything I ever saw in the Bay Area that cost 200-300k.
    - WWLink 6y ago
      This is exactly it. I rent a house that costs $900,000 and it’s a 60 year old death trap. Just like most of the other houses in the neighborhood. It was built when LA County was more of a “build baby build!” Place lol. When you buy a house here it’s more like you’re buying a $900,000 piece of land and getting a free house in the deal. Those houses are practically worthless and a lot of new buyers tear them down and build a new one. I’d guess that doing that costs a few hundred thousand. But most of the time I see that, the new houses are way better quality. If you wanted to bare minimum meet code, it’d probably still be cheaper to build a new house than to refit the old one.
quietthrow 6y ago
It’d be great to get a more international perspective here. Based on the responses on the thread so far this sounds very US centric where really very few people are not busy compared to say Europe where has a more balanced approach. Enjoying that busyness or not that’s a different story given enjoyment is such a personal thing.
- donothing 6y ago
  I lived and worked in Europe and I still feel that people need a hell of a lot more nothing in their lives. If you're curious about my perspective, it's downthread, same username.
reagular 6y ago
Of course we are too busy. Even the last century we didn't work like today. No electrical light? Not working the night. No subway? No work if there is snow. No internet? No remote work. etc
- cafard 6y ago
  In the late 19th Century, workers in the US steel industry commonly worked twelve-hour days, seven days a week, which turned into twenty-four-hour days when the night shift went to day shift and vice-versa. Snow - subway = no work? Hardly. In the suburbs, people drove, in the cities people walked.
  - nervousvarun 6y ago
    Sure but that example from the steel industry surely was an outlier? What % of the workforce was still agrarian in the late 19th century? As for the suburbs and people walking etc...mostly agree. But surely you'd agree that the onset of the internet has extended most people's working hours in a significant way. What's the < year 2000 equivalent of receiving/responding to a work email at 10pm?
    - subhobroto 6y ago
      > What's the < year 2000 equivalent of receiving/responding to a work email at 10pm? Your horse running away or the wolf jumping into your sheep pen among others. Humans have never had a dearth of interruptions. What's sad is, today, most of those interruptions are completely ignorable (no one has a sheep pen thats not well protected and monitored) - yet, we treat that work email at 10pm with the same urgency as one. Atleast back then, it was your sheep pen.
      - goodpoint 6y ago
        For 99% of people life had very few surprises. Like today's life in lesser developed, agrarian societies, days go by very slowly.
      - 6y ago
kumarvvr 6y ago
Yes.
subhobroto 6y ago
> Being busy all the time can give us an illusion of productivity which may feel reassuring > You cannot step into the same river twice, for other waters are continually flowing on,” supposedly said Heraclitus. Time is like a river. If you’re too busy to enjoy life—too busy to spend time with friends and family, too busy to learn how to paint or play the guitar, too busy to go on that hike, too busy to cook something nice for yourself—these moments will be gone, and you will never get that time back > Being busy is a defense mechanism. It’s a way to avoid just—being. Having responsibilities, deadlines, a long task list… Overloading our senses can make us believe we are moving in the right direction, or a list in a direction. But the constant cycle of tasks we tackle without ever thinking often leaves us stagnant Having grown up in a "developing" country (India) with its high mortality and having suffered the emotional trauma of losing family members, friends and coworkers, unexpectedly , gives a perspective about life. Having been battered to near death for starting small businesses that threatened established ones in the state I grew up in, gives a perspective about life. Having been put at gun point, shackled to a post in a kneeling position by the mafia of another state I moved to, to start businesses, away from my home state (where they knew who my family was and could kill them), gives a perspective about life. And that perspective is - there is abisolutely NOTHING like family and friends. No, not the fake ones. The real ones who open up their own homes, in the face of danger when you're battered, bleeding, destitute and broken. Which is why, when I moved to the U.S., the obsession with "start up" success at the expense of anything else was/is extremely fascinating! People want to be successful. No one likes to lose. Even a freeloader is expressing that behavior because they believe that is the best way to win. The work life "balance" in the U.S. is incredibly messed up - like real bad. The assumption most people make is "Let's work real hard while we are young so we have all the money we need when we are older. We will have fun then". So right out of college, with six figures in debt, people are working 40+ hours/week (typically 60+ hours/week), working weekends without blinking an eye. Everyone's doing it, it's the norm, so what's wrong with doing what everyone is doing. No one has time to make meaningful relationships. Most people spend less than 3 years at a job, so what's the point anyways. You can't get a good salary hike without quitting your existing and joining a new company. That model bleeds into one's personal life as well - people are so busy working hard that they miss the opportunities to build a meaningful relationship with their spouse and children. Guilt sets in so the spouse and children get showered with expensive gifts and vacations but they have nothing much to talk about during those vacations either so they spend most of their time visiting random places, taking tons of photos, posting them on social and handling the barrage of comments they get for those photos, which again steals time from whatever chance was left of having a private conversation. The emptiness does not resolve though - and when it gets intolerable the spouses file for divorce. Maybe it will work out with someone else. Once they retire - they have two big problems: 1. yes, they do have money, but don't know what to do with it 2. they also don't know what to do with the free hours they now have available! To address #1, they hand over their money to fund managers who proceed to loose all or most of that money because they are sure they can beat the market. In the meantime, they have been so frigging busy most of their adult life with the one thing they did for their employers that they did not develop social skills (outside the fake "professional" facade) or general skills that they can use to improve their own lives outside the work context - and everyone's so fake that it gets down under your skin because deep inside you can feel the fakeness so you hesitate to make more social ties. Now, with the money depleted and being bored out of their minds, what's the next step? So yes, it does feel to me that here in the U.S., being busy is a defense mechanism - because it's a good excuse for procrastinating on what really matters.
perfunctory 6y ago
Not only we don't enjoy life we also destroy it (as in climate change) [Reduced Work Hours as a Means of Slowing Climate Change] https://ecology.iww.org/PDF/misc/climate-change-workshare-2013-02.pdf https://ecology.iww.org/PDF/misc/climate-change-workshare-20...
- luckylion 6y ago
  > [Reduced Work Hours as a Means of Slowing Climate Change] Great, how do we do that without reducing output? If the share of society that supports all of it cuts their hours in half, their personal situation will certainly improve. But a lot of people will go hungry.
  - eropple 6y ago
    > But a lot of people will go hungry. Will they? Honest question. How much of the labor share is human versus automation in 2020?
    - Nasrudith 6y ago
      The hunger itself is less of an issue because the food itself is pretty damn cheap. With resturants the labor is the biggest cost component. Especially if it is just "rice and dried beans boiled in water plus multivitamins". Hell the supply chain issues show distribution is an expensive part in comparison - although unfortunately the cheapness comes from high scale too. The real issues with scalability are things like medical care and other higher skilled labor - not just because of task switching inefficiencies but because any proportional hour reduction means increased demand - assuming that the hours worked are useful. Less skilled labor is more or less commoditized and would be easier to spread the burden around and would likely show a boost instead of a decline in productivity (although involving say 10 people working 4 hour shifts instead of 5 working 8 hour shifts). Regardless of stance on what we should do a massive societal lifestyle shift would neither be easy nor well received.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
pjc50 6y ago
This article could have been written at almost any time in the past 50 years. But somehow it lands particularly badly in the middle of a pandemic when some people are far too busy and some are forcibly idled.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- LordOfWolves 6y ago
  Regardless of the article’s timing, the question remains. Are we too busy in modern society? Do we make ourselves busy to feel better about ourselves as a proxy to productivity? Is being busy (e.g., involving the brain in various scenarios throughout the day) necessary to maintain a prescient mind? Can we potentially be less busy yet generally happier? I’d argue the answers to these questions are all “yes”, but alas, I have no scientific data to back my claim, purely anecdotes. If one is not struggling for basic needs, the current global situation truly shines a light on which “time sucks” in your life are/were/will be actually worth the effort and time moving forward (once past this health crisis). From personal experience, I don’t think I’ve ever been more grateful for my relationships with my family, following the passing of several individuals whom I’ve known for 20+ years.
  - toomuchtodo 6y ago
    COVID put front and center, "What is really essential?"
    - blotter_paper 6y ago
      And somehow, liquor stores and recreational weed dispensaries are considered "essential" while gyms and many productive small businesses are not. Are we enjoying life too much to be busy? (Before this is taken as general anti-drug hate, plz check username -- I'm pointing out what I see as a weird set of seemingly hypocritical priorities in a time of pandemic, not telling you that you can never have your delicious soma.)
koolhead17 6y ago
Yes * Most of us have no clue what enjoyment means. * We are living in a world where others define our purpose and meaning of enjoyment.
- grecy 6y ago
  After spending 2 years driving through Latin America, and three years driving around Africa to the most remote places I could reach[1], I wholeheartedly agree. I honestly feel that the majority of people in Western countries don't know day to day happiness. [1] https://youtube.com/theroadchoseme https://youtube.com/theroadchoseme
  - 52-6F-62 6y ago
    Tangential, but I'd love to recommend The Grey Islands by John Steffler about his time alone on what are the Grey Islands off the coast of Newfoundland. https://www.amazon.ca/dp/1894078136 https://www.amazon.ca/dp/1894078136
  - cryoshon 6y ago
    i've come around to a similar point of view after spending a lot of time in latin america. i don't necessarily believe that people down there are happier on average, because i know that many are not. but, i have noticed that latin americans seem to have the latitude to take more joy and passion in their daily lives. and i think that if the two can be separated, people are more content on average there than they are here. not everything is a business transaction, and it isn't necessarily desirable for someone to be spending their time clawing their way through the world. there's less of a culture of marketing/advertising creating new problems for people and offering products to solve them, too.
    - tozeur 6y ago
      After traveling to 30+ countries and living overseas, there’s definitely an attitude difference. My mom growing up had no running water in a village, yet loved the huge family she was a part of. Now she’s in the states and deals with loneliness on a daily basis
varjag 6y ago
Betterige's Law
- didsomeonesay 6y ago
  Validated by exception to the rule (cause the answer is Yes).
darepublic 6y ago
life is not enjoyable by definition if robots could do everything for humans we'd probably play the most realistic VR video games while high with all our time suffering and scarcity is actually a requirement for enjoyment imo
- TeMPOraL 6y ago
  Your comment makes me want to finally sit down and read Iain Banks. Because apparently they solved that in the fictional, post-scarcity world of the Culture. I don't believe that suffering is a requirement for enjoyment. Some level of discomfort when you're not having fun, yes - something that pushes you to descent the gradient. An occasional pain even, maybe. But not suffering.
- chosenbreed37 6y ago
  You make a valid point. However I think that a significant section of the population would dedicate their time to other things. Even if robots could do those things better. E.g. music, art, philosophy, wood carving, knitting, gardening, etc
JTbane 6y ago
I'd say yes. The quarantine has put it in perspective for me, I'm able to exercise more and enjoy life since I don't have a 1-hour commute each way to work.
- wbc 6y ago
  agreed 100%, exactly the same experience here, haven't jogged in years and wow it feels great
Pfhreak 6y ago
The people's policy project has a pretty decent writeup of some fairly straightforward changes we could make to increase leisure time here in the states: https://www.peoplespolicyproject.org/projects/the-leisure-agenda/ https://www.peoplespolicyproject.org/projects/the-leisure-ag... The changes we need aren't that big, we just need to advocate for them.
torgian 6y ago
Without reading the article, I can say yes, yes we are. There are very few exceptions to this depending on your career and mindset. I can say that I enjoyed life a lot during my 8 years in the military, and it had nothing to do with the job ( the job sucked ). It had everything to do with the people. Friendships forged, the understanding involved, the familial bond that came with it. That made me feel happy. After that, normal jobs were just busy work. Which iswhy I'm happy to say that my current job ( 100% remote ) is much more satisfactory, and not as "busy". I enjoy life as it is. I lucked out so far. But I will say that while everyone might have different standards of "enjoying life", the key factor is actually _belonging_ to a family. Doesn't mater if that family is blood related, it just needs to be people you fully trust and can do anything with and be completely comfortable with. This is not something that is easily attained, but it can be easier to find if you're not working some shit job 10 hours a day every day five days a week with no chance of vacation and no job security. That shit needs to change,a nd the majority of us are slaves to it.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 6y ago
  I feel the same about my 4 years in the service. Once again, the job sucked, but you can't beat the camaraderie and the feeling that everyone really is looking out for each other.
  - jfk13 6y ago
    I'm sure that's true for many in the services, but there's a darker side as well... reports of "hazing" etc surface with worrying regularity, suggesting not everyone has the same positive experience.
    - 2OEH8eoCRo0 6y ago
      I've experienced mild hazing and I still wouldn't trade my military service for anything. I don't condone hazing but except for egregious examples people shrug it off and move on. No, not everyone has the same positive experience of anything, but the hazing issue is smaller than you'd think. I'm ready for you to not understand this, civilians usually do not.
JoeAltmaier 6y ago
I'm reminded of a line in a movie recently. The spouse had died, and a friend commented "Never put off doing things, because we don't know how long we have." They replied "You don't get it. What I miss is, doing nothing. I just want to do nothing with them, again."
jason_price 6y ago
There's one more reason we can behave like this: we just postpone enjoying life for the future.
- defterGoose 6y ago
  This despite literally any old person you'd care to ask beseeching us not to do this.
willthefirst 6y ago
For some age-tested wisdom on this topic, read Seneca's On The Shortness Of Life: https://www.globalgreyebooks.com/ebooks/seneca/on-the-shortness-of-life/on-the-shortness-of-life.pdf https://www.globalgreyebooks.com/ebooks/seneca/on-the-shortn... "But one man is possessed by an avarice that is insatiable, another by a toilsome devotion to tasks that are useless; one man is besotted with wine, another is paralyzed by sloth; one man is exhausted by an ambition that always hangs upon the decision of others, another, driven on by the greed of the trader, is led over all lands and all seas by the hope of gain; some are tormented by a passion for war and are always either bent upon inflicting danger upon others or concerned about their own; some there are who are worn out by voluntary servitude in a thankless attendance upon the great; many are kept busy either in the pursuit of other men's fortune or in complaining of their own; many, following no fixed aim, shifting and inconstant and dissatisfied, are plunged by their fickleness into plans that are ever new; some have no fixed principle by which to direct their course, but Fate takes them unawares while they loll and yawn—so surely does it happen that I cannot doubt the truth of that utterance which the greatest of poets delivered with all the seeming of an oracle: 'The part of life we really live is small.'"
- 1121redblackgo 6y ago
  Born 4 BC Died AD 65 Absolutely incredible that his words can speak to someone 2000 years later and make them feel something in the core of their essence. Thanks for sharing this really helped me with some things this morning.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - willthefirst 6y ago
    I know right?! The language is simple and entertaining. There's also a hilarious passage about a wealthy guy who gets carried everywhere, and becomes so numbed by luxury that he can't tell whether he's sitting down or not.
  - close04 6y ago
    Human nature hasn't changed probably in thousands of years. Our tools and possibilities did but if you'd swap a few people around in time (of course, ignoring the shock of the change) they'd fill their shoes the same way.
amelius 6y ago
Unfortunately, the advancement of technology has not brought us more free days per week.
eruci 6y ago
If you're too busy, you're doing something wrong.
- ceedan 6y ago
  Sounds like privileged insight
machinehermit 6y ago
Not me. I am like a high energy dog that needs to be walked until the owner is annoyed. I love my normal life. This lack of stimulation right now is terrible for my mental health.
- tonyedgecombe 6y ago
  That's OK as long as you don't expect other people to be the same.
mbostleman 6y ago
Depends on whether an individual's busyness is enjoyable. The title kind of implies that there are no individuals ("we" are all together) and that "busy" in and of itself not in the set of things in life that are enjoyable.
wait_a_minute 6y ago
The average American watches 3 to 4 hours of television per day. https://www.statista.com/statistics/186833/average-television-use-per-person-in-the-us-since-2002/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/186833/average-televisio... Americans also tend to work more hours than their European counterparts. So to me, the idea that we are too busy to enjoy life is categorically FALSE. We have more leisure time now than we ever did at any point in history.
- acituan 6y ago
  Hours available is an irrelevant measure, because the hours worked is consumptive of certain facilities that is required to enjoy anything more complicated than television, and spatial dynamics matter as much as temporal dynamics between work and leisure. Work demands one’s most productive hours, focused concentration, concentrated decision making, bodily stress etc. There is little left for the remaining leisure time to do anything meaningful. It is also not true that we have more leisure time than any point in history. Academic consensus is that hunter gatherers worked about 2.5 days a week for example. And this was non-alienating work you did with your family and friends (i.e. tribe), outdoors. Compare that to hiking, hunting, fishing, frisbeeing etc we do for recreation nowadays. There are also tons of other externalities embedded to this. We often forget the cost of working. For example living in a city to be close to a job brings a lot of externalities that you don’t get paid for; you need to commute to work, but also commute to any leisure activity that is not in or near your house. In bay area you can’t visit a friend that is 30 minutes away in nominal distance after work because that would be a real 1.30 hour commute during rush hour. The urban design of a city is more likely to be centered around economic activity than facilitating quality leisure time. Even if it once was, economic activity on it changes over time, along with the population, and the utility decreases drastically. Another externality is your house. If you are crammed in an apartment, your leisure choices are restricted as well. Someone with a garage or a backyard can take up gardening, woodworking, playing the drums etc without paying a commute cost. The apartment dweller? Well, thankfully TV’s are flat and trick some part of our brains that we are elsewhere with other people so that we ignore the reality of where we physically are. Final externality is other people. If you want to engage in meaning relationships, it doesn’t suffice that you want that and weather the cost of commute, low energy after work etc. The other people also needs to want those. That makes it combinatorially difficult for a group of people to gather for a meaningful leisure time shared. Oh also assuming working hours coincide, the other guy is not running for promo and doing overtime etc. It is a game theoretic mess.
chrisweekly 6y ago
Tangent: happy to see nesslabs getting to HN front page. It's a great site (and nascent community) run by one Anne-Laure Le Cunff, a thoughtful, intelligent, curious and humble neuroscience student I find it impossible not to root for.
beamatronic 6y ago
Yes. 100%.
throwawayyipyip 6y ago
I know I am. I'm dreading living paycheck to paycheck being pushed into a specialism in which people only think I'm capable of doing that. Eventually, I'll be able to safe a bit, but it doesn't mean that I can take a break from work. It's nice to have 25 vacation days (yay Europe), but I'd prefer, hmm... 3 months? Not gonna happen? I get that, from an economic point of view, but from an "enjoy life" point of view, that would be where I'd want to be, or perhaps even 6 months. I'd work the other 6, that's how much I want to work. Recently, I asked at a new job that I was about to start if I can work 4 days per week instead of 5. Now they're doubting to even hire me. Screw this. Contracts don't make sense, they claim you trade time for money, but that's a lie, otherwise I could work 20% less than what's normal. When I did enjoy life, I was at university. I didn't have those concerns and I studied whatever I felt like. I enjoyed life then. Also when I'm on vacation and know that I can take a break from worrying, then I also can enjoy life, or maybe it's simply that hiking with good friends is amazing. It's easy to enjoy life given unconstrained resources. Unfortunately, I see that we're mostly resource starved. Rent? That's about a 2 week paycheck (otherwise 3). With that said, it beats dying because you don't have access to medicine. It beats a lot of things that medieval people used to do. It's better. But it still sucks.
- centimeter 6y ago
  A manager once told me something that stuck with me. "20% of your paycheck is for doing work, 80% of your paycheck is for being available with context." It often feels like the way companies/teams/tasks are structured causes employees to waste time or be a lot less productive than they could be. But it turns out that, for companies to scale beyond a certain size, the winning recipe is (depressingly): * Fungible employees are more important than productive employees. It's incredibly risky to rely on the specialized abilities or knowledge of any single employee. Keep your bus factor high. * It's OK if your employees are kept "idling" most of the time, as long as they're available when you actually need them. In most white collar industries, demand for labor is extremely bursty. This is one reason companies are so reluctant to adopt irregular work schedules. It works fine for (small) companies that are OK with relying on competence/specialization and accepting small bus factors, but it breaks the strategies larger companies use to scale.
ryeights 6y ago
“Industrial Society and Its Future”, Ted Kacynzski (the Unabomber) https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/unabomber/manifesto.text.htm https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/unab... While the man and his actions were reprehensible, his manifesto was lucid and insightful and, in my opinion, correctly diagnoses many of modern society's ails. >In modern industrial society only minimal effort is necessary to satisfy one’s physical needs. It is enough to go through a training program to acquire some petty technical skill, then come to work on time and exert the very modest effort needed to hold a job. [...] Thus it is not surprising that modern society is full of surrogate activities. These include scientific work, athletic achievement, humanitarian work, artistic and literary creation, climbing the corporate ladder, acquisition of money and material goods far beyond the point at which they cease to give any additional physical satisfaction [...] >For many if not most people, surrogate activities are less satisfying than the pursuit of real goals (that is, goals that people would want to attain even if their need for the power process were already fulfilled). One indication of this is the fact that, in many or most cases, people who are deeply involved in surrogate activities are never satisfied, never at rest. Thus the money-maker constantly strives for more and more wealth. The scientist no sooner solves one problem than he moves on to the next. The long-distance runner drives himself to run always farther and faster. Many people who pursue surrogate activities will say that they get far more fulfillment from these activities than they do from the “mundane” business of satisfying their biological needs, but that is because in our society the effort needed to satisfy the biological needs has been reduced to triviality. More importantly, in our society people do not satisfy their biological needs autonomously but by functioning as parts of an immense social machine. In contrast, people generally have a great deal of autonomy in pursuing their surrogate activities.
- slx26 6y ago
  pdf without limitations: http://editions-hache.com/essais/pdf/kaczynski2.pdf http://editions-hache.com/essais/pdf/kaczynski2.pdf > 61. [...] There may be disagreement about whether the effort needed to hold a job is “minimal”; but usually, in lower- to middle-level jobs, whatever effort is required is merely that of OBEDIENCE. You sit or stand where you are told to sit or stand and do what you are told to do in the way you are told to do it. It's a very readable and interesting essay indeed. Sadly it seems it criticizes too much both left and right wings for people to recommend it in certain circles, or avoid it altogether saying the guy was a terrorist, with yet another example of the noncentral fallacy.
palimpsests 6y ago
Definitely. Recent podcast about this powerfully insidious theme in modern life, recommended: https://www.resources.soundstrue.com/podcast/dr-lise-van-susteren-emotional-inflammation-a-condition-of-our-time https://www.resources.soundstrue.com/podcast/dr-lise-van-sus... The talk appproaches how to mediate and fundamentally resolve this experience (it's partly support of a book that was just released, I am in the process of reading it - I feel this is going to be really helpful context for many people).
ravenstine 6y ago
If we can't enjoy life(or at least be content), why live it? Most people, in my experience, have to struggle to enjoy life. They spend most of their time working a job they don't really like, come home too tired to do anything meaningful, have weekends where they can't decide between doing something or relaxing, and binge on food and alcohol and teevee to feel like they're alive. While I'm fortunate in that I naturally enjoy software engineering, there's a lot about the job of being a software engineer that is lacking. I think a lot of programmers would say the same, but because everyone wants to keep their job, they repress their disappointment. People become demoralized with their jobs when company ideals turn out to be lies, leaders lack appreciation for their talent, standards decline, and more and more work is asked of them for the same pay as time goes on. Sure, we can be promoted by changing companies, but that also can come at a huge cost unless you live in Silicon Valley, perhaps. All these things wear on people, encroach on their personal time, and makes them feel trapped. I'm not just talking about the profession of programming. There's lots of alienation happening that's preventing people from enjoying their lives to its fullest. (alienation is probably one of the only theories of marxism that I think are correct) Maybe we'll learn a lesson from being locked down. I'm not optimistic, but it would be ideal. By now, maybe a lot of people will figure out that they don't have the kind of job security they thought they did, and that sacrificing so much of themselves wasn't really worth it for what they were gaining. Perhaps more people will realize that they don't necessarily need the next promotion, or they will choose to follow their passion because, well, even if they have a high falootin' corporate job, they could lose what they've got anyway, so they might as well do what they enjoy.
ceedan 6y ago
Yes
ge96 6y ago
Take hits for this comment One of the few times I found to be "in the moment" was on a substance(m) which I'm not saying that's the only way. My point in this comment is, this is the time when I'm not in my "auto-pilot tasks in mind" mode everyday where I forget I'm sitting on a chair/inside a box most of my day. Other similar feelings being in nature, looking at things closely like the color of leaves. Watching a stream of water flow or something. I think that sentiment of "something you enjoyed sticks to you/makes time seem longer/remember it more" vs. repetitive tasks that are joined together later forget. My personal goal is freedom because I'm always afraid of "what if I lose my job" and "I have to get up at this hour". I can't just be like "today I'm just gonna go do this randomly because it peaked my interest". I think I will be a homesteader with a garage producing videos of whatever stuff I build. But for now... gotta pay my debts/work. FiRe will get there as I don't need much. And I don't know at the end of the day the clock ticks, time is running down... what matters to you?
- GuiA 6y ago
  A long term meditation practice may help you reach similar states of mind. Much less instantaneous than chemically induced, but perhaps more rewarding and sustainable.
  - ge96 6y ago
    I have tried(not hard enough) I guess I don't know when it's working. Perhaps too what I said about "being in the moment" just means the details you normally glance over you notice eg. leaves on a plant or something. Yeah I don't do the stuff anymore because it does not go with my brain(paranoia/feeds into delusion). I also can't logically function(write code). But yeah I'm going to try and do that more often, like stop and look around me, count items or something.
seph-reed 6y ago
Step 1: Find your local artist/builder/maker/burners or just anyone with a passion, motivation, and a project that has room for help. Step 2: Volunteer your time towards creating reality from a shared dream. I know nobody has time. I know the people are weird. I know it's awkward and you're self conscious. But you'll have to trust an internet stranger here: it's worth it. Make something with others. Don't sit around talking about your opinions, that's not society. Working together towards a common goal is society.
agitator 6y ago
This is why I left the Bay Area. To each their own. For me, the culture reinforced a sort of blind dedication to a company or a cause. Everyone you would meet or talk to would want to talk tech or entrepreneurship. You could tell they were comparing themselves with you or trying to figure out a way to collaborate. Everything was about work. If you weren't hustling, someone else would out hustle you. I missed a balance in life. Visiting with friends, family, hiking, talking, enjoying the weather. In the bay, even when I did take a break and venture out to enjoy life, it felt like the world was barren. In comparison to other places I've lived, the food, the culture, art, and life were just bland outside of work. It's just a reflection of the priorities of the people living and working there. The other thing is, what better way to get return on your business investment. It's obvious that if you cultivate a culture of competitiveness, combined with dangling the carrot of prestige from working at a place that would unlikely become a unicorn, combined with scarcity of resources (expensive housing, high cost of living), you get people burning more of their precious time for the benefit of founders and investors. It's an excellent situation if you are a founder or investor. Aside from experience and skills gained, it's a tough situation if you are an individual contributor.
- N1H1L 6y ago
  The food in the Bay Area was bland? And there were no hiking/camping opportunities? The Bay Area definitely has some problems - but a lot of your complaints are untethered from reality.
  - triceratops 6y ago
    > The food in the Bay Area was bland? Yes. The Bay Area has an awful restaurant scene - overpriced and not very good (unless you're talking about $$$ places). It's just one disappointment after another. The high cost of living precludes any of the quality workers from being employed at moderate-cost eateries.
    - agitator 6y ago
      Yeah, another huge factor for me was just how unhappy all of the service workers were. But I don't blame them. There's no way they could afford to live within what you or I would call a reasonable commute. So they would trek daily to provide for people making orders of magnitude more money. And the ones who were wiling to accept that kind of torture, were the ones who couldn't get jobs anywhere else more reasonable.
sadfev 6y ago
My problem is opposite, I am too indulgent and it’s difficult to be very productive
donothing 6y ago
So I did nothing for two years. In theory, I was studying, and working on building a few things, but I never did much of either. I rented a spot in an old warehouse in the countryside for $100 a month and decided to build myself a sort of tiny home inside there. It started out rough; I won't forget freezing on the concrete floor those first few nights, wrapped in one of those foil survival blankets. The winter left quickly, and with it the last of my ambitions. I'd do a bit of work, here and there, but doing nothing was my primary occupation. I would lay in fields and watch horses in the distance, I would sit on the side of a stream and rest my feet in it. One of my favorite activities was to bike to the nearest town about a half hour away and buy ice cream, lying in the grass and tearing into it like a child. Biking was always great fun. I would bike with no purpose, simply being free. There is no greater feeling than cruising the countryside with the wind in your hair and absolutely no idea of where you will go that day. Occasionally a horse would match me for the length of its pasture. I got the feeling that the horses dreamed of my bike as a child dreams of wings. Things always seemed to just work out. When my bike gave out, the friendly locals were happy enough to give me rides until I fixed it with some rope I found. When the seasons again changed and my tiny home grew colder I was offered a free room in a lovely old farmhouse. But as the snow returned so did my ambitions. I planned to finish months of work in days, then grew frustrated when I didn't. I grew crazier and crazier and at the end neglected all reason. Eventually, I accepted the advice of a local and decided to move to the city, get an apartment, and find work as a programmer. I did all of these quickly. The apartment lasted; the job did not. After so long doing nothing, I found myself nearly unable to work, paralyzed. The next year I continued to do nothing. I had a flash of ambition, but it was quickly interrupted by falling in love early in the year: a beautiful girl far, far out of my league. We fled our responsibilities to the south of France. Perhaps the best single week of my life was there with her doing nothing: lying in the sun, swimming naked in the sea, smoking a joint on the windowsill, watching the boats go by. We spent a wonderful year together, but the winter came as it did before to drive ambition: this time not mine but hers. We separated. Now I find myself a normal programmer. Like most people here, I do an awful lot of something and get paid well for it. But you can bet that once I've stashed up enough of those paychecks my schedule will have a lot more nothing on it.
PeterStuer 6y ago
You are not supposed to enjoy life. You are only meant to aspire enjoyment at the end of a never ending path of conspicuous consumption.
deleted 6y ago
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pascalxus 6y ago
this part is key: "Research shows that humans tend to do whatever it takes to keep busy, even if the activity feels meaningless to them. Dr Brené Brown from the University of Houston describes being “crazy busy” as a numbing strategy we use to avoid facing the truth of our lives."
aklemm 6y ago
Yes, and it’s proven for me during the Covid-19 lockdown, but I’ve always suspected as much.
JamalW 6y ago
Or are we too busy enjoying life?

336 points by anthilemoon 6y ago

acd 6y ago

If people worked less and spent more time with their friends and loved ones they would be happier. As a consequence anti depressants would go down, happiness and well being go up. For that we need to change the banking system which puts people in debt. Ie working to pay of debt is voluntary wage debt enslavement. The previous sentence is controversial. Most still want status quo vs radical change.

indigochill 6y ago
>For that we need to change the banking system which puts people in debt. The banking system doesn't put people into debt by itself. People voluntarily take on debt for reasons such as to attain a college degree because they are told the long-term benefit is worth it. So rather than go after the banking system, I think it would be more fruitful to go after the reasons people voluntarily take on debt. What are those, and how can we make them more affordable with something other than debt?
- hugey010 6y ago
  I'd argue that many people aren't being paid enough to participate in the society they were born into. Therefore taking on debt for daily expenses is involuntary.
  - dv_dt 6y ago
    A growing underclass isn't paid enough to get basics of life like healthcare or being consistently fed - it's beyond not being able to participate, for many to even exist is backsliding.
- jbay808 6y ago
  Hmm, sort of. Let's look at mortgages. If I want to buy a house without a mortgage (or with a limited, affordable mortgage), I still need to be able to outbid other buyers who might have no qualms about taking on an unaffordable debt. So even if I'm just making an individual decision for myself not to go into debt, I'm severely influenced by the behaviour of other members in society, and how much banks are willing to lend to them.
  - indigochill 6y ago
    >I still need to be able to outbid other buyers who might have no qualms about taking on an unaffordable debt It's still not the bank's fault that people will voluntarily enter unsustainable agreements because they think they need to live in overpriced areas. The banks in this scenario are merely an accessory to financial suicide. So I think my point still stands: how do we break up this obsession with living in overpriced areas? Improved remote work opportunities? Better cultural opportunities outside major metropolitan areas?
    - derg 6y ago
      Build more housing in the major metropolitan areas to meet demand is a fantastic start to it all. Look at how much is built in the big desirable cities. It's not enough, which is driving up prices to absurd levels (looking at you specifically San Francisco in particular). Decommodify housing where possible and take away it's ability to devolve into strictly a monetary investment vehicle. >Better cultural opportunities outside major metropolitan areas? There is so much historical inertia behind the cultural opportunities in many places that this one will be hard to do and take an inordinate amount of time I think.
    - karatestomp 6y ago
      > It's still not the bank's fault that people will voluntarily enter unsustainable agreements because they think they need to live in overpriced areas. Difficulty: houses are more expensive near good schools, because demand is higher, so you can't get away with cheaper housing without harming your children's future prospects. And no, it's not mostly a funding thing, so just distributing funds more evenly won't fix it. It has a lot more to do with selection bias, of which housing prices are a major part.
      - rrrrrrrrrrrryan 6y ago
        Housing prices haven't been based on the underlying asset for decades. An expensive home is a place to live and sleep, but it's also: 1) a ticket of admission into a good school district 2) a ticket of admission to a local economy with well-paying jobs 3) a retirement investing account I do think changing the way schools are funded will help the first point, and the rise of remote-work will help with the second point, but as to the third point - who knows. There are too many government incentives to buying a home that I don't think it'll change any time soon.
- z2 6y ago
  Debt to me is just something that buys time by making things immediately available. I think it's healthy only if it supports real growth. For a person, if they need money now to buy an education, home, or other thing that will be put to productive use, debt is valuable they don't need to save up for years at a less productive state first. Same for companies -- 'responsible' debt can unlock growth by meeting obvious and pressing demand today. The future is unclear, so this is of course riddled with traps and competitive pressures, but at least there is a chance that money today rather than tomorrow is a good thing, if your returns can beat the interest rate you pay. The more predatory side of taking on excessive debt, because one's back is against the wall or one wants to make an impulse purchase, gives you very little additional time (e.g. weeks or months instead of years). This kind of debt is dangerous.
  - CalRobert 6y ago
    True, and indeed swapping a $2k a month rent payment for a $1k a month mortgage payment (that ends after 15 or 30 years) can make sense. But people have different tolerances for risk and to me securing multiple years of debt with the roof over my head scares the shit out of me. I bought my house about 60% cash, 40% an unsecured personal loan I could default on without losing my house. This is only because my house was insanely cheap, though.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
ecoled_ame 6y ago
not everyone has or wants friends and loved ones. time spent alone would increase happiness too.
wdn 6y ago
What we need is rewrite the law to reward saving instead of penalize savings. In the US, there is no incentive to save, because it got penalize first by inflation, then you happen to have a capital gain, dividend or interest on your savings, you get tax again. However, if you get into debt like a mortgage, which lock you in for 30 or more years, you get to deduct your mortgage interest. Property tax is deductible as well.
- chameleon_world 6y ago
  Are there other countries that have some kind of system like this in place?
  - wdn 6y ago
    I think Canada has the same systems. Singapore don't penalize saving and you see how competitive they are. More importantly, they have a lot of savings.
    - pbourke 6y ago
      Canada has the Tax Free Savings Account, which can be used like a Roth IRA (long-term investing without taxes due at withdrawal) or like a regular savings account. It's an after tax account, but earnings are, as the name says, tax free regardless of type. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax-free_savings_account https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax-free_savings_account
- rrrrrrrrrrrryan 6y ago
  Tax policy isn't sexy but it's really at the heart of most of our problems. Personally, I'd love to see a political push to ease back income taxes and capital gains taxes (why are we disincentivizing working and saving?), and implement either a VAT or a progressive consumption tax instead, which discourages spending beyond one's means. We could also take away corporate income taxes, and replace them with hefty Pigovian carbon taxes (to offset negative externalities), and land value taxes (as they're non-distortionary).
2OEH8eoCRo0 6y ago
I just want a salary high enough to retire at some point and not have to worry about surprise medical costs in the short term. Oh, also enough for a family, oh also enough for good schooling for my children, oh also enough to live in a good area. At the end of the day this all adds up to millions of dollars for what my parents and grandparents could easily afford on mediocre pay by today's standards. It means I spend all day every day thinking about career moves. If I'm sittin here on Slacker News I'm not gaining knowledge or skills to move ahead. I can easily see this causing one to feel isolated and trapped which isn't good for mental health.
- saiya-jin 6y ago
  > I just want a salary high enough to retire at some point and not have to worry about surprise medical costs in the short term. Oh, also enough for a family, oh also enough for good schooling for my children, oh also enough to live in a good area. You've unfortunately picked up a wrong country to continue living (and possibly retire). Many european countries offer all of this, US currently none. Unless you jump into career rat race, but even then you are 1 severe illness/accident away from financial ruin. Apart form the last point about good area. Depends on what is good for you. If its good for everybody, its unreasonable to expect that it can be available to many. That's unrealistic... anywhere
  - CalRobert 6y ago
    The jackpot is being European, working in the bay for a while earning a huge salary with 8 roommates and socking away savings worth a lifetime's income or more in, say, Greece, then heading back to Europe to have a family.
ketamine__ 6y ago
> If people worked less and spent more time with their friends and loved ones they would be happier. Daniel Kahneman argues that people optimize for satisfaction over happiness. If we had UBI many parents would choose to spend extra time with their children instead of friends. That may not make them happier. https://qz.com/1503207/a-nobel-prize-winning-psychologist-defines-happiness-versus-satisfaction/ https://qz.com/1503207/a-nobel-prize-winning-psychologist-de...
CalRobert 6y ago
Debt is dangerous. Debt, combined with artificial constraints on necessities (like housing) doubly so. We pretty much tell people "it's illegal to build a cheap home" and "btw we can offer you a 30 year mortgage on these nice fancy homes". It feels a bit like the supply of housing and the supply of debt are both manipulated to make sure people work as hard as possible but without revolting. Living free and clear of debt is extremely hard; the places you can build a home without restriction are generally not near decent jobs, and the places near decent jobs make it more or less illegal to build homes (and those you are allowed to build have to meet labrynthine requirements about outdoor space, parking, density, etc. - certainly the sorts of homes normal people could afford to build with the cash they have aren't allowed in the major metros). Of course, those who already own homes have a strong incentive to preserve the housing cartel, as it increases the value of their asset (which they can then sell when they retire and move somewhere cheap with no jobs) So far as I can tell the best path out is remote work and a low cost of living area, but that's open to rather few people and I have a suspicion wages will drop as more people gravitate towards this option and there's more competition. Not to mention that we explicitly encourage young people to throw away 4 years of their life _and_ take on massive debt before starting. I'm not sure a degree, a pile of debt, and 4 years of opportunity cost are worth more than your wits and a clean slate.
- ip26 6y ago
  It's mostly illegal to build a cheap home because they can be deathtraps. I believe house fires used to be one of the top killers in the country; today, firefighters only spend 1% of their time fighting fires. In any case, property prices in high CoL locations is mainly the cost of the land. I've visited homes in the midwest nicer than almost anything I ever saw in the Bay Area that cost 200-300k.
  - WWLink 6y ago
    This is exactly it. I rent a house that costs $900,000 and it’s a 60 year old death trap. Just like most of the other houses in the neighborhood. It was built when LA County was more of a “build baby build!” Place lol. When you buy a house here it’s more like you’re buying a $900,000 piece of land and getting a free house in the deal. Those houses are practically worthless and a lot of new buyers tear them down and build a new one. I’d guess that doing that costs a few hundred thousand. But most of the time I see that, the new houses are way better quality. If you wanted to bare minimum meet code, it’d probably still be cheaper to build a new house than to refit the old one.

quietthrow 6y ago

It’d be great to get a more international perspective here. Based on the responses on the thread so far this sounds very US centric where really very few people are not busy compared to say Europe where has a more balanced approach. Enjoying that busyness or not that’s a different story given enjoyment is such a personal thing.

donothing 6y ago
I lived and worked in Europe and I still feel that people need a hell of a lot more nothing in their lives. If you're curious about my perspective, it's downthread, same username.

reagular 6y ago

Of course we are too busy. Even the last century we didn't work like today. No electrical light? Not working the night. No subway? No work if there is snow. No internet? No remote work. etc

cafard 6y ago
In the late 19th Century, workers in the US steel industry commonly worked twelve-hour days, seven days a week, which turned into twenty-four-hour days when the night shift went to day shift and vice-versa. Snow - subway = no work? Hardly. In the suburbs, people drove, in the cities people walked.
- nervousvarun 6y ago
  Sure but that example from the steel industry surely was an outlier? What % of the workforce was still agrarian in the late 19th century? As for the suburbs and people walking etc...mostly agree. But surely you'd agree that the onset of the internet has extended most people's working hours in a significant way. What's the < year 2000 equivalent of receiving/responding to a work email at 10pm?
  - subhobroto 6y ago
    > What's the < year 2000 equivalent of receiving/responding to a work email at 10pm? Your horse running away or the wolf jumping into your sheep pen among others. Humans have never had a dearth of interruptions. What's sad is, today, most of those interruptions are completely ignorable (no one has a sheep pen thats not well protected and monitored) - yet, we treat that work email at 10pm with the same urgency as one. Atleast back then, it was your sheep pen.
    - goodpoint 6y ago
      For 99% of people life had very few surprises. Like today's life in lesser developed, agrarian societies, days go by very slowly.
    - 6y ago

kumarvvr 6y ago

Yes.

subhobroto 6y ago

> Being busy all the time can give us an illusion of productivity which may feel reassuring > You cannot step into the same river twice, for other waters are continually flowing on,” supposedly said Heraclitus. Time is like a river. If you’re too busy to enjoy life—too busy to spend time with friends and family, too busy to learn how to paint or play the guitar, too busy to go on that hike, too busy to cook something nice for yourself—these moments will be gone, and you will never get that time back > Being busy is a defense mechanism. It’s a way to avoid just—being. Having responsibilities, deadlines, a long task list… Overloading our senses can make us believe we are moving in the right direction, or a list in a direction. But the constant cycle of tasks we tackle without ever thinking often leaves us stagnant Having grown up in a "developing" country (India) with its high mortality and having suffered the emotional trauma of losing family members, friends and coworkers, unexpectedly , gives a perspective about life. Having been battered to near death for starting small businesses that threatened established ones in the state I grew up in, gives a perspective about life. Having been put at gun point, shackled to a post in a kneeling position by the mafia of another state I moved to, to start businesses, away from my home state (where they knew who my family was and could kill them), gives a perspective about life. And that perspective is - there is abisolutely NOTHING like family and friends. No, not the fake ones. The real ones who open up their own homes, in the face of danger when you're battered, bleeding, destitute and broken. Which is why, when I moved to the U.S., the obsession with "start up" success at the expense of anything else was/is extremely fascinating! People want to be successful. No one likes to lose. Even a freeloader is expressing that behavior because they believe that is the best way to win. The work life "balance" in the U.S. is incredibly messed up - like real bad. The assumption most people make is "Let's work real hard while we are young so we have all the money we need when we are older. We will have fun then". So right out of college, with six figures in debt, people are working 40+ hours/week (typically 60+ hours/week), working weekends without blinking an eye. Everyone's doing it, it's the norm, so what's wrong with doing what everyone is doing. No one has time to make meaningful relationships. Most people spend less than 3 years at a job, so what's the point anyways. You can't get a good salary hike without quitting your existing and joining a new company. That model bleeds into one's personal life as well - people are so busy working hard that they miss the opportunities to build a meaningful relationship with their spouse and children. Guilt sets in so the spouse and children get showered with expensive gifts and vacations but they have nothing much to talk about during those vacations either so they spend most of their time visiting random places, taking tons of photos, posting them on social and handling the barrage of comments they get for those photos, which again steals time from whatever chance was left of having a private conversation. The emptiness does not resolve though - and when it gets intolerable the spouses file for divorce. Maybe it will work out with someone else. Once they retire - they have two big problems: 1. yes, they do have money, but don't know what to do with it 2. they also don't know what to do with the free hours they now have available! To address #1, they hand over their money to fund managers who proceed to loose all or most of that money because they are sure they can beat the market. In the meantime, they have been so frigging busy most of their adult life with the one thing they did for their employers that they did not develop social skills (outside the fake "professional" facade) or general skills that they can use to improve their own lives outside the work context - and everyone's so fake that it gets down under your skin because deep inside you can feel the fakeness so you hesitate to make more social ties. Now, with the money depleted and being bored out of their minds, what's the next step? So yes, it does feel to me that here in the U.S., being busy is a defense mechanism - because it's a good excuse for procrastinating on what really matters.

perfunctory 6y ago

Not only we don't enjoy life we also destroy it (as in climate change) [Reduced Work Hours as a Means of Slowing Climate Change] https://ecology.iww.org/PDF/misc/climate-change-workshare-2013-02.pdf https://ecology.iww.org/PDF/misc/climate-change-workshare-20...

luckylion 6y ago
> [Reduced Work Hours as a Means of Slowing Climate Change] Great, how do we do that without reducing output? If the share of society that supports all of it cuts their hours in half, their personal situation will certainly improve. But a lot of people will go hungry.
- eropple 6y ago
  > But a lot of people will go hungry. Will they? Honest question. How much of the labor share is human versus automation in 2020?
  - Nasrudith 6y ago
    The hunger itself is less of an issue because the food itself is pretty damn cheap. With resturants the labor is the biggest cost component. Especially if it is just "rice and dried beans boiled in water plus multivitamins". Hell the supply chain issues show distribution is an expensive part in comparison - although unfortunately the cheapness comes from high scale too. The real issues with scalability are things like medical care and other higher skilled labor - not just because of task switching inefficiencies but because any proportional hour reduction means increased demand - assuming that the hours worked are useful. Less skilled labor is more or less commoditized and would be easier to spread the burden around and would likely show a boost instead of a decline in productivity (although involving say 10 people working 4 hour shifts instead of 5 working 8 hour shifts). Regardless of stance on what we should do a massive societal lifestyle shift would neither be easy nor well received.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]

pjc50 6y ago

This article could have been written at almost any time in the past 50 years. But somehow it lands particularly badly in the middle of a pandemic when some people are far too busy and some are forcibly idled.

deleted 6y ago
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LordOfWolves 6y ago
Regardless of the article’s timing, the question remains. Are we too busy in modern society? Do we make ourselves busy to feel better about ourselves as a proxy to productivity? Is being busy (e.g., involving the brain in various scenarios throughout the day) necessary to maintain a prescient mind? Can we potentially be less busy yet generally happier? I’d argue the answers to these questions are all “yes”, but alas, I have no scientific data to back my claim, purely anecdotes. If one is not struggling for basic needs, the current global situation truly shines a light on which “time sucks” in your life are/were/will be actually worth the effort and time moving forward (once past this health crisis). From personal experience, I don’t think I’ve ever been more grateful for my relationships with my family, following the passing of several individuals whom I’ve known for 20+ years.
- toomuchtodo 6y ago
  COVID put front and center, "What is really essential?"
  - blotter_paper 6y ago
    And somehow, liquor stores and recreational weed dispensaries are considered "essential" while gyms and many productive small businesses are not. Are we enjoying life too much to be busy? (Before this is taken as general anti-drug hate, plz check username -- I'm pointing out what I see as a weird set of seemingly hypocritical priorities in a time of pandemic, not telling you that you can never have your delicious soma.)

koolhead17 6y ago

Yes * Most of us have no clue what enjoyment means. * We are living in a world where others define our purpose and meaning of enjoyment.

grecy 6y ago
After spending 2 years driving through Latin America, and three years driving around Africa to the most remote places I could reach[1], I wholeheartedly agree. I honestly feel that the majority of people in Western countries don't know day to day happiness. [1] https://youtube.com/theroadchoseme https://youtube.com/theroadchoseme
- 52-6F-62 6y ago
  Tangential, but I'd love to recommend The Grey Islands by John Steffler about his time alone on what are the Grey Islands off the coast of Newfoundland. https://www.amazon.ca/dp/1894078136 https://www.amazon.ca/dp/1894078136
- cryoshon 6y ago
  i've come around to a similar point of view after spending a lot of time in latin america. i don't necessarily believe that people down there are happier on average, because i know that many are not. but, i have noticed that latin americans seem to have the latitude to take more joy and passion in their daily lives. and i think that if the two can be separated, people are more content on average there than they are here. not everything is a business transaction, and it isn't necessarily desirable for someone to be spending their time clawing their way through the world. there's less of a culture of marketing/advertising creating new problems for people and offering products to solve them, too.
  - tozeur 6y ago
    After traveling to 30+ countries and living overseas, there’s definitely an attitude difference. My mom growing up had no running water in a village, yet loved the huge family she was a part of. Now she’s in the states and deals with loneliness on a daily basis

varjag 6y ago

Betterige's Law

didsomeonesay 6y ago
Validated by exception to the rule (cause the answer is Yes).

darepublic 6y ago

life is not enjoyable by definition if robots could do everything for humans we'd probably play the most realistic VR video games while high with all our time suffering and scarcity is actually a requirement for enjoyment imo

TeMPOraL 6y ago
Your comment makes me want to finally sit down and read Iain Banks. Because apparently they solved that in the fictional, post-scarcity world of the Culture. I don't believe that suffering is a requirement for enjoyment. Some level of discomfort when you're not having fun, yes - something that pushes you to descent the gradient. An occasional pain even, maybe. But not suffering.
chosenbreed37 6y ago
You make a valid point. However I think that a significant section of the population would dedicate their time to other things. Even if robots could do those things better. E.g. music, art, philosophy, wood carving, knitting, gardening, etc

JTbane 6y ago

I'd say yes. The quarantine has put it in perspective for me, I'm able to exercise more and enjoy life since I don't have a 1-hour commute each way to work.

wbc 6y ago
agreed 100%, exactly the same experience here, haven't jogged in years and wow it feels great

Pfhreak 6y ago

The people's policy project has a pretty decent writeup of some fairly straightforward changes we could make to increase leisure time here in the states: https://www.peoplespolicyproject.org/projects/the-leisure-agenda/ https://www.peoplespolicyproject.org/projects/the-leisure-ag... The changes we need aren't that big, we just need to advocate for them.

torgian 6y ago

Without reading the article, I can say yes, yes we are. There are very few exceptions to this depending on your career and mindset. I can say that I enjoyed life a lot during my 8 years in the military, and it had nothing to do with the job ( the job sucked ). It had everything to do with the people. Friendships forged, the understanding involved, the familial bond that came with it. That made me feel happy. After that, normal jobs were just busy work. Which iswhy I'm happy to say that my current job ( 100% remote ) is much more satisfactory, and not as "busy". I enjoy life as it is. I lucked out so far. But I will say that while everyone might have different standards of "enjoying life", the key factor is actually _belonging_ to a family. Doesn't mater if that family is blood related, it just needs to be people you fully trust and can do anything with and be completely comfortable with. This is not something that is easily attained, but it can be easier to find if you're not working some shit job 10 hours a day every day five days a week with no chance of vacation and no job security. That shit needs to change,a nd the majority of us are slaves to it.

2OEH8eoCRo0 6y ago
I feel the same about my 4 years in the service. Once again, the job sucked, but you can't beat the camaraderie and the feeling that everyone really is looking out for each other.
- jfk13 6y ago
  I'm sure that's true for many in the services, but there's a darker side as well... reports of "hazing" etc surface with worrying regularity, suggesting not everyone has the same positive experience.
  - 2OEH8eoCRo0 6y ago
    I've experienced mild hazing and I still wouldn't trade my military service for anything. I don't condone hazing but except for egregious examples people shrug it off and move on. No, not everyone has the same positive experience of anything, but the hazing issue is smaller than you'd think. I'm ready for you to not understand this, civilians usually do not.

JoeAltmaier 6y ago

I'm reminded of a line in a movie recently. The spouse had died, and a friend commented "Never put off doing things, because we don't know how long we have." They replied "You don't get it. What I miss is, doing nothing. I just want to do nothing with them, again."

jason_price 6y ago

There's one more reason we can behave like this: we just postpone enjoying life for the future.

defterGoose 6y ago
This despite literally any old person you'd care to ask beseeching us not to do this.

willthefirst 6y ago

For some age-tested wisdom on this topic, read Seneca's On The Shortness Of Life: https://www.globalgreyebooks.com/ebooks/seneca/on-the-shortness-of-life/on-the-shortness-of-life.pdf https://www.globalgreyebooks.com/ebooks/seneca/on-the-shortn... "But one man is possessed by an avarice that is insatiable, another by a toilsome devotion to tasks that are useless; one man is besotted with wine, another is paralyzed by sloth; one man is exhausted by an ambition that always hangs upon the decision of others, another, driven on by the greed of the trader, is led over all lands and all seas by the hope of gain; some are tormented by a passion for war and are always either bent upon inflicting danger upon others or concerned about their own; some there are who are worn out by voluntary servitude in a thankless attendance upon the great; many are kept busy either in the pursuit of other men's fortune or in complaining of their own; many, following no fixed aim, shifting and inconstant and dissatisfied, are plunged by their fickleness into plans that are ever new; some have no fixed principle by which to direct their course, but Fate takes them unawares while they loll and yawn—so surely does it happen that I cannot doubt the truth of that utterance which the greatest of poets delivered with all the seeming of an oracle: 'The part of life we really live is small.'"

1121redblackgo 6y ago
Born 4 BC Died AD 65 Absolutely incredible that his words can speak to someone 2000 years later and make them feel something in the core of their essence. Thanks for sharing this really helped me with some things this morning.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- willthefirst 6y ago
  I know right?! The language is simple and entertaining. There's also a hilarious passage about a wealthy guy who gets carried everywhere, and becomes so numbed by luxury that he can't tell whether he's sitting down or not.
- close04 6y ago
  Human nature hasn't changed probably in thousands of years. Our tools and possibilities did but if you'd swap a few people around in time (of course, ignoring the shock of the change) they'd fill their shoes the same way.

amelius 6y ago

Unfortunately, the advancement of technology has not brought us more free days per week.

eruci 6y ago

If you're too busy, you're doing something wrong.

ceedan 6y ago
Sounds like privileged insight

machinehermit 6y ago

Not me. I am like a high energy dog that needs to be walked until the owner is annoyed. I love my normal life. This lack of stimulation right now is terrible for my mental health.

tonyedgecombe 6y ago
That's OK as long as you don't expect other people to be the same.

mbostleman 6y ago

Depends on whether an individual's busyness is enjoyable. The title kind of implies that there are no individuals ("we" are all together) and that "busy" in and of itself not in the set of things in life that are enjoyable.

wait_a_minute 6y ago

The average American watches 3 to 4 hours of television per day. https://www.statista.com/statistics/186833/average-television-use-per-person-in-the-us-since-2002/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/186833/average-televisio... Americans also tend to work more hours than their European counterparts. So to me, the idea that we are too busy to enjoy life is categorically FALSE. We have more leisure time now than we ever did at any point in history.

acituan 6y ago
Hours available is an irrelevant measure, because the hours worked is consumptive of certain facilities that is required to enjoy anything more complicated than television, and spatial dynamics matter as much as temporal dynamics between work and leisure. Work demands one’s most productive hours, focused concentration, concentrated decision making, bodily stress etc. There is little left for the remaining leisure time to do anything meaningful. It is also not true that we have more leisure time than any point in history. Academic consensus is that hunter gatherers worked about 2.5 days a week for example. And this was non-alienating work you did with your family and friends (i.e. tribe), outdoors. Compare that to hiking, hunting, fishing, frisbeeing etc we do for recreation nowadays. There are also tons of other externalities embedded to this. We often forget the cost of working. For example living in a city to be close to a job brings a lot of externalities that you don’t get paid for; you need to commute to work, but also commute to any leisure activity that is not in or near your house. In bay area you can’t visit a friend that is 30 minutes away in nominal distance after work because that would be a real 1.30 hour commute during rush hour. The urban design of a city is more likely to be centered around economic activity than facilitating quality leisure time. Even if it once was, economic activity on it changes over time, along with the population, and the utility decreases drastically. Another externality is your house. If you are crammed in an apartment, your leisure choices are restricted as well. Someone with a garage or a backyard can take up gardening, woodworking, playing the drums etc without paying a commute cost. The apartment dweller? Well, thankfully TV’s are flat and trick some part of our brains that we are elsewhere with other people so that we ignore the reality of where we physically are. Final externality is other people. If you want to engage in meaning relationships, it doesn’t suffice that you want that and weather the cost of commute, low energy after work etc. The other people also needs to want those. That makes it combinatorially difficult for a group of people to gather for a meaningful leisure time shared. Oh also assuming working hours coincide, the other guy is not running for promo and doing overtime etc. It is a game theoretic mess.

chrisweekly 6y ago

Tangent: happy to see nesslabs getting to HN front page. It's a great site (and nascent community) run by one Anne-Laure Le Cunff, a thoughtful, intelligent, curious and humble neuroscience student I find it impossible not to root for.

beamatronic 6y ago

Yes. 100%.

throwawayyipyip 6y ago

I know I am. I'm dreading living paycheck to paycheck being pushed into a specialism in which people only think I'm capable of doing that. Eventually, I'll be able to safe a bit, but it doesn't mean that I can take a break from work. It's nice to have 25 vacation days (yay Europe), but I'd prefer, hmm... 3 months? Not gonna happen? I get that, from an economic point of view, but from an "enjoy life" point of view, that would be where I'd want to be, or perhaps even 6 months. I'd work the other 6, that's how much I want to work. Recently, I asked at a new job that I was about to start if I can work 4 days per week instead of 5. Now they're doubting to even hire me. Screw this. Contracts don't make sense, they claim you trade time for money, but that's a lie, otherwise I could work 20% less than what's normal. When I did enjoy life, I was at university. I didn't have those concerns and I studied whatever I felt like. I enjoyed life then. Also when I'm on vacation and know that I can take a break from worrying, then I also can enjoy life, or maybe it's simply that hiking with good friends is amazing. It's easy to enjoy life given unconstrained resources. Unfortunately, I see that we're mostly resource starved. Rent? That's about a 2 week paycheck (otherwise 3). With that said, it beats dying because you don't have access to medicine. It beats a lot of things that medieval people used to do. It's better. But it still sucks.

centimeter 6y ago
A manager once told me something that stuck with me. "20% of your paycheck is for doing work, 80% of your paycheck is for being available with context." It often feels like the way companies/teams/tasks are structured causes employees to waste time or be a lot less productive than they could be. But it turns out that, for companies to scale beyond a certain size, the winning recipe is (depressingly): * Fungible employees are more important than productive employees. It's incredibly risky to rely on the specialized abilities or knowledge of any single employee. Keep your bus factor high. * It's OK if your employees are kept "idling" most of the time, as long as they're available when you actually need them. In most white collar industries, demand for labor is extremely bursty. This is one reason companies are so reluctant to adopt irregular work schedules. It works fine for (small) companies that are OK with relying on competence/specialization and accepting small bus factors, but it breaks the strategies larger companies use to scale.

ryeights 6y ago

“Industrial Society and Its Future”, Ted Kacynzski (the Unabomber) https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/unabomber/manifesto.text.htm https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/unab... While the man and his actions were reprehensible, his manifesto was lucid and insightful and, in my opinion, correctly diagnoses many of modern society's ails. >In modern industrial society only minimal effort is necessary to satisfy one’s physical needs. It is enough to go through a training program to acquire some petty technical skill, then come to work on time and exert the very modest effort needed to hold a job. [...] Thus it is not surprising that modern society is full of surrogate activities. These include scientific work, athletic achievement, humanitarian work, artistic and literary creation, climbing the corporate ladder, acquisition of money and material goods far beyond the point at which they cease to give any additional physical satisfaction [...] >For many if not most people, surrogate activities are less satisfying than the pursuit of real goals (that is, goals that people would want to attain even if their need for the power process were already fulfilled). One indication of this is the fact that, in many or most cases, people who are deeply involved in surrogate activities are never satisfied, never at rest. Thus the money-maker constantly strives for more and more wealth. The scientist no sooner solves one problem than he moves on to the next. The long-distance runner drives himself to run always farther and faster. Many people who pursue surrogate activities will say that they get far more fulfillment from these activities than they do from the “mundane” business of satisfying their biological needs, but that is because in our society the effort needed to satisfy the biological needs has been reduced to triviality. More importantly, in our society people do not satisfy their biological needs autonomously but by functioning as parts of an immense social machine. In contrast, people generally have a great deal of autonomy in pursuing their surrogate activities.

slx26 6y ago
pdf without limitations: http://editions-hache.com/essais/pdf/kaczynski2.pdf http://editions-hache.com/essais/pdf/kaczynski2.pdf > 61. [...] There may be disagreement about whether the effort needed to hold a job is “minimal”; but usually, in lower- to middle-level jobs, whatever effort is required is merely that of OBEDIENCE. You sit or stand where you are told to sit or stand and do what you are told to do in the way you are told to do it. It's a very readable and interesting essay indeed. Sadly it seems it criticizes too much both left and right wings for people to recommend it in certain circles, or avoid it altogether saying the guy was a terrorist, with yet another example of the noncentral fallacy.

palimpsests 6y ago

Definitely. Recent podcast about this powerfully insidious theme in modern life, recommended: https://www.resources.soundstrue.com/podcast/dr-lise-van-susteren-emotional-inflammation-a-condition-of-our-time https://www.resources.soundstrue.com/podcast/dr-lise-van-sus... The talk appproaches how to mediate and fundamentally resolve this experience (it's partly support of a book that was just released, I am in the process of reading it - I feel this is going to be really helpful context for many people).

ravenstine 6y ago

If we can't enjoy life(or at least be content), why live it? Most people, in my experience, have to struggle to enjoy life. They spend most of their time working a job they don't really like, come home too tired to do anything meaningful, have weekends where they can't decide between doing something or relaxing, and binge on food and alcohol and teevee to feel like they're alive. While I'm fortunate in that I naturally enjoy software engineering, there's a lot about the job of being a software engineer that is lacking. I think a lot of programmers would say the same, but because everyone wants to keep their job, they repress their disappointment. People become demoralized with their jobs when company ideals turn out to be lies, leaders lack appreciation for their talent, standards decline, and more and more work is asked of them for the same pay as time goes on. Sure, we can be promoted by changing companies, but that also can come at a huge cost unless you live in Silicon Valley, perhaps. All these things wear on people, encroach on their personal time, and makes them feel trapped. I'm not just talking about the profession of programming. There's lots of alienation happening that's preventing people from enjoying their lives to its fullest. (alienation is probably one of the only theories of marxism that I think are correct) Maybe we'll learn a lesson from being locked down. I'm not optimistic, but it would be ideal. By now, maybe a lot of people will figure out that they don't have the kind of job security they thought they did, and that sacrificing so much of themselves wasn't really worth it for what they were gaining. Perhaps more people will realize that they don't necessarily need the next promotion, or they will choose to follow their passion because, well, even if they have a high falootin' corporate job, they could lose what they've got anyway, so they might as well do what they enjoy.

ceedan 6y ago

Yes

ge96 6y ago

Take hits for this comment One of the few times I found to be "in the moment" was on a substance(m) which I'm not saying that's the only way. My point in this comment is, this is the time when I'm not in my "auto-pilot tasks in mind" mode everyday where I forget I'm sitting on a chair/inside a box most of my day. Other similar feelings being in nature, looking at things closely like the color of leaves. Watching a stream of water flow or something. I think that sentiment of "something you enjoyed sticks to you/makes time seem longer/remember it more" vs. repetitive tasks that are joined together later forget. My personal goal is freedom because I'm always afraid of "what if I lose my job" and "I have to get up at this hour". I can't just be like "today I'm just gonna go do this randomly because it peaked my interest". I think I will be a homesteader with a garage producing videos of whatever stuff I build. But for now... gotta pay my debts/work. FiRe will get there as I don't need much. And I don't know at the end of the day the clock ticks, time is running down... what matters to you?

GuiA 6y ago
A long term meditation practice may help you reach similar states of mind. Much less instantaneous than chemically induced, but perhaps more rewarding and sustainable.
- ge96 6y ago
  I have tried(not hard enough) I guess I don't know when it's working. Perhaps too what I said about "being in the moment" just means the details you normally glance over you notice eg. leaves on a plant or something. Yeah I don't do the stuff anymore because it does not go with my brain(paranoia/feeds into delusion). I also can't logically function(write code). But yeah I'm going to try and do that more often, like stop and look around me, count items or something.

seph-reed 6y ago

Step 1: Find your local artist/builder/maker/burners or just anyone with a passion, motivation, and a project that has room for help. Step 2: Volunteer your time towards creating reality from a shared dream. I know nobody has time. I know the people are weird. I know it's awkward and you're self conscious. But you'll have to trust an internet stranger here: it's worth it. Make something with others. Don't sit around talking about your opinions, that's not society. Working together towards a common goal is society.

agitator 6y ago

This is why I left the Bay Area. To each their own. For me, the culture reinforced a sort of blind dedication to a company or a cause. Everyone you would meet or talk to would want to talk tech or entrepreneurship. You could tell they were comparing themselves with you or trying to figure out a way to collaborate. Everything was about work. If you weren't hustling, someone else would out hustle you. I missed a balance in life. Visiting with friends, family, hiking, talking, enjoying the weather. In the bay, even when I did take a break and venture out to enjoy life, it felt like the world was barren. In comparison to other places I've lived, the food, the culture, art, and life were just bland outside of work. It's just a reflection of the priorities of the people living and working there. The other thing is, what better way to get return on your business investment. It's obvious that if you cultivate a culture of competitiveness, combined with dangling the carrot of prestige from working at a place that would unlikely become a unicorn, combined with scarcity of resources (expensive housing, high cost of living), you get people burning more of their precious time for the benefit of founders and investors. It's an excellent situation if you are a founder or investor. Aside from experience and skills gained, it's a tough situation if you are an individual contributor.

N1H1L 6y ago
The food in the Bay Area was bland? And there were no hiking/camping opportunities? The Bay Area definitely has some problems - but a lot of your complaints are untethered from reality.
- triceratops 6y ago
  > The food in the Bay Area was bland? Yes. The Bay Area has an awful restaurant scene - overpriced and not very good (unless you're talking about $$$ places). It's just one disappointment after another. The high cost of living precludes any of the quality workers from being employed at moderate-cost eateries.
  - agitator 6y ago
    Yeah, another huge factor for me was just how unhappy all of the service workers were. But I don't blame them. There's no way they could afford to live within what you or I would call a reasonable commute. So they would trek daily to provide for people making orders of magnitude more money. And the ones who were wiling to accept that kind of torture, were the ones who couldn't get jobs anywhere else more reasonable.

sadfev 6y ago

My problem is opposite, I am too indulgent and it’s difficult to be very productive

donothing 6y ago

So I did nothing for two years. In theory, I was studying, and working on building a few things, but I never did much of either. I rented a spot in an old warehouse in the countryside for $100 a month and decided to build myself a sort of tiny home inside there. It started out rough; I won't forget freezing on the concrete floor those first few nights, wrapped in one of those foil survival blankets. The winter left quickly, and with it the last of my ambitions. I'd do a bit of work, here and there, but doing nothing was my primary occupation. I would lay in fields and watch horses in the distance, I would sit on the side of a stream and rest my feet in it. One of my favorite activities was to bike to the nearest town about a half hour away and buy ice cream, lying in the grass and tearing into it like a child. Biking was always great fun. I would bike with no purpose, simply being free. There is no greater feeling than cruising the countryside with the wind in your hair and absolutely no idea of where you will go that day. Occasionally a horse would match me for the length of its pasture. I got the feeling that the horses dreamed of my bike as a child dreams of wings. Things always seemed to just work out. When my bike gave out, the friendly locals were happy enough to give me rides until I fixed it with some rope I found. When the seasons again changed and my tiny home grew colder I was offered a free room in a lovely old farmhouse. But as the snow returned so did my ambitions. I planned to finish months of work in days, then grew frustrated when I didn't. I grew crazier and crazier and at the end neglected all reason. Eventually, I accepted the advice of a local and decided to move to the city, get an apartment, and find work as a programmer. I did all of these quickly. The apartment lasted; the job did not. After so long doing nothing, I found myself nearly unable to work, paralyzed. The next year I continued to do nothing. I had a flash of ambition, but it was quickly interrupted by falling in love early in the year: a beautiful girl far, far out of my league. We fled our responsibilities to the south of France. Perhaps the best single week of my life was there with her doing nothing: lying in the sun, swimming naked in the sea, smoking a joint on the windowsill, watching the boats go by. We spent a wonderful year together, but the winter came as it did before to drive ambition: this time not mine but hers. We separated. Now I find myself a normal programmer. Like most people here, I do an awful lot of something and get paid well for it. But you can bet that once I've stashed up enough of those paychecks my schedule will have a lot more nothing on it.

PeterStuer 6y ago

You are not supposed to enjoy life. You are only meant to aspire enjoyment at the end of a never ending path of conspicuous consumption.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

pascalxus 6y ago

this part is key: "Research shows that humans tend to do whatever it takes to keep busy, even if the activity feels meaningless to them. Dr Brené Brown from the University of Houston describes being “crazy busy” as a numbing strategy we use to avoid facing the truth of our lives."

aklemm 6y ago

Yes, and it’s proven for me during the Covid-19 lockdown, but I’ve always suspected as much.

JamalW 6y ago

Or are we too busy enjoying life?