13 ms·

I'm envious of people who are good at being bad. It's a skill that lets you choose how to develop yourself. I've noticed that it's really difficult for me to b

I'm envious of people who are good at being bad. It's a skill that lets you choose how to develop yourself. I've noticed that it's really difficult for me to be bad at something, by which I mean that of my brain hasn't decided that it really needs to keep doing something, I gravitate towards things that I'm already decent at even if I don't really feel like I enjoy it. Doing even things that I might initially enjoy quickly becomes extremely stressful if I can't observe myself making progress. Forcing things works for a while, but is not sustainable. Sometimes there's also this weird disconnect between what I want to work on and the things my unconscious brain wants to work on, and that does get stressful as well.

fibonachos 5y ago
This plus the anxiety of thinking you are bad at everything despite evidence to the contrary.
- chousuke 5y ago
  I think part of that is the fact that the better you become at something, the better you are at recognizing how much you don't know; and I think that that skill generalizes, so over time you can get overwhelmed trying new things because you can "instantly" see how much you're missing, especially if you have no transferrable skills that apply.
  - gnomespaceship 5y ago
    I definitely get this with speaking foreign languages - English feels like a second mother tongue to me at this point, but even though I can create Spanish sentences, I get choked up when about to speak.
brailsafe 5y ago
I have the opposite problem. As soon as I become remotely competent at something, I have a hard time bringing myself to do it.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- username90 5y ago
  You can fix that by raising the bar for which you feel you are "remotely competent". If you consider anyone below world class to not be remotely competent then you'll be world class before you give up.
  - medstrom 5y ago
    Alternatively, keep piling on new ways of doing something, like raising the difficulty slider in a video game to keep it challenging.
- vikiomega9 5y ago
  I have the same problem. Once I get some sense of understanding the overall skill or problem I lose interest? Novice skill is definitely a worse thing to have and getting better takes a lot of consistent work and time. How do I fix this? It seems like a motivation problem, possibly some sort of craving for novelty perhaps (I don't want to say ADHD but sounds like it)?
  - brailsafe 5y ago
    ADHD for me. It became such a problem that I saught help from the nurse practitioner at my Uni and got a diagnosis (at 27)
    - vikiomega9 5y ago
      What techniques do you use now to cope? I'm going to go get a diagnosis as well, I think I have enough anecdotal evidence to talk to a medical professional.
      - brailsafe 5y ago
        It has a lot of comorbities with other things, but it's worthwhile to see someone. I haven't yet found a way to reconcile my need for a job (particularly one in programming) with my symptoms. That said, concerta seems to help a bit under certain conditions. I also afixed my house key to my pants. I have learned to enjoy the bits that make me outgoing and end up letting me meet tons of people
jfoutz 5y ago
Try cooking. The skill cap is high, it doesn't take much to make things OK, and you gotta eat. it has helped me a lot. Plenty of times I don't want to do it, but it's hard to put off for long. You can screw up a lot, and the results are still edible. Every damn meal I make has problems. Usually it's pretty good, but there are things I can do better with the output and the process. No matter the outcome, I feel better after eating. I'd suggest keeping a small stock of premade stuff on hand. a stack of crackers and some soup. Sometimes I just can't get it together.
- silvestrov 5y ago
  Cooking is one thing I'm terrible at: there is no feedback loop at all. No matter how much time I spend on 'experimenting', I don't get any better. Many people simple cannot fathom this. They deny the existing of any such possibility.
  - pjerem 5y ago
    Tasting what you cook while you cook is an incr/edible/ feedback loop
    - username90 5y ago
      Only if you have a good sense of how things should taste and intuition for how what you put in affected it.
      - jpraamstra 5y ago
        Not necessarily true. Taste is super subjective, only you can decide whether you think something tastes good. And of course, it takes a long time to taste something and realize exactly what it misses or what causes it to taste good, but as long as you are able to test out different recipes you'll eventually end up with quite a few dishes that taste great.
        username90 5y ago
mjburgess 5y ago
It could be helpful to list things that you do, unprejudicially, and see if all of them are like this. You might find that actually, in some things, you don't mind "just playing". But those things are, probably, unlike anything else many others call "play". I suspect that you do play for its own sake, its just in areas you havent considered in that light.
stevekemp 5y ago
I can appreciate that. I can often be a perfectionist in some things, and when I can see I'm doing badly I get unhappy. That said I started attending a pottery-class at local school a couple of years ago. Objectively almost everything I've made has been terrible. And yet? I'm drinking coffee out of a mug I made myself, and that feels pretty good. It's unusual for me to both recognize that I'm "bad", and yet still want to go back. But definitely true in this case.
- datadrivenangel 5y ago
  Eating food out of bowls I made 10 years ago makes me really happy. It was also extremely satisfying over a few years of off and on spinning to gain the vocabulary to describe why my work was bad. Making 1-2 beautiful (but still flawed) dishes was worth hundreds of mediocre projects.

fibonachos 5y ago

This plus the anxiety of thinking you are bad at everything despite evidence to the contrary.

chousuke 5y ago
I think part of that is the fact that the better you become at something, the better you are at recognizing how much you don't know; and I think that that skill generalizes, so over time you can get overwhelmed trying new things because you can "instantly" see how much you're missing, especially if you have no transferrable skills that apply.
- gnomespaceship 5y ago
  I definitely get this with speaking foreign languages - English feels like a second mother tongue to me at this point, but even though I can create Spanish sentences, I get choked up when about to speak.

brailsafe 5y ago

I have the opposite problem. As soon as I become remotely competent at something, I have a hard time bringing myself to do it.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
username90 5y ago
You can fix that by raising the bar for which you feel you are "remotely competent". If you consider anyone below world class to not be remotely competent then you'll be world class before you give up.
- medstrom 5y ago
  Alternatively, keep piling on new ways of doing something, like raising the difficulty slider in a video game to keep it challenging.
vikiomega9 5y ago
I have the same problem. Once I get some sense of understanding the overall skill or problem I lose interest? Novice skill is definitely a worse thing to have and getting better takes a lot of consistent work and time. How do I fix this? It seems like a motivation problem, possibly some sort of craving for novelty perhaps (I don't want to say ADHD but sounds like it)?
- brailsafe 5y ago
  ADHD for me. It became such a problem that I saught help from the nurse practitioner at my Uni and got a diagnosis (at 27)
  - vikiomega9 5y ago
    What techniques do you use now to cope? I'm going to go get a diagnosis as well, I think I have enough anecdotal evidence to talk to a medical professional.
    - brailsafe 5y ago
      It has a lot of comorbities with other things, but it's worthwhile to see someone. I haven't yet found a way to reconcile my need for a job (particularly one in programming) with my symptoms. That said, concerta seems to help a bit under certain conditions. I also afixed my house key to my pants. I have learned to enjoy the bits that make me outgoing and end up letting me meet tons of people

jfoutz 5y ago

Try cooking. The skill cap is high, it doesn't take much to make things OK, and you gotta eat. it has helped me a lot. Plenty of times I don't want to do it, but it's hard to put off for long. You can screw up a lot, and the results are still edible. Every damn meal I make has problems. Usually it's pretty good, but there are things I can do better with the output and the process. No matter the outcome, I feel better after eating. I'd suggest keeping a small stock of premade stuff on hand. a stack of crackers and some soup. Sometimes I just can't get it together.

silvestrov 5y ago
Cooking is one thing I'm terrible at: there is no feedback loop at all. No matter how much time I spend on 'experimenting', I don't get any better. Many people simple cannot fathom this. They deny the existing of any such possibility.
- pjerem 5y ago
  Tasting what you cook while you cook is an incr/edible/ feedback loop
  - username90 5y ago
    Only if you have a good sense of how things should taste and intuition for how what you put in affected it.
    - jpraamstra 5y ago
      Not necessarily true. Taste is super subjective, only you can decide whether you think something tastes good. And of course, it takes a long time to taste something and realize exactly what it misses or what causes it to taste good, but as long as you are able to test out different recipes you'll eventually end up with quite a few dishes that taste great.
      - username90 5y ago

mjburgess 5y ago

It could be helpful to list things that you do, unprejudicially, and see if all of them are like this. You might find that actually, in some things, you don't mind "just playing". But those things are, probably, unlike anything else many others call "play". I suspect that you do play for its own sake, its just in areas you havent considered in that light.

stevekemp 5y ago

I can appreciate that. I can often be a perfectionist in some things, and when I can see I'm doing badly I get unhappy. That said I started attending a pottery-class at local school a couple of years ago. Objectively almost everything I've made has been terrible. And yet? I'm drinking coffee out of a mug I made myself, and that feels pretty good. It's unusual for me to both recognize that I'm "bad", and yet still want to go back. But definitely true in this case.

datadrivenangel 5y ago
Eating food out of bowls I made 10 years ago makes me really happy. It was also extremely satisfying over a few years of off and on spinning to gain the vocabulary to describe why my work was bad. Making 1-2 beautiful (but still flawed) dishes was worth hundreds of mediocre projects.