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He probably didn't treat those as "work" as we laymen understand. We just work for bread and butter and most of the time workis kind of boring. But if you happe

He probably didn't treat those as "work" as we laymen understand. We just work for bread and butter and most of the time workis kind of boring. But if you happen to work for yourself or enjoy your work for whatever the reason, you don't treat it as "work" and it's all about achieving the maximum happiness as you can. I expereinced this a few times in my life and I never regretted about working hard on it. Why would I regret about playing hard and achieving what I can? But sadly due to my shortcomings these events are short and far between.

borski 5y ago
This is it. When you’re working on things you love, it’s hard, and can be lots of hours, but it doesn’t feel like work. Speaking from my own experience of founding a startup. There are also times it was absolutely miserable. But it’s true: I wasn’t beholden to my VCs or angels. I could have quit. I just enjoyed the work so much, so deeply, that I didn’t want to quit. The challenge was not burning out: I needed to take more vacation, because it not feeling like work didn’t mean it wasn’t, still, hard work which people need a respite from.
- markus_zhang 5y ago
  Yeah exactly. The trick is to not burn out early. I usually got burned out when I figured out the core (perhaps 20% of the work) and needed many days to grind out the final results, which I did not have the perserverance to complete. This is probably my worst shortcoming of life and I still can't get rid of it when I'm approaching 40. It seems that the only way for me to finish something is to have the task coming from _someone else_, from a friend or from work.
  - borski 5y ago
    I resonate with this completely. For me, it’s largely a result of ADHD. My solution has always been to partner with “finishers.” I’m a spectacular starter, prototyper, and builder. But I cannot complete the damn project for the life of me. My best friend and first employee though? Thrives on that.
    - markus_zhang 5y ago
      Thanks! Yeah it makes sense to partner with finishers :D

borski 5y ago

This is it. When you’re working on things you love, it’s hard, and can be lots of hours, but it doesn’t feel like work. Speaking from my own experience of founding a startup. There are also times it was absolutely miserable. But it’s true: I wasn’t beholden to my VCs or angels. I could have quit. I just enjoyed the work so much, so deeply, that I didn’t want to quit. The challenge was not burning out: I needed to take more vacation, because it not feeling like work didn’t mean it wasn’t, still, hard work which people need a respite from.

markus_zhang 5y ago
Yeah exactly. The trick is to not burn out early. I usually got burned out when I figured out the core (perhaps 20% of the work) and needed many days to grind out the final results, which I did not have the perserverance to complete. This is probably my worst shortcoming of life and I still can't get rid of it when I'm approaching 40. It seems that the only way for me to finish something is to have the task coming from _someone else_, from a friend or from work.
- borski 5y ago
  I resonate with this completely. For me, it’s largely a result of ADHD. My solution has always been to partner with “finishers.” I’m a spectacular starter, prototyper, and builder. But I cannot complete the damn project for the life of me. My best friend and first employee though? Thrives on that.
  - markus_zhang 5y ago
    Thanks! Yeah it makes sense to partner with finishers :D