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When I was an undergrad at CMU, I learned how to work hard. Really hard. After having coasted through too-easy high school, I spent all day every day at CMU eit

When I was an undergrad at CMU, I learned how to work hard. Really hard. After having coasted through too-easy high school, I spent all day every day at CMU either programming, doing mathematics, or thinking about one of those things (to great effect: often the trick to prove a theorem would pop into my head while showering or while taking a walk). I would fall asleep while programming in the middle of the night, dream about programming, then wake up and continue programming just where I left off. One thing from this essay really stuck out to me: > The most basic level of which is simply to feel you should be working without anyone telling you to. Now, when I'm not working hard, alarm bells go off. One thing that always happened at the end of a semester is we'd have a few days after exams but before flights back home. On these days I'd typically try playing a video game (my hobby before college) and every time I would stop playing after just an hour with deep feeling of unease at the pit of my stomach. "Alarm bells" is exactly how I would describe it - a feeling at the core of my psyche that I have been wasting time and there must be something productive I should be doing or thinking about. Years later, having tackled anxiety problems that had plagued me most of my life, I came to recognize that my relationship with hard work during my college years was not healthy and that this deep seated desire to do more work is not a positive thing, at least not for me. I've since reformed my ambitions, instead of looking to start a company or get a PhD in mathematics, I've decided that hard work is not the love of my life and instead I should focus on my hobbies while looking for a career path that can be simultaneously fulfilling but laid back.

YinglingLight 5y ago
There's a time and place for everything. When I was an undergrad at RPI, I worked my ass off. Harder than I ever needed to in my working career. Now in my 30s my focus is more on family and housework, but I will always benefit from having been 'in the grinder' back then. I know my limits for hard work is great, should I ever need it again.
bradlys 5y ago
I’ve heard this same mentality from many people who went to rigorous colleges or had a rigorous college experience. (It isn’t just prestigious schools that are like this - choose the wrong major at particular public schools and your life can be just as difficult) I’m of the same opinion. I still don’t know how to enjoy just existing - even small pleasures can be hard to do unless I think there is some kind of “work” aspect to it. Video games need progression or bragging rights, hobbies need skills that will make me better at something, and simple pleasures must be only to get me back onto the progression track. Recharging must be to get me back in the game and working hard again. Etc… I was overtuned in college to always be working on something because if I didn’t, I was going to flunk out. (Yay for bad professors and academia that cherishes weeding people out than growing what they have) I despise the way college trains people. Feels like capitalism training 101.
rakejake 5y ago
This was exactly my experience except Masters instead of Bachelors. I had this feeling that I mostly coasted during my bachelors, only putting any effort the week before Finals or Unit Tests. I did my Masters in EE from a university renowned for being a tough program. I was up for the challenge, doing exactly what you did: thinking math all the time, feeling like I was wasting time any moment I was not in front of my books. I have the exact same problems you mentioned: not being able to just be, always anxious to be doing something productive, can't bring myself to watch a movie unless the movie was an all-time classic and "worth wasting time on". The pandemic, weirdly enough, brought me back down to Earth. I faced some real mental lows but now I am able to relax more. Time management and deep work a few hours a day goes a lot further than just fretting about being productive all the time. I still have a lot of work to do, and I still don't think I've fulfilled my potential but posts like yours have definitely helped me re-calibrate my expectations. Thank you very much.
- ska 5y ago
  Fwiw CMU undergrad CS has a similar reputation. There are university programs where you can coast through a degree, and others where doing that will at best leave you at the back of the pack. It can be fun to be in a program where everyone is pushing hard but it can also be very stressful and not healthy for everyone who tries it. It is possible to live the rest of your life like that, but the vast majority of people I know who have tried it, aren't happy. The exceptions are outliers in several ways.
  - np32 5y ago
    "My heart is in the work" - Andrew Carnegie Probably a very stress-inducing sentence to a lot of CMU CS grads
didip 5y ago
Yup, I reached the same conclusion. We even had that same "sick on the stomach" feel after playing video games. I used to carry "working 80-90 hours/week" like a badge of honor. I was such a fool. There are smart ways in making money that doesn't simultaneously reduce my lifespan.
user22 5y ago
Thanks for writing this. What you wrote describes me perfectly with the exception of the redemption at the end.
ambicapter 5y ago
"My heart is in the work" indeed.
lovecg 5y ago
If you read his footnote, he’s talking about how these alarm bells go off on the order of days, not hours, and how taking vacations is good.
- helen___keller 5y ago
  Thanks for pointing this out. While I fundamentally believe I experienced the phenomenon PG writes about, there's something to be said about the scale of it. Taking a sufficiently generous interpretation of his essay, an admirable goal for self-growth is not to work hard all the time but to develop the self-discipline to work hard when you intend to be working (with the restraint to not be working when you intend to not be working, and the internal clock to help you schedule the two at whatever the correct balance is for your life). Perhaps as a life goal as I enter my 30s, I should endeavor to revisit my love for mathematics and computer science (as opposed my work-life-balanced but frankly boring current career path), using both the restraint and discipline I've learned, so to not make the mistakes I made in my early 20s. After leaving the work-always atmosphere of CMU, I moved in with my then-girlfriend (now-wife) and committed to working exactly 8 hours every day to keep work from taking over again. Trying to cram all the ambition and passion for work I once had into 8 hours of junior dev work basically turned me into a soup of anxiety, inferiority, and resentment[0] for some time. I thought I was wasting my career, after trying so hard in college. It took years to reorient my priorities (and also to reach a position that was a bit less meaningless than tech support for Matlab). I think nowadays I could do better. Maybe next time a hip startup emails me with a job opportunity, I'll give them a call ;) thanks [0] Anxious to try and find ways to work harder and achieve more in a bland corporate environment where the build system was more of an obstacle than the actual project, inferiority compared to the success that some of my still-overworked friends were experiencing in silicon valley (with opportunities I didn't have in Boston), and even occasional resentment towards my girlfriend, for whom I had chosen to restrain myself to 8 hours of work a day, because I felt I could do such great things without that limitation.
atty 5y ago
I had the exact same issue in my undergrad. I was suffering from pretty severe anxiety/depression during highs school, to the point where I dropped out in my junior year. I started “thriving” in my undergrad, if by thriving you mean busy and getting good grades, and my anxiety was much reduced. But the reason it was reduced was because I was going to school full time and working 40+ hours a week and I simply didn’t have time to stop and think. Whenever I had a vacation, or significant time off, I had extreme anxiety, to the point of panic attacks, about not getting anything “important” done. Ultimately the overwork gave me a chronic neck injury that forced me to have quite a bit of time off work, and over the years I have become very happy with myself, to the point where I can sit and do nothing, be alone with my own thoughts, for days without the anxiety and self-loathing entering my mind at all. I’m not sure when exactly the switch flipped, but it made me a much better person. And I am much happier with myself, my life situation, and my work.
nonbirithm 5y ago
I feel the same. I can hardly sit through an entire two-hour movie or play a video game without feeling like I should be doing something else. I cannot feel good about myself if I cannot sense that I'm making progress learning a skill, and am stuck for hours looking down at a blank page as a result. But what's dangerous for me is that this alarm system does not trigger consistently. I might spend too much time on HN, for example, because my impression is that HN is a place to have intellectual discoveries. I might spend too much time on YouTube because I can't think of anything else to do. Ironically there is a wealth of knowledge contained in some games that would be more worthwhile than a bunch of highlights on YouTube, but YouTube is just too easy to go back to. When I work on some of my programming projects, I come out with the feeling that I'm just using the act of constantly working on them as an excuse to not have to worry about the fact that my life outside of them is one-dimensional and currently stagnating. I work way too hard on such non-work projects and burn out only to stop and instead spend weeks anxious that because I'm not doing anything, I am not growing as a person. I still believe this is true; I don't think I am much different from the me of two years ago, except that I've made some progress on programming projects. But it's weird because I enjoy programming. I think it is because I enjoy programming so much that I become blinded to things that I should have seen as more important. I think I am already good enough at programming to not need much more to learn, and am only applying the skills that I happen to have built up for years. But when I turn back to the other hobbies I always told myself I wanted to spend my life doing, all I find is a void of interest, and I ultimately accomplish little. I also believe this was a result of how I was raised and the coping mechanisms my upbringing/college ingrained in me.
- iancmceachern 5y ago
  Me too. I've been actively working to do the opposite. To build my outside of work life, give it priority and give myself the permission to have it be the main focus of life and stop running from the bear all the time.
  - mumblemumble 5y ago
    I have started using a pomodoro timer, not as a way to keep myself working and improve my productivity, but as a way to remind myself to stop and smell the roses. So far it's been good.
agumonkey 5y ago
I had a similar realization. My inner desire had weird bits of fear and narcissism at its core. When that side of me cracked the desire to perform vanished. I did do some math after that (mostly to asses brain damage after health issues): i could do some new stuff, and did enjoy it.. but something changed, there need to be solid reasons: either aesthetical (a sudden epiphany that I need to study topology) or social for me to go into workhorse mode. Another thing is that I also realized that crushing is not progressing.. so very often I understood things without any effort, what it took is for my brain to accept an idea more than anything else.. so I stopped forcing things, I simply walk around ideas and let things come and go. All in all.. I also believe that is simply biology talking.. when young all you care is being the best, with age your focus spreads over other people (SO, kids, family)
caymanjim 5y ago
I'm closer to retirement age than the beginning of my career. Some of my age peer friends are already retired, and many of them could be if they wanted to. It's not even on the radar for me. I'm a bit envious, as I'd love the freedom to be done for life, and to be able to take or leave work as I please. The flipside is that I've taken a lot of time off along the way. I've taken whole years off between many jobs, I've traveled a lot, and I've spent a lot of time just doing nothing. I have some minor regrets about not making better use of my time between jobs, but I don't have regrets about taking the time off. I would have gone insane if I had worked nonstop for 20-30 years, only taking a couple weeks of vacation a year. If I were really passionate about the work--especially if I'd launched my own business--I might not have felt burnt out or wanted time off. But I never wanted to bust my ass just for the sake of working hard, or for some nebulous future goal (although that future is now my present). If health or something else prevents me from enjoying life as much in the future, at least I've got memories of the past.
- CobrastanJorji 5y ago
  You remind me of a coworker I had four a couple of years. He and his wife were both extremely competent and well-compensated programmers. Their lifestyle was basically "work for two years or so, save up a bunch of money, then quit and wander the world doing whatever they liked until the money ran out, repeat." I've thought about them several times. Some part of me is really, really uncomfortable intentionally living off of my savings for a prolonged period, but I also sometimes wonder if they haven't figured out something important that I haven't.
  - manmal 5y ago
    15y ago I met a guy who was specialized in repairing escalators. So what he did was repair some escalators in the city, and then he spent some weeks or even months motorbiking with his buddies. When money ran out, there was always a broken escalator to return to. Obviously he was so certain he would find work that he didn’t feel the need to save up any money.
  - ska 5y ago
    > intentionally living off of my savings for a prolonged period For most people, this is what retirement means, no? So one way to think about it is they are trading off time, and doing some things while they were young and sure to enjoy them. The flip side is I have known people who never took a 'real break' and worked doggedly until 65 or whatever, then found a few years later health issues constraining what they could do.
mumblemumble 5y ago
Every personality has its problematic characteristics. I think that one of the more problematic, even toxic, ones shared by many Type A personalities is a need to try and make other people feel bad for not themselves being sufficiently neurotic. (I realize the Type A/Type B personality theory is largely crap. I'm just using it here as a useful shorthand that many people will recognize.) That paragraph the quote came from makes me feel kind of sad. It prompted me to mentally re-frame PG's life, not as one that is defined by material success, but one that is defined by near constant anxiety. The material success is apparently just a by-product of that anxiety. On the other hand, at least he gets to have some excess material comfort to take the edge off a bit? I imagine things would be much harder for him if he had fallen into the presumable silent majority of people sharing the same kinds of productivity-oriented anxieties who haven't been so lucky in their business dealings. On the other hand, maybe it doesn't work that way. Maybe it just raises the bar, so that your future accomplishments have to be even more spectacular before you're able to see them as genuine accomplishments. Which sounds to me like a bleak existence. A bit like that of an addict who's forever chasing the dragon.
- xupybd 5y ago
  It is possible that he is fueled by an anxious drive. Even probable, but there are a small group of people that find meaning in what they do. When the work towards that they get a buzz that is insatiable.
  - deleted 5y ago
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- graeme 5y ago
  I saw PG speak once. He didn’t strike me as the anxious type. And I do not think it was polish: he is a good speaker, but he also seems like the type of speaker who would be exactly the same after the speech. It felt more like he was….excited. Like in a childlike way, in a positive sense. That’s how I’ve interpreted stuff like the paragraph you cited: he is like a big kid excited about his work and does not want to waste time getting distracted from it. The same way a kid might acutely have a sense of boredom if not doing what they thought was important. The key here is PG really seems to find meaningful work fun. I’ve known anxious types and they’re all rather different. Beset by doubts among other things.
NalNezumi 5y ago
For me the similar thing was when I started to read HN, 3 years ago. It wasn't until 3 month before graduation, when a guy at the lab that I admired suggested HN and all the hustle culture and the background stories of successes was available first hand, that I started to get truly anxious about the time I felt like I wasted/ was wasting during college. Playing games are really hard now, so is watching movies. My list of movies or clips that I'm supposed to see on downtime is filled with daunting "productive" materials. Also created the bad habit of quitting (job) when I feel like I'm stuck or "not growing/improving" due stress. The mentality of having to "constantly be productive" also caused strain in my personal relationships.
- layoutIfNeeded 5y ago
  Frankly, all of this sounds pretty miserable.
RandomLensman 5y ago
This idea that work is required(!) and that rewards of it should not be wasted can be traced to some religious roots, for example. This view on work ethics has been given rise to interesting theory more than 100 years ago in the birth of economic sociology: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Protestant_Ethic_and_the_Spirit_of_Capitalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Protestant_Ethic_and_the_S...
Deeznutz93 5y ago
I also went to CMU and had a similar experience. I got into programming because of my love for video games and ended up thinking they were a waste of time. A few years after graduation, my friends tricked me into going to a PC cafe (telling me it was a hip bar) and I rediscovered my love for gaming.
xputer 5y ago
Very similar experience for me. I have a hard time spending time on hobbies at the moment, because it feels like I should put that time towards my PhD instead of "wasting my time and energy". Yet, I somehow have no problem spending hours every day on reddit, YouTube, hacker news etc. because I think I tricked my mind into believing that those things don't cost energy so it's ok. Unfortunately they don't really bring joy and fulfilment the same way hobbies do. I think the real problem for me is that the work of my PhD is never fully done until I've defended and submitted my thesis. It means that even though I definitely don't get even close to doing 40 hours of actual work per week, it feels like I am working all the time, which is exhausting. It's bad feeling like you are not supposed to take a break and wind down. It's probably why people burn out all the time...
- sjg007 5y ago
  I would just block those websites from your devices. They are a trap. The illusion of progress or social connection for karma.
- beambot 5y ago
  The most impactful activities I pursued during my PhD had absolutely no bearing on my research itself. Here's one example: I created a robotics blog where I wrote about some of the new, interesting developments in the field that piqued my interest. It ballooned into one of the top 3 robotics websites on the web. I felt guilty about it for a long time... until I realized that the blog had a bigger impact & reach than any of my research -- I was known in the community; articles were cited on Wikipedia and in Congressional testimonies; and it established my credibility. There are at least a half-dozen similar examples -- including just pursuing random intellectual curiosities. What really helped me come to terms with this is "Structured Procrastination": http://www.structuredprocrastination.com/ http://www.structuredprocrastination.com/ As long as you're doing & not just consuming, you will probably find value.
- ska 5y ago
  This is absolutely a common feeling in PhD programs - I think partially because it is a transition out of structured programs and a more nuanced idea of "done". I wouldn't beat yourself up about it, part of the process is learning for yourself how to deal with finding the right balance of focus and exploration.
tylerscott 5y ago
> Years later, having tackled anxiety problems that had plagued me most of my life, I came to recognize that my relationship with hard work during my college years was not healthy and that this deep seated desire to do more work is not a positive thing, at least not for me. This resonates with me. I would often try to outwork depression, anxiety, grief...basically any difficult emotion. Work was my coping mechanism and all external signals were positive about that--i.e., "he's a real go-getter." The pathology of all this became apparent after, well, becoming a parent. Fast forward to now, I still sometimes struggle with those "alarm bells" but for the most part I can solidly state that I am not defined solely by my productivity. Contentment is an active practice, I suppose.
Tycho 5y ago
Maybe I’m jumping to conclusions here but there seems to be something obvious that you and others in this thread are overlooking: not all leisure activities are created equal. Some nourish the soul or the body, some are spiritual deserts. Video games are in the latter category. Of course you’re going to feel bad about spending your time on them. But you could instead read a classic novel, play a sport, play some music, converse with friends, keep in touch with family, etc., any of which will help you develop as an individual in dimensions that will simply not happen otherwise. They connect you with the rich tapestry of life and human society.
- Nursie 5y ago
  This is an outdated view, computer games are a cultural vehicle like others. They can even connect you with a rich tapestry of human life.
  - tobltobs 5y ago
    Computer games are build to make you addicted and waste your time and money. "They can even connect you with a rich tapestry of human life." Tapestry of human life? Seriously?
    - tomtheelder 5y ago
      That's a _ridiculously_ reductive view of what games are. Like any form of media they range wildly from simplistic and addictive to rich and artistic and everything in between. Suggesting that all games are built to addict and waste time/money belies an utter lack of understanding of the landscape of games.
    - Nursie 5y ago
      I could say the same about novels and be just as correct. You’ve never made friends through a shared interest in games, or even through the games themselves? You’ve never been enthralled with the story of a game, and been left richer afterwards? You’ve missed out, and you’ve missed out through snobbery.
darkwizard42 5y ago
As someone who also did their undergrad at CMU, I can confirm that it was the hardest I've ever worked (even considering my 10+ years of professional experience). It was burnout level with how many units you had to carry and how difficult some of the advanced math and CS classes became. We used to sit in the Tepper Faculty Lounge (always unlocked = free coffee) many nights from 10 PM - 4 AM to merely crank out a 6-question problem set...as a group. I find that I can still get into the mode of "hard work" that CMU instilled but I also find myself generally disinterested in getting into a world where that becomes my life again...it was fun, but tiring, and I don't need to be tired/worn out to have fun anymore!
- granshaw 5y ago
  Yeah I went to a not-at-that-level-but-still-rigorous state school, and one of my first impressions of my internships and out-of-college jobs was... "WOW I get to get paid to code, and no homework? I can spend my evenings+weekends however I want!?" Was a really lovely feeling :)
- deleted 5y ago
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- ska 5y ago
  Part of what makes programs like this work (there aren't a large number, but CMU is hardly alone) is the fact that it's a fixed time to create a pressure box in. I know of an undergrad double honors program that was unreasonably proud of the fact that after inception it took something like a dozen (maybe fifteen?) years before anyone actually graduated from it; everyone dropped one or the other half to lighten the load. Trying to pitch something to almost-but-not-quite break you only works when there is a finish line.
tomrod 5y ago
I feel you. I think I was lucky in a way. I had my first experience with vertigo while working 80+ hour weeks for several years. In my dizziness I couldn't see my computer or cell phone screen to email or text my boss to let him know. I was down for several days, literally only able to lie in bed and breathe. It was then that it dawned on me that if I died right then, I sure would miss a few things I'd been neglecting or putting off in life. Vertigo has not returned yet (may it never!). It was a catalyst to a lot of meaningful change in my life. Hobbies can be a very useful endeavor. So can volunteer work. I've been intrigued to learn more about the Civilian Air Patrol (US based, CAP) and how they help during disasters. Also fun to go up in planes and take pictures, either for training or in consequence of supporting disasters. They have more they do as well, but these things are fascinating to me. There are thousands of organizations with these kinds of opportunities. You're not alone. Good luck in your hunt for meaning beyond output!
breadzeppelin__ 5y ago
is it anxiety? I don't have a single hobby at this point that doesn't involve learning new stuff or having to work as part of it. I've totally stopped watching movies for enjoyment or playing video games because it feels so "unproductive"
markus_zhang 5y ago
>I spent all day every day at CMU either programming, doing mathematics, or thinking about one of those things (to great effect: often the trick to prove a theorem would pop into my head while showering or while taking a walk). I would fall asleep while programming in the middle of the night, dream about programming, then wake up and continue programming just where I left off. This is such a great experience. I wish I could study at CMU on-site and experience all this. I'm an old horse still kicking :P >I've since reformed my ambitions, instead of looking to start a company or get a PhD in mathematics, I've decided that hard work is not the love of my life and instead I should focus on my hobbies while looking for a career path that can be simultaneously fulfilling but laid back. Glad that you figure it out. Guess the study burned you out :(
- helen___keller 5y ago
  > This is such a great experience. I wish I could study at CMU on-site and experience all this. I'm an old horse still kicking :P In truth, it was a great experience, it was just also the worst experience of my life. It's a little tough to explain but, in the end it comes down to personal expectations and mental health. I often miss the work itself. A single problem set at CMU felt more interesting, impactful, and substantial than a multiple months-long project at a corporate job. Professors typically give you starter code that's ready to start working on "the meat" of the problem - here's a C++ project that loads a 3d geometry and renders it but the key function in rendering isn't implemented. Now go write a raytracer. Now go write a typechecker. Implement "malloc". Take this efficient sequential algorithm and design a parallel version that's provably more efficient, and implement it in functional code. The big problem is that the pacing was brutal and inescapable and for many - such as myself - failure was not an option. When you don't get to sleep on sundays, wednesdays, and thursdays, every single week for a few months, all while dealing with the anxiety that maybe doing your best still isn't going to be good enough, you start to daydream that maybe you'll get hit by a car finally have an excuse to take a break.
rootusrootus 5y ago
> I've since reformed my ambitions, instead of looking to start a company or get a PhD in mathematics, I've decided that hard work is not the love of my life I 100% agree. Having just finished my masters (a bit later in life, I'm in my 40s now), I have concluded that I have exactly zero interest in pursuing any further formal education. I just don't have enough f*cks left to give for that. But I do dream of starting my own company. But maybe it will stay a dream. And even if I realize it, I'm talking about a lifestyle business and not an attempted unicorn.
Kharvok 5y ago
I currently experience this. Every moment of downtime the last 4 years is plagued with these alarm bells that I'm not properly using my time. That I should be working on something productive. This even extends to avoiding home improvement projects because a more efficient usage of my time would be to continue to work on work/side software projects.
abhinavsharma 5y ago
Having been through CMU and YC, I think while this piece makes sense for the average person, for someone who's been to CMU it's very easy to read this with a re-traumatizing reaction of stop-glorifying-working-to-the-bone. CMU and YC were maybe the 2 hardest working environments I've been in, but CMU SCS was just plain more hours of staying awake, more implicit peer pressure, less mature peer support systems (mostly from being younger) in the median case of a class/batch. You can get by (with a huge cost, as evidenced by the semi-regularity of suicide when I was there) with that intensity solving finite problems in semesters that come to an end but not tempering that attitude and knowing when to take strategic breaks in the infinite game that business is can really do harm. CMU is a weird place, the kids that get in are very smart but often have their inferiority complex relative to say MIT or Stanford, which coupled with the uncompromising academics makes them work insanely, often unsustainably hard. I loved it there, but I'm very glad I had a training in balance going in.
- abhinavsharma 5y ago
  I also bet that anyone who went to CMU will read this essay and go "duh, why did he spent this much time writing this obvious stuff"
- AnimalMuppet 5y ago
  I didn't go to CMU. But to me, as I read this essay, that was balanced by the "quit when you're too tired to do your best work". That's not working-to-the-bone. That's working hard, and then stopping. Now, someone who went to CMU may be too traumatized to hear that, but PG did say that...
  - abhinavsharma 5y ago
    That's sensible, but it's an extremely difficult thing to build concrete awareness for when you're so deeply in a problem space that often your best ideas just pop up from your subconscious. There's also ways some kind of work you can be doing for any given energy level that adds up to your end goal. Do you have good advanced strategies for knowing how to identify when you're too tired to do work in complex scenarios. Always happy to absorb more of those :) I should also clarify that I think this essay is written with the best intentions. I also think there's a specific audience that can very easily misinterpret it. You're not in it, which is great!
jwuphysics 5y ago
I had exactly the same reaction, and I also went to CMU for undergrad (not SCS though). However I found that it didn't translate to long-term productivity during my PhD program, when I needed to think about my career goals 5 years in the future. There I needed to focus on sustainable work ethic and working "smarter" rather than "harder" -- for example, okay I got an A in my quantum field theory class, but who cares? Other students who took easier courses but were able to start writing papers probably got ahead in the long run.
an_opabinia 5y ago
> On these days I'd typically try playing a video game (my hobby before college)… wasting time… hard work was not healthy It sounds like playing video games was your medicine, and denying it from yourself traded “wasting time” for something worse, like bad anxiety, which you don’t have to get into. It’s obnoxious that the Paul Graham culture targets video games. The alternative medicine is always worse. Of course, what he’s omitting isn’t some nuanced take on what is and is not wasting time. He’s omitting that he doesn’t give a fuck about hard work that isn’t about making money.
- dharmaturtle 5y ago
  Do you think he writes essays to make money?
  - an_opabinia 5y ago
    Yes, definitely, he is the template for the "thought leader" scheme.
deleted 5y ago
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seppin 5y ago
> I came to recognize that my relationship with hard work during my college years was not healthy Exactly, it's like we are celebrating a mania.
maerF0x0 5y ago
> I would fall asleep while programming in the middle of the night, dream about programming, then wake up and continue programming just where I left off. This was almost always the case for me in group projects as we'd invariably do a waterfally style project management and each person would be 1 day late turning my 7 day window into 3... And worse yet usually what I got handed was crap and I'd just have to rewrite the project keeping only the barest clues of their work in place. Not that much has changed 20 yrs later in my career.
mensetmanusman 5y ago
I did this, ended up at MIT due to work ethic, and thankfully ended up having a number of kids who are akin to a vector field with locally negative divergence (for these feelings). There are always things to clean up from the chaos, and so much more meaningful than if I were doing it fit myself.
huachimingo 5y ago
Read Byung-Chul Han, he has some insights on this.
- sn41 5y ago
  Thank you for this suggestion. As an Asian, I have always found the American fetish for "passion for work" disconcerting. My passion is for poetry and grammar. Unfortunately, in Asia, you really can't feed your family on this. Your career is distinctly "what you are forced to do". So it is a sense of duty and self-sacrifice that forces me to work, and I would gladly avoid any unnecessary bullshit work and virtue signalling, so that I can read fiction and poetry.
brnt 5y ago
The protestant work ethic: it's a real thing, and it makes real victims.
skadamat 5y ago
I like Cal Newport's Deep Life framework here a bunch, highly recommend everyone check it out: https://www.calnewport.com/blog/2020/04/20/cultivating-a-deep-life/ https://www.calnewport.com/blog/2020/04/20/cultivating-a-dee... He has these alliterative buckets, like Craft, Community, Contemplation, and Constitution. Everyone's priority stack is different but generally speaking ... all humans need a bit of each. ONLY craft ('work') isn't enough for a deep life!
jonmb 5y ago
> a feeling at the core of my psyche that I have been wasting time and there must be something productive I should be doing or thinking about. It's a little bit of relief to hear that others have experienced this issue. I've had this feeling when playing a video game, reading a book, watching a movie, etc. As if a part of my mind has trained itself to believe that the only worthwhile pursuit must be "productive" in some way. I've had to teach/remind myself often that it's healthy to relax, so keep playing. I think it's starting to sink in over time. :)
kovek 5y ago
Coding to sleep, dreaming of code, and waking up to coding - I burned out on that… I wonder how you did it
musicale 5y ago
> this deep seated desire to do more work is not a positive thing This, 100%. I got trapped in a work loop for several months this past year and am slowly recovering from it. One of the most important rules for sustainable productivity that doesn't damage your health is having hard limits for the amount of time you spend working. It's very tough, especially when there are deadlines and other people encouraging you to exceed safe limits.
rasen58 5y ago
How do you motivate yourself to work hard if you feel like you're distracted and want to be lazy all the time?

YinglingLight 5y ago

There's a time and place for everything. When I was an undergrad at RPI, I worked my ass off. Harder than I ever needed to in my working career. Now in my 30s my focus is more on family and housework, but I will always benefit from having been 'in the grinder' back then. I know my limits for hard work is great, should I ever need it again.

bradlys 5y ago

I’ve heard this same mentality from many people who went to rigorous colleges or had a rigorous college experience. (It isn’t just prestigious schools that are like this - choose the wrong major at particular public schools and your life can be just as difficult) I’m of the same opinion. I still don’t know how to enjoy just existing - even small pleasures can be hard to do unless I think there is some kind of “work” aspect to it. Video games need progression or bragging rights, hobbies need skills that will make me better at something, and simple pleasures must be only to get me back onto the progression track. Recharging must be to get me back in the game and working hard again. Etc… I was overtuned in college to always be working on something because if I didn’t, I was going to flunk out. (Yay for bad professors and academia that cherishes weeding people out than growing what they have) I despise the way college trains people. Feels like capitalism training 101.

rakejake 5y ago

This was exactly my experience except Masters instead of Bachelors. I had this feeling that I mostly coasted during my bachelors, only putting any effort the week before Finals or Unit Tests. I did my Masters in EE from a university renowned for being a tough program. I was up for the challenge, doing exactly what you did: thinking math all the time, feeling like I was wasting time any moment I was not in front of my books. I have the exact same problems you mentioned: not being able to just be, always anxious to be doing something productive, can't bring myself to watch a movie unless the movie was an all-time classic and "worth wasting time on". The pandemic, weirdly enough, brought me back down to Earth. I faced some real mental lows but now I am able to relax more. Time management and deep work a few hours a day goes a lot further than just fretting about being productive all the time. I still have a lot of work to do, and I still don't think I've fulfilled my potential but posts like yours have definitely helped me re-calibrate my expectations. Thank you very much.

ska 5y ago
Fwiw CMU undergrad CS has a similar reputation. There are university programs where you can coast through a degree, and others where doing that will at best leave you at the back of the pack. It can be fun to be in a program where everyone is pushing hard but it can also be very stressful and not healthy for everyone who tries it. It is possible to live the rest of your life like that, but the vast majority of people I know who have tried it, aren't happy. The exceptions are outliers in several ways.
- np32 5y ago
  "My heart is in the work" - Andrew Carnegie Probably a very stress-inducing sentence to a lot of CMU CS grads

didip 5y ago

Yup, I reached the same conclusion. We even had that same "sick on the stomach" feel after playing video games. I used to carry "working 80-90 hours/week" like a badge of honor. I was such a fool. There are smart ways in making money that doesn't simultaneously reduce my lifespan.

user22 5y ago

Thanks for writing this. What you wrote describes me perfectly with the exception of the redemption at the end.

ambicapter 5y ago

"My heart is in the work" indeed.

lovecg 5y ago

If you read his footnote, he’s talking about how these alarm bells go off on the order of days, not hours, and how taking vacations is good.

helen___keller 5y ago
Thanks for pointing this out. While I fundamentally believe I experienced the phenomenon PG writes about, there's something to be said about the scale of it. Taking a sufficiently generous interpretation of his essay, an admirable goal for self-growth is not to work hard all the time but to develop the self-discipline to work hard when you intend to be working (with the restraint to not be working when you intend to not be working, and the internal clock to help you schedule the two at whatever the correct balance is for your life). Perhaps as a life goal as I enter my 30s, I should endeavor to revisit my love for mathematics and computer science (as opposed my work-life-balanced but frankly boring current career path), using both the restraint and discipline I've learned, so to not make the mistakes I made in my early 20s. After leaving the work-always atmosphere of CMU, I moved in with my then-girlfriend (now-wife) and committed to working exactly 8 hours every day to keep work from taking over again. Trying to cram all the ambition and passion for work I once had into 8 hours of junior dev work basically turned me into a soup of anxiety, inferiority, and resentment[0] for some time. I thought I was wasting my career, after trying so hard in college. It took years to reorient my priorities (and also to reach a position that was a bit less meaningless than tech support for Matlab). I think nowadays I could do better. Maybe next time a hip startup emails me with a job opportunity, I'll give them a call ;) thanks [0] Anxious to try and find ways to work harder and achieve more in a bland corporate environment where the build system was more of an obstacle than the actual project, inferiority compared to the success that some of my still-overworked friends were experiencing in silicon valley (with opportunities I didn't have in Boston), and even occasional resentment towards my girlfriend, for whom I had chosen to restrain myself to 8 hours of work a day, because I felt I could do such great things without that limitation.

atty 5y ago

I had the exact same issue in my undergrad. I was suffering from pretty severe anxiety/depression during highs school, to the point where I dropped out in my junior year. I started “thriving” in my undergrad, if by thriving you mean busy and getting good grades, and my anxiety was much reduced. But the reason it was reduced was because I was going to school full time and working 40+ hours a week and I simply didn’t have time to stop and think. Whenever I had a vacation, or significant time off, I had extreme anxiety, to the point of panic attacks, about not getting anything “important” done. Ultimately the overwork gave me a chronic neck injury that forced me to have quite a bit of time off work, and over the years I have become very happy with myself, to the point where I can sit and do nothing, be alone with my own thoughts, for days without the anxiety and self-loathing entering my mind at all. I’m not sure when exactly the switch flipped, but it made me a much better person. And I am much happier with myself, my life situation, and my work.

nonbirithm 5y ago

I feel the same. I can hardly sit through an entire two-hour movie or play a video game without feeling like I should be doing something else. I cannot feel good about myself if I cannot sense that I'm making progress learning a skill, and am stuck for hours looking down at a blank page as a result. But what's dangerous for me is that this alarm system does not trigger consistently. I might spend too much time on HN, for example, because my impression is that HN is a place to have intellectual discoveries. I might spend too much time on YouTube because I can't think of anything else to do. Ironically there is a wealth of knowledge contained in some games that would be more worthwhile than a bunch of highlights on YouTube, but YouTube is just too easy to go back to. When I work on some of my programming projects, I come out with the feeling that I'm just using the act of constantly working on them as an excuse to not have to worry about the fact that my life outside of them is one-dimensional and currently stagnating. I work way too hard on such non-work projects and burn out only to stop and instead spend weeks anxious that because I'm not doing anything, I am not growing as a person. I still believe this is true; I don't think I am much different from the me of two years ago, except that I've made some progress on programming projects. But it's weird because I enjoy programming. I think it is because I enjoy programming so much that I become blinded to things that I should have seen as more important. I think I am already good enough at programming to not need much more to learn, and am only applying the skills that I happen to have built up for years. But when I turn back to the other hobbies I always told myself I wanted to spend my life doing, all I find is a void of interest, and I ultimately accomplish little. I also believe this was a result of how I was raised and the coping mechanisms my upbringing/college ingrained in me.

iancmceachern 5y ago
Me too. I've been actively working to do the opposite. To build my outside of work life, give it priority and give myself the permission to have it be the main focus of life and stop running from the bear all the time.
- mumblemumble 5y ago
  I have started using a pomodoro timer, not as a way to keep myself working and improve my productivity, but as a way to remind myself to stop and smell the roses. So far it's been good.

agumonkey 5y ago

I had a similar realization. My inner desire had weird bits of fear and narcissism at its core. When that side of me cracked the desire to perform vanished. I did do some math after that (mostly to asses brain damage after health issues): i could do some new stuff, and did enjoy it.. but something changed, there need to be solid reasons: either aesthetical (a sudden epiphany that I need to study topology) or social for me to go into workhorse mode. Another thing is that I also realized that crushing is not progressing.. so very often I understood things without any effort, what it took is for my brain to accept an idea more than anything else.. so I stopped forcing things, I simply walk around ideas and let things come and go. All in all.. I also believe that is simply biology talking.. when young all you care is being the best, with age your focus spreads over other people (SO, kids, family)

caymanjim 5y ago

I'm closer to retirement age than the beginning of my career. Some of my age peer friends are already retired, and many of them could be if they wanted to. It's not even on the radar for me. I'm a bit envious, as I'd love the freedom to be done for life, and to be able to take or leave work as I please. The flipside is that I've taken a lot of time off along the way. I've taken whole years off between many jobs, I've traveled a lot, and I've spent a lot of time just doing nothing. I have some minor regrets about not making better use of my time between jobs, but I don't have regrets about taking the time off. I would have gone insane if I had worked nonstop for 20-30 years, only taking a couple weeks of vacation a year. If I were really passionate about the work--especially if I'd launched my own business--I might not have felt burnt out or wanted time off. But I never wanted to bust my ass just for the sake of working hard, or for some nebulous future goal (although that future is now my present). If health or something else prevents me from enjoying life as much in the future, at least I've got memories of the past.

CobrastanJorji 5y ago
You remind me of a coworker I had four a couple of years. He and his wife were both extremely competent and well-compensated programmers. Their lifestyle was basically "work for two years or so, save up a bunch of money, then quit and wander the world doing whatever they liked until the money ran out, repeat." I've thought about them several times. Some part of me is really, really uncomfortable intentionally living off of my savings for a prolonged period, but I also sometimes wonder if they haven't figured out something important that I haven't.
- manmal 5y ago
  15y ago I met a guy who was specialized in repairing escalators. So what he did was repair some escalators in the city, and then he spent some weeks or even months motorbiking with his buddies. When money ran out, there was always a broken escalator to return to. Obviously he was so certain he would find work that he didn’t feel the need to save up any money.
- ska 5y ago
  > intentionally living off of my savings for a prolonged period For most people, this is what retirement means, no? So one way to think about it is they are trading off time, and doing some things while they were young and sure to enjoy them. The flip side is I have known people who never took a 'real break' and worked doggedly until 65 or whatever, then found a few years later health issues constraining what they could do.

mumblemumble 5y ago

Every personality has its problematic characteristics. I think that one of the more problematic, even toxic, ones shared by many Type A personalities is a need to try and make other people feel bad for not themselves being sufficiently neurotic. (I realize the Type A/Type B personality theory is largely crap. I'm just using it here as a useful shorthand that many people will recognize.) That paragraph the quote came from makes me feel kind of sad. It prompted me to mentally re-frame PG's life, not as one that is defined by material success, but one that is defined by near constant anxiety. The material success is apparently just a by-product of that anxiety. On the other hand, at least he gets to have some excess material comfort to take the edge off a bit? I imagine things would be much harder for him if he had fallen into the presumable silent majority of people sharing the same kinds of productivity-oriented anxieties who haven't been so lucky in their business dealings. On the other hand, maybe it doesn't work that way. Maybe it just raises the bar, so that your future accomplishments have to be even more spectacular before you're able to see them as genuine accomplishments. Which sounds to me like a bleak existence. A bit like that of an addict who's forever chasing the dragon.

xupybd 5y ago
It is possible that he is fueled by an anxious drive. Even probable, but there are a small group of people that find meaning in what they do. When the work towards that they get a buzz that is insatiable.
- deleted 5y ago
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graeme 5y ago
I saw PG speak once. He didn’t strike me as the anxious type. And I do not think it was polish: he is a good speaker, but he also seems like the type of speaker who would be exactly the same after the speech. It felt more like he was….excited. Like in a childlike way, in a positive sense. That’s how I’ve interpreted stuff like the paragraph you cited: he is like a big kid excited about his work and does not want to waste time getting distracted from it. The same way a kid might acutely have a sense of boredom if not doing what they thought was important. The key here is PG really seems to find meaningful work fun. I’ve known anxious types and they’re all rather different. Beset by doubts among other things.

NalNezumi 5y ago

For me the similar thing was when I started to read HN, 3 years ago. It wasn't until 3 month before graduation, when a guy at the lab that I admired suggested HN and all the hustle culture and the background stories of successes was available first hand, that I started to get truly anxious about the time I felt like I wasted/ was wasting during college. Playing games are really hard now, so is watching movies. My list of movies or clips that I'm supposed to see on downtime is filled with daunting "productive" materials. Also created the bad habit of quitting (job) when I feel like I'm stuck or "not growing/improving" due stress. The mentality of having to "constantly be productive" also caused strain in my personal relationships.

layoutIfNeeded 5y ago
Frankly, all of this sounds pretty miserable.

RandomLensman 5y ago

This idea that work is required(!) and that rewards of it should not be wasted can be traced to some religious roots, for example. This view on work ethics has been given rise to interesting theory more than 100 years ago in the birth of economic sociology: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Protestant_Ethic_and_the_Spirit_of_Capitalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Protestant_Ethic_and_the_S...

Deeznutz93 5y ago

I also went to CMU and had a similar experience. I got into programming because of my love for video games and ended up thinking they were a waste of time. A few years after graduation, my friends tricked me into going to a PC cafe (telling me it was a hip bar) and I rediscovered my love for gaming.

xputer 5y ago

Very similar experience for me. I have a hard time spending time on hobbies at the moment, because it feels like I should put that time towards my PhD instead of "wasting my time and energy". Yet, I somehow have no problem spending hours every day on reddit, YouTube, hacker news etc. because I think I tricked my mind into believing that those things don't cost energy so it's ok. Unfortunately they don't really bring joy and fulfilment the same way hobbies do. I think the real problem for me is that the work of my PhD is never fully done until I've defended and submitted my thesis. It means that even though I definitely don't get even close to doing 40 hours of actual work per week, it feels like I am working all the time, which is exhausting. It's bad feeling like you are not supposed to take a break and wind down. It's probably why people burn out all the time...

sjg007 5y ago
I would just block those websites from your devices. They are a trap. The illusion of progress or social connection for karma.
beambot 5y ago
The most impactful activities I pursued during my PhD had absolutely no bearing on my research itself. Here's one example: I created a robotics blog where I wrote about some of the new, interesting developments in the field that piqued my interest. It ballooned into one of the top 3 robotics websites on the web. I felt guilty about it for a long time... until I realized that the blog had a bigger impact & reach than any of my research -- I was known in the community; articles were cited on Wikipedia and in Congressional testimonies; and it established my credibility. There are at least a half-dozen similar examples -- including just pursuing random intellectual curiosities. What really helped me come to terms with this is "Structured Procrastination": http://www.structuredprocrastination.com/ http://www.structuredprocrastination.com/ As long as you're doing & not just consuming, you will probably find value.
ska 5y ago
This is absolutely a common feeling in PhD programs - I think partially because it is a transition out of structured programs and a more nuanced idea of "done". I wouldn't beat yourself up about it, part of the process is learning for yourself how to deal with finding the right balance of focus and exploration.

tylerscott 5y ago

> Years later, having tackled anxiety problems that had plagued me most of my life, I came to recognize that my relationship with hard work during my college years was not healthy and that this deep seated desire to do more work is not a positive thing, at least not for me. This resonates with me. I would often try to outwork depression, anxiety, grief...basically any difficult emotion. Work was my coping mechanism and all external signals were positive about that--i.e., "he's a real go-getter." The pathology of all this became apparent after, well, becoming a parent. Fast forward to now, I still sometimes struggle with those "alarm bells" but for the most part I can solidly state that I am not defined solely by my productivity. Contentment is an active practice, I suppose.

Tycho 5y ago

Maybe I’m jumping to conclusions here but there seems to be something obvious that you and others in this thread are overlooking: not all leisure activities are created equal. Some nourish the soul or the body, some are spiritual deserts. Video games are in the latter category. Of course you’re going to feel bad about spending your time on them. But you could instead read a classic novel, play a sport, play some music, converse with friends, keep in touch with family, etc., any of which will help you develop as an individual in dimensions that will simply not happen otherwise. They connect you with the rich tapestry of life and human society.

Nursie 5y ago
This is an outdated view, computer games are a cultural vehicle like others. They can even connect you with a rich tapestry of human life.
- tobltobs 5y ago
  Computer games are build to make you addicted and waste your time and money. "They can even connect you with a rich tapestry of human life." Tapestry of human life? Seriously?
  - tomtheelder 5y ago
    That's a _ridiculously_ reductive view of what games are. Like any form of media they range wildly from simplistic and addictive to rich and artistic and everything in between. Suggesting that all games are built to addict and waste time/money belies an utter lack of understanding of the landscape of games.
  - Nursie 5y ago
    I could say the same about novels and be just as correct. You’ve never made friends through a shared interest in games, or even through the games themselves? You’ve never been enthralled with the story of a game, and been left richer afterwards? You’ve missed out, and you’ve missed out through snobbery.

darkwizard42 5y ago

As someone who also did their undergrad at CMU, I can confirm that it was the hardest I've ever worked (even considering my 10+ years of professional experience). It was burnout level with how many units you had to carry and how difficult some of the advanced math and CS classes became. We used to sit in the Tepper Faculty Lounge (always unlocked = free coffee) many nights from 10 PM - 4 AM to merely crank out a 6-question problem set...as a group. I find that I can still get into the mode of "hard work" that CMU instilled but I also find myself generally disinterested in getting into a world where that becomes my life again...it was fun, but tiring, and I don't need to be tired/worn out to have fun anymore!

granshaw 5y ago
Yeah I went to a not-at-that-level-but-still-rigorous state school, and one of my first impressions of my internships and out-of-college jobs was... "WOW I get to get paid to code, and no homework? I can spend my evenings+weekends however I want!?" Was a really lovely feeling :)
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ska 5y ago
Part of what makes programs like this work (there aren't a large number, but CMU is hardly alone) is the fact that it's a fixed time to create a pressure box in. I know of an undergrad double honors program that was unreasonably proud of the fact that after inception it took something like a dozen (maybe fifteen?) years before anyone actually graduated from it; everyone dropped one or the other half to lighten the load. Trying to pitch something to almost-but-not-quite break you only works when there is a finish line.

tomrod 5y ago

I feel you. I think I was lucky in a way. I had my first experience with vertigo while working 80+ hour weeks for several years. In my dizziness I couldn't see my computer or cell phone screen to email or text my boss to let him know. I was down for several days, literally only able to lie in bed and breathe. It was then that it dawned on me that if I died right then, I sure would miss a few things I'd been neglecting or putting off in life. Vertigo has not returned yet (may it never!). It was a catalyst to a lot of meaningful change in my life. Hobbies can be a very useful endeavor. So can volunteer work. I've been intrigued to learn more about the Civilian Air Patrol (US based, CAP) and how they help during disasters. Also fun to go up in planes and take pictures, either for training or in consequence of supporting disasters. They have more they do as well, but these things are fascinating to me. There are thousands of organizations with these kinds of opportunities. You're not alone. Good luck in your hunt for meaning beyond output!

breadzeppelin__ 5y ago

is it anxiety? I don't have a single hobby at this point that doesn't involve learning new stuff or having to work as part of it. I've totally stopped watching movies for enjoyment or playing video games because it feels so "unproductive"

markus_zhang 5y ago

>I spent all day every day at CMU either programming, doing mathematics, or thinking about one of those things (to great effect: often the trick to prove a theorem would pop into my head while showering or while taking a walk). I would fall asleep while programming in the middle of the night, dream about programming, then wake up and continue programming just where I left off. This is such a great experience. I wish I could study at CMU on-site and experience all this. I'm an old horse still kicking :P >I've since reformed my ambitions, instead of looking to start a company or get a PhD in mathematics, I've decided that hard work is not the love of my life and instead I should focus on my hobbies while looking for a career path that can be simultaneously fulfilling but laid back. Glad that you figure it out. Guess the study burned you out :(

helen___keller 5y ago
> This is such a great experience. I wish I could study at CMU on-site and experience all this. I'm an old horse still kicking :P In truth, it was a great experience, it was just also the worst experience of my life. It's a little tough to explain but, in the end it comes down to personal expectations and mental health. I often miss the work itself. A single problem set at CMU felt more interesting, impactful, and substantial than a multiple months-long project at a corporate job. Professors typically give you starter code that's ready to start working on "the meat" of the problem - here's a C++ project that loads a 3d geometry and renders it but the key function in rendering isn't implemented. Now go write a raytracer. Now go write a typechecker. Implement "malloc". Take this efficient sequential algorithm and design a parallel version that's provably more efficient, and implement it in functional code. The big problem is that the pacing was brutal and inescapable and for many - such as myself - failure was not an option. When you don't get to sleep on sundays, wednesdays, and thursdays, every single week for a few months, all while dealing with the anxiety that maybe doing your best still isn't going to be good enough, you start to daydream that maybe you'll get hit by a car finally have an excuse to take a break.

rootusrootus 5y ago

> I've since reformed my ambitions, instead of looking to start a company or get a PhD in mathematics, I've decided that hard work is not the love of my life I 100% agree. Having just finished my masters (a bit later in life, I'm in my 40s now), I have concluded that I have exactly zero interest in pursuing any further formal education. I just don't have enough f*cks left to give for that. But I do dream of starting my own company. But maybe it will stay a dream. And even if I realize it, I'm talking about a lifestyle business and not an attempted unicorn.

Kharvok 5y ago

I currently experience this. Every moment of downtime the last 4 years is plagued with these alarm bells that I'm not properly using my time. That I should be working on something productive. This even extends to avoiding home improvement projects because a more efficient usage of my time would be to continue to work on work/side software projects.

abhinavsharma 5y ago

Having been through CMU and YC, I think while this piece makes sense for the average person, for someone who's been to CMU it's very easy to read this with a re-traumatizing reaction of stop-glorifying-working-to-the-bone. CMU and YC were maybe the 2 hardest working environments I've been in, but CMU SCS was just plain more hours of staying awake, more implicit peer pressure, less mature peer support systems (mostly from being younger) in the median case of a class/batch. You can get by (with a huge cost, as evidenced by the semi-regularity of suicide when I was there) with that intensity solving finite problems in semesters that come to an end but not tempering that attitude and knowing when to take strategic breaks in the infinite game that business is can really do harm. CMU is a weird place, the kids that get in are very smart but often have their inferiority complex relative to say MIT or Stanford, which coupled with the uncompromising academics makes them work insanely, often unsustainably hard. I loved it there, but I'm very glad I had a training in balance going in.

abhinavsharma 5y ago
I also bet that anyone who went to CMU will read this essay and go "duh, why did he spent this much time writing this obvious stuff"
AnimalMuppet 5y ago
I didn't go to CMU. But to me, as I read this essay, that was balanced by the "quit when you're too tired to do your best work". That's not working-to-the-bone. That's working hard, and then stopping. Now, someone who went to CMU may be too traumatized to hear that, but PG did say that...
- abhinavsharma 5y ago
  That's sensible, but it's an extremely difficult thing to build concrete awareness for when you're so deeply in a problem space that often your best ideas just pop up from your subconscious. There's also ways some kind of work you can be doing for any given energy level that adds up to your end goal. Do you have good advanced strategies for knowing how to identify when you're too tired to do work in complex scenarios. Always happy to absorb more of those :) I should also clarify that I think this essay is written with the best intentions. I also think there's a specific audience that can very easily misinterpret it. You're not in it, which is great!

jwuphysics 5y ago

I had exactly the same reaction, and I also went to CMU for undergrad (not SCS though). However I found that it didn't translate to long-term productivity during my PhD program, when I needed to think about my career goals 5 years in the future. There I needed to focus on sustainable work ethic and working "smarter" rather than "harder" -- for example, okay I got an A in my quantum field theory class, but who cares? Other students who took easier courses but were able to start writing papers probably got ahead in the long run.

an_opabinia 5y ago

> On these days I'd typically try playing a video game (my hobby before college)… wasting time… hard work was not healthy It sounds like playing video games was your medicine, and denying it from yourself traded “wasting time” for something worse, like bad anxiety, which you don’t have to get into. It’s obnoxious that the Paul Graham culture targets video games. The alternative medicine is always worse. Of course, what he’s omitting isn’t some nuanced take on what is and is not wasting time. He’s omitting that he doesn’t give a fuck about hard work that isn’t about making money.

dharmaturtle 5y ago
Do you think he writes essays to make money?
- an_opabinia 5y ago
  Yes, definitely, he is the template for the "thought leader" scheme.

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seppin 5y ago

> I came to recognize that my relationship with hard work during my college years was not healthy Exactly, it's like we are celebrating a mania.

maerF0x0 5y ago

> I would fall asleep while programming in the middle of the night, dream about programming, then wake up and continue programming just where I left off. This was almost always the case for me in group projects as we'd invariably do a waterfally style project management and each person would be 1 day late turning my 7 day window into 3... And worse yet usually what I got handed was crap and I'd just have to rewrite the project keeping only the barest clues of their work in place. Not that much has changed 20 yrs later in my career.

mensetmanusman 5y ago

I did this, ended up at MIT due to work ethic, and thankfully ended up having a number of kids who are akin to a vector field with locally negative divergence (for these feelings). There are always things to clean up from the chaos, and so much more meaningful than if I were doing it fit myself.

huachimingo 5y ago

Read Byung-Chul Han, he has some insights on this.

sn41 5y ago
Thank you for this suggestion. As an Asian, I have always found the American fetish for "passion for work" disconcerting. My passion is for poetry and grammar. Unfortunately, in Asia, you really can't feed your family on this. Your career is distinctly "what you are forced to do". So it is a sense of duty and self-sacrifice that forces me to work, and I would gladly avoid any unnecessary bullshit work and virtue signalling, so that I can read fiction and poetry.

brnt 5y ago

The protestant work ethic: it's a real thing, and it makes real victims.

skadamat 5y ago

I like Cal Newport's Deep Life framework here a bunch, highly recommend everyone check it out: https://www.calnewport.com/blog/2020/04/20/cultivating-a-deep-life/ https://www.calnewport.com/blog/2020/04/20/cultivating-a-dee... He has these alliterative buckets, like Craft, Community, Contemplation, and Constitution. Everyone's priority stack is different but generally speaking ... all humans need a bit of each. ONLY craft ('work') isn't enough for a deep life!

jonmb 5y ago

> a feeling at the core of my psyche that I have been wasting time and there must be something productive I should be doing or thinking about. It's a little bit of relief to hear that others have experienced this issue. I've had this feeling when playing a video game, reading a book, watching a movie, etc. As if a part of my mind has trained itself to believe that the only worthwhile pursuit must be "productive" in some way. I've had to teach/remind myself often that it's healthy to relax, so keep playing. I think it's starting to sink in over time. :)

kovek 5y ago

Coding to sleep, dreaming of code, and waking up to coding - I burned out on that… I wonder how you did it

musicale 5y ago

> this deep seated desire to do more work is not a positive thing This, 100%. I got trapped in a work loop for several months this past year and am slowly recovering from it. One of the most important rules for sustainable productivity that doesn't damage your health is having hard limits for the amount of time you spend working. It's very tough, especially when there are deadlines and other people encouraging you to exceed safe limits.

rasen58 5y ago

How do you motivate yourself to work hard if you feel like you're distracted and want to be lazy all the time?