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I have a theory, all the "high quality" hobbies are challenging in one way or another, thus require some level of will power to push yourself to do it. If you'

I have a theory, all the "high quality" hobbies are challenging in one way or another, thus require some level of will power to push yourself to do it. If you've been pushing yourself hard at work all day, then you have likely depleted your will power. Passive activities become the only ones you feel like doing.

boublepop 5y ago
> Passive activities become the only ones you feel like doing. Very true. But changing your lifestyle to a high degree is about turning the activities that you like into these “passive activities” like going for a morning run doesn’t feel like something you need to mentally or even physically exert yourself to do for someone who does it regularly 4 times a week.
aesyondu 5y ago
After switching careers to software engineering, I find that I appreciate high intensity / action oriented video games less (DMC, Monster Hunter, etc.). My browser history is now filled with "chill or relaxing games", "games that don't need thinking" or something to that effect.
- billfruit 5y ago
  My experience has been that if work is exhausting, then I turn to games that don't have much of narrative, but which rather on the mechanics. Like racing games, one does not have to think too much, but one has to be alert and focused on it.
  - pezezin 5y ago
    Doom Eternal was that kind of game for me. After a long day with another pointless meeting with the usual assholes, slaying demons left and right was almost therapeutic.
  - skydhash 5y ago
    Same, I have a bunch of games like Nier: Automata, Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, Bloodborne, Control and I found that I can only play them on the weekend. After work, I can only play game like Dirt Rally, Trials Fusion and Apex Legends’ Arena. Where you don’t have to strategize that much and only rely on learnt reflexes. Anything that requires decisions or deciphering clues is impossible.
    - aweiland 5y ago
      You play Trials to relax? ;)
      - skydhash 5y ago
        When you get better at this kind of technically challenging game, there is a kind of flow that happens when you try to get better at previous challenge. The thinking is very minimal as you are only observing where you can improve. And it's a good feeling when you have indeed improved.
- Godel_unicode 5y ago
  Presenting an alternative perspective, I have a high pressure job that requires deep thought (I'm in infosec) and my hobbies are pretty much all about skill/intensity. No judgement if that's what you like, but I find chill/relaxing games to be boring and can't play them for very long without having to go find something more meaningful to do. I enjoy being alone with my thoughts, I just find low-stakes games to be a weird in-between area and while I know they're super popular I just don't get it. As a sibling comment says, ego depletion research is pretty low quality in terms of reproducibility. Anecdotally, I have never found it to be true for me.
  - sam0x17 5y ago
    Last time I worked in infosec, it was quite slow, depending on what you're doing. AFAIK you're either monitoring things, in which case it only gets interesting when there is an incident, and/or you're doing projects, but they are slow moving because they involve approvals, physical hardware, etc. If you're writing code all day I guarantee you'll feel drained.
    - Godel_unicode 5y ago
      As I said in the post you replied to, my job is high pressure and requires deep thought. My team writes a ton of code, and there's an on-call rotation where you're dealing with incidents and grooming training sets for our models. > ...I guarantee you'll feel drained. You'd lose that bet. Maybe you are, I however find writing code just as interesting and invigorating as I did over a decade ago in university. I do it at work, I do it in my free time both for purpose and for fun.
      - sam0x17 5y ago
        I'm just saying that from experience, I highly doubt there is an infosec job where you have less free time than the average coder. If you have time for deep thinking about problems, you have the kind of time I'm talking about that is super rare _on average_ in the industry.
- maddyboo 5y ago
  > chill and relax > don’t need thinking You seem to be seeking proxies for the effect of not thinking, putting your mind and body at ease, and letting go. Have you given meditation a try? Anecdotally, it can fulfill these needs in a way no other semi-conscious activity seems capable.
  - aesyondu 5y ago
    I started meditating when I was in university and have done it on and off since then. However, I've stopped a couple of months ago and haven't had the will to do it again. I find other activities more compelling, like reading everylayout or about rails performance.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
dend 5y ago
Ego depletion as a concept has been challenging to prove, if at all: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00568/full https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.0056... I agree that often certain hobbies require a push to get started. That initial barrier is what I found the hardest to overcome, but once you start going - it becomes easier and easier. Similar to how one can attempt to overcome moments of procrastination - you need to get started and push through initial discomfort.
- grp000 5y ago
  I used to push paperwork and send out emails, sometimes analyzing drawings, but not actually use my brain too much as a construction project engineer. As a data engineer, it definitely feels more taxing on the mental side.
- rolisz 5y ago
  I think it's more that after 8 exhausting hours, I don't have energy anymore for anything. The 8 exhausting hours would be a day full of meetings, after which my brain is a mush and doesn't work anymore.
  - VeninVidiaVicii 5y ago
    Yes and imagine an intense level of stress when your partner asks what kind of movie you want to watch. Because, your brain just cannot process a single new decision.
    - bredren 5y ago
      Consider keeping a list of media you want to watch for occasions like this. Exhausted or not, you’re probably more likely to come across something unexpectedly and write it down than remember them all and offer up something fitting from memory.
      - scns 5y ago
        Well, the watchlist gets longer and when i want to watch something it is hard to choose.
hyperpallium2 5y ago
Even, predictable difficulty is key. Too easy and it's boring; too hard and it's frustrating. Suddenly, surprisingly difficult is so challenging it's the kind of thing that gets you riches and fame.
louis8799 5y ago
It's not like that at least when it comes to running. The more I run, the more will power I have for all the other stuffs.
- andhuman 5y ago
  Unless you end up on the bathroom floor, having overexerted yourself. Be kind to yourself people.
stevesimmons 5y ago
> Passive activities become the only ones you feel like doing. That's not the case in my experience. After a full day managing teams, solving problems and coding, I find it "relaxing" to do a physically and mentally challenging instructor/coach-led activity. For me, that means swimming, water polo or other team sport, dance classes learning a complex choreography, etc. It's relaxing switching off the "I'm in charge" part of my brain, while still getting the flow and enjoyment of improving a skill, especially with others in a non-tech environment.
chihuahua 5y ago
That's not the case for me. After working on annoying software tasks all day, I like to do a 34-mile/2-hour bike ride. I do this same route very frequently. It's refreshing because it's so completely different from my job. In contrast, a lot of games feel like work - guess where you're supposed to go or how to solve a problem, fail due to some trivial mistake, retry many times.
godDLL 5y ago
Yes, yes, yes, and no. Not passive. Low starting effort. Mise en place. I have similarly found that all of my activities are not things you can do when you're recovering from food poisoning and have massive thick brain fog all day. So I got into gardening, cooking and then baking, improving my own work clothing and putting up shelves around the kitchen and house. And walking alone. Which is amazing, if you leave your phone at home.

boublepop 5y ago

> Passive activities become the only ones you feel like doing. Very true. But changing your lifestyle to a high degree is about turning the activities that you like into these “passive activities” like going for a morning run doesn’t feel like something you need to mentally or even physically exert yourself to do for someone who does it regularly 4 times a week.

aesyondu 5y ago

After switching careers to software engineering, I find that I appreciate high intensity / action oriented video games less (DMC, Monster Hunter, etc.). My browser history is now filled with "chill or relaxing games", "games that don't need thinking" or something to that effect.

billfruit 5y ago
My experience has been that if work is exhausting, then I turn to games that don't have much of narrative, but which rather on the mechanics. Like racing games, one does not have to think too much, but one has to be alert and focused on it.
- pezezin 5y ago
  Doom Eternal was that kind of game for me. After a long day with another pointless meeting with the usual assholes, slaying demons left and right was almost therapeutic.
- skydhash 5y ago
  Same, I have a bunch of games like Nier: Automata, Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, Bloodborne, Control and I found that I can only play them on the weekend. After work, I can only play game like Dirt Rally, Trials Fusion and Apex Legends’ Arena. Where you don’t have to strategize that much and only rely on learnt reflexes. Anything that requires decisions or deciphering clues is impossible.
  - aweiland 5y ago
    You play Trials to relax? ;)
    - skydhash 5y ago
      When you get better at this kind of technically challenging game, there is a kind of flow that happens when you try to get better at previous challenge. The thinking is very minimal as you are only observing where you can improve. And it's a good feeling when you have indeed improved.
Godel_unicode 5y ago
Presenting an alternative perspective, I have a high pressure job that requires deep thought (I'm in infosec) and my hobbies are pretty much all about skill/intensity. No judgement if that's what you like, but I find chill/relaxing games to be boring and can't play them for very long without having to go find something more meaningful to do. I enjoy being alone with my thoughts, I just find low-stakes games to be a weird in-between area and while I know they're super popular I just don't get it. As a sibling comment says, ego depletion research is pretty low quality in terms of reproducibility. Anecdotally, I have never found it to be true for me.
- sam0x17 5y ago
  Last time I worked in infosec, it was quite slow, depending on what you're doing. AFAIK you're either monitoring things, in which case it only gets interesting when there is an incident, and/or you're doing projects, but they are slow moving because they involve approvals, physical hardware, etc. If you're writing code all day I guarantee you'll feel drained.
  - Godel_unicode 5y ago
    As I said in the post you replied to, my job is high pressure and requires deep thought. My team writes a ton of code, and there's an on-call rotation where you're dealing with incidents and grooming training sets for our models. > ...I guarantee you'll feel drained. You'd lose that bet. Maybe you are, I however find writing code just as interesting and invigorating as I did over a decade ago in university. I do it at work, I do it in my free time both for purpose and for fun.
    - sam0x17 5y ago
      I'm just saying that from experience, I highly doubt there is an infosec job where you have less free time than the average coder. If you have time for deep thinking about problems, you have the kind of time I'm talking about that is super rare _on average_ in the industry.
maddyboo 5y ago
> chill and relax > don’t need thinking You seem to be seeking proxies for the effect of not thinking, putting your mind and body at ease, and letting go. Have you given meditation a try? Anecdotally, it can fulfill these needs in a way no other semi-conscious activity seems capable.
- aesyondu 5y ago
  I started meditating when I was in university and have done it on and off since then. However, I've stopped a couple of months ago and haven't had the will to do it again. I find other activities more compelling, like reading everylayout or about rails performance.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]

dend 5y ago

Ego depletion as a concept has been challenging to prove, if at all: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00568/full https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.0056... I agree that often certain hobbies require a push to get started. That initial barrier is what I found the hardest to overcome, but once you start going - it becomes easier and easier. Similar to how one can attempt to overcome moments of procrastination - you need to get started and push through initial discomfort.

grp000 5y ago
I used to push paperwork and send out emails, sometimes analyzing drawings, but not actually use my brain too much as a construction project engineer. As a data engineer, it definitely feels more taxing on the mental side.
rolisz 5y ago
I think it's more that after 8 exhausting hours, I don't have energy anymore for anything. The 8 exhausting hours would be a day full of meetings, after which my brain is a mush and doesn't work anymore.
- VeninVidiaVicii 5y ago
  Yes and imagine an intense level of stress when your partner asks what kind of movie you want to watch. Because, your brain just cannot process a single new decision.
  - bredren 5y ago
    Consider keeping a list of media you want to watch for occasions like this. Exhausted or not, you’re probably more likely to come across something unexpectedly and write it down than remember them all and offer up something fitting from memory.
    - scns 5y ago
      Well, the watchlist gets longer and when i want to watch something it is hard to choose.

hyperpallium2 5y ago

Even, predictable difficulty is key. Too easy and it's boring; too hard and it's frustrating. Suddenly, surprisingly difficult is so challenging it's the kind of thing that gets you riches and fame.

louis8799 5y ago

It's not like that at least when it comes to running. The more I run, the more will power I have for all the other stuffs.

andhuman 5y ago
Unless you end up on the bathroom floor, having overexerted yourself. Be kind to yourself people.

stevesimmons 5y ago

> Passive activities become the only ones you feel like doing. That's not the case in my experience. After a full day managing teams, solving problems and coding, I find it "relaxing" to do a physically and mentally challenging instructor/coach-led activity. For me, that means swimming, water polo or other team sport, dance classes learning a complex choreography, etc. It's relaxing switching off the "I'm in charge" part of my brain, while still getting the flow and enjoyment of improving a skill, especially with others in a non-tech environment.

chihuahua 5y ago

That's not the case for me. After working on annoying software tasks all day, I like to do a 34-mile/2-hour bike ride. I do this same route very frequently. It's refreshing because it's so completely different from my job. In contrast, a lot of games feel like work - guess where you're supposed to go or how to solve a problem, fail due to some trivial mistake, retry many times.

godDLL 5y ago

Yes, yes, yes, and no. Not passive. Low starting effort. Mise en place. I have similarly found that all of my activities are not things you can do when you're recovering from food poisoning and have massive thick brain fog all day. So I got into gardening, cooking and then baking, improving my own work clothing and putting up shelves around the kitchen and house. And walking alone. Which is amazing, if you leave your phone at home.