11 ms·

Life is a game, this is your strategy guide (2014)

143 points by rzk 4y ago

bruce343434 4y ago
Feels like my entire life my "willpower" stat has been near zero. I find it so unbelievably difficult to do things I "have" to do. And yet for things that for some reason I have intrinsic motivation for, I will stay up past 4am without effort to do more of it. No, ritalin or whatever don't help, they just turn me into a zombie with a dry mouth and a headache. I recently had to quit my job because I wasn't performing well. I could see the writing on the wall and decided to leave before getting fired. I just could never be assed to pick up the stupid tickets. I don't care about php, I don't care about their legacy codebase, I don't care about their bugs. Literally couldn't bring myself to do these tasks.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- tunnuz 4y ago
  I’m sorry to hear that, that sounds really hard. Are you talking about this stuff with someone that can help you?
- dhbradshaw 4y ago
  If you can afford it, following the intrinsic motivation may be exactly what you need to do. Sometimes I'm in the position where I want or need to do something even though I'm dreading it or am not excited about. A few things have helped me when that's the case: 1. Coaxing myself rather than trying to crack the whip. - Finding what's interesting about the task - Thinking through how it might be made interesting or easy - Thinking through whether I can automate it away - Starting on a tiny piece without committing to finishing it right away - Lowering my requirements on quality for a first try to basically zero - Developing a habit around the task with a reward like a streak or a check mark 2. Writing out my thoughts - Why do I want to take on this task? - Why don't I want to take on this task? If I can drill down on both of those maybe I can come to some kind of resolution Anyway, a lot of what works depends on what's broken in the current situation. I think that sometimes your desire to avoid something is right and sometimes it needs to be worked around. But in either case it can be at least heard with thoughtfulness and compassion. There's probably insight in the feeling that you don't want to miss out on. On the other hand, I think it's a mistake to treat these feelings as the only thing either. Often even strong feelings are temporary and situational and getting better information or just letting time pass or building up a feeling of success from small wins will let the storm move on.
  - rpastuszak 4y ago
    > If you can afford it, following the intrinsic motivation may be exactly what you need to do. and > Anyway, a lot of what works depends on what's broken in the current situation. I think that sometimes your desire to avoid something is right and sometimes it needs to be worked around. But in either case it can be at least heard with thoughtfulness and compassion. Thanks for sharing these examples! I'm just wrapping an article which I think you and the OP would find interesting as it deals with this very problem. My goal is to help people see procrastination, laziness and play in a more useful manner. I am terrible at working on things I don’t give a shit about. The list of those things extends with every passing year. And, I realised very late (mid 30s) how much stress was caused by forcing myself to brute force this problem instead of trying to understand it better. To paraphrase Daniel Ariely: we’re irrational creatures, but the beautiful part is that we’re predictably irrational. Know your flaws and set up systems to help account for them. In other words: it’s not your fault that you feel a certain way, but it’s your responsibility to act when you can. It'll be ready by Tuesday (if you're interested, drop me a line and I'll send you the link: hello@<my site domain from the profile page>).
    - rpastuszak 4y ago
      I've just published the article. Here's the link and the discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35068319 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35068319
    - jstummbillig 4y ago
      Off the top of your head, do you have a strong sense of what work would interest you? And, if so, why you have not been working on it or working towards working on it?
      - rpastuszak 4y ago
        Learning and creating things which people enjoy, regardless of the medium (design, code, writing). (It used to be publishing, then helping small startups grow, then privacy and now a cross section of mental health and tech.) Ideal: 1. Build a small thing solving an actual problem 2. Tell as story and teach people something using the thing I build: https://sonnet.io/posts/sit/ https://sonnet.io/posts/sit/ Here's how not to approach this problem: I had spent ages thinking about this, or rather justifying my existing choices. I literally had SWOT analysis charts describing different paths I could take. The main issue was that I was approaching this from a purely rational point of view. But, I had to first learn about the emotional component of my decisions and biases. I grew up without financial security so that also tends to cloud my judgement (e.g. by comparing myself to people who work more stressful jobs). I was busy, overworked and really stressed then (but well paid!). Scaling down was very hard, in terms of self-judgement, but my health has improved drastically. I don't have time to write about this here, but in short: I think that many people who end up in engineering careers tend to get caught in a situation where they keep getting rewarded for solving problems, but eventually lose the context of what kinds of problems they're solving. For _example_: you start with your first SWE gig in an area you like, move to a tech lead/architect, then to a CTO working on a much meatier/"serious" problems. But as soon as you step back from the game progression graph (intentionally or not) you realise you lost the context, you don't give a shit about adtech or crypto, or marketing, or agile. You are really good at something you actually don't give a shit about. I don't think that SWEs are the only to end up with this issue, but that people who choose this line of work are more predisposed to getting a kick from chasing problems.
- wonderwonder 4y ago
  Maybe you are just expending your willpower on things you really don't want to do? Maybe you don't want to be a programmer? Maybe go do something else. I don't know your financial situation or goals but if you can make less money maybe find something entry level in another totally unrelated field. I took a 65% paycut once because I was in the same situation as you, completely burned on my career. I took an unrelated office job and was able to thrive because I had an existing skill set (technology) that made me standout. I was able to apply programming to speed up and automate processes at my new job. A lot of this was simple MS Office macros. I started to like programming again because I was doing it out of my own choice, no one expected it. I was quickly promoted becuase of this and got raises swiftly. This eventually led to the company allowing me to start my own company and build them a saas that they paid me for every month for a decade even after I left. I found I enjoyed development again. [ Years later, I found out, I just enjoy developing for myself but that's another story :) ]
  - Order 4y ago
    Incredible story, thanks for sharing.
  - bruce343434 4y ago
    > I just enjoy developing for myself That seems to be the main issue. I tried sysadmin for a while, it was more varied than a swe role and I enjoyed it more, but after a while it still became "boring" and mentally unbearable. I like writing software for myself however. I've had this issue since school. And as soon as a subject is done with, and the pressure of "have to" is relieved, I actually start to give a shit about it. By then however, I had already gotten a bad grade on the exam. I'm probably some kind of neurodivergent. Not sure what exactly is "wrong" with me, although I've had plenty of "professional" help.
    - wonderwonder 4y ago
      Respectfully its going to be like this forever unless you decide to make a major change. This will be your next 60 years. Or it can be different in a few weeks / months. One idea, may not be your cup of tea though... I don't know your situation as far as family. Have you considered joining the military? It provides structure, a million different career paths, travel, comradery and physical fitness. Plus a pension if you stay in for 20 years. On top of that there are multiple branches to choose from depending on your wants. If I had reached burn out in my twenties, I would have joined the military.
- sandworm101 4y ago
  >> Feels like my entire life my "willpower" stat has been near zero. Things can go the other way too. Too much willpower and you find yourself at work Sunday morning because, unlike everyone else, you didn't raise hell about not working weekends. Then you get an angry email from your boss saying that the fiscal year is ending and you haven't used all your vacation days yet. We all must find a happy middle between just walking away from all work, and the inability to ever walk away.
- matheusmoreira 4y ago
  > I don't care about php, I don't care about their legacy codebase, I don't care about their bugs. > Literally couldn't bring myself to do these tasks. Nobody would bring themselves to do these tasks if the corporations weren't paying for it!
  - karmakaze 4y ago
    As an aside, PHP and TypeScript are the only popular non-FP languages I know that support ad-hoc union types: e.g. private int|float $foo;
    - maleldil 4y ago
      Python supports `Union[int, float]` or `int | float` after 3.10.
    - bruce343434 4y ago
      These languages are dynamic at their core. Add in the weird edgecases that result from automatic conversions/coersion, and their type systems are a joke. In any case, the code I was working from was still from the "docstring comments as types"-era.
- hanniabu 4y ago
  From anecdotal experience, this sounds like a gut bacteria issue. Do you tend to have constipation or diarrhea?
  - bruce343434 4y ago
    Oh what the hell, here goes nothing. I've haven't had constipation or diarrhea per se, although the consistency was always a bit softer and stickier than desired. Daily yoghurt consumption as a gut-probiotic has fixed this problem for me, although I still have to guard my sugar intake. High sugar intake destroys my gut biome (or rather, replaces it with sugar-eaters). Stressful days also seem to wreak havoc on my digestive system, e.g. the day of a job interview. Haven't found a fix for that yet, beyond mentally letting go (easier said than done sometimes).
    - hanniabu 4y ago
      Might be worth asking a gastroenterologist for a hydrogen/methane breath test. Sugar sensitivity can be a red flag for early SIBO, and full blown SIBO is something that you'd definitely want to avoid if possible since it's difficult resolve and many aren't successful.
      - bruce343434 4y ago
        I think it's more likely a side-effect of neurodivergence. I don't identify with the symptoms that google spit out, and autism is known to be correlated to a "mistuned" gut. I have been diagnosed with asperger, although that diagnosis has since been rescinded (no diagnosis to replace it however). All I can say for sure is that there is a deviation from normal in the way my brain works. And when I say high sugar intake, I truly do mean high. I can and will eat ~500g of candy in one sitting if I have unfettered access to it.
  - wonderwonder 4y ago
    I love the unexpected directions HN threads can take :)
- haswell 4y ago
  I've struggled with this for most of my life, and recently went on sabbatical when I, too, saw myself no longer able to perform, and I took myself out of the game before my personal struggles had a chance to force me out. I think the post is giving questionable advice about the role of willpower in making the right choices. I think it is advising the use of willpower for challenges that may be better addressed in other ways. If "life is a game", and willpower is a jetpack with limited fuel, the piece reads like a strategy guide that tells you how to best use your jetpack to go about routine tasks, and focuses on preservation of fuel to ensure you can keep using the jetpack for those tasks. It fails to ask the question: is a jetpack the right tool in the first place? Is the preservation of fuel just sidestepping a deeper and more fundamental issue? Should you really be using a jetpack to ascend a few flights of stairs? I see my collapse at work as partly due to a misapplication of willpower to surmount obstacles that could be best bypassed by navigating around or through those obstacles instead of assuming that the only option is up and over. This was a perspective that I could not see while I was in the situation, but as I've gained more critical distance, I've started to realize that lack of willpower was not the primary problem. Everyone is different of course, but for me, establishing a mindfulness meditation habit in the morning and then building a solid core routine of daily habits around that and around tested cognitive approaches to reframing problems has been a much more sustainable path. I think of it as priming my mind to make hard decisions with less effort, thus reducing the need for willpower in the first place. And the impact has really felt magical. Things I could hardly convince myself to do even after mustering every bit of willpower suddenly started to become automatic and effortless - no willpower required. This started with the most basic of things: doing the dishes regularly, eating better foods, going to bed earlier, etc. This habit loop has a cascading positive effect. Better sleep led to better sessions of mindfulness and more moments of experiential insight. This in turn led to even more pronounced effects and less "limbic friction" for daily tasks. The effect doesn't seem to be that you gain more willpower, but that the willpower required to complete a task is reduced drastically, because your brain has seen more clearly the cost/benefit of each possible path. I suddenly found myself digging in to some tasks and problems that I'd been avoiding for months/years. I suddenly found myself believing that this set of foundational habits would become the core of my next work endeavor. I should disclaim that I'm still very much mid-journey, but I've done the willpower thing and failed. Cognitive approaches that change how your brain weighs decisions seems far more sustainable, and leaves the jetpack ready for when you really do need to scale the side of a cliff.
- jrm4 4y ago
  Yeah, I liked most of this but "willpower" is a dangerous concept to me. I mostly believe it's a useless and terrible way to frame this sort of thing; it engenders guilt without helping. Lack of willpower is really just "right now, your body can't seem to see the value in what you're theoretically supposed to do." There are two ways of dealing with it, one might be "no, seriously, this sucks and is pointless, so just DONT DO IT." The other is usually, find a way to trick yourself. Play little games, timers, whatever. Just understand that "is there something wrong with me" is a trap. There isn't, you just have to figure out the trick.
  - Waterluvian 4y ago
    Coping mechanisms are often helpful. But shouldn’t be used to evade recognizing and possibly addressing the underlying issues. Sometimes there is physiologically or psychologically something wrong.
  - em-bee 4y ago
    you could rename willpower with energy and get to a similar point, but at least for me, i feel willpower is what is driving me throughout the day. i don't see where the guilt should come from? if i run out of willpower or energy i need to rest and relax. every evening i reach that point. why should i feel guilty about that? there is nothing wrong with willpower running out. when i reach that point i know that i deserve a rest. decision fatigue is another aspect of this. to many decisions to make and you are getting tired of that. i solve that by automating many things. (like watching tv or listening to books, i have them on a schedule, and the only time i need to make a decision is when i need to find something new to watch which happens every few months.
- logicalmonster 4y ago
  What's your thought process behind quitting rather than just continuing to phone it in until you get fired so you can collect unemployment?
  - bruce343434 4y ago
    Honor and dignity. I don't feel good about noticeably producing underwhelming work, which was stressing me out and deleterious to my mental state. In any case I departed with mutual understanding, and I was told that I was welcome to apply again if I felt better in the future.
andypitech 4y ago
[flagged]
- PaulRobinson 4y ago
  Can you link me to your comparative review of the bible and other holy texts? How did you benchmark? I’m particularly keen to see how Buddhism baked off against Rastafarianism in your objective analysis.
  - andypitech 4y ago
    Thanks Paul. I wasn't actually making a comparative religions comment, I was making a comment about where I take my life philosophy from instead of Oli Emberton. But yeah I have done some of that just haven't written about it. I'm sure others could do that better than me.
mahathu 4y ago
What's up with freaking programmers of all the people in the world thinking they're in a position to give far-reaching life like this? Of course my perception is biased because this profession is overrepresented here but these kinds of posts keep popping up from time to time and reading advice on how to live your life from someone who spends all their time in front of a computer screen is so cringe. Even the wikipedia (lol) source he cited on "Ego depletion" has an entire section questioning the external validity and reproducibility of that concept. From https://oliveremberton.com/about/ https://oliveremberton.com/about/ > Not naturally in tune with people’s feelings and reactions Yeah dude, I wonder why. Go write a blog post about it. https://oliveremberton.com/2013/how-do-i-figure-out-what-to-do-in-life/ https://oliveremberton.com/2013/how-do-i-figure-out-what-to-... That photoshopped picture of Bill Gates holding a potato is genuinely funny though, lol.
- hermannj314 4y ago
  I think advice of how to live a life well can come from anyone. You don't have to accept everything, but people with lives and personalities you don't entirely mirror can offer amazing insights into your own.
- doix 4y ago
  Anyone can publish anything online, that's the beauty of the internet. There's nothing controversial in the writing, tl;dr where you spend your time has an effect on how your life turns out and some examples. You never know the effect your writing will have on someone. Someone might read that post, something in the way it's written will cause an epiphany and that person's life will get better. There's no reason to be so negative :).
- xwdv 4y ago
  It’s worse than taking life advice from another common kind of source: a victim. Victims are the worst, they become wholly engulfed by their personal tragedy and shape their world view and strategy for life around it, producing a twisted, pessimistic interpretation of how to live a decent life. And people listen to victims, because with time they get better and better at perfecting their backstory so that it hits all the right emotions and amplifies their victimhood. They are naturally viral. Being the victim thus becomes their security blanket, their shield from any criticism about anything else they do in life. It’s intoxicating. But also exhausting, because a victim will feel compelled to lash out at anyone who may call their motives into question, or simply doesn’t agree with their perspective. And some people are victims, and they don’t even know it. I see such victims, all the time.
diceduckmonk 4y ago
First thing that came to mind was the Youtube Channel Casually Explained. They have a whole series there about life being a video game, too. https://www.youtube.com/@CasuallyExplained https://www.youtube.com/@CasuallyExplained
- em-bee 4y ago
  this is the one: Casually Explained: Evolution III - Life as a Video Game https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWIi6Pytde8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWIi6Pytde8
PaulRobinson 4y ago
If Life is a game, it’s worth remembering no strategy saves you from Game Over. It only enhances how you get there and delays it. There are no save points, no new lives. You can change strategy late, but some decisions are irreversible and you need to make sure you want the game to play out that way before you commit.
- tarotuser 4y ago
  Every decision is irreversible. Some decisions you can revisit and choose the other, later.
  - PaulRobinson 4y ago
    Ending your life isn’t a reversible decision. Taking a drug that permanently damages your heart, lungs or even liver, often isn’t. Dangerous sports need risk analysis, and failing to do that increases the chance of an irreversible result. Having kids is not reversible - if you change your mind six months in, you don’t get the same outcomes for the rest of your life as if you had never had them in the first place. It’s not consequence-free, whatever route you take from there. You might be ok with downsides and risks associated with a decision when you make, but it doesn’t mean the decision is reversible. Some decisions (“should I move my family to a foreign country?”), have greater consequences and less reversibility than others (“shall I have an extra slice of toast this morning?”). I also want to stress something I wish I’d grasped when I was younger: when you’re 25 you get to experiment more with the big stuff than you do when you’re 35 or 45. And that time passes fast. At 45 you will not have the same degrees of consequence-free reversible decision making you had when you were 25. But there are still decisions you make at 25 that will stick with you forever, no matter what. Choose your friends and lifestyle carefully.
    - tarotuser 4y ago
      I think you misread a word. I said that every decision is irreversible, not reversible. Every last one. No exceptions. Some things can be reviewed and done again, but again, those retries are also irreversible. Just that most choices we do, even though being irreversible, are of little consequence. Like, there's not much impact between eating fried chicken vs pizza, or deciding between 2 movies. But... How does one unwatch a movie, or uneat pizza? Simply put, we can't. Hence irreversible. Note that decide's root is -cide ,or kill. To decide is to kill a certain future or class of futures. That's a very interesting, yet often used term without realizing its root is of death.
getpoked 4y ago
Life of the upper middle class american male is a game the blog post.
- mellosouls 4y ago
  I checked his Twitter. He's English. I checked the FAQ, it had this quote: "I don’t have all of life’s answers. I write about what I know; what you don’t see is all of the things that I don’t know." I haven't looked into his class background but I'd say so far your appraisal isn't looking completely Sherlock Holmesish.
_osorin_ 4y ago
"A tired, irritable, unskilled player is not appealing, and probably shouldn’t be looking for a relationship". "See how psychology just helped you become both rich and attractive?". I don't know, this article is a no from me. I believe there is more to life than chasing the presented "great ambitions" and this article doesn't reflect that.
- redeux 4y ago
  You’re right, much of this blog post is about winning the game of life in a western capitalist society. I don’t think that changes the fundamental message though, which is that your skills, experiences, and location are major factors in your overall success.
  - kwere 4y ago
    >"A tired, irritable, unskilled player is not appealing, and probably shouldn’t be looking for a relationship". >much of this blog post is about winning the game of life in a western capitalist society Thats true for most human societies, starting from hunter gatherers, where being unproductive to the group meant being clubbed during sleep, or farming societies where being unproductive meant easily starvation and social esclusion. People who live in welfare states tend to have it good, usually beyond their means as most things are subsidized at a loss. Thats not the norm in any accountable society. We westerners have it easy
- lytefm 4y ago
  Don't take everything in this article absolutely literal, then it's quite nice. > A tired, irritable, unskilled player is not appealing, and probably shouldn’t be looking for a relationship. It's obviously an exaggeration, but it has a fair point. Applies mainly to young men, less to young women though because they play quite a different dating game. Working hard on becoming attractive rather than expecting to get interest from women "because you're such a nice person" isn't bad advice. Of course you should still try, but without expecting much. > See how psychology just helped you become both rich and attractive? It's even better. Learning just a bit about psychology, understanding yourself and others is also useful for: - overcoming bad times and habits - helping yourself and others - feeling better overall - solving conflicts - making friends - figuring out what to do with your life Psychology is probably the best meta-knowledge to have.
barrysteve 4y ago
Ah the 2010s, when people lusted over what life meant and fun descriptive articles like this tickled a little bit of joy. Now people really want well structured, knowledgable examples that support emotions they like. Horses for courses I guess, time sure has gone quickly.
- lytefm 4y ago
  True, I was surprised [1] how many offended, negative comments this article got. I automatically read it with a bit of tongue-in-cheek but with some valid points, not as "this is the ultimate life advice". [1] well not really. Times truly have changed.
SeattleAltruist 4y ago
Sad that the goal here seem to be wealth and "ladies." How empty. What makes life meaningful and beautiful is often random and chaotic but ultimately stems from helping others. Don't skip Lao-Tzu et al.
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photochemsyn 4y ago
This is terrible advice and analysis - but let's just run with it. If life is a game and dying with the most money and/or children is the optional end state, well, here are some considerations: 1) The accident of birth is the greatest uncontrolled variable that affects long-term outcome. If you enter the game as the child of wealthy parents in a wealthy society, your chances of 'winning' are probably about 100X higher than if born to poor parents in a poor society. There are a range of other possibilities, of course - poor parents in a wealthy society (more opportunities), wealthy parents in a poor society (more risks), etc. If it's a game, it's hardly a level playing field. Then there's genetics to consider, which nobody really understands that well, though most seem to claim to. 2) As you move over the playing board, luck will play a huge role in the outcomes, certainly as much as skill will. The ability to discern between people that you should affiliate with and those you should not is certainly among the most important skills to develop. Another one is self-discipline - even if you happen to have above-average intelligence it won't count for much if you don't steadily apply it (though burnout followed by crash is the other side of that coin). Recommend listening to Carl Orloff's O Fortuna at this point (English & Latin): https://youtu.be/O5b7tgkdFH0 https://youtu.be/O5b7tgkdFH0 3. As far as having lots of children, and winning the genetic population dynamics part of the game, those fertility doctors who replaced all their client's sperm with their own come to mind. Donald Cline is the most notorious, but there are several others. Cheat codes? Seems to be some pathology in this 'life is a game' outlook. Life isn't really a game, a game is an entertaining diversion that can sometimes help develop one's skills. See 'the importance of play in childhood development'. Some people never exit this state, and we we have lots of overgrown children running around these days, starting wars and playing boardroom dominance games and cheating on their partners and so on. The transition from childhood to adult is not very well-managed in modern society. As far as practical advice, training and developing your mind and body is never a bad idea. Regardless, all roads lead to the grave - what kind of game is that? Life is a mystery, that's a better view IMO.
- kiba 4y ago
  1) The accident of birth is the greatest uncontrolled variable that affects long-term outcome. If you enter the game as the child of wealthy parents in a wealthy society, your chances of 'winning' are probably about 100X higher than if born to poor parents in a poor society. There are a range of other possibilities, of course - poor parents in a wealthy society (more opportunities), wealthy parents in a poor society (more risks), etc. If it's a game, it's hardly a level playing field. Then there's genetics to consider, which nobody really understands that well, though most seem to claim to. Sure, we're all accidents of birth and it's not a playing field, but that doesn't lead to actionable advice.
melenaboija 4y ago
"cooking+dancing+psychology=ladies magnet" > See how psychology just helped you become both rich and attractive? You should study that. Oh yeah, it has been a while since I have seen such a clear statement of white male goals.
- selfhoster11 4y ago
  Because non-white males do not ever have the goal of attracting a woman, right.
  - dudul 4y ago
    It is a common rule to always prefix "male" with "white" when trying to criticize men, otherwise you end up lumping in all non-white males and criticizing them too. Obviously a gigantic faux-pas in the modern days, you could end up being accused of racism while all you wanted to do was vilify men. I'm actually surprised the parent didn't feel the need to be a bit more specific to avoid all criticisms: cis-white-male is usually the accepted term. Take this with a grain of salt though. "Cis white male" has the clear inconvenient of including disabled cis white males, which we can't do if our intent is to bash on an entire portion of the population. I've seen more and more the thankfully more precise term "bodyabled-cis-white-male" being used to fix this problem.
    - mock-possum 4y ago
      joke all you like but if this wasn't a white cishet male author writing content for other white cishet males then I'll eat my hat.
      - dudul 4y ago
        You forgot "able bodied".
        mock-possum 4y ago
        ah well that goes without saying, which is, of course, just another part of the problem ;]
tarotuser 4y ago
Today in "I won the lottery, and you can too by choosing my numbers". Guidance like this is rarely ever helpful, and serves as a bias of n=1 cause it 'worked for me'. There's some obvious things like "drinking and smoking are bad". And there's good things like "time is your most important asset". But suggestions past those, are well just completely subjective. Like the recommendation to move. How do you tell what a community is like before you're moved there? And most of us can't afford to move around the country chasing some illusory 'maybe'.
sigmonsays 4y ago
dont waste your time w/ this author
andsoitis 4y ago
Life is a game... with one big exception... death.
- falcolas 4y ago
  Plus, the character traits (positive and negative) you start with is a Gacha with no re-rolls.
  - zeroonetwothree 4y ago
    Life is a roguelike you only play once
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MKGoogle 4y ago
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mo_42 4y ago
It’s a nice little read but it completely disregards that people can choose many ways of living. You can become an artist immersed into working your entire life in a small chamber eating bread and drinking water. Or a successful entrepreneur in a large mansion. You may become fascinated by the world of literature and read all the great works, … In a video game, the path and success is programmed whereas in life you have to find and choose it.
ultra_nick 4y ago
It's surprising how many people are missing the main point of the article. Considering the long term consequences of your decisions will help you reach your goals. That should be self evident and uncontroversial. Don't over-analyze specific examples or metaphors. That was an enjoyable read with helpful basic advice for most people.
Euro_User 4y ago
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Euro_User 4y ago
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ParetoOptimal 4y ago
Can anyone else not ignore all of the characters being white after reading: > Life begins when you’re assigned a random character and circumstances: I feel like that framing would ideally make most think "hmm... these characters don't look so random".
- mock-possum 4y ago
  and all the sex and romance is hetero boooooooriiiiiiing and content is just preachy overall. Not a fan.
rubicon33 4y ago
Lately I've had a really hard time recharging. I sleep well every night, I exercise, I don't use drugs or alcohol. I relax, watch movies, and play single player games from the past (low stress stuff!). I want to work but more so than ever before I am lacking that spark to sit down and hammer out some code. I guess it's burnout / boredom, but my normal techniques for combatting it aren't working!
- atom058 4y ago
  I have this issues as well. I sometimes find that I need to disconnect from mental tasks to recover. For example: - Stop listening to music or podcast while you exercise - Go for "silent walks" outside - Meditation Sometimes we need to find "the other battery to recharge", so to say. For me, just resting isn't fulfilling that need.
23576576 4y ago
I am still very happy and I will still keep testifying since 2003 till date, This was eventually the best thing that has ever happened in my life, at first I dreamed to be trained as a nurse in my tender age but life was a little bit tough for me and my family, though I was very Young I was looking for the best way to make money because I was planning a better future for my self and my family! So on this faithful day I was doing some research on the internet on how to become a millionaire there I meant someone comment, testifying how a particular voodoo doctor help him won the lottery so I just copy the doctor email. Then was looking and getting reviews about the lottery! I later decided to send him a message and told him that I needed lottery winning numbers. So he assured me that he's going to make me win but at first I doubted him but still decide to take the risk on my own, after I've done all he asked of me, he gave me the lottery winning numbers and when the draws were out to my biggest surprise I won the national lottery jackpot of (£1.8m) at the age of 16! A big thanks to you Dr Marcus for making me the wealthy woman that I am today. I owe everything to you and to your gods If you need his help below is his contact information: drmacusspellcaster@gmail.com or whatapp:+2348110492028 and he will be there for you.

143 points by rzk 4y ago

Feels like my entire life my "willpower" stat has been near zero. I find it so unbelievably difficult to do things I "have" to do. And yet for things that for some reason I have intrinsic motivation for, I will stay up past 4am without effort to do more of it. No, ritalin or whatever don't help, they just turn me into a zombie with a dry mouth and a headache. I recently had to quit my job because I wasn't performing well. I could see the writing on the wall and decided to leave before getting fired. I just could never be assed to pick up the stupid tickets. I don't care about php, I don't care about their legacy codebase, I don't care about their bugs. Literally couldn't bring myself to do these tasks.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
tunnuz 4y ago
I’m sorry to hear that, that sounds really hard. Are you talking about this stuff with someone that can help you?
dhbradshaw 4y ago
If you can afford it, following the intrinsic motivation may be exactly what you need to do. Sometimes I'm in the position where I want or need to do something even though I'm dreading it or am not excited about. A few things have helped me when that's the case: 1. Coaxing myself rather than trying to crack the whip. - Finding what's interesting about the task - Thinking through how it might be made interesting or easy - Thinking through whether I can automate it away - Starting on a tiny piece without committing to finishing it right away - Lowering my requirements on quality for a first try to basically zero - Developing a habit around the task with a reward like a streak or a check mark 2. Writing out my thoughts - Why do I want to take on this task? - Why don't I want to take on this task? If I can drill down on both of those maybe I can come to some kind of resolution Anyway, a lot of what works depends on what's broken in the current situation. I think that sometimes your desire to avoid something is right and sometimes it needs to be worked around. But in either case it can be at least heard with thoughtfulness and compassion. There's probably insight in the feeling that you don't want to miss out on. On the other hand, I think it's a mistake to treat these feelings as the only thing either. Often even strong feelings are temporary and situational and getting better information or just letting time pass or building up a feeling of success from small wins will let the storm move on.
- rpastuszak 4y ago
  > If you can afford it, following the intrinsic motivation may be exactly what you need to do. and > Anyway, a lot of what works depends on what's broken in the current situation. I think that sometimes your desire to avoid something is right and sometimes it needs to be worked around. But in either case it can be at least heard with thoughtfulness and compassion. Thanks for sharing these examples! I'm just wrapping an article which I think you and the OP would find interesting as it deals with this very problem. My goal is to help people see procrastination, laziness and play in a more useful manner. I am terrible at working on things I don’t give a shit about. The list of those things extends with every passing year. And, I realised very late (mid 30s) how much stress was caused by forcing myself to brute force this problem instead of trying to understand it better. To paraphrase Daniel Ariely: we’re irrational creatures, but the beautiful part is that we’re predictably irrational. Know your flaws and set up systems to help account for them. In other words: it’s not your fault that you feel a certain way, but it’s your responsibility to act when you can. It'll be ready by Tuesday (if you're interested, drop me a line and I'll send you the link: hello@<my site domain from the profile page>).
  - rpastuszak 4y ago
    I've just published the article. Here's the link and the discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35068319 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35068319
  - jstummbillig 4y ago
    Off the top of your head, do you have a strong sense of what work would interest you? And, if so, why you have not been working on it or working towards working on it?
    - rpastuszak 4y ago
      Learning and creating things which people enjoy, regardless of the medium (design, code, writing). (It used to be publishing, then helping small startups grow, then privacy and now a cross section of mental health and tech.) Ideal: 1. Build a small thing solving an actual problem 2. Tell as story and teach people something using the thing I build: https://sonnet.io/posts/sit/ https://sonnet.io/posts/sit/ Here's how not to approach this problem: I had spent ages thinking about this, or rather justifying my existing choices. I literally had SWOT analysis charts describing different paths I could take. The main issue was that I was approaching this from a purely rational point of view. But, I had to first learn about the emotional component of my decisions and biases. I grew up without financial security so that also tends to cloud my judgement (e.g. by comparing myself to people who work more stressful jobs). I was busy, overworked and really stressed then (but well paid!). Scaling down was very hard, in terms of self-judgement, but my health has improved drastically. I don't have time to write about this here, but in short: I think that many people who end up in engineering careers tend to get caught in a situation where they keep getting rewarded for solving problems, but eventually lose the context of what kinds of problems they're solving. For _example_: you start with your first SWE gig in an area you like, move to a tech lead/architect, then to a CTO working on a much meatier/"serious" problems. But as soon as you step back from the game progression graph (intentionally or not) you realise you lost the context, you don't give a shit about adtech or crypto, or marketing, or agile. You are really good at something you actually don't give a shit about. I don't think that SWEs are the only to end up with this issue, but that people who choose this line of work are more predisposed to getting a kick from chasing problems.
wonderwonder 4y ago
Maybe you are just expending your willpower on things you really don't want to do? Maybe you don't want to be a programmer? Maybe go do something else. I don't know your financial situation or goals but if you can make less money maybe find something entry level in another totally unrelated field. I took a 65% paycut once because I was in the same situation as you, completely burned on my career. I took an unrelated office job and was able to thrive because I had an existing skill set (technology) that made me standout. I was able to apply programming to speed up and automate processes at my new job. A lot of this was simple MS Office macros. I started to like programming again because I was doing it out of my own choice, no one expected it. I was quickly promoted becuase of this and got raises swiftly. This eventually led to the company allowing me to start my own company and build them a saas that they paid me for every month for a decade even after I left. I found I enjoyed development again. [ Years later, I found out, I just enjoy developing for myself but that's another story :) ]
- Order 4y ago
  Incredible story, thanks for sharing.
- bruce343434 4y ago
  > I just enjoy developing for myself That seems to be the main issue. I tried sysadmin for a while, it was more varied than a swe role and I enjoyed it more, but after a while it still became "boring" and mentally unbearable. I like writing software for myself however. I've had this issue since school. And as soon as a subject is done with, and the pressure of "have to" is relieved, I actually start to give a shit about it. By then however, I had already gotten a bad grade on the exam. I'm probably some kind of neurodivergent. Not sure what exactly is "wrong" with me, although I've had plenty of "professional" help.
  - wonderwonder 4y ago
    Respectfully its going to be like this forever unless you decide to make a major change. This will be your next 60 years. Or it can be different in a few weeks / months. One idea, may not be your cup of tea though... I don't know your situation as far as family. Have you considered joining the military? It provides structure, a million different career paths, travel, comradery and physical fitness. Plus a pension if you stay in for 20 years. On top of that there are multiple branches to choose from depending on your wants. If I had reached burn out in my twenties, I would have joined the military.
sandworm101 4y ago
>> Feels like my entire life my "willpower" stat has been near zero. Things can go the other way too. Too much willpower and you find yourself at work Sunday morning because, unlike everyone else, you didn't raise hell about not working weekends. Then you get an angry email from your boss saying that the fiscal year is ending and you haven't used all your vacation days yet. We all must find a happy middle between just walking away from all work, and the inability to ever walk away.
matheusmoreira 4y ago
> I don't care about php, I don't care about their legacy codebase, I don't care about their bugs. > Literally couldn't bring myself to do these tasks. Nobody would bring themselves to do these tasks if the corporations weren't paying for it!
- karmakaze 4y ago
  As an aside, PHP and TypeScript are the only popular non-FP languages I know that support ad-hoc union types: e.g. private int|float $foo;
  - maleldil 4y ago
    Python supports `Union[int, float]` or `int | float` after 3.10.
  - bruce343434 4y ago
    These languages are dynamic at their core. Add in the weird edgecases that result from automatic conversions/coersion, and their type systems are a joke. In any case, the code I was working from was still from the "docstring comments as types"-era.
hanniabu 4y ago
From anecdotal experience, this sounds like a gut bacteria issue. Do you tend to have constipation or diarrhea?
- bruce343434 4y ago
  Oh what the hell, here goes nothing. I've haven't had constipation or diarrhea per se, although the consistency was always a bit softer and stickier than desired. Daily yoghurt consumption as a gut-probiotic has fixed this problem for me, although I still have to guard my sugar intake. High sugar intake destroys my gut biome (or rather, replaces it with sugar-eaters). Stressful days also seem to wreak havoc on my digestive system, e.g. the day of a job interview. Haven't found a fix for that yet, beyond mentally letting go (easier said than done sometimes).
  - hanniabu 4y ago
    Might be worth asking a gastroenterologist for a hydrogen/methane breath test. Sugar sensitivity can be a red flag for early SIBO, and full blown SIBO is something that you'd definitely want to avoid if possible since it's difficult resolve and many aren't successful.
    - bruce343434 4y ago
      I think it's more likely a side-effect of neurodivergence. I don't identify with the symptoms that google spit out, and autism is known to be correlated to a "mistuned" gut. I have been diagnosed with asperger, although that diagnosis has since been rescinded (no diagnosis to replace it however). All I can say for sure is that there is a deviation from normal in the way my brain works. And when I say high sugar intake, I truly do mean high. I can and will eat ~500g of candy in one sitting if I have unfettered access to it.
- wonderwonder 4y ago
  I love the unexpected directions HN threads can take :)
haswell 4y ago
I've struggled with this for most of my life, and recently went on sabbatical when I, too, saw myself no longer able to perform, and I took myself out of the game before my personal struggles had a chance to force me out. I think the post is giving questionable advice about the role of willpower in making the right choices. I think it is advising the use of willpower for challenges that may be better addressed in other ways. If "life is a game", and willpower is a jetpack with limited fuel, the piece reads like a strategy guide that tells you how to best use your jetpack to go about routine tasks, and focuses on preservation of fuel to ensure you can keep using the jetpack for those tasks. It fails to ask the question: is a jetpack the right tool in the first place? Is the preservation of fuel just sidestepping a deeper and more fundamental issue? Should you really be using a jetpack to ascend a few flights of stairs? I see my collapse at work as partly due to a misapplication of willpower to surmount obstacles that could be best bypassed by navigating around or through those obstacles instead of assuming that the only option is up and over. This was a perspective that I could not see while I was in the situation, but as I've gained more critical distance, I've started to realize that lack of willpower was not the primary problem. Everyone is different of course, but for me, establishing a mindfulness meditation habit in the morning and then building a solid core routine of daily habits around that and around tested cognitive approaches to reframing problems has been a much more sustainable path. I think of it as priming my mind to make hard decisions with less effort, thus reducing the need for willpower in the first place. And the impact has really felt magical. Things I could hardly convince myself to do even after mustering every bit of willpower suddenly started to become automatic and effortless - no willpower required. This started with the most basic of things: doing the dishes regularly, eating better foods, going to bed earlier, etc. This habit loop has a cascading positive effect. Better sleep led to better sessions of mindfulness and more moments of experiential insight. This in turn led to even more pronounced effects and less "limbic friction" for daily tasks. The effect doesn't seem to be that you gain more willpower, but that the willpower required to complete a task is reduced drastically, because your brain has seen more clearly the cost/benefit of each possible path. I suddenly found myself digging in to some tasks and problems that I'd been avoiding for months/years. I suddenly found myself believing that this set of foundational habits would become the core of my next work endeavor. I should disclaim that I'm still very much mid-journey, but I've done the willpower thing and failed. Cognitive approaches that change how your brain weighs decisions seems far more sustainable, and leaves the jetpack ready for when you really do need to scale the side of a cliff.
jrm4 4y ago
Yeah, I liked most of this but "willpower" is a dangerous concept to me. I mostly believe it's a useless and terrible way to frame this sort of thing; it engenders guilt without helping. Lack of willpower is really just "right now, your body can't seem to see the value in what you're theoretically supposed to do." There are two ways of dealing with it, one might be "no, seriously, this sucks and is pointless, so just DONT DO IT." The other is usually, find a way to trick yourself. Play little games, timers, whatever. Just understand that "is there something wrong with me" is a trap. There isn't, you just have to figure out the trick.
- Waterluvian 4y ago
  Coping mechanisms are often helpful. But shouldn’t be used to evade recognizing and possibly addressing the underlying issues. Sometimes there is physiologically or psychologically something wrong.
- em-bee 4y ago
  you could rename willpower with energy and get to a similar point, but at least for me, i feel willpower is what is driving me throughout the day. i don't see where the guilt should come from? if i run out of willpower or energy i need to rest and relax. every evening i reach that point. why should i feel guilty about that? there is nothing wrong with willpower running out. when i reach that point i know that i deserve a rest. decision fatigue is another aspect of this. to many decisions to make and you are getting tired of that. i solve that by automating many things. (like watching tv or listening to books, i have them on a schedule, and the only time i need to make a decision is when i need to find something new to watch which happens every few months.
logicalmonster 4y ago
What's your thought process behind quitting rather than just continuing to phone it in until you get fired so you can collect unemployment?
- bruce343434 4y ago
  Honor and dignity. I don't feel good about noticeably producing underwhelming work, which was stressing me out and deleterious to my mental state. In any case I departed with mutual understanding, and I was told that I was welcome to apply again if I felt better in the future.

andypitech 4y ago

[flagged]

PaulRobinson 4y ago
Can you link me to your comparative review of the bible and other holy texts? How did you benchmark? I’m particularly keen to see how Buddhism baked off against Rastafarianism in your objective analysis.
- andypitech 4y ago
  Thanks Paul. I wasn't actually making a comparative religions comment, I was making a comment about where I take my life philosophy from instead of Oli Emberton. But yeah I have done some of that just haven't written about it. I'm sure others could do that better than me.

mahathu 4y ago

What's up with freaking programmers of all the people in the world thinking they're in a position to give far-reaching life like this? Of course my perception is biased because this profession is overrepresented here but these kinds of posts keep popping up from time to time and reading advice on how to live your life from someone who spends all their time in front of a computer screen is so cringe. Even the wikipedia (lol) source he cited on "Ego depletion" has an entire section questioning the external validity and reproducibility of that concept. From https://oliveremberton.com/about/ https://oliveremberton.com/about/ > Not naturally in tune with people’s feelings and reactions Yeah dude, I wonder why. Go write a blog post about it. https://oliveremberton.com/2013/how-do-i-figure-out-what-to-do-in-life/ https://oliveremberton.com/2013/how-do-i-figure-out-what-to-... That photoshopped picture of Bill Gates holding a potato is genuinely funny though, lol.

hermannj314 4y ago
I think advice of how to live a life well can come from anyone. You don't have to accept everything, but people with lives and personalities you don't entirely mirror can offer amazing insights into your own.
doix 4y ago
Anyone can publish anything online, that's the beauty of the internet. There's nothing controversial in the writing, tl;dr where you spend your time has an effect on how your life turns out and some examples. You never know the effect your writing will have on someone. Someone might read that post, something in the way it's written will cause an epiphany and that person's life will get better. There's no reason to be so negative :).
xwdv 4y ago
It’s worse than taking life advice from another common kind of source: a victim. Victims are the worst, they become wholly engulfed by their personal tragedy and shape their world view and strategy for life around it, producing a twisted, pessimistic interpretation of how to live a decent life. And people listen to victims, because with time they get better and better at perfecting their backstory so that it hits all the right emotions and amplifies their victimhood. They are naturally viral. Being the victim thus becomes their security blanket, their shield from any criticism about anything else they do in life. It’s intoxicating. But also exhausting, because a victim will feel compelled to lash out at anyone who may call their motives into question, or simply doesn’t agree with their perspective. And some people are victims, and they don’t even know it. I see such victims, all the time.

diceduckmonk 4y ago

First thing that came to mind was the Youtube Channel Casually Explained. They have a whole series there about life being a video game, too. https://www.youtube.com/@CasuallyExplained https://www.youtube.com/@CasuallyExplained

em-bee 4y ago
this is the one: Casually Explained: Evolution III - Life as a Video Game https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWIi6Pytde8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWIi6Pytde8

PaulRobinson 4y ago

If Life is a game, it’s worth remembering no strategy saves you from Game Over. It only enhances how you get there and delays it. There are no save points, no new lives. You can change strategy late, but some decisions are irreversible and you need to make sure you want the game to play out that way before you commit.

tarotuser 4y ago
Every decision is irreversible. Some decisions you can revisit and choose the other, later.
- PaulRobinson 4y ago
  Ending your life isn’t a reversible decision. Taking a drug that permanently damages your heart, lungs or even liver, often isn’t. Dangerous sports need risk analysis, and failing to do that increases the chance of an irreversible result. Having kids is not reversible - if you change your mind six months in, you don’t get the same outcomes for the rest of your life as if you had never had them in the first place. It’s not consequence-free, whatever route you take from there. You might be ok with downsides and risks associated with a decision when you make, but it doesn’t mean the decision is reversible. Some decisions (“should I move my family to a foreign country?”), have greater consequences and less reversibility than others (“shall I have an extra slice of toast this morning?”). I also want to stress something I wish I’d grasped when I was younger: when you’re 25 you get to experiment more with the big stuff than you do when you’re 35 or 45. And that time passes fast. At 45 you will not have the same degrees of consequence-free reversible decision making you had when you were 25. But there are still decisions you make at 25 that will stick with you forever, no matter what. Choose your friends and lifestyle carefully.
  - tarotuser 4y ago
    I think you misread a word. I said that every decision is irreversible, not reversible. Every last one. No exceptions. Some things can be reviewed and done again, but again, those retries are also irreversible. Just that most choices we do, even though being irreversible, are of little consequence. Like, there's not much impact between eating fried chicken vs pizza, or deciding between 2 movies. But... How does one unwatch a movie, or uneat pizza? Simply put, we can't. Hence irreversible. Note that decide's root is -cide ,or kill. To decide is to kill a certain future or class of futures. That's a very interesting, yet often used term without realizing its root is of death.

getpoked 4y ago

Life of the upper middle class american male is a game the blog post.

mellosouls 4y ago
I checked his Twitter. He's English. I checked the FAQ, it had this quote: "I don’t have all of life’s answers. I write about what I know; what you don’t see is all of the things that I don’t know." I haven't looked into his class background but I'd say so far your appraisal isn't looking completely Sherlock Holmesish.

_osorin_ 4y ago

"A tired, irritable, unskilled player is not appealing, and probably shouldn’t be looking for a relationship". "See how psychology just helped you become both rich and attractive?". I don't know, this article is a no from me. I believe there is more to life than chasing the presented "great ambitions" and this article doesn't reflect that.

redeux 4y ago
You’re right, much of this blog post is about winning the game of life in a western capitalist society. I don’t think that changes the fundamental message though, which is that your skills, experiences, and location are major factors in your overall success.
- kwere 4y ago
  >"A tired, irritable, unskilled player is not appealing, and probably shouldn’t be looking for a relationship". >much of this blog post is about winning the game of life in a western capitalist society Thats true for most human societies, starting from hunter gatherers, where being unproductive to the group meant being clubbed during sleep, or farming societies where being unproductive meant easily starvation and social esclusion. People who live in welfare states tend to have it good, usually beyond their means as most things are subsidized at a loss. Thats not the norm in any accountable society. We westerners have it easy
lytefm 4y ago
Don't take everything in this article absolutely literal, then it's quite nice. > A tired, irritable, unskilled player is not appealing, and probably shouldn’t be looking for a relationship. It's obviously an exaggeration, but it has a fair point. Applies mainly to young men, less to young women though because they play quite a different dating game. Working hard on becoming attractive rather than expecting to get interest from women "because you're such a nice person" isn't bad advice. Of course you should still try, but without expecting much. > See how psychology just helped you become both rich and attractive? It's even better. Learning just a bit about psychology, understanding yourself and others is also useful for: - overcoming bad times and habits - helping yourself and others - feeling better overall - solving conflicts - making friends - figuring out what to do with your life Psychology is probably the best meta-knowledge to have.

barrysteve 4y ago

Ah the 2010s, when people lusted over what life meant and fun descriptive articles like this tickled a little bit of joy. Now people really want well structured, knowledgable examples that support emotions they like. Horses for courses I guess, time sure has gone quickly.

lytefm 4y ago
True, I was surprised [1] how many offended, negative comments this article got. I automatically read it with a bit of tongue-in-cheek but with some valid points, not as "this is the ultimate life advice". [1] well not really. Times truly have changed.

SeattleAltruist 4y ago

Sad that the goal here seem to be wealth and "ladies." How empty. What makes life meaningful and beautiful is often random and chaotic but ultimately stems from helping others. Don't skip Lao-Tzu et al.

deleted 4y ago

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photochemsyn 4y ago

This is terrible advice and analysis - but let's just run with it. If life is a game and dying with the most money and/or children is the optional end state, well, here are some considerations: 1) The accident of birth is the greatest uncontrolled variable that affects long-term outcome. If you enter the game as the child of wealthy parents in a wealthy society, your chances of 'winning' are probably about 100X higher than if born to poor parents in a poor society. There are a range of other possibilities, of course - poor parents in a wealthy society (more opportunities), wealthy parents in a poor society (more risks), etc. If it's a game, it's hardly a level playing field. Then there's genetics to consider, which nobody really understands that well, though most seem to claim to. 2) As you move over the playing board, luck will play a huge role in the outcomes, certainly as much as skill will. The ability to discern between people that you should affiliate with and those you should not is certainly among the most important skills to develop. Another one is self-discipline - even if you happen to have above-average intelligence it won't count for much if you don't steadily apply it (though burnout followed by crash is the other side of that coin). Recommend listening to Carl Orloff's O Fortuna at this point (English & Latin): https://youtu.be/O5b7tgkdFH0 https://youtu.be/O5b7tgkdFH0 3. As far as having lots of children, and winning the genetic population dynamics part of the game, those fertility doctors who replaced all their client's sperm with their own come to mind. Donald Cline is the most notorious, but there are several others. Cheat codes? Seems to be some pathology in this 'life is a game' outlook. Life isn't really a game, a game is an entertaining diversion that can sometimes help develop one's skills. See 'the importance of play in childhood development'. Some people never exit this state, and we we have lots of overgrown children running around these days, starting wars and playing boardroom dominance games and cheating on their partners and so on. The transition from childhood to adult is not very well-managed in modern society. As far as practical advice, training and developing your mind and body is never a bad idea. Regardless, all roads lead to the grave - what kind of game is that? Life is a mystery, that's a better view IMO.

kiba 4y ago
1) The accident of birth is the greatest uncontrolled variable that affects long-term outcome. If you enter the game as the child of wealthy parents in a wealthy society, your chances of 'winning' are probably about 100X higher than if born to poor parents in a poor society. There are a range of other possibilities, of course - poor parents in a wealthy society (more opportunities), wealthy parents in a poor society (more risks), etc. If it's a game, it's hardly a level playing field. Then there's genetics to consider, which nobody really understands that well, though most seem to claim to. Sure, we're all accidents of birth and it's not a playing field, but that doesn't lead to actionable advice.

melenaboija 4y ago

"cooking+dancing+psychology=ladies magnet" > See how psychology just helped you become both rich and attractive? You should study that. Oh yeah, it has been a while since I have seen such a clear statement of white male goals.

selfhoster11 4y ago
Because non-white males do not ever have the goal of attracting a woman, right.
- dudul 4y ago
  It is a common rule to always prefix "male" with "white" when trying to criticize men, otherwise you end up lumping in all non-white males and criticizing them too. Obviously a gigantic faux-pas in the modern days, you could end up being accused of racism while all you wanted to do was vilify men. I'm actually surprised the parent didn't feel the need to be a bit more specific to avoid all criticisms: cis-white-male is usually the accepted term. Take this with a grain of salt though. "Cis white male" has the clear inconvenient of including disabled cis white males, which we can't do if our intent is to bash on an entire portion of the population. I've seen more and more the thankfully more precise term "bodyabled-cis-white-male" being used to fix this problem.
  - mock-possum 4y ago
    joke all you like but if this wasn't a white cishet male author writing content for other white cishet males then I'll eat my hat.
    - dudul 4y ago
      You forgot "able bodied".
      - mock-possum 4y ago
        ah well that goes without saying, which is, of course, just another part of the problem ;]

tarotuser 4y ago

Today in "I won the lottery, and you can too by choosing my numbers". Guidance like this is rarely ever helpful, and serves as a bias of n=1 cause it 'worked for me'. There's some obvious things like "drinking and smoking are bad". And there's good things like "time is your most important asset". But suggestions past those, are well just completely subjective. Like the recommendation to move. How do you tell what a community is like before you're moved there? And most of us can't afford to move around the country chasing some illusory 'maybe'.

sigmonsays 4y ago

dont waste your time w/ this author

andsoitis 4y ago

Life is a game... with one big exception... death.

falcolas 4y ago
Plus, the character traits (positive and negative) you start with is a Gacha with no re-rolls.
- zeroonetwothree 4y ago
  Life is a roguelike you only play once

deleted 4y ago

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MKGoogle 4y ago

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mo_42 4y ago

It’s a nice little read but it completely disregards that people can choose many ways of living. You can become an artist immersed into working your entire life in a small chamber eating bread and drinking water. Or a successful entrepreneur in a large mansion. You may become fascinated by the world of literature and read all the great works, … In a video game, the path and success is programmed whereas in life you have to find and choose it.

ultra_nick 4y ago

It's surprising how many people are missing the main point of the article. Considering the long term consequences of your decisions will help you reach your goals. That should be self evident and uncontroversial. Don't over-analyze specific examples or metaphors. That was an enjoyable read with helpful basic advice for most people.

Euro_User 4y ago

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Euro_User 4y ago

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ParetoOptimal 4y ago

Can anyone else not ignore all of the characters being white after reading: > Life begins when you’re assigned a random character and circumstances: I feel like that framing would ideally make most think "hmm... these characters don't look so random".

mock-possum 4y ago
and all the sex and romance is hetero boooooooriiiiiiing and content is just preachy overall. Not a fan.

rubicon33 4y ago

Lately I've had a really hard time recharging. I sleep well every night, I exercise, I don't use drugs or alcohol. I relax, watch movies, and play single player games from the past (low stress stuff!). I want to work but more so than ever before I am lacking that spark to sit down and hammer out some code. I guess it's burnout / boredom, but my normal techniques for combatting it aren't working!

atom058 4y ago
I have this issues as well. I sometimes find that I need to disconnect from mental tasks to recover. For example: - Stop listening to music or podcast while you exercise - Go for "silent walks" outside - Meditation Sometimes we need to find "the other battery to recharge", so to say. For me, just resting isn't fulfilling that need.

23576576 4y ago

I am still very happy and I will still keep testifying since 2003 till date, This was eventually the best thing that has ever happened in my life, at first I dreamed to be trained as a nurse in my tender age but life was a little bit tough for me and my family, though I was very Young I was looking for the best way to make money because I was planning a better future for my self and my family! So on this faithful day I was doing some research on the internet on how to become a millionaire there I meant someone comment, testifying how a particular voodoo doctor help him won the lottery so I just copy the doctor email. Then was looking and getting reviews about the lottery! I later decided to send him a message and told him that I needed lottery winning numbers. So he assured me that he's going to make me win but at first I doubted him but still decide to take the risk on my own, after I've done all he asked of me, he gave me the lottery winning numbers and when the draws were out to my biggest surprise I won the national lottery jackpot of (£1.8m) at the age of 16! A big thanks to you Dr Marcus for making me the wealthy woman that I am today. I owe everything to you and to your gods If you need his help below is his contact information: drmacusspellcaster@gmail.com or whatapp:+2348110492028 and he will be there for you.