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In general, I like the empathetic tone of the article, and I appreciate that it addresses an emotional facet of software development. But nevertheless it trigge

In general, I like the empathetic tone of the article, and I appreciate that it addresses an emotional facet of software development. But nevertheless it triggers some little part of me w/regard to telling people what they should or should not do, or what they may be proud of. I worry for someone who reads "You also have a duty to your future self to release the project" and "...you tell yourself that you are the kind of person who ships" and takes that to mean "if you don't release it, you're failing yourself" and "you're the wrong kind of person if you don't ship." On an emotional level, I think it's better to start from a place of (unconditional!) self-love, and go from there, rather than beating yourself up because you're not meeting some blogger's expectations of how you should act. And just to be clear: I don't think the author means it that way, but that's one way it can come across, to some people, in some states-of-mind. I've generally found it more useful to phrase things like this in terms of "I" rather than "you". As in: "I had X experience when I did Y" rather than "you should do Y, so that you will feel X." It's a common mis-step in giving well-meaning advice, I find. EDIT: Also, I'm sure there are plenty of people who really do benefit from advice being given in this more pointed way, and I realize it's a bit onerous to always write and phrase things for a "safest common denominator," but I think it's worth keeping in mind, at least.

aarondf 3y ago
Nuanced and valuable feedback, that I receive. Thank you! I think your edit was basically going to be my reply, haha. It is hard to address every side of every potential topic in an article. I actually needed help softening the tone to end up with the final version you're reading today. I'm empathetic by nature so it's easy for me to write with empathy, but I'm still prone to generalizing my personal experiences!
- BeetleB 3y ago
  > You have a duty to your past self to release the project. It’s a way to honor your work and sacrifice. All the time spent on the project is time you could have spent on something else. That time was not without cost. Ouch! I strongly encourage you to read up and understand the sunk cost fallacy. In general, do not let past efforts be the guide for future decisions. I've quit a lot of projects in my life. And it was the right thing to do. Put another way, many of the valuable projects I've completed would not have been accomplished had I stuck to the projects I had sunk time into. > You also have a duty to your future self to release the project. Every time you don't release a project, you're telling yourself that you’re the kind of person who doesn't ship. If you tell yourself that every time you don't release a project, the fix is not to release the project, but to stop telling yourself these lies. Despite the strong complaints, the article isn't that bad and does have some merits.
  - aarondf 3y ago
    Glad you still liked it, despite the strong complaints! I hear your feedback, but I don't fully agree with all of it. I do understand the sunk cost fallacy quite well, but thinking about the time committed can be a useful framing to help push past the fear of releasing or drudgery of the last 10%. > If you tell yourself that every time you don't release a project, the fix is not to release the project, but to stop telling yourself these lies. I mean, if you never ship you're literally the kind of person who doesn't ship though. You can tell yourself whatever you want, but eventually you'll stop believing yourself because you know it's not true! Perhaps you'll enjoy my other piece more: Publishing your work increases your luck (https://github.com/readme/guides/publishing-your-work https://github.com/readme/guides/publishing-your-work)
    - BeetleB 3y ago
      > I mean, if you never ship you're literally the kind of person who doesn't ship though This is a bit of an "argument from extremes" fallacy. If you don't ship 90% of what you work on, but do ship the remaining 10%, then that may well not only be fine, but optimal. My point is that saying to yourself "Every time you don't release a project, you're telling yourself that you’re the kind of person who doesn't ship." is a faulty belief. There's a whole spectrum between releasing everything and releasing nothing. Some people like myself start a lot of things (big and small), and there is no practical way to finish all of them - life is simply not long enough. For such people, not finishing 80-90% of those projects and focusing on a few that seem to have higher value is the way to go. Such a person should not (and hopefully does not) tell themselves that "they're the kind of person that doesn't ship." If they do tell themselves that, the solution isn't to start shipping everything they start, but to change their internal monologue. I strongly recommend you get to know intricately the lives of successful creators. The majority have more projects unfinished than finished.
      - kaba0 3y ago
        I recognize the author’s argument from the Atomic Habits books — inner motivation heavily stems from the picture of self. The example used in the book (there used for stopping negative habits) was that of smoking. A smoker that is looking to quit goes out with a colleague for a smoke break, and the colleague offers him one. If he refuses by saying “I don’t smoke now/I’m trying to quit”, he will much more likely not be able to quit his addiction. But if he answers with “I’m not a smoker”, he is on a good path. It was a really eye opening part of that book for me - people’s view of themselves recursively depends on past experiences/facts and inner motivations. If we do (or don’t do in case of smoking) something a lot of time we can accept it as our new selves, and vice versa.
- johnwheeler 3y ago
  IMO, your post is spot on. Grinding out the last 10% of the boring details while fear starts creeping in and new ideas surface to distract you is exactly what I’ve felt. You’ve codified this in a way that I feel like I can begin to manage it better. Really great post. I’ll incorporate this one into my life going forward.
  - aarondf 3y ago
    Thank you for letting me know, that's encouraging for me to hear. Good luck!
    - johnwheeler 3y ago
      One thing we should do while we’re configuring oauth consent screens, verifying domains, and other 10% drudgery is tell ourselves we’re building reusable infrastructure or at least obtaining the knowhow to do so.
  - doctorpangloss 3y ago
    I don’t know. In video games which I personally know, “make games that are fun to make not to play.” The polish and marketing of a thing is always done better by bigger budgets which you don’t have. The math the article is missing is that shipping something polished and boring is only possible because you valued your time at zero. So even if you find success, an honest accounting could wind up making your ROI negative. Indeed I’ve gotten out of so many worse situations by quitting early and getting my life back compared to the colleagues I left behind. It was never worth the chance to ship something that would have never found an audience anyway. This is especially true of people doing startups, they are doing psychological warfare against themselves and shrouding the reality that they have already failed and will have learned little by spending 4 years on something compared to 1.
    - johnwheeler 3y ago
      To me, this sounds like you’re deluding yourself. You’re convinced that each time you’ve given up was a good idea in hindsight? Is this the case sir?
richardw 3y ago
Aren’t you kinda telling someone how they should write a post? Even though you start writing most sentences with I, it comes off as what they should rather do. Which, you know, is fine. I would maybe have {insert similar advice here} :) Actually I do have a contribution, inspired I think by _why. Rather than telling them how to write, just write. I don’t do that enough myself. On writing, I think strong points often get through better. Challenge people. They’re adults, they can consider if it applies to them or not. On completion, for those who have difficulty achieving self love, achieving small completed projects is nearer “fake it till you make it”. It’s easier, actions and thoughts and beliefs impact each other. You can start with any of them, but some might find it easier to start with actions.
- interroboink 3y ago
  > Aren’t you kinda telling someone how they should write a post? Well, it is not my intent, but I take your meaning (: I suppose I do draw some fuzzy line between presenting someone with information or perspective, which they may or may not choose to internalize, and telling someone what to do. It's a struggle: I want to share and try to be helpful, but I don't want to be evangelical about it. Likewise, there's challenging people, and there's used-car-salesman-ing them (or so). Certainly, there are lots of different personalities banging around in the world, and anyone trying to learn has to develop some resilience to the various ways people communicate. But I guess for my part, I do gently advocate for a more gentle approach. I respect if you find "strong" (forceful?) points to be better, though. In my mind, not everyone I talk to is fully an adult (hell, myself included). I'm reminded a little bit of some East/West cultural differences that come up, sometimes. In the West, we say "the squeaky wheel gets the oil" (i.e. being loud/pushy is rewarded) and in the East it's "the tallest blade of grass gets cut down first." In the West, argumentation follows a "I'm right, you're wrong; here's why..." adversarial approach, while in the East, it's "You're right, but I am right in an even broader sense..." Obviously I'm grossly generalizing, but you get the idea. But anyway, thank you for your counterpoints. It's a topic that interests me. (Aside: I don't mean to imply that you or the OP are being used-car-salesman-y; just staking out some points of reference in this many-dimensional space we're discussing :)
  - 3y ago
anoy8888 3y ago
Are young people these days mentally so weak and fragile, and everyone has to be politically correct all the time so that we don’t break their fragile hearts? If you intent to finish and released the product and you fail to do so, is there a need to sugar coat it so that you feel better . You shouldn’t feel better by lying to yourself. This is how you learn and improve as a person . Accept pain .
- gAI 3y ago
  I think you misunderstand. Unconditional self-love isn't about pain avoidance. It's about accepting the pain as a function of ego and learning from it without turning it into self-flagellation or internalizing it as a function of identity.
- interroboink 3y ago
  > Accept pain. Now this is something I can get behind (: But for the rest, I think we are not on the same page w/regard to most of what I was trying to say. I guess you took my text to mean we should all tiptoe around everyone else's feelings all the time, to the point of absurdity — everyone gets a participation trophy, and nobody is allowed to acknowledge harsh reality, etc. I actually come from the other direction: failure is real, pain is common, so why add more to that pile for others? Why give people more reasons to feel bad about themselves through some choice of words? I suppose there's some aspect of "I waded through shit to get where I am, so you should too — it'll be good for you", and that seems ... off, to me. We are all wading through shit all the time already. Different kinds for different people. So maybe throw a rope from time to time, if you've got one. --- Aside: I don't think this is about young people these days, or political-correctness. This is about having empathy and broader perspective.
jmort253 3y ago
When I read Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, the book was written in second person point of view (using you/your vs I/my or they/theirs). It sounded like the former emperor was talking directly to me, but later I found he was writing to himself. He never intended for his works to be published. With that in mind, it may be possible the blogger, Aaron Francis, in this case is also speaking to himself.
- joecot 3y ago
  As an aside, when I see people beat themselves up for not being able to face their struggles with the stoic reflection of Marcus Aurelius, I want to remind them that unlike them, Mr Aurelius was extremely wealthy, one of the most powerful men in the world, and absolutely blasted on opium for most of his day.
  - jmort253 3y ago
    I didn't know about the opium. He mentioned not getting addicted to things in the book. I bet he was talking about all of the things he had done wrong in his life. Do what I say not what I do.
    - joecot 3y ago
      Romans didn't consider opium an addiction as much as a medicine. Same as many of the drugs we now consider illicit. Marcus Aurelius was taking opium every day for "stomach issues" (krohns or similar perhaps?) and "nerves".
      - renewiltord 3y ago
        Interesting. Like how people are absolutely juiced to the gills on caffeine these days, riding a stimulant Shai Hulud across the sands of time.
        kaba0 3y ago
        Caffeine though really is a jackpot for humanity, it has realistically speaking no negative side effects. Even serious physical symptoms from withdrawal are basically just a week of headaches and other minor things.
robertlagrant 3y ago
> On an emotional level, I think it's better to start from a place of (unconditional!) self-love, and go from there, rather than beating yourself up because you're not meeting some blogger's expectations of how you should act. This will only cater for people who don't automatically apply that filter. I'd say for most people the article won't stream directly into their consciousness as fact, and they will be applying caveats already.
- interroboink 3y ago
  Agreed that most people have some thickness to their skin already, so to speak. And communication styles vary, of course. But I do think there's something to be said for the sort of culture we want to foster. If one blogger writes something a bit one-sided or pushy, then no big deal. But if lots of them do, or most of them, then it starts to affect what we consider normal. Personally, I'd rather we don't normalize the self-flagellation approach to progress, or at least be pretty careful about it (see another comment about "healthy masochism"). If everybody is in on the game, then it can work (eg: I enjoy talking shit with friends, because we all know we're friends), but in a public forum that's harder to be sure of. I almost feel like being a giant asshole (Linus Torvalds?) is better in this space, since it's so over-the-top obvious and people can easily reject it if they don't like it. But when it's more subtle, the risk is that some small cumulative effect nudges people to actually feel bad about themselves, even if just a little bit, spread so thin it's hard to measure. But anyway, it's a small point; I only wish the 1-ton weight were moved 1cm to the left, or so. Sometimes I write too much text about too small a topic, and it comes across overblown (:
  - robertlagrant 3y ago
    Haha not overblown - I wouldn't worry too much. I would just say that this is a link, and not from inside the HN community, so it's not a cultural issue as such. I think it's possible to try and enforce a monoculture internally, but enforcing it on what links get posted might be difficult.
abdela 3y ago
Agreed. Be forgiving, also towards yourself.
Claude_Shannon 3y ago
In the end value of person is in what they do. If you can't constantly ship anything, you have a problem you need to solve. Painful, but you shouldn't sugarcoat it.
shrimp_emoji 3y ago
> I think it's better to start from a place of (unconditional!) self-love, and go from there, rather than beating yourself up because you're not meeting some blogger's expectations of how you should act. It took me a while to realize this, but it's the only way I want to live my life. Terrorizing myself through my ego was a retardedly pointless mental preset, and I'm very grateful I changed it.
JohnFen 3y ago
Yes, I'm more than a little allergic to that sort of tone as well. But I take it more as he's saying out loud what he says to himself for motivation. These are things that are important to him. His advice and tone may be of use to others who share his values. Those that don't should feel perfectly fine with ignoring him or (better) reinterpreting what he's saying so it better aligns with their own set of values.

aarondf 3y ago

Nuanced and valuable feedback, that I receive. Thank you! I think your edit was basically going to be my reply, haha. It is hard to address every side of every potential topic in an article. I actually needed help softening the tone to end up with the final version you're reading today. I'm empathetic by nature so it's easy for me to write with empathy, but I'm still prone to generalizing my personal experiences!

BeetleB 3y ago
> You have a duty to your past self to release the project. It’s a way to honor your work and sacrifice. All the time spent on the project is time you could have spent on something else. That time was not without cost. Ouch! I strongly encourage you to read up and understand the sunk cost fallacy. In general, do not let past efforts be the guide for future decisions. I've quit a lot of projects in my life. And it was the right thing to do. Put another way, many of the valuable projects I've completed would not have been accomplished had I stuck to the projects I had sunk time into. > You also have a duty to your future self to release the project. Every time you don't release a project, you're telling yourself that you’re the kind of person who doesn't ship. If you tell yourself that every time you don't release a project, the fix is not to release the project, but to stop telling yourself these lies. Despite the strong complaints, the article isn't that bad and does have some merits.
- aarondf 3y ago
  Glad you still liked it, despite the strong complaints! I hear your feedback, but I don't fully agree with all of it. I do understand the sunk cost fallacy quite well, but thinking about the time committed can be a useful framing to help push past the fear of releasing or drudgery of the last 10%. > If you tell yourself that every time you don't release a project, the fix is not to release the project, but to stop telling yourself these lies. I mean, if you never ship you're literally the kind of person who doesn't ship though. You can tell yourself whatever you want, but eventually you'll stop believing yourself because you know it's not true! Perhaps you'll enjoy my other piece more: Publishing your work increases your luck (https://github.com/readme/guides/publishing-your-work https://github.com/readme/guides/publishing-your-work)
  - BeetleB 3y ago
    > I mean, if you never ship you're literally the kind of person who doesn't ship though This is a bit of an "argument from extremes" fallacy. If you don't ship 90% of what you work on, but do ship the remaining 10%, then that may well not only be fine, but optimal. My point is that saying to yourself "Every time you don't release a project, you're telling yourself that you’re the kind of person who doesn't ship." is a faulty belief. There's a whole spectrum between releasing everything and releasing nothing. Some people like myself start a lot of things (big and small), and there is no practical way to finish all of them - life is simply not long enough. For such people, not finishing 80-90% of those projects and focusing on a few that seem to have higher value is the way to go. Such a person should not (and hopefully does not) tell themselves that "they're the kind of person that doesn't ship." If they do tell themselves that, the solution isn't to start shipping everything they start, but to change their internal monologue. I strongly recommend you get to know intricately the lives of successful creators. The majority have more projects unfinished than finished.
    - kaba0 3y ago
      I recognize the author’s argument from the Atomic Habits books — inner motivation heavily stems from the picture of self. The example used in the book (there used for stopping negative habits) was that of smoking. A smoker that is looking to quit goes out with a colleague for a smoke break, and the colleague offers him one. If he refuses by saying “I don’t smoke now/I’m trying to quit”, he will much more likely not be able to quit his addiction. But if he answers with “I’m not a smoker”, he is on a good path. It was a really eye opening part of that book for me - people’s view of themselves recursively depends on past experiences/facts and inner motivations. If we do (or don’t do in case of smoking) something a lot of time we can accept it as our new selves, and vice versa.
johnwheeler 3y ago
IMO, your post is spot on. Grinding out the last 10% of the boring details while fear starts creeping in and new ideas surface to distract you is exactly what I’ve felt. You’ve codified this in a way that I feel like I can begin to manage it better. Really great post. I’ll incorporate this one into my life going forward.
- aarondf 3y ago
  Thank you for letting me know, that's encouraging for me to hear. Good luck!
  - johnwheeler 3y ago
    One thing we should do while we’re configuring oauth consent screens, verifying domains, and other 10% drudgery is tell ourselves we’re building reusable infrastructure or at least obtaining the knowhow to do so.
- doctorpangloss 3y ago
  I don’t know. In video games which I personally know, “make games that are fun to make not to play.” The polish and marketing of a thing is always done better by bigger budgets which you don’t have. The math the article is missing is that shipping something polished and boring is only possible because you valued your time at zero. So even if you find success, an honest accounting could wind up making your ROI negative. Indeed I’ve gotten out of so many worse situations by quitting early and getting my life back compared to the colleagues I left behind. It was never worth the chance to ship something that would have never found an audience anyway. This is especially true of people doing startups, they are doing psychological warfare against themselves and shrouding the reality that they have already failed and will have learned little by spending 4 years on something compared to 1.
  - johnwheeler 3y ago
    To me, this sounds like you’re deluding yourself. You’re convinced that each time you’ve given up was a good idea in hindsight? Is this the case sir?

richardw 3y ago

Aren’t you kinda telling someone how they should write a post? Even though you start writing most sentences with I, it comes off as what they should rather do. Which, you know, is fine. I would maybe have {insert similar advice here} :) Actually I do have a contribution, inspired I think by _why. Rather than telling them how to write, just write. I don’t do that enough myself. On writing, I think strong points often get through better. Challenge people. They’re adults, they can consider if it applies to them or not. On completion, for those who have difficulty achieving self love, achieving small completed projects is nearer “fake it till you make it”. It’s easier, actions and thoughts and beliefs impact each other. You can start with any of them, but some might find it easier to start with actions.

interroboink 3y ago
> Aren’t you kinda telling someone how they should write a post? Well, it is not my intent, but I take your meaning (: I suppose I do draw some fuzzy line between presenting someone with information or perspective, which they may or may not choose to internalize, and telling someone what to do. It's a struggle: I want to share and try to be helpful, but I don't want to be evangelical about it. Likewise, there's challenging people, and there's used-car-salesman-ing them (or so). Certainly, there are lots of different personalities banging around in the world, and anyone trying to learn has to develop some resilience to the various ways people communicate. But I guess for my part, I do gently advocate for a more gentle approach. I respect if you find "strong" (forceful?) points to be better, though. In my mind, not everyone I talk to is fully an adult (hell, myself included). I'm reminded a little bit of some East/West cultural differences that come up, sometimes. In the West, we say "the squeaky wheel gets the oil" (i.e. being loud/pushy is rewarded) and in the East it's "the tallest blade of grass gets cut down first." In the West, argumentation follows a "I'm right, you're wrong; here's why..." adversarial approach, while in the East, it's "You're right, but I am right in an even broader sense..." Obviously I'm grossly generalizing, but you get the idea. But anyway, thank you for your counterpoints. It's a topic that interests me. (Aside: I don't mean to imply that you or the OP are being used-car-salesman-y; just staking out some points of reference in this many-dimensional space we're discussing :)
- 3y ago

anoy8888 3y ago

Are young people these days mentally so weak and fragile, and everyone has to be politically correct all the time so that we don’t break their fragile hearts? If you intent to finish and released the product and you fail to do so, is there a need to sugar coat it so that you feel better . You shouldn’t feel better by lying to yourself. This is how you learn and improve as a person . Accept pain .

gAI 3y ago
I think you misunderstand. Unconditional self-love isn't about pain avoidance. It's about accepting the pain as a function of ego and learning from it without turning it into self-flagellation or internalizing it as a function of identity.
interroboink 3y ago
> Accept pain. Now this is something I can get behind (: But for the rest, I think we are not on the same page w/regard to most of what I was trying to say. I guess you took my text to mean we should all tiptoe around everyone else's feelings all the time, to the point of absurdity — everyone gets a participation trophy, and nobody is allowed to acknowledge harsh reality, etc. I actually come from the other direction: failure is real, pain is common, so why add more to that pile for others? Why give people more reasons to feel bad about themselves through some choice of words? I suppose there's some aspect of "I waded through shit to get where I am, so you should too — it'll be good for you", and that seems ... off, to me. We are all wading through shit all the time already. Different kinds for different people. So maybe throw a rope from time to time, if you've got one. --- Aside: I don't think this is about young people these days, or political-correctness. This is about having empathy and broader perspective.

jmort253 3y ago

When I read Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, the book was written in second person point of view (using you/your vs I/my or they/theirs). It sounded like the former emperor was talking directly to me, but later I found he was writing to himself. He never intended for his works to be published. With that in mind, it may be possible the blogger, Aaron Francis, in this case is also speaking to himself.

joecot 3y ago
As an aside, when I see people beat themselves up for not being able to face their struggles with the stoic reflection of Marcus Aurelius, I want to remind them that unlike them, Mr Aurelius was extremely wealthy, one of the most powerful men in the world, and absolutely blasted on opium for most of his day.
- jmort253 3y ago
  I didn't know about the opium. He mentioned not getting addicted to things in the book. I bet he was talking about all of the things he had done wrong in his life. Do what I say not what I do.
  - joecot 3y ago
    Romans didn't consider opium an addiction as much as a medicine. Same as many of the drugs we now consider illicit. Marcus Aurelius was taking opium every day for "stomach issues" (krohns or similar perhaps?) and "nerves".
    - renewiltord 3y ago
      Interesting. Like how people are absolutely juiced to the gills on caffeine these days, riding a stimulant Shai Hulud across the sands of time.
      - kaba0 3y ago
        Caffeine though really is a jackpot for humanity, it has realistically speaking no negative side effects. Even serious physical symptoms from withdrawal are basically just a week of headaches and other minor things.

robertlagrant 3y ago

> On an emotional level, I think it's better to start from a place of (unconditional!) self-love, and go from there, rather than beating yourself up because you're not meeting some blogger's expectations of how you should act. This will only cater for people who don't automatically apply that filter. I'd say for most people the article won't stream directly into their consciousness as fact, and they will be applying caveats already.

interroboink 3y ago
Agreed that most people have some thickness to their skin already, so to speak. And communication styles vary, of course. But I do think there's something to be said for the sort of culture we want to foster. If one blogger writes something a bit one-sided or pushy, then no big deal. But if lots of them do, or most of them, then it starts to affect what we consider normal. Personally, I'd rather we don't normalize the self-flagellation approach to progress, or at least be pretty careful about it (see another comment about "healthy masochism"). If everybody is in on the game, then it can work (eg: I enjoy talking shit with friends, because we all know we're friends), but in a public forum that's harder to be sure of. I almost feel like being a giant asshole (Linus Torvalds?) is better in this space, since it's so over-the-top obvious and people can easily reject it if they don't like it. But when it's more subtle, the risk is that some small cumulative effect nudges people to actually feel bad about themselves, even if just a little bit, spread so thin it's hard to measure. But anyway, it's a small point; I only wish the 1-ton weight were moved 1cm to the left, or so. Sometimes I write too much text about too small a topic, and it comes across overblown (:
- robertlagrant 3y ago
  Haha not overblown - I wouldn't worry too much. I would just say that this is a link, and not from inside the HN community, so it's not a cultural issue as such. I think it's possible to try and enforce a monoculture internally, but enforcing it on what links get posted might be difficult.

abdela 3y ago

Agreed. Be forgiving, also towards yourself.

Claude_Shannon 3y ago

In the end value of person is in what they do. If you can't constantly ship anything, you have a problem you need to solve. Painful, but you shouldn't sugarcoat it.

shrimp_emoji 3y ago

> I think it's better to start from a place of (unconditional!) self-love, and go from there, rather than beating yourself up because you're not meeting some blogger's expectations of how you should act. It took me a while to realize this, but it's the only way I want to live my life. Terrorizing myself through my ego was a retardedly pointless mental preset, and I'm very grateful I changed it.

JohnFen 3y ago

Yes, I'm more than a little allergic to that sort of tone as well. But I take it more as he's saying out loud what he says to himself for motivation. These are things that are important to him. His advice and tone may be of use to others who share his values. Those that don't should feel perfectly fine with ignoring him or (better) reinterpreting what he's saying so it better aligns with their own set of values.