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As I've gotten older, I believe more and more that having a desire for great work has more negatives than it does positives. This post really demonstrates why I

As I've gotten older, I believe more and more that having a desire for great work has more negatives than it does positives. This post really demonstrates why I believe this – mainly because PG doesn't touch at all on why someone would want to do great work while romanticizing how great it is to have that desire. I don't think the question that ambitious people should be asking themselves is "what is work that I can do that will be great?" but something more akin to "what is work that I will find fulfilling?" Why do you want your work to be great? Do you think that the work being perceived as "great" is fulfilling in and of itself? What are you trying to prove through this work, and whom are you trying to prove it to? These are important questions to ask yourself because, otherwise, you're going to end up getting burnt out and wondering what all of your effort was really for. A personal anecdote: when I was younger, I wanted to be great at piano. I played it since I was very young and I spent many hours playing it through my teens. I competed against others at music festivals with moderate success, and I wanted to continue doing great work with it. But this environment put me in a terrible headspace. I would frequently have angry outbursts when I made minor mistakes while practicing. If not anger, I'd chastise myself to the point of crying (I firmly believe this is what gave me low self-esteem through my college years). When someone would tell me to take a break given my emotional state, I'd firmly say no and go back to practicing because... why would I stop? The best piano players practice for hours a day non-stop. I'd spent so many hours practicing and I was actually pretty good. I wouldn't be able to do great work if I were to take a break. It made me a competitive asshole, a sore loser, and a depressed individual. Ambition is still an admirable trait to have because, among other things, it demonstrates that you have curiosity and a love for life. But point I'm trying to make is that being ambitious for great work simply because you want to do great work is not a healthy way to do your work. You need to have a deeper reason for why you've chosen the work that you do, and you shouldn't fall for the romanticism that these sorts of essays put forth. The work that you do will be great work if you have a reason for doing it other than "I want to do something great."

hopa 3y ago
Completely agreed. Media excessively romanticizes compulsive workers.
- movedx 3y ago
  Not to mention to the 5am hustle. Only people who get up at 5am and smash out their book for the first three hours of the day, before starting work, are winners... /s
- yarekt 3y ago
  > Develop a habit of working on your own projects. work shouldn't always imply working for your employer. Without that implication I'm ok with romanticising a compulsive worker, creating something is an ambition we should all strive for
mindwok 3y ago
I have also followed a similar trajectory to you. My early 20's I wanted to do something 'great'. But my ambition was what Paul identified in this post as the type that precedes experience. As a result, I became restless, agitated if I thought I wasn't pursuing the right things, competitive. That is slowly disappearing from me, for the better. Now I just try to focus on doing things as well as I can. I don't worry about what to do, because really that will flow from your intuition. Just do what you want to do. Maybe it'll be great, maybe not, but you can't force greatness.
civilized 3y ago
I wonder if you might have found it more fulfilling if you had received some psychological help with all the harshness on yourself.
- cmdli 3y ago
  As somebody who has struggled with similar issues, oftentimes the psychological help you need is to de-emphasize the ambition and success. You have to act against the expectation and dreams of greatness, and instead focus on your present state and appreciating that. It's not impossible to do great work and be happy, but it's very easy to let your dreams consume you.
quickthrower2 3y ago
It is lonely doing hard work without some attaboys. Being some famous techie that people refer to you in droves by only your first name, or publishing a highly referenced paper, or exiting a startup with millions are great attaboys. But you sort of need to risk working hard and getting no cash and no attaboys. I think passion (that dirty word!) is needed to drive you to do the moonshot thing. I often think we are a bee colony. We need lots of people trying ambitious stuff but few will get that attaboy kick. We need failures (otherwise everyone is not ambitious enough).
- sanderjd 3y ago
  I think "passion" just isn't the best word for it. I much prefer (and relate to) the use of "curiosity" instead in this essay.
koopuluri 3y ago
I agree. To your point, I feel the most useful questions we ought to ask are the ones that push us to understand our deepest selves: the desires, insecurities, fears that dictate why we do what we do. Without that deeper understanding, we're more easily trapped into following someone else's / the collective culture's programming of our minds - which likely doesn't prioritize our own individual well-being. And ofc this is a lifelong journey. I can't imagine waking up anytime soon thinking I understand what happens in the deepest recesses of my mind, but without having a reasonable sense of the deeper motivations, it's easy to read this essay by PG and feel a craving to "do great work" without understanding why or the impact this craving can have on your wellbeing.
movedx 3y ago
I've been studying a lot of Buddhism as of late. One thing it has taught me in the Middle Way. In short, it means do nothing in excess, which includes doing nothing at all. This balanced view leads to me to believe you, Paul, and "hustle culture" that's all over YouTube are both right and wrong. I've come to live by a simple system... Try to do fulfilling work that's meaningful to future generations, whilst also putting back into society as much positive value as you can versus what you consume. So far, this has led me to the model of, "Learn a skill, give a skill". The term "give" can be exchanged for "sell" depending on the receiver. This has led me to learn complex skills and problem solving (consuming from society), and then giving back in the form of books, videos, mentoring, and more (putting back) so that others can learn from my experience. At the end of the day though, who really knows? :-)
- sheepscreek 3y ago
  Reading this, I had an epiphany just now. What you’ve shared is essentially Dharma. Or giving back from a sense of duty, or as a matter of principle. Interestingly, Karma preaches: if you give to those in need, you will receive in return when you’re in need. Although the motivations are different in both teachings (Buddhism vs. Hinduism, with carrot vs. stick if you will), they have the same effect - to reach an equilibrium in society. Edited: For clarity
  - movedx 3y ago
    That's right. For me, it's essentially living a Bodhisattva life.
  - yoble 3y ago
    I see this simple version of Karma talked about quite often in the general public and it's pretty far from my understanding of Karma in Buddhism. Karma is a consequence of Dependent Origination - basically that things arise dependent on other things, and there is nothing that's outside of the law of cause and effet (hence no eternal, unchanging, eternally happy Self, which is the type of Self, or soul/atta(pali)/atman(sanskrit) the Buddha was talking about). Karma means your intentional thoughts and actions all have consequences. If you give to those in need, that ripples through the world and yeah, you're more likely to get good things because you're building a good life. There's no need for a "cosmic justice" that will weigh what you did and give you the exact same amount when you're in a similar situation. You have more probability of receiving help (cause you've got friends now), but you might still be unlucky and don't receive any help. That's on the material level but it goes further than that - by acting and thinking wholesomely, less based on your own craving and delusion, you're cultivating a mind that's less likely to act based on craving and delusion. It's simple cause and effect again, and it depends much less on external conditions since it's internal. (Now the word Karma is used differently in different tradition, so the general idea of "cosmic retribution" might be what it refers too in some of those. When I understood more this version of Karma it made a whole lot more sense, so I'm sharing that here.) I found this article by Culadasa really enlightening on the topic: https://s3.amazonaws.com/dharmatreasure/20130322--what-the-buddha-thought--handout.pdf https://s3.amazonaws.com/dharmatreasure/20130322--what-the-b...
mkoubaa 3y ago
If great people didn't exist we are all doomed
- xapata 3y ago
  Not all people who do great work are great people. In fact, I suspect a negative correlation.
  - inglor_cz 3y ago
    For a current example, see Elon Musk. Even here on a relatively level-headed hacking forum, any discussion of Musk will turn into poo-flinging between fanboys that worship him and haters who deny that success of his companies has anything to do with him.
  - mkoubaa 3y ago
    Great person does not imply good person. My comment was about great people
    - xapata 3y ago
      Interesting. "Great person" is tough to design.
rikroots 3y ago
> The work that you do will be great work if you have a reason for doing it other than "I want to do something great." I've always had an issue with the word "great". Who defines greatness? How will I know that I've achieved greatness in whatever work I'm doing at any particular time. For work, I know when my work is great because co-workers and managers praise it: "nice fix", "some really good insights here", etc. Beyond work - there's a whole bunch of egos and social politics that get tangled into the whole "what is great" thing: - "Great poem"? Depends entirely on who is on the competition judging panel or what mood the magazine editor is in when they read your submission. - "Great novel"? You've got to get it published first before the reviewers can cast their judgments, and to get it published you need to convince people that this is a great novel for the specific reason that it will make them some money when they publish it. - "Great JS library"? People need to know it exists - and then how do you measure its greatness? In my view great DevEx and minimal issues raised in GitHub are just as important (if not more important) than the elegance and speed of the code itself. Nowadays I judge the greatness of my varied passion projects by how well they please me. I am a harsh judge of myself: the days when I manage to draft a poem that leaves me stunned with wonder when I review it a few weeks later (for all poems should be left to ferment for a few weeks before review) is how I measure greatness. It's a rare occurence, but wondrous when it happens!
- nullcipher 3y ago
  > For work, I know when my work is great because co-workers and managers praise it: "nice fix", "some really good insights here", etc. They only said nice and good though not great. I would say if your CEO came down and said that's awesome, then it's great work. (for you) As for me, I don't think too much about word semantics. No advice can be given or taken if you take each word apart. We will just keep arguing about details and miss the point.
  - lying4fun 3y ago
    It depends how much you value/respect your co-workers. In a high level team “good insight” can mean “great work”. I am not saying you disagree with this, but you may have made assumptions about the parent’s team and his relation to it. Conversely, a “great work” from a CEO can mean nothing to a person
andzuck 3y ago
Thanks for zooming out and sharing these questions that challenge pg’s assumption from the beginning. I felt caught in the essay’s ethos and throngs the moment I started reading. This helps me pause
Wowfunhappy 3y ago
I agree, and I think this conflict is actually visible within the essay. One particular parenthetical jumped out at me: > So avoid the kind of distraction that pushes your work out of the top spot, or you'll waste this valuable type of thinking on the distraction instead. (Exception: Don't avoid love.) PG never explains why love is an exception. Perhaps he thought it was obvious. I disagree. I agree that familial love is important to the overall human experience. But this isn't an essay on how to live a fulfilling life, it's an essay on "how to do great work," for a so-called "very ambitious" person who wants to achieve "great work" at any cost. In this context, familial love is no less of a distraction than anything else. History is littered with eccentric artists who prioritized their work above any human interaction, and achieved fame for it. So why does PG say not to avoid love? I believe it's because deep down, he realizes that "great work" isn't the most important thing in life—but he isn't quite aware enough to acknowledge it.
- sanderjd 3y ago
  I don't think this essay ever actually made the value judgment that doing "great work" is "the most important thing in life" or even a good thing in life. Did I miss that part? I read it as, "for better or worse, some people are driven to do great work, here are some techniques to accomplish that". I think it's true, right?, that such people do exist, whether that is good or bad for them. I suppose I know enough of his history to know that he would make that value judgment, but I read this particular essay as being fairly agnostic about it, leaving it up to the reader.
  - Wowfunhappy 3y ago
    It's true that I'm mostly responding to tone. But again: if this is just a guide for people who want a certain lifestyle, for better or worse, why the warning to not avoid love? I think it speaks to an unresolved conflict. The parenthetical shouldn't be there if PG really does want this to be a no-judgement how-to guide. Love is distracting, for better or worse.
    - sanderjd 3y ago
sanderjd 3y ago
I'm inclined to agree with you about whether this is the best path to a good life. But I also don't think the essay actually does romanticize "great work". I read it as, "if you are the kind of person who naturally has this kind of ambition, this essay will speak to you, and if you aren't that kind of person, it won't". That is, I think it's necessary for you to be that kind of person, in order to read the essay as a romanticism. And clearly you have that in you, as your anecdote about piano demonstrates. And even though you have concluded that this is not a good facet of your personality, it's hard to truly shake it. Personally, this plight really speaks to me (and I'm sorry if I'm just projecting that onto you...). When I really think about it, the happiest most chill times in my life and career are when I've just been plugging away doing useful and well-compensated work, but definitely not "great work" in the essay's sense. I have told myself many times to just do that and do fun and enriching things with my friends and family and be content with that. But it never fails, I always get the nag eventually, to be more ambitious, to try to do work that is more impactful, more "great". So this essay spoke to me, because of that trait I seem to have, even if I'm totally unconvinced that it is the best path to a good life. And I don't think this is universal. I think nearly everyone I know would instead read this essay as "that sounds exhausting and terrible" and, as the essay alludes to at the end, would not make it very deep into it. But yeah, striving to do the kind of "great work" that this essay is talking about is certainly not what I want for my children... The best outcome is succeeding after a huge life-impacting amount of work, and the more likely outcome is constant nagging doubt without any pot of gold at the end.
beacham 3y ago
This comment reminded me so much of the movie Whiplash. If you haven’t seen it, it’s worth a watch, given your history.
magnifyhim 3y ago
> Ambition is still an admirable trait to have because, among other things, it demonstrates that you have curiosity and a love for life. Thanks for a very beautiful response in general. I particularly liked this formulation. Ambition is not the (proper) end; curiosity and a love for life are ends in and of themselves. My personal experience -- I wonder if others feel the same -- is that working on a "big problem" or "something" great is far too abstract a motivation.

hopa 3y ago

Completely agreed. Media excessively romanticizes compulsive workers.

movedx 3y ago
Not to mention to the 5am hustle. Only people who get up at 5am and smash out their book for the first three hours of the day, before starting work, are winners... /s
yarekt 3y ago
> Develop a habit of working on your own projects. work shouldn't always imply working for your employer. Without that implication I'm ok with romanticising a compulsive worker, creating something is an ambition we should all strive for

mindwok 3y ago

I have also followed a similar trajectory to you. My early 20's I wanted to do something 'great'. But my ambition was what Paul identified in this post as the type that precedes experience. As a result, I became restless, agitated if I thought I wasn't pursuing the right things, competitive. That is slowly disappearing from me, for the better. Now I just try to focus on doing things as well as I can. I don't worry about what to do, because really that will flow from your intuition. Just do what you want to do. Maybe it'll be great, maybe not, but you can't force greatness.

civilized 3y ago

I wonder if you might have found it more fulfilling if you had received some psychological help with all the harshness on yourself.

cmdli 3y ago
As somebody who has struggled with similar issues, oftentimes the psychological help you need is to de-emphasize the ambition and success. You have to act against the expectation and dreams of greatness, and instead focus on your present state and appreciating that. It's not impossible to do great work and be happy, but it's very easy to let your dreams consume you.

quickthrower2 3y ago

It is lonely doing hard work without some attaboys. Being some famous techie that people refer to you in droves by only your first name, or publishing a highly referenced paper, or exiting a startup with millions are great attaboys. But you sort of need to risk working hard and getting no cash and no attaboys. I think passion (that dirty word!) is needed to drive you to do the moonshot thing. I often think we are a bee colony. We need lots of people trying ambitious stuff but few will get that attaboy kick. We need failures (otherwise everyone is not ambitious enough).

sanderjd 3y ago
I think "passion" just isn't the best word for it. I much prefer (and relate to) the use of "curiosity" instead in this essay.

koopuluri 3y ago

I agree. To your point, I feel the most useful questions we ought to ask are the ones that push us to understand our deepest selves: the desires, insecurities, fears that dictate why we do what we do. Without that deeper understanding, we're more easily trapped into following someone else's / the collective culture's programming of our minds - which likely doesn't prioritize our own individual well-being. And ofc this is a lifelong journey. I can't imagine waking up anytime soon thinking I understand what happens in the deepest recesses of my mind, but without having a reasonable sense of the deeper motivations, it's easy to read this essay by PG and feel a craving to "do great work" without understanding why or the impact this craving can have on your wellbeing.

movedx 3y ago

I've been studying a lot of Buddhism as of late. One thing it has taught me in the Middle Way. In short, it means do nothing in excess, which includes doing nothing at all. This balanced view leads to me to believe you, Paul, and "hustle culture" that's all over YouTube are both right and wrong. I've come to live by a simple system... Try to do fulfilling work that's meaningful to future generations, whilst also putting back into society as much positive value as you can versus what you consume. So far, this has led me to the model of, "Learn a skill, give a skill". The term "give" can be exchanged for "sell" depending on the receiver. This has led me to learn complex skills and problem solving (consuming from society), and then giving back in the form of books, videos, mentoring, and more (putting back) so that others can learn from my experience. At the end of the day though, who really knows? :-)

sheepscreek 3y ago
Reading this, I had an epiphany just now. What you’ve shared is essentially Dharma. Or giving back from a sense of duty, or as a matter of principle. Interestingly, Karma preaches: if you give to those in need, you will receive in return when you’re in need. Although the motivations are different in both teachings (Buddhism vs. Hinduism, with carrot vs. stick if you will), they have the same effect - to reach an equilibrium in society. Edited: For clarity
- movedx 3y ago
  That's right. For me, it's essentially living a Bodhisattva life.
- yoble 3y ago
  I see this simple version of Karma talked about quite often in the general public and it's pretty far from my understanding of Karma in Buddhism. Karma is a consequence of Dependent Origination - basically that things arise dependent on other things, and there is nothing that's outside of the law of cause and effet (hence no eternal, unchanging, eternally happy Self, which is the type of Self, or soul/atta(pali)/atman(sanskrit) the Buddha was talking about). Karma means your intentional thoughts and actions all have consequences. If you give to those in need, that ripples through the world and yeah, you're more likely to get good things because you're building a good life. There's no need for a "cosmic justice" that will weigh what you did and give you the exact same amount when you're in a similar situation. You have more probability of receiving help (cause you've got friends now), but you might still be unlucky and don't receive any help. That's on the material level but it goes further than that - by acting and thinking wholesomely, less based on your own craving and delusion, you're cultivating a mind that's less likely to act based on craving and delusion. It's simple cause and effect again, and it depends much less on external conditions since it's internal. (Now the word Karma is used differently in different tradition, so the general idea of "cosmic retribution" might be what it refers too in some of those. When I understood more this version of Karma it made a whole lot more sense, so I'm sharing that here.) I found this article by Culadasa really enlightening on the topic: https://s3.amazonaws.com/dharmatreasure/20130322--what-the-buddha-thought--handout.pdf https://s3.amazonaws.com/dharmatreasure/20130322--what-the-b...

mkoubaa 3y ago

If great people didn't exist we are all doomed

xapata 3y ago
Not all people who do great work are great people. In fact, I suspect a negative correlation.
- inglor_cz 3y ago
  For a current example, see Elon Musk. Even here on a relatively level-headed hacking forum, any discussion of Musk will turn into poo-flinging between fanboys that worship him and haters who deny that success of his companies has anything to do with him.
- mkoubaa 3y ago
  Great person does not imply good person. My comment was about great people
  - xapata 3y ago
    Interesting. "Great person" is tough to design.

rikroots 3y ago

> The work that you do will be great work if you have a reason for doing it other than "I want to do something great." I've always had an issue with the word "great". Who defines greatness? How will I know that I've achieved greatness in whatever work I'm doing at any particular time. For work, I know when my work is great because co-workers and managers praise it: "nice fix", "some really good insights here", etc. Beyond work - there's a whole bunch of egos and social politics that get tangled into the whole "what is great" thing: - "Great poem"? Depends entirely on who is on the competition judging panel or what mood the magazine editor is in when they read your submission. - "Great novel"? You've got to get it published first before the reviewers can cast their judgments, and to get it published you need to convince people that this is a great novel for the specific reason that it will make them some money when they publish it. - "Great JS library"? People need to know it exists - and then how do you measure its greatness? In my view great DevEx and minimal issues raised in GitHub are just as important (if not more important) than the elegance and speed of the code itself. Nowadays I judge the greatness of my varied passion projects by how well they please me. I am a harsh judge of myself: the days when I manage to draft a poem that leaves me stunned with wonder when I review it a few weeks later (for all poems should be left to ferment for a few weeks before review) is how I measure greatness. It's a rare occurence, but wondrous when it happens!

nullcipher 3y ago
> For work, I know when my work is great because co-workers and managers praise it: "nice fix", "some really good insights here", etc. They only said nice and good though not great. I would say if your CEO came down and said that's awesome, then it's great work. (for you) As for me, I don't think too much about word semantics. No advice can be given or taken if you take each word apart. We will just keep arguing about details and miss the point.
- lying4fun 3y ago
  It depends how much you value/respect your co-workers. In a high level team “good insight” can mean “great work”. I am not saying you disagree with this, but you may have made assumptions about the parent’s team and his relation to it. Conversely, a “great work” from a CEO can mean nothing to a person

andzuck 3y ago

Thanks for zooming out and sharing these questions that challenge pg’s assumption from the beginning. I felt caught in the essay’s ethos and throngs the moment I started reading. This helps me pause

Wowfunhappy 3y ago

I agree, and I think this conflict is actually visible within the essay. One particular parenthetical jumped out at me: > So avoid the kind of distraction that pushes your work out of the top spot, or you'll waste this valuable type of thinking on the distraction instead. (Exception: Don't avoid love.) PG never explains why love is an exception. Perhaps he thought it was obvious. I disagree. I agree that familial love is important to the overall human experience. But this isn't an essay on how to live a fulfilling life, it's an essay on "how to do great work," for a so-called "very ambitious" person who wants to achieve "great work" at any cost. In this context, familial love is no less of a distraction than anything else. History is littered with eccentric artists who prioritized their work above any human interaction, and achieved fame for it. So why does PG say not to avoid love? I believe it's because deep down, he realizes that "great work" isn't the most important thing in life—but he isn't quite aware enough to acknowledge it.

sanderjd 3y ago
I don't think this essay ever actually made the value judgment that doing "great work" is "the most important thing in life" or even a good thing in life. Did I miss that part? I read it as, "for better or worse, some people are driven to do great work, here are some techniques to accomplish that". I think it's true, right?, that such people do exist, whether that is good or bad for them. I suppose I know enough of his history to know that he would make that value judgment, but I read this particular essay as being fairly agnostic about it, leaving it up to the reader.
- Wowfunhappy 3y ago
  It's true that I'm mostly responding to tone. But again: if this is just a guide for people who want a certain lifestyle, for better or worse, why the warning to not avoid love? I think it speaks to an unresolved conflict. The parenthetical shouldn't be there if PG really does want this to be a no-judgement how-to guide. Love is distracting, for better or worse.
  - sanderjd 3y ago

sanderjd 3y ago

I'm inclined to agree with you about whether this is the best path to a good life. But I also don't think the essay actually does romanticize "great work". I read it as, "if you are the kind of person who naturally has this kind of ambition, this essay will speak to you, and if you aren't that kind of person, it won't". That is, I think it's necessary for you to be that kind of person, in order to read the essay as a romanticism. And clearly you have that in you, as your anecdote about piano demonstrates. And even though you have concluded that this is not a good facet of your personality, it's hard to truly shake it. Personally, this plight really speaks to me (and I'm sorry if I'm just projecting that onto you...). When I really think about it, the happiest most chill times in my life and career are when I've just been plugging away doing useful and well-compensated work, but definitely not "great work" in the essay's sense. I have told myself many times to just do that and do fun and enriching things with my friends and family and be content with that. But it never fails, I always get the nag eventually, to be more ambitious, to try to do work that is more impactful, more "great". So this essay spoke to me, because of that trait I seem to have, even if I'm totally unconvinced that it is the best path to a good life. And I don't think this is universal. I think nearly everyone I know would instead read this essay as "that sounds exhausting and terrible" and, as the essay alludes to at the end, would not make it very deep into it. But yeah, striving to do the kind of "great work" that this essay is talking about is certainly not what I want for my children... The best outcome is succeeding after a huge life-impacting amount of work, and the more likely outcome is constant nagging doubt without any pot of gold at the end.

beacham 3y ago

This comment reminded me so much of the movie Whiplash. If you haven’t seen it, it’s worth a watch, given your history.

magnifyhim 3y ago

> Ambition is still an admirable trait to have because, among other things, it demonstrates that you have curiosity and a love for life. Thanks for a very beautiful response in general. I particularly liked this formulation. Ambition is not the (proper) end; curiosity and a love for life are ends in and of themselves. My personal experience -- I wonder if others feel the same -- is that working on a "big problem" or "something" great is far too abstract a motivation.