4 ms·

Most people, myself included, don't actually do the things they want to do most of the time. Put another way, first order desires almost never really govern an

Most people, myself included, don't actually do the things they want to do most of the time. Put another way, first order desires almost never really govern anyone's behavior, and second order desires are dictated almost exclusively by psychological baggage that has little to do with their adult lives.

k3n 14y ago
That's a profound thought that transcends technology, thanks.
mej10 14y ago
I have witnessed this in myself and others, and it is painful to both see and experience. Of course the question is: what can we do about it?
- monk_e_boy 14y ago
  Get passionate about what you want to do. Skive, make time, lie cheat and steal to do what you want. Make your hobby/free time important to you.
- ForrestN 14y ago
  For me, the overwhelmingly best answer is therapy.
charlieflowers 14y ago
Could you elaborate? I'm interested. By "first order desires", do you mean complete barbarism, such as seeing someone with an ice cream cone, and killing them on the spot so you can have the ice cream? And where do you feel second-order desires come from? Are you talking about the idea that humans can acquire new goals without even being aware they have done so? [1] Or something else? [1] "We do, as shown by decades of research on operant conditioning. When a neutral potential goal is associated with a stimulus of positive affect, we acquire new goals, and we can be unaware that this has happened:" from http://lesswrong.com/lw/5sk/inferring_our_desires/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/5sk/inferring_our_desires/
- ForrestN 14y ago
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higher-order_volition http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higher-order_volition Not a great entry but you get the idea.
itmag 14y ago
Can you elaborate on that?
- ForrestN 14y ago
  A fairly normal person might decide on New Year's Eve that, this year, everything is going to change. "I'm going to stop watching TV, I'm going to eat only healthy foods, get plenty of exercise, and spend 8 hours a day working towards my goals." But, of course, that person won't do most or even any of those things in a sustained way. The reason is that the person's second order desires, feelings like the impulse to eat ice-cream or the urge to put off making a certain phone call or writing a particular program, those desires are almost always more powerful than first order desires (like goals or ideals). That's because our behavior is ruled as much or more by subconscious motives as conscious ones, and those subconscious motives aren't governed by the decisions we make or the picture we have of the life we want. They're ruled by an imprint of your childhood, by habit, and by anxiety, depression, and so on. Another easy example is addiction. It's not that most alcoholics don't want to stop drinking. They can't, because their second order desire to drink is much more powerful than their first order desire. I've known this was true for me for some time, but this year I really came to understand it and see it happening throughout every day of the year. And I realized the extent to which this dynamic dominates most of the people I know, and how difficult or impossible it is for anyone to overcome their subconscious motives with conscious ones. It's very, very hard and very emotional work to address your subconscious and most people aren't interested in doing it. So the patterns that govern their lives just continue, and they can't gain any freedom from their own conflicts.
  - itmag 14y ago
    OK, so basically the difference between conscious and subconscious motivations. There's a lot of good self-help material dealing with getting those better aligned. Tony Robbins comes to mind.
elmuchoprez 14y ago
"Most people, myself included, don't actually do the things they want to do most of the time." The problem, in my experience, is that figuring out what you actually "want" is a very difficult proposition. And it often changes rapidly. You can see this manifested in people who are trying to choose a career. Even smart, goal oriented people often flounder around the career question because while many things interest them, nothing seems to interest them enough to "want" to dedicate their life to it. And it just gets further complicated with generic advice from others like, "Do what you love," when the truth is they don't "love" doing anything. So you twist your nips in the wind for a while trying to figure out what you really "want", and meanwhile the bar keeps getting lower. Pretty soon all you really want is a reliable car and to be able to make rent without a roommate. And while those might not be the noblest of "wants", you can find a certain personal gratification in them none the less. I don't know man. I'm 30 years in and I still don't know what I really "want", and it sure as shit ain't for lack of thinking about it. Right now I'm content with a reliable car and a dry house in a safe neighborhood. I have a job that mixes 1 part things I'm interested in and 1 part tedium and it affords me enough time and spare income to tinker away at side projects that are probably of interest to nobody but myself. In all liklihood, a generation after I die, maybe sooner, nobody will even remember I was here. And I'm fine with that. So when people say, "Do what you want!", man I don't even know what the hell those people are talking about.
- dfrankow 14y ago
  Wow, incredibly true, but sobering.
- ForrestN 14y ago
  I'm not telling anyone "Do what you want!" per se, and many people don't have a clear picture of what they want (of course most people just want simple things: they want to be loved most of all, to feel good about themselves, to feel safe, and to be free of stress and anxiety). Instead I'm saying that even if you are, like me, a person who could write down exactly what you want, from the scale of your lifetime down to how you would like to spend each morning and evening, that clarity doesn't actually enable you to do any of those things. I would love to wake up each morning and exercise for 20 minutes, cook a healthy breakfast with a small pot of tea, read the New York Times, and then watch the sun rise. But I cannot do it. Not because it's hard, or because of its existential absurdity, or because it would require something that I don't have. I can't do it because my subconscious has other motives, like the motive to stay in bed until the anxiety of scheduled events compel me to leave it. Psychology, in my opinion, does not seem designed for contemporary life, which makes many people's lives much more difficult than they need to be.

k3n 14y ago

That's a profound thought that transcends technology, thanks.

mej10 14y ago

I have witnessed this in myself and others, and it is painful to both see and experience. Of course the question is: what can we do about it?

monk_e_boy 14y ago
Get passionate about what you want to do. Skive, make time, lie cheat and steal to do what you want. Make your hobby/free time important to you.
ForrestN 14y ago
For me, the overwhelmingly best answer is therapy.

charlieflowers 14y ago

Could you elaborate? I'm interested. By "first order desires", do you mean complete barbarism, such as seeing someone with an ice cream cone, and killing them on the spot so you can have the ice cream? And where do you feel second-order desires come from? Are you talking about the idea that humans can acquire new goals without even being aware they have done so? [1] Or something else? [1] "We do, as shown by decades of research on operant conditioning. When a neutral potential goal is associated with a stimulus of positive affect, we acquire new goals, and we can be unaware that this has happened:" from http://lesswrong.com/lw/5sk/inferring_our_desires/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/5sk/inferring_our_desires/

ForrestN 14y ago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higher-order_volition http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higher-order_volition Not a great entry but you get the idea.

itmag 14y ago

Can you elaborate on that?

ForrestN 14y ago
A fairly normal person might decide on New Year's Eve that, this year, everything is going to change. "I'm going to stop watching TV, I'm going to eat only healthy foods, get plenty of exercise, and spend 8 hours a day working towards my goals." But, of course, that person won't do most or even any of those things in a sustained way. The reason is that the person's second order desires, feelings like the impulse to eat ice-cream or the urge to put off making a certain phone call or writing a particular program, those desires are almost always more powerful than first order desires (like goals or ideals). That's because our behavior is ruled as much or more by subconscious motives as conscious ones, and those subconscious motives aren't governed by the decisions we make or the picture we have of the life we want. They're ruled by an imprint of your childhood, by habit, and by anxiety, depression, and so on. Another easy example is addiction. It's not that most alcoholics don't want to stop drinking. They can't, because their second order desire to drink is much more powerful than their first order desire. I've known this was true for me for some time, but this year I really came to understand it and see it happening throughout every day of the year. And I realized the extent to which this dynamic dominates most of the people I know, and how difficult or impossible it is for anyone to overcome their subconscious motives with conscious ones. It's very, very hard and very emotional work to address your subconscious and most people aren't interested in doing it. So the patterns that govern their lives just continue, and they can't gain any freedom from their own conflicts.
- itmag 14y ago
  OK, so basically the difference between conscious and subconscious motivations. There's a lot of good self-help material dealing with getting those better aligned. Tony Robbins comes to mind.

elmuchoprez 14y ago

"Most people, myself included, don't actually do the things they want to do most of the time." The problem, in my experience, is that figuring out what you actually "want" is a very difficult proposition. And it often changes rapidly. You can see this manifested in people who are trying to choose a career. Even smart, goal oriented people often flounder around the career question because while many things interest them, nothing seems to interest them enough to "want" to dedicate their life to it. And it just gets further complicated with generic advice from others like, "Do what you love," when the truth is they don't "love" doing anything. So you twist your nips in the wind for a while trying to figure out what you really "want", and meanwhile the bar keeps getting lower. Pretty soon all you really want is a reliable car and to be able to make rent without a roommate. And while those might not be the noblest of "wants", you can find a certain personal gratification in them none the less. I don't know man. I'm 30 years in and I still don't know what I really "want", and it sure as shit ain't for lack of thinking about it. Right now I'm content with a reliable car and a dry house in a safe neighborhood. I have a job that mixes 1 part things I'm interested in and 1 part tedium and it affords me enough time and spare income to tinker away at side projects that are probably of interest to nobody but myself. In all liklihood, a generation after I die, maybe sooner, nobody will even remember I was here. And I'm fine with that. So when people say, "Do what you want!", man I don't even know what the hell those people are talking about.

dfrankow 14y ago
Wow, incredibly true, but sobering.
ForrestN 14y ago
I'm not telling anyone "Do what you want!" per se, and many people don't have a clear picture of what they want (of course most people just want simple things: they want to be loved most of all, to feel good about themselves, to feel safe, and to be free of stress and anxiety). Instead I'm saying that even if you are, like me, a person who could write down exactly what you want, from the scale of your lifetime down to how you would like to spend each morning and evening, that clarity doesn't actually enable you to do any of those things. I would love to wake up each morning and exercise for 20 minutes, cook a healthy breakfast with a small pot of tea, read the New York Times, and then watch the sun rise. But I cannot do it. Not because it's hard, or because of its existential absurdity, or because it would require something that I don't have. I can't do it because my subconscious has other motives, like the motive to stay in bed until the anxiety of scheduled events compel me to leave it. Psychology, in my opinion, does not seem designed for contemporary life, which makes many people's lives much more difficult than they need to be.