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If it feels like she took too long to get to the point, maybe it's because you missed it. Her point (as I took it) was that she had such a strong habit of livi

If it feels like she took too long to get to the point, maybe it's because you missed it. Her point (as I took it) was that she had such a strong habit of living her life entirely in terms of her accomplishments that she was living her life inauthentically without even realizing it. And it took a whole lot of space away from her life just to become aware of it. Not everything can be reduced down to a three-word "TL;DR."

merryandrew 13y ago
Agreed.
ulisesrmzroche 13y ago
It's the same cliche that gets repeated ad-naseum in HN. "Why I left X to build Y". Yes. YOLO. We know. You're pitching your startup. Is it not ok to offer critique? Taking too long to get to the point is a cardinal sin in writing and it's kinda lame to just label it as "haters gonna hate".
- thedufer 13y ago
  Was this a pitch for her startup? She named it once, without a link. And it's a name that isn't easy to search for. If this is pitching, she's not very good at it. Edit: It's http://letsmend.com/ http://letsmend.com/ - you can find a domain registration page if you search her name and the name of the startup.
  - saiko-chriskun 13y ago
    Yeah I was curious when it was mentioned in the article but I can't even find it by googling :P.
  - ulisesrmzroche 13y ago
    That's what I got out of it. It's all pretty vague, so maybe it's just a post about how you should eschew the rat-race, go do your own thing, build your startup, and find happiness. Which is even more meh, honestly. Another key of good writing is to leave your reader with just one point in mind, one that never occurred to them before.
    - chunky1994 13y ago
      PG also has many essays that are regarding doing your own thing, and about life. Admittedly, I find PG much better in providing insight, however this article also does a pretty decent, (albeit with many platitudes) of giving us insight on living life. Something that apparently many people on HN think is not meh.
- haberman 13y ago
  > Yes. YOLO. We know. Again, the experience she described cannot be reduced to "YOLO." YOLO could just as easily mean "I left Google to do something bigger and more successful." But that's the opposite of what she did. She learned to figure out what she actually wanted instead of what she would get praised for, even if it was an overall less ambitious life path.
  - ulisesrmzroche 13y ago
    "She learned to figure out what she actually <strong>wanted</strong> instead of what she would get praised for, even if it was an overall less ambitious life path". YOLO. Why waste your life doing what doesn't fulfill you? You only live once. Is that not applicable as well? This is precisely my argument. I'm just saying we should be ok with offering critique on style and content, not silencing it around here.
    - icambron 13y ago
      To the extent that "YOLO" can be applied to a variety of things, it does not make a good summary of anything. On critiquing: something has gone very wrong when you're making dismissive and snarky remarks about someone's long, personal thought piece. You could do a number of interesting things, like, say, disagree with it or suggest improvements. But if you're idea of a critique is "this is long and boring and I know this stuff", I suggest simply finding other reading material instead.
      - deleted 13y ago
        [deleted]
    - haberman 13y ago
      > Why waste your life doing what doesn't fulfill you? Because it can be extremely difficult to distinguish your own needs/wants from the desires and expectations of the people around you. No one wakes up in the morning thinking "I'm going to ignore what I want for no reason, and instead do what everyone else thinks I should want." And yet it's an easy trap to fall into, like the author did.
benihana 13y ago
Timeline of events: - you get upset at OP for missing the point and criticizing the author for being too wordy - you give a neat two sentence summary of the article - you say sometimes you can't give a nice neat summary of an article - the massive dose of irony that just happened is lost on you.
- md224 13y ago
  Haberman was complaining about the tendency to summarize a long piece of writing in a few words (here, only 3). Haberman's summary was more than three words, and more importantly, did not dismissively imply that such a summary was an appropriate stand-in for reading the article and/or encapsulated the article in its entirety. There was a difference of purpose/context. I didn't find it to be too ironic. The Internet is great at the rapid dissemination of micro-communications. But let's not forget that there's merit in taking your time as well.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
srean 13y ago
Damn ! Small arrow buttons. Downvoted by mistake. Could anyone rectify please. EDIT: By rectify I meant upvote haberman, not downvote me :) Well thats fine too, but meant the former.
bored 13y ago
It's like she made the reader experience the same confusion.

merryandrew 13y ago

Agreed.

ulisesrmzroche 13y ago

It's the same cliche that gets repeated ad-naseum in HN. "Why I left X to build Y". Yes. YOLO. We know. You're pitching your startup. Is it not ok to offer critique? Taking too long to get to the point is a cardinal sin in writing and it's kinda lame to just label it as "haters gonna hate".

thedufer 13y ago
Was this a pitch for her startup? She named it once, without a link. And it's a name that isn't easy to search for. If this is pitching, she's not very good at it. Edit: It's http://letsmend.com/ http://letsmend.com/ - you can find a domain registration page if you search her name and the name of the startup.
- saiko-chriskun 13y ago
  Yeah I was curious when it was mentioned in the article but I can't even find it by googling :P.
- ulisesrmzroche 13y ago
  That's what I got out of it. It's all pretty vague, so maybe it's just a post about how you should eschew the rat-race, go do your own thing, build your startup, and find happiness. Which is even more meh, honestly. Another key of good writing is to leave your reader with just one point in mind, one that never occurred to them before.
  - chunky1994 13y ago
    PG also has many essays that are regarding doing your own thing, and about life. Admittedly, I find PG much better in providing insight, however this article also does a pretty decent, (albeit with many platitudes) of giving us insight on living life. Something that apparently many people on HN think is not meh.
haberman 13y ago
> Yes. YOLO. We know. Again, the experience she described cannot be reduced to "YOLO." YOLO could just as easily mean "I left Google to do something bigger and more successful." But that's the opposite of what she did. She learned to figure out what she actually wanted instead of what she would get praised for, even if it was an overall less ambitious life path.
- ulisesrmzroche 13y ago
  "She learned to figure out what she actually <strong>wanted</strong> instead of what she would get praised for, even if it was an overall less ambitious life path". YOLO. Why waste your life doing what doesn't fulfill you? You only live once. Is that not applicable as well? This is precisely my argument. I'm just saying we should be ok with offering critique on style and content, not silencing it around here.
  - icambron 13y ago
    To the extent that "YOLO" can be applied to a variety of things, it does not make a good summary of anything. On critiquing: something has gone very wrong when you're making dismissive and snarky remarks about someone's long, personal thought piece. You could do a number of interesting things, like, say, disagree with it or suggest improvements. But if you're idea of a critique is "this is long and boring and I know this stuff", I suggest simply finding other reading material instead.
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
  - haberman 13y ago
    > Why waste your life doing what doesn't fulfill you? Because it can be extremely difficult to distinguish your own needs/wants from the desires and expectations of the people around you. No one wakes up in the morning thinking "I'm going to ignore what I want for no reason, and instead do what everyone else thinks I should want." And yet it's an easy trap to fall into, like the author did.

benihana 13y ago

Timeline of events: - you get upset at OP for missing the point and criticizing the author for being too wordy - you give a neat two sentence summary of the article - you say sometimes you can't give a nice neat summary of an article - the massive dose of irony that just happened is lost on you.

md224 13y ago
Haberman was complaining about the tendency to summarize a long piece of writing in a few words (here, only 3). Haberman's summary was more than three words, and more importantly, did not dismissively imply that such a summary was an appropriate stand-in for reading the article and/or encapsulated the article in its entirety. There was a difference of purpose/context. I didn't find it to be too ironic. The Internet is great at the rapid dissemination of micro-communications. But let's not forget that there's merit in taking your time as well.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

srean 13y ago

Damn ! Small arrow buttons. Downvoted by mistake. Could anyone rectify please. EDIT: By rectify I meant upvote haberman, not downvote me :) Well thats fine too, but meant the former.

bored 13y ago

It's like she made the reader experience the same confusion.