8 ms·

Why Sometimes I Hate Myself

221 points by tdziurko 12y ago

henrik_w 12y ago
About wasting time: I like this quote from Bertrand Russell: "The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time."
- icebraining 12y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8323814 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8323814
  - henrik_w 12y ago
    Thanks! I won't attribute it to Russell anymore, but it is still a good quote :-)
DogeDogeDoge 12y ago
Personally i love playing games and not only computer games like DoTa or Heroes of the Storm but some more involving titles like World of Warcraft. Besides this i play Magic The Gathering card game and loads of board games... never felt bad about it. But same time i'm not a guy who says working 12 hour a day is a stupid thing and striving to be perfect is just a road to insanity.
jgrahamc 12y ago
We all like to perceive ourselves as 100% professionals, real craftsmen, brushing up and sharpening our toolset all the time. I don't; I'm human.
- bilalhusain 12y ago
  The pretentious programmer culture irks me. As a programmer we are not doing a decorated job. We take pride in making ourselves different. In showing off ourselves as informal, as rule-breakers. "No, we will come to office at 3 PM. In half-pants." We perceive non-programmer employees as mere mortals. And, oh, we are so awesome!! We build our own communities, worship our own heroes and immerse ourselves in our own society; instead of the immersing in the actual society we live in.
  - wozmirek 12y ago
    Not a programmer here, though sitting on the fence a bit - please remember that many programmers faced abuse and were ridiculed during their school years for their general attitude and their passion. Ever heard the words dork/nerd/geek? They weren't that trendy a few years ago.
    - bilalhusain 12y ago
      If its about explaining the attitude of forming their own cool hangout, I do agree with you. But I don't buy that an attitude inspired by revenge is justified because they were abused.
      - roghummal 12y ago
        Their own "cool hangout"? I'll let you in! The secret handshake goes like this: Open your right hand, palm down. Make a fist. Now let your middle/long/tall finger extend. Rotate your hand 180deg clockwise. Bend your wrist upward. Congrats. Welcome.
      - dscrd 12y ago
        Why should we care if it's justified? Was the abuse justified?
        dasil003 12y ago
        Because love is the only way forward. And I don't say that out of altruism. Hatred will consume and embitter a person. There are people who have suffered far greater injustices than being bullied in school and were resilient enough to maintain a generally positive disposition that serves them well. There are also privileged individuals who never faced anything most people would consider a real problem and yet are extremely cynical and bitter at the world as they see it. Setting all judgement aside, what is the better way to live solely for oneself?
        roghummal 12y ago
- dsuth 12y ago
  Exactly. Constant focus on a single thing is a recipe for burnout. 'Downtime', whether that's a hobby, exercise, cooking, or watching mindless TV, is a good thing. Humans need time to rest their brains; every person who has described themselves this way (and actually appeared to do it) has been miserable IME. Never apologise for having a life.
Gusfoo_2 12y ago
It passes in time.
crater 12y ago
well the opening paragraph was a little dramatic
bthornbury 12y ago
Took me a while to realize 9-17 was 9-5 on a 24 hour clock.
- beobab 12y ago
  It took you to point it out to me. :)
- StavrosK 12y ago
  Huh, I didn't realize 24 hour time was so scarcely used in the US.
  - icebraining 12y ago
    We use the 24 hour time here in Portugal (in every digital clock, written information, etc), but it also threw me off. 9-5 is a common linguistic expression, while 9-17 reads "nine to seventeen" to me. Maybe "9-17h" would work better.
  - wastedhours 12y ago
    In the UK it's not that it's used scarcely, it's that the expression is usually written as "9-5".
    - StavrosK 12y ago
      Hmm, yeah... In Greece we use it interchangeably with the 12-hour time, but whenever my brain sees 17, it just translates it to "5", so the expression made sense. Then again, I skipped that part in the article and only saw it in the comments, so I may have already been primed for it.
  - ToastyMallows 12y ago
    As someone from the US that uses a 24 hour clock everywhere, I've gotten many questions and weird looks.
- arc_of_descent 12y ago
  I thought the OP was rating himself 9 on a scale of 1-17!
jaimebuelta 12y ago
I think it's more a self-imposed pressure than a external thing. I've never heard anyone personally saying that you should devote 100% of your time to be "a developer" (though there are general suggestions that seems to go on that line, like "constantly improving", etc) It's more the feeling that you should be able to do as much as "everyone else" (which really are a very small minority). The ones that creates very useful tools, do podcasts every week and do a blog post every day. But, normally, those three activities are done by different people, or maybe it's their full time job. Just relax and be yourself. You're doing great.
- tdziurko 12y ago
  That's probably true. We are constantly seeing that someone's wrote a book, posted something on his blog, created open source library. But in most cases they are achievements of multiple people, not only one. And it creates pressure that everybody is doing much more than I am to improve/learn.
lmartel 12y ago
This feeling is an extension of the "HN complex", I think. You see when people post amazing things on Show HN, but you don't see when people are sitting around watching House of Cards. It's the developer version of "everyone on Facebook is having more fun than I am." Try to remind yourself that your perception of others is warped. Past that, I've struggled with this feeling a bit, and this is what I've come up with (YMMV, of course, but it works for me): - Keep trying new, productive side projects--just a half hour every couple nights, or something. This could be open source work, MOOCs, reading a book, whatever. Anything that makes you proud of yourself the next morning. - Eventually, you'll stumble upon something that grabs you--you wouldn't care so much about improving if you didn't enjoy some aspect of what you do. - If a project grabs you, let yourself get carried away. Buy some red bull. If it doesn't, pat yourself on the back for trying, take a few nights off, and keep trying. The trick here is to keep moving until something clicks. The advantage of this approach is that you're still doing productive things, but you also have plenty of time to goof off between tries, and (at least in my experience) you'll feel less guilty about it. Forcing yourself to spend your free time on something you don't enjoy to the nebulous end of "self-improvement" will accomplish nothing and make you miserable. EDIT: after re-reading the OP, I wanted to add that all this is completely optional--if you really do enjoy this self-improvement shtick but have trouble getting started or pacing yourself. There are many, many software developers with great jobs that work 9-5 and go home to their families or non-technical hobbies, and there's absolutely no shame in that. All the corporate blathering about "passion" is just a ploy to depress market wages.
- sp8 12y ago
  > Try to remind yourself that your perception of others is warped. I am a strong believer in this effect. I saw it expressed well once in a book, paraphrased: "You are comparing your inside with other people's outside." I've held on to that concept and its been an important part of me keeping my natural self-pessimism in check.
  - cven714 12y ago
    Similar quote always stuck with me: "You judge others by their actions and yourself by your intentions"
Cthulhu_ 12y ago
This ideal is something that's also forced upon us by my company; a colleague and a manager both frowned upon me or even scoffed when I admitted I didn't do much (or any) programming in my spare time. Since then I'd rather not talk about my spare time at all - it'd actually be a risk to my job. But I just can't find the mental energy or motivation to do even more of my already mentally taxing job in my spare time. I don't see software development as my hobby, it's my 9-5 job. Video games and whatnot are my hobby. I won't win much cool points with those, but that's alright, I do those for myself, not others.
- BugBrother 12y ago
  There are lots of people which do better jobs in my subjects than me, while only caring about the money. Ideally, those guys should find something they had a real passion for instead. Because they/you might be really awesome doing something else. I admire people that love something which won't pay them a salary, then do a job they don't care about so they are able to "waste" most of their time with (real examples) their board games, table tennis, etc. It isn't optimized for GNP, but people must decide [themselves] what they really want from life. Edit: 'cauterized', note the word "Ideally". The last paragraph is even an impassioned argument that it is not a bad thing to live for something else than your profession. Sorry I wasn't clear.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - cauterized 12y ago
    Not everyone has a "passion", and if only the passionate were allowed to be programmers, the industry would have a ridiculous labor shortage. Some of us do software development because we find it more enjoyable than, say, law, and because it pays the bills pretty damn well. Guess what? Outside this profession, and probably inside too, that's the reason MOST people in "professional" occupations choose their careers. The difference (that shouldn't exist) is that in most careers it's perfectly acceptable to work 9-6 to pay the bills and then spend your free time doing something you care about (like spending time with family) that will never earn you a dime.
ggreer 12y ago
I think this is a case of the typical mind fallacy.[1] We generally assume that everyone else is as calm-neurotic/driven-lazy/straightforward-dishonest as we are. That's simply not the case. Genes, upbringing, and life experiences shape our minds differently. There are people who do nothing but work while being quite happy with their lives.[2] Some of us got lucky. Others, not so much. That's not to say that people can't change. Even tiny alterations to everyday life can drastically affect one's happiness and/or productivity. Meeting a new friend, moving to a new place, or just being preoccupied with some new problem can completely change one's outlook. So I agree with the author: Don't deny your faults. But still try to fix them. They're not as immutable as you might think. 1. http://lesswrong.com/lw/dr/generalizing_from_one_example/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/dr/generalizing_from_one_example/ 2. Jiro Ono comes to mind: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sukiyabashi_Jiro http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sukiyabashi_Jiro
arc_of_descent 12y ago
Its a perfectly rational feeling. The problem is we also like to perceive ourselves as individuals, but in fact are products of a system. I spend huge amounts of my time watching movies, doing things absolutely not related to my personal career ambitions, and yes I do feel guilty. But as this thread mentions, we are human, and the feelings pass away in time. I've learned that one hour of focused productivity is worth 10 hours of "doing stuff" which you think will make you a better programmer.
mamoriamohit 12y ago
I can relate to this hatred very well. There was a time when everything was new to us and learning was fun. But then, the technology improved rapidly and we got a lot to learn and create. If I look back, I find myself lucky to have begun programming at the time when I began (11 years ago). There's just so many things that one needs to learn to call himself a programmer. And now, when I know enough to build software of any scale, I hate myself too, for not being as productive as I was as a beginner. As a beginner, I would learning continuously for weeks (with food and sleep breaks in between). And as self-learners, we always have tendency to be better than what we were yesterday and thus the anxiety begins to build up. I feel you, brother.
- mamoriamohit 12y ago
  Although, I have recently found that mini side projects help keep the productivity at a healthy rate.
- innguest 12y ago
  This resonates a lot with me, and I hadn't seen it from this perspective before. I do get anxiety from feeling I'm not learning or producing enough in my spare time but your message helps me see that maybe I'm yearning for the kinds of days I had more than a decade ago when programming looked like a mystical island to be explored in an adventure. Now that I know the island in and out and know my tools pretty well, suddenly I don't feel like improving the island and I'm more interested in other aspects of life.
ryan-allen 12y ago
I was reading a book about how people remember certain kinds of stories of success, and these are better for marketing purposes, but the reality was that it was a bit of luck and a hard slog mixed together. The example was how the eBay founders had this big mission to build a huge barter platform but the public didn't care until the 'marketing story' about how one of the founders had the idea because his wife wanted to 'trade pez dispensers'. I forget the book, but it reminds me of this. The truth of the matter is there is probably no such thing as shining brilliance, it's just smoke and mirrors when advertised, and true achievements are partially luck based, but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't live our lives studying and working and giving a shit. But we don't need to do it 24/7, and we don't need to sacrifice our lives to be good enough.
nicolsc 12y ago
Winning the Champions with your fav little club in FM is in now way a waste of time! (Proof : it made you happy) Seriously, live your life. There is much more to it than reading tech books or whatever career-related stuff. Just do what makes you & your family happy. Keep an healthy balance.
1wd 12y ago
The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time. -- Bertrand Russell
- icebraining 12y ago
  He actually probably never said that specific line. But he did write an essay called "In Praise Of Idleness": http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html
  - ozh 12y ago
    Interesting backtracing of the origin of that quote: http://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/06/11/time-you-enjoy/ http://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/06/11/time-you-enjoy/
  - 1wd 12y ago
    Thanks I did not know that. I found this quote and attribution in [0]. (Sadly there were many other errors in that book.) [0] http://www.stroustrup.com/Tour.html http://www.stroustrup.com/Tour.html
WBrentWilliams 12y ago
To give away my age and turn the snark on, I grew out of my "I hate myself and want to die" period. Rainbow t-shirt included. Not only did I decide it was "OK" to have interests and passion outside of work, I embraced the idea. Recently, I've come around to the other side of the spectrum and have been using my interests to build my professional skills. There's a point to the electives traditionally opened up in a scholastic schedule. In my opinion, the whole idea was to provide a space to try new things, to follow new interests, and maybe even fail. As has been noted in at least one book and arguments elsewhere, our society as a whole seems to have fallen into an excellence myth. That you must be passionate and succeed at everything you attempt. I see this as the reflection side of the professional passion movement. "Keep trying, you'll get better" sounds too much like a kid's jingle. To market it, it's presented to adults with a show of hand-stuffing between a split fancy roll with gourmet mustard. Open your eyes, and you realize it's still a hot dog.
pistle 12y ago
Sounds like a someone fighting with a form of cargo cultism. There are people who live and breath technical pursuits and were either born or raised to enjoy/tolerate things and happened to turn out with the outcomes that others think they wish they had. The irony is that people who find the life of bathing in their work - likely don't have or care much about the trappings that come from becoming hyper successful due to their moderately unique self. SEE NOTCH. Notch is a timely example of someone who gets so much out of plumbing the depths of programming that he is not going to be writing the sad article about how he sold his start-up and feels bittered about it and learned a bunch of lessons, etc. For most people (which means it's normal), people are not wired to enjoy the process enough to be like the OP thinks he's supposed to be. He's internalized the idea that this is how you get the outcomes he thinks he wants. I'm thinking there's paradoxes everywhere. If you: are fortunate enough to love the tasks dearly and not care what project/role you are on are fortunate enough to love the project/role you are working on despite the tasks are fortunate enough to love the project/role and your daily tasks Then you'll likely not worry about if you do or don't need/want breaks. No self-hate there. You love what you do. So, if you aren't feeling your "self" because you think you are broken, maybe believing that by pretending you're on the path to your desired outcomes - that your success plane will descend from the sky and bring you "the good times." That's the cargo cult. You need to understand you and what motivates you. You need to understand what you are capable of and how that places you where you are today. You need to learn what you really care about, then remember where/who you are and where you want to be. Forget the judgement of others - be your own worst critic. You'll do fine. Hate yourself for failing yourself, not for failing others.
scott_w 12y ago
I used to have a similar feeling about not "improving" enough, until I realised something: doing all that messing about (watching TV, films, reading books) makes you more human. When I'm not at a local meet-up, or conference, most of my conversation revolves around non-programming stuff. Most people don't want to hear my opinions on Python, Django, Scala, JavaScript etc. but they do want to know if I saw that ludicrous display last night. If you want to think of it in "self-improvement" terms, then imagine you're working on your personal database of trivia that you can talk about.
- slowmotiony 12y ago
  What was Wenger thinking sending Walcott on that early?
  - smaldj 12y ago
    Fing about Arsenal is, they always try an' walk it in.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
menriquez 12y ago
"back in the day", it was called workaholism...and a certain percentage of the population is afflicted with this disease. the web makes these people's addiction stand out in what seems like a positive way, unlike, say addiction to heroin or alcohol might. what isn't so obvious here on the web is how these workbots personal lives are affected by their 18 hour workdays.
josefresco 12y ago
For those of us old guys on HN with kids, that time away from coding is almost exclusively spent with your children. The time spent caring for them or just hanging out and being a Dad are sure ways to break yourself free of the hyper-motivational-echo-chamber that is HN and the greater developer web. Now a free hour to play a video game? That's especially hard, as it feels like you're robbing not just your professional time, but also your valuable parenting time.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- CmonDev 12y ago
  I know a couple of different guys who both are raising 1-2 happy kids and manage to find some coding time nevertheless (as well as exercising). It depends on the amount of passion for the craft.
  - tonylukasavage 12y ago
    I'm one of those people that find time to code while parenting 2 young children. And yes, any time spent coding before the kids' bedtime comes with the unwelcome twinge of guilt saying "I should be playing with the kids," and therefore infrequently occurs. The "amount of passion for the craft" sounds like a noble endeavor, but what it _really_ means is "willingness to sacrifice sleep, friends, other hobbies, and/or time with your family". I LOVE writing code. I'd be doing it even if I wasn't getting paid. I'm sure I'll be hacking interactive art piece for my grandkids when I'm retired. But if you stand back and look at it objectively, me writing a new JS framework or embedded system library, even if they are incredible, pales in comparison to actually spending time with the ones you love. In other words, if your passion for the craft truly exceeds your passion for your family, you've clearly made some poor decisions in life.
    - agentultra 12y ago
      Indeed! Time with my daughter is way more valuable to me as a human being than almost anything else. If there was a way to be paid to spend time with her I'd take it in a heart beat. She is way more fun than a computer. That being said I do feel better about myself when I am the most proud of my work. I just don't see the reason why it has to dominate my life. My work is important but it shouldn't be taking so much time from my life that I develop health and mental problems from it. And my family shouldn't suffer my absence simply because I want to be great at what I do. I like other things too. Literature. Poetry. Theater. The reasons why we live. It's hard to enjoy those things when all you can think about is your work. My ideal workplace is one that embraces the creative flow of energy. Sometimes I'm all about putting my nose to the grindstone and building something. Other times I go through periods of reflection and personal development and learn from what I have built.
Paul_S 12y ago
The gentleman doth project too much.
norswap 12y ago
> I don’t play computer games” they say, “I read five blog posts every evening”, “I don’t watch stupid TV series”. For me, saying this would be a point of shame instead of a point of pride (and it often is). I never understood the "I live for my work" macho-masochism. Even if you're passionate about something, I think it's healthy to have other interests.
- sarciszewski 12y ago
  I agree 100%
pjmlp 12y ago
I learned long time ago not to sell my soul the company or whatever is the tech of the day. Go to work, do the 8 hours, only stay if the team really needs help. No one is going to remember overtime when the next round of firings comes. One should keep learning, after all the technology changes everyday, but not at the expense of family and friends. There is only one life.
- mattgreenrocks 12y ago
  "Reinventing the wheel is a young man's game" - Gary Bernhardt Thing is, most young people (read: 20's) don't understand this. They think they need to be the person who came out with underscore.asm (or whatever terrible fad) to work on their "brand." Get those Github stars! Write more blog posts! Get more Twitter followers! Because nothing says "hacker" like slavishly believing increasing a bunch of crappy vanity metrics means anything.
  - mwcampbell 12y ago
    > "Reinventing the wheel is a young man's game" - Gary Bernhardt Where can I find that quote? I want to see it in context.
    - pjmlp 12y ago
      http://www.ourmidland.com/sports/prep/gary-is-baseball-coach-of-the-year-after-gladwin-s/article_9e487c90-c30a-5e4f-a68d-3951cd061497.html http://www.ourmidland.com/sports/prep/gary-is-baseball-coach...
      - mwcampbell 12y ago
        I think you pasted the wrong link.
    - mattgreenrocks 12y ago
      https://twitter.com/garybernhardt/status/485997372334297089 https://twitter.com/garybernhardt/status/485997372334297089
sidcool 12y ago
A short and meaningful post. We all indulge in the so called "wasteful" activities, but I have found some of my best ideas and inspirations sprang from those wasteful moments. It is during these moments, I believe, the brain is relaxed enough to have a spark of creativity. In these moments, brain consolidates knowledge and finds connections. Even if that does not happen, the joy that such activities bring is in itself priceless. P.S. I have also posted this comment in the blog post.
- chippy 12y ago
  Like taking a walk in the woods, for example. I think the main thing is that these should be done without the anxiety of thinking "I shouldn't be doing this" - rather they can be done as you say, in a relaxed way.
quaffapint 12y ago
Nail meet head. That's why I don’t like going to developer meetups and such - I always feel inadequate. I'm just not as good as the person sitting next to me. I'm a child and they're the grown up. I'm a 9to5r with feelings of inadequacy. I feel such guilt about it and shame that it just makes it worse that too often I surf pages for way too long counting the minutes until I can get off the computer. There are moments of true bliss working on some code, but it's so hard to take the first steps to get there, having to climb over this giant wall I put up in front of myself.
- chippy 12y ago
  You should talk to the person sitting next to you. I find developer meetups great fun. I've never met anyone there who compared the size of their GitHub repos! You can get to meet a whole range of people, and if there's an interesting talk and free stuff that's a bonus. Pretty much all of the time we talk about other stuff, where we work, our bosses, the local news, philosophy, bitcoin or whatever - it could be me, but we hardly ever talk about the specific topic of the night. The hardest bit is when you don't know anyone else and have to break the ice on your own. But the next time there would probably be someone you met the first time...
- sarciszewski 12y ago
  As someone who probably makes the person sitting next to me feel inadequate during developer meet-ups because of the knowledge I have: Don't. Instead, try to focus that feeling towards curiosity instead. If they're anything like me, they would love nothing more than to teach someone what they know. And if they're snobby, fuck 'em, be the better person and they'll be jealous of you when their relationships fall apart. :D
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
bobspsitumorang 12y ago
Just do suicide you stupid fuck! :P
yellow_and_gray 12y ago
This is the mistake: There are high expectations to be met Why are you setting high expectations? Don't set high expectations, or any expectations for that matter. Expect nothing. Expectations are detrimental to creativity (I wish I had a citation handy that proves this once and for all [1]). You should be actively making a point of not having expectations. Work on what you like instead, and focus on getting better not on being good. [1] Alright, the closest I've come is http://intersubjectivite.com/drupal/files/Violations%20Of%20Expectations%20In%20Creativity%20and%20Perversion.pdf http://intersubjectivite.com/drupal/files/Violations%20Of%20... and the last paragraph in the conclusion is below. What striked me as odd is that there's a propensity towards violence when you violate expectations. Which makes sense for me, considering I get upset when I work on something that doesn't feel right. When being the violator of expectations has found a place in one’s hierarchy of motivations, it may well organize a variety of personal experiences, and thereby contributing either to a person’s creativity or propensity toward violence or both
malvosenior 12y ago
To offer a dissenting opinion... There are developers that LOVE what they do and do it nearly every waking moment. Guess what? they're way better than the average developer. Personally I don't like articles like this because they basically make excuses for mediocrity. We as a society shouldn't shy away from excellence and striving for it. The guys that work their asses off doing what they love and excel do exist and ARE awesome and we shouldn't take anything away from them. I'm pretty sure I'll get down voted for this btw :)
- sarciszewski 12y ago
  I think you'll get downvoted for missing the point, not for daring to challenge the status quo. "There are developers that LOVE what they do and do it nearly every waking moment." Agreed. I'm one of them. "Guess what? they're way better than the average developer." Good for them! But this wasn't about skill, it was about self-perception, social pressures, and coping with imperfection. "Personally I don't like articles like this because they basically make excuses for mediocrity." Mediocrity is irrelevant. Even excellent programmers can suffer from depression, burn-out, or discouragement. "We as a society shouldn't shy away from excellence and striving for it." No, but neither should we obsess over it like a bunch of severely autistic extremists who value only programming skill and nothing else. Humans are wonderful, complicated things. Obsessing about excellence in one area at the cost of everything else that makes us who we are is dehumanizing. "The guys that work their asses off doing what they love and excel do exist and ARE awesome and we shouldn't take anything away from them." Yeeeeeah, I'm pretty sure everyone would agree with you on this comment, but NOT IN THIS CONTEXT.
  - malvosenior 12y ago
    I guess I don't understand the point of the article. He says that it's a "lie" that people love their craft and take it seriously. I'll take umbrage with that since he's not speaking for me and many I know. This article is basically the equivalent of some guy that goes to the gym a few times a week saying that professional athletes are really just watching Breaking Bad every night instead of waking up at 5am to train and that they would be better of being more "well rounded" than following their innate passion. There's already too much "everyone gets a medal" mentality in our culture, it doesn't really add anything.
sarciszewski 12y ago
Heh. I can relate to this sort of exeprience. I used to be moderately to severely depressed at least somewhat in part because I wanted to get something done by a certain date, but I didn't have the focus or motivation to touch it. As the deadline creeps closer and closer and the dust collects on your git repo, you tend to feel a growing sense of despair that maybe you should just give up because you're not good enough. Then you say screw it, turn off the computer, go watch a stupid movie with your friends while talking about inane things like the upcoming World of Warcraft expansion. The sun sets, the pizza is delivered, maybe vast quantities of soda and/or alcohol are consumed if that's your thing. The night wears on, everyone goes their own separate ways. As you lay down in bed, staring at the ceiling reflecting on how happy this evening made you feel, you realize you're too stimulated to sleep. Then your mind goes back to your project. Not the deadline, but the reason why you started it in the first place. And for once, you focus not on the gulf between where you are and where you ought to be, but rather the next feature you can't wait to implement. So you turn on your laptop and code until the early dawn hours. Then you remember you had to work the next day. And that is why I have a severe coffee addiction. But it beats burn-out.
- winter_blue 12y ago
  I think this kind lifestyle could take a toll on your lifespan. That being said, I get the part about the feeling letdown with yourself. I set a lot of goals, made elaborate to-do (or rather, to-don't) lists, and instead of executing I spend hours crunching through articles on HN, reading Wikipedia, etc. I've been trying hard to let go of what I see in myself as an "information addiction". I've cut short the hours I spend on HN (but not always), and replaced some of my online reading with more high-quality reading on my Kindle. One thing I've found is that once your start working on a project, keeping on going is easy. It's just the initial static friction that's hard to overcome. Force yourself to do that project, and in minutes you'll be enjoying it!
  - sarciszewski 12y ago
    My point was that relaxing is often what you need to do to get things done. In my experience, at least. YMMV
jprince 12y ago
I still feel bad that I lack a real blog or website. I bought a domain over a year ago and still haven't thrown anything up. The reason was that beside my 9-7 job and the 15 hours of freelancing I did on the weekend, I was spending too much time and drowning in too much business to actually put up the damn website. Then, I got an offer to work for one of my clients full time, for 2x my salary, and now I STILL have no time to put up the website after taking the job. On the one hand I feel bad because it seems I have failed in becoming a public voice - on the other, I'm doing so well in my career right now it seems I don't have time to look like I'm doing well! Perceptions != reality. Sometimes, someone who has a great web presence may not have much else to be doing! ;)
fromdoon 12y ago
Everyone with more than 15-20 years of experience in the industry I have interacted with, more or less has the same advice when it comes to having a good work life balance and sustaining the passion for your work for a long time. They tell me that it is very very helpful if you are able to disconnect yourself from the technical world on a regular basis. This time could be spend doing anything, but it should not be spent fretting about work or thinking about the next exciting technical idea. They tell me that having a non-technical hobby or spending time with your family/friends/social circle is essential for a rejuvenated mind that can focus back on work. I agree with OP, lets no be so hard on ourselves and enjoy life. Cheers!!!
joseph8th 12y ago
When I'm wearing my "artist" hat (painting, drawing) it's easy to think of goofing off as "seeking inspiration". Sit at South Beach and admire the views and throngs... Then spend that inspiration by expressing what inspired me. I think I spend 90% of my artsy time just getting inspired to create. Coding isn't much different. I think it helps to let inspiration build up until you just gotta let it out. Part of that is the feeling that I need to do something rather than the nothing I've been at...
lnanek2 12y ago
Amusing that he considers reading blogs a productive thing that you would brag about.
azurelogic 12y ago
This article made me feel so much better about taking some time off from my current side project to splatter zombies in Dead Rising 3 lately. I do need to get back to it soon though...
rdlecler1 12y ago
Maybe the hyper smart feel this guilt. I spend most of my time plugging away, but I constantly fall short. Compare this with my hyper intelligent friends from CalTech: the ones who work hard are Directors at SpaceX or working on Google Glass, while the ones who are lazy are working at second tier financial institutions but sadly still doing better than I.
fndrplayer13 12y ago
Love it. My wife admonishes me every night that I need to work less and relax more. She says that the key to productivity is giving your brain time to relax. If all you do is work, you never give your mind a chance to absorb the knowledge you've absorbed. Games and TV, reading a book for pleasure, having a run, etc, give us that exact chance. I know she's right, even if I struggle with it.
vlunkr 12y ago
I understand wanting to be great at what you do, but this is ridiculous. It makes me sad that our subculture makes people feel this way. In my opinion if you focus on work all day, every day, you're wasting your time. What are you working for if all you ever do is work? I work partially because I love it, and partially so I can have the freedom to spend time with family/friends/entertainment.
joesmo 12y ago
I'm proud of being a "9-5" (9-17 in the article) developer. People that spend all their waking time focusing on development are likely to burn out very quickly and produce mediocre work. They're generally hard to work with and unnecessarily opinionated/confronting in my experience (having been one). The real achievement is achieving balance in one's life. It's easy to spend all one's time hacking away at work and after work. What's the challenge in that? Give me a balanced employee over any one of these soon-to-be burnouts. The industry will have you believe that if you don't spend all your time doing coding-related task, you're not worth it. Some will go as far as to use a github account or similar in lieu of a resume. This is a lie. The best developers I know do not work on open source. They might have at one time but are now too busy with other things. They have varied interests. They're interesting people. There isn't a single other industry I can think of where people are almost expected to work even after work. If that's your thing, great, but expecting that to be your thing and hating yourself for it over it leads me to thing that there is seriously something wrong mentally here. These expectations of workaholism are unrealistic. You wouldn't expect someone to be an alcoholic or drug addict nor praise it. So why praise an equally destructive addiction? Yet the computer industry does so over and over again because it's in its own interest and the workforce is generally so young, it doesn't know any better. If you're feeling down because you're not a workaholic, perhaps the question to ask yourself is why you would want such a terrible addiction in the first place? I'm just as thankful that I'm not a workaholic as I would be if I had gotten over any other undesirable addiction. The people still caught in the addiction are no measure to measure oneself by.
ky3 12y ago
Excerpt from a book: In today's culture -- where our self-worth is tied to our net worth, and we base our worth on our level of productivity -- spending time doing purposeless activities is rare. In fact, for many of us it sounds like an anxiety attack waiting to happen. That's from Guidepost #7 of Brene Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection. That chapter is subtitled Letting Go of Exhaustion As A Status Symbol and Productivity as Self-Worth. The previous chapter on cultivating creativity is also worth a read.
bsg75 12y ago
> We tend to keep it underneath, showing only our fully professional face: “I don’t play computer games” they say... All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. I am 45, play video games, watch TV (its all lame), and everyone in the office knows it - because they do too. I don't know if its still the case, but a decade or so ago, recruiters used to lament the lack of "well rounded" applicants in tech. People who only do tech often have trouble communicating with their peers in other parts of the business, and therefore are less productive then their skills would otherwise imply. Other interests, be they practical or impractical, are valuable.

221 points by tdziurko 12y ago

henrik_w 12y ago

About wasting time: I like this quote from Bertrand Russell: "The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time."

icebraining 12y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8323814 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8323814
- henrik_w 12y ago
  Thanks! I won't attribute it to Russell anymore, but it is still a good quote :-)

DogeDogeDoge 12y ago

Personally i love playing games and not only computer games like DoTa or Heroes of the Storm but some more involving titles like World of Warcraft. Besides this i play Magic The Gathering card game and loads of board games... never felt bad about it. But same time i'm not a guy who says working 12 hour a day is a stupid thing and striving to be perfect is just a road to insanity.

jgrahamc 12y ago

We all like to perceive ourselves as 100% professionals, real craftsmen, brushing up and sharpening our toolset all the time. I don't; I'm human.

bilalhusain 12y ago
The pretentious programmer culture irks me. As a programmer we are not doing a decorated job. We take pride in making ourselves different. In showing off ourselves as informal, as rule-breakers. "No, we will come to office at 3 PM. In half-pants." We perceive non-programmer employees as mere mortals. And, oh, we are so awesome!! We build our own communities, worship our own heroes and immerse ourselves in our own society; instead of the immersing in the actual society we live in.
- wozmirek 12y ago
  Not a programmer here, though sitting on the fence a bit - please remember that many programmers faced abuse and were ridiculed during their school years for their general attitude and their passion. Ever heard the words dork/nerd/geek? They weren't that trendy a few years ago.
  - bilalhusain 12y ago
    If its about explaining the attitude of forming their own cool hangout, I do agree with you. But I don't buy that an attitude inspired by revenge is justified because they were abused.
    - roghummal 12y ago
      Their own "cool hangout"? I'll let you in! The secret handshake goes like this: Open your right hand, palm down. Make a fist. Now let your middle/long/tall finger extend. Rotate your hand 180deg clockwise. Bend your wrist upward. Congrats. Welcome.
    - dscrd 12y ago
      Why should we care if it's justified? Was the abuse justified?
      - dasil003 12y ago
        Because love is the only way forward. And I don't say that out of altruism. Hatred will consume and embitter a person. There are people who have suffered far greater injustices than being bullied in school and were resilient enough to maintain a generally positive disposition that serves them well. There are also privileged individuals who never faced anything most people would consider a real problem and yet are extremely cynical and bitter at the world as they see it. Setting all judgement aside, what is the better way to live solely for oneself?
        roghummal 12y ago
dsuth 12y ago
Exactly. Constant focus on a single thing is a recipe for burnout. 'Downtime', whether that's a hobby, exercise, cooking, or watching mindless TV, is a good thing. Humans need time to rest their brains; every person who has described themselves this way (and actually appeared to do it) has been miserable IME. Never apologise for having a life.

Gusfoo_2 12y ago

It passes in time.

crater 12y ago

well the opening paragraph was a little dramatic

bthornbury 12y ago

Took me a while to realize 9-17 was 9-5 on a 24 hour clock.

beobab 12y ago
It took you to point it out to me. :)
StavrosK 12y ago
Huh, I didn't realize 24 hour time was so scarcely used in the US.
- icebraining 12y ago
  We use the 24 hour time here in Portugal (in every digital clock, written information, etc), but it also threw me off. 9-5 is a common linguistic expression, while 9-17 reads "nine to seventeen" to me. Maybe "9-17h" would work better.
- wastedhours 12y ago
  In the UK it's not that it's used scarcely, it's that the expression is usually written as "9-5".
  - StavrosK 12y ago
    Hmm, yeah... In Greece we use it interchangeably with the 12-hour time, but whenever my brain sees 17, it just translates it to "5", so the expression made sense. Then again, I skipped that part in the article and only saw it in the comments, so I may have already been primed for it.
- ToastyMallows 12y ago
  As someone from the US that uses a 24 hour clock everywhere, I've gotten many questions and weird looks.
arc_of_descent 12y ago
I thought the OP was rating himself 9 on a scale of 1-17!

jaimebuelta 12y ago

I think it's more a self-imposed pressure than a external thing. I've never heard anyone personally saying that you should devote 100% of your time to be "a developer" (though there are general suggestions that seems to go on that line, like "constantly improving", etc) It's more the feeling that you should be able to do as much as "everyone else" (which really are a very small minority). The ones that creates very useful tools, do podcasts every week and do a blog post every day. But, normally, those three activities are done by different people, or maybe it's their full time job. Just relax and be yourself. You're doing great.

tdziurko 12y ago
That's probably true. We are constantly seeing that someone's wrote a book, posted something on his blog, created open source library. But in most cases they are achievements of multiple people, not only one. And it creates pressure that everybody is doing much more than I am to improve/learn.

lmartel 12y ago

This feeling is an extension of the "HN complex", I think. You see when people post amazing things on Show HN, but you don't see when people are sitting around watching House of Cards. It's the developer version of "everyone on Facebook is having more fun than I am." Try to remind yourself that your perception of others is warped. Past that, I've struggled with this feeling a bit, and this is what I've come up with (YMMV, of course, but it works for me): - Keep trying new, productive side projects--just a half hour every couple nights, or something. This could be open source work, MOOCs, reading a book, whatever. Anything that makes you proud of yourself the next morning. - Eventually, you'll stumble upon something that grabs you--you wouldn't care so much about improving if you didn't enjoy some aspect of what you do. - If a project grabs you, let yourself get carried away. Buy some red bull. If it doesn't, pat yourself on the back for trying, take a few nights off, and keep trying. The trick here is to keep moving until something clicks. The advantage of this approach is that you're still doing productive things, but you also have plenty of time to goof off between tries, and (at least in my experience) you'll feel less guilty about it. Forcing yourself to spend your free time on something you don't enjoy to the nebulous end of "self-improvement" will accomplish nothing and make you miserable. EDIT: after re-reading the OP, I wanted to add that all this is completely optional--if you really do enjoy this self-improvement shtick but have trouble getting started or pacing yourself. There are many, many software developers with great jobs that work 9-5 and go home to their families or non-technical hobbies, and there's absolutely no shame in that. All the corporate blathering about "passion" is just a ploy to depress market wages.

sp8 12y ago
> Try to remind yourself that your perception of others is warped. I am a strong believer in this effect. I saw it expressed well once in a book, paraphrased: "You are comparing your inside with other people's outside." I've held on to that concept and its been an important part of me keeping my natural self-pessimism in check.
- cven714 12y ago
  Similar quote always stuck with me: "You judge others by their actions and yourself by your intentions"

Cthulhu_ 12y ago

This ideal is something that's also forced upon us by my company; a colleague and a manager both frowned upon me or even scoffed when I admitted I didn't do much (or any) programming in my spare time. Since then I'd rather not talk about my spare time at all - it'd actually be a risk to my job. But I just can't find the mental energy or motivation to do even more of my already mentally taxing job in my spare time. I don't see software development as my hobby, it's my 9-5 job. Video games and whatnot are my hobby. I won't win much cool points with those, but that's alright, I do those for myself, not others.

BugBrother 12y ago
There are lots of people which do better jobs in my subjects than me, while only caring about the money. Ideally, those guys should find something they had a real passion for instead. Because they/you might be really awesome doing something else. I admire people that love something which won't pay them a salary, then do a job they don't care about so they are able to "waste" most of their time with (real examples) their board games, table tennis, etc. It isn't optimized for GNP, but people must decide [themselves] what they really want from life. Edit: 'cauterized', note the word "Ideally". The last paragraph is even an impassioned argument that it is not a bad thing to live for something else than your profession. Sorry I wasn't clear.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- cauterized 12y ago
  Not everyone has a "passion", and if only the passionate were allowed to be programmers, the industry would have a ridiculous labor shortage. Some of us do software development because we find it more enjoyable than, say, law, and because it pays the bills pretty damn well. Guess what? Outside this profession, and probably inside too, that's the reason MOST people in "professional" occupations choose their careers. The difference (that shouldn't exist) is that in most careers it's perfectly acceptable to work 9-6 to pay the bills and then spend your free time doing something you care about (like spending time with family) that will never earn you a dime.

ggreer 12y ago

I think this is a case of the typical mind fallacy.[1] We generally assume that everyone else is as calm-neurotic/driven-lazy/straightforward-dishonest as we are. That's simply not the case. Genes, upbringing, and life experiences shape our minds differently. There are people who do nothing but work while being quite happy with their lives.[2] Some of us got lucky. Others, not so much. That's not to say that people can't change. Even tiny alterations to everyday life can drastically affect one's happiness and/or productivity. Meeting a new friend, moving to a new place, or just being preoccupied with some new problem can completely change one's outlook. So I agree with the author: Don't deny your faults. But still try to fix them. They're not as immutable as you might think. 1. http://lesswrong.com/lw/dr/generalizing_from_one_example/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/dr/generalizing_from_one_example/ 2. Jiro Ono comes to mind: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sukiyabashi_Jiro http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sukiyabashi_Jiro

arc_of_descent 12y ago

Its a perfectly rational feeling. The problem is we also like to perceive ourselves as individuals, but in fact are products of a system. I spend huge amounts of my time watching movies, doing things absolutely not related to my personal career ambitions, and yes I do feel guilty. But as this thread mentions, we are human, and the feelings pass away in time. I've learned that one hour of focused productivity is worth 10 hours of "doing stuff" which you think will make you a better programmer.

mamoriamohit 12y ago

I can relate to this hatred very well. There was a time when everything was new to us and learning was fun. But then, the technology improved rapidly and we got a lot to learn and create. If I look back, I find myself lucky to have begun programming at the time when I began (11 years ago). There's just so many things that one needs to learn to call himself a programmer. And now, when I know enough to build software of any scale, I hate myself too, for not being as productive as I was as a beginner. As a beginner, I would learning continuously for weeks (with food and sleep breaks in between). And as self-learners, we always have tendency to be better than what we were yesterday and thus the anxiety begins to build up. I feel you, brother.

mamoriamohit 12y ago
Although, I have recently found that mini side projects help keep the productivity at a healthy rate.
innguest 12y ago
This resonates a lot with me, and I hadn't seen it from this perspective before. I do get anxiety from feeling I'm not learning or producing enough in my spare time but your message helps me see that maybe I'm yearning for the kinds of days I had more than a decade ago when programming looked like a mystical island to be explored in an adventure. Now that I know the island in and out and know my tools pretty well, suddenly I don't feel like improving the island and I'm more interested in other aspects of life.

ryan-allen 12y ago

I was reading a book about how people remember certain kinds of stories of success, and these are better for marketing purposes, but the reality was that it was a bit of luck and a hard slog mixed together. The example was how the eBay founders had this big mission to build a huge barter platform but the public didn't care until the 'marketing story' about how one of the founders had the idea because his wife wanted to 'trade pez dispensers'. I forget the book, but it reminds me of this. The truth of the matter is there is probably no such thing as shining brilliance, it's just smoke and mirrors when advertised, and true achievements are partially luck based, but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't live our lives studying and working and giving a shit. But we don't need to do it 24/7, and we don't need to sacrifice our lives to be good enough.

nicolsc 12y ago

Winning the Champions with your fav little club in FM is in now way a waste of time! (Proof : it made you happy) Seriously, live your life. There is much more to it than reading tech books or whatever career-related stuff. Just do what makes you & your family happy. Keep an healthy balance.

1wd 12y ago

The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time. -- Bertrand Russell

icebraining 12y ago
He actually probably never said that specific line. But he did write an essay called "In Praise Of Idleness": http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html
- ozh 12y ago
  Interesting backtracing of the origin of that quote: http://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/06/11/time-you-enjoy/ http://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/06/11/time-you-enjoy/
- 1wd 12y ago
  Thanks I did not know that. I found this quote and attribution in [0]. (Sadly there were many other errors in that book.) [0] http://www.stroustrup.com/Tour.html http://www.stroustrup.com/Tour.html

WBrentWilliams 12y ago

To give away my age and turn the snark on, I grew out of my "I hate myself and want to die" period. Rainbow t-shirt included. Not only did I decide it was "OK" to have interests and passion outside of work, I embraced the idea. Recently, I've come around to the other side of the spectrum and have been using my interests to build my professional skills. There's a point to the electives traditionally opened up in a scholastic schedule. In my opinion, the whole idea was to provide a space to try new things, to follow new interests, and maybe even fail. As has been noted in at least one book and arguments elsewhere, our society as a whole seems to have fallen into an excellence myth. That you must be passionate and succeed at everything you attempt. I see this as the reflection side of the professional passion movement. "Keep trying, you'll get better" sounds too much like a kid's jingle. To market it, it's presented to adults with a show of hand-stuffing between a split fancy roll with gourmet mustard. Open your eyes, and you realize it's still a hot dog.

pistle 12y ago

Sounds like a someone fighting with a form of cargo cultism. There are people who live and breath technical pursuits and were either born or raised to enjoy/tolerate things and happened to turn out with the outcomes that others think they wish they had. The irony is that people who find the life of bathing in their work - likely don't have or care much about the trappings that come from becoming hyper successful due to their moderately unique self. SEE NOTCH. Notch is a timely example of someone who gets so much out of plumbing the depths of programming that he is not going to be writing the sad article about how he sold his start-up and feels bittered about it and learned a bunch of lessons, etc. For most people (which means it's normal), people are not wired to enjoy the process enough to be like the OP thinks he's supposed to be. He's internalized the idea that this is how you get the outcomes he thinks he wants. I'm thinking there's paradoxes everywhere. If you: are fortunate enough to love the tasks dearly and not care what project/role you are on are fortunate enough to love the project/role you are working on despite the tasks are fortunate enough to love the project/role and your daily tasks Then you'll likely not worry about if you do or don't need/want breaks. No self-hate there. You love what you do. So, if you aren't feeling your "self" because you think you are broken, maybe believing that by pretending you're on the path to your desired outcomes - that your success plane will descend from the sky and bring you "the good times." That's the cargo cult. You need to understand you and what motivates you. You need to understand what you are capable of and how that places you where you are today. You need to learn what you really care about, then remember where/who you are and where you want to be. Forget the judgement of others - be your own worst critic. You'll do fine. Hate yourself for failing yourself, not for failing others.

scott_w 12y ago

I used to have a similar feeling about not "improving" enough, until I realised something: doing all that messing about (watching TV, films, reading books) makes you more human. When I'm not at a local meet-up, or conference, most of my conversation revolves around non-programming stuff. Most people don't want to hear my opinions on Python, Django, Scala, JavaScript etc. but they do want to know if I saw that ludicrous display last night. If you want to think of it in "self-improvement" terms, then imagine you're working on your personal database of trivia that you can talk about.

slowmotiony 12y ago
What was Wenger thinking sending Walcott on that early?
- smaldj 12y ago
  Fing about Arsenal is, they always try an' walk it in.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

menriquez 12y ago

"back in the day", it was called workaholism...and a certain percentage of the population is afflicted with this disease. the web makes these people's addiction stand out in what seems like a positive way, unlike, say addiction to heroin or alcohol might. what isn't so obvious here on the web is how these workbots personal lives are affected by their 18 hour workdays.

josefresco 12y ago

For those of us old guys on HN with kids, that time away from coding is almost exclusively spent with your children. The time spent caring for them or just hanging out and being a Dad are sure ways to break yourself free of the hyper-motivational-echo-chamber that is HN and the greater developer web. Now a free hour to play a video game? That's especially hard, as it feels like you're robbing not just your professional time, but also your valuable parenting time.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
CmonDev 12y ago
I know a couple of different guys who both are raising 1-2 happy kids and manage to find some coding time nevertheless (as well as exercising). It depends on the amount of passion for the craft.
- tonylukasavage 12y ago
  I'm one of those people that find time to code while parenting 2 young children. And yes, any time spent coding before the kids' bedtime comes with the unwelcome twinge of guilt saying "I should be playing with the kids," and therefore infrequently occurs. The "amount of passion for the craft" sounds like a noble endeavor, but what it _really_ means is "willingness to sacrifice sleep, friends, other hobbies, and/or time with your family". I LOVE writing code. I'd be doing it even if I wasn't getting paid. I'm sure I'll be hacking interactive art piece for my grandkids when I'm retired. But if you stand back and look at it objectively, me writing a new JS framework or embedded system library, even if they are incredible, pales in comparison to actually spending time with the ones you love. In other words, if your passion for the craft truly exceeds your passion for your family, you've clearly made some poor decisions in life.
  - agentultra 12y ago
    Indeed! Time with my daughter is way more valuable to me as a human being than almost anything else. If there was a way to be paid to spend time with her I'd take it in a heart beat. She is way more fun than a computer. That being said I do feel better about myself when I am the most proud of my work. I just don't see the reason why it has to dominate my life. My work is important but it shouldn't be taking so much time from my life that I develop health and mental problems from it. And my family shouldn't suffer my absence simply because I want to be great at what I do. I like other things too. Literature. Poetry. Theater. The reasons why we live. It's hard to enjoy those things when all you can think about is your work. My ideal workplace is one that embraces the creative flow of energy. Sometimes I'm all about putting my nose to the grindstone and building something. Other times I go through periods of reflection and personal development and learn from what I have built.

Paul_S 12y ago

The gentleman doth project too much.

norswap 12y ago

> I don’t play computer games” they say, “I read five blog posts every evening”, “I don’t watch stupid TV series”. For me, saying this would be a point of shame instead of a point of pride (and it often is). I never understood the "I live for my work" macho-masochism. Even if you're passionate about something, I think it's healthy to have other interests.

sarciszewski 12y ago
I agree 100%

pjmlp 12y ago

I learned long time ago not to sell my soul the company or whatever is the tech of the day. Go to work, do the 8 hours, only stay if the team really needs help. No one is going to remember overtime when the next round of firings comes. One should keep learning, after all the technology changes everyday, but not at the expense of family and friends. There is only one life.

mattgreenrocks 12y ago
"Reinventing the wheel is a young man's game" - Gary Bernhardt Thing is, most young people (read: 20's) don't understand this. They think they need to be the person who came out with underscore.asm (or whatever terrible fad) to work on their "brand." Get those Github stars! Write more blog posts! Get more Twitter followers! Because nothing says "hacker" like slavishly believing increasing a bunch of crappy vanity metrics means anything.
- mwcampbell 12y ago
  > "Reinventing the wheel is a young man's game" - Gary Bernhardt Where can I find that quote? I want to see it in context.
  - pjmlp 12y ago
    http://www.ourmidland.com/sports/prep/gary-is-baseball-coach-of-the-year-after-gladwin-s/article_9e487c90-c30a-5e4f-a68d-3951cd061497.html http://www.ourmidland.com/sports/prep/gary-is-baseball-coach...
    - mwcampbell 12y ago
      I think you pasted the wrong link.
  - mattgreenrocks 12y ago
    https://twitter.com/garybernhardt/status/485997372334297089 https://twitter.com/garybernhardt/status/485997372334297089

sidcool 12y ago

A short and meaningful post. We all indulge in the so called "wasteful" activities, but I have found some of my best ideas and inspirations sprang from those wasteful moments. It is during these moments, I believe, the brain is relaxed enough to have a spark of creativity. In these moments, brain consolidates knowledge and finds connections. Even if that does not happen, the joy that such activities bring is in itself priceless. P.S. I have also posted this comment in the blog post.

chippy 12y ago
Like taking a walk in the woods, for example. I think the main thing is that these should be done without the anxiety of thinking "I shouldn't be doing this" - rather they can be done as you say, in a relaxed way.

quaffapint 12y ago

Nail meet head. That's why I don’t like going to developer meetups and such - I always feel inadequate. I'm just not as good as the person sitting next to me. I'm a child and they're the grown up. I'm a 9to5r with feelings of inadequacy. I feel such guilt about it and shame that it just makes it worse that too often I surf pages for way too long counting the minutes until I can get off the computer. There are moments of true bliss working on some code, but it's so hard to take the first steps to get there, having to climb over this giant wall I put up in front of myself.

chippy 12y ago
You should talk to the person sitting next to you. I find developer meetups great fun. I've never met anyone there who compared the size of their GitHub repos! You can get to meet a whole range of people, and if there's an interesting talk and free stuff that's a bonus. Pretty much all of the time we talk about other stuff, where we work, our bosses, the local news, philosophy, bitcoin or whatever - it could be me, but we hardly ever talk about the specific topic of the night. The hardest bit is when you don't know anyone else and have to break the ice on your own. But the next time there would probably be someone you met the first time...
sarciszewski 12y ago
As someone who probably makes the person sitting next to me feel inadequate during developer meet-ups because of the knowledge I have: Don't. Instead, try to focus that feeling towards curiosity instead. If they're anything like me, they would love nothing more than to teach someone what they know. And if they're snobby, fuck 'em, be the better person and they'll be jealous of you when their relationships fall apart. :D

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

bobspsitumorang 12y ago

Just do suicide you stupid fuck! :P

yellow_and_gray 12y ago

This is the mistake: There are high expectations to be met Why are you setting high expectations? Don't set high expectations, or any expectations for that matter. Expect nothing. Expectations are detrimental to creativity (I wish I had a citation handy that proves this once and for all [1]). You should be actively making a point of not having expectations. Work on what you like instead, and focus on getting better not on being good. [1] Alright, the closest I've come is http://intersubjectivite.com/drupal/files/Violations%20Of%20Expectations%20In%20Creativity%20and%20Perversion.pdf http://intersubjectivite.com/drupal/files/Violations%20Of%20... and the last paragraph in the conclusion is below. What striked me as odd is that there's a propensity towards violence when you violate expectations. Which makes sense for me, considering I get upset when I work on something that doesn't feel right. When being the violator of expectations has found a place in one’s hierarchy of motivations, it may well organize a variety of personal experiences, and thereby contributing either to a person’s creativity or propensity toward violence or both

malvosenior 12y ago

To offer a dissenting opinion... There are developers that LOVE what they do and do it nearly every waking moment. Guess what? they're way better than the average developer. Personally I don't like articles like this because they basically make excuses for mediocrity. We as a society shouldn't shy away from excellence and striving for it. The guys that work their asses off doing what they love and excel do exist and ARE awesome and we shouldn't take anything away from them. I'm pretty sure I'll get down voted for this btw :)

sarciszewski 12y ago
I think you'll get downvoted for missing the point, not for daring to challenge the status quo. "There are developers that LOVE what they do and do it nearly every waking moment." Agreed. I'm one of them. "Guess what? they're way better than the average developer." Good for them! But this wasn't about skill, it was about self-perception, social pressures, and coping with imperfection. "Personally I don't like articles like this because they basically make excuses for mediocrity." Mediocrity is irrelevant. Even excellent programmers can suffer from depression, burn-out, or discouragement. "We as a society shouldn't shy away from excellence and striving for it." No, but neither should we obsess over it like a bunch of severely autistic extremists who value only programming skill and nothing else. Humans are wonderful, complicated things. Obsessing about excellence in one area at the cost of everything else that makes us who we are is dehumanizing. "The guys that work their asses off doing what they love and excel do exist and ARE awesome and we shouldn't take anything away from them." Yeeeeeah, I'm pretty sure everyone would agree with you on this comment, but NOT IN THIS CONTEXT.
- malvosenior 12y ago
  I guess I don't understand the point of the article. He says that it's a "lie" that people love their craft and take it seriously. I'll take umbrage with that since he's not speaking for me and many I know. This article is basically the equivalent of some guy that goes to the gym a few times a week saying that professional athletes are really just watching Breaking Bad every night instead of waking up at 5am to train and that they would be better of being more "well rounded" than following their innate passion. There's already too much "everyone gets a medal" mentality in our culture, it doesn't really add anything.

sarciszewski 12y ago

Heh. I can relate to this sort of exeprience. I used to be moderately to severely depressed at least somewhat in part because I wanted to get something done by a certain date, but I didn't have the focus or motivation to touch it. As the deadline creeps closer and closer and the dust collects on your git repo, you tend to feel a growing sense of despair that maybe you should just give up because you're not good enough. Then you say screw it, turn off the computer, go watch a stupid movie with your friends while talking about inane things like the upcoming World of Warcraft expansion. The sun sets, the pizza is delivered, maybe vast quantities of soda and/or alcohol are consumed if that's your thing. The night wears on, everyone goes their own separate ways. As you lay down in bed, staring at the ceiling reflecting on how happy this evening made you feel, you realize you're too stimulated to sleep. Then your mind goes back to your project. Not the deadline, but the reason why you started it in the first place. And for once, you focus not on the gulf between where you are and where you ought to be, but rather the next feature you can't wait to implement. So you turn on your laptop and code until the early dawn hours. Then you remember you had to work the next day. And that is why I have a severe coffee addiction. But it beats burn-out.

winter_blue 12y ago
I think this kind lifestyle could take a toll on your lifespan. That being said, I get the part about the feeling letdown with yourself. I set a lot of goals, made elaborate to-do (or rather, to-don't) lists, and instead of executing I spend hours crunching through articles on HN, reading Wikipedia, etc. I've been trying hard to let go of what I see in myself as an "information addiction". I've cut short the hours I spend on HN (but not always), and replaced some of my online reading with more high-quality reading on my Kindle. One thing I've found is that once your start working on a project, keeping on going is easy. It's just the initial static friction that's hard to overcome. Force yourself to do that project, and in minutes you'll be enjoying it!
- sarciszewski 12y ago
  My point was that relaxing is often what you need to do to get things done. In my experience, at least. YMMV

jprince 12y ago

I still feel bad that I lack a real blog or website. I bought a domain over a year ago and still haven't thrown anything up. The reason was that beside my 9-7 job and the 15 hours of freelancing I did on the weekend, I was spending too much time and drowning in too much business to actually put up the damn website. Then, I got an offer to work for one of my clients full time, for 2x my salary, and now I STILL have no time to put up the website after taking the job. On the one hand I feel bad because it seems I have failed in becoming a public voice - on the other, I'm doing so well in my career right now it seems I don't have time to look like I'm doing well! Perceptions != reality. Sometimes, someone who has a great web presence may not have much else to be doing! ;)

fromdoon 12y ago

Everyone with more than 15-20 years of experience in the industry I have interacted with, more or less has the same advice when it comes to having a good work life balance and sustaining the passion for your work for a long time. They tell me that it is very very helpful if you are able to disconnect yourself from the technical world on a regular basis. This time could be spend doing anything, but it should not be spent fretting about work or thinking about the next exciting technical idea. They tell me that having a non-technical hobby or spending time with your family/friends/social circle is essential for a rejuvenated mind that can focus back on work. I agree with OP, lets no be so hard on ourselves and enjoy life. Cheers!!!

joseph8th 12y ago

When I'm wearing my "artist" hat (painting, drawing) it's easy to think of goofing off as "seeking inspiration". Sit at South Beach and admire the views and throngs... Then spend that inspiration by expressing what inspired me. I think I spend 90% of my artsy time just getting inspired to create. Coding isn't much different. I think it helps to let inspiration build up until you just gotta let it out. Part of that is the feeling that I need to do something rather than the nothing I've been at...

lnanek2 12y ago

Amusing that he considers reading blogs a productive thing that you would brag about.

azurelogic 12y ago

This article made me feel so much better about taking some time off from my current side project to splatter zombies in Dead Rising 3 lately. I do need to get back to it soon though...

rdlecler1 12y ago

Maybe the hyper smart feel this guilt. I spend most of my time plugging away, but I constantly fall short. Compare this with my hyper intelligent friends from CalTech: the ones who work hard are Directors at SpaceX or working on Google Glass, while the ones who are lazy are working at second tier financial institutions but sadly still doing better than I.

fndrplayer13 12y ago

Love it. My wife admonishes me every night that I need to work less and relax more. She says that the key to productivity is giving your brain time to relax. If all you do is work, you never give your mind a chance to absorb the knowledge you've absorbed. Games and TV, reading a book for pleasure, having a run, etc, give us that exact chance. I know she's right, even if I struggle with it.

vlunkr 12y ago

I understand wanting to be great at what you do, but this is ridiculous. It makes me sad that our subculture makes people feel this way. In my opinion if you focus on work all day, every day, you're wasting your time. What are you working for if all you ever do is work? I work partially because I love it, and partially so I can have the freedom to spend time with family/friends/entertainment.

joesmo 12y ago

I'm proud of being a "9-5" (9-17 in the article) developer. People that spend all their waking time focusing on development are likely to burn out very quickly and produce mediocre work. They're generally hard to work with and unnecessarily opinionated/confronting in my experience (having been one). The real achievement is achieving balance in one's life. It's easy to spend all one's time hacking away at work and after work. What's the challenge in that? Give me a balanced employee over any one of these soon-to-be burnouts. The industry will have you believe that if you don't spend all your time doing coding-related task, you're not worth it. Some will go as far as to use a github account or similar in lieu of a resume. This is a lie. The best developers I know do not work on open source. They might have at one time but are now too busy with other things. They have varied interests. They're interesting people. There isn't a single other industry I can think of where people are almost expected to work even after work. If that's your thing, great, but expecting that to be your thing and hating yourself for it over it leads me to thing that there is seriously something wrong mentally here. These expectations of workaholism are unrealistic. You wouldn't expect someone to be an alcoholic or drug addict nor praise it. So why praise an equally destructive addiction? Yet the computer industry does so over and over again because it's in its own interest and the workforce is generally so young, it doesn't know any better. If you're feeling down because you're not a workaholic, perhaps the question to ask yourself is why you would want such a terrible addiction in the first place? I'm just as thankful that I'm not a workaholic as I would be if I had gotten over any other undesirable addiction. The people still caught in the addiction are no measure to measure oneself by.

ky3 12y ago

Excerpt from a book: In today's culture -- where our self-worth is tied to our net worth, and we base our worth on our level of productivity -- spending time doing purposeless activities is rare. In fact, for many of us it sounds like an anxiety attack waiting to happen. That's from Guidepost #7 of Brene Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection. That chapter is subtitled Letting Go of Exhaustion As A Status Symbol and Productivity as Self-Worth. The previous chapter on cultivating creativity is also worth a read.

bsg75 12y ago

> We tend to keep it underneath, showing only our fully professional face: “I don’t play computer games” they say... All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. I am 45, play video games, watch TV (its all lame), and everyone in the office knows it - because they do too. I don't know if its still the case, but a decade or so ago, recruiters used to lament the lack of "well rounded" applicants in tech. People who only do tech often have trouble communicating with their peers in other parts of the business, and therefore are less productive then their skills would otherwise imply. Other interests, be they practical or impractical, are valuable.