4 ms·

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

by 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"
  - soneca 12y ago
    Interesting, I read this quote with the opposite meaning. I use this quote when you are very critic of others, but lenient with yourself. Example: corruption. You judge others because they evade taxes. You do it too, but you forgive yourself because you are only evading taxes because you need the money to pay for your mother's treatment. This way you are very harsh on others, using a very rigid moral judgement. But very flexible on your own moral.
- tonylukasavage 12y ago
  My absolute favorite illustration of this point: http://www.viruscomix.com/page528.html http://www.viruscomix.com/page528.html
  - JTon 12y ago
    I've seen this collection before, but I don't think I'll ever get tired of it. It's great.
- JonLim 12y ago
  To play devil's advocate: I consciously know this, and absolutely do my best to remembering that my perception is warped. But the better part of my effort goes towards keeping that self-pessimism in check, simply because I naturally compare myself. I've found it better just avoiding a lot of those perception warpers, or remembering that I live my life at my own pace and as long as I stick to what I want to do, I'm better off than most.
- lazyant 12y ago
  "You are comparing other people's highlights with your bloopers"
JonnieCache 12y ago
> All the corporate blathering about "passion" is just a ploy to depress market wages. This is the important point to me. The rockstar stuff serves only VCs and big employers.
- CmonDev 12y ago
  There is a way to buy passion - equity.
StavrosK 12y ago
Your last sentence is very true. I have recently discovered a new passion on photography, and I feel great with that. Photography, theatre, singing, woodworking, doesn't matter what it is, as long as you like it. I only feel guilty doing things that don't improve me, such as playing games or reading HN. I guess one could argue that the concept of "improvement" is fuzzy (why is photography better than playing Dota?), but I have my own classification.
- andrey-p 12y ago
  > playing games I've managed to address this by only playing games with an excellent plot/atmosphere/gameplay, ones with a specific beginning and an ending. So it's like reading a good book or watching a good film.
- mithras 12y ago
  Your concept of improvement making things worthy is interesting, but very subjective. What is the difference between getting better at photography and getting better at playing Dota (or chess for that matter). These kind of discussions evolve into meaning of life debates really fast.
  - StavrosK 12y ago
    Yeah, I guess there's really no qualitative difference. It's just that I suck too much at DotA to justify the hours upon hours I spend on it, whereas my photography is rather better without spending that much time on it. That makes the latter a more worthy pursuit. If I had a hope of being a professional DotA player, maybe the distinction would not be as clear.
    - JonnieCache 12y ago
      You could use an productive/unproductive distinction. After some hours of photography, you have some photos which did not exist previously. After hours of DotA you have only some improved muscle memory and so on, nothing tangible. This heuristic would however rule out the learning of more "worthy" pure skills, jazz piano, unicycling etc.
tdziurko 12y ago
This is really good advice. I had similar ideas but your comment helped me to gather all of them together :)
VLM 12y ago
"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." You have a financial and ethical obligation to your employer to spend at least some working time thinking of process improvements, and part of that is self improvement. Don't be "that guy" who spends 10 hours a day on youtube and than has to spend 6 hours of overtime frantically trying to keep up with the 8-5 plodders, but you are literally failing in your obligation to your employer if every time you start to lower your nose to the grindstone you don't at least put forth a minimal google effort for a way to eliminate or automate or shrink the very grindstone you're about to impact. Don't let your employer down, do at least a little self improvement every day. If you feel guilty about it, turn one of your ten daily facebook/twitter/HN breaks into class time, just one is better than nothing. Programming is not a piecework manual labor job. You're supposed to be learning.
- thewarrior 12y ago
  "Programming is not a piecework manual labor job. You're supposed to be learning." As a coder at an Indian outsourcing firm I (slightly) disagree . :D

by lmartel 12y ago

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"
- soneca 12y ago
  Interesting, I read this quote with the opposite meaning. I use this quote when you are very critic of others, but lenient with yourself. Example: corruption. You judge others because they evade taxes. You do it too, but you forgive yourself because you are only evading taxes because you need the money to pay for your mother's treatment. This way you are very harsh on others, using a very rigid moral judgement. But very flexible on your own moral.
tonylukasavage 12y ago
My absolute favorite illustration of this point: http://www.viruscomix.com/page528.html http://www.viruscomix.com/page528.html
- JTon 12y ago
  I've seen this collection before, but I don't think I'll ever get tired of it. It's great.
JonLim 12y ago
To play devil's advocate: I consciously know this, and absolutely do my best to remembering that my perception is warped. But the better part of my effort goes towards keeping that self-pessimism in check, simply because I naturally compare myself. I've found it better just avoiding a lot of those perception warpers, or remembering that I live my life at my own pace and as long as I stick to what I want to do, I'm better off than most.
lazyant 12y ago
"You are comparing other people's highlights with your bloopers"

JonnieCache 12y ago

> All the corporate blathering about "passion" is just a ploy to depress market wages. This is the important point to me. The rockstar stuff serves only VCs and big employers.

CmonDev 12y ago
There is a way to buy passion - equity.

StavrosK 12y ago

Your last sentence is very true. I have recently discovered a new passion on photography, and I feel great with that. Photography, theatre, singing, woodworking, doesn't matter what it is, as long as you like it. I only feel guilty doing things that don't improve me, such as playing games or reading HN. I guess one could argue that the concept of "improvement" is fuzzy (why is photography better than playing Dota?), but I have my own classification.

andrey-p 12y ago
> playing games I've managed to address this by only playing games with an excellent plot/atmosphere/gameplay, ones with a specific beginning and an ending. So it's like reading a good book or watching a good film.
mithras 12y ago
Your concept of improvement making things worthy is interesting, but very subjective. What is the difference between getting better at photography and getting better at playing Dota (or chess for that matter). These kind of discussions evolve into meaning of life debates really fast.
- StavrosK 12y ago
  Yeah, I guess there's really no qualitative difference. It's just that I suck too much at DotA to justify the hours upon hours I spend on it, whereas my photography is rather better without spending that much time on it. That makes the latter a more worthy pursuit. If I had a hope of being a professional DotA player, maybe the distinction would not be as clear.
  - JonnieCache 12y ago
    You could use an productive/unproductive distinction. After some hours of photography, you have some photos which did not exist previously. After hours of DotA you have only some improved muscle memory and so on, nothing tangible. This heuristic would however rule out the learning of more "worthy" pure skills, jazz piano, unicycling etc.

tdziurko 12y ago

This is really good advice. I had similar ideas but your comment helped me to gather all of them together :)

VLM 12y ago

"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." You have a financial and ethical obligation to your employer to spend at least some working time thinking of process improvements, and part of that is self improvement. Don't be "that guy" who spends 10 hours a day on youtube and than has to spend 6 hours of overtime frantically trying to keep up with the 8-5 plodders, but you are literally failing in your obligation to your employer if every time you start to lower your nose to the grindstone you don't at least put forth a minimal google effort for a way to eliminate or automate or shrink the very grindstone you're about to impact. Don't let your employer down, do at least a little self improvement every day. If you feel guilty about it, turn one of your ten daily facebook/twitter/HN breaks into class time, just one is better than nothing. Programming is not a piecework manual labor job. You're supposed to be learning.

thewarrior 12y ago
"Programming is not a piecework manual labor job. You're supposed to be learning." As a coder at an Indian outsourcing firm I (slightly) disagree . :D