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> It's been getting better. It's not, it's getting worse. You are in a cycle of slave-driving yourself. You remind me of Jiddu Krishnamurthi's assertion that

• mreiland 12y ago
  I would also mention looking at what you do to satsify your natural inclinations. I myself am very goal oriented. I always have to feel as if I'm moving forward on something. It took me years to realize what I enjoy most about games is the feeling of accomplishment you get from finishing them and I'm actively more productive in other areas of my life when I limit my game playing time. Not because I'm "wasting time", but because emotionally I'm not satisfied and find myself constantly working and building other things.
• boatzart 12y ago
  I've never heard of Jiddu Krishnamurthi before today. Can you recommend a book of his?
  • moments 12y ago
    To Be Human: long and comprehensive (not actually written by him, but a collection of his works). Flight of the Eagle: short and comprehensive. Freedom from the Known: short and practical.
  • hv23 12y ago
    Network of Thought is a fantastic place to start, and the text is available online: http://www.jkrishnamurti.org/krishnamurti-teachings/view-text.php?tid=8&chid=56898 http://www.jkrishnamurti.org/krishnamurti-teachings/view-tex...
• yarou 12y ago
  This advice is easy to give but difficult to follow in practice. Krishnamurrthi wrote from a position of pure arrogance, because he was told his whole life that he was a special person. He's not special; he's just repeating what others have said in a watered down package. That's what makes his philosophy so dangerous.
• krick 12y ago
  Wow, that was well said. I'm not that often genuinely impressed by what I read on HN. Never've read anything by Jiddu Krishnamurthi, could you recommend something?
• G650 12y ago
  Amazing. You inspired me to write a blog post.
• 3minus1 12y ago
  Awesome post. I don't usually expect to see this kind of philosophical stuff on HN. I think there's a lot of truth in what you say here. It just like, people in denial about who they are all the time. Reminds me of Emerson "Envy is ignorance, Imitation is Suicide"
• blrgeek 12y ago
  Brilliant. Thanks. This is really easy to say and hard to do, if you've been pushed, prodded, poked into some direction or the other, by well meaning adults/role-models. Being able to hear your inner motivations is very close to listening to your own thoughts == form of mindfulness. Very very powerful idea, very very hard to stick to, in our present society of instant-everything, and addictive news cycles.
• pestaa 12y ago
  Very powerful thoughts. I retweeted your last sentences (if you don't mind.) https://mobile.twitter.com/pestaa/status/585740222450819072 https://mobile.twitter.com/pestaa/status/585740222450819072
  • vijucat 12y ago
    Ha ha, no I don't mind, I'm enjoying my 15 minutes of fame.
• ryan-allen 12y ago
  These are very wise words.
• ninjakeyboard 12y ago
  INTEREST IS EVERYTHING.
• NhanH 12y ago
  You make a great point, one that I have been thinking about, and unfortunately, I'm not sure if I can entirely agree with it. There are something to be said about habit and discipline. Certainly, one should never pursue something they have no interest in whatsoever. But for any thing we want to accomplish in life, there are tangent, chores, and generally "schlep" that you can't avoid. An extreme reading of your comment would mean that we should give up at the first road block. How do you differentiate between lacks of internal motivation, and great motivation being thwarted by fear of unpleasant tasks? In an ideal world, that shouldn't be an issue, in the real world, it's a lot harder to know. When you're playing an instrument, if you've practiced a piece few hundreds times, you don't think your playing is good anymore. You know when you're making mistake, but even when you're playing perfectly, your perception of the piece you're playing would be a lot more "meh" comparing to the perception of some outside listener -- after all, you've heard that piece a lot of times. Motivated or not, without discipline it's unlikely you can keep doing things over and over. When I was younger, I've always thought that great people doing great things by just focusing on their genuine interest, ie a physicist just want to understand the nature of the universe, and not particularly care whether his work is gonna have any impact or effect. It turns out that interest might not be the full picture: people who do great work might actually be conscious in wanting to be great, too. One of the example would be Richard Hamming, mentioned in his "You and Your Research" essay (which just popped up on HN lately, actually), even Feynman's biography mentioned that he need introspection during the period when he wasn't being productive as a physicist. > In order to get at you individually, I must talk in the first person. I have to get you to drop modesty and say to yourself, ``Yes, I would like to do first-class work.'' Our society frowns on people who set out to do really good work. You're not supposed to; luck is supposed to descend on you and you do great things by chance. Well, that's a kind of dumb thing to say. I say, why shouldn't you set out to do something significant. You don't have to tell other people, but shouldn't you say to yourself, ``Yes, I would like to do something significant.'' -- Richard Hamming, You and Your Research.
  • visakanv 12y ago
    > Our society frowns on people who set out to do really good work. You're not supposed to; luck is supposed to descend on you and you do great things by chance. This is so true. It's odd that we celebrate butterflies and crush caterpillars. I think it was Les Brown who said something along the lines of– if you want to achieve uncommon, unreasonable results, you have to be an uncommon, unreasonable person putting in uncommon, unreasonable amounts of effort.
• JohnBooty 12y ago
  This isn't kindergarten where you can just show up and start scribbling. Even if the actual act of coding (or painting, or martial arts, or writing, or watering roadside plants) is effortless, there's a hell of a lot of effort that goes into just getting yourself in a position to do it. Example: perhaps painting is effortless for you, but putting yourself in a position to paint involves a lot of mundane things that require effort. You still have to buy and stretch canvasses. You have to buy a brush. You have to clean your brushes. If you want to make a career of it, you need to tackle some basic business tasks. You need to deal with an agent or gallery. You need to file your taxes, because painting gets a lot harder when you're in jail or the IRS has taken your stuff. You have to work and pay your rent, because it's tough to paint when you're homeless and worrying about your next meal and whether you'll survive the night. And so forth. There's a lot of shit that has to get done just to place yourself in a position where you can regularly put brush to canvas. When I started my own business that was my experience. Writing the code was the fun part. Effortless, you might say. I was compelled to write it - it was harder to stay away from it than it was to work on it. But I went through hell just to be able to write that code - I worked long hours at my day job so that I could pay the bills, I often had to choose between writing code and having a social life, and so on. And prior to even starting that venture, it took me years of hard work and college education just to develop the skills that allowed me to write that code. Your advice is, at best, useful only to those who already have their basic needs provided for. Trust-fund babies and the like.
  • kamaal 12y ago
    You will never come to love what you do to make a living, because that enslaves you. It doesn't free you. Which is why everyone must strive to have a side income/early retirement plan because you need to experience true freedom to enjoy things in life.
    • Drdrdrq 12y ago
      Really? I must be an exception then. I love what I do and wouldn't want to stop doing it. That said, I can imagine myself in a few other jobs too, so it might be my attitude towards work that makes me happy.
• Sven7 12y ago
  This is the mark of genuine flow :) wow...you should start your own "do whatever you want" university. Pretty sure all the young impressionable minds around here will enjoy it.
  • personjerry 12y ago
    College student here. I've read a lot into the "do your own thing" mentality, especially the "don't go to university just do stuff", such as at Thiel summits, startup events. I personally love the idea of founding a startup, so I've given it a lot of thought. It's important for me to work on my own terms and to do something I find meaningful, and so I enjoyed riding along with the crowd that follows the above mentality. However, I'm also good at critical thinking and sometimes I ask myself about the people and what we're doing. Why are we all chasing the startup dream? Can we really all achieve great success? I think a big part of "why" is the pack mentality, ironically, that drives young people like me to this "don't join the workforce, don't listen to the man, do whatever you want", because so many people are encouraging us to chase our dreams. But I've come to the conclusion that for most people, it's simply not feasible to achieve that dream of making enough money doing your own thing. You need to be very, very good, or be lucky enough to have an excellent idea (and execution!!). Sadly, most people and ideas (and luck) are merely mediocre and not the top 5% or whatever needed, simply by definition. Fortunately while we are young we'll fall softly and, as a software engineer, will likely able to find a job even if we meet failure. But sometimes I do worry not only for the feasibility of my own dreams, but also the other young people around me, and it's certainly something to think about before we encourage everyone to jump "into their dreams".
    • speik 12y ago
      As someone at the very other end of the 20s spectrum: 1. My own responsibility towards myself and my life weighs a lot more heavily on me at 29 than it did at 22. At 22 I had faith that it would work out, somehow. I think that's a feeling to be taken advantage of while you still have it. 2. Conversely, I also realize now that I won't be successful at something that I don't like, and that doing something I like is worth more than money. Obviously this only works to a certain extent, I still need to live. But it seems more and more that as long as you are pursuing you believe in and enjoy, you aren't poor in spirit. My point being: maybe don't worry so much for the feasibility of your dreams at this moment in your life.
• mbrock 12y ago
  Without thinking too deeply about it, I feel like it may be useful to point out some different ways of thinking about programming. 1. It's an interesting hobby, like crocheting, writing poetry, or solving tricky integrals. Sometimes it's hard work, but that's enjoyable too, maybe that's when it's the most enjoyable. If it feels like drudgery, maybe you're just tired; knitting is extremely repetitive, yet kind of nice. The degree to which you stretch yourself by attempting grander things is up to you. Some people enjoy working on intricate projects for years; some prefer to do something quick over a weekend. If you make something useful, that's very nice, but not required. If one of your creations makes a nice Christmas gift, cool! 2. It's a way to configure computers to do things for you and your friends. This opens up interesting opportunities. Someone who doesn't know anything about programming is limited to computer use within the parameters already provided by applications. But even that is very powerful, because what programs do—should do—is enable people to do things that they want to do. For example, WordPress, while technically not that fascinating, has had a massive impact on the world. You don't need to be a programmer to set up WordPress—but if you can program, you can do more things with it. You can more easily make it look like you want it to look or do what you want it to do. 3. It's an arena of self-expression and demonstration of ambition. The original poster mentions being in his mid-twenties. The significance he finds in this has to do with an idea that by that time, one "should" have accomplished lots. But maybe the real significance is that this age intensifies feelings of ambition. That's probably not a cultural universal, but it's some kind of phenomenon. It doesn't have that much to do with programming; a welder, nurse, or writer might feel the same thing. Cultural ideas of careers and individualism play into it. The flip side of this kind of ambition (forgive the off-hand philosophizing) is the fear that deep down, I am nothing, I am a fraud, I am useless to the world. That might be a motivating fear. You mentioned J. Krish, there's also the Buddhist idea of three kinds of deceit: the idea that I am better than others, the idea that I am worse than others, and the idea that I am equal to others. That seems to leave little option. But, um, think about it. 4. A kind of synthesis. If you dial down the intensity of tractionless ambition a little bit, you may realize that a little bit of programming can go a long way. And steady, patient work is more sustainable than striving, and more fun. There is no intrinsic, cosmic reason that you must create a new JavaScript framework if you don't feel like it. An animation of a bouncing lolcat might do you more good than three years of dreaming about neural networks. This website right here is so simple you could code it in a week. Forget about web scale; if your thing gets used by a dozen people, and they actually like it, you're a wizard already. You are not a failure for not winning the VC lottery and even AirBnB is just a forum for letting people crash on your couch. "I have seen all the works which have been done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and striving after wind."
• bsmith 12y ago
  I think having the discipline to follow through with the things you have decided are important to do has a lot to do with it, actually. “Inspiration is for amateurs. The rest of us just show up and get to work.” ― Chuck Close
  • visakanv 12y ago
    +1. For anybody who struggles with this, I highly recommend reading Stephen Pressfield's The War Of Art.
  • balabaster 12y ago
    Indeed, success is 10% vision/inspiration, 10% skill/talent and 80% discipline. You've gotta show up and do what needs to get done, regardless of your want to do that. That goes double for your own personal projects as as it does for your J.O.B. It's harder to drive yourself to the finish line than it is to drive projects for an employer. I can't speak for everyone else, but for me at least, I have zero sense of obligation to myself - if I ditch a personal project because I lose interest or because I find a better solution or just because I don't feel like it, my reputation isn't at stake. It's easy to walk away from and leave it on a shelf gathering dust with few (if any) consequences; whereas I feel a deep sense of obligation to see paid projects through to the bitter end, however bitter that may be. You don't want to damage your reputation for delivering on your promises. This is a constant struggle in my life.
• littletimmy 12y ago
  My condition is similar to that of OP's. What if I am not interested in anything? I don't really want anything; I think that drive of wanting stuff has all but dried up in the past 5 years. I'm wasting my life away counting days. What now?
  • logfromblammo 12y ago
    I have also experienced that death of desire. In the tragedy of the commons, the person with the shortest time preference wins. I desire long-term goals like college funds for the children and retirement funds for the parents. The spouse always desires a house with one more room in it than the one we currently occupy, a vehicle newer than the ones we currently drive, furniture more comfortable and attractive than that which we currently own. For a full decade, I have spent nearly nothing upon my own interests. I dare not spend even $5 for a fast-food sandwich, for fear that $5 will add to "our" debts. I find that my interests have waned, and my ambition has withered. What good is wanting that which you cannot have? Why take a risk when you can realize no benefit from the reward? Then I realized that this is what it must be like to live in poverty. Desire begets misery. Merely existing incurs debt. The only treatment for the despair is apathy, but that is like taking heroin for a headache. But now that I no longer care about anything, now that I have stuffed all my dreams into a sack and thrown them in the river to drown, now that I no longer feel pleasure in anything that am able to do myself, I have fallen into the trap of nihilism. Everything is pointless, including attempts to become a non-nihilist. It's too late for us. Our only purpose now is to serve as a cautionary tale for others. The lesson to be learned is to never allow the course of your life to be directed by others, or you will lose the ability to direct it yourself. I did, of course, tell a teensy little lie previously in this post. I have discovered a passionate desire to write fiction, and take pleasure in devising schemes by which the system of the world may be altered to become less cruel to those subjected to it. Just force yourself to try new things until the things you do no longer seem obligatory. Just yesterday, I saw a video on YouTube where the subject, who had miniscule pedagogical talent, demonstrated the creation of a longbow in ten minutes, using less than $10 in materials that are readily available from any home improvement store. Longbows are largely obsolete. Why would anyone make one from modern materials? You can't even use something like that for historical reenactments. You can buy bows made from modern materials that work better for hunting or target shooting. Why would you make a video of yourself making one? The answer to all those irrelevant questions is that this guy likes making bows, and he wants to share his enjoyment with others. You and I can also do that, no matter what it is we do. How the hell did he even figure out that he liked doing that? Making bows is hardly a commonplace activity. Apparently, he just did something that he had never done before, and simply kept on doing it. Stop counting days and start doing things. Anything.
• Alleluja 12y ago
  it is 10% talent and 90% hard work. Not the other way around. I love coding Ruby. But all the design and front end work? From HTML5 to CSS. Forget it. But if I focused on "effortless" Rails coding only -- this would get me absolutely nowhere. Not to mention unix skills, administration, making customers happy, etc. Sure, would be easier to work for a big corp and do Rails coding only. But then there are other hard or intolerable things there (intolerable to me!). Like bosses proud they can't code with BA's in Political Science. Or lazy coworkers. Or whatever else. Life is hard and then you die. If you can find happiness in this sentence (and I can!), if you can still find sense in all of that and be happy somehow. That's happiness. Because sh*t always happens. And all these rich young kids. They might have problems on their own too. They might have no social live. They might have had no childhood. They may have nobody candid to them to hang out with. They may be poor as far as their people relations go or as far as their free time goes. What's so awesome about working 24/7 and all the money when you have no time to enjoy it? This is being really poor. It's exactly like not being able to afford going to vacation because of lack of money. You can't go period. No money or no time, both make you poor. As lack of social live does.
  • Deebot 12y ago
    Most of the ridiculous "young computer whiz" success stories I've seen would be more honestly described as "young kid with mediocre coding skills gets lucky", or "young kid with successful parents is recipient of favor thanks to father".
• yungchin 12y ago
  > You will NEVER have the energy that the people whom you compare with have. I do hope this is an extreme case of misdiagnosis: it's implying that the OP is not an achiever, and lacking ambition - just because there are a few small hurdles in the way of his getting things done! Here's an alternative diagnosis: if you focus too much on your peers, you're poisoning your own motivation. Of course you'll spend all day on HN, if the alternative is staring at an editor with a voice in your head scolding you for not being a success. Fix that and you'll have fixed your procrastination (easier said than done, probably, but still). A reading tip: Mastery, by George Leonard.
  • thefivetoes 12y ago
    > I do hope this is an extreme case of misdiagnosis: it's implying that the OP is not an achiever, and lacking ambition Taking the first part of quote out of context makes it seem harsh, but the second half of the quote provides justification. >> You will NEVER have the energy that the people whom you compare with have. Because they are being themselves, and are connected to the natural wellspring of motivation that comes from genuine interest, while you are the salmon swimming upstream, aping societal ideals and trying to be someone you are not. The quote assumes that your peers are focusing all of their energy on being themselves. If you are spending your energy concerning yourself with the efforts of others, you arent spending _all_ of your energy focusing on being yourself and doing your best. Seems very much in line with your diagnosis.
    • yungchin 12y ago
      I don't think the second part of that quote makes things any better at all. OP is basically saying "I want to be successful in my projects, please advise", and the off-the-cuff diagnosis offered is that he's "aping societal ideals and trying to be someone [he is] not", and that unlike his peers, he must be lacking "genuine interest" in his projects. Seriously? > Seems very much in line with your diagnosis. I think you gave the grandparent post a very charitable reading :)
• tastyface 12y ago
  OP here. Believe me when I say that there's nothing more I'd rather do than what I'm doing right now. Not even in question. I love programming, I love the project I'm working on, and I love the ideas that are waiting to be worked on in my future. My heart fills with joy when I think about holding those finished products in my hands. When I get into the flow, I can zone out for days and work on my projects with hardly a break for food and sleep. However, I have a natural weakness towards idleness. Like any negative personality trait, I have faith that it can be worked on. (If you're depressed or socially anxious, you wouldn't just accept these as the way you are, would you?) Internally, when I run into this problem, it doesn't feel like swimming against the tide; it feels like a massive speed bump that needs to be overcome, but that I know from experience has a smooth road ahead of it. I think it is a mistake to believe that every ambitious person is naturally driven, from beginning to end, solely by their ambition. Sometimes it's not enough. Were I to succumb to my personality, I would sit in front of the TV, depressed and unfulfilled, for literally decades. That is not an option.
  • davemel37 12y ago
    Here's two thoughts to keep in mind that might help. 1. Look up the ages of the most famous professional athletes on your favorite team. Odds are you are older than most of them. For a sec it might feel like you feel reading about younger programmers, but after a moment you'll have easy perspective that you are not them and nothing is comparable and that's ok. It's hard to regret that you never became a pro athlete. 2. Yes, yesterday is gone...but think about all the other people you are ahead of...half the planet isn't even on the internet yet. Probably less than a fraction of 1% of the world is a junior dev. You are literally ahead of 99% of the world. Don't lose your dominance and fall behind more people...youll never be ahead of everyone...but you can stay ahead of almost everyone!
  • throwaway5752 12y ago
    You don't have an age problem or a distractibility problem, you have an anxiety and neurotic problem. Who cares what other people are doing, at what age? There's always someone better than you. And almost everyone would rather be lazy, that's not unique to you. Just work on your project and be happy with your accomplishments. Find something to give meaning to your life like volunteering for a charity. It's vanishingly unlikely anyone will care about your (or the vast majority of peoples') legacies 100 years from now. Honestly, just enjoy your work, help others, and stop thinking it's a competition. edit: I'm significantly older than you, so 1) I have some perspective on this and 2) sorry if this was less sensitive than what your generational peers might say or lacked trigger warnings.
• swatkat 12y ago
  >> You will NEVER have the energy that the people whom you compare with have. Because they are being themselves, and are connected to the natural wellspring of motivation that comes from genuine interest, while you are the salmon swimming upstream, aping societal ideals and trying to be someone you are not. >> Almost no one takes my advice because it's so threatening to be natural. What if you are not naturally ambitious? That's a horrific thought to have while being in the company of achievers, isn't it? Awesome. Yes, this is pure Jiddu Krishnamurti. Basically, comparison causes conflict, conflict causes anxiety, anxiety causes fear, and fear makes mind dull. There's no intelligence where there's fear. Key here is to eliminate comparison. I keep reminding myself often :)
  • thegreatpeter 12y ago
    >Basically, comparison causes conflict, conflict causes anxiety, anxiety causes fear, and fear makes mind dull. There's no intelligence where there's fear. Key here is to eliminate comparison. What a great quote
    • sbhere 12y ago
      Agreed. Upvote.
    • diminoten 12y ago
      I disagree with it. The fires of conflict forge the deepest bonds. I find I don't end up being comfortable with someone until we've argued about something. One of my favorite ways to become friends with someone is to find something we disagree on and debate it.
      • otakucode 12y ago
        That particular sort of disagreement is underlaid by much more fundamental agreement. If you did not share a tremendous amount with the person, such a debate would not be possible. Debate is not a competition in situations where the participants agree upon the fundamental means of determining truth, it is a collaboration. All participants are attempting to reach the truth through contributing facts and reasoning. A conflict would be if one person was of the belief that truth is determined by the intuitive feeling of correctness and another believing it to be determined by rational soundness and correspondence with reality. In that case, neither can contribute anything which helps the other person reach understanding, giving rise to competition.
• moron4hire 12y ago
  About 4 years ago, I thought I was done with software development. I was so burnt out and full of self doubt that I thought I was going to quit it forever. I wanted to do anything other than work with computers again. I quit my job, took up painting, and then a month later found myself banging away at a keyboard into a text editor because I had this burning idea for a program. The problem wasn't the work, it was the environment. I had allowed myself to get into a situation where I was spending all of my creative energy on someone else: my employer. I did a brief stint back as an employee at another place for a while, just because I had gotten desperate for cash and it was the only opportunity that came my way for a while. But I eventually went freelance and now I only work part-time for my client. The rest of the time I spend working for myself. Moral of the story: you are correct, you do need to just cut and run sometimes, but just be careful not to confuse the impact of environment on your feelings about your activities with your actual feelings about your activities.
• riazrizvi 12y ago
  and while you are working it out, go back to work. It will likely take many years and you'll lose all your extra cash. I speak from experience.
  • marktangotango 12y ago
    Exactly, I quit and started a project. Found the domain had some really hard problems, got bogged down in the impl. Started wasting time, burning thru my savings. Faced the cold hard reality it wasn't happening, and went back to work. All I have to show for it? A 9 month gap to explain in my resume.
• deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
• airmondii 12y ago
  Most successful businesses are not the result of passion projects. OP's problem isn't that he lacks ideas (so he claims), it's that he has the common affliction of not being able to follow through on them. Even if we all want to be Steve Jobs, most of us won't be. But we probably do agree that constantly comparing oneself to others is not good for emotional well-being. My advice to OP: don't focus on outcomes (ie, 'this 22 year-old did X, why haven't I?), focus on the process. Your goal should be to each day do work and spend your time in a way of which you would be proud. Avoid the hot and cold cycle of overwork / burnout and procrastination.
  • llSourcell 12y ago
    > Most successful businesses are not the result of passion projects. I would argue against that statement. What makes you say that? Passion is the necessary driving force to keep someone motivated enough to follow through.
    • airmondii 12y ago
      Was Rockefeller passionate about oil? Sam Walton about discount pricing? I think most successful entrepreneurs are just natural-born businessmen, and the specifics of their industry are mostly incidental. You're probably looking at this from inside the SV bubble, but I could make a similar case there, too. Plenty of apps just ride the latest trend, and would pivot in a heart beat if it made if it makes business sense.
• droopyEyelids 12y ago
  I think its worth noting that 1) someone could end up doing all the exact same things, but for a different reason and be totally content that way. And 2) a lot of people go through their whole life dissatisfied and uninspired, and that isn't the end of the world.
• pwenzel 12y ago
  Vijucat's advice is excellent. It's good to hear this before you turn 30. On a similar vein, consider looking at these two titles from Crimethinc: "Days of War, Nights of Love" http://www.crimethinc.com/books/days.html http://www.crimethinc.com/books/days.html "Work" http://www.crimethinc.com/books/work.html http://www.crimethinc.com/books/work.html
• nzealand 12y ago
  Beautifully put, but I respectfully disagree. It takes discipline to exercise regularly. It takes effort to try something new that seems appealing but unfamiliar. We are old, and I think we forget how hard it was to crawl and then walk.
• nnoitra 12y ago
  This! Life is too short to pretend to be someone that you're not. Simply one should make peace with being considered an utter failure by everyone and then proceed to do what they love nonetheless. All else is poor imitation.
• yuashizuki 12y ago
  The only thing that fits this discription for me would be sex. Now what ?
• magic_beans 12y ago
  Damn. I wish I could save this comment. Beautiful advice.