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Comment by MIKarlsen | Hacker News Reader

I find the whole "You are a person who spend every waking hour optimizing yourself to become the best YOU you can be"-frame of mind very intimidating. Maybe it's because I'm not american, but even though I like to work with complex issues, I also like a 9-17 job with a decent income, and the ability to go home and relax when I'm not working. And by relax, I don't mean working on side projects, doing volunteer work or earning a second degree in something. But playing board games, working out/running or even just watching mindnumbing TV. I feel like the "100 % dedicated 100 % of the time"-thing has become the only way to really make it in tech-life.

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You're right - it's very much an American thing. Maybe not exclusive to the US, and it may vary by state or background, but still very common there from my experience with family and friends.

In American culture, unless you're financially constrained, you grow up with someone hammering down the idea that you have to be doing something productive and getting better 100% of the time. If you're a kid, you have to be involved in clubs or teams for everything. You have to make friends. You have to be good, you have to be popular. You have to get awards. You have to play a couple of sports competitively. On holidays, you have to go to summer camp, shock full of controlled activities. You have to do a lot of "voluntary" work because it will look good in your resume, not because it's helping someone [1].

As a result, your schedule is controlled, you are being judged 100% of the time, and the loudest, more outwardly energetic people are the ones who strive. The idea is that if you're not having Mandatory Fun, you're doing something wrong.

It creates this idealistic culture where everyone is trying to be better all the time, or pretending they are. The reality is that most people live in a constant state of anxiety. For the most part, it's very hard for kids to find what they like, and get better at it by sheer initiative; they never have time to do it. Instead, they do what they do because they're told to.

Little surprise kids have no time for introspection, and that's the way people can actually get better.

Science is just starting to understand that Rest is not Idleness [2]. The idea is not new [3]. But our culture, specially the fast-moving tech culture, is not ready for it.

[1] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/05/college-admissions-...

[2] http://pps.sagepub.com/content/7/4/352

[3] https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozio_creativo

George Carlin summed this up pretty well - "When does a kid get to sit in a yard with a stick anymore? You know, just sit there with a fucking stick. Do today's kids even know what a stick is?" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0MKBdD2FGA

My wife and I were just texting about this.

We try to make sure we carve out time for them to strategically be bored. Forced to explore, use their imaginations, build a fort, stomp on bugs, make shit up.

oh dear, u have to make sure to 'carve out time' for them to 'strategically be bored'?

What's the problem?

I think you're overgeneralizing a bit when you say it's an American thing. Maybe you and your peer group were out in the hard-charging long tail of the distribution and you assume life looked the same everywhere else?

As someone who dropped down from honors courses sophomore year of high school to "college prep" and earned a thoroughly mediocre GPA in an easy major at a state school, I'll just say that there are allllll kinds of America out there in addition the one you describe. I don't have the numbers at my disposal but I'd be willing to bet that even that level of academic attainment puts me ahead of more than half of the population.

Just a different perspective on the matter.

yeah but mainstream culture is always defined by a small group. and it is recognizably American. like having a million of those ribbons and plastic trophies from science fairs or organized sports. or republicans calling poor people "freeloaders".

American here. I don't interpret it that way. I strongly desire to always be growing as a person yet I find quiet reflection some of my most valuable time. I don't think they're mutually exclusive.

> I don't think they're mutually exclusive.

I agree.

The problem to me is on the metrics some parents use to define growth. I do agree with you that quiet reflection is some valuable time. Personally, some of my most valuable ideas and projects came out of the blue, during leisure time.

But my experience is one of seeing parents who think everything should be scheduled to their correct dosages, and that "quiet reflection" is rarely considered as part of the equation. At least in my limited observations, it seems to be there's a certain need for constant measurable growth (or measurable fun), and everything that doesn't fit that framework is to be shunned.

To many parent, "growing" is to be sure to be always moving forward. You need to always have the speedometer at a certain minimum speed. While in reality the twists and turns of healthy learning and healthy living often requires stopping and slowing down at times.

Again, from my limited perspective.

Ironically this conditioning has the opposite of its intended effect. Instead of becoming productive, the definition of productive is morphed and people find a way to merely look/feel productive in order to satisfy the system.

For example: if I'm getting my degree in underwater basket weaving I'm being productive because I'm going to college. If I'm at work on reddit all day I'm being productive because I'm at work and getting paid.

> you are being judged 100% of the time

This hits close to home. I've been living in America for ~3.5 years now and my wife and I were just talking about this the other day. In our home country (Brazil), people are a lot more genuinely interested in other people. Here, it is very clear to us that people judge whether we're worth their time and attention, and that judgment is clearly based on achievement and how important/great/awesome our lives are.

We are extreme introverts, not "people people" at all, but we've learned to appreciate our own people a lot more than when we were living back there. We used to be annoyed at most Brazilians' extroversion and warmth, but now we appreciate it because it is a very genuine sentiment of just wanting to know new people, no matter who they are or where they come from.

I am American, but I don't interpret that section to mean that I am working 100% of the time. Actually, I think it means the opposite - as long as core hours are met, I have flexibility to work when the inspiration hits me. I know in my current role, sometimes I get a good idea at 8pm, and I am glad I could sit for an hour or two and knock that out rather than have to save it for 9am the next day. Likewise, if it's 3:30~4:00pm and I'm clearly hitting a rut, I can stop and pick back up a little earlier the next day. Me being the best person I can become means that I have the flexibility to do those other activities as I see fit, because I am not 100% work.

If you genuinely want to be "100% dedicated 100% of the time" for any significant amount of time, you'll have to go home and relax when you're not working.

Anything else would just be setting yourself up for burnout and surely that's not the path to be on when your goal is to be "100% dedicated 100% of the time".

The problem is that people want to appear to be dedicated but don't actually care about being dedicated. Combine this with lack of education and you have people trying to appear dedicated while being dedicated only to the destruction of their mental health.

"You are a person who spend every waking hour optimizing yourself to become the best YOU you can be"

The way I interpret it, do you solve the small problems that are all around you. Are you a willing leaner and applier of knowledge on things around you. When you look that way, its less intimidating or honestly much more human. Its more about awareness and doing something about it.

If you don't relax, workout and enjoy the life part of life, then you probably aren't at 100% when you need to be. It isn't explicitly stated, but a lot of people I know agree with me. Some of those people are PhDs, doctors and other traditionally 'successful' people.

Valve has some of that written in, massages and whatnot. I think the key is that you have to be internally motivated to work at valve. They have to lay the social groundwork for people to be motivated without direct managers.

This is not an "American" thing, its a high-achiever thing. Valve is known for hiring some of the best people out there. This manual is written specifically for those people and appeals to those people and their values. Keeping those people happy and not looking for new jobs is 90% of what management does. Pretty much any competitive market has attitudes like this. Its just worse/better at certain employers. Considering how fast tech moves, it might not be entirely feasible to stop learning and expect to be competitive in the long run.

Personally, I really don't know anyone with this extreme mindset and work cultures in places like Korea and Japan make the US look like a walk in the park. I think you're overstating the case here more than a little. Its just rhetoric. If anything shops like Valve has all sorts of perks that most offices don't. I think there's a bit "feeding of the ego" with these materials here. Their engineers are good but they're normal people with kids and families and such. They aren't literally "optimizing themselves 24/7." They just like their assess kissed once in a while for staying current and competitive. Being told you're amazing during the on-boarding process is pretty common.

I'm not sure exactly the wording that conveyed that to you, but there's generally a lot of leeway in what "the best you" means. Generally, that means the happiest you, and people take different paths to what they think will give them that happiness. For some, that's a very ambitious work schedule, or work related hobbies. For others it may be plenty of time for family or fun. It can be any combination of this, but in the US, "success" is very malleable (or or less so depending on your social circle and geography, but still on the malleable side). When someone drops out of a high stress job to do something like open a small business or change their lifestyle, I don't think the consensus is that people think they failed, but that they are happy that the person found something they presumably enjoy. I know that's how I feel when I hear about it.

But that's the important thing to consider on the other side, some people enjoy their jobs, or the fields they work in even if their job is currently annoying, and they may choose to spend their own time in ways related to their day job. This doesn't have to ambition or someone driving themselves to improve (but it can be). It can just as easily be someone that got a job doing something they love, so they do similar things in their free time.

>> But playing board games, working out/running or even just watching mindnumbing TV.

Maybe not the TV part, I suppose depending on what it is exactly, but the others I would count towards bettering yourself.

You don't have to spend 100% of your time doing "productive" activities. If watching mind numbing TV is what puts you in a flow-like or meditative mind state, do it!

I'd recommend the book "Leisure the Basis of Culture" which covers this sentiment in great detail.

https://www.amazon.com/Leisure-Basis-Culture-Josef-Pieper/dp...

As I read through this thread, I was thinking of this book, too! Great book that is very relevant to this topic.

Yes, when I began studying CS I got hit with this pressure really hard. It definitely gave me the feeling that I didn't belong in the field. It is like a cousin to Impostor Syndrome. Instead of feeling like I'm incompetent (though that still happens sometimes), I feel like I shouldn't be in the field since I don't care enough about it to work on it more than 40-45 hours a week.

Three years into my job, I'm mostly over it. I still have to deal with coworkers laughing that I use Windows on my personal computer, but at least I can eat the cake I made this weekend.

Eh, I'm the same as you. We belong in the field. :D

Besides, what are your coworkers doing, playing computer games on Wine? The paltry selection of osx Steam games? Do they have (shudder) _consoles_?

There's definitely people in the field who don't put in unpaid overtime all the time, who don't go home and write Markov Chains in Haskell to make William Burroughs-esque poetry. There's a lot to be said for having some balance, where your entire life isn't devoted to one topic or to your career.

I love my Windows PC with VirtualBox running any flavor of UNIX I want!

This is not an American thing, it is even worse in Japan and Korea, where kids are forced to study from 6 am until late (8pm ish), and this goes on into the workplace as well. I attended an international high school in South Korea (I'm Latin American) and I felt utterly sorry for my Korean classmates. I've heard worse from the Japanese work ethics.

I'm an American, so my perspective is limited. But my understanding is that while Eastern parents push their kids to work hard, there is also more of an emphasis on collectivity. As a child, you're not just you, you are your family, your community. You are working together on a common goal, and you have a specific part to play. You may be pushed hard, but you are not the CEO. And neither is your Dad. Everyone has a specific role, and an understood sphere of influence.

In America, to a greater extent, it's just you. Your bad grades are yours, it's not connected to your parents, or your class background, it's just you. When you go out into the world, you are in the driver's seat, your success hinges on your decisions. And when you achieve something, it's your achievement. Not your family's.

> Your bad grades are yours, it's not connected to your parents, or your class background, it's just you. [snip] And when you achieve something, it's your achievement. Not your family's.

That is a HUGE overgeneralization, as this is very subculture specific. You'll find families where "You got a D?! How could this happen? What terrible thing must I have done to you that you would stab me in the heart with such a grade?" and/or "My son, the doctor! Ah, he got his smarts from his grandfather.", and so on.

Note that while taking the credit and the blame do tend to go together, I've definitely come across families where parents take the blame but not credit, as well as families where parents take credit but not blame (and plenty where each parent & grandparent does their own thing entirely).

Slightly off-topic but: why is 9-17? Here I've always seen people working 9-18 with one hour off for lunch. Is this an Italian peculiarity?

Personally I say "9-5" a lot because it's a saying even though I'm 9-6.

It goes back to jobs that give a paid lunch hour, I had that deal when I worked a service job 10 years ago. For salaried employees the lunch hour is also 'paid' and I think especially in tech where so many of us eat at desks while thinking, we're pretty justified in keeping 9-5 or sometimes even less when we know 10+ hour days are looming as teams finish big features and it's integration time.

In Norway the most common hours are 7:30 - 15:30 or 8 - 16, with a half hour break.

9 to 5/5.30 (inclusive of an hour lunch) seems pretty common in the UK. It's also common to have flexible time, so I work 10am to 6pm most days.

Do you feel like people should be disallowed from working harder than you to avoid making you feel as if you aren't competing at the highest possible level?

That's not my point. My point is, that if you have to have the "work-all-the-time"-mindset in order to become a succes and get a stable career (specially in IT), then I think it's a problem. At least it seems like an unhealthy culture where people will be out of jobs because someone else is working 80 hours a week.

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