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This is right.

Business is a suffering contest. Life ends in death.

There are beautiful things in both, but more times than not, despite all signals and urges to stop or give up, you must will yourself to keep moving your feet.

Those few who do give themselves the best chance to overcome adversity.

Gosh, this was great. Have an upvote.

I respect your comment and the one you responded to. Being an old school nerd, only the toughest survived with a love of technology back then. I recall a stream of bullying and it either makes or breaks you. However, being a nerd is no longer the same as it was back then.

What frustrates me today is how the media (collectively) have revised the history books and promote some fairly extreme bullying (see the verge's article on Matt Taylor as an example of some extreme and unjustified bullying of Matt based on his gender).

I believe overcoming adversity is recognising you are not a victim and recognising there is something bigger than you. You are not a gender, you are not a skin colour, you are not a religion or an age group. If you can rise above these things, you are a huge step to overcoming adversity. You stop looking down on others and yourself.

I can't help but feel our society is further from this goal than I have ever seen in my lifetime. While it doesn't impact me personally, it disappoints me at how much we've regressed in even the last 10 years.

>Being an old school nerd, only the toughest survived with a love of technology back then.

Ah yes, only the toughest survive. Tech nerds are so tough that they get offended when somebody doesn't like their shirt.

>What frustrates me today is how the media (collectively) have revised the history books and promote some fairly extreme bullying (see the verge's article on Matt Taylor as an example of some extreme and unjustified bullying of Matt based on his gender).

They were complaining that he was wearing a shirt with scantily clad women on it? How is that gender-based harassment? Furthermore, how does it constitute revising history?

>You are not a gender, you are not a skin colour, you are not a religion or an age group. If you can rise above these things, you are a huge step to overcoming adversity. You stop looking down on others and yourself.

Unless you are in the category of people with the highest level of privilege in our society, you are not allowed to forget these aspects of your identity. The police, public restrooms, inaccessible buildings, and other people will relentlessly remind you of your abnormality and victimize you.

on the other hand if one can be so disillusioned then it is the greatest gift, their entire brain cycles can be spent on the things that matter. But its hard to achieve the illusion.

>Ah yes, only the toughest survive. Tech nerds are so tough that they get offended when somebody doesn't like their shirt.

No, you would know it was due to real, physical bullying back then. Not "someone said something I don't like on the internet", but injuring someone and/or degrading them publically due to them loving technology.

Oh, while we're at public degradation. >They were complaining that he was wearing a shirt with scantily clad women on it? How is that gender-based harassment?

He was wearing a shirt his female friend made for him. She wasn't harassed for making it, he was - because he is a white male in a science field, the social justice warriors of the internet decided he is a target for abuse and public degradation, that a shirt is a reason women aren't getting into science. They decided he is a "misogynist" and a "sexist pigdog". That's abuse. That's bullying.

>Unless you are in the category of people with the highest level of privilege in our society, you are not allowed to forget these aspects of your identity. The police, public restrooms, inaccessible buildings, and other people will relentlessly remind you of your abnormality and victimize you.

Really? And let me guess, that would be a straight white male. You're doing a good job of reminding people of their abnormality and victimizing them.

>No, you would know it was due to real, physical bullying back then. Not "someone said something I don't like on the internet", but injuring someone and/or degrading them publically due to them loving technology.

When exactly is "back then" though? I went through school about ten years ago and was beaten up for nerdiness all the time, why people think they can leverage this into a lifetime of misogyny is beyond me. Everyone takes shit in grade school, kids are mean.

>He was wearing a shirt his female friend made for him.

That doesn't make it not sexist.

>She wasn't harassed for making it, he was - because he is a white male in a science field

No, she wasn't harassed because she wasn't wearing it.

>the social justice warriors of the internet decided he is a target for abuse and public degradation, that a shirt is a reason women aren't getting into science. They decided he is a "misogynist" and a "sexist pigdog". That's abuse. That's bullying.

It's too bad a man was called a misogynist on the internet, it must have really hurt his feelings. I thought people like you think SJWs need to grow a thicker skin? Resilience is a two-way street, pal. If you expect us to be tolerant of your abuse, you'd better be tolerant of ours.

>And let me guess, that would be a straight white male.

Good boy! Here's your cookie.

>You're doing a good job of reminding people of their abnormality and victimizing them.

There's a certain kind of conservative who seems to think that any discrepancies in equality in modern western culture are due to individual failings of will because we made sexism and racism illegal like, last century, dude. I don't need to remind people of their abnormality, it's impossible for them to ignore.

I know because I'm neither straight nor a male. (though I am most certainly white) Far before anybody could tell me I was oppressed, I experienced oppression. In particular people in grade school beat me up for expressing femininity, because it is considered unacceptable for men to act feminine in our culture. Telling me I'm not a victim while I'm lying in a puddle of my own schoolwork mixed with other peoples' spit getting the shit kicked out of me doesn't make you clever or objective, it makes you a sadistic asshole.

Relevant. Watch Jordan Peterson's talk on "The Necessity of Virtue", goes deep into psychology, philosophy, history, to deliver the point that: life is suffering, not in a pessimistic way, but by recognizing your "being" has limitations. This gives meaning to this adversity, because its far too easy to sink into a state of resentment and "why me". I'm currently dealing with adversity in terms of losing a job right now and this really shone a light forward for me, resonating much deeper than any self-help material I've come across.

> started with making my bed as soon as I got up every day

This is exactly the advice from Admiral Mc Raven at the university of Texas commencement ceremony. He recalls it as one of the most important lessons he got from its navy SEAL training: https://news.utexas.edu/2014/05/16/mcraven-urges-graduates-t...

Thanks for sharing that. It was an awesome read!

I also had to comment. That was awesome.

I'll echo the same. I decided some time ago that I disliked some aspects of my personality, especially shyness and sadness. I made a choice to systematically practice the habits of someone who was outgoing and happy. Now I am, mostly. Sometimes I still need to remind myself that change is possible.

Medication like Zoloft helped a ton for me with these things

As a Brit, such statements just blow my mind. Giving a random stranger on the internet medical advice - and for a branded drug at that.

"you may want to see a doctor, sometimes these things need medicated" seems like reasonable, responsible advice. But handing out specific drug recommendations - WTF?!

I experienced the same thing when my American cousins were over last summer. Unsolicited and highly dangerous medical advice tossed out like a TV show recommendation.

EDIT: I realise I do not actually know the nationality of the previous poster, and that their statement referred solely to themselves, yet I still feel it is dangerous and will leave the original message intact.

Must be something with the "magic pill for everything" PR that is popular in USA. Goes hand in hand with non existing public healthcare, so "market can handle that".

Now if they would only let you self-prescribe drugs we'd be all set.

It's not just PR, it's a common American way of thinking.

From branded medications to diet books, "health" foods, and trends ad nauseam, there's a pervasive culture of cure-all objects and systems.

Then again, we don't have fine physical understanding of most mind disorders or the medications we use to treat them so if your doctor is effectively throwing darts at a board then why not internet strangers?

This is nothing special about America. Every culture has its own brand of cure-all objects and systems. In fact, China has significantly more home remedies and cure-all objects (that generally have zero scientific evidence).

Everyone in this thread trying to say general ignorance is something Americans have a monopoly on is silly. It's a human condition, nothing to do with country.

It's definitely part of the human condition, but its also much more prevalent in the USA and as you note China.

Many wealthy European countries have a much more suspicious attitude to health vendors. Then again we often ban their advertisements.

their statement referred solely to themselves

This is important, and why it is ok to say it IMO, and I'm glad GP did. It's an honest and real response.

As you note in your edit, your comment's parent likely wasn't intended to be normative. It was instead, I think, intended to normalize psychiatric medication.

I have a huge problem with the way some of these drugs are over-prescribed. But I have an even bigger problem with stigmatizing people who are availing themselves of a resource that might be of help to them.

Yes this is true. I don't see much stigma for people receiving medication, but there is a taboo here on your average Joe giving symptom->drug suggestions

All he said was that it helped him...

Also I don't see why being a Brit would make a difference, I'm an Australian and hearing that a drug helped someone isn't that mindblowing to me.

On top of that, he'd have to convince a doctor to actually obtain the drug.

That was noted in the edit.

It just isn't the culture here to talk about specific medications. People are more likely to focus on the condition, and urge someone to go get checked out (often to 'demand a consultant' but I've never seen somebody explicitly or implicitly told to request a specific drug).

Could you share some of the choices you made?

Sure. I made talking to strangers like a game -- see how long you can get someone to talk. It's easiest to get started by joining a group which looks like it's having fun and talking in a large, but loose circle. It's nerve-wracking initially, so remind yourself that you'll probably never see these people again. After a while, I built a repertoire of things to say and I enjoy when I see people enjoying my stories. It's like being a stand-up comic. Practice practice practice. Eventually you'll be able to improvise.

About being happy, to me it's a matter of considering what plausible futures might be. I get stressed a lot about little things. To relax I think past the immediate imagined disaster and what its consequences might be. Usually the consequences aren't that bad. You can always make more money and you can always meet new people. Health/safety is the only thing that's not worth risking.

A psychiatrist prescribed Zoloft to me a while back, but I found diet, exercise, and meditation (in the sense I described above, not traditional counting breaths, etc.) to be more effective.

I dislike modern psychology's labels as if there's some threshold that separates normal people from abnormal. We're all on a spectrum of various personality characteristics, with no boundaries on that spectrum.

The funny thing is, my wife now says I'm one of the least stressed people she knows. It makes me think of when the Hulk says, "the secret is I'm always angry." I appear relaxed because I'm always stressed and keeping a lid on it.

> The 'small wins' you get from just executing the loop over and over again build up a lot of momentum over time.

I've been building on the Web and Internet non-stop since the early 1990s, and that's the only method I've found that works consistently to stave off giving up when things inevitably get really hard. One of the fastest ways to giving up, is to fail to tackle one giant task, and have it grind you up and burn large amounts of time; when you spot that happening, it's critical to switch to smaller tasks / goals that you can knock out quickly, so as to get any modicum of progress going again.

My experience confirms this approach. When I relied on passion as my compass, I had lots of good times, no doubt, but a lot of other boring-but-important stuff didn't get done. When I decided that how I feel about something in the moment doesn't necessarily matter that much, that's when I started succeeding, first in small and then big ways. And besides, soon you become passionate about the things you're doing, that used to be boring. So you end up having both, rather than just the one.

In short, I guess it's about getting over yourself, to find a new part of yourself that you didn't know about.

This is very close to Buddhist philosophy. Shorter goals means your mind is closer to living in the now. Which in reality is the only time it's possible to live in. But if your mind isn't with you in the now, then you aren't fully enjoying it. It would go futher and say that after making plans to do the dishes, the joy now comes from doing the dishes. Not in having them done, which only lasts a fraction of an instant. The past can't sustain you. But the present does. The feel of the warm water on your hands. The sound of the water running. The smell of soap suds. That's what life is made up of.

Agree 100%. It is what worked for me. Get up early every day, brew and enjoy fresh coffee and HackerNews + Dilbert as the first things I read. And do the dishes immediately after every meal. Each thing is small but needs focus to be done properly, and I get great satisfaction from seeing clean dishes, clean kitchen.

I extended this by doing yoga. Apart from the well known health benefits, the total concentration, even in the painful parts, gives the mind diversion and that is as good as if not better than rest. The cumulative affect is one is refreshed.

So for me the yoga and the discipline from a few small things as helped me work through mild depression, shitty (although mostly self-created) relationship crashes, and lack of motivation.

To put it all simply: learn to enjoy the small things done well every day.

Great comments, especially about implementing grit & discipline.

If I may ask, initially did you have any means to implement a system from scratch (i.e. no passion, and no motivation) to consistently performing and developing that into a habit? That would be the heart of discussion here (to be aware of audience diversity here). It has to start from an emotional pain, or an emotional need to get to a specific short-term goal in the first place.

E.g. working out. One starts with a short-term goal of running on treadmill with the intention to lose a few lbs, or to develop some better sleep. And then, gives up after the goal is achieved; some give up unable to follow-through. Then, you get frustrated about not following through the following year, continuing to be mediocre. And then, you develop a better momentum, better sense of following-through, and better discipline, only to give up after a little bit longer (excuses can be formidable). And then...you develop enough persistence, enough discipline, enough grit, just to make it into a habit. Once you turn that into a habit, you just don't care for goals, excuses or motivations.

But I found that incredibly hard to achieve (over the years). At least, this was my path. When I was put in a stringent disciplined system in 20s, I resisted. I always wanted to break such patterns, routines & rules because I thought they hinder creativity. Now, I am at a full-circle back to implementing such a system of grit & discipline.

Given these, if I were to start something new today e.g. Taekwondo, I would implement grit, discipline and just following-through. But I won't have goals, or I don't care for passion either.

Matt Cutt's "Try something new for 30 days" TED talk did help:

https://www.ted.com/talks/matt_cutts_try_something_new_for_3...

Thank you, fantastic comment. It reminds of this quote -

"Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now."

I am guilty of procastination, analysis and obsessive research my whole life. Its not going to help if you spend a month finding out the perfect diet or perfect vacation and then realize you could've done something instead - perfection is an unattainable goal.

Solid advice! Would you mind sharing some of the systems you've implemented?

Well the very first one was literally just 'make your bed as soon as you get up'. I read that idea somewhere else as a way to get a small win right away which I really needed because my startup wasn't doing so great - so I tried it and it worked. This had surprisingly large benefits. I didn't get up and start scrolling through my social media right away. I had a nice neat bed to get into at the end of the day. I couldn't just pile mess on top of the bed and leave it like that.

So the next thing was 'drink a glass of water after you've made the bed'. I read somewhere that lethargy after waking up was to do with dehydration overnight, so I drank the glass of water. I don't know if it made me less lethargic or not, but it did make me wander out of my room and into the kitchen to get the glass, and made me feel like I'd started my day.

So then it was 'ten pushups'. Then after a little while it was 'another ten pushups before bed'. Then it was 'run 5k every 3rd day' then every 2nd, then 10k if it was a weekend day. At some point I'd also added in going to the gym, because I noticed I'd been jogging past one on my route, so now I just ran to the gym. Routines to build on routines. I never set myself a goal like 'lose 10kg' or 'Squat 100kg' but in the end I did. It was hard to get over not really wanting to run, but when I kind of internalized that it didn't matter whether I wanted to or not, I just got to doing stuff. And of course it's kind of hard to feel bad about going running after you've done it, so it made sense to just keep doing it.

For work stuff, the first thing I did was 'before going to bed, write on an index card every task you need to get done tomorrow'. So I did that. Small thing, big improvements - first thing was that now I had an index card on my desk first thing that I had to deal with, so I had to read it before opening up my PC and just surfing around. Next thing was because I had the card there on my desk, I glanced at it every now and then and asked myself 'well did I do any of that in the last hour?'. And finally when I wrote the next index card, I had a little list of the tiny wins I'd made that day. Plus the index cards stack up over time so there's this physical reminder on the corner of my desk that I've done all this stuff, and the next day is just a tiny part of that. Now as a bonus I'm mindful about my work. I didn't set out to 'have 8 productive hours a day', I just made the little index cards over and over. But I get a productive 8 hour day most days.

Well I had the index cards now, so I have a record of what I've been up to, so I might as well do summaries - and that's how I started journaling regularly. When the stack gets x high, review the stack, write down what your thoughts are, repeat.

Now I look at stuff in terms of the systems I'd have to adopt to do it, and figure out how I can fit them in. I'd love to learn the guitar and work on a bunch of personal projects, and by figuring out the daily stuff I have to do I can see whether it makes sense to do it now or some other time, because it kind of naturally squares with priorities.

I've lost some of those habits since I moved for grad school, but I'm working on reestablishing them in the same methodical way. I'm still working on making my systems a little more resilient to that kind of disruption. One thing I did add to my system though is 'Saturday is a personal day, always, no email, no phone, unless it's a hair-on-fire thing in which case Sunday is a personal day'.

YMMV but the point to evolve this stuff organically.

You mentioned grad school. It's even more of a struggle to keep those habits after you start working. With some kinds of jobs, anyway. Stay strong.

I actually found it a lot easier when I was full-time employed because my schedule was automatically so structured. Morning standup, weekly meetings, ship dates.

Having been between work and grad school and back, my personal experience is that systems are easier to maintain during work. Grad schools is automatically less structured and easier to get into a funk if you don't focus right.

I've had several travel jobs. Flghts and hotels are very disruptive. I also worked part-time in grad school, so I guess that gave me structure.

It seems whenever I do anything successful it always started as a small thing. No grand plans, just a small task or two done over and over until it's much larger.

It seems like good lives are built the same way as good companies: one small task at a time compounded over years.

Thank you for this thoughtful, detailed reply! I learned something.

It was hard to get over not really wanting to run, but when I kind of internalized that it didn't matter whether I wanted to or not, I just got to doing stuff.

This is a fantastic approach.

I do something similar. I have a few rules for myself right now. Mostly:

* Work on my book[1] every day.

* Exercise twice a week.

* Run every weekend.

* Then a few ones around what I eat.

I allow myself to tune those rules over time to better optimize what I'm going for, however I don't let myself change a rule right when it's in play. If it's Sunday afternoon and I haven't run yet, I don't get to decide if I'm going to change my running schedule. Past me set that rule, and present me must follow it.

After I run, I can consider tweaking it. But, then, of course, I find that after I've run, I feel pretty good about it and end up sticking with the rule.

[1]: http://www.craftinginterpreters.com/

Oh hey I've been following your book so far, pretty neat!

I really identify with this myself. One of my main learning points about myself is that fretting and prevaricating about work and life is usually worse than just getting on with it.

So true! (Edit: speaking for myself :) )Absolutely. Thank you for putting it so cogently!!

Yes, it's really powerful. Back in the days before kids when I rode to work, I never allowed myself to even ask whether today I was riding to work or catching the bus. Instead, I just bought an awesome riding jacket and just rode EVERY SINGLE DAY. Rain, hail or shine I simply rode - plenty of times I was the only cyclist pedalling away during some ridiculously torrential rain. I even told my wife to stop asking if I wanted a lift, because I didn't even want that option to enter my mind.

Thanks for this! I use a similar system for meditation and yoga, I find that combining it with an app that keeps a tally of how many days in a row you've done it is really rewarding. It makes me do these things even when I don't feel like it cause I don't want to break the streak I have going.

Yes! I second this.

I started using Insight Timer and am now meditating every single day for the first time.

Can you elaborate on how you internalized that it didn't matter whether you wanted to do something or not?

That's something I could really use.

It took a few tries, and I started off easy with the bed making, then building on that. It's not so hard to make yourself make your bed or drink some water. Then when I'd gotten a couple of those down as a regular thing, it was just a bit of reflection - 'well I didn't really feel like making the bed or walking to the kitchen all those days, but now that I do it it doesn't really matter if I want to. I guess eventually push-ups will work the same'

Turns out pretty much everything works the same. Maybe the trick is that I didn't really do anything that wasn't incremental, just a day at a time, but you just kind of keep going with the momentum.

Now I tend to just do that reflexively because it's just worked so many times in so many different areas.

I would like to expand on atroyn's reply: Every choice you ever make is self-reinforcing.

If you choose to do the "right" thing or the "wrong" thing in any given moment, that will reinforce your tendency to either persevere or to give up, in the future.

So while some moments of decision may seem more important than others (with obvious / immediate consequences), these moments are in fact all supremely important.

Over time these decisions solidify into habits and character traits. Ultimately, they will determine your fate in life.

I hate exercise but I know I have to do it. I'm 40 now, and I'm reasonably active - I cycle (a short way) to work, I walk a decent amount, but still. I need my heart to beat properly, often.

So this year, I've started swimming. There's a pool near me, proper 50m size.

Week 1: do 1 lap, 2-3 times that week. My girlfriend laughed at me. "1 lap?!". Yeah, 1 lap. It's just about going there and doing it.

Week 2: 2 laps.

You get the idea. By easing myself in to this, by making it a steady little habit, I'm hoping to be doing 52 laps by the end of the year. That's 2.5kms. That's not bad.

Reading through what you said, it reminded me about how the Learning how to Learn Course [1] tackles procrastination. Basically the way I understood it (hopefully I did it right), if you focus on the product (ie. the final goal), our brain activates the pain sensors which make us look for other activities that will be more fun to do. The suggestion is to focus on the process (or system) that will eventually get you to the goal, using small periods of focused attention that can be individually rewarded (like spending some time doing relaxing and/or fun activities after focusing on the task).

[1] https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn

I agree. Goals are too laden in the rejection/acceptance/guilt mindset. Better to have a system that works.

There is also video version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJVxkr9eE9A

And a book! _How to Fail at Everything and Still Win Big_ [1]. It's an easy, mostly funny read, with "discipline > motivation" at the center of it.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/How-Fail-Almost-Everything-Still/dp/1...

Wise words. I definitely think yours is a good approach.

This is such a pragmatic and straight forward approach. I loved reading it. It did help me. Thanks!