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So true. I find it crazy how a good amount of people in my generation(I'm in the US and an young engineer so my statistic is probably skewed) find that if you're not spending your time doing then you're wasting your life. In my opinion, there is nothing wrong with someone making an honest working a 9-5 job and going home to do whatever they want. Regardless if its watching sports or TV all night.

Also, the end of the blogpost is kind of disingenuous. Knowing when to quit is as important as knowing when not to quit. Hard work does not always pay off.

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"Knowing when to quit is as important as knowing when not to quit. Hard work does not always pay off."

This is the entire subject of Seth Godin's _The Dip_. I'm not a huge fan of this breed of books, but if someone is looking for a lesson on this topic, I would having a look at that book. It's very short -- you can read it in under an hour. It provides a decent mental framework for thinking through the question of whether you should continue on your current path, or quit and switch gears.

Interesting, I'm going have to look into this book. I think the hardest part for me personally when I'm making my "quitting" decision is that my emotional attachment tends to supersede my logical thinking.

Reminds me of a quote I heard a while back, not sure the source, went something to the effect of:

"Winners never quit, and quitters never win. But a person who never wins and never quits is a fool."

Is that the correct phrasing? It would imply that a fool that never wins and never quits should quit... but if quitters never win this fool would be sure to not win once they've quit.

Sometimes you don't win.

The point is they're not going to win anyway.

Can't resist: "The only winning move is not to play" :)

But I guess it means that a winner knows when there is no path to a win and retreats to do something where it is actually possible to win.

In the finance industry, when there is no play to be made...the play is to buy options that are profitable if things stay the way there are.

Basically, when you know to "do nothing", there is an action to be taken - it just depends on "nothing really happening" to work out.

Nice but how do you know in which group you are or when you go from one group to another...

If no mistake you have made, yet losing you are. Then a different game you must play.

~Yoda.

The Dip was an eyeopener, its a highly recommended read.

> and going home to do whatever they want. Regardless if its watching sports or TV all night.

There's a difference between wanting to do that, and feeling unable to do anything else. If you _want_ to go home and veg for an evening that's OK, but if you can't do anything else, that's probably not OK.

I would say that for an individual it might be hard to honestly determine between those two states. I'd say for myself there have certainly been times where I _thought_ I wanted to play a video game for several hours but ultimately I understood, based on how I felt afterwards, that is not really what I wanted.

It can be on a day to day basis, but if it’s a chronic thing, it’s usually (in retrospect, of course) easy to differentiate. Person 1 goes home every night after work and feels like they want o watch TV, so they do, every day for a year. Person 2 goes home every night and feels the same, however they meet friends/go to the gym/read a book/_something_ different once or twice a week. There’s a world of difference in retrospect.

> I _thought_ I wanted to play a video game for several hours but ultimately I understood, based on how I felt afterwards, that is not really what I wanted.

This is what I'm talking about. I can spend all day watching Netflix, but in the end I will be much happier if I go climbing, write some code, practice for my next musical performance, or read a book that will help me think better (some good fiction can fit into this category). Some games fit into this category, but not many.

I tend to think of life balance as finding the right ratio of ‘productive’ hours versus ‘consumptive’ hours. I go to work, clean the house, take care of the kid, and work on side projects during my productive hours, and then relax, watch tv, read books, and play video games during my consumptive hours.

All of one or the other is not sustainable. Sometimes I feel like I am doing too much of one or the other, and I try to rebalance.

There is nothing wrong with that, but it is good advice if your goal is to become exceptional.

The only way to equal or beat someone naturally talented is to put in many hours.

Relaxation is good (but try to combine it with activities that are good for you, like jogging, meditation, or taking a shower/doing a house chore.)

While you go out to have drinks with your friends, some stay home and work on research and side projects. One makes you happy, the other makes you more skillfull. It is a lever.

I do agree that sometimes it can be better to give up. I spend close to a decade of my life trying to understand the subtleties of a single paper. Now I see the broader picture this was definately a Pyrrhic victory.

"The only way to equal or beat someone naturally talented is to put in many hours."

I totally agree with the sentiment. I work an extra 1-2 hours every day which gives me an additional 260-520 extra hours per year to outperform my peers. However, the older I get, the more I'm starting to think that being exceptional is overrated. Time is arguably the most valuable resource I have. Every extra hour you spend trying to become more skillful is one less hour to "live". The hardest part for me after college was to find this work life balance.

So much this. I've tried to 'out work' everyone my whole career/life. All that has change recently when I had a baby girl. All we really have is time, so spending it with my daughter has become more of a priority. Instead of grinding tickets on the weekend (obviously if there's a hard deadline then..), my time is spent with my baby. It's so much more rewarding and I am far less stressed all the time. But balance it truly the key.

> I spend close to a decade of my life trying to understand the subtleties of a single paper.

Wow. Out of curiosity - what paper was that?

I think it really depends on what you really, really want out of life.

My best friends and roommates all think I work too much, to the point that they've started calling me a "robot." But I tried going off the advice of my therapist to be more "balanced", and I found that all it did was make me dissatisfied with my progress.

I find a lot of joy waking up early, going to the gym, working until an hour before bed, and then reading a book until I fall asleep. I allow myself time to veg with Netflix for an hour or two a couple of nights a week, but no more than that. Ultimately, I find myself a lot happier being productive. I know it doesn't work for everyone, but I know that this is the way that I'm built.

Is it possible that you're working yourself to the bone to avoid thinking about your life.

I used to work crazy hours in workdays, on weekends I felt sick and sad. I actually wished for the stress of working at a high tempo. The downside was that I knew deep inside that the constant stress was detrimental to my health.

For years I've aimed for a work/life balance. But I am yet to achieve it. Either I work super hard, or I spend all my days procrastinating.

Could be.

I know I definitely used to be that way. I was super depressed and I would just be at work to avoid life. But I felt super empty inside at that point.

Right now, I lean into it because I find happiness and simplicity in it.

If you have this mindset, may I suggest that you could be significantly underestimating the role of luck and being in the right spot/having the right network?

If I was to review my career (which is by no means exceptional, but still), the times I've taken giant steps it has been either because of luck (I joined a company at a good growing point) or a mix of skill, luck and a network of people that help put me in opportunities to be exceptional. I have the skills to be great, but I need the opportunities to be great as well, and opportunities are not necessarily only created by skill.

Skill is a necessary component, but it is not the only component. There are a lot of things a lot of people can do, and the determining factor in who ends of doing them is usually not skill. There is such a thing as skilled enough, which is hard to get to, but if you're opting between getting 1% better at something and getting 20% better at something else, often taking the 20% thing will pay off more, whether that be in networking, finding more opportunities, or whatever.

I don't think luck in this context is actually a thing that happens by chance but rather by actively finding and selecting the right choice presented to you at that time.

I've seen it with myself and many of my colleagues that the one big chance that you thought you simply can not let go was actually one of many chances that come along quite regularly but seem to be very tempting at first. In the sense that you feel like you have to take it or there will never be such a chance again. But to be honest, if you are doing a good job there is almost always a way to grow, and if there really isn't then it's time to switch.

Funny.. I have had multiple chances, like you said, and the ones I did not pick ended up doing very well and the ones that I did pick...did not!

As an engineer, you are supposed to be a slave to your company. Look up the term Karoshi.

Anyway, as a middle aged engineer, my advice is to work your ass off when you are young and save a ton of money. Then you won’t be beholden to your employer.

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