Comment by ulisesrmzroche | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ulisesrmzroche | Hacker News Reader

More productivity porn. War on leisure! Only this one particularly bad because it’s trying to say “no pain no gain” is a lie. That if the gains come with pain, the gains must not be worth it

He’s not strong enough to squeeze the orange (rails contributor life perks) so the juice must not be worth squeezing

Basically, that hard work ain’t worth it. Fun Uber Alles

But it’s like, the process of building a sexy body is not easy or fun. It’s gonna be at least a year, maybe more, till ppl start wondering what you look like shirtless. you’re telling us the Payoff isn’t worth it?

Becoming a rails contributor was a worthy goal, no one said it would be fun. plus, what about when your personal project gets bigger, you don’t like maintenance work? You can’t be a developer. Developers maintain software. Youre going to work on toy software and tutorials all your life?

You should enjoy your leisure time and you should not shy away from hard work and you should take care of your health above everything else. This guy even dropped a humblebrag about neglecting his personal life.

Some rich ppl wake up early. That had nothing to do with their success. Hard work doesn’t determine success either.

Basically what I’m trying to say is feeling productive will not guarantee success. Productivity is the new prayer

Except that's the opposite of what he's saying. Instead of valuing feeling productive, he now values feeling energetic and excited every day. I think you may have missed that part.

Not everyone wants to get swole or be a rails core maintainer.

replace "productive" with "feeling energetic and excited" in that response and their arguments are still valid. If you want to work on something, anything, there are going to be days where you are energetic and excited, and days you will feel like shit. The author of the article is suggesting to quit when the days are shit, and that is a bad advice.

There is nothing that will keep you excited forever.

Really, when your mind tells you that you are bored and sick, you should do something else.

If the circumstances force you to eat shit, it's still not the right thing to do.

No, there are goals that require delayed gratification. You’re saying getting out of poverty is hard, so don’t do it. You’re saying don’t exercise, it hurts. Hate gutters In bowling? No problem, you’re as good as anyone, it’s the thought that counts.

Sometimes you gotta eat shit because it’s the right thing to do. Changing the goals won’t fool anyone, not even yourself.

No ones born knowing how to code, it takes practice, it’s not fun, it can be deeply hurtful sometimes, hell all careers can hurt bad

Painful lessons aren’t worth it cus they’re painful? We’ve crossed the rubicon. Point of no return is way over yonder

I'm not suggesting to change any goals; just to have a break from any singular activity for a while.

But whatever myth you think there is for goals that require delayed gratification simply does not exist (at least for most people).

The journey is more important than the destination and all that. Reaching some arbitrary goal doesn't bring you lasting happiness.

No ones born knowing to code, but learning to code can also be fun. Like many other things. The worst thing you can say to somebody learning anything is that "this is very hard to learn".

No, the absolute worst thing you can say is "It's fine to give up as soon as it gets hard."

If you have a pile of cash you can lead a life of not much. But lottery winners and multimillionaires almost invariably seem to get bored by constant holidays, permanent no-destination travel, and other kinds of freewheeling.

Most people need a goal and a focus. And as soon as you have one you're going to frustrate yourself by definition, because you don't have the skills or the character to reach your goal immediately.

Which means work is involved. And that's going to suck in at least some ways at least some of the time, because work does - even if you're financially self-sufficient and are doing it for passion not money.

I'm only saying one should not have to continually withstand frustration or bad circumstances. Sometimes giving up (and doing something else) is the right thing to do. Sometimes you need a break to be able to continue. And so on.

In any case you should never prime for difficulty, it only decreases performance and motivation.

And since very few things are actually really, really necessary, I find it's very hard to pass morality about "the need to do more".

What I don't agree with is that everyone needs strong goal-oriented thinking and psychology to accomplish things.

Perhaps in the strictest sense everybody has goals but being goal-oriented is another thing.

If you push yourself enough you get stronger, fail to push and you get weaker. Accumulate enough weakness and everything in life becomes really hard. Truly terrifyingly hard to the point it just gets bizare. Running a marathon is easier for some people than walking to the car is for others. If you build up enough strength you can also accomplish things that take a lot of effort and time. The satisfaction you get from that cant be compared to instant gratification. But more importantly, you feel fantastic when you have the energy and know you can do hard challenging things right when you decide to go for it. Not next week, right now!

"when your mind tells you" what does this really mean??

"When you feel bored and sick"?

Sorry. I guess I tend to think in a dualistic way.

No, the author is suggesting that you work on projects that are intrinsically motivating, i.e. things that you would want as opposed to problems other people want you to solve.

He did want to be a rails maintainer. Did you miss that part?He wasn’t willing to do the work for it. So where’s the lesson? What are we applauding?

Changing goal posts is cheating yourself. Self discipline a sin now?

It’s the American stigma of failure, deeply flawed national trait

The argument is that hard work saps energy and can damage your self esteem so therefore it’s evil. No matter the benefits, they’re not worth it if they don’t come easy.

This is like bizarro Silicon Valley

So where’s the lesson? What are we applauding?

If your position is that changing your mind about anything ever is a sin, then what use is a 'lesson' to you? You can't learn it.

No he didn't want to be a Rails maintainer. He wanted the improved job prospects of being a Rails maintainer but didn't have real interest in developing the product itself.

Yep that's what I took away from it too.

The author is not selling you anything. He is not saying that hard work is bad. His _whole argument_ is that we should work on projects that excite us and benefit us, as opposed to working on Rails because it's trendy and has lots of stars on Github.

To be honest, I think you would agree with the author if you focused on the overall message rather than specific points in the post.

haha, I keep telling people to think of their performance as a training schedule. You monitor your health and overall well being, do as much as you should to gradually improve, not doing enough is as bad as doing to much. The response is that hilarious story how they imagine any amount of work to destroy them gradually.

to quote ragnar "happiness is nothing"

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