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Comment by zdragnar | Hacker News Reader

I think the author is confusing discipline with... something. Discipline is not simply doing things you don't like. It's a trained mentality that helps you do what needs doing (or not doing, such as procrastinating).

Making some activities more playful, and therefore pleasant, has it's own merits, but life isn't so kind as to make the whole of your existence a playground. At some point, you really do have to buckle down, whether or not it is fun. A disciplined attitude will definitely be a benefit.

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Yes. Discipline is purposeful pain seeking. Procrastination is pain avoidance. Accepting that pain is inevitable is not easy, and it gets harder in an environment that caters to comfort.

Surprisingly, I have done my best work when depressed: I knew I would be in pain whether I was procrastinating or not, so I sought the fleeting euphoria one gets when a task is completed.

When I'm on antidepressants, I feel almost no emotional pain, and I avoid tasks that can be painful, which means I don't achieve much. I just want to continue feeling no pain.

I wish that had been the case for me. Anxiety and depression go hand in hand with me, so being apathetic and procrastinating via escapism (games and fiction books) were my only solace. As you can imagine, that spiraled out of control rather quickly.

It took finally accepting that I needed structure to start turning things around (along with medicine). I can hold the anxiety and depression at bay if I don't procrastinate, but I suspect it will forever be a temptation to take the easy way out when I get stressed about anything.

Short term pleasure is easy to come by, but discipline is thev only path to contentment, joy and peace for me.

I havent thought about it much before. But the part about being your most productive and doing the best work when depressed is a bit too relatable. I can confidently say my productivity and quality of output just shined their brightest in the few lowest points i had.

> Yes. Discipline is purposeful pain seeking. Procrastination is pain avoidance.

? I'm not sure I can ever agree to that. Discipline is more about having commitment to a thing.

It's not about grasping nettles each day until you develop a callus, it's about doing something you have some interest in some way until you get better at it.

No professional sports player ends up professional in the field because they hate sports. No professional musician ends up that good and trained because they hate music. No scientist ends up good at their job because they hate it.

It's not about seeking pain, if you've convinced yourself it is you will likely burn out as you're not following something you actually enjoy or have an interest in. You may have found disciplin in that, but frankly it will just be 'disciplin to embrase pain' which may be another skill in and of itself.

Don't get me wrong, loving science doesn't prepare you for the hours you will spend getting your head around the maths that underpin it. No love of sports will prepare you for waking up with your muscles exhausted. No love of music will prepare you for freaking out when you can't get that the right notes or timing on a piece after days of effort. These are not the things you're developing a disciplin in. And imo is dangerous to mistake the fact that tou are. You're developing a disciplin in the topics you enjoy and discovering the real world (unfortunately) isn't all about disney musicals. (Which if you assume it is, sorry buddy, you're not going to be randomly selected to join NASA to go to the moon tomorrow, you're not a trained test pilot/astronaught)

Get comfortable being uncomfortable, and you'll never be uncomfortable.

Whenever someone starts to talk about their own problems and shortcomings, and then tries to get _you_ to agree that those shortcomings aren't really _their fault_, be careful; not only are you being lied to by them, but they are also being lied to by them.

And if they get _you_ to concur, then the defense against change has succeeded. The status quo remains untouched.

If this lady ever starts swimming more often, it won't be because a bunch of other people agreed with her idea that discipline is the enemy; it will be because she found some.

> not only are you being lied to by them, but they are also being lied to by them.

In a nutshell. Perfectly phrased.

> if they get _you_ to concur, then the defense against change has succeeded.

This is (unfortunately) a very common trap people fall into psychologically I'm convinced. And I can point to when in life I've done it, and continue to do it. It seems more related to 'feeling good' and then finding a way of (mentally) rewarding the fact that you didn't do something that you should have done.

Unfortunately, in large doses and in the long run, it's not very healthy and it's very close to how people get wrapped in conspiracy theories. E.g. it's not my fault everyone is against me. Why should I try when they're just going to reset the economy. Why should I have done differently, they still would have done X, Y, Z to me...

It's a comfort blanket pretending that there is some external barrier preventing you from doing things even if they are normally enjoyable.

> If this lady ever starts swimming more often, it won't be because a bunch of other people agreed with her idea that discipline is the enemy;

No, it will be because she tells herself "hey self! let's go swimming, it'll be fun", as opposed to "hey, we HAVE to go swimming". The whole point of the article is about managing one's 'inner child'/monkey mind via effective salesmanship.

Discipline has no value of it's own. It's a method, among others. There's no way to deduce from a perfectly orgamized garage weather it is because the oganizer had discipline or if he had fun.

That presupposes that any activity can be fun for any person[1]. I simply do not believe that to be true.

I might not be able to tell if your garage is clean because you find cleaning to be fun, but there's a fair bet the inverse will be apparent.

1: Perhaps I should rephrase this as every activity for any person. At some point, you'll need to do something you don't find fun, and can't be gamified.

Every activity is fun relative to worse activities. So when confronted about something you don't find fun, you can perhaps frame it in a way to make it still preferable to something else. Perhaps through boredom:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iow5V3Qlvwo

I agree. I was expecting something else.

The real gold from the article comes, as many other times, from the aggregated knowledge from all our minds moderated here.

While I can relate to the author, I also agree with this.

As much as I'd like to remember in the moment that riding my bike or some creative project is fun, and get excited to get up and at it ... I don't.

In my better times, discipline has worked like a starter motor, getting me over that initial resistance in a way that no conscious thought really could.

> I think the author is confusing discipline with... something. Discipline is not simply doing things you don't like. It's a trained mentality that helps you do what needs doing (or not doing, such as procrastinating).

The article is about author saying that she can't even persuade herself to do the things she does like.

I'm afraid you're right:

> The problem is that the person we’re actually rebelling against is ourselves.

Yes, you manage that feeling with decision-making that's outcome oriented. Willpower, discipline, self-control, whatever you want to call it, is of course in limited supply, but for many, it is also trainable and simply neglected.

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