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Comment by BaseballPhysics | Hacker News Reader

> goal-setting, time management, and motivation.

Oh good.

More productivity hacking.

Maybe I should come up with some KPIs? Put together quarterly reports? Find more ways to quantify my self-worth so I can maximize it?

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You're either young, or haven't felt a few years slip away and wondered "shit, what have I done with my life?"

Either way, enjoy it!

Guess again. I'm old enough to realize that tying your self-worth to objectified life goals and measurable achievements is a fool's errand sold to us by a self-help industrial complex designed to make us feel as bad as possible all the time so we'll constantly strive for the next cure for the sense of emptiness they create and then purport to fix; a feeling only exacerbated by social media, which constantly presents us with people who seem to be smarter, more driven, more successful, more wealthy, so that we're constantly asking ourselves "shit, what have I done with my life?"

Those two things are independent. You are conflating being very aware of our limited time on earth, with all the negative stuff you've mentioned. You can be very good with time, and follow the exact opposite of what you've mentioned. For example, being cognizant of time can help us prioritize stuff like - health, relationships, helping others, etc.

I think there’s a middle ground here. There is value and meaning in finding meaningful ways to spend your time in life and for that time to be spent working towards something. I don’t think most humans would be happy being completely idle and stale in their life. Which is also not to say most people should chase goals like making millions of dollars.

I agree social media and materialism are negative impacts on society. Social media in particular is destructive in ways I don't have time to try to type out, being old enough to remember college before social media existed.

But I think "dividing time into semesters" is a way to be more aware of the passage of time. To help us be more aware, not less. I didn't see it as anything but a handy tool.

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