The illusion of being stuck | Hacker News Reader

The illusion of being stuck

the-simulation-strategists.beehiiv.com

207 pointsbenoitmalige113 comments

I've come across these kinds of articles before and they always seem to suggest that you rewrite the metaphorical firmware of your brain so that it operates in a way that is advantageous to you. There's some notion of self discovery from first principles.

I'm not convinced that this is generally a good idea. It makes a person unmoored and open to anything ("so open minded that your brains fall out"). It's also often amoral. The only metric that's maximised is utility regardless of other more subtle consequences.

As I grow older, i think the human experience is more complex than can be captured by a few "hacks" like this.

The difference between medicine in poison is the dose ("the dose makes the poison.") Good ideas taken to extreme are often Very Bad, but sometimes a little bit of the idea is exactly what you need.

If you have social anxiety, talking to people through discomfort, or initially treating interactions as a game can help take the pressure off. Treating people as NPCs is unhealthy. Routine exercise is good. Becoming obsessed with how your body looks, living in the gym, taking steroids is bad. A sense of humility, purpose, and devotion in life is generally good. Religious fanaticism is bad. Confidence, which often involves a touch of self-deception, generally is good. Unchecked arrogance is bad.

If I tell you to go for a run or do some push-ups, there's a risk that you'll become totally obsessed with exercise. But going for that run will also help. You need a moderate amount of my advice, not an extreme amount.

This piece resonated with me. When you're stuck in a routine you dislike, being aware that your brain is optimized to stay in its current state (according to the cited research) is good. Going bananas and being "unmoored and open to anything", living every day without any sense of habit or purpose is bad. The dose makes the poison.

I on the side that the complexity is even larger than this. There a lot of other analogies that could apply here, not just the dose/poison one.

Some things are good in small doses on some occasions and in large doses on others. Some things are poison for some people but food for others. Some things are only medicine in very specific circumstances. Some things are placebo.

Anyone can decide if a piece of advice is beneficial to them in what dose. But I agree with the GP that we are too complex for these hacks

Did you know, the brain is hard-wired to be suckered by self-help books? One trick that I personally find very liberating and enlightening is to make a big pile of such material and burn it. It gives me a sense of warmth and inner joy.

I enjoy reading them, thinking I'll change myself. Then I'm done, I don't apply anything and put the book on the shelf.

It's its own kind of horror for these books.

Transitioning to "I know these are good ideas" to things you're doing in practice is much harder than reading, but can happen. Over time, I've come to look at reading these kinds of books like planting seeds. They give my brain ideas and concepts to chew on. Options to apply to situations.

I did wake up one day to the realization that I had up to this point not been willing to take the next steps and put insight into action. And when I realized that, it was like opening floodgates. I started doing the things I had learned about, and they started to change my life. But there is a pretty important and major milestone to make this transition.

I don't think it's necessary or helpful to frame this as a kind of horror. I think it's more helpful to just change how you see the act of reading books. True change still has to start from within. Books in this context are just toolboxes. Toolboxes don't build anything by themselves either.

This is an interesting topic of its own, but there have been a few books/ideas that have made a significant difference on how I operate day-to-day. There are many more books and ideas I nod along to and never implement.

You’ve touched on something profound here—our interaction with knowledge is dynamic, not static. A book that speaks to us today might whisper different wisdom 5 years from now, as we grow and our perspectives shift.

Isn't the combustion external? Why would the warmth be internal?

“Burn” is a commonplace synonym for oxidization, that is, adding an electron. Likely the GP is “eating the books, and thus is warmed as a consequence of the Krebs cycle.

We can be glad for GP that these days it is uncommon to encounter a book with a CD or DVD attached. I’m not sure those are safe to eat.

Semantics dear Watson: it's the inner joy that's internal.

Never let an explanation ruin a terrible pun.

I so believe the opposite of this IF you come at the right ones the right way?

Which is to say, once you read (or skimmed) enough of them, it's easy to get a sixth sense of the "intelligence" and "motivation" of the writer, and the sincere ones, even if not smart, are still pretty enjoyable if taken with many salt grains, and I'm a sucker for them (again, not in terms of following exactly what they say to do, but appreciating the motivation and good-intent of the author and possibly picking up something along the way.)

They'll have names like PSYCHO-CYBERNETICS and just be like "try to be nice to people and sit down and be quite a few times a day."

A sort of perfect example would be the fictional "The You You Are" from the TV Show Severance. I hope they actually write it, I know I'd LOVE it.

https://severance.wiki/the_you_you_are_book

Your advice is superb. You can start writing self help books learning people how to make the fire in order for them to achieve the inner joy.

Over the last few months I've been experimenting with Buddhist meditation, which leans heavily into this metaphor. They phrase the metaphor differently, with a focus on flattening of the grooves in your mind.

I've found these ideas helpful, but they're hardly novel. The Buddha lived over 2000 years ago. One big difference the objective. Most of these blogs are about hacking your mind to be more successful, whereas religions aim to make you more comfortable with your life as it currently is.

I think if you're going to experiment with upgrading your wetware, then you could do worse than look at Buddhism, or any other practice that encourages deep contemplation and promotes kindness. I have my issues with organised religion, but why not at least consider the thousands of years of prior art?

It is also a folly to equate Buddhist traditions with Self help book sellers. Siddhartha Gautam Buddha was just one of the 6 other prevalent Dharmic masters and there enough original material from many of those traditions. The Dharmic traditions arose over centuries through a healthy collaboration of diverse set of people over a vast geography.

True, the Dharmic masters didn't have printing presses.

Or late stage capitalism

I appreciate the point you're trying to make. However, my general experience of attempts to take "useful" parts of of religion and then sanitise them for secular mass consumption is that they're at best useless and at worst harmful.

Sure, there might be some proximal benefits to (say) meditation but these are things that were done in a larger (often spiritual) context and I'm not sure that pulling them out of that is wise.

Don't kill and don't steal seem pretty useful and are embedded within many if not all secular laws.

Sometimes with massive caveats like stone adulterers and homosexuals.

Effects of meditation are there regardless of the religious context.

Although you are right in that the deeper stages (say as described in "The Mind Illuminated") may not make much sense without at least some spiritual foundation.

I sympathize. As someone who used to hold essentially fundamentalist views, I'm now deeply suspicious of anything supernatural. When I left, I didn't even try to smuggle out any of the good parts.

However, there's now tons of secular support for meditation. Sam Harris, a neuroscientist and one of the most anti-religion and anti-supernatural people out there, is basically leading the charge. I think that says something.

Interestingly, my main disagreements with the approach came primarily from the way Harris (and to a smaller degree Alain deBotton) attempted this.

My perspective on this is one of a person who underwent years of complex trauma in childhood and my stuck-ness was a series of overly sensitive protective mechanisms that had been built up by the experience.

“The illusion of being stuck” also sounds a lot like “Learned Helplessness”, which is a maladaptive conditioning of the brain to strongly believe that not doing something is the best option because doing something won’t make a difference anyway, despite this not being true at all. Like drowning in two feet of water because it didn’t occur to the person to just stand up.

The reason I’m pointing at trauma is that we all come from a wide spectrum of experiences, which result in a wide spectrum of stuckness (or lack thereof).

The book “Learned Optimism” (written by Martin Seligman, one of the original researchers who discovered the learned helplessness phenomenon) first describes how animals (not just humans) arrive in these maladaptive states, and then provides worksheets to help people who are currently deeply biased towards a pessimistic world view learn techniques to reframe and ultimately rewire these biases, and I can attest to the life changing improvements this kind of work can bring without my brain falling out.

More broadly, it’s worth considering the fact that we’re all running firmware that evolved during a very different era of human existence, and is often poorly tuned for modern reality.

Using what we know about the brain and how it is conditioned to adapt ourselves to modern situations seems pretty critical.

> I'm not convinced that this is generally a good idea. It makes a person unmoored and open to anything ("so open minded that your brains fall out"). It's also often amoral. The only metric that's maximised is utility regardless of other more subtle consequences.

This seems like a pretty major jump to a conclusion that would require far more to back it up.

I don’t think this is about mucking with firmware as much as it is about correcting model weights. Our firmware seems to be what it is. Our environment and conditioning is what embeds certain biases and resulting behaviors.

Human experience is certainly more complex than just a few hacks, but I don’t think that discounts the value that certain kinds of exercises can bring.

We’re continually working against our default modes of operation when we adhere to principles of rational thought and logic. Emotional responses like anger discard these higher modes of thinking. I see these “hacks” as something similar: methods of helping us move beyond the less adaptive parts of our brains based on a growing understanding of the world around us.

That's a very nuanced take. I dont take offense to using "techniques" to fix "problems".

I'm more annoyed by the usual phrasing of these things as life changing and revelatory.

> I'm more annoyed by the usual phrasing of these things as life changing and revelatory.

But when they work for someone, they can and do lead to important revelations and/or life changes.

I'm a firm believer in one's ability to "reprogram" themselves, having done it to varying degrees across the span of my life. Perhaps it doesn't work for everyone. It doesn't always work for myself, especially when life makes the required self-discipline hard to maintain.

I'm biased by my own success, obviously.

> I'm more annoyed by the usual phrasing of these things as life changing and revelatory.

Maybe it's time to unstick yourself from these patterns. Life changing and revelatory can be as much evolutionary as revolutionary. There's no need to narrow them down to their extremes.

I suspect they're taking issue with the implication that these things are universally life changing, not that they can be meaningful at all. I have no doubt the author of this article uncovered personal truths, but the whole thing is framed as if they become an expert on everyone else's mental health by breaking free from their own depression.

Personally for navel-gazy articles like this I think it's more useful to focus on telling one's own story instead of making broad edicts and sprinkling in some science in an effort to lend legitimacy to them. What works for one person won't work for everyone, but "I was in X situation and did Y and it helped me" is far more likely to be helpful for someone else than simply "Do Y", especially when you're writing for a wide audience.

Thank you for your insight. I completely agree—my journey and the lessons I’ve learned are deeply personal and not one-size-fits-all solutions. Embracing imperfect action has been a significant step for me, far better than letting procrastination have control. Sharing my experiences and receiving feedback is how I hope to grow and refine my understanding over time. And truly, when I write, I'm mainly holding a mirror to myself, navigating my thoughts and discoveries. Your feedback is invaluable in this process.

Learned helplessness was disproved, by the way. If I remember correctly, there is even a recent paper from the original authors confirming this.

Helplessness isn't learned, it's a result of not knowing how to deal with the situation. So, try new things, search for the solutions and don't give up — that's the recipe.

Thanks for pointing this out - I was not aware of the recent new findings. After reading through some of the recent updates my understanding is that the recommended reframing exercises (the “Learned Optimism” part) are still effective, even if the original understanding of why helplessness occurs biologically was backwards in the original research. So perhaps a better descriptor now is just “helplessness”.

From a practical standpoint, this is critical to note because if someone is trying to address their stuck-ness, this book is still an excellent resource that is not affected by this detail and is focused on learning new skills to move forward.

I think this also underscores the importance of taking active steps to retrain our brains when necessary.

>It makes a person unmoored and open to anything ("so open minded that your brains fall out")

I agree with your assumptions, but not your conclusion. When I was at my very lowest I took pretty high doses of acid for my first time on psychedelics. The point was that I was starting from a long time experiencing daily mental anguish and physical pain being treatment resistant, ideating suicide but not completing it. I thought if I became more "open minded", either I'd get better or I'd off myself and I really preferred both over the status quo. The former happened.

Being open minded is a bad thing only if you like how your mind how it is.

> I've come across these kinds of articles before and they always seem to suggest that you rewrite the metaphorical firmware of your brain so that it operates in a way that is advantageous to you. There's some notion of self discovery from first principles.

I'd say you could benefit from a firmware rewrite yourself, because it isn't possible for you to know these things, because they are unknowable.

> As I grow older, i think the human experience is more complex than can be captured by a few "hacks" like this.

Or yours.

As Terence McKenna liked to say:

- Reality is not only stranger than we imagine, it's stranger than we CAN imagine.

- What we call reality is in fact nothing more than a culturally sanctioned and linguistically reinforced hallucination. (A bit off, but close enough.)

Honestly, the centerpiece of the article is this:

> In plain, simple terms, you need to: do the uncomfortable thing.

That’s what the advice boils down to, and it works, and it’s not a hack. It’s growth. There are lots of sophisticated techniques to help you actually do “the thing,” but if your best judgment is that the thing is the right course of action, then you ultimately do need to violate your feeling that it is wrong/dangerous/scary and let your feelings catch up later.

I think that's fair, but there's also value in describing what is being stuck. It's important being able to identify feelings and put words on it. It also helps to see this is something other people go through, so as to feel less alone

Yes, it’s very like meditate your way out of pain to point you don’t feel when you are actually burning. Which actually happens IRL more often then what you would assume.

You seem to have experience in this. Could you recommend or share any alternative approaches?

> I impulssively bought a plane ticket to Panama:

> I cried. Haven’t done that in years.

> I had the uncomfortable conversation with my business partner to tell them I no longer have passion for it and am leaving them the decision to continue or quit.

> I forced myself to talk to strangers every single day.

These also could be explained by someone entering hypomania. How would you distinguish stuck/unstuck from depressed/hypomanic?

There's a big grey area in the middle. How you want to label it is influenced by the outcome and whether you think it's a good idea.

Quitting your job and flying to Central America is risky. If his life improves from there, then it was getting unstuck. If it gets worse or goes back to the same, then it was a manic episode.

History written by the victors!

Well said. And for clarification, it was not a job but the business I started 6 years ago. More rencent update: The trip gave me a new perspective and I shifted the business model, rather than shutting it down.

Would you tell me more about it, please?

I sometimes feel like I am in the same position as you were: > I had the uncomfortable conversation with my business partner to tell them I no longer have passion for it and am leaving them the decision to continue or quit.

When I feel burned out and/or unpassionate by my work, I automatically think about leaving it behind and move on, but after some rest (and discussion) I usually come to another easier-on-my-mind perspective which alleviates me, at least for some time. But I am worried I am just making compromises with myself in order to stay stuck in my comfort zone -- instead of going for more radical changes.

Cool article btw, thank you.

First off, thank you for your comment, and your compliment is very much appreciated.

I can relate to what you're describing and can only speak from my own journey. The recurring thought of needing change haunted me for years. Financial stability did play a crucial role in allowing me the flexibility to make significant changes. One of the toughest challenges was the idea of letting go of something I had poured so much into over the years.

Before launching my business 6 years ago, I faced a similar crossroads while feeling trapped in an unsatisfying job. With just three months of savings, I took the leap into starting my company, which, fortunately, turned out well. It underscores that there isn't a universal solution; it really depends on each individual's circumstances.

What pushed me to start writing this newsletter was a profound sense of lacking purpose. That feeling of purposelessness eventually outweighed the fear of stepping away from the business I had built.

I hope sharing this provides some clarity.

> The illusion of being stuck

Agree. Assigning pathologizing is mostly based on whether it affects your life in a negative way. If it doesn't (and it's not simply deferring or hiding the bad outcomes), the it's not the pathology. Harm to self and others is where hypomania gets distinguished

These energy levels are all relative, though. If you’ve spent most of your life in a depressed state, then suddenly having energy (possibly because you’re dealing with your mental health for the first time) then a lot of things are going to look like “hypomania” in comparison and I feel like that is the case for a lot of people.

Where it turns into mania, in my experience, is when you start doubling down repeatedly. If your good feeling comes from believing that you are making a huge change in your life, you get anchored to the rate of change, and start needing bigger and bigger feelings to keep up.

It's a kind of self-ponzi scheme - nothing has tangibly gotten better, all you have is the belief.

Hypomania is an unusual level of excitement and happiness; 'thinking straight' becomes difficult, but it doesn't feel that way in the moment.

Happiness and hypomania are easily distinguishable.

What, exactly, constitutes “an unusual level of excitement and happiness” to someone who has lived for many years in a depressed state?

I’m going to take a gander and say that happiness and hypomania are far from “easily distinguishable” in this case, which was my entire point. If you’ve spent your life depressed, then any amount of happiness is going to look a whole lot like hypomania.

3 of those 4 - crying, having an uncomfortable conversation, and talking to strangers - don't seem like symptoms of hypomania. The impulsive plane ticket to Panama is questionable too. We'd need to know a LOT more about the individual to make the leap from that to a disorder.

You’re right, those actions by themselves don’t necessarily point to hypomania—they’re just snippets of a larger journey.

Panama was indeed just the beginning; the real journey has been internal—navigating the landscapes of self-discovery and learning to process my thoughts through writing.

Your comment is much appreciated; it’s all part of the conversation about understanding ourselves better. So thank you for that.

I don't see the virtue of grounding an empirical wisdom in some species of scientific (mechanical might be better the term?) description. Funny enough, in relation to your comment, I've never met anyone motivated by this brand of advocacy who didn't suffer swings in depression; as if 'science' were some exterior mass whose gravity/gravitas would pull them up and out from the dregs of the swamp by virtue of its sheer presence to mind.

I think these labels definitely apply, if you think about it as a spectrum. Maybe the author's state wasn't pathological in either case but he definitely went from low energy to high energy.

I notice these shifts in myself and others; deciding to change it is the only way to get yourself out of a rut in my experience. When I do feel a little too "amped up" I use that energy and just make sure to avoid big decisions.

I guess you could see it as one of the causes of depression? Kinda like having a cold describes a situation that can be caused by 10s of thousands of viruses, in the end you still feel the same kind of shitty. Still useful to know what kind of virus it is so it can be treated?

Don’t people have partners, kids, aging parents, hell even pets that depend on them?

The authors version of being stuck seems like a luxury, an inward exploration to find out how you are holding yourself back. To even approach it from that angle you need to have no one depending on you. I can’t “shake things up” by trying a new career or taking impulsive vacations because other human beings rely on me being “stuck”.

You raise an excellent point, and it's true that everyone's circumstances are unique. In my case, my family is in another country, and my pursuit of the American dream led me to work so intensely that I overlooked the simple act of living. While I understand that not everyone has the flexibility to make drastic changes due to their responsibilities, I believe we all have our own paths to feeling unstuck. My writing is a personal tool to help me navigate my path and make sense of my experiences. Thank you for sharing your perspective—it's a vital reminder of the diverse lives we all lead.

I think you overestimate how strongly those ties bind people to their current situations. I don't know your situation, so don't take this the wrong way. Maybe your ties truly do bind you. And maybe that's perfectly fine.

But I think for the vast majority of people, simply having a pet or a partner or a kid does not really tie them to their current situation. It's just about what you value more. Of course all of these ties change the tradeoffs of your choices. But every circumstance in life is a constraint on your choices. And large scale changes are possible even with all those things, should you desire it. There are plenty of people that take impulse vacations, change careers, countries, friends, partners, while having all of the dependents you list.

And if you consider all those tradeoffs and decide change isn't worth it, that's perfectly fine. But I see people use this to state that they had no choice in the matter. No, you had a choice and you chose from a constrained but still massive set of potential life situations. This is simply the one you prefer.

To bring this back to the article:

Take this and keep asking the same question. You’ll get to the root of it soon enough. In this instance, your feeling of being stuck is less about the external circumstances and more about internal barriers—fears, beliefs, and assumptions that keep you tethered to the familiar, however unsatisfying it may be.

If you keep asking the question, but your underlying answer is "It is actually more about the external circumstances than internal barriers", then that's your answer. You're not really stuck, you just made your choices and are where you wanted to be.

You massively underestimate the social atomization of the modern world.

If you feel stuck it means you need new habits because the old ones are not serving you well!

Program your environment, set up commitment devices to lock in your future behaviour that is positive and effortless.

Do not ever set goals, they are high-risk low pay off mental bets that will eat you if you fail (odds are against you).

I found that it is extremely difficult for me to set habits and keep them. I used to go running 4-5 times a week for months, and I couldn't make it stick.

The best way to build a positive habit is to make it not painful and easy.

Heres my advice:

If 4-5 times a week is not sustainable then make it 100x less (whatever point you feel is not painful). If you used to run 50km a week, try 500m each session. Fight the urge to continue running.

The goal of this exercise is to build the "show up" muscle. Another hack on top of this is to not tell yourself you are going for a run, you just need to put on the running shoes. (brain: "i put on my shoes might as well go for a run now") Step further is you go to sleep in your running clothes.

Principle is to always reduce friction of good habits you want to build and add friction to bad habits you want to stop!

Godspeed

I think goals are good to define what you’re trying to work towards, but you need concrete actions you will take to get there

What is an example of a commitment device?

This might be cliche, but if you can afford to (time and money), have a go at „Atomic Habits“ by James Clear. It’s an easy and enjoyable read, that outlines a framework of how you can build new habits and get rid of your old, unwanted ones.

If "Atomic Habits" doesn't sit with you (I found the endless anecdotes about the author's high school baseball career detracting) I recommend "Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals" - it's slightly less targeted to fans of Ryan Holiday/Tim Ferris and slightly more targeted to productivity hack tooling reformed/burnt-out individuals.

he only talks about his experience through his rehabilitation in the first chapter the rest of the book he draws from real world examples from other industries and history to illustrate the specific point. i think they are very practical as it is easier to remember stories than recalling step by step points

I couldn't take the book seriously after the "you just need to improve 1% every day" as if improving 1% constantly was somehow attainable by mere mortals. If I can bench press 20 lbs today and improve 1% every day, I'll be bench pressing more than 700 lbs a year from now. Yeah, it doesn't work that way.

If I read 10 pages a day, and improve 1% every day, by the end of the year I will be reading a 370+ page book every day!

This is perhaps one of the dumbest things I've read. And that was supposed to motivate me!?

yeah pretty much thats where all my quotes are from

i recommend this book to everyone i meet

it is life changing

addicted to smartphones? leave it behind when you go to study at the library and you have no choice but to study.

you are not hitting the gyms for the 10 years you been telling people? subscribe to a local gym on the way to or back from work! (brain: "well i already spent money and its too embarassing to cancel now and besides the gym is literally down the same street i dont even have to drive there welp guess im going")

Every time I read about these mind hacks that are supposed to transform your life and attitude, I'm reminded of the Novelty effect:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novelty_effect

It's the best thing ever, until you get used to it, than it becomes the same old. Sometimes I think the human race is completely ruled by this effect, ever chasing the next new thing as it seems so much better than the boring old thing.

what makes us feel good is dopamine and its cousins. Repeatedly doing the same thing produces less dopamine. This is how we are hard-wired, but it's essential for our survival.

That's largely true. Still, there seems to be a difference between what we think we want and what we actually want, but we can't usually tell the difference in the moment, only in hindsight.

Eventually we find out, because we stick to what we actually want and discard what we thought we wanted.

Part of this might be that, before starting something, you can maintain the illusion that everything will go as you planned. Actually starting requires abandoning that comfortable illusion in the face of the reality of inevitable obstacles and compromises.

Is there survivor bias in being stuck? We have accepted that people who leap out of their comfort zone end up always successful. But a lot of time this is not true. I know few people who have regretted jumping and making impulsive decision in the name of growth.

Good point. Nothing is without risk, and it doesn't always lead to success. Every jump, impulsive or calculated, has its own set of outcomes and consequences, and it's important to consider both sides.

Any time i see an article that talks in definitive terms what parts of the human brain do and extrapolate that to tactics to mold behavior patterns, i take a ritual bath and open a bottle of whiskey.

I appreciate your perspective — it's always good to approach definitive statements with a healthy dose of skepticism. My articles are really personal reflections, a way for me to process and sort through my own thoughts. When I'm offering advice or insights, I'm often speaking to myself, hoping to uncover a bit more clarity in the complex web of human behavior.

I've now watched several dudes go through this process by following their blogs:

1) Build a small to medium size following writing about technical or entrepreneurial stuff

2) Make it to some kind of financial success (sell a company, advance at a big tech org)

3/4) Reflect and find yourself unhappy and make big personal life changes, leaving your wife/partner and leaving your company

5) Adopt an increasingly effusive, emotional, and untethered style of writing and living ("today I cried my way to a beautiful and uncomfortable conversation after a three-day retreat on an island with other former tech workers. Also I tried some drugs. I can't wait to reflect more!")

I guess this is kind of unkind, there are plenty of worse ways of living. And TFA is not fully an example of it. But it's strange to see it play out repeatedly. Maybe some component of emotional repression is more common in software people and when financial constraints fall away it presents itself as the next thing to optimize, or maybe nobody writes blog posts about living a conventional life committed to a small group of people, but it almost feels like a cliche at this point.

So this guy had all the opportunities, choose to spend his time to herd clicks for some big corps, finds out it's an empty life and suggests to do things like "but a plane ticket to Panama" to get unstuck.

Sometimes your therapist asks you to write a letter but you're supposed to keep those in your drawer.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts. My writing is a method for me to navigate and clarify my own journey of introspection and growth. "You" is often a reflection of myself in the mirror of words. Whether it strikes a chord with others is a welcome bonus, but not the end goal.

The essence of my message stems from a personal revelation: after dedicating six years to a company I built from the ground up, I realized I was losing myself in the pursuit of success.

It’s not about wandering aimlessly for profit; it's about the quest for meaningful work and rediscovering the parts of myself that got buried in the hustle.

When I was getting my undergraduate degree one of my chemistry professors taught us that "I don't know" is one of the most important sentences a scientist can and should say. You will be viewed as a source of knowledge or as an expert, do not fill people with BS or guesses.

> do the uncomfortable thing.

I’ve done this ever since learning about “brain plasticity” as a child. My logic was/is simple: if I didn’t want something to feel uncomfortable I had to do it regularly. To me, building physical strength/ability and mental strength/ability were the same. Sitting on a moving bike was uncomfortable and now isn’t, and architecting distributed systems, too. Perhaps simplistic, and not worth a long article, but pretty close to the truth it seems, as I look back.

Around a year ago I had one of those 6 months long tasks that you have no idea where to start. I hitted my had on the wall a few times, and had to erase first month work completely. In the end what worked was: - Spend a day or two creating a fuzzy view of the whole problem. Pay attention to the rabbit holes, do not fall in them, be superficial. - Spend a day or two creating a detailed view of the next 2 weeks. Go as deep as you can, but pay attention to not prepare more than 2 weeks of work, because things WILL change. And you will lose a lot of work. Minimize that. - Execute. - Repeat.

After a couple iterations your estimation will be much better and you will see the light in the end of the tunnnel.

Love this. I follow the same approach for some of the deepest set issues I have. Learnt it from CBT. Is working wonders for me.

Just something from my experience - taking action is 1000x more important than challenging thoughts and core beliefs. The latter should be done, but quite often it is done as a form of procrastination. So the rule I have is - I only challenge thoughts after I've TAKEN ACTION in a way that has triggered those feelings. So facing those fears and discomforts is the meat of the matter, and the self-awareness just makes the whole process a bit more efficient and well-directed.

It appears to me that quite of few people in this thread seem to criticize the concepts from the article on the ground that it's some kind of "self-help mumbo jumbo" (for the lack of a better term).

I quickly skimmed the article and whereas I can't tell if it makes sense as a whole (I would have to persue it and think for a while), the individual concepts there resemble tools from ancient philosophies.

For instance, the mannequin issue is basically a stoic concept of "testing your impressions", i.e. check whether they are what they seem to be.

Basically, your mind is constantly receiving so called impressions (sensory inputs), along with quick attempts by the brain to classify them (thoughts). And then one's task is to either assent, dissent or suspend the judgement of the impression.

In the case of the mannequin from the article, the (false) impression is the image, along with a quick thought "it's a man".

Obviously the situation is very low stake, so it doesn't matter that much if we assent to a false impression, but in high stake situations assenting to false impression might be the cause or factor of anxiety or depression.

(Also, this is similar to challenging your thoughts in CBT, although I don't think CBT deals with trivial stuff like classifying mannequins. Whereas in Stoicism there's this classic example of misidentifying a wax apple as a real thing, so it was a better fit.)

Aside: I hate the popup subscription CTA that asks for my email address in the middle of reading the article. How could I know whether I want to subscribe before I finish reading, and why interrupt my reading the article at all?

There are clearly marked "Subscribe" buttons at the header and the footer of the page that I could use if I wanted emails. But there's no RSS/Atom feed.

I'm just a grumpy programmer that gets annoyed by unnecessary interruptions. I'll see myself out...

This article reminded me of David Mumet’s character, Edmond. In that play things does not end very happily for the main character after he asks himself to many “whys” and starts to do lots of changes on his day routines.

"Here's the problem: Your brain and its cortical columns are designed to conserve energy at all costs."

How does this model explain substance addiction?

'You need to consciously and repetitively seek out "False" signals and embrace the discomfort they bring. You need to construct a new reality.'

Much like the 'why aren't you growing? you need to grow. grow!' sentiment in the beginning this seems more in line with something tumorous than what I'd like to be or become.

The brain's tendency to conserve energy does play a part in substance addiction, reinforcing behaviors that provide a high reward for little effort. However, this model overlooks the complexity of addiction, which involves not just the pursuit of rewards but also the avoidance of withdrawal discomfort.

The conversation around addiction would also need to consider the neurological changes that perpetuate the cycle, making it a state that's incredibly challenging to break free from.

However, I can't specifically speak on physical addiction, as it's outside my area of expertise. The intention behind my writing is to unpack my own thoughts, aiding me in my journey toward self-discovery and the pursuit of purpose.

It explains psychological addiction. You grow attached to a familiar and seemingly safe numbing sensation.

Physical addiction is another thing.

OK, so this is a model relevant for people that believe in a dualist worldview? Kinda like a soul that needs to be kept pure or something?

How come? Psychology is entirely physical.

Physical dependence is a technical term.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_dependence

Substance addiction is free reward with no effort at all. Sounds like it fits!

At the end of the article, it becomes clear that author went abroad for a while, which might have inspired the article. Changing one’s environment is indeed a good way to get unstuck - eg some addicts only ever get out of the vicious cycle by moving away and cutting ties with everything/everyone that kept them stuck.

Maybe the rest of the article has merit too, but I’m not sure it’s not a post hoc rationalization.

This person is experiencing the same kind of existential conundrum and arriving at the same conclusions as I am at this not so easy point in life, and although I can't really offer them more wisdom or insight as they themselves are offering in this post, I wish them all the best in unlocking their brain and finding better ways to feel satisfied and a better sense of meaning.

I think I’m one of those few (lucky?) people who disdains stagnation. If I start to feel comfortable in my job, I start to get this resonant itchiness to move on from it. I find a new job and suddenly it dawns on me how much new shit I have to learn and do. I learn and do and the cycle repeats!

Why does this feel like an AI wrote it? And the whole website feels the same. The OP is here commenting as well and, though polite, just gives off an AI vibe. Really off.

Sorry it feels that way. I promise you I'm real, and the newsletter takes me time to write. I'll take that as a compliment :)

Just a tip, it’s actually “break free”, not “brake free”.

And it also isn’t “dreadfull.” I am very skeptical of taking any advice from a person unable to use basic spell checking before publishing an article. I’m also skeptical of advice from someone who has only recently discovered a possible solution for his very personal problems and feels he should share it with the world. In the 12-step world there are people who only do the first and last steps. They’re called two-steppers. You can look up the steps yourselves, but essentially it translates to, “we admitted we were powerless, that our lives had become unmanageable, and having had a spiritual awakening, we told everyone else how to fix their lives.” There are a lot of steps in between being stuck and becoming unstuck. The author should just quietly repair his life and shelve his egotistical need for external validation.

Thank you for pointing out the spelling mistake.

Your skepticism is valid; advice should be considered carefully, especially when it’s based on personal experiences that might not be universally applicable. My letters are less about instructing others and more about sharing my reflections as I navigate through my own journey. It’s not about two-stepping around the hard work of self-improvement, but about the ongoing process of understanding and growth.

As for the need for validation, I see this platform more as a conversation with others who might relate or benefit from my experiences, rather than seeking applause.

Again, I appreciate your candor — it’s an important part of the dialogue.

> two-steppers ... “we admitted we were powerless, that our lives had become unmanageable, and having had a spiritual awakening, we told everyone else how to fix their lives.”

LOL, though it may be the starting point of all the self-help systems, which later evolve iteratively adding intermediate steps.

You are taking things, way too seriously.

> I’m also skeptical of advice from someone who has only recently discovered a possible solution for his very personal problems and feels he should share it with the world.

Advice should never be just taken at face value. Even if it is a successful person giving it. Personally, any advice from Elon Musk is worth less, than any random link on HN.

> The author should just quietly repair his life and shelve his egotistical need for external validation.

This is just mean.

I one hundred percent guarantee that there are other people, with the same problem as the author. And his solution will be useful. Sharing is a net good.

TL;DR through a Dev World Prism: No, I completely disagree that only staff engineers should be allowed to have technical blogs.

Knowledge of the illusion can be enough to help you route around it. You can not escape from a prison you don't know you're in.

Absolutely, awareness is the first step towards change.Thanks for that insight, it's a valuable addition to the idea of mental barriers and personal growth.

Estoy orgulloso de tí ;). I like your article.

It takes courage to pivot and get out of your comfort zone.

Muchas gracias. Your words mean a lot to me.

It's one thing to step out of the comfort zone, and another to share that journey openly.

I'm glad you liked the article, and I hope it can inspire courage in others as well.

I fully agree with this article, based on my experience, which I achieved purely empirically.

I was stuck for a long time and couldn't do new, challenging things for myself; it felt almost impossible. The solution was to get more and more challenges in life. This happened almost accidentally, but a lot has changed. After all the discomfort that occurred bit by bit, it has become much easier to do something new. Even if it feels disgusting and you want to shout, the only solution is to just do it.

Also, building new habits helps a lot because it takes at least several weeks, so you have to accept this challenge and do it.

I personally found "The Neuroscience of Change" by Kelly McGonigal [1] most useful in becoming "unstuck". Essentially for myself it was being taken through the realization that life is change, how with every breath the trillions of cells in my body undergo substantive transformational change, that my self-delusion of being stuck became comical.

[1] https://www.soundstrue.com/products/the-neuroscience-of-chan...

Pretty awesome article -- rock on

Much appreciated

The whole process of predicting the world and trying to match incoming data against the predictions is explained in more detail in "Surfing Uncertainty". Relevant SSC book review: https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/09/05/book-review-surfing-un...

Now that is a great fucking article. I have to tell people this all the time and no one can truly grasp what I'm saying. You have absolutely nailed it.

Thanks so much, Exuma!

It’s really encouraging to hear that the article struck a chord with you. Sometimes the hardest ideas to convey are the ones that matter most, and it’s awesome to know it resonated.

Here’s to hoping it helps more people get the message you’ve been trying to share.

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