No more yes. It's either hell yeah or no.
sivers.org
sivers.org
This is the moral I also take away from "Stumbling on Happiness:" we're really bad at predicting what will make us happy.
I went the opposite direction - from being a fanatical swing dancer while I was single to being completely uninterested in it after I met my wife. It was purely instrumental, in other words. And I saw the same pattern repeated with the majority of swing dancers both male and female. As soon as they were hooked up, it was see-ya.
I have seen some people meet while learning to partner dance and quit, however. Not because they "bagged a good one" per se, but because some couples think that they're only allowed to dance together (which can get boring no matter how you slice it) and have a difficult time accommodating each other in the learning process.
Yes, a new thing (experience, hire, book, bauble, etc.) might turn out to be better than you had anticipated, but how valuable is that speculation? What is a good ratio of anticipated enjoyment to anticipated indifference? I think a lot of people are unhappy because they've filled their lives with things that they are mostly indifferent to, but still cling to them on the off chance that they'll be valuable later.
It's like the old pickle jar theory. You want to fill your life up with the best stuff available (big rocks), and leave the speculative stuff to fill in the gaps (sand), not the other way around.
"Hell yeah" would be spending the remainder of my days in my villa on hawaii-beach, throwing pool-parties.
Oh wait, I don't have a villa on hawaii-beach.
From personal experience, I can say that in 2007 and 2008, I got into the habit of saying "ok yes" to every project that came across my way. A couple of those projects got me ample fame (Wired.com front page, TC, newspaper articles) and some even got me pretty good income. However, having too many things that needed to be done at the same time left me feeling unaccomplished, unhealthy, and frankly miserable, despite the fact that I was building some pretty neat things.
I decided to change things earlier this year and now I've stopped working on any side projects other than my main job. As side projects, I've started training for ultramarathons. It has absolutely nothing to do with computers but I find it a lot more satisfying personally than "yet another website idea." When I asked myself if I want to run one hundred miles in 36 hours non-stop, I immediately said "HELL YEAH!" So I started training.
A few months into the training, I got a bit jealous of all these startups getting funding and fame, so I thought about working on a startup again. I had a few ideas, some old and some new but none of them screamed "HELL YEAH!" Nevertheless, I bought a domain or two, built a logo/theme, and thought if I just crossed over the initial hurdle of disinterest, I'd find the excitement to continue. It never happened. I still think that one of my ideas is solid and it could work quite well. However, it just doesn't scream "HELL YEAH!" to me right now so for the moment, it is on the sidelines.
On the other hand, I'm getting more and more excited by the day because my 100-mile race ( http://chir.ag/20090621 ) is coming up soon - Sept 5-6. It has been exciting throughout the duration, though I felt miserable, overworked, and weak many times. The take-home lesson for me is that the passion doesn't dwindle though the motivation, strength, and energy might waver frequently. Once the passion is gone, so is the project. "HELL YEAH!" is passion and if you don't have that for something, don't dive head-first into it at the risk of rest of your life.
It bores me. It bores me like the 50 near identical articles that hit HN before it.
"Hell yeah" is completely great when it happens. But most projects, even the "Hell yeah"-projects take much longer than that feeling can possibly last. Everybody who has built a startup knows that it inevitably becomes very tedious at a point. A few months into the gruntwork the "Hell yeah" turns more into a "God damn".
In my opinion the "God damn"-part is much more relevant than the "Hell yeah"-part. Many people start "Hell yeah"-projects. Few survive through the "God damn"-phase.
I need to eat; I can go grab a burger, or I can walk up to that red-headed girl and find out where she's eating.
And if nothing in your future is a '10' then adjust your scale.
And never will, with that attitude.
FWIW I was referring to his assertion that choosing only the candy projects is the recipe to success. It's not. There are plenty "Hell-yeah" projects that you'd better not touch.
Exactly. And that was the reason for my original, snide remark. He said no more than "Work on what you love" in way too many words. Which is both, a beautiful thing to say, and an utterly useless piece of advice in the real world.
Personally I quite liked his retelling. I know a few people who would benefit from taking that advice. So I think the article did add something, yes.
Should you be selective about what you do? Of course. I am reminded of this page which is what brought me to HN originally:
http://ycombinator.com/munger.html
When Warren lectures at business schools, he says, "I could improve your ultimate financial welfare by giving you a ticket with only 20 slots in it so that you had 20 punches—representing all the investments that you got to make in a lifetime. And once you'd punched through the card, you couldn't make any more investments at all."
He says, "Under those rules, you'd really think carefully about what you did and you'd be forced to load up on what you'd really thought about. So you'd do so much better."
Again, this is a concept that seems perfectly obvious to me. And to Warren it seems perfectly obvious. But this is one of the very few business classes in the U.S. where anybody will be saying so. It just isn't the conventional wisdom.
To me, it's obvious that the winner has to bet very selectively. It's been obvious to me since very early in life. I don't know why it's not obvious to very many other people.
She makes a good point: When I have too much going on, the last thing I want to think about is adding more things to do (more physical workouts, more time to make better meals, more books on my "to read" pile, etc.). Instead, she recommends starting out by removing things. This then frees up time for the eventual adding of appropriate things (dictated by your personal priorities).
Kind of like the feeling of a sparsely furnished room versus a crowded one: Room to breathe.
http://www.poetry-chaikhana.com/C/CavafyConsta/GreatYes.htm
Though I think he understands the trade-offs better than the OP. And, conspicuously, the decisions described mostly rest with and affect the decision maker. This is no way to make decisions for a group.
And while I'm tossing links around:
It's actually pretty depressing now that I step back and look at it. Thanks, Derek.
You don't have to do it like the "Yes Man".
HN should setup a weekly contest for the best "n worst startup mistakes", "n ways to motivation" and "n ways to hire the perfect $whatever" post. And filter out the entrants please, only post the winners...
Unfortunately the process of coining a unique soundbite was a little clumsy and resulted in a false dichotomy.
That said, the link in this post to Derek's notes on the personal development book was very useful. http://sivers.org/book/PersonalDevelopmentForSmartPeople
I would just say this: Life is not Black and white....there are degrees of gray in there.....now it's each individual's call at any given point. So, this philosophy might work for some people in some scenarios, but will you back down from a difficult project because it involves much more work than you can see ROI. In most cases, I would rather go with it for a few days and then see, if that HELL YEAH feeling comes...
Huh?
Unfortunately, it is not as easily applied with careers.
"Do, or do not. All is Being."
The line between Zen Buddhism and Nihilism is a fine one.
It's one thing when you have people depending on you, a family to feed, a house to upkeep, etc. But if you're just in college or grad school, or for any other reason aren't being depended on, then this might be a good way to decide what you want in your life.
I certainly found that since I recently started thinking about this, it's improved my life.
For instance, I was recently trying to pick a martial art to start learning, and after seeing a few Wushu schools, I saw my Capoeira school. While the Wushu schools seemed, 'ehhh, pretty good I guess', the Capoeira school was an instant 'Hell yeah!' - so now I'm doing Capoeira and having a beyond great time. I had the same experience with finding a job last summer, and, similarly, greatly enjoyed it when I found one.
In summary: sure, this might not be the best way to live if you have significant responsibilities to others, but if you are trying to enjoy your life and are living freely this may be a great philosophy to adopt.
I know i'd like to learn Tae-Kwon Do, but I also know my primary motivation for learning a martial art (beside the art itself) is to get in shape physically. From what I understand Muay Thai is a much better cardio workout. Tae-Kwon Do might be more fun but it wouldn't benefit me as much as the Muay Thai (not to mention kickboxing is probably more useful in a real fight).
So to reiterate my original statement: I think you can end up making the wrong decision if it's based purely upon excitement in an idea and not practical information which may be less exciting. I acknowledge your point that it may make your life more fun, but as i've learned growing up, doing things that aren't fun are often more important.
Doing things that aren't fun is often important (well, how else would we deal with things like taxes, or marketing for tech startups, or etc etc); equally, if you live based only on what is important (rather than letting yourself do what sounds fun), you might not have a very pleasant or rewarding lifestyle.
It's really too bad we can't come up with a lifestyle philosophy in under 144 characters, since we have to compromise all the time. (Although I guess that could be one: "Everything in moderation" is only 24 characters.)