Cool post. I feel like I solved most of the problems you describe in this post a while ago myself. Here’s my problem, if anyone wants to give me feedback: A few years ago, I was substantially more driven/ambitious, but I developed a really serious case of RSI/tendinitis that forced me to use a voice recognition system to control my computer for about a year. That’s pretty much gone now, but it caused me to lose a bunch of habits (like frequently ask myself what the optimal thing to do at this instant is, and then go and do that thing, my own feelings be damned). Before, if I was feeling miserable and unmotivated, I would push on and keep studying/working; now I try to cheer myself up first (generally unsuccessfully). And I don’t even care very much about solving this problem, either—I’ve just become more laid-back in general.
I now have an explicit goal of being well-known for non-fiction writing, probably in a blog form, in the next five years.
This is an interesting goal. I have an intuition that most people who became well-known for writing started with the goal of communicating some great ideas, not the goal of being well-known for writing itself. (Indeed, when I think of prominent non-fiction writers, I seem to think of them more as domain experts in the area they write about than writers for their own sake, except maybe Isaac Asimov.) So maybe your goal should be “read a bunch, think a bunch, experiment a bunch, and look for opportunities to expand the frontier of human knowledge”—but of course, this is more abstract and probably less motivating than “achieve high status through writing”. (BTW, who’s to say expanding the frontier of human knowledge is even higher-value than spreading little-known but important ideas that have already been discovered? You could do this through writing, but you could also do it through submitting links to reddit (I’ve spent a pretty decent amount of time trying to spread important ideas by submitting links to reddit, actually).)
And I don’t even care very much about solving this problem, either—I’ve just become more laid-back in general.
Maybe that’s a good, adaptive thing for you! Although maybe not if you haven’t figured out reliable methods for actually cheering yourself up. (Just getting work done is a very reliable mood-booster for me, when I’m up to it...the second best is usually proxy work, like doing dishes, cooking, baking, exercising, which feels productive and gives me the dopamine hit but is usually lower-threshold to start doing.)
Have you tried happiness-tracking software like forget.io? I think this is an awesome strategy to learn what actually works to cheer you up. (I was doing it, but the company has a US phone number and so as a Canadian, I was paying exorbitant text-message rates.)
Cool post. I feel like I solved most of the problems you describe in this post a while ago myself. Here’s my problem, if anyone wants to give me feedback: A few years ago, I was substantially more driven/ambitious, but I developed a really serious case of RSI/tendinitis that forced me to use a voice recognition system to control my computer for about a year. That’s pretty much gone now, but it caused me to lose a bunch of habits (like frequently ask myself what the optimal thing to do at this instant is, and then go and do that thing, my own feelings be damned). Before, if I was feeling miserable and unmotivated, I would push on and keep studying/working; now I try to cheer myself up first (generally unsuccessfully). And I don’t even care very much about solving this problem, either—I’ve just become more laid-back in general.
This is an interesting goal. I have an intuition that most people who became well-known for writing started with the goal of communicating some great ideas, not the goal of being well-known for writing itself. (Indeed, when I think of prominent non-fiction writers, I seem to think of them more as domain experts in the area they write about than writers for their own sake, except maybe Isaac Asimov.) So maybe your goal should be “read a bunch, think a bunch, experiment a bunch, and look for opportunities to expand the frontier of human knowledge”—but of course, this is more abstract and probably less motivating than “achieve high status through writing”. (BTW, who’s to say expanding the frontier of human knowledge is even higher-value than spreading little-known but important ideas that have already been discovered? You could do this through writing, but you could also do it through submitting links to reddit (I’ve spent a pretty decent amount of time trying to spread important ideas by submitting links to reddit, actually).)
Maybe that’s a good, adaptive thing for you! Although maybe not if you haven’t figured out reliable methods for actually cheering yourself up. (Just getting work done is a very reliable mood-booster for me, when I’m up to it...the second best is usually proxy work, like doing dishes, cooking, baking, exercising, which feels productive and gives me the dopamine hit but is usually lower-threshold to start doing.)
Have you tried happiness-tracking software like forget.io? I think this is an awesome strategy to learn what actually works to cheer you up. (I was doing it, but the company has a US phone number and so as a Canadian, I was paying exorbitant text-message rates.)