The person who looks and says “I only wrote 100 words last hour?!??!” kind of reminds me of the investor checking their stock prices every day.
For this person three months or six months or a year might be a better time frame for checking how they’re doing.
If this is like, established fact or something...I did not know this, and I understand why the hypothetical person was also unaware of this.
Also, I wanted to say that I know many people who really came into their own in their mid-to-late thirties. I think a lot of people just start getting their life into order by that time, so I’m also not sure how much weight to give your personal experiences in this area.
Yes. But since I don’t expect to see an RCT anytime soon*, if anyone—you (Dustin) or the OP (Gordon)** -wrote posts about ‘things that improved my life’, I’d be interested to see those posts, and read them while keeping in mind that they’re not (necessarily) literal laws of physics, and different things might work for different people—especially when things are as vague as ‘keep your identity small’ and ‘don’t force that’. (How small is small? I don’t think I’ve seen ‘Make your identity big’ (and I won’t write it because I don’t know how to make it bigger.))
If this is like, established fact or something...I did not know this, and I understand why the hypothetical person was also unaware of this.
I have heard this advice repeatedly, but I guess it is quite easy to miss it. People probably either don’t know it, or consider it too obvious to mention. (And a few people benefit from you not knowing the advice, so they can profit from your fear, advising you to sell what you have and buy something else, charging you a commission, and you are so thankful that someone observes these changes 24⁄7 for you.)
On the other hand, many people seem unable to follow this advice even if they hear it. Like, a few of my colleagues who bought Bitcoins. Every day there were like “look, it’s $10 higher, we made a profit!” or “oh, it’s $10 lower, this sucks!”, and I was like “guys, calm down, it’s not important what happens in a day, the only thing that matters is what happens over years” and tried to explain that the $10 is not even worth the amount of stress they feel… and that the only thing they need to do is to simply stop watching the news, return a year later, with certain probability they will lose everything (if this is not acceptable for you, do not invest), and with certain probability they will make a nontrivial profit.
I guess following this advice is emotionally difficult. About a month later, some colleagues said they sold the Bitcoins, because it was “too stressful” for them to think about it. Seems like “simply do not think about it” is a difficult skill, almost like meditation. On the positive side, if you succeed to do it for a few weeks, it becomes much easier, because now you are used to the situation and it is no longer exciting. (I have a similar experience with Facebook and other websites: the longer you are without them, the less you miss them.)
If this is like, established fact or something...I did not know this, and I understand why the hypothetical person was also unaware of this.
As Viliam says, it’s something I’ve heard constantly throughout my life. However, the hypothetical person not having heard of it relates to the points I’m trying to make. I’m saying that rather than telling them to focus on something other than performance, telling them how to better measure themselves might be the better course.
But since I don’t expect to see an RCT anytime soon
To be clear, this is exactly why I tried to couch all my language in this thread in “might”, “I think”, and other terms to indicate that not only am I not sure, but I’m not sure how anyone can be sure about this subject.
When I say to the OP, “I’m also not sure how much weight to give your personal experiences in this area.”, I think I’m saying the same thing you’re saying. I’m not trying to say in a roundabout way that I don’t believe the experiences of the OP. I’m saying my literal state of mind. I also want the OP to post posts like this one for the same reasons you describe.
If this is like, established fact or something...I did not know this, and I understand why the hypothetical person was also unaware of this.
Yes. But since I don’t expect to see an RCT anytime soon*, if anyone—you (Dustin) or the OP (Gordon)** -wrote posts about ‘things that improved my life’, I’d be interested to see those posts, and read them while keeping in mind that they’re not (necessarily) literal laws of physics, and different things might work for different people—especially when things are as vague as ‘keep your identity small’ and ‘don’t force that’. (How small is small? I don’t think I’ve seen ‘Make your identity big’ (and I won’t write it because I don’t know how to make it bigger.))
*If you’ve heard of something let me know.
**or both
I have heard this advice repeatedly, but I guess it is quite easy to miss it. People probably either don’t know it, or consider it too obvious to mention. (And a few people benefit from you not knowing the advice, so they can profit from your fear, advising you to sell what you have and buy something else, charging you a commission, and you are so thankful that someone observes these changes 24⁄7 for you.)
On the other hand, many people seem unable to follow this advice even if they hear it. Like, a few of my colleagues who bought Bitcoins. Every day there were like “look, it’s $10 higher, we made a profit!” or “oh, it’s $10 lower, this sucks!”, and I was like “guys, calm down, it’s not important what happens in a day, the only thing that matters is what happens over years” and tried to explain that the $10 is not even worth the amount of stress they feel… and that the only thing they need to do is to simply stop watching the news, return a year later, with certain probability they will lose everything (if this is not acceptable for you, do not invest), and with certain probability they will make a nontrivial profit.
I guess following this advice is emotionally difficult. About a month later, some colleagues said they sold the Bitcoins, because it was “too stressful” for them to think about it. Seems like “simply do not think about it” is a difficult skill, almost like meditation. On the positive side, if you succeed to do it for a few weeks, it becomes much easier, because now you are used to the situation and it is no longer exciting. (I have a similar experience with Facebook and other websites: the longer you are without them, the less you miss them.)
As Viliam says, it’s something I’ve heard constantly throughout my life. However, the hypothetical person not having heard of it relates to the points I’m trying to make. I’m saying that rather than telling them to focus on something other than performance, telling them how to better measure themselves might be the better course.
To be clear, this is exactly why I tried to couch all my language in this thread in “might”, “I think”, and other terms to indicate that not only am I not sure, but I’m not sure how anyone can be sure about this subject.
When I say to the OP, “I’m also not sure how much weight to give your personal experiences in this area.”, I think I’m saying the same thing you’re saying. I’m not trying to say in a roundabout way that I don’t believe the experiences of the OP. I’m saying my literal state of mind. I also want the OP to post posts like this one for the same reasons you describe.