I remember hearing a quote somewhere on LW saying something like “pain/discomfort is what you feel when you level up”. Does anyone know what the actual quote is? Where it was said?
that line is specifically helpful for tricking your brain into thinking that physically exhausting exercise is a good thing. (don’t use it too much, and don’t hurt yourself doing it) i.e. pushups.
I suspect; pain is a physical feeling, weakness is similarly an understanding of physical problems. By pipining the pain=negative weakness, you convince yourself that (temporarily) more pain is helpful to the cause of doing more pushups, rather than previously “not helpful” as you would have been treating pain and deciding to stop.
I have heard it work before for pushups or similar exercise by danielfilan
(side note: don’t push too hard, trust your body’s limits—it tends to know when its going to break)
My impression is that the advice applies more generally than to just physical pain. My impression is that there’s a lot of times when your body produces pain-like signals telling you to stop, when it’s really in your interest to push through.
Mental: overcoming akrasia.
Emotional: doing things that scare you, but that will ultimately be in your interest.
And so, to use the emotional example, when I push past fear, I imagine it as weakness leaving my body. I imagine a) becoming a stronger person for having pushed past it and being more capable of pushing past it in the future. And b) I imagine it as weakness leaving the body in the sense of my pushing myself towards an end that is more preferable to me.
I remember hearing a quote somewhere on LW saying something like “pain/discomfort is what you feel when you level up”. Does anyone know what the actual quote is? Where it was said?
Eliezer said it in http://lesswrong.com/lw/ul/my_bayesian_enlightenment : “That scream of horror and embarrassment is the sound that rationalists make when they level up.”
THANK YOU!
There’s also “Pain is weakness leaving the body”, which is less specific but probably pre-dates Eliezer’s quote.
I like it!! Never heard it before but it’s becoming one of my favorite quotes.
that line is specifically helpful for tricking your brain into thinking that physically exhausting exercise is a good thing. (don’t use it too much, and don’t hurt yourself doing it) i.e. pushups.
That’s funny, I actually tried to do as many pushups in a row as I can the day after hearing it. And I did the most I’ve ever done before btw :)
Why do you think it’s specifically good for physical exertion? What about mental or emotional exertion?
I suspect; pain is a physical feeling, weakness is similarly an understanding of physical problems. By pipining the pain=negative weakness, you convince yourself that (temporarily) more pain is helpful to the cause of doing more pushups, rather than previously “not helpful” as you would have been treating pain and deciding to stop.
I have heard it work before for pushups or similar exercise by danielfilan
(side note: don’t push too hard, trust your body’s limits—it tends to know when its going to break)
My impression is that the advice applies more generally than to just physical pain. My impression is that there’s a lot of times when your body produces pain-like signals telling you to stop, when it’s really in your interest to push through.
Mental: overcoming akrasia.
Emotional: doing things that scare you, but that will ultimately be in your interest.
And so, to use the emotional example, when I push past fear, I imagine it as weakness leaving my body. I imagine a) becoming a stronger person for having pushed past it and being more capable of pushing past it in the future. And b) I imagine it as weakness leaving the body in the sense of my pushing myself towards an end that is more preferable to me.
I think you’re confusing your body signaling with pain and your mind yelling “I don’t wanna!” These are very different things.
Thanks for clarifying. I know what you mean, but I had just been using the wrong vocabulary.