Ask HN: What keeps you going?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18928307

by zeequreshi • 8 years ago

15 14 8 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

How does one deal with apathy like feelings?

e9• 8 years ago

https://positivedisintegration.com/Webb2008.pdf

bemmu• 8 years ago

Curiosity about what will happen next, both in my life and with the world in general.

zeequreshi• 8 years ago

I felt this way. But I outlived that curiosity at some point. The concept of cause & effect became invalid.

Two major realisations were the final blow before I hit the abyss of it all.

1. Every action of mine was intended towards self improvement 2. Each of those actions was/is/will be futile

I want to go back to that phase when I was waking up curious about what will happen next. But I'm not able to keep living the lie anymore.

TheSpiceIsLife• 8 years ago

I went through something similar, except that, after a time, rather than wanting to go back to it I feel liberated from it.

ArrayList• 8 years ago

You sound severely depressed. I hope things get better for you.

thiago_fm• 8 years ago

Responsibilities and how my life has improved so far(lived far less than <$1 a day and now got a decent job in a first world country), raw effort pays off.

I need to take care of my wife and of my dog. Also, my family and peers have invested a lot of time and effort in getting myself educated, manners etc. I don't want to let anybody down and make sure that whoever had some good effect on me will at least be proud of helping me out into that.

mortivore• 8 years ago

coffee and water

java_script• 8 years ago

Lining the pockets of the investors that own my labor is a reward in and of itself.

E: Just thought of a cool startup idea. Every day you and your coworkers can calculate (it might take some guesstimating) the surplus value you create and try to beat each other on a leaderboard. I'm imagining a possible JIRA integration.

quickthrower2• 8 years ago

Routine & family :)

tjkrusinski• 8 years ago

Realizing that everyone else feels the same thing and we all have the same things.

We all are subject to time. We all are subject to the strengths and weaknesses of our minds. We all are a bit nervous about this or that.

If I act out of fear, I will hit a wall. If I am honest and say that I don't know, that I am not sure if this is going to work, that I don't think I'm able to do this, I'll be better off.

Being strong isn't too dissimilar from being bold. Being bold can mean not being afraid of showing my shortcomings. Showing my shortcomings means admitting my weaknesses. By showing my weaknesses I am being strong. Do this day after day and see that things are generally going in the right direction, maybe a little slower than I expected, but things aren't linear, time is.

I can control the outcome in so much as I can control myself. It'll happen if I do it. It won't if I don't. That could mean project managing the fuck out of something, it doesn't have to mean actually doing it.

If I motivate someone else to do it, then that was something I did. I did something to get them to do something.

What if I can't motivate myself? Well, I can't muster some things out of thin air. I need to fill the soul. I talk to someone else, do something else, change perspectives, or I push. I just push.

Action yields motivation. The more that I have, the more capacity I have to act, the more I'll be motivated to do more.

My family, my wife, what I've been given, is why I push myself to learn that thing or do that thing.

Idk, kinda stream of consciousness but generally, the thought that I am more well off because of the millions of people that came before me, and by doing and acting, I can make the billions after me more well off in a small way. I like that thought.

ishjoh• 8 years ago

When I'm feeling apathetic it's a sign for me that I've gotten too comfortable and I need to have some sort of adventure or new responsibilities that push me out of my comfort zone.

If you are feeling apathetic try something new, even if your apathy is telling you it's a waste of time, just go for it, you might be pleasantly surprised. Even if the new thing doesn't pan out, at least it frees you up to move onto something else.

muzani2• 8 years ago

Csikszentmihalyi has searched for the key to happiness. His research was not so much what makes people happy but when they are happy. The results - flow.

This graph hosted on Wikipedia might explain it: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f6/Ch...

As you can see, apathy is on the bottom left. It's what happens when you're facing low skill, unchallenging work.

Ideally, you want to be in the flow sector. Or at least in control/arousal sectors.

The easiest step would be a little self training. Even if your job is just refactoring, learn to refactor better from sites like https://refactoring.guru/ or learn to type faster, use more shortcuts, master your IDE. If you're doing something like Wordpress, you can learn to deal with servers better. If you're a project manager, there are plenty of tools and techniques to pick up.

This should at least push you from apathy to relaxation or control.

The other path is vertical, which is to take on harder work. Learn a new framework and use it. Take a job outside your comfort zone. Work on a challenging side project.

Most of my work puts me in the anxiety zone, which makes me procrastinate a lot and is not ideal. But it's still better than apathy.

It is a more painful path, but it also tends to pay much better.

arduinomancer• 8 years ago

I don’t get why the bottom right would be “relaxation”. Wouldn’t that more likely be “super boredom”?

muzani2• 8 years ago

It's like gaming. Something like Candy Crush or Angry Birds. It requires a level of skill, but is not very challenging.

Ask HN: What keeps you going?

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