The surprising benefits of giving up

https://nautil.us/the-surprising-benefits-of-giving-up-1248362/

by jnord • 8 months ago

243 170 8 months ago

begueradj• 8 months ago

According to a review of more than 230 studies recently published in the journal Nature Human Behaviour, adjusting our goals in response to stress or challenges, rather than grinding on, is often “a more appropriate and beneficial response.”

That is also what people who persist on the path of their goal do. And that's not giving up, as the title claims.

puppycodes• 8 months ago

I think a better way to put this is the acknowledgement that resources are limited rather than giving up.

zduoduo2• 8 months ago

approval

hekkle2• 8 months ago

The scientists also analyzed the impacts of these decisions. Giving up on goals was significantly linked to reduced stress, anxiety, and depression, for instance.

This seems to be a correlation, not a causation. There are many studies that show Stress, Anxiety, and Depression are prevalent in people who are smarter than the average, due to factors such as heightened self-expectations, rumination on negative experiences, and awareness of negative aspects of the world.

People who are smarter are more driven, which is how they develop their cognitive abilities. Giving up doesn't cause less anxiety, these people have less anxiety because they don't have the faculty to be affected by it.

danielmarkbruce3• 8 months ago

This is a clever insight. You are doomed to a life of anxiety.

wiseowise6• 8 months ago

People who are smarter are more driven, which is how they develop their cognitive abilities. Giving up doesn't cause less anxiety, these people have less anxiety because they don't have the faculty to be affected by it.

Ah, the old “I’m anxious therefore I’m smart, they’re not therefore they’re stupid”. Lol, get your head out of your ass.

hekkle2• 8 months ago

I never said I was anxious, assuming just makes an ass out of you.

Also "I’m smart, they’re not therefore they’re stupid" said the person whose handle is WISEoWISE. Gee you must be super wise.

Go back to Reddit troll.

stevenwoo• 8 months ago

I just read an article on this subject last week and thought this was going to be a republication on a nautilus but it’s different authors and different stories - https://www.newscientist.com/article/2501420-why-giving-up-o...

The nautilus story uses one meta study and the New Scientist has many individual citations with some quotes from scientists.

rramadass4• 8 months ago

Philosophy has had an answer all along;

One should become aware of one’s deluded notion in which one thinks that ‘I belong to these objects of the world and my life depends upon them. I cannot live without them and they cannot exist without me, either.’ Then by profound enquiry, one contemplates ‘I do not belong to these objects, nor do these objects belong to me’. Thus abandoning the ego-sense through intense contemplation, one should playfully engage oneself in the actions that happen naturally, but with the heart and mind ever cool and tranquil. Such an abandonment of the ego-sense and the conditioning is known as the contemplative egolessness.

-- from "Vasistha's Yoga" translated by Swami Venkatesananda.

zkmon6• 8 months ago

Such ego and delusions are results of mind wandering outside of the context provided by the instincts and senses.

rramadass4• 8 months ago

No.

The ego-sense is the Mind in its capacity/function as self-identification. Its is called Ahamkara (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahamkara) and is an aspect of Antahkarana - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antahkarana. It is fully capable of creating delusions from external (i.e. objects through the senses) or internal (i.e. objects through its own imagination) means.

samdung• 8 months ago

'When' does one give up? That is the question that needs an answer.

zkmon6• 8 months ago

Constantly assess the cost and benefit for future scenarios. Give up when the cost goes too high and beats your risk appetite.

sayamqazi• 8 months ago

ask chatGPT

dyauspitr2• 8 months ago

When you have enough money so you don’t have to work anymore. For most that’s never unfortunately.

sys_647382• 8 months ago

In SW development the bar is constantly being set extra high expecting people to meet it constantly if they meet it once. Maybe some random unachievable internal date for some pointless goal for a back slap and a feel good headpat. Yeah, no. You will fail sooner or later as the denizens of management and PM-topia expect that is the norm. Better to relax and let every date be missed and tell them life's a bitch.

mcmoor• 8 months ago

I mean this ran straight into Halting problem, and proven impossible to solve.

bob1029• 8 months ago

I don't believe in "giving up" but I do believe in picking battles and leveraging higher order effects. A short term retreat to win a long term war. Walking away can be the best strategic option.

For example, if you find yourself in strong disagreement with the current leadership at your company, instead of having cataclysmic battles every day on Teams, you could simply hand in your resignation letter and walk away while the boat is still afloat. Keep your chin up and firmly depart with grace.

Short term, this looks exactly like giving up. Long term, it can surface the foundation of your arguments and force those higher up the chain (investors) to potentially come back to you and your arguments in the future (assuming you were actually right).

I'm living this one right now. It's surreal watching people who attempted to game of thrones me ~every day get perp walked. I wouldn't say I enjoy this because it would have been better if we had figured out a way to work together. It definitely wasn't a skill problem on anyone's part.

It is often best to use your opponent's momentum and energy against them. If the problem you are dealing with is other people, giving up is a reasonable default. If the problem is some challenging machine learning algorithm or other personal project I think you should be more cautious about walking away. This can turn into a bad habit.

The fewer chefs you have in the kitchen, the easier it is to assign blame and figure out what the real issues are. You can become part of that refining process if you have the contingencies to endure this job market.

wiseowise6• 8 months ago

That’s still giving up. Just a fancy way of saying it. There’s nothing wrong with giving up.

zkmon6• 8 months ago

Modern upbringing of children is full of nonsense forced by business and political goals. Rhymes that go "rain, rain go away" etc. Values that prioritize and reward sales skills, TV shows that show telling lies and pretending is acceptable and fun, weirdness is desirable etc. Importance of presentation over core content and so on.

We trained our mind to ignore and forget all animal instincts, body signals and wisdom acquired through ages.

Of course, ancient battle wisdom from the East tells you how to approach issues - saama, daana, bhedha, danda - that is - make friends, negotiate, divide and rule, use force. At any point, if things look infeasible, retreat and avoid. Pure common sense.

zwnow3• 8 months ago

Social media established a hustle culture in young men, cost of living forces people to work without taking vacation. The modern trend is 72 hour weeks in Silicon Valley corporations. Houses are speculation objects rather than affordable homes for families. In this society you have to teach children early on about how money works and how to keep jobs or you'll find them in a vicious cycle of trying to afford life. Giving up simply is not an option for many people anymore.

mk894• 8 months ago

In this society you have to teach children early on about how money works

In this society? When and where was it ever different?

First lesson of life should be "you work to buy your bread" followed by "nobody will ever give you something for free".

watwut3• 8 months ago

It was not "social media" in an abstract politics neutral way. It was conservative right wing grifters who has seen it as a way to capitalize on notion of traditional masculinity.

tzs• 8 months ago

Modern upbringing of children is full of nonsense forced by business and political goals. Rhymes that go "rain, rain go away" etc.

I don't understand what you mean by "rain, rain go away" in the context of modern upbringing of children. I know of the nursery rhyme with that line, but that's at least 350 years old.

zkmon6• 8 months ago

I think it makes children to grow up thinking rain is bad. I used to walk for miles in cyclone rain, cross rivulets with strong water flow - just to attend school. I can't think why someone want to raise their children not exposed to rain.

mk894• 8 months ago

Of course, ancient battle wisdom from the East tells you how to approach issues - saama, daana, bhedha, danda - that is - make friends, negotiate, divide and rule, use force.

That's probably something you learn in India. In the West that'd be Machiavelli (and countless Roman/Greek philopsophers/generals, etc), for whoever went to school.

Anyway, all this is somehow unrelated to the article.

The main issue is that people nowadays have somehow internalized a weird "alpha male, never give up, don't cry, just shut up an resist, impossible is nothing" mindset. The issue is that many parents don't want to create "weak" grownups, with the side effects of creating potentially sick ones, who will grow and will have kids and "won't repeat the same mistakes as my parents".

In my experience the smartest and possibly most successful (not rich, but successful in terms of satisfied/happy/in a good state financially) people are the ones that know when to change course. Finding the sweet spot (the "when") is just pure talent. This is extremely difficult for a parent to understand: when to jump in and tell your kids "it's OK, do something else" without shame.

close042• 8 months ago

people nowadays have somehow internalized a weird "alpha male, never give up, don't cry, just shut up an resist

I don't know what counts as "nowadays" but this male image has been promoted for a really long time. "Big boys don't cry" and "strong men don't take no for an answer" have been a thing for centuries. Stoicism was centered around emotional self-control more than 2000 years ago.

This survived for so long because we used to live in societies that were very patriarchal. So men knew their role and it was also at the top of the pyramid, all in a precarious equilibrium from a mental health perspective.

What happened nowadays is that society is less patriarchal. Men are no longer at the top of the pyramid, they no longer have a clearly defined societal role, but they still carry some of the old remnants because occasionally that's the expected of them and that's still how many boys are educated. The modern man is locked into a world where his education and emotional toolset are inadequate. They are raised to lock their feelings like an "alpha" but no longer have an outlet for anything because the alpha role in society started evaporating or shifting away from them.

It's a mental health crisis that will overflow sooner or later and it won't be good for anyone around it when it happens.

lkuty2• 8 months ago

This reminds me of Henri Laborit's book entitled "Eloge de la fuite" (in praise of flight) which states that when faced with stress, we can respond with action, flight, or inaction. Unlike the other two responses, inaction is toxic to the body. Maybe giving up corresponds to flight. I didn't read the article.

maxidorius2• 8 months ago

"fuite" is french which means to escape, to flee. Flight is only in context of planes or flying transportation. As for the sense of it, you're right, it's either do something, go away, or do nothing.

TylerE2• 8 months ago

The usage is a bit archaic, but that's another meaning of flight.

flight [flahyt]

noun an act or instance of fleeing or running away; hasty departure.

afandian2• 8 months ago

What distinction do you draw between “flight” and “fleeing”? To me they are synonyms.

From Cambridge.org:

(an act or example of) escape, running away, or avoiding something: They lost all their possessions during their flight from the invading army.

lkuty2• 8 months ago

Since my mother tongue is french, I guess I didn't choose the proper english word. In the context of an attack we sometimes see the "fight or flight" response. But I don't know what is the best term to translate "fuite" in this context.

lazide5• 8 months ago

There is a fourth - fawn.

Aka capitulate to, or attempt to befriend/suck up to the threat.

It’s a pretty common, but particularly reviled response, actually. very apparent in some sectors of politics right now though.

Surac• 8 months ago

I quit my job 2 months ago ago Best thing I have ever done. Only now I realize how toxic and unrealistic the projects I have done where

mock-possum• 8 months ago

Woooooooow good for you.

Must be nice to have quitting money.

I’ve never once been able to afford being able to quit a job, and I’m like, closing in on 40 now.

randyrand2• 8 months ago

You just need to limit your expenses more.

It’s possible to live on $1000/month in the USA if you have a shared bedroom, dine-in, and skip medical insurance.

Balinares2• 8 months ago

I hope you get there. Depriving most workers of the ability to step away is, it seems, a purposeful feature. But you can get lucky, and I hope you will.

bongodongobob4• 8 months ago

Similar boat, but I'm finally at the point where I think I can just walk out. Just stay on the job hunt and you can get there. I went from musician living on the cash in my pocket with 4 roommates to $110k in 10 years. You'll have to job hop, you'll have to grind some self-learning, but you can do it.

gwbas1c4• 8 months ago

I once quit a job because it was toxic. At the time, I was saving so I could start a business, but the environment became so toxic that I needed to walk out much earlier than planned.

My "6 month" runway ended up lasting a lot longer, mostly due to the stock market taking off. I ended up living off of interest for 18 months. By the time I admitted to myself that I wasn't much of an entrepreneur and needed to go work for someone else, I hadn't taken too much out of savings. I also had straightened out my head quite a bit, so I was able to figure out what kind of salaried jobs made me happy. (And paid enough for me to live a good life and save.)

I really encourage you to see if there's a way to adjust your finances so you can live more cheaply, save, and then live off of your interest for a period of time to get your head straightened out.

iberator• 8 months ago

Come back when you gonna be out gf money AND out of job. It's delusion to say that being jobless is any beneficial on the long run

mk894• 8 months ago

Where is it written "I finally don't have a job, I am so free!!!!" ?

bongodongobob4• 8 months ago

With the energy you're putting out sounds like you might need a new job. It's always the people in shitty jobs saying things like this. Figure out where the pain points in your life are that are making you so bitter and try to fix them.

wiseowise6• 8 months ago

Why so mad bro?

MikeNotThePope3• 8 months ago

I've cost myself quite a bit over my lifetime by quitting work I disliked for pick-a-reason without a plan to replace the income. I wish you the best in your search for a new revenue stream.

android521• 8 months ago

They quit their jobs 2 months ago and felt great . But I think it would be more accurate if they reflect after two years

anal_reactor• 8 months ago

My goal is to save enough money so that I can stop working one day. It should be more or less possible within 15 years. I'll be in my forties then.

alsetmusic• 8 months ago

Walked away from money and (project) name recognition for no commute and no extra hours. Best decision of my life.

sointeresting• 8 months ago

I quit my job a little over a year ago and it's been the best year of my life. Not sure if I'll ever be able to go back to daily stand up meetings.

sys_647382• 8 months ago

I realize now what total bogus nonsense standups are. You get asked the same pish everyday and nobody listens to what you say. Ten different ways to track things for different audiences. I learned to just ignore all instruction given in these meetings and when board to talk non-stop to consume time and have them quickly move to others. A waste of space. Sack all the PMs and interfering managers who depend on them.

ProllyInfamous3• 8 months ago

About five years, for myself.

Not sure if I'll ever be able to go back to ... meetings.

It's with the wisdom of age that I now understand why HR discriminates against gaps in employment history... mostly because I don't know how I could ever be employable, again.

Monk-mode is such a cheap way to exist. Highly recommend it.

gwbas1c4• 8 months ago

I did that once: I was planning to quit to start a business, but when I realized the environment at my day job was toxic, I quit about 6 months sooner than planned.

merobin_hood• 8 months ago

I gave up my well paying full time job to start my own mammoth, own intuition. Been 5 months now and mammoth is ready for the ride.

zduoduo2• 8 months ago

It is indeed true that giving up can be the best choice.

guytv• 8 months ago

From my own entrepreneurship scars, the real curse is never knowing when “enough is enough.”

If I’d pushed a little harder, would it have finally broken through?

Figma, Airbnb, and the other freak successes only exist because they didn’t quit.

randyrand2• 8 months ago

I made $60K since launching a year ago, after 4 years of full time development.

I feel delusional that I still want to keep working on it.

I guess we’ll see how year 2 post-launch goes.

bongodongobob4• 8 months ago

People also waste entire decades because they didn't quit.

coffeebeqn• 8 months ago

You shouldn’t be blinded by survivorship bias either. Some of the best decisions I’ve made is quit my startup or company when I see the writing on the wall that this is not salvageable by my sacrifices

germandiago2• 8 months ago

Inisisting, trying, experimentation, effort and not giving up makes a big difference.

I suspect the reason is because most of the people, at that time, have surrendered already.

zywoo• 8 months ago

This analysis is interesting, but I think there’s a small self-reference problem hidden in it: what exactly counts as an “impossible goal,” and who gets to decide that?

It’s obviously true that some people chase almost “fantasy-level” ambitions. But for most of us, the reason we keep going is that, somewhere in the background, we still believe our goals are possible, possible enough to justify the time, effort, and even psychological pain. If some external standard comes along and declares “this is impossible, you should give up,” that can reduce stress in the short term, but it may also plant a long-term regret that keeps growing with age.

Looking back on my own life, the goals I abandoned for internal reasons (“this no longer fits who I am / I don’t want to pay this price anymore”) are the ones I can live with. I learned from those failures and even feel a bit stronger because of them. The painful ones are the goals I dropped mainly because someone else convinced me they were impossible. Those still feel like open loops.

So maybe the more useful takeaway isn’t “giving up is good,” but: keep reassessing your goals realistically as you grow. If, after a sober look at your skills and constraints, you still feel a goal is worth the cost, then commit and try. At least when you’re old and sitting in a chair somewhere, you’ll be less haunted by “I never even gave it a shot.”

mk894• 8 months ago

I like your advice. It's like setting some metrics on your own progress and happiness level.

On the other hand, sometimes without pushing, you won't be able to fully enjoy something "later".

Stupid example: learning piano or guitar. Which metrics would you use?

In addition, here the issue is also about children, not just grownups: when to stop paying for their "xyz" course? And how do you teach them when to stop/change?

If we're able to guess that right, I guess we can educate children better to have better grownups.

armada651• 8 months ago

So maybe the more useful takeaway isn’t “giving up is good,” but: keep reassessing your goals realistically as you grow.

This is ultimately what the article is talking about. It's not about giving up on your ultimate goal, it's about giving up on your current approach and finding other ways to progress towards your goal.

ChrisMarshallNY• 8 months ago

This is what I got from it. It’s pretty much synonymous with how I approach things. I wouldn’t call it “giving up,” rather than “reviewing and adapting.”

Here’s a demotivational poster that comes to mind: https://despair.com/cdn/shop/files/stupidity.jpg

germandiago2• 8 months ago

I think combining being realistic (for the sake of sanity) with being ambitious (for the sake of going beyond the average) is a good hotspot.

For one, it avoids the psychological traps of frustration if you keep it realistic.

The other good thing is you will not sit down complaining andnyou will put your time on something that is worth.

You can fail or succeed, but with that mindset I think things go, at least, psychologically better.

I am not convinced at all that becoming just comfy and a conformist in itself is more healthy.

jimbokun• 8 months ago

In tech bro speak this is similar to the idea of the "pivot".

If something isn't working, you can keep ramming into the same wall harder or you can try a different approach.

siva72• 8 months ago

This piece is missing something important: Pain of letting go. Especially if you're sensitive to pain, you will be sensitive of letting go.

danielmarkbruce3• 8 months ago

That pain disappears really quickly in many cases...

siva72• 8 months ago

True, but it's like with needles for some people. Even if you know that pain is just quick and harmless, your brain will act like you're in live danger.

danielmarkbruce3• 8 months ago

i spend a lot of time looking at companies to buy for the company I work at. A decent number of them are in situations where they aren't doing well and the founders have had a very difficult 10 or so years and you can see the pain. They should have given up 8 years ago in most cases.

fud101• 8 months ago

Any study involving so called meta-analyses is not worth reading on the basis of some scientific evidence, just call it a hot take and leave it at that. It might still be an interesting hot take, not to say this is or is not.

vintermann• 8 months ago

I used to think David Bazan's "Winners Never Quit" was a little over the top, but with some modern "grindset" advocates, I feel like it's becoming less so.

Save your applause for the end of the road.

bhawks• 8 months ago

The author of the article obviously didn't read the paper.

The paper's finding focuses on goal adjustment/flexibility being a functional response when encountering difficulty meeting a goal. Disengagement had correlations with impairment. Which probably tracks most people's life experience.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-025-02312-4

| This interpretation aligns with our finding that dispositional flex- ibility, rather than more proximal disengagement or reengagement, more strongly predicts functioning. Notably, we observed a positive association between disengagement and impairment. Although this could reflect a ‘dark side’ of disengagement—where letting go of goals offers short-term relief but risks longer-term purposelessness and dysfunction11—this pattern was not evident in longitudinal or experi- mental studies. An alternative explanation is that the association is bidirectional, with impairment potentially prompting disengagement as a reactive strategy. Given these complexities, we advice caution in interpreting this finding and highlight the need for further research.

jamil7• 8 months ago

In most trading advice, cutting loses as soon as possible and as emotionlessly as possible is emphasised heavily. It's also physiologically one of the hardest parts for people to do consistently.

bondarchuk• 8 months ago

A nice article on the benefits of giving up from a magazine promoting religion under the guise of science.

https://www.templeton.org/grant/nautilus-magazine

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Templeton_Foundation

constantcrying• 8 months ago

It makes absolutely no sense to do an analysis of such a broad subject and then analyze it in such superficial detail. At least this article does nothing but give the most vague description of what might in general happen.

It is of course obvious that any hard goal requires effort and effort is linked with a lot of "bad things". The whole article can be reduced to this. Trying requires effort and effort is hard.

pelagicAustral• 8 months ago

The issue is that we live in an era were a 2-bedroom house is already something people can start giving up on. So the threshold for whats attainable is getting lower and lower, and soon enough just food will be enough.

kakacik• 8 months ago

Its only an issue because people don't want to compromise on location, aka they want the most convenient place possible (because they 'deserve it'?), but half of other folks living and working in the area want exactly the same. And it doesn't really matter if we talk about SV or some other big enough city anywhere else, they all share the same situation.

And commute is unacceptable, for some even 20 mins according to same topic being discussed also here ad nausea.

Btw having a house is a luxury basically anywhere in the world, not sure why the baseline expectation is that its some UN-enforced basic human right. I for example lived, live and will live in apartments only which cost less than 50% of similarly-sized house and derive life satisfaction other things than gardening and constant upkeep of property. Really not getting this want-luxury-as-baseline mindset.

brianmcc• 8 months ago

No it's more because things have gotten worse. When people's parents could get an X-bedroomed house on a single parent's income, which they grew up in and developed their sense of aspiration and normality, but they cannot do so with joint really high incomes, there's a very tangible sense of progress having not just stalled but gone backwards.

Atreiden• 8 months ago

Nobody is claiming owning your residence is a basic right. We're talking about long term goals that you spend your professional life (read also: youth) working diligently towards.

If the average person/family cannot work hard, save, and purchase their own safe, comfortable, living accommodations, the implication is that the landowning class will forever co-opt an increasing percentage of the economic surplus for one of the most essential goods - shelter. There is only so much adequately zoned land, and so much housing on that land. Populations, and increasing, and therefore so is demand.

You are absolutely welcome to forego property ownership if you like. There are many benefits in terms of flexibility (e.g. ability to quickly move somewhere else). But this is typically not an economically advantageous move in the long term if you're staying rooted in one place. And having dealt with toxic, abusive landlords, there is an understated element of psychological safety to ownership.

We're not just talking about big cities. We're talking about suburbs too, and even more "rural" areas that are still within a few hours of a city. Essentially where 90+% of the population actually lives.

This is not a first-world-tech-bro complaint. It is a genuine economic problem for us that affects the vast majority of people who live here, and therefore the country as-a-whole.

People would not have voted for a moronic despot had he not been promising what they've all been asking for - a radical reshaping of the system that hasn't been working for the vast majority. People cannot afford the American dream that they were promised, and they are angry about it.

phantasmish• 8 months ago

All of housing, education, and healthcare have gotten more expensive way faster than wages have risen, in the US.

People are upset about it because together those things, plus the end of the pension somewhat earlier, mean the death of the middle class, the idea of which was a pretty big part of American post-war identity.

More economic drag on getting educated, more economic drag on becoming a property owner and the security that provides, healthcare costs are a drag on accumulating money for younger generations and will soak up anything their parents managed to accumulate. Middle class = dead.

watwut3• 8 months ago

Americans have about longest commutes and tolerate the longest commutes to work.

Also yes, they want to live where the jobs are. If compromise on location means "being unemployed" then most just cant afford it.

JambalayaJimbo• 8 months ago

My context is Canada; the problem we have here is that there is a big divide between people who bought their big homes with land 10-20 years ago, and the people in the market right now who can only afford apartments. The issue it twofold; (1) negative comparison against the landowners even though apartment dwellers may have significantly higher incomes / education levels, and (2) political divides; the landowners staunchly oppose the zoning and transit changes that might make life better for apartment dwellers.

Getting used to living in an apartment is a smaller issue in my opinion.

hat_monger• 8 months ago

and soon enough just food will be enough.

And then you will be lectured on how prosperous a country it is and how big the GDP is, probably by a foreigner lol.

subpixel• 8 months ago

In my experience what matters most is understanding your goals, or lacking clear goals, what you want and enjoy. It’s remarkably easy to latch onto goals that seem like great ideas but ultimately don’t align to your own happiness.

That’s not to knock ambition, but to frame it in the most practical terms. How will success actually and specifically benefit you?

lisper• 8 months ago

Ron's second law: the hardest part of getting what you want is figuring out what it is.

jebarker• 8 months ago

It’s remarkably easy to latch onto goals that seem like great ideas but ultimately don’t align to your own happiness

I wonder if the whole idea of goals and ambition being able to deliver happiness is wrong. Certainly whenever I’ve set a goal and achieve it nothing much changes in how I feel about life because I was hoping for too much and so must just find a new goal.

b3ing2• 8 months ago

Seth Godwin has a book about this called “the dip” it’s worth a read and isn’t too long, find it at your local library

conorcleary2• 8 months ago

Very relevant!

zahlman4• 8 months ago

find it at your local library

But what if I would prefer to buy "the dip"?

b3ing2• 8 months ago

Check eBay

circlefavshape3• 8 months ago

I once spent 2 years working on a book about why you should give up on your dreams.

Couldn't find anyone interested in publishing it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Distilled it down to 1. a 3-min song https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDnpZJI7jKw 2. a 5-min talk https://youtu.be/U4ZnfCmTJMY?si=Ac_jVKnR-ARQilLu

circlefavshape3• 8 months ago

tl;dr

A dream is just a story you have made up, and the main character in the story isn't even the real you. Following a dream means sacrificing real happiness today trying to manifest imaginary happiness for an imaginary character in an imaginary future. Engage with your real life instead.

shevy-java• 8 months ago

Newer evidence suggests that ditching tough-to-attain goals can actually be good for us.
adjusting our goals in response to stress or challenges, rather than grinding on, is often “a more appropriate and beneficial response.”

It depends a lot on the goals. I give up often and quickly. One reason is ... lack of time. (And also lack of discipline, but lack of time is really one key reason I toss away many things these days. You live only once, at the least most of us.)

There is, however had, one interesting study from psychology. I forgot the name, but they showed tests with kids as to "if you eat this now, you won't get an additional reward, but if you won't eat it for an hour, you get more lateron". Now this was not the setup, I am just quoting this from memory. The adults left the room so only the kid was there and some sweets on the table.

It was quite convincingly shown that the kids with more discipline and will-power, aka who refused the sweets in order to get more reward lateron, were also more successful on average lateron. Or, at the least, avoided some problems such as drug addiction and what not. So I think the "benefits of giving up" has to be put in context. It depends on what and how you give up. I may not give up on A, but then I may not be able to do B, because of lack of time, lack of resources and so forth. So these are just trade-offs, but discipline and will-power are just about almost always really excellent traits to have or train for.

_kblcuk_• 8 months ago

"Marshmallow test": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_marshmallow_experimen...

It was also highlighted (recently?) iirc that it has little to do with discipline and will-power, but is surprisingly affected whether kids come from wealthy / "good" families (and thus can trust grown ups) vs kids coming from poorer / "troubled" families (and thus just leap at the opportunity and don't trust that they will actually get another marshmallow if they will wait).

bryanrasmussen• 8 months ago

from what I remember of the described study the kids who showed more discipline were also the kids who had been conditioned to trust adults, the ones that had experienced that adults were untrustworthy did not have the discipline.

so not sure if the conclusion that self-discipline is the cause of later life success is the moral of the study instead of kids with messed up parents have a worse time of it.

zahlman4• 8 months ago

"if you eat this now, you won't get an additional reward, but if you won't eat it for an hour, you get more lateron"

I know there was just a space missing in "later on", but I couldn't help but imagine "lateron" as some sort of placebo narcotic....

isolli• 8 months ago

It reminds me of one of my favorite quotes: "You never finish, you give up."

It was said speaking of art, but it could also apply to software projects :)

marcelr2• 8 months ago

by far the most helpful realization i had in the last decade was that i have severe limitations, and i have to give up constantly until i find the path of least resistance

chadcmulligan• 8 months ago

Buddhists call it the middle way - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Way

conorcleary2• 8 months ago

Thank you for extending my valid-excuses list!! /s

crazygringo6• 8 months ago

This is literally the reason that the emotion of frustration exists.

Our brain is aware of when we stop making progress towards a goal we care about. The feeling of frustration builds until it becomes so strong it essentially forces us to stop.

Then, to get rid of the emotion, we have to step back and reassess. And then either see if we should try a different approach to the problem, give up on the problem entirely, or triple-check that the same course of action is still worth pursuing and thus "re-energize" ourselves.

If we never felt frustrated, we'd keep attempting futile goals for so much longer. When you feel frustrated, the answer is never to just ignore the feeling and try to "power through". It's to step back and reassess at the first opportunity.

faeyanpiraat• 8 months ago

But sometimes you gotta power through it, you just need to plan for it in advance, so you might feel frustrated, but know you are not mad for not stopping.

crazygringo6• 8 months ago

If you plan in advance that something will take a particular amount of effort, then you're not going to feel frustrated as long as it's within that amount of effort. You've already decided that the cost-benefit analysis is worth the cost.

You start feeling frustrated when it takes longer than what you've planned for. When it's not going according to plan. And you need to step back and say, OK now is it still worth it...?

Some things just can't be powered through. Frustration helps us realize that so that we don't waste more energy on things that don't seem accomplishable.

jjk1662• 8 months ago

The feeling when you know you need to power through and just do something isn't frustration. Cleaning a dirty toilet isn't frustrating - it's unpleasant and unrewarding work that just needs to be done, but there is no feeling that it is substantially harder than it has to be. You may feel frustrated during the time period in which you are powering through a task, but that's almost always because you are frustrated that you are in a situation where you have to power through a task that probably could have been avoided, the task itself isn't frustrating.

xeromal• 8 months ago

It's easy to confuse laziness for frustration though. I think a key requirement in your comment is that you're grounded emotionally and know what you're feeling when you do. I know too many people that give up at the first indication of resistance but I'm fairly confident its their laziness.

UpsideDownRide• 8 months ago

I feel that's overly easy to label someone else as lazy. Some people might be of course, but we dont have insight into their inner selves. And so we dont know ehat burdens they are carrying and grappling with currently.

What looks like laziness might actually be very prudent resource conservation if you know the whole story.

crazygringo6• 8 months ago

The difference is whether it's a goal that is important to you.

If you encounter an obstacle and just stop without feeling frustrated, then you just didn't care much in the first place. That's fine. It's not laziness, it's just not valuing that particular outcome much.

Frustration is generally a very easy emotion to identify because you tense up, get irritated, have a feeling of wanting to shout or swear, growl, etc. Even if you're in a professional environment where you can't do those things, you feel the impulse to. There's no confusing that feeling with laziness.

"Laziness" is generally a value judgment imposed by a third party, that you're not doing the thing they value as important. An employer might think an employee is "lazy", when the employee thinks they're underpaid and chooses not to do anything above the bare minimum.

N_Lens• 8 months ago

I think labelling behaviour 'lazy' is a very lazy thing to do. I think only a very narrow class of behaviours is genuinely lazy. Generally there are good reasons why someone may not be applying themselves sufficiently.

jjk1662• 8 months ago

It's very reasonable to take a step back and reassess at the first indication of unexpected resistance. When you decide to do something, you're making that decision based on how you expect things to go; if they aren't going that way then the assumptions underpinning your decision to go down this path no longer hold. If you wouldn't have started had you'd known there would be even slight inconvenience, it means you don't value the output enough to justify that slight inconvenience, and you should not keep going just because of sunk cost.

Being lazy, ie being particularly unwilling to put in much effort for a reward, is quite orthogonal to how long you keep pursuing a particular approach to achieve a reward.

justonceokay• 8 months ago

Frustration is an emotional response that can lead to many things, including inaction. Laziness is a moral perspective on inaction. Was Bartleby the Scrivener lazy?

hobs• 8 months ago

Disagree strongly, frustration is like the setup before the payoff, it's what makes figuring out something "worth" it - the more frustration, the bigger the payoff.

crazygringo6• 8 months ago

That's not what any psychologist would say. This isn't my opinion on frustration, this is just the standard interpretation under emotional appraisal theory.

Also, it is absolutely not the case that more frustration leads to higher payoff. There are tons of cases where frustration leads to zero payoff, and where you get complete payoff with zero frustration.

Frustration is not the same as hard work. If something takes a lot of hard work but progress is constant and clear, there's no frustration involved.

speed_spread• 8 months ago

A certain amount of frustration is expected if you set the goals high. But an excess of frustration becomes counter-productive and should signal it's time to change strategy. It doesn't mean "give up forever" but rather "try getting to midpoint first, then reevaluate".

It's surprising how effective being lazy can sometimes be. Some tasks that could be brute-forced seem to magically melt away if you adopt round about ways and let time pass. It's a latency/throughput tradeoff.

timacles• 8 months ago

People are missing some nuance here.

1. Frustration depends entirely on the expectations of the outcome of an action. 2. Frustration is a spectrum. 3. Frustration is necessary to engage your full focus

If it were on a scale of 1-10. 4 through 8 would be the ideal frustration to keep you engaged in a goal. Below 4 and you would not be able to engage with the task fully. Above 8 and its a signal that either your expectations about the outcome are completely wrong or your approach is completely wrong, and you need to step back.

Playing your little brother in Street Fighter will never make you better at it, until he starts beating you and making you annoyed that you are losing, forcing you to concentrate and pay attention to the more subtle details of the game.

judahmeek• 8 months ago

My definition of frustration: the gap between your expectations & perceived reality. The larger the gap, the greater the frustration.

pier25• 8 months ago

Nah. Very often you just have to keep going. Try learning a musical instrument for example or even programming.

Kiboneu• 8 months ago

Yesterday I spent two hours looking for something that I thought I needed. Ten minutes in I thought of an alternative solution that wouldn’t require the item I was looking for. I wanted to do more interesting things, but I still /had/ to find it. I’d accidentally end up doing it again when I try to stop. A friend who was observing this tricked me into eating something, and then I was able to stop.

If I forget a word mid conversation, I spend a lot of time trying to remember it. I can google or ask the chat bot, but emotionally I want to get there it on my own.

I think that I’m addicted to the feeling I get when I find these things or solve a very difficult problem. After reading an earlier article about “aha” moments, I wonder if it’s the same circuit. Maybe there is also a natural predisposition for hunting in my brain, which is why food seems to help me get past these … moments.

rhelz• 8 months ago

I've worked way, WAY harder on my failures than I did on my successes. My biggest failures always came from holding on to long.

_phnd_• 8 months ago

was gonna read this, but realised I didn't have to:D

Minor49er• 8 months ago

It doesn't count as giving up if you never even started :P

bradlys• 8 months ago

But letting go and—crucially—reengaging with new goals, was found to restore purpose and well-being.

Seems everyone here is kinda missing the point. It looks to be less about giving up and more about engaging with new goals. You find X goal is too hard to achieve and give up but also decide to pursue Y goal that is more achievable (and still has some fulfillment to it).

I get that but doesn’t seem anything too radical… If I have impossible to achieve goals then I’d naturally be upset. Spending time on goals I feel I can accomplish is almost always going to be more fulfilling than doing ones that feel impossible.

ge96• 8 months ago

I'm not sure if this falls under the same vein but in 2016 I just decided to stop paying my bills and I didn't have a job. I was just "free". I mean my life was imploding (and it did eg. 350s credit score/getting sued by debt collectors) but man I felt so free that time. I didn't have to get up/sleep at any particular time or be anywhere. I long to get back to that state (although with money saved/invested). And the goal isn't to do nothing but not to be forced to do anything.

I'd feel the same when between employment like in 2023 the tech industry tanked so I could not get hired for a year (there were 6mo contracts which I did not accept). Before I decided to eat it and work at a factory, I was just watching TV/enjoying a couple months off (I had to sell all my possessions at a loss to get by). Eventually at the end of 2024 I did accept a 6mo contract that is now going beyond a year.

The thing I didn't realize is the 6mo contract while short pays double a factory wage so it's like being employed for a year.

marcelr2• 8 months ago

giving up is a good tactic to see if an idea is any good

good ideas are very hard to give up on

go all the way there & imagine your life without this goal, and accept it

if it forces its way back into your life multiple times, it might be a good idea

wait for the conditions to arise where it becomes a possibility and execute

h4kunamata• 8 months ago

My little list of things I gave up in life and increased my overall happiness and well-being beyond comprehension:

1. Job: I used to take job as my heaven, over-work, over-deliver, over everything. You are let go the moment the company please coz you are just a number. I stopped seeing workplace as heaven but as "it pays the bills", full stop.

2. Finance: Directly related to above, have an emergency saving preferably at least up to 6 months worth of paid bills. I have been layoff twice up to 5 months before finding a job. Nothing destroy you more than finance stress, giving up that fear of job loss alone will increase your well-being beyond your comprehension. Some people give up working altogether, we all will get old one day, your "giving up" must include that.

3. Cash/Minimalist: Give up having the latest phone model, the latest car model, the latest everything, nobody cares, and definitely not the people from your social media. Cash over debit card so you can easily see what you are spending on. Ban credit card and you will see money you didn't know you had.

4. Relationship: I never had much luck with it, but after ending a 6y long term relationship, I gave up. I have hobbies, pets, that is all I need.

5. Friendship: People will only show you their side that they wanna you to see, and not who they really are. Stop trying to please friends and you will see who are the real ones and who are after personal interest.

This is me giving up and yet, being happier, healthier, eating better, etc, etc.

specproc• 8 months ago

Going through a lot of changes right now and two lines are reverberating in my head.

I was into punk as a kid, still am I guess, and there's this recurring motif in Rancid tracks: "the secret to a good life is knowing when you're through".

Also recently had some words of wisdom I liked from a mate in his mid-sixties: "one door has got to close for another one to open".

The surprising benefits of giving up

Related Stories