Its stressful if you're someone who keeps a list of your failures to remind yourself of your own humanity. Me, I'm a half glass full kind of guy. I look back and think of all the times I sucked up the courage to enter a difficult social situation and it turned out unbelievably better than anything I had envisioned. That motivates me to continue to challenge myself to do things that make me uncomfortable so that I can adapt and improve.
Even if life is meaningless, you still only get to do it once. Sometimes its more fun when playing on cheat codes if you know what I mean. If life is meaningless then its impossible to fail because the failure had no meaning to begin with. It is however possible to succeed by setting out a goal and accomplishing it. There lies the fundamental difference. The meaning of life is determined solely by the individual and not an exterior presence. You give your own life meaning based on how important of emphasis you place on your goals. If your goals are meaningless, then so is life. If your goals are meaningful, then your life is too.
We need an update for this saying that is gender neutral or that reverses the sexes. It's a great saying, but it is deeply rooted in traditional gender roles to the max.
Hi Everyone - I work as the executive assistant to the Chief Information Officer at my company. I am so envious of my developer colleagues and would love to learn how to code. Any suggestions on where I should start? My colleague recommended the W3Schools online. Any other suggestions you may have? Thanks soooo much!
I gather you're interested in web development. The best advice I'd give is to pick up a good JS book and build several projects to get a feel for the language.
I'd suggest finding a hands-on online course that gives you a tiny portfolio in the end. A lot of the fun with programming is seeing your work come alive and seeing all the projects you've completed. Assuming you haven't programmed before, I wouldn't go with buying a programming language-specific book to start since those can be pretty boring to go through. Books will start to be useful as you develop a lot more curiosity and want to fill in your knowledge gaps.
My friend's learning from the ground-up and he's using Code Academy (https://www.codecademy.com). If you're a little more serious about this, you could also look into Udacity's Nanodegree program.
I'd also recommend giving Code Academy a try in the first instance. It's free, there's no set up on your computer needed (it's all done through their website) and it guides you through.
It's how I started learning when I was trying to do it around my job, I eventually left to work on learning to code full time.
Start scratching itches. There are a lot of tasks in that role that you repeat frequently. Maybe you have to generate reports or report summaries for the CIO from data you collect across the company. Maybe it doesn't come in in a standardized format.
Play around with python and/or numpy for this (lots of tutorials online) for slurping data from a text file and processing it to generate those summaries. Start playing around with this to get the basics of the language, writing functions, conditional logic and loops.
Hell, you could even play with programming macros in Excel (not my preference, but it is readily available in most offices, and, if like mine, you'll have lots of reports in Excel already). The point here is not to pick you favorite or final language, but to get some practice with manipulating data, consuming input, producing output, and using logic effectively.
What motivates me is far from what I do for 8 hours a day (sitting behind a desk and writing code).
Honestly, it's the belief that communities, at the level of grassroots, can be empowered to be further engaged in the social discourses of their society. I have a strong belief that while our government powers are playing politics, families who are living in impoverished neighborhoods can be encouraged to be active agents of change and can move populations. I'm working with a couple non-profit organizations (that are around the world) that do exactly this and the results we see are incredibly encouraging and endearing. Not only are youth getting excited and working in their communities, their siblings and parents are also getting involved. If it wasn't for this work (of which I spend hours _after work_ partaking in), I don't know what would motivate me.
EDIT: Just to clarify, this empowerment comes through education at the level of the neighborhood. Looking at this practically, it means training our younger future generations and providing them the tools they need to succeed (getting a good education in school, living a moral life, being a good citizen, etc). All this through a process of learning at the level of the organizations I'm working with.
Facilitating better living and working for the people around me; that's what motivates me, and it's why I became an engineer. Seeing something I've built help someone makes me ridiculously happy!
Motivation is a really tough one. Honestly, I am mostly motivated to go out of my way for delicious food and seeing friends. But if you're talking about motivation for productivity, it's more complicated. I've written about this before on HN:
In my younger and more foolish days, and inspired by Steve Jobs, I tried to literally live life as if every day were my last in an effort to be productive. I discovered that if it were my last day on earth, I would much rather spend the time joking around with friends or family rather than working, and I fell into a depressive funk.
Abstract thoughts about death, while depressive, don't motivate me. What does end up "motivating" me are developing habits. In order to develop habits, I use pathetically achievable goals:
I find goals to be counterproductive unless they're simply achieved and a matter of habit. For instance, "go to the gym and do nothing" became "go to the gym and walk on the treadmill" when I became habituated to showing up at the gym. Now I'm lifting regularly and I feel off if I don't get a chance to go work out.
Audacious goals, on the other hand, are demotivating because there's too much chance of failure. If I hold myself to lifting certain weights, I may even end up getting injured. But now I'm happy simply showing up, doing what I have the capacity for, whether it's walking, stretching, or lifting. I can (and will) come back if I have an off day.
Scott Adams talks about something similar in Goals vs Systems[1]. A goal of writing a book is much harder to achieve than a goal of typing a little bit in the morning. Ironically, the latter may be the best route to the former...as long as you don't think about it too much :)
>Abstract thoughts about death, while depressive, don't motivate me. What does end up "motivating" me are developing habits. In order to develop habits, I use pathetically achievable goals
This. I was chatting with a friend and he asked me about how I get motivated. My answer is that I abstract away the motivation with a process.
For instance, I used to work out a lot when I was younger and then stopped.. But when I wanted to work out recently, what I did to start the habit wasn't to go to the gym because that's a "new thing", an action and I'm a "procrastinator"..
I incorporated working out with the act of taking a shower and they became one, so each time I was about to take a shower, I'd do a few hundred push ups, then get in the shower and do a 100 successive squats and that was it. It's not much but it beats nothing. If I imagined I had to wear clothes, go out somewhere, work out, then come back and take a shower, I wouldn't do it..
As a side note, when I was in college, my commute was 6 hours and arriving late to class. Then they added a university bus. I had to take a bus to get to the Uni bus and I had to wake up early, so I said "why not work out while I'm at it". Woke up at 4h30 and a good work out, shower and food, and about 30 minutes of review study. The energy I had through the whole day was amazing.
That's a good point. Combining actions that you already execute with habits you would like to develop can be a powerful thing.
To take the gym example further, I realized that I needed to be doing more cardio (any cardio at all), but the treadmill was the most boring activity on earth. I could only spend a few minutes on it before getting bored. To combat this, I started listening to an audio language lesson in a foreign language that I'd been meaning to learn while walking on the treadmill.
Pretty soon, I ended up spending 20+ minute chunks of time on the treadmill while learning my target language, which amplified both of the habits that I wanted.
Curiosity and the desire to do things which I enjoy. I also like learning and 1 year ago moved to Germany. I now speak exclusively in German as an IT consultant here after only 2 years of learning.
That said. I don't put too much pressure on myself. I have goals but I'm also human and don't want to take life too seriously. I don't think it necessarily matters if I reach all of them or just a few. I see them as simply markers of directions I could move in that might make for some sort of exciting experience that lets me experience the joys and sometimes struggles of being alive.
I just read the book Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankel. I think it does a fantastic job of answering the questions about the meaning of life.
Viktor came up with the theory of Logotherapy which in a nutshell has 3 parts:
- Life has meaning under all circumstances, even the most miserable ones.
- Our main motivation for living is our will to find meaning in life.
- We have freedom to find meaning in what we do, and what we experience, or at least in the stand we take when faced with a situation of unchangeable suffering
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[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 118 ms ] threadUnfortunately, crippling depression and a looming feeling of nihilism are sucking most of my motivation away.
Chattel property? Loved ones? Lovers? Spouses?
(But thanks! I never am sure how to hit the right conversational note on hn.)
I'm just talking to people.
Thanks.
(Edit: I happen to be a woman. Wondering what I could say that is comparable hardly makes me an SJW. Geez.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc
I make no claim to being a healthy or normal individual.
Looks at the example projects made, the reviews from the students. If any seem interesting then just dive right in.
My friend's learning from the ground-up and he's using Code Academy (https://www.codecademy.com). If you're a little more serious about this, you could also look into Udacity's Nanodegree program.
It's how I started learning when I was trying to do it around my job, I eventually left to work on learning to code full time.
Play around with python and/or numpy for this (lots of tutorials online) for slurping data from a text file and processing it to generate those summaries. Start playing around with this to get the basics of the language, writing functions, conditional logic and loops.
Hell, you could even play with programming macros in Excel (not my preference, but it is readily available in most offices, and, if like mine, you'll have lots of reports in Excel already). The point here is not to pick you favorite or final language, but to get some practice with manipulating data, consuming input, producing output, and using logic effectively.
Honestly, it's the belief that communities, at the level of grassroots, can be empowered to be further engaged in the social discourses of their society. I have a strong belief that while our government powers are playing politics, families who are living in impoverished neighborhoods can be encouraged to be active agents of change and can move populations. I'm working with a couple non-profit organizations (that are around the world) that do exactly this and the results we see are incredibly encouraging and endearing. Not only are youth getting excited and working in their communities, their siblings and parents are also getting involved. If it wasn't for this work (of which I spend hours _after work_ partaking in), I don't know what would motivate me.
EDIT: Just to clarify, this empowerment comes through education at the level of the neighborhood. Looking at this practically, it means training our younger future generations and providing them the tools they need to succeed (getting a good education in school, living a moral life, being a good citizen, etc). All this through a process of learning at the level of the organizations I'm working with.
In my younger and more foolish days, and inspired by Steve Jobs, I tried to literally live life as if every day were my last in an effort to be productive. I discovered that if it were my last day on earth, I would much rather spend the time joking around with friends or family rather than working, and I fell into a depressive funk.
Abstract thoughts about death, while depressive, don't motivate me. What does end up "motivating" me are developing habits. In order to develop habits, I use pathetically achievable goals:
I find goals to be counterproductive unless they're simply achieved and a matter of habit. For instance, "go to the gym and do nothing" became "go to the gym and walk on the treadmill" when I became habituated to showing up at the gym. Now I'm lifting regularly and I feel off if I don't get a chance to go work out.
Audacious goals, on the other hand, are demotivating because there's too much chance of failure. If I hold myself to lifting certain weights, I may even end up getting injured. But now I'm happy simply showing up, doing what I have the capacity for, whether it's walking, stretching, or lifting. I can (and will) come back if I have an off day.
Scott Adams talks about something similar in Goals vs Systems[1]. A goal of writing a book is much harder to achieve than a goal of typing a little bit in the morning. Ironically, the latter may be the best route to the former...as long as you don't think about it too much :)
[1]: http://blog.dilbert.com/post/102964992706/goals-vs-systems
This. I was chatting with a friend and he asked me about how I get motivated. My answer is that I abstract away the motivation with a process.
For instance, I used to work out a lot when I was younger and then stopped.. But when I wanted to work out recently, what I did to start the habit wasn't to go to the gym because that's a "new thing", an action and I'm a "procrastinator"..
I incorporated working out with the act of taking a shower and they became one, so each time I was about to take a shower, I'd do a few hundred push ups, then get in the shower and do a 100 successive squats and that was it. It's not much but it beats nothing. If I imagined I had to wear clothes, go out somewhere, work out, then come back and take a shower, I wouldn't do it..
As a side note, when I was in college, my commute was 6 hours and arriving late to class. Then they added a university bus. I had to take a bus to get to the Uni bus and I had to wake up early, so I said "why not work out while I'm at it". Woke up at 4h30 and a good work out, shower and food, and about 30 minutes of review study. The energy I had through the whole day was amazing.
To take the gym example further, I realized that I needed to be doing more cardio (any cardio at all), but the treadmill was the most boring activity on earth. I could only spend a few minutes on it before getting bored. To combat this, I started listening to an audio language lesson in a foreign language that I'd been meaning to learn while walking on the treadmill.
Pretty soon, I ended up spending 20+ minute chunks of time on the treadmill while learning my target language, which amplified both of the habits that I wanted.
That said. I don't put too much pressure on myself. I have goals but I'm also human and don't want to take life too seriously. I don't think it necessarily matters if I reach all of them or just a few. I see them as simply markers of directions I could move in that might make for some sort of exciting experience that lets me experience the joys and sometimes struggles of being alive.
Viktor came up with the theory of Logotherapy which in a nutshell has 3 parts:
- Life has meaning under all circumstances, even the most miserable ones.
- Our main motivation for living is our will to find meaning in life.
- We have freedom to find meaning in what we do, and what we experience, or at least in the stand we take when faced with a situation of unchangeable suffering
https://www.amazon.com/Mans-Search-Meaning-Viktor-Frankl/dp/...
1. Changing the inside of myself to have more of what I value.
If you're looking for more motivation, start with self-examination of what it is you deeply value.