I think that, more often than not, being happy requires choosing to be happy. There are far too many unplanned moments in life where, even if you've followed the other four rules, you will not be happy unless you actively choose to make lemonade out of your lemons.
That's true. People who say "I'm bored" are usually boring people. Many first- world people who are unhappy on a daily basis just have little sense of agency. This isn't meant to blame those people; many people are told to follow their dreams by adults who have given up on their own dreams. Few people are explicitly taught how to follow their dreams.
And then there's those of us who never really had anything resembling a lifelong dream in the first place. Calling it boredom is an understatement, sounds more like acedia.
I think this is a great point. The key to happiness is not planning, because life will not accommodate those plans. The key is to be flexible when life happens. Anyone remember the book "Who Moved My Cheese?"
Many people have a hard time realizing they are happy. It is all too easy, especially for hacker types, to continuously focus on 'the problems' or things that can be improved or tweaked. Its hard to know you are happy if you never stop and smell the roses.
"Don't ignore your dreams; don't work too much; say what you think; cultivate friendships; be happy."
Will counter and say, it's impossible to achieve dreams (or the first big exit) without putting your head down, working insane hours, neglecting friends, and being miserable. Need to live the bad times, ultimate lows, to fully realize happiness and no regrets.
Although the trying should lead to some fruition. Always trying but never having succeeded would be a pretty sad way to end up. This awareness gives me the stamina to work through all the details it takes to end up with a polished product.
I agree that achieving your dreams often takes a lot of work, and often at the cost of other aspects of your life. Finding balance is key, but that's easier said than done. I think that's what we're all striving for, but if it was easy we wouldn't be having this conversation.
Personally, I'm working on segmenting my life. When it's time to work, work hard and focused. But remind yourself there's time to play. If you don't play, what's the point of working hard?
If anyone has figured out how to achieve your dreams while maintaining your life balance, please let us know!
Sure, though when you start a project often times the goal you set out to reach turns out to be the wrong one. Enjoy the journey and be flexible on the goal. The mere act of trying, produces fruits that you didn't expect.
I always loved this quote from Jobs: "...you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future." And they very often do. So be sure to start that project, whatever it may be, just take the next smallest manageable step instead of just thinking about it. Go west and whatever fruits that produces might turn out to be very successful, just not in the way you originally planned.
Pivoting at the right times can lead to success. But I have seen plenty of people just pivot endlessly, because sometimes that's easier than doing all the drudgery work required to carry an idea out fully.
I know most of us have to "fail" many times before we succeed. But if our failures never lead to any real success, then we are doing something wrong.
Its like getting consistent physical exercise, isn't it?
Keeping fit should be a priority - we feel happier, fitter, more relaxed after a workout. Yet its easy to laze around, sometimes checking email, hn, finding excuses to not go in today.
In Ms. Ware's essay - consciously choosing happiness is a very intelligent thought. On some days I feel miserable, then I look around (I am in India). I thank heavens for a wonderful life. Being miserable, then appears to be a choice.
I am in Delhi (have also lived in San Francisco). Actually in SF, it was easy to remain fit, by just walking 7-8 miles after work with friends up and down the hills.
In Delhi (at least in my part of town), its unsafe to walk/cycle in streets due to bad driving and traffic. better to go to a public park or a gym. So yeah, its the east where rapid urbanization isn't leaving space for a random walk.
I'd rework Paul Graham's list a little, as the first two items are phrased in negative terms (it's easier to do stuff than to not do stuff).
"Follow your dreams; take a break; say what you think; cultivate friendships; be happy."
The idea of putting them at the top of your todo list is interesting. At the moment I organise myself with Trello, one list per project, and at the top of each list I have a card that reminds me why I'm doing the project. Every now and again I check these cards to see if any projects should be culled -- if they're not meeting their goals, or if there's a better way to achieve those goals, or if I no longer care about those goals.
Keeping long-term priorities in mind when caught up in the midst of your daily tasks seems like a winner. Your life is lived one day at a time, after all -- if you don't seize the day, you won't seize your life.
Anyway, the whole idea of combining your todo list with your bucket list -- your daily goals with your life goals -- is interesting. I've seen a few startups based on this idea (evr.st, Goalhawk). It'll be interesting to see if the model works.
Re: adding items to your todo lists, i feel like PG's 5 exhortations (which seem more like general advice than specific prescriptions) fit into something like the "epics" that were recently introduced into Pivotal Tracker, than actual items to do. One should take a look at each of the items placed on a todo list and ask "does this item take me closer or further from my goals?"
The phrase "don't work too much" doesn't mean "don't do a lot of work today." It means don't let work take up your whole life. Starting a startup is the best way to do that, if you're suited to it. Note the word "compress" in the passage you quote.
Or at least working very hard on one thing so you can spend your time doing whatever else you care about, which may be "working" on other passion projects.
Sort of. More like working very hard till you achieve financial independence, after which you can do whatever you want. You don't have to stop working; you just never have to work on anyone else's terms.
I think that financial independence is the definition of retirement. It is only seen as a mismatch (and early if before the age of 60 or so) because the conventional path to financial independence is working for 50 years. Someone who has spent 50 years working and is now financially independent will not want to do any more work ever again. Someone who is financially independent at the age of 26 or 30 though will probably keep working. This doesn't mean that the latter person isn't retired; an unconventional path to retirement leads to an unconventional retirement.
For the majority of people this is unobtainable. Which is where your theory breaks down, I think. Because if a huge proportion of people adopt this attitude and strive for independence, most will fail and be ultimately unhappier for it.
Which sounds like I am recommending resigning oneself to never achieving.
But really what I am saying is this; figure out realistic goals, add a little bit, then head toward them. Also, enjoy yourself on the way.
Most successful people to my observation fall into two camps; ridiculously talented and "lucky". The former have realistic high level goals anyway. And the latter are, by definition, random.
Believe me, no one knows better that starting startups is not for everyone. That's why I was careful to qualify the great grandparent with "if you're suited for it."
[...] Work very hard till you achieve financial independence, after which you can do whatever you want.
This is a very interesting statement. The thing to keep in mind is that working very hard changes you, so that the thing you'll most likely do after achieving financial independence is probably more of the same (very hard work).
I'm taking a different approach, perhaps most succinctly advocated by Mr. Money Moustache (http://www.mrmoneymustache.com):
Become extremely frugal till you achieve financial independence, after which you can do whatever you want.
This is done with the same caveat: after achieving financial independence, you'll most likely continue being frugal, which is a very good thing.
If you're prudent with your lifestyles and finances, "financial independence" doesn't have to mean "enough money to last a lifetime." It just means "enough money to last until I have a reasonable certainty of making more money." I know a bunch of people on incomes far lower than a software engineer's that will intersperse work with 6 months to a year of doing something interesting like hiking the Appalachian trail, traveling around the world, or living in Thailand.
A question, which hopefully doesn't come across as facetious, as it isn't mean to be: Do you do whatever you want?
I ask this in the context of having been through the start-up mill in the 90s and watched other people make 10 figures off the technology (WiFi) I worked on. I still work 9-5 for someone else, and need to.
Eventually I came to the conclusion that I have to "live for today". If a firm opportunity presents seize it, but don't compromise today in the name of nebulous rewards tomorrow. Don't wait for retirement or financial independence, but try and do stuff now, using the means at my disposal.
I ask this question on the assumption some people here have had the opposite experience and would advocate going out on a limb for future rewards. When it paid off, did the change in circumstances meet expectation? It's always interesting to hear from people who have had a different experience.
Something bugs me about this, and I'm having a hard time putting my finger on it. The first thing that sticks out is that you kind of imply that there is no difference between work and not work. 'Working hard' is something you do for financial independence, which implies the earning of money. And yet, even after you earn enough, you say that it's okay to continue earning even more money through work? It seems to me that if one takes the dictum "don't work too hard" seriously that you'd stop earning money through work once you've earned enough. Otherwise the temptation to define work as something that you just want to do is too great, which would then render the dictum "don't work too much" meaningless.
Sorry if that's a little rushed, but there's a surprising amount to unpack about a seemingly simple statement.
I interpret this more as, don't work to the point where it pushes other priorities out of your life. For me, I'm young and don't have a family, so starting a startup with some friends could be a tough, yet fun learning experience. Maybe for people in different circumstances, it takes over your life to the point that you lose sight of your relationships or faith.
pg, it's a well known fact by researchers on habit creation that goals framed in a positive statement work much better. I liked the essay and came here to make that point, but what do you know somebody had said it already.
I'd also rephrase "be happier", as modern research also suggests that striving to be happy does not work for some people. If you look at the writer original #5 statement, it's "I wish I'd let myself be happier" which is not exactly the same... Admittedly it's a bit of nitpicking.
I'm not sure whether belief in NLP is a matter of taste : The techniques are basically a distillation of what therapists (notably Erickson) have uncovered during hypnosis. To further amplify your point, the unconscious mind doesn't seem to be any good at parsing logical statements - so things that one 'says to oneself' should be cast straightforwardly.
At its most basic, the command "Don't think of a pink unicorn" brings to the surface exactly what you don't want. Drilling yourself to process 'bad stuff' unconsciously is (as you said) counterproductive.
It's sort of like the mental trick of deciding by seeing what you hope for in a coin toss. [0]
If the line seems really dissonant with the rest of the list you're probably fine, if it doesn't, or even seems to naturally progress from it, you should seriously rethink what you're doing. [1]
There are two ways of living: fear-based, and love-based.
People who live fear-based avoid things. They avoid things that might cause heartache, pain, difficulty, etc. but all of the most interesting pursuits in life have the potential to cause these things sometimes.
People who live love-based move towards things that bring happiness and satisfaction in the long term. They work hard and play hard, and when they hurt they know that things may get better.
I heard this several years ago now, and I see one of these approaches in most people around me.
I think this can also defined in the level of risk one's willing to accept. Fear-based is having a low risk tolerance. It's so easy to choose the safe route; steady corporate job, work your way up the ladder, etc. It's predefined and historically tested. But I fail to see a lot of happy people at the end of this line.
Making big life changes is hard, and a risk. The more I talk to people about this topic, though, the more I can see in their eyes that they wish they had taken bigger risks in their youth.
You have described a much more "realistic" model for this - it's a spectrum of risk-aversion, not a binary attribute.
A complementary attribute is the level of "abundance mentality" present in the person.
The difficult thing, though, which is what everyone glosses over, is that it is difficult to achieve abundance mentality. It's a good metric to look at, but there is much, much more work necessary to improve it.
And that work is actually not at all trivial, unfortunately, and hard to pick up on the Internet, as it is highly personalized.
Abundance mentality is an excellent term, I'll happily rip it and use it from now on.
Indeed, the "safe" route could be called survivor mentality; to maximize the chances of not dying without offspring. What about a world where you are not really in danger? When you already have food, clothing and a house, and no one is preventing you from procreating at will?
Those who in that position still want a bigger house, more food, a yacht, expensive sports car and a harem; they're still in survival mode _after already having survived_ past any meaningful definition of survival.
They're over-survivers; and indeed, it's not a binary thing but a spectrum.
Hence, try to enjoy the abundance, and let others enjoy it; develop your attitude towards abundance mentality. We all have already survived.
Those who in that position still want a bigger house, more food, a yacht, expensive sports car and a harem; they're still in survival mode _after already having survived_ past any meaningful definition of survival.
I don't know that I agree with you at all on this.
I don't think a healthy person ("abundance mentality") can ever have too much of whatever it is they value. That's not to say that you're not happy with what you have or always unsatisfied. Only that you're always seeking to expand your "life," whatever that means to you. To make your life abundant. For many healthy people, that might include yachts, cars, more travel, more pursuit of hobbies, growing their business, improving their love life (for this, having a harem is probably not a great strategy), improving the world's political situation, expanding knowledge, etc.
I think the viewpoint you're advocating really just reduces to giving up on values, i.e., asceticism.
To make this more relevant to entrepreneurship and startups...
It is possible to get a pretty good idea of how someone will behave under times of stress by just talking to them for a few minutes. Then gauging if most of their worldview is driven by-
- Shame / Guilt / Apathy
- Fear / Anxiety
- Anger / Hate
- Pride
- Courage
- Joy
- Compassion
Now we are often taught to 'be compassionate' or the 'enjoy life', but there is a difference between actually feeling that way and trying to convince people, including yourself, that you feel this way (which would be fear driven).
This is a bit difficult to explain, especially given my limited writing skills, but pretty easy to pick up in the subtext of conversations. For instance in the way that people phrase certain things, or tone with which they talk about certain issues.
There is probably some correlation between this sort of emotional development and conventional success. But I think this sort of development is probably more important to the subjective experience of life as a human.
Forking the list: Don't tie your dreams to objects; work enough to keep you satisfied; don't be an arrogant prick; build effective relationships; be happy.
This is about priority. I'd argue that while this reminder is nice, it doesn't go far enough, it is too passive.
Actively working towards those goals is the only way you'll actually achieve them. Instead of putting these generic statements at the top of your list, put some concrete action or goal there.
This is something I'm trying to live right now. A month ago I quit my job [1] to travel the world after having saved and dreamed about it for years. During the time I was dreaming we put together a plan, set aside money, and tried to reign in expenses. All tangible actions that lead to an end.
I think many of us mistake expressing our feelings with saying whatever comes to mind which can lead to a bigger wreck than ignoring or suppressing them.
I would change it to: don't ignore your feelings. How you act on them is where wisdom comes in.
It's hard to step outside the systems of social domination which suppress dreams, encourage overwork, etc. because they operate from fears which are often so deep-seated we're often not even aware of them. Bringing those fears into the light and unlearning the reactions they trigger is the main goal of spiritual practice (at least of mine.) This sort of emotional study and training is on the critical path for all of the desiderata pg lists (again, at least for me) and would have to precede them on my todo list, if I had one for this sort of thing.
Can learned helplessness be undone? Well, that’s the big question,
isn’t it? The answer is “Yes.” The cost, however, is high. We can only
undo learned helplessness by severing our internal connection with the
system that gave rise to it.
Our motivation must be clear and strong. We must really want to hear
and respond to our own questions about life. We must really want to
live our own life and not one prescribed by our family, society,
culture, profession or tradition. Metaphorically, we must be willing
to go north, the direction that takes us out of society. We must be
willing to endure pain, know from direct experience, act on what we
see and receive what happens. We must yearn to experience what is
without relying on anything to confirm our existence.
Another tool for designing out choices is called "Nudge" [1]
By a nudge we mean anything that influences our choices. A school cafeteria might try to nudge kids toward good diets by putting the healthiest foods at front. We think that it's time for institutions, including government, to become much more user-friendly by enlisting the science of choice to make life easier for people and by gentling nudging them in directions that will make their lives better.
"Most people know they should save money, but many don’t save enough and may not
even be sure what amount is enough. Most savings advice goes against human nature
and asks people to make complex calculations. To help people save, nudge them. When
it is time for employees to enroll in your firm’s retirement plan, make signing up the default.
People can choose not to sign up or can quit any time, but inertia and the status quo
conspire to keep them from doing what’s good for them. Try a “Save More Tomorrow”
program that “invites participants to commit themselves in advance to a series of [savings
account] contribution increases” as their wages rise. This approach recognizes that
people fear loss, and may perceive savings as a loss of disposable income, so it links
increases in their savings rate to parallel increases in their salaries. When people earn
more, the company automatically deducts more in savings. They don’t have to decide to
save."
Set up choices in a way that takes advantage of how humans make decisions. You can nudge people in beneficial directions. To facilitate better decisions, design a default option that benefits people unless
they explicitly choose otherwise.
Interesting, but I think we're talking about very different things. You're talking about engineering systems which manipulate people into doing things you think are good for them, and I'm talking about largely undoing the system's scope for such manipulation, by undoing the internal mechanisms by which such systems operate.
The other post currently at the top of HN is about the poster's fear that by pursuing entrepreneurial ambitions now they are setting themselves up for economic irrelevancy in a few years' time. The top comment in that thread is currently from an experienced programmer saying that he has almost never had the optimal skillset for any job market of the last three decades, yet never been unemployed. That's the kind of fear which turns someone into a cog, and the kind of thing you have to undo to live out pg's desiderata.
The word "nudge" reminded me of a motivational speech I had to give in Speech 101 back in uni. I called mine "Small Balls" (for lack of a better term) and basically went on to explain why you don't necessarily have to have "a big pair" to experience something new. If you routinely step a just a little bit out of your comfort zone, you thereby create new and larger comfort zones. This process can be repeated as much as you like and I actually used my own theory to give the speech since I wasn't exactly comfortable getting up in front of an audience.
A big problem is that the fears are not all irrational, either, at least not in all circumstances. For many people on HN, they might be, but on average we tend to have pretty marketable skills and middle-class backgrounds (with some exceptions). I think for a lot of people it's unfortunately the case that making yourself look as much like a shiny cog as possible really is the best strategy to making a decent living.
In sheer numbers, the largest path out of poverty is a pretty mundane one: find a stable middle-class job in a large company. There are more exciting rags-to-riches stories, but rags-to-decent-paycheck stories are a lot more numerous and high-probability. So, maximizing attractiveness to large companies is probably the highest-probability way out of poverty. And, large companies are large machines whose hiring processes usually aim to acquire new cogs that can be inserted into the machine as smoothly and efficiently as possible.
At the risk of sounding cynical, I wonder how much it actually matters. We tend to live our lives thinking as we go that we should be striving to end up at some optimal place and that the purpose of our lives is desperately trying to keep us exactly on that course. If we don't ask the girl to the dance, or give up on an idea, or spend extra nights at the office to get a promotion instead of hanging out with our family we think that we are drifting off of our optimal course and we drive ourselves crazy wondering at every step if we are losing our way and strive to keep our future regrets to a minimum. But the reality is that life is no more valuable at the end than at the beginning or the middle. Why worry about what our future selves will regret while forgoing present happiness? Why should I worry today about what I will feel tomorrow if I know I can be happy today?
When I hear somebody say "I wish I would have spent more time with my family" I wonder whether they really wish they had spent more time with their family or if they just miss their old family and wish they could have them back. That is to say I wonder whether people confuse nostalgia with regret. As you get older you regret not taking advantage of some things in the past, but I tend to think that what you feel as regret is actually just longing for being young again.
To add to your comment, I wonder what the "regret bulletpoints" look like for the people who actually did all those things that PG listed. Maybe they wish that they worked more instead of hanging out with friends all the time?
My old stoner underachievers who never finished school still live in the same shitty hometown, got married young to the same high school girlfriend, have mental illness/drug issues, have kids who hate them, and otherwise live miserable lives.
I think the whole "be an underachiever, there's happiness in it you stupid capitalist" is something of a myth. Truth is, life is little more than trade-offs and opportunity costs. Truth is that if you want something of a comfortable life, want to not live in the ghetto, and do things like have expendable income, take foreign vacations, etc you need to give a good chuck of your life to work.
Advice rarely comes with the caveats, and free advice is worth every cent. Ever hear anyone write on a blog, "I wish I didn't have to spend so much time with my family." or, "Given the Dunning–Kruger effect, don't follow your dreams as you are unlikely to achieve your unrealistic expectations given your current skill level."
If you don't ask the first girl to the dance you might not be brave enough to ask the second girl to the dance and before you know it you're in a self-reinforcing loop of not asking anyone to any dances until you're old enough to realise and break out of that loop.
> Why worry about what our future selves will regret while forgoing present happiness?
I'm not sure how to grok that sentence. Here's two responses.
i) Exactly. Don't miss out on current happiness just to keep the future you happy. That's the point - future you does not want to look back on a life of hard grind and no fun just so you can do the looking back from a gold bed on your huge yacht.
ii) Because seeking contentment now is a way to ensure that you'll be contented in future and the future you won't look back on a life of missed opportunities. Missing out on happiness now is sometimes important in the short term, but it's not a great way to live a life. Perhaps a lot of grind now means you can retire early and relax and enjoy stuff. But you have to live long enough to retire, and by that time you may have missed some really fun things like babies growing.
> the reality is that life is no more valuable at the end than at the beginning or the middle
Yes. That is the point. Don't grind today to provide future you with excessive luxury. A bit of grinding might be needed to avoid future financial hardship, but other than that you should seek things that fulfil you today. Happiness today will make future you happy.
Future you is not more valuable, but s/he will have the benefit of hindsight.
Well I don't think it all breaks down that cleanly in reality though. Everybody has dreams and some people pursue them 100% doing what they have to to get by in the interim, and some just categorize them as dreams and never really pursue them.
My point is that those who tell themselves "I'm not going to let outside pressures influence me and I'm going to do what makes me happy" very well may end up miserable in the short term while they are working to achieve their dreams. In the end, if they do not achieve their dreams (or even if they do) they have traded time that they could have succumbed to those pressures and been more comfortable with the end result of regretting not having had the guts to go after what they really wanted to go after. Then again, if you succumb and work forever in a job you hate and are miserable anyway then you haven't really succeeded in satisfying yourself now either. That's really a bad position to be in.
I think Jim Coudal put it best in a talk he gave (actually he was quoting somebody else whose name I can't remember) where he said "The reason most of us are unhappy most of the time is that we set our goals not for the person we will be when we achieve them, but the person we are today." I have found that that is really true. For example, people often go to law school thinking that they will end up happy if they get a job that pays a certain amount and it will look good to their current friends so they spend a bunch of money and work their asses off to get through law school. Then they graduate and feel compelled to take a job as an attorney and they absolutely hate it. I know this because I have many many friends who are attorneys and they all are trying to find a way out. I think the mistake people make in those cases is not cutting their losses and being truly honest about what kind of life they want. There is so much pressure to maintain the status quo that they feel trapped.
You're right, it doesn't matter. Life is absurd is death is the final word. Just live it however you want.. just don't toil 60 hours working for some company, that's the worst.
>We tend to live our lives thinking as we go that we should be striving to end up at some optimal place and that the purpose of our lives is desperately trying to keep us exactly on that course.
This is very US (and now occidental) thinking. Many cultures in the world don't have people thinking like that. You've got to have a family and integrate well and support the community. The rest is not as important as our current society wants us to think.
>That is to say I wonder whether people confuse nostalgia with regret.
This is such an excellent point. This "dying patients" list greatly ignores the opportunity cost of getting to where you managed to get to in life.
Lets say I grant these wishes. I wave my magic wand and you work less. Now your memories are full of being poor, sending your kids to some shitty school, getting robbed in a poor neighborhood as opposed to working more but being able to live in a better neighborhood, going on more vacations, having extra money.
So its like saying, "I want my cake to eat it too." Well, that wasn't possible when you were younger and its certainly not possible on your deathbed.
1) Money doesn't equate to happiness - economists have shown this. It increases up to an annual income of about $60,000 then flat lines completely. So yes you need to have a solid income, but the point extra stops making a difference comes surprisingly early.
2) Even if that weren't true you've turned in into something of an all or nothing situation (I may have misunderstood here in which case forgive me). There are obviously levels within everything - yes you could work the least you can get away with or work 100 hours a week and always be on call, but you could also work 40 hours a week and take regular holidays, or work flat our for a couple of months then take a month off.
Maybe some of us are spending too much time on cake acquisition. If we spent less time doing that we may not have such a large cake but we would at least be able to eat the smaller cake that we had.
My boss doesn't read hn, so I can get away with this. In the last few years, after my daughter was born, I made a decision to not work too much. I consciously reduced my working hours as much as possible.
To my surprise and delight, my productivity and overall work completion has actually gone up. By being time bound (I am leaving at 5 no matter what) I often have to work like mad to get my work done. I have to make decisions quickly and implement.
The results are more projects done, sooner. If a mistake is made, or a more complete solution is needed you iterate and do it tomorrow. Already you are two iterations in where 2 years ago I would have been stalled still trying to work up a good starting point.
For heaven's sake! If I worked 2 or 3 days a week my productivity would shoot up dramatically! With a lifestyle based around communiting to work 5 days a week 95% of the year for a relatively good salary and very modest annual raises, there's little incentive to do more than the absolute minimum to get by. Unfortunately, even though it makes sense, no manager would ever work out this kind of arrangement while keeping my current salary.
Freaky. I had exactly the same reaction when I read that list a couple of years ago. It really reminding me of some of the conversations I had with my dad just before he died, and I knew I didn't want to have those regrets.
At the top of my to do list is:
Honour dreams. Work less. Speak honestly. Have friends. Be happy.
Hmm. About 2 years ago I bought myself a canvas and wrote on it the following:
Live happy, make friends, enjoy. Make those dreams happy
It was for much the same reason - to inspire me. However, about 6 months later I thought those idea through and realised that, actually, it was an example of "making me feel better". I could sit and look at this poster and think; "yeh, I'm following my dream, I'm going to be happy". I even had a list of goals to meet.
But really you're not; you're following an arbitrary list, and all that is is con-straining.
Here's my thought process; trying hard to be happy isn't being happy... That thought mulled for a long while; I was doing cool stuff, with people I liked, and having plenty of down time. But I still felt like it was an effort to pursue.
This year has been a revelation. I did something "stupid" and spent a lot of my savings on two big holidays (many years ago I discovered my truest love is travel). Yesterday I spent a big portion of what is left on my third holiday of the year. I've barely done any work since January - one product release and some bugfixes. I started writing, then stopped, wrote a little program for myself, tried some carpentry, almost trashed my car trying to fix it, stood for at least three elections (politics and social communities) on a whim, dated two girls at once. And this is the tip of the iceberg.
All of this wouldn't sync with the person who wrote that maxim 2 years before; it would seem reckless and silly. As if I was throwing away what I had worked for years to build. A load of fucking rubbish.
Right now I'm free.
And I smile more than I ever have in my life. I have more friends. My life is barrelling along where, 6 months ago, it was stagnant.
So I wrote a new canvas (about 2 weeks ago, actually) which now says:
Let rip
My point is this; take care, with some of these ideas, that you don't get too focused on the means to the end. Just relax, close your eyes, do what you feel like. In the end it will work out. One day we will all be dead - till then I am going to enjoy myself. :)
There is nothing wrong with a todo list topped by the words "don't ignore your dreams". But only if it makes you happy.
I'm building a business that I plan/hope will allow me to have the freedom to do whatever I want with my time at some point in the future.
Today, however, I work. I work a lot. 12 hours is the low end for a day. I've put work ahead of lot of things.
If I were to truly close my eyes and do what I feel like, I'd be headed to a river/lake or getting on a plane. But I have clients, whom I've promised deliverables on Monday & Tuesday. So I'm going to work today.
In addition, we're generating a lot of sales leads from our website but our sales process isn't as effective as it needs to be to justify hiring a dedicated sales person to handle that task. Once I can improve the sales process, put in place the tools necessary for a higher closing rate, revenues will increase and I'll hire someone to manage that aspect of the business and move on to a different/higher quality problem. So this weekend, I'm going to be working on the sales process (emails/pdf brochures/demo video/etc) as well.
Yes, I could just go have fun and maybe I get to the same goal, just in a slightly longer time... but at least I enjoyed the journey more. Right? Maybe, but I don't see it that way.
If I don't work my ass off today, I perceive that my chances of "making it" are going to be much lower. I'm not sure if that perception is true or not, but can I really afford to take a chance? So this weekend, I'll work. I'll put in the time and hope that the small successes will build up to a mega success and make all the sacrifies (like leaving cousins birthday party after a quick drop-in or skipping out on a date) are justified at the results (money and freedom to do spend a lot of time with people.)
I don't know if that's the right call or not. I struggle with it all the time, particularly when friends are taking vacations 2-3 times a year.
For now, I'm placing my bets on "work now. enjoy later."
PS: I do make time for the absolutely critical things in my life like talking with my sister every other day, talking with my parents, keeping in touch with friends and more recently, taking my health a bit more seriously.
PS2: Two of my deepest fears: 1) not trying hard enough, 2) succeeding and realizing it wasn't worth the sacrifice. I don't think they are likely to happen.
That's awesome; I'm glad you've come back with an opposite viewpoint.
I think the takeaway is that different things work for different people. It could be that you would spend your life intensely happier if you just let go right now. And equally I could spend my life much happier if I took a grip.
If anything I'd say let go of the regret - you've picked this path so live it and love it :) And if you can't, maybe my way might be worth thinking about.
I guess the only way to find out is in 10 years time.
> but can I really afford to take a chance
You can always take a chance. always. Don't let anyone (including yourself) tell you different.
You're taking a chance on yourself right now by pushing hard at your goals.
I agree, if your work fulfills you, work. If you hate what you do, do something else. But I think a lot of this "live your dreams, die with no regrets" is a bunch of pie-in-the-sky psychobabble. Utopias don't exist in this life, and chasing them often leads to a bad end.
My only advice would be: work hard, play hard. It sounds like you've got the work hard part down pat. Take at least a couple weeks off a year. 50 weeks at 12+ hours a day of work is more than 99% of people do. Spend at least 2 weeks at 0 hours a day of work unwinding with your friends on a vacation. Your work will still be there when you get back, and you'll have renewed enthusiasm for it.
I have two concerns with the work now, enjoy later:
1) It forms habits. I think there are a lot of people who work now and just keep working because they never work out how to stop.
2) Later isn't always what you think it might be. A cautionary tale:
My parents worked (very) hard their whole lives, both became company directors, had a small shareholding in the company one of them worked for and did well out of it. They wanted to get themselves (and me) set up and get to the point they could enjoy retirement.
When they did retire (a bit after 60) within a year or so my mother had to have her hip replaced which laid her up for some time and rather scuppered many of their plans. Things got worse on that front and she ended up having both hips replaced twice. She was then diagnosed with cancer and died 18 months later (much of the enjoyment during that period limited by her treatment).
My dad is now way more than comfortable but his plans are in tatters.
In short: later is always a risk. Later may not be what you think it will. Perhaps it's best not to bet it all on later.
When the party is over, all your money is gone, your travels are done, your girls disappointed and you have to go back to more work while not being as successful as you used to be, it can be quite a hangover.
My feeling (caveat: I'm only in my late 20's) is that it's impossible to simultaneously eliminate all the regrets on Ms. Ware's list. If you work really hard in order to chase your dreams, you end up neglecting friends and family for a bit. Stick around among your family and friends, and you don't get to chase your dreams as much.
It's hard to know where the exact boundaries lie such that a satisfying equilibrium is achieved. Makes me wonder if some regret is always inevitable.
Depends what your dreams are. One of my dream was to fly planes. I did learn all that without getting burned out - would not help me much keeping my medical certificate for flying!!! Actually, this was quite some time taking learning, but that doesn't made me put my other social activities aside. How do you define a dream? Do you define your dreams compared to the others, so you have to better than anyone else, and so you have to work like crazy? Or do you define your dreams by achievements you would like to get to yourself, in which case I'd ask you why you can't just adapt your pace to your life?
I wanted to make a poster of this for myself so I did. Sharing in case anyone else might wanna use it, you're more than welcome. All respect to Paul Graham & Bronnie Ware.
There's a 26" x 39" poster version, in case you happen to have a big-ass printer around, and an 8.5" x 11" smaller version if you're normal.
http://cloud.ejfox.com/G1IE
Thanks! I noticed others in this thread saying it's better to avoid negatives. For example, "Pursue your dreams" instead of "Don't ignore your dreams". Can you make a positive version of this poster?
So, can you offer me and everyone else a nice job that makes all of this possible? That makes it possible to NOT be a cog? Or is this just another set of advice that only the privileged ones can afford to heed...
196 comments
[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 208 ms ] thread- a guiding principle by which the other four rules are derived or... - the effect of following the previous four rules
I don't think of "be happy" as a rule so much in itself.
Will counter and say, it's impossible to achieve dreams (or the first big exit) without putting your head down, working insane hours, neglecting friends, and being miserable. Need to live the bad times, ultimate lows, to fully realize happiness and no regrets.
I know this, now I have to go out and actually do it.
Personally, I'm working on segmenting my life. When it's time to work, work hard and focused. But remind yourself there's time to play. If you don't play, what's the point of working hard?
If anyone has figured out how to achieve your dreams while maintaining your life balance, please let us know!
I always loved this quote from Jobs: "...you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future." And they very often do. So be sure to start that project, whatever it may be, just take the next smallest manageable step instead of just thinking about it. Go west and whatever fruits that produces might turn out to be very successful, just not in the way you originally planned.
I know most of us have to "fail" many times before we succeed. But if our failures never lead to any real success, then we are doing something wrong.
Keeping fit should be a priority - we feel happier, fitter, more relaxed after a workout. Yet its easy to laze around, sometimes checking email, hn, finding excuses to not go in today.
In Ms. Ware's essay - consciously choosing happiness is a very intelligent thought. On some days I feel miserable, then I look around (I am in India). I thank heavens for a wonderful life. Being miserable, then appears to be a choice.
In Delhi (at least in my part of town), its unsafe to walk/cycle in streets due to bad driving and traffic. better to go to a public park or a gym. So yeah, its the east where rapid urbanization isn't leaving space for a random walk.
"Follow your dreams; take a break; say what you think; cultivate friendships; be happy."
The idea of putting them at the top of your todo list is interesting. At the moment I organise myself with Trello, one list per project, and at the top of each list I have a card that reminds me why I'm doing the project. Every now and again I check these cards to see if any projects should be culled -- if they're not meeting their goals, or if there's a better way to achieve those goals, or if I no longer care about those goals.
Keeping long-term priorities in mind when caught up in the midst of your daily tasks seems like a winner. Your life is lived one day at a time, after all -- if you don't seize the day, you won't seize your life.
Anyway, the whole idea of combining your todo list with your bucket list -- your daily goals with your life goals -- is interesting. I've seen a few startups based on this idea (evr.st, Goalhawk). It'll be interesting to see if the model works.
Re: adding items to your todo lists, i feel like PG's 5 exhortations (which seem more like general advice than specific prescriptions) fit into something like the "epics" that were recently introduced into Pivotal Tracker, than actual items to do. One should take a look at each of the items placed on a todo list and ask "does this item take me closer or further from my goals?"
The spirit is closer to what my father always says - no-one ever died wishing they'd spent more time in the office.
Take a break makes it sound like an hour or two out rather than what it is, basically saying it's really not all about work.
"Follow your dreams" is too strong. I wrote about that here: http://www.paulgraham.com/hs.html.
"Don't work too much" is phrased that way because it really is a matter of avoiding something.
Then why advocated startups "as a way to compress your whole working life into a few years." So is this balance only good after you've "made it"?
http://paulgraham.com/wealth.html
"Financial independence" isn't just a measure of wealth, it's also a measure of one's own personal burn rate.
Which sounds like I am recommending resigning oneself to never achieving.
But really what I am saying is this; figure out realistic goals, add a little bit, then head toward them. Also, enjoy yourself on the way.
Most successful people to my observation fall into two camps; ridiculously talented and "lucky". The former have realistic high level goals anyway. And the latter are, by definition, random.
This is a very interesting statement. The thing to keep in mind is that working very hard changes you, so that the thing you'll most likely do after achieving financial independence is probably more of the same (very hard work).
I'm taking a different approach, perhaps most succinctly advocated by Mr. Money Moustache (http://www.mrmoneymustache.com):
Become extremely frugal till you achieve financial independence, after which you can do whatever you want.
This is done with the same caveat: after achieving financial independence, you'll most likely continue being frugal, which is a very good thing.
I ask this in the context of having been through the start-up mill in the 90s and watched other people make 10 figures off the technology (WiFi) I worked on. I still work 9-5 for someone else, and need to.
Eventually I came to the conclusion that I have to "live for today". If a firm opportunity presents seize it, but don't compromise today in the name of nebulous rewards tomorrow. Don't wait for retirement or financial independence, but try and do stuff now, using the means at my disposal.
I ask this question on the assumption some people here have had the opposite experience and would advocate going out on a limb for future rewards. When it paid off, did the change in circumstances meet expectation? It's always interesting to hear from people who have had a different experience.
As for the more general question, overall it was certainly worth it. If I were in the same situation again, I would do the same thing.
Large Scale: Convincing others to start startups and helping them achieve it.
Small Scale: Talking to journalists, defending Y Combinator in the press etc...
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3872886
Sorry if that's a little rushed, but there's a surprising amount to unpack about a seemingly simple statement.
I'd also rephrase "be happier", as modern research also suggests that striving to be happy does not work for some people. If you look at the writer original #5 statement, it's "I wish I'd let myself be happier" which is not exactly the same... Admittedly it's a bit of nitpicking.
Nice essay
"Don't ignore your dreams; don't work too much; say what you think; cultivate friendships; be happy."
Can be better expressed as: " pursue your dreams, get appropriate rest and relaxation, say what... "
(if you believe in NLP)
At its most basic, the command "Don't think of a pink unicorn" brings to the surface exactly what you don't want. Drilling yourself to process 'bad stuff' unconsciously is (as you said) counterproductive.
I'd put at the bottom of my to-do list "...Die unfulfilled and unhappy"
I figured seeing that at the bottom of my to-do list would remind me to make sure it doesn't happen. And maybe even rethink the items on top.
If the line seems really dissonant with the rest of the list you're probably fine, if it doesn't, or even seems to naturally progress from it, you should seriously rethink what you're doing. [1]
[0] First result I got: http://positivemed.com/2012/04/15/when-faced-with-two-choice...
[1] At least if it's the latter.
How about you put something like this at the bottom...
Well, the idea is that he won't reach the end of the list. So, two more items at the end will make no difference except add only more backlog!
People who live fear-based avoid things. They avoid things that might cause heartache, pain, difficulty, etc. but all of the most interesting pursuits in life have the potential to cause these things sometimes.
People who live love-based move towards things that bring happiness and satisfaction in the long term. They work hard and play hard, and when they hurt they know that things may get better.
I heard this several years ago now, and I see one of these approaches in most people around me.
Making big life changes is hard, and a risk. The more I talk to people about this topic, though, the more I can see in their eyes that they wish they had taken bigger risks in their youth.
A complementary attribute is the level of "abundance mentality" present in the person.
The difficult thing, though, which is what everyone glosses over, is that it is difficult to achieve abundance mentality. It's a good metric to look at, but there is much, much more work necessary to improve it.
And that work is actually not at all trivial, unfortunately, and hard to pick up on the Internet, as it is highly personalized.
Indeed, the "safe" route could be called survivor mentality; to maximize the chances of not dying without offspring. What about a world where you are not really in danger? When you already have food, clothing and a house, and no one is preventing you from procreating at will?
Those who in that position still want a bigger house, more food, a yacht, expensive sports car and a harem; they're still in survival mode _after already having survived_ past any meaningful definition of survival.
They're over-survivers; and indeed, it's not a binary thing but a spectrum.
Hence, try to enjoy the abundance, and let others enjoy it; develop your attitude towards abundance mentality. We all have already survived.
I don't know that I agree with you at all on this.
I don't think a healthy person ("abundance mentality") can ever have too much of whatever it is they value. That's not to say that you're not happy with what you have or always unsatisfied. Only that you're always seeking to expand your "life," whatever that means to you. To make your life abundant. For many healthy people, that might include yachts, cars, more travel, more pursuit of hobbies, growing their business, improving their love life (for this, having a harem is probably not a great strategy), improving the world's political situation, expanding knowledge, etc.
I think the viewpoint you're advocating really just reduces to giving up on values, i.e., asceticism.
It is possible to get a pretty good idea of how someone will behave under times of stress by just talking to them for a few minutes. Then gauging if most of their worldview is driven by-
- Shame / Guilt / Apathy
- Fear / Anxiety
- Anger / Hate
- Pride
- Courage
- Joy
- Compassion
Now we are often taught to 'be compassionate' or the 'enjoy life', but there is a difference between actually feeling that way and trying to convince people, including yourself, that you feel this way (which would be fear driven).
This is a bit difficult to explain, especially given my limited writing skills, but pretty easy to pick up in the subtext of conversations. For instance in the way that people phrase certain things, or tone with which they talk about certain issues.
There is probably some correlation between this sort of emotional development and conventional success. But I think this sort of development is probably more important to the subjective experience of life as a human.
What's the difference like?
I mean, what kind of responses do you see from people whose world view is driven by pride/courage/joy/compassion ?
Actively working towards those goals is the only way you'll actually achieve them. Instead of putting these generic statements at the top of your list, put some concrete action or goal there.
This is something I'm trying to live right now. A month ago I quit my job [1] to travel the world after having saved and dreamed about it for years. During the time I was dreaming we put together a plan, set aside money, and tried to reign in expenses. All tangible actions that lead to an end.
[1] http://orofino.me/homeless-and-jobless-travelling-the-world/
I would change it to: don't ignore your feelings. How you act on them is where wisdom comes in.
Something my teacher wrote along these lines: http://www.unfetteredmind.org/learned-helplessness/0
By a nudge we mean anything that influences our choices. A school cafeteria might try to nudge kids toward good diets by putting the healthiest foods at front. We think that it's time for institutions, including government, to become much more user-friendly by enlisting the science of choice to make life easier for people and by gentling nudging them in directions that will make their lives better.
"Most people know they should save money, but many don’t save enough and may not even be sure what amount is enough. Most savings advice goes against human nature and asks people to make complex calculations. To help people save, nudge them. When it is time for employees to enroll in your firm’s retirement plan, make signing up the default. People can choose not to sign up or can quit any time, but inertia and the status quo conspire to keep them from doing what’s good for them. Try a “Save More Tomorrow” program that “invites participants to commit themselves in advance to a series of [savings account] contribution increases” as their wages rise. This approach recognizes that people fear loss, and may perceive savings as a loss of disposable income, so it links increases in their savings rate to parallel increases in their salaries. When people earn more, the company automatically deducts more in savings. They don’t have to decide to save."
Set up choices in a way that takes advantage of how humans make decisions. You can nudge people in beneficial directions. To facilitate better decisions, design a default option that benefits people unless they explicitly choose otherwise.
[1] http://www.amazon.com/Nudge-Improving-Decisions-Health-Happi...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nudge_(book)
quick summary - http://www.slideshare.net/sgmitch/nudge09
The other post currently at the top of HN is about the poster's fear that by pursuing entrepreneurial ambitions now they are setting themselves up for economic irrelevancy in a few years' time. The top comment in that thread is currently from an experienced programmer saying that he has almost never had the optimal skillset for any job market of the last three decades, yet never been unemployed. That's the kind of fear which turns someone into a cog, and the kind of thing you have to undo to live out pg's desiderata.
In sheer numbers, the largest path out of poverty is a pretty mundane one: find a stable middle-class job in a large company. There are more exciting rags-to-riches stories, but rags-to-decent-paycheck stories are a lot more numerous and high-probability. So, maximizing attractiveness to large companies is probably the highest-probability way out of poverty. And, large companies are large machines whose hiring processes usually aim to acquire new cogs that can be inserted into the machine as smoothly and efficiently as possible.
When I hear somebody say "I wish I would have spent more time with my family" I wonder whether they really wish they had spent more time with their family or if they just miss their old family and wish they could have them back. That is to say I wonder whether people confuse nostalgia with regret. As you get older you regret not taking advantage of some things in the past, but I tend to think that what you feel as regret is actually just longing for being young again.
I think the whole "be an underachiever, there's happiness in it you stupid capitalist" is something of a myth. Truth is, life is little more than trade-offs and opportunity costs. Truth is that if you want something of a comfortable life, want to not live in the ghetto, and do things like have expendable income, take foreign vacations, etc you need to give a good chuck of your life to work.
If you don't ask the first girl to the dance you might not be brave enough to ask the second girl to the dance and before you know it you're in a self-reinforcing loop of not asking anyone to any dances until you're old enough to realise and break out of that loop.
> Why worry about what our future selves will regret while forgoing present happiness?
I'm not sure how to grok that sentence. Here's two responses.
i) Exactly. Don't miss out on current happiness just to keep the future you happy. That's the point - future you does not want to look back on a life of hard grind and no fun just so you can do the looking back from a gold bed on your huge yacht.
ii) Because seeking contentment now is a way to ensure that you'll be contented in future and the future you won't look back on a life of missed opportunities. Missing out on happiness now is sometimes important in the short term, but it's not a great way to live a life. Perhaps a lot of grind now means you can retire early and relax and enjoy stuff. But you have to live long enough to retire, and by that time you may have missed some really fun things like babies growing.
> the reality is that life is no more valuable at the end than at the beginning or the middle
Yes. That is the point. Don't grind today to provide future you with excessive luxury. A bit of grinding might be needed to avoid future financial hardship, but other than that you should seek things that fulfil you today. Happiness today will make future you happy.
Future you is not more valuable, but s/he will have the benefit of hindsight.
My point is that those who tell themselves "I'm not going to let outside pressures influence me and I'm going to do what makes me happy" very well may end up miserable in the short term while they are working to achieve their dreams. In the end, if they do not achieve their dreams (or even if they do) they have traded time that they could have succumbed to those pressures and been more comfortable with the end result of regretting not having had the guts to go after what they really wanted to go after. Then again, if you succumb and work forever in a job you hate and are miserable anyway then you haven't really succeeded in satisfying yourself now either. That's really a bad position to be in.
I think Jim Coudal put it best in a talk he gave (actually he was quoting somebody else whose name I can't remember) where he said "The reason most of us are unhappy most of the time is that we set our goals not for the person we will be when we achieve them, but the person we are today." I have found that that is really true. For example, people often go to law school thinking that they will end up happy if they get a job that pays a certain amount and it will look good to their current friends so they spend a bunch of money and work their asses off to get through law school. Then they graduate and feel compelled to take a job as an attorney and they absolutely hate it. I know this because I have many many friends who are attorneys and they all are trying to find a way out. I think the mistake people make in those cases is not cutting their losses and being truly honest about what kind of life they want. There is so much pressure to maintain the status quo that they feel trapped.
This is very US (and now occidental) thinking. Many cultures in the world don't have people thinking like that. You've got to have a family and integrate well and support the community. The rest is not as important as our current society wants us to think.
This is such an excellent point. This "dying patients" list greatly ignores the opportunity cost of getting to where you managed to get to in life.
Lets say I grant these wishes. I wave my magic wand and you work less. Now your memories are full of being poor, sending your kids to some shitty school, getting robbed in a poor neighborhood as opposed to working more but being able to live in a better neighborhood, going on more vacations, having extra money.
So its like saying, "I want my cake to eat it too." Well, that wasn't possible when you were younger and its certainly not possible on your deathbed.
1) Money doesn't equate to happiness - economists have shown this. It increases up to an annual income of about $60,000 then flat lines completely. So yes you need to have a solid income, but the point extra stops making a difference comes surprisingly early.
2) Even if that weren't true you've turned in into something of an all or nothing situation (I may have misunderstood here in which case forgive me). There are obviously levels within everything - yes you could work the least you can get away with or work 100 hours a week and always be on call, but you could also work 40 hours a week and take regular holidays, or work flat our for a couple of months then take a month off.
Maybe some of us are spending too much time on cake acquisition. If we spent less time doing that we may not have such a large cake but we would at least be able to eat the smaller cake that we had.
Inserted as the subtitle at the top of my TiddlyWiki organizer (my rolling ToDo list), and linked to pg's essay.
To my surprise and delight, my productivity and overall work completion has actually gone up. By being time bound (I am leaving at 5 no matter what) I often have to work like mad to get my work done. I have to make decisions quickly and implement.
The results are more projects done, sooner. If a mistake is made, or a more complete solution is needed you iterate and do it tomorrow. Already you are two iterations in where 2 years ago I would have been stalled still trying to work up a good starting point.
Try it.
At the top of my to do list is:
Honour dreams. Work less. Speak honestly. Have friends. Be happy.
Live happy, make friends, enjoy. Make those dreams happy
It was for much the same reason - to inspire me. However, about 6 months later I thought those idea through and realised that, actually, it was an example of "making me feel better". I could sit and look at this poster and think; "yeh, I'm following my dream, I'm going to be happy". I even had a list of goals to meet.
But really you're not; you're following an arbitrary list, and all that is is con-straining.
Here's my thought process; trying hard to be happy isn't being happy... That thought mulled for a long while; I was doing cool stuff, with people I liked, and having plenty of down time. But I still felt like it was an effort to pursue.
This year has been a revelation. I did something "stupid" and spent a lot of my savings on two big holidays (many years ago I discovered my truest love is travel). Yesterday I spent a big portion of what is left on my third holiday of the year. I've barely done any work since January - one product release and some bugfixes. I started writing, then stopped, wrote a little program for myself, tried some carpentry, almost trashed my car trying to fix it, stood for at least three elections (politics and social communities) on a whim, dated two girls at once. And this is the tip of the iceberg.
All of this wouldn't sync with the person who wrote that maxim 2 years before; it would seem reckless and silly. As if I was throwing away what I had worked for years to build. A load of fucking rubbish.
Right now I'm free.
And I smile more than I ever have in my life. I have more friends. My life is barrelling along where, 6 months ago, it was stagnant.
So I wrote a new canvas (about 2 weeks ago, actually) which now says:
Let rip
My point is this; take care, with some of these ideas, that you don't get too focused on the means to the end. Just relax, close your eyes, do what you feel like. In the end it will work out. One day we will all be dead - till then I am going to enjoy myself. :)
There is nothing wrong with a todo list topped by the words "don't ignore your dreams". But only if it makes you happy.
I'm building a business that I plan/hope will allow me to have the freedom to do whatever I want with my time at some point in the future.
Today, however, I work. I work a lot. 12 hours is the low end for a day. I've put work ahead of lot of things.
If I were to truly close my eyes and do what I feel like, I'd be headed to a river/lake or getting on a plane. But I have clients, whom I've promised deliverables on Monday & Tuesday. So I'm going to work today.
In addition, we're generating a lot of sales leads from our website but our sales process isn't as effective as it needs to be to justify hiring a dedicated sales person to handle that task. Once I can improve the sales process, put in place the tools necessary for a higher closing rate, revenues will increase and I'll hire someone to manage that aspect of the business and move on to a different/higher quality problem. So this weekend, I'm going to be working on the sales process (emails/pdf brochures/demo video/etc) as well.
Yes, I could just go have fun and maybe I get to the same goal, just in a slightly longer time... but at least I enjoyed the journey more. Right? Maybe, but I don't see it that way.
If I don't work my ass off today, I perceive that my chances of "making it" are going to be much lower. I'm not sure if that perception is true or not, but can I really afford to take a chance? So this weekend, I'll work. I'll put in the time and hope that the small successes will build up to a mega success and make all the sacrifies (like leaving cousins birthday party after a quick drop-in or skipping out on a date) are justified at the results (money and freedom to do spend a lot of time with people.)
I don't know if that's the right call or not. I struggle with it all the time, particularly when friends are taking vacations 2-3 times a year.
For now, I'm placing my bets on "work now. enjoy later."
PS: I do make time for the absolutely critical things in my life like talking with my sister every other day, talking with my parents, keeping in touch with friends and more recently, taking my health a bit more seriously.
PS2: Two of my deepest fears: 1) not trying hard enough, 2) succeeding and realizing it wasn't worth the sacrifice. I don't think they are likely to happen.
I think the takeaway is that different things work for different people. It could be that you would spend your life intensely happier if you just let go right now. And equally I could spend my life much happier if I took a grip.
If anything I'd say let go of the regret - you've picked this path so live it and love it :) And if you can't, maybe my way might be worth thinking about.
I guess the only way to find out is in 10 years time.
> but can I really afford to take a chance
You can always take a chance. always. Don't let anyone (including yourself) tell you different.
You're taking a chance on yourself right now by pushing hard at your goals.
Most of all; good luck!
So if you want to excel, work hard and make enough breaks.
1) It forms habits. I think there are a lot of people who work now and just keep working because they never work out how to stop.
2) Later isn't always what you think it might be. A cautionary tale:
My parents worked (very) hard their whole lives, both became company directors, had a small shareholding in the company one of them worked for and did well out of it. They wanted to get themselves (and me) set up and get to the point they could enjoy retirement.
When they did retire (a bit after 60) within a year or so my mother had to have her hip replaced which laid her up for some time and rather scuppered many of their plans. Things got worse on that front and she ended up having both hips replaced twice. She was then diagnosed with cancer and died 18 months later (much of the enjoyment during that period limited by her treatment).
My dad is now way more than comfortable but his plans are in tatters.
In short: later is always a risk. Later may not be what you think it will. Perhaps it's best not to bet it all on later.
I'm 28 today so for me, later = 35 onwards.
When the party is over, all your money is gone, your travels are done, your girls disappointed and you have to go back to more work while not being as successful as you used to be, it can be quite a hangover.
49 - 27 = 22;
Keeping that in mind gets me moving every day. Enjoy the time that you have, build great things and do great stuff.
Aren't these two mutually exclusive?
My feeling (caveat: I'm only in my late 20's) is that it's impossible to simultaneously eliminate all the regrets on Ms. Ware's list. If you work really hard in order to chase your dreams, you end up neglecting friends and family for a bit. Stick around among your family and friends, and you don't get to chase your dreams as much.
It's hard to know where the exact boundaries lie such that a satisfying equilibrium is achieved. Makes me wonder if some regret is always inevitable.
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