Ask HN: Why did this post cost me 10% of subscribers?
A few days ago I published a post with the title: In 2014, if you want happiness, choose work
After this post my number of subscribers decreased almost 10%. This made me curious: why did this happen?
Was it because of my tone? Was because of some bad english? Or was because people don't agree with my point? And if it is because of this last one, why not?
I'm interested in knowing the point of view from the people of HN.
EDIT: I forgot the url for the blog post - http://danielflopes.com/choosework/
70 comments
[ 4.3 ms ] story [ 66.9 ms ] threadStop for a moment and think about what you're promoting: exactly the opposite of most HN readers's want: a work-centric life and an existence that's obsessed with more money, more knowledge, more power.
I think you just need a slightly different angle: many happy people have a driving project or belief that inspires them. I think that's what you meant to say. And it's different from "work", which is a four letter synonym for drudgery.
The present hacker zeitgeist disagrees with your viewpoint. Your post came at a particularly bad time, as this post is fresh on the collective's mind:
http://sethbannon.com/vacations-are-for-the-weak
And, well, I don't disagree with that! Neither do I disagree in taking off some vacations, if that makes you feel better (and/or more productive).
But my point here is that we should strive to try to work on something that's aligned with our life goals - and those may include spending time with your family, traveling or building a charity. This way, work would have other meaning to us.
It isn't much, I know... but it still is 10%
Thanks for your examples.
Picking Sam Walton as a role-model of happiness is unsubstantiated -- he was definitely rich, so a better title might be: "If you want money, work more" -- which is essentially what you wrote.
Is 10% of around 100. Tt's a small number, I know... but it still is 10% ... =/
Walton, like so many other people who are incredibly successful, started out of the gate far ahead of most of his peers. As a result, he isn't what I'd consider a good example to use for the average person when it comes to work and balancing career with family.
However, if you have subscribers who have a life at home, with family, that they enjoy, or just enjoy hobbies that are not congruent with making a living, I can see why they felt alienated by this post.
I only try to minimize doing what in nothing contributes to my life or the others around me. That's why, for example, I like to read books that in someway intersect what I do in my job. But that doesn't mean that I never try new stuff and read a good one like "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance".
And for me, the best way to not "waste time" is by trying to merge your job with what you want with your life, since we already spend so much time on it.
I do not have kids. I've recently started a relationship, and I admit that I've been asking myself what's the best way to balance these. I get your point.
Imagine a monk giving sex advice ;-P
You say you just got in a relationship. If you want it to work - choose the relationship more than you choose work. I know from experience, because I used to have a similar mentality. It goes something like this:
If I want to have the most fulfilling life possible, I should make "progress" every day. I feel as though I have the capability and drive to be the best, so I have the responsibility to be the best. If I'm not working, there is someone else out there who is working, and that means I'm "wasting time". Relaxing = being lazy.
Those people who just socialize and play video games? How can they not see how much time they are wasting on a meaningless life! Everyone should spend their time doing things that are "productive" to better their skillset. Otherwise, they are lazy and unmotivated.
Simply put- this is being a workaholic. Through college, I was the same way, and it cost me a lot of missed opportunities. The most dangerous workaholic is one who thinks that it's healthy and good for them.
Don't get me wrong - be motivated, enjoy what you do, etc. But have balance. I was fortunate enough to meet my (now wife) who showed me that it's ok to take a break. It's not "being unproductive" or "wasting time" - it's building a relationship. It's ok (and often necessary) to drop everything and spend time focused on making the relationship better.
In your post, you mentioned Mr. Walton. Let's briefly talk about him. While I don't know if the source is true (ref. needed), Consider this post [1] that talks about his last words: "I blew it". While it's my opinion, I strongly believe you can make a bigger impact in this world through the relationships you build as opposed to the work you do.
So, it's great that you're motivated and driven - it means you'll be good at whatever you do. But don't think poorly of those who do things differently, and put their efforts into different outlets. It doesn't mean they're somehow less productive of a person than you. In fact, I would recommend working to break away from the workaholic mentality. Just like forcing yourself to get a good night's sleep, it will be tough at first, and you will feel like your "being unproductive", but it will make your relationship - and your life - much better.
[1] http://upstart.bizjournals.com/resources/executive-forum/201...
I try to always be aware when I'm not giving enough time to my family and friends (building relationships). Some times I do stuff like, taking a random trip to somewhere in the woods just to see what happens or what nature has to show me, without any goal in mind.
BUT, I do understand that you think that I don't do this. I understand why with this post I seem such a workaholic. (Maybe I am, but not as much I seem to look in this post.)
AND, even though I spend a good time with my family and friends, I'm not saying that I shouldn't spend more. Maybe I should. (I'm just thinking out loud.)
My point here is that we should strive to try to work on something that's aligned with our life goals - and those may include spending time with your family, traveling or building a charity institution. This way, work would have other meaning to us.
Thank you very much for the article and your thoughtful response.
But I don't agree that your achievements aren't also one of the biggest sources of happiness. If that weren't true, why did so much people obsessed with goals like climbing the mount Everest and winning the super bowl, or having rich people continuously building new companies?
I agree with the basic idea that humans need to do stuff to be happy - but not work necessarily. Taking care of kids is also doing something. Making a nice meal instead of microwaving, is also doing something. Those things bring satisfaction as well.
But using our job to achieve our life goals is one of the best ways to achieve happiness, in my opinion.
Thank you
Accomplishment can be achieved in so many ways. A life spent only working seems like such a waste. Dying people generally don't regret the things they did do but instead the things they didn't do.
Go live. Life is such an amazing thing to experience. There are so many sights, sounds, smells, and experiences to be had. I can't justify not attempting to discover as many as I possibly can in the short, insignificant span of time that I will be here. Putting yourself in new, uncomfortable situations will increase your creativity way beyond what working and reading technical books could even come close to.
I often encounter the same issue.
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Typical Example: Friends ask me what I am doing over the weekend? I said I got some work to do. I have to learn NodeJs, figure out how to parse BCC address off an email, focus on my UI and UX design for my email app, go do more research on hashtags for emails, etc...
What I cited there are not "work" per say as coined in most people's mind as the dreary 8 hour work life.
What I am actually saying is "I GOT A PROBLEM I AM PASSIONATED IN SOLVING. I AM GOING TO SPEND MY WEEKEND AND NIGHTS RESEARCHING TO SOLVE IT BECAUSE ITS FUN. IT IS MY VIDEOGAME, AND MY WAY OF GAINING SATISFACTION TO IMPROVE MYSELF."
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So basically if you replaced "In 2014, if you want happiness, choose work" with "In 2014, if you want happiness, choose PASSION". No one would unsubscribe.
"What I cited there are not "work" per say as coined in most people's mind as the dreary 8 hour work life."
And yes, I understand your point: work can be enjoyed to the point it feels like a videogame!
Anyhow, the words and the tone I choose maybe weren't the best to communicate what I mean.
Thanks for the feedback (and thanks for subscribing!).
I enjoy programming and reading about programming. And I do it. And I know the same reactions like "You're programming outside your job??". Now the main difference between you and me is that I do these things because I enjoy them, while you do them for the benefits they bring (knowledge, portfolio, etc).
I am a bit of an hedonist, and try to do stuff I ENJOY, regardless of the benefits they bring. Example: I like good food. And I like experimenting new kinds of dishes. But I don't like cooking. SO I rarely make elaborate dishes (I usually eat something quickly made). I don't go for the good dishes because I don't enjoy to process to get there! (In university it was common for me to lose way too much time in a project or subject that I enjoyed, and then having to pull one nighters to study for another)
Now regarding job work. I am Portuguese, and I believe we have a cultural bias that "job work" is not enjoyable. I share that opinion, in a weird way. To me, I shouldn't love my job. I'm not saying I hate my job, in fact, it has it's fun moments. But it's not my ideal way to spend a day. The momentss where you don't want to get off your bed to go to work, our your, once again, implementing something tedious, that's when I realised what having a job is like.
But not loving your job, to me, IS A GOOD THING! It keeps me focused on my objectives. I have hobbies and a girlfriend. My jobs gives me money to travel, buy stuff, and pamper myself and the gf. And eat tasty and expensive food :)
Yes, my tone may look like i'm doing some propaganda. I hesitated writting with this way, but I hit publish anyway to see what happened. But it's true, it doesn't feel natural.
Thank you very much for all the other constructive feedback!
You have much to learn yet, we all do :)
"Work from the moment you wake up until you go to sleep. Take your breakfast while reviewing your to-do list for the day. Work a few hours. At lunch, discuss with your team what’s the best solution for that problem. Work some more. At dinner, have a great meal with your loving ones and tell them what’s going on with work. Feel free to ask them for their opinion. After that, go back to work, of course – it’s time to answer to those emails, and read a decent book about a topic of your industry. Have a good night’s sleep."
This is incredibly self-centered. What about what your loved ones have been up to (as one tiny example?). And god-forbid you have any children. You need to get THEM breakfast on a morning. Perhaps, maybe, you should spend some time with your "loved ones" on an evening, other than just telling them about your work over dinner then disappearing off to work?
I would hate to be your "loved one".
CLARIFYING EDIT: This isn't intended to be a personal attack on Daniel's life (which I don't know anything about), just my raw opinions as I read the first two paragraphs of his blog article, hopefully to help him understand why some people took harshly against it.
Is there any need to be that mean spirited about it?
I think a sizeable quiet minority is underwhelmed by the work ethic philosophies discussions on HN. I don't think I'd go as far as the submitter, but I don't think I'd categorize it as "incredibly self-centered".
edit: to the submitter, I don't think it was bad english or your tone. Some people are unable to consume opinions they disagree with. My unsolicited advice: just continue to be true to yourself and write what you think, you can never keep certain people happy.
And I don't entirely disagree with you either... my read of the post was it was an exhortation to be passionate about purposeful about work, not really an itinerary planner around one's day. But if I interpreted it differently, I would have a different opinion. I also think the work/dinner discussion suggestion was something I'd try very hard to avoid in my own life :)
Thanks CJefferson for clarifying your response. Thanks 3am for the giving the heads up. Sincerely.
By the way, the 10% who abandoned their subscriptions probably did so silently out of politeness.
I urge you to go back and read the full article as well as the author's comments here before passing judgment. I think everyone deserves at least to be heard out.
I'm sure that Daniel Flopes (who I don't know) is a nice guy, and my quick reading of one blog post do not do him justice. However, the beginning of this article really does (to me) almost read like a parody.
Looking back at the original article, we do (eventually) get to the point where we get to "take a break" and have hobbies and holidays, but the start doesn't say that, and I would have stopped before I got to that point. We then however get into an article about how one person (Sam Walton) we are told (with no reference) worked every day, and became very successful. There are (of course) plenty of people who became successful without never talking to their families, and plenty of people who worked themselves into an early grave.
The other problem with this blog post is that it is written in a strange style, saying (for example) "Forget the idea about how much fun others are getting in the Caribbean Islands. You choosed work. Your life is work.". I'm not clear why the author of this blog thinks I chose work, why my life is work? I think this is an issue of the wrong tense being used, or an unusual writing style, but I get unhappy when I am being told false statements about my life.
The title is the least issues with the post. The post is content free, pushing anecdotal evidence (the Sam Walton thing) as data, and stating some pretty important things like "Humans are wired to growth. Long lasting happiness comes from setting big goals and meeting them. It comes from the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort." without any supporting evidence.
I would guess the people who unsubscribed followed the spirit of your article, and unsubscribed because their time is too precious to read drivel from a random nobody with no discernible achievement... The right to tell people how to run their live is pretty hard to gain.
People today are incapable of tolerance, despite demanding the same from others.
Look at race and gender equality arguments. If you make any statement contrary to either, despite having the Constitutional right to do so, you are instantly attacked and called a racist or a bigot for having a non-conformist view, and all semblance of tolerance goes out the window.
The magic you need comes in the form of "non-judgmental observational atonement". People want your observations, as long as you don't criticize those you are observing AND you come clean and atone for any past, present or future infractions thereof. They want to know you can "understand" their plight, but that you also agree that you can't truly understand how it affects them due to the richness of their individuality.
OR, you could write what you want and let all those pasty-faced, milquetoast, spineless sons of bitches die in a volcano.
I vote for the latter.
The immediate response for me is 'some other fucker is telling me I have to work now?'
Work means different things for different people.
Also, I guess your opinion is actually more nuanced than the article implies, and though I still might not appreciate it, I wouldn't be as annoyed if the article was an honest exploration instead of a rushed polemic.
Dude. Chill. Where is your time for discovery? You say "travel, sure", but then you say "Forget the idea about how much fun others are getting in the Caribbean Islands."
WTF? How will ever know if you like snorkeling or scuba diving or trapeze or archery, or various other idle pursuits that one discovers when one unplugs?
It is possible to have multiple passions. The one you have now is just that: One. Allow yourself time and space to find others.
"Humans are wired for growth." I don't even know what that means. Humans aren't wired for much other than eating, defecating, and breathing. Everything else is a choice, an itch. Don't over-glorify yours. Don't over-glorify what works right now. Because things change.
If you are lucky, you'll discover the changes while you are still young and fit enough to enjoy them.
Chain yourself to your current passion, for the rest of your life, and somewhere along the line you will wonder when you traded your monastic cell of devotion for solitary confinement.
Link: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7007119
Depressing as fuck.
That said...
A quick reading suggests that your message is "choose work, because that means you are doing what you care about (work)". Even if that isn't capturing the subtlety of your message, that's probably what most took away from it.
The "work work work" message doesn't go down well these days, especially because the zeitgeist is that companies are squeezing us folks dry. Asking people to bring their work into every facet of their lives is a bit much, to be honest--and I'm saying this as someone who does just that.
A message of "do what you are passionate about", or "take pride in your work", or pretty much anything else would have gone better; otherwise, you come across as "become worker drone beep boop".
Read The Jungle for a good perspective on how focusing on your work screws you.
~
Some miscellaneous gripes:
Use an Oxford comma (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_comma) in your sidebar about snippet:
"...for happiness, integrity and success." => "...for happiness, integrity, and success."
The choice of light-grey-white in the bottom of your about page is brutal--especially the "Me around the web". Why not use the little badges everyone is used to there, anyways, or in your sidebar?
Your about page also has the worst-formatted quote (from Chuck Palahniuk, no less, who would laugh at your article I think) block I've seen in a while. You need to set the author's name off from the text, and fix the top padding. Fixing the colors wouldn't hurt either.
Also, the picture in your sidebar can best be described as 'slackjawed', the hover version 'imbecillic'. If you're trying to write about how to become rich, famous, and fulfilled, I'd suggest not looking like a stereotypical college kid/PFY.
"At dinner, have a great meal with your loving ones and tell them what’s going on with work."
I can only think what Freud might. They might be loving but they're not loved and they won't be loving for long.
It is the content that might disturb folks, not your English. That you don't perceive this might be part of the problem.
If people enjoyed their work that much, they wouldn't probably need you to advise them to do it. For someone who's struggling with their work life balance, it's far from clear that 'Work more!' is the answer to their happiness.
I know that, before I started only seriously coding a few hours a day and taking three day weekends, and spending the rest of the time on less focused stuff like meetings and planning and mentoring our newbies (favourite work-related activity), I basically had to take a long break from working every couple of years just to recuperate; get my mental ducks in a line, do some stuff that has nothing to do with work. Something I worry that you may not realise is that, for some people, focus and creativity are finite resources.
What fuels those resources? Well, it seems to vary. Among other things, I enjoy swimming, reading fan-fiction of varying quality, and martial arts. I don't think I could function as a programmer if I didn't do those things.
There was a time - back with the open-plan office coincidentally - when I didn't. When I was just getting into programming and it was all work work work. Sure, I'll pull the weekend, sure I'll help with this. I just wanted to make people happy.
Eventually I noticed I was tired all the time, and my creativity and all the fun ideas I used to have just weren't there for me any more. I even stopped dreaming, and feeling emotionally connected to people. Not in a metaphorical sense, I was just so mentally knackered that I went to sleep and woke up in the morning with the impression no time had passed and not even a fleeting image of what I'd been dreaming. People would smile at me and it didn't make me feel happy any more.
Would the answer for me really have been to work more?
Your advice may be very good for some people, but in so far as you don't know everyone, it's probably a bit risky in terms of how people are going to respond to tell everyone to do it.
Would I have unsubscribed? No, not if I found what you were saying in other respects worthwhile - I understand that you probably just want to help people and that's a nice thing, so I'd go with the benefit of the doubt rather than the content of the post. (Like when someone wishes me Merry Christmas - so what if I'm not a Christian? They want me to be happy, so Merry Christmas too!) But not everyone's going to see it like that, and writing it as more like, "What I've found make me happy at the moment." Potentially offers less that someone might take offence to if it's harder to read it as a statement about how you think they should live their lives. ^_^