[less_penguiny]

My biggest realization about doing hard things is that I needed to let go of my intellectual entitlement. Just because something is (or seems) effortless to others, doesn't mean it will be the same for me.

Part of this entitlement stemmed from a (now eroded by bitter experience) belief that I'm somehow a faster learner than normal, that _I_ don't have to do the work.

For example, about seven years ago I wanted to learn Calc I-III on my own. I went down the usual, lazy, intellectually-entitled route of watching lectures and YouTube videos online without doing a single exercise.

A year later, guess what? I couldn't remember jack-shit. Moreover, I couldn't solve problems, which is basically the reason I was learning math anyway. Any bystander could have predicted this outcome, but I was blinded by my own entitlement.

Now, after being humbled (here and elsewhere, e.g. in learning to play music by ear), I realize that there's honor, even long-term efficiencies in following every step the great teachers of the past have laid out, in moving slowly albeit with rigor and confidence.

I resumed my math study with Geometry 101, the absolute basics, using a book of 5000 (short) exercises. It probably took me three times as long as Calc I-III lectures combined. But I realized something — I found more joy in doing the exercises, in doing things the _right_ way, than I ever had in watching lectures.

[hoorayimhelping]

>Just because something is (or seems) effortless to others

My favorite part of skate videos growing up was at the end when they showed all the wipeouts and crashes. They hurt to watch, so much, but they always drove home the fact that it took a lot of painful and frustrating failures before the guy landed that really smooth 35 stair grind.

The point it, things often seem effortless to others but that's just cause you're not really seeing the effort being put in.

[matwood]

> Just because something is (or seems) effortless to others, doesn't mean it will be the same for me.

I think it's also important to remember it is rarely effortless to others. You just don't see the effort. I was fortunate enough to hang out with some people in college who were valedictorians at their high schools, and would generally be considered smart. They ended up graduating college with 4.0s. Since I hung out with them all the time, I got to see just how much they worked at it. They took amazing notes, and studied all the time. We didn't have a name for it then, but they essentially did the Pomodoro technique to pull all nighters studying for big exams.

Seeing them definitely helped me realize that getting through hard problems is work, and requires time. Thinking time, studying time, and practicing time. Do some things come easier to some people? Sure, but almost everyone has to put in the work at some point.

As an aside, not understanding how much work goes into something is common in sports. People see Michael Jordan hit the final shot or Tiger Woods hit an amazing shot out of a bunker, but do not realize they have probably practiced that shot hundreds if not thousands of times.

[less_penguiny]

As much as it hurts me to believe as much, I'm confident that there really are people for whom at least certain things are "basically effortless". I've seen this occur around my peers, especially with music, where some (who already play piano but only by notes) learn to play by ear in a summer, but others are still struggling after five years of daily practice.

[matwood]

Absolutely. There are definitely people where certain things just come easier. You mentioned music, which I have seen. Same with athletics. But even those people often spend way more time practicing than they are given credit for.

[wastedhours]

> long-term efficiencies in following every step the great teachers of the past have laid out, in moving slowly albeit with rigor and confidence.

I always return to this [0] diagram when thinking about learning. Am I taking shortcuts that'll actually stunt my ability to progress further in my development. The "Expert Beginner" is a dead-end development wise - it might be a perfectly reasonable place to end up, but not the right way to expertise.

[0] https://daedtech.com/pics/ExpertBeginner.jpg

[claudiawerner]

>A year later, guess what? I couldn't remember jack-shit. Moreover, I couldn't solve problems, which is basically the reason I was learning math anyway. Any bystander could have predicted this outcome, but I was blinded by my own entitlement.

I'm a third year university student; I did all the exercises set last year to do well in the exam and over the course of the whole year. And now, only one year later, I can't remember how to do some of the most fundamental problems. I can remember the derivative and integral of trig functions, but the method of doing even moderately challenging exercises with them I don't remember well and I'd need to look it up. I don't know what that signifies, but I have the impression that even just doing the exercises doesn't last long unless you use what you have learned semi-regularly at the least.

[ThirdFoundation]

To add to your point, I think this reinforces the value of spaced repetition learning. It's been show to been one of the best ways to actually retain information. So, as you said, just doing the exercises only gets one so far. You'll need to either use what you learned or at least do refresher exercises to better put what you learned into memory. The benefit is that you may be able to do these refreshers and greater intervals over time, effectively retaining the information longer.

For me personally, there does seem to be a tipping point where what I learned really sticks in my brain and degrades much slower. However, I can't seem to pinpoint where that point happens or if it is even consistent. There are some coding concepts I never forget, and some that seem to leave me within a month.

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

https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED427772

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2016/jan/23/spaced-rep...

[mkl]

What was the book of 5000 geometry exercises? I have students who could benefit from such a thing (and I might too!).

[less_penguiny]

Geometry: Seeing, Doing, Understanding by Harold R. Jacobs

Preview: https://books.google.de/books/about/Geometry.html?id=u5o6DwA...

You can purchase a complete solution manual separately, which is very handy.

[denzil_correa]

> My biggest realization about doing hard things is that I needed to let go of my intellectual entitlement. Just because something is (or seems) effortless to others, doesn't mean it will be the same for me.

The movie Goodwill Hunting has a scene that describes this [0].

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKu_QQVHJLA