| - not wanting to do something (regardless of the perceived value of that something) is not always bad. Resources like time and energy are finite. Failure is costly and things like accelerated aging and burnout are real. It's a certainly a signal, but it's not end-all be all signal that tells you something accurate all the time. I want to make a case against having a "growth mindset". And against fighting procrastination. And any other self improvement stuff. Because it is self-sabotaging behaviors. So much stuff is built around doing things that you don't want to do but is good for you, or even you feel happy about after you finished. Exercise, for example. I know that I fallen off the wagon. The trick is to get back up again and keep trying different approaches. Even the same approaches. - why would you necessarily do what somebody else says you should? Who benefits? For an HN related thing in particular: who benefits from everybody getting into programming and working after work to learn one more tech tool? Programming is cool. Learning yet another tech tool is pointless without fundamentals. - "self improvement" in general seems to me to be pushed by life coaches and the like with zero evidence that it actually does anything. I perceive it as a snake oil product. People want to self improve. That isn't a bad thing. Of course, we want evidence of what works, but you can't have that without the prerequisite investment in the science, and sometime we have to do things by feel and experience rather than rigorous systematic testing. |