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by wruza 1038 days ago
Speaking for myself, I just didn’t know how minds work. Iow, I didn’t see it and there was no good source suggested by anyone to learn from. Ironically, the solution to job-related anxiety turned out to be somewhat incompatible with “having a job” (in a sense I always had of it, not in general).

You’re right from the general point of view, from overlook. The thing I’d add is that self-development may and often is completely out of your scope, according to my observations at least. It’s akin to a businessman asking poor what the hell they’re struggling with when the world is full of opportunities. Well, they look and can’t see it. They struggle in a wrong direction (added:) and it consumes all their attention.

1 comments

Re: self-development

One of my observations in HN, and in most places I have been to is a strong preference for "comfort-orientation". People simply dislike when I propose that - taking on a challenge, working on a problem in a persistent/consistent way is needed, and that there is a price to pay. I feel the problem is truly at the philosophical level of their minds (not at a practical level). Therefore, instead of "self-development", I'm performing the "assumption-destroying" job here. It is an unpleasant affair overall, but I'm simply interested in the psychology & dynamics of the phenomenon.

The people who get into trouble usually buy the assumption that there is a formulaic solution, where they don't have to pay some serious price to get a real solution. They want something that takes less time, takes very little effort, and still delivers great benefits. I tend to emphasize "challenge-orientation" to counter this inherent bias I've seen in people. Ultimately, I challenge people at this level in the hopes that my strong emphasis on "challenge-orientation" does them some good in the long run :)

PS: You can see my comment history and notice, whenever I bring up the "challenge-orientation" idea, there is, almost without exception, at least one person seriously upset that a significant price may have to be paid to solve significant problems.