[malux85]

Then stop consuming! A champion has discipline. A champion athlete doesnt grow morbidly obese off pizza and then complains it’s the pizzas fault - stop, or drastically reduce, eating.

“It’s not easy”, of course it isn’t, all greatness requires sacrifice, are you going to go to the gym (learn new programming skill) or sit there eating donuts?

[_yb2s]

Often it takes more than willpower and deciding to commit, especially if you have ADHD, depression, etc. You often need a strategy that directly addresses the reason you are having trouble controlling your behavior.

I say this as a person with both ADHD and depression that has a successful career as an academic scientist, and has also won as a competitive strength athlete, and been competitive bodybuilder lean at times.

Discipline and good habits are important, but are often not the full picture, especially for people that are not neurotypical. Executive function isn’t something you can just decide to have if you don’t have it… and being belittled by people that do have it and don’t understand won’t help either.

I spent a lot of my life trying to figure out why what I wanted to do in life still wasn’t happening when I felt fully committed and like I was trying 100%. Eventually I found other people struggling with the same issues and started building a toolbox of little techniques that worked for me.

[ggu7hgfk8j]

To me it seems like you are saying "just stop eating pizza" to someone trying to understand why and how the pizza is unhealthy and what is a better alternative. Clearly we have to eat something, so a bit of understanding is needed.

[Yeul]

Some people would argue to ban pizzerias.

[ggu7hgfk8j]

Okay but can I tempt you with some flatbread?

[siamese_puff]

This comment kind of nails it. I don’t have any social media at all and often my friends tell me I live under a rock for not knowing the latest meme. The decision is trivial, I just don’t have social media (except Hackernews which does waste a disgusting amount of time).

Anyways - people gravitate toward the simple and assume the difficult is impossible. I’m training for a marathon with some friends and some are already making excuses to do as much as possible that _does not_ involve running (weight lifting, biking). I think humans just do the easy thing and complain about their situation because it’s.. well easy.

[corytheboyd]

Very nicely highlighted in the article:

> You find yourself in a quest for productivity, feeling productive because of the quest, but not really doing any productive work.

Been there a million times myself, it’s such an easy trap to fall into.

[drcwpl]

Very well said "people gravitate toward the simple and assume the difficult is impossible." I often get grief for saying people are lazy - I will use your careful tone

[siberpunk]

I think acknowledging the problem is one of the key aspects of focusing on the solution, maybe even the most important one. Writing it down in a concrete way that defines and explains it made me realize the issue. My next plan is to sign up for the gym :)

[svilen_dobrev]

you still do go away/offhook for a while, and (surely will) come back with fresher sight. Towards Different (kind of) gym maybe.

do not chase The Solution or that will become your gym..

[purple-leafy]

Who said anything about being a champion? Why should this be the goal? Other than the media you've consumed has told you that "you must be a cHAmPiOn in LiFe" to be important.

Fuck that, everything in moderation. I love donuts, being fit and shying away from donuts was a miserable experience. So what, I might die earlier having eaten that donut? Worth it.

Everything in moderation. Good and bad.

At the end of the day, none of this matters. Wy put arbitrary constraints on your short life of pleasure.

[karmakaze]

I find that I use LLMs now to probe into areas that I'm curious about or want to find new hints to follow-up on. That's way more instructive and being interactive, more memorable than reading endless shallow blog posts. One thing I do is be critical of post writings or LLM output. Look deeper until you either find weaknesses or internalize its correctness/effectiveness.

I still read HN stories to find those once-in-a-while posts that are both deep and relevant to my interests or work.

[butterlettuce]

this

preach, coach!