[Jun8]

You may want to not waste time reading this but instead use that time to read pg's essay on similar ideas, "How to Do What You Love" (http://paulgraham.com/love.html), which, if I had the power, I would have millions of copies printed and have every kid in the world read it. It explains (at least) two simple ideas very effectively:

1. The work versus fun dichotomy is taught very early:

"The very idea is foreign to what most of us learn as kids. When I was a kid, it seemed as if work and fun were opposites by definition. Life had two states: some of the time adults were making you do things, and that was called work; the rest of the time you could do what you wanted, and that was called playing. Occasionally the things adults made you do were fun, just as, occasionally, playing wasn't—for example, if you fell and hurt yourself. But except for these few anomalous cases, work was pretty much defined as not-fun."

2. To compare two activities, you have to compare the area under their utility/fun vs. time curves.

"But the fact is, almost anyone would rather, at any given moment, float about in the Carribbean, or have sex, or eat some delicious food, than work on hard problems. The rule about doing what you love assumes a certain length of time. It doesn't mean, do what will make you happiest this second, but what will make you happiest over some longer period, like a week or a month.

Unproductive pleasures pall eventually. After a while you get tired of lying on the beach. If you want to stay happy, you have to do something."

[vidarh]

> Unproductive pleasures pall eventually. After a while you get tired of lying on the beach. If you want to stay happy, you have to do something."

Nonsense. This in itself is a result of falling prey to what Leo Baubata (the author of the linked article) writes about: Inability to "let go".

There may certainly be things you'd find more fulfilling. But if you need to do stuff to be happy, you are letting yourself suffer from attachments to things that more the most part are relatively inconsequential.

PG's essay suffers from this assumption that happiness is tied to achievements.

I used to think that too. The problem with that line of thinking is that it often leads to putting the shutters on and focusing on getting stuff done to get your happiness from it eventually, while ignoring all the sources of happiness around you. Further, that makes procrastination worse, in my experience: It creates guilt that you're picking the short term pleasures instead of doing the stuff you're sure will make you fabulously happy later, once you've just achieved something.

These days, I still get stuff done - more than ever, in fact -, but I might suddenly stop during my commute and look up at the clouds and enjoy the sight, or just close my eyes for 10 seconds and enjoy the calm, and I'm happy whether or not I'm doing anything. The two are not related. If you can't be happy even while doing the dishes, or fighting your way onto a commuter train, or carrying out some mind-numbingly boring menial work, you're missing out.

[randallsquared]

Happiness is a natural measurement of how well you (believe you) are achieving your goals. If you are unhappy, it's a signal that you should change something about your life, not a signal that you should short-circuit the measurement system.

[jmilloy]

Changing something about your life is a valid response. So is short-circuiting the measurement system. Keep in mind that the measurement system includes external cultural/societal pressures, out-of-date instinctual responses, and your emotions as interpreted through the lens of your own emotions. A disadvantage of changing what you do, instead of how to feel about what you do, is that you will probably arrive at a place of dissatisfaction over and over again.

[scotch_drinker]

This. I have a friend who changes jobs about every 6-12 months chasing happiness. And every 6-12 months, I can count on him starting to bitch and moan about everything at the job. He refuses to listen to the idea that maybe happiness should be externally obtained and instead should start from within somehow. In a lot of ways, this seems to be an Eastern-Western dichotomy.

We can decide to wake up and be happy or we can decide to wake up and let something dictate our happiness. Whether we do it consciously or not, it's still a choice.

[TheSOB888]

That is nothing at all like happiness. Are you one of those people without emotions? It's OK, I was too for a long time. It happens a lot to people in tech, or people who end up in tech.

Anyways, happiness is an innate emotion. It's much more central than anything about "achieving" your goals. If you don't feel stressed about the future, don't wish you were somewhere else/someone else/doing something else constantly, if you are having your psychological needs met, you are happy. Goal-based happiness is almost as bad as money-based happiness. You have to be more well-rounded than just focusing on your goals.

[randallsquared]

"Are you one of those people without emotions? It's OK, I was too for a long time."

Haha. Healthy people have emotions for reasons. If you don't introspect about why you are happy, sad, content, enraged, or depressed, you will have less information about how well you are living your life according to your own standards.

"It's much more central than anything about "achieving" your goals."

It's not clear to me how something could be more central than goals, so I don't think we're using the term "goal" in the same way.

"You have to be more well-rounded than just focusing on your goals."

Why would you want to be well-rounded?

That answer you just thought of? It's a goal.

[asdasf]

You are confusing a sense of accomplishment for happiness. That suggests that you may not have felt happiness enough (or recently enough) to recognize it.

[resu_nimda]

Not really. He's just using a more broad (scientific?) definition of the word "goal".

Eating food every day is a goal. Getting enough sleep is a goal. Peter Gibbons in The Office has a goal to do absolutely nothing.

[dbingham]

Actually, no. That is not what happiness is. We don't know exactly what happiness is. But ironically, those who are happiest are often those who we would say are least productive and haven't achieved anything.

Case in point, one of the happiest families measured is an old family that lives in the Louisiana bayou. They're poor. They don't work much. They hunt and fish for a lot of their food and they all still live pretty close. They spend their days wandering the bayou and hanging out.

And they're happy.

[6d0debc071]

> Happiness is a natural measurement of how well you (believe you) are achieving your goals.

And what are your goals? If they're just things you set out to achieve, then that's false. We set out to achieve things that bring us no real pleasure in the achievement of - qualifications, promotions etc.

[bcbrown]

My experiences don't bear that out. A few years ago I quit my job and spent six months traveling across the USA, camping at national parks. It was a dream I'd had for a while, and I loved it. At the same time, I was very glad when my trip had finished, and I could get back to working.

What I noticed was that my subconscious had a need to make plans, to have a goal to work towards. I was living my dream; there was nothing I wanted to achieve, because I had achieved it. As a result, I started daydreaming, with my daydreams steadily becoming more fantastical and involved. By the end, I was ready to find a new goal to work towards; that ended up being professional/career development and continuing education.

I agree absolutely that it's important to be able to be happy while doing the dishes, but that's a different sensation. There's the pleasure of being in the moment, of acknowledging the sensations that surround you, of being alive. Then there's the satisfaction of achievement. Both are important, but they are distinct.

[Nilzor]

"Unproductive pleasures pall eventually". Would you be happy staring at the clouds consistently for two months?

[Illotus]

There are lots of unproductive pleasures to explore, when one is no longer interesting you can move to another.

Incidentally, one of the unproductive pleasure is starting side projects. The pleasure is immense when you spend few hours setting up yet another Clojure/Haskell/whatever project. This time it definitely is the one you are going to see through to finish!

[honestanon]

My wife tells me this all the time - because I am on the spectrum I see things in black or white; work vs fun, productive vs unproductive. Only black or white. I think I'm starting to understand...

The key is moderation. Don't dedicate 100% to productive-only tasks or you'll burn out. Don't dedicate 100% to veging on the couch watching TV or you'll bore out.

Can't everyone just stop analyzing every minute detail of life and just chill by living in the moment?

[e12e]

You'd also have to define unproductive.

Spending a few decades thinking about the meaning of life might be considered unproductive - or it could be considered "being a philosopher". (Most) art is arguably fundamentally "unproductive". I suppose one might say that if you, over time, don't impart some impact on the people around you (share a work of art, pass on wisdom, [ed:raise] (and/or) feed a child...) then you've been "unproductive".

But are you a philosopher by virtue of achieving enlightenment or by virtue of helping others achieve enlightenment? If you died before you came to a crucial insight -- was your time spent thinking up to that point "unproductive"?

[erikb]

In my eyes there are two problems at work:

1. The people who become teachers really think this is how life is. How can they teach someone something about life that doesn't exist? It's like giving a painting class to a blind person.

2. Part of this misunderstanding between work and fun is really inherently in the children. I have a little half brother, about 5 years old. He always complains about cleaning up the Legos after we are finished building something as if it would be my way of doing something bad to him, not the normal end result of throwing Legos through the whole room. Children can not think logically to a certain degree. They can only follow the feeling of "exciting, happy, new" as good and "boring, repepetive" as bad. And bad, even between grown ups, is understood as something that comes from outside, not from ones self, at least in the first moment of experiencing bad feelings.

[crististm]

Actually, reading any article about conquering procrastination is better than doing actual work :)

(but this article is good and short and it reminded me that your focus should be not on the immediate but on the long term)

[jeremyjh]

I've already read all of Paul's essays, most of them more than once. I come to HN to read new things. I liked this article, I think it was worth it just to be reminded of this:

>I could be in discomfort and nothing bad would happen.

[d23]

I don't know why people feel like it needs to be an all or nothing proposition.

I realized this applies to me on day to day things that cause me to procrastinate a lot. For instance, today I had a doctor's appointment that I wanted to reschedule because it was snowing and I got in late last night. I realized that I just needed to push through it and get it done, because it would cause me more pain in the long term if I didn't. Plus, it honestly wasn't that big of a deal -- I woke up a bit earlier and took a cab. Now I don't have to think about it anymore.

It'd be nice if I could do this on a regular basis. I chatted up a good looking girl while I was waiting on the appointment too, rather than sitting there uncomfortable and wishing I had the courage to say something. I just pushed through it, and it was fine.

Just casual every-day things, that's all. That's what I'm going to aim for.

[smprk]

I find there is a common theme in the ZenHabit's post we are all commenting on, PG's post that you have shared, and many other things I have read about procrastination. All these readings take me back to the fun and simplified explanation of procrastination posted here on quora - http://qr.ae/h6VWJ

[dgreensp]

PG's essay and this one are complementary. PG adds a valuable piece which is to question the idea that work is generally or largely unpleasant by nature. Both authors agree we must get over our momentary discomforts and press ahead to lead a fulfilling life. PG doesn't really say how, only how to recognize intellectually that it's necessary. Extrapolating what he says into procrastination advice, you might end up with "remember your goals" and "be able to delay gratification."

"Letting go" is a particular in-the-moment experience that is very valuable to understand. It sort of looks like "sucking it up" but it's a release rather than a bottling up, so it's right at the heart of the issue of managing your energy and willpower well rather than flailing around and beating yourself up in response to the pressures and goals you are laboring under.

[balladeer]

Well, if at all someone doesn't want to waste time ever, he/she won't be either on HN, or reading pg's endless writeups, or on that guy Babauta's pointless articles (I subscribed to his blog for some time). He is one the guys writing blog posts on minimalism made up of thousands of words and tens of glossy high resolution images.

[efkztw]

Just finished reading the essay, and one of his points about professors struck a chord with my personal experience back in college. It always felt like the classes that seem to offer the least "financial return" in the real world (i.e. theology, philosophy, or some obscure liberal arts subject) usually end up to be the ones with better qualified and more enthusiastic professors.

[berrypicker]

If you're interested in something more scholarly, read John Stuart Mill's Utilitarianism.