This is literally the reason that the emotion of frustration exists.
Our brain is aware of when we stop making progress towards a goal we care about. The feeling of frustration builds until it becomes so strong it essentially forces us to stop.
Then, to get rid of the emotion, we have to step back and reassess. And then either see if we should try a different approach to the problem, give up on the problem entirely, or triple-check that the same course of action is still worth pursuing and thus "re-energize" ourselves.
If we never felt frustrated, we'd keep attempting futile goals for so much longer. When you feel frustrated, the answer is never to just ignore the feeling and try to "power through". It's to step back and reassess at the first opportunity.
It's easy to confuse laziness for frustration though. I think a key requirement in your comment is that you're grounded emotionally and know what you're feeling when you do. I know too many people that give up at the first indication of resistance but I'm fairly confident its their laziness.
The difference is whether it's a goal that is important to you.
If you encounter an obstacle and just stop without feeling frustrated, then you just didn't care much in the first place. That's fine. It's not laziness, it's just not valuing that particular outcome much.
Frustration is generally a very easy emotion to identify because you tense up, get irritated, have a feeling of wanting to shout or swear, growl, etc. Even if you're in a professional environment where you can't do those things, you feel the impulse to. There's no confusing that feeling with laziness.
"Laziness" is generally a value judgment imposed by a third party, that you're not doing the thing they value as important. An employer might think an employee is "lazy", when the employee thinks they're underpaid and chooses not to do anything above the bare minimum.
I feel that's overly easy to label someone else as lazy. Some people might be of course, but we dont have insight into their inner selves. And so we dont know ehat burdens they are carrying and grappling with currently.
What looks like laziness might actually be very prudent resource conservation if you know the whole story.
It's so difficult to explain this to people who have never been burnt out. It adds to the frustration and depression when people see you that way and don't recognize how much you've been grinding in your day job while working on something else or other. It's deeply demoralizing.
I think labelling behaviour 'lazy' is a very lazy thing to do. I think only a very narrow class of behaviours is genuinely lazy. Generally there are good reasons why someone may not be applying themselves sufficiently.
It's very reasonable to take a step back and reassess at the first indication of unexpected resistance. When you decide to do something, you're making that decision based on how you expect things to go; if they aren't going that way then the assumptions underpinning your decision to go down this path no longer hold. If you wouldn't have started had you'd known there would be even slight inconvenience, it means you don't value the output enough to justify that slight inconvenience, and you should not keep going just because of sunk cost.
Being lazy, ie being particularly unwilling to put in much effort for a reward, is quite orthogonal to how long you keep pursuing a particular approach to achieve a reward.
Frustration is an emotional response that can lead to many things, including inaction. Laziness is a moral perspective on inaction. Was Bartleby the Scrivener lazy?
1. Frustration depends entirely on the expectations of the outcome of an action.
2. Frustration is a spectrum.
3. Frustration is necessary to engage your full focus
If it were on a scale of 1-10. 4 through 8 would be the ideal frustration to keep you engaged in a goal. Below 4 and you would not be able to engage with the task fully. Above 8 and its a signal that either your expectations about the outcome are completely wrong or your approach is completely wrong, and you need to step back.
Playing your little brother in Street Fighter will never make you better at it, until he starts beating you and making you annoyed that you are losing, forcing you to concentrate and pay attention to the more subtle details of the game.
But sometimes you gotta power through it, you just need to plan for it in advance, so you might feel frustrated, but know you are not mad for not stopping.
If you plan in advance that something will take a particular amount of effort, then you're not going to feel frustrated as long as it's within that amount of effort. You've already decided that the cost-benefit analysis is worth the cost.
You start feeling frustrated when it takes longer than what you've planned for. When it's not going according to plan. And you need to step back and say, OK now is it still worth it...?
Some things just can't be powered through. Frustration helps us realize that so that we don't waste more energy on things that don't seem accomplishable.
The feeling when you know you need to power through and just do something isn't frustration. Cleaning a dirty toilet isn't frustrating - it's unpleasant and unrewarding work that just needs to be done, but there is no feeling that it is substantially harder than it has to be. You may feel frustrated during the time period in which you are powering through a task, but that's almost always because you are frustrated that you are in a situation where you have to power through a task that probably could have been avoided, the task itself isn't frustrating.
Disagree strongly, frustration is like the setup before the payoff, it's what makes figuring out something "worth" it - the more frustration, the bigger the payoff.
That's not what any psychologist would say. This isn't my opinion on frustration, this is just the standard interpretation under emotional appraisal theory.
Also, it is absolutely not the case that more frustration leads to higher payoff. There are tons of cases where frustration leads to zero payoff, and where you get complete payoff with zero frustration.
Frustration is not the same as hard work. If something takes a lot of hard work but progress is constant and clear, there's no frustration involved.
I did a lot of iOS development. The layout of elements was done with Auto Layout, and I really had the hang of it. It was replaced by how SwiftUI does it, and I knew it would take me a couple of weeks to get the hang of it.
I often felt what I'd call frustration. Lots of times, I knew I could easily express solutions in the old framework. But I knew I needed to learn the new one.
It can definitely be frustration, as you keep re-assessing whether it's really worth switching to SwiftUI, and getting upset that something isn't as easy as it was the previous way, for you. I've definitely started switching to a new library and then ultimately stopped because it was too frustrating. What I thought was going to be a better library for me, wasn't. Other times I've learned a new library and felt mostly delight, as I'd discover it was set up in ways that solved all my old problems, and I could see how much time it was going to save me in the future.
Also, you can feel frustration on a daily scale, without feeling frustrated on a larger scale. E.g. you know you want to learn SwiftUI, but today you're running into roadblocks with it, and you need to figure out whether to step back from it today and come back to it tomorrow, refreshed and having slept on it.
If there's anything frustration can be confused with, it's often resentment. E.g. when switching to SwiftUI doesn't actually help you achieve any goals of your own in any direct way, and you feel like Apple is creating busywork with some arbitrary deprecation or migration.
Often, you may feel both -- resentful that Apple is forcing you to learn something new, and frustration that learning the new technology is harder than you'd expected, or not providing the expected benefits, and therefore possibly not worth it at all, or at least not worth it today.
From a product design or startup perspective, sure -- identify the sources of frustration in other people can help identify potential business opportunities where people would pay money in order to alleviate the frustration.
But that's very different from the idea that frustration is somehow intrinsic to accomplishment at all, for your own goals. It's not.
A certain amount of frustration is expected if you set the goals high. But an excess of frustration becomes counter-productive and should signal it's time to change strategy. It doesn't mean "give up forever" but rather "try getting to midpoint first, then reevaluate".
It's surprising how effective being lazy can sometimes be. Some tasks that could be brute-forced seem to magically melt away if you adopt round about ways and let time pass. It's a latency/throughput tradeoff.
This analysis is interesting, but I think there’s a small self-reference problem hidden in it: what exactly counts as an “impossible goal,” and who gets to decide that?
It’s obviously true that some people chase almost “fantasy-level” ambitions. But for most of us, the reason we keep going is that, somewhere in the background, we still believe our goals are possible, possible enough to justify the time, effort, and even psychological pain. If some external standard comes along and declares “this is impossible, you should give up,” that can reduce stress in the short term, but it may also plant a long-term regret that keeps growing with age.
Looking back on my own life, the goals I abandoned for internal reasons (“this no longer fits who I am / I don’t want to pay this price anymore”) are the ones I can live with. I learned from those failures and even feel a bit stronger because of them. The painful ones are the goals I dropped mainly because someone else convinced me they were impossible. Those still feel like open loops.
So maybe the more useful takeaway isn’t “giving up is good,” but: keep reassessing your goals realistically as you grow. If, after a sober look at your skills and constraints, you still feel a goal is worth the cost, then commit and try. At least when you’re old and sitting in a chair somewhere, you’ll be less haunted by “I never even gave it a shot.”
> So maybe the more useful takeaway isn’t “giving up is good,” but: keep reassessing your goals realistically as you grow.
This is ultimately what the article is talking about. It's not about giving up on your ultimate goal, it's about giving up on your current approach and finding other ways to progress towards your goal.
This is what I got from it. It’s pretty much synonymous with how I approach things. I wouldn’t call it “giving up,” rather than “reviewing and adapting.”
I like your advice. It's like setting some metrics on your own progress and happiness level.
On the other hand, sometimes without pushing, you won't be able to fully enjoy something "later".
Stupid example: learning piano or guitar. Which metrics would you use?
In addition, here the issue is also about children, not just grownups: when to stop paying for their "xyz" course? And how do you teach them when to stop/change?
If we're able to guess that right, I guess we can educate children better to have better grownups.
The author of the article obviously didn't read the paper.
The paper's finding focuses on goal adjustment/flexibility being a functional response when encountering difficulty meeting a goal. Disengagement had correlations with impairment. Which probably tracks most people's life experience.
| This interpretation aligns with our finding that dispositional flex-
ibility, rather than more proximal disengagement or reengagement,
more strongly predicts functioning. Notably, we observed a positive
association between disengagement and impairment. Although this
could reflect a ‘dark side’ of disengagement—where letting go of goals
offers short-term relief but risks longer-term purposelessness and
dysfunction11—this pattern was not evident in longitudinal or experi-
mental studies. An alternative explanation is that the association is
bidirectional, with impairment potentially prompting disengagement
as a reactive strategy. Given these complexities, we advice caution in
interpreting this finding and highlight the need for further research.
I'm not sure if this falls under the same vein but in 2016 I just decided to stop paying my bills and I didn't have a job. I was just "free". I mean my life was imploding (and it did eg. 350s credit score/getting sued by debt collectors) but man I felt so free that time. I didn't have to get up/sleep at any particular time or be anywhere. I long to get back to that state (although with money saved/invested). And the goal isn't to do nothing but not to be forced to do anything.
I'd feel the same when between employment like in 2023 the tech industry tanked so I could not get hired for a year (there were 6mo contracts which I did not accept). Before I decided to eat it and work at a factory, I was just watching TV/enjoying a couple months off (I had to sell all my possessions at a loss to get by). Eventually at the end of 2024 I did accept a 6mo contract that is now going beyond a year.
The thing I didn't realize is the 6mo contract while short pays double a factory wage so it's like being employed for a year.
In my experience what matters most is understanding your goals, or lacking clear goals, what you want and enjoy. It’s remarkably easy to latch onto goals that seem like great ideas but ultimately don’t align to your own happiness.
That’s not to knock ambition, but to frame it in the most practical terms. How will success actually and specifically benefit you?
> It’s remarkably easy to latch onto goals that seem like great ideas but ultimately don’t align to your own happiness
I wonder if the whole idea of goals and ambition being able to deliver happiness is wrong. Certainly whenever I’ve set a goal and achieve it nothing much changes in how I feel about life because I was hoping for too much and so must just find a new goal.
I've cost myself quite a bit over my lifetime by quitting work I disliked for pick-a-reason without a plan to replace the income. I wish you the best in your search for a new revenue stream.
Well yeah that’s the only downside, running out of money. Everything else is paradise. I took a year and a half off now and it was probably the best time of my life. I travelled extensively, hiked a lot, built a lot of high end furniture, spent quality time with my wife and kid, took on construction projects (barn, chicken coop, running path etc.) around my property, ate delicious home cooked meals leisurely, lifted weights, went to interesting conferences, concert and shows. Life was amazing and it wasn’t all that expensive. I can’t wait to FIRE which should be possible over the next 5 years.
I stopped working and then I ran out of money. For me, a toxic job is better than not having a place to live. You can learn to cope with toxic (whatever that even means), and you can't manifest yourself a place to live.
>Not sure if I'll ever be able to go back to ... meetings.
It's with the wisdom of age that I now understand why HR discriminates against gaps in employment history... mostly because I don't know how I could ever be employable, again.
Monk-mode is such a cheap way to exist. Highly recommend it.
I realize now what total bogus nonsense standups are. You get asked the same pish everyday and nobody listens to what you say. Ten different ways to track things for different audiences. I learned to just ignore all instruction given in these meetings and when board to talk non-stop to consume time and have them quickly move to others. A waste of space. Sack all the PMs and interfering managers who depend on them.
I did that once: I was planning to quit to start a business, but when I realized the environment at my day job was toxic, I quit about 6 months sooner than planned.
I hope you get there. Depriving most workers of the ability to step away is, it seems, a purposeful feature. But you can get lucky, and I hope you will.
$1000/mo? Pff, that is luxury. Live on the streets, dumpster dive, forage and hunt for food, eat every other day, and you can get that down to $0. If you really need income you can take up sex work. $1000/mo, imagine!
Cutting medical insurance, for example, is a good way to end up medically bankrupt and lose anything you’ve ever saved if anything goes wrong. And by the time someone hits 40, chances are something has gone wrong.
I once quit a job because it was toxic. At the time, I was saving so I could start a business, but the environment became so toxic that I needed to walk out much earlier than planned.
My "6 month" runway ended up lasting a lot longer, mostly due to the stock market taking off. I ended up living off of interest for 18 months. By the time I admitted to myself that I wasn't much of an entrepreneur and needed to go work for someone else, I hadn't taken too much out of savings. I also had straightened out my head quite a bit, so I was able to figure out what kind of salaried jobs made me happy. (And paid enough for me to live a good life and save.)
I really encourage you to see if there's a way to adjust your finances so you can live more cheaply, save, and then live off of your interest for a period of time to get your head straightened out.
> My "6 month" runway ended up lasting a lot longer, mostly due to the stock market taking off. I ended up living off of interest for 18 months.
I can't think of a period in which markets did that well. (And "interest" is a strange term here.) Were you leveraged, or did you also just not have expenses as high as your original estimate?
> or did you also just not have expenses as high as your original estimate?
The market went up much faster than I originally estimated. Basically, I got lucky.
I quit my job in 2009, right when the massive bull market started. I had a bunch of stocks and mutual funds that I planned to sell in order to support myself.
Which I did: What happened was that my stocks and mutual funds appreciated faster than I spent them. (If I hadn't sold them, they would have doubled or tripled in value over the 18 month period.)
For example: The day after the iPad came out, I sold my Apple stock at a nice profit to pay my expenses for a month.
Ironically, if I had stayed at work as long as I planned, I probably would have had even more runway. (But then I wouldn't have landed the awesome job that I got when I went back to a salaried job in 2011.)
>By the time I admitted to myself that I wasn't much of an entrepreneur and needed to go work for someone else
This took me about two decades and two companies to discover, about myself.
Good timing and luck have also given me a much longer runway than I ever anticipated having. Mostly just need to work for my sanity and health benefits (at this point).
How in the world did you get back into work after that gap? I have a gap after getting laid off from my first job and a career is, apparently per my extended and futile job hunt, unrecoverable.
Similar boat, but I'm finally at the point where I think I can just walk out. Just stay on the job hunt and you can get there. I went from musician living on the cash in my pocket with 4 roommates to $110k in 10 years. You'll have to job hop, you'll have to grind some self-learning, but you can do it.
With the energy you're putting out sounds like you might need a new job. It's always the people in shitty jobs saying things like this. Figure out where the pain points in your life are that are making you so bitter and try to fix them.
>According to a review of more than 230 studies recently published in the journal Nature Human Behaviour, adjusting our goals in response to stress or challenges, rather than grinding on, is often “a more appropriate and beneficial response.”
That is also what people who persist on the path of their goal do. And that's not giving up, as the title claims.
The issue is that we live in an era were a 2-bedroom house is already something people can start giving up on. So the threshold for whats attainable is getting lower and lower, and soon enough just food will be enough.
Its only an issue because people don't want to compromise on location, aka they want the most convenient place possible (because they 'deserve it'?), but half of other folks living and working in the area want exactly the same. And it doesn't really matter if we talk about SV or some other big enough city anywhere else, they all share the same situation.
And commute is unacceptable, for some even 20 mins according to same topic being discussed also here ad nausea.
Btw having a house is a luxury basically anywhere in the world, not sure why the baseline expectation is that its some UN-enforced basic human right. I for example lived, live and will live in apartments only which cost less than 50% of similarly-sized house and derive life satisfaction other things than gardening and constant upkeep of property. Really not getting this want-luxury-as-baseline mindset.
All of housing, education, and healthcare have gotten more expensive way faster than wages have risen, in the US.
People are upset about it because together those things, plus the end of the pension somewhat earlier, mean the death of the middle class, the idea of which was a pretty big part of American post-war identity.
More economic drag on getting educated, more economic drag on becoming a property owner and the security that provides, healthcare costs are a drag on accumulating money for younger generations and will soak up anything their parents managed to accumulate. Middle class = dead.
No it's more because things have gotten worse. When people's parents could get an X-bedroomed house on a single parent's income, which they grew up in and developed their sense of aspiration and normality, but they cannot do so with joint really high incomes, there's a very tangible sense of progress having not just stalled but gone backwards.
My context is Canada; the problem we have here is that there is a big divide between people who bought their big homes with land 10-20 years ago, and the people in the market right now who can only afford apartments. The issue it twofold; (1) negative comparison against the landowners even though apartment dwellers may have significantly higher incomes / education levels, and (2) political divides; the landowners staunchly oppose the zoning and transit changes that might make life better for apartment dwellers.
Getting used to living in an apartment is a smaller issue in my opinion.
Nobody is claiming owning your residence is a basic right. We're talking about long term goals that you spend your professional life (read also: youth) working diligently towards.
If the average person/family cannot work hard, save, and purchase their own safe, comfortable, living accommodations, the implication is that the landowning class will forever co-opt an increasing percentage of the economic surplus for one of the most essential goods - shelter. There is only so much adequately zoned land, and so much housing on that land. Populations, and increasing, and therefore so is demand.
You are absolutely welcome to forego property ownership if you like. There are many benefits in terms of flexibility (e.g. ability to quickly move somewhere else). But this is typically not an economically advantageous move in the long term if you're staying rooted in one place. And having dealt with toxic, abusive landlords, there is an understated element of psychological safety to ownership.
We're not just talking about big cities. We're talking about suburbs too, and even more "rural" areas that are still within a few hours of a city. Essentially where 90+% of the population actually lives.
This is not a first-world-tech-bro complaint. It is a genuine economic problem for us that affects the vast majority of people who live here, and therefore the country as-a-whole.
People would not have voted for a moronic despot had he not been promising what they've all been asking for - a radical reshaping of the system that hasn't been working for the vast majority. People cannot afford the American dream that they were promised, and they are angry about it.
> We're talking about suburbs too, and even more "rural" areas that are still within a few hours of a city. Essentially where 90+% of the population actually lives.
Modern upbringing of children is full of nonsense forced by business and political goals. Rhymes that go "rain, rain go away" etc. Values that prioritize and reward sales skills, TV shows that show telling lies and pretending is acceptable and fun, weirdness is desirable etc. Importance of presentation over core content and so on.
We trained our mind to ignore and forget all animal instincts, body signals and wisdom acquired through ages.
Of course, ancient battle wisdom from the East tells you how to approach issues - saama, daana, bhedha, danda - that is - make friends, negotiate, divide and rule, use force. At any point, if things look infeasible, retreat and avoid. Pure common sense.
> Of course, ancient battle wisdom from the East tells you how to approach issues - saama, daana, bhedha, danda - that is - make friends, negotiate, divide and rule, use force.
That's probably something you learn in India. In the West that'd be Machiavelli (and countless Roman/Greek philopsophers/generals, etc), for whoever went to school.
Anyway, all this is somehow unrelated to the article.
The main issue is that people nowadays have somehow internalized a weird "alpha male, never give up, don't cry, just shut up an resist, impossible is nothing" mindset. The issue is that many parents don't want to create "weak" grownups, with the side effects of creating potentially sick ones, who will grow and will have kids and "won't repeat the same mistakes as my parents".
In my experience the smartest and possibly most successful (not rich, but successful in terms of satisfied/happy/in a good state financially) people are the ones that know when to change course. Finding the sweet spot (the "when") is just pure talent. This is extremely difficult for a parent to understand: when to jump in and tell your kids "it's OK, do something else" without shame.
> people nowadays have somehow internalized a weird "alpha male, never give up, don't cry, just shut up an resist
I don't know what counts as "nowadays" but this male image has been promoted for a really long time. "Big boys don't cry" and "strong men don't take no for an answer" have been a thing for centuries. Stoicism was centered around emotional self-control more than 2000 years ago.
This survived for so long because we used to live in societies that were very patriarchal. So men knew their role and it was also at the top of the pyramid, all in a precarious equilibrium from a mental health perspective.
What happened nowadays is that society is less patriarchal. Men are no longer at the top of the pyramid, they no longer have a clearly defined societal role, but they still carry some of the old remnants because occasionally that's the expected of them and that's still how many boys are educated. The modern man is locked into a world where his education and emotional toolset are inadequate. They are raised to lock their feelings like an "alpha" but no longer have an outlet for anything because the alpha role in society started evaporating or shifting away from them.
It's a mental health crisis that will overflow sooner or later and it won't be good for anyone around it when it happens.
This is the exact opposite of what Stoicism teaches. It's all about figuring out as early as possible when you're aiming for an "impossible goal" and should dismiss that goal as something that you really have no control over. As for the emotional control part, the real goal is not to let your emotions affect your behavior in dysfunctional ways. That's why the main focus was not in fact "big boys don't cry", it was "big boys don't get angry/freak out/throw temper tantrums, EVER". Because that kind of unrestrained anger is really bad for you and those around you.
I wasn't compiling a list list of values that are consistent, just values that were historically taught to boys/men. There were teachings in that vein for centuries and millennia. Some are contradicting ("be a gentleman" / "don't take no for an answer"). Bottom line, "never give up", "control your emotions", "don't cry" are not a "nowadays" thing by any measure.
> That's why the main focus was not in fact "big boys don't cry", it was "big boys don't get angry/freak out/throw temper tantrums, EVER"
In practical experience "boys don't cry" has been a staple of the actual education boys get for centuries. To the point that a lot of boys got a smacking for crying. Temper tantrums are as natural as crying, a reaction to the developing brain. They were considered abnormal and "destructive" because that was the limit of our understanding in child psychology.
On the other hand getting educated to never "get angry/freak out/throw temper tantrums, EVER" is just as toxic. Boys and men are asked to bottle up everything and this sort of worked, still with a high mental health price, in the past when there were outlets for that pressure. With those gone we just made the situation worse.
You're right that temper tantrums might be natural and excusable from young children and toddlers, but the obvious argument would be that people really should know better at some point as they develop mentally and are able to reflect about the deeper consequences of that kind of behavior. This is not advocating for systematically bottling up emotions, of course; even the ancients were well aware of the difference between temporarily restraining a negative emotion in order to avert its detrimental effects in the moment, as opposed to addressing its root causes (often in terms of unfulfilled expectations and desires) through inner self-reflection and mental exercises.
> Modern upbringing of children is full of nonsense forced by business and political goals. Rhymes that go "rain, rain go away" etc.
I don't understand what you mean by "rain, rain go away" in the context of modern upbringing of children. I know of the nursery rhyme with that line, but that's at least 350 years old.
I think it makes children to grow up thinking rain is bad. I used to walk for miles in cyclone rain, cross rivulets with strong water flow - just to attend school. I can't think why someone want to raise their children not exposed to rain.
I don't know anything about cyclone rain, but nobody in Ireland needs to be taught that the endless dark grey days of winter and their accompanying cold wind-driven rain are unpleasant
The notion that big business is conspiring to keep children from playing in the rain because of… reasons… might be my new favorite conspiracy. I’m bought in.
Social media established a hustle culture in young men, cost of living forces people to work without taking vacation. The modern trend is 72 hour weeks in Silicon Valley corporations. Houses are speculation objects rather than affordable homes for families. In this society you have to teach children early on about how money works and how to keep jobs or you'll find them in a vicious cycle of trying to afford life. Giving up simply is not an option for many people anymore.
First lesson of life should be to show empathy towards other living beings.
If the first lesson in life is "you work to buy your bread" and "nobody will ever give you something for free" you'll end up in a world filled with egoistical maniacs. Which unfortunately is where we are at the moment.
Your second lesson is not even true considering I'd have unconditional love for my children/wife. Altruistic love in the form of give for the sake of giving, not give for the sake of receiving.
People forget that we are strong together. Working together is actually the only way humanity got where its at until some maniacs invented slavery.
In a world full of (as noted) egotistical maniacs, is not what you are preaching surefire suicide?
Notably, neurotypicals generally fundamentally know this and even priests will throw abusive assholes out of church while still preaching peace, love and tolerance - without blinking at the apparent hypocrisy.
Or, as the case may be sometimes, initiating religious wars.
It seems like neurodivergents are the ones who get hung up on the literalness.
All life requires a degree of self defense/an immune system, or it dies.
And one could argue that the big reason we don’t have slavery anymore (by and large) is because of mechanization.
There were plenty of preachers in the US South (and plenty of religious figures everywhere in history) that preached the righteousness of slavery. While also preaching peace and love. And they put up quite a fight!
It was not an easy thing winning the Civil war, and plenty of wars were won on the back of slaves, at least in antiquity.
The Spartans weren’t feared because of their egalitarian and humanistic ethos, that’s for sure.
All life requires a degree of self defense, sure. But self defense does not mean running around the world screaming "me, me, me!". Bees only thrive because they work together. Their hive-self-defense even kills some of their own to protect the rest of the hive. They also only sting if absolutely necessary (in their view) as doing so most likely kills them. Ants work in a similar fashion. No ant thinks "I got so much food, I'll store it in my 1 ant colony all for myself".
Humans for some reason have these traits, being jealous, egoistical and whatnot is natural, the difficulty is in acknowledging that and to actively work against these feelings instead of giving into them.
A lot of humans also have the wrong perception of strength.
They see the rich as the strong and the poor as the weak, but I dont want to get too deep into that.
This conversation reached pretty philosophical levels and I can admit that its unrealistic to expect altruism from each and everyone, especially when their basic needs aren't met.
Would still be cool if rich people could share a little more though, as in my view it should be impossible to be rich while other people starve... Especially considering rich people make it hard for others getting wealthier because it means competition. A lot of people got rich in highly unethical ways. Everyone should have the chance to thrive and afford basic and cultural needs, nobody should have to work 70 hour weeks or two jobs just to survive.
It was not "social media" in an abstract politics neutral way. It was conservative right wing grifters who has seen it as a way to capitalize on notion of traditional masculinity.
> Newer evidence suggests that ditching tough-to-attain goals
> can actually be good for us.
> adjusting our goals in response to stress or challenges, rather than grinding on, is often “a more appropriate and beneficial response.”
It depends a lot on the goals. I give up often and quickly. One reason is ... lack of time. (And also lack of discipline, but lack of time is really one key reason I toss away many things these days. You live only once, at the least most of us.)
There is, however had, one interesting study from psychology. I forgot the name, but they showed tests with kids as to "if you eat this now, you won't get an additional reward, but if you won't eat it for an hour, you get more lateron". Now this was not the setup, I am just quoting this from memory. The adults left the room so only the kid was there and some sweets on the table.
It was quite convincingly shown that the kids with more discipline and will-power, aka who refused the sweets in order to get more reward lateron, were also more successful on average lateron. Or, at the least, avoided some problems such as drug addiction and what not. So I think the "benefits of giving up" has to be put in context. It depends on what and how you give up. I may not give up on A, but then I may not be able to do B, because of lack of time, lack of resources and so forth. So these are just trade-offs, but discipline and will-power are just about almost always really excellent traits to have or train for.
It was also highlighted (recently?) iirc that it has little to do with discipline and will-power, but is surprisingly affected whether kids come from wealthy / "good" families (and thus can trust grown ups) vs kids coming from poorer / "troubled" families (and thus just leap at the opportunity and don't trust that they will actually get another marshmallow if they will wait).
from what I remember of the described study the kids who showed more discipline were also the kids who had been conditioned to trust adults, the ones that had experienced that adults were untrustworthy did not have the discipline.
so not sure if the conclusion that self-discipline is the cause of later life success is the moral of the study instead of kids with messed up parents have a worse time of it.
In SW development the bar is constantly being set extra high expecting people to meet it constantly if they meet it once. Maybe some random unachievable internal date for some pointless goal for a back slap and a feel good headpat. Yeah, no. You will fail sooner or later as the denizens of management and PM-topia expect that is the norm. Better to relax and let every date be missed and tell them life's a bitch.
This reminds me of Henri Laborit's book entitled "Eloge de la fuite" (in praise of flight) which states that when faced with stress, we can respond with action, flight, or inaction. Unlike the other two responses, inaction is toxic to the body. Maybe giving up corresponds to flight. I didn't read the article.
"fuite" is french which means to escape, to flee. Flight is only in context of planes or flying transportation.
As for the sense of it, you're right, it's either do something, go away, or do nothing.
(of a linguistic form) commonly used in an earlier time but rare in present-day usage except to suggest the older time, as in religious rituals or historical novels. Examples.
thou; wast; methinks; forsooth.
Its usage isn’t extinct, but it is far less common than it used to be and IS largely extinct in casual day to day speech. We would say flee, run away, escape, or any of a dozen other things more often than “flight”
Since my mother tongue is french, I guess I didn't choose the proper english word. In the context of an attack we sometimes see the "fight or flight" response. But I don't know what is the best term to translate "fuite" in this context.
"Flight" is used in English to mean "an act of fleeing". It's perhaps less common outside of specific idioms ("fight or flight" being one of them, yes), but people will generally understand you correctly in context. It seems from the rest of the comments that GP is also not a native English speaker.
I don't believe in "giving up" but I do believe in picking battles and leveraging higher order effects. A short term retreat to win a long term war. Walking away can be the best strategic option.
For example, if you find yourself in strong disagreement with the current leadership at your company, instead of having cataclysmic battles every day on Teams, you could simply hand in your resignation letter and walk away while the boat is still afloat. Keep your chin up and firmly depart with grace.
Short term, this looks exactly like giving up. Long term, it can surface the foundation of your arguments and force those higher up the chain (investors) to potentially come back to you and your arguments in the future (assuming you were actually right).
I'm living this one right now. It's surreal watching people who attempted to game of thrones me ~every day get perp walked. I wouldn't say I enjoy this because it would have been better if we had figured out a way to work together. It definitely wasn't a skill problem on anyone's part.
It is often best to use your opponent's momentum and energy against them. If the problem you are dealing with is other people, giving up is a reasonable default. If the problem is some challenging machine learning algorithm or other personal project I think you should be more cautious about walking away. This can turn into a bad habit.
The fewer chefs you have in the kitchen, the easier it is to assign blame and figure out what the real issues are. You can become part of that refining process if you have the contingencies to endure this job market.
True, but it's like with needles for some people. Even if you know that pain is just quick and harmless, your brain will act like you're in live danger.
Yesterday I spent two hours looking for something that I thought I needed. Ten minutes in I thought of an alternative solution that wouldn’t require the item I was looking for. I wanted to do more interesting things, but I still /had/ to find it. I’d accidentally end up doing it again when I try to stop. A friend who was observing this tricked me into eating something, and then I was able to stop.
If I forget a word mid conversation, I spend a lot of time trying to remember it. I can google or ask the chat bot, but emotionally I want to get there it on my own.
I think that I’m addicted to the feeling I get when I find these things or solve a very difficult problem. After reading an earlier article about “aha” moments, I wonder if it’s the same circuit. Maybe there is also a natural predisposition for hunting in my brain, which is why food seems to help me get past these … moments.
Going through a lot of changes right now and two lines are reverberating in my head.
I was into punk as a kid, still am I guess, and there's this recurring motif in Rancid tracks: "the secret to a good life is knowing when you're through".
Also recently had some words of wisdom I liked from a mate in his mid-sixties: "one door has got to close for another one to open".
It makes absolutely no sense to do an analysis of such a broad subject and then analyze it in such superficial detail. At least this article does nothing but give the most vague description of what might in general happen.
It is of course obvious that any hard goal requires effort and effort is linked with a lot of "bad things". The whole article can be reduced to this. Trying requires effort and effort is hard.
One should become aware of one’s deluded notion in which one thinks that ‘I belong to these objects of the world and my life depends upon them. I cannot live without them and they cannot exist without me, either.’ Then by profound
enquiry, one contemplates ‘I do not belong to these objects, nor do these objects belong to me’. Thus abandoning the ego-sense through intense contemplation, one should playfully engage oneself in the actions that happen naturally, but with the heart and mind ever cool and tranquil. Such an abandonment of the ego-sense and the conditioning is known as the contemplative egolessness.
-- from "Vasistha's Yoga" translated by Swami Venkatesananda.
The ego-sense is the Mind in its capacity/function as self-identification. Its is called Ahamkara (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahamkara) and is an aspect of Antahkarana - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antahkarana. It is fully capable of creating delusions from external (i.e. objects through the senses) or internal (i.e. objects through its own imagination) means.
Looking at biological evolution, purpose and functioning of instincts and senses is more useful and more grounded than abstract philosophies, in my opinion. We don't need to analyze mind and thoughts in a manner that is fully disconnected from biology.
Mind is just an orchestrator of responses by processing of sensory information, memories and instincts. Actually, such processing and response can happen throughout the body as well to a limited extent.
This sort of reductionist approach has long been discarded.
Philosophizing is as old as mankind with even the most primitive tribe developing a "Worldview" within which it placed itself i.e. gave meaning to its existence. "Modern Science" itself was birthed from Philosophy in order to study "Objective Reality" separately from our "Subjective Perception" of it.
But the fact that we "live in our Mind" only via subjective perceptions (i.e. experiences/feelings/emotions/thoughts/memories/etc.) has not gone away and hence the problems engendered by this must be faced.
Because of the torment of the three-fold suffering, arises this inquiry to know the means of counteracting it. If it is said that such inquiry is useless because perceptible means of removal exist, we say no because these means are neither lasting nor effective. (See the "Contents" section of Samkhya Karika webpage linked to above for a detailed understanding)
So what Philosophies give us is a way to orient our psychology through a appropriate worldview which promises the removal of all suffering and unhappiness which Biology by itself cannot.
Appropriate world view was evolved over millennia through continuous cycles of adaptation helped by sensory perceptions, much before these philosophies came up. You may call it reductionist or whatever. That doesn't change the facts of evolution.
Any new world view that didn't go through same level of evolution and not tested against the physical world around it, is just a sales talk to influence people who were desperate and fearful and struggling for survival. It doesn't matter who stated it and when.
You have missed the point; it has got nothing to do with Evolution/Biology but everything to do with Psychology. Philosophy is just Psychology in another guise which looks for all-encompassing solutions to the questions of "Happiness/Meaning/Being/Existence".
> Appropriate world view was evolved over millennia through continuous cycles of adaptation helped by sensory perceptions, much before these philosophies came up.
No. Evolution/Biology have nothing to do with "worldviews" which is purely a human psychological concept eg. Bacteria has no worldviews but is genetically preprogrammed to do whatever is needed to survive. Adaptation under evolutionary pressure has given us a complex brain/nervous system but we also have something called "Consciousness" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consciousness) There are various models to try and explain it (the above wiki page is pretty detailed) but regardless of any explanation we experience it from moment to moment. That gives rise to a "Mind" and its consequent "Thoughts/Emotions/Feelings/Memories/etc." which is where "we live". So the question is; how do we manage this? The obvious answer of "we always seek to maximize happiness" fails since Humans endure all sorts of hardships/self-harm in search of meaning (eg. gory rituals in many religions).
Philosophers have been studying the problems of Consciousness/Mind/etc. from time immemorial and over time have built up a body of knowledge much of which has been validated by empirical practice eg. Effects of Meditation - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_meditation. It seems we have many "states of consciousness" some of which keep us in a tranquil/peaceful/calm/blissful state over long periods of time. This is what is called "end to suffering due to worldly existence". A philosophical worldview gives a practical roadmap to achieve this.
i spend a lot of time looking at companies to buy for the company I work at. A decent number of them are in situations where they aren't doing well and the founders have had a very difficult 10 or so years and you can see the pain. They should have given up 8 years ago in most cases.
My little list of things I gave up in life and increased my overall happiness and well-being beyond comprehension:
1. Job: I used to take job as my heaven, over-work, over-deliver, over everything. You are let go the moment the company please coz you are just a number.
I stopped seeing workplace as heaven but as "it pays the bills", full stop.
2. Finance: Directly related to above, have an emergency saving preferably at least up to 6 months worth of paid bills.
I have been layoff twice up to 5 months before finding a job.
Nothing destroy you more than finance stress, giving up that fear of job loss alone will increase your well-being beyond your comprehension.
Some people give up working altogether, we all will get old one day, your "giving up" must include that.
3. Cash/Minimalist: Give up having the latest phone model, the latest car model, the latest everything, nobody cares, and definitely not the people from your social media.
Cash over debit card so you can easily see what you are spending on. Ban credit card and you will see money you didn't know you had.
4. Relationship: I never had much luck with it, but after ending a 6y long term relationship, I gave up.
I have hobbies, pets, that is all I need.
5. Friendship: People will only show you their side that they wanna you to see, and not who they really are.
Stop trying to please friends and you will see who are the real ones and who are after personal interest.
This is me giving up and yet, being happier, healthier, eating better, etc, etc.
I used to think David Bazan's "Winners Never Quit" was a little over the top, but with some modern "grindset" advocates, I feel like it's becoming less so.
In most trading advice, cutting loses as soon as possible and as emotionlessly as possible is emphasised heavily. It's also physiologically one of the hardest parts for people to do consistently.
> The scientists also analyzed the impacts of these decisions. Giving up on goals was significantly linked to reduced stress, anxiety, and depression, for instance.
This seems to be a correlation, not a causation. There are many studies that show Stress, Anxiety, and Depression are prevalent in people who are smarter than the average, due to factors such as heightened self-expectations, rumination on negative experiences, and awareness of negative aspects of the world.
People who are smarter are more driven, which is how they develop their cognitive abilities. Giving up doesn't cause less anxiety, these people have less anxiety because they don't have the faculty to be affected by it.
> People who are smarter are more driven, which is how they develop their cognitive abilities. Giving up doesn't cause less anxiety, these people have less anxiety because they don't have the faculty to be affected by it.
Ah, the old “I’m anxious therefore I’m smart, they’re not therefore they’re stupid”. Lol, get your head out of your ass.
A dream is just a story you have made up, and the main character in the story isn't even the real you. Following a dream means sacrificing real happiness today trying to manifest imaginary happiness for an imaginary character in an imaginary future. Engage with your real life instead.
by far the most helpful realization i had in the last decade was that i have severe limitations, and i have to give up constantly until i find the path of least resistance
> But letting go and—crucially—reengaging with new goals, was found to restore purpose and well-being.
Seems everyone here is kinda missing the point. It looks to be less about giving up and more about engaging with new goals. You find X goal is too hard to achieve and give up but also decide to pursue Y goal that is more achievable (and still has some fulfillment to it).
I get that but doesn’t seem anything too radical… If I have impossible to achieve goals then I’d naturally be upset. Spending time on goals I feel I can accomplish is almost always going to be more fulfilling than doing ones that feel impossible.
You shouldn’t be blinded by survivorship bias either. Some of the best decisions I’ve made is quit my startup or company when I see the writing on the wall that this is not salvageable by my sacrifices
Any study involving so called meta-analyses is not worth reading on the basis of some scientific evidence, just call it a hot take and leave it at that. It might still be an interesting hot take, not to say this is or is not.
This is literally the reason that the emotion of frustration exists.
Our brain is aware of when we stop making progress towards a goal we care about. The feeling of frustration builds until it becomes so strong it essentially forces us to stop.
Then, to get rid of the emotion, we have to step back and reassess. And then either see if we should try a different approach to the problem, give up on the problem entirely, or triple-check that the same course of action is still worth pursuing and thus "re-energize" ourselves.
If we never felt frustrated, we'd keep attempting futile goals for so much longer. When you feel frustrated, the answer is never to just ignore the feeling and try to "power through". It's to step back and reassess at the first opportunity.
It's easy to confuse laziness for frustration though. I think a key requirement in your comment is that you're grounded emotionally and know what you're feeling when you do. I know too many people that give up at the first indication of resistance but I'm fairly confident its their laziness.
The difference is whether it's a goal that is important to you.
If you encounter an obstacle and just stop without feeling frustrated, then you just didn't care much in the first place. That's fine. It's not laziness, it's just not valuing that particular outcome much.
Frustration is generally a very easy emotion to identify because you tense up, get irritated, have a feeling of wanting to shout or swear, growl, etc. Even if you're in a professional environment where you can't do those things, you feel the impulse to. There's no confusing that feeling with laziness.
"Laziness" is generally a value judgment imposed by a third party, that you're not doing the thing they value as important. An employer might think an employee is "lazy", when the employee thinks they're underpaid and chooses not to do anything above the bare minimum.
I feel that's overly easy to label someone else as lazy. Some people might be of course, but we dont have insight into their inner selves. And so we dont know ehat burdens they are carrying and grappling with currently.
What looks like laziness might actually be very prudent resource conservation if you know the whole story.
It's so difficult to explain this to people who have never been burnt out. It adds to the frustration and depression when people see you that way and don't recognize how much you've been grinding in your day job while working on something else or other. It's deeply demoralizing.
And when one gets bunt out on some basic social interaction.... You're completely screwed.
I think labelling behaviour 'lazy' is a very lazy thing to do. I think only a very narrow class of behaviours is genuinely lazy. Generally there are good reasons why someone may not be applying themselves sufficiently.
It's very reasonable to take a step back and reassess at the first indication of unexpected resistance. When you decide to do something, you're making that decision based on how you expect things to go; if they aren't going that way then the assumptions underpinning your decision to go down this path no longer hold. If you wouldn't have started had you'd known there would be even slight inconvenience, it means you don't value the output enough to justify that slight inconvenience, and you should not keep going just because of sunk cost.
Being lazy, ie being particularly unwilling to put in much effort for a reward, is quite orthogonal to how long you keep pursuing a particular approach to achieve a reward.
Frustration is an emotional response that can lead to many things, including inaction. Laziness is a moral perspective on inaction. Was Bartleby the Scrivener lazy?
People are missing some nuance here.
1. Frustration depends entirely on the expectations of the outcome of an action. 2. Frustration is a spectrum. 3. Frustration is necessary to engage your full focus
If it were on a scale of 1-10. 4 through 8 would be the ideal frustration to keep you engaged in a goal. Below 4 and you would not be able to engage with the task fully. Above 8 and its a signal that either your expectations about the outcome are completely wrong or your approach is completely wrong, and you need to step back.
Playing your little brother in Street Fighter will never make you better at it, until he starts beating you and making you annoyed that you are losing, forcing you to concentrate and pay attention to the more subtle details of the game.
My definition of frustration: the gap between your expectations & perceived reality. The larger the gap, the greater the frustration.
But sometimes you gotta power through it, you just need to plan for it in advance, so you might feel frustrated, but know you are not mad for not stopping.
If you plan in advance that something will take a particular amount of effort, then you're not going to feel frustrated as long as it's within that amount of effort. You've already decided that the cost-benefit analysis is worth the cost.
You start feeling frustrated when it takes longer than what you've planned for. When it's not going according to plan. And you need to step back and say, OK now is it still worth it...?
Some things just can't be powered through. Frustration helps us realize that so that we don't waste more energy on things that don't seem accomplishable.
The feeling when you know you need to power through and just do something isn't frustration. Cleaning a dirty toilet isn't frustrating - it's unpleasant and unrewarding work that just needs to be done, but there is no feeling that it is substantially harder than it has to be. You may feel frustrated during the time period in which you are powering through a task, but that's almost always because you are frustrated that you are in a situation where you have to power through a task that probably could have been avoided, the task itself isn't frustrating.
Disagree strongly, frustration is like the setup before the payoff, it's what makes figuring out something "worth" it - the more frustration, the bigger the payoff.
That's not what any psychologist would say. This isn't my opinion on frustration, this is just the standard interpretation under emotional appraisal theory.
Also, it is absolutely not the case that more frustration leads to higher payoff. There are tons of cases where frustration leads to zero payoff, and where you get complete payoff with zero frustration.
Frustration is not the same as hard work. If something takes a lot of hard work but progress is constant and clear, there's no frustration involved.
Can you explain something?
I did a lot of iOS development. The layout of elements was done with Auto Layout, and I really had the hang of it. It was replaced by how SwiftUI does it, and I knew it would take me a couple of weeks to get the hang of it.
I often felt what I'd call frustration. Lots of times, I knew I could easily express solutions in the old framework. But I knew I needed to learn the new one.
Are you saying that's not called frustration?
It really depends on a lot of factors.
It can definitely be frustration, as you keep re-assessing whether it's really worth switching to SwiftUI, and getting upset that something isn't as easy as it was the previous way, for you. I've definitely started switching to a new library and then ultimately stopped because it was too frustrating. What I thought was going to be a better library for me, wasn't. Other times I've learned a new library and felt mostly delight, as I'd discover it was set up in ways that solved all my old problems, and I could see how much time it was going to save me in the future.
Also, you can feel frustration on a daily scale, without feeling frustrated on a larger scale. E.g. you know you want to learn SwiftUI, but today you're running into roadblocks with it, and you need to figure out whether to step back from it today and come back to it tomorrow, refreshed and having slept on it.
If there's anything frustration can be confused with, it's often resentment. E.g. when switching to SwiftUI doesn't actually help you achieve any goals of your own in any direct way, and you feel like Apple is creating busywork with some arbitrary deprecation or migration.
Often, you may feel both -- resentful that Apple is forcing you to learn something new, and frustration that learning the new technology is harder than you'd expected, or not providing the expected benefits, and therefore possibly not worth it at all, or at least not worth it today.
Small frustration daily versus larger scale achievements is what I think happened. Thanks, interesting viewpoints to think about.
Maybe it's how frustration with what things are before can make you want to do something to change it?
From a product design or startup perspective, sure -- identify the sources of frustration in other people can help identify potential business opportunities where people would pay money in order to alleviate the frustration.
But that's very different from the idea that frustration is somehow intrinsic to accomplishment at all, for your own goals. It's not.
A certain amount of frustration is expected if you set the goals high. But an excess of frustration becomes counter-productive and should signal it's time to change strategy. It doesn't mean "give up forever" but rather "try getting to midpoint first, then reevaluate".
It's surprising how effective being lazy can sometimes be. Some tasks that could be brute-forced seem to magically melt away if you adopt round about ways and let time pass. It's a latency/throughput tradeoff.
Nah. Very often you just have to keep going. Try learning a musical instrument for example or even programming.
This analysis is interesting, but I think there’s a small self-reference problem hidden in it: what exactly counts as an “impossible goal,” and who gets to decide that?
It’s obviously true that some people chase almost “fantasy-level” ambitions. But for most of us, the reason we keep going is that, somewhere in the background, we still believe our goals are possible, possible enough to justify the time, effort, and even psychological pain. If some external standard comes along and declares “this is impossible, you should give up,” that can reduce stress in the short term, but it may also plant a long-term regret that keeps growing with age.
Looking back on my own life, the goals I abandoned for internal reasons (“this no longer fits who I am / I don’t want to pay this price anymore”) are the ones I can live with. I learned from those failures and even feel a bit stronger because of them. The painful ones are the goals I dropped mainly because someone else convinced me they were impossible. Those still feel like open loops.
So maybe the more useful takeaway isn’t “giving up is good,” but: keep reassessing your goals realistically as you grow. If, after a sober look at your skills and constraints, you still feel a goal is worth the cost, then commit and try. At least when you’re old and sitting in a chair somewhere, you’ll be less haunted by “I never even gave it a shot.”
> So maybe the more useful takeaway isn’t “giving up is good,” but: keep reassessing your goals realistically as you grow.
This is ultimately what the article is talking about. It's not about giving up on your ultimate goal, it's about giving up on your current approach and finding other ways to progress towards your goal.
This is what I got from it. It’s pretty much synonymous with how I approach things. I wouldn’t call it “giving up,” rather than “reviewing and adapting.”
Here’s a demotivational poster that comes to mind: https://despair.com/cdn/shop/files/stupidity.jpg
I like your advice. It's like setting some metrics on your own progress and happiness level.
On the other hand, sometimes without pushing, you won't be able to fully enjoy something "later".
Stupid example: learning piano or guitar. Which metrics would you use?
In addition, here the issue is also about children, not just grownups: when to stop paying for their "xyz" course? And how do you teach them when to stop/change?
If we're able to guess that right, I guess we can educate children better to have better grownups.
I think combining being realistic (for the sake of sanity) with being ambitious (for the sake of going beyond the average) is a good hotspot.
For one, it avoids the psychological traps of frustration if you keep it realistic.
The other good thing is you will not sit down complaining andnyou will put your time on something that is worth.
You can fail or succeed, but with that mindset I think things go, at least, psychologically better.
I am not convinced at all that becoming just comfy and a conformist in itself is more healthy.
In tech bro speak this is similar to the idea of the "pivot".
If something isn't working, you can keep ramming into the same wall harder or you can try a different approach.
The author of the article obviously didn't read the paper.
The paper's finding focuses on goal adjustment/flexibility being a functional response when encountering difficulty meeting a goal. Disengagement had correlations with impairment. Which probably tracks most people's life experience.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-025-02312-4
| This interpretation aligns with our finding that dispositional flex- ibility, rather than more proximal disengagement or reengagement, more strongly predicts functioning. Notably, we observed a positive association between disengagement and impairment. Although this could reflect a ‘dark side’ of disengagement—where letting go of goals offers short-term relief but risks longer-term purposelessness and dysfunction11—this pattern was not evident in longitudinal or experi- mental studies. An alternative explanation is that the association is bidirectional, with impairment potentially prompting disengagement as a reactive strategy. Given these complexities, we advice caution in interpreting this finding and highlight the need for further research.
I'm not sure if this falls under the same vein but in 2016 I just decided to stop paying my bills and I didn't have a job. I was just "free". I mean my life was imploding (and it did eg. 350s credit score/getting sued by debt collectors) but man I felt so free that time. I didn't have to get up/sleep at any particular time or be anywhere. I long to get back to that state (although with money saved/invested). And the goal isn't to do nothing but not to be forced to do anything.
I'd feel the same when between employment like in 2023 the tech industry tanked so I could not get hired for a year (there were 6mo contracts which I did not accept). Before I decided to eat it and work at a factory, I was just watching TV/enjoying a couple months off (I had to sell all my possessions at a loss to get by). Eventually at the end of 2024 I did accept a 6mo contract that is now going beyond a year.
The thing I didn't realize is the 6mo contract while short pays double a factory wage so it's like being employed for a year.
In my experience what matters most is understanding your goals, or lacking clear goals, what you want and enjoy. It’s remarkably easy to latch onto goals that seem like great ideas but ultimately don’t align to your own happiness.
That’s not to knock ambition, but to frame it in the most practical terms. How will success actually and specifically benefit you?
Ron's second law: the hardest part of getting what you want is figuring out what it is.
> It’s remarkably easy to latch onto goals that seem like great ideas but ultimately don’t align to your own happiness
I wonder if the whole idea of goals and ambition being able to deliver happiness is wrong. Certainly whenever I’ve set a goal and achieve it nothing much changes in how I feel about life because I was hoping for too much and so must just find a new goal.
A nice article on the benefits of giving up from a magazine promoting religion under the guise of science.
https://www.templeton.org/grant/nautilus-magazine
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Templeton_Foundation
I quit my job 2 months ago ago Best thing I have ever done. Only now I realize how toxic and unrealistic the projects I have done where
I've cost myself quite a bit over my lifetime by quitting work I disliked for pick-a-reason without a plan to replace the income. I wish you the best in your search for a new revenue stream.
They quit their jobs 2 months ago and felt great . But I think it would be more accurate if they reflect after two years
If they felt great after two months, they’ll most likely feel amazing in two years.
At one point I ran out of money and ended up homeless. Would not recommend.
Well yeah that’s the only downside, running out of money. Everything else is paradise. I took a year and a half off now and it was probably the best time of my life. I travelled extensively, hiked a lot, built a lot of high end furniture, spent quality time with my wife and kid, took on construction projects (barn, chicken coop, running path etc.) around my property, ate delicious home cooked meals leisurely, lifted weights, went to interesting conferences, concert and shows. Life was amazing and it wasn’t all that expensive. I can’t wait to FIRE which should be possible over the next 5 years.
Did you end up homelessness because you’ve left toxic job and felt great after two months of not working there?
I stopped working and then I ran out of money. For me, a toxic job is better than not having a place to live. You can learn to cope with toxic (whatever that even means), and you can't manifest yourself a place to live.
And they might find a better job and make twice as much money while being happier. You never know.
Sounds like a terrible gamble if you don’t know the odds - or the odds aren’t good?
My goal is to save enough money so that I can stop working one day. It should be more or less possible within 15 years. I'll be in my forties then.
I quit my job a little over a year ago and it's been the best year of my life. Not sure if I'll ever be able to go back to daily stand up meetings.
About five years, for myself.
>Not sure if I'll ever be able to go back to ... meetings.
It's with the wisdom of age that I now understand why HR discriminates against gaps in employment history... mostly because I don't know how I could ever be employable, again.
Monk-mode is such a cheap way to exist. Highly recommend it.
I realize now what total bogus nonsense standups are. You get asked the same pish everyday and nobody listens to what you say. Ten different ways to track things for different audiences. I learned to just ignore all instruction given in these meetings and when board to talk non-stop to consume time and have them quickly move to others. A waste of space. Sack all the PMs and interfering managers who depend on them.
This thread gives me some ease :')
Walked away from money and (project) name recognition for no commute and no extra hours. Best decision of my life.
I did that once: I was planning to quit to start a business, but when I realized the environment at my day job was toxic, I quit about 6 months sooner than planned.
Woooooooow good for you.
Must be nice to have quitting money.
I’ve never once been able to afford being able to quit a job, and I’m like, closing in on 40 now.
I hope you get there. Depriving most workers of the ability to step away is, it seems, a purposeful feature. But you can get lucky, and I hope you will.
You just need to limit your expenses more.
It’s possible to live on $1000/month in the USA if you have a shared bedroom, dine-in, and skip medical insurance.
Medical insurance is a basic necessity. Advising someone to skip that is irresponsible and degrading.
I would only 100% agree if this person had dependents (that medically rely upon his benefits).
I live on about twice that in a mid-sized US city. Own my car, rent in below-average part of town.
$1000/mo? Pff, that is luxury. Live on the streets, dumpster dive, forage and hunt for food, eat every other day, and you can get that down to $0. If you really need income you can take up sex work. $1000/mo, imagine!
The "just stop eating avocado toast" advice is neither helpful nor thoughtful, friend.
That’s not “just stop eating avocado toast” advice. It’s advice to cut extremely high expenses.
Avocado toast advice is dumb because it’s an expense that doesn’t move the needle.
Cutting medical insurance, for example, is a good way to end up medically bankrupt and lose anything you’ve ever saved if anything goes wrong. And by the time someone hits 40, chances are something has gone wrong.
I once quit a job because it was toxic. At the time, I was saving so I could start a business, but the environment became so toxic that I needed to walk out much earlier than planned.
My "6 month" runway ended up lasting a lot longer, mostly due to the stock market taking off. I ended up living off of interest for 18 months. By the time I admitted to myself that I wasn't much of an entrepreneur and needed to go work for someone else, I hadn't taken too much out of savings. I also had straightened out my head quite a bit, so I was able to figure out what kind of salaried jobs made me happy. (And paid enough for me to live a good life and save.)
I really encourage you to see if there's a way to adjust your finances so you can live more cheaply, save, and then live off of your interest for a period of time to get your head straightened out.
> My "6 month" runway ended up lasting a lot longer, mostly due to the stock market taking off. I ended up living off of interest for 18 months.
I can't think of a period in which markets did that well. (And "interest" is a strange term here.) Were you leveraged, or did you also just not have expenses as high as your original estimate?
> or did you also just not have expenses as high as your original estimate?
The market went up much faster than I originally estimated. Basically, I got lucky.
I quit my job in 2009, right when the massive bull market started. I had a bunch of stocks and mutual funds that I planned to sell in order to support myself.
Which I did: What happened was that my stocks and mutual funds appreciated faster than I spent them. (If I hadn't sold them, they would have doubled or tripled in value over the 18 month period.)
For example: The day after the iPad came out, I sold my Apple stock at a nice profit to pay my expenses for a month.
Ironically, if I had stayed at work as long as I planned, I probably would have had even more runway. (But then I wouldn't have landed the awesome job that I got when I went back to a salaried job in 2011.)
>By the time I admitted to myself that I wasn't much of an entrepreneur and needed to go work for someone else
This took me about two decades and two companies to discover, about myself.
Good timing and luck have also given me a much longer runway than I ever anticipated having. Mostly just need to work for my sanity and health benefits (at this point).
How in the world did you get back into work after that gap? I have a gap after getting laid off from my first job and a career is, apparently per my extended and futile job hunt, unrecoverable.
Similar boat, but I'm finally at the point where I think I can just walk out. Just stay on the job hunt and you can get there. I went from musician living on the cash in my pocket with 4 roommates to $110k in 10 years. You'll have to job hop, you'll have to grind some self-learning, but you can do it.
Come back when you gonna be out gf money AND out of job. It's delusion to say that being jobless is any beneficial on the long run
With the energy you're putting out sounds like you might need a new job. It's always the people in shitty jobs saying things like this. Figure out where the pain points in your life are that are making you so bitter and try to fix them.
Where is it written "I finally don't have a job, I am so free!!!!" ?
Why so mad bro?
>According to a review of more than 230 studies recently published in the journal Nature Human Behaviour, adjusting our goals in response to stress or challenges, rather than grinding on, is often “a more appropriate and beneficial response.”
That is also what people who persist on the path of their goal do. And that's not giving up, as the title claims.
The issue is that we live in an era were a 2-bedroom house is already something people can start giving up on. So the threshold for whats attainable is getting lower and lower, and soon enough just food will be enough.
> and soon enough just food will be enough.
And then you will be lectured on how prosperous a country it is and how big the GDP is, probably by a foreigner lol.
Its only an issue because people don't want to compromise on location, aka they want the most convenient place possible (because they 'deserve it'?), but half of other folks living and working in the area want exactly the same. And it doesn't really matter if we talk about SV or some other big enough city anywhere else, they all share the same situation.
And commute is unacceptable, for some even 20 mins according to same topic being discussed also here ad nausea.
Btw having a house is a luxury basically anywhere in the world, not sure why the baseline expectation is that its some UN-enforced basic human right. I for example lived, live and will live in apartments only which cost less than 50% of similarly-sized house and derive life satisfaction other things than gardening and constant upkeep of property. Really not getting this want-luxury-as-baseline mindset.
All of housing, education, and healthcare have gotten more expensive way faster than wages have risen, in the US.
People are upset about it because together those things, plus the end of the pension somewhat earlier, mean the death of the middle class, the idea of which was a pretty big part of American post-war identity.
More economic drag on getting educated, more economic drag on becoming a property owner and the security that provides, healthcare costs are a drag on accumulating money for younger generations and will soak up anything their parents managed to accumulate. Middle class = dead.
No it's more because things have gotten worse. When people's parents could get an X-bedroomed house on a single parent's income, which they grew up in and developed their sense of aspiration and normality, but they cannot do so with joint really high incomes, there's a very tangible sense of progress having not just stalled but gone backwards.
My context is Canada; the problem we have here is that there is a big divide between people who bought their big homes with land 10-20 years ago, and the people in the market right now who can only afford apartments. The issue it twofold; (1) negative comparison against the landowners even though apartment dwellers may have significantly higher incomes / education levels, and (2) political divides; the landowners staunchly oppose the zoning and transit changes that might make life better for apartment dwellers.
Getting used to living in an apartment is a smaller issue in my opinion.
Nobody is claiming owning your residence is a basic right. We're talking about long term goals that you spend your professional life (read also: youth) working diligently towards.
If the average person/family cannot work hard, save, and purchase their own safe, comfortable, living accommodations, the implication is that the landowning class will forever co-opt an increasing percentage of the economic surplus for one of the most essential goods - shelter. There is only so much adequately zoned land, and so much housing on that land. Populations, and increasing, and therefore so is demand.
You are absolutely welcome to forego property ownership if you like. There are many benefits in terms of flexibility (e.g. ability to quickly move somewhere else). But this is typically not an economically advantageous move in the long term if you're staying rooted in one place. And having dealt with toxic, abusive landlords, there is an understated element of psychological safety to ownership.
We're not just talking about big cities. We're talking about suburbs too, and even more "rural" areas that are still within a few hours of a city. Essentially where 90+% of the population actually lives.
This is not a first-world-tech-bro complaint. It is a genuine economic problem for us that affects the vast majority of people who live here, and therefore the country as-a-whole.
People would not have voted for a moronic despot had he not been promising what they've all been asking for - a radical reshaping of the system that hasn't been working for the vast majority. People cannot afford the American dream that they were promised, and they are angry about it.
> We're talking about suburbs too, and even more "rural" areas that are still within a few hours of a city. Essentially where 90+% of the population actually lives.
Majority lives in urban areas.
Americans have about longest commutes and tolerate the longest commutes to work.
Also yes, they want to live where the jobs are. If compromise on location means "being unemployed" then most just cant afford it.
Modern upbringing of children is full of nonsense forced by business and political goals. Rhymes that go "rain, rain go away" etc. Values that prioritize and reward sales skills, TV shows that show telling lies and pretending is acceptable and fun, weirdness is desirable etc. Importance of presentation over core content and so on.
We trained our mind to ignore and forget all animal instincts, body signals and wisdom acquired through ages.
Of course, ancient battle wisdom from the East tells you how to approach issues - saama, daana, bhedha, danda - that is - make friends, negotiate, divide and rule, use force. At any point, if things look infeasible, retreat and avoid. Pure common sense.
> Of course, ancient battle wisdom from the East tells you how to approach issues - saama, daana, bhedha, danda - that is - make friends, negotiate, divide and rule, use force.
That's probably something you learn in India. In the West that'd be Machiavelli (and countless Roman/Greek philopsophers/generals, etc), for whoever went to school.
Anyway, all this is somehow unrelated to the article.
The main issue is that people nowadays have somehow internalized a weird "alpha male, never give up, don't cry, just shut up an resist, impossible is nothing" mindset. The issue is that many parents don't want to create "weak" grownups, with the side effects of creating potentially sick ones, who will grow and will have kids and "won't repeat the same mistakes as my parents".
In my experience the smartest and possibly most successful (not rich, but successful in terms of satisfied/happy/in a good state financially) people are the ones that know when to change course. Finding the sweet spot (the "when") is just pure talent. This is extremely difficult for a parent to understand: when to jump in and tell your kids "it's OK, do something else" without shame.
> people nowadays have somehow internalized a weird "alpha male, never give up, don't cry, just shut up an resist
I don't know what counts as "nowadays" but this male image has been promoted for a really long time. "Big boys don't cry" and "strong men don't take no for an answer" have been a thing for centuries. Stoicism was centered around emotional self-control more than 2000 years ago.
This survived for so long because we used to live in societies that were very patriarchal. So men knew their role and it was also at the top of the pyramid, all in a precarious equilibrium from a mental health perspective.
What happened nowadays is that society is less patriarchal. Men are no longer at the top of the pyramid, they no longer have a clearly defined societal role, but they still carry some of the old remnants because occasionally that's the expected of them and that's still how many boys are educated. The modern man is locked into a world where his education and emotional toolset are inadequate. They are raised to lock their feelings like an "alpha" but no longer have an outlet for anything because the alpha role in society started evaporating or shifting away from them.
It's a mental health crisis that will overflow sooner or later and it won't be good for anyone around it when it happens.
> "strong men don't take no for an answer"
This is the exact opposite of what Stoicism teaches. It's all about figuring out as early as possible when you're aiming for an "impossible goal" and should dismiss that goal as something that you really have no control over. As for the emotional control part, the real goal is not to let your emotions affect your behavior in dysfunctional ways. That's why the main focus was not in fact "big boys don't cry", it was "big boys don't get angry/freak out/throw temper tantrums, EVER". Because that kind of unrestrained anger is really bad for you and those around you.
I wasn't compiling a list list of values that are consistent, just values that were historically taught to boys/men. There were teachings in that vein for centuries and millennia. Some are contradicting ("be a gentleman" / "don't take no for an answer"). Bottom line, "never give up", "control your emotions", "don't cry" are not a "nowadays" thing by any measure.
> That's why the main focus was not in fact "big boys don't cry", it was "big boys don't get angry/freak out/throw temper tantrums, EVER"
In practical experience "boys don't cry" has been a staple of the actual education boys get for centuries. To the point that a lot of boys got a smacking for crying. Temper tantrums are as natural as crying, a reaction to the developing brain. They were considered abnormal and "destructive" because that was the limit of our understanding in child psychology.
On the other hand getting educated to never "get angry/freak out/throw temper tantrums, EVER" is just as toxic. Boys and men are asked to bottle up everything and this sort of worked, still with a high mental health price, in the past when there were outlets for that pressure. With those gone we just made the situation worse.
You're right that temper tantrums might be natural and excusable from young children and toddlers, but the obvious argument would be that people really should know better at some point as they develop mentally and are able to reflect about the deeper consequences of that kind of behavior. This is not advocating for systematically bottling up emotions, of course; even the ancients were well aware of the difference between temporarily restraining a negative emotion in order to avert its detrimental effects in the moment, as opposed to addressing its root causes (often in terms of unfulfilled expectations and desires) through inner self-reflection and mental exercises.
> Modern upbringing of children is full of nonsense forced by business and political goals. Rhymes that go "rain, rain go away" etc.
I don't understand what you mean by "rain, rain go away" in the context of modern upbringing of children. I know of the nursery rhyme with that line, but that's at least 350 years old.
I think it makes children to grow up thinking rain is bad. I used to walk for miles in cyclone rain, cross rivulets with strong water flow - just to attend school. I can't think why someone want to raise their children not exposed to rain.
You are linking a nursery rhyme which is older than the USA to "Modern Upbringing".
That's an odd example.
I don't know anything about cyclone rain, but nobody in Ireland needs to be taught that the endless dark grey days of winter and their accompanying cold wind-driven rain are unpleasant
The notion that big business is conspiring to keep children from playing in the rain because of… reasons… might be my new favorite conspiracy. I’m bought in.
Social media established a hustle culture in young men, cost of living forces people to work without taking vacation. The modern trend is 72 hour weeks in Silicon Valley corporations. Houses are speculation objects rather than affordable homes for families. In this society you have to teach children early on about how money works and how to keep jobs or you'll find them in a vicious cycle of trying to afford life. Giving up simply is not an option for many people anymore.
> In this society you have to teach children early on about how money works
In this society? When and where was it ever different?
First lesson of life should be "you work to buy your bread" followed by "nobody will ever give you something for free".
First lesson of life should be to show empathy towards other living beings.
If the first lesson in life is "you work to buy your bread" and "nobody will ever give you something for free" you'll end up in a world filled with egoistical maniacs. Which unfortunately is where we are at the moment.
Your second lesson is not even true considering I'd have unconditional love for my children/wife. Altruistic love in the form of give for the sake of giving, not give for the sake of receiving.
People forget that we are strong together. Working together is actually the only way humanity got where its at until some maniacs invented slavery.
In a world full of (as noted) egotistical maniacs, is not what you are preaching surefire suicide?
Notably, neurotypicals generally fundamentally know this and even priests will throw abusive assholes out of church while still preaching peace, love and tolerance - without blinking at the apparent hypocrisy.
Or, as the case may be sometimes, initiating religious wars.
It seems like neurodivergents are the ones who get hung up on the literalness.
All life requires a degree of self defense/an immune system, or it dies.
And one could argue that the big reason we don’t have slavery anymore (by and large) is because of mechanization.
There were plenty of preachers in the US South (and plenty of religious figures everywhere in history) that preached the righteousness of slavery. While also preaching peace and love. And they put up quite a fight!
It was not an easy thing winning the Civil war, and plenty of wars were won on the back of slaves, at least in antiquity.
The Spartans weren’t feared because of their egalitarian and humanistic ethos, that’s for sure.
All life requires a degree of self defense, sure. But self defense does not mean running around the world screaming "me, me, me!". Bees only thrive because they work together. Their hive-self-defense even kills some of their own to protect the rest of the hive. They also only sting if absolutely necessary (in their view) as doing so most likely kills them. Ants work in a similar fashion. No ant thinks "I got so much food, I'll store it in my 1 ant colony all for myself".
Humans for some reason have these traits, being jealous, egoistical and whatnot is natural, the difficulty is in acknowledging that and to actively work against these feelings instead of giving into them. A lot of humans also have the wrong perception of strength. They see the rich as the strong and the poor as the weak, but I dont want to get too deep into that.
This conversation reached pretty philosophical levels and I can admit that its unrealistic to expect altruism from each and everyone, especially when their basic needs aren't met.
Would still be cool if rich people could share a little more though, as in my view it should be impossible to be rich while other people starve... Especially considering rich people make it hard for others getting wealthier because it means competition. A lot of people got rich in highly unethical ways. Everyone should have the chance to thrive and afford basic and cultural needs, nobody should have to work 70 hour weeks or two jobs just to survive.
The key thing about thinking about a rich person is - ‘what’s in it for them?’ or ‘why would I do that?’.
They get asked for money, or have many opportunities to spend money every day. If they took all of them, they’d have no money left.
The last time this happened in the US, the deal (so called ‘new deal’) was let us tax you, and give it to the poor, or we destroy you.
If they can avoid being destroyed and ALSO not lose their wealth, what do you think they are doing to do?
How much should I charge my kids for the second lesson?
It was not "social media" in an abstract politics neutral way. It was conservative right wing grifters who has seen it as a way to capitalize on notion of traditional masculinity.
> Newer evidence suggests that ditching tough-to-attain goals > can actually be good for us.
> adjusting our goals in response to stress or challenges, rather than grinding on, is often “a more appropriate and beneficial response.”
It depends a lot on the goals. I give up often and quickly. One reason is ... lack of time. (And also lack of discipline, but lack of time is really one key reason I toss away many things these days. You live only once, at the least most of us.)
There is, however had, one interesting study from psychology. I forgot the name, but they showed tests with kids as to "if you eat this now, you won't get an additional reward, but if you won't eat it for an hour, you get more lateron". Now this was not the setup, I am just quoting this from memory. The adults left the room so only the kid was there and some sweets on the table.
It was quite convincingly shown that the kids with more discipline and will-power, aka who refused the sweets in order to get more reward lateron, were also more successful on average lateron. Or, at the least, avoided some problems such as drug addiction and what not. So I think the "benefits of giving up" has to be put in context. It depends on what and how you give up. I may not give up on A, but then I may not be able to do B, because of lack of time, lack of resources and so forth. So these are just trade-offs, but discipline and will-power are just about almost always really excellent traits to have or train for.
"Marshmallow test": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_marshmallow_experimen...
It was also highlighted (recently?) iirc that it has little to do with discipline and will-power, but is surprisingly affected whether kids come from wealthy / "good" families (and thus can trust grown ups) vs kids coming from poorer / "troubled" families (and thus just leap at the opportunity and don't trust that they will actually get another marshmallow if they will wait).
from what I remember of the described study the kids who showed more discipline were also the kids who had been conditioned to trust adults, the ones that had experienced that adults were untrustworthy did not have the discipline.
so not sure if the conclusion that self-discipline is the cause of later life success is the moral of the study instead of kids with messed up parents have a worse time of it.
> "if you eat this now, you won't get an additional reward, but if you won't eat it for an hour, you get more lateron"
I know there was just a space missing in "later on", but I couldn't help but imagine "lateron" as some sort of placebo narcotic....
'When' does one give up? That is the question that needs an answer.
When you have enough money so you don’t have to work anymore. For most that’s never unfortunately.
Constantly assess the cost and benefit for future scenarios. Give up when the cost goes too high and beats your risk appetite.
In SW development the bar is constantly being set extra high expecting people to meet it constantly if they meet it once. Maybe some random unachievable internal date for some pointless goal for a back slap and a feel good headpat. Yeah, no. You will fail sooner or later as the denizens of management and PM-topia expect that is the norm. Better to relax and let every date be missed and tell them life's a bitch.
I mean this ran straight into Halting problem, and proven impossible to solve.
ask chatGPT
This reminds me of Henri Laborit's book entitled "Eloge de la fuite" (in praise of flight) which states that when faced with stress, we can respond with action, flight, or inaction. Unlike the other two responses, inaction is toxic to the body. Maybe giving up corresponds to flight. I didn't read the article.
There is a fourth - fawn.
Aka capitulate to, or attempt to befriend/suck up to the threat.
It’s a pretty common, but particularly reviled response, actually. very apparent in some sectors of politics right now though.
"fuite" is french which means to escape, to flee. Flight is only in context of planes or flying transportation. As for the sense of it, you're right, it's either do something, go away, or do nothing.
What distinction do you draw between “flight” and “fleeing”? To me they are synonyms.
From Cambridge.org:
> (an act or example of) escape, running away, or avoiding something: > They lost all their possessions during their flight from the invading army.
I was merely making the distinction for those non-english natives people like me who tilted their head not getting it at first :D
I think idioms that are synonyms of close concepts must be the hardest to learn in a second language. Can you trade any French examples?
The usage is a bit archaic, but that's another meaning of flight.
flight [flahyt]
noun an act or instance of fleeing or running away; hasty departure.
I honestly don't know how you define archaic here because it's very much a current usage of the word.
(of a linguistic form) commonly used in an earlier time but rare in present-day usage except to suggest the older time, as in religious rituals or historical novels. Examples. thou; wast; methinks; forsooth.
Its usage isn’t extinct, but it is far less common than it used to be and IS largely extinct in casual day to day speech. We would say flee, run away, escape, or any of a dozen other things more often than “flight”
Since my mother tongue is french, I guess I didn't choose the proper english word. In the context of an attack we sometimes see the "fight or flight" response. But I don't know what is the best term to translate "fuite" in this context.
"Flight" is used in English to mean "an act of fleeing". It's perhaps less common outside of specific idioms ("fight or flight" being one of them, yes), but people will generally understand you correctly in context. It seems from the rest of the comments that GP is also not a native English speaker.
I just read an article on this subject last week and thought this was going to be a republication on a nautilus but it’s different authors and different stories - https://www.newscientist.com/article/2501420-why-giving-up-o...
The nautilus story uses one meta study and the New Scientist has many individual citations with some quotes from scientists.
I don't believe in "giving up" but I do believe in picking battles and leveraging higher order effects. A short term retreat to win a long term war. Walking away can be the best strategic option.
For example, if you find yourself in strong disagreement with the current leadership at your company, instead of having cataclysmic battles every day on Teams, you could simply hand in your resignation letter and walk away while the boat is still afloat. Keep your chin up and firmly depart with grace.
Short term, this looks exactly like giving up. Long term, it can surface the foundation of your arguments and force those higher up the chain (investors) to potentially come back to you and your arguments in the future (assuming you were actually right).
I'm living this one right now. It's surreal watching people who attempted to game of thrones me ~every day get perp walked. I wouldn't say I enjoy this because it would have been better if we had figured out a way to work together. It definitely wasn't a skill problem on anyone's part.
It is often best to use your opponent's momentum and energy against them. If the problem you are dealing with is other people, giving up is a reasonable default. If the problem is some challenging machine learning algorithm or other personal project I think you should be more cautious about walking away. This can turn into a bad habit.
The fewer chefs you have in the kitchen, the easier it is to assign blame and figure out what the real issues are. You can become part of that refining process if you have the contingencies to endure this job market.
That’s still giving up. Just a fancy way of saying it. There’s nothing wrong with giving up.
It reminds me of one of my favorite quotes: "You never finish, you give up."
It was said speaking of art, but it could also apply to software projects :)
This piece is missing something important: Pain of letting go. Especially if you're sensitive to pain, you will be sensitive of letting go.
That pain disappears really quickly in many cases...
True, but it's like with needles for some people. Even if you know that pain is just quick and harmless, your brain will act like you're in live danger.
Yesterday I spent two hours looking for something that I thought I needed. Ten minutes in I thought of an alternative solution that wouldn’t require the item I was looking for. I wanted to do more interesting things, but I still /had/ to find it. I’d accidentally end up doing it again when I try to stop. A friend who was observing this tricked me into eating something, and then I was able to stop.
If I forget a word mid conversation, I spend a lot of time trying to remember it. I can google or ask the chat bot, but emotionally I want to get there it on my own.
I think that I’m addicted to the feeling I get when I find these things or solve a very difficult problem. After reading an earlier article about “aha” moments, I wonder if it’s the same circuit. Maybe there is also a natural predisposition for hunting in my brain, which is why food seems to help me get past these … moments.
I think a better way to put this is the acknowledgement that resources are limited rather than giving up.
approval
Going through a lot of changes right now and two lines are reverberating in my head.
I was into punk as a kid, still am I guess, and there's this recurring motif in Rancid tracks: "the secret to a good life is knowing when you're through".
Also recently had some words of wisdom I liked from a mate in his mid-sixties: "one door has got to close for another one to open".
[dead]
It makes absolutely no sense to do an analysis of such a broad subject and then analyze it in such superficial detail. At least this article does nothing but give the most vague description of what might in general happen.
It is of course obvious that any hard goal requires effort and effort is linked with a lot of "bad things". The whole article can be reduced to this. Trying requires effort and effort is hard.
Seth Godwin has a book about this called “the dip” it’s worth a read and isn’t too long, find it at your local library
> find it at your local library
But what if I would prefer to buy "the dip"?
Check eBay
Very relevant!
Philosophy has had an answer all along;
One should become aware of one’s deluded notion in which one thinks that ‘I belong to these objects of the world and my life depends upon them. I cannot live without them and they cannot exist without me, either.’ Then by profound enquiry, one contemplates ‘I do not belong to these objects, nor do these objects belong to me’. Thus abandoning the ego-sense through intense contemplation, one should playfully engage oneself in the actions that happen naturally, but with the heart and mind ever cool and tranquil. Such an abandonment of the ego-sense and the conditioning is known as the contemplative egolessness.
-- from "Vasistha's Yoga" translated by Swami Venkatesananda.
Such ego and delusions are results of mind wandering outside of the context provided by the instincts and senses.
No.
The ego-sense is the Mind in its capacity/function as self-identification. Its is called Ahamkara (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahamkara) and is an aspect of Antahkarana - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antahkarana. It is fully capable of creating delusions from external (i.e. objects through the senses) or internal (i.e. objects through its own imagination) means.
Looking at biological evolution, purpose and functioning of instincts and senses is more useful and more grounded than abstract philosophies, in my opinion. We don't need to analyze mind and thoughts in a manner that is fully disconnected from biology.
Mind is just an orchestrator of responses by processing of sensory information, memories and instincts. Actually, such processing and response can happen throughout the body as well to a limited extent.
This sort of reductionist approach has long been discarded.
Philosophizing is as old as mankind with even the most primitive tribe developing a "Worldview" within which it placed itself i.e. gave meaning to its existence. "Modern Science" itself was birthed from Philosophy in order to study "Objective Reality" separately from our "Subjective Perception" of it.
But the fact that we "live in our Mind" only via subjective perceptions (i.e. experiences/feelings/emotions/thoughts/memories/etc.) has not gone away and hence the problems engendered by this must be faced.
The need for a study of this through a Philosophy is nicely stated by the opening verse of Samkhya Karika (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samkhyakarika) which is a seminal text from the Samkhya (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samkhya) school of philosophy;
Because of the torment of the three-fold suffering, arises this inquiry to know the means of counteracting it. If it is said that such inquiry is useless because perceptible means of removal exist, we say no because these means are neither lasting nor effective. (See the "Contents" section of Samkhya Karika webpage linked to above for a detailed understanding)
So what Philosophies give us is a way to orient our psychology through a appropriate worldview which promises the removal of all suffering and unhappiness which Biology by itself cannot.
Appropriate world view was evolved over millennia through continuous cycles of adaptation helped by sensory perceptions, much before these philosophies came up. You may call it reductionist or whatever. That doesn't change the facts of evolution.
Any new world view that didn't go through same level of evolution and not tested against the physical world around it, is just a sales talk to influence people who were desperate and fearful and struggling for survival. It doesn't matter who stated it and when.
You have missed the point; it has got nothing to do with Evolution/Biology but everything to do with Psychology. Philosophy is just Psychology in another guise which looks for all-encompassing solutions to the questions of "Happiness/Meaning/Being/Existence".
> Appropriate world view was evolved over millennia through continuous cycles of adaptation helped by sensory perceptions, much before these philosophies came up.
No. Evolution/Biology have nothing to do with "worldviews" which is purely a human psychological concept eg. Bacteria has no worldviews but is genetically preprogrammed to do whatever is needed to survive. Adaptation under evolutionary pressure has given us a complex brain/nervous system but we also have something called "Consciousness" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consciousness) There are various models to try and explain it (the above wiki page is pretty detailed) but regardless of any explanation we experience it from moment to moment. That gives rise to a "Mind" and its consequent "Thoughts/Emotions/Feelings/Memories/etc." which is where "we live". So the question is; how do we manage this? The obvious answer of "we always seek to maximize happiness" fails since Humans endure all sorts of hardships/self-harm in search of meaning (eg. gory rituals in many religions).
Philosophers have been studying the problems of Consciousness/Mind/etc. from time immemorial and over time have built up a body of knowledge much of which has been validated by empirical practice eg. Effects of Meditation - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_meditation. It seems we have many "states of consciousness" some of which keep us in a tranquil/peaceful/calm/blissful state over long periods of time. This is what is called "end to suffering due to worldly existence". A philosophical worldview gives a practical roadmap to achieve this.
i spend a lot of time looking at companies to buy for the company I work at. A decent number of them are in situations where they aren't doing well and the founders have had a very difficult 10 or so years and you can see the pain. They should have given up 8 years ago in most cases.
giving up is a good tactic to see if an idea is any good
good ideas are very hard to give up on
go all the way there & imagine your life without this goal, and accept it
if it forces its way back into your life multiple times, it might be a good idea
wait for the conditions to arise where it becomes a possibility and execute
My little list of things I gave up in life and increased my overall happiness and well-being beyond comprehension:
1. Job: I used to take job as my heaven, over-work, over-deliver, over everything. You are let go the moment the company please coz you are just a number. I stopped seeing workplace as heaven but as "it pays the bills", full stop.
2. Finance: Directly related to above, have an emergency saving preferably at least up to 6 months worth of paid bills. I have been layoff twice up to 5 months before finding a job. Nothing destroy you more than finance stress, giving up that fear of job loss alone will increase your well-being beyond your comprehension. Some people give up working altogether, we all will get old one day, your "giving up" must include that.
3. Cash/Minimalist: Give up having the latest phone model, the latest car model, the latest everything, nobody cares, and definitely not the people from your social media. Cash over debit card so you can easily see what you are spending on. Ban credit card and you will see money you didn't know you had.
4. Relationship: I never had much luck with it, but after ending a 6y long term relationship, I gave up. I have hobbies, pets, that is all I need.
5. Friendship: People will only show you their side that they wanna you to see, and not who they really are. Stop trying to please friends and you will see who are the real ones and who are after personal interest.
This is me giving up and yet, being happier, healthier, eating better, etc, etc.
I used to think David Bazan's "Winners Never Quit" was a little over the top, but with some modern "grindset" advocates, I feel like it's becoming less so.
Save your applause for the end of the road.
In most trading advice, cutting loses as soon as possible and as emotionlessly as possible is emphasised heavily. It's also physiologically one of the hardest parts for people to do consistently.
I've worked way, WAY harder on my failures than I did on my successes. My biggest failures always came from holding on to long.
I gave up my well paying full time job to start my own mammoth, own intuition. Been 5 months now and mammoth is ready for the ride.
> The scientists also analyzed the impacts of these decisions. Giving up on goals was significantly linked to reduced stress, anxiety, and depression, for instance.
This seems to be a correlation, not a causation. There are many studies that show Stress, Anxiety, and Depression are prevalent in people who are smarter than the average, due to factors such as heightened self-expectations, rumination on negative experiences, and awareness of negative aspects of the world.
People who are smarter are more driven, which is how they develop their cognitive abilities. Giving up doesn't cause less anxiety, these people have less anxiety because they don't have the faculty to be affected by it.
This is a clever insight. You are doomed to a life of anxiety.
> People who are smarter are more driven, which is how they develop their cognitive abilities. Giving up doesn't cause less anxiety, these people have less anxiety because they don't have the faculty to be affected by it.
Ah, the old “I’m anxious therefore I’m smart, they’re not therefore they’re stupid”. Lol, get your head out of your ass.
I never said I was anxious, assuming just makes an ass out of you.
Also "I’m smart, they’re not therefore they’re stupid" said the person whose handle is WISEoWISE. Gee you must be super wise.
Go back to Reddit troll.
I once spent 2 years working on a book about why you should give up on your dreams.
Couldn't find anyone interested in publishing it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Distilled it down to 1. a 3-min song https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDnpZJI7jKw 2. a 5-min talk https://youtu.be/U4ZnfCmTJMY?si=Ac_jVKnR-ARQilLu
tl;dr
A dream is just a story you have made up, and the main character in the story isn't even the real you. Following a dream means sacrificing real happiness today trying to manifest imaginary happiness for an imaginary character in an imaginary future. Engage with your real life instead.
by far the most helpful realization i had in the last decade was that i have severe limitations, and i have to give up constantly until i find the path of least resistance
Buddhists call it the middle way - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Way
Thank you for extending my valid-excuses list!! /s
It is indeed true that giving up can be the best choice.
> But letting go and—crucially—reengaging with new goals, was found to restore purpose and well-being.
Seems everyone here is kinda missing the point. It looks to be less about giving up and more about engaging with new goals. You find X goal is too hard to achieve and give up but also decide to pursue Y goal that is more achievable (and still has some fulfillment to it).
I get that but doesn’t seem anything too radical… If I have impossible to achieve goals then I’d naturally be upset. Spending time on goals I feel I can accomplish is almost always going to be more fulfilling than doing ones that feel impossible.
From my own entrepreneurship scars, the real curse is never knowing when “enough is enough.”
If I’d pushed a little harder, would it have finally broken through?
Figma, Airbnb, and the other freak successes only exist because they didn’t quit.
You shouldn’t be blinded by survivorship bias either. Some of the best decisions I’ve made is quit my startup or company when I see the writing on the wall that this is not salvageable by my sacrifices
People also waste entire decades because they didn't quit.
Inisisting, trying, experimentation, effort and not giving up makes a big difference.
I suspect the reason is because most of the people, at that time, have surrendered already.
I made $60K since launching a year ago, after 4 years of full time development.
I feel delusional that I still want to keep working on it.
I guess we’ll see how year 2 post-launch goes.
was gonna read this, but realised I didn't have to:D
It doesn't count as giving up if you never even started :P
Any study involving so called meta-analyses is not worth reading on the basis of some scientific evidence, just call it a hot take and leave it at that. It might still be an interesting hot take, not to say this is or is not.
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