
This is Why I'll Never be an Adult - maqr
http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/06/this-is-why-ill-never-be-adult.html
======
starkfist
The truly financially successful people I know have figured out a way to
outsource all of this type of mundane day to day thing, except for maybe
something they enjoy as a hobby, like cooking. (I also know a weird guy who
just likes ironing shirts.) It goes beyond this. REALLY rich people have
executive assistants to do their mundane work related stuff too. But anyway,
everyone I know who is rich has someone to clean their house, do their
laundry, book them plane tickets, do their taxes, manage their money, field
their phone calls, schedule meetings and other appointments, etc.

It's not lack of maturity to want to avoid all this crap... it's actually a
big time sink and not anything that will get you anywhere in life. It's
important to get done but as soon as you can you should pay someone else to do
it. However, putting it all off to surf the internet is also the wrong
approach. I look forward to the day when I'm rich enough to pay someone else
to read hacker news and post comments for me.

~~~
pyre
The 'maturity' part comes with doing things that need to get done, but aren't
necessarily fun. Delegating those things to other people when you can afford
it (or at least when your time is better spent elsewhere) is also part of
maturity.

The 'lack of maturity' part comes from just ignoring those things because they
aren't fun.

~~~
rue
> _Delegating those things to other people when you can afford it (or at least
> when your time is better spent elsewhere) is also part of maturity._

How is that? There are plenty of completely "immature" people who can afford
it. And plenty of "mature" people who cannot.

~~~
pyre
Maybe I should have specified, but maturity is a sliding scale. It's not pass-
fail. Someone can be immature enough not to take care of the 'unfun' things if
they have to do them manually, but be 'mature' enough to delegate them when
they can afford it. Someone can be so immature that they don't even bother to
delegate it even if they can afford to...

It's also maturity to be able to recognize that your time might be better
spent elsewhere rather than demanding that you be the one to do it yourself.

------
grumpycanuck
I'm sure I'm going to get flamed and/or down-modded for taking the contrarian
postion on this. Shame on me for choosing to accept the challenge of being an
adult in our modern society.

If you think that going to the bank, doing your laundry, and answering emails
in a timely manner is some sort of accomplishment or difficult, then you need
to take a look in the mirror and realize that you are looking at the problem.
It's called "being responsible for yourself". Tough concept for many people
apparently.

I'm 39, been married for 12 years, and have two kids. I choose to be
responsible because my kids can't do their own laundry or buy their own
groceries. These are 5 and 10 year-old kids, not adults. Am I perfectly
organized? Not even close. But I don't sit here and justify my failures like
the girl who writes that blog. Yoda was right: do or do not, kids. There is no
try.

Before you get all mad, I understand there are people who have mental or
physical illnesses that makes doing these everyday, routine chores difficult.
These people have my sympathies and understanding. The rest of us have no
excuse. Yes, I include myself in "the rest of us."

Yes, much of every day life is not fun. I don't particular _enjoy_ being a
responsible adult, but if the alternative is the kind of ranting, over-the-top
situations in that blog post (and on that blog in general), I'll take being a
responsible adult. Grocery shopping is hard? Responding to emails is hard?!?
Going to the bank is hard?!?!? This person who lives on the internet cannot
order groceries online, answer emails or pay their bills online? Oh, that's
right, they can never be an adult. Because it's too hard or something. Okay,
back to Facebook and rating pictures of cute kittens. I'm sure there is a
"responsible adult" out there who "cleans up" after this person. Resenting it
while doing it too, I'm sure.

Don't blame it on TV or the internet or the poor diet North Americans eat or
the "bureaucracy involved in modern city life". Millions of other people are
in the same circumstances or worse and somehow manage to rise above it all,
and have fridges with food, clean clothes, and money in their bank account.
And they do it all by themselves too.

~~~
Daniel_Newby
You seem to have a model of the human brain as a machine with a moral
selector. If it is set to "good", then the morally-correct neural programs are
automatically activated, producing a moral outcome, or at least a valiant
attempt interrupted by bad luck.

"If you think that going to the bank, doing your laundry, and answering emails
in a timely manner is some sort of accomplishment or difficult, ..."

In reality, the actions of the human brain appear to be directed by a
complicated network of multiple pattern matchers that search for salient
input. When one of them recognizes a pattern with sufficient intensity, it
produces an output that directs attention and activity toward it. These
pattern matchers vary across the population. Some people are entranced by
music, some by tidiness, some by praise, some by chasing tail, some by
financial work that they have been told needs to be done, etc. etc. etc.

There appear to be pattern matchers that work on thought itself, sustaining
attention to an idea so that it spontaneously stays somewhere near the focus
of attention with little perceived effort. This facility appears to vary _a
lot_ between people. Some people get stuck (obsessive-compulsive disorder),
most folks remember the more important things most of the time, and for some
people holding onto a thought is like trying to catch smoke. Studies of twins
separated at birth show that this facility is about as heritable as adult
height.

"Going to the bank is hard?!?!?"

Going is easy, but for some people it simply does not spontaneously float into
the focus of attention. If the police aren't about the come asking awkward
questions, if the person has enough folding money for food, and so forth, then
it readily slips out their conscious mind. They'd rather it did not, but a
weak meta-mind cannot readily fix itself with meta-thinking.

I fall on the easily-distracted-by-shiny-objects end of the spectrum.
Somewhere around here I have a $50 refund check that I've had for _ages_. The
cops don't care, nothing gets turned off if I ignore it, so it keeps falling
off the radar. It will probably continue to be forgotten until it has more
value as a collectible. One of my descendants will euphorically sell it for
Federation credits and then promptly misplace their credit chip. They will
feel really guilty, but this will not help them find their credit chip.

"I choose to be responsible because my kids can't do their own laundry or buy
their own groceries."

Try choosing to be irresponsible for three straight weeks. Your kids will not
be harmed by a few weeks of nachos and slightly-dirty clothes. I bet you
couldn't do it. The salience detector in your brain would scream and you would
be compelled to obsessively fix it, regardless of your previous "choice" to
prove you could, and your brain's storyteller would then cook up a story about
how you really meant to do laundry all along.

~~~
jquery
That line of thinking is well-suited to justify one's own failings while
minimizing the successes of others. While I cannot argue against determinism--
philosophy isn't my line of expertise--I don't think it is a useful model to
go through life with. Call me old fashioned, but even as an atheist I've found
having a "moral" view of the universe is far more productive. Personally it is
more motivating and liberating to believe in free-will than to believe one is
merely an automaton... true or not. Of course you might say I'm compelled to
believe in such a way... so I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. :)

~~~
jamii
One could choose to use it to excuse one's failings but that doesn't make the
argument invalid.

You have to understand your enemy. I know I am incredibly absent-minded. I've
learnt through such reading that this is not a failing of willpower or
discipline so all the people crying 'just try harder, stop being lazy' are
wrong. These are not solutions to the problem.

Of course that doesn't mean I give up on being an adult. I just find solutions
that don't revolve around some Victorian working ethic; 'hard work is the
solution to all ills'

------
dkarl
I get no satisfaction from doing something I've done before. Work sucks: if
it's something I know how to do, I hate doing it, and I drag my feet, and it
sucks. So I volunteer for things and get in over my head, and people get
impatient with me while I get over the learning curve, and that sucks too.
Nobody wants to pay me just to learn to do stuff I don't know how to do yet,
but doing something I already know how to do feels like death. In other words,
I'm either incompetent or I'm bored out of my skull, and often the results are
the same. I've performed significantly worse at my job the last couple of
years than I did five years ago, because I just don't care. I feel the same
whether I do a good job or a bad job. I don't get any satisfaction out of
doing a good job, because, well, what have I proved? That I have a high
threshold for boredom? That's not something to be proud of.

The same principle applies to all the practical stuff in life. "This morning
you have to go to the bank, wash the dishes, do your laundry, go to Home
Depot, and file an insurance claim. If you don't, you're an irresponsible
slob." "And if I do?" "Then you're not an irresponsible slob. Not because of
those things, anyway. You've got a whole list of things this afternoon that
you could possibly screw up but could not possibly accomplish in a way worth
taking pride in."

~~~
kd0amg
_Nobody wants to pay me just to learn to do stuff I don't know how to do yet_

So far, this is about what grad school has felt like.

------
moultano
My biggest problem is mail. I HATE getting mail. I wish there was some way to
make it illegal to send it to me. Processing the endless quantities of crap
every day probably detracts more from my happiness than anything else in my
life. I most loath having to figure out if pieces of mail from my bank are
important in any way or just another preapproved credit card that I will never
need in my life.

The biggest effect is second order. If I don't process it immediately, it
piles up on the desk where I normally study. Once it has piled up, it becomes
a barrier to studying, and I stop doing serious learning too.

~~~
jrockway
Oh, that's easy. If the mail doesn't have the word "revenue" (as in "internal
revenue service" or "department of revenue") on the envelope, you don't need
to open it.

~~~
a-priori
Court summons?

~~~
jrockway
They'll come and get you for that. Eventually.

------
SandB0x
Baby steps. To dig yourself out of a rut, you need to set yourself small
achievable goals. Once you achieve those, your confidence grows and you can
move on to the next goal. If you keep trying to change everything in your life
at once, you will probably fail and fall into the cycle shown in the
article/comic. Baby steps.

Also, go to the gym. My mind is so much clearer and I am so much calmer when I
exercise.

------
fizx
I too suffer from this, and am looking for a sustainable way out. This must be
how obese people feel about their weight. If anyone else has solutions please
post away. Strangely, the solution that's made the biggest difference in
outside-work lifestyle for me is writing tests before code at work. More tests
means less debugging, which means less stress. Most of my relapses happen
after a stressful day of debugging under deadline.

~~~
aaronblohowiak
Realize you are in control. Track your behavior. Slowly make the numbers trend
in a better direction. The hard part is being honest with yourself.

------
jamiequint
Taking a day to set up online bill pay, and paying other people to clean your
house and do your laundry is one of the best decisions you can make. It seems
expensive, but when you really look at the benefits to your life I really
think you end up better off.

------
daten
Is this author serious? I don't consider answering emails, doing laundry,
keeping the house clean, paying the bills on time or doing other tasks like
going to the bank to be much harder than breathing or tying my shoes in the
morning. These are simple necessary tasks. They are done routinely and can be
done without much thought or effort. I'm seriously concerned for someone who
has this much trouble with these basic parts of life.

Is this a mental disorder? or just laziness to a level I haven't seen?

I agree with the author's choice of title though. If I had to imagine someone
who has trouble with such simple tasks, a child is what I imagine.

~~~
Poleris
Note the title of her blog.

~~~
daten
I did note the title in my post. And I agree the title is a key part of the
author's story. I still appreciate your reply and the others that tried to
help me better understand where the author is coming from.

I'm still left wondering if she would be happier if she spent less time
thinking about chores and errands and just did them. I feel like these things
aren't a big deal to me because I don't sit around evaluating how "fun" they
are or if I can procrastinate. I just do them, usually while thinking about
unrelated things that I do actually care about while I'm doing them.

And thanks to whoever was nice enough to downvote my post. I'm sorry I didn't
jump on the "I'm lazy too" bandwagon for easy karma. =(

~~~
sofal
The title of her blog, not the title of her post. The title of her blog is:
Hyperbole and a Half. A hyperbole is an exaggeration or overstatement in order
to achieve a desired effect, like comedy. I downvoted your comment because it
was very apparent that you did not see this. It sounds like you still don't
understand where the author is coming from. The author is only partially
serious. You pay too much attention to the details of the story without
recognizing that she purposefully exaggerates her laziness in order to drive
the point home while at the same time making it funny. If you think she's
childish and irresponsible, consider this: she makes a living off of that one
blog, from ads and merchandise. How much commitment do you suppose that takes?

~~~
daten
Fair enough. I was only evaluating the content of her post within the context
of that post, I did not pay attention to the title of the blog itself.

I am impressed if she's making a living off of her just her blog. I'm
disappointed if she's unable take care of her other responsibilities as well.
I respect her for at least recognizing that as childish. I don't find any of
it humorous.

------
kiba
Let the robots do it. Or at least, I planned for robots to do it. Right now, I
don't have a proper screwdriver for dismantling the RC car so I can start
building my first robot. I have everything else like an iron solder, leads,
three cooper wires spool, a light sensors, and an arduino, LED. I am missing a
vaccum cleaner(to dismantle), sonar and other useful sensors, etc.

I am also working on my web application development skill like mad so I can
develop an RPG for real life.

One thing I already accomplished: Feeling like a ninja using emacs because I
make an effort to learn one new thing everyday about emacs.

~~~
kiba
I wonder why would anyone vote down my post.

------
koanarc
Problems common to most of us, I think, though I can't say I've ever framed
them as a matter of adulthood so much as a matter of motivation. Having
something to look forward to, something that feels like a net gain to one's
subconscious cost/benefit analysis, is probably the most important factor when
it comes to deciding whether or not to get out of bed in the morning.

------
makmanalp
In case anyone doesn't know of her alots yet:
[http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/04/alot-is-
better...](http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/04/alot-is-better-than-
you-at-everything.html)

------
dunstad
I won't pretend to know much about responsibility, but creativity like that
needs to be nourished.

~~~
SandB0x
Brutal self-honesty is enlightening.

------
staunch
Discipline: I'm not sure if I don't want it because I don't have it, or if I
really just don't want it.

------
meese_
"Life is like highschool with money." — Frank Zappa

------
gcheong
I think this _is_ adulthood.

~~~
koanarc
I hope so, or else I don't really know any adults.

------
Alex3917
Sometimes I get the feeling that the combination of school, drugs, the
Internet, the standard american diet, and lack of exercise has left the vast
majority of the population with some form of mild brain damage. Although the
fact that most Americans are basically retarded, we live in a police state,
and society is collapsing doesn't help much with the motivation either.

~~~
derefr
Most prominently, almost everyone now has social anxiety disorder. It really
does exist (i.e. it's symptomatically a lot worse than just "shyness" or
"introversion") and it seems like more people are developing it with each
generation. Perhaps evolution is finally adapting us to city life by making us
more and more neurotic?

~~~
Tycho
I remember when I _used_ to wonder what my life would be like if the internet
hadn't been invented yet. But I'm so past that now - these days I wonder how
_everyone's_ lives would be like without such heavy internet usage.

~~~
aaronblohowiak
That is hilarious for this of us who remember life before Internet. :)

------
shrikant
"Go to the bank"? Who does that any more?

I'm in India, and it is running on close to a year since I _had_ to physically
visit a bank. And even then it was something something so mundane that it
could've been done over the 'phone, but I just happened to be right in front
of a branch.

~~~
sofal
Try not to zero in on the specific 'bank' example she used. She probably only
used it because 'bank' is one of the first things that came to her mind when
thinking of 'responsible adult stuff'. The examples she gave were
exaggeratedly simplistic for _comedic effect_ : email, go to the bank, and
clean stuff. It's funny. It's like a metaphor for 'stuff that adults do',
alright?

------
aohtsab
This just reminded me to look into online grocery/misc shopping -- my plan is
to analyse my shopping/use patterns and then try to automate that. I can't
agree with this post enough -- I really hate grocery shopping.

I don't mind running necessary errands, except for when I have other things
(coding, projects, etc) on my mind. The 'real world' of unswept floors and
dirty dishes becomes a distraction that weighs on my mind when I need to
focus. I wish there was some way I could delegate these tasks, but even if I
had the money for that, a lot of this stuff just seems too personal to let
someone else handle.

------
barredo
I also let a few emails unanswered for days sometimes. I don't know what the
perfect solution to avoid that happening again. But i'm sure it starts with
answering them.

------
pizzaman
the best time saver if you don't have a dishwasher: use throw away cutlery &
plates. saved me a lot of time.

people that don't hate doing chores, simply look at them like a game. It does
make them feel good, to have everything under control, a clean house, all
bills paid...and i think you can train yourself that you will also feel that
way and you will want to have everything neatly done. It's like going to the
gym, if you go for a while, you will miss it when you stop going.

But i don't want to train myself to give annoying, boring things a meaning.

i guess it all changes when you have kids, then you have to do that stuff.

~~~
gensym
Ugh. Your time must be pretty darn important if we should get petroleum out of
the earth, turn it into dishware, haul it to your home, haul it from your home
and into the landfill just to save you the two minutes it would take to
actually wash the stuff.

Part of being a grownup is learning to enjoy living responsibly.

~~~
tomjen3
I love how everybody tells you as a kid that you must do so and so, but that
when you grow up you can decided.

Then you grow up, and they start telling you "part of being an adult/grown-up
is X" or "you have to do Y" or else.

No, fuck that shit. I didn't waste 18 years as a minor just to have random
people tell me what to do and I can see that the blog author hasn't either.

Now I will go and fill this apartment with playpen balls.

------
mkramlich
I try to strip things down to the essentials:

1\. the things I must do (like eat, or die)

2\. the things I should do (like exercise, or get unhealthy and weak and
scrawny)

3\. the things I want to do (to be me, natural, happy)

If I can't put a task in one of those 3 buckets, I usually don't do it at all.
Or at least, it's a lower priority.

4\. everything else. blah. meh.

------
Daniel_Newby
The copyright notice at the bottom of the comments is great too!

------
interesse
as long as daddies check is arriving every month...

