

Hedonist GTD - chibea
http://journal.rinich.com/post/261583256/hedonist-gtd

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discojesus
"Arrange your life around what you like. That’s it! You’re done. You’ll be
happy forever."

Who would have thought that heroin addicts had the secret of life?

Not everything is pleasurable - sometimes you just have to suck it up and take
out the f*cking trash. :P

~~~
unalone
I like taking out the trash because it makes my place less smelly. Like,
there's a logic to doing some of those things beyond just "somebody told me."
But in other situations you find yourself doing things maybe you don't have to
do.

~~~
discojesus
Taking out the trash is not intrinsically pleasurable, like playing Call of
Duty, or masturbating. Or masturbating while playing Call of Duty. You take
out the trash, study instead of playing games, or save your money for the
longer-term effects, which is precisely my point. Saving money sucks in the
short term, which by "Hedonistic GTD" would disqualify it for almost everyone.

The article is pretty much contentless fluff, and would be made 100x better if
it was just replaced with the quote "do what you love and the money will
follow." Still debatable, but at least it has brevity going for it.

~~~
unalone
Understandably I disagree. Specifically: I'd like you to point out where I say
delayed gratification is a bad thing. If you want a house, you save money
until you can buy a house. Otherwise you're not getting what you want. But if
you _have_ a house, and you have comfortable money, and still you find you're
working long hours for the sake of making money and nothing else, then there's
a problem because you're not really doing the things you'd like to be doing.

But it's not about money. It's specifically _not_ about money. It's about
being happy with your life. And it's less about doing what you love than it is
about _not_ doing what you hate. There's an important distinction.

------
omgsean
The problem is the huge difference between what I want to do right now and
where I want my present actions to lead my future. For example, I'm not going
to amass wealth by playing marathon sessions of Modern Warfare 2 in my
sweatpants, but damned if I don't want to do that instead of sitting down to
work on my projects almost every day.

~~~
ovi256
But WHY do you want to amass wealth ? If the answer is "to be happy", it's
very much the wrong answer, per TFA. If it's "to play MW2", even more
obviously so. The same about "to be respected", "to have status", or similar.
So ?

PS : I'm an European, US guys seem to have pretty much a stereotype about us
all as being "godless communists" who need complicated reasons to work. Well,
kind of.

~~~
nazgulnarsil
the elephant in the room: increased mating opportunities.

~~~
unalone
If somebody dumped a million dollars in a pile in your bedroom, would that
fact alone make you more desirable to women?

Of course not. What would make you theoretically more desirable: You might
stop caring so much about individual women once you're well off. You might
have more free time to socialize. You might dress nicer. You might cook more
or get yourself a nicer place.

That's what makes you more desirable. That's all achievable without the money.
You don't need to be rich, you just _think_ you do.

~~~
nazgulnarsil
not sure what planet you're from, but it sounds really nice. can I come?

~~~
unalone
What about what I said do you disagree with?

~~~
nazgulnarsil
"of course not"

or maybe your experience with women has simply been much better than mine. I
live in a very wealthy area, thus there are a lot of women looking for "good
marriage material" around here.

------
zikzikzik
"Arranging your life around what you like" does not mean mindlessly overdosing
on some activity. Essentially this piece is about a somewhat higher than
average level of self-awareness.

The problem is, by constantly avoiding unpleasant things, one might lead a
semi-happy life, but there is a downside: this way a large part of possible
outcomes becomes simply unreachable. (There ARE outcomes, which can not be
reached without considerable amount of unpleasantness.)

One might argue, such (hard to reach) outcomes worth more (= bring more
happiness).

This is the real question here.

