

Harden the fuck up - jmongol
http://www.jmongol.com/harden-the-fuck-up

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thaumaturgy
What a peculiar attitude: "I hate this so much that I just need to harden the
fuck up and then I'll start to enjoy it."

I'm a climber, too. Worked as a climbing instructor back around 2003 or so,
been up and down Rainier, spent lots of solo time deep in the back-country
(where "harden the fuck up" _can_ be valuable), lots of trips to The Valley
and J-Tree and other areas. For a while I taught climbing to high school and
college kids, took them out to Pinnacles and other places.

That attitude would have made the class, and the activity, a lot less
enjoyable for them.

What's it to me if some of them don't find joy in suffering? So what if they
hangdog a 9 because "my arms are tired"? So long as they're having fun, and
want to keep doing it, they'll get better at it.

Running a business is the same. I've had a few miserable years of "harden the
fuck up" while building a business. I'm still doing it, but that's because I
am stupid. A more reasonable person would have realized that they could
probably make more money at a 9-to-5, with paid vacation and company-sponsored
comprehensive health coverage.

I've gone the business route because I _have to_ \-- because ultimately I'm
intolerably bored at a 9-to-5 and that eventually gets me in trouble. I'm not
doing this out of some strange desire to make things really hard on myself
just so that I can go around telling people to "harden the fuck up."

If someone doesn't get some kind of real, visceral need fulfilled by having
their own business, then they don't need to "harden the fuck up", they need to
get a real job.

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jrockway
Why are beginners "trudging through thick sticker bushes while it’s cold and
raining with another 5,000 feet of elevation to gain and a pack that's 20
pounds too heavy all after not eating enough this morning and sleeping in a
ditch for two hours"? I think the author needs to "lighten the fuck up" and
realize that for people that aren't professional rock climbers (is there such
a thing?), recreational activities are supposed to be fun. You can climb rocks
perfectly well after waking up after eight hours of sleep in your bed, having
a good breakfast. I'd start with that.

There are some intrinsic things that can hurt about rock climbing. The
exertion is obvious. But the shoes are not exactly comfy for long periods of
time, and the rocks do take their toll on your fingers. That you probably need
to harden up for. But all this self-inflicted bad planning is completely
unnecessary.

This post sounds mostly like insecurity on the part of the author to me. If he
really enjoys torturing himself, shouldn't he be out doing that instead of
telling us all how bad-fucking-ass he is? My response is an eye-roll.

~~~
bhntr3
There's a time on the mountain for me when I'm tired and maybe want to turn
around. The same often happens in difficult projects (2/3 of the way in when
the fun is over and it's just the shitty part of execution left). In
hindsight, the time when I should have turned around (if it existed) is almost
always later than when I started to want to. I've pushed myself farther than
was healthy out of stubbornness and also given up when I should have gone on.
But for me, when I wanted to stop was always before I should have.

So I agree with his prescription somewhat. If it's not fun for you, that's a
problem. But have those misgivings early and discard them. Once you're two
thirds up the mountain, dig deep and use your reserves to finish. I agree with
that philosophy because when I've wanted to give up and dug down and finished
the thing (without hurting myself) I've always appreciated the achievement. I
generally regret it when I don't finish.

I do agree that if your pack is 20 pounds too heavy and you're exhausted yet
hoping to do 1500m elevation that day, you really screwed up planning. At some
point executing a shitty plan out of stubbornness is a shitty idea.

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ludicast
He's right. If you are engaging in an activity that contains suffering in its
blueprint, it is cowardly and dishonest to hide from this.

Change your farking activity if you don't like this. Your complaints annoy
other people and even degrade the quality of your own life.

"I expect to be hit hard. I expect to be kicked hard. I don't need to hide
from those things." - UFC Fighter Chael Sonnen
(<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mvB391KDTE>)

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james33
Am I the only one that read this title and instantly thought it was referring
to James Harden?

~~~
rdl
I was assuming, given HN, that it was about eliminating the gaping security
vulnerabilities in applications and infrastructure, given that we now live in
a world of state-sponsored attacks (US, Israel, China, Iran, ...), easily
monetized crime (well, for the past 10+ years), and only marginally better
technology.

Recreational climbing and outdoor activities weren't at the top of my mind,
no.

------
dons
Australia's favorite standover-man impersonator on yc - well, there you go!

