
The Ultimate Guide To Getting Nowhere In Life - xutopia
http://garyharan.com/2010/04/18/the-ultimate-guide-to-getting-nowhere-in-life.html
======
smiler
How demeaning. Agree with some of it but notice how there is nothing here
about anything else you might like to do with your life outside of having a
job and owning a business. Like a wife and a family.

A 9-5 job is pretty much great in those circumstances if you just want to
enjoy life - I work for a 10 person company and I've seen what the owner has
gone through in the last 10 years it's been going - he has no life. Obviously
it doesn't have to be like that for everyone, but if I have to choose between
my family and slogging my guts out for something which may or not pay off and
consume all my time - I know which one I'd pick.

~~~
azanar
You're right about the matter of wife and family, but not in way most people
believe they are right about it. There is a wide chasm between finding joy in
something, and feeling the compulsion to sacrifice for it.

That you find joy in your family is fantastic, if only because you've found
something to enjoy. That your boss has been slogging away for ten years on his
business is fantastic, as long as his enjoyment of is worth more to him than
the things he's not done. So long as he or you don't regret it.

The important difference is between compulsion and choice; or even more
dangerously, a choice that is made, and then justified retroactively as a
compulsion.

It isn't worth itemizing all of the things people are compelled to, except
that this list is a somewhat abbreviated version of them: get a good (read:
easy) 9-5 job; spend money as catharsis; and let other people take the lesser
worn path and, if they succeed, live their joy secondhand as much as you can.
Also on the list: having a wife and children. They are defaults, and I'm not
the first to say that defaults can be quite compelling, and can be just as
easy to pass off as compulsions afterward.

Keep in mind, these being external compulsions does not mean that everyone
does them for that reason. It just means you have to be more careful about how
much of your desire is actual desire, and how much is just aimless drift.

Doing things just through compulsion rarely leads to enjoyment. It might have
been when the compulsions weren't just compulsions, but a lot of what we feel
compelled to do is fossilized wisdom from what other people would have thought
would make them happy, and maybe it did for a few people. The rest are still
waiting for the pay off, or have just given up and have become satisfied being
content and comfortable.

I don't think most people have to settle. I think the problem is a higher
level than the author gets at in his essay: even when people have options,
they feel compelled not to pursue them. In the worse case, they feel compelled
to destroy those options -- I've seen this happen, and it is tragic. I don't
think it has to be this way.

I don't think you're doing wrong, btw. But your comment reminded me of all the
times I've seen people sacrificing to compulsion at the expense of
fulfillment; it seemed worthwhile to get those thoughts out there. :-)

~~~
keeptrying
"even when people have options, they feel compelled not to pursue them"

Thats a really good point and its scary when you see it all around you. And I
think the reason it happens is because you dont see anyone else pursuing those
options.

I have, recently, moved out to Queens and now live with roommates so as to
save money. previously I had my own 1 bedroom in Manhattan. No one at work
understands why I did this.

The one thing I've learned though is that if I get a negative reaction from my
co-workers then I might be doing something right :) ...

~~~
tomjen3
Well if it would make you feel better, you have sucky coworkers :)

It should be obvious that most people don't derive pleasure from the place
they live. Better use the money for something else.

~~~
nostrademons
I'm not sure about that. I think it's more that people tend to derive pleasure
from one or two "must haves" about the place they live, but don't care much
about the rest. If those "must haves" don't align with what _you_ value, it
looks irrational, but it's perfectly rational to _them_.

Personally, I can't stand living in a place that doesn't look out over
greenery. I find I'm so much calmer and get more done when I can come home to
a place with grass and trees and bushes, so I'm willing to pay a few hundred
dollars a month extra for that.

I find it similarly irrational to think of all the people that can't live
anywhere but the city. I mean, they pay _more_ than I do, _and_ they have to
live with roommates, _and_ their places are usually smaller, _and_ they have
to specifically go somewhere else for greenery, _and_ they're looking at an
hour commute. (I'm particularly perplexed by people who spend $5k/month to
live in Manhattan, which is like SF * 10 in terms of all that overstimulation
and has less charm to boot.) But over time, I've realized that these people
aren't _stupid_ , they just have different priorities from me. Some absolutely
love having lots of small ethnic restaurants on their block. Some enjoy having
most of their friends within walking distance (which admittedly would be
pretty nice). Some like to go out clubbing every night, and there're lots more
opportunities for that in the city. They aren't opportunities that
particularly matter to me, which is why _I_ wouldn't make those trade-offs.
But they matter to the people in question.

~~~
smwhreyebelong
I agree it's all about priorities. Once you live in the city and get used to
the hustle-bustle and the fast paced life where most things are close-by and
you can walk to most places or take public transit, it becomes part of your
system.

I've lived in cities most of my life and when I had to live in the suburbs
once, it was very hard to adjust to the quiet at first. Not seeing a lot of
people walking around, going about their lives made me feel something was
missing. The mobility and being able to use your feet as the primary means of
transport was something I missed dearly.

------
kyro
I know many people who have/do the first 3 things on that list and probably
find more joy in their lives than this guy gets out of looking at the
temporary traffic spike hitting is blog because of a really demeaning post he
wrote up in no more than 5 minutes.

Happiness and life fulfillment are very much found in the 9-to-5, pay-check-
to-pay-check demographic of society. There are things in life one must attend
to that likely force people to get 9-to-5's. You know, like a wife and kids.
And then there are those who are content with what they have and don't carry
that gene that gives one grandiose visions of changing the world. There's
nothing wrong with having that trait, I think I've got it, but you should
accept the fact that there are people that are _happy_ with their day-to-day
jobs. Not everyone is a 22yr. old college grad who can explore and take on the
world with little to no financial responsibilities destined to change the
world in some unprecedented and legendary way.

~~~
azanar
_Happiness and life fulfillment are very much found in the 9-to-5, pay-check-
to-pay-check demographic of society._

I wish this were true. The impression I get is more of numb, passive
contentment, at least from enough people in this demographic that it is
bothersome. They seem to have traded happiness and fulfillment for the image
of happiness and fulfillment, and it is difficult to tell the difference until
you ask the hard questions that make them feel uncomfortable and defensive.
That's why most people don't, and that is why the groups are assume to
intersect perfectly.

 _There are things in life one must attend to that likely force people to get
9-to-5's. You know, like a wife and kids._

How much of this is a _must_ , and how much is a result of choices they made?
And how much of this forcing is a result of emotional and social pressure, as
a result if imminent, tangible risk? That is, how much is a result of wanting
to convince others that one is a responsible parent, as opposed to one
actually being irresponsible?

~~~
argv_empty
_They seem to have traded happiness and fulfillment for the image of happiness
and fulfillment, and it is difficult to tell the difference until you ask the
hard questions that make them feel uncomfortable and defensive._

Or perhaps a person took such a job because his life goals simply do not
relate to work. Being another cog in a cube farm may not be interesting
itself, but it can be used as a source of funding for things that genuinely
are. A 9-to-5 isn't my weapon of choice here (since some things I find
interesting also happen to be readily marketable skills), but it is an
effective one.

~~~
gcheong
The satisfaction, or lack of, one gets from a 9-5 or any form of work is
related more to the attitude one applies to the work than from the particulars
of the work itself. At least that seems to be the conclusion drawn from the
research done on "flow" states by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. It seems to
correlate well with my own experience and seems to be a recurring theme in
shows such as Dirty Jobs and Undercover Boss.

------
mmastrac
Well said. A 9-5 job is a great way for time to disappear into a void that
you'll never get back. If you're not paying attention, you'll lose years to
something like this.

I know everyone isn't suited for entrepreneurial life, but as a talented
developer you can always join a startup as employee 5+ and get a reasonable
amount of security and pay, with a chance of a good-sized upside.

Even if you're happy in a 9-5, medium/big company job, do yourself a favour
and keep that buffer around. There are so many things you can do with it to
improve you life and buy yourself freedom - more than just buying stuff for
cash.

~~~
Qz
"I know everyone isn't suited for entrepreneurial life..."

Is that because they started out that way, or because society tells them they
should get 9-to-5 jobs and be happy about it?

~~~
cookiecaper
I think it's because they started out that way! Of course, almost any skill or
desire can be learned, but everyone is born into this world with their own
unique set of aptitudes and weaknesses. The unique amalgamation found in each
person lends its owner to certain roles and stations in life where excellence
is easier to achieve.

Some people are perfectly OK working for someone else. They enjoy the labor of
it, they enjoy the pay, they enjoy the company, they enjoy the security and
relative comfort and anonymity. It doesn't really bother them that someone
else is making 3x more off of the work performed than they are. That's OK.
There's all kinds of people who are OK with this idea, too, but believe me
that it's much better for some types to remain content with this than to
branch out.

Some people are not content with that setup. They want to change things, they
want to control how they spend their time (i.e. no hard 9-5 commitment), they
want to keep the money their labors produce, they want to direct and lead and
organize and control the intelligences and powers for their ends. This is OK
and good too.

There's just different types of people in the world. We need employees, both
employees on the way to independence and employees who don't mind becoming
company men. It's good to have both.

The real thing that should be universal is a plan to develop financial
independence such that one is never forced to work a job after it turns south,
and such that people do not have to live in fear of their bosses. Of course,
many bosses get mad at this idea because it weakens their ability to control
their employees.

~~~
Qz
_Some people are perfectly OK working for someone else. They enjoy the labor
of it, they enjoy the pay, they enjoy the company, they enjoy the security and
relative comfort and anonymity. It doesn't really bother them that someone
else is making 3x more off of the work performed than they are._

These people seem almost mythical... I've never met anyone like that.

 _There's all kinds of people who are OK with this idea, too, but believe me
that it's much better for some types to remain content with this than to
branch out._

Why should I believe you that it's okay for people to be content with that? If
I met anyone who was content with that, I would try to wake them up to the
reality of what's going on.

~~~
cookiecaper
> _These people seem almost mythical... I've never met anyone like that._

Almost all of my associates from corporate jobs are like this. Most people
have no problem at all with a standard employee relationship given good
conditions and circumstances, and it is nicer in general if you can stand it.
There's much less to worry about, there's consistent flow of guaranteed pay,
there's a lot of people to interact with and meet, etc. The majority of people
are perfectly OK with this, even with the knowledge that corporate is making a
lot more money off of their efforts than they are.

It is okay to be content with that if everything else is good. One of my old
managers just wanted to be that, but was forced into a leadership role by
happenstance, and it was horrible for him and everyone under him. He cared
much more about remaining non-confrontational and diplomatic than he did about
being effective. This is bad; it led me to quit.

Of course, not all 9-5 employees are like him, and some are great leaders. But
they're content with the money and the situation so they stay with it.

Some people have a hard time tolerating that, which people often become
entrepreneurs. These people are good and important too.

If no one was content with employment, we'd be full of one-man shops and our
efficiency would be majorly decreased. Employees are important. Founders can't
really get rich independently (i.e. without an acquisition) without employees;
there's just no way they could do enough work on their own.

Most employees understand what's going on and they're fine with it. You'd be
surprised how many people stick with a "good-paying job" as their ideal. It's
weird to me too, but most people are fine with it.

------
mbrubeck
Hacker News - and blogs in general - are another way to live vicariously from
your couch.

(Thank goodness for noprocrast!)

~~~
cdr
Thank goodness for LeechBlock: <https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/addon/4476>

It's like noprocrast for everything. (Although I wish they hadn't mangled the
UI in the last update.)

~~~
foenix
The nice thing about leechblock is that it lets you set up a set amount of
time per hour on particular sites.

Unfortunately, this means I get cut off mid-sen

~~~
cdr
I take it that might be a joke, but it's not the case for me.

When the timer runs out it doesn't lock me out until I navigate away from the
page, and it even allows a POST so I can submit the comment.

------
tigerthink
Even the life he describes is pretty damn good by historical standards.

~~~
_delirium
Yeah, I think his idea of failure is a lot of people's idea of success: a
reasonably comfortable 40 hour/wk job that pays well and doesn't involve risks
of getting your arm chopped off in machinery, and a bunch of free time & money
to spend on entertainment. Not what _I'd_ choose to do, but neither are lots
of things; I wouldn't choose to work at a tech company that expects you to
carry a pager, work nights/weekends, and thinks it owns your life, either.

(I do agree that saving a bit of money is good for pretty much everyone;
buffers come in handy.)

------
nreece

      Most people work just hard enough not to get fired and
      get paid just enough money not to quit.
    
      --George Carlin

~~~
nova
Also called marginal utility.

------
KirinDave
So, if I'm reading it correctly, it seems like his guide says: if you're rich
and educated, you'll have more opportunities and be less stressed.

That's pretty insightful. You'd think someone would have realized that by now.

~~~
ssouth
The author's point is precisely that this sort of freedom is available to more
than just a wealthy elite. After all, it's not the "rich and educated" living
paycheque-to-paycheque and wasting away in dead-end jobs.

------
detcader
What makes these inverse guides so appealing, anyway...

~~~
hugh3
I don't know. It's really just a cheap trick that makes half-assed advice
sound much cleverer than it really is. But it works!

~~~
chipsy
We need to go one step further and make inverse inverse guides: "How to not
fail at not failing" etc.

~~~
smwhreyebelong
Funny you say that. pg used an inverse-inverse title for his 2007 Startup
School talk. It was titled :"Why to Not Not start a startup"

<http://www.paulgraham.com/notnot.html>

------
araneae
I think his offhand implication that reading books is superior to TV is wrong.

Most fiction has exactly the same purpose and function on TV, which is to
entertain. Yes, reading some books makes you "cultured" but so does TV; just
to a different culture. I consider watching all the latest sci fi to be just
as "culturing" as reading all the latest sci fi.

~~~
BoppreH
Reading makes you better at reading (duh) and writing. Two essential skills
that are used daily.

What skills does your TV gives to you?

~~~
nostrademons
Passively sitting down with the latest Dan Brown novel won't make you any
better at reading or writing. Sitting down with a novel that's just beyond
your comfort zone (say, Dostoevsky if you're used to Dan Brown) will make you
better at reading, and sitting down with any novel and actively _paying
attention to how the writer shapes the story with words_ will make you better
at writing. But that's an apples-to-sushi comparison: it takes a lot more
mental effort to actively engage with a book than it does to passively sit in
front of a TV. A more appropriate comparison would be actively reading vs.
playing Starcraft, which gives you a bunch of essential skills, eg.
multitasking, resource management, positioning & prioritization, etc.

Basically, you get out of any activity what you put into it. If you put zero
effort into reading, you're going to get zero skill out of it.

~~~
araneae
The reading I did as a child was well beyond what other children my age were
reading, but it never required "effort," because it was pleasurable.

It's a mistake to think that activities which require no effort are useless.

~~~
cynicalkane
The most pleasurable things, in my experience, require great effort. You just
don't notice because they're pleasurable.

~~~
zackattack
We can thank Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi for this idea. Flow is what you get when
you intersect a properly challenging task with a properly adept skill-set, and
it is immensely pleasurable.

------
jrockway
I read a lot of books (and sometimes even write them), but I don't see a lot
of value in reading over watching TV. I treat both as something to do when I
don't feel like doing anything that requires thinking. If you like TV, watch
TV. If you like reading, read. Or do both.

~~~
Psyonic
If you are talking about escapist fiction, I would agree with you, but some
books definitely require thinking. That said, I think some TV does as well.

------
j_baker
I think this is more a guide to becoming a normal American than anything else.
There's not necessarily anything wrong with that either. Can you imagine what
life would be like if everyone were a great hacker bent on changing the world
to suit them?

~~~
olefoo
Much more interesting and dangerous that's for sure. Although in my limited
experience great hackers aren't necessarily in it to change the world but to
discover how it works, sometimes by creating things that were supposed to be
impossible.

------
rmundo
Some of my most cherished friends view work purely as a way to support their
family and lifestyle. They don't worry about getting nowhere; in a sense,
they're exactly where they want to be already.

Attention-grabbing title aside, this is a great article for people who would
like to do something interesting but feel that they "can't" for various
reasons or who aren't sure how to start. I can think of several people in high
school or college who would appreciate this article.

(I really like the color scheme and font choices, btw!)

------
patience
wow - this is basically a not-so-thinly-veiled Horatio Alger rehash with a
condescending sense of humor. Life is so simple when you mistake other
people's problems as errors in judgment. Thanks, Superman - you've saved the
day once again. but what do you expect from a guy who, according to his bio,
"[brings] wines to the market in bold new ways." No thanks. A lá Gang of Four,
I'll get drunk on cheap wine instead.

Plus, it's a flawed analysis because on the one hand he's critiquing a
particular aspect of capitalism (the consumerist side - what did he think was
going to happen with all those advertisements and credit cards), while still
maintaining that as a whole it works (he proudly states he's an
"entrepreneur," who can balance work and family (subtext: so why shouldn't
you?)). What's more, his arrogance turns into hypocrisy, because as an
entrepreneur, whether he wants to admit it or not, he profits off of the backs
of other people, the same kind of people that make poor decisions regarding
long-term financial matters. As a matter of style, his flippancy which lacks
the slightest modicum of decorum is insulting, while his failure to call into
question the root, systemic causes to the problems he outlines is inexcusable.

------
khelloworld
"(CNN) -- Lars and Jens Rasmussen were broke and jobless -- with only $16
between them -- when they made it big in the Web world by selling their idea
for Google Maps."

SOURCE:
[http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/10/27/rasmussen.brothers.google...](http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/10/27/rasmussen.brothers.google.wave/index.html)

I'm pretty sure these guys got somewhere even without a cushion of money under
their bums.

~~~
_delirium
I'm not sure just how poor and underprivileged they were; it sounds like not
getting a job and doing a startup instead was a choice, and that initially at
least there was a cushion of money. Lars Rasmussen got a PhD from Berkeley in
1998, and then by 2003 somehow ended up in Australia, where he founded a tech
startup and sold to Google within the year. Most actual poor people can't buy
a plane ticket to Australia!

------
lepht
Ha. By these standards I am way ahead of the game. How many GamerPoints for
this "nothing" achievement?

------
ck2
Step 5: Write blog posts telling people how to live their lives.

(extra points for preaching to the choir)

------
CaseOfEmergency
I don't need a guide for that, I do just fine on my own.

------
dsplittgerber
What's even more interesting than the article is one's reaction to it. So
telling which aspects one immediately focuses on. It's always about oneself.

------
FlemishBeeCycle
Reader base meet article.

------
sukuriant
Ok, so what if you're already in the rut this article describes. This
accomplishes little for the people that are already stuck in this life and
dissatisfied in it, but feel trapped.

Well, no, that's not fair. It makes them feel worse. Nice try, but fail.

------
c00p3r
5) Play Farmville.

6) Browse 4chan.

~~~
paul9290
I think those are two different demographics.

Those who play farmville are the ones this posts is speaking about. While the
4chan crowd as a whole are a young computer literate and savvy crowd. Though
correct me if that demographic assumption is incorrect.

~~~
jrockway
4chan is basically HN, except that on 4chan, everyone has a more reasonable
perspective about their worth and ability. Oh, and you can post pictures.

~~~
ovi256
I see what you did there.

Sweet, sweet irony.

