Ask HN: What Motivates you to keep going?
what is your why?
39 comments
After a period of extreme burnout I started to explore different meditative techniques and, as part of that exploration, read the Bhagavad-gita.
Greatly paraphrashing for the sake of brevity, but the idea that has guided me since then is that we cannot help but take some action or perform some work. At the very least we need to eat, but to eat we need to get some food and cook it. We need to get shelter from the elements. You know all the basic stuff. Ok, so let's say we have a job in order to satisfy just the basic requirements to stay alive. Do we work just for that reason alone? No! Doing so traps us into this vicious materialistic cycle. A dreary life of working and paying bills and buying things that please our senses but are ultimately unsatisfying.
So, we need to work, but working for even the barest of material benefit is a trap so what to do? The answer is work with detachment. Work because you know you have to and you like what you do, but that's it. Break the connection to the material outcomes of work. Your work needs to transcend materialistic concerns.
If you are so inclined religiously you work for the satisfaction of God, work is itself an offering. Your work transcends, then, the materialistic trap.
If you are more atheistic then perhaps take the attitude that human society as a greater good needs as many of us to Do The Right Thing. Scientific studies show we are social creatures and the good positive contributions we make invariably help others, even if we don't see it. Even if we're just installing POS software at a chain restaurant along a busy freeway. Even such a mundane endeavor is a glorious celebration of simply Being!
Greatly paraphrashing for the sake of brevity, but the idea that has guided me since then is that we cannot help but take some action or perform some work. At the very least we need to eat, but to eat we need to get some food and cook it. We need to get shelter from the elements. You know all the basic stuff. Ok, so let's say we have a job in order to satisfy just the basic requirements to stay alive. Do we work just for that reason alone? No! Doing so traps us into this vicious materialistic cycle. A dreary life of working and paying bills and buying things that please our senses but are ultimately unsatisfying.
So, we need to work, but working for even the barest of material benefit is a trap so what to do? The answer is work with detachment. Work because you know you have to and you like what you do, but that's it. Break the connection to the material outcomes of work. Your work needs to transcend materialistic concerns.
If you are so inclined religiously you work for the satisfaction of God, work is itself an offering. Your work transcends, then, the materialistic trap.
If you are more atheistic then perhaps take the attitude that human society as a greater good needs as many of us to Do The Right Thing. Scientific studies show we are social creatures and the good positive contributions we make invariably help others, even if we don't see it. Even if we're just installing POS software at a chain restaurant along a busy freeway. Even such a mundane endeavor is a glorious celebration of simply Being!
Even seemingly small efforts can ripple out in ways we might never realize
+1 for the Gita, helps me a lot
I beat cancer this year. Every day is a gift
Curiosity. I can never stop living if I still have curiosity for what the next day brings.
A pure and endless motivator
One of my quips is that no one hates software as much as software engineers.
To me, this seems like the main thing that differentiates me from my peers. I love software, the fact that I can have the equivalent of hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of specialized equipment (e.g., media editing) in a little box that I can carry with me anywhere, and these tools are so good, that even professionals with access to the specialized hardware choose to use the software versions instead---
I don't think I'll ever be bored with not only the infinite possibilities, but also the extraordinary democratization, that software has created. I love software.
To me, this seems like the main thing that differentiates me from my peers. I love software, the fact that I can have the equivalent of hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of specialized equipment (e.g., media editing) in a little box that I can carry with me anywhere, and these tools are so good, that even professionals with access to the specialized hardware choose to use the software versions instead---
I don't think I'll ever be bored with not only the infinite possibilities, but also the extraordinary democratization, that software has created. I love software.
I found an interesting youtube vid a while back. It talked about "where I'll be in 3 years." It talked about how you can become more in 3 years.. if you have a plan.
I got a new note book and picked a why.. I am going to be a paid writer, a paid independent author.
So I took the book and bullet journal up a plan, and work it.
This has been a huge boon. I know what I have to do, and it's tied to a why.
This has been a huge boon. I know what I have to do, and it's tied to a why.
It never ceases to amaze me how vacuously shallow the answers to this type of question are (on HN, and in general).
It really is quite clear how few people really appreciate what a miracle their life is.
Literally, the probability of you being here reading this right now is so astronomically low, as to mathematically qualify as a miracle.
Almost every response to this type of question is within the context of the person's job. What a failure of perspective. Is your world really that tiny? Maybe you should pull your head out of your iPhone?
There was a whole lot of time, let's just call it an eternity, before each of us was born. There will be another whole lot of time, let's just call it another eternity, after we're dead. During this tiny little gap in between those eternities is this little window where each of us gets to be a conscious entity. A tiny transient spark of life, aware of the universe around us.
Given that context, you're saying you can't understand why you should be happy to be here?
It really is quite clear how few people really appreciate what a miracle their life is.
Literally, the probability of you being here reading this right now is so astronomically low, as to mathematically qualify as a miracle.
Almost every response to this type of question is within the context of the person's job. What a failure of perspective. Is your world really that tiny? Maybe you should pull your head out of your iPhone?
There was a whole lot of time, let's just call it an eternity, before each of us was born. There will be another whole lot of time, let's just call it another eternity, after we're dead. During this tiny little gap in between those eternities is this little window where each of us gets to be a conscious entity. A tiny transient spark of life, aware of the universe around us.
Given that context, you're saying you can't understand why you should be happy to be here?
> you're saying you can't understand why you should be happy to be here?
I think you miss the aspect of how insignificant existence is locally.
Sure the odds are astronomical but you weren't there to experience that measure in it's entirety i.e the the billions of years for you to experience the specialness of the blip. Also compare that with billions of people current existing at the same time as you who are also the product of this astronomial odds. The awe of the statement of the specialness of existence quickly fades away when you take the former statement into consideration
One could take this in the opposite way, we're so special that we are barely get to live long enough to experience reality for what it is and have to make do with such a tiny drop. The unfairness of it is misery inducing. We are so special that we get to appreciate this specialness only if we're lucky enough to be born in a first world country and to decent parents and born healthy. Aside from that we have spent a very significant time sleeping, pooping, dealing with BS, dealing with things out of our control etc etc
Existing is truly miserable if you aren't living in a first world country.
Man your statement is just hollow. The astronomical odds of existence is nothing celebrate by itself just as hope by itself is useless
I think you miss the aspect of how insignificant existence is locally.
Sure the odds are astronomical but you weren't there to experience that measure in it's entirety i.e the the billions of years for you to experience the specialness of the blip. Also compare that with billions of people current existing at the same time as you who are also the product of this astronomial odds. The awe of the statement of the specialness of existence quickly fades away when you take the former statement into consideration
One could take this in the opposite way, we're so special that we are barely get to live long enough to experience reality for what it is and have to make do with such a tiny drop. The unfairness of it is misery inducing. We are so special that we get to appreciate this specialness only if we're lucky enough to be born in a first world country and to decent parents and born healthy. Aside from that we have spent a very significant time sleeping, pooping, dealing with BS, dealing with things out of our control etc etc
Existing is truly miserable if you aren't living in a first world country.
Man your statement is just hollow. The astronomical odds of existence is nothing celebrate by itself just as hope by itself is useless
A long time ago, I decided a day was successful if I helped someone, learned something new, or made something.
It's a low bar to clear, so it isn't intimidating, but it drives me to make intentional connections, be curious, and contribute stuff to my household and the world.
It's a low bar to clear, so it isn't intimidating, but it drives me to make intentional connections, be curious, and contribute stuff to my household and the world.
I spent 3 years reflecting on this about a decade ago, and concluded that I really like fixing things that aren't working. There's no big or special reason behind what I do, just an understanding that things are broken and I have the skills to make them work. I apply this to human problems in technical teams these days, mostly around trying to persuade them that there is value in websites not being garbage, but anything that moves the needle in the right direction is enough to get me out of bed in the morning.
I like living indoors and eating slightly more than I hate my job.
The fear of not achieving something is often slightly greater than the fear of doing something hard.
Lots of cool stuff to see and do, and lots of cool stuff to share with my kids
In a word - curiosity. Coming up on the end of my career, I have a little money I can buy gizmos with, and try experiments and so forth.
boredom, seriously.
i think i've fried my brain way too much in my early 20s that i got this mild anhedonia from anything external.
but it's nice, these days i get to do and enjoy things out of pure interest and curiosity.
it's now less of a grind, and now more of "given x time, y resources, and z opportunies around me, what is a much more entertaining outcome that i can come up with?"
i think i've fried my brain way too much in my early 20s that i got this mild anhedonia from anything external.
but it's nice, these days i get to do and enjoy things out of pure interest and curiosity.
it's now less of a grind, and now more of "given x time, y resources, and z opportunies around me, what is a much more entertaining outcome that i can come up with?"
I don't like my current situation and I'm trying to change it rather than sitting around waiting for lightning to strike.
I had the same..
I got myself a bullet journal, and I'm working a plan. It's great to have a way through. Not out, but through.
I got myself a bullet journal, and I'm working a plan. It's great to have a way through. Not out, but through.
Whatever it takes
The fact that I, or anyone, is alive and sentient is truly miraculous. I’ve only got one shot to make the most of it.
I don’t know. Maybe inability to not keep going. Some sort of innate evolutionary failsafe I guess
Building a good figure for my kids and for myself. That and status chasing.
Children and grandchildren. And I enjoy my life in general.
My lovely wife, to whom I've been married for decades.
Otherwise, money
Otherwise, money
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Disturbed - "A Reason to Fight"
My wife and my kids, of course!
Building the future
Spite. That's my only remaining motivating force. Anything I do is out of spite, just to show them.
who is them?
Probably all the people who don't remember you anymore?
The people who have been laughing at him his entire life.
All of us.
the bullies, the naysayers, the non-believers! aha
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One day you'll probably look back on this and regret all the energy you spent being upset at "them." They are living rent-free in your head and in reality probably don't realize that they did you wrong. At least, that's what I tell myself when I reflect on all the jerk behavior I've ever dealt with. It's hard to let go of that crap even when you know it isn't good for you, but you should try.