initially written at a friend’s request (h/t to Vedha)
i’ve read way too much self-help in the past couple years. at the same time, i don’t think that any single article/book would satiate the desire for self-improvement in most readers. hence, here’s a curated list of insightful tweets, blogs, and other writing. i’ve included a short quote or tl;dr to help gauge interest.
in no particular order:
- “the mediocrity trap: situations that are bad-but-not-too-bad keep you forever in their orbit…Terrible situations, once exited, often become funny stories or proud memories. Mediocre situations, long languished in, simply become Lost Years”. So you wanna de-bog yourself explores some common “copes” for why one’s situation doesn’t improve. one i felt particularly attacked by was the cope that “you have this secret unused stock of effort that you can deploy in the future to get yourself unstuck”. a short 2006 YouTube video also illustrates this point well.
- fuckaroundits puts a word to one of my most nagging, common realizations: that i’m not doing the maximally effective thing i could be doing now. and a great reminder to be methodical in one’s work. it’s important to be detail-oriented, but it’s arguably more important to think about your big picture.
- there’s too much advice in the world; so many one-liners uttered repeatedly, often conflicting with one another. should you reverse any advice you hear offers a rationalist perspective on following advice.
- the majority of young people’s lives is spent over-optimizing on certain metrics; grades, leetcode, etc. OP proposes a name for the failure to realize the need to pivot onto a different metric: Goodhart overhang, named after Goodhart’s Law.
- ”you already diagnosed your problems; you can just solve them” is one of few one liners which i’ve found universally true. and yet one that i’ve needed to hear again and again and again.
- Pain is not the unit of effort — you’re not doing your best work if you’re unhappy; if it’s painful, you’re probably doing it all wrong. stop measuring your effort in pain.
- sometimes, internalizing what not to do is easier than what to do.
- most people won’t put in the effort to be successful. this graph of users progressing through 100 days of code isn’t intended to be self help, but what a beautiful way of illustrating how much hard work compounds; at day 1, you’re competing with 200k people, and by day 100 you’re practically only competing with yourself. actually, you’re always only competing with yourself.
- it’s almost impossible to fix a problem in your life if it becomes socially load-bearing. problems are never permanent unless you pretend they are. here’s a great thread , and another
- i’m often tormented by the fact that i logically know what’s best and what to do, but can’t bring myself to. some may call it procrastination, but it’s more specific; a lack of self-control, acting against one’s own best judgement. it’s called akrasia. here’s my favourite explanation, or maybe one’s actions are more indicative of preferences than one’s thoughts.
- one of the easiest ways i’ve found to improve my quality of life is literally to spend more money. growing up in an immigrant asian household led me to be extremely fiscally conservative, which served me badly; money would have been spent much better in self-improvement, or improving quality of life. here’s a thread if you like anecdotes, or an economics wikipedia article if you enjoy quantitative explanations. both are great.
- two conflicting statements can be true: these are hard times and it’s okay to be where you are. but also, these are always hard times and you should be taking risk, and working for it. a piece of advice given to a reader in a tough position, but potentially helpful to all. a tweet sums it up pretty well: “huge difference between ‘everything wrong in my life is my fault” and “everything wrong in my life is my responsibility“‘.
- feeling alone in your problems is terrible for one’s mental wellbeing. you are not special, but neither are your problems. and that’s a good thing.
- should your local bakery buy more waffle irons? in other words, should you bet more on your strengths, or your weaknesses? one should work on your weaknesses if they’re glaring. but it’s usually better to work on your strengths, especially if you get feedback on it — you often have some idea of who you should be that is not as good as who you already are.
- sometimes, the best self-help isn’t self help; rather a factual article on how some of the most impressive people in the world came from impressive families. children whose parents were doctors are 25x more likely to become doctors. this concept is summed up as a Hero License - ie, most people don’t accomplish great things, because they don’t try to accomplish great things. as long as you think you can accomplish something, you really can. an easy way to do this is to joke about the outcomes you want . this is even great startup advice.
- so much of making friends is just maximizing serendipity; “having so much of my brain accessible to others has been incredibly helpful. if someone wants to be friends with me after knowing that much about how I think, we’re probably going to get along.” writing a blog is probably a great way to meet like-minded people.
- many smart people fall into the same trap: feeling like they are only interesting and valuable if you have your life together (are fun, popular, successful, etc). they forget that psychological safety is a human need.
- Why bother doing your work when the universe is going to be extinguished in the end?well, existentialism is often indicative of a slightly deeper problem you’re avoiding.
- choosing what fuels you is the foundation of your successes; have you thought about what your motivations are, and where they break down?
- the memories you rehearse in your head are the ones that form your identity.
- you should never downplay your work, lest you convince yourself and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. especially for social reasons.
- you don’t have to know what to do, to do something; literally just do it. the “best” version of something is always a moving target, so strive to be prolific. write 100 songs. publish 100 blog posts.
- it’s almost wise to avoid prestige if you want to do what you love: “if it didn’t suck, they wouldn’t have had to make it prestigious”. and likewise, to get status, you have to give up status.
- if you’ve never missed a flight, you’re spending too much time in airports. you’re probably not taking enough risks, and not failing enough.
also, some other great, broader resources that are hard to categorize:
- visakanv’s entire list of talking points — if you like him, you’ll probably like his books Friendly Ambitious Nerd and Introspect.
- a list of 100 tips for a better life. the one which stood out to me is “make accomplishing things as easy as possible. find the easiest way to start exercising. find the easiest way to start writing”. i bought a treadmill and put it 5m from my desk, and i exercised more than i ever had in my life; it’s my best investment yet.
- this list is notably lacking career advice; 80, 000 hours is a fairly definitive guide i tend to point others at (feel free to ignore EA-related parts).