> I lost my creativity and the sense of wonder I used to have in childhood. I am no longer curious because I am settled for the world as it is. I accept things the way they are instead of imagining how they could be.
I was starting to feel this way before I had kids, but having kids completely changed everything for the more interesting.
It’s funny because it’s the exact opposite of what I was told would happen: The story goes that you have kids, lose yourself, and become a boring old parent. Instead, I’m never lacking for fun or creative ideas because I can pick up a creative and hilarious child and go do literally anything together and we’ll have a good time. I’m meeting more new and interesting people than I have at any point since college simply by doing parent things and meeting other parents. I still have time to work on one specific side project, but I’ve learned to stop grinding through the side projects that I didn’t really enjoy anyway. Becoming a parent is a great forcing function to get out and shake up your priorities.
Obviously I’m not recommending becoming a parent as a solution to this problem. However, I wanted to note that the realities of becoming a parent are literally the opposite of what I was led to believe by peers and social media while growing up. Contrary to everything I was told, it’s actually the childless people and couples I know who are entering these periods of “boring” where they struggle for interest or motivation or meaning, while us parents are off having an extremely non-boring and fun time with this new chapter.
I’m a parent of two children and most of the time I’m extremely bored and struggling for motivation.
My older child is a pre-teen constantly screaming and raging about the tiniest things. It’s a tremendous energy drain. But the children are certainly not the reason for my lurking depression: it was there before I had kids, and being a parent hasn’t magically transformed my life with meaning. These things are roughly orthogonal in my anecdotal experience.
Same struggle. Except my elder daughter isn't "screaming and raging about the tiniest things" (yet). She's just... a total mess at a few things (self-motivation, self-awareness, responsibility, tact), constantly getting chastized by my wife.
I don't have fun with my kids. I have no more friend in real life (even before the pandemic). I can't even play computer games when I want to because my kids take too darn long to finish their homework and we live in a small home in Hong Kong. Even weekends are basically more studying and extra-curricular classes for my kids (ballet, phonics, mental math, painting). I've lost motivation to do much else. Nowadays I just burrow myself in reading fantasy novels when I have any time for myself, not even because I really enjoy them, but because I lack creativity and motivation to do much else.
Without understanding the OPs situation I would hesitate from giving advice. It’s really difficult to understand the root cause of peoples situations without knowing more about them.
Why do you keep doing things that don't make you happy?
Why do you feel the need to do so many extra-curricular activities related to child education? Can't you take your kids to the park, show them stuff and talk to them about it? One of the cool things that most adults forget about childhood is that everything is new for kids. Even stuff that kids are used to; they have really only scratched the surface of- they haven't had the time or the life experience to deeply understand things, but they also haven't had the life experience to become jaded or cynical. Spending some time around them doing stuff that is not homework, can be fun, or at least interesting.
Do you want to be unfulfilled?
If you truly cannot find joy in anything, then you are likely suffering from depression, and you should go see a doctor. It won't get better by itself.
> Why do you feel the need to do so many extra-curricular activities related to child education?
Because this is Hong Kong, and if you want to get into a good high school, and then a good university later in life, this is what you do here, unless either A) your kid has really high IQ and would skip years or B) you are rich and don't mind just paying your way through international schools.
My kids are not case A), and I'm not rich enough for B).
Schools here ask you "what credentials do you have (other then regular education)?", "have you won any competition?", etc. I'm not even doing that much, compared to other really competitive families.
Just want to emphasize the last sentence of the parent post, some of what you were describing really sounds like either leading to, or full blown depression, and want to mirror the recommendation to get professional help even if it feels like it would be a waste of time or bother people around you
Easy to say this when you don't have 1 billion people also gunning for the opportunities you want (maybe less since they're in Hong Kong and not the mainland)
Acceptance rate to the top HK university for locals is around 10% which is actually not that competitive and easier to get in than the average Ivy league universities (in addition to being cheaper).
There are 14 universities in Hong Kong of which 4 are well ranked. I would say the chances of getting into a decent university for HKers is actually much easier than for Mainland Chinese students.
There are some traditional families who feel the need to do a lot of extra curricular activities and tuition just so that there kid can go into the three prestigious subjects of law, medicine and finance but that's not all families.
Figure out that unless you've won the genetic lottery you don't need to apply?
>> Because this is Hong Kong, and if you want to get into a good high school, and then a good university later in life, this is what you do here, unless either A) your kid has really high IQ and would skip years or B) you are rich and don't mind just paying your way through international schools.
Sounds like the plot of GATTACA. Maybe people who don't live there should not hand out advice too easily?
Yep. I cannot advise. In Texas education is not considered enough. But this sounds ridiculously too far the other way. The book “The Myth of Merit” comes to mind.
sounds like a dystopian nightmare. Makes me glad to live in a country where not getting into the best school doesn't automatically doom you to a lifetime of failure.
I don't even know what schools in the country where I live, are considered the best :-) I just picked the closest uni (worked out fine. This is in northern Europe)
I have to keep reminding myself that my kids are completely new to everything. A lot of times I try to overthink activities and learning opportunities but then I will remember that they are children and something as simple as mixing food coloring and baking soda and vinegar in the kitchen can make for hours of fun activity.
> Even weekends are basically more studying and extra-curricular classes for my kids (ballet, phonics, mental math, painting)
Do they enjoy doing all these things? Thinking back to when I was a kid, I would rather have spent the time with friends, doing unplanned nothing special things.
I wonder if they don't actually have a weekend, instead, they have "work-end"?
What if both you and they would be happier, if you cancelled some of the extracurricular things.
Maybe they find things themselves to do -- for example, as a kid I bought books about software, and taught myself. But if you've decided that they are to learn painting etc (which is fun too I think :-)) then, maybe there's not much time left for them to decide?
Just some thoughts, what do I know. And I've made some guesses / assumptions about your situation, maybe they're incorrect
> But the children are certainly not the reason for my lurking depression: it was there before I had kids, and being a parent hasn’t magically transformed my life with meaning.
Sorry to hear about your struggles. I do fully agree that having kids won’t alleviate things like major depression and hope I didn’t give that impression.
> I’m a parent of two children and most of the time I’m extremely bored and struggling for motivation.
>>My older child is a pre-teen constantly screaming and raging about the tiniest things. It’s a tremendous energy drain. But the children are certainly not the reason for my lurking depression: it was there before I had kids, and being a parent hasn’t magically transformed my life with meaning. These things are roughly orthogonal in my anecdotal experience.
I think this anecdote needs to become more mainstream form of advice, people are so quick to suggest having kids as a cure-all for people's depression or other mental health issues like it's just going to make everything else disappear.
Personally speaking I'm sorry to hear this, but this is also why I have put-off having kids--although its mainly for environmental issues, I can't see how people can in good-faith bring children into a World in which they will inherit such catastrophic climate change and a World where it's still possible that aging kleptocrats can shell and occupy a nuclear power plant, one of which was the location of the most dangerous environmental disasters of the 20th century and most people shrug it off and care more about Will Smith slapping Chris Rock!
Still, I don't know what the source of your depression is, and this is kind of harsh, but you are a cautionary tale for people like me: I have bouts of crippling weltschmertz after a life of being an environmentalist activist with a background in tech as a founder that merged the two together. As you can imagine it's certainly not as lucrative as destroying the World, and that is the saddest thing.
After 20 years at least I can go down knowing that while most of my existence have been a mix between Pyrrhic victories and burnout that I did more than I ever thought I would given the World I was forced to inherit.
My angst, rage and anger was channeled into something positive, and it helps but it's a corrosive and toxic form of fuel that corrodes you from within; hopefully you will in time be able to use the same energy draining you to do something that helps alleviate your situation.
The only time I don't feel the Weltschertz is when I'm building, the problem is that I can't anymore after destroying my body after 20 years of living this way and I'm having to heal all of these injuries: physical as well as mental.
I think folks' mileage vary significantly on this, and partly due to a distinction I'd make between being bored and not having energy.
I used to know a family that was as creative as folks would come (immediate family had renowned authors, world class academics, illustrator, etc.), and it was clear that the children played such a central role in continuing to foster a culture that was very creative and "alive." But, it was also true that both parents had WFH jobs (this was over a decade ago), extremely flexible schedules, and were very well off to do. In that context, having kids can be the forcing function you describe, especially if the parents in question are folks already predisposed to being curious and interesting people.
However, I suspect most adults end up suffering from a lack of energy. The daily toil ends up sapping so much of themselves that the necessary energy expenditure to be more child-like isn't there, and you get your usual couch potatoes, nappers, seemingly disinterested zombies. For someone in that situation, adding kids to the equation ends up becoming just ONE MORE THING to completely drain them every day.
I don't think this holds true as generally as might seem obvious. Personally I become much more productive and much more creative when I have serious pressure on me. I think art history also speaks to this if you think about all the artists who did their best work (or all their work) under very difficult conditions such as poverty, abuse or simply having been pressed for time.
I have the totally opposite experience. Everyone I know who has kids is bored: they've given up on their side projects and resigned themselves to jobs they constantly complain about but can't leave because they need to support their family.
So I'm not sure having kids really matters here. I think the mindset change is more important. It's easy to forget that the world has so many interesting things to pick up and do literally anything with, much like your child. My friends who have kids don't think that way.
Parent here, of 3 pre-teen kids. My experience is that having kids has brought a joy of learning and exploration like little before. We constantly visit flight museums, train museums, and do unusual things like joining Facebook 4x4 groups and go on weekend adventures. We've done local MTG events and similar. Last weekend we went to the local Japanese Garden (yea, spring!) and the kids dressed up in crazy clothes for some fun pictures.
I can't sit still, so am always looking for new things to do. Having children do this with me bring joy to me, and to them.
> Everyone I know who has kids is bored: they've given up on their side projects and resigned themselves to jobs they constantly complain about but can't leave because they need to support their family.
Bored and giving up side-projects are two different things. I did give up side-projects after having my son, but it's far from being boring.
As for the job thing... I guess you don't frequent that many people with kids? Or you just happend to know unhappy people? I've changed jobs 2 times (well, 3 if you consider COVID related job loss) since my son was born.
By that metric I could say the same of literally everything I do in life. Being bored at times is just normal... Meanwhile I go outside with my son, race down the street, or just kick a ball, and watching him laugh isn't boring at all. YMMV.
I am convinced everyone needs a certain amount of stress in their lives. Too little and you end up super-existential; too much and you end up feeling burnt out.
It took me a long time to acclimate to having children. I probably had postpartum depression as a dad. Especially early on, kids are a big stressor, and having them should be a deliberate choice.
It’s also the most impactful work you will ever do, and once you see that for yourself, it’s hard to see your career in exactly the same way.
This is very true. Stressors allow you to grow. One of the weird things is seeing friends that never had kids be exactly the same 10-20 years later, doing the same things, talking about the same stuff. It always shows me how much I have grown and how much they haven't.
I am in my 40s, and it's weird seeing my friends of 20 years remain static. The only ones that have changed are either people with children or a big catastrophe in their lives.
To be precise, I don't think it's the stress, but dealing with taking care of someone other than yourself.
Is it growth or simply change? There's an implication with "growth" that somehow you've become greater or better in some way. Is that the case, or are you just more focused on being a parent because that's who you have changed into?
As a parent of a 2yo myself I think it's a bit of both. I definitely changed a lot, am more focused on being a parent and also feel lees existential and depressed because I have a new and almost full time project which is raising my daughter to the best of my ability. But I also noticed some changes that I can describe as growth. I no longer have trouble getting up early, and I go to bed early as well if I need to do so the next day. This is basic responsibility that I didn't have before. I also help more around the house and take time to fix things that I would've just left and procrastinated on for months before (changing a bulb, improving my office, etc).
I've got a promotion as well and am doing better at my job, even though I have less time overall. I think this is because I'm more focused than before, which is unexpected since I work from home. I have also become more motivated to work on personal projects. I've started homebrewing since my daughter was in the womb, got back into chess and even did some gardening. So a lot of positive change in my life. I cannot say if this would have happened regardless of my daughter but I am definitely in a much better place than I was before
Dealing with your own kids you start to understand humanity better. You understand your parents more, one of the funny things that happens, is you catch yourself responding to things the same way your parents did. Sometimes that's good, other times that's bad. This leads to self-evaluation. You have to ask how did I feel when my parents did this? What did I hate about my parents parenting style, what did I like?
If you don't have children, it's purely a theoretical question, the stakes are null. With your own children the stakes are the emotional, physical and intellectual health of your kids, it has to be taken seriously.
On the flip side you realize that we are all just kids in adult bodies. I see my children do things and I see parallels in my own behavior, or in the behavior of others. So not only do you understand your parents better, you understand yourself and humanity better.
Aside from getting a better understanding of human nature, you also have to start making decisions about your own needs vs the needs of others, in this case your children, and your co-parent. If your kid is throwing up at 2am, guess what, you can't just deal with it tomorrow. You start checking the weather to see does my kid need a coat, a rain coat, a t-shirt? As a side effect you start paying more attention externally. Questions like "how is my kid feeling right now?", or "why did they just do that?". Which means your empathy increases, and your emotional intelligence.
All of this presumes the ability to self-reflect. Which is something a large number of people lack, including parents. Basically if you ever see bad parents you will notice the common thread is lack of self-reflection and awareness. It's holding on to your past self which ultimately hurts your children, and your personal growth.
I lived for a while single and without kids. When I finally got married and became a father my feeling was that it was like I had been playing a video game and stayed far too long in the first level. It's fun there, and easy, but there's a whole lot more out there. It can be harder, scary, relentlessly demanding - but also deeply fulfilling and wonderful. (I'd write more but there's a crying baby I've got to go help)
Weird, I felt the reverse. Staying the straight course married with kids is the first level where it's easy and many others are running the same program, and CPS or divorce loom if you actually seriously alter the routine or take serious dangerous risks. Society pretty much approves of the 'family' path. Being single was like hard mode where you could basically make your life as dangerous or as interesting as you like, and you didn't have to worry about risking the life of your wife or child. When I was a homeless single male, I could have been run over by a car in the street and no one would have given two shits, other than maybe to pickpocket my corpse.
You could argue you are better because you know more.
I'm still a software engineer and into fitness. After having kids I also had some experience with parenting.
By observing kids development you can also understand and experience how people grow into the adults you see everyday and I definitely think I understand psychology more.
Being a parent is also a great journey of self discovery. You'll learn how you react to stress, you'll realise things about your own childhood, you may uncover a series of problems you may have.
As much as I loved to think of myself as someone thinking older than my age, I was definitely less mature before having kids.
I guess... What I see is people with or without kids who stay the same, and people with or without kids who change. I can't honestly tell that "having kids" is the factor, or maybe some people change while others stay the same. What exactly is wrong with either way?
C.f. Addison's disease, caused by a lack of cortisol, the stress hormone, and treating some conditions like back and knee pain with cortisone, the synthetic version of cortisol
It's funny because the exact opposite is true for me, and is the reason I won't be having kids. I recovered my creativity and wonder for life through just living life how I want to, rather than based on what I thought was normal or typical. Part of that was rejecting the societal expectation of having kids. Now I have a blast pursuing my interests and looking forward to living the rest of my life this way, without having to make compromises in time or resources for children.
You can do all of those things with children, and then you won't be a burden on society when you're older, having no one left to care about you except the nursing home staff, and as a bonus you'll get to help continue the human race, which is always good.
Plus, beside the moral conundrum of not wanting to be a burden for your children, there's always the possibility that your children will simply not accept the burden and send you to a nursing home anyway...
My attitude to "being a burden on society" is: "I paid taxes all my working life, so if I get some of that money back, all the better!". Of course, not having to go to a nursing home is the even better alternative, but unfortunately nobody can rule that out.
I think a person deserves to get elderly care when needed...I was moreso talking about the fact that no one in the world will literally care about the childless person, because no one younger will be in their life. I think people who decide not to have kids often privilege their well being in their 30s-50s without thinking about how poor and lonely the last 30 years of their lives might be. It's just another angle to consider in this complex decision.
> no one in the world will literally care about the childless person.
This is entirely dependent on the person. I think you're partially right that nobody will care about you (as much) as your kids (potentially) will.
If you spend your life focusing on yourself, then yeah, nobody will probably care about you. If you spend your life devoted to serving others and making an impact in your community then plenty of people will care about you when you're old. I've known many older people who have done great things for the community and the community gathers together to help them in return.
You affect other people caring about you through your actions.
Isn't it unethical to have children so as to use them as a safety net later in life, after having conditioned them from birth to attach to you and care for you?
Of course you aren't concerned NOW...in 30 or 40 years you certainly will be. But then, you appear to be a nihilistic antinatalist, so there are clearly other issues at play here.
I suspect that people who haven't had kids will not like to admit that they have any regrets about their decision, just like you will rarely find a parent that will say they wish they hadn't had a child.
Once you're over a certain age you can't really change your mind. Some people decide to focus on their careers, but becoming a parent doesn't mean you won't reach your career goals.
+1, being a parent hasn't made me (more) boring. Sure, I went to work for a large company instead of startups so I have a better/regular paycheck, and I may not play as many games or drink as many beers with friends or hack on as many side projects, but kids are really good at forcing you to prioritize the things in your life that are actually important and meaningful. So I still do all those things, just less so, but more mindfully.
Also, now that my kid is getting older and is starting to have actual interests (e.g. he's really into smart home stuff), I'm able to enjoy and participate in those things more.
I have four children. I'm not going to claim that sometimes kids are not frustrating. However every time I see parents being burnt out I see one of two scenarios.
Scenario 1: The over-achiever parent
I see this frequently, a parent that wants to be a super parent. This manifests in a bunch of different ways, but usually it's enrolling their kids to 15 different activities essentially running all over the place being glorified taxis for their kids.
Then their kids don't know how to function if there is nothing to do.
Scenario 2: The I'm missing our parent
Parents that either had kids too early, or not by choice. They feel like they missed out, so they lament about all the fun they didn't have. This is a weird form of resistance to reality. What usually happens is that they will get a divorce, to somehow escape their children. I am 40, so I see it with people my age, they divorce, see their kids 2-4 times a week and do crazy stuff to somehow recapture their youth.
In my opinion it's about keeping a good balance. If you never make time for yourself that's a mistake. If you put the bar too high as a parent you are bound to miss. The simplest approach is to carve out some time to yourself, balancing things out with your significant other. Enrolling your kids in 1-2 activities out of school and recognizing that not every single minute of a day needs to be hyper-optimized.
It can help to have family close. Growing up my parents often gave us to our grandparents for the weekend (one a month?). Both grandparents lived within 1hr. So, my parent were able to take some weekends for themselves. Also babysitters for a night out and they both had siblings with kids they could leave us with.
I know plenty of people who don't have this kind of support group and/or are unwilling to use sitters in any form.
Definitely. I'm incredibly burnt out after being a stay at home dad for the past year, with the pandemic cautions a lot of support structures disappeared or became unreliable (older family watching the baby, finding a reliable babysitter or daycare, etc). I essentially forgot about everything extraneous in my life so I wouldn't be frustrated that I didn't have time or energy to do it anymore. Without a doubt, I'm more boring than I used to be.
Part of this is just having a kid under 5 apparently, but I can't imagine being able to survive with more than one, much less retain a creative pursuit.
The pandemic was brutal for parents. All four of my kids where doing remote learning. My significant other stays at home so she took care of that end of things. If I was a single parent it would have been impossible to maintain without outside assistance.
...and since I have a bunch of kids. It gets easier. People talk about terrible 2s, but I feel that 3 and 4 are much harder. They are old enough to know what they want, but not old enough to get it. They can communicate but not 100% or with appropriate level of specificity. They also have the amazing ability to know how to push buttons, part of carving an identity for themselves.
Each year though it gets easier. It's true for all four of mine, and they do have different speeds, they mature at different rates, but overall the trend is always less dependency, which as a single parent you need.
I totally feel your pain though. So I hope you are doing OK.
As an extra tip, totally unsolicited of course. Start doing chores, boring tasks with your kid. Even if they are little. It does a few good things.
1. You have to do the chores anyway, might as well do them when you can't relax (since the kid is going to ask/need things). This way when they go to sleep, you don't have a bunch of things to do, you can fully relax.
2. You are teaching them life skills. They learn by watching and doing. This will also allow you to bond over simple life stuff
3. As they get older, they can have their own chores and lighten your load and if nothing else appreciate what you do for them a tiny bit more
You said your kid is under 5, so I'll give you some examples.
Age 2: pickup toys (I pretend that the toy bin/bucket is a monster that's hungry for toys). Press buttons (for example to start the dishwasher). Throw things in the garbage (hungry garbage can)
Age 3: they can start wiping things, taking their place to the kitchen counter, take items from one room to another. Dusting
Age 4: can start help you cook safely, things like dumping a teaspoon of salt in the food, stirring (obviously no boiling stuff), mopping (rather badly, but they have a blast), sweeping (make sure you duck :), putting dirty laundry away, folding kitchen towels
Age 5: I let them start cutting simple things like bananas, start making breakfast (cereal, toast then scrambled eggs). Pickup their room with some pointers. Assist in cleaning the bathroom and kitchen counters.
I said it was interesting, not-boring, and introducing me to more new people than I’ve met since college.
I didn’t say it was always easy, but that’s fine by me because it’s not actually soul-crushingly difficult (again, another misconception popular among young people without kids that turned out to be wrong).
The older I get, the more I realize that my friends who optimize for minimal effort (no kids, reluctant to leave the house, picky about what they attend) are gradually sliding into very boring and unfulfilled existences.
I may be like one of your boring unfulfilled friends, except I have a single hobby that makes me feel a sense of purpose, whereas very few other things in my life ever really have. On a rational level, it seems to me that having kids will add a sense of purpose to my life, given how many people share this perspective. At the same time, thinking about the time and effort I will be forced to take away from the thing that keeps me sane fills me with dread. It's not like there's a way back.
> At the same time, thinking about the time and effort I will be forced to take away from the thing that keeps me sane fills me with dread. It's not like there's a way back.
YMMV and don’t let my experience be your only guide
But I had the same exact feeling. After the first year or two (infant stage is tough, no denying it) I’m actually right back to my hobbies just as before.
It takes more planning now to do the weekend hobby events that are out of town, but it’s still plenty doable.
I’ve also realized that the number of years that your kids are young and require a lot of attention is actually fairly small. I plan to live to at least 80 and the most attentive child-raising years are only a small fraction of that.
I definitely have at least 3 friends with kids that manage to keep up with their hobbies. 5, 3, and 2 kids respectively. No idea how they do it but they certainly demonstrate it can be done.
(Sorry for the late reply - while I appreciate no notifications from HN it also means I tend to just forget about it).
The hobby is sports. I'm relatively gifted as a "hybrid" athlete, if I work hard at it I can get podium finishes at OCR / Hyrox type events. I'd still do it without that though, it produces an emotional state that, while not taking away the rational thought that there's ultimately not much purpose to anything that I do, makes me not really care about that at all. Makes things make sense even when they don't.
However, the fact that it (a) combines really poorly with a lack of sleep and (b) has an expiration date (athletic ability is of course age bound) do contribute to the sense of dread.
Yes I was going to mention just that. Having children will make your life purposeful probably forever? While your hobby has an expiration date and you'll still have many years left.
But now that I think about it, it's the same with children. When a 30 year old parent hits the 50 year old mark his children would likely be already left from home. So it's almost the same, still many years left.
PD: No notifications from HN is great. Nothing will happen if you forget to answer to an stranger on the internet. I'd have forgotten to check your response if I hadn't manually be looking for something in my own comments' history
What they are really saying is "It was fun (going to the bar/playing video games/whatever) with you when we were young, but I'm not young anymore and have a family to spend time with, I wish you had one too so I could invite you to family oriented activities." but knowing that you won't understand they say they are too busy and tired.
The point of parent comment is that the consequences of having kids are not what they seem from the outside. Maybe your parent friends' experiences are vastly different from how you perceive them (or how they express them).
Thats true, when both my children passed that bar (younger is just over 5 and older is 9) a lot of things got much better. But do not kid yourself (pun intended) if you are not sociopath You will feel that You need to care for them for the rest of your life and that always will be a blessing and burden at the same time. And the proportion may not be in your favour (my almost 40 years old brother is still living with my parents and havent had job for years).
I feel like if I ever end up curious about a hobby or activity, that I could introduce it first to my hypothetical kids.
I get to keep the kids busy, see if they have fun with something, and judge if it's something I'd personally enjoy. If we both end up liking it, then great! Something more to share with them.
I'm on the fence about having kids, but this all is one of the things that makes me consider them. It's going to depend on the partner I end up with, but I feel like I might end up making spending time my kids into one of my 'hobbies'.
I mean, they're right there, you already know them, and get to show them all sorts of new and fascinating things?
I completely agree, having a kid is hard work but its put the universe into alignment for me more than I ever would have expected in terms of healthy priorities at work, balancing my ego-driven motivations out and in the direction and scope of my personal projects.
Your reply made my day. I have two grown children and now an adopted 4 yr old girl. I realize as I get older (52) what a precious gift they are and make time to experience the world through their eyes (esp the 4 yr old who is a hoot). It's hard cause typically when you have kids in your 20/30s you are building a career and everything is a challenge with lots of stress. So as one old guy to younger parents I'd say
1. Don't beat yourself up, life is hard.
2. Go play with your kids and be a kid again.
I have three little children but I can't say I feel more or less boring since having the first one.
What I can say, however, is that I'm absolutely thrilled when I watch my kids watch Home Alone while they go crazy with scream and laughter at Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern getting physically abused by an eight year old with booby traps that would be lethal in real life.
Sounds like you have good kids. Congratulations. I know parents with good kids and I know way more parents with bad kids. The parents with good kids will generally claim they did a better job raising their kids. The parents with bad kids will generally claim the good parents just got lucky. Me, I can't tell. I certainly see most (not all) parents with bad kids doing things that IMO help make their kid bad. Of course there are so many influences on kids on top of the gene lottery so ???
In any case, I've always hoped for your experience.
Can you really describe kids or parents with any kind of meaning using a binary "good" and "bad"? Aren't most people great in situations that suit them and allow them to thrive and use their skills and talents, and bad in situations where they don't have the tools to be successful?
sorry, maybe bad and good we're the wrong words. What I meant was kids who are easy and plesent to be with vs kids who whine and make trouble constantly. kids who are cooperative vs kids who resist every small thing. kids who can volunteerly put down the screen and interact with people and the present situation/activity vs those that can't
If there is one category of people who are extremely borinf its parents. I have no kids and the world opens up to me. I can travel where I want, date who I want, read what I like and engage in interesting discussions with people on the street that I've just randomly met.
When I hang out with my parent friends they have one mono topic of conversation: their kids and related subjects.
Why can't parents travel, date new people, have ridiculously cool hobbies, read, and talk to random people on the street?
As far as conversation topics go, my friends and I rarely spend more than a few minutes here and there discussing our kids. We all have much more interesting things to talk about and kids don't really come up.
I guess you're extrapolating too much based on your own personal experience.
I won't argue that there are no parents who bore you, but fundamentally that isn't due to being a parent.
Before I had kids I used to travel and voluntarily fight in foreign warzones, go into dangerous ghettos in countries like Paraguay, and go deep into forest for weeks in freezing weather that either a young child can't reliably survive or that the mother would never allow. Any of these things would most definitely get child services called were I to actually share I brought I child in that activity.
Those are the things that brought joy and interest to my life.
Can you explain how I can do those things as a parent? Parenthood is the long stride on low gear. Before I may have been mugged or killed in a barrio or shot by ISIS but it was far more interesting.
I think a lot of parents lie to themselves. You can always a borrow a or foster a kid if you want to do kid activities, but you can't just get rid of your own kid. On that alone your life becomes much less interesting, at least in my case. If the things you find interesting are child friendly, your mileage may vary.
I do try to take the conversation away from children when talking to fellow parents but there's a percentage of which you can't derail because they have little to offer to talk about other than children.
I don't think volunteering to fight in warzones is compatible with being a parent, but it's also not something relevant to the experience of almost any person here :) The number of people who choose to do things like that is small.
Most hobbies and goals are compatible with being a parent. Yours are not. If anybody else here reads this from a warzone they've entered voluntarily, don't take my comments above as relevant to you :)
It sounds like you're struggling quite a bit with the change of pace. I know a couple of people who have voluntarily fought in foreign warzones and travelled conflict areas, and neither are coping well with being home in the mundane. I hope you can find something that helps. Therapy might if you can find somebody good.
Absolutely, depends on the person really. Personally I find raising a child extremely boring and unfulfilling. For some it isn't. 95% of the people I know could have basically fit a child into their life by altering their schedules and priorities. If the things that actually brought your life meaning are absolutely incompatible with children, however, children are a much harder pill to swallow. You basically just have to wait down the clock until life resumes, because the only other 'option' is abandoning the child. Like a prisoner, I serve my 18 year sentence for the mistake I made -- it's no one else's fault but my own and now I have to live up to the commitment for the sake of the child.
I guess it's not surprising people have different tastes in activities in life.
> Why can't parents travel, date new people, have ridiculously cool hobbies, read, and talk to random people on the street?
because all that stuff costs time and money.
realistically, you'd need to make enough money to cover the kid's stuff and saving. if you have anything left after that, only then can you devote anything to travel or hobbies.
I'm currently in the same boat as the guy above. what I make could comfortable support a family but I can instead help my girlfriend pay for college and hop between countries whenever I feel like it while pursuing learning electronics. I wouldn't be able to do these things if I was stuck paying rent on a house and covering food/ activities for a child.
You're right that it costs time and money, but I don't see that as proof that parents have to stop living their own lives or become boring.
I do all the things listed above. I also have kids. They aren't incompatible.
The biggest lesson I learnt when we had our first kid was that I really wasn't as efficient at spending my time and money as I'd thought. Once the time constraints hit I became a lot more intentional about how I invested both, and the quality of my personal achievements has gone up as a result.
Don't have kids until/unless you're ready, but don't assume they're going to destroy your personal life either. There's lots of room for personal goals and growth even with kids. You still have a lot of control over your own life. After the first year of chaos anyway :)
i think your experience is not a common one. Lots of things have to click in place for that to happen. A satisfying job, supportive spouse and a solid relationship with stakeholders like the in-laws ect.
Most parents are just beat down managing two jobs, taking kids to all the classes, doing chores in the house, worrying about career ect.
> So what went wrong? My gut feeling is that I am boring.
A lot of pain seems to come from a poor vocabulary about feelings.
What is boring? It's a weak and flattened word like the feelings it's
used about.
Do you mean avolition, acedia, irascibility, dissatisfaction,
insensibility, repression, discouragement, ambivalence, anxiety? The
Psychology of the Emotions by Neal Burton is a fair place to continue
the introspective journey you've started [1].
> I lost my creativity and the sense of wonder I used to have in
childhood. I am no longer curious because I am settled for the world
as it is. I accept things the way they are instead of imagining how
they could be.
Comfortably Numb. There's a dose of it going around. Don't worry it's
an acute condition. All progress depends upon the unreasonable man.
You need to stop being reasonable. Take a good look at the world, and
notice there's still plenty to be really, healthily angry about, and
so much to be joyously in love with. Just don't give in to
ambivalence or settle for the illusion of comfort and safety life
seems to be showing you. Take a risk on it.
For anyone wondering what this person means when he says:
> All progress depends upon the unreasonable man.
Let me share with you one of my all time favorite quotes, from George Bernard Shaw[1]:
>“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”
While Shaw himself was a controversial figure even in his own time (roughly a century ago), and would be abhorred by today's standards for many reasons, this particular item, standing alone, remains a particular gem of wisdom.
For a historical example we're all quite familiar with in this industry, think "Steve Jobs". He adapted the world to his vision through innovation and commerce, forcing the creation of entire industries - at least twice over! - as a result. Thanks to him being "unreasonable", the personal computer market emerged which spawned our entire industry. Then with the release of the iPhone, the smartphone market came into existence along with Android and for a time, Windows Phone (RIP).
I strongly disagree with several of Shaw's points of view, but this particular gem has always been a favorite of mine in spite of that. I find it particularly inspiring.
I would like to point out that this quote comes from Shaw's play 'Man and Superman'. Specifically, from an appendix to the play 'Maxims for Revolutionists'[1], written by the character John Tanner.
Have a read through some of the other maxims and make your own mind up as to the author's viewpoint.
I had a similar problem with emotions: specifically, limited emotional vocabulary and the inability to distinguish what I’m feeling. To help myself, I partnered with an emotion coach and created an app to expand my emotional vocabulary and come into contact with what I’m feeling. https://apps.apple.com/app/emote/id1609038427
> All progress depends upon the unreasonable man. You need to stop being reasonable
and yet there's an unreasonable man invading another country right now.
I dont think progress depends on the unreasonable man. It depends on the reasonable man who would put in the sweat and blood, but might be inspired or paid by the unreasonable man.
But honestly it feels like such a useless nitpick. OP is talking about a useful mind-hack to increase your personal productivity and meaning, and you are applying it to how we should assess the morality of global leaders.
That's a mutual dependence then. It's still dependent on the unreasonable man.
I look at this in terms of variance: there are few ways to be reasonable, but many to be unreasonable. Many of the unreasonable ones lead nowhere, but a few lead to progress. That's similar to the concept of antifragility.
> an unreasonable man invading another country right now.
I'd be more cautious equating reason with peace.
Wars are as often the conclusion of pure reason. Strategic advantage
plus opportunity, plus a little too much game-theory can be the
perfect ingredients for belligerence.
I'm afraid most tech people need to get out more. The job is hard, side projects are fun and you need to leetcode in your spare time to get a job. However its very easy to be boring. People benefit from making non-tech friends, play sports, travel, read novels, learn about spirituality, make music, build furniture but I dont see a lot of that happening. I'm a corporate cog and its my biggest regret.
These excerpts from the The Bed of Procrustes by Nassim Taleb resonated with me and I think it applies here.
“You will be civilized on the day you can spend a long period doing nothing, learning nothing, and improving nothing, without feeling the slightest amount of guilt.”
“They are born, then put in a box; they go home to live in a box; they study by ticking boxes; they go to what is called “work” in a box, where they sit in their cubicle box; they drive to the grocery store in a box to buy food in a box; they go to the gym in a box to sit in a box; they talk about thinking “outside the box”; and when they die they are put in a box. All boxes, Euclidian, geometrically smooth boxes.”
Make it easy to start, just try doing nothing for a while, it’s uncomfortable at first but the reset comes soon enough and is quite rewarding.
The bed of procrustes as a whole is also quite thought provoking and I would recommend checking it out.
It's a great book for a quick thought provocation (I keep it on my bedside table) but think it might be kind of bizarre to someone who hasn't read much else of Taleb's writing, idiosyncrasies and all.
walking, hiking, and road tripping are my favorite things to do (walk daily, "hike" (just long walk since I live in flat Houston) weekly, and roadtrip monthly). And the entire time, I sit in silence just THINKING.
Sometimes I record my thoughts out loud. But for the most time, I just use it as a way to keep my mind churning. Sometimes I come up with new side projects, or a design for a new piece of furniture, or just wonder on certain things (friends/family, state of the world, the guy that coughed on me at the restaurant).
> "hike" (just long walk since I live in flat Houston)
I've been calling it "urban hiking" and everyone thinks I'm joking. But why drive all the way to the wilderness to do a hike, when I can just walk out the door?
I love this. I will now call it "urban hiking," as well. It was still more fitting when I lived in NYC to call it hiking since there is at least hills and grass and trees.
If you’re getting lost in thoughts unrelated to operating a motorcycle you need to take a break. That’s a sign you’re about to make a mistake. I think the OP’s point is your mind gets in to a flow of watching the road, feeling the bike, observing the landscape, etc.
Same. It's shocking how visibly my social circle shrinks as my ability to make new friendships also diminishes. I don't know if it's a part of getting in to my mid-30s (and all my friends now making families, moving away) or the pandemic, or both, but I find myself increasingly with no one to talk to.
As a 20-something year old, trying to make friends with people that you don't know is an incredibly frustrating experience because there's a good chance that the group you're trying to join were friends since childhood. No matter who you meet at this age, it seems that there is always a group they're a part of that you need to get acceptance with before you can call it a "friendship".
This isn't to say it's straight up impossible to make individual friends or join a friend group, but attempting to make friends but being treated in a lukewarm way by their clique goes a LONG way to reinforce avoidant behavior, even without an explicit rejection. Sitting in my room and learning math is far more enjoyable than that, so that's what I'll end up doing.
Once I move away from the place all of my childhood friends are, I have no idea what's going to happen.
For some, being a corporate cog has allowed them to do more. Since the added security of cog life usually provides a cushion especially in the tech sector.
Drop stuff that doesn't work. I started programming as a kid. 40 years ago. I wrote a game with a friend while we were at school. It made us a tiny amount of money for 3 years work. I dropped out of programming (several times now). I travelled, close to home, and working in return for food and accomadation (with a scheme called WWOOF). I've done farm work, forestry, woodworking, butchery, construction, blacksmithing. At the moment I'm trying to make a living turning wool from friend's sheep into yarn and hats. Honestly. I accidentally came up with a game and put it online last week cos I thought the idea was funny and interesting, like Randall Monroe's "What If?" (which I was listening to on audiobook before I got the idea). Chances are I just blew a hundred pounds on hosting and domains but maybe, just maybe, it'll bring some money in somehow. otherwise I'll just keep on crocheting. Or some other thing. Don't be one thing. Do shit that you love. Last year I tried making and selling homemade excavator toys (here's an early prototype: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5gQZs8edzs&ab_channel=James...). Fuck about. Just don't sit at a desk trying to build the next big thing cos there are thousands of others doing the same. Find what's unique and special about you, even if it's something small. And run with it. Are you boring? What's the craziest story you can tell about yourself?
Yesterday, I went across the Florida Straits overnight and was headed directly for an electrical storm near West Palm. This beauty was shooting bolts into the water and spidering across the sky. We diverted to Ft Lauderdale to avoid going right for it.
When you go to sea, you’re all in. I always was, but sometimes I forget and the sea helps me remember.
That, man, right there. Those are the moments you remember. I had jobs where I sat at a desk for a year and nothing remarkable stands out. Then there are small memories which are just epic. For me it's moments like that which make my life feel complete.
First things first: the following is not in any way intended to demean/attack/"throw shade" at you or anyone else in the slightest. Not whatsoever! So please forgive me if it comes across in that way despite my best attempts to the contrary.
That said...
The above, while fantastic for the person who lived that way, "smells" (for lack of a better word) like it comes from someone who hasn't been forced into a rough life. Bouncing around like that is easy when you don't have to worry about whether or not you'll be homeless in the next week because you were illegally fired from your job and the government doesn't care because it's not an easy open-and-shut case where they can automate litigation six years from now (because their caseload is literally that high).
You can't really do that kind of stuff when you have one - or both - parents dying from cancer and they both need full time, in-home care that, being unemployed, you can't afford to provide them. Especially when for whatever reason, they have no retirement savings, pension, 401k, absolutely nothing, and no health insurance either.
So please understand that while I'm honestly happy you've been able to do that, a lot of people just flat aren't for many reasons, the above being mere examples. You might think they're made-up, fictional or convoluted, but they're not: they're my life experience from 2017-2021. I lived those things, and worse, all at the same time.
> A brief note for context: you mentioned "pounds" so I'm assuming you're in the UK, which has a famously fantastic healthcare system. I'm in the US, where ours is...well, we all know what shit smells like, don't we? And herein lies a real life example of how government investment in people - aka "socialism" to some degree - is not a threat to an economy or capital investment, but in fact enables economic growth. /rant
Point is, for some people, that grind is the only thing keeping us alive. There is no safety net. There is no plan b. You either go nose-to-the-grindstone, or you go live under a bridge and eat scraps out out of the dumpster. There's no in between for some of us.
Again, not in any way intended to "throw shade" at you whatsoever. I'm just raising awareness that for some people, this advice, while technically valid and something I really wish was actionable for everyone, is in many cases just flat out impossible. You try it, you wind up homeless, a pariah, and unable to re-enter the industry because who's going to hire somebody without any relevant work experience in the last 3 years? Next!
That said...
> I've done farm work, [...] blacksmithing [...]
I've always wanted to try some kind of blacksmithing! I'M SO JEALOUS!
Great feedback. Not offended at all. And you write wonderfully, with compassion and passion.
Yes, you're right. Life throws some terrible things but a lot of those things will occur regardless of whether you're at a desk or out on adventures. I have had some hard times.
I'm a recovering alcoholic. I burned out big style at about 29 and quit drinking about a year later. There've been some rough times. I don't have a super rich family but they are supportive. I've relied on friends for couches. I've lived in tents and hammocks in the woods. Never exactly homeless but just lacking a home. The scheme, WWOOF, I worked on meant I could live for very little money.
Your healthcare point is excellent. I've lived in the UK and Canada, both of which have similar healthcare systems. The US system is just unbelievable (literally) to Europeans.
I ran out of money (down to my last 300 quid) and returned to IT about 8 years ago. I started right back at the bottom and worked my way up. I lasted 5 years and burnt out again.
I guess I went too far in the "go crazy and run off live in the woods!!!" direction. I guess my main point (if I had one after rambling this much) is don't let your soul die at a desk.
> I've always wanted to try some kind of blacksmithing! I'M SO JEALOUS!
Do it. If you have a backyard then you can throw together a simple charcoal forge with an air blower. My youtube channel has an ancient video of making tongs. One of the best things to learn, making your own tools. Just remember: "Got it hot and hit it". That's all the advice you need. And PPE. Eye and ear protection. Always.
Otherwise find a local blacksmith and do a weekend. You will not regret it.
I don't think you're boring but I do think your brain is feeling cheated for putting in all this work over and over and not getting the dopamine rewards for it afterwards (which in most cases is often praise or money).
I think you need some small wins to keep your motivation going. I read this quote here on hacker news which was very eye opening for me at the time(1). This idealogy of using small wins while you're chasing a big win has helped me a lot when things aren't going your way. I'm a indie hacker too would be happy to tell you some strategies I've developed for creating small wins (though most of them are very specific to my product / industry so I can't say how useful it would be to you)
Thankyou for this comment. It helped me understand why a long running very much not indie project is making me feel quite so fed up. The next step will be to try to use it to fix it.
I'm boring. I know I'm boring, and I'm bored as a result of being boring. I suspect a good part of it is bog standard depression. Tied into that is the difficulty of learning new things; I have a lot of things I WANT to learn, but when I get home at the end of the day I just don't have the mental energy.
I recently moved across the country and currently have precisely nothing happening outside of work; no friends, no family, no romantic partners or dates. I got so bored, I finally setup my dusty, unused piano keyboard, installed a piano learning app on my iPad, and started working through the basics.
It's like a fire was lit in my brain. Or an explosion, or something. I haven't felt that energized in ages. I've been practicing every day since, sometimes for upwards of 2 hours straight (my grade school music teachers would be shocked to hear that). I quickly realized the limitations of the first keyboard (a Roland Go:Keys) and went searching for a "real" digital piano. The first time I laid hands on the keyboard I ended up purchasing (a Korg) I felt an immediate sense of calm and happiness.
I have a couple theories for why I've reacted this way, when I've struggled with so many other things I want to learn:
- Music uses an entirely different part of the brain from my technical day job.
- There is immediate progress.
- Likely related, but I took a couple years of lessons in grade school. I'm likely feeling the reawakening of long dormant brain connections. Which strengthens the above two points.
It has only been a week, honestly only time will tell how long this lasts, but maybe it's jump started I needed to move on to other things I want to learn and be less boring.
Yeah, the physical sensation of playing piano/keyboards is energizing. I guess that's same (or sometimes even more) for other musical instruments. In a sense, it's like physical excursive.
It'd be great if programming gives us similar sensation, but it's purely intellectual, at least to me. I understand it's the point, but still.
2022 and we have so many options for free/cheap tiers on so many platforms which provide so many ways for people to share content and express themselves to the world. With just one pain point that a spike in traffic can overwhelm your database limits. Seems like wonderful problem for us all to have.
There's something obviously wrong in assuming some blanket "creativity" will satisfy whatever needs you may have, but popular cultural heuristics makes it seem right. Just as "innovation" is the solution for every problem, somehow divorcing yourself from your natural inclinations and increasing your risk is the right way to go. What is it the writer wants exactly? Some unknown nirvana of personal expression where you get to escape "the world as it is" and submerge into a childish "sense of wonder"?
Accepting reality is often expressed as settling into some depressing malaise, while "imagining" something "better" is the more proactive, positive choice by default. I will make a bet that whatever spurt of creative "not boring" thing the writer does next will distract for some time and then they will be right back where they started from.
The world needs more people capable of dealing with "the world as it is" and make the boring choice of taking responsibility for it. It's doing the long, boring, thankless tasks that this requires, instead of flailing around in the shallow depths of narcissistic self-actualization, that grants purpose and meaning to what you do. Don't let culture bully you into it's incoherent projections of success and relevance. Being committed,consistent, focused and responsible is boring. Be boring.
After doing programming and being involved in startups for well over a decade, I decided I don't actually like coding nor startups anymore. I still have a company I run with my partners, and I still treat it like my 'job', but there's no passion there. Instead, I've discovered writing novels, music, and other artsy-fartsy stuff as my new passion of the last few years (it had always been a hobby, but I'm taking it much more seriously... not because it'll ever make money, but because I enjoy doing it!)
So my long-winded point is, I don't think there's anything wrong with this. Only you know what your interests are, but don't be afraid to follow them wherever they lead. If you aren't bored, you aren't boring.
People who aren't bored but who are boring. They come to dinner and yammer on about gossip and celebrities and whatnot. Lousy storytellers.
People who are bored but not boring. They work in technical fields where I'm not educated in their domain. They're retired but had very colorful lives in the past. They're wonderful storytellers and joke tellers and even punsters. They know the latest culture, technology, restaurants, shows etc. They post on HN.
I had this same realisation about 6 weeks ago, I had fallen into a routine that was not bad but also never challenging or surprising. Since then I have been trying a bunch of new things to kick myself out of the rut.
A simple idea is to take things you enjoy and do them with other people, for me this meant doing classes at the gym instead of working out at home, booking art classes rather than trying to learn from a book. In some cases this has been amazing (I found an olympic weightlifting class that is the most fun I've had in years), in some cases not so amazing but still glad I tried.
Also I have started meditating (again within a teacher). For me the chief advantage of this is to start noticing your own patterns, and to be more deliberate in what you do. It has helped.
> I lost my creativity and the sense of wonder I used to have in childhood. I am no longer curious because I am settled for the world as it is. I accept things the way they are instead of imagining how they could be.
God that strikes close to home.
I have genuinely pondered how 10-15 years ago when I didn’t know what I was doing, I had a million project ideas and just went for them with no real plan. Some of them panned out, most of them didn’t. Many I still maintain today came out of that raw energy. These days when I do (rarely) come up with a project, I know off the bat how I am going to build it. I’ve been blinded to possibility by my own experience.
> I’ve been blinded to possibility by my own experience.
I think about that a lot when it comes to design especially. The ideas that come to me are constrained by own experience and knowledge of what's simple or complicated to implement. I will naturally steer clear from anything that is convoluted to implement.
Meanwhile a proper designer will come up with incredible ideas without worrying about "is it hard to code this up", they're not constrained by that at all.
but we've all been on overdesigned projects that grow convoluted to the point where they are impossible to maintain or improve without a massive rewrite.
Embrace it. One advantage of being old is that my younger self was completely incapable of planning. Then sing along with https://youtu.be/GibiNy4d4gc while watching all the youngsters make the same mistakes.
This also hits home for me, but in my case - I just became aware I have no influence on most of things around me that do not fit into my perfect “working well” world.
Fix that bug in production that other team struggles with for a year ? Nope, you should be working on something else, they will they care of that (/not).
Try to bring up to speed some team members to have full DevOps ? Nope, ppl not interested in that, prefer to do bare minimum.
Too many things you have no control of. Gets pretty discouraging very fast.
I'm not making the connections in the article - business success isn't about whether or not you are boring. Neither is happiness. They even said they were happy. Just not motivated. But living a simple and happy life is not a bad thing. Being boring is different than being bored. Enjoying boring hobbies is still enjoying your world. I don't need to entertain others to live a fulfilling life.
So if the author has problems they want to fix with their work or life, by all means fix them. But "being boring" is not a problem in and of itself.
While I understand the urge to improve one's life, I really feel like we have in general sort of gone off the rails in our quest for a better life.
What we have instead is now some kind of social-media-fueled, angst-driven obsession about self-optimization. Everyone is constantly obsessed with themselves and their own performance in every aspect of life.
Are you efficient enough? Are you productive enough? Are you eating healthy enough? Are you fun enough? etc
As if this wasn't enough, we can't really decide which way we want to go. Because you can't be too efficient or productive, either, since you should obviously also be relaxing and unstressing enough. And spending enough time with your family. But also writing that blog, creating side projects, and so on.
In the end this just creates an endless cycle of sadness and frustration because you're not a machine. You can't fulfill all the unrealistic goals you've set for yourself because you're not a robot.
I've given up on trying to pursue these unrealistic goals and trying to constantly self-optimize. It doesn't mean I'm just content to wallow in my own filth or that I give up on life. It just means I'm not gonna write a blog post about myself where I call myself boring because I'm not able to magically conjure up a viral side project. It means I'm not gonna compare myself to countless youtubers or instagrammers who paint the prettiest pictures of themselves they can.
Do you remember a long, long time ago seeing something gorgeous, like a colorful mineral gem, or the early morning sun on a verdant canopy, and something deep inside of you wanted to consume it? Perhaps you registered that it was not a source of sustenance for your body and still this strange notion persisted?
This is an important faculty for your happiness and creativity. It does not care at all for your logic and reasoning, and thankfully so because our minds would otherwise quickly dispose of it as error and synesthesia.
Now that you know that the sanity brought by your enormous intellectual achievements don't bring you happiness, perhaps it is time to explore this insanity that has patiently waited for your attention.
My niece came to visit me about 3 years ago during her spring break; she was about 10 years old.
On a sunny afternoon, I was taking a walk around my house. Suddenly, she and her little brother jumped into me and excitedly showed me the "treasures" she had collected around the neighborhood.
The "treasures" turned out to be just a bunch of metal screws of various kinds that the construction workers left all over the place. I laughed so hard and poked fun at them. "These are no treasures, and treasures should be things that are scarce or extremely expensive, like diamonds or gems.", I said. They didn't seem to care. And they kept explaining to me the wonder of the screws. Being impatient, I tried to send them away by telling them they should try other parts of the area.
They left with big smiles.
Thinking about this, I am not sure if I was launching at them or if I am the one who should be laughed at.
This blog post seems like a page taken straight out of my journal. Bored with life, knowing I need a change, but not having any motivation to do anything about it. I find it hard to meet new people because I perceive myself as being boring so it's hard to put myself out there.
I went jogging/walking yesterday to start out C25K. I got into cycling last year and I've always loved swimming so I was joking all summer that I could do a triathlon if I learned how to enjoy running.
One thing that I might have discovered yesterday is it seems that if I love my equipment I also enjoy using it. I'm so proud of my bike and love it to death and it makes me so happy to pull it out and ride it around. I've been poking around running shoe stores to find a pair of shoes to run in the last few weeks and I absolutely fell in love with the pair I bought yesterday. I felt so happy putting them on yesterday to run in.
I'm not sure what I can do to fall in love with coding again though. I built a brand new computer last year hoping that would make me want to code but it didn't really bring me the joy my shoes or bike brings me. I worry that I'm over programming but I have no idea what I could replace it with to earn a living.
The article makes a number of keen observations. I don't like how it gets summed up as "stop being boring", as if 'being boring' is a thing rather than the lack of something.
I went through a period of not having an interest I was passionate about. This normally happens but it was for a longer than usual period. I eventually recognized it and made small efforts to find new interests. The pandemic both forced the situation as well as make space to try out new stuff. One of those long-standing things was to play video games which I enjoyed so much growing up and now can never seem to prioritize. Sure it doesn't necessarily have real-world value, but it's something I could enjoy as a minor pastime as I did Go (board game) when I was on a binge.
The part that seems hard as an older adult is that we have less patience for being bad at something at the start when the going is slow. We have to find a way of enjoying the process rather than the results.
> I lost my creativity and the sense of wonder I used to have in childhood. I am no longer curious because I am settled for the world as it is. I accept things the way they are instead of imagining how they could be.
The best way to expand your perspective of the world is move to a new country with a different culture, learn a new language, and make local friends.
I recently moved to Brasil and am learning Portuguese. The language barrier is difficult. Learning how to communicate indirectly is hard. Understanding the different social norms requires you to question some of your core beliefs. I don't think you can learn any of the core lessons without learning the language.
Travel will put you out of your comfort zone, but you should also start having a lot of fun... the type of fun you used to have with friends when you were younger. Not the buttoned up type of fun you have at a dinner party with acquaintances.
> Not the buttoned up type of fun you have at a dinner party with acquaintances.
Before I quit FB years ago, I had whole feeds that were just groups of 30-somethings around some restaurant table or another holding wine glasses up for the waiter taking the photo. Like some Antonioni film....
"Only boring people get bored" was maybe the best advice I ever got.
I was a teenager and was getting a ride home from a friend of the family.
He asked "How's life going"
And I was in the midst of answering "It's bor.."
But he cut me off and said "Don't say 'it's boring'. ONLY BORING PEOPLE GET BORED."
It was like a splash of cold water in my face, and I always remembered that.
Whenever I start feeling bored now, I remind myself of that quote and start mentally exploring ways to shake things up and break out of the rut. If my mind isn't feeling that creative, then I start looking at what others are doing in my situation and often I'll find some thread of their creativity that I can use to get myself started.
The more you fear being labeled as "boring", the more motivated you'll be to avoid those doldrums.
I sympathize with the author. At the same time, reading a post like this reminds me how out of touch we in the SV/tech realm are. "Boring" here is quite relative, and folks living more average lives would find this kind of attitude to be crazy. Boring? You're healthy, get out sometimes, have hobbies, have written software, have written more than one-line drivel on the web... this is boring? I would call it an attitude or feeling borne out of tech privilege.
The idea that someone should (or could) avoid this, or conclude that it had something to do with being boring is strange to me. When you have "writer's block", you step away and stop trying to force it. When one creative outlet is exhausted, you find another one and bring your experience with you. To be perpetually fascinated by something that (mostly) does not change is not desirable and might be indicative of brain damage.
> I lost my creativity and the sense of wonder I used to have in childhood. I am no longer curious because I am settled for the world as it is. I accept things the way they are instead of imagining how they could be.
I agree with this, or rather... I think we need to live life full of hope and wonder. That when we do, we deeply experience things, and we get excited by things. Excitement itself is infectious, it brings other people along.
Somewhere in there is an essence of an idea, that to build something that makes someone else excited such that they want to use it, we must be excited by it and full of hope for what it can be and wonder for what it is. To even present things to others, such as a thing we've been working on, we must feel that excitement and express it.
I don't agree with the "I'm boring" sentiment, no-one is boring. But having hope and wonder can fuel excitement and that is a very good way to get others excited too.
Honestly seems the issue is something is preventing you from objectively observing and documenting your issue. This is the first step.
For instance, you have decided the issue is 'being boring' when what you describe is 'being bored'.
Another is you are making the successful roll out of the app the end goal, when there is no indication that 'being boring/bored' has anything to do with success of the app.
As an outsider going by the description of how you provided without taking the solution you provide for granted it seems...
You are bored/dissatisfied with your life, and you are bored/dissatisfied with the project you are working on, but (I think because you are trying to 'focus' and fight distraction) you don't want to admit this as the solution would be to change tack as its basically giving in to your lack of focus
Having a negative goal isn't recommended according to something I read somewhere.
You're meant to frame personal objectives in positive terms. Instead of "stop eating junk food", "start eating healthier food". Instead of "stop being lazy", "exercise every day".
Instead of "stop being boring", the objective might be to read more books, or a million other things that result in interesting people.
Also his app is built on the premise that we get distracted easily and can't focus. The success of the app therefore relies on the failure of others. Perhaps a better project is one where the app doesn't start with "you suck, now sign up and you won't suck as much". I'm possibly being unfair. I'm just thinking of ways this dude can make less boring apps.
Being creative is not a good thing for business success. It is better to take a well-known thing and put a little bit of your own spin to it or simply to combine two popular things.
If you create anything truly revolutionary it will be an uphill battle. You wont be able to communicate what you product does in just a few words. Worse it will require potential customers to actual make a mental shift. You will have lost their attention before you can even get to the benefits. This is why the first one to develop something new will rarely see success, only those later that copy it when the ground work has already been laid.
Something that helped me dramatically in this area was picking up a new hobby, purely for fun, with no expectations about getting "good" at it or winning any praise or accolades - for me, this was dance. It's taught me how to be creative and where creative energy actually comes from, and i've been able to take this skill and apply it to other hobbies, like music, where my approach used to be more technical. Extrinsic motivation and having expectations seem to kill creativity.
I'd say, time for something you'd normally label as radical. If you walk the footsteps of a stranger, you'll learn the things you never knew, you never knew.
> I lost my creativity and the sense of wonder I used to have in childhood. I am no longer curious because I am settled for the world as it is. I accept things the way they are instead of imagining how they could be.
Or you have become bored of your previous interests because you have spent a lot of time with them. Try something new, it might not work out but in taking a break you may find your interest in older interests to be rekindled after the time away.
I used to be a “try everything” developer / sys-admin / blah / blah. Having made a career out of that over the last couple of decades, these days I don't have the same interest I once did. I'm leaving the big re-architecting projects to others who are far more enthusiastic and sticking to support/tinkering that pays the bills these days, and outside of work I've got other hobbies with most of the time I used to spend learning or playing with new techie stuff instead spent running around the countryside and taking part in HEMA stuff. I am starting to get the urge to get back up to speed on some techie things beyond what I need in order to keep being useful in the day job, though that is happening slowly. In the meantime I'm enjoying this current balance and set of interests, maybe it'll stick around long term.
Of course this may not be a suitable attitude for someone for whom being particularly eager & creative is required for the purposes of continuing to pay the bills, and some people just aren't happy with a job, they must have a passion, or feel that not doing much more than getting by now will overly limit their options later, so YMMV.
Attention span and related topics are well studied in psychology, with new research appearing almost weekly - much more than becoming not boring, what would really help is if the author would spend their time on google scholar diving through the existing literature on the topic, then do a thorough examination of the existing state of the art in the market, and see if there is actually any way to meaningfully improve on the state of the art.
In other words, figuring out if a potential product could have actual value.
Instead they seemed to have reversed the process, already concluded that writing this app is a good idea, and relied instead of the nebulous and irrational guidance of purely artistic ideas and asking friends for new perspectives.
The same irrational thought process and overreliance on emotions probably combines with their superficial understanding of pop psychology to lead them to conclude that they fall in the 'boring' category of that (honestly) completely arbitrary dichotomy.
Broadly the core of western psychotherapy, the rediscovery of self; free of psychic oppression/external forces.
Two wonderfully relevant quotes from Adam Philips, that the author may gain from:
> “For the child's curiosity (''this child who can be deranged by hope and anticipation -- by ice cream,'' as Phillips puts it) is the grail for which the adult yearns. When all hope of recovering it, or at least glimpsing it glowing in the distance, vanishes, there is only a terrible emptiness. ''Ecstasy of opportunity'' gives way to a corrosive loss of interest in life.”
> "As always, Phillips prefers not to be too direct. (...) Phillips' own writings are prime examples of what we can achieve if we put aside, at least for a moment, the overly sensible -- and set out to discover what really moves us."
I remember in my early 30s complaining to a friend about how I thought I was becoming boring. He reminded me that I complained of the same thing when I was in my early 20s.
Despite it not /feeling/ good, it's probably a good feeling to have, one that'll push you to new places.
The best way for one to stop being boring is to not write a post about how one must stop being boring. The best way to stop being boring is to write a post about all the interesting and exciting things there are that have nothing (or very little) to do with one's self.
I am convinced there is a collective post-covid emotional hangover hitting. I think we can’t simply pretend to hold it all together while so much of life changes.
Also, author would do well to get out of their head and do something radically different that doesn’t involve computers.
I really started on a path to improvement a couple years back, before that I thought that everything else including state of the world was to blame and I was perfect.
But thanks to a dusty place…
I was looking for things to improve and have formulated close to a dosen “shoulds” during this time.
I cannot say that this was really helpful, because, you know, how could I know what I should? My knowledge got me here. The shoulds arise from the mind, but how accurate are they? No way to know for me!
Now I come to conclusion that I “should” only accept myself, and look for meaningful experience and people, everything else will happen. Sometimes I’m boring! Sometimes I’m stupid! Sometimes I’m irresposible!
I think your launch failed for the following reasons:
- horrible mobile experience
- people who are looking for a solution that lets them focus are not inclined to read through the wall of text on the site
- the try-before-you-buy features are lost at a glance and focus easily shifts to the $2.98 part
Why not build the site so that it immediately brings up a simple, self-explanatory UI, especially on mobile? Let the users discover the features and the limitations.
If it’s not usable that way then iterate until it is. Hide the wall of text into some about page.
You will find your lost creativity by ingesting a very small amount of psilocybin mushrooms.
Oh man, no worries, I'm boring too! It's great! I do things like take 20 year old XML exports and build a modern data transfer services around them. Doing these kinds of things I make a lot of money being boring. No pretensions, work 8 to 5, I'm not my work, and I go home to my wife and we have loads of fun cooking, playing boardgames, riding our ebikes, camping, now even having friends over again. Boring rocks!
If you're bored or feeling boring, an easy solution is do something that can get you killed.
I bought a motorcycle last year and I'm not nearly as boring any more. Surprisingly so, if you consider all I did was buy a vehicle and learn to use it. It seems to be a general litmus test: Find a risky hobby and you're mind will be focused and dialed in to what you're doing and others will respect your effort and skill. Scuba, surfing, flying, poker, etc.
Isn’t this wonderful? This is why the competition is tough, assuming you want to make it with building new apps. There is so much obstacles and this is just one of them you’ve listed(a detrimental mental state). But if you can fix it one by one, that will cut you through the top.
I think this statement is on point based on the article. Its important to differentiate even if the two things are related, you cant solve a problem until you can state and understand it.
Man needs meaning. There’s not an app for that. Stop being boring and building a successful app are probably misplaced priorities. Work on spirituality and family, that’s where “meaning” is for most people and so probably for you too.
You're probably just tired. You can pick up a new hobby, but that won't make you interested in code again (possibly the opposite). Just take a break and come back to code when you're inspired to do something with it.
> I lost my creativity and the sense of wonder I used to have in childhood. I am no longer curious because I am settled for the world as it is. I accept things the way they are instead of imagining how they could be.
“ but no one was really using the app. Including myself.”
That’s the problem! If you are the target user but don’t want to use it, the product doesn’t work as is, maybe the idea doesn’t work at all, or the focus isn’t right.
I don't know about the boring part, but I certainly have thoughts on "what went wrong". I'd say pretty much everything. And I don't say that to be mean.
If you're trying to solve people's lack of focus, you first need a solid understanding of what the root cause of that problem is. It could include deep psychological issues that I won't go in to, but root causes that are plain to see and very common are distractions outside one's control (work email, meetings, chat, etc) and distractions due to a lack of self discipline (personal usage of smartphone).
That still is a simplistic picture, but let's use it. Now your app, which is a website, aims to solve this. The first thought here is that an app means even more screen time, but fine.
Your website allows one to set a timer in which the user does a focused task. This doesn't solve the problem. The distractions outside one's control keep coming in nor does this magically fix a lack of self-discipline.
Even if you do believe such a timer helps, because it does something at a subconscious level, how is it any different from using a standard timer app natively available on any device?
The second idea is to play white noise background sounds as it puts one in a focused state. Fine, but why wouldn't I just hit play on one of the hundreds of "focus" playlists found on Spotify or elsewhere?
The third idea, one task at a time, is reasonable. But not valuable on its own, as it still enforces nothing. Plus, people already have task management systems, they don't need one more.
The fourth idea is puzzling, a support network. So I'm finally in a focused state, and then these like-minded people are going to support me: "well done, mate, proud of you". How is that not the opposite of being focused?
Bottom line, you charge money for something that doesn't solve the problem, or is already solved in far more advanced ways, at no charge. For example, both iOS and Android have advanced settings for silent mode, suppressing notifications and time used on "problematic" apps.
Finally, execution is also sub par, as your fellow Indie hackers agreed on.
I truly say with the best intentions that this is a bad idea. And it sucks to work on bad ideas that go nowhere. But you shouldn't feel too bad about that because creating a new idea that monetizes and is sticky is close to impossible, the bar is that high. Most people hardly every install apps and when they do, almost all of them are never opened again.
Do not consider yourself a failure because failure is the norm in such a competitive space.
"I need to pick a fight and stop trying to please everybody."
Yes, fine. But contemplate more about which fight to pick. You're self aware about it, which is good:
"Am I doing the wrong thing again?”, I wondered."
If you suck at separating good ideas from bad ones, which is common, you need better and earlier feedback.
I'm glad the author is introspecting, but I think this is a bit of a misdiagnosis, or maybe an incomplete prescription. First, being boring to others is nothing to worry about -- let them attend to their own likes and dislikes -- it's not your job to thrill anyone. But the author seems to be using boring to describe being limited by fears of various kinds. Well, that's right, it's not good to be bullied and caged by fear. But it's not enough to just say you should banish fear -- you need the stuff that will banish it. You do that via, for lack of a better term, spiritual cultivation, i.e., you learn to recognize the goodness in yourself and protect and nurture it consistently so that it can grow large and strong. Fear and many other unhelpful states of mind cannot exist in the presence of your goodness, if it's strong enough.
It highly depends on what is _in_ the book, and how it is laid out.
Suggesting from the get-go to someone in some disarray, that reading an obscure, long book is a path to improvement, this is a bit... making the burden even heavier?
I was starting to feel this way before I had kids, but having kids completely changed everything for the more interesting.
It’s funny because it’s the exact opposite of what I was told would happen: The story goes that you have kids, lose yourself, and become a boring old parent. Instead, I’m never lacking for fun or creative ideas because I can pick up a creative and hilarious child and go do literally anything together and we’ll have a good time. I’m meeting more new and interesting people than I have at any point since college simply by doing parent things and meeting other parents. I still have time to work on one specific side project, but I’ve learned to stop grinding through the side projects that I didn’t really enjoy anyway. Becoming a parent is a great forcing function to get out and shake up your priorities.
Obviously I’m not recommending becoming a parent as a solution to this problem. However, I wanted to note that the realities of becoming a parent are literally the opposite of what I was led to believe by peers and social media while growing up. Contrary to everything I was told, it’s actually the childless people and couples I know who are entering these periods of “boring” where they struggle for interest or motivation or meaning, while us parents are off having an extremely non-boring and fun time with this new chapter.