More on being lazy and smart and being a fair but not extreme success

[60Vauban]

For me I broke the cycle when I lived abroad because every day was hard, every little challenge in the language was me pushing myself. I was really alive during this time and when I came back to the US everything was easy again. No more 4 hour lectures trying to simultaneously translate the language and the ideas into something I retained.
I've spent my years since trying to get back to that place of constant challenge. I too did grad work at Pitt expecting school to be the push but it wasn't, and my job was for a while, but I can do that now too in 1/5 of the time it takes everyone else.

[ozyman]

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NY Article

I found this article extremely interesting and relevant to the discussion here. Another reinforcement of how being smart alone just doesn't cut it without some effort. Of course, I found it while surfing the web and procrastinating.

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Wow, I was just about to post that article. I got goosebumps while reading it on the subway, it hit so close to home.

[rock1]

You and many of the posters here seem to concentrate on "smart or not smart"...while identifying yourslef as smart seems to be a mechanism to make yourself feel better, i'd say its pretty irrelevant in the actual shaping of your identity...it sounds like its just a way to make yourself feel better for the much more relevant lazy designation...

i leave the smart designation to those that use natural ability to become a trailblazer in society...there just arent that many of those...and those people that do fall n that category dont think about smart or not smart - they think about how they are expanding their boundaries and changing people/society/world arond them...

So how do we break out of the mold? Do something to change the much more relevant lazy description...its hard to break that in all facets of life - so start out doing it in one facet...stop being lazy pokerwise, or studying wise, or eatingwise...and then try again...or you could do something lifechanging to break the pattern - move to a foreign country and try edgy things as opposed to the comfortable ones (read Adsman's post)...

smart + lazy = dumb...so dont worry so much about whether you are smart or not - work on the lazy portion and you will feel much better about everything...

[maurile]

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5. I'm not familiar with the limon hypothesis.

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Me neither. So I googled "limon hypothesis" and got one hit: this thread.

[moltojoebatali]

Note: Great Post, sad it's dead for last month

Hey JaredL, nice post. Scary actually, you could have replaced the GPA with 3.43 and that's my high school experience. Being smart and lazy wasn't just a lifestyle choice at my school, it was a disease. Everyone wanted to be smart and lazy. Everyone knew their class rank (that NY mag article REALLY freaked me out), and there was a constant swirl of whispers about who was the "smartest" and who "just worked hard".
I saw this conflict in several areas of my life. GPA vs SAT, Natural Talent on the court vs. Hours of Practice Put In, Good Looks vs. Having Mad Game... it was everywhere. I don't know, maybe the Miami laid-back feeling caused effortless success to be valued more than work.

Being one of those over-praised, under-worked kids like from the NY mag article, I saw the same s*** you described. However, i noticed something else. Most of the "smart" kids who flaunted our scores around while claiming it was cake weren't just unsuccessful later on. We haven't gotten a damn thing done. We never got anything done in the first place, either.

Looking back on it, i can't remember one award i've won in honest, open competitions that require work (sciencefairsciencefairsciencefair). Until recently, I hadn't gotten A's in school since fifth grade. I hadn't held a job for more than two months, and as much as i fancy myself a creative guy, i have published enough original work to fit between the next two periods. . So why did i keep on advancing through schools, getting accepted into bigger and better things along the way even though my grades, my only real measure of effort, were par for the course (and the course is quite dumb and illiterate in Miami)? It's because schools were blindsided by the SATs, the IQ tests, the promising interviews.
JaredL, everything you've given people so far is promise. And you're lucky, because you've managed to make it through unscathed without ever delivering on your promise. But the divide you face now is between school and career. That's big. You've been transferred from one desk-filled holding pen to another your whole life, and been given nothing but second chances. Now you see your mobility prospects rapidly shrinking.

Sorry if i sound like a bad carnie palm-reader. All i'm saying is, are you a superhero with some power that obliges you to give %110 in service of others? No. You owe it to yourself to do something. Eventually, all the fun things you can do, all the alcohol, poker, sex you can have will start to seem like things you use to distract yourself from your own aimlessness.

What stopped me from backsliding? My dad told me one day he was sort of ashamed that i had been treated like a plaything my whole life and had never worked for anything. He also threatened to take my car away . [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

Before i make this so long no one will read it (maybe too late)...answers!

1. What draws us to this forum? We are the nerdy, pale-faced masses who would bother to master a game like poker in theory before playing it. We are the kids who read the instruction manuals of 12 in GI JOE dolls before we played with them. We are the ones who memorized move lists for Mortal Kombat not to see every bloody finisher executed in all its 16 bit glory, but to brut4llY p0wnz0r our friends as quick as possible... and then dance around and go "nyah nyah nyah, Chris, i don't even own an SNES and i still... We are the children of the D&D geeks of the generation before us, and the chess geeks before them.

You sometimes see people on this forum who don't jive with that. They play poker "by instinct" and recognize that Ivey is "preternaturally lucky". They don't last long.

We, on the other hand, play WOW and know every frickin class of character cold. Those instinct kids? They're too busy jacking off and complaining about how everyone already hacks in the latest patch of their fave (read:CS) twitch-shooting game.

Basically, this forum chose you. Any psychological issue/quirk you have is an offshoot of the personality that lead you to come here in the first place.

2. What to do. For me, it was easy. I'm still in UG. I just picked up weightlifting again and refocused myself. What helps? It sounds silly, but i bought a livestrong bracelet and now i wear it everywhere. I know it sounds corny, and the trend died like 1.5 years ago, but that just further reminds me why i wear it.
I bought the bracelet six months back, stared at it for five minutes, and thought as hard as i could about Lance Armstrong having testicular cancer. Now whenever i look at the bracelet, i have this inane OCD thought like, if you don't complete this task, you will get cancer. In your balls. Works for me so far.

3. Over analyzing things=daydreaming. Again, livestrong bracelet, pinch yourself, get a person to pinch you...

4. Overweight? That's serious, man. More serious than the "life issues" you face in the job market. There's no easier way to ruin your health than be fat, and buddy, you might think you have a degree/job/wife, but in the end, all you really have is your health. Recommendation: buy the book "The New HIT" by Ellington Darden. Follow the diet plan outlined in the case study in the back. Never a finer way to get fit.

5. limon=who? Being afraid of heights isn't stopping you from achieving anything, unless your office is on the roof. And, dogs? Seriously? Buy Snausages. Approach dog. Feed dog. Pet dog. Rinse, repeat. You'll realize they are dumb as dirt and fairly harmless.

[calcbandit]

I totally relate to this post. And have to some extent sucesfully made myself harder working/more driven.

I am a 3rd yr undergrad mechanical engineer at CMU, and will also get an MBA.

I used to be extremely lazy in high school, basically identical to OP. I could do fine with no effort, so why put any in? Anytime anything challenging came up, I'd tell myself I could do it if I wanted to, but it wasn't worth the effort.

I got around this in college by finding something I am really passionate about, robotics. My robotics lab has lots of deadlines and does amazing things and I have been known to work 100+ hrs/week, happily, to meet some of these deadlines.

When I don't have deadlines to meet, I basically do the same as OP and am as lazy as possible to still get good grades. To combat this, I take 6 classes at a time and work a 20hr/week job. Sure, I still put forth a lazy amount of effort into each class and do as little work as I can to barely get by, but I am doing it in so many classes that I accomplish more than anyone else. Instead of accomplishing the same amount as everyone else with just much less work, I use my 'corner cutting' ability to accomplish that much more. Better grades in more classes while holding an exciting research job. Now I work very hard.

But yeah, I need to work on discipline so I can work hard without the need for an imminent deadline that I am afraid of missing.

[Jorge10]

I am pretty much like you. I couldnt tell you what I did in high school if anything. I also went into a math program.

Something interesting happened last semester. My school offered some tutoring job in our 500 math class. 7 other people where in the class and they all passed. I didnt want to do it, but the teacher is cool and I have a hard time saying no when people ask nicely. I ended up taking the job. I kind of half assed it as usual for a while, but then someone who was failing my class showed up. Someone who was in the same classes I am taking now and was failing was asking for help. Then another one showed up after him. Now I started to read the books and really care about the material. Not really for me, but to do my job and help them. I didnt know these people, but I wanted to help them and I didnt want to screw them over so I am now studying every week. I dont know if this will stick and I will continue to care when they stop asking for help, but who knows.

I guess what I am trying to say is this. Maybe thinking of someone else can help you. Think about how doing well will help your wife because you will graduate or something. If you dont care about school for yourself(like I do) maybe you will care about it for others.

[MusashiStyle]

i'm basically in ur shoes JL, the thing is that I decided not to go to grad school in physics because I knew I wasn't good enough. Now I feel like I have my whole life ahead of me and I can still do things but not as a "professional", because it is insanely competitive out there in academia.

[Big Folder]

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1. (this was the initial question I had in mind) What draws people like me, there are many of you out there, to poker and message boards like this one? It seems that people like us are hugely overrepresented.

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Well people like you, and me, have a lot more time because we are lazy. I'm a 2nd year in law school and im about in the top 1/3 of my class. Is that great? Naw, but its ok. But I can tell you I have a lot more fun than the guys in the library 4-8 hours a day and I'm not too worried about it.

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2. What can people like me do to stop the cycle? Thinking of it the only way I really can anymore, from a behavioral economics perspective, I think part of it is that I've always done well enough. That is, I've never gotten a huge failure. For example, had I gotten rejected from everywhere in the applications my behavior may have changed, or at least I would have been more introspective and tried to work on some things. Basically, I want to do something about the problem before it all comes crashing down.

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I've never had a huge failure either, in fact, I've basically been lucky to have a somewhat mediocre educational career. I was ok in high school. For undergrad, I went to a small relatively unknown, regional school (Chapman University for you OC people), but because of it I was able to play football, write for the school paper, take econ classes geared towards free market approach which I believe in, and have a good time while getting pretty good grades. I finished with a 3.57 gpa without working hard.

I then got into UC Hastings which is a top 30 law school. Nothing great, but I'm surrounded by people who went to Cal, UCLA, Stanford so I'm in good company. I'm doing well, but not great.

But this last year I kind of found something I like. I like the application of law and don't really care about the book crap. I've worked for the DA's office for a year and have done well and I participated on our moot court team and did well. I'm working for the U.S. Attorney's office next year so my experience makes up for my lack of great grades.

The point is I found something I enjoy. I'm really glad you went into econ, not only because I was also an econ major, but because you found that you enjoyed it and followed it. See, you do have some drive, now you just need to keep finding stuff you enjoy. Are you going to find something where you'll work your ass off an lose your current problem? Maybe. But even in my current prosecutional work, which i enjoy, I still am sort of lazy and I waste too much time on this site and on baseball. So my next step might be to try to get into baseball. At least try to reach my goal and if it doesn't work I'll just go on to be a lawyer.

Sorry if I'm rambling, but think of it this way: You're smart enough to not work had and still do ok. There is a reason for that and you should be happy you have that. THere are people that have to work their ass off to have ok grades in law school, but I can have ok grades with very little work relatively. (I'm currently ignoring my conlaw lecture to write this out, so i hope you read it ;D) Some people just get it, so consider yourself lucky. Now you just have to find something that interests you. Eventually, you'll snap out of this if you find something you like and if not you'll still be successful, you've made it this far.

I have a question for you. Are you one of those people that think [censored] will just work out? I've always kind of blindly trusted that I will make things work out, not stress and [censored], and it has for me? I can see you having this idea because if you didn't then you would be more motivated. THe most motivated people are the people who think things won't work out. Just have faith, you'll be ok.

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3. Quite related to 2, but something I find is that I hugely overanalyze things. For example, one thing that works well for others is to say to themselves "OK I'll work until at least 10, then go have fun." I try it and it works for a VERY short period of time and then I think to myself "10 is pretty damn arbitrary cutoff that means nothing, it's only 8:30 but [censored] it I can stop now." In other words setting arbitrary goals doesn't seem to work because in my head they are arbitrary and don't matter. Not sure what to do about this as my ability to analyze a variety of things is one of my strengths. Also, this has gotten much worse since I started grad school.

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Do whatever you think is necessary to meet whatever goal you want. If you don't mind being an ok student then don't worry about it. If you want to do better find a way to make it work. I have this problem as well, but think about how easy it is to correct. Just force yourself to study to 10. Get out of your house, go to the library where you can't be distracted and just force yourself. If you plan on studying for 3 hours and only get in 2.5 pat yourself on the back and try to add 10 minutes to that. Eventually you'll get used to studying more.

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4. I think this is very related to the whole thing, but as some of you know, I'm quite overweight. It's amazing to see pictures of me from when I got back from Spain to now becuase I was so much smaller then. My weight pattern is basically that I maintain my weight for an extended period and then for a period it goes up do to poor eating. In general I have trouble starting and especially continuing with any diet plan. I should really learn to cook as well as I don't do it much at all, my wife doesn't all that much especially as she stays quite busy with work.

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I was overweight as well since I stopped playing football in college. Hell i was fat then, but check out the Abs diet book. Its pretty straight forward and just makes sense. Basically swap out white bread/rice/noodles for whole wheat. Eat 6 times a day. Eat meat and lots of protein. It also gives you lots of recepies that are easy to learn and make. Its good stuff. You even get to eat whatever the hell you want 1 meal a week(pizza, whatever). Also, Lift weights 3 times a week for about 30-45 minutes. Check out this program, it will give you a weight loss/muscle gain work out for the next year Here

I lost about 35 points in 4 months and have never been healthier. Its easy enough that I've stuck with the "diet" for over a year and a half. Its not really a diet anymore its just how I eat.

Additionally getting in shape will impact your routine. it will make you more motivated, confident, efficient, and of course healthier.

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5. The limon hypothesis (you're not lazy, you're a coward) really hit home for me. I think that this is correct. None the less, I'm not really sure what to do about it. I'm irrationally afraid of two things - heights and large dogs I don't know. I pretty much instantly freeze up when I see a big dog on the street and when I'm say on the roof of a house I'm scared shitless and get clammy and that feeling in the pit of my stomach and my legs get wobbly. In other words, I know I have this problem, what can I really do about it? I have yet to solve my phobia of dogs and heights and it's far from clear how I'm to conquer those fears. My fear of finding out how good I really am seems tougher than these to crack.

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I think this is a great quote. If you aren't trying your best you can't fall that far. You'll have to crack this. The key is finding something you want to work hard at. Its out there, just keep looking. Stick to econ, you obviously enjoy it, now you just need to find a way to apply it. It might take you a while, but its out there. The key might be don't expect to go from "lazy" to extremely motivated in one job or educational change. If you do this, you're lucky. But think of it as a learning experience. Just find something there you work a little harder at and then keep going.

I'm no ways a very hard working person, but I'm working harder now than I ever have and I'm enjoying it. I'm also setting myself up for success, which I'm happy with.

Last bit of advice: My mom, a workaholic, says she thinks I'll always be ok because I know how to relax. This basically is because I'm somewhat lazy and I think you are the same despite the fact I dont know you. THis is a key to live, it should be fun and relaxing. Don't worry too much if you aren't the hardest working person ever; just work to a level you are satisfied with and enjoy life.