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

[goofball]

It's simple but something I've been hammering into my head is 'I could have' doesn't mean sh*t. I did, or I am doing is what counts.

[LearnedfromTV]

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It's simple but something I've been hammering into my head is 'I could have' doesn't mean sh*t. I did, or I am doing is what counts.

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Yeah.

Similarly, but from a slightly different angle: I do too much what-if-ing and dwelling on past mistakes.

[somapopper]

While I don't necessarily disagree with your self-analysis here, and frankly I've got a fairly simmilar background (I'm actually somewhat proud of my preformance in college, but I've struggled more with grad school), allow me to point out the obvious:

Getting a 3.3 in a triple major is actually a pretty big accomplishment. As is getting into grad school at all and certainly graduating.

While you may not have the study habits of the other people in your grad school, realize it's grad school. We're talking about the 1%ers.

Trust me I saw my fair share of students in undergrad who were swinging for that 2.0-2.5 range and made it in just under the buzzer. I know people in our age range who are on the 7 year plan, and of course a fair number of people who never went or never finished.

Sure, we all feel bad about our percieved potential, procrastination, lack of accomplishment, whatever, but that's just the nature of the beast for a [censored] ton of people.

I guess what I'm saying is that if you can find what you like to do, it will always be a struggle to attain a high level of achievment, but we're only in act 1 scene 2 here, and it's supposed to be a struggle.

It is of course, helpful to think about this stuff, because saying "hey, wow I'm going to procrastinate as usual on this project; I really need to keep that in mind and try not to," is the solution. But if you're too down on yourself, you're not going to have the self-respect, pride, or arrogance, to believe in what you're doing and accomplish it.

By the way, I think that you don't want to do the reading may be a bad sign for you and econ, since you said you did do the reading when it was interesting. I hope that post-grad you're dealing with a class of stuff that you find more interesting.

By the way x2, I had exactly 2 cashews in my pocket from a visit to my friend's apartment. I ate them. I am now looking at exactly 5 half-cashew shells. This baffles me.

[nath]

One quick thing to say re the limon hypothesis: I think in some respects laziness and cowardice are connected. If you're lazy, by definition you want your life to be effortless and comfortable. If you're a coward, you are unwilling to stray outside your comfort zone. And, for various reasons, you may be afraid of effort-- whether it is failure or success you're truly afraid of, is immaterial.

I think fear is part of it, as well as just growing older and getting in set in your ways. I noticed myself for a time last year just increasingly losing interest in new or different things. I'm trying to revive it, but it isn't all that easy. And I think I'm getting off topic so I'll stop.

[fish2plus2]

1. This message board is a curse. I think everyone on here realizes that they spend too much time, yet keep coming back. Its sickening really. Whenever I go on vacation and cant get online, when I come back I realize how stupid posting on a message board is, but fall back into the trap of doing it again.

2. I think alot of people set goals for themeselves that they think sound good or will make them happy, such as Learn the Piano, but if there was a piano infront of them they have no desire to sit down? Are they lazy? Possibley. They also might not really be interested in Piano and just think it sounds like a good idea. The samething with school. What does it really matter if you get a C or an A in a class? I mean, if you set the goal of getting an A, then getting an A is just about meeting your goal. The 'A' is arbitrary. I think the key to defeating laziness is finding those things which truely interest you. Some people will be able to tie this into a degree, others will not.

4. Your weight issue is different in my opinion. That is one area where your faliure is being caused strictly by laziness. There is not much to say here. You know what you need to do to lose weight, you just have to force yourself to do it.

5. "My fear of finding out how good I really am seems tougher than these to crack."

How are you going to ever find that out? And what does that even mean? Why do you care?

[nath]

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1. This message board is a curse. I think everyone on here realizes that they spend too much time, yet keep coming back. Its sickening really. Whenever I go on vacation and cant get online, when I come back I realize how stupid posting on a message board is, but fall back into the trap of doing it again.

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Agreed. At this point I'm not even working on my poker game-- I'm just BSing around with a cadre of (somewhat) likeminded individuals-- not even completely likeminded, but unlike the ones I know in real life I don't have to field dumb poker questions from you guys.

It's nice to have a community, and I've met some really good people here, but geez, I could have done so much more with much of the time I've spent here.

[tabako]

Great post Jared. As an econ major who is equally unmotivated (probably not as smart, though [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]), your story is a familiar one.

[ChicagoTroy]

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Do not make the mistake of thinking that you can solve emotional issues through logic. It doesn't work like that.


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Seems like the only way you would solve them.

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You just had an immense thread in which very smart people gave you logcial potential solutions to your problems. You've likely put tons of thought into it yourself. How's that working out?

[traz]

I've learned to embrace my laziness and love the fact that everyone around me works , while I slack off and do nothing.

If this bites me in the butt when I'm 40, at least I've had a good run.

Seriously. That might sound like the ultimate cop out, but I ENJOY being lazy. I realised the only thing bothering me about it is that other people told me it was bad. But most of the people saying those things were only saying it because THEY COULDN'T DO IT THEMSELVES. I may not make as much as I could if I worked hard, but I'm confident that I'll always be able to survive, and that's all I need.

[Pyromaniac]

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It's nice to have a community, and I've met some really good people here, but geez, I could have done so much more with much of the time I've spent here.

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you could have done so much more, but would you have? I mean, I think it's easy for us to beat ourselves up over minor things and to regret how we've used our time...but often it seems that when we remove one timesink from our lives, we just replace it with another.

Maybe it's more a question of whether the time put in is worth what's gotten out -- whether that's community, or diversion, or whatever.