How do I stop feeling guilty about not working non stop? Apart from things all humans do plus going to the gym, I feel guilty about any of my habits. And I have no goals.
I want to read books but I feel guilty about reading a set number of pages a day. I am worried about being called a pleb for not reading ten trillion boring Western canon novels. I feel like an ADD pleb for rarely reading more than 60 pages at a time. I hate that I'm more likely to put a book down at the end of a chapter.
Similarly for working. I know I could always be working to become better off. I know that people who talk about taking breaks are just lying to themselves. I feel bad for not having the willpower necessary to work non stop on one thing for 10 hours. If I work on one thing then I miss the big picture. If I work on many things I am a dilettante who doesn't achieve anything.
And the funny thing is that I'm a Stirnerite. When you stay unspooked then everyone else's belief system feels like a personal attack. Fuck these people who say that X is so important. X is always working hard / enjoying yourself / focusing on one thing / focusing on many things / reading history / classics / philosophy / other shit.
The awful thing is that I know everyone else is a fraud. That NFL player who everyone loves and says is hardworking has never read a book. That mathematics professor known as a genius is a disgusting dyel. That literary figure who goes on about Shakespeare being a god doesn't know any maths or science greater than an 18 year old yet claims to be worldly. That billionaire who goes on about humanity's big issues does nothing but write checks for people who make social media apps.
Try not being a giant faggot and having such a pretentious belief system.
Levi Kelly
you set high standards for yourself, fall into self hatred when you don't meet them, and then project that onto other people who don't treat themselves the same way you do
it's good to try hard user, it's also important to set good goals
Adrian Wood
Then embrace your inevitable life of being a loser who does nothing but make shitty threads on a Zambian flute crafting forum.
Benjamin Davis
>all those people with accomplishments are frauds
Tyler Martin
Jesus man society has really fucked you up that bad?
Literally just bee urself, not even memeing, i watch cartoons and anime and draw on my spare time and i still like hanging out with normies and numales alike, enjoy this short ride andmake it as less tedious as you can
Josiah Rogers
The ugly side of perfectionism is the fact that you cant actually get started on anything because where you're at isn't where you "feel" that you should be. This creates a cycle that feeds upon itself when you're feelings of contentment rest on the fact you need to be making progress/enriching yourself everyday. I have the same problem. When I wanted to improve my shit life I would go to sleep on a Sunday and do all the cold-shower then meditate then read then bulletproof coffee then kegels etc all while white knuckling away all my addictions. Go hard for 2 weeks then convince myself I'm not ready. I set myself up to fail because In my pursuit to get out of my own way I also think my willpower can build Rome in a day. You're not being realistic.
People can only become experts at one or maybe two things in their life. You don't have goals because you think you need to be an absolute expert in everything you have a mild interest In. Friendo you need to relax and focus on your health and your wealth. Fuck everything else until those are in order. If you are healthy (avoiding drugs, eating well, sleeping well, lifting) and are on a path to building wealth (career path that plays to your strengths) THEN worry about being a well read, traveled master chess player. I'm also assuming you don't have a wife/kids which will redirect your narcissistic bullshit. You need to figure out your priorities in life.
Asher Cruz
t. normie in disguise
Brayden Moore
It's part of the cost of specialization. I own a brewery I k no own alot about beer and the beer market. I don't know much about chemistry, biology physics etc outside of my field. I train for strongman and thus don't know much about powerlifters and nothing about olympic lifting.
Ultimately life is a case of min maxing, want to be good at something? Sacrifice something else. Don't worry about what people in the past were like, they had things a lot easier than we do nowadays.
Nathan Scott
try to realize the utter pointlessness of this thinking. its like worrying about death or cancer - you'll never win and you'll end up miserable.
and what are these insane standards? we're literally animals, its amazing enough that we can do 1+1=2
Luke Gomez
Hey, I respect some of your opinions. Kek...
Lucas Fisher
>not reading ten trillion boring Western canon novels Fuck 'em. Read what you like until you get an appreciation for certain themes or ideas, then dig into their past. I hated history in school, but now I can't get enough of it because it finally resonates. > willpower necessary to work non stop on one thing for 10 hours Set a realistic goal, take a short break, repeat. A month later, extend that goal by ten minutes. Repeat. > Your whole last paragraph That's defeatism of the worst sort. You want to feel sorry for yourself without the pain of doing so, and you accomplish that by telling yourself that everyone else is the same giant failure you imagine yourself being. Fuck that. Fuck it first because no one is supposed to know everything at an expert level; the Shakespeare guy doesn't need to write a thesis on linear analysis to be smart and successful. Fuck it second because there are plenty of Veeky Forums programmers, smart NFL players, and philanthropic wealthy people. They're not perfect at everything but they're complete people. And fuck it third because it's your excuse not to find fulfillment.
Stop trying to be good at every goddamn thing in the world. Get a professional speciality, get a hobby, and dabble in whatever else makes you happy. Money to pay your bills, health enough to live comfortably, and staying out of jail are all you need to be an adult, the rest is a lifestyle choice, not a pissing contest where everyone is lying about the beautiful colors of their piss stream.
Shit man, I'm learning Russian and I converse at the level of a three-year old. You think I'll ever converse at the level of an adult if I don't go out and have an actual conversation first, slow sentences, grammar errors, and all?
Chase Rodriguez
My question really is how can I ascend being a normal man?
I want to be a superhuman. how can I learn to study for 15 hours a day, and have an unbreakable resolve that allows me to exceed the expectations of all normies on earth? I want to be the best at everything, or at least die trying.
Lucas Taylor
Why are you comparing yourself to others? You do your thing that makes you feel good. Whether you accomplished so little compared to that X that everyone speak of, you're not X. You're you and you actually did things in your own pace. You are moving forward and motivated to do so, that is all that matters.
Lucas Baker
You have an unrealistic desire. No one can be the best at everything; worse, trying to become that is less lucrative and worse for your overall happiness than trying to be an overall effective human being.
I'll use myself as an example because it's easy. I practice patent law. That means I was an engineer before becoming a lawyer. I also practice brazilian jujitsu, speak German, I'm learning Russian, and I read a ton of big fancy books. Still have something resembling a social life, too. > in b4 e-stats and lol I'll bet he squats 600 pounds and is 6'10" with a twelve-inch dick too and also has a billion-dollar trust fund from the stocks he invested in I have an engineering degree, and could work in the field if I wanted to. But because I left the field and went to law school, I'll never catch up to the skill level of my former classmates who went on to get their Masters or Ph.D's, or who went into the industry for longer than the 18 months I did. They've been doing the job 8 hours a day for the last few years while I was putting the same effort into a different pursuit.
I accept that I'll never be as good at any kind of engineering as they are. But I know enough that it makes me much, much better at my law practice (it's actually required for patent law), and I've got some useful handyman skills from it. I can do some real math. It benefits me more to focus on the main skill (law) with my entry-level engineer skills than it would to drop law and go back to engineering, or to try to work 16 hours a day on both.
Besides, the world doesn't need a superman who can do two tasks super-well, because he can still only do one at a time. It's more efficient for me to focus on law while my friends focus on engineering.
Every other skill is like that. You have one professional skill, a hopefully complementary set of other, proficient-level skills. And some personal knowledge from dabbling (I read history; this does not make me a historian). 1/2
Daniel Bailey
can someone give me a quick BRRRAAAPPPPdown on this guy?
Jose Morgan
2/2
Your sense of what you want to be reminds me of comic books, where Reid Richards is beyond an expert in all forms of science, or where Spiderman has the time to be an accomplished scientist on top of his job and superhero-ing. It's fiction. Look at reality: Leonardo da Vinci was an incredible mind, ahead of his time, but he never mastered math up to or beyond calculus because it hadn't been invented. He engineering many incredible machines but never knew the first thing about electrical circuits. He was well-read but did not have the mastery of literary history that would have been expected of any experienced monk in his day. Da Vinci, certainly one of the most talented and intelligent people to ever live, truly mastered a number of complex skills, but was not the best in everything out there, or even most things. And even in his own time, other people became far happier, wealthier, and more successful coming from similar backgrounds because they leveraged their skills that way (some of the big banking families, for example, started up in Italy from the equivalent of a modern payday loan store).
You want to ascend? Re-read this shit. Dabble in whatever you like, but focus on one or two main skills that make you money, make you happy, or both. Get Veeky Forums, socialize, read what you like (and let your tastes develop in their own time), subcontract what you're not skilled with.
Parker Myers
But user that's the crisis I'm experiencing. There's so much i want to do but there isn't enough time in a day to do it, or i'm just not capable of handling it.
I want to do everything but we're just mere mortals with hardware 1.0 running on software 0.51a beta.
Josiah Roberts
Leave Veeky Forums for a while, we are elitist as fuck which is good for knowledge but our jaggedness can be really emotionally draining.
Nolan Flores
No Schubert, you're drunk. Go home and write a billion more Lieder.
Christian Green
Yes, but you're forcing yourself to do shit you don't like in a half-assed way because you want to be the best at everything. If you liked reading the classics, for example, you wouldn't force yourself through 60 pages and then fantasize about other people's illiteracy.
Do some shit you like, and do it well. So set some goals about focusing that are realistic, and expand them slowly each month. I've put in 14-hour days at the office, but that's not a goal, that's a shit-hit-the-fan effort. When I've done that, I've had to skip my workout, skip a date, or skip a Russian class.
It sounds like what you want is the end result of being good at everything, but you don't really want most of this skill or knowledge for its own sake. Let me translate to autistic: what utility to you hope to gain, and at what cost? You're hoping to gain bragging rights, and from that a form of social approval/admiration, and from that presumably happiness. If you were into a skill for its own sake, you wouldn't hate the effort. Or at least, you would be willing to prioritize and learn new skills in sequence over the course of your 75+ year expected life span, rather than all right now in what I assume are your 20's when you can spend the social capital on the approval of pretty girls.
So instead, earn social approval by a more holistic kind of success (and be happier/wealthier as a side effect). Gain utility by a more efficient method.
Joseph Russell
I think you're right, thank you.
Mason Stewart
Work on your self esteem and confidence obviously.
Two important lessons:
>1. It never was about you >2. It never will be about you
Understand that those who take a blaming coping stance have troubles themselves and also struggling. Everyone struggles.
Julian Miller
Always welcome. Veeky Forums was there at my worst time. If that doesn't help, come back and try again.
