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758 points alihm | 8 comments | | HN request time: 1.567s | source | bottom
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thrwwXZTYE ◴[] No.44470195[source]
This syndrome is called "eternal child" (puer aeternus) in psychology.

You were destined to great things. You were exceptional as a child, you learnt to associate your great potential with all the good in yourself, you built your identity around it. You were ahead of your peers in elementary school, whatever you applied towards - you exceled at.

So you value that potential as the ultimate good, and any decision which reduces it in favour of actually doing something - you fear and avoid with all your soul. Any decision whatsoever murders part of that infinite potential to deliver something subpar (at best - it's not even guaranteed you achieve anything).

Over time this fear takes over and stunts your progress. You could be great, you KNOW you have this talent, but somehow you very rarely tap into it. You fall behind people you consider "mediocre" and "beneath you". Because they seem to be able to do simple things like it's the simplest thing in the world, while you somehow can't "motivate" yourself to do the "simple boring things".

When circumstances are just right you are still capable of great work, but more and more the circumstances are wrong, and you procrastinate and fail. You don't understand why, you focus on the environment and the things you fail to achieve. You search for the right productivity hack or the exact right domain that will motivate you. But any domain has boring repeative parts. Any decision is a chance to do sth OK in exchange of infinite potential. It never seems like it's worth it, so you don't do it.

You start doubting yourself. Maybe you're just an ordinary lazy person? Being ordinary is the thing you fear the most. It's a complete negation of your identity. You can be exceptional genius with problems, you take that any time if the alternative is "just a normal guy".

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1. wordpad ◴[] No.44470243[source]
Oh God

So, what is the lesson here?

Gotta let go of pride and risk it for the biscuit (ship something)?

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2. thrwwXZTYE ◴[] No.44470610[source]
There's no lesson. It's hard. Your brain will search for the silver bullet to skip the boring self-improvement work and feel good NOW. It'll likely detach your current self from your past self (I was bad, I discovered this, now I'm great, exceptional and heroic again). Then you'll again avoid the boring day-to-day work (becaue you feel exceptional again) and fail again.

Everything you know is material for your brain to make excuses and rationalizations. So no lessons work.

What works is retraining the part of the brain that distorts the reality and directs all your thoughts towards these patterns.

It's a lot like debugging. There's a callback in your brain that is harmful. It triggers every time you have to sacrifice some future potential for uncertain reality. It is subconscious. Put a breakpoint in that callback. Try to notice every time it triggers. At first just notice it, notice what it urges you to do.

When you have it nailed down - try to change it. At that point you'll realize the urge and where it comes from. Then it's a matter to making the decision and committing to sth, no matter what. It doesn't only have to be big things, it can be small things unrelated to work. It's the same "code". If you do it every time - you'll retrain it eventually.

At least that's the theory, I'm not there yet.

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3. bn-l ◴[] No.44470868[source]
> Put a breakpoint in that callback. Try to notice every time it triggers. At first just notice it, notice what it urges you to do.

Damn I love this advice phrased like this.

4. mr_mitm ◴[] No.44472064[source]
And what's the lesson for parents? Can it be counter productive to praise your child a lot?
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5. ajuc ◴[] No.44472098[source]
Praise the effort not the result. And especially don't make it into identity of the child.

Best: good job studying for that exam.

Meh: good job passing that exam.

Worst: you so smart, everything comes easy to you.

6. snarfy ◴[] No.44472242[source]
Physical exercise does wonders for this. The results you achieve are a 100% determined by the time and effort you put in. It's hard to start, as its asking for more self-improvement, but if you can get this one thing, the rest fall into place.
7. hengheng ◴[] No.44473099[source]
Don't just reward your child for being smart.

Reward them for listening, integrating, being nice towards others, relaxed, comfortable, flourishing, in their lane

8. 1auralynn ◴[] No.44475561[source]
The answer here is actually teach them to self-evaluate, e.g. What do you think about your drawing? Should we hang it up?

Got this from Steve Peters: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Peters_(psychiatrist)