9 ms·

I need to stop being boring

289 points by patrickz 4y ago

makach 4y ago
Well, appears you are successful because the web site doesn't load. Also, boring is good. Boring is predictable. Don't forget the Chinese curse; "May you live in interesting times" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_you_live_in_interesting_times https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_you_live_in_interesting_ti...)
thatguyagain 4y ago
IMO, traveling and "going offline" for a while is the best way to get inspired life. It's a luxury tho.
pjerem 4y ago
Kurzgesagt made a video about dissatisfaction : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPPPFqsECz0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPPPFqsECz0 I don't know if it will help the author but that touched me. So I share it. And I'll add that Kurzgesagt is an amazing YT channel.
nabnob 4y ago
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.
- patrickz 4y ago
  I am picking up my guitar!
jkingsbery 4y ago
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.
m3kw9 4y ago
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.
brittonrt 4y ago
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.
- patrickz 4y ago
  "If you aren't bored, you aren't boring." I really love this advice. Thank you.
  - amelius 4y ago
    People who read HN during a dinner for two aren't bored, but they are boring.
  - asah 4y ago
    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. Unrelated, Being Boring is an amazing song by the Pet So Boys. https://genius.com/Pet-shop-boys-being-boring-lyrics https://genius.com/Pet-shop-boys-being-boring-lyrics
- shaftoe444 4y ago
  Reconnecting with artsy-fartsy stuff I did when I was 16/17 has been fantastic.
- disambiguation 4y ago
WaxedChewbacca 4y ago
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. Here's my favorite method of self-cultivation: https://library.dhammasukha.org/uploads/1/2/8/6/12865490/the_path_to_nibbana__d_johnson_f18.pdf https://library.dhammasukha.org/uploads/1/2/8/6/12865490/the... Do you think HN provides more benefit to its users by hiding this comment from everyone except the brave who enable showdead?
- Juliate 4y ago
  Let the brave be brave then. That's 272 pages!
  - WJW 4y ago
    272 pages is not actually a lot for a book.
    - Juliate 4y ago
      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?
      - WaxedChewbacca 4y ago
- 4y ago
teekert 4y ago
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. Just talking to myself here ;)
i5heu 4y ago
https://web.archive.org/web/*/https://patzhong.com/stop-being-boring/ https://web.archive.org/web/*/https://patzhong.com/stop-bein...
shaftoe444 4y ago
Archive for others getting a database error: https://web.archive.org/web/20220406064123/https://patzhong.com/stop-being-boring/ https://web.archive.org/web/20220406064123/https://patzhong....
- napolux 4y ago
  2022 and we still have to see WordPress Database Errors.
  - codingdave 4y ago
    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.
    - patrickz 4y ago
      Yes you are totally right. I just make a 2G SWAP, now the site is back, haha. I thought the site was under attack... @@
  - lloydatkinson 4y ago
    2022 and developers still use Wordpress for what could be a static blog site
    - 65 4y ago
      And pay for Wordpress sites too! I have a static Next.js site hosted on S3 and I don't pay anything to host it.
      - lloydatkinson 4y ago
        Exactly, it’s really sad people opt for Wordpress over that
andrewstuart 4y ago
Sounds like burnout and depression at the same time. He's probably right - maybe a change of scene from writing software for a while.
shaftoe444 4y ago
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. ymmv
superasn 4y ago
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) (1) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5630618 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5630618
- XorNot 4y ago
  Messing around with OpenID connect for a web service template has proven to be a mistake for me in this regard. A template has no immediate utility, and OAuth2 and OpenID are nightmare protocols where dreams go to die.
  - superasn 4y ago
    Sorry are you replying to somebody else?
- shubb 4y ago
  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.
nonrandomstring 4y ago
> 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. [1] https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/hide-and-seek/201601/what-are-basic-emotions https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/hide-and-seek/201601...
- hoseja 4y ago
  And then you learn about survivorship bias.
  - Sinidir 4y ago
    Bingo!
- chii 4y ago
  > 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.
  - rhn_mk1 4y ago
    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.
exodust 4y ago
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.
- patrickz 4y ago
  > 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". No you are not being unfair. You are being inspiring indeed!
cardanome 4y ago
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.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
buro9 4y ago
> 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.
codingdave 4y ago
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.
shisisms 4y ago
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."
yolo69420 4y ago
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.
mettamage 4y ago
> 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. This resonates.
donatj 4y ago
> 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.
- sillysaurusx 4y ago
  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 https://youtu.be/GibiNy4d4gc while watching all the youngsters make the same mistakes.
  - ordiel 4y ago
    This is gold. thanks!
- moreira 4y ago
  > 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.
  - twelve40 4y ago
    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.
- 4y ago
rr808 4y ago
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.
- galoisscobi 4y ago
  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.
  - tomjakubowski 4y ago
    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.
- ct0 4y ago
  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.
- JKCalhoun 4y ago
  Get out and do boring things. Your mind will fill up the dead-space with creative ideas. Go on walks. Hike. Go on long road trips.
last_one_in 4y ago
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=JamesWilder 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?
- state_less 4y ago
  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.
  - last_one_in 4y ago
    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.
- MrWiffles 4y ago
severak_cz 4y ago
You are not boring, you are bored.
- apalmer 4y ago
  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.
- kome 4y ago
  to be honest, bored people are usually boring.
throwaway787544 4y ago
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.
MrPowers 4y ago
> 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.
- JKCalhoun 4y ago
  > 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....
PragmaticPulp 4y ago
> 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.
- levesque 4y ago
  Tell that to my very burnt out parent friends! YMMV
  - osullip 4y ago
    Tell that to people who won't/don't have kids
  - NateEag 4y ago
    "Burnt-out" != "boring".
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - 4y ago
ganzuul 4y ago
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. Namaskar, seeker
- patrickz 4y ago
  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.
ed-209 4y ago
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.
mattgreenrocks 4y ago
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.
IceDane 4y ago
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.
- jimt1234 4y ago
  This! So much this! ^^^
sAbakumoff 4y ago
>> Most of all, I need to stop being boring. nope, you don't. You need to just accept the fact that you are boring AF and live with it.
eurasiantiger 4y ago
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.
klik99 4y ago
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.
deathgripsss 4y ago
I'm confused how to sign up for space4, is it closed? There seems to be nowhere to sign up.
brthsim 4y ago
antirez 4y ago
Life is too short, normally. But it is too long to focus on a single thing for a lifetime.
newbamboo 4y ago
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.
evandale 4y ago
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.
sercanov 4y ago
lsd could help
psim1 4y ago
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.
hellothree23 4y ago
I like the idea of Space4. LP is real copy heavy :( and you have “fair-tale” instead of “fairy tale”
boh 4y ago
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.
mattjaynes 4y ago
"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.
redleggedfrog 4y ago
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! Maybe the problem is all work and no play?
persedes 4y ago
"Mediocrity is like a stain that doesn't wash out" - H Murakami My favorite anti-inspirational quote I keep coming back to.
nomdep 4y ago
“ 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.
SubiculumCode 4y ago
Take walks through the city, always a new path. Seeing what the world IS is the best way to build in you a desire to re-envision it.
apalmer 4y ago
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
unkulunkulu 4y ago
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 feel where you are, friend, you will do this!
dspillett 4y ago
> 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.
burntwater 4y ago
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.
- flakiness 4y ago
  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.
swframe2 4y ago
I got stuck in a game. My 12 year-old offered to help. Within a few minutes he solved several problems that had blocked me for days. It reminds me of the intel tik/tok product cycle. Look inside for a while then look outside for a while.
russellbeattie 4y ago
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.
difu_disciple 4y ago
Cool people do cool things.
karmakaze 4y ago
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.
jimt1234 4y ago
My two cents: 1. Turn off social media. Or at least avoid all the fake, self-promoting garbage. 2. Accept that you're probably not gonna cure cancer or solve cold fusion. Nothing wrong with that. 3. Get a hobby that has NOTHING to do with computers. I like wood-working - building patio furniture, stuff like that. 4. Contrary to #3, get a Raspberry Pi. I've worked on many completely useless, yet totally fun, Pi projects.
- patrickz 4y ago
  I am exploring Unity now, haha
pmoriarty 4y ago
If you are boring to yourself, you are boring to others. Learn to enjoy your own company and how to keep yourself from being bored even when you're alone. Then find others who enjoy doing the things you enjoy, and you can have fun together.
- swozey 4y ago
  I love my own company but not everyone else does
  - pmoriarty 4y ago
    It doesn't have to be everyone. Find those who are on the same wavelength and who like you for who you are.
fleddr 4y ago
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.

289 points by patrickz 4y ago

Well, appears you are successful because the web site doesn't load. Also, boring is good. Boring is predictable. Don't forget the Chinese curse; "May you live in interesting times" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_you_live_in_interesting_times https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_you_live_in_interesting_ti...)

thatguyagain 4y ago

IMO, traveling and "going offline" for a while is the best way to get inspired life. It's a luxury tho.

pjerem 4y ago

Kurzgesagt made a video about dissatisfaction : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPPPFqsECz0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPPPFqsECz0 I don't know if it will help the author but that touched me. So I share it. And I'll add that Kurzgesagt is an amazing YT channel.

nabnob 4y ago

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.

patrickz 4y ago
I am picking up my guitar!

jkingsbery 4y ago

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.

m3kw9 4y ago

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.

brittonrt 4y ago

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.

patrickz 4y ago
"If you aren't bored, you aren't boring." I really love this advice. Thank you.
- amelius 4y ago
  People who read HN during a dinner for two aren't bored, but they are boring.
- asah 4y ago
  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. Unrelated, Being Boring is an amazing song by the Pet So Boys. https://genius.com/Pet-shop-boys-being-boring-lyrics https://genius.com/Pet-shop-boys-being-boring-lyrics
shaftoe444 4y ago
Reconnecting with artsy-fartsy stuff I did when I was 16/17 has been fantastic.
disambiguation 4y ago

WaxedChewbacca 4y ago

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. Here's my favorite method of self-cultivation: https://library.dhammasukha.org/uploads/1/2/8/6/12865490/the_path_to_nibbana__d_johnson_f18.pdf https://library.dhammasukha.org/uploads/1/2/8/6/12865490/the... Do you think HN provides more benefit to its users by hiding this comment from everyone except the brave who enable showdead?

Juliate 4y ago
Let the brave be brave then. That's 272 pages!
- WJW 4y ago
  272 pages is not actually a lot for a book.
  - Juliate 4y ago
    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?
    - WaxedChewbacca 4y ago
4y ago

teekert 4y ago

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. Just talking to myself here ;)

i5heu 4y ago

https://web.archive.org/web/*/https://patzhong.com/stop-being-boring/ https://web.archive.org/web/*/https://patzhong.com/stop-bein...

shaftoe444 4y ago

Archive for others getting a database error: https://web.archive.org/web/20220406064123/https://patzhong.com/stop-being-boring/ https://web.archive.org/web/20220406064123/https://patzhong....

napolux 4y ago
2022 and we still have to see WordPress Database Errors.
- codingdave 4y ago
  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.
  - patrickz 4y ago
    Yes you are totally right. I just make a 2G SWAP, now the site is back, haha. I thought the site was under attack... @@
- lloydatkinson 4y ago
  2022 and developers still use Wordpress for what could be a static blog site
  - 65 4y ago
    And pay for Wordpress sites too! I have a static Next.js site hosted on S3 and I don't pay anything to host it.
    - lloydatkinson 4y ago
      Exactly, it’s really sad people opt for Wordpress over that

andrewstuart 4y ago

Sounds like burnout and depression at the same time. He's probably right - maybe a change of scene from writing software for a while.

shaftoe444 4y ago

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. ymmv

superasn 4y ago

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) (1) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5630618 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5630618

XorNot 4y ago
Messing around with OpenID connect for a web service template has proven to be a mistake for me in this regard. A template has no immediate utility, and OAuth2 and OpenID are nightmare protocols where dreams go to die.
- superasn 4y ago
  Sorry are you replying to somebody else?
shubb 4y ago
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.

nonrandomstring 4y ago

> 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. [1] https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/hide-and-seek/201601/what-are-basic-emotions https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/hide-and-seek/201601...

hoseja 4y ago
And then you learn about survivorship bias.
- Sinidir 4y ago
  Bingo!
chii 4y ago
> 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.
- rhn_mk1 4y ago
  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.

exodust 4y ago

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.

patrickz 4y ago
> 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". No you are not being unfair. You are being inspiring indeed!

cardanome 4y ago

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.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

buro9 4y ago

> 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.

codingdave 4y ago

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.

shisisms 4y ago

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."

yolo69420 4y ago

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.

mettamage 4y ago

donatj 4y ago

> 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.

sillysaurusx 4y ago
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 https://youtu.be/GibiNy4d4gc while watching all the youngsters make the same mistakes.
- ordiel 4y ago
  This is gold. thanks!
moreira 4y ago
> 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.
- twelve40 4y ago
  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.
4y ago

rr808 4y ago

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.

galoisscobi 4y ago
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.
- tomjakubowski 4y ago
  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.
ct0 4y ago
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.
JKCalhoun 4y ago
Get out and do boring things. Your mind will fill up the dead-space with creative ideas. Go on walks. Hike. Go on long road trips.

last_one_in 4y ago

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=JamesWilder 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?

state_less 4y ago
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.
- last_one_in 4y ago
  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.
MrWiffles 4y ago

severak_cz 4y ago

You are not boring, you are bored.

apalmer 4y ago
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.
kome 4y ago
to be honest, bored people are usually boring.

throwaway787544 4y ago

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.

MrPowers 4y ago

> 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.

JKCalhoun 4y ago
> 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....

PragmaticPulp 4y ago

> 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.

levesque 4y ago
Tell that to my very burnt out parent friends! YMMV
- osullip 4y ago
  Tell that to people who won't/don't have kids
- NateEag 4y ago
  "Burnt-out" != "boring".
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- 4y ago

ganzuul 4y ago

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. Namaskar, seeker

patrickz 4y ago
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.

ed-209 4y ago

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.

mattgreenrocks 4y ago

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.

IceDane 4y ago

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.

jimt1234 4y ago
This! So much this! ^^^

sAbakumoff 4y ago

>> Most of all, I need to stop being boring. nope, you don't. You need to just accept the fact that you are boring AF and live with it.

eurasiantiger 4y ago

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.

klik99 4y ago

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.

deathgripsss 4y ago

I'm confused how to sign up for space4, is it closed? There seems to be nowhere to sign up.

brthsim 4y ago

antirez 4y ago

Life is too short, normally. But it is too long to focus on a single thing for a lifetime.

newbamboo 4y ago

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.

evandale 4y ago

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.

sercanov 4y ago

lsd could help

psim1 4y ago

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.

hellothree23 4y ago

I like the idea of Space4. LP is real copy heavy :( and you have “fair-tale” instead of “fairy tale”

boh 4y ago

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.

mattjaynes 4y ago

"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.

redleggedfrog 4y ago

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! Maybe the problem is all work and no play?

persedes 4y ago

"Mediocrity is like a stain that doesn't wash out" - H Murakami My favorite anti-inspirational quote I keep coming back to.

nomdep 4y ago

“ 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.

SubiculumCode 4y ago

Take walks through the city, always a new path. Seeing what the world IS is the best way to build in you a desire to re-envision it.

apalmer 4y ago

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

unkulunkulu 4y ago

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 feel where you are, friend, you will do this!

dspillett 4y ago

> 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.

burntwater 4y ago

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.

flakiness 4y ago
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.

swframe2 4y ago

I got stuck in a game. My 12 year-old offered to help. Within a few minutes he solved several problems that had blocked me for days. It reminds me of the intel tik/tok product cycle. Look inside for a while then look outside for a while.

russellbeattie 4y ago

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.

difu_disciple 4y ago

Cool people do cool things.

karmakaze 4y ago

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.

jimt1234 4y ago

My two cents: 1. Turn off social media. Or at least avoid all the fake, self-promoting garbage. 2. Accept that you're probably not gonna cure cancer or solve cold fusion. Nothing wrong with that. 3. Get a hobby that has NOTHING to do with computers. I like wood-working - building patio furniture, stuff like that. 4. Contrary to #3, get a Raspberry Pi. I've worked on many completely useless, yet totally fun, Pi projects.

patrickz 4y ago
I am exploring Unity now, haha

pmoriarty 4y ago

If you are boring to yourself, you are boring to others. Learn to enjoy your own company and how to keep yourself from being bored even when you're alone. Then find others who enjoy doing the things you enjoy, and you can have fun together.

swozey 4y ago
I love my own company but not everyone else does
- pmoriarty 4y ago
  It doesn't have to be everyone. Find those who are on the same wavelength and who like you for who you are.

fleddr 4y ago

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.