That was a major milestone not just for realizing that there was no future "grown up" version of me, but also seeing how much time had passed and how little was left. So I accepted that who I am is who I'm going to be, for the most part, and I might as well make the best of it. That opened up a lot of doors for personal interest that I hadn't even noticed previously.

So predictably I started woodworking.

EDIT: Oh, and farmers do not have this particular problem, lol

It's becoming clear to me that what we call a "mid-life crisis" is probably just Jung's self-actualization, where a person becomes aware they've been wearing a mask to some degree until then. It seems most people find a way to drop it, stop doing what they don't want, and start doing what they do want. Hence the development of grumpiness, divorces, moving far afield, buying sports cars, becoming ascetics, whatever it is that reflects a truer identity than their young selves that satisfied expectations and chased approval.

I've found that the people I know who naturally reject molds and masks while young and pursue what they want early on don't seem to go through this.

Honestly, you probably have to bring it like this if you want to generate a following. I guess people like it when someone just hands them a truth in a confident enough way.

Not post every thought and idea as if they've figured out the meaning of life.

And I disagree, you don't need to share your thoughts for validation. Rather, you need to live them. Most roads taken will appear as mistakes, but they have their own teaching moments.

There is nothing better than lived experience.

If you count Facebook posts from high school friends, yeah. I grew up in a very rural environment.

I learned very different versions of the same lesson given 20 more years of experience. Sometimes just having my confidence in “old” life lessons shaken was a huge deal, it takes a lot to shake what I thought is bedrock.

If you watch 20 minutes from a 2h movie can you really tell something about the whole movie or just about its beginning?

(side note in all seriousness I did enjoy the article)

I like some tech writing, but the number of tech authors who I return to for the long view, reflective of industry understanding and life lessons learned, like I might do with writing about any other topic, is extremely small.

There's nothing broken, nothing wrong with our current selves. In fact, we already have good internal compasses and we should listen to them. Go to the gym or park for a few minutes, stay as little or long as we want. See how we feel. Take it easy if we want. Push harder if we want.

It's this slight tweak in perspective that I think is pretty significant. It's an acceptance of the idea that we are not some kind of deficient ball of mess that requires carrots and whips to even know the right direction to our own wellness or happiness. That we don't actually need external pressures and motivation bearing down on us.

We're allowed to just want things because we do. And we're allowed to not want things because we don't. Feels like getting back to simpler times as a child where we could just act on our own emotions and internal state without such gripping regard for the external (e.g. comparison, external ideals, external validation, etc.).

It's been vital for me lately to engage in this...type of "non-striving" form of exercise too. (I now go to the park almost daily for a good walk.) I started doing it just because I wanted to. There were no plans to keep doing it, no routine or regimen expectations, no goals. Just allowing myself to to engage on my own terms. The most important benefit for me has been just been feeling more ownership over my own self-concept.

It's much simpler, quite freeing, and also resistant to commodification.

It's not as efficient as doing it all at once, since it takes a minute to look around and pick something to do next. But I'm making progress, which I wasn't at all before.

I’ve been going to the gym regularly now for over a decade.

I have many days where I don’t want to go because I have no motivation. I tell myself I only have to put on my gym clothes and go through the motions. If I hate it after 10 minutes I can go home. I always end up there for at least 40 minutes this way because by the time you’re at the gym with your shorts on, it’s very much like “well… I’m already here…” It might not be the greatest workout, but consistency of just showing up is the key.

All the things you said are an excuse. All that happens if I believe the excuses is that I will be fatter and fatter, no thanks.

I 100% know that I "could" run every day if I got my shit together, if I was really dying to do it, and if it was part of my identity. The fact that it's not part of my identity is the whole problem.

Say it another way - if my neighbor and I switched families and bodies, he'd still run - in my situation - while I'd still succumb to the excuses - in his situation.

But at the same time I have been both a person exercising every day and a person not understanding how to find the time for exercise (even after having been the exercising person!). It is remarkable how much our identity can be shaped by contingent circumstances or beliefs.

So how to know if one is someone who needs alot of sleep, or someone who just believes there is no time? I actually don't know.

We seem to associate certain behaviours and patterns with categories of identity, and changing those behaviours in yourself implies an acceptance of that “other” identity.

I remember this distinctly about 20 years ago when I thought about not eating meat anymore. Choosing not to eat meat was easy, but “becoming a vegetarian” felt alien, and took some mental effort. I didn’t see myself as “one of those” people.

I suspect it has a lot to do with how important group identity is to us, as social primates, and how we tend to package one behaviour with a bunch of others. It’s like doing pushups will suddenly make you a “jock” (and maybe the irony is that, to a certain degree it will, as these thing tend to turn into slippery slopes).

Sure. Haven’t you ever met someone who had a bad teacher and now claim they’re not good with numbers or languages?

We usually get comments like “oh you are smart!” when we succeed immediately at school. This is damaging, because it rewards current state rather than progress - the kid who doesn’t succeed at once assumes it’s not their thing, better to try something else.

The opposite is also true, after thousands of hours learning to draw people will get told “wow you’re so naturally talented!”, which accidentally is a dismissal of their effort.

I’m not saying talent doesn’t exist, but I’d go as far as to say it doesn’t matter much for non-elite settings - yet we seriously undervalue practice in the west.

That kind of thing - stereotypes and reinforcing that this stereotype is your strength - will stick with a lot of people for a long time, at least until they become a bit more worldly and realise it's not actually like that.

But that's just my theory / take, it's probably full of assumptions.

Then you can think about it and feel silly "why did I never do this before" or "why do I always do this". It's a good exercise to go looking for your unconscious biases and assumptions about yourself – eliminating these identifying behaviors can really be a benefit.

Classes also reduce the barrier to start because you don't have to think about what your workout will look like, and you'll push yourself just a little harder when you're exercising with others.

I quite often get explained to me the things I already know, in long monologues. Even things that I have created, only having people explain them to me years later, but using terms somewhat incorrectly etc.

And then I'm probably also doing that to other people.

in simple terms staying active mentally helps me wait out the recovery. healthy spirit might mean i can accept the injury more quickly and get that day or two down to a few hours

sort of like the article it usually begins by dabbling in some activities i can do with my injury

Before I started trying to get stronger I thought it was going to be very easy. I'd basically been brainwashed by media to disrespect the entire activity of lifting. When I actually started, I was shocked how hard it was to progress beyond the beginning phases. You learn a ton about your body while doing this, as well as the psychology of effort, which is just as challenging. You also learn a lot about your proprioception, as with any sport. At this point, the only thing that demands a similar amount of attention is riding a motorcycle but really it pales in comparison. If I'm trying to hit the 3rd set of five, the one that really proves if I'm going to progress that day, I can't imagine having a thought. I can't even hear what's happening around me.

Your understanding that you don't concentrate on the activity is not true if you're actually trying. You could fill a bookshelf with 400 page books about just the squat. At any given point you are evaluating a ton of variables and frequently still having to go back to the drawing board to devise new ways to progress which are never the same as the last way. Your body fights you the entire time, preferring to put out as little energy as it can, the exact opposite of what you're trying to do. You learn that actually, you weren't giving it your all before, because you didn't know how, or your subconscious was gaslighting you. But that's ok, because there was literally no way to shortcut to where you are now mentally. It's a mindfuck, and it really changes you and your relationship with yourself.

It does help that it has benefits you don't get from most other activities, and that if done right it is restorative rather than destructive to the body like higher impact hobbies. It also helps that it has an outsized physical effect for a given time commitment compared to other activities. It's also true that a lot of people at the gym are just going through the motions for an end goal. But if your goal is actually to improve, it's a wild ride.

"If habit is a muscle that can be developed...", then being detached from the simple, useless habit being formed is good practice for being able to apply it to a productive or important situation.

But intentionally doing something that you don't do normally, something you don't want to do, something that doesn't give you any kind of dopamine feedback can help you practice forming habits, practice self-discipline, etc. It's an interesting experiment.

Initially, learning Helix broke my ability to use Vim, but now I flit back and forth between Helix and IdeaVim without thinking about it.

Similarly, I switched to a split keyboard at my desk with lots of customizations, and it initially broke my ability to use my laptop keyboard, where there was a several minute adjustment period every time I switched, but now I can jump back and forth without making more typos or typing slower.

Both followed the same curve for me: learning the new thing disrupts the old thing, but if you do both enough, your brain/body seems to distill the shared core of both just fine.

It's a difficult thing to describe and i'm sure it happens everywhere, but I find there's a lot less passion outside of someone's immediate scope.