If there’s one lesson that I learned from almost every single smart person I know, it’s: This is not something I’ve been able to convince anyone of, at least not with a rational argument. I might tell people things like: Stop ruminating about changing jobs, make accounts at x/y/z today, and fill them in minimally... yes, like, in 20 minutes, yes, it’s fine if they are not perfect. Then apply to 100 jobs, no, no, don’t spend 1 hour ruminating over each one, just write a 5-minute intention letter, you’ll have like a 5% reply rate anyway, just focus on the ones that send interview... I don’t mean like that, don’t ruminate for hours about every interview!
Adding this here least I forget, mark of apxhard.com had an amazing tldr take on this:
...
The right priors:
Your model is wrong and will be wrong until you've banged it into reality enough time to kill off the memes that can't pay rent. If you never encounter reality with the model, then rent is zero. The more painful your encounters with reality, the higher the rent cost. Most failures don't matter much and only make you stronger if you can extract the lessons from them. Almost nobody else cares about you one way or the other, and a crowd of people mocking you or dismissing your efforts is actually quite an accomplishment since it means you actually registered in their minds as relevant.
The wrong priors, learned in school:
- The authorities know the answer already, you just need to give it back to them
- Your success or failure is a function of how well your beliefs confirm to those of the authorities
- The cost of failure is bad grades which are visible to other people who will judge you based upon those bad grades the rest of your life
Adding this here least I forget, mark of apxhard.com had an amazing tldr take on this:
...
The right priors:
Your model is wrong and will be wrong until you've banged it into reality enough time to kill off the memes that can't pay rent. If you never encounter reality with the model, then rent is zero. The more painful your encounters with reality, the higher the rent cost. Most failures don't matter much and only make you stronger if you can extract the lessons from them. Almost nobody else cares about you one way or the other, and a crowd of people mocking you or dismissing your efforts is actually quite an accomplishment since it means you actually registered in their minds as relevant.
The wrong priors, learned in school:
- The authorities know the answer already, you just need to give it back to them
- Your success or failure is a function of how well your beliefs confirm to those of the authorities
- The cost of failure is bad grades which are visible to other people who will judge you based upon those bad grades the rest of your life
I love this!