Qiaochu_Yuan comments on Rationality Quotes February 2013 - Less Wrong

2 Post author: arundelo 05 February 2013 10:20PM

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Comment author: Qiaochu_Yuan 25 February 2013 10:44:25PM 6 points [-]

I am, in most of my endeavors, a solidly successful person. I decide I want things to be a certain way, and I make it happen. I've done it with my career, my learning of music, understanding of foreign languages, and basically everything I've tried to do. For a long time, I've known that the key to getting started down the path of being remarkable in anything is to simply act with the intention of being remarkable.

If I want a better-than-average career, I can't simply 'go with the flow' and get it. Most people do just that: they wish for an outcome but make no intention-driven actions toward that outcome. If they would just do something most people would find that they get some version of the outcome they're looking for. That's been my secret. Stop wishing and start doing.

Yet here I was, talking about arguably the most important part of my life - my health [emphasis added] - as if it was something I had no control over. I had been going with the flow for years. Wishing for an outcome and waiting to see if it would come. I was the limp, powerless ego I detest in other people.

But somehow, as the school nerd who always got picked last for everything, I had allowed 'not being good at sports' or 'not being fit' to enter what I considered to be inherent attributes of myself [emphasis added]. The net result is that I was left with an understanding of myself as an incomplete person. And though I had (perhaps) overcompensated for that incompleteness by kicking ass in every other way I could, I was still carrying this powerlessness around with me and it was very slowly and subtly gnawing away at me from the inside.

-- Chad Fowler (from The 4-Hour Body)