> Finishing, as in will power, focus, and vision, is like a muscle that you can take to the gym.
That's not true, at least not for many procrastinators. I've been a procrastinator my whole life. It wasn’t until my mid-30s that I found a method that made me productive (going from 2-3 hours of work a day to 9-10 hours). Honestly, when it comes to productivity, I’m killing it. However, it hasn’t trained my "finish it" muscle at all. As soon as I'm not body doubling, I revert to my old self and immediately start procrastinating.
For me, it's body doubling, but for you, it might be something completely different. The method that works for you depends on why and how you delay tasks (and you need to consider both separately). Once you understand your "why" and "how," you can begin searching for a solution.
Unfortunately, the "why" isn't always clear. I've been procrastinating for as long as I can remember, and as a co-founder of a body doubling platform, you'd think I'd know why I procrastinate. But I don't. I've spent a lot of time trying to figure it out, and it's still a mystery to me. I'm a hedonistic procrastinator, but I don't fully understand what's behind it.
Back to the point: if you're looking for a solution, don't blindly try every method someone suggests, as it can be a colossal waste of time. Some people spend weeks or months trying to make Pomodoro work for them, without realizing it simply won't. If you're a hedonistic procrastinator, Pomodoro probably isn’t the best fit. Similarly, people who struggle with clarity on what to do may benefit more from to-do lists than from "Just do it" approaches.
If procrastination is wreaking havoc on your life and you don’t know how to overcome it, feel free to contact me (check my bio). Disclaimer: I run a virtual body doubling platform (WorkMode.net), but I'm happy to talk and try to help, even if you don't want to try the platform.
I'm not sure why you're being downvoted, it certainly isn't true for people with executive disorders. It may actually make things worse if you don't approach it carefully.
I think a better alternative is the concept of the minimum viable habit from James Clear's Atomic Habits.
SOFA gets one thing right which is it reduces the pressure and the expectations. But it doesn't seem like an approach to life which results in anything permanent. This post literally says "nothing is permanent, nothing lasts" which is a nihilistic and self-defeating view of life - perhaps technically true but not useful. Contrast with "play long term games" which is the idea that good things compound over years and even decades and this compounding is how you can lead a truly extraordinary life.
So with Clear's concept of minimum viable habits the focus is on building something permanent (the habit) but the expectations are removed, which makes it feel easy. If you want to be a runner, you start by setting an alarm and putting on your running shoes every day. That's it, once the shoes are on, you declare victory and you may take them right back off again and go on with your day, running is strictly optional (and even discouraged at the start).
After doing this for a while it's going to be second nature. It will become an unconscious habit to put on those shoes at the same time every day, and it will also feel a little ridiculous that you're not even stepping out the door. It will then feel completely natural to take the next step and walk outside and enjoy the fresh air as part of the habit. Once you're doing that regularly, it's almost inevitable that you'll start taking a small walk or something and one day boom you've made it a jog. Three years later if it's really what you want you've become a serious runner and practicing for your first marathon.
It really works in my experience (it got me going to the gym, improved my work productivity and improved my diet). The key is your perspective: you want to build an extensive new, permanent habit that will improve your life for many years to come. But this is hard to do so you're layering on one easy piece at a time, removing the friction.
It doesn't require manning up and being superhuman. Just the desire for the change, some patience and the willingness to take the first step.
To continue with your example, here's how I think the article's author may respond. You set out aiming to go to the gym with an aim of gaining X pounds of muscle mass. But after the easy gains, you still haven't yet reached your target, and you realize that bringing it to the next level would require more intensity. You've noticed that gym time is taking away from precious family time, and any more would be unacceptable.
At this point, your "self" has changed. You have a new perspective and gains compared to when you embarked on your journey. You have a clearer picture of the sacrifices you require to continue making progress to your original goal. If you knew then what you know now, you would not have set such a terrible goal, though you would perhaps have targeted this halfway-point where you are now.
At this point, it is time to
> Just KonMari[4] that shit: have a moment of gratitude and appreciation for the experience and the things you learned and the ways in which you benefited from it. Thank it with conviction for having served its purpose, and then let it go and dismiss it. There. Done.
In this case, and in the situations the article wants to address, this is perhaps the calculus at play, where it is not about willpower, but that with a change in environment, continuing would entail an unacceptable sacrifice for a goal that no longer has the same meaning it used to hold. Although I find it too absolute and unbalanced in it's opinion, as is yours.
> You can be finished with your project whenever you decide to be done with it. And "done" can mean anything you want it to be. Whose standards of completion or perfection are you holding yourself to anyway? Forget about those! Something is done when you say it is. When it's no longer interesting. When you've gotten a sufficient amount of entertainment and experience from it. When you've learned enough from it. Whatever, whenever. Done is what you say it is.
If you already say the goal is fitness, you're not doing SOFA. The whole point is to accrue experience, experiment, discover, not a predefined state. You don't SOFA a specific sport to lose weight, you SOFA when you want to find a sport you like enough that you will be able to do it regularly.
Fully agreed. I have accidentally drifted into that kind of SOFA-mode, having been a highly organized, checklist-manifesting person beforehand. Currently, my personal pursuits are a considerable mess, and guess what - absolutely nothing about this feels "creative", really. It is what it is: just a mess.
Lately, I envy my better half who reads all books from start to finish, and also manages to be very consistent in teaching specific things to our children. This is Doing More With Less in practice -- in the long run, children obviously benefit more from that as compared to inconsistent creative bursts that I (currently) represent. Order is much harder to accomplish than mess; I think ultimately, good learning = keeping order, and being consistent about what not to do.
(I do remember Nassim Taleb advocating to read books "ADDHD-style", as in, swapping right away when you feel bored, though. And he is quite good with his probability stuff, so threre's that. Also, I quite like Perl and Larry Wall's views on the inherent messiness of human language -- I think he is spot-on with this. But... as a layperson, it's nonetheless way too easy to get lost inside this mindset. Managing complexity is an art, I guess. Or, as somebody once wrote on the Perlmonks forums, "freedom is hard".)
I like open source software. And I could write some code that works for me, then generalise it to be useful to more people, then increase the robustness so it's easier for users who aren't the author, then clearly document it, then make a flashy website for it, then do branding and marketing to get users, then add support for OSes I don't use and languages I don't speak, then build a community of contributors and maintain a presence on reddit and twitter and stackoverflow and discord and github and mailing lists, then engage with the community with polite professionalism at all times, then do paperwork like choosing a license and a code of conduct and a security policy, then convince major distributions to package it, then maintain it for 30 years.
So long as it's a recreational hobby, I'll do whichever steps I feel like. Marketing? Support? Fundraising? Test coverage? Nah, I don't think I will, I'd rather spend that time going on a bike ride.
On the other hand, for things that aren't a recreational hobby? That might be a different matter.
I think it's great advice, but the "finish rarely" part is maybe understated. The goal is to try as many things as possible, as quickly as possible in order to find your true calling. You'll stick with it once found.
Yes, a weak work ethic takes years to rectify. I had a very bad weak work ethic because of health issues when I was a kid and only in my 30s did I finally fix it.
I hate to keep doing this to you, but I am yet again an existence proof that you're wrong about this. I've tried and played many sports in my life, on again, off again. Baseball and basketball mostly as a child, a bit of tennis. Lettered in high school in cross country, track (where I did hurdles rather than middle distance), basketball, and volleyball when I changed my mind from track. I did intramural soccer and dodgeball in college. Picked up running again in the Army and got into various outdoorsy stuff. Kayaking. Open-water swimming. Multi-day hikes. Alpine mountaineering. Rock climbing. I had terrible injuries through my late 30s and did next to nothing. In my 40s, picked up lifting, eventually got back into running, have recently started to learn how to surf and skateboard.
I can assure you that, in spite of not really mastering or finishing any of these things and being kind of flaky about it, it has at least lead to very good fitness.
In the same vein, I see no reason you can't simply practice and get in the habit of learning and being curious even if you never master a specific craft.
From what I read, you exercise a lot of different sports. Of course it will lead to fitness. It's like doing many different things using a computer, of course it will make you handy with computers.
That's fair. As someone guilty of starting more projects than I've finished, I often find the most interesting and engaging stretch is up to the proof-of-concept point, where you've made the novel breakthrough and demonstrated engineering viability.
i.e. Once I'm comfortable the remaining work can be accomplished by rote skill application, it feels more like a chore.
I don’t think anyone is more or less normal here. But for some people, feeling the pressure to finish everything you’ve started could in worst case learn to burnout, not only like ”getting exhausted from a specific project” but your brain actually stops functioning. Maybe that’s why they glorify a more ”go with the flow” lifestyle.
It’s interesting to see most people here connecting ”starting many projects for fun” with procrastrinating, and also wanting to fix that with discipline. For others the situation is completely different. The grass is greener on the other side I guess: me as an ambitious person actually _want_ to procrastrinate more, and don’t see it as a bad thing to be less outcome-focused.
Very relatable, I have a post from 2021 describing the same thing and I haven't made much progress since then despite big life changes. I have a buddy who's similar to me in that regard, but he found developer work, but couldn't stand the uninteresting problem space and left after a few months. He's been trying to get back into tech for a few years now to no avail. From the outside it's easy to ask "why?", but perhaps employment isn't the endgame that one hopes it will be with regard to focus.
Interesting. Is the thought "if I start this, I have to do this properly, and see it all the way through" a major part of that hesitation?
The "I'm not allowed to have fun or make mistakes" mindset seems to be drilled into people hard by the education system. I also suppose the survival fear adds "this time and energy I invest should pay off somehow" to the balance, at least it does for me (when considering significant projects).
My "backdoor" to working on many projects is that most of my projects only last a few hours, so the question of "is it worth the investment" never really factors into it.
> is the thought "if I start this, I have to do this properly, and see it all the way through" a major part of that hesitation?
I don't think that's it. It is the knowledge that, please forgive my blunt comparison, a spoiled child that wants this and than that and then that other thing and so on, will never get fulfilment.
The trick to good fulfilment is (sometimes anxious) persistence followed by some redemption.
An example. For work, there's some hardware related software bug that is nagging me already for some time. I want to find the fix. For that, i need to read docs and schematics, talk to people, do experiments and fail quite often. Finally i will have a mental model good enough to understand and fix the problem. The road can be frustrating, but i know fixing it will be fulfilling, and that keeps me going. Also the fact that some people are relying on/anticipating the solution, helps with my motivation.
If i just would try some other discipline every other day, i would never get such fulfilment.
I think pretty much everyone falls into SOFA by default. If your goal is to start a software business, it's almost impossible to achieve that. You don't need to aim for it. It will happen by default.
To finish something in such a way that a customer will be willing to pull their credit card out and pay for it is a very difficult point to arrive at.
I never tried this approach and yet I have 7 failed projects under my belt. Only 1 was a success but it only lasted for 3 years.
As I age, I am getting better at finishing things. Partly because my side projects are intentionally more bite-sized.
Rather than write am application, maybe I will just write a module, or a useful script someone else can use to build or improve an application. I am much happier with this approach so far.
I finished all my projects, met all technical requirements which I set for myself but I only met user requirements for one project. Hence I got paid. Ironically, it was the one which required the least amount of work and where I contributed the least socio-economic value. 3 years of passive income literally fell on my lap. I didn't even write a single line of code for that one. Just spoke to a bunch of people a couple of times.
It's definitely a lot easier if you set yourself goals which don't depend on other people. Having goals which depend on things that are outside of your control is a sure way to become miserable.
You completed your most successful project just by talking to other people -- your recommendation to go it alone seems to contradict that. Does it come from having had a bad experience?
Yes that's true. The surest path to success doesn't generally align with happiness. People will frequently disappoint you. Yet unfortunately success in our current system is all about people and connections.
But if you focus on building stuff for its own sake and don't worry about financial success, you will be a lot happier because those goals are within your control. You will build the product and you will achieve your personal vision. Nobody else will care but that's going to be OK because you will prove to yourself that you're a capable individual and that's satisfying in itself.
The secret to success is not mentioning your failures.
(Think about a famous photographer who's showing a few great pictures you could never have made yourself. Well, he isn't showing the 10.000 others he made but were not good enough)
> Traditional marriage is the ultimate form of this ideal. You're supposed to stick to it until you die, no matter what, come hell or high water, even if it makes you and everybody around you miserable. That is neither sane nor healthy!
An interesting philosophy, but I don’t think marriage is the best place to apply it. Writing a README and then never starting a project has practically no consequences. Same for picking up a book and then ditching it after a few minutes. Marriage? That’s a whole different ball game, especially when children are involved.
SOFA works great for marriage, if you tweak the params a little. Most secular people arrive at this by default: You marry your 3rd serious partner sometime in your late 20’s.
Start a lot of long term relationships, finish the one that sticks when both partners are mature and more or less done growing up.
I think there’s another shakeup period (statistically) in your mid to late 40’s. That seems related to when kids start being old enough that they don’t act as a forcing function as much.
There's strong value in staying with a first partner, like a high school sweetheart. Growing together through life's challenges creates deep emotional bonds and shared experiences. Long-term stability comes from building trust over time and avoiding the emotional toll of repeated breakups.
Couples who navigate growth together often develop stronger, more resilient partnerships.
I highly censor myself on HN as I know most of my views are in the minority, but I'm happy to see your response.
To add to your point, I've also found that developing the relational skills necessary to bring a marriage relationship through tricky waters often leads to success in similar, but perhaps not so dire, circumstances.
It's also been common knowledge for some time now that children tend to do much better when stability is present in the home. If a child always thinks one of their parents might just up and leave one day, they tend to act accordingly (read: exhibit undesired behaviors).
I understand marriage isn't for everyone, and I certainly don't promote it as such, but I also wouldn't advise people to treat marriage as no more than something that can start today and end tomorrow, on a whim.
There is massive confounding here. Think of the counterfactual — kids who live in a house with a failing relationship, or one where the adults can’t meet each other’s needs.
It’s not at all obvious this would be better, and none of the research suggests it’s better for kids for adults to stay in a troubled relationship. In fact the reverse - conflict in the home is a much stronger predictor of poor outcomes than divorce per se.
Interesting, that's a great point. Last I checked the negative effects of fatherlessness were well studied, but I don't know if it's been compared with the alternative, i.e. being raised by someone who rather would have left!
IIRC a low quality father is still better than none (barring abuse, though emotional neglect is now finally coming to be recognized as developmentally impactful), but I really don't know...
It's debatable to what degree they are as most of the studies have massive confounders. Couples that stay together tend to be more affluent than divorced couples because of only needing to pay for and maintain one place of living instead of two. And poverty is a massive confounder in the studies, kids in poverty do a fair bit worse than kids in middle class lifestyles.
> children tend to do much better when stability is present in the home
Encouraging relation instability creates children which don’t have the funding on their own to be students. It makes them great candidates for both student loans (US) and subsidies (EU). As a society, that’s what we want; It’s makes every individual miserable, but it fuels the need for public funding.
I think this take is weird in many ways, but I wanted to focus especially on the fact that in the EU where its free it costs the exact same to fund a student regardless of if parents are divorced.
To add to this—most of the marriages I've seen that have come after multiple serious relationships struggle with baggage from those previous relationships.
Often it's obvious things like kids, but it's also more pernicious things like expectations, comparisons, and even just different worldviews. A couple that grows up together can end up substantially more unified than is possible when you're joining lives after a decade of adulthood shaped by multiple partners.
There are obviously exceptions on both sides—first-timers that were toxic and 'experienced' partners who work well—but I certainly haven't seen an unqualified series of successes in the pattern described by OP.
I haven’t seen any patterns, and I’m wondering where people are getting these kinds of insights.
Like I have 1 friend that married somebody who could reasonably be described as like a first serious relationship. Other than that… everybody tended to settle down after college, after a few more serious relationships. Nobody has gotten divorced yet (late 30’s). But (and this is being generous to myself), I’ll say I probably only have like 5 friends who I’d really be confident in saying much about the health of their relationships.
I think everybody in this thread is just making things up, tbh.
Only counting marriages that I have very close understanding of: Between my wife's immediate family and mine I've had personal insight into 11 different marriages, a mix of both types. Still a small sample size relative to the population as a whole, but not nothing.
In that set, the only healthy marriages are first timers.
It's certainly not enough to draw any conclusions, but that's why all I actually argued is that OP's claimed success pattern doesn't seem to be true in my experience.
> Couples who navigate growth together often develop stronger, more resilient partnerships.
Nowhere in that wisdom did the word “first” appear.
If at “first” you don’t succeed, keep looking for that partner who, by character, and suitability to you, who will “ navigate growth together”.
——
I feel like there is a stay-with-your-first crowd that has a lot of wisdom to share, but logically needs to recognize that commitment to an unworkable situation isn’t really what they are trying to promote.
Props to those that find that person, who will co-invest, can be co-patient, co-flexible, co-loyal, co-appreciative, co-vision the first time.
But those things are just as great, and important to find, regardless of the ordinal.
—
I think I have that! Number 3. Wish me luck for the future, but 8 years in I am very and honored happy now.
Priority number one must be seeing into the future.
People change as they go through life. People who grow never stop learning how to be more themselves, less of what they were taught or expected to be, or finding new paths.
Even the positive side of change can introduce profound instability and unhappiness into a relationship.
The idea that if people would just do everything right, no relationship would need to break up is an unhealthy, and completely unrealistic, judgement.
And it inadvertently prioritizes relationships over the people actually in them.
> And it inadvertently prioritizes relationships over the people actually in them.
An oath is an oath. You are an individualist, but social stability often matters more than the whims of individuals.
> The idea that if people would just do everything right, no relationship would need to break up is an unhealthy, and completely unrealistic, judgement.
When people are focused on their 'perfect wedding', you already know priorities are already way off. Marriages need to built on decent foundations, not just feelings. So, I can agree with you that a feelings-focused marriage in an impulse-driven society is unrealistic.
> When people are focused on their 'perfect wedding'
Perfect wedding? Who said anything about that?
> Marriages need to built on decent foundations
Well, yes. Did someone argue against that?
> not just feelings
"Feelings"? Which parent commenter said anything about that?
> So, I can agree with you that a feelings-focused marriage in an impulse-driven society is unrealistic.
Who are you talking to?
You have no idea who I am. How seriously I take commitments. How constructive I have remained in trying times. The end of my previous relationships involved serious circumstances, real people experiencing trauma and tragedy, and a great deal of lasting pain and loss.
Another person's misfortunes, which you have no knowledge of, are not a blank canvas you should be painting your careless assumptions and selective "values" on.
Just to be clear, I am not talking about you directly. I had no intention of judging you personally or upsetting you; I'm sorry if you took it that way.
> The idea that if people would just do everything right, no relationship would need to break up is an unhealthy, and completely unrealistic, judgement.
Let me try again: I think that what you're saying is true because of the social context. Would you agree that current society is not as conducive to long-term relationships?
> Would you agree that current society is not as conducive to long-term relationships?
There can be great value in long term relationships, but equally, there is great value in people's freedom to associate (or not), including the freedom to move in and out of personal relationships.
Those ideals could be framed as appositional, but they are synergistic.
Emphasizing only long term commitments, and stigmatizing break ups, has a long history of trapping countless people in abusive, unhappy, practically harmful relationships. And covering up that harm. Anti-breakup effectively becomes anti-transparency and pro-abuse.
Promoting the freedom to break up (not promoting break ups), helps people get out of bad relationships, and gives them another chance to find one.
So win-win.
So yes, I would say that a more free society is tautologically less conducive to long term relationships than one where they are highly prescribed.
But more conducive to people taking the health of their existing relationships seriously, and for finding a healthy relationship, however long that takes. And more conducive to people who are simply happier without a relationship (after suffering a bad one, or not), to do so without stigma.
> Anti-breakup effectively becomes anti-transparency and pro-abuse.
If there is no communal support or watchfulness, then I guess those things are more likely, yes. Communities should help prevent abusive people from isolating their partners. I guess you would argue that the reality will always fall short of that and that communities can never be good enough.
> So win-win.
I'm not so sure it's necessarily a win for the kids.
I guess the main problem that you're not addressing is the possible lack of sustainability. Women do have a time limit if they want children, and of course there is personal freedom and all that, but if a culture that pushes personal freedom doesn't reproduce enough to replace itself then it may eventually be outbred by cultures that are less interested in personal freedom (e.g. their women might be forced to have more kids).
Provided you don’t later conclude it’s an unsatisfying account of many fundamental questions for modern humans, and then need to leave a community or repress interesting and valid ideas.
> Couples who navigate growth together often develop stronger, more resilient partnerships.
Thinking of someone I used to know who sarcastically referred to her many relationship blowups as "another fucking 'opportunity for growth'".
I see a lot of people talking past each other in this thread. There's several layers at work:
- "marriage is good"
- "people should make an effort to keep their relationship together"
- "people should make an effort to keep their relationship together, even at the cost of their own happiness, regardless of whether their partner is also doing the work"
- "marriage should be socially encouraged"
- "marriage should be socially enforced with censure of the unmarried"
- "marriage and its permanency should be legally enforced, regardless of harm including rape and domestic violence" (the pre-1950ish position)
You can see poster A making one of these statements and another poster B replying as if they'd said another one down the slippery slope.
What about the "hey, marriage is just not for everybody" position? I did not get married until my very late 30's, having spend enough time with my partner to have built something worth keeping, but at least two of my friends have been married so many times that it seems like an occasional hobby they indulge in. The idea works for some people, but not all, and that's just fine. The arguments you listed all assume a one-size-fits-all solution, which I suppose is why they are circular and absurd.
Sure family courts are biased, but the idea of divorce not being allowed unless one demonstrates fault to a court is absolutely and utterly absurd in a country where we allow people to freely associate, so I hope you’re not gonna try and argue against no-fault divorce itself on the basis of court bias.
> Long-term stability comes from building trust over time and avoiding the emotional toll of repeated breakups.
I see the idea, but I turbo-fucked those relationships because I didn't understand how to communicate. It took me 2-3 LTRs to get a handle both on what I wanted, how to explain my needs/flaws/etc, and how to make space for somebody elses yada yada.
I admire people who managed to get through that stuff first time, but i feel like they've got to be the exception?
Strong disagree on the "childhood sweetheart" thing.
In my experience / opinion there is more to be said for a (gentle) bit of "playing the field" when you're in your teens and early twenties. Get that stuff out of the way - get to know some different people, different ways of being, different dynamics in sex / friendship / beliefs. Get to know yourself, mainly - figure out the person you are. Because you sure as shit don't know when you're 16, and you probably don't really know until you're 20 or probably even 25.
I'd say the same about getting out there and socialising - drink some drink, smoke some weed, take some mushrooms, travel the world. Don't get stuck in one thing straight away - in any direction, whether that's location or relationship or job or misc life situation.
Obviously everyone's MMV and there may be some people who do find that person when they're 16, but even then you've got to ask "how do you actually know that's the right person if you've never experienced any other kind of people?".
It's like travelling - say you got on a plane to an island on your first day of your first expedition away from home and had such a great time that you just stopped there, cancelling your future travel plans. Seems foolish and small minded to me.
Obviously long and beautiful and balanced relationships are what most of us aim for - and that's great and a brilliant thing if you find it (I'm ~25 years into the best possible relationship and marriage I could possibly have hoped for) - but I (and my wife) got here via a whole bunch of teen and early 20s relationships - some brilliant, some silly, some deeply hurtful, some short, some long, some with people that really suited us, some with complete howlers that were destined for disaster from day one. And that whole journey enabled us to discover who we were individually - and then when we met in our mid 20s we had a much better understanding of who and where we wanted to be, both individually and as a couple.
I've been immensely lucky in my journey but it's because of that journey, and it's because quite a lot of that journey was sometimes hard. Breakups and dating the wrong person and getting it wrong are part of that journey, and it sometimes hurts. So does life, and to expect otherwise is deeply unrealistic.
I'm already fascinated as my two kids (20/17) do this themselves - but my strong advice to them and to anyone else is that getting to know who you are involves bashing into the world a whole bunch - it can be painful and difficult but that's what a satisfying and realistic life looks like.
Honestly, I don't get it how people find relationships in the first place. I feel like at this point of my life I have developed my own personality and lifestyle which don't match other people, and therefore I can't really connect with anyone.
Yes, I'm afraid of rejection, but not of being rejected, but rather of spending my time rejecting people instead of doing something pleasant or useful.
There is a strong winners history effect driving your thinking here.
Marrying the wrong person and sticking with them does not make anyone happy. Some of us resist SOFA as late as our mid 40s on the basis that we made a promise, marriage is forever etc. it’s a massive mistake in almost every case. I know nobody who regrets a divorce and isn’t substantially happier after it.
If you have kids don’t blow up a relationship on a whim. But at the same time know that divorcing when kids are in their teens is absolutely no easier on them then when they are younger. In many ways my perspective is that it only makes life for the adults easier.
Nah, man, the people saying we all have too limited of a perspective and draw conclusions too readily are right. Every possible course of action involves risk and uncertain outcomes. My parents married at 18 and 20, a few weeks after my mom graduated high school. They're still together in their mid-60s, have a disturbingly great and loud sex life, are the epitome of lifelong friends. I tried to marry at 21 and my first wife descended into a drug habit, destroyed our apartment and got the lease terminated, was committed to a psych ward and left me temporarily homeless. That didn't work out, though arguably, maybe it could have. She'd be in her 50s now and I don't know if she's even still alive, but last I had contact with her a decade ago, she seemed to be doing well. I finally married someone that stuck later on and we're past a decade, inside of two still, and she's been in the ICU seemingly inches from death twice in that time due to alcoholism, but I guess it's just different being older, more experienced, somehow able to deal with that and not have your entire life necessarily spiral into complete chaos.
My actual first girlfriend from high school isn't a person I kept in touch with, but from what I saw of the 20 year reunion a while back, she got really fat, became a bizarrely hardcore religious fundamentalist, and was extremely into Trump. I can't imagine a world in which a marriage with her would have worked. I don't see how you can possibly hope to imagine what a person might become decades later when you're 16.
I agree entirely with you about growing together through challenges and creating deep bonds through shared experiences. I'm just not sure why you think those don't continue happening past childhood. My 30s were by far the toughest decade due to unexpected physical challenges from spinal degeneration, and having someone there for it made all the difference in the world. I will love and cherish her forever for that, no matter what else happens. I didn't need to know her in high school for that to be possible.
And all the breakups of the past didn't take a toll on me. They taught me that loss isn't really that big of a deal. Life doesn't have to be constant and predictable. People come and go. Jobs come and go. The world turns, life goes on, and I'll be fine. Some other opportunity always comes along. More often than not, each one turns out to be better than the last one. I certainly don't want my wife to die and have no intention of ever divorcing her, but if something does happen, I have no doubt I'll be fine. Grieve, sure. Be crushed for maybe a year or two. But life is long as fuck and a year or two fades into nothing decades later when you're happy again.
>SOFA works great for marriage, if you tweak the params a little. Most secular people arrive at this by default: You marry your 3rd serious partner sometime in your late 20’s.
This doesn't really work great:
* Some people get really good at starting and not so good at finishing. They hurt a lot of people, eventually including themselves.
* Many people find it is too late to have the number of children they would have liked, or any children at all. This causes a lot of personal tragedy.
* Birth rates are well below replacement everywhere in the developed world, which is causing serious social problems.
I’m not disagreeing with your other points, but I really dislike the last one. I’m uncomfortable with the idea that we’d try to implement social pressure/coercion to restrict people’s freedom to date who and when they like on the basis of some abstract, top-down perception of trying to maintain the “stock” of humans or whatever. Also, far as I’m aware, the main issue with birthrates isn’t desire or timing but that people feel unable to support kids, which is mostly an economic and policy problem.
I never mentioned coercion - my point was just that the existing way we date doesn't work. As for feeling unable to support kids, a key part of that is having somebody to share the parenting with. Few policies or economic subsidies would be an adequate substitute for that.
I don’t think that’s actually true. I think the largest issue with single parenthood is that children are expensive, so it’s hard to support them on only one income and be left with time to raise them. While single parents will always be at a disadvantage in that sense under our economic model we could, for example, just give them some money for their child’s necessities. Matter of fact I think we oughta do that for any parents and see how that affects the birthrate in 20 years.
Have you spoken to any single parents? Money does not easily substitute for e.g. the ability to cook food while somebody else changes the nappy, or to leave the house on your own for five minutes.
> I think there’s another shakeup period (statistically) in your mid to late 40’s. That seems related to when kids start being old enough that they don’t act as a forcing function as much
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I like it, you have the FEATHER cushions of the SOFA.
> I think both this and the article's "SOFA" are useful frameworks to deal with perfectionism.
I feel it's understated how perfectionism and fear of failure are two sides of the same issue.
SOFA "call it quits and win" vs FEATHER "get to the end and celebrate" ideas both fight against an internalised conscientiousness where a thing is only done right if it's thoroughly explored and completed in all dimensions. Which isn't normally possible or worth it IMHO.
- LIMP – Low-effort Implementation Makes Progress; or
- FINAL – Finish It Now, Amplify Later.
The first highlights how the point is to get somewhere, and floating around like a Brownian particle is not a good strategy for that. Setting up tiny gradients in the right direction will.
I like the second because it makes it clear that just because one finishes for now does not mean one cannot re-open the project later.
To extend the article's marriage analogy, in this case you would be highly invested in a small number of partners you really care about, but also having a bit of fun on the side.
It took me 40 years to realize that this is a really bad idea. Each project or hobby takes time. Each new skill takes a lot of time and focus to master.
Half-finished projects clutter your space and your mind. The biggest satisfaction is what I get from a project that is done-done. Not finishing anything will rob the satisfaction of a project.
Doing some Marie Kondo (deciding which things bring joy and getting rid of the rest) for your hobbies has been immensely liberating. Saying no to myself and not starting something new leaves space in my mind to enjoy other things much more.
So I would say, be picky about which hobby to take on and once you do it, be ready to invest some serious time into it. The joy you get out of a nice coffee table you built yourself from scratch is immeasurably greater than some tools, lumber and dust blocking your garage for years.
I don't know that that's in conflict with what this is saying.
Often, when I take on something that I don't have the knowledge or experience to complete, I don't know precisely what I'm lacking in advance. By doing, I discover my limitations and can explore them - starting often, but not randomly. Eventually, I can approach the original project with additional insight and do more, having brought up a pillar of a fundamental to a requisite height to build on.
If I only leaned into my strengths, I might not feel the need to grow. That doesn't mean I leave things undone, but I recognize that if I only work towards goals that are immediately attainable, I won't ever develop the capacity to do more.
Put another way, the "time to first coffee table" is a function of SOFA for tooling acquisition. From there, the time investment required to build subsequent coffee tables is reduced by prior knowledge.
When I start a lot of projects and only get halfway through them, I feel overwhelmed and frustrated by all the loose ends. I like to see projects through to release if I think they’re worth it, but that also requires a bit of self-imposed discipline. I don’t think there’s any shame in having a lot of half-finished projects, but I find more happiness in pushing myself to finish at least some of them.
> I feel overwhelmed and frustrated by all the loose ends.
I think the article is trying to help with exactly that: it's telling people to give themselves permission to abandon half-finished projects without guilt or frustration - so that you won't be immobilized by expecting those feelings every time you think about dabbling in something new.
I ask myself the question: Could this be of constructive use to other people? If so, there's a moral obligation to keep at it, despite some burden of drudgery to be carried.
This just seems like a bad idea.
Starting things and not finishing them is just... The default.
Whoever thinks that our society is too focused on commitment has really not been keeping up with social trends for the last few decades. Most people are cut loose from any kind of stability, community or enduring sense of identity.
I get that they're trying to go with "done does not need to mean perfect", but this way of putting it is too aggressive and I don't feel like it'll have good outcomes.
>Starting things and not finishing them is just... The default.
Exactly what I was going to write. I don't need a manifesto telling me to do this, this is what I do naturally unless I force myself to stick with something.
If anything, the "finish rarely [NOT never!]" bit is what needs emphasizing, yet the entire page is about the "start often" bit instead.
it's a good anti-perfectionist manifesto, as avoiding things you can't do well enough to present for credit is stultifying. but moderation is key.
the secret to SOFA may be to STFU about it, as if you're the person who talks about things they've maybe done once or are going to do but never finished, you're kind of dumb, but if you just do stuff, you end up having some surprising skills.
the effect of not talking about it also creates an attribution bias in your favour, where after pulling a few surprise rabbits out of hats, you become the magic hat guy. if you talk about all the things you have kind of done, you're just opinionated. I've been both, and after more than a decade of being conscious of mostly STFU'ing, I can say that some humility can be a superpower.
Look, this is a totally cool and fun approach to projects, always, and it's a totally cool life philosophy in your twenties. I wouldn't recommend it as a life philosophy for your thirties and beyond, and I suspect most people of that age know why.
That's the story of my life, SOFA king deep procrastinator.
It's like thinking of an idea, and fleshing it out just enough to understand that my idea was possible, gives me a feeling of achievement that makes it redundant to actually finish implementing the idea.
I see this as a great way of focusing on the process instead of the goal, to have more fun and reduce press! To everyone here who argues for finishing things: You could still use this philosophy to start a project like ”learning how to finish something well” (to make finishing less goal oriented). And, if you have a good sense of what spontaneous projects to start, one day a bunch of your quickly started and disregarded small projects could accidentally turn out to fit well together to create something bigger. Starting many small things can lead to big things too.
SOFA works just fine with marriage, just tweak the vows:
“… to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, until I feel like this is done and want to move on. And done is when I say it’s done.”
If only we could apply SOFA to every aspect of our lives, down to the core, I believe things would be radically different. For example, I firmly believe that Jesus was the ultimate SOFA king, and he would have applied SOFA to everything in his life, including both small and big things that we often feel are impossible to address.
The only universally useful advice is "all good advice is context dependent". SOFA is a good idea when you are learning, or when you want to have fun or feel inspired. It is obviously terrible advice if, you know, you need to finish things because other people only care about finished things.
This is literally the definition of a low value individual that doesn’t follow through on anything. Common to see these types of people on hoarders with hundreds of 10% done projects all around the property and a cane for their fraudulent disability payments.
I think this sounds good but is ultimately not good advice.
Finishing, as in will power, focus, and vision, is like a muscle that you can take to the gym.
This advice is the equivalent of going for a run one day and never picking up the habit. I don't think it will lead to fitness.
> Finishing, as in will power, focus, and vision, is like a muscle that you can take to the gym.
That's not true, at least not for many procrastinators. I've been a procrastinator my whole life. It wasn’t until my mid-30s that I found a method that made me productive (going from 2-3 hours of work a day to 9-10 hours). Honestly, when it comes to productivity, I’m killing it. However, it hasn’t trained my "finish it" muscle at all. As soon as I'm not body doubling, I revert to my old self and immediately start procrastinating.
> It wasn’t until my mid-30s that I found a method that made me productive (going from 2-3 hours of work a day to 9-10 hours
What was this method ?
For me, it's body doubling, but for you, it might be something completely different. The method that works for you depends on why and how you delay tasks (and you need to consider both separately). Once you understand your "why" and "how," you can begin searching for a solution.
Unfortunately, the "why" isn't always clear. I've been procrastinating for as long as I can remember, and as a co-founder of a body doubling platform, you'd think I'd know why I procrastinate. But I don't. I've spent a lot of time trying to figure it out, and it's still a mystery to me. I'm a hedonistic procrastinator, but I don't fully understand what's behind it.
Back to the point: if you're looking for a solution, don't blindly try every method someone suggests, as it can be a colossal waste of time. Some people spend weeks or months trying to make Pomodoro work for them, without realizing it simply won't. If you're a hedonistic procrastinator, Pomodoro probably isn’t the best fit. Similarly, people who struggle with clarity on what to do may benefit more from to-do lists than from "Just do it" approaches.
If procrastination is wreaking havoc on your life and you don’t know how to overcome it, feel free to contact me (check my bio). Disclaimer: I run a virtual body doubling platform (WorkMode.net), but I'm happy to talk and try to help, even if you don't want to try the platform.
I'm not sure why you're being downvoted, it certainly isn't true for people with executive disorders. It may actually make things worse if you don't approach it carefully.
I think a better alternative is the concept of the minimum viable habit from James Clear's Atomic Habits.
SOFA gets one thing right which is it reduces the pressure and the expectations. But it doesn't seem like an approach to life which results in anything permanent. This post literally says "nothing is permanent, nothing lasts" which is a nihilistic and self-defeating view of life - perhaps technically true but not useful. Contrast with "play long term games" which is the idea that good things compound over years and even decades and this compounding is how you can lead a truly extraordinary life.
So with Clear's concept of minimum viable habits the focus is on building something permanent (the habit) but the expectations are removed, which makes it feel easy. If you want to be a runner, you start by setting an alarm and putting on your running shoes every day. That's it, once the shoes are on, you declare victory and you may take them right back off again and go on with your day, running is strictly optional (and even discouraged at the start).
After doing this for a while it's going to be second nature. It will become an unconscious habit to put on those shoes at the same time every day, and it will also feel a little ridiculous that you're not even stepping out the door. It will then feel completely natural to take the next step and walk outside and enjoy the fresh air as part of the habit. Once you're doing that regularly, it's almost inevitable that you'll start taking a small walk or something and one day boom you've made it a jog. Three years later if it's really what you want you've become a serious runner and practicing for your first marathon.
It really works in my experience (it got me going to the gym, improved my work productivity and improved my diet). The key is your perspective: you want to build an extensive new, permanent habit that will improve your life for many years to come. But this is hard to do so you're layering on one easy piece at a time, removing the friction.
It doesn't require manning up and being superhuman. Just the desire for the change, some patience and the willingness to take the first step.
To continue with your example, here's how I think the article's author may respond. You set out aiming to go to the gym with an aim of gaining X pounds of muscle mass. But after the easy gains, you still haven't yet reached your target, and you realize that bringing it to the next level would require more intensity. You've noticed that gym time is taking away from precious family time, and any more would be unacceptable.
At this point, your "self" has changed. You have a new perspective and gains compared to when you embarked on your journey. You have a clearer picture of the sacrifices you require to continue making progress to your original goal. If you knew then what you know now, you would not have set such a terrible goal, though you would perhaps have targeted this halfway-point where you are now.
At this point, it is time to
> Just KonMari[4] that shit: have a moment of gratitude and appreciation for the experience and the things you learned and the ways in which you benefited from it. Thank it with conviction for having served its purpose, and then let it go and dismiss it. There. Done.
In this case, and in the situations the article wants to address, this is perhaps the calculus at play, where it is not about willpower, but that with a change in environment, continuing would entail an unacceptable sacrifice for a goal that no longer has the same meaning it used to hold. Although I find it too absolute and unbalanced in it's opinion, as is yours.
From TFA:
> You can be finished with your project whenever you decide to be done with it. And "done" can mean anything you want it to be. Whose standards of completion or perfection are you holding yourself to anyway? Forget about those! Something is done when you say it is. When it's no longer interesting. When you've gotten a sufficient amount of entertainment and experience from it. When you've learned enough from it. Whatever, whenever. Done is what you say it is.
If you already say the goal is fitness, you're not doing SOFA. The whole point is to accrue experience, experiment, discover, not a predefined state. You don't SOFA a specific sport to lose weight, you SOFA when you want to find a sport you like enough that you will be able to do it regularly.
Fully agreed. I have accidentally drifted into that kind of SOFA-mode, having been a highly organized, checklist-manifesting person beforehand. Currently, my personal pursuits are a considerable mess, and guess what - absolutely nothing about this feels "creative", really. It is what it is: just a mess.
Lately, I envy my better half who reads all books from start to finish, and also manages to be very consistent in teaching specific things to our children. This is Doing More With Less in practice -- in the long run, children obviously benefit more from that as compared to inconsistent creative bursts that I (currently) represent. Order is much harder to accomplish than mess; I think ultimately, good learning = keeping order, and being consistent about what not to do.
(I do remember Nassim Taleb advocating to read books "ADDHD-style", as in, swapping right away when you feel bored, though. And he is quite good with his probability stuff, so threre's that. Also, I quite like Perl and Larry Wall's views on the inherent messiness of human language -- I think he is spot-on with this. But... as a layperson, it's nonetheless way too easy to get lost inside this mindset. Managing complexity is an art, I guess. Or, as somebody once wrote on the Perlmonks forums, "freedom is hard".)
In a nutshell there is no way around the following : anything worth the effort, will take effort. Mess is not.
Personally, I'd say it's situational advice.
I like open source software. And I could write some code that works for me, then generalise it to be useful to more people, then increase the robustness so it's easier for users who aren't the author, then clearly document it, then make a flashy website for it, then do branding and marketing to get users, then add support for OSes I don't use and languages I don't speak, then build a community of contributors and maintain a presence on reddit and twitter and stackoverflow and discord and github and mailing lists, then engage with the community with polite professionalism at all times, then do paperwork like choosing a license and a code of conduct and a security policy, then convince major distributions to package it, then maintain it for 30 years.
So long as it's a recreational hobby, I'll do whichever steps I feel like. Marketing? Support? Fundraising? Test coverage? Nah, I don't think I will, I'd rather spend that time going on a bike ride.
On the other hand, for things that aren't a recreational hobby? That might be a different matter.
I think it's great advice, but the "finish rarely" part is maybe understated. The goal is to try as many things as possible, as quickly as possible in order to find your true calling. You'll stick with it once found.
Yes, a weak work ethic takes years to rectify. I had a very bad weak work ethic because of health issues when I was a kid and only in my 30s did I finally fix it.
I hate to keep doing this to you, but I am yet again an existence proof that you're wrong about this. I've tried and played many sports in my life, on again, off again. Baseball and basketball mostly as a child, a bit of tennis. Lettered in high school in cross country, track (where I did hurdles rather than middle distance), basketball, and volleyball when I changed my mind from track. I did intramural soccer and dodgeball in college. Picked up running again in the Army and got into various outdoorsy stuff. Kayaking. Open-water swimming. Multi-day hikes. Alpine mountaineering. Rock climbing. I had terrible injuries through my late 30s and did next to nothing. In my 40s, picked up lifting, eventually got back into running, have recently started to learn how to surf and skateboard.
I can assure you that, in spite of not really mastering or finishing any of these things and being kind of flaky about it, it has at least lead to very good fitness.
In the same vein, I see no reason you can't simply practice and get in the habit of learning and being curious even if you never master a specific craft.
From what I read, you exercise a lot of different sports. Of course it will lead to fitness. It's like doing many different things using a computer, of course it will make you handy with computers.
That's fair. As someone guilty of starting more projects than I've finished, I often find the most interesting and engaging stretch is up to the proof-of-concept point, where you've made the novel breakthrough and demonstrated engineering viability.
i.e. Once I'm comfortable the remaining work can be accomplished by rote skill application, it feels more like a chore.
As long as one can finish the long run when it matters, nothing wrong with not having a habit.
This is just my normal approach to life, owing mostly to low conscientiousness (and probably unmedicated ADHD).
The result has been thousands of side projects but nothing I can actually put on a portfolio or monetize (and as a result, poverty).
It's sort of bizarre and hilarious to see people glorify and promote it?
Do normal people have to make a significant conscious effort not to finish what they start?!
I don’t think anyone is more or less normal here. But for some people, feeling the pressure to finish everything you’ve started could in worst case learn to burnout, not only like ”getting exhausted from a specific project” but your brain actually stops functioning. Maybe that’s why they glorify a more ”go with the flow” lifestyle.
It’s interesting to see most people here connecting ”starting many projects for fun” with procrastrinating, and also wanting to fix that with discipline. For others the situation is completely different. The grass is greener on the other side I guess: me as an ambitious person actually _want_ to procrastrinate more, and don’t see it as a bad thing to be less outcome-focused.
Very relatable, I have a post from 2021 describing the same thing and I haven't made much progress since then despite big life changes. I have a buddy who's similar to me in that regard, but he found developer work, but couldn't stand the uninteresting problem space and left after a few months. He's been trying to get back into tech for a few years now to no avail. From the outside it's easy to ask "why?", but perhaps employment isn't the endgame that one hopes it will be with regard to focus.
> Do normal people have to make a significant conscious effort not to finish what they start?!
I believe their issue is that they can't even start.
Interesting. Is the thought "if I start this, I have to do this properly, and see it all the way through" a major part of that hesitation?
The "I'm not allowed to have fun or make mistakes" mindset seems to be drilled into people hard by the education system. I also suppose the survival fear adds "this time and energy I invest should pay off somehow" to the balance, at least it does for me (when considering significant projects).
My "backdoor" to working on many projects is that most of my projects only last a few hours, so the question of "is it worth the investment" never really factors into it.
> is the thought "if I start this, I have to do this properly, and see it all the way through" a major part of that hesitation?
I don't think that's it. It is the knowledge that, please forgive my blunt comparison, a spoiled child that wants this and than that and then that other thing and so on, will never get fulfilment.
The trick to good fulfilment is (sometimes anxious) persistence followed by some redemption.
An example. For work, there's some hardware related software bug that is nagging me already for some time. I want to find the fix. For that, i need to read docs and schematics, talk to people, do experiments and fail quite often. Finally i will have a mental model good enough to understand and fix the problem. The road can be frustrating, but i know fixing it will be fulfilling, and that keeps me going. Also the fact that some people are relying on/anticipating the solution, helps with my motivation.
If i just would try some other discipline every other day, i would never get such fulfilment.
> Do normal people have to make a significant conscious effort not to finish what they start?!
No, some things are hard and take significant conscious effort to complete regardless of how "normal" you are. Especially things that pay well.
Maybe it's the 80-20 Rule in action. Do 20% to learn the 80%.
I think pretty much everyone falls into SOFA by default. If your goal is to start a software business, it's almost impossible to achieve that. You don't need to aim for it. It will happen by default.
To finish something in such a way that a customer will be willing to pull their credit card out and pay for it is a very difficult point to arrive at.
I never tried this approach and yet I have 7 failed projects under my belt. Only 1 was a success but it only lasted for 3 years.
As I age, I am getting better at finishing things. Partly because my side projects are intentionally more bite-sized.
Rather than write am application, maybe I will just write a module, or a useful script someone else can use to build or improve an application. I am much happier with this approach so far.
I finished all my projects, met all technical requirements which I set for myself but I only met user requirements for one project. Hence I got paid. Ironically, it was the one which required the least amount of work and where I contributed the least socio-economic value. 3 years of passive income literally fell on my lap. I didn't even write a single line of code for that one. Just spoke to a bunch of people a couple of times.
It's definitely a lot easier if you set yourself goals which don't depend on other people. Having goals which depend on things that are outside of your control is a sure way to become miserable.
You completed your most successful project just by talking to other people -- your recommendation to go it alone seems to contradict that. Does it come from having had a bad experience?
Yes that's true. The surest path to success doesn't generally align with happiness. People will frequently disappoint you. Yet unfortunately success in our current system is all about people and connections.
But if you focus on building stuff for its own sake and don't worry about financial success, you will be a lot happier because those goals are within your control. You will build the product and you will achieve your personal vision. Nobody else will care but that's going to be OK because you will prove to yourself that you're a capable individual and that's satisfying in itself.
The secret to success is not mentioning your failures.
(Think about a famous photographer who's showing a few great pictures you could never have made yourself. Well, he isn't showing the 10.000 others he made but were not good enough)
I'm with you, although my personal acronym is SUFR; Start Up, Fail, Recover.
I don't know about anyone else, but I have learned far more from my mistakes than I have from my successes.
> Traditional marriage is the ultimate form of this ideal. You're supposed to stick to it until you die, no matter what, come hell or high water, even if it makes you and everybody around you miserable. That is neither sane nor healthy!
An interesting philosophy, but I don’t think marriage is the best place to apply it. Writing a README and then never starting a project has practically no consequences. Same for picking up a book and then ditching it after a few minutes. Marriage? That’s a whole different ball game, especially when children are involved.
SOFA works great for marriage, if you tweak the params a little. Most secular people arrive at this by default: You marry your 3rd serious partner sometime in your late 20’s.
Start a lot of long term relationships, finish the one that sticks when both partners are mature and more or less done growing up.
I think there’s another shakeup period (statistically) in your mid to late 40’s. That seems related to when kids start being old enough that they don’t act as a forcing function as much.
And that's when those couples often get divorced.
There's strong value in staying with a first partner, like a high school sweetheart. Growing together through life's challenges creates deep emotional bonds and shared experiences. Long-term stability comes from building trust over time and avoiding the emotional toll of repeated breakups.
Couples who navigate growth together often develop stronger, more resilient partnerships.
I highly censor myself on HN as I know most of my views are in the minority, but I'm happy to see your response.
To add to your point, I've also found that developing the relational skills necessary to bring a marriage relationship through tricky waters often leads to success in similar, but perhaps not so dire, circumstances.
It's also been common knowledge for some time now that children tend to do much better when stability is present in the home. If a child always thinks one of their parents might just up and leave one day, they tend to act accordingly (read: exhibit undesired behaviors).
I understand marriage isn't for everyone, and I certainly don't promote it as such, but I also wouldn't advise people to treat marriage as no more than something that can start today and end tomorrow, on a whim.
There is massive confounding here. Think of the counterfactual — kids who live in a house with a failing relationship, or one where the adults can’t meet each other’s needs.
It’s not at all obvious this would be better, and none of the research suggests it’s better for kids for adults to stay in a troubled relationship. In fact the reverse - conflict in the home is a much stronger predictor of poor outcomes than divorce per se.
Interesting, that's a great point. Last I checked the negative effects of fatherlessness were well studied, but I don't know if it's been compared with the alternative, i.e. being raised by someone who rather would have left!
IIRC a low quality father is still better than none (barring abuse, though emotional neglect is now finally coming to be recognized as developmentally impactful), but I really don't know...
There is such a thing as coparenting while divorced; one need not assume that separation implies that the father ceases to parent.
It's debatable to what degree they are as most of the studies have massive confounders. Couples that stay together tend to be more affluent than divorced couples because of only needing to pay for and maintain one place of living instead of two. And poverty is a massive confounder in the studies, kids in poverty do a fair bit worse than kids in middle class lifestyles.
> children tend to do much better when stability is present in the home
Encouraging relation instability creates children which don’t have the funding on their own to be students. It makes them great candidates for both student loans (US) and subsidies (EU). As a society, that’s what we want; It’s makes every individual miserable, but it fuels the need for public funding.
I think this take is weird in many ways, but I wanted to focus especially on the fact that in the EU where its free it costs the exact same to fund a student regardless of if parents are divorced.
We want to spend more public money? It's weird if you also say that this could be avoided.
To add to this—most of the marriages I've seen that have come after multiple serious relationships struggle with baggage from those previous relationships.
Often it's obvious things like kids, but it's also more pernicious things like expectations, comparisons, and even just different worldviews. A couple that grows up together can end up substantially more unified than is possible when you're joining lives after a decade of adulthood shaped by multiple partners.
There are obviously exceptions on both sides—first-timers that were toxic and 'experienced' partners who work well—but I certainly haven't seen an unqualified series of successes in the pattern described by OP.
I haven’t seen any patterns, and I’m wondering where people are getting these kinds of insights.
Like I have 1 friend that married somebody who could reasonably be described as like a first serious relationship. Other than that… everybody tended to settle down after college, after a few more serious relationships. Nobody has gotten divorced yet (late 30’s). But (and this is being generous to myself), I’ll say I probably only have like 5 friends who I’d really be confident in saying much about the health of their relationships.
I think everybody in this thread is just making things up, tbh.
Our sample sizes are small, our circumstances vary, and people are too unique.
Only counting marriages that I have very close understanding of: Between my wife's immediate family and mine I've had personal insight into 11 different marriages, a mix of both types. Still a small sample size relative to the population as a whole, but not nothing.
In that set, the only healthy marriages are first timers.
It's certainly not enough to draw any conclusions, but that's why all I actually argued is that OP's claimed success pattern doesn't seem to be true in my experience.
> Couples who navigate growth together often develop stronger, more resilient partnerships.
Nowhere in that wisdom did the word “first” appear.
If at “first” you don’t succeed, keep looking for that partner who, by character, and suitability to you, who will “ navigate growth together”.
——
I feel like there is a stay-with-your-first crowd that has a lot of wisdom to share, but logically needs to recognize that commitment to an unworkable situation isn’t really what they are trying to promote.
Props to those that find that person, who will co-invest, can be co-patient, co-flexible, co-loyal, co-appreciative, co-vision the first time.
But those things are just as great, and important to find, regardless of the ordinal.
—
I think I have that! Number 3. Wish me luck for the future, but 8 years in I am very and honored happy now.
> Props to those that find that person, who will co-invest, can be co-patient, co-flexible, co-loyal, co-appreciative, co-vision the first time.
That's what dating is for. It's not magic if you've got your priorities figured out.
Priority number one must be seeing into the future.
People change as they go through life. People who grow never stop learning how to be more themselves, less of what they were taught or expected to be, or finding new paths.
Even the positive side of change can introduce profound instability and unhappiness into a relationship.
The idea that if people would just do everything right, no relationship would need to break up is an unhealthy, and completely unrealistic, judgement.
And it inadvertently prioritizes relationships over the people actually in them.
> And it inadvertently prioritizes relationships over the people actually in them.
An oath is an oath. You are an individualist, but social stability often matters more than the whims of individuals.
> The idea that if people would just do everything right, no relationship would need to break up is an unhealthy, and completely unrealistic, judgement.
When people are focused on their 'perfect wedding', you already know priorities are already way off. Marriages need to built on decent foundations, not just feelings. So, I can agree with you that a feelings-focused marriage in an impulse-driven society is unrealistic.
> When people are focused on their 'perfect wedding'
Perfect wedding? Who said anything about that?
> Marriages need to built on decent foundations
Well, yes. Did someone argue against that?
> not just feelings
"Feelings"? Which parent commenter said anything about that?
> So, I can agree with you that a feelings-focused marriage in an impulse-driven society is unrealistic.
Who are you talking to?
You have no idea who I am. How seriously I take commitments. How constructive I have remained in trying times. The end of my previous relationships involved serious circumstances, real people experiencing trauma and tragedy, and a great deal of lasting pain and loss.
Another person's misfortunes, which you have no knowledge of, are not a blank canvas you should be painting your careless assumptions and selective "values" on.
> Who are you talking to?
Just to be clear, I am not talking about you directly. I had no intention of judging you personally or upsetting you; I'm sorry if you took it that way.
> The idea that if people would just do everything right, no relationship would need to break up is an unhealthy, and completely unrealistic, judgement.
Let me try again: I think that what you're saying is true because of the social context. Would you agree that current society is not as conducive to long-term relationships?
Thanks for helping tone things down.
> Would you agree that current society is not as conducive to long-term relationships?
There can be great value in long term relationships, but equally, there is great value in people's freedom to associate (or not), including the freedom to move in and out of personal relationships.
Those ideals could be framed as appositional, but they are synergistic.
Emphasizing only long term commitments, and stigmatizing break ups, has a long history of trapping countless people in abusive, unhappy, practically harmful relationships. And covering up that harm. Anti-breakup effectively becomes anti-transparency and pro-abuse.
Promoting the freedom to break up (not promoting break ups), helps people get out of bad relationships, and gives them another chance to find one.
So win-win.
So yes, I would say that a more free society is tautologically less conducive to long term relationships than one where they are highly prescribed.
But more conducive to people taking the health of their existing relationships seriously, and for finding a healthy relationship, however long that takes. And more conducive to people who are simply happier without a relationship (after suffering a bad one, or not), to do so without stigma.
> Anti-breakup effectively becomes anti-transparency and pro-abuse.
If there is no communal support or watchfulness, then I guess those things are more likely, yes. Communities should help prevent abusive people from isolating their partners. I guess you would argue that the reality will always fall short of that and that communities can never be good enough.
> So win-win.
I'm not so sure it's necessarily a win for the kids.
I guess the main problem that you're not addressing is the possible lack of sustainability. Women do have a time limit if they want children, and of course there is personal freedom and all that, but if a culture that pushes personal freedom doesn't reproduce enough to replace itself then it may eventually be outbred by cultures that are less interested in personal freedom (e.g. their women might be forced to have more kids).
> It's not magic if you've got your priorities figured out.
I doubt most people have their priorities figured out before their 30s. I envy those who do.
Religion seems to help a lot with figuring out a purpose in life at a young age, too
The impression I get—without being too dismissive—is that it gives you the opportunity to not bother figuring it out.
It also helps prevent a descent into hedonism.
Provided you don’t later conclude it’s an unsatisfying account of many fundamental questions for modern humans, and then need to leave a community or repress interesting and valid ideas.
That's what parenting is for. 'Just follow your feelings' is not good parenting.
> Couples who navigate growth together often develop stronger, more resilient partnerships.
Thinking of someone I used to know who sarcastically referred to her many relationship blowups as "another fucking 'opportunity for growth'".
I see a lot of people talking past each other in this thread. There's several layers at work:
- "marriage is good"
- "people should make an effort to keep their relationship together"
- "people should make an effort to keep their relationship together, even at the cost of their own happiness, regardless of whether their partner is also doing the work"
- "marriage should be socially encouraged"
- "marriage should be socially enforced with censure of the unmarried"
- "marriage and its permanency should be legally enforced, regardless of harm including rape and domestic violence" (the pre-1950ish position)
You can see poster A making one of these statements and another poster B replying as if they'd said another one down the slippery slope.
What about the "hey, marriage is just not for everybody" position? I did not get married until my very late 30's, having spend enough time with my partner to have built something worth keeping, but at least two of my friends have been married so many times that it seems like an occasional hobby they indulge in. The idea works for some people, but not all, and that's just fine. The arguments you listed all assume a one-size-fits-all solution, which I suppose is why they are circular and absurd.
I think you mean pre-1970ish position. No-fault divorce wasn't introduced anywhere in the US until 1969 in California. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-fault_divorce
Sheesh
No-fault divorce would be more aptly described as providers-fault divorce if you look at how the family courts tend to work.
Sure family courts are biased, but the idea of divorce not being allowed unless one demonstrates fault to a court is absolutely and utterly absurd in a country where we allow people to freely associate, so I hope you’re not gonna try and argue against no-fault divorce itself on the basis of court bias.
> Long-term stability comes from building trust over time and avoiding the emotional toll of repeated breakups.
I see the idea, but I turbo-fucked those relationships because I didn't understand how to communicate. It took me 2-3 LTRs to get a handle both on what I wanted, how to explain my needs/flaws/etc, and how to make space for somebody elses yada yada.
I admire people who managed to get through that stuff first time, but i feel like they've got to be the exception?
Strong disagree on the "childhood sweetheart" thing.
In my experience / opinion there is more to be said for a (gentle) bit of "playing the field" when you're in your teens and early twenties. Get that stuff out of the way - get to know some different people, different ways of being, different dynamics in sex / friendship / beliefs. Get to know yourself, mainly - figure out the person you are. Because you sure as shit don't know when you're 16, and you probably don't really know until you're 20 or probably even 25.
I'd say the same about getting out there and socialising - drink some drink, smoke some weed, take some mushrooms, travel the world. Don't get stuck in one thing straight away - in any direction, whether that's location or relationship or job or misc life situation.
Obviously everyone's MMV and there may be some people who do find that person when they're 16, but even then you've got to ask "how do you actually know that's the right person if you've never experienced any other kind of people?".
It's like travelling - say you got on a plane to an island on your first day of your first expedition away from home and had such a great time that you just stopped there, cancelling your future travel plans. Seems foolish and small minded to me.
Obviously long and beautiful and balanced relationships are what most of us aim for - and that's great and a brilliant thing if you find it (I'm ~25 years into the best possible relationship and marriage I could possibly have hoped for) - but I (and my wife) got here via a whole bunch of teen and early 20s relationships - some brilliant, some silly, some deeply hurtful, some short, some long, some with people that really suited us, some with complete howlers that were destined for disaster from day one. And that whole journey enabled us to discover who we were individually - and then when we met in our mid 20s we had a much better understanding of who and where we wanted to be, both individually and as a couple.
I've been immensely lucky in my journey but it's because of that journey, and it's because quite a lot of that journey was sometimes hard. Breakups and dating the wrong person and getting it wrong are part of that journey, and it sometimes hurts. So does life, and to expect otherwise is deeply unrealistic.
I'm already fascinated as my two kids (20/17) do this themselves - but my strong advice to them and to anyone else is that getting to know who you are involves bashing into the world a whole bunch - it can be painful and difficult but that's what a satisfying and realistic life looks like.
Honestly, I don't get it how people find relationships in the first place. I feel like at this point of my life I have developed my own personality and lifestyle which don't match other people, and therefore I can't really connect with anyone.
I think that is just a cop-out born out of fear of rejection. If you don't want to connect with anyone, that is fine. I doubt that you can't.
Yes, I'm afraid of rejection, but not of being rejected, but rather of spending my time rejecting people instead of doing something pleasant or useful.
Just like everything else in life - luck.
There is a strong winners history effect driving your thinking here.
Marrying the wrong person and sticking with them does not make anyone happy. Some of us resist SOFA as late as our mid 40s on the basis that we made a promise, marriage is forever etc. it’s a massive mistake in almost every case. I know nobody who regrets a divorce and isn’t substantially happier after it.
If you have kids don’t blow up a relationship on a whim. But at the same time know that divorcing when kids are in their teens is absolutely no easier on them then when they are younger. In many ways my perspective is that it only makes life for the adults easier.
I know at least one person who says they would have rather stuck it out in retrospect.
Nah, man, the people saying we all have too limited of a perspective and draw conclusions too readily are right. Every possible course of action involves risk and uncertain outcomes. My parents married at 18 and 20, a few weeks after my mom graduated high school. They're still together in their mid-60s, have a disturbingly great and loud sex life, are the epitome of lifelong friends. I tried to marry at 21 and my first wife descended into a drug habit, destroyed our apartment and got the lease terminated, was committed to a psych ward and left me temporarily homeless. That didn't work out, though arguably, maybe it could have. She'd be in her 50s now and I don't know if she's even still alive, but last I had contact with her a decade ago, she seemed to be doing well. I finally married someone that stuck later on and we're past a decade, inside of two still, and she's been in the ICU seemingly inches from death twice in that time due to alcoholism, but I guess it's just different being older, more experienced, somehow able to deal with that and not have your entire life necessarily spiral into complete chaos.
My actual first girlfriend from high school isn't a person I kept in touch with, but from what I saw of the 20 year reunion a while back, she got really fat, became a bizarrely hardcore religious fundamentalist, and was extremely into Trump. I can't imagine a world in which a marriage with her would have worked. I don't see how you can possibly hope to imagine what a person might become decades later when you're 16.
I agree entirely with you about growing together through challenges and creating deep bonds through shared experiences. I'm just not sure why you think those don't continue happening past childhood. My 30s were by far the toughest decade due to unexpected physical challenges from spinal degeneration, and having someone there for it made all the difference in the world. I will love and cherish her forever for that, no matter what else happens. I didn't need to know her in high school for that to be possible.
And all the breakups of the past didn't take a toll on me. They taught me that loss isn't really that big of a deal. Life doesn't have to be constant and predictable. People come and go. Jobs come and go. The world turns, life goes on, and I'll be fine. Some other opportunity always comes along. More often than not, each one turns out to be better than the last one. I certainly don't want my wife to die and have no intention of ever divorcing her, but if something does happen, I have no doubt I'll be fine. Grieve, sure. Be crushed for maybe a year or two. But life is long as fuck and a year or two fades into nothing decades later when you're happy again.
> mature and more or less done growing up.
People finish growing up?
>SOFA works great for marriage, if you tweak the params a little. Most secular people arrive at this by default: You marry your 3rd serious partner sometime in your late 20’s.
This doesn't really work great:
* Some people get really good at starting and not so good at finishing. They hurt a lot of people, eventually including themselves.
* Many people find it is too late to have the number of children they would have liked, or any children at all. This causes a lot of personal tragedy.
* Birth rates are well below replacement everywhere in the developed world, which is causing serious social problems.
I’m not disagreeing with your other points, but I really dislike the last one. I’m uncomfortable with the idea that we’d try to implement social pressure/coercion to restrict people’s freedom to date who and when they like on the basis of some abstract, top-down perception of trying to maintain the “stock” of humans or whatever. Also, far as I’m aware, the main issue with birthrates isn’t desire or timing but that people feel unable to support kids, which is mostly an economic and policy problem.
I never mentioned coercion - my point was just that the existing way we date doesn't work. As for feeling unable to support kids, a key part of that is having somebody to share the parenting with. Few policies or economic subsidies would be an adequate substitute for that.
I don’t think that’s actually true. I think the largest issue with single parenthood is that children are expensive, so it’s hard to support them on only one income and be left with time to raise them. While single parents will always be at a disadvantage in that sense under our economic model we could, for example, just give them some money for their child’s necessities. Matter of fact I think we oughta do that for any parents and see how that affects the birthrate in 20 years.
Have you spoken to any single parents? Money does not easily substitute for e.g. the ability to cook food while somebody else changes the nappy, or to leave the house on your own for five minutes.
Use to do SOFA without knowing about it. Then marriage came, then children and boom, collapse of the wave function.
> I think there’s another shakeup period (statistically) in your mid to late 40’s. That seems related to when kids start being old enough that they don’t act as a forcing function as much
Also menopause.
> Marriage? That’s a whole different ball game, especially when children are involved.
While, yes, it's more serious than writing a README, there is certainly often a point where it's better for all concerned to just pack it in.
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It would be interesting to try the opposed but similar strategy of finishing absolutely everything but half-arsing the stuff I don't care about.
Might give more psychological closure, prevent me giving up, and could yield good results if there are a lot of cases where I was overthinking it.
That's interesting. FEATHER - Finish Everything And Triumph, Half-assing Every choRe[0].
I think both this and the article's "SOFA" are useful frameworks to deal with perfectionism.
--
[0] - Which I should have done here, instead of spending 10 minutes trying to find the right words for the acronym, and ultimately failing.
Finish It with Love & Interest But Undesired Stuff Therefore Exists Ramshackley
also known as FILIBUSTER - where you prioritize finishing stuff you like, pushing back the things you lack interest in, indefinitely ;P
I like it, you have the FEATHER cushions of the SOFA.
> I think both this and the article's "SOFA" are useful frameworks to deal with perfectionism.
I feel it's understated how perfectionism and fear of failure are two sides of the same issue.
SOFA "call it quits and win" vs FEATHER "get to the end and celebrate" ideas both fight against an internalised conscientiousness where a thing is only done right if it's thoroughly explored and completed in all dimensions. Which isn't normally possible or worth it IMHO.
I'm trying to decide if I prefer
- LIMP – Low-effort Implementation Makes Progress; or
- FINAL – Finish It Now, Amplify Later.
The first highlights how the point is to get somewhere, and floating around like a Brownian particle is not a good strategy for that. Setting up tiny gradients in the right direction will.
I like the second because it makes it clear that just because one finishes for now does not mean one cannot re-open the project later.
To extend the article's marriage analogy, in this case you would be highly invested in a small number of partners you really care about, but also having a bit of fun on the side.
It took me 40 years to realize that this is a really bad idea. Each project or hobby takes time. Each new skill takes a lot of time and focus to master.
Half-finished projects clutter your space and your mind. The biggest satisfaction is what I get from a project that is done-done. Not finishing anything will rob the satisfaction of a project.
Doing some Marie Kondo (deciding which things bring joy and getting rid of the rest) for your hobbies has been immensely liberating. Saying no to myself and not starting something new leaves space in my mind to enjoy other things much more.
So I would say, be picky about which hobby to take on and once you do it, be ready to invest some serious time into it. The joy you get out of a nice coffee table you built yourself from scratch is immeasurably greater than some tools, lumber and dust blocking your garage for years.
I don't know that that's in conflict with what this is saying.
Often, when I take on something that I don't have the knowledge or experience to complete, I don't know precisely what I'm lacking in advance. By doing, I discover my limitations and can explore them - starting often, but not randomly. Eventually, I can approach the original project with additional insight and do more, having brought up a pillar of a fundamental to a requisite height to build on.
If I only leaned into my strengths, I might not feel the need to grow. That doesn't mean I leave things undone, but I recognize that if I only work towards goals that are immediately attainable, I won't ever develop the capacity to do more.
Put another way, the "time to first coffee table" is a function of SOFA for tooling acquisition. From there, the time investment required to build subsequent coffee tables is reduced by prior knowledge.
When I start a lot of projects and only get halfway through them, I feel overwhelmed and frustrated by all the loose ends. I like to see projects through to release if I think they’re worth it, but that also requires a bit of self-imposed discipline. I don’t think there’s any shame in having a lot of half-finished projects, but I find more happiness in pushing myself to finish at least some of them.
> I feel overwhelmed and frustrated by all the loose ends.
I think the article is trying to help with exactly that: it's telling people to give themselves permission to abandon half-finished projects without guilt or frustration - so that you won't be immobilized by expecting those feelings every time you think about dabbling in something new.
I ask myself the question: Could this be of constructive use to other people? If so, there's a moral obligation to keep at it, despite some burden of drudgery to be carried.
This just seems like a bad idea. Starting things and not finishing them is just... The default. Whoever thinks that our society is too focused on commitment has really not been keeping up with social trends for the last few decades. Most people are cut loose from any kind of stability, community or enduring sense of identity.
I get that they're trying to go with "done does not need to mean perfect", but this way of putting it is too aggressive and I don't feel like it'll have good outcomes.
>Starting things and not finishing them is just... The default.
Exactly what I was going to write. I don't need a manifesto telling me to do this, this is what I do naturally unless I force myself to stick with something.
If anything, the "finish rarely [NOT never!]" bit is what needs emphasizing, yet the entire page is about the "start often" bit instead.
it's a good anti-perfectionist manifesto, as avoiding things you can't do well enough to present for credit is stultifying. but moderation is key.
the secret to SOFA may be to STFU about it, as if you're the person who talks about things they've maybe done once or are going to do but never finished, you're kind of dumb, but if you just do stuff, you end up having some surprising skills.
the effect of not talking about it also creates an attribution bias in your favour, where after pulling a few surprise rabbits out of hats, you become the magic hat guy. if you talk about all the things you have kind of done, you're just opinionated. I've been both, and after more than a decade of being conscious of mostly STFU'ing, I can say that some humility can be a superpower.
Look, this is a totally cool and fun approach to projects, always, and it's a totally cool life philosophy in your twenties. I wouldn't recommend it as a life philosophy for your thirties and beyond, and I suspect most people of that age know why.
The antithesis of discipline, what could possibly go wrong living your life this way?
Discipline is good for repetitive tasks. But it's hell on creativity.
That's the story of my life, SOFA king deep procrastinator.
It's like thinking of an idea, and fleshing it out just enough to understand that my idea was possible, gives me a feeling of achievement that makes it redundant to actually finish implementing the idea.
This is what my 20s looked like… It took over 10 years in my 30s/40s to regain the ability to finish anything.
I see this as a great way of focusing on the process instead of the goal, to have more fun and reduce press! To everyone here who argues for finishing things: You could still use this philosophy to start a project like ”learning how to finish something well” (to make finishing less goal oriented). And, if you have a good sense of what spontaneous projects to start, one day a bunch of your quickly started and disregarded small projects could accidentally turn out to fit well together to create something bigger. Starting many small things can lead to big things too.
SOFA works just fine with marriage, just tweak the vows:
“… to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, until I feel like this is done and want to move on. And done is when I say it’s done.”
There won’t be a dry eye in the house!
> a work is never truly completed [...] but abandoned;
Converted it to a short podcast.
https://zenmic.com/podcast/0wou
If only we could apply SOFA to every aspect of our lives, down to the core, I believe things would be radically different. For example, I firmly believe that Jesus was the ultimate SOFA king, and he would have applied SOFA to everything in his life, including both small and big things that we often feel are impossible to address.
I love it. This is going to be my new mantra.
Kind of reminds me of Crash Early, Crash Often: https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2017/07/13/crash-early-crash-ofte...
Let’s procrastinate while telling ourselves we are onto something.
Hacking?
In my world, hacking includes hacking your brain to finish what you have started.
This is more of a cracking.
What people calls 'love' is just a chemical reaction that compels animals to breed. - Rick & Morty
What people calls 'life' is just a chemical reaction that compels animals to comment on HN - Mick & Rorty
I haven't finished the reading of the post
I have finished the reading of the comment
Wow, this is brilliant! Sign me up!
The only universally useful advice is "all good advice is context dependent". SOFA is a good idea when you are learning, or when you want to have fun or feel inspired. It is obviously terrible advice if, you know, you need to finish things because other people only care about finished things.
This is literally the definition of a low value individual that doesn’t follow through on anything. Common to see these types of people on hoarders with hundreds of 10% done projects all around the property and a cane for their fraudulent disability payments.
JD Vance porn clickbait!