While akrasia is still an enormous problem for me (as it always has been), it is oh-so-slowly becoming less of one. I have always been a fairly devil-may-care person regarding responsibilities and schoolwork, possibly due to early encouragement about being “smart” and “talented”, which led me to think that I didn’t HAVE to work hard -an idea that was unfortunately born out in many ways by the evidence throughout my adolescence. I had the impression that I had some kind of supernatural power of avoiding consequences, that I was in some way vastly better and more intelligent than my peers, and so on. This in spite of being an avowed materialist and agnostic; my beliefs weren’t propagating properly. LessWrong opened my eyes: The world is allowed to kill me, my innate talents are not enough to get through life (I have to work hard!), and there are right and wrong decisions based on the evidence. Since then (it’s been about a year) I’ve been trying to turn myself into the kind of person who Gets Shit Done. I still haven’t finished the Sequences (I’m apparently too akratic even to sit down and plow through something I enjoy reading), so I’m sure there’s a great deal more for me to learn… But if nothing else, x-rationality has given me the clarity to know what needs to be done.
While akrasia is still an enormous problem for me (as it always has been), it is oh-so-slowly becoming less of one. I have always been a fairly devil-may-care person regarding responsibilities and schoolwork, possibly due to early encouragement about being “smart” and “talented”, which led me to think that I didn’t HAVE to work hard -an idea that was unfortunately born out in many ways by the evidence throughout my adolescence. I had the impression that I had some kind of supernatural power of avoiding consequences, that I was in some way vastly better and more intelligent than my peers, and so on. This in spite of being an avowed materialist and agnostic; my beliefs weren’t propagating properly. LessWrong opened my eyes: The world is allowed to kill me, my innate talents are not enough to get through life (I have to work hard!), and there are right and wrong decisions based on the evidence. Since then (it’s been about a year) I’ve been trying to turn myself into the kind of person who Gets Shit Done. I still haven’t finished the Sequences (I’m apparently too akratic even to sit down and plow through something I enjoy reading), so I’m sure there’s a great deal more for me to learn… But if nothing else, x-rationality has given me the clarity to know what needs to be done.