Pick discontentment with the things you can change Dec 01
18 comments Latest by kaushal
There’s a fine line between being indifferent with the state of things and using Reddit to express your every displeasure with all facets of life. In between is the discontentment you can use to light a fire under your productivity.
The key is to focus on the discontent with things that you can actually change. Get riled up about your programming environment and submit a patch. Become annoyed with how the text flows on your company homepage and rewrite it. Feel guilty about the UI of a common action in your application and redesign it.
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
— Reinhold Niebuhr
When you find people who embrace this idea, you’ll usually find people with exactly the pointed drive that gives them the power to Get Things Done. Hire them.
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18 comments so far
Steven Soroka 01 Dec 08
I was just thinking about this.. Eerie.
Juarez P. A. Filho 01 Dec 08
That’s really nice. Find people like that is too complicated, but I met some this year. Thanks for share.
JF 01 Dec 08
I love that quote.
Anonymous Coward 01 Dec 08
Unfortunately, Americans seem to have applied this concept to politics. I know a lot of people who would be frustrated with our government but put on a happy face because they’re apathetic about it. They instead choose to be discontented about things like traffic and the weather.
As for programming, I think this guideline is likely to be misapplied. Sometimes the most difficult thing to change really has to be changed. Otherwise you might just be putting lipstick on a pig.
Nash 01 Dec 08
Brilliant, our next hire will be straight from AA or NA or any other 12 step program. :)
The sentiment is absolutely spot on though.
Dave Hoover 01 Dec 08
We have an adaptation of this quote hanging in our Studio:
It certainly helps our team, especially when we’re dealing with a tough, legacy codebase.Mauricio 01 Dec 08
Very nicely written!
GeeIWonder 01 Dec 08
Love the quote, good post. But I think you should be careful in your interpretation, as you yourself hint with the ‘fine line’.
RN’s advice is not intended absolute or static - it’s almost mathematical/recursive - something like a least-cost function. Don’t waste energy trying to fix what you cannot change from your current state, and instead focus on moving towards a better state. Repeat (this part is implied, but essential if you believe, as I do, that he’s not advocating apathy). The ‘wisdom to know the difference’ is the part that keeps you out of local minima for those problems where you are able to escape in the first place.
Jason 01 Dec 08
Words to live by…
James Currie 01 Dec 08
Yeah, Niebuhr packed a lot of wisdom into that statement. See the full quote here: http://snipr.com/7079g
Mark Holton 01 Dec 08
Love that. A nice and simple sentiment—motivating and helps sharpen focus. Many thanks for effective words of wisdom, Mr. DHH .
CJ Curtis 01 Dec 08
Just because we don’t have the power to change something does not make it acceptable.
Jesper 01 Dec 08
CJ: that’s true, but if you have a limited time to sort the issues out, time might be better spent fixing the things you can fix. When you’re actually getting more stuff done you are more productive, you will be more productive next time around and you feel happier.
(Sometimes, you can also fix the things you “can’t” fix and sometimes this is really important, but it usually takes a lot more work.)
CJ Curtis 02 Dec 08
For the most part, sure…do what you can, screw the rest. But this attitude is a little too commonplace, and it often becomes an excuse for mediocrity.
As it pertains to our work, there is really very little that CAN ’T be changed.
Mark Holton 02 Dec 08
a friend reminded me… the Niebuhr quote is also known as “The Serenity Prayer” ...crystallizes a great positive focus applicable in many areas, imo.
GeeIWonder 02 Dec 08
For the most part, sure…do what you can, screw the rest. But this attitude is a little too commonplace, and it often becomes an excuse for mediocrity
Agreed. One can make an argument, I think, that ‘time might be better spent’ attitude goes precisely against what the quote intends.
Solving non trivial problems when it’s possible is certainly worthwhile, even if you could ‘get more stuff done’ for relatively trivial problems that are obviously solvable. This is why identifying when it’s possible from when it’s not is non-obvious, and the point of emphasis in the sentence.
Bob 02 Dec 08
Every time I read that quote, I have to examine a lot of what is bothering me at the moment and really prioritize things so that I am focusing on the real problems that I need to work on instead of focusing on the things that either can’t be changed or aren’t worth changing because they have little impact on anything.
Thank you for the reminder.
kaushal 02 Dec 08
I completely agree with your point.
A group of us was very discontent with the experience that a business user goes through while using business software. This includes both how these tools work and how they get deployed and managed within firms.
So, we have gone ahead and launched a comic strip on the agonies of a business user while dealing with enterprise software. We hope that this we get the business users to demand better experience from the systems they have to use at work.
You can check out the comic at http://blog.uhuroo.com
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