I think a good rule of thumb is that people are strongly overly biased towards inaction and laziness. Humans evolved in a calorie-scarce environment. Conserving energy and effort was literally a matter of survival. It makes sense to select for lazy behavior, especially when rewards are intangible or not immediately guaranteed.
Of course in the modern world, calories are too cheap to meter. Our instincts no longer make sense. It's almost certainly the case that our laziness, driven by a vestigial impulse to conserve calories, far exceeds what's optimal or necessary.
The one exception to this is the tiredness of sleep deprivation. Critical biological functions occurs in deep sleep, and being exhausted due to lack of sleep cannot be made up with extra calories. The best advice is to never allow yourself to become sleep deprived. That removes any ambiguity about whether a perceived lack of energy is genuine exhaustion or can be powered through with willpower.
So true. I used to burn out fast whenever I was very motivated about some goal. Now when I feel that motivation, I think about the long term and make it a priority to keep a regular schedule and avoid burn-out.
Eh. Idk. Being lazy has it's advantages like inventing a machine that can do the plowing for you. There are definitely limits and tendencies but I'm not big into this kind of overgeneralization.
Actual laziness wouldn’t have led to such inventions. It is still work to create things. The programming community uses this kind of example a lot, but that’s a different kind of laziness more akin to hating repetition.
The book "Exercised" by the Harvard anthropologist Daniel Lieberman mentions exactly this claim - that in hunter gatherer societies, people actually rest for most of the day. Still their average lifespan is about 70 years.
> we see that on average 57 percent, 64 percent, and 67 percent of children born survive to age 15 years among hunter-gatherers, forager-horticulturalists, and acculturated hunter-gatherers.
In his book Oxygen, Nick Lane argues that most age related diseases are a function of cumulative oxidative stress, particularly in the mitochodria. He suggests that vigorous exercise is actually more stressful than lower intensity exercise, as well as the effects of calorie restriction etc on how the body handles the longevity vs reproduction balance. I think this may have a part to play in hunter gatherer societies, which were calorie restricted, and also relaxing most of the day :)
You make a good and valid point. But I'd suggest there is probably more than one exception. For people dealing with cancer, chronic fatigue, clinical depression or a bunch of other things I'm not thinking of, the advice to "just power through" is pretty damaging, physically and emotionally.
Just as often pointing out the 5% is then used as an excuse to not do something, even when the advice does apply. The number of times I've brought up how much a healthy lifestyle matters to have it dismissed because someone they knew/heard of died at 30 from cancer despite being vegetarian and exercising all the time is rather high.
These are probably people that don't want to live a healthy lifestyle and no amount of pointing at the negatives will change that. Their point isn't "healthy lifestyle doesn't help" but rather "some people beat themself up and make themself miserable with this health stuff and then don't even reap the benefits of that".
Not sure if you misread it but your “yes” sounds like maybe you read this as a question: “Is it...”, and not the “It is...” that OP wrote.
I want to reiterate that for people with few spoons [1], they don’t need to get permission to be allowed to only do what works for them, or to feel shame for not being able to do what can seem easier for others: i.e. ‘powering through’.
I’ve seen this ugly thing where people make all sorts of assumptions about me, and perhaps unconsciously, yet verbally, speak out their train of thought, which means they often say something that ‘excuses me’ for not ‘powering through’, or that after reminding them of my background, that they now understand why I do not force myself to ‘power through’. It feels shit and it sucks because it’s a constant reminder of the ruthless productivity that is expected in many areas in modern life. A conversation like this can also slowly lure me back into taking on way too much, way too fast, and not properly looking after myself or others.
Something like "But I'd suggest..." is a good example for using "'And' NOT Bbut'" [0] to avoid the connotation of contradiction implied when using 'but'. Very useful like in this case where the intention is amendment rather than contradiction.
Can you elaborate why "just power through" is pretty damaging?
Anecdote:
When I depressed or stressed, taking action and following a preset list of tasks (brush teeth, hit the gym, make lunch) doesn't 'cure' my mood, but it does reduce my anxiety/stress/depression.
By "powering through it" I stop stress driven by inaction (e.g. not brushing my teeth while result even more stress later).
If I stick with my routine, it reduces my cognitive load, allowing my brain time to calm down. Its similar to how mediation helps you stay calm. Following the routine reduces the number of decisions I need to make.
As much as I might want, taking a sick day to lay in bed all day doesn't help anything and would make me more depressed as I think about all of the stuff I should of done.
I totally get what you're saying with your anecdote and agree that taking action can often be helpful at reducing anxiety/stress/depression.
Another anecdote is that sometimes "just power through" is a trigger phrase that leads down a path of shame and self-criticism which only serve to fuel deeper depression/anxiety/stress and so forth. There's a cultural myth that people who struggle are weak and less than people who are successful. Depression can really amplify that story. When I'm in that place I need to scale back expectations, find something (anything) I can do that's healthy, and cut myself some slack. The truth is we all struggle and success has many dimensions.
The "just power through" line isn't wrong, in fact, it's exactly what I need to hear sometimes. But it can also be exactly the wrong thing. I think it needs a heavy dose of empathy and compassion along with it.
>Humans evolved in a calorie-scarce environment. Conserving energy and effort was literally a matter of survival. It makes sense to select for lazy behavior, especially when rewards are intangible or not immediately guaranteed.
i dont think that first part proves the second one, conserving energy is important but so is figuring out how to obtain more energy and more importantly reproduction and survival. I dont think its fair to say that humans didnt evolve to invest energy without imidiate gratification, or that our brains natural reward system is poorly suited for science/math.
Personally i dont see it as a struggle to overcome my nature so much as a struggle to alter my lifestyle and biases such that they are in harmony with my nature.
> Of course in the modern world, calories are too cheap to meter. Our instincts no longer make sense.
Maybe for intellectual laborers in the global north. Not for the starving billion who are barely surviving, yet are also producing all the commodities global north capitalists force them to make: often after having been forcefully bribed/expelled from their land, mostly by ruthless global north firms together with corrupt governments. [1]
Of course in the modern world, calories are too cheap to meter. Our instincts no longer make sense. It's almost certainly the case that our laziness, driven by a vestigial impulse to conserve calories, far exceeds what's optimal or necessary.
The one exception to this is the tiredness of sleep deprivation. Critical biological functions occurs in deep sleep, and being exhausted due to lack of sleep cannot be made up with extra calories. The best advice is to never allow yourself to become sleep deprived. That removes any ambiguity about whether a perceived lack of energy is genuine exhaustion or can be powered through with willpower.