(In part 1, I talked about discovering a few weeks ago that there’s a name for the differences between myself and others, High-Functioning Autism, referred to as HFA from here on. This part focuses on my reactions to that discovery.) I’m still trying to make sense of my life in light of this new information. [...]
Archive of posts filed under the Know Thyself category.
Self-Discovery, Part 1
When I was in my late twenties, I ran across a checklist for depression. I was shocked to discover that I had nearly every symptom listed on it, and had for more than twenty years. I got treatment for it and discovered that life was nowhere near as difficult, painful, and pointless as it had [...]
Know Thyself: Context
If you’ve been following the Know Thyself entries in recent months, you’ll know that I’ve had trouble pursuing my goals in the last few years. Thanks to a few articles on StevePavlina.com, I’d tracked the problem down to a lack of purpose and context, but I didn’t know how to move forward from there. Trying [...]
Know Thyself: Goals, Context, and Purpose
A few months ago, I thought I’d found the answer to my motivation problems. A tweak to my purpose, thought I, and all would be well. As usual, things weren’t that simple… it helped, but after the initial surge of enthusiasm wore off, I discovered that it didn’t make enough difference to keep me moving. [...]
Know Thyself: Enthusiasm
This week, after more than six years of effort, I finally solved what seems to be the last theoretical problem to Project X. I have the entire high-level design now. Parts of it may still need some tweaks, but the whole thing hangs together remarkably well. It’s both a lot simpler overall, and a lot [...]
Know Thyself: Programming Style
This is the third follow-up to my my previous entry on self-knowledge and motivation. The entire series can be found here. I’ve finally figured out the problem that I’ve been having with motivation for working on Project X. It’s really pretty simple, and I don’t know why I didn’t realize it before. I’ve taken some [...]
Know Thyself: Self-Discipline
This is the second follow-up to my previous entry on self-knowledge and motivation. In the last article I talked about habit, and how I was able to establish some useful habits that let me overcome my urge to sleep all the time. Near the end, I noted that I wasn’t able to establish a habit [...]
Know Thyself: Habits
This is the first of several planned follow-ups to my previous entry on self-knowledge. As mentioned there, in the last year or so I haven’t had much reason to get out of bed in the morning. Literally — I was in bed until nearly noon most days, despite having gone to bed between midnight and [...]
Know Thyself
For the past several years, I’ve been trying to design and write a very ambitious programming project (referred to here as Project X). But even though I find the project fascinating and intellectually stimulating, recently I’ve found that I’ve had less and less drive to actually work on it. Last week, I saw another Ford [...]