"The Harder You Work, the More Discouraged You Feel? It Might Be Due to Not Mastering the Right Approach"

This article is Lu Canwei's 145th original piece.

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Before reading, let me ask you a question: If the wood on a ship is gradually replaced until none of the original wood remains, is it still the same ship?

Don't rush to answer, because this type of question has no definitive answer; it is known as the "Ship of Theseus."

Our bodies replace all the cells approximately every seven years. Some cells have a shorter lifespan, possibly renewing in just a month, such as stomach cells which renew every seven days, surface lung cells every 21 days, and skin cells every 28 days. The liver takes about 180 days to renew, bone cells take 7-10 years, and heart cells take 20 years.

You might say, if I just lie flat now, will I see a completely new me in seven years? Just thinking about it makes me happy.

However, the reality isn't so rosy. New cells are produced by the division of old cells, so the bad habits of old cells will also be passed on to new cells. Similarly, if you lie flat, in seven years you will only lie flatter.

This means we need to make some changes.

Is persistence useful?

Everyone knows that I have been updating my public account daily for 100 days. I believe you also know that I previously mentioned the original intention of daily updates, which is to force output to drive input. So why has my public account not been updated for a while? The high emotional intelligence explanation is that I have been thinking about how to output content in a more systematic and modular way, and improve the quality of the content. The low emotional intelligence explanation is that I have been a bit lazy lately...

Through 100 days of persistence, I have developed a reading habit, and I input information in three forms: e-books, paper books, and audiobooks. I jot down some fragmented notes on Flomo. If I were to write an article every day based on a single fragment of information, the depth would not be sufficient, meaning I no longer need to force input through output.

However, despite 100 days of persistence, my writing skills have not significantly improved. Although writing thousands of words is no pressure, there is too much fluff, and sometimes I can't even stand to read my own work (including this one). Recently, I have been reading "The Analects: A Different Interpretation," which contains profound truths in just a few words. Conciseness is very important. For example, Liu Run's articles always manage to clarify things with very brief statements, which is something I need to learn.

If this is the goal, can writing every day achieve it? There seems to be a question here: Is repetition related to iteration? For instance, if I run 5 kilometers every day, review daily, and read daily, can I lose weight by running 5 kilometers every day, improve efficiency through daily reviews, and become better through daily reading?

It seems not necessarily so. First, running 5 kilometers every day might lead to choosing a longer time and slower pace just to reach that distance, which could also result in eating more. Daily reviews might turn into writing a diary, listing 123 things done today. Daily reading often results in forgetting most of the content, like a book I read a few weeks ago called "Live Well," written by a 105-year-old man, which has recently become popular, but I can no longer remember its contents.

So where does the problem lie?

If a pool is filled with water and we leave it unattended, it may become dirty, disgusting, and green over time. However, why doesn't the water in the mountains flow in the same way? People would say it's the difference between stagnant water and flowing water. Can we understand this as: flow represents movement, and movement generates energy, allowing the entire system to enter a state of self-circulation and renewal?

In other words, if a system stops moving, it will only get worse, not better. This is why choosing to lie flat will only lead to lying flatter in the future. Here, I also introduce the concept of entropy from an important model in thermodynamics mentioned in previous articles. Many people are already familiar with entropy; it represents chaos, and less entropy means fewer states.

What are states? For example, if I clean the litter box every day, my cat will use the litter box. This is one state. However, if I am lazy and do not clean the litter box, the cat might urinate on my bed, my bag, or anywhere unpredictable, which means more states. More states represent chaos, disorder, and the unknown.

Once I stop cleaning the litter box, my room enters a state of increasing entropy, becoming more chaotic. Are we humans any different? If we do not intervene, we will become increasingly useless.

For instance, if I want to lose weight, I know I need to eat less and move more. Many people eat less and move more for a few days, only to revert to their original habits.

Why does this happen? If we imagine ourselves as a closed system, and suddenly an angelic figure pops up saying, "You are too fat; you need to exercise and lose weight," it is equivalent to making an entropy-reducing action through an internal switch, turning uncertainty on the left into certainty on the right.

However, if the duration of this switch is too short, the system will again undergo entropy increase, reverting to a chaotic state, and we will be back to square one. Suppose we are suddenly endowed with extraordinary willpower, and the angelic figure beats down the demonic figure; at this point, all uncertainties become certainties, resulting in the angel losing its job...

The new certain system then becomes a closed system again, which may explain why I run 5 kilometers every day but still cannot lose weight. This reminds me of a term: involution.

Of course, many times we are not endowed with extraordinary willpower; instead, we are often fragile and sensitive, and the angel can only work as a temporary helper. So how do we break this cycle?

The answer is to transform ourselves from a closed system into an open system, leveraging external energy input to achieve entropy reduction. In simpler terms, it means seeking help from others and not getting caught up in our own struggles. Essentially, it involves utilizing external forces to establish power outside our own system, one method being to create rituals outside of our brains.

For example, if you plan to exercise in the evening but find yourself lying down and not wanting to go out, lying down becomes your preparation ritual for not going out. However, if you go directly to the gym after work instead of returning home, that journey becomes your ritual for going to the gym.

For instance, when I want to write an article, I often have various ideas and things I want to write about, but I end up just thinking without moving my fingers. Later, I established a preparation ritual: I write a tentative title before starting to write. Like Mu Wen, who shares in the group, always sends a red envelope before sharing, which naturally leads to the sharing. Similarly, the director puts on workout clothes every morning before starting to exercise.

Rituals can be seen as transforming our decision-making process of what we need to think about into actionable decisions.

Through this external ritual, we can transform ourselves, as a closed system, into an open system, injecting energy from the outside to create internal flow, making things more orderly, reducing our states, and achieving an entropy reduction effect.

There is a book called "Outliers," which introduces the famous 10,000-hour rule, suggesting that anyone who practices for over 10,000 hours can become an expert in that field. So, if I run 5 kilometers every day for an hour, while others only need half an hour, and I have been running for 40 days, am I not able to achieve the same results as those who have practiced for 10,000 hours? If after 10,000 hours I still cannot surpass them, what is the meaning of those 10,000 hours?

When I am a closed system, internally reducing entropy through persistence, I become an open system. When one side of the system is empty, the other system will again become a closed system and begin to increase entropy.

When we transition from not exercising to running 5 kilometers every day, the original closed system of inactivity transforms into an open system of inactivity and running 5 kilometers. If we persist in running 5 kilometers every day, the system will become a closed system of running 5 kilometers daily. Of course, you can revert to the open system of inactivity and running 5 kilometers, and eventually, your energy may revert to a closed system of inactivity.

Now, let me answer the initial question: Is persistence useful? Yes, it is. Is blind persistence useful? Yes, it is. However, once the current model enters a comfort zone, it needs to jump out of that comfort zone and establish a new mechanism; otherwise, you will only become the king of involution.

Deliberate Practice

Earlier, I mentioned that if I practice for 10,000 hours, I can become a master. So, after playing so many years of "Honor of Kings," why can't I become a professional player? Some classmates who chose Yao and Cai Wenji (support heroes in the game) have already reached the rank of Glory King early on. I don't see them playing more than I do.

So how do they play? They find skilled players to team up and rank up. Meanwhile, you are stuck in solo queue, getting wrecked by the algorithm. So the question arises: Can practicing for a few hundred hours achieve the same effect as 10,000 hours? Are those labeled as geniuses truly gifted?

I believe everyone knows about Mozart. He could play the harpsichord and the fortepiano from a young age, and he played the violin; calling him a genius is an understatement. However, it seems that many people overlook one thing: Mozart's father was actually an unsuccessful musician and composer. From a very young age, Mozart's father trained him, and by the time he was around 15, he had nearly 10 years of practice under his belt.

Scientists found some violin students and recorded how much time they spent practicing before the age of 18. They discovered that the average student practiced for 3,420 hours, while excellent students practiced for 5,301 hours, and the most outstanding students averaged 7,401 hours. So if every student practiced for the same amount of time, why do some excel while others do not?

They found that these individuals practiced with purpose and had clear, specific goals. For example, one subject started out unable to remember a string of 7-8 digit numbers and eventually could remember strings of hundreds of digits. His goal was to remember one more digit than the last time, and during practice, he focused on the task at hand, incorporating feedback to identify areas of weakness and how those weaknesses arose.

Another group of people you may have heard of is those with savant syndrome, often found in individuals with autism or brain injuries. Scientists discovered that they typically excel in specific areas, such as playing instruments, painting, memory, mental calculation, and calendar calculation abilities.

Then scientists compared some autistic children and found that those with savant syndrome paid more attention to detail and exhibited repetitive behaviors regarding certain tasks. When something captured their attention, they would focus entirely on it, disregarding everything else, and practice obsessively.

From a young age, we have all heard about how other people's children seem smarter, which seems to be a childhood nightmare for everyone. So, are we really less intelligent than others? Are those who become great scientists inherently smarter or have higher IQs than us?

One of the most famous scientists of the 20th century, Richard Feynman, the genius behind the Feynman Technique, had an IQ of only 126. If we believe in the existence of geniuses, we may fall into a self-fulfilling prophecy. For example, if someone tells you that you are not physically fit and cannot excel in sports, or that if you dislike numbers, you cannot be good at math, these prophecies can mysteriously come true.

Recently, during a daily update, many people told me I had a talent for writing and could produce so much content. I said it’s not that complicated; if you want to write, you can do it too. In terms of intelligence, I think we are all about the same; after all, Feynman only had an IQ of 126. In terms of knowledge, I certainly don’t have as much as you all do, since you learned quite a bit during your four years of university.

I simply progressed from writing 800 words to over 1,200, and then gradually to 1,500, 1,800, 2,000, 2,500, and 3,000+ words, accumulating over time. This article may seem long, but I didn’t write it all at once.

I have interviewed many people; some have many years of experience, yet their abilities are worse than those of younger individuals with less experience. After many years in technical management, my technical skills are no longer as sharp as those of technical experts who have specialized for many years. Based on my own hiring standards, I probably wouldn’t qualify.

Recently, due to certain reasons, I needed to develop some things myself and learn new technologies and frameworks. By employing deliberate practice, I was able to get the hang of it in about a week. I set a goal, found a reference to imitate, then replaced parts with my own content, and finally completed a case study, continuously replicating new features based on that case.

In conclusion,

After all this rambling, what I want to express is that whether it’s the content mentioned in "Deliberate Practice" or the law of entropy, they essentially convey the same message: break boundaries and escape your comfort zone to foster personal growth. Just like in the manga "Attack on Titan," after breaking the wall, one discovers that there is a world with oceans beyond, realizing they were trapped on an island, and that this world has planes and cannons.

Recently, the widely discussed incident involving a certain person and their obsessive behavior is a clear example of a lack of deliberate practice. They kept grinding in the beginner's area, only to be instantly defeated by a boss. In reality, once we dismantle the walls of our thinking, we realize we can accomplish anything.

Not long ago, a friend mentioned a company example: Tesla aims to sell 20 million cars in a year, while another company says selling 100,000 this year is enough. In comparison, which one can go further? Even if Tesla doesn’t reach 20 million, a 50% reduction still gives them 10 million, while the other company’s ceiling is just 100,000.

There’s a book called "Flow" that mentions an experiment where participants were given a device that would beep at random times, and they had to tell researchers what they were doing and how they felt at that moment.

The result was that these individuals were generally not in a good mood, and some even resorted to cursing at others. This feeling is akin to entering a state of flow, losing track of time, only to be abruptly interrupted by the device. So, you can understand why programmers often dislike product managers.

In today’s society, there is too much white noise and information overload, making it difficult to achieve this so-called state of flow. Personally, I keep my phone on Do Not Disturb mode almost 24 hours a day, and I haven’t found it inconvenient. You’ll notice that many messages don’t require an immediate response; if someone is truly urgent, they will call you. Those important calls from strangers will at least try to reach you 2-3 times if you don’t answer.

The key lies in focus, breaking boundaries, and practice. If we can persist in these areas, our understanding will experience exponential growth.

Recently, I’ve been writing less, and some friends have asked what I’ve been up to. Actually, I’ve been focusing on two things: self-improvement and mental cultivation. Self-improvement is quite literal, involving maintaining exercise and reducing body fat, while mental cultivation involves reading books related to Stoic philosophy.

The core idea is to handle daily problems using the three-part control method, focusing only on things we can control. Occasionally, I engage in negative visualization; for example, there are two fathers who lost their children. One had done a lot of imagining while his child was alive, so he cherished the time spent with his child. When the child passed away, he didn’t fall into despair but instead found peace. The other father, however, fell into regret and self-blame every day after his child’s departure, unable to escape that state.

When we realize that everything will eventually disappear, we will cherish what we have in the present even more.

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