I think it is simpler than this. Rather than telling people to do what they love, we should tell them to serve what they love. When we serve what we love, we tackle the annoyances joyfully, because that is the nature of the service we seek to give. Indeed, when we serve what we love, we seek out the area of greatest annoyance because that is where the greatest opportunity for service exists.
Then, it makes sense to increase your surface area for good annoyance by consuming new materials, staying curious, and exposing yourself to new experiences or even the happenings in your society, so you improve your chances or luck of being in the right position to solve meaningful problems.
I like this approach Aisha. I've been teaching this as a career exploration technique. First, ask students what problems they want to solve. Next, help them figure out what they need to learn to be able to do that.
Reminds me of how Richard Feynman felt about physics at one point:
"Physics disgusts me a little bit now, but I used to enjoy doing physics. Why did I enjoy it? I used to play with it. I used to do whatever I felt like doing—it didn’t have to do with whether it was important for the development of nuclear physics, but whether it was interesting and amusing for me to play with.
When I was in high school, I’d see water running out of a faucet growing narrower and wonder if I could figure out what determines that curve. I found it was rather easy to do. I didn’t have to do it; it wasn’t important for the future of science; somebody else had already done it. That didn’t make any difference: I’d invent things and play with things for my own entertainment.
So I got this new attitude. Now that I am burned out and I’ll never accomplish anything, I’ve got this nice position at the university teaching classes, which I rather enjoy. And just like I read The Arabian Nights for pleasure, I’m going to play with physics whenever I want to, without worrying about any importance whatsoever.
Within a week I was in the cafeteria and some guy, fooling around, throws a plate in the air. As the plate went up in the air I saw it wobble, and I noticed the red medallion of Cornell on the plate going around. It was pretty obvious to me that the medallion went around faster than the wobbling.
I had nothing to do, so I started to figure out the motion of the rotating plate. I discovered that when the angle is very slight, the medallion rotates twice as fast as the wobble rate—two to one. It came out of a complicated equation! Then I thought, “Is there some way I can see in a more fundamental way, by looking at the forces or the dynamics, why it’s two to one?”
I don’t remember how I did it, but I ultimately worked out what the motion of the mass particles is, and how all the accelerations balance to make it come out two to one.
I still remember going to Hans Bethe and saying, “Hey, Hans! I noticed something interesting. Here the plate goes around so, and the reason it’s two to one is…” and I showed him the accelerations.
He says, “Feynman, that’s pretty interesting, but what’s the importance of it? Why are you doing it?”
“Hah!” I say. “There’s no importance whatsoever. I’m just doing it for the fun of it.”
His reaction didn’t discourage me; I had made up my mind I was going to enjoy physics and do whatever I liked.
I went on to work out equations of wobbles. Then I thought about how electron orbits start to move in relativity. Then there’s the Dirac Equation in electrodynamics. And then quantum electrodynamics. And before I knew it (it was a very short time) I was playing—working, really—with the same old problem that I loved so much, that I had stopped working on when I went to Los Alamos: my thesis-type problems; all those old-fashioned, wonderful things.
It was effortless. It was easy to play with these things. It was like uncorking a bottle: everything flowed out effortlessly. I almost tried to resist it! There was no importance to what I was doing, but ultimately there was.
The diagrams and the whole business that I got the Nobel Prize for came from that piddling around with the wobbling plate."
Source: “Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!”: Adventures of a Curious Character by Richard Feynman
This resonates with my current experience helping to raise my granddaughter. My daughter once asked me, with some annoyance, why it was that, if I loved my grandbaby so much, I would say "Ugh" if she assigned me a long shift and I would negotiate for a shorter shift. I said, "No matter how much you love your job, you're glad when 5:00 rolls around."
Taking care of that kid -- or any kid -- is immensely trying. There's so much peeing and pooping and screaming and bug-eating and risk-taking. But meanwhile there are moments of pure bliss, plus that pink glow of fulfillment when you look back at the day! I'm absolutely addicted.
This is always the thing that frightened me about having children––what if it's annoying? It's much less scary to realize that yes of course it's annoying a lot of the time, and that's fine.
There's a strain of altruism that looks like doing nice things just because it feels nice, but I think the response-to-negativity kind is more common. That's why more people will help a stranger in distress than take time out of their day to plant flowers in a decidedly non-annoying public green space. The planting-flowers kind of altruism is really special.
So far my favourite piece from the recent discussions surrounding friction/annoyance/productivity myths. “Fun fades, but irritation is infinite” and “Annoyance is the only truly renewable resource known to man” should become instant Substack classics. It’s very late where I live and I would love to have anything of substance to say but just great job. My favourite newsletter for yet another year.
Adam some excellent points here. When I was active in the community and people would ask my motivation, I truthfully replied “revenge”. I wanted to right a wrong.
I thought perhaps I was just a nasty person, but you’ve shown me that I was completely normal 🤣
I remember an interview for my dream job (consumer research analyst) in which I was describing a research project I had done but wasn't able to bring the research to completion.
"Did that bug you?" the manager interviewing me asked.
"Yeah" I said.
The manager smiled.
I got the job because those were the people they wanted to hire. People who were more than slightly obsessed with answering questions and liked knowing they took the research as far as possible.
And yeah, it's annoying. It feels like the universe is slightly out of whack. But it feels so good when I get to bring it back into proper alignment.
What a great read! I've been thinking a lot about this lately, the false dream we're sold as kids. Anything worth doing is going to have frustrating times, mundane times, and awesome times. I love how you've described it. I'm going to remember this every time I'm annoyed and try not to run away from it.
I really like this post and find the points to be accurate. When I was young, I wanted to do so many things. I loved photography, filmmaking and radio broadcasting. Each of these I wanted to do for a living when I was doing them in school. But after awhile, I didn't think I was good enough and decided to do something practical so I became a psychotherapist. My clients didn't annoy me, it was the administration every time. They wanted me to do things a certain way so I did. My paperwork was always perfect, my clients kept coming back. But I was late a lot and got fired from every job for this annoying flaw in myself. I became so angry when this happened to me. After all, I was good at what I did. After 25 years, I retired. What a relief! I walk dogs now. They can be annoying but in general, I find my life pretty gratifying without people telling me what to do.
Great essay! So true. I am, was, a lawyer. I had annoyances, but overall, it was, is a great career. At 74, I still mediate and arbitrate so I can hang with other lawyers (most of whom I like) and exercise the mind.
I think it is simpler than this. Rather than telling people to do what they love, we should tell them to serve what they love. When we serve what we love, we tackle the annoyances joyfully, because that is the nature of the service we seek to give. Indeed, when we serve what we love, we seek out the area of greatest annoyance because that is where the greatest opportunity for service exists.
This reminds me of how Orson Scott Card describes being moved by God in his "Women of Genesis" series (which is great).
"It's a textured pleasure" is one of the best ways I've ever heard this sensation described. Thanks for another wonderful read, Adam.
Then, it makes sense to increase your surface area for good annoyance by consuming new materials, staying curious, and exposing yourself to new experiences or even the happenings in your society, so you improve your chances or luck of being in the right position to solve meaningful problems.
agreed!
I like this approach Aisha. I've been teaching this as a career exploration technique. First, ask students what problems they want to solve. Next, help them figure out what they need to learn to be able to do that.
Reminds me of how Richard Feynman felt about physics at one point:
"Physics disgusts me a little bit now, but I used to enjoy doing physics. Why did I enjoy it? I used to play with it. I used to do whatever I felt like doing—it didn’t have to do with whether it was important for the development of nuclear physics, but whether it was interesting and amusing for me to play with.
When I was in high school, I’d see water running out of a faucet growing narrower and wonder if I could figure out what determines that curve. I found it was rather easy to do. I didn’t have to do it; it wasn’t important for the future of science; somebody else had already done it. That didn’t make any difference: I’d invent things and play with things for my own entertainment.
So I got this new attitude. Now that I am burned out and I’ll never accomplish anything, I’ve got this nice position at the university teaching classes, which I rather enjoy. And just like I read The Arabian Nights for pleasure, I’m going to play with physics whenever I want to, without worrying about any importance whatsoever.
Within a week I was in the cafeteria and some guy, fooling around, throws a plate in the air. As the plate went up in the air I saw it wobble, and I noticed the red medallion of Cornell on the plate going around. It was pretty obvious to me that the medallion went around faster than the wobbling.
I had nothing to do, so I started to figure out the motion of the rotating plate. I discovered that when the angle is very slight, the medallion rotates twice as fast as the wobble rate—two to one. It came out of a complicated equation! Then I thought, “Is there some way I can see in a more fundamental way, by looking at the forces or the dynamics, why it’s two to one?”
I don’t remember how I did it, but I ultimately worked out what the motion of the mass particles is, and how all the accelerations balance to make it come out two to one.
I still remember going to Hans Bethe and saying, “Hey, Hans! I noticed something interesting. Here the plate goes around so, and the reason it’s two to one is…” and I showed him the accelerations.
He says, “Feynman, that’s pretty interesting, but what’s the importance of it? Why are you doing it?”
“Hah!” I say. “There’s no importance whatsoever. I’m just doing it for the fun of it.”
His reaction didn’t discourage me; I had made up my mind I was going to enjoy physics and do whatever I liked.
I went on to work out equations of wobbles. Then I thought about how electron orbits start to move in relativity. Then there’s the Dirac Equation in electrodynamics. And then quantum electrodynamics. And before I knew it (it was a very short time) I was playing—working, really—with the same old problem that I loved so much, that I had stopped working on when I went to Los Alamos: my thesis-type problems; all those old-fashioned, wonderful things.
It was effortless. It was easy to play with these things. It was like uncorking a bottle: everything flowed out effortlessly. I almost tried to resist it! There was no importance to what I was doing, but ultimately there was.
The diagrams and the whole business that I got the Nobel Prize for came from that piddling around with the wobbling plate."
Source: “Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!”: Adventures of a Curious Character by Richard Feynman
This resonates with my current experience helping to raise my granddaughter. My daughter once asked me, with some annoyance, why it was that, if I loved my grandbaby so much, I would say "Ugh" if she assigned me a long shift and I would negotiate for a shorter shift. I said, "No matter how much you love your job, you're glad when 5:00 rolls around."
Taking care of that kid -- or any kid -- is immensely trying. There's so much peeing and pooping and screaming and bug-eating and risk-taking. But meanwhile there are moments of pure bliss, plus that pink glow of fulfillment when you look back at the day! I'm absolutely addicted.
This is always the thing that frightened me about having children––what if it's annoying? It's much less scary to realize that yes of course it's annoying a lot of the time, and that's fine.
It's so wonderfully annoying!
It's even better to be annoyed on their behalf!
'MY kid shouldn't have to put up with that bullshit ...'
There's a strain of altruism that looks like doing nice things just because it feels nice, but I think the response-to-negativity kind is more common. That's why more people will help a stranger in distress than take time out of their day to plant flowers in a decidedly non-annoying public green space. The planting-flowers kind of altruism is really special.
'What IS this public green space MISSING?'
A notification that you posted something new always brighten my day. Thank you for yet another chaotically optimistic and hopeful read, Adam
He's been KILLING it lately!
So far my favourite piece from the recent discussions surrounding friction/annoyance/productivity myths. “Fun fades, but irritation is infinite” and “Annoyance is the only truly renewable resource known to man” should become instant Substack classics. It’s very late where I live and I would love to have anything of substance to say but just great job. My favourite newsletter for yet another year.
This answered SO MANY questions that had been bothering me!
Adam some excellent points here. When I was active in the community and people would ask my motivation, I truthfully replied “revenge”. I wanted to right a wrong.
I thought perhaps I was just a nasty person, but you’ve shown me that I was completely normal 🤣
'I SEEK VENGEANCE.' 😎
I remember an interview for my dream job (consumer research analyst) in which I was describing a research project I had done but wasn't able to bring the research to completion.
"Did that bug you?" the manager interviewing me asked.
"Yeah" I said.
The manager smiled.
I got the job because those were the people they wanted to hire. People who were more than slightly obsessed with answering questions and liked knowing they took the research as far as possible.
And yeah, it's annoying. It feels like the universe is slightly out of whack. But it feels so good when I get to bring it back into proper alignment.
"Bored employees leave, irritated* employees achieve" 🙂
*in the right way
fantastic read!! i’ve found personally, im quite motivated by spite too, which obviously starts as annoyance as well. thank you for this
OH GOD YES
'Fuck that guy/org/company/group/inanimate-thing ...'
I was going to “like” this post anyway but seeing the counter stuck annoying at 333 only reinforced my decision.
What a great read! I've been thinking a lot about this lately, the false dream we're sold as kids. Anything worth doing is going to have frustrating times, mundane times, and awesome times. I love how you've described it. I'm going to remember this every time I'm annoyed and try not to run away from it.
YES – learn to love annoyance!
I really like this post and find the points to be accurate. When I was young, I wanted to do so many things. I loved photography, filmmaking and radio broadcasting. Each of these I wanted to do for a living when I was doing them in school. But after awhile, I didn't think I was good enough and decided to do something practical so I became a psychotherapist. My clients didn't annoy me, it was the administration every time. They wanted me to do things a certain way so I did. My paperwork was always perfect, my clients kept coming back. But I was late a lot and got fired from every job for this annoying flaw in myself. I became so angry when this happened to me. After all, I was good at what I did. After 25 years, I retired. What a relief! I walk dogs now. They can be annoying but in general, I find my life pretty gratifying without people telling me what to do.
Sounds like a perfect timing and opportunity to pick up photography, filmmaking & radio broadcasting 💖
Great essay! So true. I am, was, a lawyer. I had annoyances, but overall, it was, is a great career. At 74, I still mediate and arbitrate so I can hang with other lawyers (most of whom I like) and exercise the mind.