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[Carlos del Vaca]

Had to forward that to the missus.  That's our oldest daughter, right there.  Totally caves on homework she should be able to knock the hell out.  "I can't do it!"  Sounds like we should be praising her effort rather than her overall smarts.

[jaydub]

Yeah, that one's going on the rounds in my family.  I was told constantly how smart I was as a kid, by parents and teachers, always as a counterpoint to some failure I'd composed out of laziness.  On the other hand, the single most motivating thing I have ever had happen to me was being acknowledged as "reliable" by a peer in a student orientation program.  I had actually worked hard at following through with commitments to my fellow counselors, and when someone noticed the effort and publicly stated it in front of others - it was literally a life changing event.

[theinevitable]

On the other hand, the single most motivating thing I have ever had happen to me was being acknowledged as "reliable" by a peer in a student orientation program.  I had actually worked hard at following through with commitments to my fellow counselors, and when someone noticed the effort and publicly stated it in front of others - it was literally a life changing event.

Hell yes! I am thinking along this line a lot lately. The thing that motivates me the most is the idea that other people are relying on my work. The other day I wondered out loud why I always get assigned to a certain register, the one most visible to customers (and therefore the one that gets the most customers), and my coworker said "it's because you are a good cashier." I don't know if that is true (my mind still tends to wander and then I screw things up), but it felt nice.

[Doc]

It took bombing a semester of uni and failing a subject to make me sit up and realise 'oh wait, my achievement is actually proportional to the amount of effort I put in, isn't it?'
Which seems an embarrassing thing to have to realise but it was kind of empowering, especially now I'm back at uni and surrounded by ridiculously intelligent people. I often tell myself that it's cool because how well I do is entirely under my control.

[theinevitable]

I unfortunately did not really learn this lesson until... maybe right now.
throughout college my experience was that when I had to work hard in classes I still got mediocre grades. The classes I did the best in were ones I put minimal effort into.

[littlefallsmets]

The trick to college, for me, was to always show up to class, always participate in class, always do the reading and always turn in things on time.

This sounds like I was a hard and studious worker? But this is not what I am saying.

I did not always necessarily pay attention in class, I did not always do the reading deeply, I often turned in poorly referenced and researched papers that were bullshitted the night before.

BUT.

I always got the benefit of the doubt on everything because I was always showing up and respecting their deadlines and having at least a broad outline of what the hell they were talking about.

Perhaps this was just a Syracuse thing, where so many of my classmates were just rich kids too dumb to get bought into an Ivy school for four years of babysitting, but it served me well.

[Arachno-capitalist]

Today has been a downer. Im at home sick, so I went back and revisited that whole bailout story. Do you know we still have no idea where all the money went that we rushed to spend? We tried to assemble an enormous and far reaching government program overnight. Everything was such a hot mess panic and the young guy put in charge of administering the money didn't really have a clue what he was doing or how to do it. He screwed that up so bad he's off at some detox rehab program now. Richard Fuld drove a 158 year old company into the ground and walked away with 400 million dollars (of course he's now being charged with fraud in three different states and lives with constant death threats). And now here we are with billions of dollars that has gone "somewhere" to do "something" that we're not allowed to know about. They interviewed one guy who got his hands on some bailout money and when they asked him what he's doing with it he just said "You sent it to me, I didn't ask for it and you didn't tell me what to do with it so I'm just saving it". There's something like 70 ongoing criminal investigations now.
Amazing how that all went down.

[theinevitable]

my high-school friend got a job working for a dude who, as far as I am concerned, should be in jail or at least unhirable due to his role as CFO of a company that I have heard of in the context "destroyed America's financial system". This dude is paying my friend, his son's frat bro, enough to have a nice-ish apartment in Manhattan.

my dad's comment was "his punishment is that the only people he can get to work for him are people like... [friend's name. he is a nice guy, but not someone I would ever put in charge of anything.]"

[jay-ell]

It took bombing a semester of uni and failing a subject to make me sit up and realise 'oh wait, my achievement is actually proportional to the amount of effort I put in, isn't it?'
Which seems an embarrassing thing to have to realise but it was kind of empowering, especially now I'm back at uni and surrounded by ridiculously intelligent people. I often tell myself that it's cool because how well I do is entirely under my control.

I had a semester like that. It builds character.

[Victoria Waterfield]

…try Brussels sprouts for the first time in decades. They're actually pretty good. Who knew?

[Choop]

Me.
(I did)

[Nabubrush]

I think one reason folks sometimes don't like brussels sprouts is that if they're cooked wrong they get bitter.

[side_show]

... have my annual curmudgeonly first snow based rant about how "it snows every year.  How have people forgot to cope with this?"  Seriously.  We have snow for 5-6 months a year, every year.  Why do people forget how to deal?  Come on!

[Nabubrush]

I hear that. The cool thing about Portland is that when it (rarely) snows, everybody just gives up. They don't clear the streets, the public transportation shuts down, and nobody can get in wrecks because they immediately bottom out in the accumulated snow.

[wombat]

... have my annual curmudgeonly first snow based rant about how "it snows every year.  How have people forgot to cope with this?"  Seriously.  We have snow for 5-6 months a year, every year.  Why do people forget how to deal?  Come on!

People are exactly like this in DC and I make the same complaint, but if they're even like that where you are, I guess it really is hopeless.