Continuing study after school. Whether its science, political theory, or anything, a lot of people stop reading or studying anything after college / school.
Doing something creative as an outlet (music, art, knitting, anything). A lot of people are just consumption machines nowadays, mostly consuming things other people have made, rather than creating something.
Physical exercise.
Having explicit long-term goals and working towards them.
None of those things needs a big time requirement. You could work out for 5 minute a day if you want, study for 5 minutes, and do something creative for 5 minutes.
Most people don’t prioritize vitally important things like self study.
I agree, but putting the time to make space and pull out study material has to have the value of learning enough. I do actually study regularly, but we can’t pretend it doesn’t require significant energy and dedication to produce a result.
I would agree, except for the continue studying. Everyone has at least 20 minutes of downtime that they could put towards learning a new concept every day
They may have months without any time surplus. And then maybe some months where they do have a significant time surplus.
But never assume everyone has the same time to dedicate to things.
My mom is currently working 50h weeks and I’m sure that’s on the lower end for some people. I’d prefer her to focus on not getting burnout so she is able to survive a bit longer, and that means she physically can’t.
Everyone has the time, not everyone has the priorities (this isn’t a dig, it’s a reference to some inspirational speech I heard in high school). 50 hour work week and 56 hours of sleep leaves 62 hours in the week. Probably another 12 hours split across 7 days for cooking, eating, etc. which leaves 50 hours to recover, study, exercise, or do whatever she pleases.
She values using those 50 hours to recover from the 50 working hours more than learning a new concept. That’s not invalid or wrong in any way, everyone has their priorities and values and they’re allowed to do whatever they want with their time.
That being said, everyone has the time they just might not have the mental space. But increasing your human capital by learning something new is often a great way of reducing stress. Learn to handle something in a new way, learn a little about financial theory, learn something that helps you at work. The best weapon you have against the injustice of daily life is knowledge. If you have the mental space, find the time to learn something
ETA: Coming from the perspective of a full time student who spends 6+ hours daily searching for a job because I’ve been down on my luck since quitting a year ago. I grew up poor and watched my mom work full time, put herself through school, raise three kids, and continues to fight every day for the right to live; I know the struggle you’re going through right now. Spend your time better than I did.
You didn’t mention: caring for elderly parents, getting out of an abusive relationship, working two jobs, having a disabled kid, having a chronic illness, being in a legal fight with a neighbour, the list goes on. How many hours a week does one of those take? What if you have two?
Sure, but if you’re working 50 hours a week (assuming US, I dunno laws elsewhere) you’re guaranteed 2.5 hours of mealtime per week that could be spent watching an informational video or reading an article.
I’m not saying “go back to school or you’re wasting your time” I’m saying “you have a few minutes where you could be reading a new idea instead of sitting on social media”
Nah, real “people who can’t afford [blank] are just lazy” energy here. You have no idea what others have to do in their day to day lives. To some, working 50 hours a week would be a luxury, let alone time to go to school.
You’re injecting malice into my words. The point was “if you have the mental space for it, you should spend your time learning because it helps reduce stress by being both cathartic and relieving issues in your life”
I have ADHD with ASD tendencies, despite not being autistic (long story). People like us are more frequently the types who find something new to be interesting, then dive in and learn EVERYTHING about it. For example, I recently bought a new car and spent days near obsessively learning about it. How it works (first electric car), how to model current vs acceleration, how to tear it down and rebuild it, etc. I’m now in the process of compiling a FAQ for my wife, who doesn’t share my obsessive tendencies and can’t retain my frequent “hey sweetie, this is interesting!” data dumps, and setting up monitoring and automations for it on our home lab.
I used to think this was what everyone did. Turns out it’s not normal.
Same. I don’t own any subscriptions except for YouTube premium. There is an endless amount of educational content on there and it’s the only content I really watch.
As a programmer, same. Endless content on every programming concept, language, or niche that you can think of. Math videos often as well. Numberphile is one of my favorite math channels. They have a computer channel too.
Yeah, I am also a programmer. I’m nearing the end of a double degree in mathematics and computer science. Finding a new video at this point is honestly exciting because I’ve seen pretty much everything! (or so it feels)
Having time for all that would be nice.
None of those things needs a big time requirement. You could work out for 5 minute a day if you want, study for 5 minutes, and do something creative for 5 minutes.
Most people don’t prioritize vitally important things like self study.
I agree, but putting the time to make space and pull out study material has to have the value of learning enough. I do actually study regularly, but we can’t pretend it doesn’t require significant energy and dedication to produce a result.
When you’re studying for a class you need to study hours to hit those deadlines. In adult life you can do 5 minutes a week if you want.
Yeah this screams privilege lol
I would agree, except for the continue studying. Everyone has at least 20 minutes of downtime that they could put towards learning a new concept every day
No.
A lot of people do, but a lot of people don’t.
They may have months without any time surplus. And then maybe some months where they do have a significant time surplus.
But never assume everyone has the same time to dedicate to things.
My mom is currently working 50h weeks and I’m sure that’s on the lower end for some people. I’d prefer her to focus on not getting burnout so she is able to survive a bit longer, and that means she physically can’t.
Yes.
Everyone has the time, not everyone has the priorities (this isn’t a dig, it’s a reference to some inspirational speech I heard in high school). 50 hour work week and 56 hours of sleep leaves 62 hours in the week. Probably another 12 hours split across 7 days for cooking, eating, etc. which leaves 50 hours to recover, study, exercise, or do whatever she pleases.
She values using those 50 hours to recover from the 50 working hours more than learning a new concept. That’s not invalid or wrong in any way, everyone has their priorities and values and they’re allowed to do whatever they want with their time.
That being said, everyone has the time they just might not have the mental space. But increasing your human capital by learning something new is often a great way of reducing stress. Learn to handle something in a new way, learn a little about financial theory, learn something that helps you at work. The best weapon you have against the injustice of daily life is knowledge. If you have the mental space, find the time to learn something
ETA: Coming from the perspective of a full time student who spends 6+ hours daily searching for a job because I’ve been down on my luck since quitting a year ago. I grew up poor and watched my mom work full time, put herself through school, raise three kids, and continues to fight every day for the right to live; I know the struggle you’re going through right now. Spend your time better than I did.
You didn’t mention: caring for elderly parents, getting out of an abusive relationship, working two jobs, having a disabled kid, having a chronic illness, being in a legal fight with a neighbour, the list goes on. How many hours a week does one of those take? What if you have two?
Sure, but if you’re working 50 hours a week (assuming US, I dunno laws elsewhere) you’re guaranteed 2.5 hours of mealtime per week that could be spent watching an informational video or reading an article.
I’m not saying “go back to school or you’re wasting your time” I’m saying “you have a few minutes where you could be reading a new idea instead of sitting on social media”
Nah, real “people who can’t afford [blank] are just lazy” energy here. You have no idea what others have to do in their day to day lives. To some, working 50 hours a week would be a luxury, let alone time to go to school.
You’re injecting malice into my words. The point was “if you have the mental space for it, you should spend your time learning because it helps reduce stress by being both cathartic and relieving issues in your life”
Careful, you’re going to get priviledge checked by the g*mer who thinks reading books and exercise is something only rich ppl have time to do.
As someone with both ASD and ADHD, I’m practically allergic to not learning. Blows my mind that most people aren’t the same in some regard.
What do these diagnoses have to do with learning? In my experience, these conditions can manifest in many different ways for people.
I have ADHD with ASD tendencies, despite not being autistic (long story). People like us are more frequently the types who find something new to be interesting, then dive in and learn EVERYTHING about it. For example, I recently bought a new car and spent days near obsessively learning about it. How it works (first electric car), how to model current vs acceleration, how to tear it down and rebuild it, etc. I’m now in the process of compiling a FAQ for my wife, who doesn’t share my obsessive tendencies and can’t retain my frequent “hey sweetie, this is interesting!” data dumps, and setting up monitoring and automations for it on our home lab.
I used to think this was what everyone did. Turns out it’s not normal.
For the most part, you can over generalise by saying it causes me to obsess/hyper focus on these topics.
Same. I don’t own any subscriptions except for YouTube premium. There is an endless amount of educational content on there and it’s the only content I really watch.
Yeah, I also have premium. I’m a mathematician and it’s always great getting suggested all the new channels posting interesting videos.
As a programmer, same. Endless content on every programming concept, language, or niche that you can think of. Math videos often as well. Numberphile is one of my favorite math channels. They have a computer channel too.
Yeah, I am also a programmer. I’m nearing the end of a double degree in mathematics and computer science. Finding a new video at this point is honestly exciting because I’ve seen pretty much everything! (or so it feels)
I prefer reading Wikipedia. For learning, I need stuff to be written down in a well-structured, indexed way.
When working two jobs in third world country. Time is luxury to sleep and rest the body and mind. There is no time for the rest of it.