Posted by aselimov3 1 day ago
Unfortunately for many, and few managers will admit it even though it's true - there is a performative aspect to physical presence at work. Being away from your desk, idle on slack, etc to go take that walk is a problem in many work environments.
Probably one reason why SWEs are disproportionately interested in FIRE.
SWEs are disproportionately interested in FIRE because it is (or was) an easy way to get a high paying job without an extended education period like becoming a doctor or lawyer. You could go straight into a six figure job after 4 years of college and even wear shorts to work, while your med school and lawyer friends were just getting started and had years of grunt work ahead of them and debt to pay off. SWEs are also disproportionately represented on online spaces like Reddit and forums where FIRE was popularized.
SWE jobs have been the most flexible I’ve had and seen across my career. I also had a manager who would police time spent in seats, but at every other job going for a walk was not an issue.
Contrast that with many of my friends in other careers who, still to this day, have stories about their managers imposing dress codes or forbidding headphones in the office. The average SWE is spoiled in workplace flexibility, even if there are exceptions.
This:? Financial Independence and Retire Early (FIRE) ?
I mean. Sure, who wouldn't want Financial Independence. Let me get right on that.
Kind of a stretch from staring at a wall.
You're suffering some sort of burnout, and you want to try some hack to be _more_ productive? Looking at a wall so I can crank out _more_ work? No, screw that. If I'm ever feeling that way, I'm going to try and work _less_ and take _more_ breaks.
Doing things with an ulterior motive most likely changes the experience of those things.
There's something inherently stressful in "doing relaxation".
What’s kind of weird about the article is how much the desired benefits are disconnected from the act taking place; I don’t choose a walk outside because nature “improves heart health” but I do think being outside is good and makes me feel good; I do it in service of a purpose, and I don’t think it’s implicitly wrong to make your life mostly habitual. Prayer at night, art for an hour every morning. Even 30 minutes before bed to talk to your partner.
I think a lot of people have this romantic notion that doing things you like shouldn’t be done intentionally. But if you have young kids even sometimes sex has to actually be planned, and it doesn’t have to remove the intimacy of it.
So I think I disagree with your idea that “doing relaxation” has to be stressful. Especially if you implicitly have bad habits forced around it like doom scrolling. I think forcing yourself to take a 20 minute walk outside every day has the benefits of being outside and walking. Even if it’s “doing relaxation”. And I may disagree with you entirely, that the best relaxation is an intentional process. Be it a walk, a bike ride, a video game, or yoga. I think the problem isn’t so much that intentional relaxation is bad, but more that it sounds bad.
Maybe the paradox here is that what works is what works. If you’re relaxation program, unintentional as it is is working for you. Great! It’s not my job to tell you that you’re wrong to feel relaxed after X, but I do think for those who don’t seem to share that experience it’s useful to here opinions like those of OP.
So why not combine working out directly instead of staring at a wall? Ride a stationary bike at low zone 2/lower in my experience allow for uninterrupted focus during that time at work. While on bike, the mind shuns distraction and focus on "what's next" in the workstream (distraction includes HN, evidently I haven't gotten on the bike yet).
My homeopathic theory is that I have a total mental energy that is the sum of focused energy and a distracting energy. This distracting energy can be temporarily used at task at hand but it results in mental exhaustion, or left alone it leads to distraction seeking behavior. While on the bike, distracting energy is fully consumed by riding, allowing for focused energy stay focused. If I go above low zone 2, it starts eating into focused energy and I lose efficiency.
Exercising and sitting b meditating are two related but seriously different things. Which is why there are many other types of meditation to practice (walking, working, silent, etc) but zen mostly considers sitting and looking at a wall the OG