On work and working hard:

io9 has a question up about long hours and if they are a status symbol:

80 years ago, long working hours seemed to be on the decline, with ideas like the six-hour work day being floated. Now, that trend has reversed — and so has the way we think about them.

The New Yorker has a look at the way long working hours have become more accepted, and even sometimes a point of pride

 The general question they float is whether or not long hours are good. This can be tricky for people; I've found individuals I associate with enjoy their leisure time but (typically) also want to earn the best living they can. Where is the boundary between too much and too little work?

I'm a bit of an odd case, what with working at least a few hours of overtime every week, going to school, writing and publishing with varying degrees of regularity, and still having all my little pet projects going. In between all that I understand it's important to see the ladyfriend and relax a bit when possible. Personally, I define the boundary between too much and too little work as, "too tired to answer the bell." When my body begins to demand 10 to 12 hour sleep cycles it's a sign that I need to scale back for a few days.

In my opinion, the path to success is pushing yourself to lengths you thought were impossible. I'm at my best with too much to do and too little time to do it, and I personally enjoy it when I have an excess of responsibility. Millennials (like myself) have weathered a number of worsening economic conditions over the past 15 years and the long term outlook of my peers is hardly as rosy as it was for previous generations. Most hope they will do 'okay' but few with any experience in the labor market are absolutely certain they will do better than their parents or grandparents. Developing a powerful work ethic gives someone an edge over competitors who will flame out instead of putting in the additional effort, which is critical when dealing with 6.7% - 23% Unemployment depending on who you want to believe.

When I go back and study successful people of the past or present, I find an ironclad desire to work through all obstacles. An easy example is found in writers. The most successful authors were rejected dozens (or hundreds) of times with very few exceptions. I met a children's author when I was 17, and when I asked her how to succeed in her field she told me, "You will often be turned away at the door, so that means you need to find an open window to crawl through."

How many people look at their careers or their personal aspirations the same way? My guess is there are fewer who are willing to really do the work necessary to hit their goals without saying, "Meh... good enough." And all this doesn't even begin to get into the question of focused, intense practice.

So to answer io9's question: Yes, long hours are good. People are rarely overnight sensations and it's better off that way. Money and influence can only get a lazy person so far. Hard work is a gold standard all it's own, and one that never suffers from inflation.

Ha! Game Developers Know the Darnedest Things:

I've been a huge fan of The Elder Scrolls games since Morrowind, and probably would have been playing Daggerfall and Arena if I owned a computer at that point. Either way, it's hard not to be blown away by how much Bethesda packs into every one of those games. I always knew there were a bunch of cultural influences, but it never occurred to me to check some of the slang in the game.

For example, Dunmer (or Dark Elves) call the player's character, 'Sera' throughout the game. They will say things like, 'Hail Sera!' as the character wanders through towns. It always seemed like a unique word to the world and helped entrench the player in the epic scope of the game.

This morning, for some reason, I decided to Google the word 'Sera' and discovered a link to the Arabian word Seera. Turns out a 'seera' is an Arabic word that describes a biography (i.e. The Seera of Prophet Mohamed) but can also describe the journey through life. And of course, Morrowind is the story of the player's journey to his destiny. What a perfect way to marry a real life word many would not be familiar with to a concept in the game!

Writers tend to do this on a regular basis. A good example of this (as he is with many other interesting writing techniques) is Robert Jordan. An easy example is Jordan giving the Dark One a real name of Shai'tan, which is similar to Shaitan (or the Devil) in Islam. Jordan drew off real figures and names scores of times through the Wheel of Time, including a very interesting homage to General Robert E. Lee in The Great Captain Gareth Bryne.

Either way, I'm even more impressed with Bethesda than I was before, and wonder what other cultural Easter Eggs they've included in their worldbuilding.

Slow going and Fake Excitement:

Over the past couple weeks, it's been slow going on every project I'm working on. The novel isn't moving like it was a couple weeks ago, fixing the short story is taking far more time than I anticipated, and even exercising seems laborious. Work is dreary and draining. School is somewhat better, but not where I need to be. It's almost all just 'blah'.

Generally, when things like this occur it gets to the point where I start to feel resistance in anything I try to do. Ever try to lift something that shouldn't be that heavy, and yet it is? That's where I am.

My martial arts instructor taught me a trick that works well in times like this: Fake excitement.

My first reaction to this was a small amount of skepticism. Only a small amount. Master Park is an amazing person who was one of the catalysts for a dramatic turnaround in my life. So when he talks I listen, even if I'm not sure I believe what he's saying. When I follow the logic eventually I come to the conclusion he's right.

So how does one fake excitement when they don't feel it? It's as easy as it sounds. Approach a project and and decide to be excited about it. "Woo-hoo, I'm cleaning my house!" "I just can't wait to dig into this huge pile of work!"

It sounds cheesy but it works.

For example, over the weekend my to-do list was enormous. Instead of allowing myself to get overwhelmed, I decided to get excited. Not only did I get everything accomplished, I discovered something very interesting about the main character of my novel. Fake excitement when I ask struggling to make progress gave me a new internal conflict, and it's made me genuinely excited to get back to the keyboard.

Speaking of which, it's time to fake some excitement so I can drag myself to the gym.

The Obligatory Government Shutdown Post:

I feel the need to comment on this, mostly because I'm getting bombarded with messages telling me why one side is wonderful and blameless while the other side wants to kill orphans and kick little old ladies or other such nonsense. Since I'm an American and I have skin in the game, let me pin down how I see it:

First, understand that the various sides to this argument all have some measure of blame. No individual is a saint, let alone any particular group. Everyone contributed to at least some of the issues that lead to the shutdown. Who is at fault? Basically all of our elected officials and the Presidential appointees, both those currently serving and the ones who left during the first term. 

Second, can we agree that the main conservative/liberal parties have irreconcilable differences? I'm sure there is middle ground somewhere but the desire to find it is less than the desire to one up 'the other side' in soundbites. Are we all Americans in the end? At one time I thought so. Now it seems to me that we've devolved into bickering cliques who see no redeeming value in 'the other' who dares to have a different point of view. 

It's also important to note that these guys are all talking a completely different game behind the scenes. Reading books on contemporary politics written from a detached, moderate point of view (yes, there are a few) indicates there is a huge difference between the public persona and the behind closed doors men and women. Sort of like how WWE Superstars are not the same person as the character they portray in the ring. 

The difficulty here is that most ordinary people only listen to the soundbites or read blogs/watch news that portrays their particular ideological slant. The mobs of Rome have no idea what goes on in the Patriarch's home. They only hear rumors and innuendo, along with the flowery speeches in the Capital. 

The million dollar question is: How does this play out in the end? 

In my opinion, the shutdown will have far less impact than what will be reported. (Remember how the sequester cuts were going to destroy the economy? Yeah, not so much.) Will it hurt our credit rating or damage the stock market's run? Maybe. Does that matter? Your guess is as good as mine. 

I see some sort of face saving move in the coming days or weeks. One that would allow both sides to claim some sort of moral victory, but can be easily twisted by pundits on the wings. The President will be the savior who delivered the masses from the grip of the evil Republicans, while the Republicans will show the Despot in Chief and his cronies that the middle class is ready to fight the expanding Federal Government. All of which will be nothing more than theatre and ammo for the upcoming midterm elections. 

And none of which will actually solve a darned thing. 

Poor Reasoning

Group Think is dangerous to any school of thought, and even the most intelligent have difficulty when operating in a bubble of the like minded. It happens everywhere and I think it’s good to pay attention to the phenomenon so that one can avoid it in their daily life.

I found a good example of this on Twitter the other day. Harvard sent out the following tweet:

Study provides strong evidence that female physicians are underpaid compared to their male counterparts http://t.co/KywpgWb7kE
— Harvard University (@Harvard) September 10, 2013

Well doesn’t that sound awful? Speaking for myself (and likely the rest of the human race) I don’t particularly care about the gender of the physician who is working on me. My preference is for a competent and skilled medical practitioner. When the general populace hears something like this-- and when it comes from the nation’s most prestigious institution of learning-- it carries quite a bit of weight.

Trouble is, when one digs into the article we find this bit of information near the end:

“While it is important to study gender differences in earnings after accounting for factors such as specialty choice and practice type, it is equally important to understand overall unadjusted gender differences in earnings. We performed the latter study,” he writes. “This is because specialty and practice choices may be due to not only preferences of female physicians but also unequal opportunities. For example, are unadjusted earnings differences between male and female physicians due to a preference of female physicians for lower-paying specialties [pediatrics or primary care] or do female physicians have less opportunity to enter higher-paying specialties despite having similar preferences as male physicians? The etiology of the persistent gender gap in physician earnings is unknown and merits further consideration.”

Notice how the researcher blocks the real cause-- the choice of female doctors to go into lower paying specialties-- around what they were trying to find: gender bias.

Also notice the researcher does not mention something that takes a big bite out of physician’s earnings: malpractice insurance. This is a big mistake because many physicians pay massive amounts of their income to the insurance companies so they will not lose their practice if they are sued for malpractice. Certain lawsuits tend to be much larger than others. If one makes a mistake that causes a major injury or death to a child, there is likely to be a huge settlement. Since there is much greater risk, the physician is required to pay quite a bit more in malpractice insurance, which lowers take home pay. (Without going onto a tangent, this is a massive reason why healthcare is so expensive and if we had tort reform in Obamacare we might be seeing better care for less cost today, instead of things going in the opposite direction.)

Given that women tend to enjoy going into pediatrics or OB/GYN, two specialties where malpractice lawsuits can easily reach seven figure settlements, we have found a big part of the answer as to why women doctors tend to make less than men.

I also wonder if part of the rest of the pay gap comes from men simply deciding to charge higher rates. Some people are better at negotiating than others and it’s possible that men as a gender are more willing to gamble on negotiating higher rates than females. This is not something I have any evidence of, but it’s something I would like to see the study address. People who ask for more tend to get a little more, and even if they don’t get much it still sets the stage for future increases. An extra $5000 a year is not so much to someone making $250,000, but when one gets used to negotiation over time that difference can add up.

Still, the primary bias in the medical field is not gender based but based on selection. When someone goes out with a certain end result in mind, it becomes too easy to end up at that result. If we have studies that fail to address alternate reasoning with anything more than a dismissive hand wave it is not beneficial to the women the group is trying to assist.