High-Performance-Organizations-Reading-List

nd acetylcholine—all of which are crucial for brain function. In fact, more than 90% of the body’s serotonin is produced in the gut, not the brain. This has profound implications for mood and emotional health." Lots more health and wellness ideas collected by me here: https://github.com/pdfernhout/High-Performance-Organizations... Good luck finding things that work for you -- assuming you are not happy just the way you are. "I like you just the way you are" - Mr. Rodgers https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPDTpqtmzPQ

prove patients’ mental and physical health and survival. It can be difficult, however, to come off the drugs, as many people become dependent on them. As the withdrawal symptoms can be severe, long-lasting and even dangerous, slow tapering is usually necessary. In his book, Gøtzsche debunks the many myths that leading psychiatrists – very often on drug industry payroll – have created and nurtured over decades in order to conceal the fact that biological psychiatry has generally been a failure. Biological psychiatry sees drugs as the “solution” for virtually all problems, in marked contrast to the patients’ views. Most patients don’t respond to the drugs they receive but, unfortunately, the psychiatrists’ frustrations over the lack of progress often lead to more diagnoses, more drugs and higher doses, harming the patients further." Other alternatives for health and wellness I have collected: https://github.com/pdfernhout/High-Performance-Organizations... One example from there: "The Depression Cure: The 6-Step Program to Beat Depression without Drugs" by Stephen S. Ilardi From the Amazon book blurb: "In the past decade, depression rates have skyrocketed, and one in four Americans suffer from major depression at some point in their lives. Where have we gone wrong? Dr. Stephen Ilardi sheds light on our current predicament and reminds us that our bodies were never designed for the sleep-deprived, poorly nourished, frenzied pace of twenty-first century life. Inspired by the extraordinary resilience of aboriginal groups like the Kaluli of Papua New Guinea, Dr. Ilardi prescribes an easy-to-follow, clinically proven program that harks back to what our bodies were originally made for and what they continue to need with these six components: * Brain Food [supplement with Omega 3s; remember your brain is mostly fat] * Don't Think, Do [avoid excessive rumination by doing things] * Antidepressant Exercise [aerobic exercise is medicine] * Let There Be Light [get natural sunlight and supplement as needed with vitamin D3] * Get Connected [engage in face-to-face social activities regularly] * Habits of Healthy Sleep [get enough sleep by following basic guidelines] The Depression Cure's holistic approach has been met with great success rates, helping even those who have failed to respond to traditional medications. For anyone looking to supplement their treatment, The Depression Cure offers hope and a practical path to wellness for anyone." TL;DR as Ilardi says: "We were never designed for the sedentary, indoor, sleep-deprived, socially-isolated, fast-food-laden, frenetic pace of modern life. (Stephen Ilardi, PhD)" That said, if you are on prescription psychotropic meds already, do not stop taking them or change doses without some medically-approved plan for getting off them. Peter Gøtzsche wrote an entire book about that: "Mental Health Survival Kit and Withdrawal from Psychiatric Drugs: A User's Guide" https://www.amazon.com/Mental-Health-Survival-Withdrawal-Psy... "This book can help people with mental health issues to survive and return to a normal life. Citizens believe, and the science shows, that medications for depression and psychosis and admission to a psychiatric ward are more often harmful than beneficial. Yet most patients take psychiatric drugs for years. Doctors have made hundreds of millions of patients dependent on psychiatric drugs without knowing how to help them taper off the drugs safely, which can be very difficult. The book explains in detail how harmful psychiatric drugs are and gives detailed advice about how to come off them. You will learn: ... that psychiatric drugs should never be stopped abruptly because withdrawal reactions can be dangerous..."

complexity that will take as much development effort as you'd budgeted for the rest of the project combined. The only way to avoid that is to have your design go all the way down to specifying individual lines of code, in which case you aren't designing at all, you're just programming. Fred Brooks said it twenty years ago in "No Silver Bullet" better than I can today: "The complexity of software is an essential property, not an accidental one. Hence, descriptions of a software entity that abstract away its complexity often abstract away its essence."" I prefer a conceptual model more like "Software as Gardening". https://github.com/pdfernhout/High-Performance-Organizations... "Andy Hunt: There is a persistent notion in a lot of literature that software development should be like engineering. First, an architect draws up some great plans. Then you get a flood of warm bodies to come in and fill the chairs, bang out all the code, and you're done. A lot of people still feel that way; I saw an interview in the last six months of a big outsourcing house in India where this was how they felt. They paint a picture of constructing software like buildings. The high talent architects do the design. The coders do the constructing. The tenants move in, and everyone lives happily ever after. We don't think that's very realistic. It doesn't work that way with software. We paint a different picture. Instead of that very neat and orderly procession, which doesn't happen even in the real world with buildings, software is much more like gardening. You do plan. You plan that you're going to make a plot this big. You're going to prepare the soil. You bring in a landscape person who says to put the big plants in the back and short ones in the front. You've got a great plan, a whole design. But when you plant the bulbs and the seeds, what happens? The garden doesn't quite come up the way you drew the picture. This plant gets a lot bigger than you thought it would. You've got to prune it. You've got to split it. You've got to move it around the garden. This big plant in the back died. You've got to dig it up and throw it into the compost pile. These colors ended up not looking like they did on the package. They don't look good next to each other. You've got to transplant this one over to the other side of the garden. --- Dave Thomas: Also, with a garden, there's a constant assumption of maintenance. Everybody says, I want a low-maintenance garden, but the reality is a garden is something that you're always interacting with to improve or even just keep the same. Although I know there's building maintenance, you typically don't change the shape of a building. It just sits there. We want people to view software as being far more organic, far more malleable, and something that you have to be prepared to interact with to improve all the time." And it helps to keep things simple. https://www.infoq.com/presentations/Simple-Made-Easy/ "Rich Hickey emphasizes simplicity’s virtues over easiness’, showing that while many choose easiness they may end up with complexity, and the better way is to choose easiness along the simplicity path."

e-based planning). These alternatives could be used in combination to address what, even as far back as 1964, has been described as a breaking "income-through-jobs link". This link between jobs and income is breaking because of the declining value of most paid human labor relative to capital investments in automation and better design. Or, as is now the case, the value of paid human labor like at some newspapers or universities is also declining relative to the output of voluntary social networks such as for digital content production (like represented by this document). It is suggested that we will need to fundamentally reevaluate our economic theories and practices to adjust to these new realities emerging from exponential trends in technology and society." It covers a bit of the history which you alluded to earlier in a previous post, such as the "Triple Revolution Memorandum" from 1964. But the root of all this thinking go way back -- whether to the original communal Christians in the face of the Roman Empire, various Utopian communities (including ones inspired by Charles Fourier) to Marxism, Socialism, Luddites, resistance to "Enclosure Acts", Henry George, Elizabeth Magie (her educational cautionary Landlord's Game ripped off in part as dystopian Monopoly), Bucky Fuller, Bob Black ("The Abolition of work"), Ursula K. Le Guinn, James P. Hogan, Paolo Soleri / Arcosanti, Marshal Sahlins, Amory & Hunter Lovins, John and Nancy Jack Todd of The New Alchemy Institute, Martin Ford, and many more. Not all the alternative ideas worked out or even got started for all sorts of reasons, but there are a lot of alternatives are out there. See especially: "The Dictionary of Alternatives: Utopianism and Organization" https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/dictionary-of-alternatives-978... "'There is no alternative to free market liberalism and managerialism', is the orthodoxy of the twenty-first century. All too often, ordinary people across the world are being told that the problem of organization is already solved, or that it is being solved somewhere else, or that it need not concern them because they have no choices. This dictionary provides those who disagree with the evidence. Using hundreds of entries and cross-references, it proves that there are many alternatives to the way that we currently organize ourselves. These alternatives could be expressed as fictional utopias, they could be excavated from the past, or they could be described in terms of the contemporary politics of anti-corporate protest, environmentalism, feminism and localism. Part reference work, part source book, and part polemic, this dictionary provides a rich understanding of the ways in which fiction, history and today's politics provide different ways of thinking about how we can and should organize for the coming century." Indeed, I was in a way surprised (and yet also hopeful) in reading all the comments here in that many people are slowly rediscovering all these ideas for themselves as the issue grows more pressing. For some other ideas on improving and transforming current organizations, see also this other resource I put together: https://github.com/pdfernhout/High-Performance-Organizations... Essentially, I have been dealing with "AI/Robotics Anxiety" for about forty years, and collected many ideas for coping with it along the way. I'm working in a broader document more specific to that which I may put up on my website at some point. Ironically, while I won awards for robotics projects before attending Princeton as an undergrad, and my undergrad work at Princeton in AI and cognitive psychology helped inspire WordNet which led to Simpli and the core of Gogole AdSense, it was maybe conversations with Jeff in passing at Princeton about the potential to use robots in commerce and space exploration --- which I doubt he remembers -- that might have had the biggest impact of my career to-date in a robotics sense given Amazon and its emulators. Not to take any credit away from George or Jeff in terms of their specific vision, hard work, improvisations, and persistence in the face of adversity, and also to accept that a place like Princeton can be a Brian-Eno-style "scenius" where ideas bounce around and transform as they are reflected on and refined by different people with different perspectives. https://austinkleon.com/2017/05/12/scenius/ "There’s a healthier way of thinking about creativity that the musician Brian Eno refers to as “scenius.” Under this model, great ideas are often birthed by a group of creative individuals—artists, curators, thinkers, theorists, and other tastemakers—who make up an “ecology of talent.” If you look back closely at history, many of the people who we think of as lone geniuses were actually part of “a whole scene of people who were supporting each other, looking at each other’s work, copying from each other, stealing ideas, and contributing ideas.” Scenius doesn’t take away from the achievements of those great individuals: it just acknowledges that good work isn’t created in a vacuum, and that creativity is always, in some sense, a collaboration, the result of a mind connected to other minds. What I love about the idea of scenius is that it makes room in the story of creativity for the rest of us: the people who don’t consider ourselves geniuses. Being a valuable part of a scenius is not necessarily about how smart or talented you are, but about what you have to contribute—the ideas you share, the quality of the connections you make, and the conversations you start. If we forget about genius and think more about how we can nurture and contribute to a scenius, we can adjust our own expectations and the expectations of the worlds we want to accept us. We can stop asking what others can do for us, and start asking what we can do for others." But I am a bit sad about the results so far though, given how robotics, AI, and other automation are turning out to do so much damage in practice to so many people's lives when used from a scarcity-oriented mindset. It was always my intent -- especially having read so much sci-fi like Isaac Asimov robot stories, "The Skills of Xanadu" by Theodore Sturgeon, and also James P. Hogan's "The Two Faces of Tomorrow" and also his "Voyage from Yesteryear" -- that way more positives than negatives would come out of the abundance that robotics, AI, and other automation (including information technology) can provide. A related video parable I made on such themes circa 2010: "The Richest Man in the World: A parable about structural unemployment and a basic income" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p14bAe6AzhA As with my sig (first sent in an email to Marvin Minsky) of "The biggest challenge of the 21st century is the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity", I have realized -- as Einstein suggested about nuclear weapons or Lewis Mumford about technology in general or James P. Hogan essentially says through his novels -- it takes change of heart and mindset to realize the benefits of what is possible using automation without otherwise creating a terrible human calamity. An example of things going wrong is creating problematical working conditions when automation is used to make humans work like micromanaged robots centralizing wealth for a few people. Related US DOL citation for Amazon essentially for not automating enough: https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/releases/osha/osha20230201-0 As I've reflected on, if you get up in the early morning in the dark and turn a light on in the kitchen, the light may seem so bright you can't look at it even as it even as it makes it possible for you to get your day started. And by the time the sun comes up and lights your entire home and landscape, you may forget the kitchen light is even on because it is no longer noticeable relative to the surrounding broad illumination. Gary Kildall no doubt faced that with CPM. So that is kind of how I see the comments overall on the story. The sun is coming up as millions of people are starting to think about robotics, AI, and other automation and its likely near-term effect on themselves and society, and all the "bright lights" from decades past are just not noticeable from all the ongoing thinking and chatter. And that is maybe a good thing -- even if there are still ideas from then which might be useful now and will either be remembered, reread, or rediscovered.

urb: "DEADLY PSYCHIATRY AND ORGANISED DENIAL explains in evidence-based detail why the way we currently use psychiatric drugs does far more harm than good. Professor, Doctor of Medical Science, Peter C. Gøtzsche documents that psychiatric drugs kill more than half a million people every year among those aged 65 and above in the United States and Europe. This makes psychiatric drugs the third leading cause of death, after heart disease and cancer. Gøtzsche explains that we could reduce our current usage of psychotropic drugs by 98% and at the same time improve patients' mental and physical health and survival. It can be difficult, however, to come off the drugs, as many people become dependent on them. As the withdrawal symptoms can be severe, long-lasting and even dangerous, slow tapering is usually necessary. In his book, Gøtzsche debunks the many myths that leading psychiatrists - very often on drug industry payroll - have created and nurtured over decades in order to conceal the fact that biological psychiatry has generally been a failure. Biological psychiatry sees drugs as the "solution" for virtually all problems, in marked contrast to the patients' views. Most patients don't respond to the drugs they receive but, unfortunately, the psychiatrists' frustrations over the lack of progress often lead to more diagnoses, more drugs and higher doses, harming the patients further." Other resources are in the health section here of a reading list I put together: https://github.com/pdfernhout/High-Performance-Organizations...

that we could reduce our current usage of psychotropic drugs by 98% and at the same time improve patients' mental and physical health and survival. It can be difficult, however, to come off the drugs, as many people become dependent on them. As the withdrawal symptoms can be severe, long-lasting and even dangerous, slow tapering is usually necessary. In his book, Gøtzsche debunks the many myths that leading psychiatrists - very often on drug industry payroll - have created and nurtured over decades in order to conceal the fact that biological psychiatry has generally been a failure. Biological psychiatry sees drugs as the "solution" for virtually all problems, in marked contrast to the patients' views. Most patients don't respond to the drugs they receive but, unfortunately, the psychiatrists' frustrations over the lack of progress often lead to more diagnoses, more drugs and higher doses, harming the patients further." For people facing psychological issues, see the resources I've collected in the "Health and Wellness" section of this reading list I have put together: https://github.com/pdfernhout/High-Performance-Organizations... If you can only look at one resource, read or watch something by Stephen Ilardi, PhD, author of "The Depression Cure: The 6-Step Program to Beat Depression without Drugs", whose advice is built around this quote of his: "We were never designed for the sedentary, indoor, sleep-deprived, socially-isolated, fast-food-laden, frenetic pace of modern life." Dr. Ilardi prescribes an easy-to-follow, clinically proven program that harks back to what our bodies were originally adapted for and what they continue to need with these six components: * Brain Food [supplement with Omega 3s; remember your brain is mostly fat] * Don't Think, Do [avoid excessive rumination by doing things] * Antidepressant Exercise [aerobic exercise is medicine] * Let There Be Light [get natural sunlight and supplement as needed with vitamin D3] * Get Connected [engage in face-to-face social activities regularly] * Habits of Healthy Sleep [get enough sleep by following basic guidelines] There are many other books as like the excellent "Why We Sleep" by Matthew Walker or many on nutrition (e.g. Fuhrman, Weil, Mackey, etc.) that examine aspects of this issue -- but what makes Ilardi's book so useful is bringing so many of these ideas together in a historical context. Ilardi says his advice is general and some people with specific traumas underlying their depression may need additional specific help (such as in "The Body Keeps The Score" book on recovery from trauma mentioned below). Other books that address specific aspects of depression and related issues of addiction, trauma, and perfectionism (and how they are at root deep cultural issues related to recent Western lifestyle changes) include: * "Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression – and the Unexpected Solutions" by Johann Hari. From the last chapter of the book: "You aren’t a machine with broken parts. You are an animal whose needs are not being met. You need to have a community. You need to have meaningful values, not the junk values you’ve been pumped full of all your life, telling you happiness comes through money and buying objects. You need to have meaningful work. You need the natural world. You need to feel you are respected. You need a secure future. You need connections to all these things. You need to release any shame you might feel for having been mistreated." * "Chasing the Scream: the First and Last Days of the War on Drugs" by Johann Hari * "The Globalization of Addiction: A Study in Poverty of the Spirit" by Bruce Alexander * "In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction" by Gabor Maté, MD * "The Story You Need to Tell: Writing to Heal from Trauma, Illness, or Loss" by Sandra Marinella * "Writing Hard Stories: Celebrated Memoirists Who Shaped Art from Trauma" by Melanie Brooks * "The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are" by Brené Brown * "Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead" by Brené Brown For people dealing with the special case of a specific trauma for themselves or a loved one, consider reading "The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma" by Bessel A. van der Kolk. As the blurb for that says, "Trauma is a fact of life. Veterans and their families deal with the painful aftermath of combat; one in five Americans has been molested; one in four grew up with alcoholics; one in three couples have engaged in physical violence. Such experiences inevitably leave traces on minds, emotions, and even on biology. Sadly, trauma sufferers frequently pass on their stress to their partners and children. Renowned trauma expert Bessel van der Kolk has spent over three decades working with survivors. In The Body Keeps the Score, he transforms our understanding of traumatic stress, revealing how it literally rearranges the brain’s wiring -- specifically areas dedicated to pleasure, engagement, control, and trust. He shows how these areas can be reactivated through innovative treatments including neurofeedback, mindfulness techniques, play, yoga, and other therapies. Based on Dr. van der Kolk’s own research and that of other leading specialists, The Body Keeps the Score offers proven alternatives to drugs and talk therapy -- and a way to reclaim lives." For those facing specific issues related to suicide for themselves or a loved one, a key book is: "Out of the Nightmare: Recovery from Depression and Suicidal Pain" by David Conroy. By reconceptualizing suicide as an involuntary action that occurs when total pain exceeds resources for coping with pain, David Conroy provides a morally neutral way for organizations and society to think about suicide prevention in a productive way. Rather than focus mainly on intervening in a crisis, organizations and societies can rethink their operations to reduce participant pain and to increase coping resources. This helps everyone -- not just those who have reached a threshold where pain is very close to coping resources. Aggregate pain includes physical pain, emotional pain, and social pain. Reducing pain in any area by even a small amount may bring a person below a threshold for suicide. Similarly there are many types of coping resources from interacting with a friend, to going to a funny movie, to receiving adequate health care, to interacting with a pet. There are also some short-term coping strategies like denial or drinking which may have long-term negative consequences that become new sources of pain when done to excess. As David Conroy says: "Suicide is not chosen; it happens when pain exceeds resources for coping with pain. That's all it's about. You are not a bad person, or crazy, or weak, or flawed, because you feel suicidal. It doesn't even mean that you really want to die - it only means that you have more pain than you can cope with right now. If I start piling weights on your shoulders, you will eventually collapse if I add enough weights... no matter how much you want to remain standing. Willpower has nothing to do with it. Of course you would cheer yourself up, if you could. Don't accept it if someone tells you, "That's not enough to be suicidal about." There are many kinds of pain that may lead to suicide. Whether or not the pain is bearable may differ from person to person. What might be bearable to someone else, may not be bearable to you. The point at which the pain becomes unbearable depends on what kinds of coping resources you have. Individuals vary greatly in their capacity to withstand pain. When pain exceeds pain-coping resources, suicidal feelings are the result. Suicide is neither wrong nor right; it is not a defect of character; it is morally neutral. It is simply an imbalance of pain versus coping resources. You can survive suicidal feelings if you do either of two things: (1) find a way to reduce your pain, or (2) find a way to increase your coping resources. Both are possible." (I write this in memory of my friend from Princeton, Robin Rochlin Cooperman, M.D. Psychiatry, 1963-2010. I can wish that she was still alive to talk with about all this newly emerging information about increasing wellness in a wide variety of ways beyond prescription pharmaceuticals. And also I write this in memory of other friends I have lost along the way...)

me things that maybe one might say depending on the circumstances? (Along with the many other great things people have posted in response to this article.) You might find of interest books by John Gottman on marriage like "What Makes Love Last?" in trying to improve things -- or at least understand them better to accept or reject them. A key point Gottman makes (and which the article echoes) is that contempt (e.g. "belittling") is a bad sign in marriage. Ideally something could be done to turn that around. Many books talk about the importance of communication in relationships, but there are lots of happy marriages where people don't "communicate" or even may communicate badly -- but what they do usually have is mutual respect in some form (maybe even in unexpected and quirky ways specific to the relationship). In theory living with someone who is always right (if such were indeed the case) could be an asset (e.g. an exponentially expanding stock portfolio, always the "right" thing to say to comfort someone, always choosing the right home improvement contractor, always buying the right car for changing family needs, etc.). So why does being right have to be coupled with the problematical behavior to you that makes you unhappy? The issue of lack of compassion and kindness seems a different one than being right. As one possible explanation, you might want to look into Asperger's and women, in case a poor "theory of mind" in terms of understanding someone else's feelings and perceptions is an aspect of this (and if such were the case, there are books on making the most of that). A link to Gottman's work, Asperger's in women, and some other resources like for coping with stress (and even depression) are in this reading list I've put together: https://github.com/pdfernhout/High-Performance-Organizations... Books on using positive reinforcement to shape behavior as is done with dolphins (and profoundly autistic children) might also be of interest (e.g. Karen Pryor's "Don't Shoot the Dog!: The New Art of Teaching and Training"). A variation of that idea is changing your behavior when your wife does something to avoid reinforcing your wife's behaviors -- kind of like discussed in "Bullies to Buddies" by Izzy Kalman. That last may sound like "blaming the victim" but, as Izzy Kalman says, sadly and realistically "victims" are usually more motivated to change. People generally do more of something when they feel rewarded for it and less of something when rewards are absent. The tricky thing about rewards is that rare random rewards tend to be the most reinforcing. So reacting to your wife's negative behavior some way only occasionally (say, one out of five times you react in a way she wants) can be highly reinforcing to your wife's behavior. Similarly when your wife occasionally does something that can be seen as kind or compassionate, how can that be appropriately reinforced? Or maybe there are other underlying stresses in your wife's life unrelated to home that could be addressed somehow to reduce the problem -- like having a dog that reacts badly to certain situations and keeping them away from the situation? That at least might reduce the scale of the issue. I once made a list of dozens of ways to shape behavior (including just accepting the problematical behavior and thinking of it as a reminder about other good things in the situation -- e.g. trying to see dirty dishes left in the sink as a reminder of overall goodness). Maybe you could make such a list to give yourself ideas? Still, while operant conditioning may help in theory smooth out some rough edges, humans are also more complex social, intellectual, and spiritual beings and there is a lot more to relationships and happiness than control (and of course being "right"). For example, Carol Dweck writes about how it is best to teach children that "the brain is like a muscle" and the more you use it, the smarter you get. She says kids who were told they were "smart" or "talented" as kids often become fearful of trying out new things where they might fail which would tarnish their self image of being "smart". Such children praised for being "smart" also often tend towards tearing others down in order to keep themselves feeling up as "image maintenance" (a possible origin of what was mentioned in the article). Thus it is better to praise effort or progress in kids (or adults). If it is the case with your wife's upbringing that she was praised as being "smart", I'm not sure what to suggest -- but maybe some reflection on that might lead to new possibilities? To create a situation where people can grow and accept imperfections as one way to help, maybe both of you trying something new together (swing dancing?) -- laughing together at your mistakes while learning? In general, someone who thinks they are right all the time probably is avoiding personal growth by taking on new challenges. For example, one humbling experience for me was to play "World of Tanks" with my son when I was around age 50 and he was really getting into it. Even though I eventually battled my way up to tier ten American artillery through a lot of effort (and ~US$250 worth of "gold"), I had to accept was never very good at WOT relative to many other players in the game (even as for some tanks I was able to be about average). And compared to artillery, I am much worse at light tanks like my son usually plays which require quicker reactions (whereas artillery generally requires more patience and planning). One can look at the WOT stats for all players -- so it is hard to fool yourself about how good you are -- including for artillery guessing how tanks will move so you can lead your shots correctly. While there are activities in life I am good at (and tend to gravitate towards), it was a beneficial experience for me at my age to reinforce the need for continual learning. It was also a good reminder that one can be not that great at something and still have fun at it with someone you care about. That (challenging) WOT experience also helped me be a better employee with a new job going up multiple learning curves in new areas -- in terms of being more patient with my own current limits and also the current limits of others. Even if someone was right all the time, one person can't be everywhere and do more than one or a few things at once. Thus the adage for perfectionists to contemplate of: "The woods would be pretty quiet if no bird sang there but the best." Also, if your wife is right so often because she is a perfectionist, "perfectionism" has its own personal sorrows: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfectionism_(psychology) Ultimately, a problematical relationship doesn't necessarily mean the people in it are problems. It just means the particular match was challenging and the people involved did not have the skills or circumstance or priorities to make that particular combination of personalities work better. Sometimes skills can be upgraded or circumstances changed or priorities reevaluated. And, sadly sometimes not. The "Ann Landers question" was never "Can you find someone better?" since that is in theory always possible if unlikely, but "Are you better with or without them?" If you have already answered that question (all things considered, including kids) as "with", then hopefully some of the above could help make things a bit better. Good luck with managing the situation as best as possible for the most happiness possible for yourself and your family. And maybe all these ideas are wrong or inappropriate for your situation... :-)

ests, during a group stacking effort in the warehouse, that they form a bucket brigade to work more efficiently. The minimum-effort Loser Stanley tells him coldly, “this here is a run-out-the-clock situation.” The line could apply to Stanley’s entire life. Stanley’s response shows both his intelligence and clear-eyed self-awareness of his Loser bargain with the company. He therefore acts according to a mix of self-preservation and minimum-effort coasting instincts. ... The career of the Loser is the easiest to understand. Having made a bad bargain, and not marked for either Clueless or Sociopath trajectories, he or she must make the best of a bad situation. The most rational thing to do is slack off and do the minimum necessary. Doing more would be a Clueless thing to do. Doing less would take the high-energy machinations of the Sociopath, since it sets up self-imposed up-or-out time pressure. So the Loser — really not a loser at all if you think about it — pays his dues, does not ask for much, and finds meaning in his life elsewhere. For Stanley it is crossword puzzles. For Angela it is a colorless Martha-Stewartish religious life. For Kevin, it is his rock band. For Kelly, it is mindless airhead pop-culture distractions. Pam has her painting ambitions. Meredith is an alcoholic slut. Oscar, the ironic-token gay character, has his intellectual posturing. Creed, a walking freak-show, marches to the beat of his own obscure different drum (he is the most rationally checked-out of all the losers)." If you want to change Google into a better company or alternatively build or find a better place to be, here is a reading list I've put together which might help: https://github.com/pdfernhout/High-Performance-Organizations... Since you mentioned depression, see especially the related health sections. All the best and good luck! P.S. Something I wrote in 2008 on ideological challenges inherent in Google inspired by contradictions in the "Project Virgle" April Fools joke: https://pdfernhout.net/a-rant-on-financial-obesity-and-Proje... "Even just in jest some of the most financially obese people on the planet (who have built their company with thousands of servers all running GNU/Linux free software) apparently could not see any other possibility but seriously becoming even more financially obese off the free work of others on another planet (as well as saddling others with financial obesity too :-). And that jest came almost half a century after the "Triple Revolution" letter of 1964 about the growing disconnect between effort and productivity (or work and financial fitness) .... Even not having completed their PhDs, the top Google-ites may well take many more decades to shake off that ideological discipline. I know it took me decades (and I am still only part way there. :-) As with my mother, no doubt Googlers have lived through periods of scarcity of money relative to their needs to survive or be independent scholars or effective agents of change. Is it any wonder they probably think being financially obese is a good thing, not an indication of either personal or societal pathology? :-( ... Google-ites and other financially obese people IMHO need to take a good look at the junk food capitalist propaganda they are eating and serving up to others, as in saying (even in jest): ... "we should profit from others' use of our innovations, and we should buy or lease others' intellectual property whenever it advances our own goals" -- even while running one of the biggest post-scarcity enterprises on Earth based on free-as-in-freedom software. :-( Until then, it is up to us other ... "semi-evil ... quasi-evil ... not evil enough" hobbyists with smaller budgets to save the Asteroids and the Planets (including Earth) ... from financially obese people and their unexamined evil plans to spread profit-driven scarcity-creating Empire throughout every nook-and-cranny of the universe. :-("

ation worker through school teacher to medical doctor to shoe clerk. So, yes, it can be a challenge to make peace with that when, without a basic income, you need to exchange your labor for ration units to then exchange for food and shelter. Yet, people need, say, shoes -- so you can help a lot of people by making or selling good shoes to people who really need them. But as you point out, a lot of business and related jobs go far beyond the basics (for good or bad). You can also find lots of post-scarcity thinking on my personal website. Or by many others in many places if you look. So, you are not alone. It seems though that, short of broad social change like, say, Andrew Yang proposes, solutions that work for specific individuals in late-stage capitalism may have to be individually crafted based on on interests, abilities, circumstances, tools, social network, local community, and so on. Anyway, there are some non-startup jobs here in who's hiring for January 2020 (including at PBS): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21936440

ally for parents and children). That is perhaps a variation of the theme in "Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain" by Antonio Damasio that all reason rests on emotion (with emotion giving us a reason to reason)? Albert Einstein says something similar in "Religion and Science": https://sacred-texts.com/aor/einstein/einsci.htm "For the scientific method can teach us nothing else beyond how facts are related to, and conditioned by, each other. The aspiration toward such objective knowledge belongs to the highest of which man is capable, and you will certainly not suspect me of wishing to belittle the achievements and the heroic efforts of man in this sphere. Yet it is equally clear that knowledge of what is does not open the door directly to what should be. One can have the clearest and most complete knowledge of what is, and yet not be able to deduct from that what should be the goal of our human aspirations. Objective knowledge provides us with powerful instruments for the achievements of certain ends, but the ultimate goal itself and the longing to reach it must come from another source. And it is hardly necessary to argue for the view that our existence and our activity acquire meaning only by the setting up of such a goal and of corresponding values. The knowledge of truth as such is wonderful, but it is so little capable of acting as a guide that it cannot prove even the justification and the value of the aspiration toward that very knowledge of truth. Here we face, therefore, the limits of the purely rational conception of our existence. But it must not be assumed that intelligent thinking can play no part in the formation of the goal and of ethical judgments. When someone realizes that for the achievement of an end certain means would be useful, the means itself becomes thereby an end. Intelligence makes clear to us the interrelation of means and ends. But mere thinking cannot give us a sense of the ultimate and fundamental ends. To make clear these fundamental ends and valuations, and to set them fast in the emotional life of the individual, seems to me precisely the most important function which religion has to perform in the social life of man. And if one asks whence derives the authority of such fundamental ends, since they cannot be stated and justified merely by reason, one can only answer: they exist in a healthy society as powerful traditions, which act upon the conduct and aspirations and judgments of the individuals; they are there, that is, as something living, without its being necessary to find justification for their existence. They come into being not through demonstration but through revelation, through the medium of powerful personalities. One must not attempt to justify them, but rather to sense their nature simply and clearly." Depending on feelings and assumptions about the possibility of moral progress and the nature of the universe, were the human race to vanish, perhaps a long process of growth would just begin all over again for it or something like it eventually? And would such a possibility change the presumed optimum you outline? Also, on reducing suffering as an optimization criterion, always remember the motivation triad (as explained well by Douglas J. Lisle such as in "The Pleasure Trap") of maximizing pleasure, minimizing pain, and minimizing effort -- where our brains try to optimize all three simultaneously (along with other objectives). On the general topic of suicide prevention, you may find of interest some resources I collected here: https://github.com/pdfernhout/High-Performance-Organizations... Especially the point here from David Conroy: "Suicide is not chosen; it happens when pain exceeds resources for coping with pain. That's all it's about. You are not a bad person, or crazy, or weak, or flawed, because you feel suicidal. It doesn't even mean that you really want to die - it only means that you have more pain than you can cope with right now. If I start piling weights on your shoulders, you will eventually collapse if I add enough weights... no matter how much you want to remain standing. Willpower has nothing to do with it. Of course you would cheer yourself up, if you could. Don't accept it if someone tells you, "That's not enough to be suicidal about." There are many kinds of pain that may lead to suicide. Whether or not the pain is bearable may differ from person to person. What might be bearable to someone else, may not be bearable to you. The point at which the pain becomes unbearable depends on what kinds of coping resources you have. Individuals vary greatly in their capacity to withstand pain. When pain exceeds pain-coping resources, suicidal feelings are the result. Suicide is neither wrong nor right; it is not a defect of character; it is morally neutral. It is simply an imbalance of pain versus coping resources. You can survive suicidal feelings if you do either of two things: (1) find a way to reduce your pain, or (2) find a way to increase your coping resources. Both are possible." Here is a summary of key ideas from Mayeroff's book in more blunt language: https://thoughtcatalog.com/kyle-eschenroeder/2016/11/this-is... "In 1971 a philosopher named Milton Mayeroff wrote the manifesto on giving a shit. It’s titled On Caring (for us, On Giving a Shit) and we’ll pull from it to help understand how giving a shit can change our lives and how we might learn to give higher quality shits." As mentioned there, Mayeroff also wrote: "No one else can give me the meaning of my life; it is something I alone can make. The meaning is not something predetermined which simply unfolds; I help both to create it and to discover it, and this is a continuing process, not a once-and-for-all. " Also related: https://www.wikihow.com/Find-Meaning-in-Life Or, as Richard P. Feynman said: "Fall in love with some activity, and do it! Nobody ever figures out what life is all about, and it doesn't matter. Explore the world. Nearly everything is really interesting if you go into it deeply enough. Work as hard and as much as you want to on the things you like to do the best. Don't think about what you want to be, but what you want to do. Keep up some kind of a minimum with other things so that society doesn't stop you from doing anything at all." For example, your post shows you care about philosophy as well as reducing suffering -- and there are a lot more ideas and actions you can explore starting from those two areas. If you do so, please keep in mind the extra complexity of the motivational triad and other possible human objectives. And along with "The Pleasure Trap", please also perhaps reflect on the book "Supernormal Stimuli: How Primal Urges Overran Their Evolutionary Purpose" by Deirdre Barrett and the essay "The Acceleration of Addictiveness" by Paul Graham as they explore the dark side of modern society and technology relative to human inclinations adapted for a more tribal culture within an environment with different abundances and scarcities. As Stephen Ilardi writes about in "The Depression Cure: The 6-Step Program to Beat Depression without Drugs": "We were never designed for the sedentary, indoor, sleep-deprived, socially-isolated, fast-food-laden, frenetic pace of modern life." All the best in discovering and/or making meanings in your life -- including from loving caring.

ctively to future needs from newly emerging opportunities. This ability to learn and grow as an organization requires "slack" time. Middle management has a vital role to play in organizational adaptability -- but only if they are not over-scheduled." Tom DeMarco also previously co-wrote "Peopleware: Productive Projects and Team", another excellent book on software management. Another informative and funny book in that area is by Michael Lopp: "Managing Humans: Biting and Humorous Tales of a Software Engineering Manager" Bottom line: you have essentially switched to a new field even if computers are still involved so you need time for self-education and practice and failures and recoveries. As in, ultimately, years to get really good at this new profession the same way it took years and thousands of mistakes to get good at software development as a programmer... (Although mistakes with people are often more personally painful than mistakes that just the compiler yells at you about.) Something else to be aware of (may not apply to you) is that many of the best software developers have some degree of Asperger's -- but people with Asperger's often have issues dealing with human relationships unless they consciously learn various skills for dealing with people that many other non-Aspies just seem to have intuitively. And even when they get good at those skills (sometimes better than non-Aspies because they make understanding all that a focus or obsession), an Aspie using the logical primary CPU part of your brain all day to do what many other people do essentially with an emotion co-processor can leave one feeling drained at the end of the day. So "promotion" from software developer to manager may often be a step backwards in career satisfaction for top developers. Anyway, that is just another complexity on top of all the other issues a new manager of any sort has to deal with. But as you point out, being a manager has its own satisfaction in helping others grow, so if you can get enough positive feedback from seeing your own leverage increase that way, the benefits of transitioning to becoming a manager may eventually outweigh the costs (especially once the people and organizational skills needed to excel become more routinized).

tps://www.goodreads.com/book/show/134266.Out_of_the_Nightm... ""Out of the Nightmare" presents a no-fault theory about depression and suicide. It argues that we should not blame the victim, the family, the caregivers, or society in general. It provides a detailed analysis of each of the barriers that stand between suicidal pain and recovery, and provides those who suffer from depression with hundreds of resources to find their way out of the nightmare. Recovery from depression is decomposed into recovery from envy, shame, self-pity, grandiosity, fear, stigma, prejudice, and the vicious circles of suicidal pain. The book helps sufferers find lasting relief from internalized negative self-judgments." The key point there is to see suicide as an involuntary action that happens when pain exceeds coping resources. It is often possible to reduce pain (whether physical, emotional, or social). It is also often possible to increase coping resources of various sorts -- and different ones work for different people. You mention a sense of obligation to your loved ones which is a coping resources of a sort. So is momentum of routine habits, which in a way are another coping resource. So, perhaps you might be able to build out from those -- perhaps to help others more directly and to develop new lifestyle habits to improve mood (like in the TLC approach)? The book also suggests taking the time (ideally within therapy or consultation with some caring person) to outline all the hundreds of painful things that contribute to your depression (even events from the distant past) and then working towards improving the most approachable pains that are easiest to fix (e.g. an uncomfortable chair, a toothache, a specific negative self-judgement, a strained relationship, etc.) to make some positive progress. All easier said than done of course to get started, but a little positive progress may then lead to an upward spiral of other positive progress and so on. While it may be impossible to improve every painful situation in your life, if you can at least reduce several pains in your life, that reduces the impulse towards suicide. Another book is aptly named "The Upward Spiral: Using Neuroscience to Reverse the Course of Depression" covers some of the same ground: https://psychcentral.com/lib/the-upward-spiral-using-neurosc... "After he describes the downward spiral, Korb helps us start moving in the other direction. He encourages readers to take small steps, since any change, no matter how tiny it seems, can have big effects. Making small, even somewhat trivial decisions when we are indecisive can help us feel productive, he writes, and is one step in the process of reversing depression. In addition to setting goals and making decisions, Korb advocates getting adequate rest, exercising, and developing positive habits. Most of his advice seems straightforward, but what surprised me was his emphasis on gratitude. Research suggests that opening a so-called gratitude circuit can have great positive effects on our brain. It not only decreases symptoms of depression, but also improves physical health, improves sleep, and boosts serotonin. Gratitude also plays a role in the production of dopamine, Korb explains, the neurotransmitter that increases enjoyment. And so, by activating our gratitude circuit, it’s easier for us to feel positive emotions." And here is a more radical idea (YMMV, so just for leading-edge background, not necessarily recommending): https://michaelpollan.com/books/how-to-change-your-mind/ "So began what grew into a two-year journey into the world of psychedelics—LSD, psilocybin, Ayahuasca and 5-MeO-DMT. The book explores the renaissance of scientific research into these compounds and their potential to relieve several kinds of mental suffering, including depression, anxiety, and addiction. It also delves into the rich history of psychedelics in America, tracing the promise of the early research in the fifties and how a moral panic about LSD in the mid-sixties led to decades of suppression, just now ending. I spend time with neuroscientists who are using psychedelics in conjunction with modern brain imaging technologies to probe the mysteries of consciousness and the self. Several of the scientists I profile are convinced psychedelics could revolutionize mental healthcare and our understanding of the mind." Also, for any typical HN poster (maybe not you), looking into whether Asperger's syndrome affects your life and relationships may also be enlightening as Asperger's is associated with lifelong anxiety and depression from social anxiety as well as about a 10X higher than typical rate of suicidal ideation... https://psychcentral.com/news/2014/10/13/suicidal-thoughts-1... I list more coping resource here including about Asperger's on the job among many other job-related issues: https://github.com/pdfernhout/High-Performance-Organizations... All the best in finding ways to reduce your pain and increase your coping resources that work for you in your specific situation.