Yeah, not that I don't admire the zen-in-the-art-of-who-gives-a-fuck Hank Moody approach to life, it's just not all that practical in the framework of, say, career development. If you want to build a building, you start laying bricks, you don't wander around with the expectation that you'll suddenly just stumble into one.

I agree with your statement and I would add that some people (still) do not realize that it takes many years to be an "overnight success". Without arguing the merits of the "10,000 hours of practice" idea, the point is that you have to practice your craft a lot to become "good".

Recently, a colleague asked me, and I am summarizing here, what shortcut(s) can he take to get to my "level" (as a web developer)?

My answer was that there are no shortcuts - it takes hard-work and a lot of time to become "good". This blunt easy can be hard to swallow, but why is there a seemingly sense of "entitlement"?

Without my copy of the current issue of Make Magazine[1] directly in front of me, either Saul Griffith ("MENTORing Kids Into Makers") or AnnMarie Thomas ("Real Tools for Kids") talk about how young people are not putting in the hours - loosely speaking - in terms of learning engineering or science. I think that there's a sense that hard-work isn't necessary - just being "smart".

What happened with getting your hands dirty by putting in the long hours? For me, the pursuit of happiness without the dedication to working hard is a folly.

1. http://makezine.com/29/

Unfortunately as long as there are people desperate for guidance (even if it's misleading or inaccurate), there will be people offering their [poor, biased, etc] guidance. See: Top-selling self-help books, "how-to" posts on the front page of HN, etc.

I thought HN was better than this.

HN isn't special.

Generally HN does ok with this. Most of the "advice" posts that survive the frontpage are from established industry people (or are at least well-written), and "Show HN" posts typically survive much greater.

FWIW, he prescribes things that worked for him - "These four helped me:"

I can see what you mean but I don't see more than one at a time on the front page usually so it's not totally annoying. I honestly like them even if they do contradict each other. I think the trick is not to take them at face value but to try some, see what works, and throw out what doesn't. That leaves you with a personal mix that uniquely works for you. I think they're all valuable in their own ways.