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Playing Life on Easy Mode

Posted: Mon Nov 26, 2018 1:54 pm
by slowtraveler
I recently saw a speedrun of a game I played as a kid. It inspired me to do a quick run of the game through an emulator. It was orders of magnitude easier and quicker knowing how to win efficiently. I used to waste hours on single battles and now, I beat the whole game in less time than I previously would trying to figure out one piece. The strategy was so simple yet so effective.

It makes me wonder, what other easy unlocks are there for life?

ERE style FI is one. A runaway networth opens more doors than I could've imagined.

Being fit through progressive weight lifting 2-3 times a week, fasting, and sleeping in a pitch black room.

Emotional resilience through meditating, removing toxic people, quality friends, reading non fiction as the default way to kill time, honesty, being warm to people-even asking and using someone's name can turn a bitter old merchant into a sweet and caring one, making habit changes easier by lowering the obstacle to taking the action and connecting them to existing habits-just go to the gym for 30 minutes after school 2 days a week.

Taking ownership for my life is probably the biggest life changer since it makes almost everything changeable and focuses my efforts on action/experimenting rather than lazing in something comfortable enough.

Avoiding addictions is huge- they're crippling in all forms and life is much easier without. I'm defining them as any compulsive behavior done with extreme difficulty stopping, especially when the cons outweigh the pros.

Does anybody have any more strategic shifts that changed the game for them?

Re: Playing Life on Easy Mode

Posted: Mon Nov 26, 2018 2:13 pm
by Tyler9000
Gaming speed runs are amazing to watch. You just have to realize that many of them are done via emulators with constant save states where they conveniently clip out every failure. I suspect a lot of people promoting their easy path to a good life also do a similar amount of editing of all the failed experiments. And unlike games with a pre-programmed world, no two lives are the same so you can't just follow the last guy's button presses to the same results. So personally I think the secret to success has a lot more to do with the process than the path.

That said, being fit, frugal, non-addicted, and proactive are all great places to start!

Re: Playing Life on Easy Mode

Posted: Mon Nov 26, 2018 2:45 pm
by Jean
ERE could be rebranded as career speed-run. That how it felt to me when I quit my career. Like if I speed-ran it.

Re: Playing Life on Easy Mode

Posted: Tue Nov 27, 2018 12:47 am
by BRUTE
slowtraveler wrote:
Mon Nov 26, 2018 1:54 pm
reading non fiction as the default way to kill time
curious.

also, what was the game? brute assumes SNES?

Re: Playing Life on Easy Mode

Posted: Tue Nov 27, 2018 10:57 am
by unemployable
Don't get married or have kids

Never finance anything, including cars and houses

Live in as small a house as possible, or buy a furnished condo with most maintenance/amenities in the HOA fee

Live in the place you take vacations to

Re: Playing Life on Easy Mode

Posted: Tue Nov 27, 2018 1:30 pm
by jennypenny
Limit your choices.

Re: Playing Life on Easy Mode

Posted: Tue Nov 27, 2018 5:56 pm
by Sclass
Get organized.

Systematize complex Jobs that have to be done more than twice.

Standardize materials and processes.

To make a long story short, I applied Kaizen 5s to my life. It worked so well at my factory I brought the ideas home. Frees up tons of time if applied appropriately.

Re: Playing Life on Easy Mode

Posted: Wed Nov 28, 2018 4:37 am
by Dream of Freedom
Tackle one thing at a time until you learn the ropes. Having a wife, kids, house, and career are harder if you are trying to do them all at once with little experience.

Re: Playing Life on Easy Mode

Posted: Sun Dec 02, 2018 9:19 pm
by fell-like-rain
slowtraveler wrote:
Mon Nov 26, 2018 1:54 pm
sleeping in a pitch black room
Since when is this a component of fitness? I personally find I feel most rested if I go to bed early and let the light wake me up in the morning. Getting up to an alarm in a dark room just feels disorienting. But that's a personal preference, and I wouldn't assume it applies to everyone.

Re: Playing Life on Easy Mode

Posted: Sun Dec 02, 2018 11:29 pm
by J_
"Taking ownership of my life...." A beautiful description slowtraveler, thanks.
For me it is also a rigorous cut down of information and disturbing electronics. No tv, no daily "news", no mobile during the biggest part of the day.

Re: Playing Life on Easy Mode

Posted: Wed Dec 05, 2018 12:45 am
by BRUTE
fell-like-rain wrote:
Sun Dec 02, 2018 9:19 pm
Since when is this a component of fitness? I personally find I feel most rested if I go to bed early and let the light wake me up in the morning. Getting up to an alarm in a dark room just feels disorienting. But that's a personal preference, and I wouldn't assume it applies to everyone.
alarm clock bad
light while sleeping bad

these things are not mutually exclusive

Re: Playing Life on Easy Mode

Posted: Wed Dec 05, 2018 5:49 pm
by Campitor
fell-like-rain wrote:
Sun Dec 02, 2018 9:19 pm
I personally find I feel most rested if I go to bed early and let the light wake me up in the morning. Getting up to an alarm in a dark room just feels disorienting. But that's a personal preference, and I wouldn't assume it applies to everyone.
You're are correct in your preference.

The suprachiasmatic nucleus measures the incoming light within the optic nerves. This nucleus regulates the circadian rhythm to a 24 hour cycle otherwise our circadian clock would get pushed forward by a few minutes to an hour each day. This exposure to light also affects how much melatonin is produced. Melatonin doesn't make you sleepy but it does regulate how deeply you sleep.

What makes you sleepy is adenosine; it exerts sleep pressure. Adenosine builds up throughout the day until you feel the overwhelming desire to sleep. The optimal quantity of adenosine doesn't get flushed out of the brain cavity when sleeping poorly. Caffeine binds to the same receptors used by adenosine which is why coffee lessens sleep pressure.

People shouldn't need an alarm clock to wake up if they're sleeping sufficiently and deeply. The lack of proper sleep affects things beyond alertness. Poor sleep impacts memory retention, retards learning, and prevents the reset of cortisol levels that build up during the day. And when you sleep, the brain swells with fluid that flushes out the detritus produced by brain activity. This junk isn't flushed out effectively If you don't sleep enough; the build up kills brain cells. Sleep like a champ, live like a champ.

Re: Playing Life on Easy Mode

Posted: Thu Dec 06, 2018 2:38 am
by BRUTE
Campitor wrote:
Wed Dec 05, 2018 5:49 pm
Melatonin doesn't make you sleepy
wat. has Campitor ever taken melatonin?

and while waking up to natural sunlight sets the SCN, so does, unfortunately, light at night. thus it is important both to sleep in darkness and to wake to sunlight. conundrum.

Re: Playing Life on Easy Mode

Posted: Thu Dec 06, 2018 7:52 am
by Campitor
@brute

I have taken melatonin when I was caring for suicide patients on the 3rd shift. I couldn’t sleep deep enough during the day without it. But it’s adenosine that provides the pressure to fall asleep and melatonin determines the depth of sleep you get. And you're correct - light exposure affects your circadian rhythm and will determine when adenosine and melatonin levels peak during a 24 hour cycle.

The only means of determining when you need to go to sleep and for how long is by foregoing any use of unnatural light. I used to think of myself as a night owl until I went camping for 2 weeks in the deep woods. Typically I get sleepy around midnight to 1AM. The entire time I was camping I would get uncontrollably sleepy shortly after sundown (9PM) and wake before sunrise. My circadian cycle was following my biological programming.

Roughly 40% of humanity are morning larks, 30% are night owls, and the rest fall somewhere in between. People can't know which one they are until forgoing artificial light for a brief period. And they can't discover how many hours of sleep they need without foregoing an alarm clock for several weeks.

Re: Playing Life on Easy Mode

Posted: Thu Dec 06, 2018 9:01 am
by 2Birds1Stone
It sounds like a good way to test this theory will be on a thru-hike of the AT. I'll report back in a few short years ;)

Re: Playing Life on Easy Mode

Posted: Thu Dec 06, 2018 9:22 am
by LiquidSapphire
Keys for me so far have been:
1) Spend less than you earn (preaching to the choir here), avoid lifestyle inflation as much as you can.

2) Don't shy away from hard work/unpleasantness, even if the reward is far away. Maybe even ESPECIALLY if it's far away, because those rewards tend to be really amazing. If the reward is worth it, even if very distant, try to create the discipline to do the work. Applies to school (Grades=scholarships and other opportunities), retirement (ERE), weight loss (giving up the treat now, and consistently, for good results later), career (developing a good reputation will open doors you didn't know were there). I have made a lot of sacrifices that have paid off super huge in my lifetime so far; and the ones that didn't quite pay off, I don't regret. As an example, I gave up a lot in my marriage, sacrificed a lot emotionally, gave too much, to be honest, but I learned a lot. (mainly that no one is worth giving that much to. Hard earned lesson, I'm very stubborn.)

3) General mindfulness aka being self aware of what your goals are and always trying to make progress toward them, even if slow. I regularly do a self-review of life. The first exercise in the MIT "Design Your Life" course is extremely thorough as far as self-examination goes and I go through it about annually - and from there it helps me easily identify what I should be working on next. and actually follow through. I think what separates me from a lot of people is I will actually follow through rather than just talk about it. One thing I am currently working on is allocation of time, am I appropriately allocating my time to achieve the goals I am working toward? I

4) always be trying new stuff. new ways of improving your life, new activities, new ways of doing things. Some of it you will hate, some of it you will love and incorporate. I even try things I think I will hate, just because everyone thinks they are hard, or things I have tried before and hated, because I think maybe now I may not hate it. Really the one rule I have for life is to never give up and just keep trying different methods to achieve your end goal.

Re: Playing Life on Easy Mode

Posted: Thu Dec 06, 2018 9:40 am
by Stahlmann

The only means of determining when you need to go to sleep and for how long is by foregoing any use of unnatural light. I used to think of myself as a night owl until I went camping for 2 weeks in the deep woods. Typically I get sleepy around midnight to 1AM. The entire time I was camping I would get uncontrollably sleepy shortly after sundown (9PM) and wake before sunrise. My circadian cycle was following my biological programming

Try this living somewhere with 4 different seasons...

Re: Playing Life on Easy Mode

Posted: Thu Dec 06, 2018 10:39 am
by FBeyer
LiquidSapphire wrote:
Thu Dec 06, 2018 9:22 am
...The first exercise in the MIT "Design Your Life" course is extremely thorough as far as self-examination goes ...
Does this exist as a text/workbook somewhere, or do I have to scrape the MIT course curriculum and apply it indirectly?

Re: Playing Life on Easy Mode

Posted: Thu Dec 06, 2018 11:03 am
by Dream of Freedom
MIT led the open courseware movement don't you know. Most of their courses are available for free no credit of course. https://ocw.mit.edu/index.htm

Re: Playing Life on Easy Mode

Posted: Thu Dec 06, 2018 1:10 pm
by LiquidSapphire
Here is the link to the MIT course!
https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/athletics-p ... /index.htm

I think the documents I refer to and others are here:
https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/athletics-p ... materials/