Will taking drugs help your career? Maybe you need Adderall

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Most of us have a terrible time focusing on our work.

Left uninterrupted, we are likely to interrupt ourselves. The Internet, everyone's interrupter of choice, is the most tantalizing type of reward system to our brain: intermittent but unpredictable rewards, in the form of a randomly great video or a juicy email here or there. (This is also why kids love to whine to get what they want. Parents give in only when they are at their wit's end, creating, from a child's perspective, a similar, randomly yummy reward system.)

Each time we interrupt ourselves at work, the process to get us back to that point of focus takes twenty-five minutes. So we spend nearly a third of our work day recovering from interruptions, trying to recover our focus.

The time management gurus are all over this problem.

Winifred Gallagher is the author of Rapt: Attention and the Focused Life. The thesis of the book is that the ability to positively wield your attention is the key to your quality of life. Gallagher says (in either her book or in the article that I am liberally quoting from — I'm not sure which, but I am distracted enough by the issue that I feel compelled to distract you as well) “You can't be happy all the time but you can pretty much focus all the time. That's about as good as it gets.”

That sounds true to me. We each have a certain amount of attention, and our quality of life depends on how wisely we invest our attention. I have written about how self-discipline is the key to happiness. And then I have written about how knowing that has not helped me much because self-discipline is not an easy nut to crack.

Now I am wondering if attentiveness is the way to achieve self-discipline. You find your goal—the stuff that is really super important—and you focus on it. That focus creates enough self-discipline to do what you need to achieve the goal.

But that isn't just my idea. There are others thinking the same thing.

Merlin Mann has one of the most popular productivity blogs, and he's raking in money teaching executives (who surely are too focused to have time to read blogs) to be more productive in their workday. Merlin Mann says that the key to productivity is attention, not lifehacks.

Here's a gem from Mann's interview with Anderson in New York magazine: “On the web there's a certain kind of encouragement to never ask yourself how much information you really need. But when I get to the point where I'm seeking advice twelve hours a day on how to take a nap or what kind of notebook to buy, I'm so far off the idea of lifehacks that it's indistinguishable from where we started. There's very little advice right now to tell people that the only thing to do is action, and everything else is horseshit.”

Okay. So notice this about focus: You are not actually able to be productive without focus. So we can stop looking for the ultimate moleskin notebook or the perfect Firefox extension because those are actually productivity distractions. The hardest thing about productivity is figuring out what is the number one thing on your to do list. After that, you need to focus on doing that one thing.

Mann says, “There's no shell script, there's no fancy pen, there's no notebook or nap or Firefox extension or hack that's gonna help you figure out why the fuck you're here.”
Maybe what you need instead is Adderall.

Officially, Adderall is prescribed to treat ADHD. Unofficially, it is the drug of choice for Gen Y. Adderall, or other drugs that treat ADHD, give a typical brain an intense ability to focus for long periods of time.

I got most of my Adderall information from a great article in the New Yorker by Margaret Talbot titled Brain Gain: The underground world of neuroenhancing drugs. In it, Sean Esteban McCabe, from the University of Michigan's Substance Abuse Research Center says that at some universities, up to 20% of the population is using these drugs: “White male undergraduates at highly competitive schools—especially in the Northeast—are the most frequent collegiate users of neuro-enhancers.”

Anjan Chatterjee, a neurologist at the University of Pennsylvania , coined the term “cosmetic neurology” to describe the trend of taking drugs to enhance ordinary cognition. He says, “Many sectors of society have winner-take-all conditions in which small advantages produce disproportionate rewards.”

That resonates with me. I have already decided that cosmetic surgery is a must-have career tool for the high performers. So why not consider cosmetic neurology as well?

Joshua Foer wrote about his own Adderall experiment in Slate, and it sounds glorious: “The part of my brain that makes me curious about whether I have new emails in my in box apparently shut down.”

So I decided that maybe I should give the Adderall a whirl.

But then I started getting worried. Because I read research from Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse that shows Adderall is addictive. Not addictive like crystal meth. But addictive like, if you have a proclivity to addictive behaviors, you are a sitting duck for this one. “Because drugs that increase dopamine have the potential for abuse, these results suggest that risk for addiction in vulnerable persons merits heightened awareness.”

That scared me.

But what really scared me is that the cost of gaining extreme focus is often losing extreme creativity. A good example is Paul Philips, a professional poker player who won more than a million dollars after taking Adderall to help him. The scary thing about the Philips example is that Adderall also helped him resist the impulse to keep playing losing hands out of boredom.

I think we have some of our most creative moments when we are doing odd stuff to quell boredom. That is, when we are not focused at all.

“Cognitive psychologists have found that there is a trade-off between attentional focus and creativity,” says Martha Farah, director of the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience. “There is evidence that individuals who are better able to focus on one thing and filter out distractions tend to be less creative.”

Maybe it's better just to do lots of things at once without great focus but with natural creativity.

Focusing on focus seems to distract from the real issue, which is knowing what you value most. Do we know that? And if we did know that, maybe our focus would come naturally from that. And our lack of time management comes from a lack of self-discipline which comes from a lack of focus which comes from a lack of knowing the meaning of life.

And we'll never know that. So maybe we should just be happy that we have our lack of focus because that enables our creativity. And we don't know the meaning of life, but we do know that we each get to create our own life, and that, in the end, may be the only guarantee we have.

114 replies
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  1. greg_ske
    greg_ske says:

    Have you tried earplugs. They’re also made of chemicals. The only thing is that you don’t swallow them.
    Maybe I am old fashioned but isn’t it kind of weird to use legal drugs but still drugs to enhance your work? What will you do once you’re accustomed? If you can’t focus there are better solutions.
    Try to isolate yourself, working from home or even a Starbucks (with the earplugs).
    Work later or earlier when less people are around.
    Split your work in smaller chunks.
    Write a don’t disturb note and put it on your door, desk etc.
    Use music you like. Use pink or white noise
    http://www.luxevivant.com/index.asp?PageAction=Custom&ID=13
    Be creative and strict with yourself and others.
    In my opinion there are lots of other healthier methods.
    Just my 2 cents.

  2. J
    J says:

    I’d like to second (third?) the comments about embracing the positive aspects of ADD. There are definitely advantages to ADD thinking, if you know how to use them to your advantage. (If anyone has book recommendations on this topic, let me know. I’d love to read them.)

    I took a low dose of (prescribed) Ritalin for a few months in high school and it was not right for me at all. It helped me concentrate, don’t get me wrong, but I was also more intense with no sense of humor and a very low tolerance for irritation. It also made me more anxious and emotional. It didn’t keep me up at night — I stayed up on my own, as I had before taking the meds — but it did keep me from feeling the full effects of sleep deprivation the next day. As a result, I didn’t crash or get to the point of needing to catch up on sleep, so the effects compounded. I think the compounded sleep deprivation is really what made me anxious and emotional, not the medication itself. One other thing to note: it helped me concentrate, but not always necessarily on what I needed to do. For example, I was really interested in cleaning, but sometimes to the exclusion of more important things.

    By the way, I took the SAT on Ritalin and again a few months later. I didn’t study for either test. My score without Ritalin was much higher (and more in line with my PSAT score than the SAT score on Ritalin).

    ADD meds are not for everyone. Some people may benefit, sure, but you should definitely be monitored by a doctor to find out.

  3. vp
    vp says:

    Sounds good for one off, when you study for an exam, but if you don’t have ADHD then the only thing you need people is DISCIPLINE.

    E.g I can multitask when I want and when I need to focus I can persuade myself to only check my email 1-2 a day and not at all at weekends, except if I am waiting for an important message.

  4. Matthew | Polaris Rising
    Matthew | Polaris Rising says:

    I took Adderall for a while to see if it would help a more neurological condition. It’s basically an amphetamine. To me it has similirities to cocaine. Which, in certain fields can definitely increase drive and attention.

    It was fun because I didn’t need it. It helped drive and attention, but also had other major drawbacks – like needing sleeping pills at night to sleep.

  5. James
    James says:

    Interesting post, but I personally believe that there is no need to take Adderall. Seriously self discipline alone should be enough to keep people free from distractions. I disagree that we spend 1/3 of our days not focusing on what we are doing. For me it is just a question of setting a task and not stopping unitl we have completed it.

  6. Francine
    Francine says:

    For someone with true ADD/ADHD, Adderall and it’s counterparts can certainly be lifesavers. But there are a lot of people on here, the author included, seemingly advocating casual, sporadic use to sort of “get through” unpleasant things (many of which they have simply procrastinated), like business reports, school papers, exams, etc. I find it odd and somewhat disingenuous in a button-pushing, generating-web-traffic kind of way that this post comes so soon on the heels of the self-discipline article.

    As several previous posters have pointed out, intermittent “ADD” (what yogis might call “monkey mind”) is usually better controlled with self-discipline and meditation. And of course, as others mentioned, if your life is one long list of obligations (that inspire nothing but procrastination) in the service of earning the almighty dollar (usually for some big corporate entity, not yourself), you’d be better off revamping your life than finding a doctor who will help you score some Adderall.

    And it WILL affect your creativity, no doubt. I suggest reading “The Midnight Disease” by Alice Flaherty, a noted neurologist at Massachusetts General Hospital. While the book focuses on writer’s block and hypergraphia, Flaherty also gives an interesting overview of the brain chemistry of creativity and how it relates to mental illness and the treatment thereof. “Cosmetic neurology” may be the new big thing, but it will come with a price.

  7. Dan
    Dan says:

    well I already take the drug Addlepated.. so I don’t know if this will work for me. Luv yer column, tho.
    D.

  8. Advice for women
    Advice for women says:

    “I think we have some of our most creative moments when we are doing odd stuff to quell boredom. That is, when we are not focused at all.”

    I think this is true. Concentrating too much kills creativity. When you focuc much you tend to think about the rules that could really make you less creative.

  9. dudeeee
    dudeeee says:

    Well, i was searching on ADD medications because i thought thats what i had and adderall could help, but ya know what, i just read the article and every single comment and i wasnt distracted at all. It took me like 20 minutes to read the whole thing but i found it pretty interesting. I also liked the way that dude Ken Wolman writes, some things he said just struck a note so kudos for his ability to express himself the way he does.
    I think my problem, as well as many people out there, is discipline (lack thereof) and many times it comes down to laziness. I’m so lazy that i sometimes dont feel like doing my job so i distract myself endlessly to avoid the responsibilities. But when i really am doing something i like, i can be both creative and extremely focused and the results can be amazing. I wasn’t aware adderall was similar to cocaine, but now that i know i’ll be sure to stay away. As far as the article, i dont really care much about it – the writer has obviously done a good enough job at it if it’s generated this kind of response so congratulations.
    anyways,… yeh i don’t really have a point to make or anything so i’ll stop typing

  10. Angie
    Angie says:

    Not to be ugly but, the problem with people is their lazy. They sit in front of a computer screen all day, then go home and sit in front of the tv and your kids play video games. The reason why you lack the creativity is because you’ve stopped stimulating it. So you think Adderall will help you? Talk to someone who is currently 26 and been on Adderall or the likeness since they were 10. People take medications way too lightly. These are brain damaging chemicals. My serotonin receptors don’t fire anymore, now I have to be medicated. If you went through what I go through everyday with these god awful drugs you might think twice about taking something that is about equivalent to cocaine or meth. I didn’t know not to take them, I was a kid. Doctors really need to quit throwing this shit around like it’s candy.

  11. Frank
    Frank says:

    Look, sometimes life calls for building a boring square box to put boring square things in. You are not suppsed to make it pretty, you are not supposed to reinvent it, just follow the square blueprints, make the square box, and get on with the more interesting parts of your life.

    But without focus that square box will take forever to complete… All the distractions – that will in no way help you build the square box – might make you more creative, but some times creativity just isn’t what is called for. Some time we need to hunker down and do boring shit, in a decidedly uncreative way.

    If you have lives where this isn’t true, then good for you, but you are either one in a billion or lying to yourself. And by lying to yourself I mean, you probably have these times as much as anyone else, you just actually focus and do these things. Some people are just born with the ability to do that. Others have learned to focus. Some of us… well, some of us are creative by heart, and can’t turn it off. And when we need to hunker down and build a square box… Well, it’ll be purple. With flowers. And maybe not that square. And probably it will eventually get you fired.

    So shout as much as you want about how important creativity is… I get that, I really do. But a time and a place… Productivity is also a vital ingredients in our lives today. Creativity won’t help you read a textbook in a night. It wont help you organize your bookshelves. It wont help you build 1000 copies of the same product, every day.

    Actually, creativity wont even help you actually assemble all the projects that creativity helped you think up. Adderall might.

  12. David
    David says:

    I am diagnosed with ADD. My IQ is very above average. Nevertheless, I fail college classes and never get high grades, but have nothing else particularly exciting going on in life either. I am on Adderall and even the highest dose they can prescribe barely helps. I also use tobacco and coffee to help me focus. I’ve recently found out that marijuana is great for concentration problems, were it not for its too-strong effects on memory, etc.
    My Adderall is like meth to all my friends, but to me it doesn’t do enough. I think my non-focus habits are just too ingrained in me by now.. Not sure what to do :(

  13. DBR
    DBR says:

    I was diagnosed with ADHD a few months ago after a life time of a horrible cycle of incredible promise and crushing failure.

    We did 5 hours of testing and it was extremely interesting. I have been taking Adderall 20mg twice per day.

    That is actually too much for me – I split the pills in half and take them about every 3 hours. It helps a lot with work

    I am debating whether I want to stay on it or not. It does help me with focus and getting work done, but its not magic by any means. My already messed up sleep situation is worse now. I also went from being generally easy going and in a good mood to much more willing to get into an argument for the sake of arguing. This is the part that really has me reconsidering using this drug.

    Most people really do not understand how ADHD works. It’s a pretty shitty condition to have and a lot of people think you can just take some vitamins and take a class on organization and you are good to go. Ha. If only.

    There is no magic pill or fix for ADHD. I am fortunate in that I am blessed with a sharp mind, but at the same time, it can be frustrating to know that utilizing it to it’s full potential may not really be possible.

    I am not a purist or a naturist – if the drugs worked well, I would be all for them, but they are a mixed bag and let me emphasize this – *FOR ME* – they work differently on everyone.

    When the Adderall is working, I can do some amazing things – I have actually surprised myself. Yet, it’s hard to keep the meds at the right level and if I take too much, it is not eurphoric, its just horrible and disabling.

    I might try Ritalin and if it is not significantly better, I am not sure the trade off is worth it (for me).

  14. bill
    bill says:

    The people in schools who are only using adderall to ‘get through medical school’ are the same ones who are going to be the Dr.s who will be taking care or our children. Whats the first thing they will want to do when the kid is a bit of a problem that needs handling? Yeah, give em a pill. Worked for me. Look how great I turned out! It’s pushing drugs with a license. Prescription addiction.

  15. Chris
    Chris says:

    I am a 25 year-old law student who began taking adderall (legally) during my last year of law school.

    My grades improved dramatically, but even more amazing was that I could implement my creative / grandiose ideas. If you use adderall correctly, you won’t “lose creativity.” I started a blog and became a better leader after starting adderall. Leadership and vision are skills I have always possessed and garnered success from, but being able to sift through details and occasionally micromanage are essential to leading.

    It is because of stigma and misinformation that I waited so long to receive treatment. There are side effects. I sometimes have trouble sleeping and staying hydrated is a concern, but I will not stop taking it as a result.

    The true part of this article seems to be discussing whether adderall is something anyone can take advantage of. For the vast majority of people, taking adderall mimics meth or cocaine use. People with ADHD have a demonstrated chemical imbalance with norepinephrine and serotonin in their brains. If you don’t have the imbalance, adderall will create an imbalance. As someone who lived 20+ years with that imbalance, I can guaranty you that you do not want it. Do to a doctor, get properly diagnosed, and make a concerted effort to get the right medication and right dosage for you; everyone is different.

  16. Tim
    Tim says:

    Sorry in advance – this will be a long comment.

    I read this when first posted, and I keep coming back to this thread and reading the comments every time the article pops up in a blog post from Penelope. I get angry and I think about posting but I talk myself out of it. I wonder how many commenters actually have any experience with ADD/ADHD and medications that treat it, versus just taking Adderall or some other stimulant as a study aid?

    I was officially diagnosed with ADHD in my late 30’s after suspecting it for a long, long time (and being told by anyone who got close to me that I was probably a candidate for treatment).

    My experience is similar to Chris’ in the post above. I feel more like myself then I have in a long time, perhaps ever. I have likened it to having my brain kicked to the front of my skull. Focusing is easier; it’s like a fog was cleared and I am not only able to see what is around me, but I am able to determine what is important and what is not, and I am able to prioritize – and what I prioritize matches the majority opinion.

    I find it easier to converse with people; I have to think a hell of a lot less about what I am saying or what I might say. I worry about it less, and it comes easier. I also care about it less.

    I have always been able to hyper-focus in the clutch, but now I can focus and sustain it. The problem before was that I would hyper-focus and it may not be on the right thing.

    As well, before – no matter how much I knew I was supposed to do something, I could not get myself to do it. I was oppositional to myself to an extreme degree. I am now able to flip that – it’s much, much easier to initiate tasks and to see that big things are really composed of very small chunks and not overwhelming, terrifying things.

    My creativity is actually at one of the highest points it has ever been; to corrupt Maslow’s Hierarchy, once the basics are covered and you don’t have to spend all of your time and effort on them, it frees your mind and your time up for higher things. And success breeds success – small ones build the foundation for larger ones.

    Successful ADHD treatment is a two-prong approach – life coaching/therapy to develop coping mechanisms and strategies that work for you is the most important step; medication is there to help with the maintenance – once you get good habits and coping mechanisms, it makes it easier to keep them and lets you worry about it and work at it less; it makes it more automatic. And the less you have to worry and work at the basics, the more time and energy you have to do and work on other things.

    Treatment is for life; there is no cure, there is only management and maintenance. Medication alone will not help you.

    And medication misused is what gets those of us with scripts for Schedule II Controlled Substances funny looks from pharmacists; and it keeps us from really taking about it as much as we maybe should. As Chris said, there is a stigma associated with having to take medication of any sort, especially psychotropic, to “cope” with life. And a lot of that is self-stigma, and I wonder how many people will not consider that there is anything “wrong with them” that could benefit from treatment of some sort?

    What finally kicked me over the edge – I have always been perfectly capable of getting in a panic mode where I have all cylinders firing and I am almost frantic in my approach to get everything done and get it done now. And it would work, to an extent. But I would burn out and have to recover and so my life looked like a series of bell curves or sine waves – ups followed by downs that get deeper and longer over time.

    I was tired of always being spoken about, thought about with a “but” ending every sentence – “He’s a smart kid, but he just doesn’t apply himself in class”; “He’s a good worker, and he is my go-to person in an emergency – but he just isn’t good at the details or the day-to-day activities”. There are very few things that are as effective in killing your career progress – or your relationships, or your self-esteem – then that “but”.

    • blazingsuth
      blazingsuth says:

      Thank you for posting from aattempting to get my boyfriend to n ADD/ADHD perspective!  I have been gently trying to get my boyfriend to follow through with the necessary medical professionals to get his childhood ADD diagnosis updated as adult ADD.  He is actually very good at managing his ADD, his coping skills are quite well developed and habitual, however he does have bad days where it’s impossible to focus on anything. 

      The thing to note is that ADD/ADHD brain chemistry is VERY different from that of someone without ADD/ADHD.  Adderall has a completely different effect on someone with the brain chemistry of ADD/ADHD than someone without it.  I do not have ADD/ADHD and I am sure that I would have a reaction similar to that of ‘hi’ (above) if I were to take Adderall. 

      It is so important that this medication be used correctly, and only by those with the brain chemistry that it was designed for.  When it is stigmatized it becomes more difficult for those who need it to motivate themselves and find the focus needed to overcome that stigma. 

  17. Ashley
    Ashley says:

    I found this article very interesting, especially because my boyfriend of 3 years has an extremely addictive personality. He was prescribed Adderall 2 years ago and finally went to a rehab facility a month ago and got clean. This is one of the WORST drugs that can be prescribed to anyone. I don’t feel that the side effects and long term damage from this prescription is worth the couple of hours that you manipulate your brain to focus.

  18. Brunner Markus
    Brunner Markus says:

    Hi, if anyone needs Ritalin

    just send a mail to

    brunnerm_82@gmx.at

    best regards

    Markus
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    Quick, discrete & trustworthy – your professional Ritalin partner.

  19. News
    News says:

    I dont think drugs can help you in any way…but for a very short period of time when consumed… no need to talk about the bad side of the drugs i guess…

  20. David
    David says:

    I have been having some success with adderall. My problem is that it makes my voice really thin and crackly. This isn’t good because I’m the singer for a band. It has definitely helped me keep on top of school though now that I’ve started taking it regularly, which I think is the key.
    I want to try some different types of medication like SSRI but I don’t want to get a whole prescription worth just to see if it works, so I don’t know what I’ll do about that.
    I think my best bet has been to do things that accommodate having ADD. Like working as a delivery man or singing in a band.

  21. hi
    hi says:

    If
    – you work extremely hard
    – you expect a lot of yourself
    – you are an overachiever
    – you have an entrepreneurial spirit
    – you are a perfectionist
    – being unproductive makes you feel uncomfortable

    I don’t give orders…but I will suggest VERY STRONGLY – PLEASE DO NOT TAKE ADDERALL

    It will do everything you want it to do. However, you will develop a tolerance and stop feeling the effects. Then you will need to increase your dosage.

    It’s another Pandora’s box – in my opinion.

    Will it help your career? Initially, it might help it a lot. I’m not going to lie. The pill does what people says it does, and it feels like a miracle drug.

    Will it ruin your life, and ultimately your career? If you fit the criteria above, then yes.

    This is my experience. I was doing very well in every area of my life; to make a long story short, nothing was ever good enough. I always wanted to do more.

    I wanted to accomplish as much as possible, as efficiently, as possible, as fastest as possible, as thoroughly as possible, etc. Everything had to be optimal, and more.

    Adderall helped all of that, and more. Thinking, writing, exercising, speaking, social interactions, and pretty much everything was so much easier. To make matters worse, these activities were an absolute joy with Adderall.

    Of course, there are only 24 hours in a day, and life has limits.

    These effects don’t last forever, and you will need more. Eventually, you can only take so much before you begin to suffer from insomnia and severe appetite loss.

    Great, you might lose some weight. Eating also takes time, and interferes with time that one could be otherwise working. Sleep also takes time away from one’s work.

    However, we all know that long-term sleep deprivation makes us function worse.

    Some time will pass, and you will experience paranoid delusions. After that, you will experience auditory/visual hallucinations. (This is called amphetamine psychosis, and believe me it is very real).

    Maybe if you are the adventurous type, you might get a kick out of the fact that your brain seems like Disney World, or usually some sort of horror movie. This excitement gets old fast, if you even have it to begin with. Not living in reality is really awful after a few months of taking too much Adderall, because your brain begins to think that your hallucinations and delusions ARE reality. This is the beginning of schizophrenia.

    Thankfully, I was able to escape (very narrowly and painfully) from this Adderall addiction without becoming schizophrenic, but I was lucky. If people/institutions were not available to help me, I would be dead by now.

    Do not rationalize your way into suicide because you want to focus, work harder, make more money, study harder, perform better, get more accomplished, or whatever your goal is.

    Only rationalize your way into suicide if you want to kill yourself.

    Adderall almost killed me.

    • Pamela
      Pamela says:

      My ex-boyfriend, a successful, articulate, athletic, capable, and intelligent Vanderbilt student on a significant scholarship began taking his (prescribed) Adderall far more frequently than the recommended dosage to keep up with his demanding academic schedule as well as the ridiculous and time-consuming hazing from his cocaine-addled fraternity. Long story short, he became addicted and increasingly more paranoid, depressed, and insomniac with each overdose. He ultimately lost his scholarship, was kicked out of the fraternity, and failed out of Vanderbilt entirely. I don’t know that he has ever recovered from the devastating effects of this drug, and because of it I will never support the use of this unnatural focus enhancer, despite the fact that it could likely make me a better employee, writer, and homemaker.

      Don’t fuck with your brain, kids.

  22. annie
    annie says:

    I wonder if this is why don’t feel connected to a lot of my academice peers. Everybody seems to be on crack and the professors are like yeaaaah, and have extremely high demands with little room for flexibility. They say, I know some of you are working full time and going to school full time..good for you! If I were a professor I’d be worried. When do they have time to write a poem? Daydream about love?

    In class, I hardly speak. One, because I’m shy and two, everyone feels the need to get out their brilliant ideas before the teacher even finishes speaking. They have millions of ideas and never stop talking. Chill. Focus on a beautiful passage.

    I like the idea of meditation. Although if the crackheads jump on the bandwagon I hope it’s genuine and not because they’re just trying to get ahead.

    Maybe I just feel threatened because I wwnt to be a stay at home mom and provide for my family but at a good pace, with time to be idle. The over achievers

  23. annie
    annie says:

    I wonder if this is why don’t feel connected to a lot of my academice peers. Everybody seems to be on crack and the professors are like yeaaaah, and have extremely high demands with little room for flexibility. They say, I know some of you are working full time and going to school full time..good for you! If I were a professor I’d be worried. When do they have time to write a poem? Daydream about love?

    In class, I hardly speak. One, because I’m shy and two, everyone feels the need to get out their brilliant ideas before the teacher even finishes speaking. They have millions of ideas and never stop talking. Chill. Focus on a beautiful passage.

    I like the idea of meditation. Although if the crackheads jump on the bandwagon I hope it’s genuine and not because they’re just trying to get ahead.

    Maybe I just feel threatened because I want to be a stay at home mom and provide for my family but at a good pace, with time to be idle. It doesn’t look like that’s gonna happen unless I work my ass off in the next 5 years and compete with the crackheads.

    I run on love!

  24. Anthony
    Anthony says:

    I took all these mess an it is not a zero sum game. I think writers just use the creative or focused argument to appeal to a wider audience and not discourage people who think of themselves as unfocused but lack the means to afford the drugs.

    The greatest artists in history have simply found something to be rewarding, or ran with an idea long enough to be able to sell it to make a living. Everything is just so mass produced that most art goes unnoticed.

    At least we have YouTube, reddit, and imgur to give us access to those who are creative enough to put their work online

  25. cat
    cat says:

    I’ve got a scrip for adderall based on this post and other research i’ve done. I am in a certain profession in which the more productive I am = instant $$.

    but it’s really not working for me. :( I’m up to 20mgs and still got 20 tabs open even right now.

    in fact, having to go to the damn psych every other week is draining my time! am reconsidering.

    oh and appetite is the same too. wth.

  26. cat
    cat says:

    and it’s only been a month, and only a couple days at 20. so this isn’t a tolerance thing on my part.

    it simply doesn’t do what everyone says it does. and I went through a lot of trouble to get it prescribed legitimately.

  27. Brandon
    Brandon says:

    I have to comment about how ridiculous the term “cosmetic neurology” is. It’s not cosmetic at all. It’s entirely functional. It is literally the exact opposite of cosmetic. This ruined the entire article for me. I cannot take anything on this page seriously now.

  28. daaaaam
    daaaaam says:

    why u be trippin grrrrrl?

    Tellin people to be stealin yo?
    And takin drugs yo?

    wut a bIXXZNAAAAAATCH!!!!

    Ho be TRIPPIN!

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