venti's blog

Why do you compete?
By venti, history, 13 months ago, In English

I started competing in contests a while back to get an edge in interviews. After enough practice, I got what I wanted — but now I'm at a phase where I'm looking for things to do, to find some meaning in day-to-day life.

I've found that my motivation to sit the full duration of a contest and try my hardest to solve what challenges me is gone, since my biggest initial motivation was achieved.

I want to hear why you compete, in the hope that I can resonate with it and find new resolve to compete and take it as seriously as I once used to.

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Comments Comments (42)
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13 months ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +58 Vote: I do not like it

just like it

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13 months ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +38 Vote: I do not like it

I treat it as a sport rather than a school subject, so I always have the motivation.

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13 months ago, # |
  Vote: I like it -19 Vote: I do not like it

getting a job :""""

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13 months ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +11 Vote: I do not like it

To improve my problem solving skills, and because I enjoy learning new algorithms and programming techniques.

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13 months ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +23 Vote: I do not like it

You play to win the game

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13 months ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +18 Vote: I do not like it

I just like competing and solving problems. My goal is always to better than I was last time.

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13 months ago, # |
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Take it as a sport. I find pleasure participating in contest, competing with my friends. Exploring new things and solving related problems are just satisfying to me.

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13 months ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +45 Vote: I do not like it

validation

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13 months ago, # |
← Rev. 2   Vote: I like it +37 Vote: I do not like it

To wipe out all impure lifeforms in the Orion sector.

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13 months ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +25 Vote: I do not like it

Because I'm addicted

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13 months ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +8 Vote: I do not like it

I want to know how good can I be

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13 months ago, # |
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to solve AB in half an hour & get depressed on later problems for the remaining 1.5h.

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13 months ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +5 Vote: I do not like it

game

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13 months ago, # |
← Rev. 2   Vote: I like it +14 Vote: I do not like it

I like solving puzzles,this is just like a sports to me like football,thus i'm always motivated and want more.

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13 months ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +5 Vote: I do not like it

Because the attack titan must keep moving forward.

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13 months ago, # |
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It's really useful bro my way of thinking has completely changed with this skill and my programming skill also has improved I think any thing in this life can make you get bored sometimes but take deep breaths and keep doing it if you get tired or get bored try to minimize your efforts or take break but don't stop

Hope the best for you

Sorry for my weak English

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13 months ago, # |
  Vote: I like it -17 Vote: I do not like it

Maybe i can be india's first lgm that's why

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    13 months ago, # ^ |
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    Bro either kiddin' or was high while commenting.

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      13 months ago, # ^ |
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      Nope,I am pretty serious

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        13 months ago, # ^ |
          Vote: I like it -34 Vote: I do not like it

        Dude, you took 54 contests just to come out of div4 and 130 to come out of div3 and even after 150+ contests, you're just at the starting boundary of div2. Set some real expectations, mate. Otherwise, later it might emotionally damage you.

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          13 months ago, # ^ |
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          I didn't solve much problem, that was the reason,but I will now,and also you can see from not giving up i reached 1700+ which i thought impossible at the beginning

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            13 months ago, # ^ |
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            Your incredible determination is truly admirable! I wholeheartedly wish you the absolute best, my friend. If you're setting your sights on LGM, I'm confident you'll make it till red at least.
            Keep pushing, and success is bound to be yours!

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              13 months ago, # ^ |
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              Yeah I am confident about it too

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            13 months ago, # ^ |
              Vote: I like it +1 Vote: I do not like it

            OP here — I like your graph, it speaks a lot to your effort and its very motivational. I've added you as a CF friend, I look forward to seeing you keep competing and pushing past obstacles. :)

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              13 months ago, # ^ |
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              Thanks,But it is not good enough

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          13 months ago, # ^ |
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          Bro you remind me of my negative-minded friends of school days

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13 months ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +4 Vote: I do not like it

To protect the world from devastation
To unite all peoples within our nation
To denounce the evils of truth and love
To extend our reach to the stars above

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13 months ago, # |
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money

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13 months ago, # |
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i used to play games a lot ... now i do both of them

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13 months ago, # |
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4 fun

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13 months ago, # |
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Maybe I can be Bangladesh's first Lgm that's why

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13 months ago, # |
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As a Chinese coder, I used to compete in order to get into a top university. It was a lot of stress and I had no fun at all.

I eventually failed and now I come to another country to continue my education. Surprisingly, I found out that I started to enjoy CP. I've acquired peace of mind and I am now competing for pure pleasure!

Sincerely, I hope everybody comes here to learn and grow. Stop caring about things that are irrelevant (jobs, schools, things like that). You'll find yourself improving faster.

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    13 months ago, # ^ |
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    Why is it so true? When you're studying something that is a part of the education system, it feels forced and becomes boring. But if you learn the same thing for yourself, it becomes interesting.

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13 months ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +14 Vote: I do not like it

I'm ratist

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13 months ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +71 Vote: I do not like it

I attribute ~30% of my motivation to train for programming contests to my love of problem-solving and the remaining ~70% to my love of competition. I've found programming contests to be an unusually satisfying competitive outlet for two main reasons:

1: The path to improvement is relatively clear. In many competitive activities, improving your abilities is much more difficult because it's not clear when you make a mistake, let alone how to improve for the next time. Many strategy games are a good example of this--when you lose a game, it's often difficult to attribute the loss to one specific mistake that you can avoid in the future. Learning to identify your mistakes is thus often a key challenge in becoming a great player.

In contrast, when you make a mistake in a programming contest, either by failing to come up with the solution to a problem or by making an implementation error, you (a) receive direct feedback showing that you made a mistake and (b) can review the editorial/debug your solution to figure out what you should do differently the next time you run into a similar problem. This creates a very satisfying feeling of constant improvement; aside from a spell in ~2017-18 when I had no idea how to properly practice, I've rarely felt hardstuck during my competitive programming career.

2: There is a robust competitive landscape that consistently offers attainable goals. Even at the Div. 1 level, competitive programming contests happen around once every two weeks on average (much more frequent than the math contests I competed in back in high school), so it's typically easy to stay motivated to train for the next competition. Moreover, I've almost constantly felt like a meaningful goal was within reach: at the start of my career I had no expectation of ever becoming an LGM, but once I started focusing heavily on CF in early 2019, making GM seemed very doable. Once I was a GM, IGM didn't seem so far away, and after my IGM promotion round I realized that making LGM might actually be feasible. Now, I'm motivated to win my first Div. 1 round, to enter the top ten on the rating leaderboard, etc.

Of course, it also helps that I enjoy the problems (and I've come to enjoy the problem-solving process more and more as I've improved, partly because harder problems are often more interesting and partly because I usually enjoy things more when I'm better at them). I also suspect that my competitive programming accomplishments have been very beneficial to my career, but that has never been a primary motivation to participate in contests. (In general, I've found that the long-term benefits of competitive programming, and of many other activities, are hard to predict in advance, so I try to spend time doing things that (a) I find fun, (b) I'm at least somewhat good at, and (c) are likely to improve me in some way.)

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