I'm really impatient to achieve big things. It's like I need to in order to justify my existence. How do I transition to a healthier state of mind and stop feeling worthless?
Take me for example. I started university when I was 13, won the Putnam competition when I was 18, went on to a doctorate in computing from Oxford University, and single-handedly bootstrapped a successful startup. I think most people here could tell you that much about me; but I doubt many could tell you that I'm 34, that I'm socially awkward and stutter when I'm nervous, that I'm diabetic and wrestle with this life-threatening condition every day, that I'm 20 lbs overweight and due to my sedentary lifestyle have the cardiopulmonary fitness of a typical 50 year old, or that I've been dumped by every woman I've ever dated.
When you inevitably compare yourself to others, remember that there's probably a lot you're not hearing about them.
As I get older (I'm still 33), I realize more and more that almost nobody got their stuff together. Most people even in their 40 or 50 are still trying to figure out what to do with their lifes. They change careers, move to a different state, start writing books, start some business different from what they have done their entire life.
When I was young, I always heard that 'life is hard'. I live in a third world country, grew from a poor family and never had much money. But it wasn't until I was married working in a good company that I realized what that means.
I realized that life being hard is not about not having money or a family... these are struggles we all have. Life being hard is all about these choices you have to keep making that are not confortable at all, you can never rest, life is always changing your plans. Even when you think you have it all figured out, this will last only a few years and you will have to start again.
It's all part of life. We all have struggles and the sooner we realize that it's all about the journey and not about the ends, the easier it gets to go on.
This is exactly why it's useless to compare yourself to others --> incomplete data (or even worse, pre-selected data).
There have been a lot of posts which seem to advise against comparisons.
I'd argue that a comparison isn't bad for you per se, it's the data you are comparing your life/achievements to that can lead to problems because of a lack of transparency.
Why not keep comparing, but compare your current self to yourself at timepoint t-1, t-2...
Also, try to set schedules for when you compare and which facets of your life you are comparing (eg. health, education, 'job success' etc on a bimonthly basis).
Last word of warning --> most people tend to make comparisons when they are feeling 'down'. Don't let this kind of expectation bias screw with you - try to leave comparisons until you are in a moderate or positive mood.
That's definitely true but I find little consolation in it because for me it's not only about being really successful. It's also about being perceived as really successful by other people, so it's not just about "winning" the "competition" of who has the "best" life, it's about winning the competition of who other people think has the best life, which is a competition in which it doesn't matter whether there's a lot that you're not hearing about the winners, because the majority of people (the judges) will only take the stuff you do hear into account.
I hope that makes sense, couldn't really think of a good way to phrase it.
Next, take some of your time and go volunteer somewhere - go tutor a child or teach someone to read or feed the homeless or whatever else you like, just go help someone out. You're now accomplishing something way more important than interning with some 'top company' somewhere. Congratulations, your existence is now justified.
Finally, now that you're doing something worthwhile for humanity and you're not tormenting yourself by wallowing in everyone's self-promotional bloviating, you can happily focus on learning new things, gradually improving your own skills, and figuring out how to make a big dent in the universe on your own personal schedule, which is different from everybody else's.
Hey, I spent my entire twenties fucking up left and right - whatever you end up doing, I guarantee you're way ahead of me.
news.ycombinator.com##td.subtext
(It also tidies up the homepage and makes it look a lot cleaner, IMO: http://i.imgur.com/RzHKD2d.png)
I wrote a bit more in response in another comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10523788
Don't worry though. Everything will be OK.
(The things I'm about to say is/are true for me. So is most of what everyone else here is saying. While it's good that you are asking your peers for help, the answers you will get won't make "sense" until you discover them for yourself. (Like the A-HA moment when you finally grok a mathematics proof or a famous algorithm). This will require effort from you.)
The facts of the matter are simply this:
- Your life is unique the same way that everyone else's is. - Your journey is not the same as anybody else's. - You are a whole person. - You have all the tools you need. - :)
The answers you seek are of a spiritual nature and you need some kind of spiritual process to discover them. I can recommend Buddhism, Toaism or even the Yogic disciplines/technologies. What they all have in common is an insistence that one needs to meditate, daily...
(Meditation, loosely, is learning how to accept and acknowledge thoughts that are uncomfortable.)
Good luck!
In terms of HN and how smart people are here: Remember there are a lot of people that participate in HN and the experts and sometimes so called experts come out and respond to the posts in their knowledge domain. So some of these people do know a lot more about a topic than most of us.
I read HN almost daily and don't understand most of the topics and responses. It doesn't bother me at all. If it bothers you you might want to stop for awhile.
I'm 62 and was miserable working at a bank/financial institution. I quit and started working at a university (web services) and volunteering in STEM education of K12 students 9 years ago today. I felt stupid at the bank until I left and realized the people that were above me were clueless. Clueless people promote clueless people. So my biggest advance in my journey started when I was 53 years old.
Now I'm in a much better place. Take care of yourself. Exercise, moderate your vices (if you have them) and give back. Be grateful for what you have and journal that every day until you think in terms of gratitude as your new mental model. And yes meditate and give prayers of thanks for what you have.
You have taken a big step asking for help.
Impatience is a great quality, you just need to combine it with Not Giving A Fuck. Comparing yourself slows you down if you go beyond "I should know that too!"
Someone else will always be better than you; embrace it. If you're the smartest person in the room, find a new room. You'll learn more there.
(Not that your friends are "better than you." They fall in a different category called "great family support.")
As many comments on this page suggest, try to stop worrying about what's outside of your control. You can't control if someone else is a better programmer or started coding at a younger age. But you can control what you study, how hard you study, how hard you practice outside of school, etc. If you work hard, 5 years from now there will be a bunch of 27-year-olds that you work with who feel inadequate working next to you.
If something's outside of your control, you _literally_ can't do anything about it. So why make life harder for yourself by worrying? That's like worrying about an asteroid hitting Earth -- you'll upset yourself, but it won't do you any good.
Realistically, what is the percentage of people in the whole world that can do what you can do? Here is the answer: Under 25-million or you can do what you do better than 0.0000000025% of the planet.
https://www.quora.com/Approximately-how-many-programmers-are...
I bet that didn't help but look at it this may, you may or may not become a "New York Times, number-one, best selling author" or a "Diva at an Italian opera house" but you can master your craft and use it to better people's lives or even your own life for that matter. Perhaps that should be the goal and revel in those accomplishments?
It's way harder to think about what you want than to hop on to society's defaults (schools, work prestige, wealth, looks, ..). http://www.paulgraham.com/love.html touches on this ("if you admire two kinds of work equally, [choose the less prestigious]").
When no one else is trying to accomplish the same thing in the same way, only absolute measurements matter: how close did you get? How much did you enjoy the ride?
Focusing on differences is.
The solution is to focus on similarities instead of differences.
By focusing on differences, you will always find something to let you feel inferior, let you stop tackling new things, maybe even saying things to others you do not really mean because you feel down at that moment. By focusing on similarities, you will boost yourself. You will see that others are not that different from you.
When you changed your regular comparison strategy for some time, you might even notice that focusing on differences, in the context of a retrospective is not that bad. It gives you the chance to grow.
Disagree. OP: Focus on what makes you unique. And that probably isn't the obvious stuff. You're in school, surrounded by folks whose talent is that they're good in school. That's not what makes most successful folks successful in life, I can assure you. Or happy.
Maybe you're just natively a generalist and surrounded by folks happy to be specialists. That's great: the world spins because of folks who see the big picture and understand how to connect lessons learned from disparate fields.
How about this: Read Andrew Hargadon's book, "How Breakthroughs Happen"... and then maybe Be That Guy, the one who builds teams and connects networks of experts and puts the whole thing together and makes shit HAPPEN.
School's a terrible place for learning this about yourself, since it's a reproductive mechanism for academics. But today t's pretty instrumental in gaining the necessary credentials and pedigrees. Do your best, but take this as an opportunity to learn about yourself and your broader capabilities.
Onward!
Now the way I avoid being too serious about life is by thinking about the Universe and how amazing and large it is. At the scale of the Universe we simply don't matter.
Oh! and enjoy the ride!! Fuck- Nobody really knows for sure if we get another go at it.
I'm serious. In dancing your bodily similarities and dissimilarities to your partner are in your face all the time, the fitting of them is (in a way) all there is to dancing. You both have to be aware of it and not fight it, you have to work with it. You have to learn to let the differences flow (so it is not enough to learn the choreography, you need to be able to enjoy the dance).
Words do not make justice to the experience.
2¢
At the end of the day we are imitating our peers--everyday. When we start as babies we imitate our mother, our siblings and everybody we see. Later in school and university we see what friends and other peers do. Sometimes we think good idea I might try it.
And sometimes we are surprised that in our eyes to us inferior peers try and accomplish stuff which is more challenging, advanced and just more exciting than our life. THIS is the key for personal growth: this feeling that somebody who was inferior all the past overtook us, frustrates us and will lead us into bigger journeys. Especially men who tend to be more competitive cannot stand this feeling and gear up.
I started to raise money because of some 10 year younger guys I met who raised 500k seed with ease. And I found those guys are inferior to me, so I was forced to get on par.
But when I was an office drone deep in corporations I imitated my peers there: worked as little as possible but still climbing the career ladder via office politics, complaining all day how bad the company is, worked just for the weekends (full of partying and girls) and the only goal was planning the next vacation. This was a hollow life where I lacked strong peers and I was slowly degenerating like them for years. I lost time.
This is the good thing about Facebook. Because we have 1,000 of FB friends the probability that we see everyday some big achievement of someone is quite high (and so frustrating) and leads to a very restrictive posting behavior on our side because it tells us: only post if you achieved something special and this initially negative energy might be good: it pushes into new and more challenging activities.
I know not everybody will like my answer but again peers who push us out of our comfort zone help our personal development. So we should see it as something positive.
Then realize that there are zero other people in the world who have that same set of attributes. Therefore, no matter who you interact with, see on YouTube, or read about, the difference between the two of you is not going to be explained by something you can control.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/communication-success/2...
The turning point for me was when I read this article: http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-harsh-truths-that-will-make-yo...
It basically says you have to make things and you won't feel yourself worthless.
Start learning and doing hard, that's all!
That said, I think there are concrete things you could do to improve your current situation. First, it sounds like you now know what to do. That's excellent! At 22, you are not far behind at all.
Early in grad school, things weren't going well and I felt like I was falling behind my peers. I ended up finding a lot of comfort knowing there was a CS professor in my department who had trained as a doctor but then decided his passion was in CS. He basically had to start over in school. To know that one could get a later start and still achieve success was incredibly reassuring.
That said, I think you might also benefit from having a mentor. I have found it useful to have someone experienced and successful from which to learn and model myself after. They have given me the confidence to go and tackle larger problems and helped me move forward when things are looking pretty bleak.
You should stop reading HN. I've been contemplating this for myself for some time. I have to look around more, but so far I see reddits programming subreddit is more condensed and superior if you just want to keep track on programming news.
For your current situation I can tell you that everything is fine. I've got into programming as an autodidact later than you with zero experience and my school career was average at best. Just take your time and go really deep into a single programming language, exercise with meaningless projects, use stack overflow or friendly forums to discuss problems. Just don't compare to others, there are always smarter people than you. But if you train the practical parts really hard it becomes meaningless because the results are the same.
Also if you want to learn something about humbleness, read Herman Hesse's Siddartha, just don't dive into esoterics afterwards.
Good Luck.
[edit] Nice article about depression and social media: http://www.forbes.com/sites/alicegwalton/2015/04/08/new-stud...
The therapist at my university was really useful to several people I know, plus myself.
2. What one person can do, another can do too. It might take years of practice or study, but all you need to accomplish things is a little luck and a lot of perseverance. Being really good at something is a lifelong pursuit. Better find something to do where you'll enjoy the journey, because there is no meaningful destination.
3. Action causes reaction. As long as you're doing something to move ahead opportunities will happen, even if you can't yet see how, in turn accelerating you and causing more opportunities. Achievement snowballs. The hardest million is the first.
4. It's easier to adjust your perception of things than the way things really are. If you are not happy, becoming so is less a factor of changing your life than changing your attitude. Meditation helps.
5. It's OK to say none of that is relevant. Everyone has their own path. Mine is not yours. My advice only truly pertains to my own younger self.
I have used SF in my own life,, with the teams I have managed and with some life coaching customers. If you want to know better how to use it send me an email eric [at] ericfplamer [dot] com
These two ted videos are also useful for 1) thinking differntly about happiness and 2) thinking differently about genius.
http://www.ted.com/talks/martin_seligman_on_the_state_of_psy...
I just wanted to add that you don't necessarily have to make a big dent in the universe to feel fulfilled. I think that making a meaningful positive impact on a small number of people you care about (or even one person) can be just as rewarding—if not more so—than making a difference in the lives of thousands. I certainly admire and encourage your ambition to achieve big things, but "smallish dents" are great too.
To address another point, I think it's great that you know what you want to do with your life. I definitely don't believe that 22 is "too late", however. I'm 28, and it feels like I've made that decision dozens of times in the last 15 years or so. Whether you're still in college or decades past it, "what you want to do with your life" is not a static thing that you just discover one day. It's something that you can spend your life constantly rediscovering, and I hope that you do so. Right now, for you it's computer science, but who knows where your passions and proclivities might lead you in a few years. It might be somewhere else in tech, or it might not, and in both cases, that's okay. In fact, it might be somewhere you never imagined yourself going, and—at the risk of overusing this word—that's great too.
Finally, if you do decide to "quit" HN or just take a break from it (both good options), read some of these[2] before you go (especially the ones down below the rather tangential discussion about travel costs).
What you should try to do is realize you are you, and you have the opportunity every second to be creative and additive rather than competitive or detrimental to the world. That is amazingly valuable :)
Can you explain why?
I've had to work hard at this, and maybe it takes a fundamental belief in the value of everyone, but whenever I find something positive in others, it doesn't make me feel upset or stressed... I'm just inspired and want to learn.
Instead, focus on the everyday cycle. How do you want to construct your life so that you are living well each day, each week? Take whatever things you're already good at - and can do without much effort if you just start, and concentrate - and put more of your chips behind those. It's in the regular practice that you become really "great", and there is no book or curriculum that can tell you how to practice at that level of motivation. It might lead you away from core CS, but that's okay. There are a lot of kinds of gigs out there, and you might overlook a possibility and come back to it later, so you aren't necessarily harming your future at this stage. Stay in good health and keep your stress down and you will get there eventually.
There are all sorts of little things that I'm sure other people figured out long before I did, and then things that I learned that they will never learn in their lives. If you value learning a lot, you end up not valuing wealth and status as much, because it doesn't have much to teach you. And then it doesn't matter that you didn't intern at a top company, because suddenly your friends are all a bunch of weirdos too.
I only recently realized that technical writing was a thing I might want to do, and I'm 30. I also only recently realized how to stop overtraining with weights and make more substantial progress, and this was after some 15 years of off-and-on practice with lifting. (It's simple: two-day split once a week instead of once every 2-4 days.)
According to the Christian bible, god invented humans because he was lonely. Based on that, I figure I am entertainment for a cosmic intelligence beyond my comprehension. I am probably more entertaining when I am fucking up, so I figure I cannot get this wrong.
You don't need to justify your existence.
Next, I suggest you read some bios of people who had success later in life. Twenty-two is really not that old.
Also, try either unplugging from listening to the bragfests of all your so-called friends or scratch the surface and look deeper. A lot of people who rub their success in the faces of people around them are incredibly unhappy you couldn't pay me enough to trade lives with them (assuming a genie could grant such a wish).
Money is a trophy. Marriage is a trophy. Dissolve the trophy and focus on what you need instead of what you want. Most of what a person needs is fairly rudimentary and easy to attain. Be careful with validation (a basic need) because it's usually sought in the most egregious places
It can take years of training and searching to let go, the best guide I have found is this book : http://zenhabits.net/lg/
6 billion people in the world.
Great, just do whatever that is. You're not behind, 22 is basically 0 years old in your career. Just start doing the thing you want to do until you become really good at it.
Simply put.. Don't try to copy the Jones's.
First, you are a human being, whose worth is not tied to how much money you have, how fancy CV you have or how high grades you have. You are valuable and precious just as you are. You might be a bit lost, and that's ok, most of us are at one time or another.
I'm writing this as a person who felt maybe just as bad as you did at your age.
I don't want to hurt your feelings but "Achieving big things" is not a life goal. It's a posthumous statement in an obituary. And a lot of people who are described as achieving big things actually felt they failed miserably.
Take, for instance Ghandi - he had pretty radical goals in terms of India and he felt he failed most of them. His tactic of non-violence and a fantastically successful publicity campaign of personality cult got him in to the history books for good but as for the goals he drove - a perpetually rural, united india - did not really happen (and I think it was a good thing too). And most of the hype around him was due to other people choosing to idolize him - not him, himself, doing a shitload of extravagant extraordinary work.
Your friends, by the way? Their fancy internships? You are just trapped in an association loop when idolizing them. You attach a positive value to the brands of the corporations, and by your friends interning there this association leaks to them. Then you recognize you do not have this direct associative link, and feel bad about it. Although - it's all just happening in your mind. You are jealous of their life story. But please recognize - the giants of world history have had mostly pretty shitty and ordinary lives, and are remembered mostly due to a stroke of luck, or, due to a fact that they tenaciously drove towards their own personal goal that for some historical fluke happened to be in synchronicity with the current world events.
Now, how fantastic are your friends actually? Maybe some of them got better grades - so what.
It does not mean they are better than you. It's just that they score higher on a specific arbitrary metric due to their life circumstances and history at this point in time. Arbitrary - because let's face it, large systems are not fair, nor are they designed to be. The system of education, the system of economy, the system of government - they are all fabrications with emergent properties no one can really control exactly.
We are all corks ebbing in the ocean of life. Sometimes the current takes us forward, sometimes not. The thing is, you cannot choose who you are, but, you can daily choose what you do.
"How do I transition to a healthier state of mind and stop feeling worthless?"
I think you might need therapist or meditation for that.
As a self help book I can heartily recommend "The science of happiness" by Rick Hanson. (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DVW8VN2?keywords=science...)
Personally, for me, professionally - I needed to find something that I found was intrinsically motivating. Luckily I did, in computational physics and computer graphics and this gave me intrinsic motivation to play around with things and find stuff out. I'm not hugely successful but I have a good career and feed my family. I would not have had half a good career unless I had found something compelling. I do hope you find something that interests you!
The difference with external and internal motivators is that while both compel you to action, fulfilling external motivators usually suck you energy while internal ones give it to you.
I found Richard Feynmans* self autobiographical writings assuring. While they are an attempt at self-aggrandization at painting an image of "the cleverest person in the room" they also discuss deeply personal matters of death, loss, de-motivation and ways to cope with it. When Feynman felt down, he tried to find something he could find interest in playing with - no matter how silly or trivial. I've followed this same protocol throughout my life and found it a good course when things look bleak. Play!
*"What Do You Care What Other People Think?" and "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!" by Richard Feynman.
The real battle is in how you define your sense of worth. Take smarts, for example. In your life, you are going to encounter people smarter than you are, as well as not as smart, or maybe you can't really tell. What does that really mean?
Think about being smart enough. One artifact of that thought could be what you accomplish boils down to how willing you are to do the work to actually accomplish it. Being willing is very high value! Suddenly, how smart you are isn't a defining attribute. Your intent and resolve are.
Another artifact of that might be the realization that smart people "rub off" If you want to improve, being around people better than you is an excellent way to do that, and feeling inadequate gets in the way of all that too. Think back on that intent and resolve and maybe you realize everyone who wants to do stuff with their life has those things and is sharing them with others who appreciate it. Going further, many people respond favorably to someone they see doing the work to get after those big things, whatever they are. And there should be no shame in any of that at all.
Extend that a bit more, and suddenly those comparisons have value! Hard working people rub off. Social people rub off. Etc...
What you need to do is absorb unabashedly. As you encounter others who are compelling in some way, watch and learn! Make a few friends. Those people know it's OK to be who they are, as should you. Those people are doing the work, making the friends, showing good intent. As should you.
Do the work and trust in yourself. Get help when you need it. Give help when others need it. Treat yourself with the same respect you would others you admire or believe you can learn from.
In fact, cultivate a sense of respect. Mutual respect. When you demonstrate this, people most often return it. And if it's your intent to do that, work hard, get something you believe in done, people will most often return that too, and in that process you become one of those people you are comparing yourself to.
Give with honest, good intent, and 'ye shall receive.
You aren't stuck behind anybody. You are where you are, and it's up to you to move forward and do what you want with your life. What you are doing here is looking at younger peers who made different choices and you are wishing you had made those same choices. Or you are buying the bullshit they are selling.
A great many people never, ever really figure out what they want to do with their life. Often, they are too busy living it, having fun, building, doing, playing to think about it. Others are driven, focused, intent.
So you've arrived at some life goal! Good for you. Now quit your regrets and start getting after it, whatever it is. There will always be others who seem better positioned, or whatever. It's not about any of that. There are people who are worse off, or more poorly positioned too.
Do you want to be here? Do you care about other people, the world, and the things you find in it? Great! That's all anyone requires as justification to be here. No joke. Be sure and share that often. People like other people who care. People value others who care too.
Share that thing you want to do with others, and ask them what it is they are wanting to do as well. Maybe you can help, or maybe it's good to just listen and appreciate they are doing something they care about. Maybe you have a common goal.
Maybe you can realize that's all any of us are doing, you included.
Like I said, give and 'ye shall receive.
One great way to feel better about yourself is to help others, and the doing of that does wonders for your own sense of worth. Do it. Clear that mess out of your head and free yourself to get after it, whatever it is. And all those people you helped are very highly likely to appreciate it and return the favor too.
One caveat about setting any goals that involve the approval of or comparison to other people (e.g. I want to be as wealthy/successful/beautiful/smart/talented as person X or I want to be famous and celebrated) is that there is always someone better, more successful, prettier, smarter or whatever-er you desire and so chasing these dreams are a mirage. I remember reading an article in Forbes (or Fortune, I forget which) which described what life is like for various stages of wealth. The descriptions of life for people who are worth seven figures then eight were pretty much what you would think but I will always remember the first words used to describe people who have a net worth in the low hundred millions: "Prepare to have your ego crushed". I remember thinking that's ridiculous, if I ever have a hundred million dollars, there is no way that I would feel insecure about my status and then I realized that I know a lot of fairly wealthy people (in the seven to eight figure range) who are very, very insecure about their wealth and in fact feel like failures simply because they are comparing themselves to others. The only way to win this game is not to play.
Also, do realize that we are all very influenced by peer pressure. Why do you think there are red states and blue states? You think somehow every one in a particular geography just decided to have a certain set of opinions? Nope, my guess is 80% of our opinions are driven by the opinions of the other people around us. So the practical way to make this work for you is to find people who have the values you want and hang out with them. Also, limit your interactions with people who move you in the other direction. If's tough but for a decision as important as this, you should try to actively shape your life rather than have it just happen to you.
Lastly, you should always separate your happiness from your achievement of your goals. You should be happy and fulfilled regardless of the outcome of your strivings. Your goals, however wonderful, are just one aspect of your life and not the whole point.
You need to understand that you won't achieve big things. You're not Zuckerberg and you're not Steve Jobs. You're not going to be a billionaire, or even a millionaire. It's pretty evident from the things that you wrote above.
Now that we've gotten that out of the way, you can accomplish great things once you gained the maturity to realize that you need to work hard and study hard and learn. Figure out what you enjoy, and work hard at it. You might not be the next Steve Jobs (no one is), but you can make a very good living in tech if you work hard and keep learning throughout your career.
