There are 8 billion people on Earth and most of them will spend their entire life accomplishing nothing. I wouldn't worry too much. If you're so brilliant then prove it. Or are you too tired.
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Ask HN: How do you accept your place in the world?
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Re: Ask HN: How do you accept your place in the world?
#12a quick observation here: you are comparing ONE of YOU against THE COMBINATION of THE MOST BRILLIANT MINDS on the internet. Are you not capable of learning any of those topics in depth if you had the time and resources? No, I think you are certainly capable.
Re: Ask HN: How do you accept your place in the world?
#13First understand that in a room full of engineers—no matter how many—90% of them will say they are above average.
Second understand that what separates you from these people is they have something to show for what they did. How do you expect people to find your “brilliance” if you don’t show it off somehow? They work for their recognition. People using your “low-level systems” won’t automatically think you’re brilliant because…what? Because it works? Is that the bar?
Write some blog posts. Open source some projects. Give some talks. If you do all that and no one cares, maybe it’s not the rest of the world that has the problem.
Re: Ask HN: How do you accept your place in the world?
#14My own opinions as a mid-level web-focused SWD.
I think about it sometimes. It is an ego/attention thing imo if you need other people to say "great job". But you can't live in a vacuum either.
I mean part of it is personal interest, I was watching people reverse engineer an s-band transponder from the Apollo missions like cool but what is the point.
I guess just because you won't be an Einstein doesn't mean what you're doing isn't worth it. Personal satisfaction.
I used to love building/flying model airplanes until I got into social media. Then everything I made I had to post online/get upvotes. I lost the passion in it overtime because I was more interested in impressing people.
Nowadays I will build things even if it's a piece of a crap because I had fun figuring it out from scratch.
This other thing I ran into is ego-satisfaction where I would share a fantasy/idea/sketch before it was real/work done for the upvotes.
I also am aware there is just an innate capability/caliber. Like I am not a math guy.
I get the "place in the world" thing in another way eg. being poor but I think I can change it.
Oh yeah the other field I think about this is regarding physical attractiveness/relationships ha. I'm not killing it in that department.
To be fair I still post my crap on a blog, whether or not someone reads it is something else.
Re: Ask HN: How do you accept your place in the world?
#15You remember how silly the work of high schoolers looked when you were
in university? You'll get that same feeling when you hit 40, and
evaluate the movers and shakers who are in their 30s.
Re: Ask HN: How do you accept your place in the world?
#16It is ok to feel lost and overwhelmed from time to time. Even the most brilliant people often go through hardships and difficult times. Try to find things to do that you enjoy not because other people expect them of you. External validation can be nice but also a burden. Set your own goals and try to check from time to time how much progress you have made to accomplish them. For me at the moment, this is to publish a bunch of good papers at ML conferences and land a permanent research position. But this can literally be any other goal and I don’t think it is helpful to compare yourself to others, too much. Opportunities will come to you if you are doing good work.
Re: Ask HN: How do you accept your place in the world?
#17I accept nothing. I try to become better.
Re: Ask HN: How do you accept your place in the world?
#18Sampling bias. You're reading articles good enough to come through to you, from millions of people actively trying to get theirs read. There will be millions of great articles that most of us will never even discover. I think you should spend at bit of time thinking on the scale of the world, the scale of combined human effort, and try to consider the statistical chance that something any individual does will "make i…
Those are very helpful insights for me. I'm fairly young and get overwhelmed sometimes -- resulting in a post like this. Thanks a bunch!
Re: Ask HN: How do you accept your place in the world?
#19It is ok to feel lost and overwhelmed from time to time. Even the most brilliant people often go through hardships and difficult times. Try to find things to do that you enjoy not because other people expect them of you. External validation can be nice but also a burden. Set your own goals and try to check from time to time how much progress you have made to accomplish them. For me at the moment, this is to publish a…
Appreciate the kind response. It's true that I get unexpectedly overwhelmed by life at times. Hope to gain more maturity as I progress. Thank you!
Re: Ask HN: How do you accept your place in the world?
#20Try CBT and address the underlying negative perspective... or you could just put head to grindstone and publish a few ground breaking white papers.
Try to be grateful for x y z, and try not focus on 1st world problems like your unfounded imposter syndrome. ZZ