In life, people are going to be faster, smarter, more well rounded then you. Thats one of the sureties in life, the best thing about that is that there is always room to improve and get better if that is your desire. So you shouldn't let it discourage you, you should just look at it as an opportunity for self improvement.
Ask HN: Does reading HN ever make you feel like shit?
101–110 of 209 posts
Re: Ask HN: Does reading HN ever make you feel like shit?
#102Not that you would want to, but if you fancy being even more humbled, try reading the top questions from http://mathoverflow.net/
Re: Ask HN: Does reading HN ever make you feel like shit?
#103I'm late to this party, so I'll give you two quick pointers: "You and Your Research" by Richard Hamming [0], and "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!" [1]
Read both in their entirety.
You will gain a new perspective on those who make great achievements. They experience the same self-doubt you do! Feynman notes in dismay that other researchers at Los Alamos effortlessly solved problems mentally after he'd spend days working out the solution. He also mentions when he starts in academia, he was overwhelmed by an academic paper being discussed at a conference because he didn't understand it. Richard Hamming notes a few extra pressures, specifically the pressure to solve great problems instead of small problems, and how this pressure ruins your work
Both books have similar lessons. Feynman says it implicitly, and Hamming says it explicitly: Keep modern, work with others, understand the twists and turns of your field, think about the future, and solve the small problems. You can't force yourself to do great things, but you can stack the deck in your favor.
[0] http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/YouAndYourResearch.html
[1] http://www.amazon.com/Surely-Feynman-Adventures-Curious-Char...
Re: Ask HN: Does reading HN ever make you feel like shit?
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
While writing, it occurred to me that this might be the primary effect. There appears to be some sort of counter in my head that counts awesome comments. There is no counter, however, for number of awesome users, or number non-awesome comments. I ignore them without effort. But due to this selection bias, the awesomeness counter gets to such a big number that it's quite overwhelming, and it feels that 100% of comment…
What makes you think you're talented? You say people have always told you you were a smart kid. Do you have any actual achievements to back this up? I come on here and find that the vast majority of people are well below my intelligence level. I find that this site is basically a bunch of talentless wantrepreneurial pundits. I come on here to test my patience with idiotic circlejerks - praise Apple, bash Facebook, on…
ignoring the tone from galois - what do we think the untalented should do? certainly someone will be in the ops position (including reading hn / awareness of the wider tech industry) without actually being talented.
Re: Ask HN: Does reading HN ever make you feel like shit?
#105[deleted]
Re: Ask HN: Does reading HN ever make you feel like shit?
#106[deleted]
Re: Ask HN: Does reading HN ever make you feel like shit?
#107Everyone feels this way in every profession every where... doctors at medical conferences, race car drivers at racing events, movie stars at red-carpet events.
This is why team-work is so important, because individually none of us can really hack it.
Re: Ask HN: Does reading HN ever make you feel like shit?
#108Never judge your insides by other people's outsides.
Re: Ask HN: Does reading HN ever make you feel like shit?
#109You have to consider the number of users. HN now gets 60k unique visitors on weekdays. That's a decent sized stadium full of people. Of course they seem overwhelming collectively, but most individuals are only experts in a few areas. If it makes you feel any better, my biggest worry about this site is the opposite: that the median awesomeness is decreasing as the number of users increases. If you want to feel less ov…
I just typed up a reply and realized pg's suggestion of reading bottom-to-top is an excellent idea.
It's like only reading Nobel-prize-winning publications and then complaining you feel dumb...
Re: Ask HN: Does reading HN ever make you feel like shit?
#110Other posters have replied with some valuable things to keep in mind.
I'll add that you need to remember there is probably a difference in age between yourself and that of the person (experience and thus knowledge is partly a function of age of course) who posted some mind-blowingly interesting and esoteric bit of information (I'm regularly amazed by the broad range of knowledge by the HNers)