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Ask HN: What inspires you to persevere through adversity?

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Re: Ask HN: What inspires you to persevere through adversity?

#131

Post by ratpik »

Having a constant that stays with you in good times and bad has helped me. Could be a person, a piece of music, a book, a video/tv series/movie or just a long a walk.

Following stoicism helps. I read the book listed below that explains it well. My main takeaway from that book was that it is much easier to be happy if one stops caring about two things - External validation and Instant Gratification.

"One of the great fears many of us face is that despite all our effort and striving, we will discover at the end that we have wasted our life." - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5617966-a-guide-to-the-g...

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26043368-the-gita-for-ch... answers questions like 'How can one win a war when it involves killing ones own family?' with teachings like 'Do your duty with single minded focus and great sincerity, without worrying about the results of the work'

Re: Ask HN: What inspires you to persevere through adversity?

#132

Post by UhUhUhUh »

I'd say anger. Close second, denial. I am aware that these two aspects are at the very bottom of the generally accepted lists but they have been and still are my only way outs. Anger provides the juice, denial a sense of limitless optimism. I think that without a minimum of these two, we shrivel and die. That said, I consider myself lucky that, due to my psychological structure, anger is not turned against myself (i.e. depression) and that denial never fully violates reality (e.g. delusion). This combination has always generated enough energy and creativity to pull me out of stagnation. When anger runs out, because I'm tired mostly, I practice "wu-wei", do nothing. Failure doesn't exist for me: it is but a phase of improving. The meme "failure is not an option", pisses me off because I believe in just the opposite: failure is the only option. When I decide to make my bed first thing in the morning, as cleverly suggested by atroyn, it is out of anger. "I will not be negated". Same thing when I push through a rep that I don't want to do (at my age, pretty much every single one of them). Denial is, I believe, vastly under-rated. It sits along the path to the solution of any problem. It is the essence of out-of-the-box thinking. It is also what prevents us to think about our death all the time.

Re: Ask HN: What inspires you to persevere through adversity?

#133

Post by mattfrommars »

vr46 wrote: post #100

My parents worked their nuts off to pay for my education and provide security for the family - my dear old late dad woke up at 4am EVERY SINGLE DAY of the year, except Christmas Day, to work for me, basically. There's no way I'm giving up on anything. I have a ridiculously easy life compared to them, and because of them. That's my main motivation, apart from my own young family. And I surround myself mostly with tale…

You hit home brother. It's 1 AM right where I am right now and at this moment of time, I'm sort of filled with regrets. I'm such a failure when I think about it. Never in my life was I able to leverage anything compared to the people I know who come from totally opposite background struggle.

Like I am like you said, 'ridiculously easy life' 100% like this, why am I not doing what I want to do? Where is the struggle? Why don't I work my butt off?

Can the undergraduate major I did to be blamed? Is it really too late for me 25 year old to get into software development scene? What's stopping me?

Yes I don't have the opportunities like i would had in the US where many of my high school classmates went turns out one of them is working at "Glassdoor #1 company to work for " as Account executive. But even living in a third world country, warm bed, hot water, running electricity, warm meal, no rent, high end PC, I'm easily about 99 percent of the people here. What's stopping me? Why don't I take these things to my advantage and work towards something which been back of my mind for the last 3 years!

Re: Ask HN: What inspires you to persevere through adversity?

#134

Post by DelaneyM »

Adversity is an illusion, relatively.

I'm known as a relatively unflappable person who excels under pressure, but that's not entirely true. The reality is that after spending a few years in my teens couch surfing and sleeping under park benches, supporting myself with off-book babysitting and other more dubious gigs, I just have a very different definition of "adversity".

Got food and shelter? It's not a disaster, just an interesting challenge.

Re: Ask HN: What inspires you to persevere through adversity?

#135

Post by paublyrne »

atroyn wrote: post #54
andai wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Solid advice! Would you mind sharing some of the systems you've implemented?

Well the very first one was literally just 'make your bed as soon as you get up'. I read that idea somewhere else as a way to get a small win right away which I really needed because my startup wasn't doing so great - so I tried it and it worked. This had surprisingly large benefits. I didn't get up and start scrolling through my social media right away. I had a nice neat bed to get into at the end of the day. I coul…

It was hard to get over not really wanting to run, but when I kind of internalized that it didn't matter whether I wanted to or not, I just got to doing stuff.

This is a fantastic approach.

Re: Ask HN: What inspires you to persevere through adversity?

#137

Post by crazypyro »

colechristensen wrote: post #108
tdkl wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Must be something with the "magic pill for everything" PR that is popular in USA. Goes hand in hand with non existing public healthcare, so "market can handle that".

It's not just PR, it's a common American way of thinking. From branded medications to diet books, "health" foods, and trends ad nauseam, there's a pervasive culture of cure-all objects and systems. Then again, we don't have fine physical understanding of most mind disorders or the medications we use to treat them so if your doctor is effectively throwing darts at a board then why not internet strangers?

This is nothing special about America. Every culture has its own brand of cure-all objects and systems. In fact, China has significantly more home remedies and cure-all objects (that generally have zero scientific evidence).

Everyone in this thread trying to say general ignorance is something Americans have a monopoly on is silly. It's a human condition, nothing to do with country.

Re: Ask HN: What inspires you to persevere through adversity?

#138

Post by WheelsAtLarge »

Interesting you ask, I just finished hearing NPR's Hidden Brain podcast. The podcast's advice is to do a wayfind to find your way. Define 3 ideal life paths, analyse all 3 and pick the best one to follow. If what you picked does not work then try again. Do this until you find your way forward.

Here's a link: "Episode 56: Getting Unstuck" http://one.npr.org/?sharedMediaId=507930318:507930414

Re: Ask HN: What inspires you to persevere through adversity?

#139

Post by swframe »

Giving up usually doesn't help. Just taking time to identify the root causes often leads to a simple and better solution.

Unfortunately, I am rarely able to convince others to follow along.

My company is extremely successful and our spectacular failures (often discussed on HN) pales in comparison to our success. I worked for several groups that lost multi-billion dollar markets because they were unwilling to make simple and obvious changes. For example, don't focus on our success and claim victory; look at our failures and make corrective actions. Seems pretty simple but maybe due to the innovator's dilemma, no one seems to care.

Re: Ask HN: What inspires you to persevere through adversity?

#140

Post by WheelsAtLarge »

noufalibrahim wrote: post #102

Probably not the most popular opinion on HN but, in my case, religion.

I'm beginning to see that religion is a way to find answers to life's difficulties. But in the past I found it so hard to filter the wisdom from the noise. There's just so many charlatans that want to scare you into their view of what religion is. I've learnt that reading with a critical eye is the best way to learn from all the wisdom that has been past forward through books.
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