I am 32 and facing the same issue at work and life in general. Comparing to others comes to me naturally, and it has been a reason of lot of anxiety to me. I am yet to figure out a permanent solution.
Ask HN: How do I stop comparing myself to others?
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Re: Ask HN: How do I stop comparing myself to others?
#521. The people you look up to also look up to someone. There's always someone better, you will never be satisfied if you use other people as a benchmark. Set your own goals, live up to your own standards.
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.
Re: Ask HN: How do I stop comparing myself to others?
#53Life can't be defined by arriving at a place and feeling that you've "made it" or "gotten ahead." If you actually do "make it" by accident, the next thing that happens is that you die - in spirit, if not in body. A lot of people who suddenly get rich or famous meltdown, because they still don't know what to do. And a lot of people who go all-in on their careers burn out. There are opportunities that you can miss and regret, but you aren't an abstract person or a movie action hero - you won't be "on" all the time.
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.)
Re: Ask HN: How do I stop comparing myself to others?
#54(For context: I started writing this as a reply to gyardley's comment[1], but I thought it might be more appropriate as a direct response to the OP instead.)
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).
Re: Ask HN: How do I stop comparing myself to others?
#55Well, you should start by stopping reading Hacker News, because it's clearly not good for you in your current mental state. I promise, you won't miss anything important. 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 so…
+100. And an extra +1 for teaching me a new word (bloviate). =)
I wrote a bit more in response in another comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10523788
Re: Ask HN: How do I stop comparing myself to others?
#56By my estimation about 6,000,000,000 people would be very happy to trade places with you. Compared to them you are doing just fine.
Re: Ask HN: How do I stop comparing myself to others?
#57By my estimation about 6,000,000,000 people would be very happy to trade places with you. Compared to them you are doing just fine.
Re: Ask HN: How do I stop comparing myself to others?
#58OP here are some references that may help you. The first is to assess your stengths and find a career that supports your stengths. Then work on making your stengths stonger. Think about a good baseball batter. Improving their batting average 20% makes them a great batter.
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...
Re: Ask HN: How do I stop comparing myself to others?
#59The multiplicity of casual friendships online has led to an interesting new phenomenon: Because people preferentially broadcast their successes, we tend to get the feeling that everybody else is more successful than ourselves. I don't think you can avoid comparing yourself to others; what you can do is try to keep in mind that life is a mix of good and bad, and even if all you manage to do is avoid the worst of the b…
Amazing post, thanks for the openness.
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.
Re: Ask HN: How do I stop comparing myself to others?
#60The multiplicity of casual friendships online has led to an interesting new phenomenon: Because people preferentially broadcast their successes, we tend to get the feeling that everybody else is more successful than ourselves. I don't think you can avoid comparing yourself to others; what you can do is try to keep in mind that life is a mix of good and bad, and even if all you manage to do is avoid the worst of the b…
> When you inevitably compare yourself to others, remember that there's probably a lot you're not hearing about them.
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.