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Ask HN: Fear?

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Ask HN: Fear?

#1
I am suffering from a very weird fear. I fear that if I do x thing, then other person will gain the benefits of my hard work. I want to hide everything from others, be it learning new stuff, or starting a new task. It is badly spoiling my life.

I want to overcome this fear.

Help me how I can overcome it?

Re: Ask HN: Fear?

#2
The reasons for this may be in your past and discussion those online with strangers might be uncomfortable. Better if you talk in person to a psychiatrist.

Re: Ask HN: Fear?

#3
Just do it.

The more you give, the more you get; might not be awesome profits, might be even better. The secret with giving is to not expect anything in return, the very definition of Karma Yoga; real Yogis practice that all the time.

There's nothing wrong with you, we're being carefully programmed to reason just like this; to mistrust and compete with everyone but our fabulous authorities. Cut down on the mainstream media and social networking if you want the power over your mind back.

Re: Ask HN: Fear?

#4
99.99999% of the things you enjoy in life will be from the benefits of others' hard work. The rest is your contribution. Your contribution will make almost no difference to the lives of others, even if you are Steve Jobs. The math just doesn't favor individual contributions a whole lot. Don't worry about it.

Re: Ask HN: Fear?

#8
I wouldn't call this fear. It is more of an insecurity. You seem to lack confidence in yourself. Hence you think that others will gain more from you than you gaining from your hard work.

Think of this as knowledge. The more you share, the better you become yourself. Same with doing x. The more you do, the better you get at it even if it helps others. In fact, if it helps others, even better for you. Most people are not looking to "gain" anything from you or take advantage of you.

Also look at the alternative. If you never do anything because you think someone else will benefit more, you will never do anything for yourself. You are the loser at the end because that imaginary person who MAY benefit more probably does not even exist. I would say most likely they don't exist.

Re: Ask HN: Fear?

#10
If you are scared of technical projects being stolen document all your learnings and store code on git.

Everything is timestanped and proved you were there first maybe?

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