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Ask HN: How to stop feeling depressed about whether you will be successful?

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Re: Ask HN: How to stop feeling depressed about whether you will be successful?

#71

Post by pjc50 »

glibgil wrote: post #15

Maintain multiple independent identities. Exercise and make friends with people who do your preferred activity. If you have a startup or a high profile job, blog or tweet as your own persona about topics that do not fall under your line of work, but are still interesting to you. Keep up friendships and dating and when you talk about work, only do so when it is a good story. Socialize with people that live differently…

"Maintain multiple independent identities" is extremely good advice.

As a student I had a moment when I decided that the standard geek "identity package" of things one was supposed to like and do was ... limiting, and that it would be better to have a wider set of interests.

Re: Ask HN: How to stop feeling depressed about whether you will be successful?

#72

Post by jxub »

pjc50 wrote: post #71
glibgil wrote: post #15

Maintain multiple independent identities. Exercise and make friends with people who do your preferred activity. If you have a startup or a high profile job, blog or tweet as your own persona about topics that do not fall under your line of work, but are still interesting to you. Keep up friendships and dating and when you talk about work, only do so when it is a good story. Socialize with people that live differently…

"Maintain multiple independent identities" is extremely good advice. As a student I had a moment when I decided that the standard geek "identity package" of things one was supposed to like and do was ... limiting, and that it would be better to have a wider set of interests.

Accepting the "package" is almost like embracing a cult, the cult of conformity, making itself easier to predict and monetize by the omnipresent algorithms of the tech giants that seem to have replaced god by a lot of data-crunching, leaving humanity to devise new schemes of control.

This is a rejection of the process of discovery of oneself and of a, somehow Nieztschean, independent and autonomous path in life.

Independent identities allow you to construct your being with many different fragments and melt them into one, like a Picasso painting or Vivaldi's Four Seasons play.

Re: Ask HN: How to stop feeling depressed about whether you will be successful?

#73

Post by vanilla_nut »

ArmandGrillet wrote: post #53

Meet a specialist a few times, there is a thin line between feeling and being depressed and it's better to know that you are not sick. Also, telling someone who is not your friend your current state of mind is a great way to make it more clear for you and see what are your problems. Other than that? From your question the main thing would be to stop thinking about if you will be successful, as it is not a great way t…

Awesome tips! I especially like your last one -- that's something I've been trying to do in my life as well. My current goal is to shape my living room into a really nice, cozy place: comfy chairs, bookshelves, nice speakers for music, soft lights, etc. So even when I have a bad day, I'll sit down on the couch in a place that I truly enjoy. I guess that's one of those "little things" in life people always advise us to enjoy :)

Re: Ask HN: How to stop feeling depressed about whether you will be successful?

#74

Post by Balgair »

comboy wrote: post #16

Being depressed is a state of mind. Being successful or not has not much to do with it (which is proven in many papers). Anxiety about failure is just a way that it manifests. Your brain always finds some ways to rationalize things that it observes. That's its job. So if you feel a bit of rush because you really want to succeed, or if you think about things that may go wrong in order to take actions to minimize the r…

> but it's likely that a professional will give you some better options.

Just want to echo this. If the issue, you suspect, is mostly about depression, just go to a Shrink. They're about as much as a Friday night at the bar, and they really do help out. Maybe try a few of them out and decide. But really, just do it.

Also, eat right, exercise, and sleep enough. I mean, duh. But it really does help a ton.

Re: Ask HN: How to stop feeling depressed about whether you will be successful?

#75

Post by monk_e_boy »

_skel wrote: post #25
monk_e_boy wrote: post #4

The majority of people aren't successful. 9 out of 10 startups fail. On HN you tend to hear from the success stories (survivor bias) Maybe have some other goals in life that you can achieve and be happy. A family. Painting. Music. Sport. I'll never bee a pro-kiteboarder, but I still enjoy it.

The people who work at failing startups are often successful people. They get other jobs.

It depends on OPs definition of successful. Raising a happy family is success. A lasting legacy of a decent human being.

Money as they keep telling us doesn't make you happy.

I live in an area where rich folk come to retire. It's sad seeing old men get excited about surfing, snorkelling, SUPing, kitesurfing, rock climbing... you guys could have been doing this 20 years ago, but you chased the big fat $$$ ... I guess at the time it made them happy. Successful. I don't know. Is there a real answer to the question?

Re: Ask HN: How to stop feeling depressed about whether you will be successful?

#77

Post by bkovacev »

callmeed wrote: post #64

YMMV but I'd encourage you to take a break from consuming "success porn" online. That's my broad term for: Social media: because people curate everything and only post things that make their lives look amazing. Real life isn't a constant string of wins, success, and happiness. Don't let it distort your view and wonder why your life isn't the same. Startup news: TechCrunch, Recode, Bus. Insider, and even here on HN. P…

Absolutely.

Decreasing the amount of time I spent on social media has increased the quality of my life by at least 10 times. Before I used to feel intimidated going to the gym, posting on my tech blog, simply because everyone else was just doing it better than myself or at least I believed so and cared. When I went on to actually do and enjoy things, I noticed how everything is so imperfect and how in essence I do not care about others. It may sound funny, but that brought back the smell of roses. Another important side-effect was an increase in amount of in-person interaction with the people I wanted to interact.

Slightly off-topic. When you mentioned success celebreneurs I couldn't help but remember the famous Tai Lopez video - "Here in my garage, just bought this new Lamborghini here.. You know what I like a lot more than materialistic things? Knawledge".

Re: Ask HN: How to stop feeling depressed about whether you will be successful?

#78

Post by alexryan »

I think of it this way: We are survival machines who evolved sensory-motor brains for the purpose of making ever better decisions about which moves will increase our ability to survive and thrive. Pain is a signal that our predictive model of the world is incorrect. We made a bad move. Our predictive model needs to be revised. Rumination is the way in which the brain seeks to discover a better predictive model. If instead of productively pondering we choose to think thoughts of powerlessness which disrupt the rumination process and bring forward momentum to a halt, we are subverting our forward momentum. We should strive to discipline our mind to feel intense aversion towards allowing such unskillful thoughts to form and harden into beliefs.

Re: Ask HN: How to stop feeling depressed about whether you will be successful?

#79

Post by chegra »

Hmm...

My advice to you is you got to keep moving. Right now you are sitting down trying to figure things out. WRONG.

Don't try to figure things out. Take action. Move so much that you don't have time to think about how unsuccessful you are. And If you are moving, might as well do something useful.

The easiest way I know how to change my emotions is just start doing something, anything. Go for a walk. Write a blog post.

Also, if you your room is messy and disorganise, might want to start with that first.

Re: Ask HN: How to stop feeling depressed about whether you will be successful?

#80

Post by ajcodez »

I used to feel intense self imposed pressure to succeed financially. I have yet to achieve that but I don’t think about the abstract concept of success and “swimming pools of money” anymore. What changed for me was moving cities and meeting new friends. It turns out I wasn’t happy with my life and making lots of money seemed like the best escape to something better. If you feel depressed I would recommend you expose yourself to new people by enrolling in a program or starting a new job. You’re one friend or relationship away from a life you wouldn’t trade for millions.
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