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It's Never Too Late to Be Successful and Happy

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Re: It's Never Too Late to Be Successful and Happy

#81

Post by sidcool »

rxhernandez wrote: post #73
circlefavshape wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's nothing wrong with you - I'm guessing you just had, like most of us, a fantasy about shaking up the world somehow. Time to give up on the fantasy and engage with your actual real life instead

Good god this is awful advice. There are plenty of people that have made their only great contributions to humanity in advanced age (not that late 30s is even remotely advanced). If you gave up on dreams, fine; but don't go on encouraging others to do the same just because you lack the drive and became complacent with giving up. Moreover, there are so many things that need doing that are plenty impactful and just req…

Thanks for your encouraging words. Sadly, I have given up on grand ambitions (pragmatically).

Re: It's Never Too Late to Be Successful and Happy

#82

Post by kalms »

sidcool wrote: post #61
solresol wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have nothing to do with this thread, but felt like answering anyway... 1. Very few people leave a legacy. The people that do often didn't do it deliberately or intentionally. 2. They don't. There might be a few people half your age that know as much about programming as you do, but the majority don't. In any case, you are the worst person to judge what special thing you bring to the table. Go and ask one of these y…

Thanks for your reply. I would love to take a break and explore the spiritual side of me, but it would need too much of rearranging my life and it may not be worth it. As such I am scared of drastic change, this would just add to the anxiety. Anything I can do with my current flow of life?

I feel compelled to answer here, mostly because I've been and to a degree still are where you are.

It's extremely common to gradually move into a state of mind where you denigrate yourself – and the effort you've put forth in life. You need to ensure your own happiness, and no one in here, or anywhere else, can tell you how to do that. Mindfulness is a great tool, because it allows you to become more certain of yourself. To discover what it is that you feel and where it is you need to go.

That being said, here's what works for me: Acknowledging that creation is hard, but that I love creating and helping people around me. That family is important and love even more so. I also remind myself to do something new every day that somehow moves the boundary of what it means to be me.

Added note: A book that also helped me realise my own tendency to create barriers around myself was "The Flinch" by Julien Smith. It's awesome and I highly recommend giving it a read – and practice some of what it champions. I suspect you will gain a lot from it, but then again: Only you can know that.

Re: It's Never Too Late to Be Successful and Happy

#83

Post by gbuk2013 »

lanrh1836 wrote: post #5

This makes the wrong assumption that happiness comes with success. Success doesn’t bring happiness. If anything, being happy in the first place is what gives you a better chance at achieving success.

This is a very important distinction to make. Success is external: it is a certain set of arrangements in your exterior circumstances. Happiness is internal: it is a certain state of your mind and your emotions.

Because success is external, it is not fully within your control. For example, your environment, other people, your physical circumstances all have an impact. It does not have a definition - it can literally mean whatever you want it to be.

Because happiness is internal it is fully within your control. If you have control over your mind and emotions you can be happy in an instant, if you consciously chose to do so.

And if you are happy, then success becomes easier as you are free to use your mind to identify what you want and the things that you need to do to get that.

Re: It's Never Too Late to Be Successful and Happy

#84

Post by badpun »

circlefavshape wrote: post #71
sidcool wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish I could figure out. My best guesses are: 1. I am getting older and not doing anything remotely impactful. 2. People half my age know all the programming I know. I don't bring anything special to the table. 3. Is this what life is all about? Now, I don't say the problem is with the world. Something could be wrong with me. But damned if I know.

There's nothing wrong with you - I'm guessing you just had, like most of us, a fantasy about shaking up the world somehow. Time to give up on the fantasy and engage with your actual real life instead

> There's nothing wrong with you - I'm guessing you just had, like most of us, a fantasy about shaking up the world somehow.

That's a very interesting statement. Almost all people I know here in Poland, including myself, dream of having a life devoid of external pain, obligations, limitations etc., so that you can do whatever they choose to do. Rarely if ever anyone mentions anything about wanting to have a greater impact.

Maybe that's the next step of rich consumer society that US is at and that Poland hasn't reached yet - one in which people are aware that living (surviving in relative comfort) is easy, so they need to raise the bar for themselves somehow or they'll get depressed over the lack of challenges.

Or maybe it's just a cultural difference? American society is very much a culture of doers, while Polish is not. There are societies even richer than American, for example the Quatari, where people seem just content to mostly do not do anything particularly ambitious and just hang out.

Re: It's Never Too Late to Be Successful and Happy

#85

Post by wishwish »

mikekchar wrote: post #74
lanrh1836 wrote: post #5

This makes the wrong assumption that happiness comes with success. Success doesn’t bring happiness. If anything, being happy in the first place is what gives you a better chance at achieving success.

Success is surprisingly fun. However, allow me to make a distinction. For a lot of people instead of wishing to do something, they wish to have done something. So for example, they may say that they wish to make a lot of money, but actually they want to have made a lot of money. The idea in their head is lounging on the beach with cute waiting staff at their beck and call. However the thing they end up doing is worki…

Perhaps you deny people the right to wish things they will never have?

The true thing to know is that most of your dreams will never come true and you should'nt be sad about it.

Just to please the hive mind of HN:

Don’t aim to be successful — aim to be hardworking

https://medium.com/@s.sekulins/the-first-step-to-surpassing-...

https://medium.com/the-ascent/popular-delusion-3-common-and-...

https://medium.com/the-ascent/how-to-become-successful-in-3-...

Re: It's Never Too Late to Be Successful and Happy

#86

Post by PavlovsCat »

zimbatm wrote: post #76
inlined wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me of a career limiting move I made at my first job. I was a rising star and got head hunted to be the first member on a new team for a critical project. I took the opportunity because it had a higher potential for career growth, but I ended up leaving the company. I considered my manager an egotistical jerk; he even called our 1:1s lessons. He told me that any part of my personality that didn’t line up with…

I would refine this a bit; happy people define their success through internal metrics. Don't let other decide what success means to you. Employers try to convince you that your success is correlated with what they want to do, but it is not the case. They are paying you to do your job and that's all. Ads try to convince you that success depends on purchasing their stuff, but it is not the case. There is always more st…

> But among the things readiest to thy hand to which thou shalt turn, let there be these, which are two. One is that things do not touch the soul, for they are external and remain immovable; but our perturbations come only from the opinion which is within. The other is that all these things, which thou seest, change immediately and will no longer be; and constantly bear in mind how many of these changes thou hast already witnessed. The universe is transformation: life is opinion.

-- Marcus Aurelius, http://classics.mit.edu/Antoninus/meditations.html

Re: It's Never Too Late to Be Successful and Happy

#87

Post by sjg007 »

sidcool wrote: post #61
solresol wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have nothing to do with this thread, but felt like answering anyway... 1. Very few people leave a legacy. The people that do often didn't do it deliberately or intentionally. 2. They don't. There might be a few people half your age that know as much about programming as you do, but the majority don't. In any case, you are the worst person to judge what special thing you bring to the table. Go and ask one of these y…

Thanks for your reply. I would love to take a break and explore the spiritual side of me, but it would need too much of rearranging my life and it may not be worth it. As such I am scared of drastic change, this would just add to the anxiety. Anything I can do with my current flow of life?

Read some philosophy books. I like pondering koans too. Some other things might be to start enjoying community.

Re: It's Never Too Late to Be Successful and Happy

#89

Post by stevewodil »

SpaceInvader wrote: post #57

Aside of success != happiness - I really do NOT know what I'm supposed to do. I'm in corporate world since 2005, I'm doing OK, but not great and I'm dreaming of success, which to me means: 1. work for myself, not for any company - that's hard to start because of mortgage and kids which are taking 90% of my free time 2. Earn around the same money I have now 3. Have something that can grow, doesn't have to be fast grow…

Passive income...

Buy rental properties on the next real estate crash

Re: It's Never Too Late to Be Successful and Happy

#90

Post by harimau777 »

lanrh1836 wrote: post #5

This makes the wrong assumption that happiness comes with success. Success doesn’t bring happiness. If anything, being happy in the first place is what gives you a better chance at achieving success.

I agree with your overall point. However, I think that there's also a sense in which to many people it is important to be able to succeed even if the success itself isn't important. It's the classic "got something to prove" situation. I think that in many cases the process of proving themselves brings happiness.

It reminds me of a quote I remember from an old article on T-Nation that goes something like "Its true that the majority of bodybuilders started due to some insecurity. However, its probably a lot healthier than the way that most people deal with their insecurity".

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