Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I thought I would have accomplished a lot more today and also before I was 35

newyorker.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

401–410 of 691 posts

Re: I thought I would have accomplished a lot more today and also before I was 35

#401

Post by es7 »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #379
es7 wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know what you mean. I might feel that way a few days in a row every couple of months if I'm lucky and rarely ever more than 2 days in a row. It's a weird, full-body change for me. When I'm in that kind of zone it's like my pre-frontal cortex finally took over control from my lizard brain. Or maybe it's just hormones. I can do what I choose to do. To focus. To exercise and give 100%. Uncomfortable sensations like co…

Thanks for sharing your thoughts! I've never observed the "feeling sick" issue myself in periods of greater productivity, but that could be because I wasn't paying attention - I have "evening sickness" like you described roughly 2-4 times a month, and I end up just popping some paracetamol and feeling fine the next day. My blood work comes out OK on checkups, so I (and my doctors) guess it's likely some mild allergy…

Thank you for sharing, also.

Until I read your original comment I sort of forgot about that sort of feeling since it's been months of normal daily grind. I wonder if anyone has done serious study into this type of performance.

Some things I've found:

- Waking up way earlier than usual works for about 1 day a week but then I'm more tired the next few days.

- Hydration helps me. A big cup of water is more important than coffee in the morning.

- Caffeine is great. I want to try a detox and re-introduction.

- Socialization is a double edged sword. I find it easier to be hyper-productive when my life has enough interpersonal connection, but being with people is fun and the more I socialize the harder I find it to settle into flow at work

- Eliminating distractions is really important for me (or maybe it's a side effect?) but in my times of hyper-productivity there is no distractions or desires for distractions (ex: video games, social media, etc)

Re: I thought I would have accomplished a lot more today and also before I was 35

#402

Post by Aeolun »

praveen9920 wrote: post #285
bstar77 wrote: post #245

I was incredibly driven about 7 years ago... I was a founder of a startup and had really lofty aspirations. I told my wife that it was very possible that we would be millionaires by the time we hit 40. Fast forward to today and that did not happen. The startup is no more, but mainly due to burnout. We made money and did well, but not well enough. I never made my millions, but did have a substantial aqui-hire opportun…

> take advantage of bursts of motivation I understand this but most of the time I am excited about that new awesome idea that popped into my head. How do you focus on one thing without getting deviated?

I kind of work on 6 different things from time to time. For some reason awesome new ideas have been coming more slowly lately.

Re: I thought I would have accomplished a lot more today and also before I was 35

#403

Post by AnimalMuppet »

jacobwilliamroy wrote: post #388
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't have to already have blueprints for the house in order to want the million dollars. Once you get the million, then you have time to look at blueprints.

The dream is so far out of reach, it doesn't even exist. Yet we chase the money anyways. Thank you for explaining.

Many people chase money just to chase money, because they think that it will make their life wonderful. And many of them are disappointed when they get money (if they do), because it didn't make their life suddenly wonderful. I think that's the point you're trying to make, and it's a valid one.

But you're making it in such an extreme way that it makes you sound completely disconnected from reality. I can want a nicer house. I don't have to have the blueprints for that to be a dream that exists.

Re: I thought I would have accomplished a lot more today and also before I was 35

#404

Post by bg24 »

bstar77 wrote: post #245

I was incredibly driven about 7 years ago... I was a founder of a startup and had really lofty aspirations. I told my wife that it was very possible that we would be millionaires by the time we hit 40. Fast forward to today and that did not happen. The startup is no more, but mainly due to burnout. We made money and did well, but not well enough. I never made my millions, but did have a substantial aqui-hire opportun…

Mind sharing some more on this? "I'm not working to exhaustion anymore and take a tortoise approach to my career. I've found that as long as I'm consistent and have my eye on my goals, it doesn't matter how hard I work outside of my day job. I just need to be consistent and take advantage of bursts of motivation."

Or, is there any article/post you may have written already?

Re: I thought I would have accomplished a lot more today and also before I was 35

#405

Post by cactus2093 »

bstar77 wrote: post #245

I was incredibly driven about 7 years ago... I was a founder of a startup and had really lofty aspirations. I told my wife that it was very possible that we would be millionaires by the time we hit 40. Fast forward to today and that did not happen. The startup is no more, but mainly due to burnout. We made money and did well, but not well enough. I never made my millions, but did have a substantial aqui-hire opportun…

I can definitely relate to this. My own journey is, in addition to a couple of stints as a founder that didn't work out, I've worked primarily for other startups as opposed to large companies. After 10 years what I have to show for it is about $35,000 from one moderate sized acquisition of a startup you've definitely heard of but was not especially lucrative for anyone except the founders, some options that I never exercised and are worth 0 today since the company shut down, some other options that I never exercised and lost 3 months after leaving the company that may or may not be worth something eventually but I couldn't afford to exercise/didn't feel strongly enough to make a big bet on, and now finally some options where I have 8 years left on a 10 year exercise window which may actually go somewhere (but could also end up at $0 or something minimal).

I had other peers in my graduating class in college that went to work at places like Google, Microsoft, and Amazon while I went to do a startup with a few friends, then ended up mostly working as an employee for these other startups. I find it interesting to idly muse about what would have happened to someone who'd joined one of those companies in an entry level engineering role in 2010 and stayed there while having a fairly average career trajectory, say getting to a senior engineer level 5 years in and then plateauing, going from a stock grant size of maybe $50k a year when joining to $150k a year at senior level. Doing some rough estimates based on stock prices over the years, if you'd been in that position at any of these companies and never sold any stock you'd have something like $2.5 million (Google), $4 million (Microsoft) or $6 million (Amazon) in stock today. And of course your base salary and cash bonuses over that time would have been higher than your base salary working for startups.

I don't say this to complain, I'm still doing fine overall and there are a lot of people in the world who work very hard for a lot less. But I also don't feel like I've really accomplished much of any significance. It's pretty mind-blowing to realize that the less risky, more tortoise-like approach to a career would have been so vastly more profitable than what I've experienced at what I would say have been a pretty average selection of startups. And it's not like the startups have been so much more fulfilling, you're still pretty much a cog in the machine as an engineer even at a 30 person company.

In conclusion - working at a startup smaller than, say, series D is a fool's game and a very likely path to one day looking back and feeling like you haven't accomplished anything. Either become a founder to try to build something meaningful from nothing, or just work at a FAANG company as a 9-5 and get your fulfillment elsewhere and/or retire young.

Re: I thought I would have accomplished a lot more today and also before I was 35

#406

Post by slipmagic »

I feel like my bullies have grown up to be successful while I ended up being a loser and it turned out that I wasn’t as smart as I thought I was. My hard work didn’t amount to much and the things I sacrificed for it were the things that actually mattered.

Re: I thought I would have accomplished a lot more today and also before I was 35

#407

Post by boring_twenties »

cactus2093 wrote: post #405
bstar77 wrote: post #245

I was incredibly driven about 7 years ago... I was a founder of a startup and had really lofty aspirations. I told my wife that it was very possible that we would be millionaires by the time we hit 40. Fast forward to today and that did not happen. The startup is no more, but mainly due to burnout. We made money and did well, but not well enough. I never made my millions, but did have a substantial aqui-hire opportun…

I can definitely relate to this. My own journey is, in addition to a couple of stints as a founder that didn't work out, I've worked primarily for other startups as opposed to large companies. After 10 years what I have to show for it is about $35,000 from one moderate sized acquisition of a startup you've definitely heard of but was not especially lucrative for anyone except the founders, some options that I never e…

> It's pretty mind-blowing to realize that the less risky, more tortoise-like approach to a career would have been so vastly more profitable

Isn't this the definition of risk? If it was a foregone conclusion that you'd make more money this way, it wouldn't be risky at all.

Re: I thought I would have accomplished a lot more today and also before I was 35

#408

Post by yabai_yatsu »

duderific wrote: post #378
yabai_yatsu wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't get easier, it just gets a different kind of difficult.

I generally agree with you (I have a six and a two year old), but the sleep deprivation when the kids are babies is extremely debilitating. At least that part definitely gets better.

Good point. That initial period is hellish (and amazing) and it does taper off somewhat but settles on a new baseline of permanently elevated difficulty.

Re: I thought I would have accomplished a lot more today and also before I was 35

#409

Post by BjoernKW »

bstar77 wrote: post #245

I was incredibly driven about 7 years ago... I was a founder of a startup and had really lofty aspirations. I told my wife that it was very possible that we would be millionaires by the time we hit 40. Fast forward to today and that did not happen. The startup is no more, but mainly due to burnout. We made money and did well, but not well enough. I never made my millions, but did have a substantial aqui-hire opportun…

Compounding outcomes.

Someone who consistently gets just a little better every day is more likely to succeed than someone who works insanely hard for just a limited period of time.

The years don't come without the days.

Re: I thought I would have accomplished a lot more today and also before I was 35

#410

Post by bcrosby95 »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #383
duderific wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I generally agree with you (I have a six and a two year old), but the sleep deprivation when the kids are babies is extremely debilitating. At least that part definitely gets better.

Exactly that. I have a 1.5 year old. We've been pretty much zombies for the first half a year, until she started sleeping through (most of) the night.

Sleep regressions are a thing. Our twins had a big one around 1.5 years old. I averaged 3 hours of sleep for about 2 weeks.
Post reply on HN