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Ask HN: Words of encouragement for someone lost in life?

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Re: Ask HN: Words of encouragement for someone lost in life?

#181

Post by abdulrk400 »

3 simple steps:

1. Quit social media and Tinder. Quit anything that makes you compare your life to others. Humans are wired to compare themselves to others and eventually end up feeling inadequate. Social media aggregates the comparison process 100X.

2. Start exercising if you already don't. There's nothing better than that post workout feeling. As a bonus, it makes you feel that you've accomplished something today.

3. Find your purpose in life. This is a hard one and might take some deeper thinking. But once you find it, no one will be able to stop you from achieving whatever you want in life. It should be a broad enough purpose that technically can never end. For example, something like 'I want to use Technology to solve common world problems' - this can go on your entire life.

Re: Ask HN: Words of encouragement for someone lost in life?

#182

Post by meheleventyone »

sul_tasto wrote: post #166
cartoonworld wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my opinion the best bet is to choose an activity and do it. You will naturally socialize with other like minded individuals, have some fun, maybe even learn a useful skill, and you will for certain feel good doing it :) People (generalizing here) are attracted to happy, engaged, healthy people. Attractiveness markers are health markers. If you find yourself with an internal voice telling you you are bad or wrong o…

This is excellent advice. I was 26, living alone in Chicago, and I was having a hard time making friends- let alone getting a date. I signed up to learn French at the Alliance Francaise - and I ended up meeting my wife. We’ve been happily married for 16 years. My assumption from the outside is that Tinder is a hookup site, and that you’re not going to meet anyone worth dating there anyway. I’d suggest volunteering wi…

Just as a counter point to hookups are bad I met my wife by randomly hooking up with her at a bar. Just because people are interested in finding people to have sex with doesn’t reduce their worth.

Re: Ask HN: Words of encouragement for someone lost in life?

#183

Post by meheleventyone »

So first off please check in with a Doctor, particularly if you’re feeling desperate enough to kill yourself. You can get help for depression.

If things are really bleak please reach out to people like: https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/

You can also try to find a therapist, talking through these feelings with someone who can talk back and get a fuller context could be very helpful.

I’m 39. Six weeks ago I had a freak heart attack caused by a blood clot that spontaneously appeared in one of the main arteries of my heart with seemingly no underlying cause. You’d think nearly dying would give you some special insight into life and what to do about it. But it doesn’t. It’s scary, it’s really depressing and it gives you a taste of what your death might eventually be like.

I can’t presume to give you life advice but I wanted you to know that other people are out here suffering too. Be kind to yourself, don’t let the experience make you bitter and good luck.

Re: Ask HN: Words of encouragement for someone lost in life?

#184

Post by belorn »

KronisLV wrote: post #167
meheleventyone wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The advice does play into classic masculine stereotypes though. Almost like a movie trope where the hopeless nerd finds out he really was a cool jock the entire time. Throw away your nerdy shit, get ripped in the gym, learn martial arts and dress well. All that’s fine if that’s what you want but I don’t think it’s particularly aspirational for everyone. Even if elements like regular exercise and broadened activities…

Agreed. I guess better advice in regards to clothing would be to find something that fits you and that you feel good in. Masculine, feminine or something between, looking into the mirror and seeing clothes that look good is sure to be a small ego boost and other people might also treat you better in some subtle ways (basically the halo effect). As for exercise, not everyone needs to get "ripped", but some exercise is…

In terms of exercise, the I would strongly argue that the best advice is to test and explore new hobbies until something is enjoyable enough that they want to continue with it just for the fun of it. Going to the gym if you have every minute of it is not going to improve your health, but doing something physically that one enjoy brings many benefits.

A big upside about hobbies, especially if one focus a lot on it, is that one is likely to meet others who is enthusiastic in the same thing.

Re: Ask HN: Words of encouragement for someone lost in life?

#185

Post by CTDOCodebases »

rejectedandsad wrote: post #115
CTDOCodebases wrote: post #70

"I know that I'm a complete failure in life." Why do you say this? Because you aren't living the life of others? Because for whatever reasons you chose to program and do math instead of socialising and building social skills and friendship/relationships? Maybe you are being too hard on yourself? After all you don't know what you don't know and even if you knew the decisions you made were going to result in this much…

Here's my problem - I know there are lots of people having the time of their lives like the people OP is seeing on Tinder, except they also better at programming and doing math than me because they just seem inherently better . Basically everyone at Stanford and MIT is having fun and still making more than me - it feels like all of my hard work has been for nothing, and that at 25 I'll never even have a fraction of t…

Why compare yourself to others? You are living your life not theirs. You dont like your life? Change it. Investigate how much of your reality is a construct of your own mind.

Why is being better than everyone else at math and programming so important for you? Why is it so important that you earn more than others? Why does it upset you that others are having the time of their lives?

Re: Ask HN: Words of encouragement for someone lost in life?

#186

Post by AdrianB1 »

Get off Tinder, it is doing more harm than good.

Men at 18-22 have a particularly hard life, I can tell. Their peak in life is a lot later than women, so if at 22 women do what they want and get what they want, men have this in their thirties and later. It's a difference, it's not better one way or another.

At this age companionship is important and hard to get, but looking back it is not that hard if you know what to do:

1. look for people in your neighborhood. unless you live in a deserted area, there are men and women in a mile radius. Find people with the same passions or women that are kind and pleasant to interact with.

2. You are not looking for marriage material at this age. Tinder is for "fun only", but very shallow and difficult for men to get matches, spend some time in coffee shops or places where women your age are. In many cases even the girl at the McDonalds or CVS is a nice person looking for company.

3. Take care of yourself; keep your body fit and weight under control, it sounds hard but at this age it is extremely easy versus later.

4. Find some activities that you enjoy and spend some time on it. Get on a mountain bike if you like it, get a motorbike, go shooting paper (it's an Olympic sport), run a marathon, do something fun. First, it will help your mood, second - you can meet people, third, some people will find your activities interesting or attractive and that will attract people. You have the chance of meeting people with the same passion, that makes it a great long term bond.

And take baby steps, in time you will learn to be more socially open. When you are a noob in any domain people avoid you, when you get proficient they will come to you. There is no replacement for experience, start building experience. Don't fear rejection, it is part of every man's life, you will get used and get hardened.

And drop Tinder. It is doing more harm than good, both for men and women.

Re: Ask HN: Words of encouragement for someone lost in life?

#187

Post by AdrianB1 »

DistressedDrone wrote: post #129

It's literally a therapist's job to help you figure this out, I don't want to undermine this. Please speak to a professional, you are not alone. In the meantime, here are some of my own "no bullshit mantras" I found comforting in similar times, mostly from Zen Bhuddism : * You are not supposed to be anywhere. Your only real obligation is to be you, now. * There is no "better" version of you now. There is no other way…

This stuff works only when you fully understand it; that means when you are over 40 and you don't need advice because you have some life experience. It's a catch 22.

Re: Ask HN: Words of encouragement for someone lost in life?

#188

Post by p0d »

I'm your age x2. Here's how it worked in the old days. You walked your area with friends and showed off in front of the girls you met. You met girls at the (church) youthclub or disco. You met girls at a bar or nightclub. You met girls at school and at work. You met girls while on holiday. I knew many girls in real life. I kissed a few but the only girl I ever 'hooked' up with was my wife. We were friends for 6 years before we started to date. I have been happily married for 25 years. My advice to you is twofold. Don't put yourself under so much pressure. Second, go out and enjoy other people's company. Life often tends to be you meet someone who connects you to a girl. This new world of cutting out the middle man seems strange to me but then where there is money to be made people will find it. I'm not sure it's important what you choose to do but find a real world activity where you can connect with others. You may make friends there, meet a girl, or just enjoy other people's company. You may even experience some drama there but that's part of the learning of being young. Thankfully some of the plans I pursued at your age didn't work out but it was all part of the journey. Good luck young man :-)

Re: Ask HN: Words of encouragement for someone lost in life?

#189

Post by lookalike74 »

You're not a loser because Tinder didn't work out; you're one of millions who find 'online socializing' to be inadequate by itself. Go meet people. It sounds like this was hard for you to admit, but for some people this is a regular conversation between them and friends (and in some cases, any stranger who will listen). So forget the embarrassment & try to become more comfortable talking about it.

Re: Ask HN: Words of encouragement for someone lost in life?

#190

Post by zd123 »

f6v wrote: post #178
drenvuk wrote: post #18

There's enough other advice here that I just want to focus on one area on the safe assumption you're a straight male: Tinder is pretty toxic for men. Now that things are opening up you should get out and meet people in person. For romance sure, but friends or even acquaintances as well. Tunnel vision caused by desperation doesn't help either. Relax and branch out. Fail with people and try again with others. And again…

I’m going to argue that Tinder just highlights your issues. If you don’t dress well, don’t work out and aren’t confident enough to approach any woman, you’ll probably suck at real-life dating too.

Imho this is not true at all. The underlying assumption in your argument is that Tinder provides an accurate assessment of your issues, which is not true. Tinder dating success reflects a heavily skewed dating market that focuses on shallow metrics, such as how photogenic you are.

There was a study done by one of the large dating sites that showed 20% of male profiles get 80% of the matches.

Now, this skewed proportion does not obviously reflect real life. On dating apps a carefully curated, often fake persona can do well.

Personally I find dating apps in general to not be good places to find a partner at all. Ive had much more luck meeting women in the workplace or school etc.

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