I've always felt that if one can point to themselves as kind, thoughtful, and willing to listen to and help others, they can count themselves among the very best society has to offer. Those are skills anyone can foster and use to brighten someone's day and make the world a kinder, happier place.
Ask HN: I feel so shallow and dumb when I see what other smart people are doing
41–50 of 344 posts
Re: Ask HN: I feel so shallow and dumb when I see what other smart people are doing
#42I have the same diagnoses as you. I also became a Heroin addict after cancer/Crohns treatment and being kicked out of my own startup.
I can’t encourage you any more heavily to explore CBT if you haven’t already. Changed my life for the better.
(Same with Vipassanā meditation but I’m hesitant about how some adherents/practitioners treat it as a cure all salve.)
Re: Ask HN: I feel so shallow and dumb when I see what other smart people are doing
#43> Nothing I’m doing in my life are anything that people will remember me for. I never expected to be remembered beyond my generation and it always surprises me to find out that some people DO expect that. I'd argue that 99% of people are entirely unremarkable and will be forgotten entirely within 2 generations of their death. The sooner you come to terms with that and accept it, the better.
To build on this: Why does being remembered matter at all? It doesn't. It's a weird trait in the human brain to want to be remembered.
The instant you die you will have no memory of yourself, your life, or anything really :) So it's a fool's errand to care about what people think of you after you're gone, because you won't be here to know about any of it.
The only thing that matters is to make the most of the life you're living NOW. Do things that make you happy, feel productive, ARE productive, are enjoyable, etc. If doing something now will leave a mark on the world and make it a better place, then by all means do it and go for it.
The moment you realize that It. Just. Doesn't. Matter. what r whether people think or care about you after you're gone, the moment your life will take a turn towards more satisfaction.
BTW: Note that "making the most of the life you're living now" doesn't necessarily mean "do whatever you want" or "do what makes you happy". I'm not trying to give pedantic greeting card BS advice that many people know is impossible to achieve. Sometimes living your best life means struggling in a bad job to provide for your family, build wealth, etc.
Just make sure you're doing things with agency, that you're doing the best possible thing for you/your family, and that your aiming to maximize the time you have here regardless of your life circumstances.
Re: Ask HN: I feel so shallow and dumb when I see what other smart people are doing
#44I have to say that HN is toxic if you are suffering from Imposter Syndrome. Clicking the stories on here is always going to make you feel bad. Take some time off from HN. Most of the human population isn't doing the things that the people on here are doing.
Re: Ask HN: I feel so shallow and dumb when I see what other smart people are doing
#45I'll be brutally honest because I used to be in your situation. Each and every person you admire has poured thousands of hours into some project. For some that's a degree. For some it's a game they wrote, for others it's company that they've started... Have you done that? Spent thousands of hours on a single thing? Focused on a project long enough to actually see results? I'm guessing not, because if you would have t…
This attitude is nice, but unfortunately in most cases it does not apply.
Many people have different sensibilities and tastes. Those that become great alone are extremely talented, gifted and innately know what to filter and how to improve.
Most of us do need some guidance and there's not enough hours of piano playing for us regular folks to discover all of the learning tricks with which we become insanely good.
Programming is hard and just putting in the hours won't help that much, especially now when the whole internet is polluted with unnecessary stuff.
Re: Ask HN: I feel so shallow and dumb when I see what other smart people are doing
#46My recommendation: feel your feelings, all the way through.
There might be some tendency, when you feel small, to feel bad about feeling small — as though it is further evidence of your worthlessness — and that itself makes you feel worse, and down the spiral you go... Been there (:
But if you make space for (or even _welcome_) those feelings, even if you don't like them, then in my experience you end up at a better place.
I only mention this because you seem to be beating yourself up about this ("I feel shallow/dumb"). You can feel bad and still be a good person; it's an easy mixup to make.
(I am reminded of this funny image: https://i.redd.it/9ubhqov2u9k01.jpg [1])
Also, not that this makes your feelings go away, but looking at people who are rich/smart/influential/famous is looking at outliers, and people who likely had a lot of luck in their background, upbringing, genes, education, being-in-the-right-place-at-the-right-time, etc. etc. to achieve their success, on top of their hard work. For every succesful indie video game, there are 1000 people who worked just as hard on theirs but didn't get a big break. The same is true in all sorts of areas of life, big to small. And just in general, FWIW, I don't recommend judging your self-worth by comparing to others, whether they're outliers or not (:
But sorry you're feeling down; *internet hug*.
[1] (in case the direct link dies) https://old.reddit.com/r/wholesomememes/comments/82lny8/i_wa...
Re: Ask HN: I feel so shallow and dumb when I see what other smart people are doing
#47https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erik_Erikson#Erikson's_theory_...
Welcome to stage 7. (Don't mind the age ranges, which shift with time and place.)
Re: Ask HN: I feel so shallow and dumb when I see what other smart people are doing
#48Don't forget that while you're having these feelings some people are shooting heroin in their veins.
It could be better, but it could be much worse.
You were not born to be the best, but the best version of yourself. If you don't have the genes, social conditions etc there are a lot of things you can't reach. But you should try to reach what you can so when death comes you will be satisfied by what you have done with your life.
Re: Ask HN: I feel so shallow and dumb when I see what other smart people are doing
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thanks. The horrible thing is I came here to say that sometimes I find a project that I did a year or two ago and end up feeling shallow and dumb.
Embrace that feeling but reframe it. It means you've learned something and grown since you did that project a year ago. If you looked back on work you did five years ago and didn't see room for improvement ... you've had no growth in your skills and experience.
This. Life is a constant process of reframing.
Re: Ask HN: I feel so shallow and dumb when I see what other smart people are doing
#50I think all of us have these thoughts and feelings. I'm in an engineering team, surrounding by incredibly skilled, experienced but most of all _committed_ (embedded) engineers - and I'm the only guy on the business side. If you've ever felt stupid, just think how the sole marketing guy feels in an otherwise fully engineering focused company. It's not a nice feeling.
Anyway. I've come to realise (suspect?) a few things:
- People who achieve _Great Things_ are, more often than not, unidimensional. They focus most of their lives one single thing (or a small select set of related things). What this means is that they achieve highly in one area, but are somewhat useless in many others (even somewhat basic ones). It's a personal choice whether you think this is OK or not. The book Range by David Epstein is an interesting read (or if you like horrible business buzzwords, 'T shaped people')
- None of the extreme achievers would be able to do what they do, without the rest of us. I don't feel this is some new age woo-woo stuff to make us minions feel better, but in reality if the base of society doesn't exist or function well, you can't go do the cool 'big think' stuff. Without farmers, Elon would probably either starve or have to go grow his own crops (bad example maybe, whatever).
- The people that do achieve _Amazing Things_ sit at (I believe) a very special intersection of inherent capability (e.g. ability to integrate information quickly), personality (often very driven and quite selfish, just lucking into very beneficial mindsets early on, don't suffer from depression), familial advantages (wealth, exceptional early education), geographic advantage (not just first world wealthy country, but even micro-geographic advantages, such as say Silicon Valley vs a small rural town) and probably a few others I don't have a grasp on.
So in my mind, the combination of the above factors not only enables _some_ people to achieve wildly, but also puts them on a path that they almost can't stray from. This strays into pre-determinism I suppose, but (in my mind) it's more related to a series of environmental and personal factors playing out, as opposed to Some Large Guiding Force.
I dunno, that's my current view at least.