The Million Dollar Question

Man, you hit the nail on the head. I, too, have been struggling with this for years. I move slowly, and know others who are absolutely paralyzed. That's the part of the article I identified with. The part about being misunderstood doesn't apply. Everyone I know, even in the suburbs, grasps the concept of entrepreneurship as a life choice, even if they don't have the courage to try it.

I used to wonder, What's keeping me from working hard on this? Now, I think the problem is not that there is something slowing me down, it's that I'm not accountable for anything related to my own project. There are no deadlines. My consulting work carries me, so there's an infinite runway. There's no pressure to start. When I finally start, and really ramp up, somebody comes to me with a paying gig. That feels like an annoyance, an interruption, but I succumb, because it offers accountability. And maybe because it's easier than my own project. And rent ain't free.

How do we obtain (or fake) accountability? I think the answer is a cofounder, but where I'm at (SoCal) they're tough to find, and coming to the table with a specific technology stack (Java) and idea makes it even harder.

Still, I'm not giving up yet.

I think you have 'issues' if you can't be friends with people who live life a bit differently than you do. Those sound like very artificial barriers to me.

Perhaps you won't be 'best friends forever' or something, but it's healthy to have a variety of people in your social circle.

Chrome Nanny link seems to be correct (Google Search suggests the same), but it actually doesn't work. Has it been removed from the Chrome Store just recently?

Great writing, but here is a quibble regarding the "...pretty girl, maybe 23 years old. She’s not beautiful... she’ll... be a very good wife for someone."

Ouch. I know he's just day-dreaming there, and his point is that she is a "normal" person. But why define her success in terms of being a "wife for someone"? She could -already- be an incredibly successful, independent person living life on her own terms, making her own rules.

And for all we know, she may be just as alienated from normalcy as the author. Sorry to nitpick but this hit home for me.

I really enjoyed this article. I'm not actually convinced that the answer is a fear of not being understood by others, but it's very close or the writing wouldn't resonate the way it does. The problem is that I know lots of people who couldn't give the slightest damn about fitting in, or who are already occupied in a field far enough from societal norms that their job description takes a whiteboard and a venn diagram on a good day.

I wish I could remember who said this; I think it was M. Scott Peck, but I can't find the reference: we are attached to our own mental model of ourselves. So attached that we will fight to maintain that model even if it's useless or actively harmful.

An example: have you ever noticed that if someone's depressed, complimenting them doesn't work? Have you noticed that you yourself feel awkward when others compliment you? That might seem obvious, but only because you've absorbed it through repeated exposure. Think about it: why in the world would someone saying good things about you feel uncomfortable? Shouldn't it be basically the best thing you can get?

The answer is that when you're thinking "I'm average looking at best" and someone says "you're beautiful!" it's like someone just tried to rip your left brain from your right. How can you possibly reconcile these two things? You have to either destroy your own sense of self or reject the person's compliment.

I suspect that in this case what looks like fear that the world will misunderstand you is actually fear that you misunderstand yourself. Jumping head-first into a crazy idea isn't just changing what you do; it's changing who you are, and that's goddamn terrifying.