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Ask HN: Are you lost / confused / stuck? I can try to help

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Ask HN: Are you lost / confused / stuck? I can try to help

#1

Post by samh748 »

Ok this is quite a different kind of Ask HN, but I just can't help but feel saddened whenever I come across personal posts about how someone is lost, confused, stuck in a situation, feel lonely, uncertain what to do about xyz, etc.. What's more surprising to me, is how the comments mostly center around external solutions. I love the HN community and how good you folks are at helping people navigating the world. But, sometimes, at least sometimes, what we're missing is a way of navigating the inner world (which includes close relationships).

And surprisingly (or not surprisingly), the conventional methods like self-help advice or even therapy sometimes don't seem to help. I know this feeling, and had to explore around to find the tools and perspectives that finally made a difference.

Now I don't mean any kind of mystic / uber-spiritual stuff. I'm a pretty realistic guy; I just think a lot and feel a lot and had to go through a lot of inner work / personal development to get to where I am today. (If you want an idea what kind of person I am in real life, my personal instagram is https://www.instagram.com/samhuang.sh/ Feel free to read my posts to get a sense of my style and my experiences.)

To get to my point, I want to start some kind of service/platform where people can come to talk things through and have a sustained conversation about their experience of feeling lost, confused, stuck. (I won't be charging for this ever, because I don't believe in that. Though I'll probably have donations set up, but that's technicalities.)

I've been giving some people at work some advice and perspectives, and they were positively surprised by the things I talked about and it seemed to help them at least get out of the cloud of confusion. I'm not trained with any formal credentials, but somehow I've developed enough wisdom in this area to have useful things to say.

The problem is, because I don't quite know where my "strengths" and "expertise" are yet, I don't wanna just start some Substack and make a fool out of myself pretending to be some guru when I don't know what I'm doing yet.

So here in this thread, I'm hoping to invite people who are struggling with feeling lost, confused, stuck, for whatever reason, to come and seek help. And I'll do my best to see if I can offer perspectives that may be useful. It'll be a place where we can go deeper into some issues and have a sustained conversation about it all. And it would also be tremendously helpful to me to get some feedback on whether it did or did not help.

Much love, Sam

EDIT: For the record, so far the type of advice that seemed to resonate with people has been regarding relationships, inter-personal dynamics, family conflict, parenting, friendships, etc. A lot of times, our problems with the self stems from problems in our relationships, and vice versa.

Re: Ask HN: Are you lost / confused / stuck? I can try to help

#2

Post by nonrandomstring »

> I'm not trained with any formal credentials

Get trained with some.

There is a massively growing demand for therapists. World events and changing culture are creating the conditions for widespread personal crises. This has a big effect on the economy and is really an underlying root cause problem for many other visible socio-economic problems. Science now strongly backs modern psychotherapeutic practice, and it can be a rewarding career.

Most (good) training is the usual 3-5 year programme involving psychology, reflective practice, clinical work, self-therapy, clinical supervision. You can choose amongst a range of different "schools" (cognitive, behavioural, attachment...) which are increasingly combined and regulated by the same bodies.

It;s also hard work to be a professional. For the good programmes selection is actually tough. Would you be able to help people traumatised by witnessing horror? Rape victims? Or neurotic, obsessive patients who break boundaries and call you at 3am? Can you keep absolute compartmentalised discretion on par with doing intelligence work?

Good luck.

Re: Ask HN: Are you lost / confused / stuck? I can try to help

#3

Post by coolhoody »

The funny thing about this — is that quite a lot of people can help others — while not being able to help themselves.

I had a startup idea — for people in need of such help helping and motivating each other — noticing that I can solve rather complex problems of others while being a prize moron within my own code block.

Didn't follow through due to d.

My advice to you is:

1. Don't be discouraged if this dies in 'New', it'll go off when it's ready.

2. Always condense your pitches — to nontrivial taglines, then expand with clear tag:reason for the busier people.

3. Be a tad more self-confident. Not in your guru skills — that's bad manners — but in the idea itself. All gurus are shit, except this one: https://youtu.be/8An2SxNFvmU

Re: Ask HN: Are you lost / confused / stuck? I can try to help

#4

Post by _zzaw »

That’s definitely a place I would visit, although I’d probably be more lurking than talking, at least at first.

It might sound simplistic, but if I were starting a community like that, I’d start with a WordPress blog or forum; maybe BBpress. I think a clean posting/interacting experience, free from the crap/shadiness of social media, is pretty important given the nature of what would be discussed. Blogs have a more personal, small-community feel that I see less and less of these days (and subscribing via RSS would be nice too).

Personally, I don’t know how much I have to discuss right now, since my own issues—primarily long-term burnout, disillusionment with my industry—are probably not addressable via anything short of a job/career shift, but I’d definitely be interested in seeing your ideas, and what’s discussed.

Re: Ask HN: Are you lost / confused / stuck? I can try to help

#5

Post by _zzaw »

nonrandomstring wrote: post #2

> I'm not trained with any formal credentials Get trained with some. There is a massively growing demand for therapists. World events and changing culture are creating the conditions for widespread personal crises. This has a big effect on the economy and is really an underlying root cause problem for many other visible socio-economic problems. Science now strongly backs modern psychotherapeutic practice, and it can…

I don’t think that’s what he’s talking about. You’re describing industrial-strength professional therapy; sounded to me like he had more informal counseling/advice/community in mind.

Re: Ask HN: Are you lost / confused / stuck? I can try to help

#7

Post by altdataseller »

coolhoody wrote: post #3

The funny thing about this — is that quite a lot of people can help others — while not being able to help themselves. I had a startup idea — for people in need of such help helping and motivating each other — noticing that I can solve rather complex problems of others while being a prize moron within my own code block. Didn't follow through due to d. My advice to you is: 1. Don't be discouraged if this dies in 'New',…

Oh man, That guru has some really profound, enlightening advice... Really eye-opening, thanks for the rec!

Re: Ask HN: Are you lost / confused / stuck? I can try to help

#8

Post by samh748 »

_zzaw wrote: post #5
nonrandomstring wrote: post #2

> I'm not trained with any formal credentials Get trained with some. There is a massively growing demand for therapists. World events and changing culture are creating the conditions for widespread personal crises. This has a big effect on the economy and is really an underlying root cause problem for many other visible socio-economic problems. Science now strongly backs modern psychotherapeutic practice, and it can…

I don’t think that’s what he’s talking about. You’re describing industrial-strength professional therapy; sounded to me like he had more informal counseling/advice/community in mind.

Thanks for this. Yeah I definitely won't want to venture into the "serious stuff" exactly for the reasons stated.

My experience has been that, it's the in-between severity that seems to lack good resources. The stuff that self-help books try to address and fail miserably at. The struggles people have that are unsettling, but not serious enough to seek therapy. My whole life is living in this middle place, so it took a long time to figure out what to do or where to go for help.

Re: Ask HN: Are you lost / confused / stuck? I can try to help

#9

Post by samh748 »

ResNet wrote: post #6

Appreciation for all the recent Ask HNs you've posted, Sam! They have provided insight into questions I, and others here too, have no doubt been asking ourselves. Keep them coming.

You have no idea how much that means to me. Really. I'm literally tearing up. :')
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