Ask HN: Are You a Failure?

> it really depressed me. Probably just spending too much time thinking, not socializing, etc.

Yeah. Moving away from programming had an incredibly positive effect on my life. Almost everything that used to be awkward for me is easy now because of that one choice. Especially socialization, communication, speaking in public and with confidence, interpersonal skills in general. I really developed as a person in ways I don't think I would have otherwise.

I do miss that long deep thoughtful concentration though. Just thinking about software. The ideas present in the code and how they relate. Better ways to express them. Like a beautiful little puzzle coming together. A reflection of my mind. Twelve hours straight of nothing but this.

I'm glad I can afford to do this as a hobby now.

> Then saw what all those kids at Stanford did and were making, and immediately felt like I missed the biggest opportunity of my life.

Managed to avoid that particular dreadful feeling at least. Typical software engineer salaries that get posted here are truly ridiculous amounts of money in my country. Would be wonderful if I could make that much money working remotely from here but they're not gonna pay US salaries to non-US citizens. The exchange rate arbitrage is what makes them attractive to employers in the first place. I calculated how much they'd have to pay me for it to make sense to switch careers and was pretty happy with the result.

I am 35, I live on welfare and I never had a real job, only worked as a freelancer (never earned much, just a few thousands). My portfolio used to be okay a few years ago, but I was never able to capitalize on it and my programming skills because I have an inferiority complex due to the fact I don't have a degree. Of course abusive family, etc didn't help and they brought financial problems.

If you met me you wouldn't be able to tell I'm this ruined because I can socialize without problems, I'm not addicted to substances and I'm generally well liked (people invite me to events, etc). I just had a string of bad coincidences and I got thrown out of society.

especially in Italy, I feel once you go off the tracks it's hard to get back in society.

Abusive family can have a big impact on motivation and view on self worth. I hope you can see past the bullshit, you aren't worthless. Don't let them drag you down

I'm in my 30s, and despite being a gifted kid, moving to a first world country, speaking 3 languages and making great pay as a senior eng, I still feel like a failure for:

- Not having my own business

- Not managing people at the moment or doing many leadership activities

- Not having 7 figures networth

- Being a homeowner, but still paying mortgage for the next 10 years

- Not being yet an excellent communicator, and oh boy, I did invest sooo many hours into this

We all feel like this sometimes, despite many achievements, it's part of being a human to desire for more, and admire others for making it much further than us.

Nevertheless, I think we need to appreciate what we've got going for us, no matter how small that thing is, because life is full of surprises and if I look back, many of my achievements were because I kept fighting no matter how unfavorable the odds were.

Another aspect is that time in our lives is limited. With my poor upbringing I've already spent countless hours dedicating myself to making more money and becoming more successful and optimizing for certain outcomes.

Is it worth to keep doing this endlessly, until I have no more days left, or just give me time to enjoy what I have now? That's why it's important for us to understand what we want out of life outside of what is expected from us. So removing a few items of your "life TODO list" and accepting to be a failure on them is okay.

Maybe all you needed was more summer days in a park and you are wasting your time looking to become more prestigious in your field of work.

Comprehending the price of success and allowing yourself to "be a failure" seems to be more interesting to me lately... also more challenging, as I've been trained to win. I took years of therapy to reach that conclusion, hope it helps you and calms your heart.

I don't need to post links. I've failed at everything I've ever done in my life, professional or otherwise. I'm broke as a result. This isn't hyperbole, and I'm sorry if it sounds melodramatic-I think the user handle should show my mentality, FWIW.

There are a lot of reasons why, but the one that is relevant to this thread is not grasping the following: not realizing that people who stand out in life are so adept at picking themselves up from failure, do it so rapidly and seamlessly, have had so much practice at doing it that you don't even recognize they do it.

Practice doing that. No matter how insignificant the task is. My threshold for failure now is not doing that, and not pushing myself in life tasks where it really matters to me personally. (Important to distinguish.) And I'm already seeing a difference.