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Advice to young people, the lies I tell myself

jxnl.github.io

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Re: Advice to young people, the lies I tell myself

#31

Post by tetromino_ »

hsrob1 wrote: post #16

This is nonsense from a child in a bubble of privilege. His family connections got him jobs, and he has the hopeful optimism of a an upper-middle class child living in a gated community and going to private school. Of course he "found luck," it's easy to come by when you have wealth and resources backing you. He's just repeating a bunch of woo woo self help books, calling other people losers for being members of real…

I wonder, where did you get all that about privilege, upper-middle class, gated community, and private schools? Do you know the author personally? According to his bio at https://jxnl.github.io/blog/writing/2024/01/01/whoami/

> I was born in a village in China. My parents were the children of rural farmers who grew up during the Cultural Revolution. They were the first generation of their family to read and write, and also the first generation to leave the village.

> Growing up, I had always been interested in art and science. In high school, I went to a public art school and studied digital animation and design for 4 years. Then, in college, I went to Waterloo to study mathematical physics.

To me, it sounds like he was an ordinary 1.5 generation immigrant from a poor background, who happened to have some talent and very good luck (e.g. being an early hire at Facebook).

Re: Advice to young people, the lies I tell myself

#32

Post by wkjagt »

I felt uncomfortable reading this but found it hard to explain why. Weird thing is, I started out enjoying the article, but as I continued, I grew more and more uncomfortable. Curious, I scrolled back up to the link to his twitter. There is said “Social Media Influencer”. Was that it? Did I somehow feel that I was being influenced?

Re: Advice to young people, the lies I tell myself

#33

Post by evocomp »

I found this to be a remarkably sincere article. It focuses on the author's personal experience and strategies or mindsets they've found helpful in various situations.

It's not the generic platitudes for all readers in all circumstances, but that's what makes it valuable to me. It's a perspective quite different from my own, with more experience in some areas and less in others, shared concisely and powerfully.

Re: Advice to young people, the lies I tell myself

#35

Post by broscillator »

dorkwood wrote: post #4

> Seek success because you deserve it and learn to love yourself, rather than punishing yourself for not being good enough. The idea that I "deserve" success, and to be happy, is something I've heard repeated many times but have always struggled comprehending. I think to myself, well, why do I deserve it? Just for being alive? I feel like there's a better way to think about this, but it eludes me. Does anyone have an…

Because there's no real objective truth about it, it's just what you tell yourself.

If you think people only deserve success because they worked X amount, that's a thought formed by social norms and, most likely, what you were told and how you were treated by your carers when you were growing up.

The question is which of those beliefs will be more conductive towards actually achieving success and being happy?

Instead of trying to guess which is true on some abstract sense, adopt one or the other, and empirically live your life by it for a while, and see the results.

Re: Advice to young people, the lies I tell myself

#36

Post by broscillator »

imgabe wrote: post #5
dorkwood wrote: post #4

> Seek success because you deserve it and learn to love yourself, rather than punishing yourself for not being good enough. The idea that I "deserve" success, and to be happy, is something I've heard repeated many times but have always struggled comprehending. I think to myself, well, why do I deserve it? Just for being alive? I feel like there's a better way to think about this, but it eludes me. Does anyone have an…

Nobody deserves anything. That implies some kind of cosmic force or entity that is keeping track of who does what and enforcing some kind of justice. People get what they figure out how to get and they keep it as long as they figure out how to keep it. Random luck (good or bad) can happen to anyone at any time. It may not seem "fair" (whatever fair means), but it makes a lot more sense given the data than other expla…

The opposite view also implies some sort of cosmic order, it implies that "deserving" is some type of natural, objective currency and that X work must be performed to achieve it.

But that's not how it is, "deserving happiness" or "deserving success" are self-defined thoughts.

Did I "deserve" to eat ice cream yesterday? Yes I did, because I decided that I did.

You're conflating these abstract concepts with a more scarcity mindset about whether you deserve a specific job or accolades or whatnot. If that's how you narrowly define your own success, then you yourself are deciding that you don't deserve it (assuming you're not realistically working towards that specific goal).

Re: Advice to young people, the lies I tell myself

#37

Post by rkachowski »

methou wrote: post #11

What really caught my attention was the date format: 2024/06/01, YYYY/DD/MM. This is first time I'm ever seeing anything like this.

It also caught my attention, presumably these are represented internally as files in numbered dirs - so in this instance you end up with a strange hierarchy where the day of the month you published has a higher precedence than the month. Which doesn't seem particularly valuable to me..

Re: Advice to young people, the lies I tell myself

#38

Post by broscillator »

grigri907 wrote: post #17
dorkwood wrote: post #4

> Seek success because you deserve it and learn to love yourself, rather than punishing yourself for not being good enough. The idea that I "deserve" success, and to be happy, is something I've heard repeated many times but have always struggled comprehending. I think to myself, well, why do I deserve it? Just for being alive? I feel like there's a better way to think about this, but it eludes me. Does anyone have an…

I'm right there with you. I struggle to make sense of it, but I've found those messages useful as a counterbalance to the messaging or received from a religious upbringing, "I don't deserve any good thing," and martyrdom "real, true believers^TM will suffer. " It's also helpful escaping the American bootstraps mentality, "hard work will bring you success," and my personal corolary, "if you're not working hard/struggl…

This is the correct way of looking at it. It's about how the thought contributes or hinders your own success/happiness.

If you were to find, empirically, that believing that you're not deserving of happiness is more likely to lead to happiness, by all means do that.

But to pose that it is an objective truth is more likely to be a justification for why you're unhappy.

Re: Advice to young people, the lies I tell myself

#39

Post by j-bos »

zero-sharp wrote: post #2

This article has a section titled "how to get a job." The author then mentions straight away that he has never had to apply for a job in the traditional way. Following this, he questions his own success and implies that there may be factors other than merit that played a role. A few paragraphs down the author then laments people with imposter syndrome. Yup. I'm not sure how you can read this without being irritated.…

> Yup. I'm not sure how you can read this without being irritated

By taking it as a good faith chat about one person's perspective. I found it enjoyable, though yes there were some inconsistencies, couldn't be more than my own.

Re: Advice to young people, the lies I tell myself

#40

Post by rramadass »

Paul-Craft wrote: post #23
zero-sharp wrote: post #2

This article has a section titled "how to get a job." The author then mentions straight away that he has never had to apply for a job in the traditional way. Following this, he questions his own success and implies that there may be factors other than merit that played a role. A few paragraphs down the author then laments people with imposter syndrome. Yup. I'm not sure how you can read this without being irritated.…

My impression: it reeks of someone who's self aware enough to know they're insufferable and privileged, but then goes on to be insufferable anyway. Evidence: jiu jitsu, Waterloo, free diving, refers to themselves as a "social media influencer" on their Twitter bio. Also, never interviewed for a job and says "oh, just be likeable," as if that's somehow the whole secret to life. Sorry to say, but it is not. I won't hir…

Agreed.

The entire post reeks of unwarranted self-importance and posturing and contains equal measure platitudes and balderdash.

He needs to watch the documentary Waging a Living to get some real-life perspectives (this documentary legitimately made me very angry at the "American System") - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waging_a_Living and https://www.pbs.org/pov/films/wagingaliving/

Seems like it is available on Youtube : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIXFyLXSBuo&t=6s

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