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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

#51

Post by jxnlco »

tetromino_ wrote: post #31
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, an…

author here: Not early! I didn't even get stock... i lost most of my money when sfix fell rip

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

#52

Post by jxnlco »

gloryjulio wrote: post #41
sidcool wrote: post #21

I see a lot of comments here criticising the post. May be my point of view is different on this, but I liked the post. It's raw and seems honest, like an un-edited version of a stream of thoughts (the author mentions he used speech to text). The author may have been from a privileged background, but seems to have had his own struggles. I especially liked the following pieces: >>>>> 1. I believe many young people stru…

Agree. Have similar thoughts here. I totally understand where he comes from. Competitive upbringing and schools (U of Waterloo is of the top CS universities and it's grueling, look it up), faang and silicon valley experiences, I have met many people from the similar backgrounds. If you want to succeed in this environment, either you are 1. naturally talented to deal with all the pressure and competitiveness; 2. relen…

author here:

>actively develop some kind of coping mechanisms to help you progress.

i think this is why i titled it lies i tell myself. i gotta just believe i can choose to be happy.

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

#53

Post by jxnlco »

rapfaria wrote: post #8
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…

Perhaps success is not deserved, but with enough anxiety you somehow can miss important milestones and the feeling of progress. So you "deserve" to experience that by making and effort to live in the now.

author here:

yeah from 15-25 all of my successes were just 'this has to happen, if i fail, I'll just be poor and a fucking loser'

of course i got into college, i have to, my parents left china so i could be here of course i got a good job, i gave up so much of my childhood to try to get ahead. of course people think x, i gave up so much to have y.

at some point i realised this was just like... not a great way to live my life.

---

Nowadays i feel much better. Even if have coffee a friend, its like "wow im so grateful, my friends love me and spend time with me"

Its definitly woo woo self help, but again these are the lies i tell myself.

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

#54

Post by jxnlco »

dario_od wrote: post #13
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.…

Right. It might be because I have no idea who the author is, but this post read like a bunch of useless incoherent ramblings

author here:

it was incoherent ramblings! Its my first time writing something thats not technical documentation.

context: my sister was talking to me about feeling stressed about going to college i wrote this with speech to text. I have personally not read it yet. I shared it on twitter this weekend to get some feedback.

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

#55

Post by jxnlco »

broscillator wrote: post #36
imgabe wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 scar…

i dunno man, pessimists are losers.

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

#57

Post by RHSman2 »

angra_mainyu wrote: post #26
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.…

Yeah, the guy and I have lived completely different lives. For starters, I've never gotten a job via referral, it's always been applying, busting my ass off during interviews and tests, and getting in...

We have all lives different lives.

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

#58

Post by jxnlco »

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…

author here:

Not sure where you get this from.

I came to Canada in 1999 and my parents worked at a best buy and a mattress store for 10 years. And we rented someone's basement for the first 6 years. I moved out of my parents when I was 17, I paid for my college tuition myself through tech internships. After graduating college I had saved about ~1000$ and moved to SF to work my tech job.

I asked for my first pay cheque in advanced before I flew to the US so I could pay the deposit.

---

Its weird you say "members of reality" when you yourself are critiquing a phantom character in your own mind. Not sure where you are in life, but the older I get, the more I realize the woo woo self help its just the lies we tell yourselves to keep moving forward. Cause the absent of that work is even harder.

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

#59

Post by seoulmetro »

noitpmeder wrote: post #25
seoulmetro wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? It's very common to use YYYYDDMM. It sorts well numerically if you're wanting to group them even slightly.

Uh, WHAT? How at all is YYYYDDMM better than YYYYMMDD? Is there any single advantage?

Yeah my bad. I thought it was YYYYMMDD.

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

#60

Post by seoulmetro »

d1sxeyes wrote: post #28
seoulmetro wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? It's very common to use YYYYDDMM. It sorts well numerically if you're wanting to group them even slightly.

YYYYMMDD sorts very well chronologically, but YYYYDDMM would only be useful in a very specific set of circumstances (generously speaking I can only really think of it being useful in cases where you have events that occur once a month on the same day, and for some reason it's more important to have those grouped together than to separate them by month). I suspect you misread and mistyped, but if not, I'd be really in…

I thought it was YYYYMMDD. Woops.
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