Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: How to Overcome the Trough of Sorrow?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 90 posts

Re: Ask HN: How to Overcome the Trough of Sorrow?

#41

Post by vonjuice »

> I have a question for the community? Where do you find the strength to keep going? What keeps you going and energizes you? I'm tired of trying, the work seems endless.

The first thing I try to remember (and this is really hard, during those times it feels like a blatant lie) is that things change and you get out of the rut.

Accepting the mental storms, knowing they will pass, and having faith that somehow, somewhere in that fog there's something gestating, something moving, that will take shape only after the fog clears, that's helpful.

And when I'm not in that storm, knowing that it will come eventually, and welcoming it instead of constantly wishing it away, I try to prepare the ground for my future depressed-self, to make his life easier.

Re: Ask HN: How to Overcome the Trough of Sorrow?

#42

Post by djfobbz »

androng wrote: post #22

After making your prototypes, did you ever go up to a potential customer and get their opinion? The stuff you mentioned in the post doesn't sound like you had any feedback/validation

This is the MOST important step #1 to be able to get to "that life".

Re: Ask HN: How to Overcome the Trough of Sorrow?

#43

Post by jdsully »

Don't get married to a project. If you don't get traction you should do something else. Business is ultimately about serving customers not about building the thing you want to build. If the customers won't buy it then its not fit for purpose. The exact time you should spend before pivoting isn't hard and fast but 4 years is well into the "its not working out" territory.

Re: Ask HN: How to Overcome the Trough of Sorrow?

#44

Post by johnchristopher »

voxl wrote: post #36
e40 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They survived in the past by having low expectations and knowing hardship was a fact of life. And also that life was unfair to the extreme.

I would argue that they didn't survive, unless they were predisposed to it. If you were depressed 500 years ago you died.

I don't follow your take. If you were sick 500 years ago your survival chances were low. If you are sick today your survival chances are lower (but not as much). Why is depression any different ?

Re: Ask HN: How to Overcome the Trough of Sorrow?

#46

Post by johnchristopher »

DoesntMatter22 wrote: post #38
e40 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They survived in the past by having low expectations and knowing hardship was a fact of life. And also that life was unfair to the extreme.

This sums up so well the current state of the world. Quality of life is relatively high so people expect a lot. For most of human history life was extremely hard, tons of death during child birth and diseases running rampant. Not to mention you don't have enough food. Now life js unfair if you can't afford the latest iPhone. Not a criticism of OP, because indie startup stuff is very hard, relativly.

> Now life js unfair if you can't afford the latest iPhone.

Not once in my life have I heard anybody saying life is unfair because they can't afford an iPhone (or a ps5 or whatever expensive but dispensable good), except from children or teenagers.

But I have heard it from people who couldn't find jobs or had to work two jobs to barely make rent and couldn't plan to have children and raise kids. Or from people who couldn't afford an education at the right time to get their adult life on tracks.

Re: Ask HN: How to Overcome the Trough of Sorrow?

#47

Post by jantissler »

imperialdrive wrote: post #7

Life is just hard. I don't know how folks managed 50 years ago, 100 years, 500+ years, it was just our ability to keep pushing through the mud, the cold nights, the loneliness, sometimes letting a glimpse of a beautiful day or sparkling night be enough to keep going. Someone told me that life and work and relationships are sometimes just pushing everything you have in a giant deep dark hole in the ground, and every n…

Well said!

Re: Ask HN: How to Overcome the Trough of Sorrow?

#48

Post by oraphalous »

papertigerau wrote: post #40

If you have a strong enough “Why”, then you can tolerate any “How”. Wanting to be your own boss, or having the ability to freely travel the world are both a great “Why” to create the activation energy to take the risk and start. But in my experience, it’s rarely a strong enough motivator to help someone persist through 4+ years without any meaningful wins. The strongest "Why" usually involves serving something other…

Amazing answer.

I don't have this sort of experience with founders to validate the specific claim that it needs to be about more than you - to give you the reason to keep going.

But I do have my own personal life experience in general... I've been a pretty self centered person in my motivation throughout my life. But eventually I reached a point where my drive just dried up. A deep and persistant despair began to infect everything I tried to do. What was the point of it... even if I succeeded somehow, it was all just going to be more of ME at the end of it. And I was pretty sick of me.

Strangely, it was a cat that saved me. A neighbours cat I used to walk past in the mornings as it was enjoying a winter sunbeam. I'd give it an ear scratch which it appreciated greatly. And I realised that interaction was giving me more pleasure / amusement than any of the big, important projects going on in my life at the time. Making some thing's / one's life better - even in some small way - is the raison d'etre I was missing. It's so obvious and simple to me now - yet somehow I'd gone through half my life blind to it.

Now I call it: the principle of the cat. It gets a laugh out of people, when I tell them that story.

Re: Ask HN: How to Overcome the Trough of Sorrow?

#49

Post by DoesntMatter22 »

johnchristopher wrote: post #46
DoesntMatter22 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sums up so well the current state of the world. Quality of life is relatively high so people expect a lot. For most of human history life was extremely hard, tons of death during child birth and diseases running rampant. Not to mention you don't have enough food. Now life js unfair if you can't afford the latest iPhone. Not a criticism of OP, because indie startup stuff is very hard, relativly.

> Now life js unfair if you can't afford the latest iPhone. Not once in my life have I heard anybody saying life is unfair because they can't afford an iPhone (or a ps5 or whatever expensive but dispensable good), except from children or teenagers. But I have heard it from people who couldn't find jobs or had to work two jobs to barely make rent and couldn't plan to have children and raise kids. Or from people who co…

Oh I've heard it from adults before. Were they acting like children? Sure. Even so, in the past, children were working pretty hard themselves to try to eek out an existence with their parents and the concept of life being unfair because you couldn't have a device wasn't even a thought.

Re: Ask HN: How to Overcome the Trough of Sorrow?

#50

Post by agluszak »

geoffpado wrote: post #32
agluszak wrote: post #20

Why do you want so hard to start a business? Why not spend your precious time, money and effort on something else? If what motivates you is willingness to change the world - you can do so by working for a non-profit organization. If you want to earn money - you can be a regular employee. > Where do you find the strength to keep going? What keeps you going and energizes you? It is NOT work. I try to work as little as…

Not the OP, but strongly identify with a lot of what they’ve said, so, my perspective: > Why do you want so hard to start a business? Why not spend your precious time, money and effort on something else? If what motivates you is willingness to change the world - you can do so by working for a non-profit organization. If you want to earn money - you can be a regular employee. For me it’s agency. I want the freedom to…

Ok, I understand that, but why do you want to have this agency in business specifically? Why the focus on tying your agency to making money?
Post reply on HN