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Ask HN: How do you deal with professional jealousy and getting older?

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Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with professional jealousy and getting older?

#241

Post by ArekDymalski »

Whenever I see the procrastination topic the auto-handicap mechanism comes to my head: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-handicapping

The way you describe yourself (ambitious; so many great ideas; big project) suggest that your self-esteem is high. However it might be unstable due to lack of evidence ("Experience-wise, I'm still a junior dev") that is convincing for you (as a result of constant comparisons with others).

In such situation (high but unstable self-esteem) auto-handicap is a common strategy to preserve the self-esteem by avoiding situations that could lower it and providing some rationalizations instead. It feels nasty but we people keep doing it.

One of many ways to cope with it is identify the sources we use to build our self-esteem and give them right proportions. Usually it comes down to rethinking the influence of other's opinions.

Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with professional jealousy and getting older?

#242

Post by golergka »

cookiecaper wrote: post #231
golergka wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Your advice is, at best, useful only to those who already have their basic needs provided for. Most of commenters on this site are software engineers — and this profession usually pays pretty well, to the point that we can safely assume that if the person is a capable software engineer, he has his basic needs provided for.

Only insofar as he remains motivated to use his skill for his own support. Even for well-paid software engineers, it can be difficult to amass substantial enough savings to feel comfortable taking 6-12 months off (depending, of course, on individual circumstances). Personally, I believe a sabbatical every few years would do wonders to prevent burnout, but very few plan well enough to make that happen.

It's pretty easy if place where you work and place where you take a break have a different money scale.

Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with professional jealousy and getting older?

#243

Post by o_syn »

One of my observations is that people procrastinate because it is entropically favorable, not necessarily because they want to procrastinate or because procrastination is fun. The Internet does not help with its vast potential for incessant context switching.

The obvious solution to this is to reduce entropy, and slow things down. Stay without the internet and television for a week, since these are the primary ways in which you procrastinate, think of it as rehab therapy. Eliminate all sources of deviations, and try to systematically lengthen your attention span. I would suggest meditating every day for an hour[1].

Secondly, stop reading the news. It's a complete waste of time. The set of all thought sequences you can have between time A and time B should be small. Watching the news, or reading HN greatly increases the number of irrelevant thoughts you can have. A perfect Bayesian with a utility function like "maximize knowledge gained" would not read the news at all. It is always a good idea to ponder about what a perfect Bayesian with your chosen utility function would do.

It's true that the only thing stopping yourself is you. And it's also true that you can do amazing things if you spend long enough on any particular thing[2]. I would suggest making an Excel sheet with the time spent doing productive work per day, and optimize for that.

I went from averaging around 30 minutes a week when I started measuring my productivity (I'm a college freshman .. so I'm free the entire day) to around 4 hours in the last week.

---

[1] Music I find helpful for meditation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPni755-Krg

[2] Einstein spent an entire decade on General Relativity. Andrew Wiles spent 7 years trying to prove Fermat's Last Theorem. Persistence is the most important trait anyone can have.

Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with professional jealousy and getting older?

#245

Post by khorwitz »

"Does anybody else have this problem? How do you deal with it?"

Yes -- it's human nature. All you can do is focus on one thing at a time. If you are focused on what's important, then you are allowed to not feel guilty. A great man once said "take so much action your conscious brain doesn't have time to fall into its default patterns of worrying".

For help on focusing on one thing at a time, and taking so much action you don't have time to feel bad: http://focusr.co

Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with professional jealousy and getting older?

#246

Post by noddingham »

dankohn1 wrote: post #228
swatkat wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> You will NEVER have the energy that the people whom you compare with have. Because they are being themselves, and are connected to the natural wellspring of motivation that comes from genuine interest, while you are the salmon swimming upstream, aping societal ideals and trying to be someone you are not. >> Almost no one takes my advice because it's so threatening to be natural. What if you are not naturally ambit…

> Basically, comparison causes conflict, conflict causes anxiety, anxiety causes fear, and fear makes mind dull. Unfortunately, I can report that I have done all of my best work in my career when I was extraordinarily anxious, feeling like I was holding to the side of the cliff with just my fingernails. Whenever things have started to get too comfortable, I found that hubris has disrupted my successes. It's a sad tho…

When you say you were anxious and holding to the side of the cliff with fingernails, were you also particularly busy?

I ask because I can recall several times in both school and career when I was much more productive because I had to be due to time constraints than when I had ample free time and was not as burdened. I'm wondering if you are describing that as well.

Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with professional jealousy and getting older?

#247

Post by logfromblammo »

rbrady wrote: post #237
swatkat wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> You will NEVER have the energy that the people whom you compare with have. Because they are being themselves, and are connected to the natural wellspring of motivation that comes from genuine interest, while you are the salmon swimming upstream, aping societal ideals and trying to be someone you are not. >> Almost no one takes my advice because it's so threatening to be natural. What if you are not naturally ambit…

>> comparison causes conflict, conflict causes anxiety, anxiety causes fear, and fear makes mind dull Am I the only one who read this in Yoda's voice?

No. No, you are not.

Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with professional jealousy and getting older?

#248

Post by zeidrich »

tastyface wrote: post #155
vijucat wrote: post #64

> It's been getting better. It's not, it's getting worse. You are in a cycle of slave-driving yourself. You remind me of Jiddu Krishnamurthi's assertion that "Influence acts strongest when you don't realize that it is acting". I would venture that most of your accomplishments are a result of being told what you should do, what you should be. You will NEVER have the energy that the people whom you compare with have. B…

OP here. Believe me when I say that there's nothing more I'd rather do than what I'm doing right now. Not even in question. I love programming, I love the project I'm working on, and I love the ideas that are waiting to be worked on in my future. My heart fills with joy when I think about holding those finished products in my hands. When I get into the flow, I can zone out for days and work on my projects with hardly…

First of all, it's not a race. Statistically speaking you aren't number 1, and that's OK. It doesn't mean you stop trying, but you can stop competing.

I'd say find out what is important to you. What is important to you is not what you'd rather do or even what you love. What do you think is important for the world, for your life? Do you want to raise a child? Do you want to help society communicate? Do you want to solve a problem? If you couldn't do any "thing" what idea is the most important to you?

Idleness isn't a weakness. It's a response. Idleness is what your mind craves when it is under too much stress. Stress is mostly internal, you can be idle and still be under a lot of stress because you hate the fact that you're idle, this can be paralyzing.

However, if you didn't feel that idleness was bad, you would not feel that stress, and you wouldn't be trapped in idleness. You'd still be idle, but it would be easier to take action.

You focus on what you haven't done. This is the worst. You aren't excited by the cool things that those programmers have done, you are disappointed that you didn't do them.

Instead you should focus on the things that you are doing. Don't "force yourself" to go and work on something, that only reinforces that feeling and will cause you to retreat from that stress as soon as you can.

One thing I do in this sort of circumstance is try to do nothing. Simply be idle, but don't go and distract myself with the Internet, just do absolutely nothing, get a tea and stare out the window, do this for a few hours. Any feeling of things I have to do, I just let them go away. Pretty soon, there will be things that I really want to do. When I'm at that point then I'll go to work.

TV and Internet are terrible though, you go to them because you're looking to be idle, but they're just stimulating enough to keep you from relaxing. But it's not idleness that's bad. The desire to be idle is a response, and it's healthy, just learn to do it efficiently. Don't do it in front of the Internet or the TV because they distract you from actually being idle.

Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with professional jealousy and getting older?

#249

Post by pwenzel »

vijucat wrote: post #64

> It's been getting better. It's not, it's getting worse. You are in a cycle of slave-driving yourself. You remind me of Jiddu Krishnamurthi's assertion that "Influence acts strongest when you don't realize that it is acting". I would venture that most of your accomplishments are a result of being told what you should do, what you should be. You will NEVER have the energy that the people whom you compare with have. B…

Vijucat's advice is excellent. It's good to hear this before you turn 30.

On a similar vein, consider looking at these two titles from Crimethinc:

"Days of War, Nights of Love" http://www.crimethinc.com/books/days.html

"Work" http://www.crimethinc.com/books/work.html

Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with professional jealousy and getting older?

#250

Post by monk_e_boy »

mattmanser wrote: post #158
fit2rule wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, definitely this! If you're in your 20's and feeling like your "whole life" is wasted/lame/you're a loser .. well, have kids. It'll change your whole outlook, hopefully before you hit 30. Kids are awesome. They teach you that, at 20-something, you're not actually that experienced. You don't actually have a lot of time on the Earth. 20-something year olds - you're still kids. There's 3 or 4 more decades ahead of y…

What confuses me is how every person I know with kids complains their life is over, they don't do a lot, they have no control, they have no time for themselves and their life is basically over. And this is a mid-30s guy with a lot of friends with kids. And yet having kids is wonderful. I joked to my friend it is like Stockholm Syndrome. You have no choice. You made your bed and must now live in it. Of course you are…

It's equally hard talking to non-parents for exactly the same reason. I used to spend a couple of nights a week in the pub, going surfing, doing stuff with my mates.

Now I have homework, bed time, bath kids and all the other stuff.

So when a non-parent friend says "We're going to see this amazing band for $$$ we'll be back at 3am" It is VERY tempting to say "Oh my life, my poor life, you guys are so lucky." Because you do feel a little bit like that. For a nano second. And because your mates don't want to hear "Well I HAVE KIDS AND THEY'RE AMAZING!!" so. There's that.

So you (the non-parent) hear part of the story. You are working (as I was a few years ago) on part of the information. It is a lot easier for us parents to talk 'my kids is amazing' at school drop off, or over a cup of tea at lunch time.

Re: "devote your entire life to your kids and to never leave them alone" that is a hard one, your kids NEED YOU. So you can't just drop them off at the park and go to the pub. Also, all your old friends don't want to play football with the kids, so your kids start to be your new friends. Which is weird.

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