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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?

#331

Post by sateesh »

drewcrawford wrote: post #271
tastyface wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You need to read The War of Art. > “Most of us have two lives. The life we live, and the unlived life within us. Between the two stands Resistance.” > “Every sun casts a shadow, and genius's shadow is Resistance. As powerful as is our soul's call to realization, so potent are the forces of Resistance arrayed against it. Resistance is faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, harder to kick than…

In a similar vein I think these lines from T.S.Eliot's poem "The Hollow Men" beautifully expresses one's struggles with the self:

  Between the idea
  And the reality 
  Between the motion 
  And the act
  Falls the shadow

  Between the conception 
  And the creation 
  Between the emotion 
  And the response 
  Falls the shadow

  Between the desire
  And the spasm 
  Between the potency
  And the existence
  Between the essence
  And the descent
  Falls the Shadow

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

#332

Post by hamburglar »

mattmanser wrote: post #310
fit2rule wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we've reached that place where narcissism and self-preservation bump directly into humility and empathy, and have found that its not quite the pristine landscape we might have imagined. Certainly, my kids are a lot of work - but they're better than anything I've ever done, ever. That's hard to communicate to someone who doesn't live that way.

Why? I honestly don't understand this. You stuck your penis in someone (assuming you are male). That's all you did. And then did all the exact same things that billions of other parents do, feed, burp, clothe, ship 'em off to be educated by someone else. Statistically speaking, you're probably not a fantastic parent, just another average Dad. One of literally billions of parents. So why are your kids 'better' than an…

> But can you understand just how utterly unremarkable and unimpressive it is having kids? From this side of the mirror?

Absolutely. This is exactly how I and a whole lot of people remember feeling before having kids. This is part of the thing that makes it so remarkable: before having kids, I couldn't imagine myself being so enamored with it, and yet here I am, victim of some kind of strange brainwashing that turns out to make the incredible, incredible pain in the ass of it all worth it. And not merely worth it in a "this is tolerable" way, but worth it in a "omg I have to tell other people about this" way. It's ridiculous, I know. But it happens. I'm of the opinion that this delusion is inextricably linked to the survival of our species, because in your worst moments, it's what keeps you from letting the screaming little bastards die.

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

#333

Post by boatzart »

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…

I've never heard of Jiddu Krishnamurthi before today. Can you recommend a book of his?

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

#334

Post by fit2rule »

mattmanser wrote: post #310
fit2rule wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we've reached that place where narcissism and self-preservation bump directly into humility and empathy, and have found that its not quite the pristine landscape we might have imagined. Certainly, my kids are a lot of work - but they're better than anything I've ever done, ever. That's hard to communicate to someone who doesn't live that way.

Why? I honestly don't understand this. You stuck your penis in someone (assuming you are male). That's all you did. And then did all the exact same things that billions of other parents do, feed, burp, clothe, ship 'em off to be educated by someone else. Statistically speaking, you're probably not a fantastic parent, just another average Dad. One of literally billions of parents. So why are your kids 'better' than an…

Why? Because it is, every day, a direct reminder of how important you are to the world. Without you, that little face doesn't get wiped, it doesn't get warm clean dry clothes to wear, it doesn't understand much beyond the reach of its own two hands. And then, feet. And eventually, when it gets big enough to be going everywhere with you, it learns more and more and takes on more of the world, itself, until its the one taking you for walks and making sure you're the one with clean, dry, warm clothes to wear. This is really one of the ways that life can kick your ass, hard: you learn empathy and humility and trust, love and respect, by doing the one thing that isn't special, because essentially everyone/anyone else can do it: raise a kid to survive in the world. Its bigger than any startup, its more revolutionary than any religion, and it makes so much more sense than getting the next iDevice upgrade - yet everyone does it, its perfectly normal and standard practice, and if nobody had been doing it none of us would be here at all.

Call your parents, folks. Go check on the kids too, if you've got them. There's pretty much no higher human activity than either of those two things. As long as they keep happening, everything will be alright. The rest is just icing on the cake ..

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

#335

Post by helpfulanon »

Created a throwaway to say this since I don't want to give away my medical history..

Basically I struggled with these problems for most of my 20's. Then a year ago I started going into therapy with a psychologist, got tested for ADHD and was diagnosed. Meds changed everything when it came to procrastination. It used to be the cause of so much anguish in my life and today it's almost a non-issue.

Therapy really helped me decouple from the narcissism that had warped me into a compulsive fixation with benchmarking myself against other people. Humbling yourself is important. Spending time on non-code hobbies, with family, away from work and tech industry noise is important.

Not everyone can or should be running a software product, and that's ok. Not everyone is successful in their career at age 26. When your life is surrounded by these skewed values, all this survivor bias, it seems like not being on the frontpage of Product Hunt is a mark of failure. If you head out of the tech bubble, go somewhere with friends or family that have no association with this world, you'll realize that this value system isn't normal.

Also, keep in mind that the people who do run successful projects are often unhappy. Running a product is a lot of work and can be extremely stressful and exhausting. Success is a double-edged sword.

Edit: replaced a rant about wanting to be a successful entrepreneur. This guy just wants to be a good coder, I missed that.

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

#336

Post by evanmoran »

For me I had to do science on myself. Keep a journal throughout the day on what you are actually doing, minute by minute. If hacker news is in there too much. Block it (I did this for years=). If you spend too much time polishing and not enough doing, then set alarms for yourself that say "get it working first. Do the core of it." You will find what's slowing you down and then you can take action to fix it.

Also, exercise. Put aside 3 hours a week and run/bike/do anything. It will give you energy in ways you won't expect! You probably are 100% there already, but for me it wasn't obvious and so I wanted to include it.

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

#337

Post by plongeur »

olbeefy wrote: post #323
plongeur wrote: post #128

> I'm a 26 y.o. ... I am crippled by the feeling that it's "too late". > CS degree from a top-10, > nough savings to last a few years > and he's half a decade younger than me! How will I ever be able to catch up? Experience-wise, I'm still a junior dev. > ... Dude, are you joking? ... and who the heck contributes to this waste of HN frontpage screen estate? This is a whiny humblebrag post about 1st world problems by…

I love all the people trying to help him with wise words but seriously... You're 26 and you're worried about being "too old?" A lot of the things we're blessed with today did not exist 10 years ago (especially in the IT world.) There are people out there with no money, no degree and are older than you that have a better outlook on this stuff than OP likely ever will. People change careers all the time as they want or…

For me personally this age-misconception is not what annoys me about this submit - I'm suffering from feeling-to-old since I'm 20 - I guess that's a modern issue.

I just am detested by this weird combination of bragging about where he worked, how much money and opportunities he has and everything - and still thinking he deserves warm words on HN ... and even worse - this is something the OP is (most likely not responsible for) that actually people upvote this yada yada

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

#338

Post by makebelieve »

it doesn't matter where you start, it matters what you do now. there is NOTHING you can do about the past. zero. it is impossible to change the past. You can do things today. find the sweet spot of bliss. where what you do is fun, and you are interested in doing for it's own sake, and where it is valued by other people.

talent management and business success are different problems. talent management is about pursuing what gives you juice. business is about connecting your labor to other people, in a one to many type network so your labor can be remunerative. both tasks require continuously figuring out how to do a better job.

You will stop procrastinating when you believe and when you spontaneously feel what you are doing is more important, and more fun, than your distractions. procrastination is evidence of competing values, competing interests. you'll have more success by orthogonally including these competing values in your labors than by trying to shut them out and criticizing yourself because what you think you should be interested in is different than what you are interested in. you can align your values and desires towards your goals, but only so much. you will be much more successful if you align your efforts towards your values and interests. As you want business success and have a curious mind (hence the distractions) you have to thread your own curious solution.

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

#339

Post by Swizec »

kamaal wrote: post #317
Swizec wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our society loves people who set out to do really good work. But only after they succeed. The whole "luck descended upon them" is a coping strategy. The narrative of luck makes people feel less bad about their lack of fortitude.

>>The narrative of luck makes people feel less bad about their lack of fortitude. Contrary to whatever you think 'chance' plays a huge role in every one's success. When luck meets hard work, the returns compound. When hard work meets back luck, a person feels they were treated unfairly.But chance matters in a way far more than you realize. Heck, a Human is born out of sheer luck. People don't realize how important lu…

But the thing is that without hard work, you can have all the luck in the world and nothing is going to happen. And it also seems that the people who work harder have more luck for various reasons raging from having more opportunities come their way to seizing opportunities better.

Ultimately, I think, the kind of luck that matters most is the lack of bad luck. You can be the hardest working person in the world, but if you get hit by a car and spend two years recovering, that's gonna be a problem.

My point is, success compounds. At one point it starts looking like pure luck.

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

#340

Post by dang »

plongeur wrote: post #128

> I'm a 26 y.o. ... I am crippled by the feeling that it's "too late". > CS degree from a top-10, > nough savings to last a few years > and he's half a decade younger than me! How will I ever be able to catch up? Experience-wise, I'm still a junior dev. > ... Dude, are you joking? ... and who the heck contributes to this waste of HN frontpage screen estate? This is a whiny humblebrag post about 1st world problems by…

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