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

This is one of the many incredible things I discovered when daughter was an infant, and even into her toddler years.

There were days where she was pretty awful, crying and not sleeping, and when she did sleep it wasn't more than an hour. I was upset and distressed, but not once did I ever blame her or get angry, which is a complete departure from my usual "someone has to pay for this" anger that I direct everywhere every day. I'm an incredibly selfish and somewhat unempathetic person.

I had a number of self-aware moments, where I was actively questioning why I wasn't angry at my baby, or at least tired of her, but my only answer was that looking at her, holding her, taking care her, filled me with such joy. And when I was distressed, I was distressed for her sake, concerned for her wellbeing. But never mad at her.

I live in Japan, most of the time holed up in my apartment and hardly interacting with anyone. On the rare occasions I get to enjoy a true fun interaction with someone, it really helps improve mood and reduce anxiety.

You're all over the place. You have no idea what you want. You're looking to everyone else to shape your vision of what success is. Your problem is not that you're getting older, its that you are unfocused and lazy.

Sorry to be so blunt but if you want to change your life you need to understand that you are doing it wrong.

The good news is that you recognize that whatever you are doing, it isn't working for you. The past is gone and the present is rapidly slipping into the past so focus on the future where anything is possible. It sucks to know that you are the problem... but its great to realize that you don't have to force or convince anyone else to change in order to solve it. You only need to force or convince yourself.

First thing, write down your goals. If you don't have goals that are so clear to you that you can just sit and write them down, you need to figure that out right away. Write on paper, with ink. Doing that changes your goal from a nebulous "maybe someday" in your mind to something that is tangible, in the real world.

Your goals should become your external motivator. You haven't identified what you really want, so you don't feel motivated. Once you know the destination, just treat it like you would any other trip... plan out the route and walk in that direction. When you feel that "gnawing in your chest", use it as a reminder to ask yourself "how is whatever I am doing right now getting me closer to where I want to go?"

And listen, turn off the television. Altogether. If you have a gun you might want to consider shooting it up. That shit is designed to make you feel like an inferior piece of crap so that you go out and buy some actual useless crap that they tell you will make you happy. You'd be better of smoking weed until your eyes are so crossed that everything looks like one of those Magic Eye posters.

I know it sounds cliche, but it is literally true that today is the first day of the rest of your life. You can constantly compare yourself to the "hot-shot young dev" and find differences, but one thing that will always be in common between you is that the future only exists in your mind. It is up to you to decide what that future will be, and if you want to make it real. So just decide who the future "you" is, and start walking like that person right away. The future "you" is depending on it.

A very beneficial approach to take is objectivity. The state of other people does not influence the objective reality of your worth. If you were a runner, for example, your ability to run a 4 minute mile remains regardless of whether other runners are faster or slower. You could either look at yourself and say 'I am slower than other runners', or you could look at yourself and say 'I can run a 4 minute mile.' One is contingent upon other people, and the other is an objective measure which can not be influenced by people.

An objective basis of self worth, an inventory of skills and accomplishments based on actual personal history, will also change your goals. Instead of setting a nebulous goal of 'I want to be faster than other runners' which you will never believe you have accomplished (as you get faster you will simply change to looking at another group of faster runners and feel you have made little or no progress), you will set goals like 'I want to run a mile in 3 minutes and 45 seconds' which is definite, testable, achievable, and which has a clear path towards accomplishing it. Concerning yourself with objective truth rather than relative measures is tremendously freeing. It builds your self worth from successes which nothing can take away from you. Chasing a goal like 'I want to be a better programmer' is fundamentally different from chasing something like 'I want to implement the LZW data compression algorithm.' The first provides no direction, and provides no sense of accomplishment because you can always be 'better'. The second is something you can work toward and accomplish and which will produce an artifact you can point to and say 'I built that.'

Make no mistake, this is not simple, especially changing your thinking after adolescence, but it is very rewarding. You would have to consciously fight against your intuition, which, rewarding though it inevitably is, some people are very uncomfortable in doing. Eventually, the tendency to judge objectively rather than relative to others or reliant upon their opinions will come naturally and make you happier.