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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?

#391

Post by new_hackers »

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…

Get rid of your TV. Problem solved.

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

#392

Post by [deleted] »

epimetheus wrote: post #365
mattmanser wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It's not about comparing yourself to others. He's not saying "My kids are the best thing anybody has ever done." It's kind of like training for a marathon, in a way that they aren't quite the same, but let's go with it. You train hard and often, you spend hours and hours on just preparing for it, and when the race comes you suffer, push yourself, sweat and bleed, and finish. 1000th place! But you still feel great, yo…

[deleted]

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

#393

Post by Yadi »

stray wrote: post #4

Young people hitting it big makes news copy advertisers like. But news is news because it's out of the ordinary. Henry Ford was 40 when he finally won. Ray Croc was 52. (Colonel) Harland Sanders was 62, Jon Hamm (Don Draper) was 36, JK Rowling was 32, Thomas Siebel (Seibel Systems) was 41, Reid Hoffman was 35, Robert Noyce (Intel) was 40, Dave Duffield (Peoplesoft) was 46, John Pemberton (Coca-cola) was 55, Henry Kai…

That's a good list right there!

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

#394

Post by msbarnett »

creativityhurts wrote: post #56
meric wrote: post #26

This is a cliche, but worth bringing up. Sanders, founder of KFC, started selling fried chicken at 40, and KFC founded when he was 62. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonel_Sanders

Those were also pretty different times. Nowadays we read almost everyday about teenagers who start and sell startups and I think this aggravates the sense of urgency in most of us who are still under 30 and are not yet on the front page of TechCrunch.

The thing to keep in mind about those stories is that Man Bites Dog is a headline, whereas Dog Bites Man doesn't see print at all.

The teens gets print because they're absurd outliers; you don't hear about the 56 year old finding big success with his startup not because it doesn't happen, but because it happens regular enough to be too boring to mention.

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

#395

Post by squeaky-clean »

benjamincburns wrote: post #177
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…

Reading the OP and this comment I can't help but think "hmm, sounds like me when I'm unmedicated." I'm a very ambitious and motivated person. I love stupid hard, nitty gritty problems. I've been writing code since I was 8. I landed my first coding job when I was 16 (working for the USAF Research Laboratory, no less). I'm now 29. Growing up I was always driven by my interests. If I wasn't interested, I wasn't going to…

Wow, this is eerily close to describing me. Even the bit about your first coding job being at a young age at a research laboratory (though mine was a university).

> When my grades dropped low enough my school's intervention programs kicked in. It was suggested that I go get checked out for learning disabilities. Since I felt somewhat compelled to show I was making an effort, I did.

This is where the stories diverge though. My college's intervention program was basically them calling me lazy and forcing me to sign a paper agreeing that I would improve. I knew I couldn't accomplish that, so I didn't re-enroll the next semester.

I had always accepted that I was very lazy and learned to work around/with it. But over the past few years I feel like it has been getting much worse. My passions are starting to feel like chores. I used to practice the guitar for several hours each day, but now it's closer to an hour each month. Even sitting down to watch a whole movie on Netflix can be tough. I'm not sure if I've watched even a single movie in it's entirety at all this year.

But of course, I won't even notice myself spending 4 hours aimlessly browsing the web without leaving my chair until I realize that I've wasted my night...

It's gotten so bad that I have considered it might not just be laziness and comments like yours are really encouraging. But I don't know where I'd begin. And, frankly, the idea of seeing a specialist for help or medication really scares me.

Do I just google for psychiatrists near me and give one a call? Would I need to find one that specializes in ADHD? Are there any websites that can help direct me?

I really appreciate you taking the time to write this comment by the way.

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

#396

Post by 3minus1 »

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…

Awesome post. I don't usually expect to see this kind of philosophical stuff on HN. I think there's a lot of truth in what you say here. It just like, people in denial about who they are all the time. Reminds me of Emerson "Envy is ignorance, Imitation is Suicide"

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

#397

Post by hv23 »

boatzart wrote: post #333
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?

Network of Thought is a fantastic place to start, and the text is available online: http://www.jkrishnamurti.org/krishnamurti-teachings/view-tex...

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

#398

Post by brokenalarms »

galfarragem wrote: post #83
brokenalarms wrote: post #24

I'm 33. I went back to school to do a CS masters after floundering and procrastinating for 10 years after my first degree (humanities), trying to be a professional musician whilst working my way through a succession of dead-end temp jobs. Through this one-year degree, I made it to a one-year internship, so I'll be commencing my first full-time programming job at 34. This will also be the first time in my life I haven…

Great comment - I can relate to a lot of what you've said - despite being in the bottom of this HN comment thread . As you, I haven't a background in CS, but with one difference (as I understand), I don't regret it. It allowed me to experience another life. Somehow I understand why so many people strive to be an actor, in the end is not just money and fame that motivates them - being able to play a doctor today, a po…

Ha, yes I used that too to manage my 100+ daily emails at my old job ;) Fortunately in my new one I receive maybe one email daily, as everything is screened by the technical lead and I can just follow tasks on Github/Jira...bliss :D

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

#400

Post by brogrammer90 »

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…

Do you remember how in school you used to complain to your dumber friends how difficult an AP class was, but really you took pride in enduring the grind? Parents complaining about their kids are doing the exact same thing.
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