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Ask HN: How do you deal with professional jealousy and getting older?
411–420 of 426 posts
Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with professional jealousy and getting older?
#412What you are partly struggling with is known as Akrasia. Read "The Personal MBA" chapter 7 by Josh Kaufman.
Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with professional jealousy and getting older?
#413I'm 38 and have felt similarly since I was your age. Relax.
Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with professional jealousy and getting older?
#414re "Does anybody else have this problem? How do you deal with it?"
I'm a 41 y.o. management consultant for tech companies. Am I successful now? Because I published my second book last month, some think I am successful. But I feel like I am only getting "warmed up" and, at best, I am at 30-50% of my potential. Do I compare myself to others and feel regret? I do. For example, I look at what Eric Ries has accomplished. I admire him a lot, and I think he deserves all the success he has achieved, but ask myself why I didn't do more in my 30s. Another person I admire is Nir Eyal. Seeing what he's accomplished, I wonder why I didn't do more in my 20s and 30s! Actually, I got to interview Nir a few months ago, and discovered he's a normal human being, not a superhuman creature.
Here's some advice. (BTW, my training and expertise is in industrial-organizational psychology. It's not clinical psychology but the psychology of: individual performance, team performance, motivation, engagement, etc.)
Plenty of successful people struggle with self-doubt, self-criticism, and anxiety. For example, I struggled with depression in my 20s. Whatever your pain, it is your cross to bear. Learn to manage your condition, and you will become a stronger person, and better able to help others who struggle like you did.
Learn to deal with setbacks and disappointments without freaking out. Learn to meet adversity and hardships with equanimity -- with an even mind. Keep driving towards your goal but be ready to change your plans as you go. When I was 34, my dad died quite suddenly. It was terrible. But from that hardship, I decided to take action toward my goal of becoming a management consultant. I started down that new path. Three years later, I got my Masters degree in industrial-organizational psychology, and was excited about starting my new career. Weeks after my graduation, our youngest child was diagnosed with a chronic condition for which there is no cure. I had to change my plans around for four years mostly because I needed to learn to care for my daughter. She's doing well today because we put her health and well-being first.
Self-compassion is important. You can be compassionate with yourself while continuing to work and get progress made each week. You may want a coach or a professional counselor to help you sort through this.
Some will tell you to "have no regrets at all" because they want to help -- ie. get you to stop worrying so much. Actually research tells us that some degree of regret can serve a useful purpose. The problem is overwhelming regret and shame. Again, the solution and antidote to all of this is self-acceptance and self-compassion.
If you want to be successful, the research points to success being determined by how many people you help to become successful, and how much talent you multiply in others in your community of peers and your network. Look at ways to keep improving your own skills but help others get more skilled and successful too. Read the book "Give and Take" by Adam Grant.
Last but not least, you can't stop your mind from comparing your achievements to others. But you can learn to observe your mind and your thinking, without "buying into it" or being a slave to that train of thought. Take a course in mindfulness meditation. You have many good years ahead of you.
Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with professional jealousy and getting older?
#415Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm a 25 year old, not a hot shot by any means, but I try to be aware of my motivations and ambitions. The thing that people seem to be debating here is whether determining factors are innate traits and traits that are by choice or are the result of discipline or history or experience or a combination of these. For my own sake, I'm hoping it is the latter, as I think OP is. To be honest, I do struggle with procrastin…
I'm definitely not going to advocate that someone not try to better themselves. If you feel like you want to try to overcome some part of your personality that you're not comfortable with then that's a positive thing. I do, however, think that after multiple failed attempts at overcoming that trait, it's best to reevaluate your perspective on it. Sometimes it's best to admit that something is just a part of who you a…
I appreciate your reply. I think one of the reasons I feel that it isn't an innate trait for me at least is that I didn't procrastinate as much as I do now until I started college. Perhaps I always had this tendency, but its intensity is something I hope to temper. It isn't until recent months that I've decided to do something about it, so hopefully, I'm not due for surrender yet.
I had a rather romantic and gifted English teacher in my first year of college who claimed that procrastination is a part of the creative process, likening it hatching an egg, she claimed that procrastinating helped mature ideas before you put pen to paper, similar to the idea to use procrastination time to fully develop a solution to a problem, as you said. Yes, there is a correlation of my hearing of her doctrine and my increased procrastination, but I can't blame her for it.
Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with professional jealousy and getting older?
#416Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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…
The question is not really what the "natural state" for humanity is to be happy, but what would you choose? Would you rather be happy or productive?
How come Happiness and Productivity have become opposite things. Why there is no happiness in Productivity ?
Can an unhappy person be truly productive, not just doing some thing mechanically and painfully ?
Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with professional jealousy and getting older?
#417Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 t…
> the idea of seeing a specialist for help or medication really scares me.
Don't let it. You're seeking help voluntarily. Assuming something is actually wrong with your brain, it's worth it to address it head-on. Worst case, you wind up with a bad doctor and you have to go find a new one. Best case, you gain some tools to help you gain a much higher degree of control over your life.
> 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?
What country are you in? If you're in the states, I'd start with your insurance company. Most insurance companies have directories of in-network specialists. If your insurance is shit and doesn't cover specialist visits, then yeah - I'd just Google around. Absent recommendations, look for somebody board-certified [1]. I happened to luck into a doctor who had both psychiatric and neurological specialities.
In New Zealand you must start off by asking your GP for a referral to a psychiatrist (you may need to do this in the USA if your insurance requires a referral). Explain your concerns with concentration, and that you'd like to be screened for ADHD and other related conditions. At this point if they're well-informed they'll likely ask you a few questions about it and offer some advice, but since you're asking to see a specialist they should be willing to make a referral. If they're not well-informed, they'll either skip the questions & counsel or tell you to piss off. If you get the referral, you'll go see a psychiatrist. I have no idea what the diagnosis process is like here, however - I was diagnosed in the states. However, when you are diagnosed your psych will receive a special authority number. Eventually this number will be transferred over to your GP once your treatment regimen is stabilized.
Aside: In the states it's not likely that your GP will tell you to piss off when asking for a psych/neuro referral. Also in the states GPs may offer to treat you directly w/o a specialist. This is illegal in New Zealand, as general physicians aren't typically qualified in this area. Really - go see a specialist.
The diagnosis process is nothing to be worried about, though it could take a bit of time. The process can take a few hours, or a few 1-2 hour sessions. If I recall correctly, they did an ADHD questionnaire, the MMPI [2], an IQ test, an "IQ achievement test," a few very brief visual/spatial tests which supposedly look for neurological symptoms schizophrenia, and a session or two of discussion with a psychologist about what my goals for improvement were, where I felt I was failing, etc. I think my range of testing was a bit more in depth than usual, as they were looking for a bunch of different learning disorders. After all this they discussed the results of each of the tests with me, explained my diagnosis, and set me up with the psychiatrist to begin a treatment regimen.
1: http://www.abms.org/board-certification/ 2: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnesota_Multiphasic_Personali...
Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with professional jealousy and getting older?
#418Earlier 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 is not all a ruse or Stockholm Syndrome. It is simple. Most things that are worth doing IS both wonderful and awful at the same time.
Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with professional jealousy and getting older?
#419 THE NEED TO WIN
When an archer is shooting for nothing
He has all his skill.
If he shoots for a brass buckle
He is already nervous.
If he shoots for a prize of gold
He goes blind
Or sees two targets—
He is out of his mind!
His skill has not changed. But the prize
Divides him. He cares.
He thinks more of winning
Than of shooting—
And the need to win
Drains him of power.
Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with professional jealousy and getting older?
#420Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Pick a long-term goal (interstellar flight, artificial intelligence, peace on earth, whatever), break it into manageable projects, then start. Let's think strategically: if your first project is curing aging and achieving immortality, then every other project after that is just a matter of time. Just sayin'.
> Let's think strategically: if your first project is curing aging and achieving immortality, then every other project after that is just a matter of time. Just sayin'. Actually, if you "cure mortality" first, you will exacerbate all the other problems related to population overshot, environmental damage, wealth distributions, etc. Then elf-style immortality will find itself cured, at gunpoint, or in more gruesome wa…
> On the other hand, you can accept that both of us (along with every human alive today) will die. [...]
Why should I accept this? Humanity hasn't been improved by accepting that it was natural for people to die of smallpox, or be crippled by polio. The belief that such diseases could be eradicated was the first step in doing so.
Our limited lifespan is just another thing for us to defeat as a species. I like to imagine some far-off future where parents tell their children about our mortality in the same manner that we are told about diseases like smallpox.