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Being OK with not being extraordinary

tiffanymatthe.com

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Re: Being OK with not being extraordinary

#221

Post by qwertygnu »

thisistheend123 wrote: post #85

Maybe this is offtopic, but I made my peace with this kind of anxiety once I met, interacted and worked with people who were really very very good at what they do. I let me ego go. It's ok to be normal. And it's ok to get to learn from the masters. I once read a O Henry short story where the three main characters are at different places in society financially and in terms of power. But they still found some meaning w…

Is this the story you're referring to? https://americanliterature.com/author/o-henry/short-story/th...

Re: Being OK with not being extraordinary

#222

Post by ZephyrBlu »

georgeecollins wrote: post #204
taylorlunt wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Problem solving ability is basically just IQ.

If that were true, everyone with a very high IQ would be a great poker player, a great negotiator, a great writer, a great leader, a great investor.. etc. IQ is as proxy for problem solving if the problems look like a standardized test. The problems people face in the real world require more specialization and a more complex combination of skills and traits.

Time put in still matters no matter how smart you are.

I think a person with a high IQ could be a great poker OR a great negotiator OR a great writer. Perhaps 2-3 total.

Re: Being OK with not being extraordinary

#223

Post by tmatthe »

mattbillenstein wrote: post #206
tmatthe wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for posting this! My website is currently down and I'm in the process of fixing it.

How are you hosting this?

HostPapa. I contacted them and they said it was a problem with their server, so I can't do anything about it sadly.

Re: Being OK with not being extraordinary

#224

Post by AQuantized »

taylorlunt wrote: post #201
dominotw wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I’m an excellent problem solver. Don't mean this to be a mean comment but how did you assess this? I think i am good problem solver but i don't know if i am better than anyone else.

Problem solving ability is basically just IQ.

Disagree totally with this. My psychometric IQ has been stable for a long time, yet my problem solving ability has increased significantly.

Some ways to modulate it might be reading material such as George Polya's "How to Solve It," taking your own notes on heuristics and techniques you've found useful and continuously reapplying and iterating them, and simply delving deep into many hard problems (be they directly coding related or not).

Re: Being OK with not being extraordinary

#225

Post by ZephyrBlu »

thelean12 wrote: post #65

There are lots of people reacting to the extraordinary with "inspiration", "disappointment", and "jealousy". I'd say none of these are as useful as reacting with curiosity . There's an endless amount to learn from the extraordinary in any field or sport or hobby. It's easy to write off the extraordinary as naturally talented or lucky or something else surface level. Most of the time it's anything but. I play golf. It…

I think I have a mix of envy and curiosity.

I'm envious because often these high achieving people had amazing opportunities, which enabled them to reach the level they're at.

I'm curious because of exactly what you said.

Unfortunately it seems like the journey people take to achieve these amazing feats is often never documented and everyone only focuses on the outcome. It's quite disappointing because I love to read about how people went from A -> B.

Re: Being OK with not being extraordinary

#226

Post by aeturnum »

As I have gotten older, one of the things I have come to understand is that the people who are leading figures in fields of human effort are just wired differently. We might describe them as "devoting" their entire lives to those fields, but "devoting" isn't the right word. It's not that they "work harder" or "put in more hours," it's that they experience every thing in their lives through the prism of their "chosen" field. They can't help but think of physics or art or design when they encounter any thing. It's not rational or intentional exactly (though they certainly aren't trying to change themselves) - it's about being oriented towards something in a pure way. Even the idea of "choosing" a field is deceptive, because there is some level of natural inclination that's required to be influential at a high level.

What I mean is that I think people are barking up the wrong tree when they talk about "working towards being the best." We can all work harder, and I think we should all consider doing so, but no amount of working harder will let you see every experience as a lesson in physics. Those kinds of holistic engagement in a subject come from someplace other than exercises of self control and are, I think, probably pretty harmful to the overall well being of the person involved.

I'm happy that I can put work down at the end of the day, and the people in my life are happy that I can too.

Re: Being OK with not being extraordinary

#227

Post by Delk »

_v7gu wrote: post #195
entropicdrifter wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean... https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Scott_Adams#Views_on_science_a... The guy has a ton of crank views

As if RationalWiki has any business calling people cranks

Has it always been that way?

I seem to remember RationalWiki (or perhaps some other similar site?) as an occasionally snarky but generally high-quality wiki on rationality, fallacies, science vs. pseudoscience, the logical or other mistakes in arguments that have been given for quackery, etc.

Nowadays it seems like a lot of the content is just about bashing people who have expressed less-than-greatly argued opinions, with some kind of a special target drawn on conservatives.

I mean, you can also do that and not be wrong, but that's entirely different than (mostly) dispassionately documenting things, even if while doing the latter you'd be somewhat poignant.

Either the content seemed to have a different tone ~10 years ago, or I remember wrong.

Re: Being OK with not being extraordinary

#228

Post by ck425 »

saalweachter wrote: post #192
cyberpunk wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, I mean.. Okay. Maybe this is true for the first steps into your profession, but after so many years in tech the amount of things I have to do that are, compared to my initial 'love' for tech, really horrible tasks vs the things I would like to be doing definately isn't in balance... It's a nice idea, but this "do what you love" doesn't scale. I mean, did it too, there was a day where I was super excited to be wor…

I mean, "do what you love" is a fine plan A. It will work out for some people, either in the "their passion makes them the best makes them rich" sense or at least the "because they love their work, they are happy even though they are not rich" sense. But it doesn't hurt to have a "find something to do for money that you don't hate and maybe even enjoy some parts of, and then find some other stuff to do on the side th…

For me tech is the plan B and I've never truly gone after plan A. Sometimes I regret that but on the whole I think a well executed plan B makes way more sense than attempting plan A.

If you're successful enough with plan B you can FIRE and then more easily go after plan A, potentially multiple plan As.

Re: Being OK with not being extraordinary

#230

Post by wikibob »

tmatthe wrote: post #176
neonate wrote: post #149

https://archive.is/oOMFR https://web.archive.org/web/20200824155533/https://www.tiffa...

Thanks for posting this! My website is currently down and I'm in the process of fixing it.

Email hn@ycombinator.com and they will change the link on the post
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