By the principle of Pyrrhonism, it's better to do as little as possible rather than try to accomplish a lot. Your brain could be damaged / controlled in a way that prevents you both from seeing the damage / control as well as other errors in your thinking. In a world with unbounded uncertainty on your own thoughts, it's best to do next to nothing.
Being OK with not being extraordinary
261–270 of 396 posts
Re: Being OK with not being extraordinary
#262Earlier quoted context omitted.
+1 And as patio11 says, combining engineering with good writing skills makes it very easy to be one of the top with your combined skills I’ve been trying to lean more into that advice the past couple months by publishing on my blog :) Surprisingly enough, just this morning I woke up to realize someone had shared an article I wrote and it was on the HN front page! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24251068#24262190
I'm not convinced that writing and engineering are a rare, yet sought-after combination. I'm a pretty good writer; good enough that I had several professors in college asked me to use my work as examples for future classes. It's been recognized by my peers and managers. Not much has ever really come from it. I've been given opportunities to draft "bad news" copy to be sent to clients, and I'm the point person for edi…
Just ask for more money for doing it then. Or push to not do it. If you end up not doing it then your saved the work. IF they pay you money, you get the prestige.
Re: Being OK with not being extraordinary
#263Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is my career so far in a nutshell. I’m an average programmer. I’m an excellent problem solver. I have an above average work ethic. I’m an excellent communicator. Basically, I combined all of these traits and found roles that leveraged these traits to maximize my impact. Not for nothing, but this is why my liberal arts college was profoundly impactful for me, despite not getting a “top tier” CS education. My writ…
> 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.
Despite the answers below, it’s not an IQ question (I likely have an above average IQ, but nothing remotely special).
If I see a problem, particularly in a business context (I’m not a trained scientist curing cancer here), I can solve it. Whether that’s marketing, product, sales, devops, engineering, you name it. I don’t mind jumping between disciplines, getting my hands dirty, and doing the work that needs doing (no matter how unglamorous).
And if I work for companies with hundreds of employees and I’m one of the go to people for any problem, big or small, I know I have something special that sets me apart.
Re: Being OK with not being extraordinary
#264> Climbing to a higher vantage point can also unlock new forms of extraordinary that you might have never noticed before. I read an article once about how the amount of work to get into the top tier in a single area is astronomical, but the amount of work to become top tier in a combination of 2-3 fields is attainable by almost anyone. For example, becoming a top tier statistician is hard. But becoming a top tier sta…
Jack of [many] trades, master of none.
Re: Being OK with not being extraordinary
#265I feel there is a common trait of extraordinary people that anyone can develop and it pays dividends. That trait is industriousness. When you listen to interviews from successful people like Elon Musk all the way through to Arnold Schwarzenegger, they all talk about working hard. Terry Toa almost failed the general exams at Princeton due to slacking off, and it was a valuable lesson for him. I don't care how gifted y…
I call bullshit on the idea that industriousness is entirely learned. You can definitely improve it but research shows a significant part of it is genetic.
Personality traits account for something like 5% of the variance when it comes to life outcomes. Their usefulness comes from mostly analyzing huge groups of people and their differences in behavior than to be used as an individual measure. Most people can become significantly more or less industrious if they try. The same goes for other traits. In fact, I would say that part of your experience in life is nudging yourself more to the opposite side of what you're genetically given, i.e. if you're too industrious and too disagreeable, learn to be less (it's not so good to be hyper-competitive and hyper-focused all the time).
Re: Being OK with not being extraordinary
#266Earlier quoted context omitted.
Since it looks like it's just GatsbyJS client, may I suggest GitHub Pages?
That's a good idea, in the beginning I had no idea how hosting works so I just went with HostPapa, but now I am considering switching.
I can highly recommend Github pages, which I use for https://blog.jeaye.com/
The HN hug of death has never brought it down, since Github handles all of the scaling.
Re: Being OK with not being extraordinary
#267Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is my career so far in a nutshell. I’m an average programmer. I’m an excellent problem solver. I have an above average work ethic. I’m an excellent communicator. Basically, I combined all of these traits and found roles that leveraged these traits to maximize my impact. Not for nothing, but this is why my liberal arts college was profoundly impactful for me, despite not getting a “top tier” CS education. My writ…
How do you do leverage these strengths? I have a somewhat similar profile and I simply feel like a fish judged by its ability to climb a tree. Yet, I: - Help with hiring/marketing/leading scrum sessions (when the actual scrum master is ill) - Conduct pentests - Do the frontend and backend (what I was hired to do) If they'd let me, I'd help with the writing efforts as well as my writing ability is better than that of…
Join companies with problems worth solving, add value as quickly as possible, and then find problems that you can tackle and start advocating to be granted the latitude to tackle them.
Most companies and teams are thrilled to have people who proactively seek to solve thorny issues. The difference with me is that most programmers are attracted to solving “problems” in a code base, which might add value but have arguable ROI. I’m rarely the person who advocates for a rewrite or tries to push some hot new technology. I’m almost always the engineer who asks the question “how can we apply what we’ve already written to this new sector” or “how do we change up this experience to cut onboarding time in half” etc.
Re: Being OK with not being extraordinary
#268just imagine something you want to happen or exist, then make it happen or make it exist. ordinariness is irrelevant.
Having a goal that’s only “being better than someone else” is silly unless you are in a formally competitive situation. Doesn’t make much sense as a life goal.
Chose a concrete goal that doesn’t shift arbitrarily on what other people have done.
Re: Being OK with not being extraordinary
#269Earlier quoted context omitted.
Since it looks like it's just GatsbyJS client, may I suggest GitHub Pages?
That's a good idea, in the beginning I had no idea how hosting works so I just went with HostPapa, but now I am considering switching.
I actually recommend Gitlab pages. I prefer their allowance of private repos. I made a guide [1] on how to switch from Github to Gitlab pages. I use Gitlab for my static sites and Github for my source.
[1] https://rajvinjamuri.wordpress.com/2018/04/21/how-to-migrate...