Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

It's Never Too Late to Be Successful and Happy

invincible.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 119 posts

Re: It's Never Too Late to Be Successful and Happy

#71

Post by circlefavshape »

sidcool wrote: post #47
tonymet wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

mind if I ask what changed?

I wish I could figure out. My best guesses are: 1. I am getting older and not doing anything remotely impactful. 2. People half my age know all the programming I know. I don't bring anything special to the table. 3. Is this what life is all about? Now, I don't say the problem is with the world. Something could be wrong with me. But damned if I know.

There's nothing wrong with you - I'm guessing you just had, like most of us, a fantasy about shaking up the world somehow. Time to give up on the fantasy and engage with your actual real life instead

Re: It's Never Too Late to Be Successful and Happy

#72

Post by safeplanet-fesa »

dasyatidprime wrote: post #11
cecilpl2 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm trying to convince myself to try anyway What else are you going to do? You are where you are right now, and you can either put in the effort to make your life better or you can give up now. The time's going to pass anyway, you might as well make the most of it.

If that worked enough of the time, articles like the OP wouldn't get written much. Emotionally speaking, giving up is actually a pretty sticky idea! The potential for putting a pile of effort in, finding it wasn't really enough, and being confronted afterward with all the things you did wrong with no chance to correct them now is paralyzing ; it's “safer” in a way to not try, never know, and only experience the one,…

The society will not like your attitude; expect to experience continuous peer pressure. Nearly everyone is hard-coded with the unconditional "never give up", "hope dies last" and so on. The common arguments "might as well make the best out of it", together with the anti-suicidal "if you are going to die, sell everything and give your life another chance", I find annoying. All attempts require efforts. Sometimes you know in advance that a reward will not justify an effort, sometimes it's a giant gamble of many years and you decide not to take the risk. I don't want to put an unbearable burden onto myself only to end up regretting it in the end, where I will know that I inflicted the pain of all efforts and the pain of the final defeat with my own hands. When you know that you could've idled while being sufficiently content and happy with your "unsuccessful" level, but you succumbed to momentary inebriation of inspiration and drove yourself into a trap where you are not happy with your prospects, but you don't want to give up because you already invested much efforts. Because of their inexhaustible fountain of optimism people tend to ignore that efforts are unpleasant, and one cannot sign oneself up to a giant contract of work just because muh "might as well make the best out of it".

Re: It's Never Too Late to Be Successful and Happy

#73

Post by rxhernandez »

circlefavshape wrote: post #71
sidcool wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish I could figure out. My best guesses are: 1. I am getting older and not doing anything remotely impactful. 2. People half my age know all the programming I know. I don't bring anything special to the table. 3. Is this what life is all about? Now, I don't say the problem is with the world. Something could be wrong with me. But damned if I know.

There's nothing wrong with you - I'm guessing you just had, like most of us, a fantasy about shaking up the world somehow. Time to give up on the fantasy and engage with your actual real life instead

Good god this is awful advice. There are plenty of people that have made their only great contributions to humanity in advanced age (not that late 30s is even remotely advanced). If you gave up on dreams, fine; but don't go on encouraging others to do the same just because you lack the drive and became complacent with giving up.

Moreover, there are so many things that need doing that are plenty impactful and just require discipline to do it frequently; that you never bothered to think of other ways to make an impact shouldn't mean you should dissuade others from finding out new ways to make an impact.

Lastly, there is precisely zero evidence that you get another shot at life so it's grossly irresponsible to push people into thinking that their dreams and their real life should be readjusted into some bullshit dichotomy of fantasy vs real life.

(I have heard people in their early 20s giving this same advice; Good god could you imagine the world if people stopped following their dreams so early in life)

(I was a C/D student in STEM subjects by the end of high school. I can't imagine what my life would be like if I didn't kick it into overdrive, thereby managing to get involved with some of the most prolific scientists on this planet and getting my name on a few papers; actually I can imagine, I would have blown my brains out because my life was incredibly miserable up until then)

Re: It's Never Too Late to Be Successful and Happy

#74

Post by mikekchar »

lanrh1836 wrote: post #5

This makes the wrong assumption that happiness comes with success. Success doesn’t bring happiness. If anything, being happy in the first place is what gives you a better chance at achieving success.

Success is surprisingly fun. However, allow me to make a distinction. For a lot of people instead of wishing to do something, they wish to have done something. So for example, they may say that they wish to make a lot of money, but actually they want to have made a lot of money. The idea in their head is lounging on the beach with cute waiting staff at their beck and call. However the thing they end up doing is working themselves to the bone making money. It's really important when you set goals for yourself that you understand the distinction. Personally, mostly avoid going after goals in the shape of "to have done something" and rather go after goals of "to do something". If I don't like studying Japanese, then I don't do it and I don't have a goal to have learned Japanese. If I don't like running I don't do it and I don't have a goal to have run a marathon. And if I don't like doing what it takes to make a lot of money, I don't have a goal to have made a lot of money. Those kinds of things are in our ability to choose.

The other strange thing that I found for myself (and I think it's different for different people) is that "goals to have done something" are just not satisfying for me. I get no pleasure from having achieved anything. I only get pleasure achieving things. I love being successful. I'm completely neutral about having been successful.

For me, being successful really truly brings me happiness. I therefore choose to do things where I will likely be successful in a sustainable way.

Re: It's Never Too Late to Be Successful and Happy

#75

Post by saiya-jin »

inlined wrote: post #49
lanrh1836 wrote: post #5

This makes the wrong assumption that happiness comes with success. Success doesn’t bring happiness. If anything, being happy in the first place is what gives you a better chance at achieving success.

Reminds me of a career limiting move I made at my first job. I was a rising star and got head hunted to be the first member on a new team for a critical project. I took the opportunity because it had a higher potential for career growth, but I ended up leaving the company. I considered my manager an egotistical jerk; he even called our 1:1s lessons. He told me that any part of my personality that didn’t line up with…

> Successful people aren’t happy; happy people are successful.

In fact, many successful people with strong drive, very competitive etc. are deep down continuously unhappy. I mean, happy competitive person is a textbook oxymoron. At least that's how people I know with this trait are - always looking up to somebody faster, better, richer and not stopping and enjoying the moment.

Re: It's Never Too Late to Be Successful and Happy

#76

Post by zimbatm »

inlined wrote: post #49
lanrh1836 wrote: post #5

This makes the wrong assumption that happiness comes with success. Success doesn’t bring happiness. If anything, being happy in the first place is what gives you a better chance at achieving success.

Reminds me of a career limiting move I made at my first job. I was a rising star and got head hunted to be the first member on a new team for a critical project. I took the opportunity because it had a higher potential for career growth, but I ended up leaving the company. I considered my manager an egotistical jerk; he even called our 1:1s lessons. He told me that any part of my personality that didn’t line up with…

I would refine this a bit; happy people define their success through internal metrics. Don't let other decide what success means to you.

Employers try to convince you that your success is correlated with what they want to do, but it is not the case. They are paying you to do your job and that's all.

Ads try to convince you that success depends on purchasing their stuff, but it is not the case. There is always more stuff to buy. In fact it might hinder your success if it puts you in debt or prevents you from becoming financially independent.

Parents often try to convince you that success depends on the agenda they created for you.

Fuck all of this. Success is what you decide it is.

If you like to write software, work on becoming a better developer. The market being as it is, the workplace success is then a side-effect.

Obviously all of this is a bit simplified but not being pushed around helps a lot for being happy I find.

Re: It's Never Too Late to Be Successful and Happy

#77

Post by zimbatm »

keyle wrote: post #30
lanrh1836 wrote: post #5

This makes the wrong assumption that happiness comes with success. Success doesn’t bring happiness. If anything, being happy in the first place is what gives you a better chance at achieving success.

Exactly. Even the quote used: > “Comparison is the thief of joy.” —Theodore Roosevelt Isn't 'success' a form of comparison? How do you quantify success? Is it binary? Is it a validation from peers? Do your own thing, be excellent at it, have fun.

The quote should be "Comparison to others is the thief of joy.".

Overcoming your own limitation is a much better form of success. At least there is a form of control that you have on it.

Re: It's Never Too Late to Be Successful and Happy

#78

Post by tomatocracy »

SpaceInvader wrote: post #57

Aside of success != happiness - I really do NOT know what I'm supposed to do. I'm in corporate world since 2005, I'm doing OK, but not great and I'm dreaming of success, which to me means: 1. work for myself, not for any company - that's hard to start because of mortgage and kids which are taking 90% of my free time 2. Earn around the same money I have now 3. Have something that can grow, doesn't have to be fast grow…

Feels like what you need to do is to work on creating a safety net for yourself so that you can take a risk when the time comes and you can take a short term pay cut without impacting on your family's lifestyle. View this as part of the longer term project.

So, instead of thinking 'how do I make as much money working for myself as I do now', think about building up savings and investments so that in future you can afford to take a pay cut without cutting your lifestyle too much. Try to limit the inevitable lifestyle creep if you get pay rises or promotions so you are saving more than you spend of the increase.

Then focus on broadening your network in the job you are doing at the moment. This might or might not be helpful in your future endeavours but again it gives you a better safety net - so that if it doesn't work out then you are morel likely to be able to quickly get a job to fall back on.

Finally, assuming you're not a single parent, could your partner step up more if the need arose financially? Are there things you could do to improve the value of that safety net?

Re: It's Never Too Late to Be Successful and Happy

#79

Post by sidcool »

llamataboot wrote: post #55
sidcool wrote: post #34

Posts like these give me some hope. I am 37 and lost. The work and career which once brought pleasure now seems drudgery. The daily morning battle is: "Is it worth it?". There is no answer to the question.

Might I suggest, with sincerity and humbleness, that the question is a very good start and maybe it's not uncertainty holding you back but fear? Where do you go when you keep asking "I'm dying, not much time left, is it worth it?" I mean, is it?

That's the one! It's next to impossible to go beyond that question. Where do you go from there? And you are spot on with the 'fear' part.

Re: It's Never Too Late to Be Successful and Happy

#80

Post by sidcool »

circlefavshape wrote: post #71
sidcool wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish I could figure out. My best guesses are: 1. I am getting older and not doing anything remotely impactful. 2. People half my age know all the programming I know. I don't bring anything special to the table. 3. Is this what life is all about? Now, I don't say the problem is with the world. Something could be wrong with me. But damned if I know.

There's nothing wrong with you - I'm guessing you just had, like most of us, a fantasy about shaking up the world somehow. Time to give up on the fantasy and engage with your actual real life instead

I had the naive, wide-eyed, ideal belief in my younger years. There are still sometimes spurts of excitement to change the world. But I have grounded myself and accepted that I may never have a bigger impact than my immediate surroundings. I gave up on the fantasy years back.
Post reply on HN