Ask HN: How do you accept your place in the world?

I feel much the same way. I do some difficult stuff, but the stuff done by some other people is simply much more impressive. But I feel as if I've learned to be happy in humility. Why? Because the activities of multiple people are much harder to separate than it might initially seem. The person who does impressive work in some domain may only be able to focus to that extent because their home is being tidied by someone else, and their clothes washed by someone else, and their meals prepared by someone else, and so on. A lot of people think of those types of jobs as lowly, but how can they be lowly if they were key ingredients of the work we regard as more important? Do you see what I mean about difficulty of neatly separating the efforts?

I've done seemingly millions of projects. Sometimes I'm actually writing programs that most other people couldn't make. But lots of the time I'm not doing anything that requires smarts, but simply putting my heart in it and helping things get done, whatever those things are. If the dishes need washed, I do that. If the floor needs sweeping, I do that. If somebody has a question, I try to answer. I try to be encouraging. Meanwhile, the work I might regard as the real work is being done by people who have skills I lack. But I am doing what I can. I am finding where I can fit in and be useful. I am finding suitable roles in a vast interconnected system.

Most of the time it seems more likely that we'll be von Neumann's butler than von Neumann. This is OK. Just do what you can. Be kind, be helpful. Try never to be a drag on any project that's worthwhile. It's about the combined efforts of many, not individual heroes.

Everybody is somebody to somebody. Nobody is somebody to everybody.

Also, you don’t know for certain what kind of person you will become. Who knows what your experience today will bring you in the future?

You talk about "people", but if you actually count them, how many are they? Hundreds, maybe a couple of thousands at best? The vast majority of us are average, maybe somewhat above-average if we're lucky.

I would say, ask yourself why do yo need to compare yourself with anyone? By your own account you do very interesting work, why is that not enough? Start from there.

There is always places people can contribute. Look at some terrible softwares.. medical, insurance, 3pl logistics etc.. they don't need extraordinary brilliance to improve.. just UX, better systems, process and lots of area to cover.

If you can improve one industry a bit more than it is today, isn't that a sufficient place in the world?

Sampling bias.

You're reading articles good enough to come through to you, from millions of people actively trying to get theirs read. There will be millions of great articles that most of us will never even discover.

I think you should spend at bit of time thinking on the scale of the world, the scale of combined human effort, and try to consider the statistical chance that something any individual does will "make it" to the top, even of hacker news..

Now, also consider whether you want to be spending your time becoming someone who contributes in that way instead of the way you currently do. Consider the amount of brilliant people doing work that nobody will ever see.

There's nothing wrong in being a "nobody" in the grand scheme of things, your primary motivation in life has probably not been to have the world know your name, if so, you'd likely have pursued a different career. But the feeling is familiar, I think, to most of us.

My personal fix to this is to think on it, and maybe sometimes make a little side-project, that's guaranteed to not be brilliant or even good, and post it somewhere online, and enjoy the little bit of attention it got.

I also struggle to accept my place in the world, to be honest, I've gotten further in my life than I thought I would, and still, feel disappointed in myself because I've not done anything great, or contributed to or furthered any field in any meaningful way. But I try to keep in mind that, most people aren't and of those who do, orders of magnitude more are trying hard and still fail, and honestly, I don't want it _THAT_ bad, I can conclude that, because when I look at my own efforts to "become somebody", they are fairly low, and so it's no surprise that I'm a nobody, just coding away and generally being content with what I do.