Ask HN: How do I make peace with being a dud?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35142452

by notmindthegap • 3 years ago

3 3 3 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

In my mid-30s and I find myself yet at the bottom of another cycle of failure to make meaningful progress in the most basic parts of life. Traumatic childhood, blah blah, has almost cognitively neutered me. Therapy has helped little. Meds haven't done much. Life is crumbling.

I feel I have no choice but to accept that I am not wired to pursue my ambitions of being an entrepreneur, not with the executive dysfunction, social anxiety, and paralyzing fear that I have not been able to improve.

How do I accept that I will never amount to anything notable, let alone moderately respectable?

throwawaysalome• 3 years ago

If prostitution is legal in your country, I would suggest paying for ego stroking.

dougmwne• 3 years ago

More therapy. Different therapists.

You have this vision of who you want to be that seems to be disconnected from who you are. I have seen happiness defined as making progress towards an ACHIEVABLE dream. It does not sound like you have locked onto an achievable dream yet.

I used to be very interested in entrepreneurship and would come up with App ideas and do a little playing around with them. Then I buckled down and read a lot of books on startups and business management. I realized that the kind of ideas I was coming up with required giant companies to execute and that I did not have the personality, money, or connections to run a giant company. My dream was fantasy!

So I worked on myself and found more realistic dreams, of being financially independent, being a good partner, a good friend, making a human-sized impact in my career, instead of a super-human sized impact.

It also took me awhile to realize that I had spent a lot of time consuming success porn. Like regular porn, it is a fantasy. Real people, in the millions and billions are not inventing the next whatever, speaking 8 languages and contributing to AI research on the weekend. Lots of this content is self promotion or marketing made by someone trying to sell something.

You don’t need to end up with a thousand foot statue of yourself towering over a subcontinent to live a meaningful life. Therapy, more therapy.

cmdialog• 3 years ago

Personally I'm not sure why anyone would want to be an entrepreneur, nor do I think it is a respectable position to be in necessarily. There are plenty of other things to do to live a respectable life. But I ask, respectable to whom? Do you want to be famous for something? Again, personally, I think this goal is going to cause you more harm than good.

I am not a great programmer, or a great designer, or a great musician, or artist. I'm not particularly great at anything I do if I'm being honest. And I've struggled with childhood trauma, substance abuse, various other manifestations of mental unwellness, and it's frequently very difficult. However, I have come to realize that there is no point lamenting this. Just play what you have, think as creatively as you are able, care about yourself, and get into something stable enough to allow you more freedom of thought.

Hopefully this isn't too corny, but you aren't alone and all the time there are people somehow managing to overcome their terrible odds. Also if you are a drinker, stop drinking at once.

Ask HN: How do I make peace with being a dud?

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