Ask HN: How do you deal with your mediocrity?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5148336

by rogerchucker • 13 years ago

25 22 13 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

I feel like I'm neither good at coding, nor great at research and at best ordinary in teaching. I'm a PhD student and I feel like whatever I am mediocre in almost everything I do. It puts a fear in my heart from trying new things as I might end up being very mediocre in that new thing too.

If you ever had this kind of feeling, how did you overcome it? Thanks.

te_platt• 13 years ago

First of all mediocre is a relative term. Be careful who you are comparing yourself against.

I used to be able to run a 5K in under 17 minutes. That made me a mediocre high school cross country runner but way faster than I am now.

Also consider that if you are at the 99th percentile in something that means 70,000,000 are better than you. There will always be someone better than you at something. By the way, being in the 99th percentile is very good.

Finally even if you aren't very good at something doesn't mean you can't enjoy it anyway.

rman666• 13 years ago

I deal with my mediocrity by being Awesome. That is all.

thoughtcriminal• 13 years ago

How can you possibly feel mediocre? Against what? You are a completely unique individual. There is no one like you in the entire universe. You have a blend of skills and traits no one else possesses.

What are these abilities and insights you have that no one else has? It's up to you to uncover them. That takes some work. It also requires that you listen to yourself for a change rather than other people. It may require further experimentation, but you are the best in the world at something.

Get off HN and find out what it is.

One more thing: watch the self-talk. Be proactive and solution-based. Your thinking should be where your problem isn't.

gems• 13 years ago

"What are these abilities and insights you have that no one else has?"

Sometimes the answer to that question is "I don't have any." Or sometimes it's an ability that is not valued (even by yourself).

I too encourage searching, but let's be realistic.

luser001• 13 years ago

Complex topic. In a nutshell, you should care that you're mediocre only if your competing with others. If not, why should you care?

After you leave school, the need to be not-mediocre will become less acute, because life is less competitive than we're led to believe in school.

Basically, as you grow older, you'll stop competing and start living.

Not really sure if this helps. Good luck!

spoiler• 13 years ago

I think you are not mediocre simply because you feel like you might be. Not sure if that makes sense.

To explain: My mum insisted I see a psychiatrist since she was convinced I was depressed (turns out she was right), but in one of the sessions the psychiatrist asked me to "describe myself" and I told him how I felt like I crap because I was really good at coding, but not memorably good; how I loved to paint but my cat paintings would turn out more like a furry pig (not even kidding) and how I had no sense for design, but still enjoyed it. So, all of that made me feel like a loser. And I will paraphrase what he said: "The fact that you consider your skills mediocre, and assuming you want to develop them further, it already makes you the opposite of mediocre."

It sounded more poetic in Croatian, but the general thought is still there.

God, that is a lot of text... Sorry about that.

xijuan2• 13 years ago

What your psychiatrist said is very very inspiring.

frob• 13 years ago

As a grad student, you're learning how to do research. You're probably surrounded by people who have been doing it for years. Heck, at this point, if someone even has a year on you, their skills probably seem phenomenal.

Remember, you're climbing a very steep, very long learning curve. You will fail. You will go down the wrong path and do the wrong thing. A mediocre person keeps repeating the same mistakes. Leak from them instead.

Finally, remember that you're surrounded by very skilled people. If you look around and find yourself to be average, you're probably doing great.

readme• 13 years ago

> I'm a PhD student

Not mediocre.

You have that impostor syndrome thing probably.

samstave• 13 years ago

Yeah, a better question: How do you assassinate your imposter syndrome?

xijuan2• 13 years ago

I feel the exactly the same way.. Comparing to the people around me, I am mediocre at almost everything.. But I have to say it really depends on who you compare yourself with.

codegeek• 13 years ago

Look at it 2 ways:

1. There are things to achieve and you can look forward to it. You have people to look up to.

2. There is still someone more mediocre than you (always). So it's not that bad.

daltonlp• 13 years ago

Richard Feynman had that problem. He solved that problem by saying "whatever, I'll just have fun playing."

http://www.physics.ohio-state.edu/~kilcup/262/feynman.html

I'm not sure anyone else followed his example all the way to the nobel prize, but I can say for certain that I've followed it to a satisfying place.

I wonder if I'm more mediocre than you, or you're more mediocre than me. One of us must be more mediocre. One of us has two thumbs and doesn't care.

crazydiamond2• 13 years ago

I discovered I was not very smart long back (about 20 years back when I started working). I compensated by working harder, reading more books than others, reviewing more carefully, thinking more about the things I am doing -- professionally and in personal life. Maybe my issue has to do with dyslexia, or some kind of social anxiety disorder that totally "freezes" my brain when i am in company.

Anyway, I did well and rose to management positions (in software) which I detested but soldiered on (spending as much time as I could on tech work which I love). However, after 14 years of working I finally seemed to hit my "level of incompetence" and just could not continue in management. I can only suggesting working hard, and finding something you enjoy doing.

I also saved a lot of money which allowed me to retire at 40. I now spend my time writing open source software (which I admit is mediocre) and reading HN to keep myself updated and "sponge" off the intelligence of others.

nausea• 13 years ago

I found myself in your words. I'm 37 years old and I'm more mediocre than 17 years ago. Suicide is an option, but I'm mediocre also in this area.

crazydiamond2• 13 years ago

| Suicide is an option, but I'm mediocre also in this area.

Thankfully, you are mediocre in that area.

There must be something you enjoy doing, which if you work hard enough on, you can achieve some level that you can proud of. Within that area, you just might find some niche where your mediocrity is useful for others. As I've mentioned above I right mediocre software for the command-line (my niche is commandline and ncurses). Some people like what I do, some don't.

As far as suicide, besides the normal medical paths, please also try meditation seriously. There are enough threads in HN on that -- there are great secular meditations such as mindfulness or just breath watching -- so i won't elaborate.

orangethirty• 13 years ago

I realized that everyone is different, and that I cannot directly compare myself to others. Mediocrity is an attitude that is defined by purposely doing the worst job you can because you dont care. I highly doubt that you as a PhD student are mediocre. It takes a huge amount of dedication to reach that level. If you want to chat, email is in profile.

hilko• 13 years ago

As others have said, mediocrity is relative. So is stupidity and genius.

Growing up and becoming (something of) an adult, the one thing that still constantly surprises me is the huge amount of mediocrity surrounding me, and not just that: they're succesful and happy. Part of the reason for this surprise is that I generally surround myself with people that are at the very least not much more mediocre than me, and often people that are on par or 'better' than me.

If you're a PhD student, you're clearly not 'mediocre' by most standards. And I suspect you're in a competitive environment full of people that are either very smart, or trying to prove they are.

So then ask yourself: who am I comparing myself to, and why is it important to do so. There's always someone 'better', so thinking in this way is futile.

My general approach to life is this: if I feel like the smartest person I know, I should find more smarter friends. If I feel intimidated or bad by those around me, I should perhaps find friends that are equal or less smart then me. I've been in both situations.

Incidentally, many of those I thought smarter than me really weren't. And those of my friends that are 'dumber' then me make up with that in a myriad of other ways, since fortunately being smart isn't all there is.

impendia• 13 years ago

"A man must love the thing very much if he not only practices it without any hope of fame or money, but even practices it without any hope of doing it well."

--G.K. Chesterton

nhamann• 13 years ago

It sounds like you have a "fixed mindset" as opposed to a "growth mindset". You worry that you are not as skilled at X as you might like to be, but your focus should simply be consistently improving at X.

The y-offset at t=0 matters a little, but the magnitude of the slope dominates in the long run.

SCAQTony• 13 years ago

Think of what you are doing as a contribution rather than a race or a talent show and then do your best.

If you want to play the saxophone as good as Charlie Parker, you got to put in the same hours of practice that he. You may be "mediocre" but there are people who will want to hear you play.

I will never paint like Monet nor swim as fast as Michael Phelps but trying too do so has been a rewarding experience. Eight Alcatraz swim crossings and paintings that people like and are hanging on their walls.

Mz• 13 years ago

I have skimmed the replies. I do not see this mentioned. You might look up "Impostor Syndrome". You are in a phd program. You probably aren't as mediocre as you think. Very talented, intelligent people are often hyperaware of their mistakes and overestimate how lousy they are.

I have found that a good antidote is to get some kind of objective data to compare myself against. Knowing where I really stand helps me figure out if I am really as lousy as I think/feel I am. I also look for ways to improve on my weak areas. It is usually not that I generally suck. It is usually some small number of specific things that are tripping me up. Working on those areas often removes the bottleneck between suckitude and impressive.

Ask HN: How do you deal with your mediocrity?

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