I agree with this sentiment--I mainly read HN/SSC and find the depth of knowledge extremely humbling. You really have to try hard to look at your status as abs

I agree with this sentiment--I mainly read HN/SSC and find the depth of knowledge extremely humbling. You really have to try hard to look at your status as absolute (or "compare yourself to yourself a week ago"), especially because it looks like we are wired to see relative status as more important (i.e. happiness derived from comparison to "peers"). It is a roller coaster of "I think I'm pretty good at this" to "jesus--I understand 10% of what these HN comments are talking about." It helps if I think about the alternative universe where I tried to do something with my political science minor. That usually does the trick. :-)