4 ms·

There is a point that is missed here, even if some points seem familiar. Maybe I'm an outlier, but: I turn out to have top half-percentile IQ (as I'm sure many

by marvin 7y ago

There is a point that is missed here, even if some points seem familiar. Maybe I'm an outlier, but: I turn out to have top half-percentile IQ (as I'm sure many on HN do), which is not the disconnected genius level that the author describes, but still about two standard deviations above the average. I'm only moderately successful career-wise -- a "follower" in the author's words. Excellent grades from education. In professional life, not destitute and getting a decent amount of professional respect, but nothing outside of what you'll expect to find in a decent-sized company. Salary is likewise. No ambitions of being a boss. I can take technical leadership roles temporarily, if it feels like a good fit, and that's great fun. I'll get bored after a while, and it takes a lot of energy & focus to do well. The biggest reason I can identify for this moderate and not spectacular level of success, is that I just don't care so much about being super successful in my career. I also crucially lack the energy and drive that some of super-successul people the author describes obviously has. Even if I was born in a millionaire family with excellent connections to power and prestige, I doubt I would have been an entrepeneur or a successful academic. The vast majority of things you'll do in those professions just seem so boring and tedious. Elon Musk's 100 hour workweeks, all year every year, seems like hell. Ditto for most successful entrepeneurs I'm aware of. Even if they lead fascinating, cutting-edge technology development. I'd much rather spend most of my time learning new things, satisfying my curiosity, playing computer games or learning new skills. As well as spending time with the people I love, which means I deliberately choose to not work 50 hours per week in a high-demand software-related job far from home. I'm certain in a different life I could move to California and do much better, but there's so much in my life today I don't want to sacrifice to do that. I've just never found a subject that interests me enough (money-earning or otherwise) to dedicate my full effort to it. There's certainly something to the author's points of being surrounded by like-minded people, but there's three or four of them near my hometown that I've met through university. We have fun and get along well, but we won't change the world. Maybe that's a waste. My goal in life is to be happy, not earn power and prestige. Sometimes I wish I had the drive and interest to do cutting-edge research and development in a new field, but when I visualize that, it seems like a lifestyle that will require cutting out so much of what I currently love. It's probably not possible in the human condition to be truly happy, but I'm certain I'd be more unhappy if I spent all my time doing ambitious things that I don't have an innate drive for. Maybe I could work super hard five years and then retire, but I'll most likely be able to retire early anyway. Anything can happen in those five years. It's not worth the risk.

gordaco 7y ago
This resonates with me a lot. All over my life, even when I was still just a student, I've had people telling me that I could do much better and that I could aspire to much more. I invariably looked at their proposal, saw a huge amount of work that I was definitely not willing to put, and I continued my path of having the minimization of stress as one of my main priorities. I've mentioned this a couple of times here in HN: the real trick is to keep learning outside of your job. Don't count on your job as a source of intellectual satisfaction; if you learn something while on the clock, that's great, but that will come and go. Having a steady source of brain food outside your job gives you much more control and ends up being much more satisfying. Also, never ever trade sleep hours for work hours. Sleep as much as your body wants, work as much as you are stipulated (i.e. 40h a week and no more), and squeeze as many satisfying activities (learning, in my case) out of the rest of the time. And yes, diversify if you want: this is why I dropped out of a PhD and started new degrees instead. I guess that this applies to me because I have zero ambitions outside the purely intellectual ones. YMMV. I strongly feel like I would be much more miserable if I were more ambitious, especially taking into account that I've been, for a long time, acutely aware that time is much much more valuable than money.
- fxtentacle 7y ago
  I'd wager that it would be easy to argue that the majority of people who work super extra hard to become rich and successful have some sort of childhood trauma that they never recovered from. So maybe the answer is simply that intelligent people can figure out why they feel a yearning for success, and then solve the root issues instead of joining the rat race like everyone else. As a practical example, some guys work super hard to buy expensive cars to impress the ladies. But if you're a great conversationalist with a witty humor, you can probably skip the car, so you don't have the need for working hard.

by marvin 7y ago

gordaco 7y ago

This resonates with me a lot. All over my life, even when I was still just a student, I've had people telling me that I could do much better and that I could aspire to much more. I invariably looked at their proposal, saw a huge amount of work that I was definitely not willing to put, and I continued my path of having the minimization of stress as one of my main priorities. I've mentioned this a couple of times here in HN: the real trick is to keep learning outside of your job. Don't count on your job as a source of intellectual satisfaction; if you learn something while on the clock, that's great, but that will come and go. Having a steady source of brain food outside your job gives you much more control and ends up being much more satisfying. Also, never ever trade sleep hours for work hours. Sleep as much as your body wants, work as much as you are stipulated (i.e. 40h a week and no more), and squeeze as many satisfying activities (learning, in my case) out of the rest of the time. And yes, diversify if you want: this is why I dropped out of a PhD and started new degrees instead. I guess that this applies to me because I have zero ambitions outside the purely intellectual ones. YMMV. I strongly feel like I would be much more miserable if I were more ambitious, especially taking into account that I've been, for a long time, acutely aware that time is much much more valuable than money.

fxtentacle 7y ago
I'd wager that it would be easy to argue that the majority of people who work super extra hard to become rich and successful have some sort of childhood trauma that they never recovered from. So maybe the answer is simply that intelligent people can figure out why they feel a yearning for success, and then solve the root issues instead of joining the rat race like everyone else. As a practical example, some guys work super hard to buy expensive cars to impress the ladies. But if you're a great conversationalist with a witty humor, you can probably skip the car, so you don't have the need for working hard.