3 ms·

> Luckily I get this just often enough that I don't fall into a catatonic mess of anxiety. So this is the sticking point for me: is it really _impostor syndrom

• philipov 5y ago
  Like people who get sad occasionally comparing themselves to people with major depression?
• deanCommie 5y ago
  It's a hard thing to quantify - how do you measure one person's feelings against another? I feel like it's not unhealthy - exactly as you describe. I've spoken to many peers who all feel the same at one point or another. So is it that we don't have impostor syndrome because we've normalized it? Or is it the same feelings but we are just better at dealing with them? I think it's the latter. The more you know, the more you know you don't know. With seniority comes the burden of that knowledge. You can easily become lost - where you can no longer measure your output by direct lines of code written, and you also get exposed to more and more top minds that make you feel small. I think the feelings are exactly the same that a junior engineer faces at their first job where they are overwhelmed and feel like everyone else is smarter than them. The difference is that once you've been through it enough times, you have the confidence that the emotion isn't valid, and you have competence to fall back on eventually.