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Advice to young people, the lies I tell myself
- AlgoRitmo 3y agoI enjoyed reading this, but it seems the jiu jitsu segment was just thrown in there, felt out of place.
- jakupovic 3y agoYou got plenty to learn, but this is a good start. Take it from someone learning.
- goodcjw2 3y ago"Okay, I'm focused on getting X, but let's not forget to read the headlines." -> this is probably the hardest part of "being lucky".
- petsfed 3y agoAnd also encapsulates a problem embedded in the way the author expresses the differentiation. Luck is not just about recognizing opportunities when they arise, its also about being in a position to act on those opportunities. I've read several times that professional poker players are very good at doing math in their head to evaluate how good a bet actually is. Basically, you take the apparent cost of an operation (maybe the raise from a previous player), multiply it by the odds of losing, then decide if that value is above or below what you can "afford" to lose. So if the fee to stay in is $5,000, and the odds of losing the next hand are 3 in 5, then the gambler has to decide "can I afford to lose $3,000 right now?". If the answer is yes, then bet. If not, then fold. The hard part is ignoring the apparent sunk cost. So if I'm chronically unlucky, either I'm garbage at recognizing opportunities, or when I do recognize opportunities, I'm not in a position to act on them. It can certainly be the case that the former contributes to the latter. But it can also be the case that you just never get an opportunity to get in the game, so to speak, in the first place. Everybody needs that one big break to get in the game. Not everybody gets that break.
- ezl 3y ago[flagged]
- _dwt 3y agoAs an "unlucky" person, I can't help but wonder: what about an alternative version of the experiment where the newspaper contained the big "This newspaper has 43 photographs" text - followed by 44 photographs? (This "unlucky" - or perhaps "paranoid" - mindset has, frankly, made me a damn good programmer and debugger.)
- curtisblaine 3y agoTbh If I noticed the text(s), I'd still have counted the photos and still looked at every page in case there were other prizes.
- erehweb 3y agoSee other top-level comment - direction was to keep counting, and you would indeed have won another prize (although it's unclear whether they actually paid out).
- RobCat27 3y agoEspecially since commonly followed wisdom seems to be "trust, but verify."
- erehweb 3y agoSome more details on the photograph experiment from https://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/blog/2007/09/how-lucky-people-think-differently-unlucky-people https://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/blog/2007/09/how-lucky-people-... ---- [Experimenter]: They'd go through, and after about three pages, there'd be a massive half-page advert saying, STOP COUNTING. THERE ARE 43 PHOTOGRAPHS IN THIS NEWSPAPER. It was next to a photo, so we knew they were looking at that area. A few pages later, there was another massive advert -- I mean, we're talking big -- that said, STOP COUNTING. TELL THE EXPERIMENTER YOU'VE SEEN THIS AND WIN 150 POUNDS [about $235]. For the most part, the unlucky would just flip past these things. Lucky people would flip through and laugh and say, "There are 43 photos. That's what it says. Do you want me to bother counting?" We'd say, "Yeah, carry on." They'd flip some more and say, "Do I get my 150 pounds?" Most of the unlucky people didn't notice.
- drewcoo 3y agoThis reads more like advice _from_ young people. The "luck" experiment has problems, not the least of which is that "luck" seems to include assuming what newspapers say is true.
- codexb 3y agoIt's consistent with other self-help advice, though I think it's worded in ways that make it easier to relate to on a day-by-day basis. I think it was particularly insightful for being such a short read. In particular, the "what would I do if I really loved myself" is a common theme in therapy. It's the 2nd of Jordan Peterson's 12 rules for life -- "Treat yourself like someone you are responsible for helping." He's not the first therapist to offer a relatable thought exercise for expressing self-love.
- ransom1538 3y agoI have read HN for over a decade. I like this article. In this article, the author put his entire life on the line. It was well written. Hats off sir. "The greatest gift you can give yourself is the gift of being enough." Ok, yeah I walked around the house thinking about this for 2 hours.
- Quimoniz 3y agoSurprisingly lots of good advice, especially when one got a few years of professional experience. > Do It Scared True. I've deep dived enough topics and technology to confidently say that pretty much everyone is just cooking with water as they say. .... The special specialist doing super professional job with X? - well they are probably just using this or that standard tool. Resolving problems with some very sound approaches (which they probably taught themselves through experimenting, through practice). Especially with software: Just have a go at it. The worst that could probably happen is that you need to reinstall your Operating System (and please don't ask me, how I developed some kernel-patch-performance-evaluation)
- tstrimple 3y agoI agree that most of the great technologists I’ve worked with have been like this. But it’s certainly not true of everyone. I’ve got one friend who is what I would classify as a slow learner. He doesn’t pick up new languages or technologies well and he flounders for a long time when out outside of the areas he feels confident in. What he is though is incredibly consistent within that space he is comfortable with. I can turn around amazing things during a hackathon or POC when the realities of every day development don’t get in the way, but I’m average at best at day to day delivery of the same type of work. This guy though churns out code reliably every day. Over and over again. He’s able to achieve more through attrition than I am by being able to quickly learn new things and then quickly get bored. So I completely agree with the sentiment of “just have a go at it”. It’s what I’ve done all my life. But I also acknowledge there are many very productive developers who can’t really do that well. Consequently he has a much more difficult time landing new jobs, and he’s much more likely to hold onto jobs for way longer than I would have bailed on it. He’s a lot more difficult to hire than someone who is confident in their ability to figure things out along the way.
- herbertl 3y agoTo your closing note, one interesting narrative (lie?), "Everyone is totally just winging it, all the time" https://www.theguardian.com/news/oliver-burkeman-s-blog/2014/may/21/everyone-is-totally-just-winging-it https://www.theguardian.com/news/oliver-burkeman-s-blog/2014...
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- alsetmusic 3y ago> Confidence is the memory of success This really stood out to me as something true and obvious yet never before stated in such plain language.
- nextworddev 3y agoExperience isn’t the only source of confidence though
- jxnlco 3y agoauthor here, I agree, but i feel like i've had so many self esteem issues growing up, its the only way i can believe it. Confidence is just from working really fucking hard. but again these are the lies i tell myself :)
- Aeglaecia 3y agoi expect personal experience to be the most heavily weighted source of confidence
- nextworddev 3y agomost people have limited experience. Thus if you are deriving confidence mainly from experience, you will have hard time bootstrapping confidence for a very long time. 2c
- jxnlco 3y agowhich is definitly the case for me, but at this point it just comes from the fact that ok, i just know i have the capacity to work hard so i dont the confidence will come
- herbertl 3y agoIt's a really good counterweight to "You're only as good as your last ___," a narrative which leads a person to feel frightened/shaken after a failure. Remembering past successes in times like that can be nice grounding. I've always liked Julia Evans' brag document, which presumes you and your co-workers won't remember your past successes: https://jvns.ca/blog/brag-documents/ https://jvns.ca/blog/brag-documents/
- pipes 3y agoContext? Who is this guy?
- ryandrake 3y ago> I've never gotten a job by applying to it. It's always been referrals or someone reaching out to me. This is always a bewildering one, but I've heard similar stories on HN, so I guess it does happen! I've never understood how this would work in practice, outside of 1. tiny companies who have no HR department and hire you by having the CEO shake your hand, OR 2. you're applying to be some big shot CxO/SVP guy and they have a special process for you. Sure, I've had people reach out to me, like recruiters, former co-workers, and so on. They'll tell me about the role, find out if I'm interested, but at some point, inevitably will say, "OK Great! Go to this URL and fill in the application. Good luck!" How the f- do you skip that step? Do companies actually just mail you the job offer after a few chats, bypassing the application, phone screens, in-person interviews, coding challenges, take-home-tests, and so on??? What kind of a Captain Of Industry do you have to be to get this kind of special treatment? I've never seen it, and while I'm no John Carmack, I'm not a schmuck either.
- kelseyfrog 3y agoI've networked my way to every job except my first one. You make friends at work, have lunches where they bring their friends from other companies or keep in touch with folks after they move on. When you reach out, you'll hear a "Sure, we've got a spot open for <job>. Let me introduce you to the hiring manager," or "Send your resume to <mgmt-email> and tell them I sent you." A vouch is a powerful social tool.
- __rito__ 3y agoI have had three jobs so far, and I applied for none of them. It was just people reaching out to me via mail, or LinkedIn DM. I would be asked to take interview rounds. After those interview rounds, I would just receive the contract PDF via email. I would then start on a stipulated date. I of course failed one on the 4th rounds (of 5 total). One other job, I had done everything good, but they ghosted me anyway. There was one Engineering Manager reaching out to me from FAANG, which I did not take up, because I had multiple different things going on, and studying for FAANG interview takes time- no matter who you are. So, I said that I would be in touch after some of those things were over. But, then came the big layoffs... Then I reached out and they let me know that their team wasn’t hiring anymore, and encouraged me to apply to somewhere else. Which I was not again interested at that point. I regret that the most.
- nomagicbullet 3y agoI very much liked this quote on choosing happiness: > In the short term, you would be much happier if you accepted and admitted to yourself that the reason you don't have what you want is simply because you do not want it badly enough. The sooner you accept that, the happier you'll be. Then the next question is: Do you want to be happy or do you want to achieve what you want?
- herbertl 3y ago"Desire’s a contract you make to be unhappy until you get what you want." https://nav.al/desire https://nav.al/desire
- derbOac 3y agoThat advice — given in many forms by many people — to me almost seems immoral to at this point. It manages to pack so much into a brief assertion, that people who don't achieve something just don't want it badly enough. It's meaningless and insulting to everyone who finds themselves in circumstances beyond their control, in whatever ways that might be obvious or subtle to other people not in the situation. It blames victims, it enshrines survivorship bias, and it relies on a sort of nondisprovable assertion, which in itself speaks volumes about its validity. Of course, the author adds the end bit, about "do you want to be happy or do you want to achieve what you want", which ameliorates it a bit and makes it more accurate. But by the same token it makes it softer and murkier and less useful. Then again, the whole essay is predicated by "these are simply the lies I tell myself to keep on living my life in good faith". I can understand where that statement is coming from, but then what use is it? I appreciate the desire to put advice into the world, but too often I find it completely useless out of context. Or maybe even actively harmful. They're like Barnum statements that can be interpreted in all sorts of ways in any given situation. I guess I just feel like we as a society need to stop taking advice from people based on their own personal philosophies, which have all sorts of self-justifying biases (regardless of how their life goes).
- hnfong 3y agoThere is some nuance to the assertion that if one doesn't get something they didn't want it enough. But, as pointed out in another comment, the idea is that you either get it or die trying. As long as you haven't given up, there's a chance you'll get what you want. A more socially acceptable "spin" is to emphasize on perseverance. But, at least in my belief system, it's not only the physical act of perseverance that eventually gets you there, but also the mental aspect of actually really wanting it. There are also many other nuances like people thinking they want something but instead they want something else (eg. people thinking they want a Lamborghini, but maybe they just want to be respected). And then there are cases where people want something but at the same time kind of want the opposite thing (eg. want a high status challenging job, but also want to live a peaceful and chill life.) So yeah, with such nuances it's probably not a great idea to just randomly throw these ideas out there without some detailed follow up explanations, that part I agree with you. But what I disagree is the "victim" part. Nobody is a "victim" of not reaching a goal unless they choose to be one. I mean, let's say for example a person fails to pass an exam because they had to take care of their sick mother -- well, good for them, because taking care of their mother is more important than the stated goal of getting good grades for the exam. Nobody is a victim here. Instead, everyone's free choices are respected. As long as we don't judge people for their lack of apparent, socially-acceptable "successes".
- mitchbob 3y agoDiscussed earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38902596 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38902596 (72 comments)
- Supermancho 3y ago> Pessimists Are Losers I resonate with almost every single thing he says, except this.
- vlod 3y ago“Whether you think you can, or you think you can't--you're right.” ― Henry Ford Maybe it's worth trying to be optimistic.
- Supermancho 3y agoI'm pretty well known, where I've worked, for being brave and bold. Confident to a fault, as it were. Pessimism is not at odds with this. I believe in Murphy's Law
- physicles 3y agoCould you unpack what you mean by pessimism? The author and some people here probably understand it differently. I’d define pessimism as the mindset that things usually don’t work out, despite our best efforts. That’s different from believing in Murphy’s Law while also believing that you still have the ability to get shit done.
- sara6996 3y ago[flagged]