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> I stopped taking advice from anyone regarding career expectations because I suddenly woke up to the fact that everyone is probably trying to figure it out, ev
by sph 2y ago
> I stopped taking advice from anyone regarding career expectations because I suddenly woke up to the fact that everyone is probably trying to figure it out, even the most successful ones. Luck is probably a bigger component of most successes and no one seems to know everything for sure. All what someone has in terms of advice seems to be their “best guesses”.
I'm 37. What has been more and more apparent to me is that most people don't know shit about shit. Even experts in their field. For example this forum, which I dearly love: if you share anything you have built, an idea, a counter-argument, you will find someone ready to demolish it and say it is worthless, not to waste your time. It's been done before. Nothing new exists under the sun.
When I was younger, I thought they knew better, so I kept at it and learned. Now it is apparent that most people default to a cynical, negative kind of state. It probably it is a manifestation of our physiological need to conserve energy and not to abandon our comfort zone, a worldview we force onto other people, and many fossilise into without accomplishing much.
So now, at 37, and perhaps more arrogant than before, I have learned never to take a no for an answer from anybody. Never to listen to anyone that says "it's stupid" or "it is impossible." The world and the future depends on reckless people that try to do what no one has dared to do before. You can still be humble and learn, but you'll find the true Masters are the most optimistic and enthusiastic ones. Keen to help and keen to share. The nay-sayers can be safely and absolutely ignored without exception.
You have spent your 20s mostly learning and following orders. In your 30s, it is time to carve your own path, however crazy or silly it might be, as long as you feel that deep pull towards it you cannot say no to. As other said, you have at least 20 more years to achieve the impossible, and it is plenty of time.
30 is not a deadline, it is a threshold. You learned from the world, now it is time to start creating your own world.
- ActorNightly 2y agoThe more important thing to figure out is that people you talk about have deluded themselves into believing that they know shit, and how do you specifically not fall into that trap, not just professionally, but in every day life. Everyone even in their 20s has a well established personality on things that they believe are good and true, and especially for Gen Z these things are usually super warped due to growing up on the internet. You really have to take like 2-3 years to "deprogram" yourself of things that aren't true, and you will have a much better life.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- zemahran 2y agoEvery now & then I look around and recognize that I'm probably at a slightly better place in life than most people I know, but then I remember that I probably also don't know anything about anything, so what does that tell me about most people Everyone seems to have a different definition about "what works", and they double down on it even when it makes little sense to everyone else. So almost always there's a hidden factor that we like to call "luck" when we tend to underestimate the outcome and "hard work" when we overestimate it – But fact is there seems to be little correlation between inputs & outputs of most people that "made it"
- sph 2y agoLuck is a huge factor in success, but one tends to make their luck. As the saying goes, "showing up is half the battle." No luck saves you if you don't even try.