8 ms·

Is it too late to be awesome?

143 points by dennybritz 13y ago

overload119 13y ago
As a university student I'm surrounded by brilliant people, a lot of whom excel in academics. This has always been really frustrating for me. I think the takeaway message I've learned from school, and in life, is that there will always be someone who is better than you at something. I'm always envious of my peers who are better at (X), and I forget that if I reflect on my own skills, I'll find (Y) that I can do better. You'll likely never find someone who is better than you at EVERYTHING. Everyone has strengths and weaknesses. I think there's a certain beauty in that, because by working together, we get the benefit of being good at X and Y. This is why cofounders who have complementing skill sets are so successful. Find something you like, and just do it. Connect with people that do things you don't like to do or are not as good at. The rest will fall in place. “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” - Albert Einstein
- Sven7 13y ago
  Well said. All I'll add is, thanks to the internet, there is much more comparing going on. An unhealthy amount imho. This is a great motivator for some people. For others not so much. One needs to figure out where one falls in the spectrum and moderate time spent looking at what the rest of the world is up to accordingly.
  - VandyILL 13y ago
    I try not to think of it as a motivator or something to make me feel minuscule. I think it's real strength is to remind you that things are possible. You may not have to live up to the other people's heights, but it reminds you that other people have climbed mountains the world didn't even know exists. Reminds you not to keep your own mountains sitting in the back of your mind, even if they're just molehills.
    - Sven7 13y ago
      You don't have to think of it as a motivator or something that makes you feel minuscule. Given the time people are spending on the internet these days, exposed to things no other generation was, much of this happens subconsciously.
      - VandyILL 13y ago
        I agree on both points.
  - hoprocker 13y ago
    > Well said. All I'll add is, thanks to the internet, there is much more comparing going on. An unhealthy amount imho. Amen to that. I usually feel more fulfilled when I restrict my online "achiever" voyeurism -- just enough to be inspired, but not so much that I feel a hopeless mortal among titans.
- sporkologist 13y ago
  I found a niche at the intersection of art, music, engineering, and manufacturing. I basically said to myself in 2005, "What am I better at than anyone else?" and proceeded to build my niche into a viable business. At this one thing, I'm confident (not because of my own evaluation, but the judgment of my target market) that I've found something I'm very good at that's worth pursuing. Yes this is very general advice, but it worked for me.... hope it sheds some light.
calhoun137 13y ago
If you really want to feel inadequate, check this out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_von_Neumann http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_von_Neumann
- michaelrbock 13y ago
  Or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk
VandyILL 13y ago
I think he already answered his own question in another post. Declares he's already awesome because he lives in NY & has an Amex. https://medium.com/better-humans/fb2e4d6aea5f https://medium.com/better-humans/fb2e4d6aea5f
- andrewcooke 13y ago
  she
  - VandyILL 13y ago
    Welp, I'm a doofus.
- thufry 13y ago
  That sentence is more an acknowledgment of a privileged life.
  - VandyILL 13y ago
    I'm a middle class kid that managed to go to under grad & grad school on scholarships. I've lived an extremely privileged life. My opinions are formed by the life I have lived as it is the only life I will ever experience. I guess my interpretation of awesome is more in line with inspiring awe. Depending on her background, her situation could very well inspire awe and be something she never thought possible. From my experiences, her examples of "awesome" in other posts are what I would consider "Sweet" even though she has several things I wish I had. If you measured everything in the world on a scale of awesomeness, rather than believing something has to hit a threshold of actually inspiring awe, then her life would be well above mine. For more common forms of awesome, things like watching my younger brother with autism be able to take my dog for a walk is pretty awesome given everything else I have gone through with him. Living in the suburbs though, getting a piece of plastic that extends credit to me is not awe inspiring.
    - thufry 13y ago
      So you're saying that you use the word "sweet" the way she uses "awesome." And let's not go down the road of saying that "awesome" has to be used as if it was "awe some," as people clearly don't use it that way.
Falling3 13y ago
I feel like we see these kinds of posts fairly frequently. And I'm glad. I knew everything that the author said yesterday. I probably knew it 10 or even 15 years ago. But it's really difficult to keep these ideas at the forefront of your mind. Being reminded of it often is the only way I've found so far.
zoba 13y ago
I've been wondering about this line of thinking lately, and I'm confused if its actually productive. For example: I need to lose about 15 pounds. If I just accepted myself as me, I'd never really work towards the better picture of myself, 15 pounds lighter. Doesn't this apply when trying to better yourself in other ways? If I'm not imagining a future where I'm better than I am right now, how will I ever get to it? What easier way to imagine how one could be better than to look at what other people have, and hope to have it myself. I feel like, eventually, people just end up settling and stop fighting to better themselves. I think the older someone is, the more likely the are to have settled. I hope for myself, that I keep fighting.
- sporkologist 13y ago
  > If I just accepted myself as me Mistake #1. You have to visualize yourself as temporarily overweight, then go about exercising/changing your diet (you know, more fiber, less carb's) to reach that new set-point. Measure your caloric intake, and your weight every day. If your intake is less than your standard metabolic activity, you'll lose weight. It's that simple. > I feel like, eventually, people just end up settling and stop fighting to better themselves. Don't do that! Yes the majority of people do that, but that doesn't mean you have to as well. I have too many old healthy people in my family to fall into that trap.
  - eterm 13y ago
    Weighing every day is terrible advice for those trying to lose weight. Weigh yourself at most once a week else the short term fluctuations (hint, drinking a pint of water is half a kilo) will distract you over the long term goal of getting to a healthier base weight.
    - egypturnash 13y ago
      I find that weighing daily helps me notice changes in the weight trend fairly quickly. I've also calibrated my sense of what the normal fluctuations are by graphing my weight and taking moving averages for a while, though. So I can look at the scale reading four pounds above yesterday morning and say "hmm, maybe I shouldn't have eaten that whole pizza by myself". Faster feedback loops are better for training. You just have to spend a little time installing a filter sometimes.
wavefunction 13y ago
Do awesome, don't be awesome.
- sporkologist 13y ago
  Subversively inspirational.
- cylinder714 13y ago
  "Don't dream it, be it."
- wavefunction 13y ago
  Wow, voted down for this. Fucking losers.
sporkologist 13y ago
My father in law is 80, he lifts weights every day, and can quote Shakespeare to you all day long. I hope to be half that awesome at that age.
chatmasta 13y ago
The people who accomplish the most are never satisfied with how much they have accomplished. Series of accomplishments require continuous accomplishing, which requires motivation. These high-achievers continue to accomplish so much because they constantly motivate themselves with thoughts of inadequacy. I assume most people only follow others who they see as more accomplished than themselves in some way. By definition you must follow someone in order to compare yourself to them. Thus, you must only compare yourself to people more accomplished than you. By doing do, you promote in yourself the same feelings of inadequacy that drive thr most acccomplished people. tl;dr Compare your accomplishments to greater accomplishments by other people. Feelings of inadequacy will motivate you to accomplish more.
- skadamat 13y ago
  If you look at some of the most successful people, most of them are driven by other motivators besides success. Many are driven to make a difference in the world (Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, etc), others were super super curious (Richard Feynmann, Neil Degrasse Tyson, Warren Buffett) and pursued / stuck with their passions, and others were at the right place at the right time (and of course people are often some combo of all 3). The thing is, very few people just are addicted to success for the SAKE of success, and some of those people have an unhealthy addiction for money. Success is what you make of it. There are many people in the energy sector driven to eradicate global warming and get off our fossil fuel addiction. Many of them will be never known to the world / famous in any way, but they are always looking to make more and more of an impact daily and be successful over time (even if many of them won't ever be rich or famous).
  - oyvindeh 13y ago
    I think many people are seeking success for success' sake - at least it's a significant part of why they do what they do. The fact that they want to make a difference in the world may be true, but I think it's often a mix, and that people fool themselves to believe that their need to feed their ego is smaller than it actually is. The risk from this, is that although people are fighting for a good cause, their ego may interfere in bad ways in certain situations, leading to decisions and actions which hurts the good cause in short or long term (for example by pushing away other people who may do a better job than themselves). (This, of course, doesn't go for everybody.) Edit: Note that becoming rich and famous isn't the only way to feed your ego.
thewarrior 13y ago
Meet Jon Von Neumann : Von Neumann's ability to instantaneously perform complex operations in his head stunned other mathematicians. Eugene Wigner wrote that, seeing von Neumann's mind at work, "one had the impression of a perfect instrument whose gears were machined to mesh accurately to a thousandth of an inch." Paul Halmos states that "von Neumann's speed was awe-inspiring." Israel Halperin said: "Keeping up with him was... impossible. The feeling was you were on a tricycle chasing a racing car." Edward Teller wrote that von Neumann effortlessly outdid anybody he ever met, and said "I never could keep up with him". Lothar Wolfgang Nordheim described von Neumann as the "fastest mind I ever met", and Jacob Bronowski wrote "He was the cleverest man I ever knew, without exception.He was a genius." George Pólya, whose lectures at ETH Zurich von Neumann attended as a student, said "Johnny was the only student I was ever afraid of. If in the course of a lecture I stated an unsolved problem, the chances were he'd come to me at the end of the lecture with the complete solution scribbled on a slip of paper." Halmos recounts a story told by Nicholas Metropolis, concerning the speed of von Neumann's calculations, when somebody asked von Neumann to solve the famous fly puzzle: Two bicyclists start twenty miles apart and head toward each other, each going at a steady rate of 10 mph. At the same time a fly that travels at a steady 15 mph starts from the front wheel of the southbound bicycle and flies to the front wheel of the northbound one, then turns around and flies to the front wheel of the southbound one again, and continues in this manner till he is crushed between the two front wheels. Question: what total distance did the fly cover? The slow way to find the answer is to calculate what distance the fly covers on the first, northbound, leg of the trip, then on the second, southbound, leg, then on the third, etc., etc., and, finally, to sum the infinite series so obtained. The quick way is to observe that the bicycles meet exactly one hour after their start, so that the fly had just an hour for his travels; the answer must therefore be 15 miles. When the question was put to von Neumann, he solved it in an instant, and thereby disappointed the questioner: "Oh, you must have heard the trick before!" "What trick?" asked von Neumann, "All I did was sum the infinite series." Von Neumann had a very strong eidetic memory, commonly called 'photographic' memory.Herman Goldstine writes: "One of his remarkable abilities was his power of absolute recall. As far as I could tell, von Neumann was able on once reading a book or article to quote it back verbatim; moreover, he could do it years later without hesitation. He could also translate it at no diminution in speed from its original language into English. On one occasion I tested his ability by asking him to tell me how The Tale of Two Cities started. Whereupon, without any pause, he immediately began to recite the first chapter and continued until asked to stop after about ten or fifteen minutes." It has been said that von Neumann's intellect was absolutely unmatched. “I always thought Von Neumann’s brain indicated that he was from another species, an evolution beyond man,” said Nobel Laureate Hans A. Bethe of Cornell University. "It seems fair to say that if the influence of a scientist is interpreted broadly enough to include impact on fields beyond science proper, then John von Neumann was probably the most influential mathematician who ever lived," wrote Miklos Redai in "Selected Letters." Glimm writes "he is regarded as one of the giants of modern mathematics".The mathematician Jean Dieudonné called von Neumann "the last of the great mathematicians", while Peter Lax described him as possessing the "most scintillating intellect of this century", and Hans Bethe stated "I have sometimes wondered whether a brain like von Neumann's does not indicate a species superior to that of man".
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
atsaloli 13y ago
"If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desiderata http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desiderata
jhonovich 13y ago
So Von Nuemann and Kevin Rose are on the same level?
neona 13y ago
As someone who's been struggling to find my way in life the last couple years (i'm 22, not in college, and working a low-skill job to make ends meet), I constantly run into this problem. Indeed, reading HN makes me feel pretty horrible a lot of the time, reminding me of all the cool things people are doing, and that I might be able to do such things if I could only get off my ass. That I've been unable to focus adequately to get any practically useful coding, let alone reading, done in the last couple years has brought me significant distress, and seeing so many brilliant people on HN only makes me feel like i'm falling behind. It's so easy to feel trapped by this, only entrenching yourself in inaction as you compare yourself to every person you feel is smarter or more successful than yourself.
mbrock 13y ago
What's so terrible about not being "awesome?" How about just living a decent life? Being kind and helpful? There's a kind of virtue ethics at work around these parts, and the primary virtue is "awesomeness." A sociologist or ethicist could write a whole thesis about this community. It's not a universal idea. Some people have a primary virtue of "decency." Or even "humility." Taste those words for a moment... "Comparing is as much of a disease as perfection. When we learn to be ourselves, be patient, and how to be comfortable in our own skin, then – and only then – will we achieve true happiness." An ancient Zen poem says "For and against opposing each other -- this is the mind's disease." Of course, this site revolves around a highly competitive market. Ambition is its lifeblood... I think that if you want to be happy, that's not going to come from success or ambition or striving. They seem more or less orthogonal. An interesting question might be: What would you do if you were already happy and content? Think of it as like the question of what you would do if you already were financially independent. Call it emotional independence, maybe. Equanimity?
- shaydoc 13y ago
  very well said. I consider what you have said "awesome". I am agreement with this post. I think being comfortable with who you are is important. Recognising what you have already got and appreciating it is important. Ambition is something that people do when they are trying to find happiness and to be comfortable with who they are. I think it all comes down to one's approach to everything. Its good to have ambition, especially if its directed in the correct way. I would say on here, that an ambition to learn, create, inspire and make a difference is what most folks apsire to do...
- eli_gottlieb 13y ago
  And since when has awesomeness been mutually exclusive with decency, kindness, or even helpfulness? I think that if you want to be happy, that's not going to come from success or ambition or striving. They seem more or less orthogonal. Some of us require a certain level of striving to be happy. If we're not being awesome enough, we get depressed. An interesting question might be: What would you do if you were already happy and content? But short of a few things I cope with, I am happy and content.
oyvindeh 13y ago
I attended a talk given by a Buddhist monk named Ajahn Brahm about a year ago. He said that 70% is always good enough. The reasoning goes that if you strive for 100% (or 110%, like some brag about doing) you will very often disappoint yourself (as well as those around you). If you go for 50%, you won't be motivated enough. So 70% seems about right. (There is a Youtube video of him talking about this subject [1].) There is tendency today that everybody wants to accomplish so much. I know this from myself: Compared with many of my friends, I have accomplished quite a lot - but it doesn't satisfy me, I need more to be happy. I agree with the author that we should focus more on just being. Because, if you think of it, what happens when you have accomplished whatever you had aimed for? It feels great... for a little while. Then, life is back to normal. We often believe the fallacy that happiness is available somewhere in the future, not here and now, and once we get this or that - THEN we will be happy[2]. And so you risk rigging your life in order to always reach for the next mountain top you have in sight, thinking that it's the final one. An Australian nurse interviewed people on their death bed about their regrets in life[3]. The second biggest regret was that people had worked too hard. Think about the real motives for what you do: If you do something to prove yourself for others (e.g. fame and glory), you're fooling yourself. First of all because it will most likely not make you happy, second because you will be forgotten anyway (especially today when everybody claims their 15 minutes of fame). If you strive for something because you think it will make you more happy, you are fooling yourself to believe that happiness is somewhere in the future and not available now. On the other hand, if the road is the goal, you are more likely rigging your life for lasting happiness. In the end, what is the use of accomplishing things if you are, and continue to be, unhappy? [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6k6DMp1TxQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6k6DMp1TxQ [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixRISCK7pmE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixRISCK7pmE [3] http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2012/feb/01/top-five-regrets-of-the-dying http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2012/feb/01/top-five-...
- reddit_clone 13y ago
  I am curious. What was the biggest regret of the dying patients?
  - 13y ago
martinkallstrom 13y ago
What is (or should be) the real driver here is the difference between striving for success and striving for creating value. If you strive for success it always feels as if there's a long way there, no matter how far you get. You can rarely see the best way forward because it's mostly depending on chance. But if you strive for creating value you can start in an instant, by just being helpful to someone or (in the case of being a tech entrepreneur) building a small web service that you know that a handful of people find valuable. With time, striving for creating value will take you on a straighter path to success than if you were aiming for success all along the way.
Tichy 13y ago
I think one problem is that we tend to think about this in terms of willpower. To be awesome, all we have to do is really want it and work really hard, right? I suspect in reality it is much more about habits. Example: write a book by writing 2 hours every day, no matter what. Finish what you start? (Not sure if that is actually a good idea) If you have started one company, starting other companies will probably come much more natural to you. Or Aaron Swartz's "always say yes to everything". Little things like that. Of course you still need to find the right habits. I'm currently reading "The Luck Factor" and it also comes down to making a habit out of meeting more people and making new experiences - it's all a numbers game.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
Jdfmiller 13y ago
My dad once said to me: "There will always be someone better than you". It really pissed me off for ages, because I was like, what's the point then? What's the point if I can't be the best at something? But then I realised that if someone's always going to be the best and beat you, you don't have to strive in life to be the best at something. It kills the ego for me, which is a big battle for a lot of us. Being good at it and enjoying the journey is enough. I try to be excellent at what I do, but It doesn't matter if I'm not the best. Even if I am, It's unlikely I always will be and that's fine. For most of us that are average, it's unlikely we're going to be the next "Big thing". But who cares. On a side note, this article seemed kind of nothingy, I don't think I learnt anything new from it so i'm wondering why it's so high on HN?
gbog 13y ago
Just trying to get the nasty nitpick comment right: Quoting Lao Tzu from quote sites is to be avoided, except in ironic context. Lao Tzu (Lao Zi) is the supposed authors of a very small Chinese classic called Daodejing. It has 81 poems, and I wasn't able to find anyone that would be close enought to this "be yourself" quote. "Be yourself" is not even a concept that can be found in this book, because in fact "be", and "self" are not Taoist concepts. What related teaching could be found in this book, you'll say? In fact, it could be more something like "kill your desires", "hide your intelligence", "return to the origin", and many paradox like "the dumbest is the most clever", "the weakest is the strongest", "be not having any will everything happens according to your wishes". So maybe I can invent a Laotzu quote more relevant to the article: "try to be awesome and everyone is bored, try not to be awesome and everyone will wow in awe"
jotm 13y ago
There's a simple solution to this: stop comparing yourself to others and always strive to be better than yesterday you. This way, you can improve every day (week/month/year) and become all that you can be without the stress of knowing that you'll never be the next Bill Gates or Zuckerberg or Musk.
egypturnash 13y ago
It's never too late to be awesome. You just have to stop caring if YOU'RE awesome, and do more things you think would be pretty awesome. When I turned 41, I started taking burlesque dance classes. I got a lot fitter and learnt a ton about how to carry myself confidently. I didn't have either of those things in mind when I started, or when I kept going to class. I was just getting out of the house and enjoying myself.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
lcedp 13y ago
No, it's not too late. Fox example take Paul Stone, who started to workout after age of 60 [1] Or Leslie Nielsen who's known for being a comedian started to act in comedies at the age of ~54. [1] https://pp.vk.me/c418616/v418616330/5e45/LAj3RgtCnIU.jpg https://pp.vk.me/c418616/v418616330/5e45/LAj3RgtCnIU.jpg
michaelochurch 13y ago
I came to a blistering realization about this: excellence wants to do, mediocrity wants to be. It's pretty evident. People who are doing excellent things are too busy in the action (flow) to obsess over others' perceptions, while mediocre people (most) have to manage their own social acceptability and success within an established permission system. You can really only have one or the other. You can deep-dive and go for excellence, or you can stay at the surface and be constantly attuned to others' perceptions of you, your work, and your position in society... but you can't be in two places at once. http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2012/12/26/careerism-breeds-mediocrity/ http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2012/12/26/careerism-bre... From that essay: Mediocrity wants to “be smart” and for everyone to know it. Excellence wants to do smart things. Mediocrity wants to be well-liked. Excellence wants to create things worth liking. Mediocrity wants to be one of the great writers. Excellence wants to write great works. Right. But as Kefka said, "You sound like chapters from a self-help booklet!" Everyone can get behind these ideas-- it's a nice pep talk-- but you're actually going to end up in opposition to society if you try to live that way. It's hard. People in power will try to beat the crap out of you. If you really insist on doing great things, you should expect to pay for it. Trying to do great things at work injects a lot of job-loss risk that most people can't stand; trying to do great things outside of work requires discipline that most people don't have. It's never "too late". We don't understand the brain, with regard to aging, very well and have no idea when a healthy person's creativity or cognitive power peaks-- it's somewhere between 15 and 70, but highly individualized-- which is another way of saying that there isn't a meaningful enough difference for us to know. (It's like a world in which unfair coins turn up heads 50.000001% of the time; it will take an ungodly amount of time to determine whether a coin is fair or unfair, but it just doesn't matter.) "Too late" is not what one should be worried about. Peoples' perceptions of us change dramatically as we get older. When you're 40, you can no longer exploit the chickenhawking of a corporate middle-manager who did his 20s wrong and wants to live vicariously through someone more sociable and attractive than him, which makes becoming his protege impossible... but, by the time you're 40, you really shouldn't want that. How we're perceived changes dramatically from 20 to 25 to 30 to 40. What we can do (in terms of creativity, courage, integrated understanding) seems to be increasing monotonically until very close to the end of life. Really, though, "being awesome" is the wrong goal. The discussion should be around "doing awesome".
dsego 13y ago
My biggest problem was always comparing myself not to one man, but a great number of people. Unhappy, because I wasn't as cool as one guy, smart as this other guy, didn't have expensive stuff like this third guy. Then I realised that none of them have it all, and if I compare myself to only one of them, I would never trade my life for theirs.
shanellem 13y ago
This reminds me of the saying: "Never compare your beginning to someone else's middle." It's never too late to start, so it's never too late to be awesome.
bane 13y ago
It depends on if you define awesome as how others see you or how you see yourself.
areeved 13y ago
Here's the thing about many 'successful' people: You see Kevin Rose's list of accomplishments and it seems overwhelming and insurmountable by a regular pleb such as yourself. But Kevin Rose is just a regular pleb – and he certainly wasn't any different than you or I before he got "famous". You know what happened? He had one break-out success, and was then able to leverage that into a wide variety of other opportunities. So focus on creating that one break-out success for yourself, the rest will come in due course.
mistermann 13y ago
Some technology blog posts are starting to become largely indistinguishable in content from Cosmo magazine. Oh, you feel inferior to you peers, etc. So what? Do something about it, or shut up. Because you read Hacker News and a variety of other tech blogs you're predestined to be great? What is the difference between you and the teenager that reads Cosmo and wants to be beautiful and famous? Why are you even pursuing fame, or if that's not it, what are you pursuing? Why are you taking time out of your day to write blogs, don't you have something more important to do?

143 points by dennybritz 13y ago

As a university student I'm surrounded by brilliant people, a lot of whom excel in academics. This has always been really frustrating for me. I think the takeaway message I've learned from school, and in life, is that there will always be someone who is better than you at something. I'm always envious of my peers who are better at (X), and I forget that if I reflect on my own skills, I'll find (Y) that I can do better. You'll likely never find someone who is better than you at EVERYTHING. Everyone has strengths and weaknesses. I think there's a certain beauty in that, because by working together, we get the benefit of being good at X and Y. This is why cofounders who have complementing skill sets are so successful. Find something you like, and just do it. Connect with people that do things you don't like to do or are not as good at. The rest will fall in place. “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” - Albert Einstein

Sven7 13y ago
Well said. All I'll add is, thanks to the internet, there is much more comparing going on. An unhealthy amount imho. This is a great motivator for some people. For others not so much. One needs to figure out where one falls in the spectrum and moderate time spent looking at what the rest of the world is up to accordingly.
- VandyILL 13y ago
  I try not to think of it as a motivator or something to make me feel minuscule. I think it's real strength is to remind you that things are possible. You may not have to live up to the other people's heights, but it reminds you that other people have climbed mountains the world didn't even know exists. Reminds you not to keep your own mountains sitting in the back of your mind, even if they're just molehills.
  - Sven7 13y ago
    You don't have to think of it as a motivator or something that makes you feel minuscule. Given the time people are spending on the internet these days, exposed to things no other generation was, much of this happens subconsciously.
    - VandyILL 13y ago
      I agree on both points.
- hoprocker 13y ago
  > Well said. All I'll add is, thanks to the internet, there is much more comparing going on. An unhealthy amount imho. Amen to that. I usually feel more fulfilled when I restrict my online "achiever" voyeurism -- just enough to be inspired, but not so much that I feel a hopeless mortal among titans.
sporkologist 13y ago
I found a niche at the intersection of art, music, engineering, and manufacturing. I basically said to myself in 2005, "What am I better at than anyone else?" and proceeded to build my niche into a viable business. At this one thing, I'm confident (not because of my own evaluation, but the judgment of my target market) that I've found something I'm very good at that's worth pursuing. Yes this is very general advice, but it worked for me.... hope it sheds some light.

calhoun137 13y ago

If you really want to feel inadequate, check this out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_von_Neumann http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_von_Neumann

michaelrbock 13y ago
Or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk

VandyILL 13y ago

I think he already answered his own question in another post. Declares he's already awesome because he lives in NY & has an Amex. https://medium.com/better-humans/fb2e4d6aea5f https://medium.com/better-humans/fb2e4d6aea5f

andrewcooke 13y ago
she
- VandyILL 13y ago
  Welp, I'm a doofus.
thufry 13y ago
That sentence is more an acknowledgment of a privileged life.
- VandyILL 13y ago
  I'm a middle class kid that managed to go to under grad & grad school on scholarships. I've lived an extremely privileged life. My opinions are formed by the life I have lived as it is the only life I will ever experience. I guess my interpretation of awesome is more in line with inspiring awe. Depending on her background, her situation could very well inspire awe and be something she never thought possible. From my experiences, her examples of "awesome" in other posts are what I would consider "Sweet" even though she has several things I wish I had. If you measured everything in the world on a scale of awesomeness, rather than believing something has to hit a threshold of actually inspiring awe, then her life would be well above mine. For more common forms of awesome, things like watching my younger brother with autism be able to take my dog for a walk is pretty awesome given everything else I have gone through with him. Living in the suburbs though, getting a piece of plastic that extends credit to me is not awe inspiring.
  - thufry 13y ago
    So you're saying that you use the word "sweet" the way she uses "awesome." And let's not go down the road of saying that "awesome" has to be used as if it was "awe some," as people clearly don't use it that way.

Falling3 13y ago

I feel like we see these kinds of posts fairly frequently. And I'm glad. I knew everything that the author said yesterday. I probably knew it 10 or even 15 years ago. But it's really difficult to keep these ideas at the forefront of your mind. Being reminded of it often is the only way I've found so far.

zoba 13y ago

I've been wondering about this line of thinking lately, and I'm confused if its actually productive. For example: I need to lose about 15 pounds. If I just accepted myself as me, I'd never really work towards the better picture of myself, 15 pounds lighter. Doesn't this apply when trying to better yourself in other ways? If I'm not imagining a future where I'm better than I am right now, how will I ever get to it? What easier way to imagine how one could be better than to look at what other people have, and hope to have it myself. I feel like, eventually, people just end up settling and stop fighting to better themselves. I think the older someone is, the more likely the are to have settled. I hope for myself, that I keep fighting.

sporkologist 13y ago
> If I just accepted myself as me Mistake #1. You have to visualize yourself as temporarily overweight, then go about exercising/changing your diet (you know, more fiber, less carb's) to reach that new set-point. Measure your caloric intake, and your weight every day. If your intake is less than your standard metabolic activity, you'll lose weight. It's that simple. > I feel like, eventually, people just end up settling and stop fighting to better themselves. Don't do that! Yes the majority of people do that, but that doesn't mean you have to as well. I have too many old healthy people in my family to fall into that trap.
- eterm 13y ago
  Weighing every day is terrible advice for those trying to lose weight. Weigh yourself at most once a week else the short term fluctuations (hint, drinking a pint of water is half a kilo) will distract you over the long term goal of getting to a healthier base weight.
  - egypturnash 13y ago
    I find that weighing daily helps me notice changes in the weight trend fairly quickly. I've also calibrated my sense of what the normal fluctuations are by graphing my weight and taking moving averages for a while, though. So I can look at the scale reading four pounds above yesterday morning and say "hmm, maybe I shouldn't have eaten that whole pizza by myself". Faster feedback loops are better for training. You just have to spend a little time installing a filter sometimes.

wavefunction 13y ago

Do awesome, don't be awesome.

sporkologist 13y ago
Subversively inspirational.
cylinder714 13y ago
"Don't dream it, be it."
wavefunction 13y ago
Wow, voted down for this. Fucking losers.

sporkologist 13y ago

My father in law is 80, he lifts weights every day, and can quote Shakespeare to you all day long. I hope to be half that awesome at that age.

chatmasta 13y ago

The people who accomplish the most are never satisfied with how much they have accomplished. Series of accomplishments require continuous accomplishing, which requires motivation. These high-achievers continue to accomplish so much because they constantly motivate themselves with thoughts of inadequacy. I assume most people only follow others who they see as more accomplished than themselves in some way. By definition you must follow someone in order to compare yourself to them. Thus, you must only compare yourself to people more accomplished than you. By doing do, you promote in yourself the same feelings of inadequacy that drive thr most acccomplished people. tl;dr Compare your accomplishments to greater accomplishments by other people. Feelings of inadequacy will motivate you to accomplish more.

skadamat 13y ago
If you look at some of the most successful people, most of them are driven by other motivators besides success. Many are driven to make a difference in the world (Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, etc), others were super super curious (Richard Feynmann, Neil Degrasse Tyson, Warren Buffett) and pursued / stuck with their passions, and others were at the right place at the right time (and of course people are often some combo of all 3). The thing is, very few people just are addicted to success for the SAKE of success, and some of those people have an unhealthy addiction for money. Success is what you make of it. There are many people in the energy sector driven to eradicate global warming and get off our fossil fuel addiction. Many of them will be never known to the world / famous in any way, but they are always looking to make more and more of an impact daily and be successful over time (even if many of them won't ever be rich or famous).
- oyvindeh 13y ago
  I think many people are seeking success for success' sake - at least it's a significant part of why they do what they do. The fact that they want to make a difference in the world may be true, but I think it's often a mix, and that people fool themselves to believe that their need to feed their ego is smaller than it actually is. The risk from this, is that although people are fighting for a good cause, their ego may interfere in bad ways in certain situations, leading to decisions and actions which hurts the good cause in short or long term (for example by pushing away other people who may do a better job than themselves). (This, of course, doesn't go for everybody.) Edit: Note that becoming rich and famous isn't the only way to feed your ego.

thewarrior 13y ago

Meet Jon Von Neumann : Von Neumann's ability to instantaneously perform complex operations in his head stunned other mathematicians. Eugene Wigner wrote that, seeing von Neumann's mind at work, "one had the impression of a perfect instrument whose gears were machined to mesh accurately to a thousandth of an inch." Paul Halmos states that "von Neumann's speed was awe-inspiring." Israel Halperin said: "Keeping up with him was... impossible. The feeling was you were on a tricycle chasing a racing car." Edward Teller wrote that von Neumann effortlessly outdid anybody he ever met, and said "I never could keep up with him". Lothar Wolfgang Nordheim described von Neumann as the "fastest mind I ever met", and Jacob Bronowski wrote "He was the cleverest man I ever knew, without exception.He was a genius." George Pólya, whose lectures at ETH Zurich von Neumann attended as a student, said "Johnny was the only student I was ever afraid of. If in the course of a lecture I stated an unsolved problem, the chances were he'd come to me at the end of the lecture with the complete solution scribbled on a slip of paper." Halmos recounts a story told by Nicholas Metropolis, concerning the speed of von Neumann's calculations, when somebody asked von Neumann to solve the famous fly puzzle: Two bicyclists start twenty miles apart and head toward each other, each going at a steady rate of 10 mph. At the same time a fly that travels at a steady 15 mph starts from the front wheel of the southbound bicycle and flies to the front wheel of the northbound one, then turns around and flies to the front wheel of the southbound one again, and continues in this manner till he is crushed between the two front wheels. Question: what total distance did the fly cover? The slow way to find the answer is to calculate what distance the fly covers on the first, northbound, leg of the trip, then on the second, southbound, leg, then on the third, etc., etc., and, finally, to sum the infinite series so obtained. The quick way is to observe that the bicycles meet exactly one hour after their start, so that the fly had just an hour for his travels; the answer must therefore be 15 miles. When the question was put to von Neumann, he solved it in an instant, and thereby disappointed the questioner: "Oh, you must have heard the trick before!" "What trick?" asked von Neumann, "All I did was sum the infinite series." Von Neumann had a very strong eidetic memory, commonly called 'photographic' memory.Herman Goldstine writes: "One of his remarkable abilities was his power of absolute recall. As far as I could tell, von Neumann was able on once reading a book or article to quote it back verbatim; moreover, he could do it years later without hesitation. He could also translate it at no diminution in speed from its original language into English. On one occasion I tested his ability by asking him to tell me how The Tale of Two Cities started. Whereupon, without any pause, he immediately began to recite the first chapter and continued until asked to stop after about ten or fifteen minutes." It has been said that von Neumann's intellect was absolutely unmatched. “I always thought Von Neumann’s brain indicated that he was from another species, an evolution beyond man,” said Nobel Laureate Hans A. Bethe of Cornell University. "It seems fair to say that if the influence of a scientist is interpreted broadly enough to include impact on fields beyond science proper, then John von Neumann was probably the most influential mathematician who ever lived," wrote Miklos Redai in "Selected Letters." Glimm writes "he is regarded as one of the giants of modern mathematics".The mathematician Jean Dieudonné called von Neumann "the last of the great mathematicians", while Peter Lax described him as possessing the "most scintillating intellect of this century", and Hans Bethe stated "I have sometimes wondered whether a brain like von Neumann's does not indicate a species superior to that of man".

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

atsaloli 13y ago

"If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desiderata http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desiderata

jhonovich 13y ago

So Von Nuemann and Kevin Rose are on the same level?

neona 13y ago

As someone who's been struggling to find my way in life the last couple years (i'm 22, not in college, and working a low-skill job to make ends meet), I constantly run into this problem. Indeed, reading HN makes me feel pretty horrible a lot of the time, reminding me of all the cool things people are doing, and that I might be able to do such things if I could only get off my ass. That I've been unable to focus adequately to get any practically useful coding, let alone reading, done in the last couple years has brought me significant distress, and seeing so many brilliant people on HN only makes me feel like i'm falling behind. It's so easy to feel trapped by this, only entrenching yourself in inaction as you compare yourself to every person you feel is smarter or more successful than yourself.

mbrock 13y ago

What's so terrible about not being "awesome?" How about just living a decent life? Being kind and helpful? There's a kind of virtue ethics at work around these parts, and the primary virtue is "awesomeness." A sociologist or ethicist could write a whole thesis about this community. It's not a universal idea. Some people have a primary virtue of "decency." Or even "humility." Taste those words for a moment... "Comparing is as much of a disease as perfection. When we learn to be ourselves, be patient, and how to be comfortable in our own skin, then – and only then – will we achieve true happiness." An ancient Zen poem says "For and against opposing each other -- this is the mind's disease." Of course, this site revolves around a highly competitive market. Ambition is its lifeblood... I think that if you want to be happy, that's not going to come from success or ambition or striving. They seem more or less orthogonal. An interesting question might be: What would you do if you were already happy and content? Think of it as like the question of what you would do if you already were financially independent. Call it emotional independence, maybe. Equanimity?

shaydoc 13y ago
very well said. I consider what you have said "awesome". I am agreement with this post. I think being comfortable with who you are is important. Recognising what you have already got and appreciating it is important. Ambition is something that people do when they are trying to find happiness and to be comfortable with who they are. I think it all comes down to one's approach to everything. Its good to have ambition, especially if its directed in the correct way. I would say on here, that an ambition to learn, create, inspire and make a difference is what most folks apsire to do...
eli_gottlieb 13y ago
And since when has awesomeness been mutually exclusive with decency, kindness, or even helpfulness? I think that if you want to be happy, that's not going to come from success or ambition or striving. They seem more or less orthogonal. Some of us require a certain level of striving to be happy. If we're not being awesome enough, we get depressed. An interesting question might be: What would you do if you were already happy and content? But short of a few things I cope with, I am happy and content.

oyvindeh 13y ago

I attended a talk given by a Buddhist monk named Ajahn Brahm about a year ago. He said that 70% is always good enough. The reasoning goes that if you strive for 100% (or 110%, like some brag about doing) you will very often disappoint yourself (as well as those around you). If you go for 50%, you won't be motivated enough. So 70% seems about right. (There is a Youtube video of him talking about this subject [1].) There is tendency today that everybody wants to accomplish so much. I know this from myself: Compared with many of my friends, I have accomplished quite a lot - but it doesn't satisfy me, I need more to be happy. I agree with the author that we should focus more on just being. Because, if you think of it, what happens when you have accomplished whatever you had aimed for? It feels great... for a little while. Then, life is back to normal. We often believe the fallacy that happiness is available somewhere in the future, not here and now, and once we get this or that - THEN we will be happy[2]. And so you risk rigging your life in order to always reach for the next mountain top you have in sight, thinking that it's the final one. An Australian nurse interviewed people on their death bed about their regrets in life[3]. The second biggest regret was that people had worked too hard. Think about the real motives for what you do: If you do something to prove yourself for others (e.g. fame and glory), you're fooling yourself. First of all because it will most likely not make you happy, second because you will be forgotten anyway (especially today when everybody claims their 15 minutes of fame). If you strive for something because you think it will make you more happy, you are fooling yourself to believe that happiness is somewhere in the future and not available now. On the other hand, if the road is the goal, you are more likely rigging your life for lasting happiness. In the end, what is the use of accomplishing things if you are, and continue to be, unhappy? [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6k6DMp1TxQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6k6DMp1TxQ [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixRISCK7pmE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixRISCK7pmE [3] http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2012/feb/01/top-five-regrets-of-the-dying http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2012/feb/01/top-five-...

reddit_clone 13y ago
I am curious. What was the biggest regret of the dying patients?
- 13y ago

martinkallstrom 13y ago

What is (or should be) the real driver here is the difference between striving for success and striving for creating value. If you strive for success it always feels as if there's a long way there, no matter how far you get. You can rarely see the best way forward because it's mostly depending on chance. But if you strive for creating value you can start in an instant, by just being helpful to someone or (in the case of being a tech entrepreneur) building a small web service that you know that a handful of people find valuable. With time, striving for creating value will take you on a straighter path to success than if you were aiming for success all along the way.

Tichy 13y ago

I think one problem is that we tend to think about this in terms of willpower. To be awesome, all we have to do is really want it and work really hard, right? I suspect in reality it is much more about habits. Example: write a book by writing 2 hours every day, no matter what. Finish what you start? (Not sure if that is actually a good idea) If you have started one company, starting other companies will probably come much more natural to you. Or Aaron Swartz's "always say yes to everything". Little things like that. Of course you still need to find the right habits. I'm currently reading "The Luck Factor" and it also comes down to making a habit out of meeting more people and making new experiences - it's all a numbers game.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

Jdfmiller 13y ago

My dad once said to me: "There will always be someone better than you". It really pissed me off for ages, because I was like, what's the point then? What's the point if I can't be the best at something? But then I realised that if someone's always going to be the best and beat you, you don't have to strive in life to be the best at something. It kills the ego for me, which is a big battle for a lot of us. Being good at it and enjoying the journey is enough. I try to be excellent at what I do, but It doesn't matter if I'm not the best. Even if I am, It's unlikely I always will be and that's fine. For most of us that are average, it's unlikely we're going to be the next "Big thing". But who cares. On a side note, this article seemed kind of nothingy, I don't think I learnt anything new from it so i'm wondering why it's so high on HN?

gbog 13y ago

Just trying to get the nasty nitpick comment right: Quoting Lao Tzu from quote sites is to be avoided, except in ironic context. Lao Tzu (Lao Zi) is the supposed authors of a very small Chinese classic called Daodejing. It has 81 poems, and I wasn't able to find anyone that would be close enought to this "be yourself" quote. "Be yourself" is not even a concept that can be found in this book, because in fact "be", and "self" are not Taoist concepts. What related teaching could be found in this book, you'll say? In fact, it could be more something like "kill your desires", "hide your intelligence", "return to the origin", and many paradox like "the dumbest is the most clever", "the weakest is the strongest", "be not having any will everything happens according to your wishes". So maybe I can invent a Laotzu quote more relevant to the article: "try to be awesome and everyone is bored, try not to be awesome and everyone will wow in awe"

jotm 13y ago

There's a simple solution to this: stop comparing yourself to others and always strive to be better than yesterday you. This way, you can improve every day (week/month/year) and become all that you can be without the stress of knowing that you'll never be the next Bill Gates or Zuckerberg or Musk.

egypturnash 13y ago

It's never too late to be awesome. You just have to stop caring if YOU'RE awesome, and do more things you think would be pretty awesome. When I turned 41, I started taking burlesque dance classes. I got a lot fitter and learnt a ton about how to carry myself confidently. I didn't have either of those things in mind when I started, or when I kept going to class. I was just getting out of the house and enjoying myself.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

lcedp 13y ago

No, it's not too late. Fox example take Paul Stone, who started to workout after age of 60 [1] Or Leslie Nielsen who's known for being a comedian started to act in comedies at the age of ~54. [1] https://pp.vk.me/c418616/v418616330/5e45/LAj3RgtCnIU.jpg https://pp.vk.me/c418616/v418616330/5e45/LAj3RgtCnIU.jpg

michaelochurch 13y ago

I came to a blistering realization about this: excellence wants to do, mediocrity wants to be. It's pretty evident. People who are doing excellent things are too busy in the action (flow) to obsess over others' perceptions, while mediocre people (most) have to manage their own social acceptability and success within an established permission system. You can really only have one or the other. You can deep-dive and go for excellence, or you can stay at the surface and be constantly attuned to others' perceptions of you, your work, and your position in society... but you can't be in two places at once. http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2012/12/26/careerism-breeds-mediocrity/ http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2012/12/26/careerism-bre... From that essay: Mediocrity wants to “be smart” and for everyone to know it. Excellence wants to do smart things. Mediocrity wants to be well-liked. Excellence wants to create things worth liking. Mediocrity wants to be one of the great writers. Excellence wants to write great works. Right. But as Kefka said, "You sound like chapters from a self-help booklet!" Everyone can get behind these ideas-- it's a nice pep talk-- but you're actually going to end up in opposition to society if you try to live that way. It's hard. People in power will try to beat the crap out of you. If you really insist on doing great things, you should expect to pay for it. Trying to do great things at work injects a lot of job-loss risk that most people can't stand; trying to do great things outside of work requires discipline that most people don't have. It's never "too late". We don't understand the brain, with regard to aging, very well and have no idea when a healthy person's creativity or cognitive power peaks-- it's somewhere between 15 and 70, but highly individualized-- which is another way of saying that there isn't a meaningful enough difference for us to know. (It's like a world in which unfair coins turn up heads 50.000001% of the time; it will take an ungodly amount of time to determine whether a coin is fair or unfair, but it just doesn't matter.) "Too late" is not what one should be worried about. Peoples' perceptions of us change dramatically as we get older. When you're 40, you can no longer exploit the chickenhawking of a corporate middle-manager who did his 20s wrong and wants to live vicariously through someone more sociable and attractive than him, which makes becoming his protege impossible... but, by the time you're 40, you really shouldn't want that. How we're perceived changes dramatically from 20 to 25 to 30 to 40. What we can do (in terms of creativity, courage, integrated understanding) seems to be increasing monotonically until very close to the end of life. Really, though, "being awesome" is the wrong goal. The discussion should be around "doing awesome".

dsego 13y ago

My biggest problem was always comparing myself not to one man, but a great number of people. Unhappy, because I wasn't as cool as one guy, smart as this other guy, didn't have expensive stuff like this third guy. Then I realised that none of them have it all, and if I compare myself to only one of them, I would never trade my life for theirs.

shanellem 13y ago

This reminds me of the saying: "Never compare your beginning to someone else's middle." It's never too late to start, so it's never too late to be awesome.

bane 13y ago

It depends on if you define awesome as how others see you or how you see yourself.

areeved 13y ago

Here's the thing about many 'successful' people: You see Kevin Rose's list of accomplishments and it seems overwhelming and insurmountable by a regular pleb such as yourself. But Kevin Rose is just a regular pleb – and he certainly wasn't any different than you or I before he got "famous". You know what happened? He had one break-out success, and was then able to leverage that into a wide variety of other opportunities. So focus on creating that one break-out success for yourself, the rest will come in due course.

mistermann 13y ago

Some technology blog posts are starting to become largely indistinguishable in content from Cosmo magazine. Oh, you feel inferior to you peers, etc. So what? Do something about it, or shut up. Because you read Hacker News and a variety of other tech blogs you're predestined to be great? What is the difference between you and the teenager that reads Cosmo and wants to be beautiful and famous? Why are you even pursuing fame, or if that's not it, what are you pursuing? Why are you taking time out of your day to write blogs, don't you have something more important to do?