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Unfortunately, there are aspects to our culture that conflate personal value with success; that is, your value as a human being is based on your success. So it
by steven777400 13y ago
Unfortunately, there are aspects to our culture that conflate personal value with success; that is, your value as a human being is based on your success. So it's easy to compare to the very visible milestones; Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg, etc. Or to compare to people we know personally; the successful start-up founder with a nice exit, the entrepreneur who got his lifestyle business off the ground and now pays the bills with it.
For me, it's easy to think "I am a failure" compared to these people, especially as the years pass and the number of successes I know increases, but I'm not "one of them". This is a severe error of conflating my external success with internal value.
I prefer to recall the old Taoist saying, "Work is done, then forgotten."
- tluyben2 13y agoPeople actually compare themselves to Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg? That sounds rather sad to me to be honest.
- foley 13y agoAim for the stars, land on the moon. It's not the comparison that's sad, letting it define your worth is. It's something I struggle with, almost 30 still struggling through my degree and working on minor projects. But personally when I look back a few years painfully grinding through life addicted to meth it makes today's small successes feel like a billion dollars.