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This couldn't come at a better / worse time for me. I finished college 3 years ago, and spent the last 3 years building a startup. It's an extremely stressful t

This couldn't come at a better / worse time for me. I finished college 3 years ago, and spent the last 3 years building a startup. It's an extremely stressful time at the moment, and we're in talks with our first "big fish" (> 1 million / year) clients. Basically, it either needs to work out in the next 6 months or the plug will be pulled. Lately, I've been feeling socially isolated big time. I've been neglecting a lot of friendships over the past few years, always feeling guilty when I'm not working, not being able to enjoy the more important things in life, always using the excuse that I have more important things to deal with my life right now. "When my company gets going, I'll start spending things on the finer things in life", I would say. I guess for me, part of it was a bit of a dream, a fantasy image I would hold on to: this dream will either become reality or fail in the next few months, and with this chance of failure coming closer and closer, I guess something snapped with me -- too much stress, and putting way too much pressure on myself. Failure is not an option, because otherwise I completely blew it with a huge part of my social life, and will have nothing left. I'm not sure why I'm sharing this, and it's not really a cohesive story, but I I guess I needed to vent with people who kind of can relate. I guess this is one of those phases in life I need to get through to realize what's more important in life. I have a problem.

Tawheed 17y ago
Dude, that's rough and I've been there; I think a lot of us have. Let me know if you want to talk or something.
zackattack 17y ago
If you fail, then you will have gained experience and honed your skills. Also... I wouldn't worry too much about "blowing it" with your social life. Ive lost countless friends to new relationships, but I take them back once they've stabilized (or broken up...). It's part of life. Your friends will understand.
jsankey 17y ago
> always feeling guilty when I'm not working This I can relate to as a big problem when you start working on your own company. It took me a long time to realise how counter-productive this is, and to free myself to start saying "yes" more often to invitations/ideas. Now if I have the opportunity to do something outside of normal business hours I just weight it on its merits, and not against what work I could do. If I happen to be free on the weekend I might do some work, but I have no such expectation of myself. For me this means I can sustain a lot higher productivity during the week, and overall.
prpon 17y ago
There is only one failure and that's not trying. You could tweak a million things to perfection and stress yourselves about it but, I doubt the outcome would be much different. Whether or not this works out for you, you will have learnt a great deal both personally and professionally. Good luck to you.
pyre 17y ago
> Failure is not an option, because otherwise I completely blew it with a huge part of my social life, and will have nothing left. That's the same logic that compulsive gamblers use. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_cost#Loss_aversion_and_the_sunk_cost_fallacy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_cost#Loss_aversion_and_the... No matter how many friends you may have lost, there's lots of people in this world. And the internet makes it easier than ever to find people to 'socialize' with (though not necessarily 'hanging out' in the physical sense) outside of your immediate area. There have been numerous times where I have basically cut all ties with everyone I knew (even family) because I felt I was in a bad position (failing classes, not 'making progress' towards 'success', etc). But I still have friends and family that I'm in contact with now that I've 'cut off' before. Unless you've really cut people off in the sense that you've pissed them off to the point that they no longer want to be friends with you, you may be surprised. Just reconnect with people, it's not as difficult as you might think. (I just suggest against reconnecting with old girlfriends/boyfriends unless you keep your expectations low though)
- _pius 17y ago
  No matter how many friends you may have lost, there's lots of people in this world. Yes, but friends and family are not fungible. You can't just replace them with new friends and family without consequence.
  - pyre 17y ago
    The point being that you shouldn't cut yourself off from the world and feel like your are alone just because you've screwed up some relationships. If you've screwed up some relationships beyond repair, then seek out new ones rather than isolating yourself and lamenting over what you've lost. That path only ends in depression or madness.
    - _pius 17y ago
      I don't disagree with one thing you've said here.
  - billswift 17y ago
sunir 17y ago
I don't want to presume I know what's going on in your life based on one comment, so I apologize if I'm wrong. It reads to me that you've overloaded 'success' at business with the concept of 'escape' from your life. You're in for a breakdown unless you can undo this thinking. Success at your startup won't give you friends or a social life. It won't help you escape from the stress. It'll do the opposite, unfortunately. Success puts even more pressure on you. If you land that $1M customer, you'll have to deliver $2M of value back to them. What you get out of success is more opportunity, more resources, more freedom. All of these you can use to enrich and expand your own life. If you don't have your own life going though, you'll have no outlet to enjoy your success. Then the stress will turn into a death spiral. Add yourself to your plans. Make a plan to enjoy your success. Do something to enrich your life like joining a club or taking lessons. If you land the big customer, reward yourself (not with things, with an improvement in your life). Advanced tip: If you don't land the customer, do something for yourself anyway. The company may fold, but you're still stuck with you for a while yet, so you might as well get along with yourself. :)
stingraycharles 17y ago
I would like to thank everyone for the kind replies and helpful advice -- they're much appreciated and perhaps unsurprisingly, very accurate. Most of it is exactly what I needed to hear. Escaping from other issues in my life is definitely something that has been going on: it's easy to fill a certain emptiness in your life with work. It's harder to actually realize that and do something about it. Right now it all comes down to changing perspective: take distance from work and realize it's far from everything. I might even enjoy it again if I do. And the Christmas season is probably a good time to call a few lost friends. Once again, thanks for all the kind replies. This hacker is just going through a rough time, but will definitely come out stronger. It just sucks when you're in the middle of it. :-)

Tawheed 17y ago

Dude, that's rough and I've been there; I think a lot of us have. Let me know if you want to talk or something.

zackattack 17y ago

If you fail, then you will have gained experience and honed your skills. Also... I wouldn't worry too much about "blowing it" with your social life. Ive lost countless friends to new relationships, but I take them back once they've stabilized (or broken up...). It's part of life. Your friends will understand.

jsankey 17y ago

> always feeling guilty when I'm not working This I can relate to as a big problem when you start working on your own company. It took me a long time to realise how counter-productive this is, and to free myself to start saying "yes" more often to invitations/ideas. Now if I have the opportunity to do something outside of normal business hours I just weight it on its merits, and not against what work I could do. If I happen to be free on the weekend I might do some work, but I have no such expectation of myself. For me this means I can sustain a lot higher productivity during the week, and overall.

prpon 17y ago

There is only one failure and that's not trying. You could tweak a million things to perfection and stress yourselves about it but, I doubt the outcome would be much different. Whether or not this works out for you, you will have learnt a great deal both personally and professionally. Good luck to you.

pyre 17y ago

> Failure is not an option, because otherwise I completely blew it with a huge part of my social life, and will have nothing left. That's the same logic that compulsive gamblers use. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_cost#Loss_aversion_and_the_sunk_cost_fallacy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_cost#Loss_aversion_and_the... No matter how many friends you may have lost, there's lots of people in this world. And the internet makes it easier than ever to find people to 'socialize' with (though not necessarily 'hanging out' in the physical sense) outside of your immediate area. There have been numerous times where I have basically cut all ties with everyone I knew (even family) because I felt I was in a bad position (failing classes, not 'making progress' towards 'success', etc). But I still have friends and family that I'm in contact with now that I've 'cut off' before. Unless you've really cut people off in the sense that you've pissed them off to the point that they no longer want to be friends with you, you may be surprised. Just reconnect with people, it's not as difficult as you might think. (I just suggest against reconnecting with old girlfriends/boyfriends unless you keep your expectations low though)

_pius 17y ago
No matter how many friends you may have lost, there's lots of people in this world. Yes, but friends and family are not fungible. You can't just replace them with new friends and family without consequence.
- pyre 17y ago
  The point being that you shouldn't cut yourself off from the world and feel like your are alone just because you've screwed up some relationships. If you've screwed up some relationships beyond repair, then seek out new ones rather than isolating yourself and lamenting over what you've lost. That path only ends in depression or madness.
  - _pius 17y ago
    I don't disagree with one thing you've said here.
- billswift 17y ago

sunir 17y ago

I don't want to presume I know what's going on in your life based on one comment, so I apologize if I'm wrong. It reads to me that you've overloaded 'success' at business with the concept of 'escape' from your life. You're in for a breakdown unless you can undo this thinking. Success at your startup won't give you friends or a social life. It won't help you escape from the stress. It'll do the opposite, unfortunately. Success puts even more pressure on you. If you land that $1M customer, you'll have to deliver $2M of value back to them. What you get out of success is more opportunity, more resources, more freedom. All of these you can use to enrich and expand your own life. If you don't have your own life going though, you'll have no outlet to enjoy your success. Then the stress will turn into a death spiral. Add yourself to your plans. Make a plan to enjoy your success. Do something to enrich your life like joining a club or taking lessons. If you land the big customer, reward yourself (not with things, with an improvement in your life). Advanced tip: If you don't land the customer, do something for yourself anyway. The company may fold, but you're still stuck with you for a while yet, so you might as well get along with yourself. :)

stingraycharles 17y ago

I would like to thank everyone for the kind replies and helpful advice -- they're much appreciated and perhaps unsurprisingly, very accurate. Most of it is exactly what I needed to hear. Escaping from other issues in my life is definitely something that has been going on: it's easy to fill a certain emptiness in your life with work. It's harder to actually realize that and do something about it. Right now it all comes down to changing perspective: take distance from work and realize it's far from everything. I might even enjoy it again if I do. And the Christmas season is probably a good time to call a few lost friends. Once again, thanks for all the kind replies. This hacker is just going through a rough time, but will definitely come out stronger. It just sucks when you're in the middle of it. :-)