
On Living Below Your Potential - thatusertwo
http://www.novelog.com/on-living-below-your-potential/
======
nostrademons
I remember feeling this way for much of my high school and college years. I
even told my Harvard interviewer that I really hated how everyone always
harped on my "potential", like there was some mythical standard I had to live
up to. I didn't get in.

When I graduated, I had some minor successes with my independent programming
projects. Revamped the software for FictionAlley.org. Wrote a fairly popular
Haskell tutorial. Ported Arc to JavaScript. All of these got me attention, but
they weren't really things that people _used_ , they were just idle diversions
for some niche communities.

It's only in the last couple years that my career took off. We revamped the
Google Search page in 2010 - the first successful major visual redesign of
websearch in 10 years. Identified authors for a few million pages on the web.
Made perhaps a billion people happy for a few moments with various doodles &
easter eggs. And helped out with the GFiber launch last week.

What made the difference, I think, was that I stopped caring so much about
living up to _my_ potential and started caring more about being a part of
important things. Basically all of those world-changing projects that you see
in the news are _team_ efforts, which many people contribute to. And we hunt
for the individuals behind them because we want to find heroes, but really,
there are no heroes. Only groups of people working their asses off to make
things happen.

Maybe the secret to reaching your potential is as Randy Pausch said in his
Last Lecture: realize that to accomplish anything worthwhile, you'll need help
from other people. And then focus on being the type of person that other
people want to help.

It also seems to be a lot more fun this way.

(As a side note, it strikes me how awkward the English language is when trying
to describe group efforts I've been a part of. I want to use "we" to describe
these efforts, because it's inaccurate to say " _I_ redesigned the Google
Search page" or " _I_ launched Google Fiber last week" - there were a whole
bunch of other people involved too. But at the same time, it's inaccurate to
say "we", because there was a different group of people involved for each of
those, and I'm really describing _my_ career arc through a variety of these
projects.)

~~~
slurgfest
What is really the difference between "living up to your potential" and "being
a part of important things"?

It seems to me that landing a nice job at Google, more or less directly out of
college, has probably contributed more to your feeling good about yourself
than the way you think about potential.

By the same token, the OP's useless feelings probably have more to do with
having little to show at the age of 30 and currently being unemployed than in
lacking some "secret".

If OP gets a nice job with Google then I am sure it will help to realize that
accomplishing things requires help from coworkers, but for an unemployed
person without connections it really means nothing to practice "being the type
of person that other people want to help."

You have done some things right and have also been fortunate, that doesn't
mean that people who don't have what you have just failed to be "the type of
person that other people want to help."

~~~
nostrademons
FWIW, Google is my 4th employer, and I've been employed there for a bit under
half my working life. I took a gap year before college and worked with a bunch
of my friends from high school on a dot-com, then I worked at a financial
software startup for 2 years after college (where I learned I hated the
financial industry), then I founded a startup for a year and a half with a
friend from college.

Also FWIW, the degree to which I enjoyed those employers correlated very
little with the amount of external success they had. I really liked working
with my friends on the dot-com, even though our funding got pulled after 3
months and our net new userbase (we started with an existing website) was
negative. I really liked working on FictionAlley, even though as a volunteer
project I never made any money off it and as a Harry Potter fansite it's not
like it resulted in much prestige. I really hated working on financial
software, even though it paid well and (to the outside world at least) seems
complicated and prestigious.

There are definite perks to working at Google. But in the grand scheme of
things, from the inside, getting paid well and having your work viewed by
billions of people are relatively minor ones. They're akin to the free food
and outrageous company outings: they make you feel good and remove some stress
from day-to-day life. The perk that makes the biggest difference in my life,
I've found, is working in a friendly, trusting culture with good people who
get shit done.

You can replicate that in a niche community much smaller and less influential
than Google. Hell, if it hadn't meant living with my parents, I would've been
happy to work on FictionAlley indefinitely.

~~~
oacgnol
Judging from what you said about your past individualistic and highly niche
projects, would you say that working at Google is a big reason why you moved
away from your lone wolf attitude?

If so, what advice would you have for a person who isn't working at the
Googles or Twitters of the world (read: bleeding-edge hip tech companies) but
at least has the same sort of mentality?

~~~
nostrademons
Google was the effect, it wasn't the cause.

Basically, the cause was my startup. It'd been my dream to found my own
company since I was about 15 years old, then the stars aligned when I was
about 25. I had a cofounder that was very into the idea, my previous skillset
was a good match, I had money in the bank to fund myself, and my parents were
supportive. So I went full-time & full-speed on it, thinking "This is it. I'm
going to make my dreams come true."

The honeymoon lasted for about 2-3 months, and then I realized I was miserable
- miserable enough to feel my sanity fraying, in fact. I was doing basically
nothing but coding, and it felt incredibly lonely & isolating. I thought that
was exactly what I _wanted_ to be doing, but...apparently not.

Google came around through an incredibly random series of chance meetings. I
decided my startup wasn't going anywhere in Jun 2008 (my cofounder had quit in
April to go to business school), when a YC startup contacted me looking for a
cofounder. They ended up offering me 25% of the company, and that was when I
knew I wasn't ready to be a cofounder - here was everything I'd dreamed of,
and I just couldn't do it. Applied to FriendFeed, but was rejected, then
figured maybe I shouldn't discount big companies - after all, virtually all of
FriendFeed's team cut their teeth at a big company (mostly Google). Talked
with a friend at EBay that summer just to get a sense what life at a big
company is like, it didn't seem too terrible. TipJoy contacted me about being
their employee #1 right around the time of Sequoia's "The sky is falling"
memo, which I actually entertained serious thoughts about (I liked the
founders), but I was like "I need to see what else is out there". Ended up
being referred to Google by a friend from the HP fandom, and started there in
no small part because they were the only ones hiring.

The irony is - I went to Google thinking that my dreams of having a big impact
on the world were completely on hold, but at least I'd have weekends again and
would probably learn a whole lot. But the more I relaxed and stopped worrying
about making a big impact, the bigger my impact actually became. There was a
time, shortly after the visual redesign, where I started reverting to my
previous lone wolf attitude and started a couple projects all at my own
initiation, where I was the sole/primary developer. Both were canceled, and
many of my other 20% projects never went anywhere. When I started asking
around about what else was going on at the Googleplex, I ended up as an early
engineer for Google's Authorship efforts (which at that point was nothing more
than a dream), and consulting for the visual redesign of 2011, and doing a few
of the homepage doodles. I never planned to be a part of the GFiber launch; I
had other plans going on at the time, but they needed an engineer, and it
seemed cool, so I just dropped my plans and volunteered to help out.

I'm still not all the way there yet - I still have occasional dreams of doing
something great and want to just work all night to force my vision through. I
suspect that if I could _actually_ banish them, and accept what I am as
completely enough even if I never accomplished another thing in my life, I'd
be ready to found my next startup.

So, if you don't work for Google or Twitter but want to be a part of cool
things, I'd start by keeping your eyes open for cool things. Ignore the tech
press; they're usually the last to know about anything cool, and they usually
go for the appearance of cool over actual coolness. Judge with your own eyes.
Look for offhand mentions on forums, and then follow-up and research anything
you see where you don't know what it is. (I found FictionAlley this way - a
bunch of people were dissatisfied with fanfiction.net closing their forums in
the summer of 2001, and said "We can do better", and a bunch of the writers I
followed started mentioning them in review threads. I found Lisp and Haskell
this way too, Lisp off Paul Graham's writings and Haskell because
comp.lang.lisp dismissed it as just another "weird language"). If you have a
pain point in your own life or your friends' lives, go search online to see if
anyone is working on solving it, and if they are but it's not quite there yet,
offer to help. Most people love offers to help on their projects.

------
j45
Looking back at myself just a decade ago: Talking to young(er) people about
life when they haven't lived is like trying to wake up someone who doesn't
know they're asleep.

The spectrum of life lived, experiences had, and lessons positively learnt
aren't wide, or often enough.

Without meaningful mentors, free of personal agendas, helping you push you
push yourself, self-development can slow down.

The thing is, innovation and creativity live in the mindset of possibility,
not doubt.

Building one skill trumps all others: discipline. First a healthy inner-
dialogue, and improving discipline every day in every way.

We easily become undisciplined, so we seek the discipline of others instead of
finding our own. Some march to someone else's orders, and follow the direction
of others. Everyone's doing this framework? Everyone's building this? What am
I missing out on? We feel left behind when our own feet aren't moving, let
alone away from time wasting, resultless things like entreporn.

It takes a lot of self-directed effort to get in, and stay in a mindset of
possibility, while not getting washed away in the self-doubt of others, or the
blindness of your own.

Becoming and staying self-directed and relentless is a challenge, focussed on
the right things even more, everything in life will want you to fit in if you
let it.

All I know is if I'm doing what everyone's doing and using what everyone's
using, I'll end up like everyone else.

~~~
jes5199
It's easy to wake people up without explaining to them that they're asleep!
Make a loud noise or throw water on them or just yank the covers off of the
bed. They'll wake up first, and learn that they were asleep afterwards. Does
it work differently for you?

~~~
j45
Haha. I'll drop you a line the next time I need a hand :P

------
johnyzee
According to the 'scientists' of the field, we are the entitlement generation,
raised by hippies who broke all the rules and taught us to do the same, for
the betterment of our own well-being, putting ourselves above the demands of
others.

Perhaps this is what the OP, and the rest of this generation, is feeling: A
constant nagging feeling that we are not getting everything we should be from
life and that we are succumbing to societal pressures, letting ourselves
become slaves to the Man for a measly paycheck every month?

A lot of studies have pointed to this phenomenon, f.ex. that students these
days expect nothing less than the perfect job where they will completely
realize themselves and be very comfortable financially at the same time.

I know that I have some of that feeling too, which is why I sit night and day
in front of this screen and keyboard hacking away at my escape plan from the
life of a corporate drone. I do sometimes wonder if I'd be happier and
healthier taking a reality check of my ambitions, and what will happen to me
if I fail and have to clip the ID badge back on and check in Monday morning at
BigCo.

~~~
manmal
We are also living in the longest period of peace ever (at least that's what
everybody says?), and our everyday consists of first-world-problems, which are
far more complex than the problems our ancestors had, and where success is
nearly impossible to measure. You want to feel unhappy or inferior? Just go to
HN and find somebody who talks of stuff you don't understand (like
cryptography). That was far more difficult to find 50 years ago - with our
skillset (I assume the average HN reader), we would have been heroes in our
local communities - teachers, engineers, perhaps inventors. There was so much
low-hanging fruit for people with brains.

We are not suppressed like our hippie parents, but suppressed by our own
expectations, which I consider far worse. We no longer play against 10-100
people in our field of expertise (locally), but against millions of people
(globally).

~~~
marvin
A lecturer once told us "it's no longer sufficient to be the best in town at
what you do...you have to be the best in the world". Maybe an exaggeration,
but it's got some truth to it. We don't have the existential problems that our
grandparents had, but the problems we do have are much more complex.

Remarkably, it was my grandfather that pointed this out to me. He'd seen both
world wars and was a really smart guy. But he'd never gotten any formal
education, and was very far removed from the constant struggle to get ahead
that most people today face.

------
ChuckMcM
This feeling, that you are meant for something important but you don't know
what it is, is the clearest signal you will ever get that you have yet to find
your passion.

It gets harder to investigate your passions as you get older because you have
more responsibilities to others, but the best thing to do when you don't know
where your passion lies is to try as many different things as you can.
Generally you can volunteer for things to get access to activities for which
you want to go in with an attitude of if this isn't it then I'm going to do
something different. You can volunteer through the various sciences, animal
shelters, data gathering, politics, medical help, public service, television
and radio, community service, environmental concerns, fishing, arts, etc. The
nice thing about volunteering is that you can do your best and its always good
enough because hey, its free for them right?

And while you're on this journey of self discovery you have to be _aware_
which is to say you have to ask yourself at the end of the day, "How do I feel
about the work I did today? Was it good? Was it great? Was it _meaningful_?"
Listen to the inner you, shut out the voices of the world telling you what you
_should_ be doing, and find your center.

When you find it, build your life around it, make it your own. There won't be
any more 'mediocre jobs' there will only be "This lets me work on this
amazingly cool and important thing."

~~~
thatusertwo
You are right about the passion, I've always had trouble finding my passion.
Interestingly or not so, the most persistent passion has been writing, so that
has been something I've been trying to work more on.

Thanks for your feed back.

------
noonespecial
Its probably an unpopular sentiment here, but I found my "potential" to be
exhausting. My guidance counselor would be appalled; I choose to live
somewhere between 1/2 and 3/4. I could be more, someday I might find a cause
that makes me want to be, but for now, I'm just happy taking it a little easy
and hanging out with my friends and family.

------
readme
"Potential" is a myth.

Our "potential" is determined by our genetics and environment. I believe each
human does his "best" and by that I mean, does what he thinks he needs to do
to get the things he wants, based on his own priorities. For some people, this
is sitting at home and playing games all day. For some it's writing an
operating system. For some it's going to the moon.

Essentially I believe that any of us, at any given point in our lives: could
not have done any better than we did. I believe we will always do what we want
to do, and that's that. That will, that desire to do something by the way,
it's just an illusion. It's an abstraction built upon the deterministic
movement of physical phenomena.

I was told by about a million teachers in high school "oh you have such great
potential, if only you applied yourself"

It took me until my mid twenties to realize that I _was_ applying myself. I
have a limited capacity for _application_.

Even if you aren't ultimately limited by your cleverness, your limitations in
capacity for execution can thwart your career.

Thus I'm 25, no degree, hack for fun, contract work here and there, and
otherwise I could care less. I can execute uninteresting work, but I have a
limited tolerance for it. Perhaps its more of a blessing than I think though,
because it's really cemented in my mind that I must make and sell my own
products.

I want a degree. Maybe I'll get one someday.

~~~
thatusertwo
There is some truth to that, but I know of times when I could be doing more
then I was doing. Its easy to do nothing one day, when doing 2 hours of work
would have made the day feel at least a little more productive and thus more
towards ones potential.

~~~
readme
That's where the confusion comes in. You _think_ you could have done more. The
reality is, you couldn't have. The neurons in your brain would have fired the
same way no matter what. Each of them took a predictable path based on prior
causes and effects, regardless of how complex and humanly incalculable it was,
I am convinced it was a deterministic one.

------
kgtm
The last couple of years I have found myself intensely making the same
thoughts, constantly measuring life by some invisible standard that is
grounded on a hazy idea of what my potential is. And coming up short. Recently
I've been looking around me more. I notice that not everyone has the same
stringent criteria of what constitutes success or fulfillment of one's life
purpose. They seem happier too.

The author states: _"I wanted to be doing something greater, something more,
that childhood emotional memory was back again, begging for more"_. I am all
for aiming for the sky, putting in the hard work, getting out of the rat race,
raising capital, becoming a billionaire, whatever. But then I step back and
see the bigger picture; I try to suppress that emotional memory, try to stop
being depressed because I am not swinging for the fences as I should (?) be
doing. I stop comparing myself to the top 1% that frequents HN.

Then I become happy and content. Because I am alive and healthy. Because I
don't have to slave away to secure my food. But this only lasts for a tiny bit
and I again swiftly swim in my self-perceived ocean of mediocrity.

Help?

~~~
thetabyte
I know that this may just sound like telling you what you've always heard
("Just be happy!") but I'm going to quote my graduation speech, because in it
I tried as hard as I could to express a lesson I learned about happiness.

"As I’ve said before, we’ve learned many lessons during our time here, but if
there is one I could share with you, it would be the difference between greed
and happiness. It is alright to make your own happiness a priority in your
life—actually, it’s quite healthy. It’s not greedy to try to make yourself
happy. You just have to properly understand the difference. Greed is the
acquisition of enjoyment by taking what you do not have. What most people
forget, is that when you get whatever it is, you’ll only want more. Greed only
begets greed. Happiness is enjoying what you have. Happiness is learning to be
content with that which is good about your life. There will always be
something you don’t have. There will always be something you could have done
better. There will always be things you fail at. Being happy is remembering
that despite this, there is still plenty to enjoy in your life. If there’s
anything I can ask you to do with your short time on this Earth, it’s to be
happy."

Further, from a piece of writing I did:

"I have seen many people who fail to prioritize their own happiness. I work
very closely with someone who does so. They work tirelessly doing something
they love, and they are quite good at it. They help countless people, and they
do a fantastic job achieving everything they want. But they are miserable. In
everything they do, they only see failure. They see what they have not done,
and what they did not achieve, and they see the same in the actions of others.
Despite their successes, which they readily recognize, they fixate upon that
which they did not do. And so, no matter how much they achieve, nor how
successful they are, they will always have a reason to be miserable. It’s
horrifying. I cannot imagine living my life in this manner. It would be a life
without purpose."

And so, try to remember, there will always be more. There will _always_ be
something you didn't do, or could have done. But focus on what you did do. How
you have succeed. Accept it, and enjoy it. There is no greater standard to
live up to. Love what you've done, and be happy :)

~~~
swecker
Until now I don't think I have ever thought of the idea that greed could be
applied to anything non-materialistic.

I fall into the same category as the OP and many others who replied here: I'm
in my mid twenties, have all my needs covered, yet feel as if I've been
missing out on some greater destiny that has been set for me.

My life is good, I have accomplished many things and I can and should be happy
about them, but I find myself being "greedy" for more. I find myself looking
for happiness in things (experiences and accomplishments in this case) that I
don't actually possess rather than just enjoying the things that I do have.

Thank you for the insight.

~~~
thetabyte
I'm glad I could help somewhat. Believe it or not, that's my high school
graduation speech, that I delivered a month of two ago. A lot of that lesson
was actually driven by the college acceptance process, as well as witnessing a
parent do to themselves what I mentioned in the second portion.

------
twinge
I highly recommend "The Underachiever's Manifesto: The Guide to Accomplishing
Little and Feeling Great": [http://www.amazon.com/The-Underachievers-
Manifesto-Accomplis...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Underachievers-Manifesto-
Accomplishing-Feeling/dp/0811853683)

Face it, if we're reading HN on a Saturday, probably thinking about work,
we're probably saddled with the nagging feeling that we're not achieving
enough. But achievement can become a dangerous addiction that makes us
unhappy.

There are common themes in the book that come up in software engineering as
well, like "perfect is the enemy of the good" and "the law of diminishing
returns applies everywhere". It's a rational way to think about living.

~~~
thatusertwo
There is probably something a little wrong with all of us being on HN on a
Saturday... although I see it as entertainment more then business.. its what I
do to waste time for the most part.

------
knieveltech
"Man, I see in fight club the strongest and smartest men who've ever lived. I
see all this potential, and I see squandering. God damn it, an entire
generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Advertising
has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we
don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We
have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war... our
Great Depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe
that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we
won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off. "
- Tyler Durden

~~~
Apocryphon
What, two wars abroad and a great recession not enough? Fight Club was written
in a pre-9/11 world.

~~~
dmoo
I don't live in the US so was tempted to be snarky about abroad being a big
place etc. but I think it's better to put a more constructive reply with some
context. On a visit to Kilmainham Jail I had a chance to read some of the
letters written by the young men who were about to be shot by the British for
their part in the rebellion. The thing that struck me, apart from their
bravery was the fact that they had a genuine cause to believe in.

And that I suppose is my point, if you don't have some Nobel cause then what
drives you on? If the world doesn't provide some ready made cause then your
motivation has to be intrinsic, the only problem is that depending on what
your goals are (money, fame, being a better dad etc.) you can end up feeling a
little grubby about your choices especially if you don't succeed.

------
hnal943
It's rare to see such shameless, unfiltered whining. How passive!

 _Ever since I was a young child I have always felt that there was something
great I was meant to do, something beyond what I was doing at any present
moment._

It's something you were meant to _do_ , not something meant to happen to you.

~~~
slurgfest
Maybe this article shouldn't have been on HN, for multiple reasons.

But it's also pretty terrible that anyone expressing the slightest bit of
self-doubt or unhappiness is publicly torn to ribbons, or at best mightily
condescended to. So normatively, people must talk nothing but fake, egoistic
nonsense like "crushing it" no matter where their head is really at. And
severe cases of Dunning-Kruger take over the world just by acting dominant and
lying about themselves, while people with knowledge and potential are left to
rot just because they are shit at marketing. (Marketing is important, but it
is not the only important thing)

You are right, getting what you want requires work. But please recognize that
reality is not fair and is often unpredictable. So people who don't have what
they want aren't just inferior people who didn't work. They are someplace you
could have been with nothing but different rolls of the dice.

Even though it is whining, it is not at all unusual or impossible to
understand. A little bit of compassion wouldn't kill us.

~~~
_pius
I agree with most of what you said, but I think it's worth pointing out that
there are ways to muse about one's human failings, disappointments, and
struggles without striking people as obnoxious or whiny.

Dave McClure's "late bloomer, not a loser (I hope)" is a great recent example.
<http://500hats.com/late-bloomer/>

~~~
nostrademons
It's also not the end of the world if you strike people as obnoxious or whiny.
Come on, it's the Internet, it's not like you'll ever meet most of the folks
there. They can think whatever they want of you.

~~~
_pius
That's also true.

------
gpcz
Derek Sivers is one of my philosophical role models, as he writes on life from
the perspective of someone who already did something "great" (starting a
successful business and gaining financial independence). Ironically, one of
his most repeated messages is to assume being below average and excite
yourself by being over your head. For example, <http://sivers.org/beginner> ,
<http://sivers.org/below-average> , and <http://sivers.org/scares-excites-do-
it> all share the same basic message.

I think life is too multi-dimensional to successfully become the Übermensch.

~~~
zeeed
I've been thinking about Derek, too, and I agree with many of his insightful
thoughts. Yet, I think that measuring greatness by "starting a successful
business and gaining financial independence" is lopsided on the business side
of life.

Greatness and potential are very individual and 'multidimensional'. Not
everyone who will be a great person eventually will be a great entrepreneur.

------
delinquentme
I love how this is written... Kinda wish there was an extension to it. Perhaps
a meditation on where / how to move forward. Perhaps a wild fancy?

~~~
thatusertwo
Thanks, I suppose part of the problem is that I don't know what to do next.
But that is something Ill work on and write about.

~~~
mainevent
There's a great quote from Larry Smith's TED talk "Why you will fail to have a
great career" that you might like:

"What you want is passion. It is beyond interest. You need 20 interests, then
one of them may grab you more than anything else and then you may have found
your greatest love in comparison to all of the other things that interest you,
and that's what passion is"

[http://www.ted.com/talks/larry_smith_why_you_will_fail_to_ha...](http://www.ted.com/talks/larry_smith_why_you_will_fail_to_have_a_great_career.html)

------
DenisM
My advice would be to get in the habit of making an accomplishment every day.
Little success every day, not matter what it is, will get you out of the rut.

I am reading 2% of War and Peace every day. Made it to 75% by now, and every
day that I read the book I have something to look back to. Contemplative
reading has second order effects as well - I feel I can concentrate better,
which is very helpful given that the internet has taught our minds to jump all
over the place like a monkey. I set aside an hour in the evening and do
nothing but read.

Try it. If nothing else you will have read a great book. And then you will
become acquainted with one of the books key characters l'Russe Bezuhoff, who
seems to have had all of the same doubts that you do, only exactly 200 years
earlier. :)

~~~
hawkal
Wow I need to get my head in your space. I tend to view completion as the
achievement, not progress. This leads to single victories amidst a million
defeats. An attitude not conducive to happiness. I'll definitely make a large
effort to celebrate/recognize the small victories. Separately, I am 14%
through War and Peace, and still don't know who I am supposed to care about.
Does that come later or have I missed something?

~~~
DenisM
I think it's very important to set apart entire hour and make sure nothing
intrudes. Having spent a solid block of time on an important purpose feels
like an achievement, but if I get interrupted I feel I feel as if I did
neither thing well, a waste of time and mental energy. Once again, I stress
the important of _guaranteed reserved block of time_.

As to the book itself, I am the most intrigued by very detailed descriptions
of the character flaws of various people. Each person in the book serves to
demonstrated a certain set of weakness of the character, framed in a suitable
circumstance. In each one I recognize myself (and sometimes people around me),
and this creates a strange feeling - on one hand it's somewhat disturbing and
disgusting when laid so baren in front of me, on the other hand it's a relief
to know I am not the only one to feel or do X/Y/Z. It's also humbling to know
all these things were there 200 years ago...

So, in that sense I care about all of books characters. :)

Another thing is that you're probably overwhelmed by the sheer number of
characters in the book, I know that I was. Concentrated reading makes it
easier to remember most people, so that helps a bit. However when it's time to
re-read the book I will probably take a piece of paper and write all
characters and their relationships down. Writing things down while reading a
book is something I think I will need to learn to do also for other books, as
well as for reasons other than following the plot development.

------
jshowa
This pretty much sums my life up in a nutshell. I feel this a lot because I
tend not to be satisfied with a lot of my work. I always critique and find
ways I can do it better. That's probably why I don't have a whole lot to my
name.

~~~
thatusertwo
you just got to keep on trying, eventually something will work out.

------
lilsunnybee
The world needs all sorts of people and jobs filled. Just because someone
grows up privileged doesn't mean the upper echelons are their birthright. Rich
parents and family are idiots for imposing their own entitlement complexes on
others, instead of just letting them find their own path in life.

------
reinder
Sivers once told me most people do not know what they want, so if you do,
you're already one step closer to achieving anything. I'd say, if you feel
useless, start by setting a goal and define the first step towards it. It
feels mighty to have a goal.

------
fataxlrose
okay, enough lurking. this is what narcissism looks like. you are not special.
you can make something great, everybody can, but you will waste your life
because it is easier to just dream about how awesome you are.

"I'll do whatever it takes not to move towards success, because then I will
never have failed." - you, right now.

you disgust me.

~~~
lilsunnybee
it sounds like you're reading a lot more into the piece than was really there.

~~~
thatusertwo
He certainly is, I was just expressing some frustration.

------
pepve
This comment may seem trollish or stupid, but it is what I would say to the OP
if I met him in real life. If it doesn't sound nice that's because
conversations aren't always nice.

Stop whining. Just do whatever you want to do.

As a question to everyone else here: why upvote this shameless self-pity?

~~~
DenisM
Your advice is obvious, correct, and utterly useless.

Similarly, advising an alcoholic to "just drink less or nothing at all", or an
obese person to "just eat less and move around more", will accomplish nothing
of value.

What you did is only a hair better than advising a legless person to "just
walk". One is the handicap of the body, the other is the handicap of the mind,
yet both handicaps are perfectly real to the person so unfortunate. Both
problems can be ameliorated with due effort, but the glib advice will only
make the adviser feel good, while making the advised feel worse. The due
effort lies elsewhere.

------
ninetax
Thanks for this!

------
carsongross
Know thyself.

------
seivan
I'm currently where you were in Korea, thanks for letting me know it's going
to go so I can prevent it :)

