
Ask HN: How do I stop comparing myself to others? - mwhuang2
I always have this problem of feeling inadequate. I&#x27;m a junior CS student at a decent but not great school. Some of my friends go to Stanford or UT Austin and have already interned with multiple top companies, while I haven&#x27;t accomplished anything of significance. I also read this site daily and I can&#x27;t even comprehend most of the posts. I didn&#x27;t figure out what I wanted to do with my life until recently, so now I&#x27;m 22 and stuck behind my younger peers.<p>I&#x27;m really impatient to achieve big things. It&#x27;s like I need to in order to justify my existence. How do I transition to a healthier state of mind and stop feeling worthless?
======
cperciva
The multiplicity of casual friendships online has led to an interesting new
phenomenon: Because people preferentially broadcast their successes, we tend
to get the feeling that everybody else is more successful than ourselves. I
don't think you can avoid comparing yourself to others; what you can do is try
to keep in mind that life is a mix of good and bad, and even if all you manage
to do is avoid the worst of the bad, you're doing pretty well.

Take me for example. I started university when I was 13, won the Putnam
competition when I was 18, went on to a doctorate in computing from Oxford
University, and single-handedly bootstrapped a successful startup. I think
most people here could tell you that much about me; but I doubt many could
tell you that I'm 34, that I'm socially awkward and stutter when I'm nervous,
that I'm diabetic and wrestle with this life-threatening condition every day,
that I'm 20 lbs overweight and due to my sedentary lifestyle have the
cardiopulmonary fitness of a typical 50 year old, or that I've been dumped by
every woman I've ever dated.

When you inevitably compare yourself to others, remember that there's probably
a lot you're not hearing about them.

~~~
nvivo
Amazing post, thanks for the openness.

As I get older (I'm still 33), I realize more and more that almost nobody got
their stuff together. Most people even in their 40 or 50 are still trying to
figure out what to do with their lifes. They change careers, move to a
different state, start writing books, start some business different from what
they have done their entire life.

When I was young, I always heard that 'life is hard'. I live in a third world
country, grew from a poor family and never had much money. But it wasn't until
I was married working in a good company that I realized what that means.

I realized that life being hard is not about not having money or a family...
these are struggles we all have. Life being hard is all about these choices
you have to keep making that are not confortable at all, you can never rest,
life is always changing your plans. Even when you think you have it all
figured out, this will last only a few years and you will have to start again.

It's all part of life. We all have struggles and the sooner we realize that
it's all about the journey and not about the ends, the easier it gets to go
on.

~~~
it_learnses
I'm 34 and I'm also realizing this slowly :) Choices are a major source of my
stress. It's the fear that am I making the right choice or will I regret it in
the future? I only have one limited life :(

------
earlyresort
Well, you should start by stopping reading Hacker News, because it's clearly
not good for you in your current mental state. I promise, you won't miss
anything important.

Next, take some of your time and go volunteer somewhere - go tutor a child or
teach someone to read or feed the homeless or whatever else you like, just go
help someone out. You're now accomplishing something way more important than
interning with some 'top company' somewhere. Congratulations, your existence
is now justified.

Finally, now that you're doing something worthwhile for humanity and you're
not tormenting yourself by wallowing in everyone's self-promotional
bloviating, you can happily focus on learning new things, gradually improving
your own skills, and figuring out how to make a big dent in the universe on
your own personal schedule, which is different from everybody else's.

Hey, I spent my entire twenties fucking up left and right - whatever you end
up doing, I guarantee you're way ahead of me.

~~~
kaolinite
Consider using this Adblock/uBlock filter:

    
    
        news.ycombinator.com##td.subtext
    

I've been using it for a week or two now. It blocks links to all comments
(besides Ask HN, Show HN, etc - which is why I'm here). I've drastically cut
down my HN time but still keep up to date on tech news. I also read the
articles in full a lot more than I used to.

(It also tidies up the homepage and makes it look a lot cleaner, IMO:
[http://i.imgur.com/RzHKD2d.png](http://i.imgur.com/RzHKD2d.png))

~~~
sanarothe
Contrarywise, I usually just hit the comments without reading the article.
It's super fast for bootstrapping yourself into an issue. Does rely on the
people on HN not being full of crap, though.

------
pieterbreed
Welcome to life.

Don't worry though. Everything will be OK.

(The things I'm about to say is/are true for me. So is most of what everyone
else here is saying. While it's good that you are asking your peers for help,
the answers you will get won't make "sense" until you discover them for
yourself. (Like the A-HA moment when you finally grok a mathematics proof or a
famous algorithm). This will require effort from you.)

The facts of the matter are simply this:

\- Your life is unique the same way that everyone else's is. \- Your journey
is not the same as anybody else's. \- You are a whole person. \- You have all
the tools you need. \- :)

The answers you seek are of a spiritual nature and you need some kind of
spiritual process to discover them. I can recommend Buddhism, Toaism or even
the Yogic disciplines/technologies. What they all have in common is an
insistence that one needs to meditate, daily...

(Meditation, loosely, is learning how to accept and acknowledge thoughts that
are uncomfortable.)

Good luck!

~~~
epalmer
I agree that there is a spiritual growth component here. As another response
said, go find someplace to volunteer and help others. Do this doing something
you love, even if you think you are not that good at it. For example help
code.org, black girls code, FIRST robotics etc.

In terms of HN and how smart people are here: Remember there are a lot of
people that participate in HN and the experts and sometimes so called experts
come out and respond to the posts in their knowledge domain. So some of these
people do know a lot more about a topic than most of us.

I read HN almost daily and don't understand most of the topics and responses.
It doesn't bother me at all. If it bothers you you might want to stop for
awhile.

I'm 62 and was miserable working at a bank/financial institution. I quit and
started working at a university (web services) and volunteering in STEM
education of K12 students 9 years ago today. I felt stupid at the bank until I
left and realized the people that were above me were clueless. Clueless people
promote clueless people. So my biggest advance in my journey started when I
was 53 years old.

Now I'm in a much better place. Take care of yourself. Exercise, moderate your
vices (if you have them) and give back. Be grateful for what you have and
journal that every day until you think in terms of gratitude as your new
mental model. And yes meditate and give prayers of thanks for what you have.

You have taken a big step asking for help.

------
gonyea
So, you're basically normal. Comparing yourself is typical, especially in your
early 20's.

Impatience is a great quality, you just need to combine it with Not Giving A
Fuck. Comparing yourself slows you down if you go beyond "I should know that
too!"

Someone else will always be better than you; embrace it. If you're the
smartest person in the room, find a new room. You'll learn more there.

(Not that your friends are "better than you." They fall in a different
category called "great family support.")

~~~
aji
I like this! "If you're the best jazz player in the band, find a new band"

------
lpolovets
There are many good answers in this Quora thread: [https://www.quora.com/How-
can-you-overcome-your-envy-of-peop...](https://www.quora.com/How-can-you-
overcome-your-envy-of-people-who-are-your-age-but-are-far-more-
successful?share=1)

As many comments on this page suggest, try to stop worrying about what's
outside of your control. You can't control if someone else is a better
programmer or started coding at a younger age. But you can control what you
study, how hard you study, how hard you practice outside of school, etc. If
you work hard, 5 years from now there will be a bunch of 27-year-olds that you
work with who feel inadequate working next to you.

If something's outside of your control, you _literally_ can't do anything
about it. So why make life harder for yourself by worrying? That's like
worrying about an asteroid hitting Earth -- you'll upset yourself, but it
won't do you any good.

~~~
fapjacks
Yes, this echoes something Worf once said, "Thinking about what you can't
control only wastes energy and creates its own enemy."

------
SCAQTony
The race is long and it is only with yourself.

Realistically, what is the percentage of people in the whole world that can do
what you can do? Here is the answer: Under 25-million or you can do what you
do better than 0.0000000025% of the planet.

[https://www.quora.com/Approximately-how-many-programmers-
are...](https://www.quora.com/Approximately-how-many-programmers-are-there-in-
the-world)

I bet that didn't help but look at it this may, you may or may not become a
"New York Times, number-one, best selling author" or a "Diva at an Italian
opera house" but you can master your craft and use it to better people's lives
or even your own life for that matter. Perhaps that should be the goal and
revel in those accomplishments?

~~~
khnd
something something suncreen

------
troydavis
Find a goal or even a yardstick that's more meaningful to you than to anyone
else. Ideally, also find a path to it that's uniquely appealing to you.

It's way harder to think about what you want than to hop on to society's
defaults (schools, work prestige, wealth, looks, ..).
[http://www.paulgraham.com/love.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/love.html)
touches on this ("if you admire two kinds of work equally, [choose the less
prestigious]").

When no one else is trying to accomplish the same thing in the same way, only
absolute measurements matter: how close did you get? How much did you enjoy
the ride?

------
johw
Comparing to others is not the problem.

Focusing on differences is.

The solution is to focus on similarities instead of differences.

By focusing on differences, you will always find something to let you feel
inferior, let you stop tackling new things, maybe even saying things to others
you do not really mean because you feel down at that moment. By focusing on
similarities, you will boost yourself. You will see that others are not that
different from you.

When you changed your regular comparison strategy for some time, you might
even notice that focusing on differences, in the context of a retrospective is
not that bad. It gives you the chance to grow.

~~~
onoyoudont
"The solution is to focus on similarities instead of differences."

Disagree. OP: Focus on what makes you unique. And that probably isn't the
obvious stuff. You're in school, surrounded by folks whose talent is that
they're good in school. That's not what makes most successful folks successful
in life, I can assure you. Or happy.

Maybe you're just natively a generalist and surrounded by folks happy to be
specialists. That's great: the world spins because of folks who see the big
picture and understand how to connect lessons learned from disparate fields.

How about this: Read Andrew Hargadon's book, "How Breakthroughs Happen"... and
then maybe Be That Guy, the one who builds teams and connects networks of
experts and puts the whole thing together and makes shit HAPPEN.

School's a terrible place for learning this about yourself, since it's a
reproductive mechanism for academics. But today t's pretty instrumental in
gaining the necessary credentials and pedigrees. Do your best, but take this
as an opportunity to learn about yourself and your broader capabilities.

Onward!

~~~
johw
There are always multiple ways to tackle a problem. Both ways help. However I
do not find it useful to start out with your approach, because it is more
complicated, takes more action and is hard to communicate, especially in the
context of a single post.

------
ankurdhama
Here is the simple idea that I always use - "Don't take life too seriously -
we are not special". When we start to take our life too seriously we start to
think about some sort of objective or some kind of success we want to get to.
We start comparing ourselves to others to figure out the so called objective
and then we find that we are far behind from everyone else.

Now the way I avoid being too serious about life is by thinking about the
Universe and how amazing and large it is. At the scale of the Universe we
simply don't matter.

------
bobbyhooper
Wow, wow, wow! You hit a gold mine of advice with that question... I agree
with all these comments. I hope you can see the trend in most of these
comments. It's just too easy to say, "Don't compare yourself to others, it's a
waste of time!"\- though true... It's easier said than done. I found for me,
the moments when I was happiest, balanced & free from all those negative
thoughts about myself and where I stood compared to others- is when I focused
on me. The best version of yourself has nothing to do with anyone else. I saw
a therapist for 2 and a half years. The first year was twice a week. After
putting in that much time with figuring out why I felt the way I did about
myself, it changed everything. Your emotional intelligence, your soul is not
always an easy thing to navigate, but that work is incredibly rewarding. As
others have said, you're the only one that can do it. What I'm trying to say
most is, begin. May you find a balance in your humanity - be it physical,
mentally, & spiritually. And may you find that the compelling question is not
how you compare to others or what they may think of you, but rather how you
think of yourself. Are you who YOU want to be? If not, begin. You got this ;-)
Big things will happen- it's safe to say that they take time.

Oh! and enjoy the ride!! Fuck- Nobody really knows for sure if we get another
go at it.

------
mrpsbrk
Dance.

I'm serious. In dancing your bodily similarities and dissimilarities to your
partner are in your face all the time, the fitting of them is (in a way) all
there is to dancing. You both have to be aware of it and not fight it, you
have to work with it. You have to learn to let the differences flow (so it is
not enough to learn the choreography, you need to be able to enjoy the dance).

Words do not make justice to the experience.

2¢

------
wishiknew
What's that quote again, 'while in his 30s Julius Caesar once cried because he
felt he hadn't done a tenth of what Alexander the Great had done at the same
age'? Don't worry about people being faster than you. Build simple sites/apps
(read Pat Flynn's blog rather than HN), see which one sticks, and improve it
over time. Don't hope for a massive success, build something simple but useful
to a limited audience. That's what I did when I was 22 and that site is about
to turn into a business + the skills I learnt got me a freelancing gig which
eventually got me hired. It's not an easy path, but it's meaningful. Easy
paths such as marrying your high school sweetheart and getting hired at a top
company in your 20s do look great, but they aren't making these people any
more acquainted with the lengthy process of building great things.

~~~
bshimmin
"It's a sobering thought that when Mozart was my age, he had been dead for two
years." — Tom Lehrer

------
colorblocks
Comparing yourself to your peers is the key for personal growth. It's often
not easy, in particular in days of Facebook and other social networks but here
why I think it's crucial for us:

At the end of the day we are imitating our peers--everyday. When we start as
babies we imitate our mother, our siblings and everybody we see. Later in
school and university we see what friends and other peers do. Sometimes we
think good idea I might try it.

And sometimes we are surprised that in our eyes to us inferior peers try and
accomplish stuff which is more challenging, advanced and just more exciting
than our life. THIS is the key for personal growth: this feeling that somebody
who was inferior all the past overtook us, frustrates us and will lead us into
bigger journeys. Especially men who tend to be more competitive cannot stand
this feeling and gear up.

I started to raise money because of some 10 year younger guys I met who raised
500k seed with ease. And I found those guys are inferior to me, so I was
forced to get on par.

But when I was an office drone deep in corporations I imitated my peers there:
worked as little as possible but still climbing the career ladder via office
politics, complaining all day how bad the company is, worked just for the
weekends (full of partying and girls) and the only goal was planning the next
vacation. This was a hollow life where I lacked strong peers and I was slowly
degenerating like them for years. I lost time.

This is the good thing about Facebook. Because we have 1,000 of FB friends the
probability that we see everyday some big achievement of someone is quite high
(and so frustrating) and leads to a very restrictive posting behavior on our
side because it tells us: only post if you achieved something special and this
initially negative energy might be good: it pushes into new and more
challenging activities.

I know not everybody will like my answer but again peers who push us out of
our comfort zone help our personal development. So we should see it as
something positive.

------
11thEarlOfMar
Realize that what you can achieve in your life depends on the DNA you started
with, the life circumstances that got you to where you are today, your world
view, perspective and perception, and a healthy dose of luck.

Then realize that there are zero other people in the world who have that same
set of attributes. Therefore, no matter who you interact with, see on YouTube,
or read about, the difference between the two of you is not going to be
explained by something you can control.

[https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/communication-
success/2...](https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/communication-
success/201409/how-stop-comparing-yourself-others-and-feel-happier)

------
Walkman
I started learning programming at 27, I'm 30 now, have a full time job and
never been happier, so you are definitely not late.

The turning point for me was when I read this article:
[http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-harsh-truths-that-will-make-
yo...](http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-harsh-truths-that-will-make-you-better-
person/)

It basically says you have to make things and you won't feel yourself
worthless.

Start learning and doing hard, that's all!

------
mverwijs
Listen to these for starters:
[http://www.bornhappy.co/michaelneill/](http://www.bornhappy.co/michaelneill/)
and [http://www.bornhappy.co/love/](http://www.bornhappy.co/love/), possibly
this TED talk:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xr6VawX2nr4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xr6VawX2nr4)

------
nyc
A recent article in the Economist explains why comparing to others makes us
unhappy. In short, we keep comparing ourselves to people who are better off:
[http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-
economics/21677223...](http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-
economics/21677223-new-study-shows-money-can-buy-you-happinessbut-only-
fleetingly-others)

That said, I think there are concrete things you could do to improve your
current situation. First, it sounds like you now know what to do. That's
excellent! At 22, you are not far behind at all.

Early in grad school, things weren't going well and I felt like I was falling
behind my peers. I ended up finding a lot of comfort knowing there was a CS
professor in my department who had trained as a doctor but then decided his
passion was in CS. He basically had to start over in school. To know that one
could get a later start and still achieve success was incredibly reassuring.

That said, I think you might also benefit from having a mentor. I have found
it useful to have someone experienced and successful from which to learn and
model myself after. They have given me the confidence to go and tackle larger
problems and helped me move forward when things are looking pretty bleak.

------
Yokohiii
HN used to be much more technical and practical. Now you have much more posts
about history, biology, astronomy, many thing that are very very far from
being (practical) CS. I can only assume that HN readers want to feel even more
sophisticated with far fetched intellectual topics. I think HN will make most
persons feel miserable just like social networks do, on facebook others have
more friends on HN others are smarter than you.

You should stop reading HN. I've been contemplating this for myself for some
time. I have to look around more, but so far I see reddits programming
subreddit is more condensed and superior if you just want to keep track on
programming news.

For your current situation I can tell you that everything is fine. I've got
into programming as an autodidact later than you with zero experience and my
school career was average at best. Just take your time and go really deep into
a single programming language, exercise with meaningless projects, use stack
overflow or friendly forums to discuss problems. Just don't compare to others,
there are always smarter people than you. But if you train the practical parts
really hard it becomes meaningless because the results are the same.

Also if you want to learn something about humbleness, read Herman Hesse's
Siddartha, just don't dive into esoterics afterwards.

Good Luck.

[edit] Nice article about depression and social media:
[http://www.forbes.com/sites/alicegwalton/2015/04/08/new-
stud...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/alicegwalton/2015/04/08/new-study-links-
facebook-to-depression-but-now-we-actually-understand-why/)

------
halayli
I am not being cynical, but I wouldn't recommend using HN to replace a
therapist.

~~~
Symbiote
This is good advice.

The therapist at my university was really useful to several people I know,
plus myself.

------
Joeri
1\. The people you look up to also look up to someone. There's always someone
better, you will never be satisfied if you use other people as a benchmark.
Set your own goals, live up to your own standards.

2\. What one person can do, another can do too. It might take years of
practice or study, but all you need to accomplish things is a little luck and
a lot of perseverance. Being really good at something is a lifelong pursuit.
Better find something to do where you'll enjoy the journey, because there is
no meaningful destination.

3\. Action causes reaction. As long as you're doing something to move ahead
opportunities will happen, even if you can't yet see how, in turn accelerating
you and causing more opportunities. Achievement snowballs. The hardest million
is the first.

4\. It's easier to adjust your perception of things than the way things really
are. If you are not happy, becoming so is less a factor of changing your life
than changing your attitude. Meditation helps.

5\. It's OK to say none of that is relevant. Everyone has their own path. Mine
is not yours. My advice only truly pertains to my own younger self.

------
d43594
Do things you are interested in, and that you can commit yourself to spending
time on consistently. Dropping things you've started without making the
conscious decision to do so will foster a sense of underachievement. Accept
that Rome wasn't built in a day and start small. Build yourself up gradually.
Use your small successes to build momentum. Accept that you cannot change the
past, instead try to guide the future. Invest the time in doing a personal
development plan. Even if you don't use it, the simple act of doing it will
help to give you some direction and make you appreciate what it is you really
want. You can then set about making steps in that direction. Be wary of
sacrifices you choose to make, particularly concerning people. Choosing to
learn language X instead of language Y is easy to solve when you change your
mind, but convincing the person you love to take you back after you chose your
career over them is likely to be much much harder.

------
epalmer
OP here are some references that may help you. The first is to assess your
stengths and find a career that supports your stengths. Then work on making
your stengths stonger. Think about a good baseball batter. Improving their
batting average 20% makes them a great batter.

I have used SF in my own life,, with the teams I have managed and with some
life coaching customers. If you want to know better how to use it send me an
email eric [at] ericfplamer [dot] com

These two ted videos are also useful for 1) thinking differntly about
happiness and 2) thinking differently about genius.

[http://www.ted.com/talks/martin_seligman_on_the_state_of_psy...](http://www.ted.com/talks/martin_seligman_on_the_state_of_psychology)

[http://www.ted.com/talks/elizabeth_gilbert_on_genius](http://www.ted.com/talks/elizabeth_gilbert_on_genius)

------
thingsgoby
I strongly recommend that you read some Epicurus, Epictetus and Seneca ;)
Start with Senecas "On the Happy Life"

~~~
fapjacks
Phenomenal, and highfive to you, my friend. This is I think some of the best
advice in here. I also draw a lot from Marcus Aurelius. The main body of
literature of his (Meditations) was actually his personal journal. It is
highly likely that he never intended on having those works published. There is
really something profound in the stoic way of life that transcends time and
stabs at the heart of humanity. What great advice!

------
peterjmag
(For context: I started writing this as a reply to gyardley's comment[1], but
I thought it might be more appropriate as a direct response to the OP
instead.)

I just wanted to add that you don't necessarily have to make a big dent in the
universe to feel fulfilled. I think that making a meaningful positive impact
on a small number of people you care about (or even _one_ person) can be just
as rewarding—if not more so—than making a difference in the lives of
thousands. I certainly admire and encourage your ambition to achieve big
things, but "smallish dents" are great too.

To address another point, I think it's great that you know what you want to do
with your life. I definitely don't believe that 22 is "too late", however. I'm
28, and it feels like I've made that decision dozens of times in the last 15
years or so. Whether you're still in college or decades past it, "what you
want to do with your life" is not a static thing that you just discover one
day. It's something that you can spend your life constantly rediscovering, and
I hope that you do so. Right now, for you it's computer science, but who knows
where your passions and proclivities might lead you in a few years. It might
be somewhere else in tech, or it might not, and in both cases, _that 's okay_.
In fact, it might be somewhere you never imagined yourself going, and—at the
risk of overusing this word—that's great too.

Finally, if you do decide to "quit" HN or just take a break from it (both good
options), read some of these[2] before you go (especially the ones down below
the rather tangential discussion about travel costs).

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10523845](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10523845)

[2]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9393213](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9393213)

------
bencbernstein
I don't think you can stop comparing yourself to others, and you shouldn't try
to. It's a good thing to do.

What you should try to do is realize you are you, and you have the opportunity
every second to be creative and additive rather than competitive or
detrimental to the world. That is amazingly valuable :)

~~~
ZenoArrow
> "It's a good thing to do."

Can you explain why?

~~~
bencbernstein
I guess what I really mean is that I think it is good to critically and
emotionally analyze others' lives ... try to understand what's led them to
where they are and how they feel.

I've had to work hard at this, and maybe it takes a fundamental belief in the
value of everyone, but whenever I find something positive in others, it
doesn't make me feel upset or stressed... I'm just inspired and want to learn.

------
chipsy
Life can't be defined by arriving at a place and feeling that you've "made it"
or "gotten ahead." If you actually do "make it" by accident, the next thing
that happens is that you die - in spirit, if not in body. A lot of people who
suddenly get rich or famous meltdown, because they still don't know what to
do. And a lot of people who go all-in on their careers burn out. There are
opportunities that you can miss and regret, but you aren't an abstract person
or a movie action hero - you won't be "on" all the time.

Instead, focus on the everyday cycle. How do you want to construct your life
so that you are living well each day, each week? Take whatever things you're
already good at - and can do without much effort if you just start, and
concentrate - and put more of your chips behind those. It's in the regular
practice that you become really "great", and there is no book or curriculum
that can tell you how to practice at that level of motivation. It might lead
you away from core CS, but that's okay. There are a lot of kinds of gigs out
there, and you might overlook a possibility and come back to it later, so you
aren't necessarily harming your future at this stage. Stay in good health and
keep your stress down and you will get there eventually.

There are all sorts of little things that I'm sure other people figured out
long before I did, and then things that I learned that they will never learn
in their lives. If you value learning a lot, you end up not valuing wealth and
status as much, because it doesn't have much to teach you. And then it doesn't
matter that you didn't intern at a top company, because suddenly your friends
are all a bunch of weirdos too.

I only recently realized that technical writing was a thing I might want to
do, and I'm 30. I also only recently realized how to stop overtraining with
weights and make more substantial progress, and this was after some 15 years
of off-and-on practice with lifting. (It's simple: two-day split once a week
instead of once every 2-4 days.)

------
crazylila
A study shows people of age 18-25 are the most stressed out, as it a period of
"entering adulthood". This is the time you have to make many important
decisions in life and it is absolutely normal to get confused and remember you
are not alone in facing such a situation . Millions of people of the age 18-25
face the same problem. But what you must do is, sit and think what you really
want in life and listen to your inner voice. Always remember no two fingers
are the same, so never compare yourself with anybody else. Each one is made
for a purpose. Identify yours and work towards it.You may not realize your own
strength untill you set a goal and work towards it. So all the best my dear
friend. Be cheerful. You are not alone!

------
Mz
_It 's like I need to in order to justify my existence._

According to the Christian bible, god invented humans because he was lonely.
Based on that, I figure I am entertainment for a cosmic intelligence beyond my
comprehension. I am probably more entertaining when I am fucking up, so I
figure I cannot get this wrong.

You don't need to justify your existence.

Next, I suggest you read some bios of people who had success later in life.
Twenty-two is really not that old.

Also, try either unplugging from listening to the bragfests of all your so-
called friends or scratch the surface and look deeper. A lot of people who rub
their success in the faces of people around them are incredibly unhappy you
couldn't pay me enough to trade lives with them (assuming a genie could grant
such a wish).

------
enginnr
I would liken the whole process of 'success' as nothing more than the
acquisition of accolades. If you peek beyond the veil of most institutions
(financial or otherwise), there is the fabled trophy you must acquire at the
end. This trophy can be anything, and the institutions are always careful to
suppose "It's not about the trophy", but secretly it is.

Money is a trophy. Marriage is a trophy. Dissolve the trophy and focus on what
you need instead of what you want. Most of what a person needs is fairly
rudimentary and easy to attain. Be careful with validation (a basic need)
because it's usually sought in the most egregious places

------
andersthue
The short answer is to let go.

It can take years of training and searching to let go, the best guide I have
found is this book : [http://zenhabits.net/lg/](http://zenhabits.net/lg/)

------
sly_g
Compare yourself with your own self, but several years younger. Have you
achieved something notable? Did you just now noticed that you did something
wrong before? Then you're all right - you're growing.

------
studentrob
Find a way to get some confidence. Learn something new. I'm reading /
listening to "Quantum memory power" by Dominic O'Brien right now. There are
some fun tricks in there that make memorizing things trivial. He points out
this builds confidence, though I just think it's fun. After that... Take it
day by day, and take it easy on yourself

------
galfarragem
Unhappiness and feeling inadequate is correlated with not doing what your gut
tells you to do and living somebody's else life.

------
SixSigma
My life began at 40, amusingly.

6 billion people in the world.

------
lifeformed
> I didn't figure out what I wanted to do with my life until recently

Great, just do whatever that is. You're not behind, 22 is basically 0 years
old in your career. Just start doing the thing you want to do until you become
really good at it.

------
kclay
Stop minimizing things you have accomplished. You think everyone started off
at the top. Look at each project or task you completed as a stepping stone to
the next and to become better..

Simply put.. Don't try to copy the Jones's.

------
facepalm
Not comparing yourself is one thing, but you should also question your values
and goals. If you think interning at top companies is a good thing, you could
try to also intern at a top company. Just one example.

------
sidcool
I am 32 and facing the same issue at work and life in general. Comparing to
others comes to me naturally, and it has been a reason of lot of anxiety to
me. I am yet to figure out a permanent solution.

------
Gnarl
No one has it all together. Ever. Full stop. So quit worrying. Do -> measure
-> adjust -> repeat. Most people don't peak professionally until they're in
their 40's.

------
peteretep
For most people, the answer is simple: stop being in your 20s.

------
bartvk
Meditate and tell yourself that you're pretty okay.

------
CyberFonic
By my estimation about 6,000,000,000 people would be very happy to trade
places with you. Compared to them you are doing just fine.

------
fsloth
"I'm really impatient to achieve big things. It's like I need to in order to
justify my existence. "

First, you are a human being, whose worth is not tied to how much money you
have, how fancy CV you have or how high grades you have. You are valuable and
precious just as you are. You might be a bit lost, and that's ok, most of us
are at one time or another.

I'm writing this as a person who felt maybe just as bad as you did at your
age.

I don't want to hurt your feelings but "Achieving big things" is not a life
goal. It's a posthumous statement in an obituary. And a lot of people who are
described as achieving big things actually felt they failed miserably.

Take, for instance Ghandi - he had pretty radical goals in terms of India and
he felt he failed most of them. His tactic of non-violence and a fantastically
successful publicity campaign of personality cult got him in to the history
books for good but as for the goals he drove - a perpetually rural, united
india - did not really happen (and I think it was a good thing too). And most
of the hype around him was due to other people choosing to idolize him - not
him, himself, doing a shitload of extravagant extraordinary work.

Your friends, by the way? Their fancy internships? You are just trapped in an
association loop when idolizing them. You attach a positive value to the
brands of the corporations, and by your friends interning there this
association leaks to them. Then you recognize you do not have this direct
associative link, and feel bad about it. Although - it's all just happening in
your mind. You are jealous of their life story. But please recognize - the
giants of world history have had mostly pretty shitty and ordinary lives, and
are remembered mostly due to a stroke of luck, or, due to a fact that they
tenaciously drove towards their _own personal goal_ that for some historical
fluke happened to be in synchronicity with the current world events.

Now, how fantastic are your friends actually? Maybe some of them got better
grades - so what.

It does not mean they are better than you. It's just that they score higher on
a specific arbitrary metric due to their life circumstances and history at
this point in time. Arbitrary - because let's face it, large systems are not
fair, nor are they designed to be. The system of education, the system of
economy, the system of government - they are all fabrications with emergent
properties no one can really control exactly.

We are all corks ebbing in the ocean of life. Sometimes the current takes us
forward, sometimes not. The thing is, you cannot choose who you are, but, you
can daily choose what you do.

"How do I transition to a healthier state of mind and stop feeling worthless?"

I think you might need therapist or meditation for that.

As a self help book I can heartily recommend "The science of happiness" by
Rick Hanson.
([http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DVW8VN2?keywords=science...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DVW8VN2?keywords=science%20of%20happiness&qid=1446892025&ref_=sr_1_2&s=digital-
text&sr=1-2))

Personally, for me, professionally - I needed to find something that I found
was intrinsically motivating. Luckily I did, in computational physics and
computer graphics and this gave me intrinsic motivation to play around with
things and find stuff out. I'm not hugely successful but I have a good career
and feed my family. I would not have had half a good career unless I had found
something compelling. I do hope you find something that interests you!

The difference with external and internal motivators is that while both compel
you to action, fulfilling external motivators usually suck you energy while
internal ones give it to you.

I found Richard Feynmans* self autobiographical writings assuring. While they
are an attempt at self-aggrandization at painting an image of "the cleverest
person in the room" they also discuss deeply personal matters of death, loss,
de-motivation and ways to cope with it. When Feynman felt down, he tried to
find something he could find interest in playing with - no matter how silly or
trivial. I've followed this same protocol throughout my life and found it a
good course when things look bleak. Play!

*"What Do You Care What Other People Think?" and "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!" by Richard Feynman.

------
ddingus
I'm going to offer up what might be a bit different advice. Comparing yourself
to others isn't necessarily a bad thing. Doing this can tell you who can help
you improve, or maybe you identify role models, appreciate a good mentor,
etc... Or it can show you who you might be able to help. Sometimes we all need
some help.

The real battle is in how you define your sense of worth. Take smarts, for
example. In your life, you are going to encounter people smarter than you are,
as well as not as smart, or maybe you can't really tell. What does that really
mean?

Think about being smart enough. One artifact of that thought could be what you
accomplish boils down to how willing you are to do the work to actually
accomplish it. Being willing is very high value! Suddenly, how smart you are
isn't a defining attribute. Your intent and resolve are.

Another artifact of that might be the realization that smart people "rub off"
If you want to improve, being around people better than you is an excellent
way to do that, and feeling inadequate gets in the way of all that too. Think
back on that intent and resolve and maybe you realize everyone who wants to do
stuff with their life has those things and is sharing them with others who
appreciate it. Going further, many people respond favorably to someone they
see doing the work to get after those big things, whatever they are. And there
should be no shame in any of that at all.

Extend that a bit more, and suddenly those comparisons have value! Hard
working people rub off. Social people rub off. Etc...

What you need to do is absorb unabashedly. As you encounter others who are
compelling in some way, watch and learn! Make a few friends. Those people know
it's OK to be who they are, as should you. Those people are doing the work,
making the friends, showing good intent. As should you.

Do the work and trust in yourself. Get help when you need it. Give help when
others need it. Treat yourself with the same respect you would others you
admire or believe you can learn from.

In fact, cultivate a sense of respect. Mutual respect. When you demonstrate
this, people most often return it. And if it's your intent to do that, work
hard, get something you believe in done, people will most often return that
too, and in that process you become one of those people you are comparing
yourself to.

Give with honest, good intent, and 'ye shall receive.

You aren't stuck behind anybody. You are where you are, and it's up to you to
move forward and do what you want with your life. What you are doing here is
looking at younger peers who made different choices and you are wishing you
had made those same choices. Or you are buying the bullshit they are selling.

A great many people never, ever really figure out what they want to do with
their life. Often, they are too busy living it, having fun, building, doing,
playing to think about it. Others are driven, focused, intent.

So you've arrived at some life goal! Good for you. Now quit your regrets and
start getting after it, whatever it is. There will always be others who seem
better positioned, or whatever. It's not about any of that. There are people
who are worse off, or more poorly positioned too.

Do you want to be here? Do you care about other people, the world, and the
things you find in it? Great! That's all anyone requires as justification to
be here. No joke. Be sure and share that often. People like other people who
care. People value others who care too.

Share that thing you want to do with others, and ask them what it is they are
wanting to do as well. Maybe you can help, or maybe it's good to just listen
and appreciate they are doing something they care about. Maybe you have a
common goal.

Maybe you can realize that's all any of us are doing, you included.

Like I said, give and 'ye shall receive.

One great way to feel better about yourself is to help others, and the doing
of that does wonders for your own sense of worth. Do it. Clear that mess out
of your head and free yourself to get after it, whatever it is. And all those
people you helped are very highly likely to appreciate it and return the favor
too.

------
takinola
The real question, I would guess, is where you get your sense of self-worth?
It is worthwhile to do a bit of introspection to understand what really
matters to you as opposed to what all the people around you tell you should
matter to you. A while back, I found that a lot of my motivations to achieve
certain things where driven by pride and a need to show off to my peer group
and not due to any real intrinsic desire for those things so I started asking
myself why I was working so hard for things that I do not really care so much
about. The question I kept asking my self was "What is your life worth?" If at
any moment I was told my life was going to be over, what are the things I
would wish I had accomplished. The list I came up with (and it is a pretty
short list) are the things I use to prioritize my actions. I am always
checking back to that list to be sure I am actually trying to accomplish those
things.

One caveat about setting any goals that involve the approval of or comparison
to other people (e.g. I want to be as
wealthy/successful/beautiful/smart/talented as person X or I want to be famous
and celebrated) is that there is always someone better, more successful,
prettier, smarter or whatever-er you desire and so chasing these dreams are a
mirage. I remember reading an article in Forbes (or Fortune, I forget which)
which described what life is like for various stages of wealth. The
descriptions of life for people who are worth seven figures then eight were
pretty much what you would think but I will always remember the first words
used to describe people who have a net worth in the low hundred millions:
"Prepare to have your ego crushed". I remember thinking that's ridiculous, if
I ever have a hundred million dollars, there is no way that I would feel
insecure about my status and then I realized that I know a lot of fairly
wealthy people (in the seven to eight figure range) who are very, very
insecure about their wealth and in fact feel like failures simply because they
are comparing themselves to others. The only way to win this game is not to
play.

Also, do realize that we are all very influenced by peer pressure. Why do you
think there are red states and blue states? You think somehow every one in a
particular geography just decided to have a certain set of opinions? Nope, my
guess is 80% of our opinions are driven by the opinions of the other people
around us. So the practical way to make this work for you is to find people
who have the values you want and hang out with them. Also, limit your
interactions with people who move you in the other direction. If's tough but
for a decision as important as this, you should try to actively shape your
life rather than have it just happen to you.

Lastly, you should always separate your happiness from your achievement of
your goals. You should be happy and fulfilled regardless of the outcome of
your strivings. Your goals, however wonderful, are just one aspect of your
life and not the whole point.

------
steven2012
How can you possibly be impatient to achieve big things when you don't
understand what you want to do and what HN posts are about?

You need to understand that you won't achieve big things. You're not
Zuckerberg and you're not Steve Jobs. You're not going to be a billionaire, or
even a millionaire. It's pretty evident from the things that you wrote above.

Now that we've gotten that out of the way, you can accomplish great things
once you gained the maturity to realize that you need to work hard and study
hard and learn. Figure out what you enjoy, and work hard at it. You might not
be the next Steve Jobs (no one is), but you can make a very good living in
tech if you work hard and keep learning throughout your career.

