
Laid Off or Lonely, You May Be Lucky - chengyinliu
http://www.startupsopensourced.com/2011/05/26/laid-off-or-lonely-you-may-be-lucky/
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Yhippa
Am I missing the point here? There are a few people who did get lucky by being
laid off or alone. What about all of the other unemployed or lonely people who
do these same things and don't get the same breaks?

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Mz
I suspect the intended message is that one should look for opportunity in such
things rather than just seeing the bad part. The reference to "luck studies"
makes me think that. I tend to be "lucky" in some ways. I also am someone who
tries to view life experiences in neutral terms rather than "good" or "bad"
and to look for what positives there are in a situation. I don't think those
two details are unrelated. Does it suck to be laid off? Sure. Does that mean
you have to surrender yourself to just feeling like a victim and loser? No.
Those folks who do well in life tend to see opportunity where others only see
adversity. Sharing that insight is typically intended to help others succeed,
not intended to pooh-pooh their very real suffering and hardships.
Unfortunately, it seems to often be interpreted negatively.

Of course, I could just be mistaking my own belly-button for someone else's
motives. <shrug>

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jmtame
I think you summed it up pretty well. The post started with the idea of "how
to find cofounders" as one of the most difficult things founders deal with.
I'm challenging the notion that you have to be out there and aggressive about
it; instead, take your time with it and allow serendipity to work in your
favor. It's a different way of thinking and hopefully something biz students
will try out (keep in mind, the main audience for my book is high school and
college students).

There's also the idea of negative circumstances happening to you which may end
up being positive (back to the serendipity theme). The point of this is to try
and show people who are in seemingly negative situations that it could turn
out very well for them (Steve Jobs reference to connecting the dots). Bad
things happen to good people, but luck still has a big role to play, and
sometimes it might be beneficial to experiment here: pause your agenda and
just go make some friends and be normal instead of trying to control
everything. See if it works out better.

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thejbf
Getting laid off/being unemployed or being depressed by the status quo (your
existing job) are all the same. Once you are so desperate, you can take any
risk because any risk is better than the bottom line.

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threejay
when you ain't got nothing, you got nothing to lose

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jfong
Getting laid off cam be a blessing in disguise.

