[HN Gopher] Remaining Ambitious
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Remaining Ambitious
Author : sebg
Score : 78 points
Date : 2022-06-13 15:48 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (etiennefd.substack.com)
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| ledauphin wrote:
| This rings true to me.
|
| Perhaps the strangest part is realizing that managing your own
| ambition is a necessity for living a healthy life. Pure,
| unbridled ambition can theoretically have a massive reward, but
| it's far more likely (statistically) to cause you to neglect
| other meaningful life pursuits to a damaging degree.
|
| In other words, I am the only one who can increase or decrease my
| own ambition, which means that I can't avoid responsibility for
| the fact that I am less ambitious now than I was coming out of
| college. I am mentally healthier, but it's also entirely possible
| that, had things worked out a little differently, I could have
| been just as (or more) ambitious and _also_ been mentally
| healthy. Being aware of this in some ways makes it harder to
| further downgrade my own ambition in service of a better life.
|
| Some things you can fully control, and others you can't. I can't
| fully control the rejections, but I can control how I manage my
| ambition and how I view my life. I'm not sure this is
| particularly satisfying, but it's better than many alternatives.
| elil17 wrote:
| >Instead of simply rejecting people from the mountain path, lead
| them, with friendliness and encouragement, to another path they
| can take.
|
| I would point out that you get a lot of societal bang for your
| buck even if gatekeepers only sometimes give feedback. Getting
| rejected from 20 jobs and getting feedback from two of them gives
| you a big ambition boost: someone is looking at my applications!
| They thought I was a good enough applicant to merit some of their
| time!
|
| The next 18 feedback emails probably don't add as much value as
| the first couple.
|
| Anyway, my guess is that giving good feedback, absent any
| societal movement to change norms around rejections, still has a
| fantastic ROI.
| mettamage wrote:
| > But I don't love it as a strategy for dealing psychologically
| with rejection: it amounts to numbing ourselves, and I suspect
| that numbness can weaken the boost to ambition when we finally
| get a "yes."
|
| I've done this. I did indeed become numb and on the short to
| medium-term it also meant that I lost respect for the industry.
| I'm not sure what the long-term effects are. One of the things I
| now do is to apply every week to a company, I've been rejected so
| much that it became a habit. I'm numb, I go through the motions,
| let's keep on chugging. I'll never stop anymore. I can't, I need
| to stay sharp, as sharp as possible. I've been rejected so much
| that I need to create opportunities before I actually need them,
| because when I need them then they most likely won't be there.
| Keep that deal flow going.
|
| I wish there was a better way, I'd love to open myself more
| emotionally, but I can't take it when you open yourself up every
| time and you just get: ignored, ghosted or rejected. And I mostly
| seem to get ignored or ghosted.
| sinenomine wrote:
| If I were at your place I would start making A/B tests with
| small and large variations of your CV, to see what is it
| exactly that makes a stereotypical HR pattern-match your
| application into a recycle bin.
| tpoacher wrote:
| I love this as an idea conceptually, especially as a revenge
| to most employers rejecting without feedback ... but in
| practice I imagine you'd burn a lot of bridges if you sent
| out fraudulent CV's, only to reply "sorry that was just A/B
| testing on my part" when invited to an interview ...
|
| (maybe not though ... who knows! has anyone ever done this?)
| sinenomine wrote:
| Come on, there is a lot of companies out there, you don't
| have to use your name, and in this case the utter
| homogenity of HR plays to your side.
| edmcnulty101 wrote:
| Be rich. That's how you remain ambitious.
|
| If you're poor your best achievment in life is to simply hold a
| job and make the future better for your kids, and in a few
| generations those ancestors will be able to follow their dreams.
|
| Statistically the poor are totally screwed from birth. By a huge
| margin. A very very few will be able to follow their dreams
| beyond holding a job but that's a statistical anomoly. The best
| most poor people can hope for is to get a job until you die.
| Almost every single rich person/ world mover you see was born
| with some natural talent or rich or upper middle class from birth
| with enough time/resources to develop some talent. If you're just
| working to survive your time and energy will be taken in exchange
| for money.
|
| Any b.s. self help hustle culture is nonsense.
|
| Be rich.
|
| Hard facts.
| qgin wrote:
| Are they really facts?
|
| 8/10 current millionaires grew up middle class or lower.
|
| Most wealth is lost in 2 generations.
| edmcnulty101 wrote:
| Is your source: Just trust me bro, I heard it from my really
| smart uncle.
|
| According to actual research:
|
| Looking at larger moves, only 4% of those raised in the
| bottom quintile moved up to the top quintile as adults.
|
| There's other studies in there as well that all demonstrate
| intergenerational mobility is single digit percentile from
| bottom to the top meanwhile from middle and upper classes
| it's much more.
|
| It's much easier to move from bottom to middle class where
| you work as a drone for some rich person. This provides a
| platform for your kids to attempt to launch from in the next
| generation or two or three or four if ever.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socioeconomic_mobility_in_the_.
| ..
| qgin wrote:
| > Looking at larger moves, only 4% of those raised in the
| bottom quintile moved up to the top quintile as adults.
|
| Now you're talking about a completely different topic than
| what we were talking about. The bottom quintiles are much
| bigger that the top ones. Even if the top quintile was made
| up 100% of people who started in the bottom ones, the
| percentage of people from the bottom who move up would
| still be small.
|
| What we started discussing was whether starting in the top
| is a near-requirement for staying in the top.
|
| I didn't get get it from "trust me bro" fwiw. Here are a
| few sources to consider:
|
| https://www.ramseysolutions.com/retirement/the-national-
| stud...
|
| > The overwhelming majority (79%) of millionaires in the
| U.S. did not receive any inheritance at all from their
| parents or other family members. While 1 in 5 millionaires
| (21%) received some inheritance, only 3% received an
| inheritance of $1 million or more.
|
| > 8 out of 10 millionaires come from families at or below
| middle-income level.
| edmcnulty101 wrote:
| Dave Ramsey studies.
|
| It's a sampling of `self reported` people that are Ramsey
| listeners or in the Ramsey orbit.
|
| The study is not transparent.
|
| the data is not published for peer review.
|
| and the study is used to market Dave Ramsey products.
|
| Come on.
|
| Can you find some legitimate studies to support your view
| from say SCIENTISTS...other than a marketing and product
| shill website?
| qgin wrote:
| If you have better data on the subject we're talking
| about, feel free to share it.
| edmcnulty101 wrote:
| I thought I did.
| lexapro wrote:
| >in a few generations those ancestors will be able to follow
| their dreams
|
| Most likely no. Most likely they will be just as poor as you
| are, and have a job building the dreams of people with rich
| ancestors.
| revskill wrote:
| On rejection, more often it's people issue, not my issue when i
| got rejection.
|
| So in general, ambition is a bad word to describe people trait
| for good reason.
|
| I've seen people mostly hunt for money, not for their dream, nor
| their "ambition", which's not the goal here.
|
| Hunt for value, instinst value, rather than money, then you
| naturally become ambitious, regardless of any kind of rejection.
| dash2 wrote:
| I've had many rejections from publishers and literary agents for
| a book which I've put a lot of work into
| (https://www.wyclifsdust.com, since you asked). It's very tough,
| and puts a lot of pressure on one's innate self-belief. And as an
| academic, you probably have on average at least one rejection for
| every paper you write. (If you don't you aren't being ambitious
| enough in your journal targets!)
|
| I like the (apocryphal) Churchill quote: "Success has been
| defined as the ability to go from failure to failure without
| losing enthusiasm."
| pryelluw wrote:
| Is there a way to buy it directly from you? It seems very
| interesting.
| dash2 wrote:
| Sign up! Maybe I'll go that way.
| mettamage wrote:
| > Recently, faced with the necessity of making money, I began
| applying to full-time jobs again. I had thought that with my
| skills and network, it wouldn't be too hard to find an enjoyable
| job that paid well enough. But of course, the first few that I
| applied to rejected me right away. I could feel my ambition
| collapsing: half a year ago, I thought I could revolutionize some
| of the institutions of science, and now I am merely wondering if
| I'm good enough to land a regular coding job. Maybe I should go
| work in a restaurant or something. Am I even good enough for
| that?
|
| I've had this. University built me up (high grades, cum laude,
| honors, published paper, side projects, TA jobs, 1 year of iOS
| development experience, 1 year of being a web development
| instructor experience). FAANG (and its friends, like Elastic,
| Databricks, all the known names, banks, etc.) broke me down by
| not ever responding to my job applications for a graduate
| software engineer. Fast-forward 18 months later, still no job. I
| also got more downvotes on HN due to having a more gloomy mood
| and my desperation was perhaps a bit too strong. In general,
| people can't deal with it. HN has a lot of edge-cases where they
| can (some ask HNs are an example of this), but in my case they
| couldn't deal with it. HN showed me that I had to force myself to
| be more positive, lest I'd get more downvotes (and also because I
| reasoned that the general public would judge me way harsher than
| HN). For context, this comment is already quite on the "negative"
| side. I know that by writing like this I have a one in five
| chance to be downvoted. Often enough these category of posts also
| get upvoted a lot, so I do get some insight into the nuances of
| this problem area simply by seeing my downvotes and upvotes on
| what I experience to be similar comments, so in both cases the
| upvotes/downvotes are really helpful.
|
| In any case, I took a job that paid low out of necessity (2500
| euro's for a junior position, my own coding students were making
| more). I quit 6 months later, because I wasn't passionate about
| their product. I searched and 5 months later found another
| company. I felt so grateful to already find a company after 5
| months that I felt excited by! They thought I was too slow (after
| 6 months), I agreed. Sometimes it simply doesn't work out. In
| this particular case, my contract didn't even formally end yet
| and I already found my 3rd company. Holy hell! What a different
| world. The 6 month mark is coming up, I hope I'll make it this
| time. I think I will, but not because my skills improved a lot.
| In my case it's mostly luck/bad luck depending on the company I
| was at. Culture has a lot to do with it. It's not my dream
| company, but I'm simply trying to get by. Moreover, the work
| conditions are amazing, I have nothing to complain about.
| However, if I'd be ambitious then I'd have all kinds of ambitious
| "complaints" like that it isn't my dream company.
|
| Because of this whole process, I don't really know what my
| purpose in life is anymore. I decided to drop it for now and
| simply enjoy life. It feels too hedonistic for my taste, but
| alright, life is teaching me I can't control it I guess. Let's
| flow with it then!
|
| So, I have 16 months of ragged recent experience (not including
| my experience that I got as a student). Here are some things I've
| noticed that are notable:
|
| What I find _weird_ is that some FAANG companies are even
| approaching me now. Like, really? Having a ragged resume with 16
| months worth of experience is really that much better? _Really_?!
| It still makes me a bit angry, because I feel it diminishes how
| tough and valuable my actual academic education was. I 've
| definitely learned a thing or two at the 3 companies I've worked
| at, don't get me wrong. However, the hardest stuff I've learned
| was still at university (e.g. rowhammer via JavaScript + WebGL,
| using IDA Pro to analyze binaries, hacking in general really).
|
| Another thing I find as weird is that my salary is at 4500 euro's
| gross now. It's amazing that I feel compensated well now (for
| Dutch standards), but given my ragged resume, I also find it
| weird. Somehow failing at companies and searching for a new job
| (after six months of staying at one place!) allows me to
| negotiate for a much higher salary. Wait what? Why?
|
| Company 1: 2500 euro's
|
| Company 2: 4100 euro's ("This is what a software engineer costs
| right?" Me: "Yes")
|
| Company 3: 4500 euro's ("How much did you make at your previous
| company?" Me: "4100 euro's gross" Them: "Hmm, we need proof" Me:
| _sends proof_ Them: "Okay, we'll make you an offer based on
| that, it's a bit high on the pay-scale though for your level")
|
| I can't see the forest through the threes here, it just feels
| like I'm being tossed into a downstream river and whatever
| randomness happens, I just have to take it.
|
| University isn't like that, at university you can actually shape
| your path. In real life, I can't shape my path, I feel little
| agency. I've tried. Right now I'm enjoying a 4 day work week at
| 80% of my salary, remotely in another European country. I
| suddenly catapulted myself in a very enviable position. And it's
| mostly luck and I've happened to have bad luck before. My sense
| of agency feels crushed, and I feel sad that I belief it. I
| wonder if it's learned helplessness or whether there's a huge
| kernel of truth there. With that said, I'm very grateful for what
| I have.
|
| I don't know what to make of it anymore. I simply try to get by
| and have a lot of empathy and sympathy for people who've lost
| their way. I don't understand how some people can say "I chose to
| do xyz." How do they have so much agency?
| cableshaft wrote:
| > I can't see the forest through the threes here, it just feels
| like I'm being tossed into a downstream river and whatever
| randomness happens, I just have to take it.
|
| Yeah, pretty much. You have some control over it, but often not
| as much as you'd like. I was pretty consistently one of the
| best in my classes in school also, and then the real world said
| "Haha, you actually want to work on things that interest you
| and innovate? Think again!"
|
| That's why I ended up working for life insurance companies and
| for health insurance companies and wealth management companies,
| despite telling myself I'd never work for such boring companies
| when I was younger (where I grew up, the headquarters for a
| life insurance company was the biggest employer in town,
| especially white-collar, and was omnipresent).
|
| I have had interviews at FAANGs, though, and the interview
| didn't go as well as it could have for various reasons
| (sometimes just not being given enough notice / not motivated
| enough to practice enough for their ridiculous exams).
| sinenomine wrote:
| Simple advice: become a regular in higher quality programming-
| related communities (could be discords, IRCs etc), befriend a
| FAANG worker and ask for a referral.
|
| Entering the hiring funnel shouldn't be hard; it's the "exam"
| part which is very demanding.
| divbzero wrote:
| This article resonates as I've observed it happen in many
| contexts. In addition to failure and rejection sapping away the
| energy to be ambitious, alternative forms of success can reduce
| the motivation to pursue the original ambition. For example, it
| can be hard to turn away from a stable FAANG job that supports a
| happy family and undertake more ambitious but less certain
| endeavors.
| thenerdhead wrote:
| Everytime I'm rejected, I follow up a number of times. Usually
| that leads to an answer of why, even if it's a generic one.
|
| I will never understand why companies fail to give candidates
| constructive feedback. Especially at the final rounds. Even if it
| was "you were great, but we are going with someone else at this
| time". One ounce of feedback is investing in people reapplying or
| wanting to work for your company. No feedback at all makes people
| look elsewhere.
|
| Ambition and success are similar to me. It's a few practiced
| disciplines every single day. Nobody can gatekeep that except
| you.
| Mc91 wrote:
| > Even if it was "you were great, but we are going with someone
| else at this time"
|
| This is how it is with two out of three people. By the time
| they pass the filter of their resume and whatnot, two or three
| people are OK. They can answer basic questions, they act
| normally, they seem to have been doing the job as they said for
| a few years. They are also somewhat interchangeable with the
| person we interviewed before. Then we interview someone else,
| and maybe they were referred by an internal team member with a
| recommendation, maybe they are just a standard deviation above
| who we interviewed in terms of what they know. There's nothing
| really wrong with the people rejected, it's "you seem to know
| how to program basic features like two out of three people we
| interviewed, but we interviewed someone else who has a deep
| understanding of the language we use".
| edflsafoiewq wrote:
| Seems less like "you were great" and more like "you were okay
| but we found somebody who's great".
| SheddingPattern wrote:
| Sometimes there are three decent ca candidates but only one
| role, so yeah "you were great"
| iovrthoughtthis wrote:
| 1. giving feedback is a skill that almost no one learns to do
| 2. bad feedback will often cause problems that wouldn't exist
| if no feedback were given 3. not everyone is well placed to
| actually receive feedback
| superb-owl wrote:
| There was an article a few days ago on why you should keep your
| mouth shut during exit interviews. The same rationale applies
| for me when rejecting a candidate - some people tend to be
| angry and volatile when rejected, so the safest thing is to
| just say "we're going with someone else." I almost never give
| honest feedback on why.
|
| That said, ghosting a candidate is completely uncalled for.
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| A slightly different point is that it's simply a liability
| for the company to provide that reason because there are
| reasons that are illegal. Unfortunately, it is true that not
| providing a reason removes that liability.
|
| (I guess that's not true in states that don't allow "any or
| no reason" but I don't know what those states are, if any.)
| nisegami wrote:
| >I will never understand why companies fail to give candidates
| constructive feedback.
|
| Zero benefit to them with small but non-zero chance of causing
| them a lot of problems. Unless a lawyer looks over the
| feedback, all it takes is an uncharitable reading to try to
| spin it into an attack on a protected class.
| Teever wrote:
| It's kind of like the returning shopping carts vs leaving
| them next to your car when you're done with them debate.
|
| Individually leaving shopping carts where it's most
| convenient is the best course of action but in aggregate
| we're all worse off for doing it.
| Uehreka wrote:
| Not really. If you could be sued for putting back a
| shopping cart the wrong way, no one would put them back at
| all, and everyone would understand why.
| derbOac wrote:
| The issues outlined in this essay are why, as an organization,
| it's important that if you want your members to be ambitious, you
| need to be positive, cooperative, constructive, and helpful.
|
| I don't mean "don't provide any critical feedback" or
| "competition is bad", I mean, the point of you having an
| organization is to have a group with some goal, and if you want
| to accomplish that, you should cooperate. If you're going to
| provide critical feedback, do it with the aim of improving
| things, not just to tear things apart.
| sinenomine wrote:
| I find it hilarious, given what we know about top teams at top
| corporations being extremely competitive:
| https://old.reddit.com/r/MachineLearning/comments/vbh2vx/d_a...
|
| Really puts things into perspective.
| rubicon33 wrote:
| For me what seems to kill ambition is personal failure. Lack of
| energy. Lack of motivation. Lack of focus. Ambition often comes,
| but unless I am SUPER excited about something and/or get very
| quick positive feedback, I will inevitably become tired, lose
| focus, and fail.
|
| This has improved over the years thankfully. It was much worse in
| my 20s. But still, for me at least, ambition is a function of my
| own ability and not really of any external person or thing.
| the_only_law wrote:
| Yeah same here. For a number of reasons, most of my ambition
| died off when a I became an adult for a variety of reasons and
| it's never really recovered.
|
| Once or twice a year, maybe I get some spark at some god awful
| hour of the night and get into ambitious planning mode, but it
| never lasts more than a few months.
|
| Frankly most of my ambitions end up becoming just a constant
| fight against bureaucracies and I don't have the energy for
| that shit. Also most of my recent ambitions are very long term,
| and it's easy for me to meticulously plan some long term goals
| when I'm bored, but less so to follow those plans over a period
| that could be a decade.
| sinenomine wrote:
| This is an underrated honest comment. By this time it's an open
| secret that successful people, in addition to high IQ, tend to
| have hypomania (among other peculiar traits):
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypomania Not to mention, some of
| them tend to use stimulants and euheroics.
|
| We should be more honest about fundamental biological basis of
| high productivity, and we should open the path to meaningful
| self-enhancement to anybody applying, not just a lucky few.
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