[HN Gopher] On Proving Yourself
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On Proving Yourself
Author : feross
Score : 85 points
Date : 2022-07-29 17:01 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (thesephist.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (thesephist.com)
| jll29 wrote:
| Nothing wrong with proving yourself, introspection or self-
| improvement. But the best people (in my book anyway) care for
| others as their #1 priority; so much so that they barely have
| time to reflect.
| civilized wrote:
| I sympathize with this view, but I think many people's biggest
| contributions to humanity are not through care for others.
|
| Take Donald Knuth, just off the top of my head. I've seen
| people close to him write glowingly of his personal qualities,
| but I would argue his contribution to humanity is
| overwhelmingly through his work, not through caring for others.
|
| If you measure people primarily through care for others, you'll
| miss out on some pretty remarkable people.
| yamrzou wrote:
| > When I look back at my projects and writings that made the
| biggest impact in my career, they are never the ones that I built
| for the express purpose of accomplishing one of the many
| checkpoints I was naively chasing. Instead, they're almost always
| borne out of me following through on what's personally
| interesting to me
|
| This really hit home for me. My most significant memories are of
| the things I did out of passion and interest and not because "I
| had" to do them.
|
| In other words, it's about being authentic vs trying to reach
| some socially prescribed ideal of success in order to prove
| yourself.
| borroka wrote:
| There are many more nuances than those presented.
|
| This is a personal example, but there are many such cases: I
| used to do a job, academic research, that I loved, but it was
| poorly paid. I switched to a very lucrative job, which I don't
| hate, I don't love, but it is a job as it is understood when
| people say, "I have a job."
|
| But the money from "the job" allows me to have a much easier
| life in terms of money, with less stress that I don't want
| (paying rent, what if I have an emergency that requires
| dollars) and with room for the many passions I have.
|
| Guess what, I can also live without doing research; I did
| research on my own for a while, even published a couple of
| papers, which was both meritorious and useless at the same
| time, but I eventually devoted my creativity to other
| activities that are now more fulfilling than research.
| paganel wrote:
| Imo this hits the nail of the head:
|
| > But fortunately I've found that just doing the thing that
| fulfills you the most also happens to be the fastest way to
| discover other people who will celebrate your ideas and hard
| work.
|
| Even it those "other people" are only a "cohort" of 3 or 4 and
| not the metaphorical thousands, as long as those 3 or 4 persons
| are genuinely into what you're doing and, most importantly,
| they're doing/building most probably something similar to you (or
| following the same philosophy), then I find that that is very
| much worth it (i.e. "giving away" the attention of the multitudes
| for the "attention" of a few people from your particular domain).
| neilv wrote:
| If your cohort is only 3 or 4 people, hopefully your
| sustainable livelihood isn't tied too much to that endeavor.
| paganel wrote:
| That's part of the whole thing, that when you do something
| you love or which at least you're greatly interested in you
| don't necessarily do it for money, I'd say that in most cases
| you don't do it for money. That's what jobs are for (money,
| that is).
| angarg12 wrote:
| I have a much more cynical and pessimistic view that's pretty
| much not on brand for HN.
|
| I spent 3 years working on a videogame as a personal side
| project. Although I was passionate about it, thing is it was a
| very niche idea. Sure, maybe I got literally 2 or 3 people that
| were super into it, but it never got any traction.
|
| So yes, doing something that you enjoy is it's own reward... to
| a point. I poured hundreds of hours in that videogame and led
| to me burnout once, jut to have a few hundreds visits. I don't
| exactly regret the experience, but I could have spent much less
| time and effort on it.
|
| Now I'm less "follow your passion" and more tactical about my
| efforts. I spent a weekend prototyping a game where you guess
| an emoji using a "hot/cold" system by comparing emojis based on
| their semantic similarity. When I asked for feedback it was
| universally panned, so I decided to drop it. Sure, maybe there
| is one person who'd love the game, but we only have so much
| time on this earth, so I have to consider the opportunity cost
| of building something that one person could love vs building
| something more people might enjoy.
| alexashka wrote:
| > Like any bright-eyed engineer fresh to the Valley, I wanted to
| start a company. I wanted lots of followers on Twitter.
|
| God help us if what bright eyed engineers want, is lots of
| followers on Twitter.
| denton-scratch wrote:
| > God help us if what bright eyed engineers want, is lots of
| followers on Twitter.
|
| That was my reaction. But on reflection: he says he's changed,
| and is now much happier. I wonder if he's painted his earlier
| self in a hyper-critical light? The person he described seemed
| to me to be horribly shallow - it was all about wanting to be
| cool, popular, and to hang around with other cool people.
| That's a sort of Kardashian mindset.
|
| Anyway, by the time he flipped and relaxed into doing what
| interested him, he had already achieved his influencer-like
| goals.
|
| I also felt I had to prove myself; but not in terms of who I
| got to hang around with, or how many followers I had. I felt
| that I had to prove _to myself_ that I was a reasonably good
| software developer. It took me a decade.
|
| There's this claim (not sure where it comes from) that to get
| really good at anything difficult takes a decade - learning an
| instrument, skippering a boat, even cooking. I'm inclined to
| agree.
| j7ake wrote:
| The three balances one must make with their career is: (1) doing
| things you enjoy, (2) doing things you're good at, and (3) doing
| things other people want.
|
| Having only 1 or 2 of these 3 can be OK, but not ultimately
| fulfilling or sustainable.
|
| In this framework, the author is saying one should shift more
| weight towards doing what you enjoy (and are good at), and less
| what others want.
|
| I think the balance is dynamic, and changes as you get older.
|
| Under the apprenticeship model, you start heavily doing what
| others want, while building what you're good at. Once you've
| proven you have real skills and can provide value to the world,
| you think how to mix that into a unique way to deliver value to
| the world while being able to express your unique self.
| HPsquared wrote:
| The satisfaction to be gained from doing "what others want"
| also depends massively on who those other people are, and the
| nature of your relationship with them.
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| Well said, there's nothing better than finding genuine
| motivation to get something done, not just because you want
| to complete it, but because those you respect also respect
| you, and will be grateful for its completion.
| JadeNB wrote:
| > The three balances one must make with their career is: (1)
| doing things you enjoy, (2) doing things you're good at, and
| (3) doing things other people want.
|
| > Having only 1 or 2 of these 3 can be OK, but not ultimately
| fulfilling or sustainable.
|
| Surely you mean "fulfilling _and_ sustainable "? It seems to me
| that there are certainly people who find great fulfillment by
| satisfying (1) and (2) without (3), even if they have to
| sacrifice for it (and even then, sometimes if you (1) and (2)
| hard enough it'll _create_ (3)--think of how many esoteric
| passion projects get rapt attention, and sometimes even
| financial support, when the right community of interested
| people finds them).
| j7ake wrote:
| If you can create (3) later then that's great. A lack of (3)
| is not sustainable because you are unlikely to get paid, and
| your peers ignore your work and ideas, which can be
| demoralising.
|
| I think one can get used to not getting paid (if you have
| independent funds), but being ignored is something one can
| rarely get used to.
| allenu wrote:
| > It would be hypocritical for me to say that it's foolish to
| want to prove yourself, because feeling like you are qualified
| and worthy deeply influences how you do what you do [...]
|
| Something I've been working on in myself is being happy with
| where I am and not always trying to prove myself to others. I
| used to be in a place where so much of what I did at work was an
| attempt to prove how smart and clever I was to others. (Don't get
| me wrong, I love solving problems on their own, but I also wanted
| others to see how capable I was.)
|
| It would bring me down when others didn't see the clever things
| that I came up with, or if I wasn't rewarded for the smart
| solutions. Ultimately, I started to realize that my "worthiness"
| shouldn't be determined based on what others believe. It sounds
| like the author isn't quite there themselves. Being "qualified"
| or "worthy" is a nebulous goal and always shifting as you become
| more successful. You'll never reach it and if you're relying on
| others to feel worthwhile, you'll constantly be disappointed. I
| think this is ultimately something you learn with age and
| experience.
|
| I was reading a book recently that put things in a way that made
| sense to me. What it said was that you ultimately have to take
| stock of your own values, those things that are important to you,
| and just work on those things. The external success (or praise)
| in your work is secondary and something you just don't have full
| control over. All you really have control in your life is the
| actions you take and how closely aligned they are to your own
| values. So, live your life virtuously by living in accord with
| your values and that should be the ultimate arbiter of success,
| and not whether you've "proven" yourself in the eyes of other
| people. It's easier said than done, of course, because praise
| feels so good.
| tayo42 wrote:
| I'm always amazed people are out there taking multi month long
| sabbaticals. Especially in the US
| marssaxman wrote:
| In what sense does it seem amazing to you?
| tayo42 wrote:
| I answered in the other post, also every job search I've gone
| through has been a multiple month ordeal, I'd spend the the
| whole time stressing about the next job.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| requires extreme privilege in the US and much of the world.
| same reason you see trucker protests (whether canada or
| argentina) are full of business owners not actual labor,
| because labor can't afford to protest for days/weeks on end
| without work
| coldtea wrote:
| Workers have been "protesting for days/weeks on end without
| work" since forever. Including in far more poverty-striken
| eras...
|
| Maybe read up a little on the history of labor in the US
| and globally?
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| I have
| sokoloff wrote:
| Other than health insurance (which is often available via a
| spouse or affordably via a high-deductible market option), what
| makes taking a multi-month sabbatical more difficult in the US?
| If anything, the high compensation of SWEs in the US might make
| it easier to save money for a multi-month break.
|
| Being in the US, I know a lot more people in the US than
| elsewhere, but I know quite a few people who took a path like
| this in the US.
| nine_zeros wrote:
| Health insurance, rent, car payments, car insurance,
| utilities. In bay area, these could easily come up to $4k
| tayo42 wrote:
| Yeah health insurance is the big one. Rent also being high,
| like this guy lives in NYC from what I saw on the site. I
| guess the other uses of that cash, like going towards down
| payments on homes which are also incredibly expensive
| bdw5204 wrote:
| If you save up the money, you can take as much time off from
| working as you want. The reason why most people can't do that
| is because they increase their expenses to meet or exceed their
| income rather than spending less money than they make.
| pawsforthought wrote:
| Precisely. Especially among this crowd, the hamster wheel is
| largely self-imposed.
| draw_down wrote:
| s_Hogg wrote:
| I like the point he makes. It's worth expanding on a little; why
| don't more people do what he's suggesting and spend most of their
| time trying to just do stuff they think will be good I stead of
| optimising for something else? At a basic level, it can be pretty
| scary, particularly if you're in the situation he describes where
| you don't quite trust yourself yet.
|
| We have a big problem with that where I'm from. We get a lot of
| brain drain going over to California (ok fine, everyone does),
| not necessarily because of the opportunities that are undeniably
| present there but because early-career tech people here are
| inherently less willing to accept the proposition that it's
| possible to make the work cool where you are; not everyone will
| work for Google Brain once in the valley, anyway.
|
| I struggled greatly with this and had a big misadventure going to
| the US myself but the perspective it gave me on the need to lean
| in(wards) was worth it. Hope it is for someone else too.
| tppiotrowski wrote:
| You have to be able to explain what you're working on to your
| partner's parents and friends. If they haven't heard about it
| in the newspaper or on TV they won't be impressed and might not
| want you to be their in-law.
|
| Edit: interviewers are also unimpressed by personal projects
| they've never heard of. It's the publicity that gives you
| clout, not the quality of your project.
|
| Edit 2: Just to clarify, I wholeheartedly agree with the author
| and also try to build according to their ethos, but I've felt
| the insecurity they describe at various point in my life.
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