A lot happens

I did. And thank you - you hit the nail on the head with "It's tough to feel like you've fallen short, even when you realize the goal was unrealistic or that others would have been happier for you not to try."

As for the rest, simply thank you - and yeah, I shouldn't be reading the comments ;)

> It's so easy to get carried away by enthusiasm, ambition, pride, fear ... it happens to most of us all the time. Luckily I belong to the people who run out of energy fast. Therefore I need to stop and break and make a reality check for myself regularly.

I recognize myself in the behavior that the writer describes. Going all-in on too many things, and all the negative consequences that result from that.

The feeling I felt as I read the article wasn't just recognition; it was envy. Because I am actually one of those people who run out of energy fast, my 'all-in' has not even resulted in a partner, kids, 'prominence' in any community, etc.

Basically, I am in much of the same place as the author, for the same reasons (to the degree that I can tell from one article, of course), except that I have nothing to show for it.

The best I can say about that, perhaps, is that by having less to 'show for it' I also have less to mess up or lose.

Small comfort.

Discovering that I also belong to the people that run out of energy fast, and that even operating at 'normal speed' can be disastrous for me in very particular contexts is a good thing though. If I learn to make these 'reality checks' regularly, I will most certainly be happier and more grounded, and in fact I'm pretty confident I'll even be able to 'achieve things' in the long run.

And that's a ray of hope, however small and however far off its source seems. Slow and steady wins the race, I think, applies very much to me.

My primary challenge is that I find it really, really difficult to 'make reality checks'. I have recently been diagnosed with (mild) autism, and apparently this inability is pretty typical.

How do you keep yourself from either going too much all-in, or hiding from the world too much, when much of the time you're barely aware of whether you're doing one or the other? How do you remind yourself to do a reality check when you forget about the reminder, because your brain is stuck on some random obsession?

Sometimes I feel that I live in a world that is fundamentally not suited to me. I don't think of eating unless someone else starts eating, but because I live alone in a big city with some flatmates I barely know, I am often not triggered. I don't think of leaving the house to socialize because there is no clear pattern or cohesive structure to my social world. It's all opt-in and based on personal initiative, mostly. I sometimes struggle doing work as a freelance developer, because my brain gets stuck in a loop and I just pace my room talking to myself. Or, the other way around, I work and work at the expense of everything else and end up in a pretty bad place because of this. It made me understand why weekends and vacations are important. If only I could remember this. I've tried for years.

I sometimes miss the period in my life where external structures provided me with a socialization pattern (student org.), where deadlines and tests forced me in some kind of rhythm, or, longer ago, where living with my family provided me with the triggers I need to engage in normal, healthy behavior (eat well, sleep regularly, get outside, talk to people, sit with people not talking, emotional 'cleanup' by talking to parents/siblings, etc).

Sorry about this reply getting off track. It sort of got away from me...

I used to be one of the carried away people. Then I developed a really awesome relationship, and then I fell off of a bicycle and experienced a traumatic brain injury, and the lingering after effect of a head injury or a spinal cord injury is often chronic pain.

Luckily, I can still program. I didn't loose much mental capacity. But there's a thing in the chronic pain support community called the 'theory of spoons.' In short, you get a certain number of spoons when you wake up in the morning. Some days it's more, some days it's less. You give a spoon out for everything you do and every interaction you have. Most days, you'll run out of spoons midway through the day through normal interaction. But when you run out of spoons, you have nothing to stop yourself from just hurting. You don't have anything to give yourself to stop the pain, much less to give to anyone else to make them feel needed in the relationship you have, to make them feel valued at work, to make them feel happy or welcome to be in your home, to produce something awesome on your side project, to make a healthy dinner ... there just aren't enough spoons on any given day. But the worst part is that you end up in physical pain because you've given out all your spoons, and you know that the people around you are hurting emotionally because you don't have any spoons to give them.

Most people eventually learn to budget their spoons carefully. If you're SUPER cautious about it and you put many of your ambitions aside, you can get to a point where you still have a spoon left by the time you get home at night. But it means you're probably not going to be an astronaut, and you probably are very shallowly involved with your community, and you probably aren't going to leave much of a mark on the world outside of the people who love you. Recognizing that early in life is pretty important so that you do have people who love you.

It's always easy to say this sort of thing as an un-invested third party, but it's not super constructive. I'm sure Jesse considered it before choosing not to.

I got the impression that an unspoken subtext of Jesse's essay was that, in the community he's describing, people always think they have the right answer (instead of considering that being humane is more important than being seen as an expert - cue the guy calling him out about PyCon).

It looks like your comment does exactly that again.

So, although I think you meant well, your comment is indeed callous as I read it.

> One of the great thing about tech is that it's pretty easy to switch jobs/work remotely/branch off and do your own thing.

Really? I'm not sure this is really true (though it seems to be a popular HN trope). There may be jobs everywhere if you want to "disrupt online kitty litter sales" or if you want to work for "1/2 pay but KILLER equity after 4 years, bro!". However, is the market for normal, steady, secure tech employment really that healthy? As someone with a family and a mortgage, the number of companies I'd consider working for is shrinking day by day, and those companies are still very picky. I don't feel like it's even close to 1999 these days.

Is it really that easy to just go do your own thing? Where do you get your start-up capital? If "do your own thing" means be an independent contractor, where you you get your first client? Calling it easy is kind of a stretch.

> Why doesn't OP move to Boston? If your daughters are the most important thing in your life, then moving across the US to be close to them seems like a no-brainer.

My (future ex-)wife is the same. She says she loves her 3 children more than anything, and she misses them when she's abroad for work, but still, she chooses not to be with them.

Either they love their work more than anything, but don't want to admit it, or they love their children but don't feel the need to be with them as much as any other person.

Maybe it was a mistake for such a person to have children.

Sorry if I sound too harsh, but being recently in the same situation, but on the other end, is pretty rough :(.

Callous? Yes, no? I haven't finished the 3(!) followups to this, so by way of empathizing with your end-result (e.g. just move) with the information I also have I can say "it is not a binary choice".

Factor in the following: my ex and I are still best friends and confidants. As we went through this little slice of hell, what was best for our kids above what was best for us was top of mind.

Now, factor in the following: I've learned - the hard way - that investing yourself into certain things can net you things you didn't have. For example, without dumping all into the community, I wouldn't be where I am in my career, and I would not have discovered things about what I want to do in that career.

Now factor in what I described is the sign of an extremely obsessive, insecure, and potentially depressed personality with no actual definition of "self" outside of community, work, and kids. Literally - now that I've set boundaries I'm busy looking around saying "Uh. Shit. Who am I?"

Now factor in the strict clinical definition of what you go through in a divorce - it's akin to significant loss (e.g a death in the family). You go through (as I am) many stages of that including grief, depression, etc. I'm somewhere in the no man's land without an end in sight just as of yet.

Now factor in the severe anxiety and depression that comes with all of that. Yes - I could quit my job and move just to be near my girls. However not being physically or mentally fit outside of my definition of self in my career I would be throwing myself into a position of not "not moving on my own terms".

Think of it like this: I agreed, with my ex, that this would be the best course of action for now. Just up and moving wouldn't solve the root cause of why we separated, it would just solve one aspect of "me". This would result in a probable mis-directed resentment on my part towards my ex, my children and others.

Therefore, while given the information you gleaned you may be correct albeit callous, you are right that there are many more factors in a situation like this to be taken into account.

Net-net - mental health is hard. Recovery is hard - you can't tell a depressed person to "just don't be sad" and you can tell a person with an addiction (such as I've gone through) to just "give it up" without a goal, or a process by which to solve the root cause.

As the ex - He is in the process of healing, dealing with doctors, finding himself and probably in some ways, some of the physical distance might be good thing. What folks don't know is that we co-parent even from a distance. Yes the girls miss him. Miss his hugs, his close presence. However they understand that their Dad is still there for them. We have a good schedule to ensure that during extended breaks he gets to see them, either here or there.

One day we do hope he will come back here as this is where the girls have called home. However can remain patient and nonjudgmental until that time.

And a reply from my ex (and good friend) whose account got flagged "dead" (dnoller13) to you:

As the ex - He is in the process of healing, dealing with doctors, finding himself and probably in some ways, some of the physical distance might be good thing. What folks don't know is that we co-parent even from a distance. Yes the girls miss him. Miss his hugs, his close presence. However they understand that their Dad is still there for them. We have a good schedule to ensure that during extended breaks he gets to see them, either here or there.

One day we do hope he will come back here as this is where the girls have called home. However can remain patient and nonjudgmental until that time.

While I don't intend to be rude, not sure how else I could say this -- you're not ruining other people's lives all three times right? There are a lot of I's and my's in your comment which makes me wonder how much empathy you're employing...

Also, have you tried to stop? Has it occurred 3 times unintentionally and this article was the impetus you needed to make a change?

[EDIT] - lightened wording around the last few questions, comments have noted that I was being too coarse, and ironically unempathetic

Because we're not Vulcans?

People just love, it's a thing that human animals do. Questioning love is like questioning your elbows, or that you sneeze. It's part of being human.

Humans are social animals, and there's some part us that crave companionship and love. We could probably try and rationalize it and make a pro/con table out of love, but at the end of the day biological factors kick in, and there's only so much your thinking brain can do to control it.

This is a highly personal decision, so this is just my 2c. Yes. Its the only thing worth anything.

Nothing in this world is stable. Your boss will fire you if you cant perform. Your friends may move away or change. Some will try to use you, but even the best ones will never care about you the way your partner will. Its an anchor in the storm of life.

There are probably many many authors who can wax poetic about this stuff better than me though, so I'll stop now.

I question love, and I'm not yet willing to even share those musings... probably because it is equivalent to such concepts as hope and happiness. And those are among the deepest, core, precepts on what we should be striving for.

There is nothing wrong with them per se. What I feel is wrong is our perceptions and expectations of them. Then, to add fuel to the fire, people benchmark their lives based on how much of these "resources" they have.

People can't even show respect for the dignity of other people and allow them to be themselves. To do so makes many people feel that they are invalidated in life as they so obsessively struggle at a breakneck speed to secure their sense of self-worth.

Even something as daring to be big is such a huge problem. Look at entrepreneurs and think about all the arguments presented about what it takes to be a successful one. How many are portrayed as "eccentric".

So imagine trying to question something like love... it's like questioning a religion, only much worse...

Many people have priorities beyond romantic love. A sense of accomplishment or a sense of ethics can often be more important at times.

Feel free to question it -- but also realize that you may come up with the wrong answers.

I think it's wise (in most case) to defer to older generations when stuck with serious questions like these -- and I doubt you'll find an older person/person on their deathbed who would say something like "I wish I would have spent less time loving, trusting, and committing to others".

I get the feeling if you took the approach you'd describe, all you'd end up with are a bunch of loose acquaintance-like relationships, and nothing deeper. Generally the realization that all your relationships are shallow is what triggers people to seek out deeper relationships, which need/require love/trust/commitment. Also, even if you were able to become completely content with nothing but shallow relations, good luck not regretting it/wondering if life could have been something more.

Human are made to interact one each other, love and enjoy life. Even if you feel alone sometimes because you might do not have someone that can understand you, you should try finding a person to love. Also love is the best feeling you can have.

My partner cKaye and I are both part of Python and we've been considering these questions a lot lately.

In short: I don't think it's reasonable to treat love as though it were an emotion. Love is an act. Practice it. Do it. Do it well and with joy. But don't treat it like it's the same thing as happiness; it isn't.

> Interacting with people, playing with children, etc. can be enjoyable activities.

When you put it like that, it sounds more like a hobby. It's not worth it to "fall in love" if those are your primary goals.

> enjoy the company of people (without love, trust and the concomitant sadness, resentment)

Without mutual trust, you can't have much interaction beyond small-talk. (Yes, even purely intellectual discussions require it, especially once there's disagreement.)

Don't go for "love", as portrayed in mainstream media. Go for understanding the other, particularly when it feels hard to do so.

> Is love worth it?

Yes. So is family, friends, ...

> Instead of loving and getting heart broken when the associated people depart from one's lives

I think to experience the joy of it, you have to fall in love, that means being exposed and risking getting hurt. It's the other side of the coin so to speak.

> why are people reluctant to question love itself? (it is always one person or the other's fault, but never love's fault; why?).

Because it is boring, I think. Talking about love is boring, experiencing it is exiting.

Pick something you really enjoy, maybe a favorite food. Analyzing it and talking about its ingredients is boring. Tasting it is where it's at.

> Is love worth it?

As opposed to what? The question's very similar to "is humanity even worth saving?" which has the same response.

(But I'm looking forward to maybe making it to the time when we can arbitrarily rewrite and explore permutations of our mind architecture. I'd predict transhumans will find something much more worthwhile than love as understood by the best of us normal humans.)

Yes, I have often wondered the same thing, but I think there is a rational explanation. Over evolutionary timescales, the human groups who put more social pressure on having lots of kids and raising them carefully were ultimately more prolific. So, the genes that encouraged these social norms were selected and later, the notion of "love" became heavily intertwined with the amount of care someone gave to their spouse and family. Additionally, having kids is one of the very few major life decisions that cannot be undone and requires a huge amount of effort from the parents. Folks who honestly regret having kids experience a lot of cognitive dissonance since they necessarily committed a large part of their lives to the endeavor, and to admit it was a mistake would be admitting a huge personal error. It's emotionally easier to insist that loving a family is the most important thing a person can do in his/her life, because realizing it's just evolutionary mechanics causes even more discomfort. Questioning the importance of love leads a pathway to cognitive dissonance, so is avoided because of the consequences of that realization. I always assume that the people who talk about the importance of family are mostly trying to convince themselves, as with much rhetoric. But of course, I'm now arguing against, so what does that say about me?

Personally, I just want to know what love is.

> Is love worth it?

That's up to you. Nobody can force you to love them, and you can always choose to walk away from potential loves.

Most of the replies to your post seem to be telling you that love is worth it. I think that is overly simplistic - we are not all the same. Some people find love, some don't. Some people who do find it, make it last, some don't. Some people who do find it resent it, some people who don't find it resent not having found it.

I don't think one size fits all, and I think people should try to make choices that fulfil them, whether that means prioritising work, or friends or family or exploration or wine tasting.

In particular, to those who suggest that love is an evolutionary advantage, I partially disagree. Or at least I think that is simply one facet of our species - one of our key strengths is diversity of being. We have the people who must go out and explore and discover. We have the people who must stay home and build families and societies. Only by having all of these things have we been able to expand across the planet and achieve everything we have. If everyone chose love over work, there are lots of things we wouldn't have invented/discovered. If everyone chose work over love, we'd be a much smaller species, etc, etc.

I'm touching several topics in this wall. First, why can't we simply enjoy the company of others without trust, and with the expectation that it will end at any time. Second, why is love worth the heartbreak? Third, why do people never blame love itself?

First, why is a trust based, long-term commitment of love good?

People, generally speaking, like stability. It's why we make commitments. Commitment is good for society, and without it we wouldn't be able to make plans. I think it's difficult for people to "just enjoy the company of people" because if you do that without expecting them to stick around, you're living on the edge of chaos.

How can I run a business if I don't trust that my employees will show up for work? How can I play tennis on Thursdays if I don't trust the other club members to be there? How can a child survive if her parents aren't committed to feeding her?

The feelings of love, are there to help bind us to our commitments.

Really, "love" is too broad a term, so let's be more specific and look at romantic relationships e.g. marriage.

Traditionally, your marriage should be the most stable relationship you have in your life. It is a commitment between two people to support each other emotionally, to raise children together, to share finances, and live domestically. This is highly beneficial, as it makes it so you don't have to worry about as much stuff, because you can divide the labour between two people. I watch the kids, while she gets groceries. She pays the bills while I'm at work, she massages my back, after I make supper etc. Marriage is a serious commitment, the kind of commitment you don't make with just anybody.

Marriage, and indeed love in many other forms, is an exceptionally practical thing. It might be fair to speculate that humans evolved to seek out a love relationship because having a stable family is just so practical. Some research suggests married couples live longer, which might be because of the practical benefits of stability and splitting the work, thus reducing stress and increasing productivity.

If you want to live without marriage or "love" then go right ahead, but if that research is true than life will probably be harder.

As for heart break...well it makes sense. Because marriage is so practical, losing that relationship will make life harder, so we don't want to do that. Sure you can find another relationship, but that takes time and effort, and it means having to build another relationship. As an analogy, I will be sad if my house burns down because all the time and money I spent in building and filling the house is gone, and I must start again. Sure, there's opportunity there as well, but it doesn't lessen the loss.

Feeling negative emotions isn't a bad thing either, it's part of what makes us human, and avoiding love because you want to avoid pain is honestly absurd.

As for "why is it never love's fault?"

Well love isn't a thing. You can't go out in the world and find love, because love doesn't exist without people. Love is an adjective that can be used to succinctly describe two peoples feelings towards each other, and those feelings they have are a result of their actions. People make love (whether sexual or not) through their actions. If a marriage falls apart it's because one person stops loving the other, not because Cupid decided to go get his arrows.

I see you already have a lot of responses, but personally, I am by default suspicious/hesitent of indulging in love, yet I regret most of the times I haven't. I feel like love colors the world and our experiences to be more vibrant and meaningful than otherwise.

It sounds like you'd be interested in reading about the Buddha's teachings about attachment and suffering.

Like what?

Or even 40; I assume even 50 and beyond, but I haven't been there yet. If we stop growing, we start dying.

Something that's never taught is how to deal with emotions in constructive ways. At least, I don't know who I was supposed to learn it from. I think a lot of us carry emotional turmoil with us that boils over in unrelated situations.

and known, not know.

This is like saying to people who have procrastination issues (or any addictive, sub-optimal behavior pattern, really) that they should just make a different choice and not put things off. The real issues are subconscious and take a lot of time and effort to fix. Knowing something is different from being able to consistently execute on it.

What I think you're missing here is the role of ambition. Full time on coding might make some people happy. That can happen if you only care about coding as an activity, and not about reaching specific goals. It can also happen if your goals fit within the amount of coding you can do individually in whatever milieu you're doing it. What if the thing you want to do, the software you want to create, requires more than that? Then you have to pull together a team, which brings in a whole bunch of complexity and loss of control. It can be awesome, or it can be draining and frustrating. Sometimes it's both.

On the flip side, "full time at home" isn't an option for many (probably most) people who'd be reading your comment or mine. Somebody has to make some money, not for its own sake but to reach family goals - housing of a certain quality, schools, sports or hobbies, whatever. Then there's a time commitment on top of that. It's a lot with one kid, it's more with two or three, it's far more if any of them or ill or troubled or disabled.

For many people, just having to choose is frustrating. People want to have a successful career and a good family life and time for themselves, and they just can't have all of them. Giving up on "having it all" is really really hard, and it's not immature. In fact it's the characteristic struggle of mature people, leading to burnout and mid-life crises. It's the immature, with fewer commitments and simpler goals, who seem least affected.

That's (part of) why I think your "that's immature" is itself the most immature thing I've ever seen on HN. It shows a startling lack of empathy for people going through something you apparently never have. I hope you are young, because if you can still say such a thing from the vantage of experience that's even more pathetic. The struggle is real, and being laughed at or condescended to as you go through it doesn't exactly help. It's part of what Jesse was warning about.