Hacker News Reader

Comment by racer-v | Hacker News Reader

> you yourself have never faced hardship

First, this is wild and irresponsible speculation on your part. Second, it doesn't address the plain, objective fact that a person can continue to be happy and have a meaningful life after going through an experience of losing everything. Are you categorically stating that after a person goes bankrupt, or hungry, that their life must be ruined? That there's no point in even living?

> If you can't see why losing everything and having nothing left to survive can make people despondent, you're not capable of having a discussion about people.

It's a fundamental truth that your reaction to an event determines how you feel, not the event in itself. You have the power to not let your feelings be determined by external events. This is not a lack of sympathy for the despondent - it's the essence of hope.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If%E2%80%94#Text

View on HN

> a person can continue to be happy and have a meaningful life after going through an experience of losing everything

The life of a person who has lost everything is very different from a person who didn't have much in the first place. Whether it should be different or not can be discussed, but the reality for most people is that the 2 cases are very different.

Regret and despair are very real and play a vital role in life after a big loss.

I believe you and your parent commenter don't agree because you seem to be trivializing the issue a bit - in a way similar to how people who haven't been through big loss, or feel that because they got through it fine, so everyone else should also be able to do it as easily.

It ignores the inherently different way in which people deal with such circumstances.

> You have the power to not let your feelings be determined by external events.

There are smart people who are unable to exert enough control over their feelings (even when they know the above idea). People are diverse and often biologically (or culturally or both) wired differently, and people who are a little lucky in the ability to handle such situations better often find it easy to wonder "how idiotic can the person be to commit suicide on losing everything" - just because they handle it better.

ps: About people being wired differently, it is easy to see in certain aspects. Some people tend to panic more than others, and then there are those who have panic attacks under pressure. Then there are those who have an inherent bias towards one of either fight or flight.

I agree about variance in disposition, but I would suggest that everyone cultivate the ability to cope with big losses, because we're all going to lose everything important to us eventually.

It's necessary to experience serious adversity and setbacks early and often, so that when the "big one(s)" come, your psyche can deal with it.

Feel free to skip this, but I always liked the joke about the pig with a wooden leg.

A traveling salesman stops at a farm and sees a pig sitting on the porch with a wooden leg. He asks the farmer about it, and the farmer replies "Well, that's a very special pig. A few years ago, a tornado came through these parts, and he warned us in time to get down to the basement - saved all our lives." "OK," says the salesman, "but why does he have a wooden leg?" The farmer goes on to recount how the pig once saved the farm from a wildfire, and about the time his wife was in a difficult childbirth, and the pig ran across the street to get help from the neighbors.

"I understand how you feel about the pig," the salesman says, "but why the wooden leg?" "Well," says the farmer, "a pig that special, you can't bear to eat him all at once."

Reply on news.ycombinator.com