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Comment by tozeur | Hacker News Reader

It really sounds like you worship these kinds of companies and the people who work there. Hopefully it’s not too personal, but the grass might not be greener on the other side. I grew up in a relatively wealthy family, with extended family coming from poorer backgrounds - and they were just as happy as us. At the end of the day it’s up to you if course, I’d just recommend reflecting on what about those companies/people truly is aspirational besides hot “job prospects.”

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I spend too much of my day looking at the LinkedIns and Instagrams of my friends and peers who are at "top companies".

1) They all have legitimate accomplishments. They have USAMO/USACO medals, chess trophies, ISEF distinctions, National Merit Scholarships, multiple research papers, etc. Because of this they are all interesting people and have significant pedigree, even if some of them went to similar schools as me.

2) Almost all of them seem to be very photogenic and have wide friend groups who do expensive activities with them (flying, skydiving, Europe trips, skiing, traveling to Thailand, flying to Colorado for the weekend to hike, etc). Even when they're not spending money they're still doing cool stuff, like going to expensive company events or traveling in business class to events.

3) Their friend groups are also accomplished, highly pedigreed individuals. Meanwhile I moved to a new city without knowing anyone now that my intern cohort moved to better and more impressive companies.

They all have the money to do anything they want without any real fear, whereas I do not. I don't have their wide friend groups at my company, and the lifestyles of the people at my company are decidedly "normal" because of my peers' advanced ages and differing priorities (many have kids and didn't go to elite schools).

This perspective is bullshit. You can do anything you want, without real fear, no matter who you are. There's a panoply of literature to help you change your mindset. Seek it out.

> They all have the money to do anything they want without any real fear, whereas I do not. I don't have their wide friend groups at my company, and the lifestyles of the people at my company are decidedly "normal" because of my peers' advanced ages and differing priorities (many have kids and didn't go to elite schools).

This is an excuse. I am not anything like the friends you described, and I have a wide circle of friends, and do exactly what I want in life. So does everyone I call a close friend. They all come from completely different backgrounds. It took years of hard work to get here. Start now.

Sorry for the off-topic post in this thread, but I think it's deeply important to refute this kind of thinking. Don't waste your life.

Well, for one thing they can do it at 22, with no constraints on the function they're optimizing. Their hard work was done in 4 years of undergrad and 4 years of high school. I thought I did OK - but apparently I didn't, and now I have another 8-12 years to even begin to be in the same position they're in right now. I'm way, way way behind.

This is the sort of race where once you get to the end, you realize you were racing against yourself. Stop comparing your blooper reel to their highlight reel. It's not healthy. I guarantee there are people envious of your life.

“Comparison is the death of joy.” (Mark Twain)

> This perspective is bullshit. You can do anything you want, without real fear, no matter who you are.

Well, that perspective doesn't seem any more convincing.

There are many factors to success: intelligence, character traits, hard work, money, luck. Each of them plays an important role. Each of them can, to some degree, be substituted by more of something else.

There is a huge difference whether you have or don't have a safety net. You can of course simply take a risk, but that by definition works only for a subset of people who try it.

sadamznintern, are you Asian by any chance? Because I'm Chinese, and I feel that this "comparison" sort of mindset has been ingrained into me since I was born and I've struggled to ignore it my whole life. It most likely came from hearing the sort of reverence my dad would have for people that made it (hold an Ivy League degree, become a doctor/lawyer/banker/someone of prestigious esteem, have FU money, etc.), and the sort of resentment he held for himself not having made it, and projected onto me. I flunked out of the best university in my city/province, and imagine how angry he was that I ended up in a community college (to him, lack of prestige signal = trash). Its the same mindset/attitude that holds a sort of disdain for arts majors, any occupation that doesn't spell out long-term stability and financial capability. I also found myself not really respecting someone off the bat unless I saw that they went to a proper brand-name school on LinkedIn, and while I know its irrational, the feelings are still triggered. Its pretty unhealthy black-or-white thinking, which tends to make one judge and tyrannize oneself.

Imagine the rude awakening and cognitive dissonance I've had over the years as I've met people who barely went to school but were way better programmers than I am.

I am Asian. Ironically my parents aren’t like me at all about this. They’re pretty relaxed and they would have been fine with me going anywhere as long as I was “happy”.

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