Comment by aty268 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by aty268 | Hacker News Reader

My dad was a very blue collar banker without a college degree at Bear Stearns, and we went bankrupt when 08 bubble burst.

We moved from our multi million dollar house to live in a trailer park where I slept in a bed with my brother and ate shitty food throughout middle and high school.

I would be really interested to have someone study the long term effects of it on me, because I think it's actually made me extremely ambitious and a little crazy. I'm the only person who made it out of that shithole, and I have very high standards for myself now. I just never stopped fighting, and probably will never stop. I'm 22 and my blood pressure is off the charts, but I guess that's the price you pay!

I guess I wonder how situational poverty (rich -> poor) affects you differently than just normal poverty. I've never met another person in a similar situation. Can anyone else relate?

I can relate, somewhat.

My ambition is (was) borne out of my absolute drive to never be in the same situation I was when I was younger. Also allowed me to dig myself unapologetically into my work and it was a way of escaping when I was younger too.

But I’m 30 now, my ambition is waning. And a lot of what I learned during my “hot passion” years is already sort of old and nothing is truly fundamental in my area (devops/SRE/sysadmin).

If I had one bit of advice, it would be to try pacing yourself and think long term, I wish I’d done university and bitten the bullet of it. I recently failed a google interview for instance because I didn’t think about something foundational in sorting. And that really struck me hard. If I’d gone to university and actually focused on studying I would have been much better. But I’m so risk averse that I would never risk taking time off working to study.

I think eventually you’ll settle. Based on my single data point. I’d prepare for that.

That's good advice, interesting you didn't finish college. I'm working full time as a Software Engineer now, I just kind of "worked" my way out of school. I would bet this is pretty common among people who grew up poor.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com