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Comment by throwawaypa123 | Hacker News Reader

Or you might find people you do want to listen to. Sometimes you really are the only sane person or THE most interesting person in the room. It isn't you who is the problem but the room you occupy.

Think about this, if you were in a room with Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerburg, and Bernie Madoff, how much talking would you be doing?

Not that much.

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Not a helpful comment when this person has suggested it has negatively affected their life and is looking to change.

The change should be his environment and not him. Far easier to change where you are than WHAT you are.

This is a very destructive comment, and I hope that no one is seriously reading this and thinking it's ok and applies to them. The most socially unadjusted people I know often blame everyone else around them except for themselves, when it's clear that they were both acting like jerks and totally unaware the entire time. I have a friend that's literally jobless and in poverty now because he was continuously let go project after project due to his combativeness. It's far easier in this case for him to change his behavior than to find a place to work with high salary that allows combative behavior.

You can and should always work on yourself. Focusing on self-awareness and feedback from others helps a lot to adjust your behavior to make others around you feel loved and supported, which in turn will only make your life way easier because people will like you and want to see you succeed. It's a normal part of maturing. Just because it's hard doesn't mean it's not the right thing to do.

It is about degrees. I used to be miserable trying to "behave" and realized that I was in the wrong environment. I was not a fit for that company or that culture. Working in tech has made it that I don't need to behave since most of my natural tendencies are acceptable there. How bad would it be if someone said that you have to become something I am not.

I agree that my comments could be harmful if it was the only one, but there needs to be balance in advice.

I assume this person is "successful", may be that's the faulty assumption.

Tech being filled with narcissists is not a good thing. It drives many away who could provide better balance, and does major damage long term to the culture. There’s a big backlash against the “arrogance” of Silicon Valley for a reason.

N's can't ever (ever ever...) be wrong. The problem has to be something external, such as their environment. ;)

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