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Comment by lowiqengineer | Hacker News Reader

I don’t really want to be Charlie Parker extraordinary, I just want to be Harvard CS major who makes $500k as a T5 at Google extraordinary. I assure you, that person has more diverse friendships and more leisure time than I do.

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Note that "that person" is not actually a specific person, but merely your image of one.

I mean I can probably go on LinkedIn right now and find someone that fits these loose criteria. They’re fairly common!

If your definition of "fairly common" is something like a ~1% chance, then sure.

Certainly more common than Michelangelo-level artists! I think the OP's point was that you don't need to be the absolute best in your field, or even that close, to be rewarded handsomely.

There are artist all over instagram that can do anatomy better than Michelangelo. In fact Michelangelo never painted a portrait because he couldn't do it. Leonardo could but Leonardo could not sculpt.

Agreed. And this makes not even being close even harder for me.

How can you know what goes on in their lives though? Maybe they're bored or bitter or lonely or even suicidal? $500k a year alone does not do much for your well being.

I mean I'm all of those things too but I have way less money and external validation

Man, your issue is not that you do not have enough external validation, it's that you crave it so badly. I guarantee you achieving your concrete goals would not make you happy -- you would just move the goalposts.

I would really recommend therapy as a way to understand and reframe the desire for external validation.

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