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Comment by adwn | Hacker News Reader

You might want to rethink aligning your life to a Cracked listicle, in particular this one. For example:

> For instance, some people want to respond to that speech with Tyler Durden's line from Fight Club: "You are not your job." But, well, actually, you totally are.

Well, actually, you totally aren't. The next part is even worse and downright dehumanizing:

> you are nothing more than the sum total of your useful skills [...] Your "job" -- the useful thing you do for other people -- is all you are.

It's not a good idea to view yourself as purely a means to an end for other people. I'm strongly in favor of being a useful and productive part of society, but not to the point where nothing remains of your person except for an exploitable resource for others.

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Having just read it for the first time, I'd characterize that article as the metaphorical slap to bring someone to their senses. It is not enough on its own to build a philosophy on, and it isn't necessarily representative of all of life, but that article is a slap a good number of people need.

But then there's also people for whom it will be the worst thing ever, who have already completely organized their lives around pleasing others and satisfying the needs of others while not thinking about the fact they have their own needs, and need in some sense the complete opposite slap.

But I'm not surprised there's some people who found the article to be food for some fairly big thoughts.

Thanks, that's an insightful take on it. You bring up a good point, which is that reading this article can be healthy for some people, and unhealthy for others.

I don't think there's a solution for this, because any kind of disclaimer would dilute its message for those that need to hear it, and do nothing for those that shouldn't hear it. And what would such a disclaimer even look like? "Disregard this article if you're not an entitled, selfish man-child"?

>Feel free to stop reading this if your career is going great, you're thrilled with your life, and you're happy with your relationships. Enjoy the rest of your day friend, this article is not for you.

The disclaimer is woven neatly in the opening paragraph, above the delightful picture of Lenny and his large scarf.

I generally agree and don't know how well this holds up, but reading this article when I was around 20 really broke me out of some entitlement and helped me start working on myself. I think it made me view things less selfishly and think about other people's perspectives more. So I do think it works for the question asked here

The article is absolutely perfect for its audience, which is the smirking, early-20s Internet user of 10 years ago that read Cracked, or Maddox and spent their time on Digg and Reddit. You know the type.

I remember the impact it had when it came out. It was the reality check that a lot of people in that age range needed, especially new college graduates. This was the era of the "jobless recovery" of post-2008, when S&P500 was going up but underemployment was very high. You have to learn to drop a lot of ego when your fancy degree has you working at the same Starbucks as a kid straight out of high school.

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