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Comment by rubyist5eva | Hacker News Reader

I've had my fair share of failures that's for sure. I'm do not expecting to actually succeed every single time, but I am putting in the best effort to at least try to succeed instead of just trying to coast along or shrug it off being like "meh, just wasn't in the cards". I also don't expect massive celebrations when I actually do succeed - success is what is expected. If I'm supposed to make the big sale, I don't get a party after I just move on to the next big sale. It's what is expected, not exceptional.

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That's fair. And to be honest, I have a very similar mindset - so I'm super not judging.

Just making an observation that scaling this up to a population level is tricky. Easy to mangle up the nuances when trying to impart this to children. I suspect you need a relatively stable environment for this to really take hold as well. And finally, you do actually need to be able to feed the child some degree of external success to get them to actually buy into this.

that’s bleak

why not have some joy?

you might say you do have joy, but I’ll say it doesn’t look like it and so to bring it back I wouldn’t want to work for you

This is why companies are always pushing the “winning” narrative.

to be clear I’m only commenting on how your philosophy is perceived vs how it actually feels, since I can’t know that.

Maybe I’m not articulating myself correctly because I certainly do not want to imply or say that there is no joy in my life. I guess the “joy” in my life is just intrinsic rather than extrinsic? I get immense satisfaction out of my work itself and “succeeding” in and of itself is motivating. I also find mentoring/helping others succeed to also be extremely rewarding. The greatest joy I get in life is seeing how my actions have improved the lives of others in some way.

I also feel very fulfilled from my personal relationships, family and lifestyle that my “success” affords me.

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