Don't compare yourself to other entrepreneurs
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1. If you compare yourself and envy someone, consider what you specifically envy. Then consider whether you are willing to change EVERYTHING with that person to get that one thing. Their parents, their childhood, their spouse, and so on. I always say no and move on.
2. Instead of comparing yourself upwards, compare yourself downwards. We frequently envy people who are more successful, wealthy, intelligent, and so on. But how many people envy you? How many people are actually less successful, less wealthy, or less intelligent? Most of the time it helps to calm me down.
As a young man, I was out for a bike ride when a man drove past me in a very expensive Mercedes coupe. My first thought was that I would love to be in his shoes, and what an amazing life he must have.
My next thought was that a man of his age would probably see a young man like me out for a weekend bike ride and wistfully think of his own youth. Not just the vigor of youth but also the lack of responsibilities.
-When you are young you have energy and time but no money -When you are an adult you have money and energy but no time -When you are old you have time and money but no energy
Obviously the answer is to embrace what you have in the moment but easier said than done.
https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/trông_lên_thì_chẳng_bằng_ai...
It's a good reminder that there are no silver bullets when it comes to happiness and a meaningful life. Beyond meeting basic needs, it's much more about being happy with what you have than trying to obtain something that you don't.
I find this lazy argument completely unconvincing and reject it entirely.
Very rarely would something like 2x total comp change the way someone lives, and if suddenly stumbling into a double income radically changes your life to the point where you become depressed, then that's kind of on you. Get therapy (you can actually afford it now), trade your money for more free time, seek meaning, be more generous and altruistic - acquire more friends, help others.
> Beyond meeting basic needs, it's much more about being happy with what you have
That sounds nice on paper, until you realize you've lived a few decades unable to afford anything beyond basic needs. I know this is HN, so 90% of people here are in an income bubble, but please try to imagine for a split second how miserable life is if you can't afford hobbies, healthcare, stable housing, or a companion pet.
I don't dispute that people who do these things would tend to be happier on average, and I agree they are all good ideas, but we can also conclusively say they aren't silver bullets, since there are many people who do all those things but still end up finding their lives so intolerable that they kill themselves.
"try to imagine for a split second how miserable life is if you can't afford hobbies, healthcare, stable housing, or a companion pet"
I'd put healthcare and stable housing in the basic needs bucket, though of course they both exist on a spectrum.
And again, that's my point. There are countless people who have enough money that they have no financial worries whatsoever and yet are still miserable, while there are others with a modest income who feel content. If you are unhappy and feel that making more money will fix it, and you're not struggling with basic needs, this should indicate that at the very least, there's no guarantee it will be a solution to your unhappiness.
Sure, yes, that happens. But on average they have the resources to deal with it, so bringing it up every time is tired, lazy and disrespectful to those who are struggling and have no safety network.
You're free to think otherwise.
> Past research has found that experienced well-being does not increase above incomes of $75,000/y. This finding has been the focus of substantial attention from researchers and the general public, yet is based on a dataset with a measure of experienced well-being that may or may not be indicative of actual emotional experience (retrospective, dichotomous reports). Here, over one million real-time reports of experienced well-being from a large US sample show evidence that experienced well-being rises linearly with log income, with an equally steep slope above $80,000 as below it. This suggests that higher incomes may still have potential to improve people’s day-to-day well-being, rather than having already reached a plateau for many people in wealthy countries[0].
You've referenced basic needs without defining what that means. The vast majority of people in the US are not in the HN bubble. They're in the barely making basic needs or just above that.
More money for people in stress (i.e. at the border) is going to bring relief and therefore less sadness[1].
[0]: https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2016976118 [1]: https://newrepublic.com/article/120859/money-doesnt-buy-happ...
I already addressed the issue of basic needs. I also made no claim as to whether more money makes people happier on average. It very well might—as you point out, there are conflicting studies on this so I don’t know if there’s conclusive evidence either way.
My point was only that money (like any other advantage one can have in life) doesn’t make everyone happy, and so there is no guarantee it will make any particular person happy if they get it.
Neither you or the other poster have addressed this point whatsoever, rather arguing against something I didn’t even say.
I came from a less fortunate background in some ways, and LinkedIn has been a godsend for me to compare myself to others and get to where I want to be: I just look people up who I’m really impressed by, see their history and combined with other research I find the patterns that got them where they are, and then develop goals for myself to surpass them. It’s almost like they’re my mentor and don’t even know it.
I wouldn’t say I’m wildly successful now, but any time I encounter someone noticeably “more successful” along the axes I care about, there’s a moment of envy that quickly turns into “what can I learn from this person to accomplish that and surpass them”? I’m way more accomplished than I was even just a year ago, and I find myself saying that every year. I’ve sold businesses, lead teams, received awards, and have accomplished things that just a few years ago seemed like a pinnacle of success because of this mindset.
Comparing oneself to others is so powerful, especially now the availability of peoples background info basically makes it a labeled dataset for learning how to become “successful” in whatever way you define it. I think that’s always been the point of it biologically: if you’re worried you’re falling behind - fix it! The issue is the same as calorie counting: there’s a healthy way to do it and an unhealthy way. Most people compare themselves to others in the unhealthy way, so it’s unproductive and just anxiety-inducing. The healthy way uses that low level anxiety as a catalyst for action.
Because the society's standards are capricious, and they change almost every decade. They can even suddenly change in a single year. What is 'the place to be' a yesterday could be a place that people don't want to be tomorrow. What's 'cool' yesterday can be 'lame' tomorrow. If one builds his or her life on the society's changing perspective, he or she can easily end up unhappy in a decade or two, being in a place and situation which does not merit the effor that went into it to get it and keep it.
The ideal is going in the direction which YOU want to go. Where YOU want to be. That's where all those 'inner drive' talk comes from. And they are right - in 10-20 years, all the people who had shaped the standards of the current society as adults or parents will be gone. The standards and perspectives will change. It happens every ~20 years. And when that happens, its better to have that 20 years lived by your own standards and drives than the ever-shifting societal standards.
Its fully possible, but its also statistically improbable for enough number of people to be doing that, and even more improbable for it being a common aspiration in the society. The aspirations and standards of the society generally follow the lines of money and a hip/desirable status at any given time according to the dominant fad.
More than that. Society, especially parents, relatives and peer groups keep pressure on the individuals to follow the 'desirable' trends.
> "but it's quite likely a random person is a trend follower anyway"
Yes. That's quite likely. Because the general sample set available to the public for making comparisons, generally end up people who have followed the trends. Be it among the relatives, be it from the sample set at Linked in. You will scarcely find people saying 'I became a poet and Im happy' or "I followed my dream of becoming an oil rig worker instead of a lawyer". The public, vocal feedback will tend to follow the society's requirements.
You're more likely to find a human interested in learning to play the guitar than staring intently at a squirrel out the window for hours (although a a cat might be interested in that).
They do. But these rarely end up being the jobs that the society respects and recommends. Things may change in near future with new ways of working and making a living. But currently, what you really want to do and what society things to be 'good' will likely not overlap.
Therein lies the rub. Many have not developed this skill, and it isn't taught anywhere. In American culture, when a person verbally relates or otherwise expresses their negative emotions experienced as a result of comparing themselves with others, most other people will respond with some variation of "don't worry about it," whether that's friendly reassurance that their worth lies elsewhere or a bit of patronizing admonishment for immaturely keeping up with the Joneses in the first place. Rarely are people handed a guide to using those feelings constructively.
But yeah, learning to do so can get you quite far in life.
I suppose that's a kind of "comparing yourself to others", but I think it's more accurate to say that's "learning from others" rather than comparing.
You are not assessing your worth based on the perceived worth of others. Your are spotting people who have accomplished things similar to what you want to accomplish and seeing how they got there.
Two entirely different things.
That's not to say intelligent effort isn't necessary -- it is -- but it's not sufficient.
It's somewhat related to the Nietzsche's concept of Amor Fati:
"My formula for greatness in a human being is amor fati: that one wants nothing to be different, not forward, not backward, not in all eternity. Not merely bear what is necessary, still less conceal it - all idealism is mendacity in the face of what is necessary - but love it."But perhaps the cause-effect relationship is inverted - perhaps generally happier people tend to think free will exists, because they never had a reason to doubt it? In contrast, people who are generally unhappier are the ones who are thinking about topics such as free will, determinism, etc. to try to make sense of the world. Sometimes it works, and makes them less unhappy - but they had to be unhappy in the first place to start thinking about it.
It points outs that the separation of our individual self from others can be seen as illusory, that we're all deeply connected. Sure my left arm is weaker than my right, but that doesn't make it "less important", and in fact thinking in such a way is preposterous. But might be useful in another context such as left/right balance for fitness.
The idea of feelings of inferiority being a normal part of living is freeing, it helps to accept them.
I started doing bjj about 6 months ago. Its obvious to me that if I was wrestling against myself from 6 months ago it would be easy to beat myself.
This becomes harder as you have more experience in something, comparing your 5.6 years of exp to your 5 years is less obvious than 6 month and 0 months, but its still possible if you are tracking your achievements.
I have a "hype" doc where I write down my accomplishments every three weeks. Sometimes there are many. Sometimes there are only 1 or 2 things to note.
Do I still feel very silly and incompetent when pairing with a significantly more senior engineer? Do I still get smashed by more experienced grapplers? Sure. But I dont have to dwell on it because I know I'm making progress of my own.
This isn't to say that having a reference point is not a good thing to have, role models can be a great thing. It is not difficult to imagine the best and worst version of yourself, and just use that as a spectrum for moving through life, imo.
If you compare yourself to others you can only ever follow in someone's footsteps while becoming second best...
But if you compare to past yourself, you can potentially get head and shoulders above the crowd and become the best.
That only helps when you're on an upward (career) trajectory and optimistic. My younger self was healthier, had more energy, more mental acuity, was better-looking, better-liked, less cynical, had more opportunities and more time on earth left to fulfill their dreams as well as enough naivety to believe he could be become the best at something for which other people had a natural aptitude and a twenty-year headstart.
Put another way, if you let your personal self worth come from external means then you’re ripe for being manipulated by toxic and malignant sources (people/algorithms).
Where would we be if that competitive behavior didn't drive people to do better? I have a data management project that I regularly benchmark against conventional file systems and databases. I get a thrill when a set of DB queries run 3x or 4x faster than on Postgres or MySQL. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVICKCkWMZE) But am I satisfied? No! I sit down and try to figure out how to make it even faster, easier, or use less resources.
That’s different (and probably healthier) than comparing your self
Because it shows you where are are and where you could go.
Life is endless comparisons. It’s like asking me to lose weight without knowing what a skinny (or fatter) person looks like.
Life is also endless competition. It’s what drives us. So we compare. We contrast. And where possible, we determine if we should go higher or admit that we can’t go there. But we have standards to live up to.
Comparing is what has driven mankind since the beginning of time.
Stopping it would lead to decline. We are not all self assured as a market leading company like Apple.
Sometimes it’s useful to learn what’s out there so we can aspire to it or recognize our limitations.
https://www.petecodes.io/dont-compare-yourself-to-others/#so...
Like if they have a great sales team you should look at it and ask, what do they do differently, is there something I should copy or adapt.
Comparing who you are to who they are is best done sparingly or not at all. It produces a sort of negative energy which some people do have the ability to harness, but it also runs you down.
even if it’s just what not to do
no one’s path is easy even if it appears so
The Courage to be Disliked is a game-changing book for me so I'd read that if you liked the article.