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Comment by makach | Hacker News Reader

It was when I was younger, I was independent and living alone that I realized that I had the power to change myself. In order to succeed there was only one person responsible for my happiness and good fortune, myself. I had to stop waiting for good things to happen, and make sure that I took faith in my own hands.

This has led me to change employment, often, but not that often. It has made me approach many challenges from multiple angles.

Maybe it didn't made me rich (so far) but I feel much wiser and I observe people on the other side, they are stuck in their beliefs and loyalty. So many clever people, smarter than me, but lost to ideas, opportunities and self- improvement.

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Ech.. the "everything's your fault" view is typically American, but it's also pretty unbalanced. Sure you have to do things, yet interdependence exists. Also there's plenty situations where shit's stacked against you by heritage/law/social order quite unnecessarily.

It's not that "everything's your fault" though. It's that improving your life is your own responsibility, regardless of whose fault your circumstances are, because nobody else cares as much about your life as you do. It's not a statement about avoiding interdependence, it's about the fact that sitting around waiting for circumstances to change or for someone else to help you is not a practical way to improve your life because most of the time nothing will happen. I think of this is a variation on the serenity prayer, which is the single best piece of advice in the English language in my opinion: {insert higher power here} grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. AA is full of clichés because they're true.

This reminds me a lot of stoic philosophy. The book "The Obstacle is the Way" is a nice little primer on it. There's a story in there where a man is falsely imprisoned for decades. He spends that entire time learning law and is eventually able to argue for his release. I never verified how true the story was or how it might have been embellished, but even if it's a fake story, the point still resonates with me. You can either give up and accept your lot, or you can spend your time trying to work towards your goal. You can't change that you were falsely imprisoned, or born in a third-world country, or any other shitty situation in life. You can only choose what to do moving forward. (Sometimes actual mental illness can make this nearly impossible though).

Yes and no. There are absolutely baseline random factors that have a big impact on your life. You could genetic predisposition to something unpleasant, be born into Money, have a skin tone that’s discriminated against, have birth citizenship in a nation with a great social safety net. Lots of factors that can go either way.

We underestimate the importance of positive factors and overestimate the importance of negative factors. I think the best approach to dealing with this is:

1) practice Gratitude for the foundational positives

2) accept the foundational negatives

3) Embrace your sphere of control and deliberately choose compounding actions that build on the strengths and mitigate the weaknesses to improve your life.

this is true, and thank you for responding. I am fortunate and live in a nordic country, and am experiencing life at the easiest setting. I acknowledge that for some, circumstances makes it impossible to achieve your goals.

I had a similar experience. I was independent fairly young, lack of experience is expected but without well-defined goals and mentorship I didn't leverage it to the fully. tip for others in similar situations: being independent doesn't mean you go alone.

> In order to succeed there was only one person responsible for my happiness and good fortune, myself. I had to stop waiting for good things to happen, and make sure that I took faith in my own hands.

This is the best response here. Too many people are stuck in a self defeating mindset of expecting life to happen to them, and blaming others when it doesn't, rather than taking charge for themselves.

I like to remind myself that the society that we live in is/was created by people generally no smarter than you or I. People accept things as if a higher power is imposing their will against them to fit into these mental and physical constraints but once you start questioning the status quo, it feels very freeing.

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