Ask HN: How do I stop being such a doomer?

The 20-something success stories are basically the myths of our age. A long time ago it was success by 50, and then it slowly degenerated into the top 30 by 30 as the optimal "age of success" just keeps dropping in the spirit of one-upmanship. It's not news if it's not novel. I'm waiting for the "Success by 12 or you're a nobody" narrative to take root.

Unlike what your media circles of success-story-con-artists would have you believe, success is a SLOW, DELIBERATE process. You pick a path and you walk it, taking in the sights and sounds and deciding if it's for you. Then you pick another path and walk down it, and you continue doing so, all the while diligently socking 10-15% of your income away into a sound, diversified investment portfolio (which is your fallback plan). Or just do index funds if you don't want to think about it too much.

Eventually, you might just find something that grabs you, and then you pursue it, and make something from it. THAT is the measure of success.

And if you don't, you still have your investment portfolio from which you can live comfortably. Some people don't discover their success path until far later in life.

* Julia Child (the most famous cook in America) didn't even start training as a chef until her 50s.

* Stan Lee got his break with The Fantastic Four at age 40.

* Colonel Harland Sanders started KFC at 65, and sold it 9 years later.

* Harriette Thompson ran her first marathon at 76.

* Grandma Moses didn't start painting until she was 78.

* Laura Ingalls Wilder began writing "Little House on the Prairie" at age 65.

* Estelle Getty (Golden Girls) struggled as an actress for nearly 40 years until she finally had her breakthrough role in Torch Song Trilogy at almost 60 years of age.

Average age for a founders first exit is also mid 40s. Success in your 20s is an utter mirage.

“Don't get me wrong, I'm not depressed or anything”

I would argue that you are. Depression doesn’t always manifest as sadness or being aloof. It can manifest in anger and outbursts, fits of despair, doom and gloom, etc.

Instead of focusing on the external, focus on the internal. Are you enjoying coding? Are you learning? Those two things are all that matter (aside from health and being able to live of course).

Once you get in the groove, ride that groove until another groove crosses your path.

Ignore the fact that you didn’t do things the way you thought they should go. Get over it. It’s in the past. No one really cares that much. Just go, do what you enjoy, make a living doing it if you can, and live your life. Nobody has it figured out. They just think they do. Oh, and life is a whole lot simpler when you stop comparing yourself to others.

Are you a doctor, to be diagnosing depression?

Nobody diagnosed anything. It's a perfectly reasonable thing for a person to suggest that another person might be depressed, especially in this context where it is clearly intended to be supportive.

Your right, it's possibly even worse, they want to "argue" depression, completely ignoring the op's statement "I'm not depressed."

Many people here have a strong case of "I know better than you, I'm going to ignore your request and tell you how it really is."

They literally tell this young person "Get over it... No one really cares that much." How dare they. Vile and disgusting thing to say to someone. You have no idea what the poster has been through.

The incredible definition of depression used? "It can manifest in anger and outbursts, fits of despair, doom and gloom, etc." Not particularly authoritative. Post a link to the Mayo clinic or whatever. But you're right, arguing depression isn't the biggest problem with that post; just the first.

Opt out is not consent. Have some compassion. Respect people's very basic requests please.

It seems like you're advocating for something the OP didn't ask for. They asked for advice about how to stop "being this way". That's what the GP comment provided.

I'm sorry for whatever you've been through. There is no shame in considering, or experiencing, depression. And someone suggesting that you might be in that situation is not oppression, it's care.

I would suggest you follow your own advice here. Have some compassion and don’t jump to conclusions.

Since you demand a mayoclinic link, here you go:

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/depression/in...

My wife is and I’ve picked up on a few tells. Thanks.

Oh you're totally qualified then. Unbelievable.

Qualified enough to know the signs. Including being overly defensive about how you aren’t category A. Nobody wants to admit it. It’s human nature to say “no, you’re wrong, you don’t know anything about me” and yet we have a whole line of science dedicated to just that. I’m only trying to help them see clearly. They have some hallmark traits that suggest that they are, in fact, depressed. There’s nothing to be ashamed of to admit it. We all go through it. You aren’t less of a human because you have it. And you aren’t less of a human if someone suggests you do. Calm down.

Why don't you just get over it, nobody cares that much.

[Edit]

"Calm down." xD

I apologize for letting my anger get the best of me.

> I know I'm not very intelligent because if I were, I would've figured my life out a long time ago and become rich like all these crypto and NFT kids...

Making "Lots of Money", especially fast, is a social manipulation game. You see these crypto/NFT kids online but in real life there are lots and lots of social predators making money off drugs and parties. The margins in both markets are insane but the markets are dominated by closed off and often violent cliques.

This has nothing to do with intelligence.

Reading between the lines, it sounds like you have had to deal with some tough situations in life already. Do you feel like your outlook on the future is colored by your past experiences?

One thing that helps me when I am discouraged is to take stock of the facts. If I don't get a FAANG job, can I still find success in life with the skills I've obtained? If I do get that FAANG job, what problems will I still have to face? Can I take another position in the meantime and try again with a stronger resumé? Thinking about the situation objectively usually helps me see that the stakes aren't as high as I imagined.

Software hasn’t eaten the entire world! There’s so much more than the craze du jour. Crazes follow a hype cycle, made famous by Gartner.

Basics always serve you. Many things in life are easy to start and difficult to master. You can’t skip basics and getting experience. People think they can.

My example is a degree in applied physics, which opens the door to almost everything. Since I got it in 1970, there were 4 years in the service, but I started out thereafter in aerospace, mixing electronics and optics through several jobs, until computing took over, whether coding, I.T. support or even sales engineering. I got so interested in the sales process, what worked and what didn’t, that I got one of those unofficial “personal MBA” degrees. I was obviously a generalist.

I couldn’t have coded without knowledge of the problem spaces, whether that involved data management as a department sysadmin, knocking out scientific problem solvers, reducing data, compiling open source to run on Solaris, “coding” SNMP system monitoring packages [1] and so on.

But I didn’t get that first entry-level engineer job until I was 27.

[1] Funny thing, the system monitoring used perl as an extension language. I recall that it was a descendant of netlabs software, which Larry Wall worked on.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NetLabs

Selection bias is at play with the other stuff, you don't hear about the 10000+ coins which have collapsed, you only hear about 3 of the coins.

You don't hear about any NFT that hasn't collapsed.

Everyone is trying to guess how many investors are more and less stupid then they are and in turn when to run away before everything collapses. Not a healthy system.

Amortized, blackjack at a casino has better odds.

Almost any experience will beat college experience.

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The timing isn't great, right now. Everyone is investing into R&D about how AI can help their business. However things might just as easily find out that AI isn't actually that useful for given tasks, and immediately back-track .

And additionally, there needs to be people who can review what AI produces. I still haven't gotten anything to correctly break a cycle in a graph structure, which is a very simple task in its context.

- - -

Another option is to look into additional training, e.g. Being able to handle medical events with first aid training, or etc, are a great value add. Understanding multiple languages is another great value add if a company ever deals with companies from other countries.

Life isn't a race, you're on your own journey.

FAANG job isn't end-all (speaking as someone who's worked 2-3 of those).

If you can pay your bills and keep your mental health from being completely ruined, that's a solid win.

Crypto/NFT/etc kids aren't the epitome of intelligence. Some get lucky gambling, most don't. And scamming others isn't anything to be proud of or want.

ChatGPT won't put you out of work. It's great for experimenting. But specifying precisely what you want to get out of it is equivalent to coding, and programming languages are made precisely to make that job as simple as it gets.

The fact that it isn't simple at all means that there's going to be work for you going forward.

The world is constantly crashing on us, and with War World III already going on (Ukraine and Gaza is just the start), things are only going to get wilder.

So, to answer your question: investment in therapy will pay off 10x.

Focus on preserving yourself through it all.

I'm in a similar situation to you. In my experience there are a lot of people these days who get the sense that they're falling behind despite feeling like they've done everything right. Tech in particular has been seen as "the right choice" for a while now, and it can be hard to come to terms with the arbitrary injustice of a market downswing, especially when it most severely affects new graduates. You follow the advice people give you, see the job offers and salaries your older peers are getting, and when it's your turn things are suddenly completely different. It's cruel!

I don't have any advice when it comes to realizing your dreams of a high-paying, high-status job, but I've dealt with a similar cynicism and volunteer work has been a great help. It's very, very easy to get caught up in the narrative of your own life, especially when you're surrounded by peers and family that subscribe to a similar narrative. Making a change in the lives of people who are struggling is a great way to feel good about yourself, and the perspective you'll get from talking to and understanding people in different circumstances to your own is very grounding and humanizing.

The timing has been bad before. Those of us in our mid-40s who were privileged to go to college “on schedule” graduated into the Dotcom bust, and had our new jobs snatched away or searched for months for boring government contracting jobs so we could make our student loan payments.

And we had it easy compared to the cohort now in their late 30s who graduated into the Great Recession.

Remember that you only hear about the phenomenal successes, not the folks putting in a good day’s tech work at a non-tech company for a pretty good paycheck that will never make them fabulously wealthy, then going home to their families and hobbies. We’re too boring to talk about.

Those of us in our 50’s entered the market when outsourcing was the new buzzword, and “ALL tech jobs will get sent to India!”. There is always fear, there are always challenges and threats, and yet the world keeps spinning, and those who keep trying despite the odds are usually the ones that succeed.

> I broke into the tech world around the time ChatGPT came out, so the job market is pretty rough for newer developers like me.

I’m approaching twice your age and may be quite disconnected from the challenges young devs are facing in your area, but though I have tried to find much use in the current breed of code generators I find it very hard to believe that they have a strong impact on the job market. Can someone enlighten me?

It's never too late to go to college. Some areas are offering college at very low tuition as well, so it pays to move to the right place.

Keep applying and applying yourself. When you do make it, save a good bit of what you make. Another comment said 10-15%, more is better. Savings is a cushion and makes you more fearless, and enough savings lets you walk away from anything.

I am definitely feeling stressed, but thinking about the past too much is depression, and thinking about the future too much is anxiety.

Just try to take things one step at a time. What's the next right move?

Other than the delusion that others are (commonly) doing much better you're fine!

Your sense of crisis is motivational and good for you.

Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Don't take it easy. Don't stop worrying about preparing for your next opportunity. Don't stop wondering what the next right move may be.

Modern culture wants to talk you out of constructive anxiety.

If you want to be healthy, eat well and get plenty of exercise. That helps with the mental process more than most realize.

You will find your way. The trick is being ready for the opportunity when it comes by.

If your head hurts, stop hitting it with a hammer. You haven't missed the train. You are in a trainstation. If you want to talk in terms of financial instruments, btc went from 69k to 30k while stock market ran from 3k to 5k. If you held a single E-mini S&P contract between 06.2023 and 04.2024, it would have made 100k. Things will always happen. The world is full of opportunities. Crypto bros are now Nvidia bros.

Usually a few people come out on top and what you see is survival bias.

Ask HN:

Beyond programming, there is a life with purpose. Knowing one's purpose of life, and the purpose of life, are immensely peace-giving and individual direction and guidance are available from God. I've written more at my web site (in profile, nothing for sale, tech-simple). There are free resources available to help individuals. These things have brought me peace despite divorce, health problems, etc. Feel free to ask questions.

(Thoughtful comments appreciated with the downvotes; thanks.)

ps, to quote an earlier posting on a not-exactly-related topic at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38335597:

To me by far the best thing is to have an enduring, joyful, worthwhile, good purpose in life, that drives everything else (including maintaining one's health, proper balance etc), about which I have written a lot at my simple site (no JS etc; in profile; for example one can click on "Things I want to say", then "Life Lessons", then "Everyone needs a direction in life. Centering on pleasure, possessions, power, or attention, harms us, others & the earth, & cannot bring lasting happiness." Also, some related prior discussions. Note that this is an attempt at collecting useful comments that could relate, NOT at an insinuation that the OP is lazy, a procrastinator, or other. But some comments were good, like finding balance, direction, etc.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23550758 ("How do you develop internal motivation")

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23072333 ("Extremely disillusioned with technology. Please help (gist.github.com)")

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22919697 ("ask hn: how do i overcome mental laziness?")

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22124489 ("Procrastination is about managing emotions, not time (bbc.com")

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22096571 ("Ask HN: I don't want to be a worker any more I want to be a professional")

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20930439 ("how do you keep your programming motivation up?")

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18903886 "Ask HN: How do you motivate yourself to keep working on a project? "

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19777976 "ask hn: how do you stay disciplined in the long run?"

For what it may be worth.

mushrooms