Ask HN: Nineteen Year Old Needing Advice

Others have broached this, you can change your environment or you can change yourself. There is a lot of value cultivating the ability to connect to people unlike yourself, so I'm biased towards the latter.

A framing that's helpful for me sometimes is realizing that every one of us is born inevitably doomed to die. Our shared mortality and the impermanence of everything seems like a much bigger deal than small differences in perspective. Everyone's making their own progress along the same path. I think the best we can do is have compassion for ourselves and others. Whether we like it or not, we're all in this together.

Hmm I never thought about it that way regarding connecting with other people but I like this

That's fair and interesting but I have always found this mentally demanding - to do deliberately. Which means this is hard to do for someone who is already in distress. Any pointers for how (distressed) people might practically go about it?

Your intuition about mentally distressed people doesn't always apply, sometimes it does.

It helps to have mindfulness / be able to center yourself in the present. Finding peace in surrender to things you can't control.

The purpose of what I said is all about illuminating the immateriality of most chains holding people back from peace. Relative comparisons / regrets / expectations for self and others. How many torments do people grasp on to that are safe to let go? This is a personal investigation that I can't answer for others, but I think the answer approaches 100%.

If some aspect of a practice doesn't help you, don't do it! I doubt any humanity preserving practice completely eliminates lifes challenges, there's quite a number of tools for returning from a bad place to a peaceful, useful perspective. Explore to find your recipe.

> I hate interacting with people here.

> I feel like I can’t connect with anyone

> I have met insane people

> but have met immature and fake people.

> I haven't met anyone else who is ambitious

I would say, totally respectfully, a trip to a licensed therapist is probably the #1 best option before making any bigger life decisions. You're talking about dropping out of college and moving all over the world, but very clearly have some kind of social/MH issue that sounds like it's warping your sense of self and those around you?

Thank you, I will try this.

Best of luck!

I'm American and I hated my CS program and university town. It was mostly immaturity on my part, but I had the same problems with US culture that you do which had a negative effect on my mental health. I would have preferred to be in Europe but I wasn't ready to live so far away from home.

You should go home, for the sake of your mental health. Especially if there is a chance that you could do a CS program in an European university. You'll have a support network there and you'll feel more comfortable in the culture. Do some growing up, then come back to the US.

If you do stay in the US, I recommend antidepressants and therapy (Don't cringe, I am speaking from experience here) Apply for CS programs at bigger schools like UIUC, U of M, or one of the U of C campuses. Stay away from SF until you've graduated.

Thank you for the advice. Why do you say to stay away from SF until I've graduated? I am against antidepressants or any medication but going to try therapy, so thank you for the recommendation.

SF will eat you alive :)

Stay away from anti depressants. Sounds like you are healthy enough physically, you just need a location change which will shake up your life and give you new challenges.

San Francisco is not a peaceful place. And then some! Berkeley isn't either but more protected. Manageable and very student-oriented. Stanford is a different world (in a bewildering but great way for a student). The San Francisco Bay Area is a large and very diverse place (and there are several more schools around).

Not in place of all the other comments but in addition: there are approximately 15 million undergrad schools in the US. Cal, CA community college (of which there are many also), Stanford plus a requirement to line-up class credits - are far from the only options.

You could look for schools that better hit your interests: more aggressive CS, some business orientation, higher-ranking student population, city-oriented, coastal, entrepreneurial clubs perhaps, NOT small-town, older students and their activities (graduate CS, graduate business, etc)... And at this stage it's not the end of the world if you loose a few classes of credits. If you want to finish that degree and perhaps more you need a school that can support that. You need a school where there are too many things you'd like to do (although not necessarily all provided by the school). Now that you have some baseline to decide on a school, you are in a better situation for a better choice. Take your time before you make it this time.

Great job staying healthy and active! I think what you're going through is fairly normal. If you are super ambitious, want to start a company and work on side projects, realise that it puts you in sub 1% of the population. Most people around you will not have that same level of drive and ambition, especially in a small town. And that's ok. Also CS programs are 'one size fits all'. Here's some things you can try:

- Grow your side projects, learn a lot and help more people (and make more $)

- Find online communities to join like contributing to open source projects

- Focus on specific activities you like (sports, cooking, movies...) and find folks that share that specific interest, even if you don't have much in common otherwise

- Keep learning more about what you're passionate about online, do cold outreach

- Date interesting people who have very different interests and backgrounds

- Reach out to second/third degree connections working in industries you find interesting (they're always looking for great folks)

- Create a club based on your background/shared interest

Another direction to look at this: College (and grad school) is a protected time to poke around knowledge and career disciplines and learn to interact with people and build an initial network of people that you have some measure of. Often these people are other students - not all from your year, but they should also be professors, anyone who will talk to you, local or not. It is possible this city and school are failing you. It is possible you are failing (reflection elsewhere about "everyone is an idiot").

You do mention "I haven't met anyone else who is ambitious". If that includes older students, academic departments, professors, school activists, nearby businesses, then yeah you might have hit the jackpot and it might be time to move (to another school).

Have you considered trying to start something that might help others to care about something you care about? This might take some patience but it could be worth a try.

It comes across as if you're the elbow kinda guy, but handing the scepter of society to people like this is much of the reason for the US's spiritual dilapidation. I unfortunately had to witness that these past two decades...

Yes, I've thought about starting an eastern european club at my school. Could you please elaborate on your second paragraph. I don't understand it.

> starting an eastern european club at my school.

Wait, are you from Eastern Europe or Western Europe?

If Eastern, I suggest taking some time after the semester ends and spending a few weeks in large rustbelt cities (Chicago, Cleveland, Milwaukee, etc). There are large communities of highly entrepreneurial people from Poland, the Balkans, Ukraine, etc.

If you are from France, Spain, Portugal, Germany, etc, I don't know what to tell you. Most people I've met intentionally assimilate and don't put any effort into forming bonds with others from their former countries.

I was merely hinting at the recent changes in American culture that made it so top-heavy and tempt half the population to press the self-destruct button each election since 2016. Since around that time I noticed the formerly enthusiastic spirit die down, mainly by an uptick of toxicity by Americans in formerly well-behaved online communities. Don't wanna get into the details, but you may be seeing some symptoms of it.

The 'elbow kinda guy' comes from the fact that you point out how you self-optimize (for economic benefit?) and call everyone else lazy, immature or fake. But I may have interpreted too much into this. Consider that there are different goals in life than maximizing your utility for The Machine.

As always, topics like these leave a lot unsaid and are difficult to productively discuss online...

Have you read http://www.xenophobes.com/books/The-Xenophobes-Guide-to-the-... ?

(FWIW, it took me ~5 years to really feel at home going the other direction; by then you should've graduated?)

Thank you for the book recommendation. I read the preview and it's accurate. I will give it a read.

Thanks for pointing out the preview — I just reread that and realised how well it applies to many evergreen topics here on HN.

You seem pretty driven, but also seem to have a pretty singular sense of what ambition means and why it's important, and few people you interact with share that, leading to you discounting their value, ironically probably leading to you giving an impression of self-importance, pretentiousness, or being too eager, despite you also probably not being so wrong about your impressions of others.

Thing is, this is some pretty basic 19 y.o or early adult or newcomer type of experience. Things don't work out quickly, you don't fit in, you have an inflated sense of self, a deflated view of others, and a perception that arbitrary ambition is inherently virtuous, so much so that pursuing that at the cost of all else is inherently useful.

There are some truths to recognize, and some myths to be skeptical of. First, people in small towns, especially in first the first years of Uni, tend to favor their high school friends, and it takes a ton of work to authentically cultivate a new friend group. You'd face this anywhere, it's not unique, even in more cosmopolitan areas. Ambition competes with this, because it hollows you and the people you'd hypothetically meet. You can't authentically meet new people if it's always framed by whatever success you're seeking, only humility and patience resolve this.

If you continue only trying to meet people with a singular sense of what they want to do, you'll end up as and with a bunch of status-seeking blowhards who can't make time for each other because nobody is as important as pushing some number, such as a grade, upward. It's very, very boring later on, and in retrospect for me, I'm glad I burnt out on the whole ambition thing, because I couldn't care less about what someone does these days, only whether I vibe with them and can have a fun time with them.

I used to look down on people from my small city who didn't want riches or success, and while it convinced me to move away for the better, I now recognize that people are just different, I don't control which people I'll connect with in a positive way, but I can control how I open up those possibilities.

Uni is the best opportunity you get to meet new people. If you do it right, you'll come out with decent grades and maybe 5-10% of the people you've met along the way will be long-term friends. Do it wrong and you'll get perfect grades, a lot of debt, maybe be in good shape, maybe with prospects, but totally isolated and lonely; it's a balance that's hard to get right, but the grade stops being worth the sacrifice past a certain point.

Re-reading your question, basically none of what you have going on right now is sustainable, and it's worth relaxing a bit. You'll eventually have to make some concessions, and think hard about what you want and why, what you're willing to sacrifice, and realize it will change over time. Passion for programming will at best not carry you through the ups and downs, and the virtue of Uni is partly to force you to figure out how to do a bunch of stuff to completion that you didn't already have an innate interest in. At worst, passion for programming can be extremely misguiding, and can get in the way of many other aspects of what it's like to be a professional or friend. Passion does not make you good at a job, and it will fluctuate. Time spent on programming is time spent not on something else, including nothing itself, which can be a great use of time.

What should you do then? Probably find some people you can drink with, continue your ambitions, spend some time in nature if you can, speak to your professors about what they're working on and form bonds with them if possible, and do your best to cultivate a sense of openness when speaking to people; don't expect anything out of those people either, just listen, say yes if they invite you somewhere, share your dreams and explore theirs, don't talk too much and don't gloat, it's rare to find perfect alignment and very boring if you do. Recognize that those people, even if they don't seem to be pursuing anything of innate interest to you, are and will continue to be way better than you at whatever it is they've been doing.

Lastly, don't wear headphones in public, pretty hard to be open if you've closed yourself off.

You are displaying signs of narcissism. Other guys don't care how tall and skinny you are and are not jealous of you.

You seem technically competent and will likely succeed in SF or elsewhere.

Getting hired right-now in tech is reportedly difficult for most university grads, so you, without a degree, will be competing against people with a degree, which is obviously a disadvantage.

I looked for signs of narcissism and I check some of the boxes. I will see a therapist for this. Thank you.

It’s pretty normal to have some narcissistic inclinations as a 19 year old, but it’s important to recognize that it’s fundamentally from a place of insecurity and excessive worry about how others perceive you. A good therapist could be helpful.

Try this. Not a therapist but some self reflection.

I'm above average in height. I'm stronger than most. I'm very bright. I hold strong opinions. I speak about them in the real world very rarely because nobody cares about "you" and they care about what you offer.

You don't care about your gym owner, his financial pain, his lack of business sense. You just want what you can get as cheap as possible. That's the market. That's life.

Ask yourself: what do I bring to this relationship, this encounter, this moment?

What should you do? Think about the 91 year old self. What are you going to do for him? He'll eventually resent you if you don't make decisions for him. He won't care if you failed. He'll care only if you made choices for the you now or the you later.

There's a saying: If you meet one asshole, they're an asshole. If everyone you meet is an asshole, you're the asshole.

It is true that in a smaller college town here in the USA you'll meet a lot of people who are not ambitious, or have ambition to do things you don't find valuable, but if you can't find anyone who you think is doing something interesting, that suggests the issue is at least as much with you as it is with your environment and the people around you. I suggest therapy, talking to a professor you're close with, or someone back home.

Good luck.

I agree with a lot of the general advice here. I definitely agree with you on some stuff, some stuff maybe you could flex on a little bit.

Lots of small-minded idiots here. But this is a giant country. There are different people in different places. Try moving as close to Silicon Valley as you can. You will, without a doubt, find a whole bunch of people with your exact same mindset.

Americans are not lazy. If you want to work hard, you’re in the right place. We’re statistically one of the hardest working counties. This is where all of the antidepressants come in though. We’re overworked, and we don’t have a sense of purpose outside of work.

Which leads me to… you’re doing a lot right now. A ton. It’s pretty difficult and rare to be able to keep up with how you are living, especially if your responsibilities grow. Be careful not to over strain yourself and make sure to keep a sense of self and purpose outside of your hustles. I personally had a meltdown in my early twenties that was partially brought on by these factors.

Finally, like others said, try to find a way to find common ground with the muggles around you. The faster realize that you’re not better than them, the faster you will find relief from the stress.

What does your gut tell you is the right choice?

Look to contribute to an Open Source project. You can get quite a resume and reputation if you can help with some of the larger apache projects or something from Meta/Facebook.

You'll (eventually) get to attend conferences, meet other like minded folk, and maybe decide what to do next with your life.

It's not a long term solution to not being thrilled about your college or town, but it's potentially some relief from not being challenged or interacting with people like you.

> - I have met insane people. I’ve had to cut out many “friends” as they tried taking advantage of me, didn’t respect me, or projected their insecurities onto me. Right now I have zero friends.

>- The society is extremely unhealthy. Half the people here are on antidepressants or hung over every other day, and a fraction of the school eats healthy.

Honestly, I think you understand how broken this country is. I'm a bit older, I'm well into my thirties and everything you're expressing is 100% spot on. Friends are friends when things are going well, but even then tons of folks will be envious and will backstab you the first chance they get. I had a horrible experience a while back when one of my best friends put me in a horrible position and I will never recover.

American society is fundamentally broken. People basically don't real vacations to recharge, instead they cope with the various methods you've already seen. Our labor rights are an absolute joke, you have a small minority of people with well paid jobs, and even then for example I'm probably spending about a third of my income in taxes, with another $500 a month out of pocket for health insurance, with an occasional 500 or $600 of out-of-pocket expenses.

If I was you I would go back to Europe and finish college there, America's a great place to visit, but it's not a great place to live. Also all the issues you've ran into will be magnified by 10 times if you move to California. Society is so amazingly unequal here, you'll have millionaire tech Bros stepping over needles on the way to work and everyone just accepts this as normal .

To my regret, I missed my chance to move to Europe to experience a civilized society so I'm probably going to be stuck here for the foreseeable future. I'll give you an example, back when I was in London I was able to walk around without the constant paranoia you have to have an America. I live in a medium sized city and we have more crime here than in all of London despite being a fraction of the size.

Finally college is supposed to be the best time of your life, if you're not vibing with this American culture it's not a negative reflection on you. Leave while you still can!