Ask HN: How do you digest fact that you are not successful by 40 | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How do you digest fact that you are not successful by 40

22 pointshubmusic40 comments

Curious to see what others think. There is west village in nyc or rich neighborhoods in SF, LA where people live and spend as if they are from another planet. Houses, vacation homes, yearly trips, spa, jetski, ski trips and more.

Then, there are some people who barely get by or get by with barely anything left after rent, healthcare, and household expenses.

America has entered this era of distribution of wealth that is really sad. I don’t subscribe to socialism or communism but it’s hard to see that some people are just never going to make it.

As someone who graduated in 2007 and financial crisis struck, it’s been disaster after disaster. I know some lucky people made it in tech and now have $2m or more at their name. But, there are people like me who don’t have much to show for. Just a sad reality.

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Stop comparing yourself to those people. Do you need a yacht to have a great life? No. Nobody needs a yacht. Much of wealth and circumstance is inherited, it’s a rigged game.

Surely there are things you are proud of, friends you have, people who love you, etc.

Do you know about Santosha? Try this meditation: https://youtu.be/5vI8Kh3-epg

A friend of mine who happens to regret owning a yacht has told me on several occasions that he happiest two days in a person's life are the day they buy their yacht and the day they sell it.

My Dad always extends this quip to "After buying it and selling it there's always a third day - when I get to spend time with the family on the water - and that makes all the other days in between worth it"

He's now in his mid 80s and still gets excited about taking friends & family on the boat - if it's their first or hundredth time.

You only need enough money to take care of yourself and family. Owning anything more than that doesn't really help you or make you happier. Also, being rich isn't binary. It's a continuum, so just because you don't have as much money as others doesn't mean it's not enough.

I wouldn’t go that far. I also commented about this about a month and half ago.

We should all strive to live in a position of f%%% you. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XamC7-Pt8N0&pp=0gcJCfwAo7VqN...). I’m not there yet long term.

This-ish: I was going to say, “define successful”.

This never ends. I am a lot more privileged than many in my 40s and I still feel like a loser because i didn't hit the goals I had for 40. You have to realize and accept that there always will be someone doing better than you not because they are but because you "think" so. It is human nature.

Btw, most people in America are living on credit. The fancy cars you see ? Most of them are leased or financed. Big houses ? A lot of people are house poor i.e. living paycheck to paycheck to keep up with the fancy house. And the real rich/wealthy people you see ? Those are built over generations, not in 1 lifetime.

So stop thinking about how everyone has got it bt you haven't. There are plenty of people worst than you and there always be people in better situation than you. It is called Life.

The only thing that matters is how you are living YOUR life, not others'. FOcus on doing what you want to do and go for it. Spend time on things and people you care about and who care about you.

Consider finding a different yardstick, or not trying to measure "success" at all.

By age 40 I had three children, and I hadn't died or suffered serious illness or injury. That represents "success" in terms of evolutionary purpose and compared to the large majority of humans who have ever lived.

I have spent over 45 years working in the software industry. Not rich, but it has given me a comfortable living. I have friends and former colleagues who got rich, mostly by finding themselves in the right place at the right time and making the most of it (i.e. they got very lucky). I don't envy people who have more stuff. Desire is the root of all suffering, so you can stop feeling like you have failed by letting go of desire for superficial markers of success you apparently internalized from celebrity media meant to get you to spend more.

I don’t compare myself to others. Deleting ALL social media helps a lot.

I also try to live below my means, as I understand that you can always find what to spend on. So be grateful to have a “normal” comfortable life, and stop there.

Median wealth of a Ferrari owner is not even seven figures. In other words - many people spend well beyond their means and burden themselves with debt in order to seem rich. Appearances can be deceiving.

It is what we make of it. I'm 34 M.

I'm from a immigrant family, zero connections, and we are all workers.

I missed the chance to purchase a home in 2018-2020 time period. My friends who bought homes at that time are doing well, going on vacations and stuff because they were able to buy property for like 500-800k in California that has now doubled in price. They're paying like 2% interest too.

Oh well, no point in comparing. Worst case scenario, I'll figure it out and make my ancestors proud for getting me to this point lol. So, I have no choice but to be grateful and keep pushing.

I’ll bite because I get where you’re coming from. But the truth is the things that make my life good aren’t necessarily expensive things.

Being healthy, getting to live some place I like, enjoying the outdoors, street food, underground music. Baking and cooking with my wife. Taking my dog to the park. I’m grateful every day.

Once I tapped into what really helped me enjoyed life I realized I definitely need money, but not necessarily astronomical amounts.

You need to get in touch with what really gives you moments of joy. Don’t follow other people, understand yourself.

How do you define success?

As a JavaScript developer I realized around 2014, or so, that I was aligned to a shit career path where the only path to success was the attention economy, not anything regarding career elevation or technical contributions.

In that regard I have always been a failure. Still I did not deviate from this foolishness because my big open source application was becoming wildly popular and I was becoming a better developer. The reality, though, is the better I got the less compatible I became to the job market. The more I invested in my skills and contributions the more of a failure I became. This was tolerable so long as I had employment.

In 2023 when I was laid off and no longer had employment there was no further reason to pursue JavaScript related employment ever again. So there I sat for 6 six months debasing myself as I continued to look for employment in a job market I had grown to hate competing with shit beginners for entry level positions who also don’t want to do that work.

Fortunately a defense contractor found me and now I do completely unrelated work and entered management. In all honesty I do still love writing applications in JavaScript/TypeScript, but now I only write personal applications that I don’t talk about with other people.

I reconcile my level of success in that I can generally write any application I wish and solve any problem in front of me.

I think the ultimate definition of being success is: you are content with yourself. Whatever amount of wealth or fame you accumulated is not relevant.

Owning all that stuff is often a burden. They can have it. It’s much better to have a friend with a boat (or yacht) than to have one yourself.

Someone else having a yacht, a jet ski, or taking a trip, has 0 impact on my life.

It’s not a 0 sum game. Them having less doesn’t mean I have more. Me having more doesn’t mean they have less.

When I was younger I thought if I made a certain amount of money I’d be happy. I’ve now tripled that original number and it did nothing in terms of my happiness or contentment. Life is about relationships and those don’t cost a dime.

KFC wasn't franchised until the owner was 66 years old. Quit focusing on the wrong things - comparison is the thief of joy and that's all you're doing here.

I don’t have any of those things and I’m incredibly successful.

How can you think so selfishly? There's tons of children in Ukraine and Gaza that won't see your age. I recommend you start telling your inner voice to chill.

I can't say I am either rich or poor. I own a house, in fact I own two (on the same lot) That puts me in much better shape than a lot of people. I have good health insurance, I can see my primary care doc for $20 and fill many generic scripts for $5, I am not spending $200 for a telehealth "consult" with Lemonaid or Hims and then getting a $80 month for some sketchy compounded medication that isn't really approved by the FDA.

You mentioned not subscribing to socialism or communism, but it's pretty obvious that you haven't deeply considered what a functional society ought to look like through any ideological lens. Commentors below have given great advice about reframing your evaluative criteria. But you might also try learning more about these (socialism, communism) and other social organizing ideologies (anarcho-socialism, libertarianism, low-growth capitalism, etc). There is almost certainly something useful for you in this exploration. Being grumpy because speculative capitalism arbitrarily makes some people wealthy is a waste of your time - that's literally what it was built to do.

People who chase things for happiness, in my experience, seldom seem to actually take the time to really enjoy them.

Instead, they pursue the next bigger thing.

I fear your definition of "success", needs some rethinking. What are you really happy about, for whom, why?

I saw an article about "revenge saving" the other day. One idea is if you can at least sock away a few thousand dollars in a retirement account, you know it'll double in value every 10 years, and by the time you retire should be worth 8 times as much.

Not at 40….

Starting at 40 is better than starting at 60.

If you assume 7% gain, it doubles in value every 10 years. So, at 50 it's 2x, at 60 it's 4x, and at 70 it's 8x.

Do you just define success as having a lot of money?

By that definition most people are not successful by the time they’re 40.

It’s not a sad reality. It’s just reality.

Do you actually care about having a lot of money? If so, why? What would you do with that money?

I'm pretty.

doubt it

The beauty is in the eyes of the beholder.

Also remember there are some people that spend every dime they earn and don’t save. You never know their debt as well. But with money, there is always someone that has more than you.

What’s your story? I graduated around that age and a million things happened since then, so it’d be good to have the context behind your key choices that you feel “held you back”.

I'm ~40, and have finally realized I will never find romance or a life partner. You move on from trying to acceptance.

I fight to remind myself that my identity does not lie in "success". It would be nice, but I don't need it to feel OK about myself or to make myself into somebody or to make my life worthwhile.

Where do I find my identity? I find it in Jesus Christ.

I recognize that a lot of people are going to look at that as an illusion, as me deceiving myself. But "success" is also an illusion, especially as a source of identity.

I’m 51 now. This just came up a month ago. My response:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44377380

Get out of your bubble. The median household income is around $80K.

https://dqydj.com/household-income-percentile-calculator/

I would never want to live in the places you named. I have been to both. I live in much cheaper, warmer, state tax free Orlando. Moved from Atlanta where I spent my entire adult life until 2-3 years ago when I pivoted to a field that has historically been remote with travel.

I can’t, so I keep digesting it. Eventually I get used to digesting it.

I am also graduated in 2007 and financial crisis struck. So i don't went out or spend any money, just stay at home with vibe coding, billionaire is not my goal now, just want to do something really useful for others, with some hope you'll not be sad.

Many apparently affluent people are posing - with a wealthy backer, or using debt and or crime/fraud to maintain hold the pose. Their life ways are a tell, a flag of their core inadequacy. Persue a real life instead. Also nothing inherently wrong with Socialism e.g. look at the Mondragon Corp.

“I don’t subscribe to socialism or communism” … but this current system is so sad.

Okay - what do you subscribe to?

wow, you just havn't lived through other systems (just 100x more sufferings). People in the west just don't know how lucky they are and try to destroy the best system human have even known. Yes, the current system can be and should be improved. But you learn a bit about modern history, you would realize that socailism or communism are hell compared to what you have right now. Because in the real world, socialism or communisim inevitably leads to concentration of power as those in power are in charge of redistribution. History and millions of starved people should have already taught us that it would only lead to hell.

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