Ask HN: What if I fail to make it?
I'm a 25 year old male and I think I might be experiencing a quarter life crisis. I feel like I'm behind in my life.
What if I don't make it? What if I die a failure? How do I deal with this thought?
What if I don't make it? What if I die a failure? How do I deal with this thought?
When one of the skills click (some try 2 or 3 of the ones we teach) and they start working the says that life is happening for them. The failures, in retrospect, become steps the had to take to get where they are. Perseverance is probably good personality trait to develop.
I chose my handle to have the word prosaic in it because I did many thing in tech (and other fields), none at extraordinary levels, but all done by learning by trying things out. You don't have to be wildly successful in life, prosaic can be good enough.
A book that really helped me was ‘Stop overthinking’ by Nick Trenton. I still have those thoughts, Anxiety isn’t the easiest thing to get rid of.
Find what it is that you enjoy, build habits (tiny habits / atomic habits are great references) and you might find that just moving a tiny bit in the direction that makes you happy might compound over time.
Success isn’t always about careers or large paydays. Your health, relationships, hobbies, identity and sanity play a big part of that as well.
I have friends who moved to other countries and restarted their lives at the age of 35/40, and I met people in their 70s who done the same.
Good luck!
Yes!
If the goal is to live a happy and satisfying life, then success is largely independent of careers and large paydays.
It's a cycle. Some generations enjoy life. Some will fight so that future generations can enjoy life. The best thing you can do to honor the past generations is to give future ones a chance.
As long as you set your goal to help others, you can't really fail, you'll just die trying. There's all kinds of advice that say you should take care of yourself first, but that's how we got here in the first place. Apes together strong.
There are plenty of people in the richest 1% who feel like they failed even though the other 99% might want to trade places with them.
Set realistic goals and work towards them. Don't base your success or failure on meeting every one of them 100% before you turn 30.
The most powerful form of sovereignty is to not be monitored — not even by yourself.
I suggest you ask yourself questions like:
- What would my ideal day feel like, not in terms of tasks, but in terms of energy, rhythm, and peace?
- When did I feel most real today — not productive, not performing — but truly present?
- If stress were a teacher, what would it be trying to show me — not about my work, but about my needs?
They help see things more clearly.
Some definitions will be impossible to achieve or lead to a goalpost that is always just out of reach.
How you choose to poke at the world and react to the things that poke back is up to you.
But since you're worried about "being behind" and "not making it", perhaps you should reflect on what you mean by those things. You're "behind" what? How do you define success and failure?
In any case, my advice to you is that you're just getting started. It's far too soon to seriously fear failure in your life. The important thing in anything isn't the current state, it's the trendline. As long as you are moving in the general direction of your goals, you'll be fine.