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Comment by SoftTalker | Hacker News Reader

I've accomplished nothing of note ever. Most people don't. They just live their lives, trying to get by as best they can.

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I don't know if that is true. For large swaths of the population, raising a child is their biggest accomplishment. Justifiably so.

Other accomplishments of note might be: a single conversation that helped someone change. Little acts that made the world a tiny bit better. Having brought happiness to other people. I like to think that is the meaning of not wasting your time – not just measuring your life's worth with a science/capitalism lens.

I guess I interpreted "of note" differently. Raising a child is not noteworthy, it's just normal. Millions of people do it. Nobody will be remembered for raising a child, except by the child himself.

When I'm gone, I'll leave nothing "of note" behind. I haven't won any great prizes or set any records. I haven't authored any papers. I haven't invented anything that changed an industry. I haven't cured any diseases. My name won't be on any buildings or monuments. I haven't really left any kind of discernable mark on the world or civilization or even my home town.

Raising a child is noteworthy. Same for the millions of people who do it now, and the millions of people who did it before them. Just because millions of people do it doesn't diminish the significance of it. Framing it as such, is like saying there's no point running a race if you don't come first. A personal victory is still a victory. If it matters to you, then that's all that matters. All of those things like authoring papers, winning great prizes, setting records, will all be eventually be lost to time.

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