Ask HN: Why am I never happy? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Why am I never happy?

7 pointsleeu7 comments

I've been in the web design industry for a while now. Worked with a fair share of startups, had some success as a freelancer before that and am now happily committed to a start up working on amazing things.

But often when working on a new feature, or trying to redo my own personal site, I'm never truly happy with the outcome. At most I'm content with some of the things I push out. I'm not saying I release crappy designs but I'm not sitting there thinking "Shit, this is the best thing I've ever made."

Is this bad? Am I supposed to be extremely happy with my work?

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This is probably what most people call "perfectionism". I myself have this... "curse", if you want. It's perfectly normal to think that every piece of your work is not the best thing, cause by doing it you get a tiny little better, which for perfectionists is enough to look back and judge strictly. Learn to accept some little things here and there once in a while just to maintain normal levels for free time and sanity. :)

You should be extremely happy with your results, but you should never be extremely happy with your work. You should set your goals high enough that you meet them no more than 90% of the time. You will learn to balance your goal of doing good enough work with your goal of continually improving. When you have learned that perfect is the enemy of good enough, and learn to see the forest for the trees, grasshopper will be the teacher.

I think this is exactly what makes you successful in your work. Because you are never truly satisfied with your work, you become very motivated to make improvements! I see this as a pursuit for excellence. I have seen people who are always so satisfied with their status quo that they never really improve.

No artist is never happy with the stuff they make and those rare times that one is exhilarated by what they created... well, it came about as a result of serendipity, spilled paint or by accident rather than a solid plan.

It is a lot easier to be finished than it is to be satisfied. You can tweak your work, no matter what you do or create, forever. At some point you have to say, "It's Finished".

Hedonic treadmill http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonic_treadmill

Happiness is a choice.

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