I feel so shallow and dumb when I see what other smart people are doing

I have these kinds of feelings a lot. It is hard to feel useful in this day and age of a ubiquitous globally connected society because for anything you attempt to do you have instant access to the top 0.0001% of the Bell curve who you have no hope of ever beating.

I find comfort in that I am not alone, thinking of all the peasants and regular workers across history who didn't amount to much either, but still mostly fought on and had a good life. Plenty of examples in immediate family as well.

And lastly, I found that there is one thing that one can do that is absolutely unique that nobody can match anywhere in the world, and that is - as corny as this sounds - kids. It may be a touchy subject or not for everybody. But raising a human with the best possible effort you can muster is an accomplishment at least one person will remember and value 100000x more vs. any world champion in solving IOI problems or writing clever functional code :-)

My recommendation: feel your feelings, all the way through.

There might be some tendency, when you feel small, to feel bad about feeling small — as though it is further evidence of your worthlessness — and that itself makes you feel worse, and down the spiral you go... Been there (:

But if you make space for (or even _welcome_) those feelings, even if you don't like them, then in my experience you end up at a better place.

I only mention this because you seem to be beating yourself up about this ("I feel shallow/dumb"). You can feel bad and still be a good person; it's an easy mixup to make.

(I am reminded of this funny image: https://i.redd.it/9ubhqov2u9k01.jpg [1])

Also, not that this makes your feelings go away, but looking at people who are rich/smart/influential/famous is looking at outliers, and people who likely had a lot of luck in their background, upbringing, genes, education, being-in-the-right-place-at-the-right-time, etc. etc. to achieve their success, on top of their hard work. For every succesful indie video game, there are 1000 people who worked just as hard on theirs but didn't get a big break. The same is true in all sorts of areas of life, big to small. And just in general, FWIW, I don't recommend judging your self-worth by comparing to others, whether they're outliers or not (:

But sorry you're feeling down; *internet hug*.

[1] (in case the direct link dies) https://old.reddit.com/r/wholesomememes/comments/82lny8/i_wa...

I know the feeling but I will leave you with this:

"There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.

― Ernest Hemingway"

With the exception of a few details, I swear I could've authored this post. I feel the exact same.

I'm starting to slowly realize that it's a vicious cycle for me. When my family wants to go do things, I want to stay at home and "work on my projects". So I spend a lot of my free time in front of the computer, trying to think of a cool thing I could build. That turns into youtube binging or twitter stalking, realizing there are so many talented people out there, solving all kinds of interesting problems and building cool things. I see them talking about the mountains of ideas they have, but not time to get to them all. Meanwhile, I have zero ideas - none.

The reason, I think, is because I live a small life. I'm so inside my box and my comfort zone, that I don't have new experiences, or discover new things. I don't run into new problems to solve, or socialize with people to discover problems they're trying to solve. So the ideas never come, but the way I consume life doesn't allow for it.

But rather than break the cycle, and spend more time away from the computer and living my life - I just rinse & repeat. I'm not getting any younger, and so many are out there building things, in the open, at lightning speed. How can I get where they are if I don't park myself behind my keyboard? How can I make a name for myself?

"Great, 4 hours before bed. What can I build tonight?"

"Ugh, how is 2 am already? Time for bed I guess. I'll try to think of some more ideas tomorrow."

I'll be brutally honest because I used to be in your situation.

Each and every person you admire has poured thousands of hours into some project. For some that's a degree. For some it's a game they wrote, for others it's company that they've started...

Have you done that? Spent thousands of hours on a single thing? Focused on a project long enough to actually see results? I'm guessing not, because if you would have then this would have been a Show HN post.

Ask yourself why you are content with doing anything besides the one thing that you should do: Commit to some project and don't give up until it is done?

Reading through the various comments, I wonder what happened to good old-fashioned ambition. Other than my post, all I can see are "it's ok, I feel the same way, don't change" replies.

We used to admire our heroes and try to emulate them, and if fortunate enough, come as close to them as our talents and circumstances would allow. And we did that through hard work, through having lofty goals and working hard to achieve them. Yes, many failed to reach their goals, but ambition and hard work is what built this species, this civilization.

Why are we forsaking that in favor of a "you don't have to try so hard, it's ok to be mediocre" mindset?

Why did we stop trying?

Watch out! You might be conflating success and happiness. We all know how common it is for professional outliers (be they geniuses, celebrities, athletes, etc) to struggle with depression, loneliness, anxiety, and addiction. In the 1900s becoming a world-class jazz musician was basically a sentence to death in your 40s. Consider the stereotype of the man who devotes everything to his career only to retire bitter, alone, and wealthy. It's all too common.

People are happy when they have meaningful social time with friends and family, when they spend free time building or growing things with their hands, when they are able to be active and healthy, and when their basic physical needs are met. Once your career is able to reliably cover your basic needs, the next thing to optimize for is freeing up your time. Unless your passions in life are truly aligned with your career, and you're able to stave off burnout, I see few compelling reasons to make your profession your legacy.

A couple years ago, I came to terms with the fact that I wasn't going to be a Beatle. My family and friends had come to terms with that fact 30 years earlier - it just took me a little longer...

"but I can’t convince myself that these traits are actually true. I feel untalented, empty and dumb."

They probably are 'true' in some sense, but that doesn't mean you can't feel untalented/empty/etc at the same time. Appearing to be 'creative' and 'in learning mode' is how other people see you - feeling untalented/empty is how you see your self. They can both be true at the same time. But your feelings about yourself aren't the whole truth, and they can (and will) change over time too, just like other people's views of you may change, depending on you, the other people, and other factors outside of everyone's control.

Maybe you should stare out of the window for a while - I don't mean forever, but it seems like you're trying to engage in some self reflection, and that can take time. And 'wasting' time is often not seen as a good thing by others, or indeed ourselves. I struggle often with trying to give myself some 'time off' for anything.

With all that said, you dropped a bomb in the last paragraph about medication. There's no doubt in my mind that this is a contributing factor to your mental health state (it might be a positive factor, but it's certainly in the mix). and as such, you should also be seeking out some folks with experience with these medications.

This is one of the best HN posts I've read in a while. It feels so close to home, and I think it's amazing that people are sharing their feeling about this topic.

Sometimes I feel the same as OP, but then, when I encounter a post like this one, I remember that most people aren't going to do super-duper gigantic world-changing stuff and that's ok. Really!

Don't beat yourself because you didn't create RCT using assembly by yourself. As others said, people are so different and we all live under different circumstances.

The thing that I always try to remember when I feel like I am "nobody" is to do things that I enjoy and that matter to me. I don't need to change the entire world to feel accomplished. I can do what I feel is important and be happy with the impact it makes on my own life and other people's lives.

Don't worry OP, you're not alone. :)

"Some years ago, I was lucky enough invited to a gathering of great and good people: artists and scientists, writers and discoverers of things. And I felt that at any moment they would realise that I didn’t qualify to be there, among these people who had really done things.

On my second or third night there, I was standing at the back of the hall, while a musical entertainment happened, and I started talking to a very nice, polite, elderly gentleman about several things, including our shared first name. And then he pointed to the hall of people, and said words to the effect of, “I just look at all these people, and I think, what the heck am I doing here? They’ve made amazing things. I just went where I was sent.”

And I said, “Yes. But you were the first man on the moon. I think that counts for something.”

And I felt a bit better. Because if Neil Armstrong felt like an imposter, maybe everyone did. Maybe there weren’t any grown-ups, only people who had worked hard and also got lucky and were slightly out of their depth, all of us doing the best job we could, which is all we can really hope for."

https://neil-gaiman.tumblr.com/post/160603396711/hi-i-read-t...

You sound a lot like someone I know. And like someone I know, I gave them lots of advice like the kind you're getting here that never really took with them. Then I realized something. The way you experience the world is different from "most people", and thus the advice for "most people" will just make you feel more empty as you struggle and fail with it.

Here's what I can tell you about yourself. You are probably much smarter, much more talented, and have more good qualities than you realize. You have to constant challenge these messages you're telling yourself (use CBT as a framework). Start digging _deep_ for your good qualities, remind yourself of them constantly. Start "doing the opposite", and work on radical acceptance. Get a good coach/therapist who can understand you, and help you see yourself.

You can find joy and happiness in life, once you accept that what that looks like for you is different than how it looks for other people. Acceptance is key.

I love you.

These feeling are not unique to you. These feelings are a product of the times.

There are many doors. The internet let's you see them all. Some are wrong to open. You have free will and creative spirit inside you.

Whatever you do, do it out of love and what feels good.

You know what good feels like. Do more of that. Things that make you feel good. Figure out what makes you feel good and do that when you have spare time. Try to reinterpret something.

Be thankful for what you do have. Be general at first, you have air to breathe.

Now just play and have fun creatinf. Even if it fails. We wouldn't be growing & learning without failure, now would we?

Figure out how to move quickly and interate.

Reduce the time to recovery from mistakes. Make failure cheap.

Share it with the world and try to find collaborators.

Rinse and repeat.

Remember we all have the power of creation in us.

I AM

Jeez, dude, don't be so hard on yourself!

Comparing yourself to other people is a losing game - no matter how awesome you are you'll always find people that are "better" than you at whatever, as they would to, unless you're Michael Jordan.

Find things you like to do that make you happy and do those things. That works for me. I'm a college drop-out/software developer with skeletons in my closet just like you.

There's no such thing as "raw" intelligence.

Those people you find so incredibly impressive who have done such worthwhile things? Every single one of them sucks ass at a multitude of things. Every single one of them would see something in your set of capabilities that would astound them.

It takes a vast constellation of capabilities, including yours, to create and sustain our world.

I'm working on some music synth stuff because I learned to play piano (rudimentary) and know how to write code. It's a great creative outlet.

I am not, and never will be, the next Kraftwerk or author of SuperCollider or whatever.

I do like exploring and have interests. And with what I do know (enough code and music to be dangerous) it ends up being a lot of fun (well it involves code so sometimes it's frustrating as hell, but any creator will say the same thing about their medium).

I guess the point here is that you could get angry or disappointed with life or you can focus on things you enjoy.

This can be naive advice if there are other issues. I had luck with therapy, it's a good idea for every human IMO. HN is OK but professionals are better.

Hey I have bipolar and borderline too! But I just want to say, life isn't about achieving things; it's just about being happy. And a little secret: achieving things doesn't actually make you happy. Maybe temporarily, but anyone who achieves great things is never satisfied. Otherwise, they never would have put in the work to achieve what they did in the first place. It's sort of a prerequisite.

I was really good at a sport through high school and college. And one thing I noticed very early is that how good I was didn't make me happy. Sure, in the instant I won, I was happy. But then I went back to practice the next day, and was just focused on the next opponent. And then when I lost, I was crushed. I didn't become any happier as a person or enjoy my life more or anything as I got better at the sport. I cared a lot about getting better. What actually made me happy was just doing the sport itself, especially in the moments where I let go of the outcome. It's the old, appreciate the journey, not the destination. It's really true!

I also know a lot of people who are really good at things. They are no happier than anyone else. It's not something to be jealous of, or feel bad that you are not like them.

I also will say that I started to focus on achievement a lot less when I had a kid. It became obvious to me that what I did for my kid was infinitely more important than what I achieved for myself, and pursuing success for myself was really just a kind of game.

This is called Imposter Syndrome. I had the same thing when I first got into a company where I was working with seriously smart and talented people.

- https://www.verywellmind.com/imposter-syndrome-and-social-an...

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impostor_syndrome

- https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/imposter-syndrome

Long story short: If you're hitting your goals and getting paid, don't sweat the extracurriculars.

I consider myself a person of above-average intelligence, insight, and drive. But working in Silicon Valley, I find myself constantly surrounded by people who are complete outliers. People who I consider close friends who I think are absolutely smarter, more creative, more driven, more knowledgeable than me.

And you know what? You can choose to compare yourself to them (and find yourself lacking) or you can choose to use it as inspiration. Look to those people for the traits you want to find and nurture within yourself. Actively choose to include those people in your life and let yourself become better for having them around. It's never too late to change how you look at things, or to become something different than what you are right now.

For this reason, I purchased a 5ft by 3ft canvas print of the Hubble Ultra Deepfield photograph and hung it on my wall.

Somehow being reminded that there are 5000 galaxies visible in a single 24 millionth of the sky makes me feel better about not having "accomplished as much" as some other members of my particular species on my particular planet in my particular solar system in my particular galaxy.

It helps keep things in perspective. That feeling of inferiority is just an evolved pressure to be the most worthwhile mating partner. It's not as big a deal as it feels like, just natural selection's unkind handiwork.

( https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0d/Hubble_u... )

I think all of us have these thoughts and feelings. I'm in an engineering team, surrounding by incredibly skilled, experienced but most of all _committed_ (embedded) engineers - and I'm the only guy on the business side. If you've ever felt stupid, just think how the sole marketing guy feels in an otherwise fully engineering focused company. It's not a nice feeling.

Anyway. I've come to realise (suspect?) a few things:

- People who achieve _Great Things_ are, more often than not, unidimensional. They focus most of their lives one single thing (or a small select set of related things). What this means is that they achieve highly in one area, but are somewhat useless in many others (even somewhat basic ones). It's a personal choice whether you think this is OK or not. The book Range by David Epstein is an interesting read (or if you like horrible business buzzwords, 'T shaped people')

- None of the extreme achievers would be able to do what they do, without the rest of us. I don't feel this is some new age woo-woo stuff to make us minions feel better, but in reality if the base of society doesn't exist or function well, you can't go do the cool 'big think' stuff. Without farmers, Elon would probably either starve or have to go grow his own crops (bad example maybe, whatever).

- The people that do achieve _Amazing Things_ sit at (I believe) a very special intersection of inherent capability (e.g. ability to integrate information quickly), personality (often very driven and quite selfish, just lucking into very beneficial mindsets early on, don't suffer from depression), familial advantages (wealth, exceptional early education), geographic advantage (not just first world wealthy country, but even micro-geographic advantages, such as say Silicon Valley vs a small rural town) and probably a few others I don't have a grasp on.

So in my mind, the combination of the above factors not only enables _some_ people to achieve wildly, but also puts them on a path that they almost can't stray from. This strays into pre-determinism I suppose, but (in my mind) it's more related to a series of environmental and personal factors playing out, as opposed to Some Large Guiding Force.

I dunno, that's my current view at least.

Hey I've got a Comp Sci PhD and let me tell you I'm dumb as a rock. I have very little short term memory and my long term memory is also terrible.

FWIW the people that finish PhDs are the most stubborn/persevering and not the most intelligent (the most intelligent are those that DONT start a PhD haha).

But in all seriousness most of the achievements you see are product of someone just picking at their stone day to day. It's just a matter of doing a d doing every day. You could write a assembly game or anything else if you decided to sit down , start and dedicating 1 or 2 hours a day every day .

Regarding medication, I take amitriptyline every night and I dont think it makes me stupid. It does remove some of the mood "edge".

> Nothing I’m doing in my life are anything that people will remember me for.

I never expected to be remembered beyond my generation and it always surprises me to find out that some people DO expect that.

I'd argue that 99% of people are entirely unremarkable and will be forgotten entirely within 2 generations of their death. The sooner you come to terms with that and accept it, the better.

I feel you. I’ve been to programming since I was a kid and made a career out of it. Nowadays, I see kids doing shit that would blow many (most?) professionals out of the water, a seeming experts in very difficult domains. For as long as I’ve been programming, I haven’t made or done anything notable or worthy of any sort of intrigue by my standards. Most people I have immediate relationships with would probably consider me pretty damn successful, and most people on places like here would consider me middling hack. I don’t really want either of their ideas of “success”, but the dumb ideas I have of it.

Don’t get me wrong. I know a little about a lot. Mostly things that are of no value whatsoever, and only enough to make me sound like I have some level of expertise. But if I real expert stepped in I’d likely get schooled immediately (as had happened many times).

I don’t think I’ll be able to do more with my career in software than I already have, nor drive it in the direction I’d like. And frankly, I’m getting tired of the “a little more money, same bullshit” stuff. I still have love for programming, but the way I inherently approach it and work are just not going to ever get me anywhere.

I too, have spent some years bouncing across a handful of interests, typically only to find out I don’t have what it takes to even get a few inches deep into it (whether that be cognitive ability,focus, or whatever). I’ve seriously thought about going into academia for a bit to get the thrill of working on edge of something, hoping that the structure and resources provided might show me something new, but that’s mostly because of the implementation), but it feels like a distant pipe dream more than anything. By the time I’d be able to do to, I’d likely be to old to fit the profile of what that type of organization wants from somebody, and me doing anything remotely novel or innovative feels so alien. I don’t even want recognition or immortalization, or even money really. I just want to have worked on something that I’m proud of.

This was strangely motivational. Given how you write and your degree of introspection you can get to where you want to be.

One thing I realized lately, is the hard work you put in today may not bear fruit for a while. There's also a power of compounding. Ultimately it all starts with what you are passionate about.

Not to be rude, it's good you feel shallow and dumb, because it shows you perceive the absence. So now it's a question of what you do with that feeling.

What gets you excited today? How can you start making baby steps towards that? Start small, and remember if you make 1% towards something every day, that will really quickly start to add up.

The worst thing you can do is nothing! And then you'd grow old, look back at your life, and feel the regret of what you could have done, when now you are old, graying, wrinkly and dying.

Isn't life too short to have that regret? And you are only 30!

I think you're underestimating your talents. A technical writer with a development background, when applied correctly, is a powerful force.

You have the ability convey complicated concepts in a concise manner. You can do so much with that. Is there something in your tech world that you're interested in, that's hard to grasp, that you could start your own blog/YouTube/ebook/course with? Perhaps you'll become the goto expert on it.

I often wonder how the oracles in our industry get to where they are, and everyone starts and persists - often for years - before being recognised as such. Small consistent progress over a long period of time is what makes an overnight success.

I personally feel that as long as you are above a certain aptitude threshold (one that's closer to the average than the best) in some field, you can achieve a lot more than the average person through the power of routine daily work. Actually creating sticking to that routine seems to be the biggest hurdle.

For example, I know many devs (myself included) that work professionally on big and successful projects as part of a team. We often work on projects in our spare time but they tend to get dropped within a few weeks and never really go anywhere.

It feels a lot more like a battle of willpower than one of skill in these situations. With the willpower to stick to a project and work on it for even two hours a day for a full year, I have no doubt it'd end up as something to be proud of.

At some point, I read a blog post about how we have a finite amount of willpower per day, and focusing on a task costs a large chunk of it. However, once you do something regularly enough it becomes a habit/routine, and the willpower cost decreases making things easier. I'd like to believe that's true, though have not committed hard enough to my own work to know if that's really the case.

There's a great scene in Band of Brothers where an officer gives the following advice:

"the only hope you have is to accept the fact that you're already dead. And the sooner you accept that, the sooner you'll be able to function as a soldier's supposed to function. Without mercy, without compassion, without remorse."

I feel the same applies in day-to-day life. The sooner I accept that I am a nobody, the sooner I'll be able to function as someone who has nothing to lose should act: without hesitation, without submissiveness, and without regret. And if I can do those three things consistently, then maybe I will become a somebody.

First, I would say if you're worried about your mental health, don't wait, go get help. It does sound to me like you might be a little depressed, but don't take the word of a random internet stranger.

With that being said, when I get like this, I take a step back and look at the bigger picture. First, there's plenty of people in the world who would look at your situation and be floored. "If only I could pay my bills / stay out of trouble with the law / stay off drugs / etc.". There's always someone better and always someone worse.

Second, ask yourself what do you want. Would you be satisfied if you made the next Rollercoaster Tycoon... Or would you say yeah, but X developer did way more in a shorter time and made more money? Like, would it actually be enough? Instead chase what you enjoy.

But it sounds like you don't know what you want. That's not bad, that's exciting! Try things! Maybe you always had an interest in cooking, or writing poetry, or hiking, or whatever. Or society is so obsessed with external validation, instead focus on intrinsic value.

There's always a bigger fish. Always someone better than you, to such a degree you cannot imagine competing. There's only one thing you can always be better at than everyone though: living your life in a way that fulfills you, without the need to win the right genetic & environmental lottery to be the best of the best.

A large amount of people at the very top of any field have problems in other parts of their life. That is because intelligence can also be a drawback. It leads to heavy introspection for one, which you need to control or enjoy heavy depressions and anxieties. That is not to say that many high-performance people are not perfectly happy too. They are, and that is fine: you can focus on making yourself perfectly happy. It's not a zero-sum game.

I hope this makes some sense, it's the best way I can put it.

"Never compare the insides of your life to the outsides of someone else's."

--My wife ;-)

It's okay to be average or below average. Most of us are. We just have to make peace with what we can reasonably do in this short life. History remembers almost no individuals, and to be one so lucky as to be remembered by history is beyond our right to ask for.

I mean everyone is unaccomplished compared to chris sawyer for roller coaster tycoon :)

Most software projects are forgotten pretty quickly though, so if you're looking for a longer impact on life in general, consider the community you live in. plant a tree. clean a highway. Software dev is ephemeral, and most software rockstars aren't even known outside a small circle.

I don’t know if you will get to see my comment by now but you are an incredibly good writer. Miles above the email churn I deal with daily.

I found myself reading and just flowing over your ideas. Your pace is good, your writing is simple yet thoughtful. Your sentence are not too short or too long and your paragraph boundaries make sense to me. Honestly, you are a good writer.

> Nothing I’m doing in my life are anything that people will remember me for.

I've played RollerCoaster Tycoon, and I'm sure I've seen the developer's name more than once, but don't remember. You didn't repeat it in your post, so you probably saw it and immediately forgot. That's the extent of fame they got from that.

In the past if every city had one talented person, he would've been a celebrity. But no one felt bad since 99% of people around would've been average and there was one exceptional person. Now with the internet, we get to watch the talented person from every city and town in the world. Social media and google have become efficient in surfacing the most exciting/valuable content in front of us.

Given our window of attention is limited, what we see all day is excellence and we feel mediocre.

In short get out of your virtual world and go people watching in the real world to find that you are good enough.

The greatest misconception about life is that you are ought to "achieve" something. You're not. Do what you want, not what you ought to do.

One book that helped me in this respect is "Mastery" by Robert Greene.

Go through this Twitter account and if anything resonates with you, I definitely recommend reading the book.

https://twitter.com/masteryquotes

Envy is a capricious emotion.

I've found solace in the fact that I wasn't blessed with the circumstances, disposition, possibly intellect, or combination of those that led to any of the things you mentioned, and those aren't necessarily within anyone's control.

So you know how to program assembly, and Tycoon games haven't been invented yet. Suppose you have the idea to build a tycoon game and the time and money to do it; unlikely. Do you have literally nothing else you'd rather do for year(s) than work on building a Tycoon game that may or may not be popular? I sure as hell wouldn't want to. I'd rather have a social life, be in nature, or anything else. Ya it'd be satisfying to complete it, but how many people now complete building games that in retrospect were a total exhaustion of their enthusiasm without any substantial payoff?

It's important to consider the things you are lucky/fortunate/skilled at. If you've been employed consistently in any arbitrary position, for 10 years, you're already way further ahead financially or experience-wise than me. I've burnt out 3 times and have lost my job because I didn't realize early enough how to identify the problematic relationships with life and discipline that have caused me tumult. I've had a fine time in other respects, but have zero money and have no prospects for earning enough over my career to retire, buy property, or have children if I wanted them. That said, I can hold a conversation well, am decent at certain things athletically, and have a great relationship.

Go easy on yourself and don't compare yourself to other people. That old classic saw "be yourself", springs to mind, but it's important to enjoy yourself too.

You are anything but shallow if you can think and write as you do. I've read your other comments on this site from 2015. I come from a Christian equivalent in some ways.

Some things that have helped me, in no particular order are, but many smart people have recommended are:

Read Philosopy, join a charity (I reckon you'd be an excellent helper in after school educational activities), take up more than one sport and join a sports club, chess, make more art, change your diet, get more sleep.

I can't speak to your mental condition or medication because that requires expertise but you can always, and indeed should always, get a second opinion and seek to alter your medication under supervision.

Trite on this forum, but emacs org-mode is a great thing to learn and might help using any available empty slots on your schedule, it's also great fun, such a total cultural immersion. Org-mode with magit and babel et cetera is for me the most powerful documentation system available, and most open source projects need to improve their documentation. Maybe try to use your considerable talent, skills, and experience to help your favorite digital community?

Stare out of the window more! It's an amazing thing to do, so contemplative and calming. Take time with yourself. You're a human and being human is truly wonderful.

Man, I see in Hacker Rank the strongest and smartest men who've ever lived. I see all this potential. And I see it squandered. Goddamn it, an entire generation writing docs, fixing bugs, typing code. Slaves in digital collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no great war, no great depression. Our great war's a spiritual war. Our great depression is our lives. We've all been raised on internet to believe that one day we'd all be crypto millionaires and famous scientists and popular video bloggers. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off.

Welcome to the club, pal.

P.S. > I sometimes wonder if my mental condition or my medication has had an effect on this: I'm bipolar schizoaffective and borderline.

I wonder why you wonder. Read the side effects of your medications: depression, sleep problems, aggression, agitation, fatigue. If you had this since childhood, that was one of the reasons you dropped out of university. The people you talk about don't have to deal with this shit, most people don't.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_with_schizophre...

Look at this. How many people there are really famous and what's the proportion to the famous people without it? 0.000001%? And I bet most of them were just born in the right family and in the right country.

I don't you're lazy. It's just that you're taking the wrong approach. I've done an analysis on what makes successful people tick and this is what they have in common:

1. Preparation/Research/Attention to detail. A good deal of masterpieces were researched for about a year or so before anything started. Will Wright doesn't start away thinking how he'd make a game of something, he'd just keep reading more about the topic and then get fascinated about things that would otherwise be boring, like traffic theory.

2. Beginner's mind. They approach problems like they don't know the answer, but learn a lot so that patterns are clear.

3. Passion. They can't stop doing it, can't think about other things. Probably a side effect of heavy research. It's easier to build passion than discipline.

4. Self-doubt. Often the first thing people bring up in interviews. You have to come up with a solution yourself. For some, it's building the thing before sharing the idea, because they know others will bring them down. For others, it's accepting that failure is normal. Or some take on a very small piece.

5. Effectiveness. Prototyping (especially writers). Research. Most don't follow a usual track or try to be good at everything, e.g. photographers may only take care of the basics of lighting, many writers are dismissive of character, plot, prose and so on. This goes along with beginner's mind.

So for the most part, it's not that you're untalented, mentally unhealthy, or demotivated. It's probably that you're going at it at the wrong angle.

There's a huge factor of luck to a lot of these successful geniuses.

I guarantee, that for every RollerCoaster Tycoon, there are hundreds - maybe thousands - of people who wrote games in Assembly and went bankrupt trying to market them.

A big chunk of "success" (whatever that means) is completely out of your hands. It's luck. I felt it was a lot easier to forgive myself for not being a hyper successful genius when I realized that.

read up on stoicism. In the grand scheme of the universe all of us are completely insignificant. In the context of our society, only a very few will be remembered 20-30 years after they are dead and even fewer 100years.

I could achieve so much more if I was willing to put forth the effort, take the risks, or make the sacrifices. Im not though, and I have come to grips with that. Ultimately everything is a choice. Every day you choose to do what you do. The key is to be happy with the choices that you make instead of wishing that you would make other choices. Whatever I do, I choose and I accept it. (Im aware of the discussions of lack of true free will)

Does creating a new software language, a new backend, social media site really matter in the grand scheme of things? Does being mayor, governor, or even president? Are you willing to make changes to achieve goals that are out of your reach? If not, why be upset with yourself?

This thought process of the ultimate meaninglessness of life can lead to nihilism or contentment.

I am fortunate that I have always been happy with my choices. But many people have to work a bit to come to acceptance.

It doesn’t matter.

I’m a bit of a ‘positive’ existential nihilist, and I strongly feel that everything I do is not important in the greater view of existence / nature. That doesn’t mean that I think everything I do is worthless, some things are definitely worth a lot to me. It comes down to what I think is important, for me. I have a tiny window in time to experience life on earth. I want to spend that time doing things I like, preferably with people I love. The chemicals in my brain makes me feel good or bad depending on the day, but this is something I just need to realise and reflect/act on.

I’m quite creative and relatively successful (I’m not a millionaire though), my hobby’s include making things (music/art/code/design), which I enjoy a lot. That helps me find some purpose in my life.

I can be very lazy and I don’t want to put too much effort into certain things. Which is totally fine! In my youth people always told me that I was lazy, and in general that made me feel guilty throughout my life. Luckily I moved on from that state of being.

Currently I’m doing a well paid ‘bullshit’ job and I’m paying off some debts, buying music gear and searching for love. I could die tomorrow, or in 40 years. I do hope that I can stay for a while. I like humans. It’s nice to see them learn something for example. Teaching is fun.

I’m diagosed with dysthymia FYI. I hope you can find some relief in your situation in sharing your thoughts, it usually helps to process thoughts by bouncing ideas with other people. I just want to say, it doesn’t matter. Some people would love to be in your position (technically speaking), the mental part you need to figure out for yourself! Luckily humans like helping each other, so maybe try to keep communicating with others. Peace can be found!

1. Ignore toxic positively

2. Not everything is as it appears on the surface. You don't know what advantages people had, and challenges they had to overcome. You don't know how they felt, and perhaps at some point they felt like you

3. Everyone will eventually wither and die. Failure and decline are the norm and they are a shared universal human experiences, everyone before you is dead and forgotten. Everyone around you will eventually fail, give up and decline. There is no escape from this, the question is when, that is the fact of the human condition, the absurdity of life

4. Watch your own plate, only compare to improve. Comparing to others without value is an act of self harm, it does nothing but lower your self-esteem

5. Speaking of low self-esteem, make sure have enough Serotonin. Exercise, sun light exposure, do a little ego boosting so you can tackle something

6. Do something you like, get good at, then better at it, then great

7. By posting and sharing this, it told me than you're self reflective, have a solid realistic grasp of your situation, and wanting to improve. I can assure you that you are way better than you think you are

Good luck buddy.

I pick small projects I can do in a day, and sometimes come back and improve those projects. I have to do fun things in small chunks that can be completed in just a few hours or I get distracted. I have learned that I can build momentum that way! The more I get done in a project, the more I'm able to do later in that project. Perhaps that would work for you too?

If you had been born in the middle of the 1960's or so you too probably would be a crack assembly programmer, you didn't really have a choice in 1982 if you wanted your stuff to run at an acceptable speed.

The good news is: retrocomputing is a thing and you can set up an environment like that for pennies nowadays. But it will take time and you will have a lot of frustrating experiences, nothing more humbling than computer from four decades ago that does exactly what you tell it to do, no more, no less (which is rarely what you intended it to do...).

Best of luck getting your feeling under control, I am very happy that I'm not forced into todays' fast moving environment where skillsets usefullness has a half life that is short enough that you will have to retrain many times during a single career, something that in the past was much less of a problem. And this pace is still accelerating, people born today will likely have it worse.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erik_Erikson#Erikson's_theory_...

Welcome to stage 7. (Don't mind the age ranges, which shift with time and place.)

Pick something outside of work you are good at and become the best you possibly can at it.

Switch from a consuming mode to a creating mode.

Try to touch one persons life and make a difference.

My possibly unpopular opinion.

Go and find a part time job in Amazon Warehouse or a Restaurant. You will find, there are a lot not so smart people. And they are working "extremely" hard. Makes you treasure your current job which is being valued by your brain power.

I have also met lot of "Smart people" on paper, academia, or people specific in their domain. But the world have moved everything into niche domain that these people sometimes are so abstracted from the real world, to me on many fronts they are no smarter than those working in blue collar.

We dont have a simple way to measure polymath or generalist.

And I believe there is no such thing as laziness. Only Inertia.

And my final opinion, those who think themselves as dump are often the one who may not be very smart, but wise.

There are people 10x smarter than you who feel like schlubs, and people 10x dumber than you who feel like rock stars. I fail to see your point.

Don’t be so hard on yourself. This isn’t an uncommon feeling. The people that develop extraordinary skills are often quite ordinary.

YMMV but this works for me…

Have an interest in some topic? Develop that interest, deliberately. Build it into a passion over time. Allot a small amount of time every day to learn and think about it. Everything we love to do has an ugly side. Embrace it. Accept it as the cost of doing what you love/want to do. Most of the time spent developing skills and interests can feel like complete drudgery. Or it can feel like a journey, with moments of enlightenment along the way.

If at all possible, never let your personal situation be an excuse for feeling this way. Just go for it!

Edit: a word

I wouldn’t be so hard on yourself. I know what you are feeling and have felt it myself.

One key is although you have many years of experience professionally, on any individual project, you are a beginner. Anything substantial, like you mentioned, takes consistent effort over years to build the complexity. I’m sure all of those projects started with hello world just like you will.

Try not to compare your beginnings of any skill or project to someone else’s middle and definitely not their end.

You’re fully capable of doing any of the things listed with time and it’s exactly that, a function of time.

To me, the harder problem is deciding what to spend consistent effort on. After that, focus and enjoy the ride.

One thing I have noticed in opensource projects is very often a lack of proper, well written technical documentation.

Very likely some of the same developers who you are looking up to are stressed and having issues finding time (or the words) to express how the software/hardware is used to make things easy for the end user.

Some of these projects are used to do very important things in the world. Joining up with a project which is attempting to do something you feel strongly about and seeing how the users and devs are gaining from your often overlooked work can be a very good boost to well being.

Nobody is unimportant. Everyone makes an impact.

Try to find some new hobby, something you haven't tried before. From swimming in the open water to dancing, from singing in a choir to learning ancient Sumerian, from playing nards to writing music, from drawing portraits on the streets to gardening, from participating into community charity work to religious devotion, etc. The list is endless, and high chances that if you find something you really enjoy doing, you wouldn't even think about the need to be great in it. You will dive into this new purpose just because you like it.

Everyone is born with different privileges, traits, circumstances, and opportunities and I would separate intelligence vs skill vs knowledgeable.

I meet a lot of people who think very highly of themselves because they can recite a lot of information at me and can explain how something works. Generally I see these people as extremely knowledgeable but that doesn't necessarily entail they are somehow more intelligent.

The same can be said with skills. You may be the worlds best at a task or hobby but let's not automatically assume you are somehow more intelligent.

The vast majority of software ever written is not only not executing on any computers today, but is completely lost to the ether.

Get used to your contributions in this field being irrelevant to the world at large, especially in the long-term. It's a statistical probability.

My personal happiness went up substantially when I started building physical things in the real world. Writing software is a great way to earn money, but making a lasting positive impact on the general public is a lot easier to achieve if you do something tangible, like build/restore housing.

I’m a photographer. I regularly go on Instagram and see the best work from some of the best photographers in the world.

It’s a bummer.

Here’s what I do to cheer up: I look at local photographers. My work is generally better, and significantly so. They might even get more work than me, but I can be proud of my what I do all the same.

Maybe in this example you aren’t me. Maybe you’re one of the other local photographer, but I bet you aren’t the worst. You’re only noticing the people who are inherently noticeable. Try everyone else.

Y'know, bipolar disorder and borderline personality disorder both are things that are hard to handle. The latter is usually connected to having had a childhood that was so chaotic and confusing that it was hard to tell good from bad.

That's likely gonna give you all sorts of feelings about the stuff you're interested in for your own reasons. The truth is – knowing that your own dreams do exist is the biggest step anyone can take. And unlearning all the things you learned that insisted that your dreams are superficial and worthless compared to what other people are doing… that's something you owe it to yourself to do, so that you can live your own life.

The neat thing is that when you learn how to allow yourself to live your own life, the things other people are great at aren't such a threat anymore. It's actually really neat that the guy wrote Rollercoaster Tycoon in assembly, by himself. Wild! And that also says nothing about you, or what matters to you, or whether you're deserving of your own wants and interests.

The trick is learning why you came to believe that these things are reflections of your own perceived incapacity and unworthiness. The only way I know to do that is in therapy, and it's tough, but it's worth it. You get to unlock your own self, that way. Good luck!

I once tried joining elite group at uni but when they started solving N-dimensionals puzzles I just got depressed and left.

My advice is enjoy what you have and enjoy yourself and be kind. You have to be born ultra talented or compromise a lot. Some of these people in elite group cried openly that they didin't have childhood due to study (and some still went on easy mode and now aren't even in field as got bored. Such is life)

I for example started coding when I was 12 on extracircular stuff and guy from these classes he studied a lot and now is doing well at Google Zurich. You could think he's smart (and indeed he is). Still I myself wouldn't trade my time exploring more - hacking, playing MMOs with friends, trying to create games, balroom dancing etc. This is stuff that I still remember fondly.

Anyway if you are fine with trading some comfort then probably there's some cool startup that would hire you

All that blocks most people is comfort and fear of death. We already live in world full of opportity. Elon said he had epithany after trying to live only on noodles for month. Steve Jobs also had interesting talk.

My bro-in-law traveled half of world fot free (Couchserfing). My other nighbour got killed in Africa. Such in life. I still think risking more to pursue dreams is worth it.

smart != wise so don't beat yourself

Also "shallow" skills combined often are more practical and valuable, just hard to market

To sum up my advice and life experience: be kind and squarely to yourself. Jesus was onto something

Do you have a few good friends? A wife or girlfriend? Do you get along moderately well with your family? If you hit 2/3 with this, let alone 3/3 you are in a place much better than the majority. Add to that you have a decent career, I’d say you’re top quarter easy. Are you healthy? Add decently healthy to this and your lot in life is probably top eighth easy.

Grow, improve your self, follow your dreams, but remember at least every now and again to count your blessings too.

I understand these thoughts and feelings 100%. All I can do is leave you with some fighting thoughts (in the sense of fighting for a meaningful life):

* Compare and despair.

* What good do these thoughts and emotions do you? Yes of course perhaps you need these feelings to be driven to achieve what you want. But if you dwell on them for too long then you'll just waste more years not doing the things that you really feel to be meaningful, and then you'll be in an even deeper hole.

* Furthermore I'm skeptical that these "compare and despair" thoughts really will succeed in driving most people to "go out there and make it happen". I personally have found it much more invigorating and inspiring to acknowledge/praise/bless my fellow people. "Wow! They created that. Good for them. What can I learn from them?" Yes I know this reeks of "growth mindset" lingo but it works. At minimum it's a thought/emotion pattern that makes me not miserable day-to-day.

Also it's very interesting that you're a technical writer! I have been one myself for 9 years. At first I had major inferiority complex to engineers. I wonder if it's a common problem that is maybe specific to our field? Happy to chat about our industry 1 on 1 if you think that will help. Find my contact on my website (link in bio).

And last I will say that I know sometimes people just need to vent and need support so I feel a bit rude giving unsolicited advice to strangers. But this is a forum and I only share my thoughts in the spirit of hoping that something clicks for someone and helps them breakthrough.

Been there, thought that. Great stuff in the other comments as well, but adding the comment that stuck with me from my first therapist: „To compare yourself means to hurt yourself.“

Finding out _why_ I felt I needed to be ultra special was the first puzzle piece towards healing to me.

Accepting myself as I am, loving my imperfect self and connecting to the needs I had as a child was the second one.

And if you still think you need to be special after that, I‘ll leave this quote from Ira Glass for you for your way ahead:

„Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.“

One of the really fabulous things about working in tech (or doing it as a hobby) is that you can participate in creating new things, bringing something useful into existence. Another is the joy of figuring out how intricate things work/solving fun brain puzzles. A third is that the end results of this process (the things made using tech) are often fun and interesting in their own right (apart from how they work or the techniques we used to make them).

These three joys are probably what attracted you to get involved with tech in the first place. You can rediscover them if you don't devalue your work by comparing it unfavorably with that of others.

Imagine you are eating your favorite food; let's say it might be pizza. Do you enjoy a good pizza less because there is a better pizza somewhere on the planet? Does a flower in your garden look less pretty because there is a better one somewhere else? Of course not. If you have $20 in your pocket, is your $20 worth less if the guy next to you has $50? Of course not. $20 is still worth $20.

The moral is, if you have created things which were useful or interesting, take pride in your work, even if it's less impressive than the work of others. Did you put effort into your work? Did you learn something in the process? If so, that's great.

And if you choose to spend time improving your skills, don't waste time worrying about whether you are progressing faster or slower than others. Are you learning things which are interesting to you? Can you create things now which you wouldn't have been able to create earlier? If so, that's great. It doesn't matter if someone else could have done it faster.

Don't feel bad. Don't forget that a lot of opportunities in life are positional: there's a contest to get them, and the loser can lose for entirely different reasons than competence. A tiny bit of noise is all it takes to change the winner from one person to another. And for every contest where there's a line, there are a lot of people who are really close to the line.

And every opportunity that someone gets tends to give them more down that path later on. All those smart people doing stuff get to do more smart people stuff. That guy who scraped into medical school is a doctor, and the guy who almost made it isn't. Same goes for almost every profession.

What you can do however, is to learn those things that are not subject to competition. Basically everything that you can learn academically is that kind of thing, until you need to get a PhD advisor to take you on. With a bit of intellectual maturity, you can also know whether you understand something. The satisfaction is entirely your own.

Ultimately, positional goods aren't actually all that satisfying. Do you even want the respect of someone who respects you for being rich or accomplished? You can have all the friends in the world regardless.

A big part of the problem is that a lot of success you see is due to non-linear outcomes with high upside. However, we humans are predisposed to thinking linearly, I.e 2x the effort leads to 2x the outcome. This cognitive dissonance makes us unhappy.

For example anything produced with code or most digital media have these effects. Your Tycoon game example is this: it seems like such an incredible thing for one man to not only accomplish, but also for you to have discovered and enjoyed it.

If you apply linear thinking when comparing yourself to someone with non-linear output, you will feel like you could never reproduce that in 10 or 100 lifetimes. And you would be right! But bear in mind the only reason they could have that success is because they chose to work on something with a non-linear outcome. And the only way to be like them is for you to chose to expose yourself to similar upside, and the risk that comes with it.

For more on this topic, read Taleb's Antifragile (and other books in his series). Reading his books led to a paradigm shift in my mind that made this way of thinking no longer an issue for me.

One of the most sure fire ways to accomplish nothing is too judge yourself based on your accomplishments. The other leading cause of procrastination, according to modern learning research, is too give up when frustrated... The belief that things should come easy.

If you stop judging yourself on your accomplishments, then you can grow without goals, with just experimentation and whimsy. I guarantee that was the mindset when roller coaster tycoon was created.

To help, accept that wealth is based more on luck (were your parents rich when they banged?) than any kind of skill. The vast majority of wealthy people did not work for it, and probably will never have to work at all.

Also, just living day to day in a society that wants you to judge yourself on accomplishment is hard. Dump these ideas, meditate, calm, and then grow.

Edit: I'm going to add another thing about labels, specifically when people call someone else "creative", and how harmful it is. Instead, label actions. Sometimes I do a creative thing, but that doesn't make me creative. Sometimes I do something cruel, or yell. They doesn't make me mean or cruel... That's the fundamental attribution error.

I recommend seeing a counselor to help you with these negative thoughts.

> There’s a lot of subjects and activities that I’m really interested of getting into but I can’t just dive into it.

I mean you could pick one of these and try to get in. If it's about SW dev, it would probably make things easier if it's backend related or at least including backend like fullstack. Actually backend stacks are also evolving quite slowly. What usually impresses people is something that you built with technology that you really like. E.g. once at an interview there was someone presenting I think a web based managing tool for music albums. Like end-to-end working, not many feature but just worked. This kind of software exists hundreds of times, it's not about the idea but the execution. Or like one time I applied for a job and showed them my self-hosting stack (Email, Web server, Wiki) written entirely in Ansible. You could pick a stack that is both in demand and that you like, pick a possible idea and realize it. I guess learning by doing is anyway easier. You could then host it on Azure or Heroku for free. (Or EC2 or EKS if you want to include DevOps) Also basic design can be realized with Bootstrap or whatever is the current go-to-framework for that. And then perhaps put it on Github in a single commit once you're done. Most devs don't involve in Opensource activity and get fine very well anyways. FWIW I appreciate working with fullstack+devops because of the changing tasks but don't expect any badges because of the broader knowledge which is then not necessarily very deep. Also it's just work after all :-) But I admit it's easier to find new jobs.

So yeah, learning by doing and there are blogs posts/Stackoverflow/YouTube videos/forums/Discord chats for everything if you're stuck.

It seems that you're taking the best aspects of many people and combining them into one idealized person. This is most clear in your post when you transition from speaking about people who are "very intelligent" because they have graduate degrees, and then directly after that you mention how many people earn exceedingly well. It doesn't really work like that. If you pick a life of academia, you typically forfeit high pay although you likely aren't motivated by currency anyway); while conversely moving into industry with a vicious interest in money will more likely land you there.

This is similar to the problem with social media. People see the highlights and assume they're missing out on life. We often forget that the few victories (which may seem small compared to the years of effort places in them) that we have are shuffled into that feed, so everyone gets their moment of fame.

Don't get too upset about it and keep remembering that it's because were all sharing these moments that it seems like people are doing so much. We are, but its collective. Dont worry, you're doing great.

I suspect that if you keep peeling away the layers here, you may come to find that this, in the end, is a struggle to find meaning. It is the same struggle that haunts many: we want to matter. How can we matter? We then grasp the idea that if only we could climb the mountain and reach the pinnacle of human achievement - if we could change the world - well then surely we would have mattered.

Well, I have news. If you were to radically transform the world, if your work surpasses any of our industry "titans" and creates the foundation of a utopia to last for thousands of years, if you are adored around the world by everyone alive young and old and captured in the annals of history... congratulations, you have affected the lives of approximately zero of the beings that have lived or have yet to live. And you will still die. And they will still die. And in time everything you have wrought will be destroyed. And you will be utterly forgotten. And all of humanity's history will disappear from knowledge. And the earth will be devoured by the sun. Inevitably. So it goes. It is irrationally tilting at a windmill to think that the degree of your impact in this life has anything to do with the meaningfulness of your existence.

The takeaway here is that you are no less important and your life is no less meaningful than any mogul or genius that you can think of. It is reasonable to think that nothing that you or they do will ever matter. Or even can. But that's ok; life is still beautiful. And if you have others in your life, you matter to them incomparably more than any of those geniuses ever could. I think if you look, you can find meaning there.

It's not settling, it's understanding the reality of things. You don't need to change the world to matter; you can just be you.

Honest question: why do you care? What is it in your psychology that makes you want to do something that impresses the world? If you don’t like the struggle needed to achieve those things then accept that you deep down don’t really want what you think you want. Instead ask yourself: What makes you happy? What makes you be in the “zone” experiencing flow? That is what you really deep down care about.

I think everyone has these feelings. There is always someone you admire knowledgewise and there are just so many things to learn.

Don't forget, the internet you are connected to contains hundreds of millions of people and we all follow the same 10 k top performers? And I think 10 k would even be generous, perhaps it's 5 per niche ( eg. dotnet, python, gamedev, unity, ... ). The dificult thing is to not completely compare to them.

Eg. Scot Hansselman ( https://www.hanselman.com/ ) is a great evangelist of dotnet but also works for Microsoft. He has more easy access to many resources and he shares those.

John Savill also teaches at Pluralsight and has a great youtube channel for Azure weekly updates ( Eg. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUcbSNK6LGg ). But he also works at Microsoft as a Principal Cloud Solution Architect, so it's also easier to accomplish what they are doing ( i'm not saying it's easy though)

The only thing, and I mean that literally, is how you feel in your head. That's it. Your legacy doesn't matter. Your contributions don't matter. Not really... They only matter if you let their perceived omission make your life in your head feel worse. Find a way to be happy in your head, and you will live a better life than almost all of the people you think are better than you.

I have two comments. One is, why do you feel the need to be remembered and be great in the first place? Most people won't. Maybe the problem is your desire, which is something you may be able to change. Acceptance in combination with my second comment may be a good way forward for you. I'm personally not that productive despite broad and deep knowledge and I accept that I won't be great because I enjoy what I do.

Second, you say you're self-taught and you probably have a lot of experience. Why don't you start learning computer science online at this point? Not just another skill to stack on but something to contextualize everything and broaden your horizons while deepening what you already know about (not something unrelated: keep specializing.) I've done this with some things and it can be really mind-blowing to fill in some gaps, more than you might expect.

Make sure you take care of the relationships in your life too. You may just be looking for what you need in the wrong place here.

It's not so much imposter syndrome. It's that research-based graduate experience matters, not in what one learns, but that it forces a person to go through 4 to 7 years of deeply focused introspection, often on fundamental reality.

I suspect similar experience can be gained in a monastery or deep spiritual processes. It's not that PhD is a requirement, people gain this ability in different ways, just it's the most standard way to set aside 4-7 years to focus nowadays.

It's not the kind of experience that one can gain from standard undergrad education, or in a regular 9-5. Also when we are older, it's difficult to find the kind of time to do deeply focused introspection on a single topic.

Without this process, it's easy to get trapped into superficial learning, and confuse regurgitating factoids with knowledge and insight.

The key to do this once again is that instead of trying to learn everything, focus on a singular topic very deeply for a non-trivial amount of time.

I don’t have answers, just thoughts. I’m always impressed how some people can take something I thought was either obvious, common knowledge, or nothing interesting and intrigue so many people with it. You might know something that most don’t, and you might be more interesting than you realize to the right people. And hey, you know the internet! That’s where most of the people are!

I believe that everyone has a niche, but they might not realize it, or people might assume it should be bigger than it is. When I started doing web stuff and “making things,” I dreamed of changing the world. That was like 25 years ago. Now I’m making the things that I like, putting it out into the world, and hoping that somehow the right people find it. I don’t want to change the world anymore, I’m just hoping to accidentally change a couple people’s worlds in tiny, beneficial ways.

Small steps. All we hear about and witness are the big leapers. We’re not all big leapers, and that’s so perfectly OK. I’ve come to rather make a single person very happy, even if only for a few minutes, than make 1,000 people kinda happy.

Maybe it feels like staring out at the ocean and feeling completely insignificant. But maybe it’s really that you’re just not meant to do anything with the ocean.

I’d love to hear more about the ins and outs of technical writing. You probably have learned a lot more than you realize about do’s and don’t’s, tips and tricks, etc.

Look small. Don’t expect to make waves. Do things because you enjoy them. If you feel like sharing that with others, do it! Don’t focus on what they want, focus on you enjoying something. Whether that’s learning something in front of people, trying something new, reviewing a YouTube documentary, or whatever.

Or, you know, don’t. :) Just be, and enjoy learning and watching YouTube and know that those things aren’t damaging the world, and that’s a hell of a lot more than many people can say.

It's not so much imposter syndrome. It's that research-based graduate experience matters, not in what one learns, but that it forces a person to go through 4 to 7 years of deeply focused introspection, often on fundamental reality.

I suspect similar experience can be gained in a monastery or deep spiritual processes. It's not that PhD is a requirement, people gain this ability in different ways, just it's the most standard way to set aside 5-7 years to focus nowadays.

It's not the kind of experience that one can gain from undergrad, or in a regular 9-5. Also when we are older, it's difficult to find the kind of time to do deeply focused introspection on a single topic.

Without this process, it's easy to get trapped into superficial learning, and confuse regurgitating factoids with knowledge and insight.

The key to do this once again is that instead of trying to learn everything, focus on a singular topic very deeply for a non-trivial amount of time.

These are deep questions and they are hard to get a handle on for many: thanks for opening up a discussion! You're not alone and if you ever want to chat one-on-one my email is in my profile.

> Now, I’m an unimportant technical writer composing documents for developers and users. There’s no path for career growth if I stay in this specialty. My work doesn’t feel like it takes much talent and I was hired a few times without having any credentials in business writing.

Do you get feedback from anyone at your job about your work? If so, do they disclose the value of your work to the organization or to individuals? Perhaps you can start a conversation with someone on your team, in your user base or in management to get more insight into the value as perceived by others and see if that helps?

Have you considered schooling or certification that you could pursue to help validate your current knowledge and experience? Your employer may have programs or would be willing to sponsor some of the costs to help you.

If your current workplace doesn't have an avenue would you consider a coach or mentor who might be able to help steer you to a new company or career path that you might find suits your needs better?

Self-care is quite important. If you're having trouble feeling at home with your daily routine and aren't feeling able to fully care for yourself or to follow through with the changes you hope to make then asking for help from friends, family, community, doctors or peers is a great way to help move the needle.

> I sometimes wonder if my mental condition or my medication has had an effect on this: I'm bipolar schizoaffective and borderline.

If you haven't talked to a doctor about your current situation it could be helpful to share what you're going through and ask if they would recommend a change in treatment or if they have other resources they could recommend.

It's important to learn to be ok with our own limitations, our proximity to the average. I like Mark Manson's writing on the subject, e.g. https://markmanson.net/being-average or his book "The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck"

This feeling is familiar to me as well, I'm sure almost everyone feels it.

It reminds me of drawing advice, people always want to know how to get better at drawing, and the answer inevitably is just "practice more", I'd bet drawing skill matches very closely to "time spent drawing" and programming is probably the same way too.

I may be considered a somewhat talented dabbler of many things. What I've found is the most important thing in getting good at something is building up things slowly, patiently you could say, and having some type of encouraging environment to let you flourish.

And then having a variety in what you do is great also. Physical exercise is almost as critical as having the motivation and time for doing something. When your mind is feeling good, you'll also get better results.

I'd say forget about coding something amazing and just focus on your physical and social side. Cut the Youtube a bit and find other sources for entertainment. Just break your routines and maybe you'll find that one intriguing thing you feel you can just endlessly immerse yourself into. We all in the end have quite limited resources to get good at many things and have to pick - even if you were super smart - what to focus on.

Hey, I definitely relate to some of this. The trick is to turn it from passively consuming information to turning it into active learning. When you watch these documentaries, make notes of what you just heard. You start to become more engaged. This video helped me, https://youtu.be/V-UvSKe8jW4, How To Remember Everything You Learn

I realized I’m always curious to learn how things work. So I figured out I could use it to make it my center of focus and try to build a company around it. This is the start http://rigelblu.com

We make the world more complex than it needs to be sometimes. Probably often. Maybe you can use your curiosity in those subjects and interests to help make it easier for others?

I've always felt that if one can point to themselves as kind, thoughtful, and willing to listen to and help others, they can count themselves among the very best society has to offer. Those are skills anyone can foster and use to brighten someone's day and make the world a kinder, happier place.

There are some conflicting currents in your description above. On the one hand you sound quite unhappy and dissatisfied and on the other you express that you lack motivation to change. You need to join those dots.

I actually do suggest youexplore your thoughts about the medication and whether it affects this. I say this from knowing someone who, during the course of my knowing them went onto anti-depressants, and I saw their personality change in a somewhat similar way. It made them more stable but it took the edge off their passion and their motivation to change. I saw a similar contradiction where they somewhere inside wanted to change but their motivation to do it was blunted and they couldn't "connect" that desire to action.

This is only a thought and obviously you need to work through such a thing with professional guidance.

I've had this feeling too, and I've found this hack to keep feeling hopeful of eventually being the top 100 of something

There are ~8x10⁹ people on earth, if you are at the top 99.99% percentile, that still leaves ~800.000 people better than you.

But now lets see this from a different angle, and let's assume there are at least 100 different areas of expertise you can choose from, and you are young, you can still become an expert in more areas. If we calculate the combinations of 3 areas of expertise, we get 161.700 combinations, that leaves on average ~50k people on each possible combination, you are now competing against ~50.000 people instead of 8 billion!!!, if you become the top 98% percentile of that group, you are now in the top 100 worldwide of that combination.

Now try those calculations again but with 1000 areas of expertise

It sounds like you're suffering from a spectacularly severe case of Imposter Syndrome. I can relate because I suffered the same when I cared a lot about what others thought about me.

I can't explain exactly how I broke free of this mindset but I think that the people around me helped a lot. They supported me, encouraged me, cared about me, and gave me the confidence to be less self-conscious in almost every aspect of my life. I stopped asking "why me?" and started asking "why not me?".

You already have the most important trait you need to succeed in anything: 'always in “learning mode”'. Best technologists I've met have always agreed that they don't know everything but they're willing to keep learning.

> What really impressed me however was the origins of the first two titles: written by one man in assembly language

you arent alone, i think that is an impressive and time consuming feat.

OP, youre in a much better place now skillwise then back at 17, sounds like youre unchallenged at work and maybe burnt out. Take some time off to contemplate what youd like to do, open all the possibilities that interest you. Remember you arent starting over, you have a relevant skillset already. Maybe build some personal projects of any kind, to remind yourself how fun building things can be and your motivation may return.

that plus ensure youre getting daily exercise and sleeping well. Motivation follows those almost automatically at times for me. If i feel fulfilled, i have more energy

It may help to consider that the most impressive human being ever is extremely shallow and dumb compared to what is possible.

Future humans will have genetic engineering and computer augmentation, at the very least. They will (correctly) view all previous generations of human as comparatively primitive. That won't invalidate what they did.

My thinking is that:

1. Some humans make large contributions to humanity's progress.

2. Almost everyone makes some contribution.

3. A few unlucky people contribute nothing at all.

4. We should count ourselves lucky if we can contribute something.

5. There's no reason to spend a lot of comparing contributions, except insofar as it helps people contribute more in a healthy and productive way.

6. We should all contribute as much we can figure out how to, as one part of living a full and happy life.

You should remember that whenever you see things people put out, you're usually seeing their best, most polished work. It's true that if you follow hn for example you'll see lots of impressive work done by really motivated and talented people. This, however, is the tip of the tip in many ways.

Don't judge yourself harshly and try to detach from comparisons with the world. In your spare time do whatever you find meaningful because of the thing itself, not because of how impressive it is.

Also note that building things, even if they're basic, is more motivating and useful than going over endless tutorials, wiki pages, online courses etc.

And again, do what is meaningful to you, not what is fashionable or impressive to strangers, hn, recruiters etc.

I have to say that HN is toxic if you are suffering from Imposter Syndrome. Clicking the stories on here is always going to make you feel bad. Take some time off from HN. Most of the human population isn't doing the things that the people on here are doing.

I'm almost 40 and feel the same. So be warned that you will probably feel the same throughout the whole life. After all most of us are mediocre at best but modern technology exposed us to so many bells and whistles of the world every day. I literally find all topics of science, history and many other fields fascinating. I guess most of us never truly grow up to get used to the boring life.

That said, I urge you to pursuit whatever you have in dream immediately because however cliché it sounds like, life is short. Think grand and make sure you will never reach your dream in this lifetime because greed for knowledge or whatever else fuels the heart when it is 5am and minus 20 degree outside.

Consider human evolution and human psychology. What has been most important to most individual humans, for all of history? Having a safe and satisfying individual life, providing for and integrating with those friends and family in our immediate presence.

That's the biological firmware running in your brain. The Internet screws with this perception. It can be a "make yourself feel bad" machine under the right circumstances.

Hold those 0.0001% up as personal heroes (keeping in mind most people have no connection at all to writing Corkscrew Follies in Assembly) and use that inspiration to live your life to your own satisfaction. That's what Chris Sawyer was doing too.

Work on developing your inner score card. The way you feel about yourself should have zero, zip, zilch to do with what other people around you are doing.

Benchmarking yourself against other smart people is just the kind of dumb stuff smart people do, and you shouldn’t do it. After all, what is smart? high iq? Wealth? happiness?

It’s also insane how many people operate with an outer score card like this. Pretty much everyone, but you don’t have to.

Here’s a start: be a decent person who is kind to others. Take pride in that. Keep points on your inner score card. Surely you can look around you and see how many people no matter how “smart” or “successful” lack these qualities. Not all of them but plenty

Both penjelly and pgruenbacher mention great points. Personally feeling very similar to OP as well.

The things I need to do better are sleep better and exercise more.

Counseling helps address some of these feelings but only go so far to motivate one to take care of themselves...

In short, your brain chemistry is currently in an unusual situation and that also affects how you feel about your life.

My advice would be to work on feeling better.

There's plenty of things that I'm bad at, not only compared to the top 0.1% of the internet, but also compared to my real life friends. But I can enjoy doing them just the same, despite my obvious lack of skill. You can be both useless and a good person at the same time. Plus chances are, others will actually value your contribution, even if it seems like nothing to you. So the first step should be to find something you enjoy doing, or to relearn to enjoy something you did in the past.

Time + Commitment = Improvement

You can improve in a few months what it takes another a few years depending on your circumstance. There are no shortcuts. Find ways to increase the amount of time you can devote to your dreams. This will compound. And if you stay the course, you greatly increase the odds of success, whatever that is. Being satisfied with your accomplishments.

I'm not saying it's easy. Everyone has things outside of their control that demand their time. But a lot of people don't make attempts at changing that circumstance. There are a ton of ways to optimize a bit here and there to gain time that compounds.

Use it wisely.

I run an 8-minute mile.

I feel dumb and weak because I used to run a 6:30 mile in high school. I tell this to other people, and they apparently can't beat a 10-minute mile (or have never tried).

Its all relative. If there's one thing about "track", its taught me to enjoy whatever level you manage to get to. I wish I was as strong as I was when I was half my age (and I'll continue to practice for it), but I can accept that my level of effort has brought me to an 8-minute mile.

When I started, my first run was a 12-minute mile. So I know I've improved. I felt really weak back then, and now I only feel kinda-weak.

Don't compare yourself to others. Compare yourself to what you were before.

Be aware that people tend to present the successes and high points in their skills.

Even Feynman (according to Gell-man and others) did this. As an example (iirc) he fluked a combination lock and pretended it was some magic skill.

Mother Teresa is an inspiration for me. She wrote "You can do things I can't, I can do things you can't. Together we can do great things". I went to India once to volunteer at her place and my eyes were opened that there are so many things we can do for people. We don't need to be Einsten or somebody super smart/talented to be able to help people around us. We just need to find what sort of things we can see ourselves consistently doing for a long time that can help people around us. It doesn't necessarily need to be a big thing.

I too have felt this same feeling, it's normal that everyone experiences this in ebbs and flows in life. Ultimately though, there's hard truths I had to face in order to get through this hump:

1) I tolerate this pain, which is why I am not changing my circumstances. 2) I believe that I myself don't have control over my own happiness/life.

Once you have hit that point where you can't tolerate the pain, make the change. Say to yourself that you don't want to live your life this way, and start doing what you like without caring what others think about you. Hope this helps!

Something that makes me feel better has been to read Einstein or Feynman or other physicist who helped advance mankind knowledge. They all share two things, first they profoundly understand their subject and explain it as simply as possible, two they have no shame talking about their weaknesses since they have nothing to prove. We re only human and what you perceive as you being dumb and other being geniuses is just an illusion. We all are knowledgeable about different subjects and the one on the top are their being some amazing alignment of luck…

Welcome to your quarter-life tech crisis, dude! Have a cookie.

You aren't untalented, empty and dumb. You just lack self-esteem and perspective.

You don't appreciate what you're capable of. If you can write code and combine technical knowledge with well-crafted English sentences, you already have skills most people on the planet never will. If you work in tech in general, you are blessed with a life free of physical exertion, with a flexible schedule, and the opportunity for a high paycheck. You are very fortunate. If you were actually untalented, empty and dumb, but still benefiting from this occupation, you're very fortunate indeed!

And you don't feel bad because you think you're untalented, empty and dumb. You feel bad because you're judgemental and egotistical. You look at people who, to you, appear to be more accomplished, and then you look at yourself, and you judge yourself. Imagine if you were doing this to someone else; "Catherine is so untalented, empty and dumb, because she hasn't achieved what Karl did. What a stupid loser!" Your egotism drives the urge for an inflated self-view, but then your self-judgement for lack of accomplishment lowers your self-esteem.

You want to be someone better; someone that you'd admire. But you're unwilling to put in the effort and risk it takes to be admirable. You're here on HN telling thousands of strangers how you feel like crap, wanting one of us to give you some magic words to make it easier to either reconcile your thoughts or make something of yourself. But there are no magic words. Whether you're satisfied with life or not is completely up to you alone. You can decide to be satisfied and be happy. Or you can decide to be unsatisfied and be unhappy. Or, you can decide to be momentarily unsatisfied/unhappy, and do the difficult work to change that state. Climbing tall mountains isn't easy.

You don't have to "do something" or "be smart". You don't have to learn anything new, be impressive or accomplished. Those things will not make you a better person, or even happier. But you can attempt those things if you choose to. Coast, carve, or climb; pick one. And stop judging yourself, and stop underestimating your own accomplishments.

I'd say what you probably need most is to get the hell off the internet as much as possible, because so many apps are designed to suck away your time and have known negative consequences for mental health.

I'd also say - get some professional help. If there are indeed some issues you need to work through, then processing them will enable you to have more perspective and "solve" the problem you've outlined here.

But for a very quick starter: "don't compare your insides to someone else's outsides".

Intelligence is what you make of it. It sounds like you're at a point where you're satisfied to stare out a window, and there's nothing wrong with that; unless you want otherwise for yourself, or if you feel that's not your authentic self. Its up to you how much you want to engage with the world - and the people you mention earlier sound like highly engaged individuals. Likewise, your medical situation could totally be impacting things as well! So worthwhile to look into that too.

Genius is to be found in many shapes and forms.

From the incredible empathy my partner has towards colleagues going through personal situations (when many literally wouldn't care, let alone waste brain juice), to those smart programmers committing to open source whilst struggling to make ends meet when they could easily get a high-paying job, to those mustering the strength to work three jobs to pay bills, and so the list goes.

There's always somebody different doing great. To quote the great J Cole — "love yourz"

You’ve got many “I feel the same” comments, so I’ll add something different:

Read more + try new things.

Find some time to read some education materials, then try to use your new knowledge. It is the best way to improve your skills, and it's often much less difficult than we think.

Some areas require natural talent, for sure - like music, painting, dancing, and so on. But many things can be learned, and it's enough to start to understand if it comes easily into your mind, or it’s better to try something else - the world is huge.

Although it may not seem like it, the people you look up to most likely also have these thoughts to some degree. Especially as you get older, the challenge is to learn to appreciate what you do have, instead of focusing on what you do not have. I would recommend speaking to a therapist to help you reflect.

One method to assist in developing this thinking habit, is to put a notepad on your nightstand, and every day, before going to bed, write down a couple things that you appreciate.

A lot of bad advice here generally trending to a defeatist attitude. The simple fact is that when you work on something for an extended period of time, persistently, it grows and grows. Give a solid hour of work every day for a year and you might be surprised what kind of things you can build. Now, think about doing this full time for years on - there are a lot of smart people but more often than not, aforementioned persistence is masquerading as genius.

Impostor syndrome (also known as impostor phenomenon, impostorism, fraud syndrome or the impostor experience) is a psychological pattern in which an individual doubts their skills, talents, or accomplishments and has a persistent internalized fear of being exposed as a "fraud".

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impostor_syndrome

Here’s how I view this issue: in ten thousand years there’sa good chance none of us will be relegated and all our accomplishments forgotten. Everything we do is ultimately meaningless on a cosmic, so don’t sweat it, be cool to others, and enjoy the tiny slice of time in this vast universe during which you are alive. Ideally you can help others enjoy their brief moment of life as well.

Everything is ephemeral, the only variable is how long until it fades.

Thank you for opening up and sharing this. Don't let others or even the industry set the standard for what "smart" and "accomplished" means. Every one of us is on a unique journey and we're all accomplished in our own ways -- even a stay-at-home parent without a college degree!

If I may, do look into building your own brand either by starting a newsletter or a freelancing writing practice -- you're clearly great at it!

Don't forget that while you're having these feelings some people are shooting heroin in their veins.

It could be better, but it could be much worse.

You were not born to be the best, but the best version of yourself. If you don't have the genes, social conditions etc there are a lot of things you can't reach. But you should try to reach what you can so when death comes you will be satisfied by what you have done with your life.

Sounds a little like you’re dealing with burnout. I’ve known these feelings well. Can I suggest two things that helped me? 1) Make sure you find hobbies outside of work that you enjoy, your professional life doesn’t define you and 2) rather than comparing yourself with others, try to be 1% better at something than you were the day before. That’s not only possible but will get great results in the longterm.

I usually follow one mantra, that is "I don't care". I don't care whether XYZ is more richer than me, more intelligent than me, has more skills than me. Really I don't give a rat's a*. All I care is how do I make myself happy and satisfied with what I already have. Comparing yourself to other is your source of pain. Don't care and just be you. Maybe it's just me.

> I'm bipolar schizoaffective and borderline

Not exactly sure what that is, but yeah that sounds like stuff that has an impact on everything.

Otherwise, just remember that the Meaning of Life is: "Try to be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try to live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations."

Oh and super-achievers aren't less miserable.

Try to separate this into two separate questions: why do you want the things you want? And: why can’t you realize them?

We tend to implicitly accept the values of others and desire what they desire, even when it conflicts with our unique interests and abilities, which creates a painful inner conflict that is difficult to identify and articulate.

The second question is easier to answer (set good habits, etc.)

We're on a rock floating around. An asteroid took out the dinosaurs, we could be next, no one going to remember anyone if that happens. What's the point of being remembered, when at the end of the day none of it will really matter in the future. Kind of a downer but I just do what makes me happy, even if I know I'm not smart enough to write code.

Understand. We all find ourselves unfocused at some point, even if we don't have significant mental conditions, but try to avoid blaming it on a medical condition if possible.

Instead, spend less time on Hacker News, and actually everything else, too -- news, social networking, etc.

Actually unplug your Wifi router. Start coding. Disconnect your TV. Buy a book and force yourself to read it.

I felt the way you did at 20. Now, at 44, I still feel this way. I'm much closer to accepting that it's all OK, though.

To me, it looks like you are consuming a lot more than doing something. Mere consumption of media always brings about problems like this. Try learning and hacking into something or starting something afresh (trying starting your own Twitch channel). All those talented people are consuming and putting what they learnt into practice.

I’ve started companies and done some pretty cool technical things, but stuff like wrote a game like that in assembly does the same thing to me, in terms of feeling less than. I don’t find making a game as much of a “higher calling” so it doesn’t bother me in the sense of worthiness, but in terms of technical skill…it’s humbling, but that’s ok.

Me smiling in the corner. I could have written this, but am too shallow and dumb (joking, none of us are).

Other folks sentiments like

@foobarian in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29282781 I totally agree, same in the reply by @ksdale

We are all in this together and should act like it.

I have the same diagnoses as you. I also became a Heroin addict after cancer/Crohns treatment and being kicked out of my own startup.

I can’t encourage you any more heavily to explore CBT if you haven’t already. Changed my life for the better.

(Same with Vipassanā meditation but I’m hesitant about how some adherents/practitioners treat it as a cure all salve.)

    I sometimes wonder if my mental condition or 
    my medication has had an effect on this: I'm 
    bipolar schizoaffective and borderline.

Hey, I don't know if anybody has told you lately but maintaining a successful career with these challenges is fucking spectacular, and you're doing it!

Be proud, friend!

Don't fall into the trap thinking that the Rollercoaster Tycoon person is merely talented, and a kind of measuring stick for what talent is. They are extremely gifted and if you're not that then you can still be OK and impressive in your own right! There are many other things that can be said, but start with that.

There are 8 billion people or so on the planet. How many of them have made anything close to RollerCoaster Tycoon? 1%? .001%?

Most of the planet is worried about having somewhere to sleep and eat.

Live your life and try not to get too tangled up in what .001% of the planet is up to. You will never feel good enough if you keep chasing the .001%...

The power of the patch is with you.

Incremental, small changes are how you go from good to great. Nobody started out by shipping liquid gold code. It was a refinement process, done over years of commits.

Start today. The amazing thing about coding is our unit of measurement is incremental improvement. Each patch does something better than the last.

OP

It's ok, nothing more than what you are doing is expected of you. So just relax, take your time doing things, be consistent, be honest and don't give a damn if you are world class or not. You won't live in euphoria if you excel at every computer task you are given. It will just be another day at work.

  > There’s a lot of subjects and activities that I’m really interested of getting into but I can’t just dive into it.

I'm guessing you feel a small amount of progress wouldn't count? Seeing it as nothing is a delusion of everyday life.

Add a little to a little and soon there is a lot.

This Venn diagram might be helpful to you:

https://chaos.social/system/media_attachments/files/000/880/...

You should check out the book "Missing Out" by Adam Phillips. It basically highlights that you should give yourself more credit for the things that you do and that you should be careful not to stress yourself out for not constantly doing something "worthwhile"

You know what you don't know but can't see what other people don't know only what they do know. It is a skewed perspective and makes you think other people are demigods because they seem so fluent in one or a few subjects meanwhile they have huge gaps of ignorance.

A perspective that may be interesting to you - all those successful around you are you, as well as the billions less fortunate - they are also you.

"The Egg"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6fcK_fRYaI

I often feel something along the lines of this as well. I often feel like no matter how much effort and energy and passion I put into something, nobody will care. It's like screaming into the void. If almost nobody sees this comment, well, that just proves my point.

> I meet with incredibly smart people with master’s degrees and PhDs knowing so much about their field of expertise while I’m a University drop-out.

Good. That at least qualifies you to become one of the world richest persons, something that is statistically now out of reach for them ;)

The lack of motivation for your dreams is a pretty big red flag for depression. See a therapist and/or doctor. Common anti-depressant meds really help, though you may need to try a few to find the one that works for you. Good luck! :)

Competitiveness is good but if you’re unhappy right now, do you think being an amazing programmer would change that?

Maybe your passion lies elsewhere or you haven’t found the project that motivates you.

Be the captain of your own happiness, don’t try to win a race that you don’t like

When I feel this way I volunteer locally in my community. I am immediately reminded there’s more work to do helping our fellow humans than can ever be done - and it makes me feel proud and useful when I would otherwise be frustrated and burned out.

Work on boring yet important problems, to maximize your impact.

Super smart people will work on interesting problems. They don't care if something important or not and as a consequence don't make much money.

Smart people work on interesting and important problems.

The accomplishments of others do not in any way diminish your value. Enjoy the people in your life, give back what you can, and know that your accomplishments stand on their own and don't need to be measured against anything else.

Honestly does it really matter all that much?

For me, I have decided that friends and family are the most important part of my life. Does it really matter if I don’t change the world or create something amazing?

We generally don’t have control over the majority of life.

It's okay. We can't all be Bill Gates or Michael Jordan. You have value.

I think people in general have periods of intense creativity, followed by long period of learning or living. The more you invest in your “learning periods”, the more often you’ll be able to enjoy these creativity periods.

For me, I taught myself how to program slowly over 3 years because I felt any other path wasn't viable for me.

I optimized for passing interviews and keeping managers happy.

Then I used my free time to code the things I enjoy, which are mostly 3d games.

Good luck!

You might find this comforting: https://overreacted.io/things-i-dont-know-as-of-2018/

This is incredibly hard for me as well.

Coming from a lower middle class family, I had to struggle a lot financially before finding a foothold. Even now the inadequacies plague me.

Unfortunately I don't have a solution, apologies OP.

If you’re unhappy with this and it sounds like you are then wake up early and create. Learn along the way if you want but start creativity something instead of consuming.

I would add that the internet doesnt help either. It is full of people's success stories, by and large, that can really eat away at your soul if you look for too long.

I think if you recognize the genius in others, you're smarter than you think.

Also, people with advanced degrees just may have worked harder than you and are not actually smarter.

It might surprise you to know that even the most brilliant people have imposter syndrome. We, as humans, are generally not good at evaluating our own true worth.

This is also known as a mid life existential crisis. Don’t worry everyone has them, because there is always someone smarter at some aspect of life than we are:)

Try watching stupid people. Then you will feel terrific.

Me too. I'm just hoping to save up enough to get out of the industry before my skills rot to the point I'm (effectively) forced out.

I vibe with/have been through a lot of what you're talking about. HMU if you want another friend, email in my profile.

"Do what you can, with what you have, where you are." - Theodore Roosevelt

After reading your post, this quote just came to mind.

“When you are content to be simply yourself and don't compare or compete, everyone will respect you.” ― Lao Tzu

Take a step towards a long term goal every day, no matter how small - eventually you'll get there.

Posting under a throwaway account.

I have both an MD and a PhD, and yet I struggle with very much the same thing you describe. I spent most of my life building my career (it's still a work in progress), and every now and then I realize how don't know -- not just about world history, languages, art, philosophy -- but also about basic ways through which people enjoy their lives. I've always felt like an idiot around people who have well-balanced lives. I didn't watch TV so I knew nothing about shows, or sports, or social media. I read a lot, but it was mostly about medicine, so I had few ways to connect to people outside of work. I had few friends, and though I was "accomplished", depression was my constant companion.

My solution is ongoing, and has been to deliberately set learning goals for myself. I actually carve out time to read up on topics I want to learn about, that are outside my usual range of interests. In my case, anything I really want to do has to be planned and scheduled, but that only forces a discipline on myself to actually follow through, and helps with time management. I've always been interested in art, so I'm slowly building up my knowledge of art history. I'm taking up guitar (in in my 40s, so it'll be slow going). However superficial it might sound, I'm making an effort to learn things that are also of interest to other people. This makes it easier to connect with other people, and make friends.

Tl;dr: the feeling that you're under-accomplished is probably common. Setting yourself learning goals, and not spreading yourself too thin, can help.

The issue is to make the team. Forget about being the star. Take pride in a support role.

“I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don't let anybody tell you different.”

—Vonnegut

Do you want money or academic recognition? Because these will requaire different paths.

Two things: The first step to happiness is not comparing yourself to others. You will ALWAYS be able to find something in the people around you to envy and you will NEVER be happy.

This second one may not be helpful in your current state of mind, but has always helped me focus on the first point. That is: in the grand scheme of things it really doesn't matter. 50,000 years from now it's likely that NOBODY from our current times will be remembered. The guy who wrote rollercoaster tycoon definitely will not be. Someone as infamous as Hitler is a solid shmaybe and that's only if the human race continues to advance technologically and start settling the universe. If we don't go extinct and we don't make it off this planet, the odds are good we'll have driven ourselves back to the stone ages, at which point nobody will remember or care about any of us. So from that perspective, who cares? Just be kind to others, do things you enjoy, and try to be a productive member of society (whatever that means to you).

Help people who are struggling. Find a group of students that need mentoring.

My advice: watch Akira Kurusawa's Ikiru. It's exactly about this.

Have you tried censoring your negative thoughts? I edited your post to subtract self-deprecating language. The result was really cool - it looks like you may have some exciting changes coming up in your life.

---

I was watching a video game documentary about the history of the RollerCoaster Tycoon franchise, a theme park management game that had both an easy learning curve but with incredibly sophisticated dynamics. What really impressed me however was the origins of the first two titles: written by one man in assembly language.

Throughout my life, I’ve seen many awe inspiring projects done by extremely talented people come to fruition.

Most of my career revolved around software development, something that I’ve done since I was 17 (now I'm 30) until a few years ago. I found myself writing entreprise software usually in the backend and some server administration and scripting sprinkled on top. Sat beside me were full-stack developers with expertise in DevOps as well. They knew how to do everything I could on top of so much else. As for me, I can write basic HTML pages.

I meet with incredibly smart people with master’s degrees and PhDs knowing so much about their field of expertise. People who know world history so well while being able to talk about the hard problem of consciousness at the same time. YouTubers and Twitch streamers who are so talented at playing games and entertaining us along the way.

There’s people who have paved the way for innovation and foresight. Those who make so much money due to their talents and bringing them to life in this world of ours. I’ve watched so many documentaries about all sorts of people from racing drivers, to game developers, comedians, data science experts, cybersecurity nuts, music producers, video editors, documentaries makers and so much more.

I’m mostly a self-taught person teaching myself skills as I go along with my life. I generally pick up a few facts that I can repeat to others. I used to do derivatives in math and draw as well.

Today, I watch YouTube documentaries and read Wikipedia articles, but I'm slowly starting to look for a new activity.

Now, I’m a technical writer composing documents for developers and users. I have maxed out this career path despite how I was hired without having any credentials in business writing.

I’ve been told by previous managers that I’m always in “learning mode” and quite “creative” too.

I have dreams. There’s a lot of subjects and activities that I’m really interested of getting into. I haven't decided to start yet, but when I do, I have strong time management skills and can conjure up much empty slots in my schedule. All this despite having mental condition and being on medication: I'm bipolar schizoaffective and borderline.

Maybe focus on how you can help others. That brings meaning to my life.

> I sometimes wonder if my mental condition or my medication has had an effect on this: I'm bipolar schizoaffective and borderline.

Good Lord what the hell are you doing on HN then?!?!? Go talk to your therapist/doctor for God's sake and get off social media.

I have had the same feelings for the last few years now.

I started strong at 18 with an explosive growth in knowledge and skill till about 23 years of age. I was praised by pretty much everyone around me and that had turned into a positive feedback loop.

The plateau started when I started giving time to other things in life like relationships and a few other changes.

I am sitting at 29 now feeling that I have not made any progress since I was 23 and I can't get myself to do something about it, much similar to you. I get started sometimes but do not follow through till the end which has now become a behavior.

Recently, after some self assessment and after talking with a close friend about this, I have observed that the things that led to my past success were - time available to commit to a single purpose, absence of any other priorities in life, youth and energy and the biggest one being social approval/appreciation, even if it was on a very basic level (being praised by teachers and friends who were regular people)

In my opinion, if I were to start socializing more in situations where I get to share my interests and knowledge and work with other people interested in the same field, I would start getting feedback again and can learn a thing or two from others at the same time. This would surely revive my interest and keep me motivated to do more, so I can share it with someone.

For us who work professionally, our words of appreciation/praise for others become shallow or emotionless over time and work becomes just work, hence work is rarely a place of motivation for most. (May be things are different at FAANG or fancy startups where people are more driven for excellence)

Another observation I have made about myself is that I have a tendency to day dream grandiose scenarios where I master a technology without anyone's help and build something so cool that the world is going to be in awe of me and I am going to get back to my glory days. This may be true in theory if I were to commit myself to learning or building something and keep making consistent progress but it never happens cause they are just day dreams.

I have a better chance at success if I put myself in a position where people around me are interested in learning and mutual growth. I haven't figured out what would be the right medium to do this yet.

I came across Andreas Kling's YouTube channel just yesterday while reading about SerenityOS on HN and I could relate a lot of my situation after listening to this : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNT3VqZApsc

Hope it helps you too.

You're good and smart and wonderful. Don't sweat it.

Try byron katies work. If I ever needed a skill, this was it

You play with the cards you are dealt with in life. You march to the sound of your own drum. Your journey is unique, and specific to you. A life lived in service of the less fortunate has the most meaning.

Your choices: 1)keep whining, 2) do something about it.

Do you mind sharing the documentary? Sounds interesting

Doesn't matter.

You are you. No-one else is you, and you are no-one else.

Winning.

I'm mediocre. So are the majority of people.

I read your comment last night and it bothered me enough that I had to google it to find it this morning.

tl;dr: Look for things that spark joy and double down on them. Forget about success, focus on fun in the moment.

I beleive you have an unmet need which is causing you suffering, it just may not be what you seem to think it is.

I also started feeling the same way lately. I work with a bunch of PhDs. To me it seems like they are constantly running marathons, writing papers, giving talks etc. Me I'm just a programmer working amongst them, hopefully helping them write better code.

Added to that, I also felt just meh about the work I do, another server deployment, another backend service to deploy etc... Objectively I know it helps the scientists I work with, but it just doesn't feel that way.

Honestly I thought I didn't like programming anymore till I happened upon something that sparked the same joy I used to feel when I was 13 hacking on my Apple ][. It happened to be the Rust programming language (I had been mostly doing Java server side work recently).

I would say that the fact that you are even feeling like this, that you are even asking these questions suggests that you have a divergent mind. Don't stop looking, except don't use 'success' as your criteria, look for the things that give you joy, and when you find one just keep coming back to it.

Note that the joy may not leap out at you right away. It can be that we have gotten out of the habit of recognising fun when we see it, so you might have to make yourself quiet enough to hear it.

Edit: To add a final point. For me I figured that one of my unmet needs was to have my own thing that I could master completely. My side project in Rust became that for me. In that project I was not forced into any compromise, and I understand each and every line in there. Rust actually made this easier for me, because I found that their documentation is aimed at allowing you to reach full understanding¹, which after years of trial and error server side programming with frameworks felt just simply awesome to me.

1: http://web.mit.edu/rust-lang_v1.25/arch/amd64_ubuntu1404/sha...

The goal is to have a pleasant life with as little worry as possible. Nothing else.

>Nothing I’m doing in my life are anything that people will remember me for.

It may be unhelpful, but this is the same for everyone, no matter how successful, but it is a matter of degree. Will Elon Musk still be remembered in a hundred years? A few hundred or a thousand? We all face the same fate.

Sorry to hear that.

You have a talent with words.

You say you work as a technical writer, and I'm not surprised. But since it's easy to tell someone "You're talented" in a vague sort of way, let me be more specific: something that immediately popped out to me is your tendency to lead with strong, well-chosen, simple verbs. "... watching ... impressed ... realized ... remember ... revolved ... writing ... meet ... talk ... playing"

This makes your writing both evocative and conversational. You come across as someone who can easily, without breaking a sweat, put your thoughts into words in a way that allows them to effortlessly slide into the reader's mind.

You also pepper your text with straightforward, graspable images: "written by one man in assembly language ... scripting sprinkled on top ... My motivation for learning is shrinking slowly and would much rather stare out of the window while I’m not doing my obligatory 8 hours of daily work ... but I can't just dive into it ... I can conjure up empty slots in my schedule ..."

You seem to have a natural aptitude for prose rhythm (your phrasing is easy-going and musical), and you know how to structure your writing into manageable paragraphs.

All of which has had a large effect on readers, here. Look at all the comments! If you think this is just because your situation is relatable, think again. You've made it relatable. A poorer writer would't have made us feel as if we know you--as if we are you.

I hope you consider doing some non-technical writing. I believe what you do is an art, or at least a craft, but what we've learned about you is that you have the ability to explore your inner life in prose--in a way that's affecting to other people. That's a gift in two senses. It's a gift endowed on you (or that you endowed on yourself via hard work) and it's a gift you can give to others. You already have done that with this thread. Please write more!

I want to say something about "success." I think you need to broaden your definition of it. Let's say you decide to write about your childhood or your struggles with mental health. Chances are, you won't become a best-selling author. Very few writers do. Very few writers make money writing--including published authors. So if define "success" as "wealth and fame," you're really limiting yourself. And you're also ignoring how many "successful" people wind up depressed, feeling like they've devoted their lives to superficial bullshit.

Honestly, if I had to compare a stock trader and you--just on the basis of how much you've moved people with your post, here (for which you weren't paid a dime)--I'd say yours was the more-valuable contribution to humanity.

Like you, I've been working in IT for 30 years. But at night and on weekends, I run a little threatre company. I direct Shakespeare plays in tiny, black-box spaces. I've been doing this for decades, even though the audiences are very small. Sometimes there are more actors on stage than people in seats. But the work is meaningful to the folks who have seen it. I've heard from people who saw one of my shows 20 years ago, who still remember it with excitement. That's something I did. I did that. Just as you've done this with your writing.

My point is that some people are blessed to be able to find profound meaning in their pay-the-rent work. I'm not one of them. I find coding interesting, but it's not my passion, and it's not what I'm best at. I'm "good enough," but there will always be coders who are way better than me. There are better theatre directors than me, too, but, in the theatre, I know I can make a meaningful contribution. I will never make money doing it. So what?

(By the way, I said I'll never make money directing. Actually, I lose money doing it. I finance my own shows with money I make as a programmer. What this means is that the shows are 100% mine. I can do anything I want, because I'm paying for them. I have complete artistic control.)

My mom is an inspiration to me. In her mid-70s, she retired from her pay-the-bills job and now works full time as a fiction writer. She's had a number of short stories and two novels published by small presses, meaning she makes no money as a writer, but she's doing work that's meaningful to her and to her small group of readers.

Meaningful work needn't be artistic. Other folks here mentioned being a parent. Many also find meaning when volunteering for charities. They know they are really helping others and making a difference. I'm focusing on your writing, because that's the part of you I can see. That's output of yours that affected me.

And when you say managers have called you creative, but you can't convince yourself that's true, you're denying my experience. You're denying the experience of the many readers here who have clearly been affected by your words.

Comments from this thread--comments you prompted:

"I have these kinds of feelings a lot."

"With the exception of a few details, I swear I could've authored this post. I feel the exact same."

"This is one of the best HN posts I've read in a while. It feels so close to home, and I think it's amazing that people are sharing their feeling about this topic."

"I love you."

"I think all of us have these thoughts and feelings."

"This was strangely motivational. Given how you write and your degree of introspection you can get to where you want to be."

"I don’t know if you will get to see my comment by now but you are an incredibly good writer. Miles above the email churn I deal with daily."

"My exact thoughts as I was reading the OP"

"I agree. It's good writing!"

You mention you have borderline. If you’re interested in exploring that more it might be helpful. The feelings you’re describing are familiar to a lot of people, but particularly troublesome for those with personality disorders. If I’m right — you might feel a lot of the other advice seems to ‘miss the point’ or you know it’s true but it doesn’t help.

Personality can be thought of as the immune system for the mind. It helps us achieve stability despite all the chaos around us. They do this by giving us ways of coping and responding to challenging emotional situations (eg the success of others) that will preserve our emotional safety. This is why personality is so hard to change and usually changes only on big life events where people are faced with things their ‘personality machinery’ was unequipped to face.

However there are different ways we & our personalities can defend us from these threats, and some have some nasty side effects. Faced with the success of others where we have failed, we can imagine a few responses:

1. Admiration and respect. What a marvellous achievement. It goes to show what you can do if you put your mind to it — I am going to make time for my project now, this has really motivated me.

2. Revaluing. What an amazing project, this is really cool. Sometimes I wonder about making things like this too, but what with the kids it’s hard to make time. But I wouldn’t give up my kids for the world, best thing I ever did.

3. Idealisation. These people are really something else. It’s truly amazing, they must be a different kind of person altogether. I’d love to work with someone like that — where do they work again?

4. Dismissal. It’s not really that hard. I could easily do that, but I’ve got much more important things to do. Imagine having the time to waste on something like that!

5. Despair. Everyone is doing such amazing things and I’m just sitting here. I’m such a failure. I’ll never do anything like that because I never even try.

Each response does the job of responding to the threat in a way that preserves the self. However they have quite different side effects. Most of them make the person feel good. Some of them inspire the person to be better. Some of them affirm a previous decision. The last one is a very upsetting one for the person but it isn’t that much different to #4 in its results.

However, they each to a good job in different situations. Let’s say you are a child bullied by highly capable older siblings — any attempt towards growth will yield more bullying, and idealisation is even more dangerous. It can be safest, from the child’s perspective, to identify with the bully’s understanding of you and try to avoid bringing any further harm to yourself. All of the other responses, in that situation, could really hurt. So #5 isn’t ‘wrong’, it’s just not helpful in all circumstances. Later when that child grows up they might be so stuck in their response that it affects their whole attitude on life, even though it was really only useful for that small few years of childhood.

Not everything is based on childhood experiences, there are other reasons, but maybe you get the idea that personality disorders are collections of these responses that harm or limit us, and that are hard to change.

You’ll also notice that each of the above responses, as they speak about the other person, also imply a belief about who _they_ are. They position themselves in relation to the other person. #1, #2 and #4 value themselves, #3 and #5 devalue themselves.

There’s a guy called Masterson who called these disorders ‘disorders of the self’ and he said that they damaged the following ten capacities of the self:

1. The capacity to experience a wide range of feelings deeply

2. The capacity to expect appropriate entitlements

3. The capacity for self-activation and assertion

4. Acknowledgement of self-esteem

5. The ability to soothe painful feelings

6. The ability to make and stick to commitments

7. Creativity

8. Intimacy

9. The ability to be alone

10. Continuity of self

If those things are issues for you and seem to connect with this challenge, you might want to consider working on your borderline condition. This work, which (I think) is best done in talking therapy, can help you rebuild the parts of your personality that are hurting you. This takes some time to do.

You have a real strength here. You have a desire to do work that makes you proud, and a respect for the achievements of others. This can be a powerful motivator. For me it was helpful to view myself as containing the seeds of growth, in the form of these persistent hopes to do useful work and to relate to others. Even if they kept going wrong and I gave up, it showed me that there was some potential inside me for change.

Or, maybe, I’m way off :) If it doesn’t resonate, discard it, but sharing in case it does.

It's very hard to compare oneself to others.

There's an arcade bar I frequent to play DDR. If I go later in the evening when it's busy I will always get someone who is a bit awestruck and says "I've never seen anyone so good at that game" and I'm like "yeah, there are better people than me" or "the machine tells me exactly how bad I am". But it does not really matter to this audience that my technical skills are less than perfect because what they saw was astonishing regardless. And for me, it's a personal journey in returning to a game that I played for a while when it was new and then returned to many years later, after realizing that having it there filled in a "missing piece" of life and the actual thing of being good at the game was not really important.

More recently, I've been doing some digital illustrations for fun and have gradually built up a process that is hugely digital in its design: composite reference images together, do some tracing over them to study the proportions and planes, then redraw as needed with a simplified design, using art fundamentals to guide me. Doing this has largely eliminated "guess and check" and gives results that are extremely accurate and detailed in their representation, more than any freehand from-imagination result. But that's just one measure of success in the imagery. I'm still going to be a bit jealous of artists who have great control over their freehand lines, but I can finish work this way instead of sitting and dreaming. So it's a great step past the creative bottleneck.

With stories like those of a Chris Sawyer, there's a combination of obsession with the craft and coherence of purpose. That is, Chris spent a huge part of his life thinking about assembly code and its applications towards games, and then eventually put it towards a project that had few contradictions to it, which became RCT. There are many people, myself included, who put years into their game and then realize they were kidding themselves and had an incoherent approach to the design that ensured it would never feel finished or focused. And when that happens the craft ceases to matter - the project is just a timesink.

Failing in that way, putting in a huge amount of time on a game, really made me despair for a bit, but then right as that happened the cryptocurrency portfolio I had made a few years prior achieved moonshot gains, which is like, "oh, well then, I guess I succeeded anyway?" That moment really clarified how arbitrary succeeding can be; the comparative effort/return of the two endeavors is enormous.

You're only 30, and that's actually fine. Between 30 and 40 often marks a shift in attitudes because you're getting out of the feeling of being a "young striver" trying to get ahead of the crowd in a highly visible space. You can fall into a depressed state if where you are isn't where you saw yourself, but it's also easier to give yourself leeway to pursue things nobody else cares about, which means it can be creatively fertile. It just rests a lot more on continuing to build yourself up beyond your personal issues - health, finances, character development, virtues and all of that. Maybe you don't have the fortitude to make a huge game project or research cutting edge techniques, but you can do more modest things and still find admiration as with my DDR sessions.

Layperson here in a similar boat.

So, on the face of it you have imposter syndrome. Many kind commenters have already offered up a bunch of platitudes to help in that department. It's a surprisingly common thing, actually.

What's less common is low self-esteem or self-hatred to a degree that it becomes a major impediment in your life. Your post is littered with language that suggests this. I know, because I've lived that reality my entire adult life. It ain't fun.

But you know what? While as real as that feeling is, to say it's not exactly rooted in truth would be an understatement. Your brain's biochemistry has an outsized effect on your perception of reality, which includes both how you view yourself and what thoughts tend to percolate within your mind.

There's something called the Default Mode Network[0] which is often mentioned in pop-sci neurology and psych articles. I'm not qualified to speak on it from any scientific or medical point of view. However, what I can tell you is that for me, understanding it on a relatively simplistic level has served as a fantastic metaphor that has allowed me to both forgive myself, and understand that my own negative self-image often times isn't necessarily rooted in truth.

When I've taken medication known to suppress, affect or otherwise normalize the DMN, the difference is so dramatic to the point of being: "Wow, I.. I don't hate myself right now." as if it's something novel I barely have a concept of. Not hating yourself is of course the first step to having any sort of foundation you can build on.

I'd say "don't compare yourself to others", or "love yourself", but platitudes like that are more detrimental than helpful when whoever you're saying it to someone who couldn't if they tried due to overwhelming biochemical forces at play. I don't know if that's true in your case, but it seems like it could be a possibility.

>I sometimes wonder if my mental condition or my medication has had an effect on this: I'm bipolar schizoaffective and borderline.

Yes, it probably has everything to do with it. With that diagnosis, you play life on hard mode and don't really have a choice in the matter. In my opinion, you should be congratulating yourself for doing as well as you are. This isn't to say you're somehow inferior to others; on the contrary, you seem very intelligent.

I would show your post to your psychiatrist and see what they think. It's likely that they have a very good idea how to help you, because they see that kind of thing a lot.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Default_mode_network

I wont detail how similar my situation to yours is, but you don't realise how lucky you are for having got to where you have got. Some people never even got their career footing. I know its boring to hear, but it's true.

I became fairly obsessed with "natural talent" and what it was, where it came from, and if everyone exhibited a dimension of it. Success is interesting, fascinating almost. I was more interested in the people than the end results and rewards of the success itself.

After basically browsing the same 4 websites and gaming a lot for about 9-10 years, I suddenly found a video, by Jordan Peterson teaching about personality, IQ and lifetime success likelihood. Initially, I assumed this was some "self help" life coach type person holding their own lecture stacked with sycophants. I was wrong, and this was at a major university.

I continued watching, and found that within an hour, I had several fundamental pondering I had sustained for over a decade answered. I wasn't looking for answers, and all the evidence for the phenomena he had described was readily available online. He was very obviously joining dots in some places, but he clearly noted when he moved into the realms of speculation.

I discovered that he sold tests, and self help suites, but that most of these types of tests were simply standard practice in psychology, and were freely available online. I cant fault a man for being a businessman I guess.

I ran one of these tests, and ruminated on the results so much that it kept me up for multiple days over the next few months.

I discovered that simply from understanding the Big Five personality traits (much more scientifically backed and practically useful than the Myers-Briggs tests I had done at school why I felt a certain way about certain things.

It turns out, some of us were raised with very dysfunctional parents, that shaped our view of the world, our view of others, and our view of how we integrate with others by performing societal duties (work). This helped cement our personality traits from a young age, and past the age of roughly 6 they are very difficult to change, without sudden trauma, or with consistent, motivated work to change them over many years.

Your first weakness, was that you were taught at a fundamental level is that you were taught to fear failure. It is also likely that you were taught that the things you instinctively liked were wrong, and that you should pursue something else.

Because of the artificial nature of civilised society, we make certain trade offs against instinctual behaviour to achieve certain functions. One such example is monogamy - without it, society becomes far more unfair, and far more violent, and less stable. It was considered the lesser of the two evils.

Another one of these trade-offs, is your natural instinct for competition doesn't encapsulate all the factors of your competitive environment, unlike when you just had to look and see how many skulls your fellow caveman had collected. Usually, it's mostly inspired from wallowing in self comparison, accelerated by modern technology. How much help someone else has had, how much fear they live with on a daily basis, or how fundamentally wrong they are and how it's all pure chance that they are there. So the trade off for that, is that you must learn to compete only with yourself. It's a tough balance to strike - the outside world clearly matters to you, otherwise we wouldn't want to be impressive and all-achieving. But you must only provide yourself with targets that have proven honest in their validity. Only competing with your past self qualifies.

Additionally, the power of increment is utterly arresting. Do small things over time and they compound into terrifying pits of wasted life and time, or beautiful mountains of stacked achievement and competence. Finding a meaningful pursuit, is hard. Meaning to you lies exactly where you have one foot in the familiar, and one foot in the unknown. What causes it to happen is still a mystery. But think of it like the page of a book. If you woke up in an unfamiliar room, you would instantly be motivated to discover more. That motivation is natural exploratory behaviour. But you cannot develop interest based on loose jealously. Pursue what you find meaningful, and only you can discover where that meaning is, and you are probably being too lofty. Compete with your past self, and incremental interest pursued at your own pace will soon spiral into a powerful narrative you cannot help but follow, it is your duty to your short existence on this earth in a position of stability and ability (neither of those things are permanent) to attempt to find meaning. Good luck.

> I realized how mediocre and untalented I was

Read Peter Thiel's "Zero to One" and rejoice then. One of the key ideas in the book is that to be successful you have to avoid competition, and build a monopoly on something to the extent you're able. The monopoly will be temporary, but you must have it to avoid race to the bottom which just makes everyone poor and depressed. The monopoly can be a technology, or a brand, or, in the case of a person a set of skills and a track record. In fact it could also be all of the above, but you _must_ have it in order to really succeed.

It is very unlikely that you're talented at nothing. It is very likely that you're fairly talented at 2-3 different things in fact, you might just not know what they are. So if you find those things and get good at them, you'll very likely to be one of the few people in the world who are good at those 3 things at the same time. And unless those three things are "watching Youtube", "shitposting on Twitter" and "scrolling Instagram", this skill stack could be very valuable, and someone would look at you much like you look at others and wonder how it is they themselves are so worthless next to your greatness.

For me the reason of the past 30 years or so, even the smartest people are not uniformly good at everything, and you can easily be better than them at a myriad of things outside their field of expertise. And that's why teams work better than individuals, no matter how talented that individual is.

> Now, I’m an unimportant technical writer composing documents for developers and users.

See, you're good at something others aren't good at. Most engineers can't write docs normal humans can read. Add a few things to the mix, change jobs 2-3 times to establish an upward trajectory, and you'll be unstoppable.

> My talents are shallow and honestly quite useless

Well, deepen them and make them useful then? You must differentiate to succeed, either through the quality of your skills, or through your skill stack, or preferably both at the same time.

> I blame it on the lack of time

Based on what you wrote, I blame your lack of time on excessive use of social media and the internet in general. You know it's true. Give it up, and you'll be able to focus again, have better relationships, better sleep, more confidence, deeper thoughts, more skills.

And for the love of god don't tell other people you're "bipolar schizoaffective". I'm sure it's a real problem for you but others don't want anything in common with that. Paraphrasing a vulgar Russian proverb: "Why would I want a Dick without a dick if there are plenty of Dicks with dicks?" ("Нахуя мне без хуя, когда с хуем до хуя?"). Don't ruin your chances out of the gate if your disease is manageable. And also don't use your disease as an excuse to not succeed. Plenty of people overcame much greater adversities than you'll ever experience.

Above all, if I could leave you with one thought: nobody will respect you until you learn to respect yourself. Do not self-deprecate. Do not use false modesty. If you're good at at least anything (such as technical writing), put it front and center and develop more skills in your skill stack.