And surprisingly (or not surprisingly), the conventional methods like self-help advice or even therapy sometimes don't seem to help. I know this feeling, and had to explore around to find the tools and perspectives that finally made a difference.
Now I don't mean any kind of mystic / uber-spiritual stuff. I'm a pretty realistic guy; I just think a lot and feel a lot and had to go through a lot of inner work / personal development to get to where I am today. (If you want an idea what kind of person I am in real life, my personal instagram is https://www.instagram.com/samhuang.sh/ Feel free to read my posts to get a sense of my style and my experiences.)
To get to my point, I want to start some kind of service/platform where people can come to talk things through and have a sustained conversation about their experience of feeling lost, confused, stuck. (I won't be charging for this ever, because I don't believe in that. Though I'll probably have donations set up, but that's technicalities.)
I've been giving some people at work some advice and perspectives, and they were positively surprised by the things I talked about and it seemed to help them at least get out of the cloud of confusion. I'm not trained with any formal credentials, but somehow I've developed enough wisdom in this area to have useful things to say.
The problem is, because I don't quite know where my "strengths" and "expertise" are yet, I don't wanna just start some Substack and make a fool out of myself pretending to be some guru when I don't know what I'm doing yet.
So here in this thread, I'm hoping to invite people who are struggling with feeling lost, confused, stuck, for whatever reason, to come and seek help. And I'll do my best to see if I can offer perspectives that may be useful. It'll be a place where we can go deeper into some issues and have a sustained conversation about it all. And it would also be tremendously helpful to me to get some feedback on whether it did or did not help.
Much love, Sam
EDIT: For the record, so far the type of advice that seemed to resonate with people has been regarding relationships, inter-personal dynamics, family conflict, parenting, friendships, etc. A lot of times, our problems with the self stems from problems in our relationships, and vice versa.
Get trained with some.
There is a massively growing demand for therapists. World events and changing culture are creating the conditions for widespread personal crises. This has a big effect on the economy and is really an underlying root cause problem for many other visible socio-economic problems. Science now strongly backs modern psychotherapeutic practice, and it can be a rewarding career.
Most (good) training is the usual 3-5 year programme involving psychology, reflective practice, clinical work, self-therapy, clinical supervision. You can choose amongst a range of different "schools" (cognitive, behavioural, attachment...) which are increasingly combined and regulated by the same bodies.
It;s also hard work to be a professional. For the good programmes selection is actually tough. Would you be able to help people traumatised by witnessing horror? Rape victims? Or neurotic, obsessive patients who break boundaries and call you at 3am? Can you keep absolute compartmentalised discretion on par with doing intelligence work?
Good luck.
I had a startup idea — for people in need of such help helping and motivating each other — noticing that I can solve rather complex problems of others while being a prize moron within my own code block.
Didn't follow through due to d.
My advice to you is:
1. Don't be discouraged if this dies in 'New', it'll go off when it's ready.
2. Always condense your pitches — to nontrivial taglines, then expand with clear tag:reason for the busier people.
3. Be a tad more self-confident. Not in your guru skills — that's bad manners — but in the idea itself. All gurus are shit, except this one: https://youtu.be/8An2SxNFvmU
If therapy isn't helping it's generally a matter of a specific therapist who may not be working for you, but psychology is something for which people have studied and trained for years at. The human mind is a complex thing, and being professionally unprepared to deal with people's issues you are potentially at risk of causing harm.
There are already online services like betterhelp.com if people need a professional to talk, and it doesn't have to be something heavy, it could be just about the normal hardships of going through life, family, friendships, love, work, etc.
My single post (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27739957) details where I was 9 months ago, and things have only degraded from there. I did indeed quit my job (which was the correct decision), but never received any decent help (not for lack of trying). I've gone through many doctors and 13-15 different anti-/depressant/anxiety/ + sleep medications with no help. I recently started therapy, but I'm only 2 sessions in and I'm not allowed to meet more than 2x a month (I'm not a "health risk").
I'm at a point where I'm completely demotivated day to day. I still dream of projects and startups, and even start working on stuff on occasion, but my ability to code is basically gone. It's like severe writers block, where I can't even find the most basic of solutions without staring and struggling for hours. I struggle with simultaneously not wanting to do anything, and restlessness and resentment at myself for doing nothing. I don't know how to break out of this cycle.
In general, therapy is designed to help people who are suffering from mental health and emotional wellness issues. The goal is help these people to baseline. Coaching assumes a baseline level of mental health and emotional wellness, and is designed to move people towards some measurable goal. Advice giving is not a part of either of these professions for good reason.
Consultants and mentors are related professions that ARE about advice-giving. These are wonderful as well, just different.
Also, many kudos for putting yourself out there!! There are tons of people who need and are looking for help.
source: am a coach trained by an ICF (International Coaching Federation) accredited program.
If I understand what you're imagining, there are already subreddits for every variety of that. In the old days there was alt.angst on usenet, but it is likely defunct or taken over with spam by now. There are or were all kinds of other web venues as well, of course.
I found my purpose at the intersection of my passions, talents and societal needs. Vedanta calls it four Purushartas, Japanese call it Ikagi. Basically you have to architect your own life.
Helpful pointers-
Act- try different things, learn, fail & try next, till you find your groove. No perfectionism & analysis paralysis.
Help yourself - No dependence on “life coaches “ or “therapists”. Guidance from family, friends & few day workshops, retreats, outings etc are ok.
Relationships - Can make or break you. Nurture those that care for you, help you and give you the space. Ones that drain, maintain your distance. Be open to blunt views from well wishers.
Hope this helps as this is a lonely road we all have to travel few times in our lives without any manuals. I think Victor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning & Bhagavad Gita - 2.47 & 18.47 are great pointers.
In closing don’t take life too seriously - have fun, make mistakes, travel, build bonds, serve, focus on others and stand for your values. Spiritual Trinity - Sat(Existence], Chit(Consciousness) & Ananda(Bliss). Good luck to all on this quest.
I think the plant analogy to mental health written here is great too
It might sound simplistic, but if I were starting a community like that, I’d start with a WordPress blog or forum; maybe BBpress. I think a clean posting/interacting experience, free from the crap/shadiness of social media, is pretty important given the nature of what would be discussed. Blogs have a more personal, small-community feel that I see less and less of these days (and subscribing via RSS would be nice too).
Personally, I don’t know how much I have to discuss right now, since my own issues—primarily long-term burnout, disillusionment with my industry—are probably not addressable via anything short of a job/career shift, but I’d definitely be interested in seeing your ideas, and what’s discussed.
I wrote some things at my web site about purpose in life (in profile, no ads or sales), whether one is religious or not. (If you want details and can't find them, you can email me--it is in the site footer.) It revolves around learning (personal growth in ability to serve one's family and others), and then service. There are important things to learn about the nature of life that also help.
One site that helps with the service part (ie volunteering) is justserve.org , which is free for individuals to participate and/or organizations who could use help, coordinated by location etc. And there are others like it. Unselfish service, helping others in good ways, brings a unique kind of enjoyment and real satisfaction.
I have learned for myself that God is real, cares, life has a purpose and extends before & after this mortality, questions have answers, each person including you is of infinite worth, and you never truly have to be alone. If we really try to make good choices, things can and will be very good, better than now. All real best wishes.
Currently i feel like a have the time and space to breath. I do have my occasional anxiety and depressed feelings with automatic thoughts, but they don't hold me down. But i must confess this calmness is strange experience to me because i fear relapse is just around the corner and everything about this calmness and the "logical thinking" i'm experiencing is a delusion.
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You have a great eye for photographic composition. Keep that up, Sam.
Nice idea though, I definitely think it can be immensely helpful to have someone listen and avoid parroting all the typical stuff, offering unconventional perspective or offering unconventional phrasing is worth 1000x more.
Which platform do you think I should use for this?
I'm currently thinking Substack, since it has a pretty good commenting system, and many people are already familiar with it. I can host like a weekly/bi-weekly session for people to just tell me things and I get back to them.
It'll also make it easier for people to support financially if they already do that (optional donation of course). I also plan on having a Patreon as another avenue for this.
What do you folks think?
Or is this something different?