HACKER Q&A
📣 NoOneNearMe

How to Overcome Feelings of Inadequacy?


Hi, I've been a software engineer for about 4 years now, and I feel like I can't make any useful piece of software. I usually get stuck and take a while to make any meaningful progress.

For example; I tried making some programs around terrain generation in OpenGL, and was able to get something nice. However, it seems that there are so many people that did the same thing but way better. I saw a video of someone make a Minecraft terrain in 48 hours. And just today, saw a High-school student make a procedurally generated terrain for their game, which is way better than mine.

Seeing the successes of all these people brings me so much anxiety and prevents me from moving forward with projects I want to do. Does anyone else feel the same way, or know if anyway to get out of this mental trap?

  👤 xen2xen1 Accepted Answer ✓
You sound pretty young. A lot of really cool things most people do happens later in life. The "teenager did blah blah" is causing you problems like watching other people's Instagram feeds for their vacations.. All you see is amazing stuff and miss all the crap people don't post. Seriously, you sound like my kids (Gen z) worry about everyone's else life.. It consumes them all. The answer in the end is get over yourself, shut off the videos, find something you want to do and keep doing it even if someone is doing it better. There's always someone doing it better. Just flip the asshole on the screen, say "fuck you!" out loud, and move on. Not kidding. Try flipping off the wunderkinds on your screen a few times, you'll feel better.
👤 photoGrant
Do you have strengths in being able to pick up a concept/idea and be able to implement it at least to a functional prototype level?

If so, maybe you need to find someone who needs solutions built for them. Or to collaborate with them leading your progressions into a longer form solution!

Most importantly, don't measure your success against anyone but yourself, yesterday.

👤 SotCodeLaureate
> terrain generation in OpenGL

Well, sounds like pretty interesting thing to do, so rewarding in itself maybe. Is it published on github or elsewhere?

Also, as someone doing graphics programming mostly as a hobby, I think a good thing to do is to learn the artistic side of things (to some extent), might give you some advantage.

👤 bckr
Are you working as a professional software engineer?

What do you really want to do?

👤 yuppie_scum
The key term you should research is “imposter syndrome.”