I quit and then asked: “what if I stayed and do I regret leaving” on my last 4 companies.
Universally the answer is no I don’t regret it. One imploded and laid off like 60% of people after turning into a nasty political hell hole. Another laid off massively and is now world renowned as a failed story. Another gave me zero opportunities and everyone was yelling at each other all the time.
Believe me, I tried to enter my internal universe and be happy not learning and not growing.
Being bored to death and underutilized if you feel highly talented and creative is a form of death.
Op needs to answer: What has he done in his life? Built a unicorn and IPOd it? Jet skiing with super models? Inventing cures for diseases? Or did he sort of sit in a cubicle typing and reading Reddit for the last five years.
A lot of those on here, I don’t listen to their input on what successs is.
I will never be happy until I am climbing to the highest potential I can get to. No one is going to talk me into being otherwise.
I think many of the people who say that "happiness must come from within" are making a logical leap. It's true, you could go out and make lots of life changes yet still be unhappy. But that doesn't mean /every/ life change is futile for our happiness. Perhaps you just didn't change it in the right way!
From a more scientific perspective, there have been plenty of studies done on happiness, and it's virtually undeniable that our external environment has at least /some/ effect on our happiness.[1] I'd argue that one has to ignore or dismiss a massive wealth of studies in psychology to insist that happiness only comes from within.
“No one is going to talk me into…” is shorthand for “I’m not open to any other ideas that don’t align with my preconceived notions.” It’s not terribly productive on a site whose guidelines try to foster an open and curious conversation.
It's a little odd to me that you would seem to expect an article and discussion on something subject like "happiness" not to have personal accounts of their subjective experience.
That's not what I said. It's an uncharitable interpretation of what I said.
By all means, people can say what makes them happy!
My point is that we have no grounds for criticizing another person's subjective experience or personal life choices, nor is that desirable as a goal for this website.
Where do you think the OP was being criticizing? I did not see them say anyone was wrong, or making bad decisions. They even made sure to equivocate by saying there's nothing wrong with trying to change one's circumstances.
So your issue is with me pointing out that saying what amounts to "Nothing you say can change my mind" isn't conducive to conversation?
How would you say the OP adds to the discussion if what they say, almost by definition, is meant to shut down discussion? Or is your issue with pointing out HN guidelines? It feels like you're reading way more into my point than was actually there if you think I was criticizing anything related to their life decisions.
It's fine with me if someone has that point of view. But I don't think a forum like HN, which is supposed to be about fostering dialogue, is the best place to share it, or at least share it in that manner.
> So your issue is with me pointing out that saying what amounts to "Nothing you say can change my mind" isn't conducive to conversation?
I've already explained this: "It's supposed to be about intellectual curiosity. Not questioning other people's life choices and giving unsolicited advice."
You've actually warped the direct quote "No one is going to talk me into BEING [emphasis mine] otherwise" into "Nothing you say can CHANGE MY MIND". The OP is talking about how they feel, what kind of person they are, what kind of life they intend to life. Not talking about some kind of belief about a subject X.
This conversation with you is becoming very tedious, and I'm repeating myself, so I doubt that I'll be continuing.
IMO, you've failed to point to how my comment questioned anyone's life choices or gave any advice outside of following HN guidelines.
I didn't misquote; I said "amounts to" in order to indicate I was paraphrasing because it seemed like it would benefit from rephrasing since it appeared we were talking past each other. Although what you've pointed out comes across as a difference without a distinction to me. Saying "No one is going to talk to me into BEING..." is just as apt to shut down healthy conversation.
The point being made is that HN is meant for discussion; so I'd assume you wouldn't see any value in discussing that topic on the forum.
I think it's fair to say there are certain principles (like the idea that a minor cannot consent to a sexual relationship with an adult, or that slavery is a moral wrong) can be viewed as immutable (or, at least immutable within a certain cultural context).
However, germane to the discussion in this thread, I don't think the definition of "happiness" is one of those immutable principles.
> A lot of those on here, I don’t listen to their input on what successs is.
> I will never be happy until I am climbing to the highest potential I can get to. No one is going to talk me into being otherwise.
What's being discussed is the definition of _success_, not happiness. And in fact, what the poster said is, this is what makes me happy and I'm not interested in anyone convincing me that shouldn't be what makes me happy.
You’re missing the even broader context. The article is explicitly discussing “happiness” and why the author isn’t happy despite being “successful” by traditional measures.
Further, some of the issue is with the imprecise definition of “happy”. The modern use of the term can be used interchangeably. What causes someone to be hedonically happy may make them eudaimonically unhappy. So IMO it’s completely warranted to have further discussion to either define the definition or bring into question if someone is chasing the right goal for them. Saying what is tantamount to “I’m not willing to discuss this” facilitates none of that.
It's exactly that imprecision that means the person making the statement gets to tell you what it means for them, and they're not unreasonable for being very explicit in telling you that you will not convince them that their definition is more appropriate.
Furthermore,
on a purely mechanical level, what you're doing here is trying to escalate scope specifically so you don't have to give the point. Just give the point.
Everything I've said is pretty clearly within the scope of the featured article or the HN guidelines. You seem to be conflating what I'm saying with something that's more argumentative.
What I'm not saying: The OP is wrong about how they go about defining happiness or what they do to achieve that goal.
What I am saying: They are misusing HN if they are so close-minded as to be unwilling to engage in discussion, or swayed by counter-arguments.
It's a red flag when somebody says they can't be convinced, particularly on a subjective topic.
Obviously, a subjective measure like happiness is up to the individual to define. I'm not disagreeing with that and I don't think any of my posts give that impression unless someone is already using a hard-focused lens to read too much into them. My point was pretty clearly stated multiple times but it seems people are primed to argue. The HN guidelines clearly state one of the intents of the forum is to foster curious conversation. If somebody makes a post that "they can't be convinced" they are no longer interested in a discussion and they are therefore misusing HN. I would make the same case if they were claiming "Red is best color and I can't be convinced otherwise." In that case, maybe HN isn't the place for you on this topic. If you want to just plug your ears and talk at someone, there's plenty of places on the internet to do that. It would be akin to someone saying "This classroom was built for learning" and I show up with my arms crossed and say I refuse to learn. Well, ok, nobody is saying you can't take that stance. But they can say you're misusing the forum provided.
Ha, the same thought crossed my mind as I was reading https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34420721. In fact, one of the top comments talks about the uncanny valley-ness of ChatGPT.
I guess the follow up question is: what guideline do you think I'm violating?
It's obvious you have tendencies that make it difficult for you to understand, and therefore effectively communicate, with others. The result is you cannot understand why someone would consider the expression of something as deeply fundamental as their own happiness with themselves as more important than some "guidelines" on a forum ran by people who are not themselves.
That you rely so heavily on the guidelines is telling, it's what often happens when persons don't understand the underlying principles.
Your initial post came from a place of not understanding. As we've interacted that's become more and more clear to me. I see no need to belabor this any longer.
Did you read what came after “talk me into”? I think a preconceived notion that you want to make the most of your life isn’t something that you should necessarily be open to being talked out of.
>preconceived notion that you want to make the most of your life isn’t something that you should necessarily be open to being talked out of.
Fair enough when it's just a vague, general sentiment like "making the most of your life." What is probably worth being open minded about is how you define the objective function that maximizes that potential. It might be a little odd if I defined "making the most out of my life" in the same way I did when I was six (or even 16) years old.
I've met plenty of people that took huge risks and wound up incredibly depressed. Many (most?) startup founders pour everything they have into that company. They give up money, time, health, relationships, other opportunities, etc. Most don't make it. Others will have a success on paper and then waste another year as a middle manager in a big company to get that earnout. Of course, that gets into the debate about whether they were working on the right thing at the right time -- survivorship bias is really strong on this topic.
I'm happy for your success. I assume it was earned with hard work. I hope it works out. A lot of startups with high valuations are feeling the crunch right now. Many of those will peter out and the founders will join the rest of those depressed by their life choices and/or feeling like victims of circumstance. There's far more to success than forgoing comfort and there's far more to happiness than success.
For my part, I co-founded and built two companies for ~4.5 years each: one in hardware and one in SaaS. The SaaS one was in the second batch of TechStars Boston. I had some success and I'm happy I did it. I learned a lot and it was generally fun. But, I trashed my health and wouldn't recommend others do it under the guise of happiness.
Nowadays I do industrial research on language VMs. I get paid very well. The work is gratifying. I have time for my kids, I'm learning things on the job. And I work with great people. I'll probably start another company some day because I like the variety of work and the thrill of the chase. My startup experience gave me a broad network and introduced new opportunities, but I'm only marginally better off compensation-wise than peers that worked a more conventional career. I'm almost certainly behind in terms of lifetime earnings. Many of them are impressed that I struck out and built multiple companies, but that has no real bearing on my happiness.
I'm not sure what being in the top 0.5% means without knowing the metric. If you love starting companies, have at it, but I can think of more challenging paths if you're looking to reach your full potential. Some of the smartest people I've ever met built the foundational technologies that allow SaaS to even exist while working for decades at the same company. I don't know how happy they are, but I know how impactful they've been.
I'm not sure what point you're alluding to here. I've met lots of people, some of whom I'd say took much greater risks than starting a tech company. I'm not sure if you're conflating conventional notions of monetary success with what the article is about, which is happiness.
Is your point that in order to take risks to be happy you need to be so cock-sure as to be closed minded? I tend to disagree and would probably characterize that as reckless as opposed to taking informed risks.
I'm detecting a low-level stubborn here, but I can't quite put my finger on it.
(Jet skiing with super models BTW is one of the most ephemeral ways of gratification one can seek, probably induced into you by media -have a look at Girard's theory of mimetics to understand why you even want this- and as such something that will only impress the most superficial of people, if you tell them "I super-model jet skiing" when asked what you did with your life - all of which make me believe this must be a young person writing.)
I quit and then asked: “what if I stayed and do I regret leaving” on my last 4 companies.
Universally the answer is no I don’t regret it. One imploded and laid off like 60% of people after turning into a nasty political hell hole. Another laid off massively and is now world renowned as a failed story. Another gave me zero opportunities and everyone was yelling at each other all the time.
Believe me, I tried to enter my internal universe and be happy not learning and not growing.
Being bored to death and underutilized if you feel highly talented and creative is a form of death.
Op needs to answer: What has he done in his life? Built a unicorn and IPOd it? Jet skiing with super models? Inventing cures for diseases? Or did he sort of sit in a cubicle typing and reading Reddit for the last five years.
A lot of those on here, I don’t listen to their input on what successs is.
I will never be happy until I am climbing to the highest potential I can get to. No one is going to talk me into being otherwise.