A friend once told me, "You should try going with the flow once in a while." She was absolutely right.
Yes, many people could improve their situation by not sleepwalking through life. But similarly, we (people on HN and other ambitious folks) can learn to be more content with what life has given us. To reconcile ourselves with randomness. To take some time away from competition and drive and optimization.
Perhaps I'm being unfair to the author, but if you follow this article's advice to the extreme, you'll likely end up extremely unhappy. "Is this spouse really the best I can do? Should I really be living in this city? Would I be happier with different friends?"
The moment you have a definite image of what _your_ world needs to be like before you're happy, you've already set yourself up for disappointment. You're right (based on my definition of right!) it's a balance - you need to have some goals in place that you can work toward, but also be fine and content with other things. I might want to eventually be financially "free", but that doesn't stop me enjoying simple things a long the way.
edit- re: extremes, for clarification, a balance of extremes :)
That doesn't seem correct either. Extremes at either end are where entrepreneurs tend to live. Most people have to be willing to be poor, lose everything, and fail miserably in order to have a chance to be rich and live the life they want.
This life obviously doesn't appeal to everyone, and many entrepreneurs manage to keep a balanced life. But at some point they'll get outmaneuvered by the ones who move faster and just want it more (and are willing to take the chance of flaming out in a big way).
This is just a personal observation that probably isn't universally true, but what I've noticed is that people who live on the extremes tend to be extremely unhappy - particularly entrepreneurs (yes, even the successful ones). "Get rich and live the life you want" is a myth. Being rich doesn't make you happy. And that ruthless process of eliminating the unnecessary, laser focus, dogged pursuit of one goal, changes you as a person and often not for the better.
In PG's essay "How to Make Wealth" he wrote "you can think of a startup as a way to compress your whole working life into a few years. Instead of working at a low intensity for forty years, you work as hard as you possibly can for four." [1] But the reality I've observed (and experienced myself) is that this period of working intensely for four years changes you deeply. Rather than working for four years intensely, you'll either burn out entirely in that time span or spend the entirety of your life working intensely - you become a workaholic, hanging out for the next start-up, next opportunity, etc. and constantly feeling like shit because you never made the big break. Or perhaps you did make the break, so instead you'll feel like shit because it wasn't big enough. Or maybe you did make it big in the past but _right now_ you're not so you feel like a one trick wonder, etc.
I'm confident that a random sampling of HN regulars will show most are depressed, even if they've been successful.
You assume most people/entrepreneurs want to be rich and have a lifestyle.
And it sounds like your view of the process cones from only examining high profile winners. It's like basing your opinion of music or sports as a career based on the highly improbable success of the musicians and athletes you've heard of.
I imagine that there are some people, especially in finance, who do what they do purely for money and lifestyle, but the "entrepreneurs" I admire would do what they do for free.
Yes, many people could improve their situation by not sleepwalking through life. But similarly, we (people on HN and other ambitious folks) can learn to be more content with what life has given us. To reconcile ourselves with randomness. To take some time away from competition and drive and optimization.
Perhaps I'm being unfair to the author, but if you follow this article's advice to the extreme, you'll likely end up extremely unhappy. "Is this spouse really the best I can do? Should I really be living in this city? Would I be happier with different friends?"