Comment by andai | Hacker News Reader

Comment by andai | Hacker News Reader

No one else can answer these questions for you. If your rationalizations don't make sense, they're covering up for deeper fears you may be reluctant to face.

Imagine starting work on these things right now and notice how you feel. Investigate from there.

Or, ignore the feeling, and go work on your dreams anyway :)

Best wishes

Also, an important thing to realize is that everyone is bad at stuff in the beginning. In the words of Jake the Dog, "Suckin at something is the first step towards being sorta good at something!"

Or (can't remember where i got this) "Every artist has 10,000 shitty drawings in them, it's best to get them out as quickly as possible."

Deliberately making something bad (because it will probably end up sorta bad at first, whether you want it or not) can help you overcome the delusion of "it has to be perfect or people will judge me!"

Aim to fail because failure is an essential part to success. You keep sucking until one day you wake up and realize things are going really well. You have to make it to that day though. The only real failure is giving up.

Another useful perspective to have is to start thinking in terms of other people's needs.

Eg. instead of "how can I make a million dollars" ask "how can I provide a million dollars in value?"

Thinking in terms of people's needs is also beneficial to relationships and mental health, ie. noticing the needs of those around you, how you are / aren't meeting those needs, as well as your own.

This way of thinking helps me make decisions in my life.

This reminds me of a quote attributed to Van Gogh. No idea how accurate it is, but the sentiment is great.

> "If you hear a voice within you say 'you cannot paint,' then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced."

(ofc: Replace PAINT with anything you like!)

From one of Vincent's letters to Theo:

“Just slap anything on when you see a blank canvas staring at you like some imbecile. The canvas has an idiotic stare and mesmerises some painters so much that they turn into idiots themselves. […] Life itself, too, is forever turning an infinitely vacant, disheartening, dispiriting blank side towards man on which nothing appears, any more than it does on a blank canvas. But no matter how vacant and vain, how dead life may appear to be, the man of faith, of energy, of warmth, who knows something, will not be put off so easily.”

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