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Comment by hit8run | Hacker News Reader

I don't know about you but I for sure don't want do be a top performer in a job. I disrespect the societal applause you get as a good cog in an enterprise. Build my own stuff and be my own boss makes me happier but then reality hits in and all the cracks in our society begin to show. Seriously. I WANT to be happy. But how can one be happy in a world like this?

EDIT: Maybe I'm not in a good mood today but right now I find it really hard to stay positive.

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I don't think it is just you and today. I remember when I was younger (college and before) I was happy because I was looking forward to something and envisioned a positive future (e.g. graduation, first job, high salary etc.). Kind of hard to do the same thing these days, especially now that I am an adult. The world has become nothing but an endless grind for greed and corruption.

Every day I ask myself what is the point of all this anyways?

Before you had hope that it could change or that you could change things in your life enough for it to not matter. Then you saw the world didn’t change and that you failed at accomplishing enough for it to not matter.

This is the story of most people with ambition. Nothing is new there. The only thing that will keep the light on is keeping the dream alive and thinking that you still have time to do it. That - ultimately - is a mindset shift. (And is hard to do and might feel like a bit of lying but you can shift your goals and mindset to make you stay on that goal ladder)

I don't know if everyone can truly embrace this, but one perhaps useless suggestion is to embrace the absurd life. In his essay "The Myth of Sisyphus", Albert Camus asks: does the absurdity of our futile lives require that we reject life itself? Camus answers: no, it requires revolt. Camus compares the absurdity of the human life with the situation of Sisyphus, a figure of Greek mythology who was condemned to repeat forever the same meaningless task of pushing a boulder up a mountain, only to see it roll down again. He concludes that "The struggle itself ... is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Myth_of_Sisyphus

I think Steven Pinker's book Enlightenment Now made a compelling case that the world now has basically never been better. You'd be crazy to wish be born in to any other time period. I find that comforting. There's good reasons to be glad you weren't born in the past, and the same reasons to be hopeful for the future.

Perhaps that's not comforting if you're suffering. But if the cause of your suffering is that you think the world is awful, give that book a read. Pinker does a good job of breaking that sentiment down in to chunks (exactly what part is awful?) and exploring those questions.

Personally, I do think that a lot of the "world is awful and broken right now" sentiment is a bit detached from the reality. Which is great news! Anyways, I'm not trying to come at you at all, just be helpful and challenge assumptions.

> You'd be crazy to wish be born in to any other time period.

I feel like this is way too general. It really depends on as who you would have been born...

For sure, you're right. I'm talking about base rates. The curve of human experience has shifted dramatically in a positive direction over time. So if a genie said to your unborn self, pick and era to be born into and I'll randomly assign you a person from the era, you'd be crazy to choose any time but now.

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