Hacker News Reader

Comment by mattbrewsbytes | Hacker News Reader

> So, considering that you’re likely going to fail, at least pick something you’re going to enjoy failing at!

This is the golden nugget that got me subscribed. I love satire (and am pumped Jon Stewart is back on TDS) and this is a good perspective to trying out side projects.

View on HN

This isn’t satire to me, that’s genuinely great life advice. I use it all the time. For instance, a difficult stressful tech interview was passed with flying colors using that psychological method.

In general parlance (American in particular), a conditional negative (eg “if I got cancer”) is usually verboten, like you cause a side effect (=killing the vibe) even though the condition isn’t materialized. You have to look past that to get the golden nugget.

Assuming you’re gonna fail, you’ll have learnt a lot and enjoyed it. You don’t confuse external opportunity and expectation with your passions and interests. Psychologically it also reduces the stakes. It doesn’t really matter if the outcome is failure or success, the point is that it’s constant.

The satire comment was in general about that author and post, not the specific line.

Failing is learning. Failing in something you don't enjoy isn't fun.

Sometimes one can learn from failures. Other times, most of the time I'd say, failure is failure and one ends up, depending on the failure, with less money, less energy, fewer successes.

I don't like "failing", I don't want to fail so I can learn, certainly for the ambitious person there are failures, losses, things that did not work out on the way, hopefully to success, but selection bias is strong when saying that failing is learning.

It's not limited to side projects. "Failure" is the norm. It's what happens nearly every time, all the time.

Once you embrace this then you're spitting distance from, "What do I have to lose?"

If you don't try, you end up in the same place. If you do try, you also likely end up in the same place. But oh the joy of pulling that slot machine handle and watching the wheels spin. There's simply no joy at all in not trying. So why not try?

+1 The sooner in your career (or life) you get used to failing and learning from it, the more potential (or happiness) you will have.

I put "failure" in quotes because it's only failure if you don't pause to learn. If you try and come up short but also learning something, then it's not failure, it's a learning experience.

So...ya can't learn (read: grow) if you don't try.

> "Failure" is the norm. It's what happens nearly every time, all the time.

That feels like a very unhealthy perspective on life to me (that seems to be quite common in the US).

For example, if you write a book, that can be a major success in itself. The quality of the book has nothing to do with how well it sells.

It's VC-driven thinking. For regular people a success could be completing a book, but maybe also having it be successful enough that it opens the door for another book.

If your boss is a VC, success is when you exit with an IPO, full stop. The venture doesn't have to be anywhere near profitability if there's enough hype to sell blocks of shares to pension funds.

> , but maybe also having it be successful enough that it opens the door for another book.

Unlikely. And that's the point. That's okay. To not get to that level is the norm. There's no sense fearing the obvious, the typical, the usual. Again, worst case you end up where you started (had you done nothing).

It's like traveling isn't it? Eventually you end up back at home (i.e., where you started) and yet you're damn happy you left. So yeah, pull the handle on the slot machine and let the chips fall where they may. No reason to be afraid.

You've successfully completed a task. Sure, that's important. Obviously. But if the goal of writing the book is for others to read, perhaps even to sell X (e.g., 500) copies then there's a very good change you will not reach that goal.

That's ok. That's the point. That's the norm. So if you come up short, so what.

My point is, maybe labelling everything you do a failure is not that good for you, mentally. I think this is somewhat ingrained in US culture, and I wouldn't be surprised if this is at least one of the causes for the mental health crisis in the US.

And you’ll probably be a lot better at it too. Go the extra mile with less mental stress and so on.

> Jon Stewart is back on TDS

I thought you meant Trump derangement syndrome. Which is also a totally valid statement.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com