'Everything we were taught about success is wrong' | Hacker News Reader

'Everything we were taught about success is wrong'

theguardian.com

17 pointsjethronethro8 comments

For most people, success comes from winning the parent lottery, or if not that, then birth nation lottery. I hate to say this, but the UFOA phenomenon sounds to me like someone who got lucky, and rode someone else’s prior success. Very few people are the real deal, and they’re literally carrying everything built in this world on their efforts.

Even if the main factors are things like your parents, your environment, your teachers, your heroes, your mentors, etc - it's still worth studying the things the parents, the school administrators, the teachers, - and yourself - can change. There are major factors on which not much can be done but "eh what are you gonna do" is not helpful.

your parents remain major factors in your environment, teachers, mentors, etc.

the internet has made that gap much smaller, where you can find your own mentors and teachers from faraway lands

yeah, you can also find much more easily examples to follow or to get inspiration form. They don't have to be press celebrities anymore, or book authors or characters.

And internet has made figuring out what's possible much easier - so much more is possible than it seemed before.

Full title: ‘Everything we were taught about success is wrong’: how to find true fulfilment in your life and career

It's the journey, not the destination. You need to find something that can bring you fulfillment and pay the bills.

> You need to find something that can bring you fulfillment and pay the bills.

Yeah that too, and that's not necessarily the one same thing. Most artists for example, know that there is no shame to a day job (that's not toxic to you). But lately we have seen several posts that go "OMG what am I gonna do?!?!" So probably there are still not enough writings, books, articles about how that goes.

The article opposes fullfilment and happiness to depression, anxiety and burnout.

I feel this is a mistake. There are a million things I love doing. My depression and anxiety, I feel, does NOT come from not having the right objectives.

It comes from the far more ponderous million obstacles that are constantly thrown in my path. Much in the name of self-righteousness, much in the name of lazyness, or incompetence or callousness, much in the name of "we'll make a law, that will solve it right up". Our so-called advanced society fails us constantly. That's EXHAUSTING. I don't have a problem finding fullfiling things. I have a problem of not enough (effective) staff and not enough years left to do the fun stuff in spite of that bullshit.

I was similarly reading the dispair of someone who needed to file paperwork ludicrously complicated for the purpose, and had a hard time mustering the energy to do that. And I totally understand them: some US administrative paperwork is just plain evil. In the name of what?

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