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Comment by emotionalcode | Hacker News Reader

Any advise for a person who had success, then had compound PTSD surface, get mingled with the concept of ego, leading to a negative sorts of ego death, and is still trying as hard as they can to become genius? I can't get the concept of being past my prime, out of my head, and I think that is precisely what is holding me back.

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Start actively looking deeper into yourself to discover your fears. Your mind has built up a bunch of reasons why you can't do something, and you've become so accustomed to them that you don't even think to question their validity. At the core, it is your fears that hold you back, and those "reasons" exist only to mask that fear. You must dig deeper and expose the ugly fear underneath. Then you must face and walk into that fear, alone. You must discover that you are not a victim. A victim has no power over their circumstances. A victor controls their circumstances. This transition is VERY HARD to make, and it's not too uncommon to fail on your first few attempts. Good luck.

This resonates with me to an extent. I squandered some serious talent early on. I'll never know the answers to all those "what if's".

It's easy to be bitter or resentful of circumstances and opportunities -- I think of all the people entering the job market in the past 10-12 years. Get the wrong year in the wrong industry and you'll stagnate at just the wrong time.

For myself, I do not regret the past. I accept responsibility for not capitalizing on my talent, which is itself a talent. I am not bitter for not being luckier in opportunity as I have been luckier than so many. Today, I will sit down and accomplish what I can.

I don't think I fully understand what you're saying, but you seem to feel stuck -- so here's some books to take a look at:

Things Might Go Terribly, Horribly Wrong: A Guide to Life Liberated from Anxiety, by Kelly G. Wilson [http://www.amazon.com/Things-Might-Terribly-Horribly-Wrong/d...]

Shawn Smith - The User's Guide to the Human Mind - Why Our Brains Make Us Unhappy, Anxious, and Neurotic and What We Can Do about It [http://www.amazon.com/The-Users-Guide-Human-Mind/dp/16088205...]

Russ Harris - Getting Unstuck in ACT - A Clinician's Guide to Overcoming Common Obstacles in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy [http://www.amazon.com/Getting-Unstuck-ACT-Clinicians-Overcom...]

Both by Jeffrey E. Young: Schema Therapy - A Practitioner's Guide, and Reinventing Your Life [http://www.amazon.com/Schema-Therapy-A-Practitioners-Guide/d...]

Steven C. Hayes, - Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life [http://www.amazon.com/Get-Your-Mind-Into-Life/dp/1572244259]

Charlotte Kasl - If the Buddha Got Stuck [http://www.amazon.com/If-Buddha-Got-Stuck-Spiritual/dp/01421...]

My company's CEO passed away last week. During her memorial I found out that she was 70 when she died, and had founded the company 25 years ago, when she was 45. Which I think shows that people's "prime" actually comes a lot later than they think.

The way I look at it is that if you start a business in your 20s, the odds are against you. You may be young and full of energy, but you don't know shit about the world yet and will make a ton of mistakes. If you do it in your 30s, the odds are neutral. You are more seasoned and possibly have some domain experience under your belt that you can leverage. If you do it in your 40s, the odds are in your favor. You probably have significant domain expertise as well as connections you have established earlier in your career that can help you. It's only in your 50s that you can justify feeling like you're past your prime. Then again, that hardly stops some people.

The average age of a successful entrepreneur is 40. So for every Zuckerberg, there's a 60-something balancing him out: http://blogs.hbr.org/2013/06/entrepreneurs-get-better-with/

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