Ask HN: What inspires you to persevere through adversity?
What are some of the things you 'surround' yourself to keep going even after repeated failures. Failing can be related to any task in life - startup/job/relationships. What are some of things which inspire you and help you pull yourself back to chug along the track again.
edit : + things you say no/avoid while persevering.
242 comments
[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 354 ms ] threadIf you're not failing, you're not trying hard enough.
The search space for successful strategies is vast, you must experience failure in order to determine direction to success.
If I'm seeking inspiration, I look to a higher power - Bill Gates, Poe, Arxiv Papers, GitHub. Find inspiration in observing what is greater than yourself
― Friedrich Nietzsche
If the outcome you're working towards is sufficiently worthy, and you can feel yourself making even just a little bit of progress toward that outcome every day and every week, then you can get by just fine.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man's_Search_for_Meaning
This hasn't always proved possible for me. You mention relationships: I haven't ever found a way to make failing in those fun.
- Support: Find quality friends that are positive, creative, and understanding. (Eliminate the doubters super quick, cultivate a great network)
- Mindfulness: Remind yourself of the little triumphs and how far you've come. Create a list in a doc as you grow, you'll be surprised. Perform a retrospective once every couple of months.
- Gratefulness: Remind yourself that those accomplishments probably weren't possible without your network, give thanks to them privately and publicly. I do this in my retrospective.
- Silliness: Life and time are finite. You should be willing to sacrifice what you want to accomplish what you want, because... well nothing matters in the end. We're all little pieces of meat walking around on a rock flying through space. The sheer probability of existence is simultaneously a miracle and a joke.
- Love: You reap what you sow. Be up front with what you want, who you are, and don't compromise. From there pay into it with as much love and compassion as you possibly can.
- The Big Questions: What are we here for? What does it all mean? Just think of life as a game where you work hard because maybe there is something in the end that will make the journey all worth it. (Some people can float through life, I'm not one of them.)
- Outlets: Find reasonable outlets, whether it's art (my personal favorite is oil painting and making music), or working out, or dancing. Try something new when you can.
- Partners: Absolutely 100% don't stop until you've found a co-founder that you trust, respect, and offers a set of complimentary skills. Literally exhaust every channel (no matter how stupid) you can until you find this person. Managing your own psychology is hard, but having someone help give you a kick in the pants with an alternative point of view is sometimes a lifesaver.
- Self: There are going to be a lot of 'voices' that have an opinion about your life. They can be online or off. Remember that you're the only person that has to live with you, and in the end you're what matters most. To have a happy life, make yourself happy, but make sure that happiness magnifies the positive energy inside others as well. Stay true to your vision, and let that guide you.
- Inspiration: I have some personal things that I find comfort in. I like looking at inspirational posts on instagram, nice cars, inspirational videos on youtube. These serve to help pep me up sometimes. I like to imagine having the nice things that might be a result of my hard work, but the older I get the less material items matter and the more relationships and compounding the good in the world matters.
Also if anyone is in San Francisco and wants to grab a coffee, take a walk, and chat about life, the universe, and everything -- hit me up. :)
[Forgive any spelling/grammar errors. I'm tired and about to sleep.]
- Understanding your limitations
- Thinking "How can you not make the same mistake again"
- Understanding that for every public success there are tens or hundreds of failures that have not come to light
Additionally failure is a big part of the learning process, and each failure brings you closer to success because you now have a life experience that you can use to shape your future choices.
These days I know it pretty well and basically manage it out of habit and experience.
This doesn't prevent events from pushing me into a depressive episode, but it does mean I know what steps I need to take to get through and get out. Because in the depths of suicidal depression, I know in my bones that it's pointless, meaningless etc. But I know in my head that this is just a feeling, no matter how real it feels, and that it won't last forever.
I did a talk about living with depression and ADHD last year, which might be of interest[0].
[0] http://original.livestream.com/pivotallabs/video?clipId=pla_...
It's a marathon though, and you have to keep it up. The body doesn't exactly make it's feelings clear either! Anyway not trying to simplify your problem, best of luck.
For me, these prevent or ameliorate some, but not all, of my depressive episodes. I must periodically rely on medication to protect myself from myself.
I draw this distinction because people with depression are commonly given advice by well-meaning associates that exercise, diet and sleep will fix their depression.
For severe depression it probably won't, and in many cases, severely depressed people are not able to pick up even minor changes without what feels like a great deal of effort.
In general, if you think you have depression, you should seek professional attention. For most people it is highly treatable.
What helps me is knowing that I have people who care deeply for me,and who I care for just as much.
I could quit, but, given all my blessings and the support I have, I wouldn't be able to face myself if I quit.
I've had / survived some very difficult times (borderline starvation, seen my partner pass away due to cancer, been subject to significant violence and have been the source of similar violence..), so I don't think I'm being facetious.
What keeps me going is my friends and family. And ironically, given all my experience(s), an enduring faith in humanity, that, over time, the future will always be better than the present.
To paraphrase Churchill, "you can always count on humanity to do the right thing after it has tried everything else"
The quote is actually:
"Americans can always be counted on to do the right thing…after they have exhausted all other possibilities."
But of course the same sentiment can be generalized for any group. Even though Churchill is credited there is no actual record or evidence of him ever saying this. And he likely never did.
I'm not trying to nitpick, but as big Churchill fan I only found this out fairly recently and so thought I would mention it :)
http://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/11/11/exhaust-alternatives...
I wonder whether this is a fair statement, as the original quote can be interpreted to mean that the group in question has terrible efficiency and/or is unreliable until their hand is forced.
I am a fan of Winston Churchill the war-time Prime Minister that stood up to Hitler and helped save Britain and Europe from the Nazis. There is no shame in that. Does that mean I agree with everyone of his personal views? No of course not.
Where do you get off passing judgement, being the moral police, and projecting onto others like that?
Paraphrasing and attributing a quote to a specific individual are two entirely different things. Paraphrasing is approximating the quote, not who said it. It sounds like you might not understand what paraphrase means.
This is a discussion on Hacker News where discourse often unfolds in different and tangential directions.
I even stated my intention was not to nitpick but that I thought it was interesting as its such an oft-citied and well-known quote with its own uncertain history(provided in the link)
You did however. You called me insensitive and a fan of racist imperialism. And no, thats not acceptable or fair. It's just lame.
And the fact that you continue using your own twisted perception of something as justification for your uncalled for remarks is lamer still. Grow up.
You will probably have other people you admire; look for times they made mistakes. What's important is realizing everybody makes mistakes all the time. In the end, what makes a great person is their ability to pick themselves up and keep going. Never stagnate.
He has a strong work ethic.
He believes in himself and doesn't give up in the face of adversity or when presented with seemingly insurmountable odds.
I might not like or agree with Trump on many things, but that doesn't mean he doesn't have any qualities deserving of admiration.
The fact that Hitler had some genuinely admirable qualities made him more dangerous and not less dangerous. Good people could point to the good things about him and excuse the obvious evil in his ideology.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
I love this speech by Coach Wooden and highly recommend watching: https://www.ted.com/talks/john_wooden_on_the_difference_betw...
PS. Also, having kids is a huge motivator. You realize that you are a living role model to them and what you do and how you behave will influence them for their entire life. And as you want to show your kids the best of humanity and positive qualities, you simple have no choice but to show them in yourself !
Then I breath.
I remember that keeping faith is about accepting failures : there is no win if there is no risks.
Fear and anxiety kills the spirit. I know they are direct consequences of failures, and I accept them. It does not mean I let fear rule my life.
Then, I remember our wold is about luck. So, I plan my next try at doing something, and I look back at my failures to see what valuables lessons I learned.
Basically they boil down to: work hard, keep it simple, and don't get tricked again in investing your time/money/energy/emotions in stuff that don't make you feel good. Love your self and who you are not a cool picture built for being accepted by others. Life is no popularity contest.
Failures taught me I can rise again. Success taught me it is all about luck. Failures and success taught me that the only way to potentially win is to try again.
And why do I try that much? Because, well, it is in my Nature, and the more the competition is unfair like nowadays, the more it makes me want to defy the odds because I am bored.
I don't know what your motivations are, I just know mine.
But failures should have taught you a great load of things you can use to understand your true self and empower it.
Failures are so valuable I regret not having failed when I was younger. There is a curse in being lucky, I am glad my curse was lifted.
My simplest answer is to pick the right goal. You know its the right goal when you can envisage countless possible setbacks but it would seem absurd that they could cause you to abandon your goal. Give up on reaching the Olympics because you run out of money, have a bout of flu, or a parent dies? It should feel like a non-sequitur. Your goal needs rise above the inevitable twists and turns of life - it should not just be a "fair weather" goal you would drop when clouds pile in.
Your interest in the goal should be deep. It should not be for the moment it can be said it is done but for the transformation that achieving that goal brings. You must not simply want to reach a finish line, you have to want the life that comes after crossing that finishing line. If life after reaching a goal is little different or you are indifferent to that life, it is a weak goal, it won't sustain you through the hard times.
Maybe not 'the', but 'a'?
What do you think "the hallmark" is?
I don't think anyone said anything about 100+ hours/week. I was hoping that commenter #2 might appear and give us some deep insights, but that appears to have been a bridge too far...
I don't have a 9~5 working for the man, but there is very little that happens during my waking hours that I wouldn't classify as related to work. I'm fortunate that this is not one task, so it doesn't weigh on me like fighting with a C compiler while sitting under florescent lights in a cube farm might. That's kind of work is fine - I like that too - but I couldn't do it for more than about 70-80 hours/week.
Pro-athletes are probably a bad example for anything other than being pro-athletes. I have got the impression from some of the interviews with swimmers and tennis players that they utterly loathe training with a passion especially when their way of life is was designed for them by their parents before they ever had any self-direction.
I wonder how differently I might approach things had I never started a family.
When starting a project, one of the inevitable outcome is failure so it's worth thinking about what would happen in that case. I.e. plan for the good but also the bad.
Also, it's important to look at the longer goal. You can either succeed or fail, but make sure it gets you closer to that goal.
Another thing I vaguely remember reading here on HN: you probably make 10-12 major decisions in your adult life. Nobody get's a 100% right. So everyone has a quota of two or three major screw-ups in life. Treat it that way, push it to the past and move on.
Maybe it's just me but would you have any tips to overcome or at least come to terms with this mentality?
First, I recommend anyone asking this take a moment to do a double-check on your mental health. At least for depression and insanity. Looking in the mirror like this is not as bad as a prostate exam but it does take longer...
1) Depression. If you think you might be suffering from depression or any mental disorder or don't know enough to decide, please go seek professional help. If you are unsure what this means or think the odds low, consider going to see a professional and getting a diagnosis anyway at least it rules things out.
2) Insanity. I mean this in sense attributed to Einstein of "doing something over and over again and expecting the same result".
There is no "keep going" or getting back on "the track" after a failure. If you have failed then it's over - it requires "starting anew". The track you will be on is new too even if it points at the same goal as the old one.
Now, if you're talking about pushing through setbacks and obstacles but not a real failure, there is a difference. In HN-YC-gobbledygook; are you in a "trough of sorrow" or back on your mom's couch after bankrupting your company and you're browsing Craigslist job ads/casual encounters posts? Big difference between setbacks and failures.
If it's failure. I don't celebrate it. But I would be stoked about the gap of time between a failure and starting anew. This gap of time gives one a chance to pause and figure out what happened. Plus it's time to fix what you can about yourself and how you operate or realize it's better to move to something else you are better at. Call it the "trough of who the fuck cares but I ain't making that mistake again"...
This step involves thinking about: were things your fault? Were they someone else's fault? Was the failure just bad luck? Really? There should be no repeated failures of the same kind. That is insanity. Don't keep doing stuff if you haven't analyzed and fixed things that caused it. This involves thinking about if failures could have been anticipated and avoided...
If failures are just genuinely just bad luck, not a deficiency of ability on your part nor a failure that could have been avoided beforehand, there is nothing to do. Good luck happens and bad luck happens. But you know this. Be mentally prepared beforehand for whichever way the dice fall. I know of no gambler who walks into a casino with $100, knowing his odds and walks out depressed when he loses the $100. I know many people who walk into a casino not knowing their odds, having looked up the rules of craps 5 minutes beforehand on their phone and fully expecting to win - then being shocked and upset when they lose $500.
No one else's inspirations can inspire you. Figure out a goal you want and what achieving it involves.
If you can't figure a goal that inspires you, then that is your goal. Finding a goal is your goal. Frankly that is fucking super exciting too; getting to treasure hunt and discover something that is new and inspiring, something you will really want and want to work towards sounds very exciting. Best of luck.