Ask HN: How do you accept your place in the world?

I feel much the same way. I do some difficult stuff, but the stuff done by some other people is simply much more impressive. But I feel as if I've learned to be happy in humility. Why? Because the activities of multiple people are much harder to separate than it might initially seem. The person who does impressive work in some domain may only be able to focus to that extent because their home is being tidied by someone else, and their clothes washed by someone else, and their meals prepared by someone else, and so on. A lot of people think of those types of jobs as lowly, but how can they be lowly if they were key ingredients of the work we regard as more important? Do you see what I mean about difficulty of neatly separating the efforts?

I've done seemingly millions of projects. Sometimes I'm actually writing programs that most other people couldn't make. But lots of the time I'm not doing anything that requires smarts, but simply putting my heart in it and helping things get done, whatever those things are. If the dishes need washed, I do that. If the floor needs sweeping, I do that. If somebody has a question, I try to answer. I try to be encouraging. Meanwhile, the work I might regard as the real work is being done by people who have skills I lack. But I am doing what I can. I am finding where I can fit in and be useful. I am finding suitable roles in a vast interconnected system.

Most of the time it seems more likely that we'll be von Neumann's butler than von Neumann. This is OK. Just do what you can. Be kind, be helpful. Try never to be a drag on any project that's worthwhile. It's about the combined efforts of many, not individual heroes.

Will you be a little happier when you accept your current place? You are a nobody at this moment, that's fine. But are you going to stay at that place for years? I don't think so from what you have written here.

What matters is you should get clear about what you want and how you will get there.

Everybody is somebody to somebody. Nobody is somebody to everybody.

Also, you don’t know for certain what kind of person you will become. Who knows what your experience today will bring you in the future?

There are 8 billion people on Earth and most of them will spend their entire life accomplishing nothing. I wouldn't worry too much. If you're so brilliant then prove it. Or are you too tired.

You talk about "people", but if you actually count them, how many are they? Hundreds, maybe a couple of thousands at best? The vast majority of us are average, maybe somewhat above-average if we're lucky.

I would say, ask yourself why do yo need to compare yourself with anyone? By your own account you do very interesting work, why is that not enough? Start from there.

You don’t have to. Not accepting your current situation can be a great motivator. What the hell does that even mean “your place”? Forget that be anywhere, inject yourself in to anything , grow, learn… or not and just chill.

You don’t have to accept a place in the world because you don’t even really have one, just your idea of what that means. So run with it.

There is always places people can contribute. Look at some terrible softwares.. medical, insurance, 3pl logistics etc.. they don't need extraordinary brilliance to improve.. just UX, better systems, process and lots of area to cover.

If you can improve one industry a bit more than it is today, isn't that a sufficient place in the world?

Sampling bias.

You're reading articles good enough to come through to you, from millions of people actively trying to get theirs read. There will be millions of great articles that most of us will never even discover.

I think you should spend at bit of time thinking on the scale of the world, the scale of combined human effort, and try to consider the statistical chance that something any individual does will "make it" to the top, even of hacker news..

Now, also consider whether you want to be spending your time becoming someone who contributes in that way instead of the way you currently do. Consider the amount of brilliant people doing work that nobody will ever see.

There's nothing wrong in being a "nobody" in the grand scheme of things, your primary motivation in life has probably not been to have the world know your name, if so, you'd likely have pursued a different career. But the feeling is familiar, I think, to most of us.

My personal fix to this is to think on it, and maybe sometimes make a little side-project, that's guaranteed to not be brilliant or even good, and post it somewhere online, and enjoy the little bit of attention it got.

I also struggle to accept my place in the world, to be honest, I've gotten further in my life than I thought I would, and still, feel disappointed in myself because I've not done anything great, or contributed to or furthered any field in any meaningful way. But I try to keep in mind that, most people aren't and of those who do, orders of magnitude more are trying hard and still fail, and honestly, I don't want it _THAT_ bad, I can conclude that, because when I look at my own efforts to "become somebody", they are fairly low, and so it's no surprise that I'm a nobody, just coding away and generally being content with what I do.

a quick observation here: you are comparing ONE of YOU against THE COMBINATION of THE MOST BRILLIANT MINDS on the internet. Are you not capable of learning any of those topics in depth if you had the time and resources? No, I think you are certainly capable.

First understand that in a room full of engineers—no matter how many—90% of them will say they are above average.

Second understand that what separates you from these people is they have something to show for what they did. How do you expect people to find your “brilliance” if you don’t show it off somehow? They work for their recognition. People using your “low-level systems” won’t automatically think you’re brilliant because…what? Because it works? Is that the bar?

Write some blog posts. Open source some projects. Give some talks. If you do all that and no one cares, maybe it’s not the rest of the world that has the problem.

My own opinions as a mid-level web-focused SWD.

I think about it sometimes. It is an ego/attention thing imo if you need other people to say "great job". But you can't live in a vacuum either.

I mean part of it is personal interest, I was watching people reverse engineer an s-band transponder from the Apollo missions like cool but what is the point.

I guess just because you won't be an Einstein doesn't mean what you're doing isn't worth it. Personal satisfaction.

I used to love building/flying model airplanes until I got into social media. Then everything I made I had to post online/get upvotes. I lost the passion in it overtime because I was more interested in impressing people.

Nowadays I will build things even if it's a piece of a crap because I had fun figuring it out from scratch.

This other thing I ran into is ego-satisfaction where I would share a fantasy/idea/sketch before it was real/work done for the upvotes.

I also am aware there is just an innate capability/caliber. Like I am not a math guy.

I get the "place in the world" thing in another way eg. being poor but I think I can change it.

Oh yeah the other field I think about this is regarding physical attractiveness/relationships ha. I'm not killing it in that department.

To be fair I still post my crap on a blog, whether or not someone reads it is something else.

You remember how silly the work of high schoolers looked when you were in university? You'll get that same feeling when you hit 40, and evaluate the movers and shakers who are in their 30s.

It is ok to feel lost and overwhelmed from time to time. Even the most brilliant people often go through hardships and difficult times. Try to find things to do that you enjoy not because other people expect them of you. External validation can be nice but also a burden. Set your own goals and try to check from time to time how much progress you have made to accomplish them. For me at the moment, this is to publish a bunch of good papers at ML conferences and land a permanent research position. But this can literally be any other goal and I don’t think it is helpful to compare yourself to others, too much. Opportunities will come to you if you are doing good work.

I accept nothing. I try to become better.

Try CBT and address the underlying negative perspective... or you could just put head to grindstone and publish a few ground breaking white papers.

Try to be grateful for x y z, and try not focus on 1st world problems like your unfounded imposter syndrome. ZZ

Do what you want to do, rather than what you "need" to do, and you won't think about this stuff.

I'm not the world #1 badminton champion. So?

I get similar comments about intellect, potential, etc. I too am a nobody. It sucks that I'll never make any "good" money and be stuck in boring jobs. Who cares though? I'm fine being a nameless peasant - the vast majority of people live their lives that way.

You don't have an alternative to being yourself, so there is nothing to think about.

By all means, do what you feel you would enjoy doing and balance it off with the needs of society (by making sure you earn enough currency to live).

If you feel you want to become a better researcher or a better chess player, go and do it. Keep in mind there is no reason comparing yourself to others. Everyone's life is vastly different.

Maybe that brilliant researcher has a broken family, maybe a great philosopher is broke and living in a barrel. What's the point of comparing yourself to someone else? Compare yourself to your past self and try to improve. And don't fret if you become worse, you'll have the rest of your life to improve.

I'd recommend reading something about stoicism: https://www.orionphilosophy.com/academy-stoicism/stoicism-fo...

I seek happiness and meaning in what I do, and that's how I find my place in the world, no matter how good I am, job and private life alike, as long as I do things that I think are relevant and meaningful to me, and I enjoy what I do.

Of course, the fact I'm exceptionally good doesn't hurt ;-)

My 2-cents.

> I feel like I know that I'm a nobody. I try not to compare myself; but I'm also unable to shrug these feeling off, however indirect

Everyone is a nobody even famous people. Everyone also feels that way, if you don't feel that way you are probably a psychopath, but that's also fine.

Focus on what matters, wealth, leisure time, whatever you pick keep in mind the clock is always ticking.

Small clarification fame really does not matter, it just makes wealth easier to attain usually.

Contribution to science or humanity in general should never be your focus, it usually happens as a side-effect of work you do either for money or because you enjoy it.

your self worth is more than just your intelligence.

we are blessed and cursed with different gifts.

no one measures up.

so stopping measuring and start living.

You are in a system that is telling you to be the greatest, and that anyone can be the greatest is the are smart and just try hard enough.

It’s bullsht.

You can either decide to try stop playing the game of capitalism, or look down instead of looking up while playing it.

The later means you are still playing the game, but it will be easier to cope with your suffering and you might just make some friends.

You are only seeing a deep truth that others cannot see; your work is insignificant. Go out and help someone less fortunate and you will see your true significance.

Start looking for small opportunities to do something different and bold. Do that before you're asked to do it. Sooner or later you will get "hired" for the kind of job where you get to do the things you described here. That's how everyone else did it.

If you want to write a crazy compiler, I’m sure you can if you go take the time to bother.

The problem with life is that you only have so much time to do what you want to do. So it’s up to you where you spend your efforts.

I’ve found peace by focusing on life outside of my own head.

If you spend your day all busy and stressed out about computer things and then go home and spend all your time on more intellectual or virtual entertainment then your brain is fully primed to work more on those things.

My advice is to disconnect and focus on relationships and people.