Ask HN: Will I Ever Recover?
Been working in my startup for the last 7 years. It has no failed and I am turning 37 soon. I am interview now but my identity has been shattered. I don’t know how to build myself back up. Everyone tells me it’s not too late to start again but I am no longer young. I feel so miserable.
96 comments
[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 185 ms ] threadI often find the most painful employers and experiences are the ones that I gain the most out of in terms of development and growth. Not fun to hear in the moment but afterwards it's a gift.
What is it, then? It feels really contrived to say "you're worth something" but then not say what that thing is.
In court of public opinion, you're always guilty until proven innocent — whether that's right or not.
Losing your identity is very scary. However, with time, you will develop a new identity. You will discover new joys and goals.
Try not to panic, the way you feel now is quite normal.
Have fun discovering the new you.
... unless you mean energy, or "ability to pull all-nighters". Then, yeah, remaining resources are probably below 50%. But now you (hopefully) have more wisdom on what to do with the remaining resources. You can use them more efficiently, so that you get more results with fewer resources used.
Think of your startup as just a glorified hot-dog cart.
All I can say is good luck, friend, and hopefully we'll both find a better source of both income and fulfillment soon!
I felt the same way after leaving my 1st job of 10 years out of college. It was like mourning a death. I was "an employee at X", I was good at it, I liked it. So it was so very worrying, frightful, and confusing when that season of life began to pass, and I was no longer happy with what up to that point had been everything I had been looking for.
Some resources you may find interesting:
[1] On average, friendships last about 7 years (indirectly suggesting that WE tend to change in identities every 7 years or so) - https://mwfseekingbff.com/2012/11/07/friendship-the-seven-ye...
[2] Transitions: Making Sense Of Life's Changes by William Bridges - A great book on the transitions of life, and how society today tries to rush through them, but they are deeply important and must be given the appropriate honor, time, and space. I read this when I was struggling with my own career transition, and it was exactly what I needed at that time in my life. Only by letting transitions run their courses fully can you set healthy foundations for the next stages of your life (and the next stage WILL be fruitful, even if life is full of murkiness and confusion right now).
37 is so young, I can barely remember it.
Remind yourself they are true regardless of how you feel. Emotions are often influenced more than controlled.
Take actions as you are able that support or aligned with those truths. Regardless of how you feel.
Tell close friends and/or family that you are working to really believe those truths.
Then give it time. At least months, maybe years. Time heals many wounds. The process above will hopefully shave off some of that time.
I'd suggest developing some other hobbies or activities and not tying your identity up with your job so much.
Whether you work at Intel for 40 years or hop between jobs and your own projects, the story is the same:
- Find something that works
- Grow it larger until it fails
- Find something (smaller) that works
- ...
i.e.,
- If you want to feel more productive, take smaller steps
- If you need to go faster, take larger steps
The absolutely key issue is taking ownership of how your activities affect you
- If you read bits of news all day, you'll addict yourself to short bursts of new information
- If you relish people's attention, you'll depend on their whims
- If you meditate all day, you'll find the deepest peace, but do nothing
Right now, you have a long process of mourning all that you'd hoped for. It's best to do so deeply - to get it done. So:
- Write down all your faults and failings and how royally you screwed yourself
- Write each once. No need to elaborate
- When you can think of no more, you're done with that.
Now you have X time in the bank. How do you want to spend it?
Remember: if you read news or seek customers or write books, you will become the reflection of that activity: hyper-intellectual, a pleaser, a ruminator...
So, to make something of yourself, do what will make you what you want to be.
Above all, DON'T act out of misery to just make yourself feel better. DON'T try to "build yourself back up". i.e., Don't let your past define you.
That's the essence of freedom
You are still 10 years away from the statistical "peak" to start your startup.
Yes you will recover.
This experience may be exactly what you need to become great. It's your choice to either hide from it and whither away in regret or face it head on and extract all the value it has to offer. Growth comes from painful reflection on our mistakes.
Studying Stoicism and this lecture series really helped me get through the failure of my startup (Which I spent 7 years building and then had to sell for $1).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8Xc2_FtpHI&list=PL22J3VaeAB...
Note the lecturer is controversial politically now... but this series genuinely helped me put myself back together after my ego was shattered - I am way better off now (and more resilient) and years later building another company which is doing great so far.
Even earlier than that he espoused beliefs of yearning for the old days when a man could make a living for the whole family and casually beat his wife (look up his redpill fedora access/public tv video for this).
This isn’t to take away from those videos helping you or any one. Just to clarify Peterson was a “controversial” (a shitty person imo) long before now.
Your Q is irrelevant here as Peterson wasn’t discussing what was written as law, but his narrative.
If you're posting such a serious accusation, you should at least provide the link yourself...
I said what to look up. If this is such a big accusation as to respond asking for a link, why not type or copy paste the few words mentioned?
https://youtube.com/watch?v=TWsxFKF__is I have the uninterrupted clip saved locally, but here’s a video talking about and showing some of it. There should still be actual full clip ones too.
Now, is he right? It's hard to tell, but the phenomenon he describes definitely exists to some degree.
He didn’t say much about their flaws. He kept hedging for how they are the good and better ones. He for sure never phrased this as “as flaws as 50ties men were” in the context of the whole thing.
Knowing Jordan Peterson’s sexism, racism, religious bigotry, homophobia, transphobia, disregard for the poor, and his own hypocrisy of his own mean advice and sayings on drug addiction, if a statement about a 50s guy coming home to repress/oppress his wife doesn’t scream a big issue to you, nothing will. You will be able to turn anything he says into a positive, and I will not see his sneaky wording as anything but that.
I mean in his Kyle Kulinski discussion recently and before that too, he talks about how “remember when [gay] pride used to be a sin?” As if that’s an indictiment on being gay. And that gay and trans advocacy is tricking people into being gay and trans. It’s insanely baffling to appreciate someone’s words when they actually are saying straight cis people are being tricked into being gay or trans. No less to the point of a morale panic. I can’t give any benefit of the doubt to such an overt bigot.
> Now, is he right? It's hard to tell, but the phenomenon he describes definitely exists to some degree.
He’s probably wrong. His own philosophies with all this are bankrupt to begin with. He talks about hierarchies being natural and the best with the alphas rising up. Yet marriage is the opposite of that. It forces exclusive monogamy and is pushed down through culture and society. He has been asked by Rogan and others about this contradiction to his work. His answers are quite wanting. It’s obvious there’s no answer except monogamy benefits him and many of his fans who aren’t the most playboy types and are likely conservative leaning thus want “traditions”.
I hope you can become more curious and less whatever this is. For your own sake and for the sake of the people in your life you care about.
Here’s another recent Peterson tidbit of being a bad person and not improving people’s lives. In one of his recent Daily Wire stuff, he said Russia is attacking Ukraine for trying to be more woke like America. Which is incredibly wrong when Ukraine has lots of non-woke stuff and is not “woke” haha. Secondly, what an awful thing to say to defend Putin’s evil invasion of Ukraine and the deaths of innocent people.
Even Peterson’s fans on his subreddit and on the YouTube video and other comment sections were upset at his callous and wrong take on the Ukrainian invasion. Just like many of his fans are upset with his joining Daily Wire and being so completely mask off these days.
Some more issues of when he is saying stuff that doesn’t appear to improve lives: what about when he insults women who wear make up. Or insults women he finds unattractive? Or when he hypocritically doesn’t call out his own daughter for wearing make up.
What about when he insulted a dead patient (RIP) of his for using up his money on drugs and then dying from them? Meanwhile he went ahead and spent a lot of money to go to Russia to be put into coma. He blames people for getting addicted to drugs, but when it is him, there is an excuse.
how is his bigotry against lgbtq people helping them? Is this stuff not “evil”? Since you claimed I am saying evil things —- without any specific backing of how.
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I can keep giving actual examples of Peterson not being a good person. No need to resort to personal attacks, gaslighting, and making narratives up.
If you aren’t satire and aren’t acting in bad faith, please give some actual info on how I’m being evil with the specifics of what I’ve said. Or specifics of my slandering. Also please respond to any times you believe I’ve said the truth about Peterson. Of course that won’t happen, much less a response at all.
I at the very least had my first response to you include me being happy for you getting better even if it’s from Peterson. You on the other hand have shown no semblance of good faith in this last response.
Finally. Just because I find Peterson to be a bigoted hate filled individual, doesn’t mean I think that about you. An attack on Peterson is not an attack on you. So there’s no need for you to push such harsh attacks on me.
How do you think I have so many specific examples of Peterson? I’m speaking from specific examples of hearing him speak.
You did a whole thing of what you find slanderous. You didn’t explain why. Everything you write are some vague stuff. Nothing specific or substantive.
Are you saying Peterson isn’t a raging bigot against lgbtq people? I’ll stick to one example because you consistently do not respond to any specific critiques. I gave examples of Peterson specifically being a bigot against lgbtq people. Including very recently with his Kulinski interview.
Either he is or he isn’t a bigot [against lgbtq people].
> Are you sure it serves you to hold the opinions of him that you do?
Him being a bigot isn’t an opinion. It’s quite messed up imo to call his homophobia and transphobia “my opinion”. You’re insulting a whole lot of lgbtq people. Some would think that’s basically evil.
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You’re afraid thing doesn’t make sense. He hadn’t helped a whole ton of people in 2016 yet. He wasn’t famous when he began his narrative BS on the pronoun bill. Having a made up narrative concerning someone like me isn’t good. Some would think what you are saying is basically evil.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jun/22/what-t...
Or even better... this:
https://medium.com/the-hit-job/why-jordan-peterson-is-not-ne...
I don't think we should continue this debate here, its not appropriate for HN as evidenced by our comments getting flagged.
The last thing I will say is that I am still very confused why and how you can say he isn't controversial. I am starting to wonder if we are using the same definition of controversial...
I said he was not: “( controversial now ) and ( not before )”. That can be re-written as: “( he is controversial now ) and ( he was controversial before )”.
The logic key is the “and”. It requires both statements to be true. If part of the statement is not true, it makes the entire statement not true.
IE: “( I am a human ) and ( I am god )”. This statement is not true. I am not god. Confusion cleared?
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Your flag argument is concerning. One person can make a comment flagged. How is that representative of HN? Why not stick to that logic for me, one person, saying Peterson is not appropriate for any one because he is a bad person? There’s a certain lack of awareness.
A point of hypocrisy is linking to bad articles. I read the second. It doesn’t touch upon my critique of his Kulinski interview. You asked if I had actually seen any of his stuff or just base off what others say. Then follow that up with being “afraid” I’m being duped by listening to others. Then you link to this as your side.
This gets worse because this writer writes like you. They are “concerned” like you were “afraid”. Neither of you are saying your own original ideas. Picking up typical right wing moral panic BS that frequently weakly masks the bigotry behind it.
The article doesn’t say why he’s a benefit to lgbtq people. Why is he a “blessing in disguise”? It doesn’t give a proper argument for him not being against gay marriage. It says he did not answer the person’s question. That means he’s not for gay marriage.
BTW if you’re that ageist against yourself I hate to think how badly you stereotype others.
You need to pick yourself up, dust yourself off, figure out all the lessons learned from your first foray, write them down, formulate a new life strategy, and then get the fuck out and chase it!
Whingeing on HN about how miserable you are won't fix anything.
My story isn't unique, tons of people have gambled, lost, and recovered. It isn't easy, but it isn't impossible, just don't get overwhelmed, don't take it personal, and get backup and start thinking about what is next. Work the problem like an engineer would any.
Best of luck