On the one hand it is a wholesome article. On the other hand - so much wasted potential of people squeezing out the last bits when competing. Nash equilibria can suck
Each "no" is a signal that you're still trying which puts you above many people whose ego can't handle hearing that word so they settle and turn to bitterness.
"[O]ne outlier can dominate the average"; "We're used to living in this world of normal distributions and you act a certain way, but as soon as you switch to this realm that is governed by a power law, you need to start acting vastly different. It really pays to know what kind of world or what kind of game you are playing."
What do you do if the job that makes you an offer doesn't excite you? What if the house that feels like home needs more repairs than you can afford? What if the program that accepts you has crappy funding? What if the person who chooses you has red flags?
Do you say "screw it," cross your fingers, and walk through the door that kind of sucks? Or do you keep looking as long as your resources last you?
Every situation is different, and none of us can reliably predict the future. Sometimes dealing with a bad job until you get a better one is the right move. Sometimes it's the wrong move.
Specifics, about the job and yourself, matter. If you feel like sharing, this is a pretty good community with good instincts.
The magic in "all it takes is for one to work out" is in the strength it gives you to keep trying. Trying something that might fail is hard, even when we know that trying is the right thing to do.
Often the "one" you need isn't the ideal, it's just what gets you into the market. I'm thinking a job that gets you some experience and much needed pay or a property that lets you build equity while prices continue to climb.
Maybe consider that we are all calibrated to standards that are this hodgepodge of other people’s messaging of what standards should be, and they communicate them for a variety of reasons, very few of which are truly designed for your reality, your situation.
So when you say, ‘kinda sucks’, perhaps ask if the opinion is grounded in (your) reality?
Once recalibrated to accept that what we are in, is inescapable true life, then we stop looking for something better, and instead focus on the challenge of making it better than it should naturally be.
Happiness I believe, is a decision, we choose it when we feel it’s a sustainable perspective. I think it’s sustainable to allow ourselves to be happy, whenever we achieve marginal improvement on what is natural.
These are not final decisions, get something going is better than nothing. You don't need to be locked on a job, or a house, or a degree. People have more time in their life than they seem to think. Sure, you might spend a few years on something not ideal, but the alternative being nothing is much worse
We job hop, have multiple hustles. Many people on this board have started multiple companies, sometimes at once, on an ongoing basis. Do you only want just one friend? People tend to have multiple romantic/sexual entanglements, sometimes at once, but generally more than one over a lifetime.
I think this can be a useful maxim to get you to the next day, but in reality it takes a lot more than one of anything for a fulfilling life. We grow and change and need novelty. We are held in a web of interdependent, ever-shifting relationships - with people, businesses, material goods, ecology. I think that generally people are seeking connection in a broader sphere. To be held in community, to have multiple significant identities (mother/wife/boss), to live in richness and abundance where any one thing is not make or break.
> in reality it takes a lot more than one of anything for a fulfilling life
We seem to view "reality" through different lenses. I've usually found "one" to be a magic number; as long as it's the "right one." That's the gist of what he's saying.
In my experience, needing more than one, often signals issues that need closer examination.
In my community, we have a joke: "An addict is someone that needs two One-A-Days."
Do you really think that is what the author meant? They're not saying "you only need 1". They're talking about going from 0 to 1. It's sometimes a long and arduous 0. Your framing doesn't help someone trying to get from 0 to 1. Once they're at 1 though, sure. But getting there can feel helpless, and that's what this post is about.
We can try to walk in 10-20 directions at the same time and move a tiny direction all, or none.
Or we can realize we have some things to learn that we will learn no matter whether we pick the startup, or job to learn transferrable skills and also become better well rounded.
It's also interesting to consider that we are such adaptative creatures that we will likely settle to a similar level of happiness no matter what the choice.
Purely poetic advice. If the local economy collapses, you will very much want to move. There's still a 50% chance the first spouse doesn't hold up until death. There are many schools that give out degrees that aren't worth a wooden frame in today's job market.
While it’s true that all we need is one to work out, in general we strive to be in positions where we have multiple options, not just hinging everything on one passing chance. Life is less stressful that way, and that’s why people today feel like they are under so much pressure and have little choice over how their lives unfold.
Why are so many people in this thread purposefully misinterpreting the post so they can criticize it? The author obviously doesn't mean you only need one thing per domain to work out in your lifetime, but the present. I.e you don't need two girlfriends at once, even though you might have multiple relationships throughout your life...
This is why having a safety net and resources to try again is so powerful. Given enough chances you will make it, big. That means the #1 factor in success is the number of chances you get to fail and try again, not necessarily how inherently good you are. I try to remind myself of this often. I have been given so many chances, and I took them.
I thought HN is supposed to upvote articles that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity. Does this article gratify intellectual curiosity? I don't understand why these shallow feel-good articles devoid of any intellectual curiosity always get upvoted to the top! There are so many high effort, substantive articles at https://news.ycombinator.com/newest that nobody upvotes!
I'm confused. This just seems like feel-good bullshit advice that only works for people in extremely good circumstances.
There's a false equivalence between -
“All it takes is for one to work out.”
and the following:
- "You don’t need every job to choose you. You just need the one that’s the right fit."
- "You don’t need every house to accept your offer. You just need the one that feels like home. "
The latter assumes that _every_ attempt you make has a chance at being "the right fit", "the one that feels like home". That is not the way things works for 99% of us.
The “one that works out” can also give you a misrepresentation of how the world works and a false sense of how lucky one should expect to be over a long period of time.
At an earlier point in my life, I had been applying to many well-known big tech companies right out of school (not a top school either). I never got a reply from any of them so I ended up accepting a local job with a non-tech company after months of searching.
But I didn’t give up my hopes and kept applying to big tech, and while I did manage to get the occasional interview with some mediocre companies or the random startup, I also miserably failed all of them too.
At some point during my long period of despair at never getting a better job, my very top pick (and arguably one of the best tech companies in the world at the time) reached out to me. Even more miraculously, I somehow passed their interview (the only tech interview I passed in the prior year) and accepted a job there.
I really enjoyed working there. Some of the best years of my life. And my performance reviews were great too, so the imposter syndrome from having failed so many tech job interviews sort of faded into the background. But after a while, perhaps due to the “hedonic treadmill” mentality, I thought I could do better. So I left to join a startup.
Well, the startup failed, as startups tend to do, but what I didn’t expect and what caught me off guard was that I was now back in the same situation I was in right after graduating from college. Don’t get me wrong—having “the name” on my resume now meant I could get at least one chance at an interview about anywhere. But much like the first round that I tried to forget about, I once again failed all the interviews.
Unfortunately, this second time around never procured a “get out of jail free” card.
So I guess my lesson is: 1) there’s a lot of luck involved in these things, 2) if life gives you a winning lottery ticket at some point, don’t throw it away for the chance to win an even bigger lottery, and 3) that famous saying about “the only actions regretted are those not taken” is absolutely, totally wrong—almost all of my regrets in life relate to taking some action I shouldn’t have rather than inaction.
There was a time 10-15 years ago when there was a lot of discussion (including here on hn) on whether it's best to stay at a fang job or join a startup. It was basically a choice between making millions at a steady but intellectually unrewarding job or risking it all at a fun startup.
“All it takes is for one to work out.” is not the same as "You just need the one [job] that’s the right fit." or "You just need the one [house] that feels like home." or "You just need the one [life partner]."
Author's examples are, spiritually, the opposite of their friend's advice - in fact, "all it takes is for one to work out" is something often said to people who lost hope because they got lost being too picky.
On a much less optimistic dark humor note, this is the same argument in If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies about a superintelligent AI emerging and being a threat to humans.
This is a great approach! After every opportunity that closed on me another arose, and it always was the better one.
Through these experiences I totally agree, and try to apply it to life, but it's hard, even knowing that it's true. How cool is it for every college, person, job offer, scholarship to want you?
Even though we're looking just for "the one" it's very hard for me to mitigate the feeling of getting rejected, even knowing it was not "the one". Rejection generally hurts, when you care about the goal
Taking a break from studying for my interview in two days at a FANG company, I checked Hacker News and this article was at the top. I've been studying for this interview harder than any of the others in the past. I feel well-prepared, but there's always the luck factor. I hope this is a sign that this interview will be the one to work out!
96 comments
[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 230 ms ] threadIf I gamble and try 10 times and win once - I have probably lost money.
Even if I interview 10 times and fail 9, I’ve learned something from each interview and I’ve gotten better. That’s also not true from rolling dice.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBluLfX2F_k
What do you do if the job that makes you an offer doesn't excite you? What if the house that feels like home needs more repairs than you can afford? What if the program that accepts you has crappy funding? What if the person who chooses you has red flags?
Do you say "screw it," cross your fingers, and walk through the door that kind of sucks? Or do you keep looking as long as your resources last you?
Specifics, about the job and yourself, matter. If you feel like sharing, this is a pretty good community with good instincts.
The magic in "all it takes is for one to work out" is in the strength it gives you to keep trying. Trying something that might fail is hard, even when we know that trying is the right thing to do.
So when you say, ‘kinda sucks’, perhaps ask if the opinion is grounded in (your) reality?
Once recalibrated to accept that what we are in, is inescapable true life, then we stop looking for something better, and instead focus on the challenge of making it better than it should naturally be.
Happiness I believe, is a decision, we choose it when we feel it’s a sustainable perspective. I think it’s sustainable to allow ourselves to be happy, whenever we achieve marginal improvement on what is natural.
Applicable not just for grad school applications, but also to job apps, startups, and relationships.
Hang in there y'all, all it takes is for one to work out. Keep working hard, kings & queens.
I think this can be a useful maxim to get you to the next day, but in reality it takes a lot more than one of anything for a fulfilling life. We grow and change and need novelty. We are held in a web of interdependent, ever-shifting relationships - with people, businesses, material goods, ecology. I think that generally people are seeking connection in a broader sphere. To be held in community, to have multiple significant identities (mother/wife/boss), to live in richness and abundance where any one thing is not make or break.
We seem to view "reality" through different lenses. I've usually found "one" to be a magic number; as long as it's the "right one." That's the gist of what he's saying.
In my experience, needing more than one, often signals issues that need closer examination.
In my community, we have a joke: "An addict is someone that needs two One-A-Days."
Or we can realize we have some things to learn that we will learn no matter whether we pick the startup, or job to learn transferrable skills and also become better well rounded.
Sheesh. HN is grumpy today.
All it takes, is for one to work out.
There's a false equivalence between -
“All it takes is for one to work out.”
and the following:
- "You don’t need every job to choose you. You just need the one that’s the right fit."
- "You don’t need every house to accept your offer. You just need the one that feels like home. "
The latter assumes that _every_ attempt you make has a chance at being "the right fit", "the one that feels like home". That is not the way things works for 99% of us.
At an earlier point in my life, I had been applying to many well-known big tech companies right out of school (not a top school either). I never got a reply from any of them so I ended up accepting a local job with a non-tech company after months of searching.
But I didn’t give up my hopes and kept applying to big tech, and while I did manage to get the occasional interview with some mediocre companies or the random startup, I also miserably failed all of them too.
At some point during my long period of despair at never getting a better job, my very top pick (and arguably one of the best tech companies in the world at the time) reached out to me. Even more miraculously, I somehow passed their interview (the only tech interview I passed in the prior year) and accepted a job there.
I really enjoyed working there. Some of the best years of my life. And my performance reviews were great too, so the imposter syndrome from having failed so many tech job interviews sort of faded into the background. But after a while, perhaps due to the “hedonic treadmill” mentality, I thought I could do better. So I left to join a startup.
Well, the startup failed, as startups tend to do, but what I didn’t expect and what caught me off guard was that I was now back in the same situation I was in right after graduating from college. Don’t get me wrong—having “the name” on my resume now meant I could get at least one chance at an interview about anywhere. But much like the first round that I tried to forget about, I once again failed all the interviews.
Unfortunately, this second time around never procured a “get out of jail free” card.
So I guess my lesson is: 1) there’s a lot of luck involved in these things, 2) if life gives you a winning lottery ticket at some point, don’t throw it away for the chance to win an even bigger lottery, and 3) that famous saying about “the only actions regretted are those not taken” is absolutely, totally wrong—almost all of my regrets in life relate to taking some action I shouldn’t have rather than inaction.
“All it takes is for one to work out.” is not the same as "You just need the one [job] that’s the right fit." or "You just need the one [house] that feels like home." or "You just need the one [life partner]."
Author's examples are, spiritually, the opposite of their friend's advice - in fact, "all it takes is for one to work out" is something often said to people who lost hope because they got lost being too picky.
If you're never done growing, you're never done peaking, nor ever really done trying.
One working out can lead to the next way.
Wishing everyone well who this piece resonated with.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_Anyone_Builds_It,_Everyone_...
Through these experiences I totally agree, and try to apply it to life, but it's hard, even knowing that it's true. How cool is it for every college, person, job offer, scholarship to want you?
Even though we're looking just for "the one" it's very hard for me to mitigate the feeling of getting rejected, even knowing it was not "the one". Rejection generally hurts, when you care about the goal