[pavlov]

Thanks, I genuinely appreciate the sentiment.

My earlier reply was kind of blunt. My point was probably that one shouldn’t expect to solve personal issues by waiting for a turn in career or skills development. I lucked out in an unexpected way that put me in the 1%, with skills that happen to be in demand in the current frothy VC environment, and yet my emotional problems are exactly the same as ten years ago. Turns out it’s entirely orthogonal.

[tomcam]

Wow, what a story. I never really lucked out. I am naturally good at absolutely nothing. Everything I do requires a ridiculous amount of effort and a hideously ugly learning process. It is literally embarrassing. Also I just fail a lot. I think maybe this makes the successes a little bit sweeter?

[CTDOCodebases]

You are 100% right. Gaining a skill can lead to more social interaction (and/or a higher social status) but if you don’t have the skills to build and maintain personal relationships the extra interaction/status is wasted.