[senko]

Sadly it often takes a devastating life event to make us rethink our position and priorities in life.

We work to live, not live to work, and don't you let any overachieving founder mode startup bro sell you otherwise.

Sorry for the author's loss.

[rthrth45y]

We work to survive, I would not call this living for the vast majority of us. There is no possibility of re-assessing our priorities because not working is death. Anyone that has the ability to re-asses their priorities can only do so from a place of extreme privilege that most will never have access to. Plenty people with a cancer diagnoses just die because they cant afford any other option.

[Ctyra]

Exactly this. I have seen this a lot of the times first hand.

[jajko]

Most of the time, those over-achievers from the outside lead a very unhappy, constantly unfulfilled life. I've met few of those up close (former girlfriends, close friends) and oh boy its a sad view once you see full picture. Success is never really enjoyed for long, there is always next target to chase. Close people around suffer accordingly.

Then when you know what signs to look for, you see it a lot more among those 'very successful'.

There is one success for me - living a good life that one is happy to have lived when looking back old/dying. Good, sometimes hard moral choices instead of less moral shortcuts. A lot of people put themselves a lot of such baggage over years and from young happy folks they are grumpy envious older ones (there are many more reasons for such of course). Whatever such success means to you, all the power to you. For most of us, work achievement are pretty low in that list, so look for success elsewhere in life.

[jebarker]

From experience, I can say that If you were conditioned from a young age to believe that achievement and status were important in life it’s an incredibly hard instinct to let go of. You’re totally right that it’s damaging for those around you and can lead to bitterness as you age. It’s something I have to grapple with everyday and it’s exhausting.

[parpfish]

I think this is a curse that gets inflicted on far too many “gifted” children. While young they get lots of praise for their accomplishments and outcomes and it can drown out any intrinsic motivation to do things that make them happy.

[jebarker]

Exactly, and well put. I have a hard time identifying those things that really make me happy without any external influence and an even harder time comfortably sitting with the idea that objective of my life should be personal happiness.

[mlhpdx]

> Most of the time, those over-achievers from the outside lead a very unhappy, constantly unfulfilled life.

Common, yes, but “most” is a great exaggeration in my experience.

I am surrounded by people who have or are achieving above a standard deviation from the mean (completely qualitative). They are just regular people who happen to thrive on their projects (work or personal).

I don’t know why or how our experiences can be so different.

[sokoloff]

> Success is never really enjoyed for long, there is always next target to chase.

That's a reason to carefully choose the next target, but frankly sounds awesome to me.

I don't want to sit around and luxuriate recalling past successes that I'll never repeat. I'd much rather savor that for a short time and then set off for whatever is next in my short life.

[rectang]

I quit a gig that was great in a lot of ways — great product, great peers, great potential — primarily because of of an "overachieving founder mode startup" individual. This person was exquisitely talented and inspiring but ultimately the only way to participate in the company was to overdrive yourself to the point of misery.

I stayed longer than perhaps I might have because that person was young enough to learn and change. And they definitely learned and changed over time, but not the lessons I thought they should learn. This doesn't make the direction they took objectively wrong, but eventually I and all the engineering peers I valued bailed out.

It was frustrating because I remain convinced it didn't have to turn out the way that it did. But leaving was absolutely the right thing to do and I'm much happier now.

[copperx]

> It was frustrating because I remain convinced it didn't have to turn out the way that it did.

That's the curse of the optimist. You may be an optimist at heart.