While this is true, there are simply so many problems that need solving and too few humans to solve them, which makes it not too hard to do well in life. Luckily, life isn’t a zero sum game unlike video games.
This is a ridiculously defeatist attitude, and the quicker you can drop it the better off you'll be.
If video games are the subject the attitude should be am I having fun, not am I getting better. Some people can make money at playing games (both video and otherwise), but most people need to be okay with doing it for fun and never being world class.
This discounts the long-term benefits of learning to derive pleasure from the progression of your own skills and abilities.
Fair point. Pleasure is the goal
> Essentially the internconnectedness of everything is making it hard to find the niches you speak of. There's always someone who loves his job so much and works at it so much that he defines the meta, so to say. This is a problem in computer science, even.
Then, seek out those people and work with them. Computing is collaborative. It's rather difficult (and unnecessary!) to create anything meaningful entirely by yourself.
Re:Being OK with not being extraordinary
by rimjongun on Monday August 24, 2020 @08:30PM
(#24267040)
This comment really spoke to me
Re:Being OK with not being extraordinary
by cableshaft on Tuesday August 25, 2020 @06:54PM
(#24277224)
The video game analogy seems apt to me, and helped me realize why I might be struggling (as a bit of a generalist) more than others in my career. I'm not putting in as much of the work in beefing up my skills as I can easily see when I play others in video games.
Going with the videogame focus, if you ever play competitive games you actually see how brutal it can be. In Overwatch for example you have an absolute mountain to climb in ranked because you can't just improve, you have to improve above average to increase your rank. This means a lot of people are getting better at the game over time but are going down in ranking simply because everyone else is getting better faster.
Essentially the internconnectedness of everything is making it hard to find the niches you speak of. There's always someone who loves his job so much and works at it so much that he defines the meta, so to say. This is a problem in computer science, even.