I stopped counting the number of times they mentioned that they considered themselves stupid. There is so much negative and toxic self critic in this post that my feeling is that this is the biggest most fundamental issue that I would look at tackling.
Once you can sit in a room by yourself and be truly happy with your own company go and be open to relationships - but not before - otherwise you're back to square one but only worse because now you have an additional reason that you will use to justify your self hate. Love yourself first. Out of that love maybe you find somebody maybe not. It doesn't matter. Out of that maybe kids can happen - or not. If you ask your partner (or worse your kids) to fix you eventually it will all come back to you. You gotta do that work in the end by yourself. Anything else is cheating.
In my life, kids helped me relearn what it was like to be young.
It took me a number of years to realise I had bad depression / anhedonia.
My kids helped my focus on what was important.
I accepted myself for who I am and was able to feel happy again. My kids think I'm the great wizard with technology, even if I'm considered average.
Message to OP
We can't all be famous or the best at something. We don't all have eidetic memories. You will meet those savant like personalities and they will skew your view of the world, to think that you are not capable by comparing.
Stop comparing.
You can do great things. The greatest achievement is to live a long life and to challenge yourself. Be the best you can be. Accept your limits. Use your ability to help others and take joy in that.
If you can't be Einstein or Tesla, take pride in being part of their journey.
No one will remember us. This is the norm.
The answer is people who don't know the real you. Would anyone love you if they saw a clip show of all the lies, betrayal, hypocrisy, times you yelled at your family, embarrassing fails, wasted potential, etc. But for many of us that clip show plays daily in our heads as a reminder to stop being so shitty and it comes at the price of our self-esteem.
My kids taught me both these lessons.
This. OP sounds like a great candidate for counseling/therapy from a psychologist who is a licensed counselor. It sometimes takes a few tries to find the right one, but it is worth the effort.
I suspect they'll remember me forever.
Laughed out loud at that. Funny because it's so true.
For me personally it didn't stop me from wanting to achieve something in my life. Which I realize only partly overlaps with wanting to change the world. It was impactful nevertheless and I'm sure my kids will remember me :-)
Does that mean we oldies should be okay with tech employers showing a preference for young workforce?
I almost feel it is a happier life to have lived like a nobody. I can relate to the OP because I feel exactly like him many times. But then I remind myself that we are all stardust and there is inherently no purpose to life. Somehow that makes me feel very calm.
Not too long after, we had our second daughter. We very quickly realized that the answer to the question was “you just do”.
At least for me, I also realized our second daughter got less attention/coddling, but turned out just as great/spirited/happy.
Sometimes, I recognize that I hold myself to an unrealistically high standard/expectation. While setting the bar high can help one accomplish great things, but can also leave them feeling like they never measure up to their unreasonably high standards.
Kids are a lot of work for sure and require a lot of sacrifice. However, I hope you don’t avoid having kids because you don’t think you can be a good enough parent. The fact you are worried about it is already a sign, in my book, you’d make a pretty great and thoughtful parent.
Eat, shit, sleep, reproduce, die. Living being 101.
But the main thing about having kids is that you will not have time to think about how your life sucks anymore. Probably better than taking drugs to achieve the same result.
s/to think about how your life sucks/to ingest content that convinces you that your life sucks/gi
I know you are trying to be helpful but this is probably not a good answer. I don;t think we know enough about his background to be recommending such a major life choice. Although each kid is unique, there is nothing unique about having them.
As for me it was...I got silver medal there, but I would have given it away easily for being able to date one of the many hot hostesses on the competition. My life would have been so much easier if I just spend my life in the gym instead of solving math and programming problems.
Also going to the gym is pretty easy, so if you know “the path to happiness” why not just take it?
I'm doing it but I'm 40 and the gains are not the same...my girlfriend left me for a younger and much stronger guy (and no, just younger wasn't enough in itself). Also in the 90s whenever I asked a girl if she likes muscular guys, they usually answered ,,not that much''. They are much more open nowdays about what they want from a man than 20 years ago.
"You get to read to kill a mockingbird." when he says it is hilarious and I often remember that when moments seem shitty.
In fact, one might suspect that you're more likely to find moderately gifted individuals at the top levels of success than very talented ones.
From the micro point of view, a talented individual has a greater a priori probability of reaching a high level of success than a moderately gifted one. However, from the macro point of view of the entire society, the probability of finding moderately gifted individuals at the top levels of success is greater than that of finding there very talented ones, because moderately gifted people are much more numerous and, with the help of luck, have globally a statistical advantage to reach a great success, in spite of their lower individual a priori probability.
Given that 100% - `0.0001%` of people are basically average and judging by my Internet most of the people have a very pessimistic outlook on life and the future, is it really fair to have children?
If they don't, by slim chance, become that one in a million that just breezes through life ... they will become as pessimistic as we are ... and at some point they will find that their only contribution is having kids on their own.
(Disclaimer: I am not anti-kids, I/we always planned on having some, but as we are barely making ends meet it has never really been a good time and now we are in our mid-30s and time is running out)
If you measure yourself by someone else's yardstick, you'll always fall short.
I couldn't, not just because of the disability, But I'm easily bored and I need 12 parallel side projects to escape reality and I envy those who seem live carefree, doing what they're told and most importantly - living in the present.
So OP, there's no point in comparing with others be it smart or dumb from one's perspective. There are people who envy your lifestyle. Social media oversells the value of 'being known', I'm certain many in the top-tier of being known would rather wish they were unknown.
On average our society would prostrate to corrupt politicians, immoral celebrities or new age celeb-billionaires but would treat a homeless musician who makes little money without cheating or hurting anyone with disgust. Many put up a facade to keep up with this society, but for the sake of our mental well-being it's good to remove the facade every now and then.
There is the only way: go to a doctor. Books don't help much.
Have a good one!
Great recommendation to a man who is bipolar and have a schizoactive disorder.
I find comfort in that I am not alone, thinking of all the peasants and regular workers across history who didn't amount to much either, but still mostly fought on and had a good life. Plenty of examples in immediate family as well.
And lastly, I found that there is one thing that one can do that is absolutely unique that nobody can match anywhere in the world, and that is - as corny as this sounds - kids. It may be a touchy subject or not for everybody. But raising a human with the best possible effort you can muster is an accomplishment at least one person will remember and value 100000x more vs. any world champion in solving IOI problems or writing clever functional code :-)