I always try to keep this Alan Watts quote in mind: “The meaning of life is just to be alive. It is so plain and so obvious and so simple. And yet, everybody rushes around in a great panic as if it were necessary to achieve something beyond themselves.”
If you set your bar too low, you will never surprise yourself with doing what your previous self deemed impossible, but what your current self managed to do.
Most people I meet can do a lot more, by my assessment, than they think they are capable of. Their own thinking then hinders them from trying, and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy.
The trick is to keep a positive-curious attitude about it "let's see if I can" rather than obsessing about others and comparing. Comparing is superficial (people who want to boast do it a lot), and never apples-to-apples, as no-one has the same starting point (parent connections, wealth, genetic disposition/talent etc.).
Folks, like you say, come from a wide variety of backgrounds and experiences. Those who you think could do more, likely have experienced some "reason" behind their current situation or achievements (trauma, immediate concerns of taking care of family, etc).
And so, unfortunately, not everyone has the ability or opportunity to adopt a positive-curious attitude. I will say that such an attitude does tend to arise when coming from a safe / secure background (loving parents, a safety net, etc.). It can arise without those things, but no guarantees either way I suppose.
I'm getting to the point where I can myself, but it's been a struggle of getting to the point of feeling safe financially. My own situation is unique, no familial support (more the opposite truly), a need to provide enough for myself (I have chronic conditions). And thus while I'd like to "achieve", I must balance that with "survive". One day I'd like to do more, and I believe I'll get there. Fingers crossed.
I too used to think setting a high bar was the way to get there. Maybe at the start it is.
But then, when I consistently reached beyond what I was capable of, the cost of downfall became overwhelming. After years of that, I couldn’t get back up again.
Then I asked a new question:
What if I let go of “should?”
The justifications for taking action were masking something very beautiful.
When the “should” is gone, what’s left is intrinsic motivation.
Turns out I’m curious & love trying new things. I also attract people like that & enjoy hanging out with them.
Now I’m doing the most impactful work of my life, but with much less pressure on myself.
Sometimes I worry about all the things I didn’t do that I thought I would. Rather than turn that into “I’ll get back on track” I simply acknowledge that I’m feeling sad & experiencing some fear about the meaning of my life.
The gift I get in return:
I can be open with my team that I feel afraid, breath, and refocus on enjoying the day.
But it's a fair point! Our aspirational goals are influenced by what we believe is possible, and that's amazingly contextual. What we're lead to believe is possible changes what we believe should be possible for us, and that changes the standards we set for ourselves.
It's not a career path I'm shooting for, but if you made me Google CEO tomorrow I doubt lack of purpose would be an issue.
The experiences as a CEO of a large company seem much more interesting, and you get to hire a team of experts working on those cures (or whatever floats your Boaty McBoatface).
I've always found your technical talks, blog write-ups, and mailing list posts to be interesting and educating. And thank you for all the work you did, and do, in the various FOSS communities — that's already a significant impact for the better.
PS: It was a pleasure to interact with you at a few Linux Foundation events. I still remember the Edinburgh speaker event (2018, IIRC) where you've regaled us with some interesting "security incident" stories :-).
There's nothing that's stopping you from creating that first personal project, which other people eventually care about.
this is probably the best advice i've read so far. Think about how, when faced with a hard technical problem, an SME is a treasure trove of answers. A good therapist is an SME in this problem space.
And maybe because of that, I'm pretty ok with things? Every day I'm aware that I could do more. I know people who could take over my job right now who are 15 years younger than me. And that's ok, because I have achieved so much more than ever seemed possible to me as a teenager, and every time I stare out the window and realise I'm in San Francisco and part of the industry that was so far away when I was growing up I have to take a moment to come to terms with the fact that this is actually reality.
I know this article is satire, but I also know that many people hold themselves against standards that are not realistic. Almost none of us have achieved everything that we could be, and that's just fine. If you're spending a lot of time troubled by the fact that you feel like you're falling short of your potential then this is a great time to find a therapist who can help you work through that. It's ok to want more than you have, but if you're objectively in a basically good place then you really shouldn't be constantly aware of that in a negative way. I'm at peace with the fact that I'm never going to found the next unicorn company or be CEO of Google or even write some software that a lot of people care about. Let's be kind to each other and ourselves about what we've achieved, rather than holding ourselves to a model of what we could theoretically be if literally everything had gone our way.