Re:The last day
by vidarh on Thursday November 22, 2012 @04:29AM
(#4818119)
It's disconcerting how many people didn't get the point of your comment.
I've had failed startups too. For my first one I ended up paying out of my own pocket, to tidy things up in an orderly fashion, and I and my cofounders all took up a (reasonably small) loan to pay back some other debts. It sucked. It hurt. I've certainly at times have felt like nobody could know my pain too.
But then the following week we went to work at our new employer, found for us by our original investors lawyer, at a salary 3 times what we'd been able to afford to pay ourselves at our startup.
Was my pain not real despite the obvious privilege of being in a position where I could call on people to find me a job making substantially above the national average before we'd even wound down, at the age of 22? Of course not.
But there's a vast difference between feeling like that for a bit vs descending into self pity and whining when one is in a situation where even a moments reflection about the position one is in would show that you're in a position vastly better than most, and that indeed there probably are billions out there that have known pain just as bad or worse.
I don't understand why so many reacts so strongly to this perspective.
I've had failed startups too. For my first one I ended up paying out of my own pocket, to tidy things up in an orderly fashion, and I and my cofounders all took up a (reasonably small) loan to pay back some other debts. It sucked. It hurt. I've certainly at times have felt like nobody could know my pain too.
But then the following week we went to work at our new employer, found for us by our original investors lawyer, at a salary 3 times what we'd been able to afford to pay ourselves at our startup.
Was my pain not real despite the obvious privilege of being in a position where I could call on people to find me a job making substantially above the national average before we'd even wound down, at the age of 22? Of course not.
But there's a vast difference between feeling like that for a bit vs descending into self pity and whining when one is in a situation where even a moments reflection about the position one is in would show that you're in a position vastly better than most, and that indeed there probably are billions out there that have known pain just as bad or worse.
I don't understand why so many reacts so strongly to this perspective.