It doesn't feel good to be average at everything.

Life is depressing

I can't commit to anything hard enough to become the best.

Programming
Singing
Drawing
Story making
Sports

I'm just average.
I feel bad
I feel like I'm a waste of resources.

I'm tired of ranting.
This life is just tiring.
I don't have the patience

I'm average at commitments.
Time management

I see other people code and sing better than me and feel demotivated

I feel like jumping of a cliff cause no matter what I do, there's someone light years ahead of me.

I'm not even unique
Ultimately that's probably what I want.
To be irreplaceable.

I guess in this struggle to be relevant I'm gonna lose myself and if I do get there, I might not be as happy anyways.

So what's the point to all this

Get over it. You can't be perfect at everything. The fewer things you do, the better you are at each one.

@gudishvibes ha, I'm pseudo-fortunate to be average at executions. So I'm pretty sure i'm not jumping off anytime soon

@kamen that's right but I'm interested in so many things. I tend to have fun most times, though there's always a road block you'll need focus and experience to crossover, Where fun ends and profession begins. This hard fact about life is depressing.

There isn't enough time to be great at many things.

@irene I think I'm the same though. I've been lazing off a lot due to these thoughts. 'what's the point?', I just give up and watch Netflix or something.

Which is why I mentioned I'm average at commitments or more generally hard work

@irene well isn't it better?😅
You don't need to constantly feel bad for avoiding your commitment

@irene well we share equal grounds then. Unless you like feeling bad.. I'm probably an alien or something but sometimes I appreciate that emptiness idk why. I might have that whatever self loathing pleasuring syndrome a tad bit.

Being average on many things means you can switch around.

Being a god on one thing means its the only thing you get to do.

Some like to do the same thing always, many do not.

Being a jack of all also can be good in the long run as you run less risk of being obsolete when the industry changes and you probably are better at adapting to something new.

Find solace in that you have many options.

@Voxera if I implied being master of one is what I want I'm sorry. That's not what I want, it's sad and boring. I want to do multiple things and be good at them to the extent where I'm not looked down upon.

Maybe not the best but I definitely don't want to be average at everything.
I want to have fun doing multiple things and at the same time I have to do them well and good.

I can draw all I want and have fun but the result would probably not please even the most considerate monkey on the planet

Ultimately it's that skill where what you make speaks for itself. Like it has a life. If my work can't do that. I'm average.

I prefer being average. Fewer expectations. Less disappointment when you fail, which everyone does from time to time. They didn't mean we don't try to excel, we just live life and chill if we don't do something spectacular.

this reminds me of my first post? written a month ago https://devrant.com/rants/2023136/...

I feel much the same, but it helped me a lot to realize (mostly through interviews from those people) that the people I look up to, and I think are "better than me" are feeling the same about their skills. Everyone does. There is no "I am the best", there will never be. And if you think you're the best, it gets boring pretty quickly.

I just try my best, while always thinking I'm not good. But when I then get good feedback from people I honor (say my boss or friends) for something I built, my ego gets up a bit. It is not necessarily a bad thing to always strive for perfection, even if it can be demotivating a lot of times.

Comparing oneself to others is only good for self criticism, never as a goal delimiter.

If you see others doing something better than you then learn how to achieve that status. Reach out to those that are non toxic in regards to sharing knowledge and technique and learn from them, make their skill your own.

But above all, make YOU be your first and only audience in everything you do. You do everything to impress yourself first and foremost, being the most anal critic you can be! The rest will follow suite.

Find peace in your skills man.

@erandria lol bloody hell, yeah most of what you said matches up. I'm still 20 though :P

that's why people always say that you shouldn't compare yourself to others. there's always going to be someone better than you. instead, try to focus on how far you've come already and only be better than your past self

@FrodoSwaggins
1. Definitely
2. I'm average from my perspective, so there's a certain quality of the best that I want to exceed for certain reasons. Best would widely vary based on opinion. I just want the general confidence of being able to challenge the "best" from my perspective.
3. Yep good point, I'm judging myself based on my yardstick. I don't care what other people think generally, so this was all me against me to begin with.
4. Well I'm not all that bad with my emotions. I just don't qualify certain levels I've learned to impose on myself. For example : What's the point in developing an app, that even I don't use or find boring. Lately I've been judging myself harshly to maybe motivate myself. However this has done the opposite. I lost my will power.
Perhaps I should stop judging myself too ? But then, How would I know if I'm not good though ?
6.literally what I've been doing but I guess what you mean is don't compare, probably I'll just compare with my past progress

I don't expect my comment to be helpful for you, because I barely know you, aside from what you just described. In spite of that, I hope it is.

You have the spark of wanting to be excellent, which I thoroughly appreciate. Ironically, that thirst for greatness can destroy your emotions.

Instead of telling you that your feelings are incorrect or irrational (which won't change anything either way), I'll just tell you to embrace it, to handle it.

Nothing else than examining yourself, and asking yourself questions. Look for answers.
Look for ways to get better. If you think you're not getting better, try to understand why.

But also, focus in other people's problems, empathize.
I found that listening to other people made me a lot worried about me.

Ranting here has helped me a lot with my emotions, because I feel that people care.
You say you're sad, and people try to cheer you up.
You say you had a victory, and people celebrate with you.
And in both cases they ++.

Being a good person has been crucial to me for becoming a better developer.

Because I learned a lot when socializing with others.
When helping, when getting helped.

Take care of your emotions, you can't be great if you're depressed/anxious.
Have a non work hobby, meditate, drop porn, exercise, eat well.
These are tips that could help you or just be total BS, it's up to you to tell.

While the the saying of "you need 10000 hours to be good at something" is BS, you still need a shitload of hours. In the meantime, you'll probably suck ass.
Embrace the suckiness, embrace the fact that you're not a prodigy who graduated at 15. Giggle at your suckiness (with others it's even better). A while is going to pass until it stops.

(I meant to say "a lot less worried" in the previous comment)

I don't know you very well, but you don't seem to strike me as bad in any way. Lowest denominator in this industry to me is the whole "can't grow some skin, ew foul language" and people who ask the most innately stupid questions and proceed to suck the energy out of whoever responds. You know the kind.. how to hek de fasbuk sar ._.

You don't seem to strike me as someone like that at all. On the other end there's prodigies like Jobs, Wozniak and Gates. They're a tiny fraction, less than .01% of the industry. And I bet that they feel alone at times. I don't think it would be fun. Average is fun. Average means you've got a lot of people around you with similar but varying skillsets. Company is an amazing thing to have.

As for people to look up to.. I've said it before and I'll probably say it again but I really look up to @Linux when it comes to system administration and @7400 and @Fast-Nop when it comes to electronics. I think they're way better at these things than I am. With that said.. looking up is fine, comparing.. not really. I'm trying to be a jack of all trades, master of none really. Average at everything. And I don't think there's anything wrong with that 🙂

Simply put, embrace the average and find peers to talk to, and enrich yourself with. And look at those more experienced than you as skill points you might want to achieve one day, but don't compare yourself to them. You're only 20 after all. There's a whole life still in front of you.

Speaking of average 20-year old.. lots of 20-year olds in my area are annoying shits that only got themselves to work as a cashier or bartenders or whatever. Being a developer (whether or not with an existing career, I don't know) is actually not so average I'd say!

Comparing yourself to others is rooted deeply in our biology (at least I'd bet it is) as the resulting ambition is very useful for a flock of humans to make the most of their lifetime. In our time, the mass of people you can compare yourself to is unprecedented, while you get less information about each individual. You'll only see the best side, maybe because others only relay the great achievements of someone to you, maybe because they know to only show the positive side in public. Subconciously, you compare yourself to the union of all these great achievements of lots of people as if they were done by a single super-human. Don't forget that this super-human doesn't exist and every trait you project to it belongs to someone with a whole personality, and with lots of things they are bad at. I think Plato's quote “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a harder battle” applies here as well. Be kind to yourself! Nobody is the perfect human you might subconciously think they are.

@Condor: Well, you're clearly the better ranter, though ;)

Oh my... so many long comments, I am not in the mood to read them all so I apologize if I say something that's been already said and I would also like to apologize for any mistakes, I am half asleep and English is not my first language... ok, here we go:
At times I feel the same but then I realize that there is always something new to try that I could be really good at and there are also things that I'm good at but I don't realize it.
You mentioned singing... I actually always thought that my singing was really bad and other people were like, no don't sing but when I did they were just like: Oh, that's actually nice, you can sing :o ...but I figured out it was only because I had musical hearing so I heard when I sang a false note and I could teach myself which notes to sing. I still have musical hearing but I find that my voice is not as flexible as I would like it to be so just returned back to playing instruments. Have you tried playing a musical instrument instead of singing? I tried many instruments that I liked at first but then disliked them later but a few months back I decided to buy a ukulele because I really liked the sound of it and I've been self-teaching myself how to play it and I am getting better every day. I am not a good or experienced player by any means, I am just a beginner (although the fact that I can already play other musical instruments, namely the recorder, piano and drums might have helped) but I'm getting better and that's what's so beautiful about it and it's what motivates me and keeps me going.

@bytecode I use Smule a lot. usually sing a lot of Japanese stuff, I do get appreciated more often than in real. (I can't sing in front of anyone, it's a mental block..). Though looking at others like I mentioned helps me realize where I stand and makes it less fun cause I know I'm not as good. I feel like I probably never will be. It's kinda like a birth talent, singing... Yeah sure you can practice and get better, but only when you're younger and your voice is developing. Beyond that and there's only a certain level that can be reached.. I find that depressing cause I can never get further than a certain limit.

@Condor
Well put man, You're really wise. Thanks for your time.

I'll still rank myself as average but my peers... Nope they're worse off just wasting time on their addictions and stuff. They're busy setting the low bar. I don't have any direct people to ask advice from. This is amazing though, I'd be an egoistic bitch if not for the internet. I found out just how many people exist that are doing things far superior to what I do. I'd only scratched the surface and these guys are deep in doing stuff I can't even comprehend.

However, I can't make ready contact with any of these better people and even if I do most people are bad at giving advice or are flat out lazy.

Did I mention how crap my attention span has become due to all the stress ? I know what books to read to get better and stuff but it stops at that. I just cannot dive into it.
That's why others are not average, amazing will power and stress management separates the
averagers from the good.

@Condor
I'm alone even at average. most people focus on master of one around me. (They don't really accomplish that either, they stop where the money satisfies them).

I can definitely look upto people on devrant and stuff, but since contact is limited I'd get a false sense of skill separation probably.

I'd sometimes see work by people of my age that I can't even begin to understand.

I think it all comes down to my average will power. I start stuff that I can never hope to finish. I don't know why.

When I look deeper in me and the reason why I do things, I often feel scared that I'm not motivated by passion and probably by more stupid reasons.

@Nanos That's pretty amazing wood work there, you're able to create something that does the job. Any further would be for more convenience and extra aesthetics. The way I see it, you're among the better ones at what you do.

@erandria I do look into myself a lot more than normal people, that's probably where I got the whole anxiety issue from. It's usually health but the more severe and silent anxiety has to do with my performance in stuff I do.

I procrastinate a lot
I have a shitty attention span
I get nice books to study algorithms for ex and never get around to go past the 15th page.
I don't exercise
My will power has been exponentially decreasing since I joined college.
I really don't wanna blame college cause that's escapism but it really is their fault for wasting my time so much.

Empathizing with others is something I've recently tried to focus on. My friends don't code and I usually bash them for not doing so in engineering after all. But then, I realized most people are there against their wishes and are plenty satisfied with inherited businesses or jobs.

Though I feel more lonely now.

If I do improve I'd be happy to laugh at my past. Sadly I'm losing skill and laughing at my current self.

@erandria thanks for taking time and helping a fellow devranter out. It helps to talk about the issue here, I really can't discuss it with any of my offline peers. They just wouldn't understand.

Embracing this crappy situation is gonna be hard but I'll keep some expectations aside and give it a try and see what comes out of it.

@TheAnimatrix A lot of what you are going through is what I have experienced first hand as well. I still experience it. People have already commented on why it happens. On the Interwebs you're always surrounded by giants and it's easy to fall in the trap of comparisons in the guise of motivation.
I deal with it by cutting off myself from news or conference videos or demos or even reading others' code. It can seem detrimental to learning but I need to do this in order to find my footing. I have to remind myself why I'm doing what I'm doing. A, It's not to compete. B, it's because *I enjoy it*. There's stuff that I want to do and I have ideas on how to do it and I want to implement those ideas.
I try to progress with implementation each day even if it's just 1-2% on some days... (contd.)

(contd.)

Along the way I'll slowly start getting exposed to the world again. It helps to have some people whom you can get inspired from without looking down on yourself. In programming, for me Scott Meyers is the guy. There are some others too. I'll watch his videos, start reading and getting back to being me before the cycle repeats.

Don't focus on the output focus on the process.
It's not the website that we built that makes us happy. it's the error that we debugged, the language that we learnt,it's the algorithm that we implemeted or the clients that we told to fuck off that truly makes us happy.
You are too focused on the output

Read this book. It'll solve some problems for you

@thevariableman I'd read a book, feel inspired and forget about it a week later.

It happened with "the art of thinking clearly"

@irene most times the process is tedious with results only on completion so it's kinda this and that.
Flat out process is what's fun doesn't work for me. putting hours into an algorithm book for example is flat out boring till I get to use my skills.

Are you getting to your thirties? I’ve noticed most people going through this crisis solve it by having kids. Gives them a whole another drive and purpose to life.

Just acknowledging what you’re feeling is normal and environmental goes a long way.

@toriyuno I'm 20..

@Condor

you are looking up to me? Not a good idea

@irene find one that does. I'm in the same shit hole you guys are in. But I've decided to crawl out of it . One painful inch at a time.

@toriyuno I don't think having kids is a good idea if a person is feeling depressed most of the time. Get a pet not a kid! A kid requires more responsibility and stressed/depressed parents usually are less likely to provide well for their kid, fuelling the cycle again.

@TheAnimatrix why use an app, I just randomly sing whatever, wherever :D
Do not use that app, I had Instagram and I was depressed every time I opened it. People accomplishing stuff, travelling, having a great time at parties... It was better to not know about this stuff, I was once this person who knew about everything that moved in the city, but at the cost of my own mental health? No, thanks. Just do what you want to do, don't care about how good other people are. Live your own life, write your own story. You see people do something that you really want to do, stop watching them and just do it! :)

Your knowledge of yourself is above the average. Keep up the good work!

@dr-ant not saying having kids is the answer to depression. I’m not even talking about depression. Read my comment as a very high level observation. When you stay single through your thirties you hit an existential crisis due to having so much free time with no clear purpose to living on. The majority just happen to have kids by this point, so they have no clue since they completely bypassed the scenario.

@dr-ant I have a pug and he stresses me out a lot more than you think!!
Like for example he sometimes hurts his eyes, or when he hides under the bed cause of a stomach pain

It's painful, especially on Saturday nights when vets will be closed for a long time.

@toriyuno Ah! Sorry I misread your observation as advice. I read it again and I get what you mean now.
You're quite right. I'm reminded of the renowned psychologist, Jordan Peterson. I'm told that when he sees a new patient, his first questions are, 'do you have a job?', 'do you have a SO?'.

@TheAnimatrix oh yeah, pets are a big responsibility too.
I hope that the fun time makes up for the stress. 😃

@TheAnimatrix well, you basically have the most anti-Darwin dog you can breed. Pugs aren’t even capable of naturally giving birth anymore right?

@toriyuno :/ my dad got him before he passed, so he's almost like my kid now cause of the situation

@dr-ant yeah it definitely does

@irene nee-san ;_;