Comment by goqu
6 days ago
I'll say as long as you’re not repeating the same mistakes and each project teaches you something, you’re getting closer to the exit of the maze.
6 days ago
I'll say as long as you’re not repeating the same mistakes and each project teaches you something, you’re getting closer to the exit of the maze.
Honestly I doubt this. You can learn endlessly and never get any closer to succeeding in something. It’s like the developer equivalent of people who keep reading business books and case studies and going to network events because they want to start a business.
After 1 or 2 failed side projects, you should have learned roughly 80% of what you need to know. A few more might get you the next 20%, but 17 failed projects is likely not teaching you anything you couldn’t have learned before, you’re just wasting time at that point.
The optimal amount of failures before a successful project is probably about 3. After that, you need to seriously consider that maybe you just don’t have what it takes and move on. Otherwise you spend your whole life chasing something that will probably never happen, and avoiding better opportunities.
> Otherwise you spend your whole life chasing something that will probably never happen, and avoiding better opportunities.
I'm also have a decent graveyard of domains. I've all but accepted that I'll never create anything of value in my life or even anything awesome.
But the dark side of that is now there's no point to being alive, so I'm planning to die. What are these better opportunities you referenced? Anything that will make a life of mediocrity bearable?
You may never create a successful web business but that’s a long way from never creating anything of value.
By definition most people lead mediocre lives — few doing anything extraordinary. What makes it ‘bearable’ are the simple things: family, friends, work, hobbies, helping other people, contributing to society, etc.
Planning to end it because life seems pointless is depression. Please get professional help.
2 replies →
This is brutally honest. In all seriousness, consider that external metrics are not the only way to value life. Economics looks from the outside and judges value. Art looks from the inside and expresses experience. Also, check out Internal Family Systems therapists. I'm learning a lot, and believe this is a very valuable line of inquiry into self & getting unstuck.
A life is still worth living even if you never make anything of value or awesome. Find something you don’t understand at all, and feels impossible, and try to understand it. Repeat until you die or find something else you want to do.
3 replies →
I think whether your take on this is correct depends on why people are doing side projects. Personally I do them for fun, there's some tool I kind of want to use, or a new programming language I want an excuse to play with. The side project is just a vehicle for that rather than something I expect to become a source of income.
I've got way more than 17 failed projects, and that's fine, because the project was never the point.