Feelings of inadequacy
You begin to question what you’ve managed to accomplish with your life when you realise (from Wired) that one of the two creators of the excellent Firefox browser, Blake Ross [wikipedia entry], not only goes to the same university you graduated from two years ago — he’s just a sophomore, and started working on Firefox (then Phoenix) at age 15.
Also noticed that the co-creator of the RSS 1.0 specification, Aaron Swartz, is a freshman at this same place.
I’m glad I never had to take Computer Science classes with these guys. Or worse, teach them (though imaginably they’d be placed out of the intro class I used to CA for).
April 3rd, 2005 at 3:07 am
Frankly I really have a difficult time empathizing with anyone who uses the accomplishments of others as a metric for one’s own self-worth. I believe you will find that the very people you use to measure your own achievements against figured out early on in life that it was far more productive to set their own goals and live up to their own expectations.
The fact that someone else has risen to great heights has no bearing on you. It’s one thing to praise others for their achievements. It’s quite another to demean yourself based upon them. To achieve anything meaningful, you have to be willing take ownership of a goal.
Years ago, I worked as a salesman in an electronics store in Miami. One of the principals in the business was wise beyond his years. One day I commented on how my confidence was shaken because two other employees had done so much better than I that month. His reply to me was something that was quite profound and has served me well to this day:
“Why in the world would you feel that way? You should be thrilled! You have been given the gift of knowing what is POSSIBLE.”
Shortly thereafter I went on to become the top producer and won an all-expense paid cruise in the British Virgin Islands. I haven’t been in sales for many years, but the formula still applies.
Step one: Get a life.
Step two: Live it.
April 3rd, 2005 at 12:26 pm
?!