from Hacker News

Stop Focusing on What You Don't Have

by fourspace on 8/6/13, 5:13 PM with 13 comments

• by mattm on 8/6/13, 11:08 PM

  Like a lot of good advice, this is easy to say but sometimes difficult to implement. But it's good to be reminded of this. When you say "If I only had X, I could do Y" what you are really telling yourself is that now, you can't do Y. So you don't do it. Excuses are easy to come up but hard to get out of.

  As a shameless self-plug, I've put together a course that helps developers reduce the tendency to think that the grass is always greener. If you're interested, see my profile for the link.

• by vitd on 8/6/13, 7:20 PM

  While I agree with his premise, he doesn’t give a lot of useful advice on how to implement his suggestion. In the case of the menswear website, how does calling people and using a spreadsheet help? People on the phone can’t see the clothes. Also, who are you calling in that example?

  In the case of the project management idea - again, who do you call to get a job implementing your idea?

  The code idea is probably a reasonable one for some people, though coding is often much harder than it looks.

  Finally he says, "The problem is not what you’re missing; it’s that you are not leveraging what you have,” but he gives no advice on how to do that practically. It’s good advice, just not useful without more information.

• by itsallbs on 8/6/13, 6:31 PM

  It's very easy to fall into this mental trap. Developers are creative people by definition; we of all people have no excuse to pass the blame for our lack of success to another. It's a way of avoiding responsibility and completely counterproductive to success. Great post.

• by PufferBuffer on 8/6/13, 6:56 PM

  The sad reality is, even after reading this article most folks will resolve to once again, blaming others for the things they don't have. It's not that most people don't know they should work harder to strive for their own, but rather it's a lot easier to blame someone else, and humans are naturally lazy. Most people know, but don't act, imho.

• by speeder on 8/6/13, 5:38 PM

  He never addressed what you do when you need massive marketing and don't have the funds.