What have I accomplished?

5 comments

2010/04/26
322 words
by Fredrik Olsen

There are certain people who make me feel completely worthless but at the same time give me something to shoot for and motivates me to raise the bar and achieve my goals. These people have almost always been the same age as me or a couple of years older, but for the first time in my life I have come across a dude that is so far ahead of me in life that it makes me feel like I’m twelve.

Francisco Tolmasky is the founder of 280 North, one of the coolest startups I know of, and I recently came across a tweet of his.

Having dinner with @280north @johnhering and @luddep

@luddep is the guy that has been making me feel worthless lately. I’ve talked a bit with him on IRC and he’s a really cool guy, totally down to earth and nice and all. He’s a Swedish guy from Uppsala and went to IT Gymnasiet, not that different from my own back-story.

This is what bothers me though; this kid is fucking 18 years old and he’s done a bunch of really cool small projects, has time to learn and code Objective-J so much that he’s really into the Cappuccino community, and obviously a very talented coder (which would lead him to have dinner with Tolmasky and 280). He’s 18 and he’s hanging out in San Francisco with some of the most awesome people in the world.

Having dinner with Tolmasky and 280 is to me like having dinner with Justin Bieber is to a 14 year old girl.

And where am I? Living outside a small town in an even smaller town trying to find time to code without failing school. It’s a very lighthearted not-that-negative way of feeling worthless. I know the only thing I could possibly do to change things is work harder and be positive. I just felt like complaining a bit and making some excuses.

Edit: Read the follow-up on this blog-post.

5 comments

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http://twitter.com/emanuelferm Emanuel Ferm

It’s funny how age affects the reaction to meeting a talented and successful person. Younger than self -> feeling worthless. Older than self -> feeling inspired: “there’s still hope.”

Couldn’t the key be to just turn those “lost” years into a motivator to work harder, a sort of wakeup call?

http://tetrisrockstar.com/ Fredrik

If the person is older than me I sometimes feel worthless too
So it's not _just_ an age thing.

But you are right that one should not turn it into something negative (which I'm not really doing, I'm sort of jokingly complaining) but to turn it into motivation.

However, knowing that I have several years left in school I know that I won't have the energy or the ability to work full-time on something in parallel. Being in school is an excuse, but I do think it's a pretty good excuse. It feels quite awful to know that there is like.. 3 years left until I could do something like move to SF and try to accomplish something.

A wakeup call seems like the wrong word too since I know what it takes and what kind of work needs to be put in. But yeah, using people ahead of you as inspiration and motivation is the key to not feel useless.

http://twitter.com/michalkopanski Michal Kopanski

Hey, maybe you wouldn’t feel so worthless if you didn’t steal art… scumbag.

http://adamwoodhouse.co.uk/ (bottom row, second thumbnail from the right)

The sad part is that I almost felt sorry for you! No wonder that kid is way ahead of you. HE DOESN’T STEAL ART.

http://tetrisrockstar.com/ Fredrik

Dude, I _paid_ Adam Woodhouse to have that art on my blog, I love his things. This piece is licensed to me. Don’t draw conclusions without checking facts first guy.