Ask HN: How do you digest fact that you are not successful by 40

Stop comparing yourself to those people. Do you need a yacht to have a great life? No. Nobody needs a yacht. Much of wealth and circumstance is inherited, it’s a rigged game.

Surely there are things you are proud of, friends you have, people who love you, etc.

Do you know about Santosha? Try this meditation: https://youtu.be/5vI8Kh3-epg

I’ll bite because I get where you’re coming from. But the truth is the things that make my life good aren’t necessarily expensive things.

Being healthy, getting to live some place I like, enjoying the outdoors, street food, underground music. Baking and cooking with my wife. Taking my dog to the park. I’m grateful every day.

Once I tapped into what really helped me enjoyed life I realized I definitely need money, but not necessarily astronomical amounts.

You need to get in touch with what really gives you moments of joy. Don’t follow other people, understand yourself.

You only need enough money to take care of yourself and family. Owning anything more than that doesn't really help you or make you happier. Also, being rich isn't binary. It's a continuum, so just because you don't have as much money as others doesn't mean it's not enough.

Consider finding a different yardstick, or not trying to measure "success" at all.

By age 40 I had three children, and I hadn't died or suffered serious illness or injury. That represents "success" in terms of evolutionary purpose and compared to the large majority of humans who have ever lived.

I have spent over 45 years working in the software industry. Not rich, but it has given me a comfortable living. I have friends and former colleagues who got rich, mostly by finding themselves in the right place at the right time and making the most of it (i.e. they got very lucky). I don't envy people who have more stuff. Desire is the root of all suffering, so you can stop feeling like you have failed by letting go of desire for superficial markers of success you apparently internalized from celebrity media meant to get you to spend more.

KFC wasn't franchised until the owner was 66 years old. Quit focusing on the wrong things - comparison is the thief of joy and that's all you're doing here.

Owning all that stuff is often a burden. They can have it. It’s much better to have a friend with a boat (or yacht) than to have one yourself.

Someone else having a yacht, a jet ski, or taking a trip, has 0 impact on my life.

It’s not a 0 sum game. Them having less doesn’t mean I have more. Me having more doesn’t mean they have less.

When I was younger I thought if I made a certain amount of money I’d be happy. I’ve now tripled that original number and it did nothing in terms of my happiness or contentment. Life is about relationships and those don’t cost a dime.

It is what we make of it. I'm 34 M.

I'm from a immigrant family, zero connections, and we are all workers.

I missed the chance to purchase a home in 2018-2020 time period. My friends who bought homes at that time are doing well, going on vacations and stuff because they were able to buy property for like 500-800k in California that has now doubled in price. They're paying like 2% interest too.

Oh well, no point in comparing. Worst case scenario, I'll figure it out and make my ancestors proud for getting me to this point lol.

I can't say I am either rich or poor. I own a house, in fact I own two (on the same lot) That puts me in much better shape than a lot of people. I have good health insurance, I can see my primary care doc for $20 and fill many generic scripts for $5, I am not spending $200 for a telehealth "consult" with Lemonaid or Hims and then getting a $80 month for some sketchy compounded medication that isn't really approved by the FDA.

People who chase things for happiness, in my experience, seldom seem to actually take the time to really enjoy them.

Instead, they pursue the next bigger thing.

What’s your story? I graduated around that age and a million things happened since then, so it’d be good to have the context behind your key choices that you feel “held you back”.

Also remember there are some people that spend every dime they earn and don’t save. You never know their debt as well. But with money, there is always someone that has more than you.

I don’t have any of those things and I’m incredibly successful.

You mentioned not subscribing to socialism or communism, but it's pretty obvious that you haven't deeply considered what a functional society ought to look like through any ideological lens. Commentors below have given great advice about reframing your evaluative criteria. But you might also try learning more about these (socialism, communism) and other social organizing ideologies (anarcho-socialism, libertarianism, low-growth capitalism, etc). There is almost certainly something useful for you in this exploration. Being grumpy because speculative capitalism arbitrarily makes some people wealthy is a waste of your time - that's literally what it was built to do.

I fear your definition of "success", needs some rethinking. What are you really happy about, for whom, why?

I can’t, so I keep digesting it. Eventually I get used to digesting it.

I'm pretty.

Many apparently affluent people are posing - with a wealthy backer, or using debt and or crime/fraud to maintain hold the pose. Their life ways are a tell, a flag of their core inadequacy. Persue a real life instead. Also nothing inherently wrong with Socialism e.g. look at the Mondragon Corp.

I am also graduated in 2007 and financial crisis struck. So i don't went out or spend any money, just stay at home with vibe coding, billionaire is not my goal now, just want to do something really useful for others, with some hope you'll not be sad.

How can you think so selfishly? There's tons of children in Ukraine and Gaza that won't see your age. I recommend you start telling your inner voice to chill.

I fight to remind myself that my identity does not lie in "success". It would be nice, but I don't need it to feel OK about myself or to make myself into somebody or to make my life worthwhile.

Where do I find my identity? I find it in Jesus Christ.

I recognize that a lot of people are going to look at that as an illusion, as me deceiving myself. But "success" is also an illusion, especially as a source of identity.

I saw an article about "revenge saving" the other day. One idea is if you can at least sock away a few thousand dollars in a retirement account, you know it'll double in value every 10 years, and by the time you retire should be worth 8 times as much.

“I don’t subscribe to socialism or communism” … but this current system is so sad.

Okay - what do you subscribe to?

I’m 51 now. This just came up a month ago. My response:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44377380

Get out of your bubble. The median household income is around $80K.

https://dqydj.com/household-income-percentile-calculator/

I would never want to live in the places you named. I have been to both. I live in much cheaper, warmer, state tax free Orlando. Moved from Atlanta where I spent my entire adult life until 2-3 years ago when I pivoted to a field that has historically been remote with travel.