alt Hacker NewsThere's some survivorship bias here. You often just end up looking like an idiot or being really bad at something. I agree that embarrassment shouldn't be a barrier but one should be aware of the flip side. "Putting yourself out there" mostly results in humiliation and rejection. Focusing on being thick skinned and resilient is maybe more important than imagining you just need to get over embarrassment.
If you try new things, you may go bankrupt, get laughed at or be humiliated in a much worse way, be regularly rejected or talked down to, etc. It's not just about being brave for a minute. And in the end you might never make it.
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exolymph • yesterday at 1:10 AM
I appreciate this. Risk is real! It's still worth taking risks, but the chance of failure is not imaginary.
I agree but I think many of us are paralyzed even in the face of tiny risks or even imaginary ones. I have an idea for a 20 hour solo software project and besides the usual resistance of sitting there and getting it done, one of the barriers is the thought "what if people don't use it much" or what if "my wife doesn't get what I did it" and stuff like that. These are quite paralyzing feelings that are not really rational, I stand to gain more than I stand to lose by doing this project, and yet my mind has settled on the risk being about as high as the reward. You could say this is just me but I think many many people are like that.