A lot of what you are saying there is truth to it within certain contexts but all social media now has themes for your generation around success and what a meaningful life is. It is incredibly easy to spend a lot of time absorbing the likes of Gary Vaynerchuk, the whole startup culture and countless other notable people on YouTube, podcasts and elsewhere and end up with these types of sentiments. What you have to understand is that what is sold is distilled to it's simplest form and is not meant to be particular to any individual situation.
I'm not suggesting that your beliefs around work and what a meaningful life are outright wrong but instead that it is very much not representative of what reality is. Life is a spectrum of color and hardly black and white. For everything you've said there is countless people living lives that would disagree with you.
The most concrete recommendation I can give you is first to be mindful of what information you consume. It's very easy to look at social media and feel that your life is amounting to nothing based on how many people your age may be doing noticeable things and showing it off. I know it's hard to ignore this. Dig into it and really analyze these people's backstory. I'm not saying that there are not some people are just fortunate in life and everything drops in to place. That's a given that there is, but these people are the exception and not the norm.
Second, if your goal is do a tech start-up then go ahead and join local or virtual start-up groups and really talk to the people in these groups and tell them how you feel and what you want to do. If you actually have concrete ideas then try to build a product and go for it. Ideally, build a team or join another startup team. Do it. Get it out of your system. Please, don't shortchange yourself by placing your whole identity around the success or failure of it. Most importantly, don't do it in a void. Go out there and join these groups and soak and learn as much as you can from them. You are young right now and looks like you have the umbrella of your parents to help you. For your parents, tell them this is an itch you have to scratch and that they should give you six months to a year to sort it out.
After a few months, you may be in a completely different mindset.
I definitely can relate to Point 4. I think one way of countering this is to focus on a platform versus the base technologies. In particular, I am thinking along the lines of doing development work with the likes of Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics or SAP. The years of experience are valued more and the rate of change is inherently slower. The obvious downside is that the development work itself may not be as interesting but that can be mitigated somewhat on the projects one takes on within these platforms.
1. It's been interesting few months with COVID and many people have been dealing with difficult situations all round, especially around mental health. We've all had more time to reflect how are lives are and the gaps. Know that social media and especially Tinder amplify all these gaps. Also know that Tinder is gamed. Assume many levels of exaggeration and outright lies from whatever pictures and profiles you are seeing. I'm not saying that everything you are seeing is a lie but understand it's not the full picture. So I would suggest stop using the App and others like it. Also, just accept that this is a totally exceptional year and you are not alone with what you are going through.
2. Welcome to the club. We all feel like failures in our life's at some point or another. It doesn't escape anyone regardless of how rich we are or how many friends we have, etc. It comes to us all at one point or another. Accept this for what it is - a desire and a need to change your current self.
3. You have a sense of what would make you more happier. More social interactions. Traveling. Doing more activities with people. Developing more friendships or deeper friendships. Lots of great thoughts on how to do these things. So take baby steps and start doing (exercise, working out, joining activities with others, etc.). Don't throw away what gives you joy in terms of programming and math. Lots of us try to figure out what it is that gives us that joy and you're lucky, you know already. Keep at it but start to take time away from it so you can do other activities. Accept that the feedback loop for going outside your comfort zone isn't going to be quick. Accept that it will take time for you to make changes in your life and it is hard. It's weeks and months and years process. The best thing is you are young and have the time to do it.
Anything that is adjustable with a chair can be done with one of these. It's unfortunate that they are expensive and marked as "executive" chairs
but the chairs are a couple of notches above Aerons and the SteelCases in comfort and adjustability.
The first acceptance should be that making worthwhile change in your life will take time. So, I would consider taking this out of the consideration. Just assume that it will take you time.
The second consideration should be a reflection on your part. Do a simple thought experiment. Assume either outcome has happened already. Which one makes you feel good about your life more?
You are conflicted since you want a quicker solution to your situation and unfortunately for most of us that's just not possible. So take the quick part out of your thinking. Give both options equal time regardless of whether it's true or not. The second consideration then becomes effort and monetary cost. These you have to be brutally honest with yourself and consider how hard you are really going to work and how much you are willing to spend. In terms of positive outcomes, again assume both will happen. Life is strange. We change, things happen, shit happens, etc. So assume things all things considered both outcomes can happen.
Your thinking is muddled because you haven't set the foundations for how you want to think about this. I've given you some suggestions on how to do that.
Perhaps spend as much time as you need in reflection. Either with yourself or with the help of a therapist. It seems you're on shore and looking out to sea to a ship that is out of reach to you but you feel you should be on but it's not possible for you to see how to get there. Once you are on that ship, you feel your life issues will be solved or you'll be in a much better place happiness wise.
Unfortunately, lots of money doesn't solve life problems most of the time. Especially the inner life problems.
Reflect on your life. What's missing? What's the gap? Focus on those things.
I assure you a bigger house, a nicer car or lots of money in your bank account doesn't make your inner life better. I'm making the assumption that you're financially doing OK already.
The hardest thing to do is for us to reflect on ourselves and ask the why questions. It's easy to focus on something else and make that the target.
Call it intelligence, smarts, IQ, talent or whatever you want. We are all born with a certain level of it.
The sooner you realize your limits the better. The issue with most of us is that we don't push hard enough to understand what those limits are. As you've seen, you've worked hard and now know your limit.
But frankly, what's the issue? You're not good enough to pass a leetcode interview? Guess out, most people writing software aren't able to either. If all you do is compare yourself to the Wayne Gretzky's and LeBron James you're always going to feel inadequate. Ask them why they are so good and they will tell you that it's hard work and dedication. Because it's more fulfilling to say that than to say "yes, it is those things but heck, I'm just naturally good also".
Read "Flowers for Algernon" for some perspective. Personally, I always remind myself that the intelligence I do have is a gift because there are those with no fault of their own that are far worse.
If you don't enjoy programming or just want to do something different, be honest with yourself.
Your conclusion is right - The is reality not everyone is lucky enough to be intellectually gifted to succeed and not all hard work pays off.
But the issue is you've boxed what success means you to so much that it's suffocating you.
Most of us writing software are failures if we use passing a Google interview as a metric.
For some reason that I can't really articulate, I never liked that story. I agree that it can add some perspective. Maybe it has to do with seeing a somewhat similar struggle with my grandfather going blind later in life. That many things he used to do easily became arduous or impossible, and the ways that affected him and those around him. I feel the story doesn't do that sort of situation justice (maybe too simplistic?).
We are all human. Just because I don't understand why someone would spend their whole life studying beetles doesn't mean I don't respect that they find it engaging and worthwhile.
You are making the classic mistake of projection. Accept that people are unique and will find different things engaging even within the most "mundane" areas of software.
This is really right on the mark. Real accounting involving trusts, tax shelters involving various corporate structures, the intricate tax code knowledge required to understand and take advantage of loopholes is quite technical.
Having been exposed to what it takes to do this level of accounting via direct conversations with someone who does this, they can't wait to move on from it. It's not a good fit for their personality. It really is a back office type of work that can get quite lonely.
I'm not suggesting that your beliefs around work and what a meaningful life are outright wrong but instead that it is very much not representative of what reality is. Life is a spectrum of color and hardly black and white. For everything you've said there is countless people living lives that would disagree with you.
The most concrete recommendation I can give you is first to be mindful of what information you consume. It's very easy to look at social media and feel that your life is amounting to nothing based on how many people your age may be doing noticeable things and showing it off. I know it's hard to ignore this. Dig into it and really analyze these people's backstory. I'm not saying that there are not some people are just fortunate in life and everything drops in to place. That's a given that there is, but these people are the exception and not the norm.
Second, if your goal is do a tech start-up then go ahead and join local or virtual start-up groups and really talk to the people in these groups and tell them how you feel and what you want to do. If you actually have concrete ideas then try to build a product and go for it. Ideally, build a team or join another startup team. Do it. Get it out of your system. Please, don't shortchange yourself by placing your whole identity around the success or failure of it. Most importantly, don't do it in a void. Go out there and join these groups and soak and learn as much as you can from them. You are young right now and looks like you have the umbrella of your parents to help you. For your parents, tell them this is an itch you have to scratch and that they should give you six months to a year to sort it out.
After a few months, you may be in a completely different mindset.