Ask HN: What inspires you to persevere through adversity? - <AUTHOR> What are some of the things you 'surround' yourself to keep going even after repeated failures. Failing can be related to any task in life - startup/job/relationships. What are some of things which inspire you and help you pull yourself back to chug along the track again.<p>edit : + things you say no/avoid while persevering. <comment><USER3> I realized a while ago that inspiration isn't very helpful for getting you through adversity. Inspiration gets you going, but grit and discipline ultimately help you push through.

I'm going to go against the grain of most of what's being said in this thread and say that the best way to get through adversity is to discard a goal-based mentality entirely, in favor of a system-based mentality. Figure out the stuff you have to do every day. Get disciplined about doing that stuff. The 'small wins' you get from just executing the loop over and over again build up a lot of momentum over time.

I started with making my bed as soon as I got up every day, and just built on that. When there's something new I want to do, I set up a system for it. When the system isn't working, I change the system. Rather than deciding whether I wanted to do something or not before doing it, I'd just do it, then reflect afterward if that made things better or worse.

This approach got me through some really really bad times, helped me get fit, got me through tough, stressful workloads, calmed me down in times of chaos and helped me make the right long-term choices. I'm overall happier.

Here's some resources:

\- [http://www.slideshare.net/Scottadams925/goals-are-for- losers...](http://www.slideshare.net/Scottadams925/goals-are-for-losers- passion-is-overrated) \- [https://www.amazon.com/Good-They-Cant-Ignore- You/dp/14555091...](https://www.amazon.com/Good-They-Cant-Ignore- You/dp/1455509124/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1485096223&sr=8-1&keywords=so+good+they+can%27t+ignore+you)

edit: oh and one other thing I got out of this approach. People absolutely can change, it just takes a lot longer than people usually put on. I'm a different person from who I was ~4 years ago, mostly in a positive way.

<comment><USER4> This is right.

Business is a suffering contest. Life ends in death.

There are beautiful things in both, but more times than not, despite all signals and urges to stop or give up, you must will yourself to keep moving your feet.

Those few who do give themselves the best chance to overcome adversity.

<comment><USER5> I respect your comment and the one you responded to. Being an old school nerd, only the toughest survived with a love of technology back then. I recall a stream of bullying and it either makes or breaks you. However, being a nerd is no longer the same as it was back then.

What frustrates me today is how the media (collectively) have revised the history books and promote some fairly extreme bullying (see the verge's article on Matt Taylor as an example of some extreme and unjustified bullying of Matt based on his gender).

I believe overcoming adversity is recognising you are not a victim and recognising there is something bigger than you. You are not a gender, you are not a skin colour, you are not a religion or an age group. If you can rise above these things, you are a huge step to overcoming adversity. You stop looking down on others and yourself.

I can't help but feel our society is further from this goal than I have ever seen in my lifetime. While it doesn't impact me personally, it disappoints me at how much we've regressed in even the last 10 years.

<comment><USER6> >Being an old school nerd, only the toughest survived with a love of technology back then.

Ah yes, only the toughest survive. Tech nerds are so tough that they get offended when somebody doesn't like their shirt.

>What frustrates me today is how the media (collectively) have revised the history books and promote some fairly extreme bullying (see the verge's article on Matt Taylor as an example of some extreme and unjustified bullying of Matt based on his gender).

They were complaining that he was wearing a shirt with scantily clad women on it? How is that gender-based harassment? Furthermore, how does it constitute revising history?

>You are not a gender, you are not a skin colour, you are not a religion or an age group. If you can rise above these things, you are a huge step to overcoming adversity. You stop looking down on others and yourself.

Unless you are in the category of people with the highest level of privilege in our society, you are not allowed to forget these aspects of your identity. The police, public restrooms, inaccessible buildings, and other people will relentlessly remind you of your abnormality and victimize you.

<comment><USER7> >Ah yes, only the toughest survive. Tech nerds are so tough that they get offended when somebody doesn't like their shirt.

No, you would know it was due to real, physical bullying back then. Not "someone said something I don't like on the internet", but injuring someone and/or degrading them publically due to them loving technology.

Oh, while we're at public degradation. >They were complaining that he was wearing a shirt with scantily clad women on it? How is that gender-based harassment?

He was wearing a shirt his female friend made for him. She wasn't harassed for making it, he was - because he is a white male in a science field, the social justice warriors of the internet decided he is a target for abuse and public degradation, that a shirt is a reason women aren't getting into science. They decided he is a "misogynist" and a "sexist pigdog". That's abuse. That's bullying.

>Unless you are in the category of people with the highest level of privilege in our society, you are not allowed to forget these aspects of your identity. The police, public restrooms, inaccessible buildings, and other people will relentlessly remind you of your abnormality and victimize you.

Really? And let me guess, that would be a straight white male. You're doing a good job of reminding people of their abnormality and victimizing them.

<comment><USER6> >No, you would know it was due to real, physical bullying back then. Not "someone said something I don't like on the internet", but injuring someone and/or degrading them publically due to them loving technology.

When exactly is "back then" though? I went through school about ten years ago and was beaten up for nerdiness all the time, why people think they can leverage this into a lifetime of misogyny is beyond me. Everyone takes shit in grade school, kids are mean.

>He was wearing a shirt his female friend made for him.

That doesn't make it not sexist.

>She wasn't harassed for making it, he was - because he is a white male in a science field

No, she wasn't harassed because she wasn't wearing it.

>the social justice warriors of the internet decided he is a target for abuse and public degradation, that a shirt is a reason women aren't getting into science. They decided he is a "misogynist" and a "sexist pigdog". That's abuse. That's bullying.

It's too bad a man was called a misogynist on the internet, it must have really hurt his feelings. I thought people like you think SJWs need to grow a thicker skin? Resilience is a two-way street, pal. If you expect us to be tolerant of your abuse, you'd better be tolerant of ours.

>And let me guess, that would be a straight white male.

Good boy! Here's your cookie.

>You're doing a good job of reminding people of their abnormality and victimizing them.

There's a certain kind of conservative who seems to think that any discrepancies in equality in modern western culture are due to individual failings of will because we made sexism and racism illegal like, last century, dude. I don't need to remind people of their abnormality, it's impossible for them to ignore.

I know because I'm neither straight nor a male. (though I am most certainly white) Far before anybody could tell me I was oppressed, I experienced oppression. In particular people in grade school beat me up for expressing femininity, because it is considered unacceptable for men to act feminine in our culture. Telling me I'm not a victim while I'm lying in a puddle of my own schoolwork mixed with other peoples' spit getting the shit kicked out of me doesn't make you clever or objective, it makes you a sadistic asshole.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> "Most things are forgotten over time. Even the war itself, the life-and-death struggle people went through, is now like something from the distant past. We're so caught up in our everyday lives that events of the past, like ancient stars that have burned out, are no longer in orbit around our minds. There are just too many things we have to think about every day, too many new things we have to learn."

\- Kafka on the Shore, Murakami

Under immensely troubling times - not as bad as war or famine, but much worse than a startup or relationship failure - these books kept me going:

      - The Obstacle Is the Way by Ryan Holiday
      - Mastery by Robert Greene
      - Courage Under Fire by James B Stockdale
      - Gratitude by Oliver Sacks
      - Being Mortal by Atul Gawande

</comment><comment><USER9> My parents worked their nuts off to pay for my education and provide security for the family - my dear old late dad woke up at 4am EVERY SINGLE DAY of the year, except Christmas Day, to work for me, basically. There's no way I'm giving up on anything.

I have a ridiculously easy life compared to them, and because of them. That's my main motivation, apart from my own young family.

And I surround myself mostly with talented friends who work their nuts off too. Failures are no big deal, unless you don't learn something.

<comment><USER10> Not your fault, but your comment made me subtly sad that I haven't repaid the same sacrifice and commitment from my family with as much as they deserved. They too worked very hard to provide and give a good life for me, and through naivety, youth, inexperience, laziness - I pissed a large portion of it away.

I try to do better now, but I think I'll always carry some personal guilt over that. I can't fix the past, but I can work harder and try to correct some of my mistakes.

 _edit_ I neglected to note that you mentioned your dad to have passed. Take reassurance in that a brief comment on the internet, I think you've done him proud.

<comment><USER11> It's a debt that's generally paid forward, not back. You still have a shot.

<comment><USER10> You're right, of course. And that's what I will try to do with current and future opportunities and choices. I appreciate the perspective and encouragement.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The only option if you want to succeed is to keep trying.

A while ago I went to China. After visiting Hong Kong, where I had a few friends who lived there to help me out, and the city itself is fairly westernized and friendly to foreigners, I flew directly into Xi'an.

Xi'an is where the Terra Cotta warriors are, but despite those being a fairly large tourist attraction, the city itself is very...Chinese. Very few people speak English, and for myself who had never been alone in such a foreign place before it was bewildering. I finally understood the concept of "culture shock".

I was only planning to be there for one day, and I wasted most of the morning trying to get a train ticket to Shanghai. It was getting late and I couldn't figure out how to actually get to the place where you could see the Terra Cotta warriors. I'm a naturally shy person and the idea of flagging down a stranger who didn't speak my language and trying to gesticulate and get my point across was terrifying.

Still, what it came down to, was that in all likelihood I was never going to be here again in my life. And did I really fly halfway around the frigging world just to get there and NOT go see the damn Terra Cotta warriors? There was no way I could let that happen.

So, ultimately, I just got over it, walked up to the first friendly looking person I could find, pointed to the Terra Cotta warriors section in my guidebook (where the name was written in Mandarin) and made some inquisitive noises. He ended up pointing me towards where I could catch the bus, so I got there with plenty of time to see them and make it back to catch my train.

I know as far as "adversity" goes it's pretty lame, but it was a big deal for me. What inspired me to persevere was the simple fact that, really, it was the only way to get what I wanted. That's what it comes down to. Do you want the thing you're going after more than you want to avoid the obstacles in the way? If you do, you'll keep going.

<comment><USER13> I went to Japan a few years back. Almost no one speaks any practical English in Japan. So I was like "Well, after wanting to go for years and years, I'm finally here. It's a different country, home is a planet's breadth away, and no one speaks my language. If I want anything, I can ask for it in shitty Japanese and be thought a fool, or I can repeat English phrases as if that would help any and remove all doubt."

I did gain considerable experience with the language, and I found a way to do or obtain anything I wanted (sometimes by asking for an English speaker to help me).

My mom still wonders how I did it -- find my way in a completely foreign country where the language and customs are so thorought different. I keep telling her, it's just a matter of having the gumption to do it. Knowing Japanese helps, but learning as I went (as I was forced to do) helped me more.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Having seen far worse adversity in the past, I see the opportunities I have today as a reward I should consume as thoroughly as possible. I've watched my parents struggle as entrepreneurs in the middle of rural Bulgaria. I worked my behind off to be able to excel in school, move to the US, learn how to build anything I want through tech, get my citizenship, move to Silicon Valley, build the relationships I have, and become financially independent enough to build things I know matter to the world. God knows what may happen tomorrow? Every single minute matters. Every single effort, and problem solved, and obstacle overcome, and person served, and relationship strengthened, and insight gained matter. If I can't work I will learn, if I can't learn I will sleep and recover my body, so I can work and learn better tomorrow. I've worked too hard to miss this moment.

</comment><comment><USER15> What else can you do? If you have a target or want to achieve something, the only option available is to try again.

What helps me is knowing that I have people who care deeply for me,and who I care for just as much.

I could quit, but, given all my blessings and the support I have, I wouldn't be able to face myself if I quit.

I've had / survived some very difficult times (borderline starvation, seen my partner pass away due to cancer, been subject to significant violence and have been the source of similar violence..), so I don't think I'm being facetious.

What keeps me going is my friends and family. And ironically, given all my experience(s), an enduring faith in humanity, that, over time, the future will always be better than the present.

To paraphrase Churchill, "you can always count on humanity to do the right thing after it has tried everything else"

<comment><USER16> >"To paraphrase Churchill, "you can always count on humanity to do the right thing after it has tried everything else"

The quote is actually:

"Americans can always be counted on to do the right thing…after they have exhausted all other possibilities."

But of course the same sentiment can be generalized for any group. Even though Churchill is credited there is no actual record or evidence of him ever saying this. And he likely never did.

I'm not trying to nitpick, but as big Churchill fan I only found this out fairly recently and so thought I would mention it :)

[http://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/11/11/exhaust- alternatives...](http://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/11/11/exhaust- alternatives/#note-4763-8)

<comment><USER17> The parent post speaks of his/her starvation and a partner dying. You make a pedantic comment on his/her paraphrase. You are both insensitive, and you do not know what "paraphrase" means. Also, being a fan of a racist imperialist is sort of an awkward thing to confess to.

<comment><USER16> Wow, are you self-righteous and judgemental!

I am a fan of Winston Churchill the war-time Prime Minister that stood up to Hitler and helped save Britain and Europe from the Nazis. There is no shame in that. Does that mean I agree with everyone of his personal views? No of course not.

Where do you get off passing judgement, being the moral police, and projecting onto others like that?

Paraphrasing and attributing a quote to a specific individual are two entirely different things. Paraphrasing is approximating the quote, not who said it. It sounds like you might not understand what paraphrase means.

This is a discussion on Hacker News where discourse often unfolds in different and tangential directions.

I even stated my intention was not to nitpick but that I thought it was interesting as its such an oft-citied and well-known quote with its own uncertain history(provided in the link)

<comment><USER17> I made a moral judgement, which IMHO is not the same as being judgemental or "the moral police". If, as you say, discourse on HN often unfolds in tangential directions, surely moral tangents like mine are as permissible as historical ones like yours?

<comment><USER16> I didn't pass judgement on anyone or any thing.

You did however. You called me insensitive and a fan of racist imperialism. And no, thats not acceptable or fair. It's just lame.

And the fact that you continue using your own twisted perception of something as justification for your uncalled for remarks is lamer still. Grow up.

<comment><USER17> You are right that I passed judgement on you - I found your post offensive and insensitive. It is fair that I call you out on it. The fact that you continue to defend your insensitivity speaks volumes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> "Evolution forged the entirety of sentient life on this planet using only one tool ... The mistake"

If you're not failing, you're not trying hard enough.

The search space for successful strategies is vast, you must experience failure in order to determine direction to success.

If I'm seeking inspiration, I look to a higher power - Bill Gates, Poe, Arxiv Papers, GitHub. Find inspiration in observing what is greater than yourself

</comment><comment><USER19> I'm not sure that failure is the word you want - I would call them setbacks. Failure suggests finality, it is the point where you are out of options and have to change goals. Overcoming failure means how to restart on a new goal after giving up on the last one. Overcoming setbacks means how to stay focused on a goal despite interference and things not happening as you hope.

My simplest answer is to pick the right goal. You know its the right goal when you can envisage countless possible setbacks but it would seem absurd that they could cause you to abandon your goal. Give up on reaching the Olympics because you run out of money, have a bout of flu, or a parent dies? It should feel like a non-sequitur. Your goal needs rise above the inevitable twists and turns of life - it should not just be a "fair weather" goal you would drop when clouds pile in.

Your interest in the goal should be deep. It should not be for the moment it can be said it is done but for the transformation that achieving that goal brings. You must not simply want to reach a finish line, you have to want the life that comes after crossing that finishing line. If life after reaching a goal is little different or you are indifferent to that life, it is a weak goal, it won't sustain you through the hard times.

<comment><USER20> you need to like the life you'll live to get there. most olympians like training above all else, just like great entreprenours like working above all else.

<comment><USER21> I completely disagree that working above all else is the hallmark of great entrepreneurs.

<comment><USER22> I don't know many lazy successful people (there are a few, though!)

Maybe not 'the', but 'a'?

What do you think "the hallmark" is?

<comment><USER23> There's a difference between enjoying your job and not having any desires to do anything else. The former is normal and healthy, the latter is (imo) not a good strategy for working efficiently. I love my job but I don't think I'd be better at it if I poured 100+ hours/week into it. I'd probably just feel burnt out and unproductive.

<comment><USER22> Maybe so. Probably so. Most people. But I'm having a difficult reaching the bottom of the binary declarations up-stream. Commenter #1 said, essentially, "Loving work the most is key". Commenter #2 responded (I summarize): "Nuh uh."

I don't think anyone said anything about 100+ hours/week. I was hoping that commenter #2 might appear and give us some deep insights, but that appears to have been a bridge too far...

I don't have a 9~5 working for the man, but there is very little that happens during my waking hours that I wouldn't classify as related to work. I'm fortunate that this is not one task, so it doesn't weigh on me like fighting with a C compiler while sitting under florescent lights in a cube farm might. That's kind of work is fine - I like that too - but I couldn't do it for more than about 70-80 hours/week.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> A short collection of sayings by the stoic philosopher Epictetus called The Enchiridion.

There's a free copy at [http://classics.mit.edu/Epictetus/epicench.html](http://classics.mit.edu/Epictetus/epicench.html)

Sample:

"Remember that you are an actor in a drama, of such a kind as the author pleases to make it. If short, of a short one; if long, of a long one. If it is his pleasure you should act a poor man, a cripple, a governor, or a private person, see that you act it naturally. For this is your business, to act well the character assigned you; to choose it is another's."

<comment><USER25> A question from someone largely ignorant of Stoicism, generated by the last clause in your quote from The Enchiridion:

How does a Stoic change his/her lot in life, given that Stoicism assigns choice of that lot to an externality? Or does that question lack meaning within Stoicism?

<comment><USER26> Your lot is that you were born a human being, on planet Earth, in this time. You cannot change that. You are, however, fully in control of your thoughts and actions, and can live in the present and make your time as aware, useful and meaningful as possible. If you do that, you will be better in the future and your future self will be grateful to your present self.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> "He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how."

― Friedrich Nietzsche

If the outcome you're working towards is sufficiently worthy, and you can feel yourself making even just a little bit of progress toward that outcome every day and every week, then you can get by just fine.

<comment><USER28> +1 to this... It's also the heart of Viktor Frankl's _Man 's Search for Meaning_ [0]. This will keep you going even under the worst of circumstances.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man's_Search_for_Meaning](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man's_Search_for_Meaning)

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I'd say anger. Close second, denial. I am aware that these two aspects are at the very bottom of the generally accepted lists but they have been and still are my only way outs. Anger provides the juice, denial a sense of limitless optimism. I think that without a minimum of these two, we shrivel and die. That said, I consider myself lucky that, due to my psychological structure, anger is not turned against myself (i.e. depression) and that denial never fully violates reality (e.g. delusion). This combination has always generated enough energy and creativity to pull me out of stagnation. When anger runs out, because I'm tired mostly, I practice "wu-wei", do nothing. Failure doesn't exist for me: it is but a phase of improving. The meme "failure is not an option", pisses me off because I believe in just the opposite: failure is the only option. When I decide to make my bed first thing in the morning, as cleverly suggested by atroyn, it is out of anger. "I will not be negated". Same thing when I push through a rep that I don't want to do (at my age, pretty much every single one of them). Denial is, I believe, vastly under- rated. It sits along the path to the solution of any problem. It is the essence of out-of-the-box thinking. It is also what prevents us to think about our death all the time.

</comment><comment><USER30> I've been depressed on and off for as long as I can remember.

These days I know it pretty well and basically manage it out of habit and experience.

This doesn't prevent events from pushing me into a depressive episode, but it does mean I know what steps I need to take to get through and get out. Because in the depths of suicidal depression, I know in my _bones_ that it's pointless, meaningless etc. But I know in my _head_ that this is just a feeling, no matter how real it feels, and that it won't last forever.

I did a talk about living with depression and ADHD last year, which might be of interest[0].

[0] [http://original.livestream.com/pivotallabs/video?clipId=pla_...](http://original.livestream.com/pivotallabs/video?clipId=pla_ac54acde-e927-48be-8866-fdfa61ec757c)

<comment><USER31> Might be a long shot, but I often find I link my body state to my mind state unconsciously. Meaning if my body is struggling because of lack of attention in some area, the mind interprets itself as being depressed/sad/angry. I know when I look after my body - striving to drink a min of 3L of water a day, limiting sugar, getting up and away from the computer when I can, doing simple exercises throughout the day (yoga, presssups, pullups) - all leads to a much improved body state which in turn makes huge differences in my mood. This in turn increases productivity, outlook on life and so on.

It's a marathon though, and you have to keep it up. The body doesn't exactly make it's feelings clear either! Anyway not trying to simplify your problem, best of luck.

<comment><USER30> Yes, the brain is absolutely embedded in the body, and part of my self- management is regular sleep, exercising and so on. I cover this in the talk I linked.

For me, these prevent or ameliorate _some_ , but not _all_ , of my depressive episodes. I must periodically rely on medication to protect myself from myself.

I draw this distinction because people with depression are commonly given advice by well-meaning associates that exercise, diet and sleep will fix their depression.

For severe depression it probably won't, and in many cases, severely depressed people are not able to pick up even minor changes without what feels like a great deal of effort.

In general, if you think you have depression, you should seek professional attention. For most people it is highly treatable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I just remember God does not exist, and thus my failures are not due to an hidden goal.

Then I breath.

I remember that keeping faith is about accepting failures : there is no win if there is no risks.

Fear and anxiety kills the spirit. I know they are direct consequences of failures, and I accept them. It does not mean I let fear rule my life.

Then, I remember our wold is about luck. So, I plan my next try at doing something, and I look back at my failures to see what valuables lessons I learned.

Basically they boil down to: work hard, keep it simple, and don't get tricked again in investing your time/money/energy/emotions in stuff that don't make you feel good. Love your self and who you are not a cool picture built for being accepted by others. Life is no popularity contest.

Failures taught me I can rise again. Success taught me it is all about luck. Failures and success taught me that the only way to potentially win is to try again.

And why do I try that much? Because, well, it is in my Nature, and the more the competition is unfair like nowadays, the more it makes me want to defy the odds because I am bored.

I don't know what your motivations are, I just know mine.

But failures should have taught you a great load of things you can use to understand your true self and empower it.

Failures are so valuable I regret not having failed when I was younger. There is a curse in being lucky, I am glad my curse was lifted.

</comment><comment><USER33> Having a constant that stays with you in good times and bad has helped me. Could be a person, a piece of music, a book, a video/tv series/movie or just a long a walk.

Following stoicism helps. I read the book listed below that explains it well. My main takeaway from that book was that it is much easier to be happy if one stops caring about two things - External validation and Instant Gratification.

"One of the great fears many of us face is that despite all our effort and striving, we will discover at the end that we have wasted our life." \- [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5617966-a-guide-to- the-g...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5617966-a-guide-to-the-good- life)

[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26043368-the-gita-for- ch...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26043368-the-gita-for-children) answers questions like 'How can one win a war when it involves killing ones own family?' with teachings like 'Do your duty with single minded focus and great sincerity, without worrying about the results of the work'

<comment><USER34> I'm from India. Glad you quoted from gita. There is another succinct version, loosely translated as "the essence of gita". I scoured for a relevant English version and found something here which might be relevant - [http://www.indiastudychannel.com/resources/52974-English- tra...](http://www.indiastudychannel.com/resources/52974-English-translation- of-Geethasaram-of-Lord-Krishna.aspx)

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> For me, it's fear, fear of being dependent upon an economic/labor system that does not favor labor. If you are not an owner, and make a living selling your time, you are threatened by both outsourcing and automation.

As a programmer / engineer / whatever label you want to give, it is a little easier for us to adjust to changing labor conditions because our careers, as long as not overly specialized, require constant learning.

But I'd prefer not to live a life competing with people all over the globe, or being blindsided by some tech that can execute a majority of my responsibilities as an employee.

</comment><comment><USER36> For me, some of the things are:

* purpose - if I am up to something meaningful, that carries me through dips

* team - I don't like letting people down, so having a team I care about matters

* habits - things like my Sunday run to the ocean keep my life going automatically, meaning setbacks feel less like catastrophes

* friends - everybody has failures; friends support me through mine and tell me about theirs, which helps with perspective

* seeing feelings as transient - a meditation practice has helped me recognize that feelings come and go, and to breathe through them

</comment><comment><USER37> I have a few North Stars that keep me going:

* _" Be a light"_ I can bring joy to other people in the world, and that there is still so much more to do.

* _" Bask in the light of loved ones"_ The love of friends and family, even when I feel like I've let them down.

* _" Don't be so hard on yourself"_ A self-love that allows me to forgive myself for my many fuck-ups. Not always without regret and never without reflection and learning, but eventually I do get there.

* _" Don't stop dreaming"_ A deep-seated desire to help all fellow humans reach their fullest potential; to express themselves with their fullest freedom. This one is the most abstract, the "farthest" of my North Stars; it's so faint I'm sometimes not sure it actually exist. Perhaps this is the closest I come to that thing called "faith".

</comment><comment><USER38> If you are a man, you don't have a choice but to persevere. Society doesn't care about you if you are a poor, unsuccessful man.

<comment><USER39> Sad Truth.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> A learning mindset.

When you treat each experience in life as a learning experience, it becomes much easier to persevere.

Another very useful skill, it not running away from pain or failure. This is not to say 'learn from your failures', but 'let the pain and anguish sink in'. Remember this pain, realize it is there and what caused it. Next time you encounter fear or hardships, the intuitive memory of the past pain - the one you didn't run away from or tried to suppress - will help you. I know it helped (and helps) me many, many times.

</comment><comment><USER41> Absurdism. Shake your head and laugh at the absurd struggles we endure as humans and subvert the inevitability and absurdity of it by persisting anyway. Continuing to show up and push is the ultimate satirical act of defiance against the human condition.

<comment><USER3> That's Camus right?

<comment><USER41> Yes, though I came upon it myself the hard way... adolescent angst.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Interesting you ask, I just finished hearing NPR's Hidden Brain podcast. The podcast's advice is to do a wayfind to find your way. Define 3 ideal life paths, analyse all 3 and pick the best one to follow. If what you picked does not work then try again. Do this until you find your way forward.

Here's a link: "Episode 56: Getting Unstuck" [http://one.npr.org/?sharedMediaId=507930318:507930414](http://one.npr.org/?sharedMediaId=507930318:507930414)

</comment><comment><USER43> I found the information in the book _The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck_ , by Mark Manson, to be quite useful in overcoming adversity.

While the title is a bit on the nose, Manson's premise is basically that we need to identify what is important in our life, and then eliminate our worrying about all the trivial things we run into every day.

For me, this was my family and religion (yes, religion). I realized that as long as my wife and kids were there, and I had someplace to dump my personal issues (religion), my job really didn't matter much, since my skills are transferable elsewhere. I didn't quit my job, but I certainly don't rank it in the top-ten important things to worry about, like I used to.

Seeing as my job is about 90% of the adversity I face in life, just making that mental change resulted in a tremendous amount of joy and satisfaction.

</comment><comment><USER44> Inner scorecard. The things you named, and to which we usually pay attention, are all external and involve a lot of external circumstances over which you have no control. However, if you do the right things, improve yourself every day, you're already a success.

I love this speech by Coach Wooden and highly recommend watching: [https://www.ted.com/talks/john_wooden_on_the_difference_betw...](https://www.ted.com/talks/john_wooden_on_the_difference_between_winning_and_success)

PS. Also, having kids is a huge motivator. You realize that you are a living role model to them and what you do and how you behave will influence them for their entire life. And as you want to show your kids the best of humanity and positive qualities, you simple have no choice but to show them in yourself !

</comment><comment><USER45> I usually find that I feel that failure "feels" very unfair if I failed when giving it my all. I find I face two choices then, give up, focus on what went wrong, get depressed and drop out. Or feel indignant anger, learn from what went right and try again.

Maybe not the healthiest way to do it, but I've never been one of those positive can do types -- or at least cultivating that kind of mindset never seems to carry the day for me. Operating out of anger and trying to make the world fair seems to be what gets the best results for me.

However, it may not work for others, wanting to see fair outcomes is a very deep seated compulsion for me, so I can latch onto that to drive motivation.

</comment><comment><USER46> Giving up usually doesn't help. Just taking time to identify the root causes often leads to a simple and better solution.

Unfortunately, I am rarely able to convince others to follow along.

My company is extremely successful and our spectacular failures (often discussed on HN) pales in comparison to our success. I worked for several groups that lost multi-billion dollar markets because they were unwilling to make simple and obvious changes. For example, don't focus on our success and claim victory; look at our failures and make corrective actions. Seems pretty simple but maybe due to the innovator's dilemma, no one seems to care.

</comment><comment><USER47> Learned optimism - or at least this blog post - [https://github.com/raganwald/presentations/blob/master/optim...](https://github.com/raganwald/presentations/blob/master/optimism.md) Changed my whole outlook.

<comment><USER48> I keep finding that no matter how much I want to be an optimist I cannot. The problem I have with it is that it feels as if I'm deluding myself whenever I try to be optimistic about anything and I can't hold it for any significant amount of time, perhaps I get too carried away when I become "optimistic".

Maybe it's just me but would you have any tips to overcome or at least come to terms with this mentality?

<comment><USER47> I read a quote somewhere "remember in the dark, what you saw in the light" \- what I do is list the reasons why I believe in a plan or something, and when the doubts come, I validate it against the list of reasons. If the doubts actually invalidate the reason, it is a valid case for concern, but more often than not, its just me forgetting the reasons I first believed in something. This works when I start a project too - a list of reasons why I need to complete that..

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> This will sound lame but for me it's always been routine. Being able to work a full day when my personal life feels like it's falling apart has done wonders in distracting me to when my emotions calm down to the point where I can make more mature decisions later on when I feel cooled off.

</comment><comment><USER50> I have tried to set the things that I care about in my life up such that failures are interesting. What I mean is the places that I focus most of my time (my company, writing software, surfing) are those in which failures (ideally) imply learning. Since I like learning things, this is enjoyable. Hence "persevering" (fixing my mistakes, learning not to make them again) is fun, and thereby easy.

This hasn't always proved possible for me. You mention relationships: I haven't ever found a way to make failing in those fun.

</comment><comment><USER51> In the specific case where adversity = pain, I'm almost embarrassed to admit I fall back on a line from Firefly: "This is just a moment in time. Step aside and let it happen." Because whatever you're going through now, it will be buried safely in the past pretty soon.

</comment><comment><USER52> Some things that have worked for me:

1\. A wise mentor once told me never to get all my satisfaction from one source. If I give everything to my job when it's going well, my job can take everything away when it turns bad. Keeping several balls in the air means that at any given time at least one of them is likely to be spinning well. For me at the moment it's developing software, making music and keeping fit. 2\. Habits have saved me more than once in times of crisis. There are a lot of decisions I never need to make because they're already habitual. I don't find this makes life boring; rather, it frees me to focus on the important. 3\. When things are tough, I buy some deferred gratification. This could be seats at a concert in three months time, a ticket in next week's lottery or arranging to meet friends for a coffee on the weekend. 4\. When things get grim, I cut alcohol completely from my diet. A drink or two may seem a temporary escape from the pressures of the situation but, for me at least, alcohol is a poor ally in adversity. 5\. Under extreme pressure I've observed that I usually start by looking for a way out of the situation, become depressed when I can't find one, and eventually discover the inner determination to master the problem. I remind myself of this pattern when I see trouble coming.

</comment><comment><USER53> I learn from my failures and victories. My very large failures could only happen because there was a large victory in the first place. Nine foot tall and bullet proof becomes the bigger they are, the bigger they fall.

I know that I'm not, statistically speaking, entirely possible. I'm "supposed" to be dead, in prison, on drugs, homeless, and a missing parent, on welfare, and pretty much every other not-great thing I could be.

When someone sits in front of me and judges me unfairly, I can be upset with them and feel like I need to work harder to fit in with them, or I can simply be happy that they will never understand the person they are talking to, and for that, I should be grateful for their naivety and for the fact that I accomplished enough to even talk to them in the first place. I can choose to go home and be angry, or I can choose to go home and continue working and seek out people that matter. It's all about mindset: talking to this person, in isolation, was a failure, but the fact that I got to sit in that chair is the culmination of all of my prior hard wok and victories.

If there is one thing I've learned over and over again, adversity is only as permanent as you want it to be. This doesn't mean your dream job is just around the corner; it means that no matter how low you go, you can always do one thing better to improve every single day, and that adds up. Consider your options, learn to walk tall and walk away from bad moments, and understand that the definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

</comment><comment><USER54> Physical health and enjoying the day. If you don't have that, you can and will -- sooner or later -- chuck all the rest.

Seriously. Make sure you have enough enjoyment in _today._ That is your starting point.

(E.g. Fresh scents on a walk. Startling at the sound of a goose's wingsweep, overhead. A good cup of coffee. A good, perhaps even spontaneous -- or, especially, spontaneous -- conversation. Enough sleep and exercise.

Not big, "I should" goals. Here and now.)

</comment><comment><USER55> Adversity is an illusion, relatively.

I'm known as a relatively unflappable person who excels under pressure, but that's not entirely true. The reality is that after spending a few years in my teens couch surfing and sleeping under park benches, supporting myself with off-book babysitting and other more dubious gigs, I just have a very different definition of "adversity".

Got food and shelter? It's not a disaster, just an interesting challenge.

</comment><comment><USER56> Having kids helps. You feel this sort of obligation to stay positive and stay enough above water (financially, emotionally, etc) to support them.

I wonder how differently I might approach things had I never started a family.

</comment><comment><USER57> Go outside and look at the night sky, if you can. Gazing into that vast beautiful unknown, at the same stars that our ancestors saw when they looked up, is awe inspiring.

And knowing that we have it better than they ever did - despite our challenges - is humbling.

It cuts out any notion that you 'deserve' anything and reminds you that setbacks don't matter. Just keep going.

</comment><comment><USER58> \- Understanding what caused the failure

\- Understanding your limitations

\- Thinking "How can you not make the same mistake again"

\- Understanding that for every public success there are tens or hundreds of failures that have not come to light

</comment><comment><USER59> It's 10 times more painful to spend my time on anything I don't truly believe in. I tend to think the default state of existence is discontentness, and so we're always going to be upset over something at one point or another. In my experience, there is more piece of mind with struggling against important issues than trivial ones.

</comment><comment><USER60> I think you are asking about setbacks, not adversity. If so, having a list of examples showing that most achievements (science, engineering, sports, etc.) are the end node of a long list of failures. Those failures are just not just publicised that often.

Setbacks are normal. The only way to avoid sequences of them is not to try new, ambitious things

</comment><comment><USER61> If you're on a "failing trajectory" but there's work in front of you, block out everything except for the work. If you can't handle that, then take a break and then get back at it. If it's something you really don't want to fail at, then there's probably something about it that you really love. Try to discover that again, without worrying about the untold future. If you focus in every moment, then you WILL make progress -- if only bit by bit.

Don't compare yourself to other people, but recognize that you're probably incredibly lucky to have any opportunity to fail at in the first place. Think about your accomplishments and setbacks as a set of experiences that will only ever help you in the future -- not as liabilities on paper.

Finally, don't complain. It's difficult at first, but it'll help keep you away from self-pity.

<comment><USER62> Your comment reminded me of Karma Yoga, the practice of taking action without attachment to the outcome.

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> It used to be to show off what I could do (which was a big high), then after my wife died unexpectedly (She was 36 and I was 35), I've only done stuff to help my co-employee's to their jobs (which is a high, but i'm most lack luster in my attitude in wanting to get it done). Depression is a bitch.

</comment><comment><USER64> Much easier if you plan for it.

When starting a project, one of the inevitable outcome is failure so it's worth thinking about what would happen in that case. I.e. plan for the good but also the bad.

Also, it's important to look at the longer goal. You can either succeed or fail, but make sure it gets you closer to that goal.

</comment><comment><USER65>
        My hope is built on nothing less,
        than Jesus blood and righteousness!
        I dare not trust the sweetest frame,
        but wholly lean on Jesus name!

        On Christ the solid rock I stand,
        all other ground is sinking sand.
        All other ground is sinking sand!

</comment><comment><USER66> To me Perseverance means to BE what you DO. It's incredibly hard to give up who you are, your identity, isn't it? So once you truly do and you become what you do, to persevere is the only option.

But is a coin of two sides, that's why you can see people that are so attached to what they do that they find impossible to give up things, even when it doesn't make sense to continue.

To me I'm afraid of the opposite that you are asking to persevere when I shouldn't. What I do to deal with this concern is to try to be aware of how I'm attached to what I'm doing, re-evaluate time to time, and think if I'm with the right people in the journey, if I'm enjoining it and if I believe on what I'm doing. All these kind of questions.

</comment><comment><USER67> Life isn't solvable, only livable. Some later "successes" require previous "failures". It's part of the whole life.

<comment><USER68> Some "successes" may lead to "failures" too.

<comment><USER69> All successes lead to failures, and all failures lead to successes. No one moment in life can be completely disjointed from any other. The only finality is when life ends, and even that can be philosophically extended through the effect one has on those to come.

<comment><USER68> True dat!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER70> I would love to say that my motivator is some great inspiration or having a system. I'd love to say it's some greater purpose. The truth of the matter is that while those exist, my chief motivator is the fear of admitting failure to myself.

</comment><comment><USER71> Remembering the alternative: never making mistakes, therefore never learning from mistakes and when you do finally come up against a problem that's beyond you, you fall all the more harder. There's no greater teacher than a mistake. The brain is more malleable in the presence of pain -- use it to reprogram yourself based on what you've learned from the mistake.

Another thing I vaguely remember reading here on HN: you probably make 10-12 major decisions in your adult life. Nobody get's a 100% right. So everyone has a quota of two or three major screw-ups in life. Treat it that way, push it to the past and move on.

</comment><comment><USER31> _" You may wait but time will not"_

Additionally failure is a big part of the learning process, and each failure brings you closer to success because you now have a life experience that you can use to shape your future choices.

</comment><comment><USER72> Probably to leave a mark on the world and to make life better for those I care about. To avoid poverty and lack of options.

In addition to inspiration, managing one's emotions certainly can help.

One thing I always tell myself is that if the current struggle doesn't work out, there are always family members whose basement I could live in. So a failure in one struggle is not an existential threat. That makes it less stressful to keep going.

I also try to focus on doing one thing at a time and the physical actions required. Be in the moment and you are out of your head. Progress is taking one step at a time.

</comment><comment><USER73> [Learned helplessness vs perseverence; in dogs, rats and humans]

Seligman called these differences our explanatory style. Some people were naturally inclined to believe that bad things will keep happening to us and that they are our fault. Some were naturally inclined toward the opposite—bad things are happening now, but they'll stop and they're not our fault. The former were those who were prone to depression; the latter were those who tended to bounce back. Seligman believed that humans, like dogs, could be taught to become more resilient, a phenomenon he called learned optimism. … In 1984, he published a review of the evidence. First, he and his colleagues had found that the way people explained bad events to themselves really did link closely to depression risk. It was true in students, in people from low socioeconomic backgrounds, in children, and, predictably, in depressed patients. And, importantly, training people to change their explanatory habits—to more narrow, external, and transient—seemed to help them overcome existing depression and, in some cases, prevent its onset even when other risk factors were high.

[http://www.newyorker.com/science/maria-konnikova/theory- psyc...](http://www.newyorker.com/science/maria-konnikova/theory-psychology- justified-torture)

</comment><comment><USER74> I remember that I love what I do, and stay positive. The Marines call it "Positive Mental Attitude". The left my last employer(a start up) after they hadn't paid for a month in May, and fell pretty hard into drug addiction(meth + benzos). Since I cleaned up, I've only done a little consulting and writing, so getting another job without fulltime work has meant jobs I would have turned down a year ago aren't even getting back to me. Do I care? Yea, I do. But I can't go back, I can only move forward. Life is long, and what ever mess I'm moving out of, time is on my side. What's really helped me is making a stupidly simple plan. When situations are stressful, its hard to really make decisions, so rely on a plan to get where you need to go. This way, you can focus on doing small things everyday, and worry less when taking "big picture" risks. For me, I do a few things everyday: go to an AA meeting/write or program for my book/apply to a job or two/read hacker news/talk to friends and family.

</comment><comment><USER75> I actually am very prone to taking "the easy way out" rather than suffering through adversity. People see me as suffering through a lot of adversity, and there are no doubt ways in which that is true. But it is almost always the path of least resistance that I seek, even though it frequently does not look that way to outsiders.

Life is hard enough without intentionally making it harder.

</comment><comment><USER76> The thought of regressing to the kind of life I had as a kid: I'd go a hell of a long way for that not to happen. Having some handicapped children, who are wonderful but resource intensive. The fact that I am so fortunate as to live in a world where to get ahead all I have to do is work my ass off--I live in a stable country that still rewards grit a lot of the time. Fear.

</comment><comment><USER77> 1\. I do not remember who said this: "Remember the bad days when going is good and remember the good days when going is bad"

2\. "This too shall pass", [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_too_shall_pass](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_too_shall_pass) Nothing is permanent, the good days and the bad days

</comment><comment><USER78> I think it's about letting go of the thought pattern of, "well, if this final effort doesn't work, then it's all over."

Now, that might be true for more limited contexts, but when applied to big things like "your life", what a damaging mentality to adopt.

In my twenties in particular, I had several periods of adversity, and there was nothing poetic about it. Fatalism, cynicism, inspiration, motivation, none of that had any meaning really. The _only_ thing that mattered was just sheer dumb doggedness. Sometimes you persist even when there's absolutely no reason to. Do it anyway, because fuck you. That's what it felt like honestly. Doesn't make sense to continue, but fuck you.

And then it gets better, and then you have a good talk with your past self ("wow, look - it worked out even when it seemed impossible that it ever would - remember that") so your future self has something to fall back on in future times of adversity. Resilience.

</comment><comment><USER79> 1\. 'Day dreaming'. I'm not sure what's the scientific term for this is, but fantasizing about a better future, a better you, better circumstances etc., can give you a fresh outlook. Need to remember that this is just a means to an end, and not "the end" itself !

2\. Thinking of how your "ideal self" or your "real life hero" would've handled the situation. Would he duck for cover ? Would he have thrown and given up ? Would he have backed out to survive the day (eventually to fight another day) ? This kinda helps in bringing in a fresh perspective to the situation. It no longer looks like a pain, more like a challenge/problem that needs to be faced/solved !

</comment><comment><USER80> Being aware of my own happiness. A while back I realized that true happiness y not a way, a goal, but it is something that every one has. So I realized that I was already happy. Then I found out that I express my happiness by the choices I made every day. That no matter how hard everything seems, from my own happiness I can choose from different options, even those from I'm not aware of. Then I read it from Buddhism, and I found also found out that the meaning of life is to be happy and be useful to others... since then I try to express my happiness by being helpful to others.

I know that it is sound like new-age-hippie stuff, but this idea has worked for me. I hope it helps.

</comment><comment><USER81> I approach it the same way rocket engineers did:

        Well now I know another way not to do it

And I am a big stoic fan, the only adversity I face is that I wish to control me. I choose to not let it control me and realize that I can overcome or learn what I need to.

The key to things is discipline, spend a certain amount of time focusing each day, commit to it in small batches at first and continue each day. If you go off the rails, give yourself permission to resume the next day without beating yourself up over it.

Beyond that there really isn't anything more to it. Basically be a stubborn son of a bitch to yourself and commit to doing it. The only way to fail is not to try.

<comment><USER82> Is choosing not to control oneself part of Stoicism? Would like to read about that...

<comment><USER81> I might be forgetting but not that I recall directly. My only issue is I also approach all this with a bit of buddhism as well.

The general gist of both Stoicism and Buddhism are generally the same in principle. The only things that can control us are what we allow to control us.

That doesn't really mean that we have free will or the ability to control our world. More we have the ability to change how we interpret the world we live in.

And if you approach adversity as a bad thing, you're already losing from a thought perspective. You have to look at adversity as a friend, gently nudging you along to an easier path. Or a friend that needs to be bulldozed over or through to get to the goal. Or perhaps avoided entirely.

Looking at adversity that way what you realize is the only control you have is how you respond to it.

I recommend reading Epictetus, the eponymous Marcus Aurelius, any other early stoic philosopher. Note, take some of what they say with a mountain of salt. Their views on things like the overall universe are... a product of their time.

For more things I'd say also read The Book of Five Rings by Miyamoto Musashi. And read up on Buddhism possibly with more modern views in the theravada traditions. Feel free to ignore any of the things that make no sense, even the buddha himself said to abandon any practices that turned out wrong.

I approach all of this philosophy in the style of Bruce Lee, take what works from wherever you find it. Leave what doesn't aside.

Good luck in your journey!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER83> I left a job in the US after being tricked into joining an elaborate hoax in the Middle East (Doha Qatar to be specific.) They purported to do ML research, had a real office (incredible), high end equipment, even some former C-level CROs from US firms.

Once I moved over (after giving up my previous job, school districts, etc), it was clear the entire operation was a sham -- the $7Billion endowment was non- existent, most workers had side-jobs (during the day!) and there was no ML research at all to speak of.

I persevere knowing that the golden land called the United States of America still awaits me. Just need to wait out the schoolyear.

</comment><comment><USER84> For me, it's distilled down to what do I want my legacy to be - do I want to say I did something, or that I got most of the way there, but then I quit?

I would rather do and fail than do, give up & be assured of failure. At least with the former, I can be proud of my effort, and not have any shame over quitting. You're going to fail at something - might as well face it and fail with dignity when it happens, or succeed through the effort. The importance is building for the long haul, and not forgetting that.

</comment><comment><USER85> \- When you have no motivation: just do some sport. \- When you fail think about worst case scenario: for any small epsilon > 0, your fail < epsilon compared to death.

</comment><comment><USER86> I just keep reminding myself that for almost everything, the only way to fail is to give up. If I haven't given up yet, I haven't failed.

</comment><comment><USER87> Reminding myself that perseverance is the only thing that works.

"Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent." \-- Calvin Coolidge

</comment><comment><USER88> _" keep going even after repeated failures"_

Lessons from the Kobayashi Maru scenario. [0] It's a fictional scenario from a TV show and used in leadership training circles to test the reaction of candidates to ^no win^ situations.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kobayashi_Maru](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kobayashi_Maru)

</comment><comment><USER89> Stoic teachings - when I'm facing dark times and feel I'm in dangerous territory psychologically...instinctively fall back of stoic mindsets in those situations. (e.g. "This too shall pass").

And yes I realise that quote isn't stoic per se - that's a simplified illustration of my point. Going into more detail - Meditations by M Aurelius.

</comment><comment><USER90> Here's my list in no particular order:

\- Support: Find quality friends that are positive, creative, and understanding. (Eliminate the doubters super quick, cultivate a great network)

\- Mindfulness: Remind yourself of the little triumphs and how far you've come. Create a list in a doc as you grow, you'll be surprised. Perform a retrospective once every couple of months.

\- Gratefulness: Remind yourself that those accomplishments probably weren't possible without your network, give thanks to them privately and publicly. I do this in my retrospective.

\- Silliness: Life and time are finite. You should be willing to sacrifice what you want to accomplish what you want, because... well nothing matters in the end. We're all little pieces of meat walking around on a rock flying through space. The sheer probability of existence is simultaneously a miracle and a joke.

\- Love: You reap what you sow. Be up front with what you want, who you are, and don't compromise. From there pay into it with as much love and compassion as you possibly can.

\- The Big Questions: What are we here for? What does it all mean? Just think of life as a game where you work hard because maybe there is something in the end that will make the journey all worth it. (Some people can float through life, I'm not one of them.)

\- Outlets: Find reasonable outlets, whether it's art (my personal favorite is oil painting and making music), or working out, or dancing. Try something new when you can.

\- Partners: Absolutely 100% don't stop until you've found a co-founder that you trust, respect, and offers a set of complimentary skills. Literally exhaust every channel (no matter how stupid) you can until you find this person. Managing your own psychology is hard, but having someone help give you a kick in the pants with an alternative point of view is sometimes a lifesaver.

\- Self: There are going to be a lot of 'voices' that have an opinion about your life. They can be online or off. Remember that you're the only person that has to live with you, and in the end you're what matters most. To have a happy life, make yourself happy, but make sure that happiness magnifies the positive energy inside others as well. Stay true to your vision, and let that guide you.

\- Inspiration: I have some personal things that I find comfort in. I like looking at inspirational posts on instagram, nice cars, inspirational videos on youtube. These serve to help pep me up sometimes. I like to imagine having the nice things that might be a result of my hard work, but the older I get the less material items matter and the more relationships and compounding the good in the world matters.

Also if anyone is in San Francisco and wants to grab a coffee, take a walk, and chat about life, the universe, and everything -- hit me up. :)

[Forgive any spelling/grammar errors. I'm tired and about to sleep.]

</comment><comment><USER91> I get past these kinds of things by knowing that change is always out there. Nothing stays the same so eventually it gets better.

</comment><comment><USER92> I think in the first place you have to be very clear about what it is you want to achieve in your career or your relationships, and more importantly why.

Why you want what you want and why you won´t settle for anything else.

Once you have that cristal clear you just got to know that failure is not final nor definite, but rather an opportunity to try again.

</comment><comment><USER93> A depurated sense of will sprung from a cultivated naivette and protected capcity of awe, but having learnt to want only reachable things drawing aside mere hypotetical desires. That and living as a permanent act of choice, replete of responsibility, a song of my share of freedom, no matter the dire options.

</comment><comment><USER94> Persevering can be good, but sometimes failing can also be good. For example, if you've been trying to push a product for a number of years and the market doesn't take it up, then at some point you need to give up, or otherwise you'll spend the rest of your life chasing an impossible dream.

</comment><comment><USER95> What else am I supposed to do, curl up and die? <\- a note on my tone: I say this with a shrug, not a sneer. And yes, it's reductive, but that's because that's what I personally have found that the question ultimately reduces to.

</comment><comment><USER96> God and the Bible

</comment><comment><USER97> Personally: Sheer Bloody-mindedness & a 'Well Fuck This!' attitude.

</comment><comment><USER98> It's really the best part of life because with each failure, the goal becomes more meaningful. The only way to be miserable through repeated failure is to expect that everything you do will work out.

</comment><comment><USER99> Man, thank god for having found hacker news. The amount of incredible and worthwhile material that I constantly find here has been incredibly helpful to me to grow as a person. Cheers to everyone.

</comment><comment><USER100> Probably not the most popular opinion on HN but, in my case, religion.

<comment><USER42> I'm beginning to see that religion is a way to find answers to life's difficulties. But in the past I found it so hard to filter the wisdom from the noise. There's just so many charlatans that want to scare you into their view of what religion is. I've learnt that reading with a critical eye is the best way to learn from all the wisdom that has been past forward through books.

</comment></comment><comment><USER101> For me, I think Ive usually founds this to be (slightly) the wrong question. Inspiration has been about being in a state of mind to find, recognise or just decide it's there.

</comment><comment><USER102> Working on projects that is very useful for other groups of people rather than yourself. When you think less about yourself you get paralyzed less and move forward.

</comment><comment><USER103> For me, failure is just a railroad switch on a railway of life. It can be a bumpy turn, but most of the time everything ends just fine.

</comment><comment><USER104> 2 things

1) Steve Jobs' commencement speech at Stanford. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHWUCX6osgM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHWUCX6osgM)

2) Reminding myself of my blessings in life. Most of us have many things to be thankful for, even in our worst moments

Whatever you do, do not seek sympathy from others. It can be very comforting to vent your frustration to people and get their sympathy, but it does absolutely nothing for situation and only enforces your despair.

<comment><USER105> That speech is also on my motivational list

</comment></comment><comment><USER106> Remembering my past wins / partial wins and building on top of them.

And don't tell me that you don't have them. Everybody has them.

</comment><comment><USER107> No one is exempt from trials & tribulations.Yet joy comes to those that maintain. Be blessed knowing this to shall pass.

</comment><comment><USER108> You think you're talking about staying on top of your goals, but you're actually talking about self-esteem.

Fulfilling tasks gives you a socially-understood purpose and a sense of security within your social environment. Failing at them leaves you exposed to other's judgment or your own.

Inspirations and motivations can allow us to dust ourselves off. At least for a while. We re _tell_ our minds that it's not over yet, we've not yet failed and can keep moving towards our goals. _At least I learned. I 'm just not winning ...yet. Growth Mindset._

They are guard rails so that we can correct our behaviour and not lay around feeling humiliated.

However, while internally we can save face, can we do so externally? One might tell themselves they are persevering but to others they might be flailing. You need good marketing. And if it keeps happening perhaps a behavioural compass tuned better to your abilities.

Whatever you might achieve, realise that this is only your self trying to maintain favourable relations with the outside world. The best protection against that being self-respect, respect of others and consciousness of this relation.

It just dawned on me that I probably have theory for this, because I am bad at it in practice.

\---

I didn't respond to the question of how to keep going at whatever you're doing, because the practical considerations outside of what I said are basic. To be seen as 'determined' and full of 'grit' simply do one hard day's work and then repeat it continually unabating. _And, get a good night 's sleep. And, try to be more skilled than your competition. Etc._

Actually there are a few ways to hack motivation. The easiest is to simplify or localise a task, but the deeper and more fundamental way is by internalising 'I do not need a concoction of extrinsic motivations to do things, I will just start now and not stop'. I am not sure how to teach other's how to jump-start that belief, but I suspect you'll be able to work it out.

The honest truth is that it's a bit like 'going through the pain barrier' in that there is no barrier that you'll pass through and no longer feel pain. You'll merely be exposed to the pain of 'motivatedness' enough that you'll learn to live with it. Does that sound bad? Well ...it is. Continual pain is a sure-sign that you're trying to do something that you're not meant to do. I think you'll find that you'd be much happier if you avoided adversity, however the important thing to remember is that you have a choice here.

</comment><comment><USER107> Life comes with its ups & downs..It's the decision we make that assures us of a positive outcome.

</comment><comment><USER109> In the end, you only have yourself. Go to an open field and realize that no one is holding you back. :)

</comment><comment><USER110> If you don't persevere you achieve nothing. That fact alone is often enough to keep me going.

</comment><comment><USER111> If you stop, you let the negative force win. Our default mode is to always be doing something.

</comment><comment><USER105> I just tell myself there is no other choice this has to be done so failure is not an option.

</comment><comment><USER112> Easier to write a reply on here than walk the walk, take HN comments and advice about what others claim with a grain of salt.

First, I recommend anyone asking this take a moment to do a double-check on your mental health. At least for depression and insanity. Looking in the mirror like this is not as bad as a prostate exam but it does take longer...

1) Depression. If you think you might be suffering from depression or any mental disorder or don't know enough to decide, please go seek professional help. If you are unsure what this means or think the odds low, consider going to see a professional and getting a diagnosis anyway at least it rules things out.

2) Insanity. I mean this in sense attributed to Einstein of "doing something over and over again and expecting the same result".

There is no "keep going" or getting back on "the track" after a failure. If you have failed then it's over - it requires "starting anew". The track you will be on is new too even if it points at the same goal as the old one.

Now, if you're talking about pushing through setbacks and obstacles but not a real failure, there is a difference. In HN-YC-gobbledygook; are you in a "trough of sorrow" or back on your mom's couch after bankrupting your company and you're browsing Craigslist job ads/casual encounters posts? Big difference between setbacks and failures.

If it's failure. I don't celebrate it. But I would be stoked about the gap of time between a failure and starting anew. This gap of time gives one a chance to pause and figure out what happened. Plus it's time to fix what you can about yourself and how you operate or realize it's better to move to something else you are better at. Call it the "trough of who the fuck cares but I ain't making that mistake again"...

This step involves thinking about: were things your fault? Were they someone else's fault? Was the failure just bad luck? Really? There should be no repeated failures of the same kind. That is insanity. Don't keep doing stuff if you haven't analyzed and fixed things that caused it. This involves thinking about if failures could have been anticipated and avoided...

If failures are just genuinely just bad luck, not a deficiency of ability on your part nor a failure that could have been avoided beforehand, there is nothing to do. Good luck happens and bad luck happens. But you know this. Be mentally prepared beforehand for whichever way the dice fall. I know of no gambler who walks into a casino with $100, knowing his odds and walks out depressed when he loses the $100. I know many people who walk into a casino not knowing their odds, having looked up the rules of craps 5 minutes beforehand on their phone and fully expecting to win - then being shocked and upset when they lose $500.

No one else's inspirations can inspire you. Figure out a goal you want and what achieving it involves.

If you can't figure a goal that inspires you, then that is your goal. Finding a goal is your goal. Frankly that is fucking super exciting too; getting to treasure hunt and discover something that is new and inspiring, something you will really want and want to work towards sounds very exciting. Best of luck.

</comment><comment><USER113> I recommend reading Nassim Taleb's book "AntiFragile"

</comment><comment><USER114> The knowledge that my ancestors have been through a lot worse.

</comment><comment><USER115> Take it one day at a time and surround yourself with experts.

</comment><comment><USER116> I don't want to be average. I want to change the world.

</comment><comment><USER117> Predestination.

</comment><comment><USER118> support from family members, I find this to be greatest inspiration for me to get through any adversity.

</comment><comment><USER119> If you stop, you're gonna die. If you won't die if you stop, then maybe it's not really all that big of a deal.

</comment><comment><USER120> Fear

</comment><comment><USER121> Music.

</comment><comment><USER122> Guys, nobody in this thread has given the advice to give up! If you were a scientist who travelled back in time in an accident from 2117 when humanity created a black hole, and you have a solid physics degree and don't really have anything to do except 1) become rich and influential and 2), make sure that a certain very specific experiment isn't repeated, or, for example, personally finance that it first be tried on Alpha Centauri (4 light years away), so everyone can see that Alpha Centauri disappears in a black hole (about which your probe sends back data), so they won't try it on Earth, then you will be in the following position: You will know about lots of inventions from the next one hundred years. You don't really have anything to do, you don't care about preserving any timeline or anything like that.

Obviously you're not exactly an engineer, so you can't make any inventions from the next hundred years in your garage - you just know generally how they work.

A sane course of action under these constraints would be to get identity papers somehow (after all, you're stateless), get a patent on a future invention that you understand well-enough to describe clearly, then get financing for it and build it.

You're an educated and very high-IQ person with degrees, so after minor set- backs around getting jobs and papers, you get set up, very clearly and eloquently describe your invention (in a patent filing), wait for it to be granted, and now you are free to get money from anyone. You send the patent papers to 150 vc's without a response, which you consider odd. You send them to a further 500 people in a position to help but still get no response.

You go to your alma mater, of course you don't recognize any faculty, it's from before your time, and they ask you if you have a prototype - you say no, you're not an engineer. They ask you how you know it would work. You hem and haw and say,it's all written down very clearly. They suggest you build a prototype. This is actually beyond your skills - you're a theoretical physicist not an engineer.

This is very frustrating for you.

This is when you post "what inspires you to persevere through adversity."

But the answer is that you should realize that the 2017 idea-stage funding climate is not sufficient to fund you. It doesn't matter if your idea patent can be the basis for a $20 billion company, which is enough to finance your Alpha Centauri demonstration.

You're stuck. You know very well what will happen if you don't intervene (though actually, you're not certain - the physics here isn't clear, whether the same timeline is likely to repeat.)

At any rate you GIVE UP trying to fund your patent. Instead you decide that you will finance it yourself by doing something completely different. You do remember that around 2025 or 2026 there is a huge bubble followed by an unfathomable crash, and you had actually just read - before your travel - <USER2> biography of a founder in that era who quickly built dynastic wealth. Since you are very smart and just need funding for your prototype, and anyway you have sixty years to get rich, there's no hurry, you decide to find him and be one of the first ten founders. You tell him some simple inventions from the future in just a few words, and to your great surprise he is completely on board and instantly agrees that they are all viable, he straight-up gives you 50% equity in his company, you start pulling 120 hour weeks and seven and a half years later you have exited with $20 billion and start doing your space stuff. (You muse that this was all thanks to working on whatever HE wanted, even though it had nothing to do with anything you knew about - you started with ZERO knowledge of 2017 web tech. All that knowledge of one hundred years of technical development paled in comparison to a name you recalled offhand - thereby proving the old adage, it's not WHAT you know, it's WHO you know.)

Anyway, a few years later your space research shocks the world - oh, also you read something about telomeres - you can't BELIEVE you forgot about that, you've always hated and hardly paid any attention to biology but you remembered you actually know enough to slow aging by 90% especially in the skin, and back in your time all babies were given telomere extension shots, which has been going on since shortly before your birth in 2090. Since you're a billionaire with a lot of time on your hands you read up on it, order a small animal and then human experiment, and long story short you give about 8 billion people longer, happier lives by inventing something in 2030 that was slated for 2085, even though you didn't even care.

Oh, and as for your original first patented invention, on a lark you wonder if anyone would finance it now that you have $20 billion, you have the spiffy prototype built, hold a big VC meeting on a private island where anyone who's anyone shows up with three partners - and still nobody has any interest whatsoever. As great at it is, whatever it is, it turns out it's not fundable. The world's just not ready for it.

Moral of the story: sometimes you should just give up, and the sooner you give up, the sooner you can start making some kind of progress.

<comment><USER123> The moral of the story seems to be to stick in your core competencies and de- serendipitous discovery for a couple decades.

If you're a theoretical physicist in 2117 you have a pretty good idea of what was figured out in 2020 and you can front that and collect your Nobel prize in physics and most importantly its funding.

Meanwhile most of the modern world is built out of creative concepts. Huh we can create seemingly arbitrary organic chemicals what happens when ones with free double bonds get triggered into single bonding with neighbors, nobody never thought of anything that crazy and its a bazillion dollar industry now. Uranium, well, it turns glass artistically yellow otherwise pretty boring. Silicon, well, it makes a nice metallurgical addition to steel and aluminum and is "easily" purified to ridiculous levels but otherwise not terribly noteworthy. And then there's things that don't amount to anything, multiverse, strings, skip all that stuff to gain progress. Electric cars were not a "thing" for their first century, but their second is looking pretty interesting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER124> pure spite

</comment><comment><USER125> Personally I look towards people I admire; especially times they screwed up. For example, right now Donald Trump is somebody that's very inspiring to me, because I consider him a great and admirable man, who has also made many mistakes over time. I admire his ability to pick himself back up and keep going.

You will probably have other people you admire; look for times they made mistakes. What's important is realizing everybody makes mistakes all the time. In the end, what makes a great person is their ability to pick themselves up and keep going. Never stagnate.

</comment><comment><USER126> The God Emperor himself. Can you think of any other modern day hero who went through more than he did to get elected?

</comment><comment><USER127> Struggling and failing is how you eventually become strong and capable of succeeding at higher and higher levels.

</comment><comment><USER128> Alcohol.</comment>


Ask HN: What database is used in modern web stack? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> The one that fits your need. If you keep the persistence layer properly separated, you can switch DBs as your needs evolve.

</comment><comment><USER3> Recently I've seen a shift back to SQL, especially Postresql. Couchbase seems to be popular too.

I'm assuming "modern" means "bleeding edge" otherwise, whatever you've worked with in the past probably fits.

</comment><comment><USER4> I see that a lot of people are interested in MongoDB, PostgreSQL, Apache Cassandra, InfluxDB.</comment>


Coronavirus tracked: the latest figures as the pandemic spreads - <AUTHOR> https://www.ft.com/content/a26fbf7e-48f8-11ea-aeb3-955839e06441 <comment><USER2> paywalled</comment>


Your IP: does Google care? - <AUTHOR> http://bertrandmeyer.com/2013/01/28/your-ip-does-google-care-2/

<comment><USER2> No, and it shouldn't. Google Search's mission is to show relevant results to queries. Clearly it's doing that here as it found the full content of a highly relevant book by the author. The fact that the site pointed to is a copyright violation is a problem with the website not with Google. The avenues for enforcement may suck but that's not Google's fault.

The author doesn't even mention Bing, DuckDuckGo, or any other search engine. Those could also probably be used to find this website. Google Search just happens to be very good and very popular. Forcing it to be the IP police because of that would be a tax on innovation and success.

</comment><comment><USER3> Yes, it does, and the link has been removed. At the bottom of the Google Scholar page linked in the article[0], you find the following notice:

 _> In response to a complaint we received under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act, we have removed 1 result(s) from this page. If you wish, you may read the DMCA complaint that caused the removal(s) at ChillingEffects.org._

It leads to [1], which has been filed by Bertrand Meyer, and corresponds to the "kms" file he referenced in his post.

That being said, there are five other links to his book in pdf form in the results.

[0] [http://scholar.google.com/scholar?cluster=115252680840168408...](http://scholar.google.com/scholar?cluster=11525268084016840825&hl=en&num=20&as_sdt=0,5)

[1] <http://www.chillingeffects.org/notice.cgi?sID=775089>

<comment><USER4> That last point deserves underlining, so I'm just going to post a separate comment about it. Even though this _particular_ link has been removed from this _particular_ page, the first result on Google Scholar is still "Object Oriented Software Construction" and if you click on Google's helpful "all 95 versions" link, you will still find PDF versions of the document.

I skipped the first one (which was an FTP url) but ran an HTTP HEAD request against the second PDF listed there (from stttelkom.ac.id) to determine that it was 16.6 MB long, presumably that is also the whole work. The same file was also available a few links below that from uettaxila.edu.pk and then on the next page from fs1.bib.tiera.ru . (There are other things labeled as PDFs with wildly-too-small file sizes to be a 1000-page book; I'm not sure what they are.)

So saying that 'Yes' Google really cares seems too simple. They've never cared enough to, for example, store a database of hashes of forbidden files. Their efforts on YouTube are significantly more extensive, where any audio or video which remotely resembles some registered property can be taken down automatically.

<comment><USER3> They followed the DMCA takedown notice. They are not supposed to know who is or isn't authorized to distribute a version of a document. Even if they are identical, some, but not all links may be infringing.

You can signal several infringing links per request, I don't know why the OP didn't do so.

I checked all the PDFs present in the "all 95 versions", five of them lead to a copy of the book, the others are either 404 or slides for courses that use the book as reference material.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Google has little to do with it, but as much respect I have for Meyer I can't feel bad for him in the slightest:

> You can buy it at Amazon [5] for $97.40, a bit less for a used copy.

People would still pirate it if it cost $0.97, but why are you even pursuing that kind of exorbitant pricing? If it was your publisher that made that price, why personally complain if you don't agree? If I'm an educator, my calling is to teach. It isn't to make exorbitant amounts of money from my words, it is for my words to reach as many people as they can and maybe help someone.

He has a (I imagine) highly well-paid job and could get an even more financially rewarding one anytime he wants in an industry that'd be pining to hire him. If this was his publisher making the post I'd understand. But personally complaining about how someone in Indonesia is stealing your overpriced textbook to try to pass on that intellectual knowledge to others who are (most likely) less privileged is just impossible to sympathize with.

Were they misrepresenting his work or something similar? If it's that I can understand protecting your IP. If it's merely redistributing it then no, I can't.

I'm biased because I don't agree with nearly any part of Intellectual Property, but my problem here isn't ideological, just material: pricing it out of reach for 80% of the world's population and then complaining when people want access to it.

<comment><USER6> I picked up a legal copy for about < $5 in 1999 at a book store near Peking University. They do (or did) price the book for the market; it was in English (back then), and was a crappy printing, but hey...it was cheap! These days, they've translated the cheap copy into Chinese, but its still reasonably priced.

I guess my point is: books are like drugs and are priced according to local market conditions. So the rich Americans pay more (they get nicer binding, but still...) and subsidize the rest of the world.

I doubt Bertrand makes that much money on being an author (who does?), and if he wrote the book in today rather than 20 years ago, things could be very different: self published, e-copies, whatever. But he made that deal back before any of this was an option.

But thar be pirates in those waters: in countries where IP is not respected this will happen. Piracy is quite wrong and its not weird that people have a problem with it. We should respect property rights, we don't have to buy it unless we are Dr. Meyers students.

Pity: its not a bad book, but is definitely dated and is probably no longer a must read, definitely not worth $90. Cutting the cost to make it more consummate with its value would be better.

<comment><USER5> > I guess my point is: books are like drugs and are priced according to local > market conditions. So the rich Americans pay more (they get nicer binding, > but still...) and subsidize the rest of the world.

Absolutely not, and I think your idea of global and local market conditions are completely unfounded. "Rich Americans" don't subsidize the rest of the world.

An example for this particular setting: I'm from Brazil where a copy of this book simply does not exist. It needs to be imported, which will be the precise price of the book in dollars, converted to reais, plus shipping and the local library's fee (if you don't buy from Amazon).

If I could buy a copy of it for R$50 I would right now. But as it stands it'd cost me ~R$200 for a new copy. People who don't have that kind of money to spend on a technical book are simply priced out of knowledge.

> I doubt Bertrand makes that much money on being an author (who does?)

I agree, he probably gets a very small percentage.

But he's not just an author, he's a PhD professor and a software consultant. Writing books isn't his only job and he probably makes more money in a single year of his other activities than he did in the sale of all of his books combined. If we were talking about someone who is a pure writer I'd agree somewhat. But if he _wasn't_ a professor and a software consultant he would never have written that book, so it's just an offshoot of his other professional activities.

> We should respect property rights, we don't have to buy it unless we are Dr. > Meyers students.

We don't have to buy anything. Not even his students do. But if we want to acquire knowledge we must. The point is, to those who are producing this knowledge, do you want to enhance people's intellect or do you want to make money? If it's the latter, and you are already handsomely paid, I won't shed a tear when your intellectual property rights are ignored.

I wouldn't have a problem if it wasn't him, personally, complaining.

<comment><USER7> For those on a budget, search for this book's ISBN on Abe Books. This edition looks like it's available for around $30, plus or minus. I suppose shipping would make this somewhat less attractive in Brasil, but probably still better.

Abe Books sells used books, as well as international editions. YMMV on the legality of the international editions.

<comment><USER8> Amazon is selling a used copy in good condition for $15.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Wait, so search engines are now supposed to be responsible not just for indexing the web and providing relevant results, but also ensuring that all links they display are compliant with copyright laws?

Seems to me that the (legitimate) claim of copyright infringement should be targeted at the website hosting the infringing material, not a search engine that happened to index it.

</comment><comment> ezequiel-garzon Here is an almost too obvious idea... which I'm confident my fellow HNers will debunk in minutes!

Why doesn't Google allow, indeed encourage, a pre-publication process? As I see it, this registration would allow me to "predict" that my 5000-word essay, which can't be found anywhere on the Internet right now, will appear on example.com/article within a day. Almost beyond any reasonable doubt that should bring lots of credibility to my allowed site(s) and accurately destroy the credibility of unscrupulous sites that simply copy and paste. By the way, this could also apply to works placed in the public domain [1], and copyrighted material that will not (or should not) appear freely on the web, as is the case with the OP's book.

A refined API would speed up the process and allow authors to attach copyright restrictions to the resource in question. Needless to say, this process could be extended to other search engines, but it's safe to say right now that if Google alone allowed something like this it could rectify many problems in SEO.

I guess pre-registering heavy data such as images or video may not be reasonable yet, but plain text (even excluding HTML and CSS) could be a great beginning.

Thoughts?

[1] Even if a work is placed in the public domain, it would be reasonable to give the author's original version due prominence in the search results.

<comment><USER10> The bigger problem would be abuse. Google couldn't verify that you actually own what you say you do. So people could easily spam the system to get content they don't like removed. This is currently a problem with the DMCA, but at least with the DMCA there is legal recourse for bad faith requests. The worst punishment that could be done with your proposed system would be account cancellation, which would not be a deterrent.

<comment> ezequiel-garzon _Google couldn't verify that you actually own what you say you do._

OK, but then Google already has that problem now. If they receive a DMCA notice against your pre-registered content they must act. But I'm sure their algorithms would prove that pre-registered content _that is not available elsewhere_ to be extremely reliable. Keep in mind that Google's index probably has basically everything that is out there.

I believe a downside to my proposal is that, if it went into effect, honest publishers would in essence be forced to pre-register, just to be safe. I can imagine some would complain about that.

<comment><USER10> But with the current laws verification of ownership is not Googles responsibility (nor should it be). If google recieves a valid DMCA it has to act on it. Honestly I wouldn't want a private company to be the arbiter of copyright ownership on the internet. Many copyright issues are very complicated and it would be an undue burden (not to mention against the public good) to have a private part control it.

The DMCA has issues but at least disputes end up in court, how do you think an ownership dispute would play out if private companies were in charge of making decisions.

<comment> ezequiel-garzon Thanks for your answer, and sorry for my late thoughts... I understand your position, and surely there would be many challenges, but if publishers adopted this proposed API, Google's results would be fairer and, potentially, their crawling could become more efficient (unnecessary?). Clearly they would carry the burden of providing a way to report malicious registration... but again, the moment badguy.example.com claims to host original content and it receives 20+ complaints... it's game over for that domain!

With regard to the notion of a private company controlling copyright issues, I'm a first believer that Google, big as it is, is not the Internet. An honest effort to clean up their index should not be confused with an attempt to censor anything. Taking the flip side: prove (via a simple API) that your content is indeed original, and _then_ you'll be welcome in our index. Needless to say, only a dominant industry leader could take such a bold attitude.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> [https://www.google.com/search?q=Object- Oriented+Software+Con...](https://www.google.com/search?q=Object- Oriented+Software+Construction) gives:

"In response to a complaint we received under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act, we have removed 1 result(s) from this page. If you wish, you may read the DMCA complaint that caused the removal(s) at ChillingEffects.org."

Here's DMCA complaint:

<http://www.chillingeffects.org/notice.cgi?sID=775089>

</comment><comment><USER12> I'm not quite sure why this is a Google problem.

What are they supposed to do? What are they not doing in this specific instance?

<comment><USER13> > What are they not doing in this specific instance?

Remove the link to the content of _his_ book he choose not to publically share. I fail to see what's difficult to understand.

<comment><USER12> > Remove the link to the content of his book

They have removed the link.

Google removes very many links every day. There's clear law about this, and Google obeys that law. Are you suggesting that the need to do more than the law says?

Whatever Google does, the content is still available. It's been posted to Usenet news at least once. ([http://binsearch.info/?q=Object+Oriented+Software+Constructi...](http://binsearch.info/?q=Object+Oriented+Software+Construction&max=100&adv_age=1100&server=))

<comment><USER13> > Are you suggesting that the need to do more than the law says?

No, all I'm suggesting is that Google removes this link [1] as asked by the author of the book. Again, I fail to see what's hard to understand.

> Whatever Google does, the content is still available. It's been posted to > Usenet news at least once. > (<http://binsearch.info/?q=Object+Oriented+Software+Constructi...>)

Google is not responsible for others indexing systems, I've never said otherwise.

[1] <http://www.imagebam.com/image/e2e9df239055991>

<comment><USER14> If you look carefully, you'll note that the link in your screenshot is not the same as the one in Dr. Meyer's DMCA complaint.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Google is a reflection of the web. What the author has is a problem with the content of the web, not with Google. He's asking Google to censor the web, which is very dangerous.

Instead of spoiling the reflection for everyone, he should change what is being reflected.

I know that he can't really do that in this case, but who expects anything worth reading to not end up online for free?

</comment><comment><USER14> Note that this blog post is from Jan 28, so it's entirely possible the DMCA content removal hadn't happened yet when Dr. Meyer wrote it.

</comment><comment><USER16> Let me simplify this title ...

"Does Google Care?" And the answer is a resounding no.

I like using many Google products, but as a company I find Google to be somewhat despicable. They have enormous power and the sheer impossibility of making human contact with anyone at Google seems like an abuse of that power.</comment>