You know, somehow I am reminded this line from Fight Club (both the novel and the movie)

“We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off.”

It is possible that what we really need, is to get away from this mentality that each and every one of us is capable of achieving "greatness" and "shine" and "leave our mark in the world" etc etc...All the "Become Legendary" and "Here's to the crazy ones" motivational videos and speeches in the world won't change the fact that the majority of people *won't* ever achieve those goals, and will be crushed by it. I'm not saying, of course, to not try to better yourself and improve your skills, but I think there is a huge difference between saying "I f*cking love basketball, I want to get into NBA so I can compete with the best, and I won't quit until I do that" and just saying "I want to be rich and famous and have people talking about me and admire me and rub it into the faces of the jerks in my old neighbourhood that were saying I'll never amount to anything".

As a poster here already said, maybe we should tell people that it's perfectly ok *not* to be those things, and it's even perfectly ok to not even *want* to be those things. A person can instead choose to endulge into the so-called "simpler" pleasures of life, like building strong, lasting friendships, or fall in love, or travelling, or have lots of exciting short-term flings, or raise children, or anything really, without caring that he won't "leave his mark" in the world. Why should we? The Einsteins of this world that possess the extraordinary talent *and* passionate drive to work hard in order to achieve "greatness" will always exist; in fact most of the time those people don't need to desperately search for "motivation" to work, but rather find some distractions from their work so their passion for it doesn't consume them completely. The rest of us, why not just, you know, try to lay back and enjoy life as it comes? Why the hell should we put so much stress in ourselves and "aim for the stars" because Steve Jobs said so? Screw the "stars",you do that, I'm just going to go down to the beach and watch the clouds go by and the waves break into the shore.

Now, that said, I wish I could entirely convince myself about all of the above...working on that though

On the work plane it is easy to me - take something interesting and learn it - if you will know it very good probably you could turn it into 'business'- Isn this kind of sufficient answer?

Unfortunately - no. I don't have a degree in programming and comp. science, but I consider my self a well experienced C++ programmer, even to the level when people who are doing degree projects or homework, asked me about C++, operation system development and etc. However I live in a reality (and it might only apply to me, and not other countries), where employer won't look at your resume if there is no degree. I also confirm that I lack confidence, and even if I was be able to get to an interview into game development studio, I'd probably consider my self lucky and "sort b" developer.

On the other hand, in my reality, there are practically zero game development studios in my country. Therefor I can be the best gamedev out there, still no body needs me here.

On the other hand, I might just be looking to justify my whining...

jHaskell

Thanks! Perspectives are important.

szecs

But today I also have to deal with incompetent developers that work with me, stupid customer requests and etc. + I officially work 8 hours a day, and when I get back home, I sometimes program for another 3-4 hours. How is that different from being self employed who works 12-14 hours, but he does what he like most of the time, while I spend most of the time, doing what others want me to do.

If you are not spending your free time actually building your company, then maybe the thing you are actually doing is the thing you actually want to be doing? Don't fret too much. You are still young.

That what scares me. That I talk a lot and do very little. It brings the feel of hopeless, i.e. "I want to do that, but I'm not really doing this, therefor I'm useless and hopeless". And I find stupid excuses like "it was a hard day at work, I deserve playing some video game or watching some tv show, i cant code for 20 hours for gods sake!", which are just... excuses.

mikeman

Fight club is a great movie! One of my favorite. I didn't read the novel though, however its somewhere in my "to-read" list.

Yes, I won't lie and tell you that I'm not affected by television or those super star games, where the protagonist kills all the bad and brings peace to the world, I'm still a young man who didn't self-expressed yet, and I look for those places where I can self-express. But we all know that I can't be Rambo or Hitman.

And by the way, Fight club is just another movie, no different than everything shown on tv, and saying you can be raised by that movie.. well..

I don't know how to explain this. I just feel that how things work now, is wrong. I feel that I can do better.

As for me, I think its wrong to tell people not to reach their goals and maximum potential. What is our purpose then, other than reaching our goals and strive to personal (not what is shown on tv) greatness? Just my philosophy.

phantom

Its not that matter of "nothing you do will last", its more the point of doing something meaningful for you.

Thanks everyone for the replies! I really appreciate your efforts to help!

As for me, I think its wrong to tell people not to reach their goals and maximum potential. What is our purpose then, other than reaching our goals and strive to personal (not what is shown on tv) greatness?

I definitely did *not* say that, at least didn't mean to. What I'm saying is, there will be people that can't be content with themselves if they don't become "someone", achieve something nobody else has, even something small, and there are others that simply prefer to work in order to earn their living, and then spend their time doing what they enjoy, with no "higher goal" in mind; and that it's a-ok to be in the second category - it doesn't necessarily mean that you're a "loser", or "lazy", or "wasting your potential" etc etc...Our "purpose" is whatever we choose it to be - we all end up as dust anyway, and if in the meantime I choose to just try to be happy and not endlessly chase some "goals" in order to convince myself that I "matter", so what?

mikeman

Sorry! I probably misunderstood you.

I definitely agree with the fact that the approach of "give me my 8 hours work and salary, and let me do whatever I want during the remaining 16 hours of the day" is completely ok! There is nothing wrong with such approach. It works for a lot of people who live happy lives. But not for me.

In order to create my own company in the future I have paid very close attention to each of the bosses I have had. Some of them are successful and some not so much.
Obviously you cannot possibly learn within a few lines of text what I have learned over the last decade, so you really have no choice but bear with it, but I can of course impart words of experience (and yes I specifically delved into their personal start-up lives in order to decide how to start my own company).


My first boss was French. Sold his house and moved to Thailand with that money to start his company.
He previously worked for Ubisoft and when he left them he made a deal with them to make sure they outsource his company for some projects.
He handled the first 1 or 2 on his own, and at the same time visited Thai Universities to give lectures that he had hoped would bring students to his company.
It worked on both fronts, as he was able to get steady contracts and cheap staff to work for him.
Possible lessons learned: Work somewhere first and use that to get contracts for your own business. He worked at Ubisoft for 7 years. Patience.
And think outside the box when planning on hiring labor. While most Americans think only about life inside America, he thought about how to hire labor within his budget throughout the world. Thailand was the perfect balance between budget and skill (because let’s face it: you may pay nothing for African programming skill, but you will also ship nothing), and so Sanuk Games was born.

(Useless trivia: One of my Thai coworkers from there now works at my current company, tri-Ace.)

Skip a few because not every company has something to teach (except don’t cheat your workers, don’t expect slavery from them, and don’t literally break the laws on their taxes).

The CEO and CTO of my current company used to talk with his school professors about mathematics in his spare time. Even at that age he understood mathematical concepts as well as any of them.

He’s used that to advance our understanding of physically based rendering through multiple research papers, conferences at SIGGRAPH, etc. He was considered genius enough in high school that Universities were not necessary for him, despite being Japanese where your career depends on your studies in 99.953% of all cases. He’s also taller than me.

He picked up programming at the age of 10 and learned without online support sites or resources (as explained to me in a taxi in Los Angeles).

After programming Tales of Phantasia while still in high school, he was upset at who got the rights to what and decided to make his own company.

Lesson to learn: Be a genius.

Even if you are a genius there is no guarantee of success, but Yoshiharu Gotanda was good at the right kind of math at the right time for game development.

If you believe you are a genius who can add to today’s graphics knowledge you may have a chance, if you also know how to hand-pick your coworkers. You are going to need those guys to succeed so you had better be able to rate them. Of course, tri-Ace was named after the 3 aces who formed it, each of whom were the authorities in their respective domains. Sound, design, programming, etc.

If you are not a genius, learn some patience.

Otherwise you will be one of those companies I skipped over in my advice to you.

L. Spiro

L. Sprio

Thanks a lot, its very informative and motivational!

u1bd2005

I'm very similar to you in a lot of aspects, apart from the thing that my hobby (programming) is what I want to do for living. Thanks for your reply! I appreciate it!