AskSN

When was the last time you helped someone?

cryotosensei

My favorite form of helping is helping other founders, because I'm not very far along myself and I learn a lot about myself in the process. The trade-offs are mostly:

1. we come to loathe people that help us because they remind us of our weakness
2. most people want advice that costs them nothing to follow, and advice rarely takes that form, so it's often wasted
3. it's hard watching people cope with the occasional and inevitable poor outcomes - we tend to imagine we're being persecuted rather than admitting shortcomings
4. it's hard watching people lie about what they've accomplished, imposture and puff up, which they do to either self-soothe through uncertainty or because they believe lying is a shortcut to somewhere else