What was the event that divided your life into a before and after?

Starting a company.

Since the company failed, the after was wayyyy worse than the before. But now that it is in the distant past, the after is better. But it's very very different.

I don't have any of the same friends, or the skills I used to have before trying to be a CEO, and I lived in high-rent high-stress places that wore me down. I lost my business connections and mental stability for a long time. I was very-not-okay.

I learned most of all, that if you try to do something interesting or creative in the world, then some portion of the population will try to get you to end your own existence. They'll tell you that you're stupid, that you're wasting your life, that you should actually just stop existing, that your product sucks, etc. It goes on forever. And then one day your company fails and all the people who shouted at you to stop and that you're stupid seemed to make sense finally, and so you feel extra stupid and bad about yourself and it takes forever to get past.

Some people can start companies. Not me.

/r/AskReddit Thread