Geroin's blog

By Geroin, history, 6 months ago, translation, In English

How do I stop doing it? I know I can achieve something if I keep practicing, I have many possibilities. I got everything I have through CP, but what did it cost me? After every round on Codeforces (and I've written a really great deal of them), I feel like a lowly loser every time. Every time I finish another competition and cry because I hate myself. Every fucking time I make the stupidest marks and there's no cure. hasn't been a cure in 5 years. Every time there are situations along the lines of: I came up with a problem from reading, it's very simple. But while I'm writing it, I make a billion different and every time new mistakes. In every line. It's killing me. I come out of div2 realizing that I should have closed it, and ended up passing d with +4 and my performance is 2000, when I almost never have 2600+ level problems.

If I blow it, I'll spend the rest of my life blaming myself for having so many such great opportunities, I had dreams, I was constantly going for some goals. But every fucking time, I fuck up. Every time after EVERY Olympics I realize that I fucked it all up again for no apparent reason. I really don't understand why this happens. Recently my team and I wrote the All-Russian Team Olympiad and we were sure of gold(top4). We really didn't even fking doubt it. We've been writing awesome training sessions, and here we are. And here we go. And here we go. Top 23. I'm serious... 2 years ago at this Olympics, I was on a team with someone stronger than me, but we made top 5. Even though he was stronger, but that was 2 years ago and the hardest problem we solved was completely invented and written by me.

A year ago the guys wrote without me (I was in the hospital) and they wrote to top18.

Believe me, there isn't a single competition, other than the ones I've closed, after which I don't regret how dumb I was.

I really want to end it all, but I won't be able to live peacefully with the thought that I didn't even try, it will eat away at me that much harder I hate my life. I've hated it since the day I was born.

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6 months ago, # |
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“Never give up, because you never know if the next try is going to be the one that works.”

— Mary Kay Ash

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    6 months ago, # ^ |
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    The next try may hurt. And the wound may never heal.

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    6 months ago, # ^ |
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    Enough, if you failed 20 times, then you won’t succeed in 21, just accept it, I’m telling you as a person who didn’t even become turquoise in 20+ rounds

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      6 months ago, # ^ |
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      I know this is hard for you to accept. but my teacher said that without effort there will be no progress. For example: if a monkey wants to take a fruit from a tree, she climbed onto it and fell, and every time she fell it became painful for her, but then she realized that if she took a stick and hit the fruit, they themselves would fall to her and she would not it will hurt.

      you think it wasn’t hard for others, everyone goes through this torment.

      one time I wanted not to do CP, but suddenly I thought, if I work hard and achieve my goals, I will be very happy, and less than a week later I became a pupil and I was very pleased.

      P.S. Sorry for the stupid example, but my teacher gave it to me.

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        6 months ago, # ^ |
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        Your example looks good, but you forgot one thing. How to think out of the box like the monkey? I mean you can't just change your approach by strong will alone, you need to know the other approach too, right? Don't think that I am being rude, I am just saying that you can't go the other way if you don't know any other way.

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6 months ago, # |
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I know logical arguments when you're in such a state of mind might come off as annoying, but sometimes they are what just lead to that "click" of inspiration that helps you move away from such a toxic feedback loop (at least, trying to be rational works out for me personally), so I will attempt to provide a logical argument nevertheless. This argument is also something that seemed to help someone who needed support, so I am posting it here with their consent (and with edits relevant to your situation).

Firstly, this is an example of sunk cost fallacy. Just because something didn't work out, it doesn't mean that you are worthless and can't achieve great goals in other things. I personally know people who ended up, after failing in some Olympiad, being disappointed, got it pointed out to them that other things would also work out because they're smart and/or hard working, switched to another Olympiad, won a gold medal in the other international Olympiad, and then returned to their original Olympiad and making it to their country's team by ranking first.

It is also worth trying to measure how skewed your perspective is. If you're blue/purple, you're much further ahead than many other people — remember that CF is a self-selecting community, so the upper quantiles are vastly deflated.

Don't let a single thing dictate your self-worth. Humans have multiple skills, and there is also the time factor — sometimes things come to you at a later time and it is just not within your control. There might be free will, but there are also limitations posed by external factors. Have confidence and faith that you can achieve other distinct things on your own, and it is just your mental block prevents you from this. Humans are virtually indestructible mentally with the right stimulus/motivation — people fight, survive and move on from things, sometimes even end up laughing about their hard times in retrospect.

You don't need to achieve everything at once. Take a deep breath. Introspect. Take a break. Get non-competitive hobbies, listen to music, play an instrument, socialize and be with people you genuinely like being around. This can even help you get better — a lot of people get better performance after a long break, and for many it is because they just started seeing the bigger picture and became more resilient over time. People perform well when they're happy, and in fact, happiness is a much more intrinsic feeling/need than that of achievement.

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    6 months ago, # ^ |
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    What should one do to improve? I know it is not instantly possible i have been giving contests on codechef and have given about 30 contests and still not able to solve the fifth problem sometimes 4th problem.I am not giving contests on Codeforces because i know i won't be able solve even a single problem. I know most of them would advice to solve higher rated problems but i am not able to solve higher rated problems. Can you please help?