For over a week now, I’ve been trying to write a year in review piece for
Satoshi Forest. The words, which usually just flow like a spigot when I’m
passionate about something, seem to just dribble out. And what little eeks
by is hardly print worthy. Maybe it’s just writer’s block? Writer’s block
happens. Or maybe I’m not as passionate about Satoshi Forest as I used to
be?

But, I am passionate about Satoshi Forest, perhaps more than I ever have
been. And writer’s block, if it is the culprit, cannot explain why I
haven’t responded to Elizabeth Ploshay’s ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, in a
timely fashion. I guess I’ll have to donate now. You see it’s not just the
Satoshi Forest year in review, it’s everything. Emails from friends I
haven’t responded to, phone calls I let go to voicemail, new endeavors at
Sean’s Outpost I let sit unannounced (http://blockchain.satoshiforest.com/).
And then it hits me. I’ve been here before.

I’m really depressed.

And it seems to be going around.

Since the tragic suicide of Robin Williams, four (4) people close to me
have also tried to kill themselves. One succeeded. An anecdotal survey of
my friends has seen an equal uptick in the number of people talking about
or attempting suicide. It’s been really disturbing.

In the preparations for the Bitcoin in the Beltway conference this past
June, I had one of the more surreal conversations of my life. An east coast
sales director for Marriott called me wanting to know if bitcoin was linked
to suicide. They had heard of the tragic death of Autumn Radtke in March (
http://nypost.com/2014/03/06/bitcoin-firm-ceo-jumped-to-her-death-neighbor/)
and were concerned about hosting a conference for a technology that was
making people kill themselves. I was sure he was joking. He was not. The
conversation I had with him must have allayed his fears. #BitcoinBeltway
went great, can’t wait to do it again next year.

Obviously, bitcoin does not cause suicide. And while we are quick to sticky
a “suicide prevention hotline” when the price crashes, bitcoin is not
causing depression. What we may want to look into is something that is not
bitcoin related, but more something that comes part and parcel with
“bitcoiners”.

The woes of entrepreneurship and startup culture.

Being an entrepreneur is fucking hard. Really hard. Most people don’t even
attempt it.

It might not feel that way to you, but likely that’s because you surround
yourself with other entrepreneurs. Your friends work at startups. Your
trips are to startup conferences and conventions. Your news feed is
r/bitcoin and hacker news. You are firmly in the echo chamber.

Most people will never try and build a product or company. So most people
will never experience what it is like to fear you won’t make payroll and
someone else will not be able to pay their rent because of you.

Most people will never know how difficult it is to raise money. To get
someone else to believe in you enough to open their checkbook and support
you financially. The hours you spend and the mental strain that comes from
hearing “No” again and again and again. And if you get a “Yes” the pressure
doesn’t dissipate! It increases! Now it’s your crazy idea and someone elses
money you’re responsible for.

Being an entrepreneur is really hard.

And we are really hard on ourselves. We are afraid to show any weakness.
Because we’ve been taught being weak or vulnerable is to be shunned. If
someone asks you how your company is doing “We’re killing. it.” probably
comes off your lips before you’ve even processed the question.

It is statistically impossible for everyone to always be “killing it”.

But ask at your next mixer or meetup and almost everyone will be “killing
it”.

And that pressure to succeed, to perform, to win is immense. And I think
that pressure may be even worse in bitcoin.

Not to everyone, but to a lot of bitcoin early adopters, and especially to
a lot of early bitcoin entrepreneurs, bitcoin is a promise. A glimpse of a
better world free from the inequalities brought by our legacy financial
system. So if you fail in bitcoin, it is easy to feel that you are failing
on that promise too.

I’ve felt that way. Felt that if I screw up I am screwing it up for every
non-profit and charity. That they will somehow not get the benefits of
bitcoin because I failed. I see it in others. Just a week ago at
#Cryptolina I talked with a group of brilliant entrepreneurs who were
convinced that if they didn’t beat an incumbent payment solution to market,
they had lost the war. And that whole segment of the market would NEVER
benefit from cryptocurrency.

Being a bitcoin entrepreneur is hard.

And I don’t have the answers to how to deal with all the pressure and
depression that come from doing what we do. But I have learned a couple of
things and maybe someone else that is experiencing depression or having
dark thoughts can read this and gain some value from what I’ve learned. And
even better, maybe someone that has dealt with depression in the past can
riff on what I’ve said and provide some insight into how they cope.

1) You are not alone.

When you are depressed, it seems like everyone else has it all together and
you are the anomaly. That’s not true. They probably don’t have their shit
together either. And everyone has problems we don’t see. Everyone.

Some of the greatest entrepreneurs and investors of all time have had
brutal fights with depression and suicidal thoughts.

READ:

http://www.inc.com/magazine/201309/jessica-bruder/psychological-price-of-entrepreneurship.html

2) Bitcoin needs you and it doesn’t need you. And that’s ok.

Bitcoin needs you. It really does. But it doesn’t need only you, it needs
all of us. You are not the single point of failure. Bitcoins success is
just a decentralized as the blockchain. So give yourself a break. It’s ok
to make mistakes and it’s ok to fail. It’s even ok to fail spectacularly.

Think back to how many times bitcoin has been declared dead. How many times
has the price crashed? How many times has a major bitcoin institution been
corrupted/hacked/found to be a scam?

And yet, here we are. An you are here too.

3) It is ok to ask for help.

This is hard to learn. We come from a self sufficient culture. And if you
ask for help, people will realize that you are not as awesome as they
thought you were...BULLSHIT. Asking for help has ZERO bearing on how
awesome a person you are. In fact, your friends WANT TO HELP YOU. Being
there for you in a moment of crisis is something your friends are probably
really down for. But if you ignore them or won’t tell them you are having
problems it is really difficult for them to help. Talk to someone. If all
else fails you can always call…

THE NATIONAL SUICIDE PREVENTION LIFELINE: 1-800-273-TALK (8255)

I know all of this might not make a difference. When you are caught up in
your head in the middle of a depressive episode nothing seems to help. Try
to find something that you can concentrate on just to get you thru the
worst of it. For me, I go play with my kids. It helps me. Sometimes more
than others.

If you are feeling down, try to talk to someone. And if you see someone
feeling down, try to lend a supportive ear.

Bitcoin needs you alive.