I wish I learned to take care of my health at a younger age. Of course, I'm overdue to go to the dentist, so perhaps I'm still struggling with that.
I wish I had learned not to have a fear of other people at a younger age. It's easy to say that I was "shy". I think it went much further than that. I'm in a place where I don't speak the common language, and let me tell you how hard it is to learn a language when you are "shy".
I wish I learned to recognize abusive behaviors and asshole-ism much earlier than I did. I occasionally shock people by telling a story where awful stuff happened and at the time I didn't think anything was wrong.
I wish I learned whatever it is that makes people want to hire you in interviews. I've been through thousands of interviews, and the only jobs I've ever gotten are ones where I wasn't interviewed. Even when recommended for jobs, where I'm perfect for the position and the job is perfect for me, I've never gotten hired that way. Most jobs don't easily let you in the back door; usually you still have to go through an interview process. I still don't have this one sorted out, even if the previous two I have down much better.
> I wish I learned whatever it is that makes people want to hire you in interviews. I've been through thousands of interviews, and the only jobs I've ever gotten are ones where I wasn't interviewed. Even when recommended for jobs, where I'm perfect for the position and the job is perfect for me, I've never gotten hired that way. Most jobs don't easily let you in the back door; usually you still have to go through an interview process. I still don't have this one sorted out, even if the previous two I have down much better.
Since this is probably connected to the "shyness" issue you mentioned, maybe try getting a good psychotherapist? It's probably one of the issues that could be greatly improved with external help and coaching/guidance.
I used to be shy when I was a teenager and only started to break out of my shell once I got sales and customer service jobs. These jobs taught me how to interact with a wide range of people. And my success as a sales person was literally tied to my people skills, so I learned that way.
I would say, anything you're irrationally afraid of (that isn't literally dangerous), you should consciously seek out and force yourself into situations.
I remember when I was younger I was conscious of the fact that I was socially awkward, and the awareness of that just fed into my social interactions.
100 times these. It's very difficult to understand some things at a younger age. I wish I can explain these things to my younger self. But what's gone is gone, and the only way is forward.
But having said that I would like to help my younger family members to understand these things, but they act exactly as I did. Not sure how can I communicate it to them.
If you know someone isn't really your friend, to move on and get them out of your life ASAP. It's a bit like breaking up, it takes some guts to tell someone you don't want to be their friend anymore. To stop answering the phone etc.
To generalise this, to eliminate bullshit as soon as your instinct tells you it is BS (which is years before you may be willing to admit it!)
I'm really glad that I don't have a lot of friends. The one's I got are like a very well curated box of chocolates. My friend "chocolate mint" is interesting; super sweet on the outside, but often cold-hearted af! I still love her very much.
When my friends talk about their troubles with their other friends it feels weird. Like "why bother?". It's easier than ever to stop talking to a person. Just stop talking.
Being more objective about and positive/negatives of major aspects of one's life.
Since this is HN, I'll talk about having a technical role/job. It's really easy to feel that something fantastic (e.g. a great business problem, the latest tech stack, a great work environment) is present at another job feel miserable because your current job doesn't have that one thing. Many times this is just your own projection (and you may not project the negatives around that one thing) You can then jump to another job based on this projection and feel even more miserable than you did before you took the job because now you realize you were only projecting that this missing thing existed at your new job.
Going along this with, you project how great that one missing thing will be, but not realize that one missing thing is going to have negatives as well.
You can also minimize the negatives - My work environment/boss/tech stack is terrible, but most jobs are like this so I'll stay. Again, you project the negatives to another place out of fear that leaving your current job will be a mistake.
It's a long and hard series of lessons to get to the point where you can be somewhat objective what's missing, what's okay to be missing, what needs to be there for you to be content, and the ways resolve this. That way you can be more balanced about what you need from a job what you need to from outside your job.
Oh yeah, and this applies to personal factors as well. Agree with you though. I have moved jobs and I have found that there's tradeoffs. You may get more pay, better tech stack, etc, but might have to live further from family & friends.
So true. Something I took a long time to learn. Everyone's perspective is different so be more empathetic to it and maybe you'll find you're not right after all.
But us logical people cannot resist fixing lack of logic. It's in our bones. By "logic" I mean that our arguments are based on an explicit line of reasoning that we can articulate. When people ignore logic and trust their own or someone else's vague intuition instead, us logical people get a mental rash.
For sure. I've come to the conclusion that most people are just too closed minded to hear anything that does not align with their side. It is a particularly good mindset to adapt right around election years.
Imagine you had to harvest your own food, build your own shelter and manufacture your own clothes... you would not have time to be in Hacker News.
Don’t be so sure about this one — there are a fair number of people who do grow much or all of their own food, and often at least some of the other necessities as well. Those who are good at it seem to end up with some leisure time as well (although whether they read HN, I don’t know). There are always arguments around the corner cases — nobody gets to be 100% self sufficient, there are usually bought in tools or something — but it seems to be possible to get quite close.
Rejecting specialisation completely is perhaps a bit extreme for me, but I can certainly see a lot of advantages to not allowing oneself to be defined by ones speciality.
Also where did they get the money to start out. Land, buildings etc. And to read hacker news a screen, an internet connection, all of which made, by specialist people using specialist tools, made by other specialist people using specialist tools. All of which were developed by specialist people relying on other specialist people.
Philosophically I like the idea of being a generalist. It's good to know. at least rudimentarily how to build simple things and look after yourself. But lets not kid ourselves, if we all did this we'd be back to the stone/iron age.
I think the point is that good tools that last a long time are a specialization. As is the distribution network for those tools, the infrastructure to deliver them, the equipment and the raw materials to make them.
Certainly. Most around here (UK) tend to make more ornamental than functional stuff nowadays, but skills are definitely out there. This being a somewhat “horsey” area, there are also plenty of farriers.
It’s also somewhat accessible to hobbyists. My sister has done some pretty neat stuff.
Those sort of universal arguments can mislead. What if everybody worked as a programmer, then we would all starve. That doesn't make programming a morally bad career choice.
0. Focus less on work and more on living a good life. Focusing on work too much is a surefire path to burnout and hating yourself. Therefore, define “success” mostly in terms of what you do outside of work.
1. Take care of your health, above all else. I wish I could meet my 20 year old self and convince him to seriously take up cardio and weightlifting while natural HGH still makes things easy.
- You don't need that neat kitchen gadget when a knife will do just fine.
- A small number of close friends > a lot of acquaintances. As you get older and priorities change, maintaining those friendships becomes harder, closer friends will understand and help maintain that connection.
- Eat less
- Starting fewer projects at once helps get more projects done.
- Less distractions. Give yourself more time to think to formulate your thoughts w/o influence or corruption.
An exception is more travel. You'll look back and never regret a travel experience.
Good list, on that topic of travel I would expand it for "adventure". You can have adventure discovering new part of your county/country, or even your own town. One can try some 'extreme' sports - ie parachute-related, climbing, diving, whatever is nearby you. Pick locally. Try and decide if you once would like to be a proficient in that activity and would enjoy it.
One can travel far for adventures, or ride a bike to them - do both!
1. Career progress is not about more money or promotions. It's about going from where you are, to somewhere better. Sometimes the high ranking jobs means that you work 12 hours a day, 6 days a week, travel for months without your family. A good career path improves your quality of life.
2. Being nicer. I've been an angry, forceful person. It's unnatural for me, and I thought it would get more things done. It didn't help at all and made things a lot worse. I find that, statistically, being nice has far better returns. You'll probably remember the few times people take advantage of it, but in most modern, high wealth areas, it pays off very well.
I wish I learned earlier that it's possible to not want what everyone else wants, in my situation, money. Growing up poor, my mom was always money, money, money. Have to get good grades to get a good job to make money. I joined a business fraternity in college, then a startup incubator, then became an Amazon seller so I have consistently been surrounded by people who really want to make a lot of money.
I had my first loss of a loved one last year and I learned the hard way that money is trivial in the large scheme of things when you have enough. That it is okay to not want to make huge sums of money and to focus on other things in your life that are more meaningful to you like your relationships. But more importantly to be aware of who you surround yourself with.
Luckily I'm 25 so maybe it's good I learned this now but I would give anything to spend more time with the person I lost instead of stressing so hard about making more money. That and in the larger scheme of things, most of the things you find stressful are trivial when it comes to the big picture, death. I watched a wonderful talk by Alexis Ohanian about "Zero Lives Remaining" and it's true. Compared to that, a lot of the things that you thought were the end of the world, really aren't, so take it easy and enjoy life.
I wish I had learned the difference between need and want when choosing a service to create. You can make a profitable businesses providing what people want for sure. But it's much better to be in the business of providing what people need more.
If I had learned that earlier it could of saved me years of hard work over something that turned out to be a dud.
Being cheated on by my closest friend with my ex at the time. Lost them both, and it hurt. But in retrospect, I became much stronger, and I wouldn't be the same today!
Dealing with dentists. Let my fear control me for many years after an incident and because of that my Dennis lost his Gnasher.
Although wishing it was easier is all well and good, but these types of incidents in life are hard to give us a better perspective on what is important.
I wish I had learned not to have a fear of other people at a younger age. It's easy to say that I was "shy". I think it went much further than that. I'm in a place where I don't speak the common language, and let me tell you how hard it is to learn a language when you are "shy".
I wish I learned to recognize abusive behaviors and asshole-ism much earlier than I did. I occasionally shock people by telling a story where awful stuff happened and at the time I didn't think anything was wrong.
I wish I learned whatever it is that makes people want to hire you in interviews. I've been through thousands of interviews, and the only jobs I've ever gotten are ones where I wasn't interviewed. Even when recommended for jobs, where I'm perfect for the position and the job is perfect for me, I've never gotten hired that way. Most jobs don't easily let you in the back door; usually you still have to go through an interview process. I still don't have this one sorted out, even if the previous two I have down much better.