Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: What advice messed up your life?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 248 posts

Re: Ask HN: What advice messed up your life?

#141

Post by jeangenie »

hasenj wrote: post #11

Not from any specific person, but the idea that you have to step outside your comfort zone and do X and Y even though it doesn't come naturally to you. Every time I did that things got messed up and I ended up worse than I was before. If you're outside your comfort zone, you will act in non-authentic ways, and when you're not being authentic, you can't be the best possible you. Examples of stepping outside comfort zo…

good advice i actually got from a professor (via c.s. peirce): do nothing to stand in the way of enquiry. this forces you to confront the inadequacy of your knowledge (which you'll realize is intensely personal) and how much help you need.

i should also mention that peirce died a penniless drunk, after leading a tumultuous (huge understatement) life, including a lecturing at harvard.

it's interesting and a little sobering to see how fucked up the lives of many dedicated scholars end up being.

Re: Ask HN: What advice messed up your life?

#142

Post by jemfinch »

Almaviva wrote: post #85

Variations of "you'll just meet someone" and "dating will get easier in your 30s" and "the important thing is you do well in school, and everything else will follow". Fuck that. Someone should have shaken the shit out of me when I was 18, forced me to go to a school with a normal gender ratio, and gotten me to strike while the iron was still hot while I still had some sexual attraction to women, and never take for gr…

I know it's childish, but the ambiguity in the phrase "while I still had some sexual attraction to women" amuses me.

Re: Ask HN: What advice messed up your life?

#143

Post by arithmetic »

Well, this advice didn't mess me up but pushed me in the opposite direction.

When I was a kid, my parents told me that little girls like me should study in a local college, get good grades, find a comfortable job (preferably an accountant), settle down in the same city (as my parents) and get married by 21 (years).

My college was in a different city as compared to where I grew up. This really helped in teaching me how to live on my own. I took to computers, interned at a couple of companies and got hired by another software company, moved to the United States, and dated and married a fellow computer nerd a little over a month ago (let's just say I'm way over 21 now).

I think I did well.

Re: Ask HN: What advice messed up your life?

#144

Post by iamwil »

j_baker wrote: post #77
iamwil wrote: post #8

"It'll just happen when you least expect it." It's just something people say to console, not actually anything that's remotely useful or true. Magic never happens on its own. You have to go out there and make it happen.

I'm honestly not sure I'm understanding you properly, but if I am, this is true up to a point . We like to believe in a world where everyone's results are directly correlated with how much work they've done, but that's just as much a fantasy as it is to believe that all you have to do is sit around and wait for the right opportunity to magically appear. I hate to break it to you, but the most successful people in soc…

I was mostly talking about dating girls. It may seem obvious in hindsight, but at the time, I just took it as word. But it's also applicable to other aspects of my life.

Whenever I've taken initiative and grabbed the situation by the horns to change, it's been for the better.

Re: Ask HN: What advice messed up your life?

#145

Post by jemfinch »

nostromo wrote: post #29
cookiecaper wrote: post #19

I've found most "conventional wisdom" to be bad advice. "Wait for marriage", "wait for kids" are both bad advice. "Go to college" is not necessarily bad advice, but the universal expectation that one will do so is bad, and it is bad advice for a lot of people. There's a lot of other bad advice out there.

Why are "wait for marriage" and "wait for kids" bad advice?

Because for most people, marriage and children are the high points of their lives. Even the most successful businesspeople, when they reach the end of their life, rarely lament missed business opportunities, but frequently lament lost time with family.

Re: Ask HN: What advice messed up your life?

#146

Post by Goosey »

I believe I understand the intention of this entire thread: in order to flush out good advice try to first highlight 'bad advice'. However I hope that all those who read it and all those who posted in it remember something very important.

Regret is suffering. It is being attached to a different reality that you "should" be experiencing that is somehow better than the reality you are in. Everything that happened in your life, every single stupid thing, was required/essential/instrumental in your life being exactly as it is right now.

I hope we can make use of this thread as a means to help us guide future decisions without it functioning as a way to make us feel regret. Do not expend energy suffering over that which is not only out of your control, but an illusion. Your past is not reality: you are, right here, right now.

Re: Ask HN: What advice messed up your life?

#148

Post by ericb »

noname123 wrote: post #131
ericb wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an opposing viewpoint, every major advance in my life has come from stepping outside of my comfort zone and tackling something in which I had no idea what I was doing. -public speaking -asking women out -learning to dance -socializing/making friends -lifting weights -starting a business -doing sales work -learning to program edit: The vast majority of these made me very uncomfortable and awkard, not "a little".

To piggyback off your example to make a point, 1) public speaking: preach to the choir or speak your mind? 2) picking up women: be a nice guy or be assertive about your needs? 3) socializing/making friends: manipulate to get ahead or be loyal and get snubbed? 4) lifting weights: long day at work, go to the gym anyways? 5) starting a business: when to quit your job or when to admit that your project is a dead-horse 6)…

I see a lot of straw men in your examples. They are almost all cases of how to handle the success you receive from leaving your comfort zone.

In all of these things, you strike a balance and find what is moral or healthy--that is part of the journey. I wouldn't want to use possible straw-men morality as an excuse for continued ineptness. Like white hat security pros, you can know how to do something but choose not to do it.

Re: Ask HN: What advice messed up your life?

#150

Post by ghaff »

nostrademons wrote: post #53
aaronbrethorst wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wearing a suit != "[seeming] like a 'good, obedient' employee." I have always really appreciated it when job candidates dress up for their interviews. It makes it seem like they're saying to me 'I know this isn't your dress code, but I want to put my best foot forward and make sure you know I take this interaction seriously.' Say hi to random strangers so you can make friends (even though you're introverted and doing…

I have heard that certain mid-size to large technology companies in Silicon Valley actually ding people on "culture fit" if they wear a suit to the interview. This was actually one of those pieces of advice my mom gave me that turned out to be bad advice. Instead, I'd suggest "Know the culture that you're entering, respect it, and do your best to adhere to it."

FWIW,

When I interviewed for my current job, it was at a company where I knew a lot of people and was pretty familiar with th culture. I knew a jacket and tie would be overkill but it seemed respectful overkill. A suit would have been way overboard though I'd be surprised had anyone really dinged me for it. There is a matter of understanding norms but, usually at least, a degree of overdressing for interviews seems a reasonable approach.

Post reply on HN