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Ask HN: What were your naivetés in your twenties?

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Re: Ask HN: What were your naivetés in your twenties?

#171

Post by dspeyer »

lsc wrote: post #137
alttab wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to disagree, but a counter-argument could be that working on your weaknesses makes you a more well rounded person. This is a hunter-warrior/contractor vs a jack-of-all-trades/leader.

what is the advantage to being well rounded? I always thought that was a euphemism for average.

Another advantage to breadth is that you can recognize when another field's tools might be a better fit for your current problem.

Being a pure generalist probably sticks you to the initial triage role (which is no fun), but having a very large number of baseline competencies is handy.

Re: Ask HN: What were your naivetés in your twenties?

#172

Post by bootload »

"... I only beseech your wisdom about what mistakes/naivetes I'll incur in my twenties, oh the elders of the Hacker News ..."

- value life: that as bad as things may get never loose sight that the objective is to get old. [0]

- time: doing a little, a lot adds up. So practice that "foo" or do that "bar" over a long period of time the repeated task adds up. Be generous in your time with others. Time is the ultimate gift.

- be good: if you see something wrong fix it, something bad speak up as evil triumphs when seemingly good people do nothing.

- work on something of value: don't waste your time on trivial crap of marginal value. Work on something that is/or will be valuable now or in the future.

- learn perspective: laugh at your misfortune, cry at injustice and don't fret at things lost.

- work hard: don't do things half-arsed.

- have fun when doing: because it makes things a whole lot more interesting.

- learn from mistakes: don't make the same ones twice.

- evaluate: don't take things at face value, evaluate and adjust to your environment such as work, friends, values.

- rest: learn that there is a time to work, a time to play and time to rest.

"... I'd like to cheat in life and instead of learning my life lessons the hard way, I'd like to skip ahead and read the ending of the current chapter that I'm currently on ..."

If you don't get burnt, how will you learn from these lessons? You really only learn from experience.

[0] After catching up with some mates last week I was amazed at the number of (male) mates who killed themselves in there 20's for what at the time seemed important but in hindsight trivial.

Re: Ask HN: What were your naivetés in your twenties?

#173

Post by raphar »

From my personal experience: - No one knows shit about they are talking about (As a corollary of life's too complex for the human mind. Or the fact that there are plenty of black swans)

You may be THE expert on whatever subject.... and you'll never know all your variables. It's imposible to always be right. It's useless to pretend so (unless you are selling something). Examples??? you'll find them in the news all the time. Subprime crisis, BP spills, etc

Do not believe what you are told. Take it as OPINIONS. And decide from that.

Re: Ask HN: What were your naivetés in your twenties?

#174

Post by ivankirigin »

Everything was really easy for me, all through undergrad. I think it hurt my diligence in studying.

Because I remembered everything in lectures, I aced tests without reading a lot of the content. I feel like that hurt my depth of knowledge in areas.

I wish I had been told that skill is entirely learned and nothing innate. I thought I was naturally talented, but now I attribute it mainly to the curiosity parents instilled in me.

Re: Ask HN: What were your naivetés in your twenties?

#175

Post by lsc »

dspeyer wrote: post #171
lsc wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what is the advantage to being well rounded? I always thought that was a euphemism for average.

Another advantage to breadth is that you can recognize when another field's tools might be a better fit for your current problem. Being a pure generalist probably sticks you to the initial triage role (which is no fun), but having a very large number of baseline competencies is handy.

I'm not saying it's not handy. It's great to be good at a lot of things.

My point is just that some people learn certain subjects faster than they learn other subjects. my thought is that if it takes the same effort to learn a little in an area where you are bad as to learn a lot in an area where you are good, and you have a limited amount of effort to apply, you are better off applying that effort to the area where you are good.

Re: Ask HN: What were your naivetés in your twenties?

#176

Post by chegra »

kranner wrote: post #168
chegra wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[I didn't downvote you, I think you are making some valid points] What I'm trying to point out is not paint with broad strokes. But evaluate everything and everyone independently of rules. Flaws of people admired: 1) Gandhi - Racist 2) Martin Luther King - Copy someone's work for his phd. Also an adulterer. 3) Edgar Allan Poe - So disrespectful that he was disowned by his guardians. 4) Tesla - Hated fat people. 5) St…

Gandhi, "racist"? Would you mind very much googling "Harijan"? You seem to have latched on to a very strange definition of "racist". Gandhi might have believed during that early period in his life in keeping races separate, which is not surprising given his orthodox upbringing, but he did a very great deal, later, to unite people of all religions and races and motivate them to think of each other as equals, persuadin…

"We believe also that the white race of South Africa should be the predominating race."- Gandhi http://www.trinicenter.com/WorldNews/ghandi4.htm

Yes, I'm talking about the early part of his life. Well if you feel comfortable - ex-racist.

Re: Ask HN: What were your naivetés in your twenties?

#177

Post by startuprules »

- Try not to get married until after you're 30. By the your libido will have waned a bit, and you will have a clearer head and greater experience to see what kind of person you'd like to spend your life with

- Try not to have a kid until after you're 30. A kid cannot raise another kid

- Try everything. That way you get to know what you like/hate.

- Find something you're passionate about, and learn everything about it.

- Don't incur huge debts in your prime. Do not buy (car/house/woman/kid/plane/boat/land/friend) with credit.

- Use your money for experiences. Those you'll remember and cherish.

- Learn macroeconomics/history. You'll learn why the housing bubble occured, why we're in a great depression, and how China will become the next empire. Invest properly based on those learnings.

Re: Ask HN: What were your naivetés in your twenties?

#178

Post by lsc »

brosephius wrote: post #149

- one of the keys to success is being likable. skills/talent alone won't carry you to the top. they can take you far, but if you want to be a star, you gotta know how to hustle. i.e., networking, getting your name/face out there, being likable. if, like many on HN, you want to be an entrepreneur, never stop selling yourself. - never, ever put off pursuing things that interest you, because if you get in this habit you…

> - one of the keys to success is being likable. skills/talent alone won't carry you to the top. they can take you far, but if you want to be a star, you gotta know how to hustle. i.e., networking, getting your name/face out there, being likable. if, like many on HN, you want to be an entrepreneur, never stop selling yourself.

My experience has been that this has little to do with being likable. In my experience, most less-technical people prefer confident behavior. Behavior that I (and many technical people) would characterize as arrogant.

If I was advising a younger self, I'd point out that self-aggrandizement, to a certain degree, is acceptable and even good. I seemed to figure it out on my own, though.

but, uh, yeah. being confident enough to promote yourself, on the balance, seems to be more important than not being an asshole. (now, if you can promote yourself without being an asshole, that's even better. I'm just saying, if you have to make a choice, it seems that being a self-aggrandizing asshole seems to be better than being quiet and shy, I mean, as an Entrepreneur. As an Engineer, the equation is somewhat different.)

Re: Ask HN: What were your naivetés in your twenties?

#179

Post by Xurinos »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #89

- Shiny things are nowhere as much fun after you get them as before, even if they have some value. So yes, that Kindle or iPad or whatever will have a real use, and you will be marginally happier with it than without, but not as much as you think - You can talk yourself into (or out of) anything. The only difference between smart people and other people is that smart people do this with bigger words and more complex…

For now, you are what you do.

Gonna heavily disagree with this one... This is an attitude that turns us into machines with expected outputs rather than people. We humans spend a lot of time limiting ourselves by placing labels on ourselves and limiting our perceptions by labeling others.

Discard the labels. Do not try to fit a role. You might program computers, but you are not a programmer. You fly planes, but you are not an aviator. You play a guitar, but you are not a musician. You teach, but you are not a teacher. All these terms have extra connotations we have all built up.

Your footprint on the world is a culmination of your actions, so in a sense, your actions mark you in the perceptions of others. However, as we humans are so adaptable, we can discard the notion of who we think we are and start afresh, always pick new directions. We do not have to be what we have been, and we do not have to cater to what other people expect of us.

Just because you get a college degree in X and work 30 years in X does not mean you cannot ever do Y; that is a self-imposed limitation reinforced by the X label.

Purpose of life? To live. Nice and fundamental. Meaningless enough to show you that you can do about whatever you want if you have the interest and make the effort. Limitless enough to give hope that if, in your 20s, you feel you are not doing what you want, you can try something else.

No, you are not what you do. You are you. What you do is what you have chosen to do at that time. It is okay to change, okay to do the unexpected, okay to break out of your comfort zone and whatever comfort zones and roles that TV and society have tried to impose upon you.

Re: Ask HN: What were your naivetés in your twenties?

#180

Post by runjake »

portman wrote: post #117
ido wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. If you want to have kids, do it sooner rather than later. My issue is that kids cost a lot of money, which means you lose quite a lot of flexibility. I want to start my own business within the foreseeable future (probably 1-2 years, currently saving money, gathering contacts and getting more on-the-job experience in the field I want to operate in). Right now I know that if I save 20k Euros that could easily last m…

I have a 3 year old, a 2 year old, an 8 week old, and a startup. Having kids has no impact on having your own business. They're completely orthogonal. Using that as an excuse for not having kids makes as much sense as saying "I don't want to eat tacos for dinner because I want to have my own business." Note: I'm not responding directly to your comment; I'm responding to the somewhat pervasive idea on HN that kids are…

I can't be a good dad to my 3 kids and have enough time to read a chapter in a book each day (along with employment, house chores, etc), let alone go forth with any business ventures.

Do you really find your statements to be true? If so, how do you balance them? Orthogonal seems to be an unarguably incorrect statement, though.

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