Ask HN: What has the past 12 months taught you?

* The humble live in continuous peace, while in the hearts of the proud are envy and frequent anger.

(2.) Establish constructive, rational ways of thinking.

* Constructive thinking is defined as "the degree to which a person's automatic thinking ... facilitates solving problems in everyday life at a minimum cost in stress."

* The more constructively you think, the happier you feel, and the better your emotional adjustment.

(3.) Strive for joy and contentment, not happiness.

* It’s important to make a distinction between joy and happiness. Happiness is circumstantial, like the pleasure that comes from eating ice cream on a sunny day at the beach. Such happiness is slippery and can vanish in a second. But joy is different. At the very least, it isn’t based on circumstances, which means it can’t be taken away

(4.) Enable contentment.

* “Though a good dinner is not to be despised — yet it is not worthy to be compared with a contented mind, which is a continual feast.”

* Contentment may be particularly useful for counteracting problems that stem from fear and anxiety.

(5.) Be patient.

* That’s what patience is. It’s being able to have this sense, in the middle of craziness, that all is not necessarily well according to circumstances, but all is well. Patience is being rooted in something outside of yourself, even when our hearts are weak and frail.

* Listen patiently and with an open mind.

(6.) Reduce negative emotions.

* Distorted evaluation of our performance in front of other people is the reason for depression and anxiety.

* Most negative emotions are completely useless. Resentment, bitterness, hate, and jealousy have never improved the quality of life for a single human being.

(7.) Purity and simplicity give freedom.

* “Purity and simplicity are the two wings with which man soars above the earth and all temporary nature.”

* The happiest homes in the world are not those in which are the finest carpets, the costliest pictures, the most luxurious furniture — but those in which glad, peaceful hearts dwell.

(8.) Build beautiful habits.

* Most of the choices we make each day may feel like the products of well-considered decision making, but they’re not. They’re habits.

* Create healthful, beautiful habits to live sustainably and achieve long-term goals.

(9.) Exercise regularly.

* Regular cardio exercise can help you sleep better, feel more alert and energetic, and enjoy reduced risks for cancer, diabetes and osteoporosis.

(10.) Eat healthily.

* The key public health challenge today is to reduce intake of all highly processed carbohydrates in favor of whole carbohydrates (fruits, vegetables, legumes and minimally processed grains) and healthful fats (like nuts, avocado and olive oil).

Other ways to put things in your favor over the long term:

- Keep increasing your capacity to do things. Learn ubiquitous skills such as sales, basic accounting, negotiation, speaking, etc.

- Keep increasing your network. Asking is a huge part of this.

- Improve your signalling. Signal your achievements, your opinions...share.

- Grow your assets. Even if it means putting a little bit of money away or cutting down on expenses.

"Not only working software, but also well-crafted software

Not only responding to change, but also steadily adding value

Not only individuals and interactions, but also a community of professionals

Not only customer collaboration, but also productive partnerships"

I fail to see the "scam" here. Your follow-on comments seem to take issue with some of the popular opinions on how to best accomplish the goals above, but that hardly disqualifies the effort to improve software development as a profession outright as a "scam".

Warning: based on anecdata

* Look at a cosmopolitan city center. Everyone who owns a house debt free there is rich.

* Look again at said center, most likely the owners aren't from your country (except US probably).

* Conservative rich people invest heavily in the housing market.

* The amount of rich people having some emotional understanding of working on a per hour basis, or working for a normal wage in general, is low.

* I've seen people in a relationship from different income classes, some definitely have it tough to understand each other. I haven't seen anyone break because of it, but I wouldn't be surprised if it happened with a fraction of them. Hypothetical example, combine it with stereotypical gender ideals (e.g. man must pay) and a SO (woman) that has expensive hobbies, the working-class man cannot keep up.

* My prediction on: the rich friend determines what's going to happen if he/she pays was dead on. I also predicted it might erode such a relationship when money comes too much into play, which I was partially right about.

* The claim that most wealth is inherited seems to be true from my personal experience. Consequently, most people don't know how to get rich but how to stay rich.

* Some rich people get a really amazing education and are polymaths by the time they get into their twenties. Some rich people are more the opposite.

* All in all, I feel money is a multiplier on a lot of things. I know that, for me, money will be a multiplier on the expression of my personality. If you are into new age stuff, then as a rich person you have a new age house, for example. If you're a sci-fi person, then you'll have a techy house.

---- Jobs ----

* People don't value your computer science degree at all if they studied a shitty study program (any) and hate university because of it and don't have experience with hiring CS grads. It turns out, that's still a rather large group.

* Corollary: people don't evaluate your experience in the right way.

* When people see the word "internship" they see it as no experience, despite the fact that the programming work was more demanding than most employees there.

* Interviewing in startups doesn't follow any sane process. To do: I need to figure out how to to get some understanding on a startup's culture in less than 2 hours.

Thanks for the question, these 12 months have been emotionally weird. I guess I needed to vent a bit. Dealing with income inequality from so close all of a sudden feels tough, but I'm fine right? So why should it be? Hence it's weird.