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Ask HN: What's Your Biggest Regret?

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331–340 of 570 posts

Re: Ask HN: What's Your Biggest Regret?

#331
I'd relocate to another country and invested in understanding my life goals 10 years earlier.

And in general I should have been way faster on making decisions.

I realized only in my 30s that not making a decision IS often the worst type of decision you made.

Re: Ask HN: What's Your Biggest Regret?

#332
All of this poignant reminiscing reminds me of action buttons, aka Tim Rogers, latest review on YouTube. If you like games he puts out some of the best content around. If you aren't, skip to part five of the review to hear the part that this reminded me of.

Part five is a wonderful video essay on memory, nostalgia and regret. Tim is also in a unique position to talk about this as he has a condition where he never forgets anything. It's really a fascinating video.

Also general shout out to action button, all the videos are fantastic.

Link to the video: https://youtu.be/779coR-XPTw

Re: Ask HN: What's Your Biggest Regret?

#333

Buying a thatched cottage in Ireland. It's very pretty, and it checks all the boxes (bike ride from train station), etc. but Ireland's insanely strict protection rules and ridiculous insurance payouts have resulted in every insurer of thatched buildings leaving the country. Additionally, when I applied for permission to build a separate house on the land (it's a few acres) the heritage officer insisted we only build…

Maybe this is a stupid question, but why is it unrentable?

Could you AirBnB it?

Re: Ask HN: What's Your Biggest Regret?

#335
My past formed me into who I am today, and I am proud of who I am today. Do I wish I had done some things differently? Of course! That's a sign of growth.

My advice? Stop living in the past. Your car's windscreen is 100x bigger than the rear view mirror for a reason.

Re: Ask HN: What's Your Biggest Regret?

#338
post #306

I had a great job. Great pay, stock grants that are still going up, good work/life balance, and co-workers who were friends, co-workers who wanted me on their teams. I'd spearheaded an initiative which ultimately failed but had earned me a good reputation. I went on a medication with a side effect of anger. I was told that at the beginning, I was told that there were other drugs I could use instead. I dismissed the c…

This could be me - maybe except the successful stock grants :) Some of things I said and did when I was writing PHP shitcode at 24 make me want to crawl inside my couch. I'd like to think I've mellowed out a lot , but I think everyone is susceptible to falling into this trap, especially when they're highly compensated and well respected.

My first boss was your classic unix-beard, I hear his echo in some of the things I say. Nobody liked him either, but it's easier to get away with it at a 5 engineer company where you're the only one who dares touch the 10 year old C codebase.

Re: Ask HN: What's Your Biggest Regret?

#339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is quoting a stoic on HN the same as playing 'Stairway to Heaven' in a guitar shop? I do love this quote of course (and all things Aurelius).

...I had no idea it was common here on HN, though I'm not surprised. It was just something that's helped me a fair bit and I hope(d) it could help others too.

Stoics had (yet another—IIRC the last one was around the 1950s-60s) popular revival a few years back and now they're everywhere (especially Aurelius) and there's definitely a bit of "well I'll have to stop wearing that band's shirt out and about now that Wal-Mart's selling fake-faded reproductions of their tour shirts and most of the people you see wearing one can't name more than three of their songs" to it.

Re: Ask HN: What's Your Biggest Regret?

#340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...I had no idea it was common here on HN, though I'm not surprised. It was just something that's helped me a fair bit and I hope(d) it could help others too.

It's not just HN, stoics hit a "rational coder" approach to life chord with those who fight computers all day.

I think it might be more that a lot of people in tech have poor work-life balances and bad interpersonal dynamics, and this causes high stress and receptivity to coping mechanisms.
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