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Ask HN: What things have richly rewarded the time invested in mastering them?

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Re: Ask HN: What things have richly rewarded the time invested in mastering them?

#501

Post by vertline3 »

cirgue wrote: post #193
afarrell wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> discipline For the benefit of my past self: discipline isn’t about punishment or being harsh with yourself. Discipline is the practice of saying to yourself “this is hard. This is scary. This is worth it and so I’m going to do it because I’m stronger than I think” and then following through with action. EDIT: Sometimes the "following through with action" bit also involves knowing what you need to set yourself up fo…

Discipline is learning how to want to do something, not how to make yourself do something.

How do I make myself want to do something? Serious question

Re: Ask HN: What things have richly rewarded the time invested in mastering them?

#502

Post by goodstuff9 »

monster_group wrote: post #491
goodstuff9 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

कुत्र पठसि संस्कृतम्?

स्वाध्यनेन पठामि।

अत्युत्तमम्

संधिम् जानासि किम्

Re: Ask HN: What things have richly rewarded the time invested in mastering them?

#503

Post by abledon »

raleigh_user wrote: post #370

Learning sales. I use to only code and my ability to make money doing things I enjoy went way way up once I dedicated $$$ and time to learning how to sell.

How’d u get over the fact that most sales is pushing rubbish on to people, things they don’t need

Re: Ask HN: What things have richly rewarded the time invested in mastering them?

#504

Post by jcutrell »

"Master" is a strong word - feeling more like a perpetual student than approaching mastery.

Before I became a developer, learning to play music. There is almost nothing more rewarding than the ability to speak a non-verbal, near-universal language in order to express yourself.

Private pilot's license.

Podcasting.

Understanding more about cognitive bias. Rhetoric and logic.

Philosophy.

(Not sure you can master these last two within a lifetime.)

Fatherhood and being a good husband to my wife. These are easily the most rewarding experiences of my life.

Re: Ask HN: What things have richly rewarded the time invested in mastering them?

#505

Post by sigi45 »

Waterluvian wrote: post #363

"Fighting fair." It's a term I heard a Minister tell the bride and groom during his speech at their wedding. He talked about how you're going to fight with your spouse, but the challenge is to fight fair. Hear the other person. Try to see their perspective with sympathy, if not empathy. Avoid trying to "win" fights, that's never the point. I talked about this with my then girlfriend. She was a vicious fighter. I was…

I had a few moments:

First fight where we both knew that we fought about something but it was no longer on a level of staying together or not.

And when I realized that my wife is the person for whom some standpoints on my side are worth changing.

Also doing something only for her or for us.

I think that my relationship with my wife thought me to care way more and to understand other people better.

'Understanding/getting' it and living it are two different things.

Re: Ask HN: What things have richly rewarded the time invested in mastering them?

#506

Post by wyld »

monster_group wrote: post #55

Learning Sanskrit. I have spent the last few years learning it and it's been tremendously rewarding. Sanskrit is a beautiful language. Learning it is a great mental challenge and gives great satisfaction (to me). Before learning Sanskrit I had never really pursued a hobby this seriously. Since I have been doing this I no longer feel like a machine who just goes to work, eats and sleeps. Before this, I used to feel gr…

I was in a similar situation as yours and I started learning Sanskrit as my hobby. It is a beautiful and a very logical language. I have been working towards improving my Sanskrit speaking ability more so than the grammar itself. It felt a lot more rewarding when I was able to hold a conversation using in my broken Sanskrit. If you haven't yet found a group to I would highly recommend finding one and practice your Sanskrit.

Re: Ask HN: What things have richly rewarded the time invested in mastering them?

#507

Post by wyld »

enitihas wrote: post #129
monster_group wrote: post #55

Learning Sanskrit. I have spent the last few years learning it and it's been tremendously rewarding. Sanskrit is a beautiful language. Learning it is a great mental challenge and gives great satisfaction (to me). Before learning Sanskrit I had never really pursued a hobby this seriously. Since I have been doing this I no longer feel like a machine who just goes to work, eats and sleeps. Before this, I used to feel gr…

I too have been interested in learning Sanskrit for some time. Can you tell me what resources you used?

I've personally used the Samskrita Bharati books to learn

Re: Ask HN: What things have richly rewarded the time invested in mastering them?

#508

Post by pq0ak2nnd »

kodablah wrote: post #175
mattlondon wrote: post #142

Computer Science degree. Sure, lots of us "learnt" programming in our bedrooms or whatever by doing our own thing and messing about in whatever language. I went into my compsci degree arrogantly thinking that I pretty much knew how to code already so please just give me the bit of paper saying I have the degree and I'll be on my way thanks very much. I was very wrong. Although I was pretty good at the coding (or at l…

While I have no doubt this paid dividends for you, I'm not convinced that the cost/benefit is greater on the whole than alternatively spending those 4 years doing real-world development. Subjective, sure, but from my perspective there are too many amazing self-taught developers and too many subpar ones with degrees to automatically justify the 4 year time and money cost for the average person (concerning skill, caree…

Having hired programmers since the 90's, OP is correct.

Think of it with this analogy:

a hacker with no comp-sci foundation is to hacker with comp-sci foundation the way a car mechanic is to an automotive engineer

Re: Ask HN: What things have richly rewarded the time invested in mastering them?

#509

Post by raleigh_user »

abledon wrote: post #503
raleigh_user wrote: post #370

Learning sales. I use to only code and my ability to make money doing things I enjoy went way way up once I dedicated $$$ and time to learning how to sell.

How’d u get over the fact that most sales is pushing rubbish on to people, things they don’t need

Sales certainly can be that. But I don’t sell things that way. If you solve a problem you get paid for it. Just do this over and over.

Re: Ask HN: What things have richly rewarded the time invested in mastering them?

#510

Post by raleigh_user »

xcubic wrote: post #451
raleigh_user wrote: post #370

Learning sales. I use to only code and my ability to make money doing things I enjoy went way way up once I dedicated $$$ and time to learning how to sell.

Can you share some resources to learn this?

It’s really simple. Just talk to people with money (business owners) and ask them what problems they have. Then solve the problem for money. If you get in a habit of doing this you’ll get very good. This is similar to building a web app in a new language to learn.
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