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

Going to a gym two to three times a week for small group training sessions.

In terms of investment, it is not as expensive as private training and it keeps you on track. The real investment is in you. Your most important asset is your ability to produce income. Having a healthier body helps maintain that ability. The damage that I do through typing is only barely counteracted by these training sessions. I don’t take typing for granted, having had soreness and pain for many years, and going to the gym and lifting weights has been the best action I’ve done towards addressing that. For you young and older people out there, do not take your ability to pound at a keyboard for granted. One day, it may start to lead to soreness which goes away after some rest. Eventually, the soreness does not go away.

The true returns are the cumulative effects of sticking with a healthy habit. You may not become “jacked” and super muscular but you will become fitter.

After almost two years, the benefits of regular exercise are so apparent that I have to hold back getting on my bully pulpit to encourage other friends to do so.

1. Learning Chinese characters with Anki. After a decade out of practice, I realize I would have done a lot better in my college studies if I actually studied. Wild idea, I know.

One thing that prevented me from memorizing characters was the idea that it wasn't worth doing. However, this passage from the Self-Regulated Learning paper [0] that circulated around HN convinced me otherwise:

"We need to understand, too, that our capacity for storing to-be-learned information or procedures is essentially unlimited. In fact, storing information in human memory appears to create capacity — that is, opportunities for additional linkages and storage — rather than use it up."

2. Learning (even very basic) Chess has opened my eyes up to how interesting a "solved" game can be.

[0]: http://www.excaliburtsa.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Se...

Out of curiosity, what did you hate about JS before you learnt it?

I'll second this for but for any kind of exercise. If you're not disciplined enough (yet) to exercise by yourself, as the parent says, classes are a brilliant way to stick with it and keep motivated.

I get to the gym pretty much every day before work. The benefits are huge - more energy, better concentration, and of course just looking and feeling better in general.

Edit: for the deleted comment - I'm late 30s, not sure if that's young or not and I'm a night owl for sure. Also see a noticeable difference in those busy "I should skip the gym" periods if I don't go, as oppose to prioritising my exercise over my work (which yields far better results).

Then wait until you master fellatio