Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why Continuing to Work Is Good for a Man’s Health

features.wearemel.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 166 posts

Re: Why Continuing to Work Is Good for a Man’s Health

#111

Post by saiya-jin »

jventura wrote: post #87
saiya-jin wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

one advice - take a backpack, turn off your phone and go around india for couple of months, low key, low budget. either himalaya, or south, or anything in between (varanasi can be a powerful experience). it changed my life for better, much better, and so did for many more people. It doesn't have to be india per se, but it's the most exotic place to western culture out there and supremely huge. if you look for some en…

It's a good advice, but not everyone needs to run away from something. Sometimes we just have to face ourselves and do a deep introspection on our lives.. I, for myself, find it really hard sometimes to know how I should run my life, or what are my goals. Maybe sometimes there isn't any need to have goals, or maybe my goal is to accomplish every goal so that I empty my goal bucket.. Whatever, I think each one of us a…

it was never about running away from anything, I was coming back in 3 months to things and people I left there. It was about adventure, exposing yourself to new situations, cultures, people, everything. every single day. it gives you huge amount of time to see yourself, introspect, experience yourself in all kinds of crazy conditions, and discover that we humans are amazing, strong beings if we try a bit.

also that monetary wealth and happiness are almost mutually exclusive, but that's another topic :)

as for those goals - while hiking in nepal around annapurna, i met american guy, great fella, who unknowingly changed course of my life in many ways. planted some sort of idea-seed in my head. never expected anything like that to happen, there or anywhere. best thing in my life. but for this, you cannot plan nor prepare. for sure, it won't happen while staying at home.

Re: Why Continuing to Work Is Good for a Man’s Health

#113

Post by clentaminator »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #97
clentaminator wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

27 and I feel the same way, in that I don't feel much excitement around technology for technology's sake anymore. The latest version of macOS? Neat, but unlikely to be as "game changing" as Apple might have you believe. The rate of change in some areas of technology can make you think that you're missing out on some kind of important development, however if things are changing that fast then perhaps nothing is really…

One thing I discovered some time ago is that the industry is basically running in circles. There isn't much new being really created; people keep reinventing the same solutions that have been made in the 70-s, only worse, and they still miss some. I think it's better to slow down a bit, brush up on some history, and then build stuff you want to build without worrying you're missing something important.

Do you think the adage "Those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it" holds true in the technology industry? I could cherry pick some examples just to start a flame war, for examples Node's "invention" of single-threaded event-based concurrency, but that feels a bit unfair ;)

Re: Why Continuing to Work Is Good for a Man’s Health

#114

Post by up_and_up »

This literally just happened to my Dad. He went from working fulltime to being retired. He has completely lost his sense of purpose in life, mopes around, is becoming depressed. I feel bad but its also kinda pathetic. I mean c'mon dude you have decades of time to do whatever the fuck you want to.

To me this is a symptom of men who do not find any other purpose in their life besides working and providing. We need diversification of interests and activities for our long-term wellbeing.

Re: Why Continuing to Work Is Good for a Man’s Health

#115

Post by mastry »

jventura wrote: post #86
cko wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm like you, but I'm 30 and don't want a family or kids. And travel sounds incredibly boring. I've been investing 90% of my income the past five years. When the article or any coworker says "enjoy your hard earned money" it makes no sense to me. What does spending money have to do with happiness? And yet, more money is all I want. If you gave me a billion dollars tomorrow my first thought would be "how do I turn tha…

There are some studies out there (too lazy now to go search for any) that mentions that money is related to hapiness up to a point that it can get you out of poverty and make you stop thinking about it.. Then, the relation is mostly none. Seriously, what would you do with those 2 billion?

That research has been called into question [0]. In my opinion it's like anything else...there is no absolute answer. Some people will be happier with more money. Some won't.

[0] http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/papers/2013/...

Re: Why Continuing to Work Is Good for a Man’s Health

#116

Post by ovt »

cko wrote: post #79
tajen wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recognize I'm in this situation, but I have no idea what one could do to make a life meaningful, outside of good work or raising great kids, hopefully with a loving partner. I have already tried many things: Living in 3 other countries for 4 years in total (but I was missing family and friends support), being self-employed (I do B2B software like P.McKenzie), learning to dance (3 times, but I feel crap at it), musi…

I'm like you, but I'm 30 and don't want a family or kids. And travel sounds incredibly boring. I've been investing 90% of my income the past five years. When the article or any coworker says "enjoy your hard earned money" it makes no sense to me. What does spending money have to do with happiness? And yet, more money is all I want. If you gave me a billion dollars tomorrow my first thought would be "how do I turn tha…

Do you have insight into why you want to corner the market on money?

Re: Why Continuing to Work Is Good for a Man’s Health

#117

Post by TeMPOraL »

clentaminator wrote: post #113
TeMPOraL wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing I discovered some time ago is that the industry is basically running in circles. There isn't much new being really created; people keep reinventing the same solutions that have been made in the 70-s, only worse, and they still miss some. I think it's better to slow down a bit, brush up on some history, and then build stuff you want to build without worrying you're missing something important.

Do you think the adage "Those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it" holds true in the technology industry? I could cherry pick some examples just to start a flame war, for examples Node's "invention" of single-threaded event-based concurrency, but that feels a bit unfair ;)

Definitely. Think of every project that ends up having to encode a Turing-complete language inXML, essentially rediscovering Lisp...

Re: Why Continuing to Work Is Good for a Man’s Health

#118

Post by heurist »

richev wrote: post #102
jventura wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a good advice, but not everyone needs to run away from something. Sometimes we just have to face ourselves and do a deep introspection on our lives.. I, for myself, find it really hard sometimes to know how I should run my life, or what are my goals. Maybe sometimes there isn't any need to have goals, or maybe my goal is to accomplish every goal so that I empty my goal bucket.. Whatever, I think each one of us a…

> It's a good advice, but not everyone needs to run away from something. I prefer to think of it as "running towards"...towards something new, interesting and different.

It's novel but it's an ephemeral novelty. It disappears as soon as you're home and back in your old ways. Better to understand the internal source of dissatisfaction and address it directly.

Re: Why Continuing to Work Is Good for a Man’s Health

#119

Post by bpchaps »

rosstex wrote: post #54
bpchaps wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of it is me getting annoyed at something that certainly impacts many others. It's gone down some interesting paths. What I've found in general is that the small things not only add up, but they help find where the root causes are. So, if you can help fix the small things and enough people do it, the better the world becomes in general. Things like, "Why has that lamp been out for a month?" can become very inter…

You sound exactly like my mom, and I mean that in an incredibly positive way. She has fixed so many issues in public facilities just by picking up the phone and persisting. She can expedite anything, and she'll go to great lengths to help others. Her social network is massive as well. She hasn't worked in years, but I have insane respect for her and I envy her a lot!

Hah, thanks. She sounds like she's had a lot more success than I have, though. :)

Re: Why Continuing to Work Is Good for a Man’s Health

#120

Post by cableshaft »

maroonblazer wrote: post #47
ergothus wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. I am baffled by friends and family that talk about how they couldn't retire because what would they do? My response is to list the many, many things I want to do that I can't because I 'have to work': read more, learn new languages (spoken & computer), take up the piano/guitar, try new games (board, tabletoprpg, computer), write, program, etc. The only reason I ever get bored is because I don't have the time, r…

My problem is similar but different. The last couple of vacations I've taken have been staycations. Even though I have many hobbies and interests - several musical instruments, writing music, drawing, dabbling in code, reading - not having the structure of a job and expectations of others weighing on me to 'be productive' I procrastinated quite a lot. I frequently felt anxious and unfulfilled. I took this experience…

I've noticed it's really difficult to work on side projects also when you're in between jobs (especially if you don't have much saved up) because the looming threat of financial ruin never lets you forget it, and you just get too distracted by it that it's hard to be productive even though you have so much more time, and every moment you spend on side projects your brain goes "you could be putting this energy into looking for a new job right now."

I know that's probably different than your staycations, but it's for that reason that I don't think I will be as bad at working on my personal projects once I've retired (if I ever can retire).

Post reply on HN