Started wearing expensive perfume that I really like. (I'm a man.)
It's stupid how much of an effect that can have on my mood, and I never thought about it before, since guys aren't supposed to.
Ask HN: What was your “why didn't I start doing this sooner” moment?
251–260 of 785 posts
Re: Ask HN: What was your “why didn't I start doing this sooner” moment?
#252How about stopped doing? There was a weekend where I had spent close to 20 hours playing World of Warcraft to farm materials and reagents for the epic engineering mount. After I had finished it, and spent the requisite time showing it off in-game, I looked around and realized that all of thrill of lifelong learning and making things in the "real" world has been subsumed when all my spare time was consumed in a virtua…
I'm trying to get myself to enjoy gaming again. I can't seem to just relax and play a game without thinking I'm wasting my time. It's also hard to get the same high in a game that I do when I solve a bug or add a feature to whatever project I'm working on.
I'm making a game because I have this issue with many games coming out these days too. I actually like games that only last a few hours since they seem to respect my time more than others that pad for length (less "shit work" quests, creative stories given the lack of time for the player to get absorbed into them, etc.)
Re: Ask HN: What was your “why didn't I start doing this sooner” moment?
#253Using an electric toothbrush. (It's the little things)
Re: Ask HN: What was your “why didn't I start doing this sooner” moment?
#254Leaving negative people and environments behind and moving on with life.
Re: Ask HN: What was your “why didn't I start doing this sooner” moment?
#255Reading Hacker News. Seriously, this place from an intellectual point of view is the most important aspect in my life. It has opened my mind to so many viewpoints. It's one of the few healthy places on the Internet where you can have a decent conversation without things getting out of hand, while in the same time learn something new.
Re: Ask HN: What was your “why didn't I start doing this sooner” moment?
#256[deleted]
Re: Ask HN: What was your “why didn't I start doing this sooner” moment?
#257Earlier quoted context omitted.
Any meditation tips? I've gone through multiple fits & starts but I just can't keep my mind from wandering.
Count. Count each breath as you do it. When you get to ten, start at one. If you feel your mind wander, start your count at 1 again.
This. Counting is the checksum. And what ever you do, don't blame yourself. The mind is supposed to work that way - and you are training it to be a more observant of itself.
Re: Ask HN: What was your “why didn't I start doing this sooner” moment?
#2583 things for me: 1) Meditation, I used to think it was something hippies did. I now think its worth 10 IQ points. I honestly can't recommend it enough. 2) Sleep, I'm getting close to 40 and the last 2 times I pulled all nighters I ended up deleting pretty much all the code I wrote from 11pm onward. 3) Occasional Fasts. I normally fast from 6pm until noon the next day but I now do one 3 day fast each month. I think th…
Any meditation tips? I've gone through multiple fits & starts but I just can't keep my mind from wandering.
I have a few tips. First, change how you look at meditation. Think of it as getting comfortable with being bored, instead of trying to clear your mind of all thought. It might help to count, or to use a mala by moving it through your hands, one bead at a time, and focusing on the sensation of it passing. It might also help to focus on the sensation of the breath entering the body and leaving the body. Some people focus on the very sensation of the air passing over the nostrils, and lips. You might find that it's easiest to focus on the smell of the air, in which case, creating a subtle smell in the room via incense or candles might help.
I would also be very considerate of posture, especially as you are learning. Eventually, the posture you select will become second nature, so it's important that you select one that is not going to cause damage, or pain. I would suggest an active posture - one where you have to focus, in order to keep yourself in the posture would be best. Then, if your posture slips, you'll know it's because your attention is elsewhere, and you can bring yourself back into your body.
Finally (because I have to go, not because I have no more to say) consider doing short length meditation at the start. You want to do 20 minutes, twice a day, but it doesn't have to be all at once, at first. In the morning and evening, set a stop watch, and let it run, until you feel you can do no more. Then subtract a minute or so from that time, and set a timer. For the first week, start the timer, sit with yourself, and when the timer goes off, get up, stretch, move around and do nothing strenuous for about a minute, then sit back down and start again, until you've done the equivalent of 20 minutes. After the first week, increase the timer. Just keep increasing it as you get more comfortable, until you can just sit with yourself for the full 20 consecutive minutes in the morning and evening.
Re: Ask HN: What was your “why didn't I start doing this sooner” moment?
#259Starting to do burlesque dance. I had to go downtown for a doctor's appointment, and on a whim, I scheduled it so that I could go check out a school whose calendar I'd subscribed to a month or so earlier.
I had fun, I kept going back. Got myself in great shape, got incredible amounts of confidence and charisma. These days I don't do it any more; the school moved to a less convenient location, and I ended up doing pole dance instead.
Getting in shape is great but it's boring; doing it with the context of learning something on top of it works amazingly well for me. And as a bonus, now i have no fear of looking stupid on a dance floor - I know a lot of interesting things to do to a beat.
Re: Ask HN: What was your “why didn't I start doing this sooner” moment?
#260Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not a hippie, but you do meditation and fasts... Okay, that came out a bit incisive. Do you have any scientific backing to support those claims? I'm especially interested in fasting. Not eating for 3 days a month does not seem especially healthy. Then I see the claim that it cures cancer and forgive me if all my alarm bells go off.
It's pretty well established that in animal studies, animals that undergo caloric restriction live longer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calorie_restriction I haven't kept myself up to date on it, but I think I remember that it was more about changing an organism's biology early in life. If you're an organism that is going to burn less energy per day, then you are an organism that just has less entropy per day, and l…
But calorie restriction isn't the same as fasting. I imagine the health effects can be different.