351–360 of 785 posts
1. Getting more sleep. 2. Spending more time with family. 3. Finishing projects I start. 4. Solo traveling. I'm done waiting for others to get off their ass.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Anecdotal, I was like you, extremely skeptical of meditation. Seriously, try it, it's free! Immediate benefits: * Clear, focused mind. I stop hopping from topic to topic in my mind "oh should I tidy the apartment, work on my website, etc etc" to a far more focused state. What you should do next is there with extreme clarity. You stop reading random junk on the internet too, and get down to it * Much better sleep (thi…
A very helpful tactic I've learned recently is to not focus on not having any thoughts but instead - realize they're going to be inevitable, and when they pop up, acknowledge that it's a thought, a feeling or, an emotion - and let go of it.
2) quit drinking alcohol (as a daily habit, I still drink an occasional beer with friends)
3) a whole foods plant based diet (https://medium.com/@borkdude/tl-dr-of-my-long-term-weight-lo...)
4) meditation
5) regular exercise
Declining to reveal my previous salary when negotiating a new job. I ended up with a significantly better salary than they originally offered and never even said a number. Just built a good rapport with the hiring HR rep and agreed that the offered amount would be totally reasonable for [someone else with good experience]. Then I pointed out that I also bring to the role [additional, relevant, and desired experience]…
I'm not a dishonest person in general, but I have zero problem with lying about my previous salary in order to gain a negotiating advantage. I feel that it's simply none of their business how much I used to make, and that if they're presumptuous enough to ask then a made-up number is what they deserve.
Why are people listing random things they've done instead of what the moment was that led to whatever random thing is listed? Ugh. Edit I've asked a few people to describe their moments instead of just listing what the change was. YMMV, but for me, these are far far more interesting than random lists of things. I may have mis-interpreted the OP's intent, but it sure seems a lot more compelling when you know the catal…
Here's my list: - Using Vim. Just do it. You'll be more productive than in most other editors, and you can use it over ssh on pretty much any machine. - Using Python. Batteries included means less work for you to do. - Using Django. Ditto - Stopped chasing the latest and greatest JS framework and just use what I know (jQuery and Angular lately). Not worth my time when I already feel very productive. - Use puppet for…
I don't understand the hype behind vim. The biggest productivity boost I find is having an editor which has great code completion and error squigglys as soon as you cause an error.
It's the little edits that add up. It's like seeing someone drive a whole UI with only the mouse, no shortcuts - hurts. Likewise it feels infuriatingly slow to see people edit without vim.
I've been programming since I was a kid. Spending most of my time at a desk eating Doritos and fast food wasn't really the best choice. I spent most of my 'good years' as a young guy being really overweight and hating myself. Being overweight led me to really not like myself, be afraid of going out in public, etc.
I spent a ton of time in my best years feeling lonely, hiding away in my room hacking on code, and generally not enjoying my life 100%.
After years of this, when I turned 25, I realized that if I ever wanted to look good and feel confident, I should probably just get started. I did some research online:
* Read the fitness subreddit. * Read some books about weight lifting and nutrition.
And... I just got started. It took a while to learn how to actually do things right, but over the course of the first year I lost almost exactly 100lbs not knowing what I was doing. The amount of self confidence that gave me was the single best gift I've ever had.
I didn't feel afraid to go out in public anymore, talk to people, give tech talks, or just generally interact with people anymore.
After that, I realized that if I could lose weight, why not take it up a notch? I've always liked the way professional bodbuilders looked -- they look like real life superheros. So, I figured that if I can lose weight, why not take it a bit further and try to get closer to what I'd really like to look like?
So, I started reading about bodybuilding, etc. I realized that it isn't that hard! So over the last 2 years, I've been doing a lot more weightlifting, eating better, etc., and things have been awesome! I feel way more confident, feel happier, have a better private life, etc.
Overall, getting in shape has been, without question, the best time investment of my life.
Here's me a few years back when I got married: http://i.imgur.com/NQ5dskZ.jpg Here's me from a few weeks ago: http://i.imgur.com/k6OzJoS.jpg
Stopped playing computer games. I played Heroes of the Storm and Hearthstone a lot. Like almost every evening when I had nothing else to do. I noticed over time two things: First, I can't play such games in a non-competitive way. While some seem to play Hearthstone for fun, I play to win and I want to figure out how to do so. This leads me to second: Ultimately, for an hour's worth of gaming time, I had a few feel-go…
Why?
• There are no cards with the words "random" on them
• Of the cards you draw, you can mulligan several times to get a better hand
• Many cards let you search your deck and pull out what you need, or something similar, further reducing "chance" being a factor
• You play a game of Best-of-3, and on your following turns you can choose any cards from a "sideboard" to slot into your deck to adapt to the current match, again, reducing chance, and reducing Rock/Paper/Scissors fights
• You don't simply play your cards, push "Done", then go grab a drink. You can play cards DURING the other player's turn to manipulate and overcome their strategy. (This is the REAL reason I can't play Hearthstone. It lacks an entire other dimension of play.)
• Magic has more resources to draw from (cards, life, graveyard, mana, tokens, creatures, artifacts, equipment, etc), and more resources to consider, making the strategies much more varied
• The complexity of Magic cards is on the order of about 3-5x more than Hearthstone. The cards used in Hearthstone compare only to beginner decks designed for kids to learn MTG, whereas MTG cards can be incredibly complex in the strategies they afford you: http://magiccards.info/scans/en/m13/220.jpg
The list goes on, but coming from MTG, Hearthstone felt like playing a very limited, aggro-focused, RNG-dependent game designed for quick matches with simple strategy and little thinking, versus Magic, which you can play on paper with your buddies, at a table, and have fun drinking and joking around. (At least that's how I play it.)
Exercise, though others have said that. Personally, I'd say that the thing that changed my life for the best has been Not Giving Tech Support. When I was a teenager I was kinda miserable because some people abused me for tech support. You know, it's nice to give favors, but at some point you're fed up of reinstalling every computer in your block every 6 months. People stop you on the streets and the first thing they…
