You will only be given what you deserve after you ask for it. And never be afraid of asking for it if you deserve it.
This is true for gratitude, raises, promotions, funding, marriage, etc.
Ask HN: What were your naivetés in your twenties?
41–50 of 269 posts
Re: Ask HN: What were your naivetés in your twenties?
#42The best advice is: Relax, it's going to be ok. Everyone takes their own path in life. Listen to others but find your own path. When you wake up in the morning ask yourself are you happy? If yes keep doing what you are doing. If no, ask yourself if you could do something to change that, if you can then do that, rinse wash repeat. If you can't do anything about it be happy anyway. In short, just be.
Does this imply staying in your comfort zone? Is this not counter-productive?
It may imply that, if staying in your comfort zone makes you happy. Everyone comes with a different outlook on life. For some it's important to create startups. For some it's important to have a stable income, pension, benefits, etc. There is no universal truth as to what one should do in life to be "successful". I have a feeling that if Mother Teresa and Warren Buffett were transposed that each would be unhappy.
What is important is to find out what balance of friends, family, work, charity, money makes you happiest.
Re: Ask HN: What were your naivetés in your twenties?
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It's naive of you to believe you can learn from our past naivety. Firmly disagree. You absolutely can learn from others' past mistakes - that doesn't mean you'll make no mistakes, but you absolutely can make less mistakes and recognize and correct them faster. > You will have to do your own mistakes and learn from them. True. But the more you can listen to and apply good guidance from people who've been there, the…
There are different kinds of knowledge, and advice targeted at different kinds of mistakes. Errors of technique, like you describe, certainly can be learned from without needing to experience them yourself - though the lesson might not be learned as well, it may be learned well enough to avoid the problem. But other kinds of knowledge, particularly relating to emotional maturity or social interaction, are very hard t…
But perhaps if you have the knowledge of other guys' mistakes, you can spot your own mistakes earlier. Instead of having to repeat them a hundred times before it dawns on you.
Also learning from mistakes--your own and those of other people--enables you to make different mistakes.
Re: Ask HN: What were your naivetés in your twenties?
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
Does this imply staying in your comfort zone? Is this not counter-productive?
Depends; if you like being in your comfort zone and can maintain that indefinitely whats the problem?
The nice thing about being human is you only have to maintain it for about 80 years.
Re: Ask HN: What were your naivetés in your twenties?
#45Meritocracy : the reward would be function of merit. What I've learned is that merit is a multivariate dimension with different weights on the variables. Weights varies heavily with time and context. The reward is also very relative because it has never bee what I would consider a legitimate reward. The error was induced by school notes working model as well as by education process of parents with rewarding and prais…
I've written about this before actually. I hung out in a couple of supposed Meritocracy (both in real life and online) and all of them collapsed when someone asked the question "so, uh, what is merit exactly?" - because no one could agree :)
Re: Ask HN: What were your naivetés in your twenties?
#46Lessons I'm learning:
Social protocol has a real impact on people. The quality of your reasoning doesn't provide you an excuse to ignore it.
It is incredibly easy to blow thousands of dollars, $20 at a time.
Smile.
Reserve judgement until judgement is required.
Helping people is more satisfying than helping yourself. This is true because you can feel like you've helped others enough, but you will always want more for yourself. ;)
Ambition isn't talent. Ambition isn't a moral quality.
Be prepared.
There is no substitute for good sleeping habits. Really.
Complex, irrational arguments and behavior are often explained by simple emotional factors.
Re: Ask HN: What were your naivetés in your twenties?
#47Find a girl. Settle down. If you want, you can marry.
(Look at me - I am old, but I'm happy.)
Re: Ask HN: What were your naivetés in your twenties?
#48Man, forgive me for being blunt, but there's a lot of loser talk in this thread. "Oh you can't learn from others mistakes, you'll make them, blah blah blah..." - no, this is how people feel better about themselves for having not listened to advice and getting wrecked in their own life because of it. Sure, you'll make mistakes, but you shouldn't just accept wandering blindly through life dealing with stuff. This is wh…
Look at the context for the track record: was it against all odds, or were they raised with a silver spoon? It is much easier to get ahead when having good loving parents, good teachers, good friends, but there might not be much of a fighter in those champions.
and definitely: people who bad-mouth others will bad-mouth you when you leave, no matter how noble you behave. But you still have to be noble to avoid your actions coming back and biting your ass.
Re: Ask HN: What were your naivetés in your twenties?
#49Don't believe everything they tell you. If you listen to too many people too often, you will be average at best. Have the conviction to be better. If you can't convince people of your ideas, it doesn't mean the ideas are bad, it just means they didn't think of them first.
Don't believe everything they tell you. If you listen to too many people too often, you will be average at best.
In other words, don't go to med school because daddy's a doctor and told you so.
There's a reason a lot of highly successful people dropped out of college or never went.
Re: Ask HN: What were your naivetés in your twenties?
#50Man, forgive me for being blunt, but there's a lot of loser talk in this thread. "Oh you can't learn from others mistakes, you'll make them, blah blah blah..." - no, this is how people feel better about themselves for having not listened to advice and getting wrecked in their own life because of it. Sure, you'll make mistakes, but you shouldn't just accept wandering blindly through life dealing with stuff. This is wh…
Forgive me also for being blunt ... what if the person who has the poor track records is yourself? I'm of course referring to myself and others who don't have as a tough sounding username as lionhearted. I think we give the benefit of doubt to people that we could relate to, who have had the same disadvantages and flaws as ourselves (after all, to not do so is to reject ourselves). Does your statement imply that we s…
> what if the person who has the poor track records is yourself?
Build a track record! :)
The problem with people without track records is that often they talk a good game but haven't built up their game. You goal shouldn't be to convince people that you're now [loyal / effective / honest / disciplined / whatever], it should be to actually build that quality in yourself.
Everyone's got no track record at some point. Build yours. Accomplish things. Be loyal. Keep growing and learning and doing things. Mostly - do things as much as possible as fast as possible. "Quantity always trumps quality" - http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2008/08/quantity-always-tru...
> Does your statement imply that we should try to align ourselves with those who have better track records than our own, and vice versa for those who are inferior?
It's not about better/inferior - it means people will usually continue to do what they've done in the past, as opposed to what they say they're going to do.
You should look to associate yourself with people you admire and like, and you should also look to find people on their way up and help them too. I don't think I've ever quoted the Bible before, but this about covers it:
"To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven. A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to reap that which is planted. A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to to mourn, and a time to dance. A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing. A time to get and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence and a time to speak; A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace."
> I'm not trying to be facetious, but trying to get you to elaborate applying what you said in a real world context.
Okay, ultra-practical rendition:
-Avoid men/women with a history of nasty endings to their relationships, even if they're charming...
-Avoid hiring people who look extremely talented but flame out without producing
-Avoid working for people that everyone says is a terrible/mean/awful boss/client/whatever, even if they seem okay
-Feel free to break this if you have a particularly good eye for talent, but only then
-If someone has rehabilitated themself, you'll generally see a good track record coming from them quickly. People can accomplish and build and do good things pretty quick after improving. Don't take anyone's word that they've improved without results, because everyone says that.
Anyway, don't sweat if you have a mixed or poor track record yet, just start building yours as quickly as you can. Accomplish things, build things, learn, and serve people, and don't forget to get some of the value you create for accomplishing, building, and serving - helping is good, but it's totally fair to get some of the value you created. As you accomplish more things, people come to know and respect you as a guy that gets things done, is a good guy, and accomplishes things. Then people want to work with you. It's a virtuous cycle.