Ask HN: What was your “why didn't I start doing this sooner” moment? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: What was your “why didn't I start doing this sooner” moment?

#91

Post by astura » Mon, Oct 16, 2017, 5:23 PM UTC

dahart wrote: post #27

1: Kids. My wife and I waited to get married, and then were part scared after we got married, and part selfish and wanted freedom to play and travel, so we waited more. I don't regret our adventures at all, but after we had kids, I realized my fear was unfounded and we still had a lot of freedom to play and travel. 2: Startup. I wanted to start my own business my whole life, and I waited to try until I had enough of…

>my fear was unfounded and we still had a lot of freedom to play and travel.

Be careful generalizing - this really depends on your life situations (including income/savings) and preferences.

For example, out of both our sets of parents there is only one (my MIL) that I'd ever want my hypothetical children to be around for any more than maybe an hour visit once a year, and she lives a 4 hour drive away. So there is pretty much zero family support for childrearing for us, which is a big factor in our choice to avoid childbearing.

I feel I have to preemptively defend my choice to keep my hypothetical children from their hypothetical grandparents - they are domestic emotional and physical abusers, substance abusers, mentally ill, reckless and drunk drivers, conflict seekers, emotionally unstable, behave socially inappropriately, don't respect boundaries, and create a toxic environment to be in. I grew up with that shit - I would only subject my worst enemy to it.

Re: Ask HN: What was your “why didn't I start doing this sooner” moment?

#92

Post by dabockster » Mon, Oct 16, 2017, 5:24 PM UTC

darioush wrote: post #90

Leaving grad school and getting a real, balanced job. It really hit me when during an internship I asked 'is the building open on weekends', and I was told 'yes, but why would you want to be here?' A further 'reckoning' was when I realized each year of grad school cost me 100k+. Opportunity costs. Also if you are obese, you need to fix that sooner rather than later.

> was when I realized each year of grad school cost me 100k+. Opportunity costs.

Money aside, the biggest opportunity cost of education is time. Looking back on my undergrad, I spent an extra year trying to edge out a BS degree when everyone around me was telling me to take the BA in CS and settle for that. In the moment, I felt that the BA would hinder my job prospects. Now that I've been out for a year and a half, I realize that I kind of wasted a year in terms of time. I probably would have been in the exact same place I am now if I had just decided to graduate with what I had at the time.

And, to add further, I ended up earning a BA anyways. But that's another rant.

Re: Ask HN: What was your “why didn't I start doing this sooner” moment?

#93

Post by milesvp » Mon, Oct 16, 2017, 5:27 PM UTC

analogwzrd wrote: post #19

I've got two: buying a house and going back to grad school. For buying a house, I latched onto the idea that I needed a 20% down payment so I wouldn't have to pay for mortgage insurance so I was trying to save like crazy. Meanwhile, the property values were going through the roof and I realized that I'd always be chasing that 20%. I sat down and ran some numbers with a mortgage lender and that made everything a lot c…

For me, buying a house wasn't so much about house values going up, as rents started going up faster than mortgages in my area. That's why I finally bought.

That said, I might have bought sooner had I realized the mind shift that happens with ownership. Want to do something about storage space? Drop a grand at ikea and put in semi permanent shelving. I would never think about dropping that kind if money on a rental.

Re: Ask HN: What was your “why didn't I start doing this sooner” moment?

#94

Post by dahart » Mon, Oct 16, 2017, 5:41 PM UTC

valleyer wrote: post #42

dahart wrote: post #27

1: Kids. My wife and I waited to get married, and then were part scared after we got married, and part selfish and wanted freedom to play and travel, so we waited more. I don't regret our adventures at all, but after we had kids, I realized my fear was unfounded and we still had a lot of freedom to play and travel. 2: Startup. I wanted to start my own business my whole life, and I waited to try until I had enough of…

Is there some factor you can share that allowed you still to enjoy your “freedom” even after having kids? I share that same fear.

It's a mix of factors, but part of it was examining what freedom means to me. It was never a specific set of goals I had or specific things I wanted to do, it was a general idea that I still want to be able to go out on Friday night, or go hiking on a whim Saturday, or lounge around at night and hack on my pet project or record some music or something.

The answer came in many parts:

- We bring the kids with us a lot. Some of the fear was mental friction about the difficulty of hauling kids around. Yeah, it takes a little more work, but as long as I do that work, I bring them along and can still go where I want.

- We sometimes take turns parenting to allow each other some freedom. I can buy time to work on my hacking projects and music tomorrow by watching the kids today. For me, this didn't change that much from my relationship with my wife, where we would make similar choices to invest some time with each other.

- We hire babysitters sometimes. (But movie night did go from a very cheap date before kids to a very expensive night after kids...)

- I take more stock of how much time I waste. For example, watching TV/Netflix is fun, but I can choose to sacrifice that here and there and buy time to do other more meaningful things.

- My motivations changed after having kids, and I have the freedom to spend time with them. Certain kinds of socializing became less important to me, which frees up some time.

- We plan ahead more often. Not a bad thing, what freedom meant in some cases was the freedom to not plan, but if I plan ahead and commit to things, I can still do what I want.

Re: Ask HN: What was your “why didn't I start doing this sooner” moment?

#95

Post by astura » Mon, Oct 16, 2017, 5:42 PM UTC

PatientTrader wrote: post #59

Reducing sodium intake. You will instantly lose weight, feel less sluggish, have more energy etc. By simply reducing the amount of sodium in your diet you are increasing your chances of living longer. Over 500,000 deaths each are from complications with high sodium levels causing health problems.

I don't doubt that you might have benefited from a reduction in sodium intake but most people won't. The majority of people are not hypersensitive to sodium[1]. Limiting salt to some arbitrarily low number can have negative side effects, for example, my vegetable consumption went up dramatically when I let go of my anxiety over putting salt on them.

[1] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/its-time-to-end-t...

Re: Ask HN: What was your “why didn't I start doing this sooner” moment?

#96

Post by astura » Mon, Oct 16, 2017, 5:50 PM UTC

jbuss wrote: post #74

tmikaeld wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems this particular extension is very upfront about the fact that they gather quite a lot of data from your tab history/usage/habits and then pass that to 3rd parties. https://yourblocksite.com/privacy.html

Hadn't considered that. Are there others you would recommend?

If your work computer is not also your home computer you can just edit your hosts file to block social sites on your work computer.

Re: Ask HN: What was your “why didn't I start doing this sooner” moment?

#97

Post by dahart » Mon, Oct 16, 2017, 5:50 PM UTC

astura wrote: post #91

dahart wrote: post #27

1: Kids. My wife and I waited to get married, and then were part scared after we got married, and part selfish and wanted freedom to play and travel, so we waited more. I don't regret our adventures at all, but after we had kids, I realized my fear was unfounded and we still had a lot of freedom to play and travel. 2: Startup. I wanted to start my own business my whole life, and I waited to try until I had enough of…

>my fear was unfounded and we still had a lot of freedom to play and travel. Be careful generalizing - this really depends on your life situations (including income/savings) and preferences. For example, out of both our sets of parents there is only one (my MIL) that I'd ever want my hypothetical children to be around for any more than maybe an hour visit once a year, and she lives a 4 hour drive away. So there is pr…

That's awful, in your situation I'd be afraid to have kids too. You can live far away from them or not have kids or both. I hope you can find peace and not feel like you need to defend your choice to anyone, you have all the right in the world to deal with the family that was inflicted on you in any way you see fit and without worrying what other people think.

To be clear, the question was about personal experience, and I'm only sharing my own experience and not suggesting mine works for anyone else. Clearly your personal experience is very different from mine, and different choices are in order.

FWIW, I was a 12 hour drive from all grandparents when my first was born, and living in San Francisco. We didn't have any grandparent support, and even after moving closer, we haven't had a lot. What we have done is hire babysitters now and then, and also play and travel with our kids a lot. The realization that my fears about freedom before kids was unfounded didn't really depend on having family support.

Re: Ask HN: What was your “why didn't I start doing this sooner” moment?

#98

Post by Kevin_S » Mon, Oct 16, 2017, 5:51 PM UTC

Balgair wrote: post #73

Marriage. She is my everything, and though as a GF she was that too, marriage is just deeper . Many of my single/unmarried friends don't have the trust and support that I have. I try to tell them that 'pulling the trigger' is not with a gun aimed at your head, but more of the starter's pistol in a 3-legged-race; it's fun. Yes, we have issues, just like all humans. But as we have both grown and changed, holding each o…

I understand your point, but I think people put too much into the actual act of getting married. For my wife and I, I realized essentially nothing changed between us. The only real change was that I was no longer "living in sin" according to my family, and people pester us more often about having kids.

Also people make the mistake of thinking getting married will change things for the better. It never fixes issues.

Re: Ask HN: What was your “why didn't I start doing this sooner” moment?

#99

Post by dahart » Mon, Oct 16, 2017, 6:05 PM UTC

anyfoo wrote: post #61

jrowley wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing to consider is that the sooner you have kids, the longer you get to have them in your life.

Given his question, that would sound like an argument to have kids later, rather than earlier, or what exactly do you mean?

Only if you don't like your kids. If you like them, having them around is a lot of fun. :)

Side note that kids start spending time away from parents when they become teenagers. That's happening to me now, and I am slowly gaining extra free time. Half the time I still want to spend my free time with the kids. But I'd assume that the younger someone is post-kids, the more energy and options they have for starting new things with that free time. I'm just entering my forties and glad I'm not starting to have kids right now. It might have been a little nicer to start earlier just so we could have hit this point while we were younger.

Re: Ask HN: What was your “why didn't I start doing this sooner” moment?

#100

Post by forgueam » Mon, Oct 16, 2017, 6:13 PM UTC

joshaidan wrote: post #67

Stop blaming my feelings on other people. Always take ownership of how you feel; I'm responsible for my feelings. For example, if I feel lonely because my friends didn't invite me to the party, don't blame them. Loneliness is my feeling, so I should do something about it. i.e. Go out and do something that I like, invite some other friends over, whatever... If I don't take any action, blaming other people for my feeli…

This sounds very similar to the ideas in stoicism. Your feelings are your own creation and subsequently completely within your control. If you are feeling bad about something, it's not because of that something, but because you are -choosing- to feel bad.