be happy. it beats all the other alternatives.
Ah yes, just pick some happiness off of the happy tree!
Ask HN: Advice to your younger self
61–70 of 112 posts
Re: Ask HN: Advice to your younger self
#62Having more or bigger 'things' will not make you happier. Focus more on relationships and family, and less on the means to consume more.
Re: Ask HN: Advice to your younger self
#63You aren't busy. You just feel busy. Find time to do interesting things, because once you have kids you'll find out what being busy actually means.
Parents don’t own being busy or stretched for time. Regardless of what commitments you have you can be busy or not and you are in control of that - yes even parents are in control of how busy they are.
There is a qualitative change in when you are busy for the vast majority, though. Most people don't have a job where at any minute you have to drop everything and perform some task. This being HN, a very above-average number of the people who do have a job of that nature are around here, of course, but I'd expect it's still a majority of people of baby-having age around here who are not routinely getting paged at 2am by their job.
Re: Ask HN: Advice to your younger self
#64Big life changes (like marriage, having kids) will change your life, and it's OK that your priorities won't be the same as they were before.
You know, I think about this and it's kinda sad that my priorities will have to change and have changed. My younger self won't be happy with my current priorities.
Would you be happy with your younger self's priorities now?
Re: Ask HN: Advice to your younger self
#65You aren't busy. You just feel busy. Find time to do interesting things, because once you have kids you'll find out what being busy actually means.
Parents don’t own being busy or stretched for time. Regardless of what commitments you have you can be busy or not and you are in control of that - yes even parents are in control of how busy they are.
As a non-parent I do get this sentiment--certainly there can be many important things beyond children that call our time--however as someone who has dated someone with a kid and seen the kind of time and energy a child demands, OP's statement is spot on.
It's more of a paradigm shift in the way you think about time -- you're suddenly not just responsible for yourself and your accompanying todos, but a whole nother human life, and their accompanying todos (which are manifold greater because they're dependent on you for even the simplest of needs).
Re: Ask HN: Advice to your younger self
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
You know, I think about this and it's kinda sad that my priorities will have to change and have changed. My younger self won't be happy with my current priorities.
Would you be happy with your younger self's priorities now?
I am not “old” yet but I am seeing change of priorities. So yes, I would be happy.
Re: Ask HN: Advice to your younger self
#67Kissing ass at work is more important that anything else regarding advancement.
Re: Ask HN: Advice to your younger self
#68The time window to have children is pretty small (life is short), and while men don't have a 'bio-clock' like women, if the man waits too long he might have to find a woman a decade or more younger (which is not how you dream about it growing up)
Re: Ask HN: Advice to your younger self
#69Re: Ask HN: Advice to your younger self
#70choose your parents genes, like your advice, wisely.