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Ask HN: What do you struggle with?

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Re: Ask HN: What do you struggle with?

#301

Post by madeuptempacct »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #294
madeuptempacct wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently that's a no-no: ... Flint replied, "Well the top 5 are my primary focus, but the other 20 come in at a close second. They are still important so I'll work on those intermittently as I see fit as I'm getting through my top 5. They aren't as urgent, but I still plan to give them a dedicated effort." To which Buffett replied: "No. You've got it wrong, Mike. Everything you didn't circle just became your 'avoid…

Although some contradiction with the 7 habits of successful people (work on important but not urgent things). That said, I don't disagree with Buffett, but I do struggle with it :-)

It's complicated - if I hyper-focus and never succeed, I will just end up an extremely, extremely boring person. So there are definitely cons to that strategy.

Re: Ask HN: What do you struggle with?

#302

Post by gnulinux »

derefr wrote: post #250
gnulinux wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See, yes my friends told me I might have ADHD. But I was extremely good at school (I graduated from UC Berkeley with near 4.0) and never had a problem focusing at work/school. If I sit to study, I can do so pretty efficiently. I can also do work without much trouble. Also, I tried Adderall a couple times when I was a freshman, and its effects were almost unnoticeable to me since I usually don't have hard time focusin…

ADHD doesn't always (or even often) manifest as inability to focus; that's a misconception. As well, ADHD can have little-to-no impact on your grades in school, if you happen to "have a mind for" the particular things you're studying. It's when you don't that it can be a problem. Also: > its effects were almost unnoticeable to me Neurotypical people don't tend to experience Adderall as "unnoticeable." If your brain c…

Huh, that's very interesting, all those things in Part A happen to me often (pretty much every day!) except being overly active (I'm very silent and calm). I guess I had misconceptions about what ADHD even is... I should see a doctor soon it seems like. Thank you very much!

Re: Ask HN: What do you struggle with?

#304

Post by tropo »

gnulinux wrote: post #227
etatoby wrote: post #26

Long-term: dating/relationships. I'm very outgoing, but I have love shyness or something like that. I basically don't date. I find the entire thing extremely stressful and unbearable. I've always been alone. Short-term: not much! I recently dropped everything and moved to the other side of the globe (Japan) on a student visa. I'm studying a very interesting language and culture and making friends with people from all…

I'm 21, never asked a girl out. I'm same as you, I think I'm pretty outgoing and generally social (not to social, but I'm ok I guess) and I'm good looking too (I go to the gym 5 days a week). But the whole dating thing seems almost pointlessly stressful to me, I don't even quite know how to do it and at this age it seems embarrassing to be this inexperienced.

I was in that situation.

I discovered that worst-case situations were actually easier, because failure was expected and thus didn't hurt.

Asking out a plain girl was difficult. Asking out an ugly one meant that a rejection would be devastating. ("even the ugly ones reject me")

So, what to do...? I marched myself out to the city park and ordered myself to approach the hottest women I could find.

One day I walked through the park and spotted an impossibly beautiful woman in a skimpy bikini. She was lying on a stone bench, covered in tanning oil. I walked past thinking "damn...", and then I had to walk past her again just to get another look. Then a silly thought popped into my head: "ask her out". Ha, ha, ha... no seriously, do it. You have to. After passing by a few more times, I said to myself that it was hopeless but I'd be kicking myself if I didn't try. Go on, get the rejection, it doesn't matter. She could get any guy, so it doesn't reflect badly. It's just practice. It's good to practice so you don't fumble over your words.

Well, she took me home with her.

I froze hard with shyness soon afterward, but hey, it was progress. Each time gets easier.

Re: Ask HN: What do you struggle with?

#305

Post by gnulinux »

mixmastamyk wrote: post #258
gnulinux wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm 21, never asked a girl out. I'm same as you, I think I'm pretty outgoing and generally social (not to social, but I'm ok I guess) and I'm good looking too (I go to the gym 5 days a week). But the whole dating thing seems almost pointlessly stressful to me, I don't even quite know how to do it and at this age it seems embarrassing to be this inexperienced.

Social activities, like all others need to be practiced regularly to become good at them. Quick question, which produces better results, going to the gym, or thinking about going to the gym over and over in your head? How about public speaking? Think of it as a muscle to be exercised. An actor friend of mine described acting in the same manner.

But it just seems impossible to practice. I'm 21 years old and at this age everyone has a lot of expectations about their partners but I know that I cannot fulfill those expectations, exactly because of what you said (because I never practiced those muscles). It just feels very strongly like if I ever ask a girl out I'll just make a dick out of myself. Ok, see I'm NOT shy, if I see you in a conference, I'l talk to you. I don't have social anxiety or whatever too. It just feels there is a very high probability me insulting the girl I'm hitting on (and PLEASE don't tell me "you don't have to hit on a girl, just become friends" I have tons of girl friends and that never works, if you don't ask a girl out, no matter how often you guys hang out, you're just always friends. And that's the barrier I keep hitting all the time) and thus ruining everything in a horrible manner.

Re: Ask HN: What do you struggle with?

#306

Post by Aeolun »

mrdependable wrote: post #31

I've been struggling with adulthood ever since turning 30 and starting a family. I have this image in my head of what life after 30 looks like from seeing my parents and all their friends doing basically the same thing as each other. It's not a life I want for myself, but every decision I make pushes me further and further in that direction. My mind has been programmed to think and act in a way that eventually lands…

I used to really hate the idea of me living an ordinary life, but I think at some point I realized trying to do extraordinary stuff was stressing me out way too much, and now I’m hard at work being as ordinary as possible.

I think my goals have shifted from providing the best life for myself in the future to providing the best life for my child in the future, and I seem to be completely at peace with that.

Re: Ask HN: What do you struggle with?

#307

Post by newnewpdro »

username77 wrote: post #84

I’m 30 and haven’t really had much dating experience. It boggles my mind how people are already married by 30. How does dating work? Serious question.

Consider yourself lucky. Since you're on HN, I'm going to assume you've benefitted tremendously from the lack of unnecessary distractions and expenses in your life dating tends to include.

edit:

As far as actually dating goes... this can be made complicated and probably not best advised on HN. But the TL;DR:

1. Take care of yourself; being healthy, fit, and attractive makes this all a whole lot easier.

2. Make yourself available; put yourself out there, spend time in public spaces where people your age congregate and socialize. Cafes work well for this. Special interest groups like meetup or other sporting leagues also work. You can fallback on online dating services, but it's not ideal.

3. Pay attention to signals; women do all sorts of things to communicate interest. Adjusting their hair, clothes, overt and excessive stretching in your field of view, repeated smiling, eye-fucking, unnecessary physical contact. These are invitations, open a dialog if you're interested, say hi.

There's more that can be said, but I think that pretty much covers the fundamentals.

#1 is the most impactful in my experience. A sexy physique under well-fitting clothes goes such a long way, it can be quite annoying if you're not interested in the attention.

Re: Ask HN: What do you struggle with?

#309

Post by gnulinux »

brendanmc6 wrote: post #237
gnulinux wrote: post #216

I'm incredibly absent minded. I constantly keep forgetting/losing my cards, my wallet, my phone, bags, random stuff; somehow I break things in ways I don't understand... I just graduated from college, my life was fine so far, but I'm currently getting kicked out by my landlord because he was sick of me making trivial, small mistakes 10000 times a day. They're things like forgetting a plate on the table, forgetting to…

I deal with this too. An example I'll never forget: leaving my sweater at a friend's house, realizing half way home (on a bike, freezing), biking all the way back to pick it up, then riding all the way home without my backpack (I took it off to put the sweater on). I miss train stops, forget important grocery items, leave my car at the carpool and think it's been stolen, etc. I notice drinking makes it worse. So does…

> leaving my sweater at a friend's house, realizing half way home (on a bike, freezing), biking all the way back to pick it up, then riding all the way home without my backpack (I took it off to put the sweater on).

This hits so close to home... In my experience things like this were just "cute" little memories in high school and college so I never thought of it. I graduated this May and last 3 months I've seen that things like this ACTUALLY affect my life very badly. So I'm trying to improve this, and this thread has been very helpful and encouraged me to see a doctor.

Re: Ask HN: What do you struggle with?

#310

Post by qwerty456127 »

sushisource wrote: post #231
nbardy wrote: post #226

Interviewing. I'm good at my good. My portfolio is at least decent, and I get a lot of responses on my resume, but I consistently can't close the deal. I also have a very hard time bettering myself with the lack of feedback. I've gotten better at all the stuff you can read about online and often made it to the final round, but I can't make it to an offer.

IMO, software interviewing is pretty heavily broken. I struggled with this and I decided (rightly or wrongly) that the problem wasn't me, it really was the process. Whiteboard coding is nonsense for any other purpose than weeding out the truly incompetent. Past that point, it's a crapshoot. I think homework / portfolio are the most reasonable evaluative tools, but there are some legitimate downsides there around the…

> Whiteboard coding is nonsense

Absolutely. Asking a person to produce correct code with just a whiteboard/pen/notepad is like asking a surgeon to do with just a kitchen knife. An intelligent code-completing&checking IDE, a debugger and the Internet should be considered parts of a developer's body nowadays, restricting usage of these makes just as much sense as restricting usage of glasses for reading or requiring people to get to the office without using personal/public transport vehicles.

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