Anything coming from people significantly older than me, who are still talking about how they wanted to live their lives 20 or 30 (even 40) years ago, in a world completely different from the current one.
Ask HN: What advice messed up your life?
191–200 of 248 posts
Re: Ask HN: What advice messed up your life?
#192Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The idea behind stepping outside of your comfort zone is that you keep doing it until it becomes your new comfort zone. That's kinda worse. The only good way to venture into new areas, in my opinion, is to make little steps forward, to the extent that you're not standing still "as-is" but also while you're still in control of your emotions. This will expand your comfort zone gradually until the thing that was origi…
Two things: 1. Take "temperament theory" with a grain of salt. It's somewhat in vogue right now with a lot of psychologists, but there are also plenty of reasons to think that it's conflating two separate issues (temperament and typology) and is an oversimplification. 2. The only way to develop your personality is to step outside your comfort zone. Your type only determines where that comfort zone is, not whether you…
I'm not aware of any personality theory that psychologists agree on, each school has its own theories. I find the temperaments derived from MBTI to be very convincing.
Re: Ask HN: What advice messed up your life?
#193Not from any specific person, but the idea that you have to step outside your comfort zone and do X and Y even though it doesn't come naturally to you. Every time I did that things got messed up and I ended up worse than I was before. If you're outside your comfort zone, you will act in non-authentic ways, and when you're not being authentic, you can't be the best possible you. Examples of stepping outside comfort zo…
Not from any specific person, but the idea that you have to step outside your comfort zone and do X and Y even though it doesn't come naturally to you.
I've been reading some of the arguments and counterarguments. It seems like a lot of assumptions are being made on both sides. I raised two special needs kids and found that you can help someone grow into doing things they could not before without forcing them to step outside their comfort zone. I now have a job and I find that similar principles work with "normal" adults who need to do something new and aren't sure what they are supposed to be doing.
At home with my oldest son, I had him watch me cook while I explained. Later, he began assisting -- getting out ingredients I needed, stirring things, etc. but only doing what he felt comfortable with. He gradually took over more parts of it as he became comfortable. He now does most of the cooking. At work, I have volunteered to walk someone to where they need to go for a special procedure and show them whom they needed to speak with. One young woman was very shy, so I did intros and did the initial talking until she was more comfortable with this new person. Just walking a new person through the procedure the first time really took the pressure off. It's a big building and everything looks alike and it's easy to get lost, plus my job has a lot of time pressure which adds to the psychological stress because getting lost and wandering around costs you time.
If you don't have someone that can help walk you through something (or some other means to ramp up comfortably), it may be best to take some personal risks. But it is absolutely possible to grow as a person without doing stuff that makes you feel all stressed primarily because it is extremely unfamiliar. Some things may require taking a leap of faith but many things that are routinely handled that way do not inherently require that approach. (I could argue that Y-combinator does something similar to what I am suggesting here: They take you under their wing, introduce you to a lot of folks who already have experience founding a company, help you work out the kinks, etc. so you don't have to simply sink or swim/figure it out all on your own/grow from being burned so much.)
Re: Ask HN: What advice messed up your life?
#194Never, never, not in a million years, listen to a single word of advice uttered by someone who isn't happy with their life. They have absolutely nothing to teach you. This is strong stuff, granted, but I think it is tremendously important. Every single piece of bad advice I have ever received was from someone who didn't like their life. If you're unhappy, you have two basic options. You can do something to make yours…
" Some believed that good jobs were just inaccessible for 'the likes of us', so there's no point getting you hopes up. Some were so uncertain of their employability that they took the first job offered to them and never dared do anything to jeopardise it. " This chimes with my personal experience. I suppose the demographic I'm from in the UK gave me certain blind spots and self imposed ceilings. I'm now 25 and only j…
In my opinion, those "self imposed ceilings" are far worse in the UK that any other limit to personal development - they also vary a lot given your background.
I grew up in a small fishing village in the North of Scotland - where everyone (and I mean everyone) was very supportive of education and the idea that anyone pretty much do anything they wanted if they had ability and worked hard enough. My parents weren't well off but all 4 of my siblings and I went to university.
My wife comes from a urban-working class background in a post-industrial area near Glasgow, she is extremely bright and went to University at 16. However, she had to constantly battle a "that's not for the likes of us" attitude from everyone in her community, including her parents (who are nice people, but just don't "get it").
When we first met she always made fun of me for having no concept of "class" whereas it was something that had always been made clear to her by her peers. Ironically, she became a lawyer and entered that bastion of upper middle class eccentric respectablilty: the Scottish Bar.
Re: Ask HN: What advice messed up your life?
#195Never, never, not in a million years, listen to a single word of advice uttered by someone who isn't happy with their life. They have absolutely nothing to teach you. This is strong stuff, granted, but I think it is tremendously important. Every single piece of bad advice I have ever received was from someone who didn't like their life. If you're unhappy, you have two basic options. You can do something to make yours…
I don't agree. As already point, many philosophers, scientists, programmers have been bitter people, largely unhappy with life.
Some people are bitter by design. No matter what I do, I will always have many complains to be unhappy about. Right now, I am trying to boot-up my startup. If it doesn't work, I will be bitter. If it works out, I will be bitter about my other pet peeve - schools killing creativity and I would like to contribute towards making it better. If it too is sorted out, I would be bitter about people being bitter about each other owing to religious, regional or some other non-rational biases. I am bitter about Government corruption and lack of infrastructure in my country. I am bitter about common man's rights not implemented in spirit. I am bitter about morons dividing people on religion and reason, and worse, people listening to them.
All of these isn't going to change(some might) in my lifetime. And the only way to be happy about it is to turn a blind eye. If happiness is ignorance, I don't seek it.
This would be blatant generalization, but many happy people I have met are blissfully ignorant. They have accepted life as is, and are happy with the current state of thing.
I generally listen to all advice, and ignore most of it - the adviser being happy or not doesn't figure in my criteria.
Re: Ask HN: What advice messed up your life?
#196Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm honestly not sure I'm understanding you properly, but if I am, this is true up to a point . We like to believe in a world where everyone's results are directly correlated with how much work they've done, but that's just as much a fantasy as it is to believe that all you have to do is sit around and wait for the right opportunity to magically appear. I hate to break it to you, but the most successful people in soc…
I was mostly talking about dating girls. It may seem obvious in hindsight, but at the time, I just took it as word. But it's also applicable to other aspects of my life. Whenever I've taken initiative and grabbed the situation by the horns to change, it's been for the better.
Odd. For me it's the exact opposite--any and all advice about how to grab the situation by the horns and take the initiative and approach girls, nothing ever worked out, but things did happen when I least expected them.
Re: Ask HN: What advice messed up your life?
#197Never, never, not in a million years, listen to a single word of advice uttered by someone who isn't happy with their life. They have absolutely nothing to teach you. This is strong stuff, granted, but I think it is tremendously important. Every single piece of bad advice I have ever received was from someone who didn't like their life. If you're unhappy, you have two basic options. You can do something to make yours…
Certainly never take advice about love from unhappy and cynical people.
Re: Ask HN: What advice messed up your life?
#198"Just do it, you've got nothing to lose."
In my experience, the people that make this statement rarely understand opportunity cost. It took me years to figure out that it's OK to let new opportunities pass you by if pursuing them would take your time away from the opportunities you're already committed to.
The more successful you get, the more opportunities come your way, so I think this is something successful people have to figure out eventually. If you make a success of one opportunity, it's always at the expense of another. It's good to be selective.
Re: Ask HN: What advice messed up your life?
#199Pretty much everything I was ever told about love, dating, sex and romance, prior to discovering the "seduction community" a couple of years ago. Then again, it's not that a lot of the advice I got about women was bad, it just wasn't useful. Take the stock "be confident" tidbit for example... well, that's not bad advice (in that being confident is not harmful) but it's not actionable advice, because telling someone who isn't confident to "be confident" is useless. I also bought into the generic "there's somebody for everybody, don't look for a girl, you'll just stumble into somebody one day and it'll happen if it's mean to" crap. Uuuuggggghhh...
Outside of that, not much. But I tend to be pretty selective about the advice I take anyway... I'm the kind of person who tends to "keep my own council" more often than not (or, as my dad would say, I'm hard-headed). So I tend to ignore a lot of the well-meaning advice I've been given.. so I miss out by ignoring some good advice here and there, but I also avoid most of the bad advice.
For the most part, I'd look back and say that approach has worked out well for me.
Re: Ask HN: What advice messed up your life?
#200I'm not exactly sure how to word it, and I'm not aware of a single source who advised me on it, but it seems like there's a pervasive feeling in society that "If I want to learn something, I need a teacher." I outgrew this mental model around 14, and now in college I feel so much further ahead of many of my peers who are lucky to have taken a HS programming course once before choosing a programming degree. I wish I h…
There's a big difference between and teacher and an advisor. Teachers are absolutely a dime a dozen, and the capable student can teach themselves anything a teacher might. However, my research advisor (and more informal "advisors" who I've come across in open source contribution, TAing, etc.) have been absolutely invaluable. You can absolutely teach yourself to program, but you'll never be heads and shoulders above t…
Socialize with talented people. They won't teach you, but you can learn few things from them. Also, get to work in a real company and real problems. You'll learn many things from your colleges and job.