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Ask HN: What have the past 12 months taught you?

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121–130 of 237 posts

Re: Ask HN: What have the past 12 months taught you?

#121
post #77

Anyone can run, you just need to reset your expectations. Backstory. I used to not like running at all. Every time I ran, my mind would count down either time left or distance left. It always felt easy in the beginning but very soon would be unattainable. But now I can run decent distances without getting mentally or physically exhausted. So here are the lessons: 1. The first 1 mile is the hardest. 2. Second mile is…

lol @ 8 miles per hour for an entire hour after a couple of weeks. I used to run 15 miles a day (7.5 to work 7.5 back) and even then that would've been tough. and I worked up to that over basically 3 years. a

Re: Ask HN: What have the past 12 months taught you?

#122
post #5

What I thought I wanted was not really what I wanted. My mind just concoted those goals, so that I could go towards them and escape current unpleasant situation. Once I did that, I learned that the grass was not greener on the other side.

I can connect with this. My current situation is not the greatest and I'm frustrated with it daily, but from an outside view (which I develop myself), things are pretty peachy and comfortable. It's a struggle thinking about what could be and what is, especially when you don't have the foresight to know how either will actually pan out.

Re: Ask HN: What have the past 12 months taught you?

#124
post #97
post #7

I believe I am an optimist. Last several months made me a realist. Toned down my habit of almost compulsorily seeing the good in people. I am less trusting of new people now. Made me more aware of my own characteristics that I had not given much thought to. My patience levels have gone down the drain, compassion out the window and I have more of a GTFO attitude for anything that, in my opinion, is bullshit. Several t…

> Toned down my habit of almost compulsorily seeing the good in people. Do you think this is a good thing? I've personally tried to do the complete opposite, and I think it's thoroughly improved my life and mental wellbeing. I think it's very possible to be introspective and aware of oneself while still seeing the good in everyone. I hope you feel better :) Life has it's ups and downs, and I've found that time fixes…

No, I don’t think it is a good thing. It goes against my base nature/attitude but I noticed that I am not actively doing it. It has just become so. :(

I am hoping that this is just a temporary effect of all the damage sustained over last year. As I recover and move on, hope to get back to normal. It is really a positive trait to have - for your own well being as you are not mentally consumed by negative thoughts about others.

You are right! It will all get better, and I am going to give as much time as needed to ride this phase out.

Re: Ask HN: What have the past 12 months taught you?

#125

•You are what you consume - People, music, news, etc. If you mostly consume the “positive” side of life, your mindset will follow. •Moving upwards in society is not as easy as I thought. “Classes” reproduce themselves in the dress of habitus. •You can only rely on yourself. “Friends” are stage of life companions. •Finding a partner in crime seems like a tough task - don’t settle with someone, who you are only with to…

Related to your first point: I added the following to my hosts file 4 months ago and haven't looked back. 0.0.0.0 www.youtube.com 0.0.0.0 youtube.com 0.0.0.0 googlevideo.com 0.0.0.0 ytimg.l.google.com 0.0.0.0 ytimg.com 0.0.0.0 youtube-ui.l.google.com 0.0.0.0 ytstatic.l.google.com 0.0.0.0 youtubei.googleapis.com 0.0.0.0 youtu.be 0.0.0.0 l.google.com 0.0.0.0 m.youtube.com If someone sends me something, I'll watch it on…

YouTube is actually the one major social media network that has a more positive than negative psychological effect:

https://www.psychalive.org/worst-mental-health-instagram-fac...

Re: Ask HN: What have the past 12 months taught you?

#126
post #77

Anyone can run, you just need to reset your expectations. Backstory. I used to not like running at all. Every time I ran, my mind would count down either time left or distance left. It always felt easy in the beginning but very soon would be unattainable. But now I can run decent distances without getting mentally or physically exhausted. So here are the lessons: 1. The first 1 mile is the hardest. 2. Second mile is…

“After a few weeks magic happens. You can run 8 miles in about one hour, not get bored, not think about it.” This is exactly how I got a bad case of shin splints. I don’t mess around with upping mileage this quickly anymore.

On a shin splints related side note. Something not sure intuitive for non runners. If possible take the 1 minute-ish analysis at the shop to find out how your feet roll while running. If they roll to much inside (pronate) your appropriate shoe has more support in that area. If you roll too much outside (supenate), they add it on the outside. If you dont roll too much, shoes for either or these can cause shin splints or stress fractures in the medium to long term (still preferable to inactivity). Most of the time this is the key thing to consider when buying running shoes.

Re: Ask HN: What have the past 12 months taught you?

#127
I learned I do have a case of mild autism (thanks to someone here posting a relevant link) and maybe ADHD-ish.

While this isn't a great news in itself, I'm grateful that I've been able to benchmark my oddness. Now that I know, it's easier for me to be more self aware and prevent my weird half to do stupid things.

I still trip and fall, and probably will keep doing that forever, but I'me better at falling without hurting myself too much. Sometimes it does drive me to a light paranoia but still working on the tuning of the feedback loop.

I haven't fully digested this yet, a bit tough to swallow at nearly 30 yo but hey that's life.

Also, as a result, I don't fit too well into corporate environments and therefore, for the sake of my own baseline happiness, should keep them at bay.

Re: Ask HN: What have the past 12 months taught you?

#128
post #77

Anyone can run, you just need to reset your expectations. Backstory. I used to not like running at all. Every time I ran, my mind would count down either time left or distance left. It always felt easy in the beginning but very soon would be unattainable. But now I can run decent distances without getting mentally or physically exhausted. So here are the lessons: 1. The first 1 mile is the hardest. 2. Second mile is…

How often did you run starting out? I’ve been doing 1 miles after my strength workouts ~3x a week, and it hasn’t gotten much better. Been doing it for about 2 months.

This is years ago, but when I was doing strength workouts, I found that I was burning through my sugar reserves. It takes a while of running before your body moves from burning mostly sugar to burning an even mix of sugar and fat. It does it faster the more cardiovascularly fit you are, but when you first start it can take up to 30 minutes. If you only run 1 mile, you aren't getting there.

I recommend swapping the running and lifting for a couple of months until you get that working better. Once you are running 3-5 miles then you'll give yourself enough time to switch to burning fat as fuel and you won't have so much trouble running after lifting (the first mile is always hard, though).

Or at least that was my experience. Haven't done it in more than 20 years... (stopped lifting -- kept running ;-) ).

Re: Ask HN: What have the past 12 months taught you?

#129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you tried overdosing on fermented foods? I thought I was allergic to so many foods, but I guess my gut ecosystem was just messed up. Eating loads of fermented foods everyday has allowed me to eat all the foods I thought I was allergic to again. Of course, varies per person, but it may help.

Thanks, I'll look into this. I'm sensitive to lactose, but eating too much of anything in one sitting will give me horrendous breath, especially (red) meat and onions. Omeprazole is required at this point.

Are you sure you are lactose intolerant? That sounds more like a protein intolerance. I don't know that much about it, but maybe it will point you in a constructive direction.

Re: Ask HN: What have the past 12 months taught you?

#130
post #51

I have a flight reflex which makes me run away when things get tough. I quit a number of jobs because of that and then rationalized it to myself by blaming it on whatever wasn't perfect at these companies. I like to feel I'm the victim of circumstances, blaming hardships on some abstract entity (like fate), subconsciously hoping that 'fate' will prove me wrong by making something good happen to me. I am using substan…

There is a Japanese TV show called "How do you like Wednesdays", where 3 or 4 guys go travelling around the world doing crazy things -- not crazy like Youtube crazy. Just things like trying to visit every European country by car in 2 weeks. They do stupid eating challenges, etc, etc.

One of the things I like about the show (apart from the improvised humour) is that the director tells them what they are going to do and it usually involves something that at least one of them hates. Then they all laugh about it and go do it. The suffering is part of the humour.

One of the things I think modern life has been bad for is that it promises to alleviate suffering. But I've found that suffering is something that brings as much good as it does bad. When we avoid suffering, we avoid all those good things. We become like an animal in a zoo -- everything is provided, but there is no point.

I wouldn't go crazy about this, but you could consider trying to add some suffering intentionally to your life. Just something silly like purposely eating food that you don't like. Then revel in the audacity of it. Brag about how you conquered the evils of liver or whatever. When people ask you why you ate it, then say something stupid like "I ate it because it was there".

Slowly, slowly introduce more things that you can do. Make fun of them, like the boggart in the Harry Potter series. Laugh at the stupidity of intentionally doing these things.

One thing I will say almost for certain if you try it: You say you have a hard time accepting yourself the way you are. You probably don't actually know what way you are (and I'm not trying to be accusative here). You've been trapped in your cage of comfort. You will surprise yourself, I guarantee it.

Good luck!

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