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

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141–150 of 237 posts

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

#141
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…

I'm guessing your employer or your gf walked away with a good chunk of what you had.

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

#142
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 relate to that. For me the lesson is: We are often confused about what we want, and society/evolution makes us want stupid things. It takes conscious effort to really author our desires

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

#143

That despite being physically fit, at the very least decently looking, earning well, having interesting interests (such as doing a cool PhD and being a competitive dancer), despite having a decent social network and meeting lots of women, I will likely die a loveless virgin. It's unspeakably depressing.

Go down that rabbit hole. https://www.reddit.com/r/TheRedPill/ It will give you a toolkit for "debugging" relationships.

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

#144
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…

Errrm., not everyone can run. Some people experience excruciating pain due to herniated discs when running, fortunately there’s biking :)

Can everyone biking?

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

#145
- We need to apply the same principles of consumption that we do to food to information. Consume responsibly. Be aware of the sourcing. Don't binge. Know what's junk and what's nourishing. Give back to positive sources to nourish and grow them (sustainability).

- Income inequality is huge. Slavery still exists but in a misdirected, slight-of-hand way. Work or the system will abandon you and it's "your fault".

- Learn the macro-game that you are a part of and the micro-game that you are a part of. You can only ever play/influence the micro-game so focus on that, but the macro-game can give useful context.

- Look where the sun doesn't shine. When everyone's looking one way, see what they're missing.

- Virtues are important. Virtues conflict. Meekness is a virtue, but don't make it your only one.

- Wealth has three portions: financials, relationships, and intelligence. Nurture all three.

- It's difficult to break out of the middle-class. It's even harder to break out of the middle-class mentality.

- There are many loopholes to fast-track you to your goals. Live your life by the orthodox narratives, and you may miss out on something fortuitous that crosses your path.

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

#146

life, existence, other people are endlessly complicated. Spending too much time observing and figuring them out, prevents you from living and enjoying it. Something like Heisenberg uncertainty principle in quantum physics. All my emotions are there with a reason, it's important to figure out what is it. self-discipline and pursuit of your goals is a road to healthy, stable self-confidence and self-esteem. Everyone ar…

> listen to only those whose life is similar to what you aspire, filter out the rest

So I believe for the most part, I have been following this advice and I'm not sure if it has been optimal for achieving my goal. I'm not debating, I quite literally don't know. I'm current attending university.

The issue is, I aspire to start my own company, and eventually build a billion dollar company. That is my life's ambition and I will do anything to make it happen. The issue is, the vast majority of people Ive met in university just want to work for Google or Facebook, and don't have any other aspirations outside that.

I purposefully push people away and don't listen to advice because I don't think somebody whose entire purpose in life is to work at Google is somebody I want to be close friends with. I'll be nice to them, but not super close. It really stings because I haven't really made any close friends here and have a hard time fitting in. That's a sacrifice I'm willing to make but I'm not sure it's the optimal path to my goal.

Maybe the optimal path is becoming close friends with these people even though your goals aren't aligned?

Am I going about life wrong?

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

#147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“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…

I'd be very skeptical of any analysis that takes one minute at a shoe shop. I'd wager those machines are there to anchor, so to speak, a buying decision.

Too much running before the body gets strong enough to handle it, along with hard surfaces are more likely the culprit behind shin splints than poor choice of shoe.

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

#148

•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…

>> "Politics will make you depressed. If you are not going to be a politician let things be."

I would suggest a modification: follow newsletters for organizations focused on rights you consider important. I follow the ACLU so I know when politicians try to legislate people I care about out of public life (or life period). The EFF is important for the same reason since digital rights are key to advocacy in the 21st century.

SCOTUSBlog's newsletter is good too. They track cases that made it all the way through to the highest court and have the biggest potential impact.

You either pay attention or find yourself on the boot end because you weren't paying attention as everyone less safe got carted away. Politics can't be avoided, but you can set boundaries on how you stay informed.

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

#149

I've learned that despite earning in the 98th %ile, working a job will likely not make me rich. I define rich as ~5M in assets including primary residence. Thus taking a "career" is a non-starter and I would advise everyone considering working for someone else to either 1) resign themselves to a distinctly middle class life or 2) reconsider and start a business. Careers that reliably earn > 500k could be considered e…

reconsider and start a business There was an interesting chart linked from here a couple of months ago, sadly I didn't bookmark it. It showed that the bottom decile of entrepreneurs earned less than the bottom decile of employees. The top decile eared a lot more than the top decile of employees. Everybody else was roughly equivalent. It seemed most of the entrepreneurs were happy with this, business wasn't a get rich…

Please do try and find the article/chart/video. I think it is very important to give it wider publicity.

The reason is that, contrary to what the media might sell, "Small Businesses" make up the majority of Entrepreneurship (particularly in the Developing Nations) and this data might shed some insight on it. Entrepreneurship does NOT mean "go big or go home". It is basically setting an acceptable and steady level of income which gives one the necessary autonomy over one's own life. All mom-and-pop businesses fall under this category. I would love to look at some data on the size of this "Economy" which is often ignored completely.

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

#150
The amount of effort to raise 2 kids verse 1 kid is not linear.

Curse of knowledge is real when it comes to teaching younger kids. Pace yourself and learn to simplify you explanations with good stories.

Breathing and mindfulness are very simple but helpful concepts. Stay present.

You have to keep reminding yourself of the most important things and you have to make a concerted effort to work towards those bigger goals.

Time keeps passing at a faster rate, this is mainly a function of how much responsibility you take on.

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