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Ask HN: Do you ever contact people who have had a positive impact on you?

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Re: Ask HN: Do you ever contact people who have had a positive impact on you?

#101

Post by myself248 »

artpi wrote: post #25
dijit wrote: post #12

This is wholesome. It's so easy to give negative feedback and feels like it'll be taken as "creepy" or with some other intention to give positive feedback. FWIW I've been making a concerted effort to give out much more positive feedback, since I had a psychiatrist who said "it takes roughly 9x the positivity to offset 1x of negativity" (or something to that effect), "So make sure when you feel something positive that…

Engineers, entrepreneurs and other tech workers are praised for finding problems and solving - throuught all of our lives. Guess what that makes us? Really good at spotting problems.

It also means we're capable of spotting and appreciating elegant solutions. Especially those that might've slipped in so smoothly that nobody around at the time noticed, and for which the original engineer was not thanked in any way.

It does not automatically make us good at expressing appreciation or praise. We have to develop that deliberately.

Re: Ask HN: Do you ever contact people who have had a positive impact on you?

#102

Post by myself248 »

secretsinger wrote: post #18

If you feel like a wierdo while doing this, you can take some comfort in the fact that it is endorsed by one of the most reputable psychologists in the world (Seligman) and that is has been empirically validated as increasing happiness and reducing depression ( https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16045394 ) I agree it can feel like a strange thing to do, but in my personal experience the effects are amazing, not only…

I can contribute some anecdata here. For about a decade now, I've made it a point to do some end-of-year giving to software projects I've found useful over the year, tracking down tipjars and paypal links and sometimes just emailing people to ask how I can say thanks.

I figure it this way: I'm using "free" software, but what if I wasn't? What would I spend on Windows licenses and apps and stuff over a year? I'll set aside that amount of money, and put it into the hands of those who deserve it.

In several cases, folks have asked me to give the cash to a charity instead, or find another project to support because they're doing alright and the words mean more than a few bucks.

Not only have I gotten some fantastically appreciative responses, but I also come away with a glowing pride and deep satisfaction myself.

Their commitment isn't thankless. My gratitude isn't silent. The feedback loop isn't broken, and the end-user's voice has been heard loud and clear.

It says "you're awesome".

Re: Ask HN: Do you ever contact people who have had a positive impact on you?

#103

Post by m11a »

I don't do it often, but I think of someone in my head every now and then that meets this criteria. Sometimes I wish I did get in touch to thank them.

It makes a difference to know you had a positive impact on someone. And a surprising email, call or meet can be pretty heartwarming. The further you go out of your way to do it, the more it becomes obvious that the person really did something special and different to everyone else, and that always feels good, even if they don't show it.

In my experience, most people are not amazing at what they do, or have deep passion for it. For the few that really do, and have a positive impact on you, it's worth acknowledging them. School teachers, for example, I can count on fingers how many were amazing (most were awful and hated their job), yet they presumably all get paid the same. I think some appreciation here goes a long way. After all, people in our childhood tend to affect our adulthood the most.

Re: Ask HN: Do you ever contact people who have had a positive impact on you?

#104

Post by cinnamonheart »

AsyncAwait wrote: post #69
throwaway947106 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I emailed him once too, he never replied.

RMS usually does.

I emailed RMS during the fiasco a couple months back, in support of him. RMS has always been an inspiration to me, and I've always had a lot of respect for him -- a hero to me, if you will -- so I felt I had to let him know the world wasn't against him, even if he couldn't reply.

He did reply and let me know ways I could help.

Re: Ask HN: Do you ever contact people who have had a positive impact on you?

#105

Post by brlewis »

I don't do the same very often, but here's one from 2015:

"Hi Professor Harris,

I still talk about how well your phonetic approach to Spanish 1 worked when you taught me over 25 years ago. Since email makes it easy to mention this to you, I thought I would."

Re: Ask HN: Do you ever contact people who have had a positive impact on you?

#106

Post by majos »

skrebbel wrote: post #80
Razengan wrote: post #45

Sometimes, but I keep that saying, "Never meet your heroes." in mind.

The trick is to choose sufficiently niche heros. When I was young I was active in the demoscene but I knew few other demosceners in person. Needless to say, I looked up super much to many demomakers, genius programmers/artists who seemingly could create madly impressive works out of thin air. It was as if they could convert dreams into code, or something [0]. Then gradually, after visiting more demoparties, I got to…

+1. I think there is a level of fame, possible even for niche heroes, where you'll attract people because of your fame and not the thing you did to build up that fame. And interacting with people who appreciate you for your fame and not the thing you did seems draining.

Re: Ask HN: Do you ever contact people who have had a positive impact on you?

#107

Post by beefhash »

You may be a weirdo, but I'm in the same boat at least. I occasionally reach out to people and just express my thanks and appreciation. The bewildered reactions are always curious to see, but the worst that's happened once is getting ignored.

Good friendships have been formed over this approach though.

Re: Ask HN: Do you ever contact people who have had a positive impact on you?

#108

Post by Razengan »

skrebbel wrote: post #80
Razengan wrote: post #45

Sometimes, but I keep that saying, "Never meet your heroes." in mind.

The trick is to choose sufficiently niche heros. When I was young I was active in the demoscene but I knew few other demosceners in person. Needless to say, I looked up super much to many demomakers, genius programmers/artists who seemingly could create madly impressive works out of thin air. It was as if they could convert dreams into code, or something [0]. Then gradually, after visiting more demoparties, I got to…

That's an enviable experience. The one developer that did respond to my mail, turned out to have no interest in continuing the things I admired him for.

In another case, the developer of one of my favorite games, Fez, seems to have garnered a certain unfavorable reputation, that, whether warranted or unwarranted, comes up in most mentions of the game.

That saying is more a warning against such disillusionments than about never reaching out.

Re: Ask HN: Do you ever contact people who have had a positive impact on you?

#109

Post by organsnyder »

SeekingMeaning wrote: post #92
lordnacho wrote: post #46

Contacting people who've had an influence on your life is the very thing of living! Here's something I did last year, which I'll be doing again in a few weeks. Back in high school, I had a really great math teacher. He really created excitement about the subject, and he always had extra time to teach extra stuff to us. Just a really cool guy who'd show us Monty Python videos sketches and then some interesting math pr…

That last sentence... As a college student, I’ve never thought about that. It’s crazy to think that the percent difference in age gets smaller over time.

I moved in a couple doors down from an old high school teacher. His kids are only a decade or so older than mine. Makes me realize how young he was (relative to my current perspective) when I was in his class.
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