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Ask HN: What are good life skills for people to learn?

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261–270 of 277 posts

Re: Ask HN: What are good life skills for people to learn?

#261
Ability to lie in the grass of a park with your dog by your side for no reason at all other than to enjoy the fall weather and rustling of the leaves.

Ability to grind and realize you can do anything.

Ability to let go of things that hold you back.

Ability to love.

Ability to inspire.

Ability to find peace within.

Re: Ask HN: What are good life skills for people to learn?

#262
post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been in the same boat (see other posts). It sucks so much. And so much of the problem is the expense of transport, which is externalized onto regular folks rather than being paid for with taxes. Even when I was broke and living in NYC, I could still afford my subway pass. I mean barely, but I afforded it. That meant I could always get to the temp job I needed to get to without worrying. If you think of car owner…

> which is externalized onto regular folks You appear to be very mistaken about the meaning of "externalized" (this is, of course, the charitable interpretation). Paying for a good or service you yourself consume does not constitute an externality. In fact, the exact opposite is true: if you forces others to pay for your open transportation, that would be an externality.

In NYC and other major cities, the mid-century city planners were convinced / bribed by oil and car companies to tear down their elevated tracks and install freeways; remove their cable cars and replace them with slower, less efficient bus routes.

The common good of affordable and reliable public transportation was transformed into an everybody-must-own-a-car system.

Thus you and I and other people are paying tens of thousands of dollars to own and maintain cars because business interests felt it would be better for us to do so.

Re: Ask HN: What are good life skills for people to learn?

#263

1. How to spend less than you earn. Lots of people desire “financial freedom”, meaning they can spend what they want when they want it. Solving this via revenue leads to the hedonic treadmill, and you’ll never out earn your growing wants. Instead solve this by controlling your wants, and you’ve achieved financial freedom immediately. 2. How to take risks. Finding the balance between recklessness and absolute risk avo…

Your number 2 point, ‘learn how to take risk’ isn’t something you ever master, like “learning to play piano” or another discrete skill where you develop a level of proficiency that then guaranteed you can perform successfully at an arbitrary level. Trading is incredibly frustrating in that regard. (Yes, trading is not the only form of risk taking, but it’s my profession and what I focus on). Even after doing it successfully for 20+ years o can’t really explain or teach how to do it, like I would if I was an experienced carpenter , musician, accountant.

I think the important lesson that SHOULD be learned about risk is very simple but incredibly important to long term success— avoid existential risk. In trading this typically manifests as people “selling wings” — ie selling very low probability options that have enormous downside in the exceptionally rare case they come to the strike price. Another variation I avoid is taking personal leverage on my own investments. Yeah I don’t make as much in the good times, but I also am never annihilated by a margin call.

  These two things happen all the time, and way more often than everyone but grizzled survivors appreciate.

Re: Ask HN: What are good life skills for people to learn?

#265
post #134
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How to manage yourself when tragedy inevitably strikes This is a place where, in my opinion, religion is seriously overlooked in modern culture. The times when my religious upbringing have been most useful to me have all been in the face tragedy.

Another benefit of Religion is community. I recall back when we went to Church we had tons of people who took the time to reach out when things weren't going well. That's easily the difference between being an isolated island of a person, miserable thinking the world is against you. Or being a bit down, and getting a hand up.

Completely agree. It's frustrating to see so many people dismiss the value of a religion when it has the potential to offer so many benefits. Of course there's plenty of dogma but what we've replaced religion with does not seem to be significantly better.

Re: Ask HN: What are good life skills for people to learn?

#267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

3 - I'd agree that it is not really a skill so much as an effect with many possible actionable causes, some of which can be trained. I think you and OP are actually coming at this from a similar angle if you indeed don't really care about winning. OP's point is that many people get sucked into doing things for reasons other than their impact on their long term happiness. Competitiveness, addiction, lack of experiment…

That’s a fair response. The reason I’d call this a skill is because you could screw it up on purpose—-it’s not random. To achieve this outcome you need to know of your values, be aware of your current emotional state (and the outside factors influencing it), and have the techniques to exert more control over your internal state than the outside factors are seeking to exert. To me, it’s like driving a van in very wind…

> To me, it’s like driving a van in very windy conditions.

Love that analogy!

Re: Ask HN: What are good life skills for people to learn?

#268
post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just curious - $60k for 40 acres and a home What state are you in and how far from a big city?

It's in the Ozarks, and it's 2.5 hours from Little Rock, 90 minutes from Branson. So quite far.

What's the broadband like?

Re: Ask HN: What are good life skills for people to learn?

#270
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> because the best people at playing the etiquette game are the ones you shouldn't trust. Evidence? This assumes that “the etiquette game” is fundamentally untrustworthy, unimportant, or trivial.

I guess it is if you treat it as a game. I'm kinda surprised that even things like shaking hands and smiling are treated with so much disdain by some people. It just seems like Being Friendly 101 to me.

Agreed :). I mean I think it’s both. When learning new social norms, or, in certain environments there is a game-like aspect.

But I don’t use the word game as a pejorative.

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