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Tips for a Better Life

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141–150 of 488 posts

Re: Tips for a Better Life

#141

Post by sdenton4 »

redleggedfrog wrote: post #16

"8. When buying things, time and money trade-off against each other. If you’re low on money, take more time to find deals. If you’re low on time, stop looking for great deals and just buy things quickly online." I'm finding, as I've gotten older, that almost every time I've chosen money over time I've made a bad decision. And I see this among my family and friends, too. There's a mentality that emerges when exchangin…

Since starting on my own homeownership journey, I've often found it a gigantic hassle to find professionals who I can trust to do a decent job AND have time in their schedule to do the job... Hiring someone for any kind of plumbing requires both time AND money, so I find it just as well to try using time first, and then adding money if the job is too big/complex to solve with a few youtube videos and a wrench.

Re: Tips for a Better Life

#142

Post by smichel17 »

paulpauper wrote: post #33
NortySpock wrote: post #24

I think the compassion section has the most wisdom in it, especially the reasoning behind the recommendation: 82. Call your parents when you think of them, tell your friends when you love them. 83. Compliment people more. Many people have trouble thinking of themselves as smart, or pretty, or kind, unless told by someone else. You can help them out. 84. If somebody is undergoing group criticism, the tribal part in yo…

91. don't buy XRP but in seriousness, I think it is easier to apply these rules to people you know than strangers. Look how often people lose patience with each other online. >85. Cultivate compassion for those less intelligent than you. Many people, through no fault of their own, can’t handle forms, scammers, or complex situations. Be kind to them because the world is not. Interestingly, being smart does not protect…

> Look how often people lose patience with each other online.

I think this is largely an issue of scale.

Say you are driving on a single-lane, one-way road, which ends at a T intersection with a stop sign. The other road is also 1-way, 1-lane, and does not have a stop sign. It has a traffic light around 20 car lengths after your road. You are waiting for a chance to turn in; the other road has a fair amount of traffic, but moving slowly since the light was red. A car stops (or moves very slowly) to make room for you to cut in, and waves you on. Very nice for you, and the cars behind you are not inconvenienced much.

In my experience, this kind of thing happens relatively frequently in rural areas, and quite the opposite in cities. For myself, that's largely because in the city there's always a car looking to get in, and if I stopped for them all, I'd never get anywhere.

In person, I am quite patient. Online, still relatively patient I guess, but less so, especially with strangers. There's just so many people who I could be talking to, that if I gave everyone I talked to the same attention that I do irl, I wouldn't have time to do anything else! My impatience translates more into "ghosting" a conversation if the other person isn't getting my point, vs snapping at them, but it's the same cause.

Sometimes I write long (as in time to compose) comments like this one, but that's partially for myself, to verify that my thoughts are logically consistent.

Re: Tips for a Better Life

#143

Post by duckmysick »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #103
duckmysick wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would be a better advice?

Google/DDG/Bing it and read some forum threads. Sure you can't get people to spoon feed you answers that way but do you really want to be spoon fed by people who don't actually know anything?

How do I know if forum threads are written by people with enough experience? Especially if they are giving conflicting advice. I don't have the expertise to make that call myself. If I had, I wouldn't need to look it up.

Re: Tips for a Better Life

#144

Post by colinmhayes »

amelius wrote: post #104

> If your work is done on a computer, get a second monitor. Less time navigating between windows means more time for thinking. I don't agree. Use a virtual desktop instead and switch workspaces with a keyboard shortcut. I'm currently using 9 workspaces, and monitors couldn't ever beat that UX.

It's much easier to comprehend the data from multiple windows if I can see both at the same time. Instead of switching back and forth just have them both open. Virtual desktop work very well too, but they're still improved with multiple monitors.

Re: Tips for a Better Life

#145

Post by Smaug123 »

bambax wrote: post #118

None of this matters. In the end, you die and nobody will remember shit about you. Or about anyone else. Because the world also will die.

The advice is more aimed at people who think that human life has some kind of intrinsic value, I think. (Certainly that's one of the common LessWrong-o-sphere beliefs.)

Re: Tips for a Better Life

#146

Post by Smaug123 »

novia wrote: post #110

76. After a breakup, cease all contact as soon as practical. The potential for drama is endless, and the potential for a good friendship is negligible. Lol. Or don't date people who you wouldn't be friends with if it weren't for the sexual attraction.

Not every broken relationship started out that way!

Re: Tips for a Better Life

#147

Post by Smaug123 »

monadgonad wrote: post #112
sullyj3 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this advice is very much addressed to the kind of person who has no trouble with listening

I think the complete opposite. A shy, nerdy person who has trouble talking probably isn't truly listening when they're not talking.

A better response might have used a word that wasn't "listening" - like "empathetic response" or something - which immediately dissolves the illusion that you disagree.

Re: Tips for a Better Life

#148

Post by mudita »

novia wrote: post #110

76. After a breakup, cease all contact as soon as practical. The potential for drama is endless, and the potential for a good friendship is negligible. Lol. Or don't date people who you wouldn't be friends with if it weren't for the sexual attraction.

Yes, at least for me this would be very bad advice.

It seems to be some kind of common wisdom, but from personal experience staying in contact immediately after a breakup really helped me to get closure sometimes.

Sometimes I also had to break of contact for a while, because it hurt me too much, until I was ready for meeting them again. Looking back I am almost a bit surprised by how good I was at recognising my needs with this, when I felt ready to meet them again I was never wrong so far.

I am still friends with almost all of my exes.

Re: Tips for a Better Life

#149

Post by war1025 »

maverick2007 wrote: post #125
cauliflower2718 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"become Catholic to end the despair" - could you elaborate?

I'm also curious about this. Maybe OP was struggling with "what's the point of life if we all die anyways" and found Catholicism gave them an answer more quickly and efficiently than other methods like reading/synthesizing/applying what philosophers and other thinkers had to say about the issue? (I consider myself Catholic so this is definitely not meant to be a dunk on religion or Catholicism)

One thing that I appreciate about Catholicism is that it attempts to be a much more rigorous and academic approach to faith when compared to the more "evangelical" strains of Christianity popular in the US.

The Reformation did some good with pointing out that religion doesn't need to be a solely academic pursuit, but some branches went to far and seem to have interpreted that as "there is nothing academic worth pursuing in religion"

Re: Tips for a Better Life

#150

Post by victorvation »

skrebbel wrote: post #8

I'm enjoying this, and I also appreciate how it is a delightful accidental commentary of the lesswrong crowd. I especially appreciated this one: > You can figure out doing laundry

Same vibe from #43:

> Deficiencies do not make you special. The older you get, the more your inability to cook will be a red flag for people.

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