Having video lunches with friends in other cities. As everybody is working from home, this has been an opportunity to reconnect with some old friends.
Ask HN: What was the biggest contributor to your happiness in the past year?
101–110 of 545 posts
Re: Ask HN: What was the biggest contributor to your happiness in the past year?
#102Working from home, (far) more birds in my garden because less planes and less cars, fiction reading (took a break for 10 years, now back to 2 books/day), reading while walking in the empty forest, walking 10km/day. Guess the biggest is the walking and reading at the same time.
Same here, after many years of almost exclusively reading business and self-improvement books, I felt the need to enjoy reading more, partly to offset the temptation to watch Netflix in the evening. Now, after 8 Tom Clancy novels straight, I feel again some interest in more intellectually stimulating reading, but the "break" certainly did good.
Re: Ask HN: What was the biggest contributor to your happiness in the past year?
#103Acknowledging the damage inflicted by an abusive past partner.
I'm able to say "this is something that happened to me" and address it as such -- It isn't a thing I push to the back of my brain to deal with later, or an isolating trauma I'm afraid of losing friends over, or an overshadowing fixation I'm worried has changed me.
It's in the front row now, being processed piece by piece.
Over the past year I've been initiating more conversations with friends, opening up more, and taking much better care of myself. I feel better; I feel happier, and the trajectory is set for that to continue.
Re: Ask HN: What was the biggest contributor to your happiness in the past year?
#104In that order: chocolate, farting, the realization that climate change will wipe us all out soon.
Re: Ask HN: What was the biggest contributor to your happiness in the past year?
#105My wife and kids. I'm 50 and re-evaluating friendships outside the home. I have realised that most of my friendships are not mutual. I stopped contacting most of my friends over 9 months ago and have not heard back from most for 6 months to never.
My own family experience wasn't great. I now realise to have a wife who actively cares for you, looks out for you, is probably the most meaningful thing that can happen to you in your life. I am going to invest a bit more effort in my own family and a little less on fringe friendships.
Re: Ask HN: What was the biggest contributor to your happiness in the past year?
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, average fiction or biographies etc I do. If it is harder (hard literature, much thicker, books that are not in Dutch, English or German ( I try to reread books I read in English in Spanish ) or science books which are theoretical like physics or CS with formulas etc, then it obviously will be (much) slower. I noticed myself watching more and more fiction TV shows and found them too slow while being not dense eno…
The biggest problem for me would be to find enough good books to read.
For me the real issue to finding good book is that I will not think about reading them due to my current context.
To solve that I found 2 way : - I challenge myself to read a book from each country/region on earth, often finding new themes I get passionate about. - I start buying every book from a given editor, also leading to great discovery / extending my horizon. (There should be a startup allowing me to subscribe to an editor :) )
Re: Ask HN: What was the biggest contributor to your happiness in the past year?
#1072.5 day work week. Peak performance on those days at a decent daily rate, then I get to fuck around on whatever for the rest of the week. Wednesdays are my fridays.
How'd you convince someone to let you?
Re: Ask HN: What was the biggest contributor to your happiness in the past year?
#108Doing nothing for weeks at a time.
Re: Ask HN: What was the biggest contributor to your happiness in the past year?
#109My wife and kids. I'm 50 and re-evaluating friendships outside the home. I have realised that most of my friendships are not mutual. I stopped contacting most of my friends over 9 months ago and have not heard back from most for 6 months to never. My own family experience wasn't great. I now realise to have a wife who actively cares for you, looks out for you, is probably the most meaningful thing that can happen to…
I think the pandemic has weakened friendships, because people are eg consumed with looking after their elderly parents, or just coping with day to day childcare. So I would give your friends a free pass until we get back to normality. It may just be a consequence of the situation.
Re: Ask HN: What was the biggest contributor to your happiness in the past year?
#1102.5 day work week. Peak performance on those days at a decent daily rate, then I get to fuck around on whatever for the rest of the week. Wednesdays are my fridays.
Oh yea. For a month or two in the summer my hours got reduced to ~15.5 h/week and it was a blast.
It's a shame not more people get to have this without having to worry about the roof over their heads and the food on their table.