Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: What was the biggest contributor to your happiness in the past year?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 545 posts

Re: Ask HN: What was the biggest contributor to your happiness in the past year?

#111

Post by tluyben2 »

cseleborg wrote: post #102
tluyben2 wrote: post #82

Working 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.

Yeah, I do mix the easy books with, mostly, compsci books and papers. When I started reading again, just the fiction was enough, but that cannot last. It is still very enjoyable.

Re: Ask HN: What was the biggest contributor to your happiness in the past year?

#112

Post by tluyben2 »

pierre wrote: post #106
psychiatrist24 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I read a lot of crap and try to read the good stuff in different languages. The crap is usually not as bad as I expected (compared to what is considered 'good', so it is usually quite fun anyway).

Re: Ask HN: What was the biggest contributor to your happiness in the past year?

#114

Post by randomsearch »

Maintaining a structure to my week where I work hard until Sat evening and then have an indulgent evening of music, film, beer, and food. The trips to the shop to stock up and the knowledge that I’m only ever 6 days from my Sat evening keeps me going.

Re: Ask HN: What was the biggest contributor to your happiness in the past year?

#115

Post by rocketbop »

p0d wrote: post #105

My 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 stopped contacting most of my friends over 9 months ago and have not heard back from most for 6 months to never

Isn't it possible some of them are thinking the same in reverse, avoiding contact with you because you haven't contacted them in 9 months? Friendships often come out of being stuck together in some way, either work or school or sport or locality or social routine, and they can be hard to maintain when those things disintegrate. I know that I'm guilty of not working hard enough to maintain some relationships in the last year, and I want to do better.

Re: Ask HN: What was the biggest contributor to your happiness in the past year?

#116

Post by slimbods »

Spending more time outside, particularly in rural settings. I to used to be a couch/desk potato. Habitually spending time out in the green either walking, running, cycling or just digging stuff in the garden has made me happier and healthier.

Re: Ask HN: What was the biggest contributor to your happiness in the past year?

#117

Post by wojciii »

I have two small children. Working from home made it possible to spend more time with them.

Some time ago the company that I work for started doing all kinds of socializing - both online and offline (in a month or two). For the first time in my life I wrote my boss and told him that I will not participate in any of this as it is outside of work hours. I don't have the time for some online game at 1900 hours. I have to spend time with my kids. Also I really don't want to socialise outside of work. Talking to me co-workers during a coffee break is more than enough.

Re: Ask HN: What was the biggest contributor to your happiness in the past year?

#118

Post by eproxus »

rocketbop wrote: post #115
p0d wrote: post #105

My 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 stopped contacting most of my friends over 9 months ago and have not heard back from most for 6 months to never Isn't it possible some of them are thinking the same in reverse, avoiding contact with you because you haven't contacted them in 9 months? Friendships often come out of being stuck together in some way, either work or school or sport or locality or social routine, and they can be hard to maintain when t…

Depends. Sometimes you realize that you’ve always been the one initializing the interactions and when you stop nothing happens anymore. That might be a sign it’s a lopsided relationship.

Re: Ask HN: What was the biggest contributor to your happiness in the past year?

#119

Post by ayewo »

JacobSuperslav wrote: post #56

1. the birth of my kid 2. taking care of her 2.5. moving to Tenerife 3. taking a side project to 30k MRR in less than 6 months. a lot of motivation to stay up in the evenings came from my kid for sure 4. starting a project purely for fun this month - https://cassandraai.reddit.com 5. Starting a little garden in my backyard

3. Do tell us more about the side project.

Re: Ask HN: What was the biggest contributor to your happiness in the past year?

#120

Post by kilroy123 »

rococode wrote: post #40

Video walks on Youtube. If you haven't heard of them before, they're simple first-person videos where the filmer walks around some area with a stabilized video camera - no talking, just walking. I've really missed traveling and watching video walks while exercising has been a great way to satisfy that travel craving a bit and also trick my brain into experiencing some semblance of normalcy (not sure I could remember…

I prefer to do this in VR myself.
Post reply on HN