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

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

#201

Post by tasuki »

heavenlyblue wrote: post #140

I’ve bought rollerblades in May and learnt how to skate having never skated in my life before. Can do 180 now and going down the stairs now. Learning a new trick every few weeks is energising - I almost forgot how easy it is to learn how do do something by just paying enough attention to the lessons.

I'm a passable ice skater, tried roller blading, but am super scared of falling down and hurting myself. I feel way less stable on roller blades, or perhaps it's the fear? On ice, one just falls on ice... on roller blades, one can fall down the stairs etc, it just seems much scarier.. any advice?

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

#202

Post by DyslexicAtheist »

jcpst wrote: post #198

WFH. I take my dog on a walk during standup. I hang out with my kids when I can step out of the office. I recently started exercising over lunch (this habit was never easy for me- it took getting Ring Fit Adventure on Nintendo Switch to start that). I saved 15000 miles on my car’s odometer. —— Reconnecting with old friends from HS/college. We normally do a march camping trip every year. Not in 2020. Instead, We set u…

I have dogs. I do stand-ups. I never thought of combining these. It makes so much sense because I can think better when walking. This is so simple yet brilliant!! Thanks for this.

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

#203

Post by linspace »

loloquwowndueo wrote: post #182
toyg wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of this could be fixed very easily by employers by widening their range of office hours. Commuting times grow exponentially when everyone has to do it at the same time. When I was commuting in a car, the exact same path would take me 45m to an hour at peak time, and 15m off-peak. Just by pushing forward the starting time by about an hour, I saved loads of time and aggravation. This applies to public-transport co…

There are some children for whom the rigid nature of school schedules actually provides structure which makes them less stressed out :)

You are right, actually not only for children. But also there is perfect synchronization between the first day of school and the first big traffic jam, at least where I live.

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

#204

Post by dmerrick »

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 don't get opportunities to share this very often... my sideproject is a 24/7 Twitch channel[1] of driving footage with a companion chatbot. If you like slow-tv you might enjoy it.

[1] https://www.twitch.tv/ADanaLife_

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

#205

Post by mstdokumaci »

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 had just started a channel like this unaware of the whole concept :)

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5SdRE9IQeZs7e1vepRvn4w

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

#206

Post by phoinix »

Endorphins are released for the body to be able to sleep. Exercise helps release, dopamine, endocannabinoids and more, which prop up the mood of the person. Endomorphins or endorphins are released for exact the same reason, doctors used always morphine, to numb down the pain of damage to the body from the excersise, or a surgical operation, or a bullet, and the patient is able to sleep.

For me happiness for this year is learning Rust.

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

#207

Post by DyslexicAtheist »

fukmbas wrote: post #123
d3nj4l wrote: post #65

Working from home. I realised being in an office - especially an open-plan office - was setting off my social anxiety all the time. Working in a place where I could choose to engage with people instead of having it forced upon me made it so much easier to work. I became a lot more productive and started enjoying what I did, even picking up more side projects and learning actively. It's a shame it's coming to an end,…

Are you not in IT? Remote is literally permanent now

lot of companies in EU (especially D/A/CH) also have absolutely no plans to continue WFH. Despite covid restrictions going to be an issue also long term, they have (1 year later) still no strategy that incorporates or improves efficiency in WFH organization and workflows. Instead they all look forward to going back to a time that no longer exists.

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

#208

Post by the_biot »

daniel_reetz wrote: post #71

Listening to Sarah Coponat play piano on Twitch. Her live, epic, flowing improvisation is the perfect companion to the workday. https://www.twitch.tv/sarahcoponat

What an amazing find, thanks very much! Reminds me a little of Tori Amos.

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

#209

Post by xyzelement »

jhrozek wrote: post #53
xyzelement wrote: post #46

Having a kid born in the middle of the pandemic and work from home situation is amazing. In no other time would a working western father spend so much time with his young child. Reconnecting more and more with religion (Judaism in my case.) To say it plainly, religion represents millennia of people asking deep questions and struggling through answers, which is more honest than the alternative. Though the above senten…

I’ll become a working western father soon and my paternity leave will be ~6 months regardless of pandemic. So I don’t buy the “no other time” argument.

I am guessing this comment is a reference to paternity leave lengths in some of the eastern part of the western world? :)

Ok fair enough, but not exactly the point I was making. Even once I was back "at the office" the fact that I could walk out between meetings and play with my son for 5 minutes is incredible. And yes some further pedantry is possible: some people have been all remote for years.

Nonetheless, for most people this is a very new situation and worth celebrating.

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

#210

Post by DyslexicAtheist »

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…

why not go out for a walk yourself? as somebody who spends a lot of time in nature it's hard to grasp how sitting more in front of a screen can improve the mood. or perhaps I got it wrong and OP isn't working in Tech and screen time actually means being not at work?

not judging what makes you happy (that would be stupid on many levels) but genuinely wondering if you don't need the endorphines and flowing juices of at least some form of physical movement (even just walking) to get the feeling you describe?

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