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

231–240 of 545 posts

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

#231

Post by Robotbeat »

Spending time with my children. Work from home enabled that (as did liberal leave policies from work because of the pandemic). However, WFH also made my work much less effective and took away a lot of the joy from my job. I normally do about half desk work and half lab work plus lots of interacting with colleagues which has become less effective with WFH. And I have no dedicated office space at home, so WFH office work was also a challenge compared to my dedicated office at work (and my commute was only like 15 minutes and doesn’t have traffic to speak of, so it isn’t stressful).

But I will cherish spending more time with my children. It was a special time and a special age for them, too, where being stuck at home was less of a problem than it would’ve been if they were older.

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

#232

Post by jesuslop »

daniel_reetz wrote: post #74
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

Here's a recent example of her playing: https://youtu.be/TARBRZPDfWs

Gosh, thank you bud and parent-bud. You made my morning. Internet was invented for this. Suggest the rest to look at this.

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

#233

Post by disabled »

emgo wrote: post #67
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…

+1 Also, train ride videos, for example this one in Switzerland: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mw9qiV7XlFs

Yeah train ride videos are amazing. I cannot put my finger on why though. I guess because it is mellow, chill, and open-ended. Plus you get to see all of this terrain and the changes to it in an easy to process way, on a time scale. Trains are a lot more comfortable to be on, or even watch, than airplanes, although airplanes often get you from point A to B faster.

I also like going on “walks” on VR, on Google Earth VR, especially via Google Street View. I like going to my old stomping grounds but I also like seeing new places. I also have used it to scope out new neighborhoods when moving, which is extremely useful.

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

#235

Post by cko »

brainless wrote: post #196
cko wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you sustain this dialed down ambition? Community? Physical labor? Every time I read HN or watch youtube my ambition goes up. And I tried to retire last year but my mind is still restless.

I am learning woodworking. I have been thinking of this for many years. I do still get inspired by what others are doing but I have accepted that I have too much anxiety or related issues to run an investor led startup. It is a conscious choice and I am happy with it.

I hear you. I may do something similar. Like buying cheap land and building a tiny house on it by hand. And eventually joining a co-living community in Austria.

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

#236

Post by sethammons »

pilom wrote: post #220

I "retired" at 33 after working in tech for 12 years and saving a ton of money. With my free time I run a fun hobby business teaching kayaking which is way more fun and brings me way more happiness than anything I did in 2019 or before.

What do you do for health insurance?

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

#237

Post by tazjin »

wikibob wrote: post #51
tazjin wrote: post #13

Leaving (~Western) Europe. The last year made it clear that I'm not compatible with its values and priorities, and I'm now going to live in places that aren't living museums. It's freed up a lot of mental space which has been phenomenal.

I’m fascinated by this teaser. Can you elaborate? Was it the food, the politics, the work culture? Other?

I'm hesitant to go into detail about this on HN because people on here will do their best to attack/criticise and there's not much to be gained from that.

The short version is that the last year's politics have uprooted a lot of beliefs I held formerly that are common in Europe (some examples: stereotyping Americans in certain ways, having the acceptable view on the Democrat/Republican divide, assuming that society will react proportionally to threats and consider the health of all people, assuming that Europe cares at all about what effects its policies have on less well-off parts of the world, the Russian government being evil and the sort of general European take of Europe being the "pinnacle of civilisation").

Happy to elaborate more in private if you're interested, but not in public (similarly, another effect of the last year is that I stopped using social media like Twitter).

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

#238

Post by dave_sullivan »

posedge wrote: post #214
dave_sullivan wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wonder though, how does it work out financially? Pretty good, how is your approach working out financially?

I currently have a full time job. There is the option of reducing to 80%, but that comes with the respective salary cut. I'm wondering if it's worth it, also the increased productivity is not accounted for from a financial perspective.

Yeah, hard to say without knowing your situation. I suppose I try to maximize my daily rate and it's sometimes hard to find projects that are a good fit. If I worked more days, I could make more money. I used to make a lot more money, and be less happy. Also I moved from SV to cheaper cities in europe, so that helps me maintain a pretty awesome lifestyle. Trade offs.

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

#239

Post by foobarian »

Robotbeat wrote: post #231

Spending time with my children. Work from home enabled that (as did liberal leave policies from work because of the pandemic). However, WFH also made my work much less effective and took away a lot of the joy from my job. I normally do about half desk work and half lab work plus lots of interacting with colleagues which has become less effective with WFH. And I have no dedicated office space at home, so WFH office wo…

This pretty much mirrors my experience word for word. It will be nice to get coworker interaction back when this is over, but I will miss the family time.

Another bonus: we have not gotten sick since the lockdown started. Previous years we'd average a cold every 2 months. (Whole family of course).

Post reply on HN