Giving up my smartphone. It's been one of the single best choices I have made for the mental and social health of me and those I interact with, primarily my young family, just so much better.
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?
#452Giving up my smartphone. It's been one of the single best choices I have made for the mental and social health of me and those I interact with, primarily my young family, just so much better.
What's your alternative? Have you come across any scenarios where not having the smartphone has been particularly problematic?
Re: Ask HN: What was the biggest contributor to your happiness in the past year?
#453Giving up my smartphone. It's been one of the single best choices I have made for the mental and social health of me and those I interact with, primarily my young family, just so much better.
What's your alternative? Have you come across any scenarios where not having the smartphone has been particularly problematic?
I am now the proud owner of an older Nokia 105. I'm also not in the US, so this is a much more viable choice from a practical and cultural point of view. It has not yet caused me any problems, but then my lifestyle right now is a lot different than what it should be. I'm looking forward to seeing how this works out.
Re: Ask HN: What was the biggest contributor to your happiness in the past year?
#454Working from home has been such an improvement:
Better food at home.
Less stress due to the lack of commute.
More time for the family.
Time for exercise.
Time to take my son by bike to the kindergarden.
More flexibility in general.
Re: Ask HN: What was the biggest contributor to your happiness in the past year?
#455Accept that I didn't need a regular job like everyone else. I abandoned my fear of being an entrepreneur and embraced the idea. I lowered my cost of living, valued my skills, and started freelancing to pay the bills while I try to build something. My best decision so far. Ironically today I work a lot more, but the realization of doing something with my time aligned with my dreams makes all the difference.
How was the transition for you? Did you already have clients from past work or did you start cold?
Start cold.
I had money saved up for a few months.
I sent some cold emails to some companies that I knew might be interested in my profile and contacted people looking for freelancers, monthly ask HN seeking freelancers was a good place to start. Also, I contacted some friends in the market offering my services.
Note to anyone considering doing something similar: Networking is an important business, don't neglect it.
Re: Ask HN: What was the biggest contributor to your happiness in the past year?
#456Quitting porn. At age 45, having been addicted since first finding I could download over 1200 baud dialup on my parents phone line and watching Cinemax late night through the static, it has just been a thing in my life almost daily and honestly I'd given up on caring whether it was a bad thing or not. I'd felt guilty about it sometimes, and sure, tried to quit on a number of occasions, but always ended up back within…
What downside(s) did you experience, that led you to want to give it up? From an outsider’s perspective, I’m wondering why spending time watching porn is ultimately much different from time spent with any other sedentary pastime?
IDK, like I said it really wasn't having much tangible effect on my life. But, it was always there gnawing at me if I thought about it. I mean, there's always (1) the potential of getting caught, which would not be fun, and (2) the loss of time that could be better used. And the minor gnawing at the conscience.
As far as why right then ended up being the time, it's hard to say. I think maybe it was that I made it more about improving myself as a whole rather than rooting out some insidious evil. More of a picking something off my bucket list and doing it.
Did it make me better? IDK, I still find other ways to slack off when I can. But I definitely feel better when I think about it. Much more than I'd expected to. And very possibly it's just some air of a superiority complex above my former self. Which is a stupid reason, but who cares: I'd assume in most people's view it's a positive to at-worst-neutral turn whatever the reason. And of course it's nice to know that I'll never have to worry about getting caught again.
Re: Ask HN: What was the biggest contributor to your happiness in the past year?
#457Earlier quoted context omitted.
The drive for reproduction is way stronger than the need for energy (sugar - ice cream).
I don’t agree. You need to eat to not die before you need sex.
Yes. But given the choice, in non life or death situation. Between sex and food. People would pick way more sex than food.
What I mean is that sex is easier to reach for than food when a person is bored.
Just like heroin is more potent than aspirin.
Also it has been proven that both sex and heroin stimulate pleasure parts of the brain.
Re: Ask HN: What was the biggest contributor to your happiness in the past year?
#458Quick yoga in the morning.
The first thing I do, 2-4 times a week, is to roll out the mat and do a 10-30 minute yoga session. There are hundreds of free yoga videos on YouTube, with some experienced teachers. You don't even need that many different ones, I re-use the same dozen or so. There's something about the familiarity of re-doing the same movements that really makes you concentrate.
Mind and body feel better afterwards.
Re: Ask HN: What was the biggest contributor to your happiness in the past year?
#459Video 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…
The weird thing is, these kinds of videos actually stress me out, because they remind me of the fact that I'm sitting in my tiny apartment watching someone else getting out and seeing the world. The more I watch, the more I ask myself: is this ever going to end? Am I going to break out of this preexisting bubble of just being content with what's on my screen, a mentality that I'd already lived out for years before the pandemic?
The places I walk around lose their charm after a while, since I don't drive or live in a large city. It feels like a wasteland at times. A pretty wasteland. But it's pretty empty and alone at tim
And especially when it comes to Japan, I just can't get over the fact that I can't get enough time to see the country. No company is going to hire you on the basis that you'd prefer to live overseas, and of course the pandemic has set back the process by a couple of years. But each time I went to Japan, I wondered why I wasn't living there yet, personally. It's a stupid feeling that refuses to exit my mind, no matter how much I debate myself over it. They don't prefer to hire people above age 30, and they cancelled last year's JLPT, so every time I'm reminded of the fact that I'm quickly running out of time to accomplish one of my goals, it stresses me out, big time. I believe I possess a lot of the things that specifically make it hard to gain entry, like a college degree and reasonable proficiency in the language, but not... connections.
Re: Ask HN: What was the biggest contributor to your happiness in the past year?
#460+1 to running. Anyone know of SWE/hacker focused running groups in the Bay Area?