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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?

#471

Post by anm89 »

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…

If you like this kind of stuff, I highly recommend also just going on Google maps, picking some remote corner of the world, dropping the guy down and just having a walk around.

It has provided me endless entertainment over the years.

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

#473

Post by don-code »

M5x7wI3CmbEem10 wrote: post #368
don-code wrote: post #344

Buying a home. But not for any of the typical reasons. If you told me back in February that I'd buy a home in 2020, I'd have told you to get lost. I lived alone in a small apartment, with a "necessities" mentality, and homeownership was on my radar for 5-10 years out. Why invest in exercise equipment when I go to a gym, a decent WFH setup when I work in an office, or kitchenware when most of my meals are eaten at wor…

isn't it harder to socialize when you're not surrounded by people in gyms, an office, and so on? I personally would put that above home ownership, especially while I don't have a family.

This is a common critique I've gotten!

It was definitely something I considered heavily when buying - and is actually the reason I chose to eat the cost of staying close to the city, rather than move to some far-flung place where the cost of living is three or four times cheaper. Yes, I got less space. Yes, my mortgage is larger than it could have been. But my quality of life will _continue_ to be much higher next year - it's not a short-term personal gain for a long-term social loss.

I did spend some time time making myself a map of the surrounding area, and choosing to buy within some geographic criteria: 1-mile radius of public transit (that doesn't end at 8pm, which some lines here do); 1-mile radius of a grocery store; sub-1hr commute to work. By sheer luck, I'm now closer to my gym than I was before. And while I'm now on the opposite side of the city from many social opportunities, getting home at 11 versus 10 afterwards doesn't faze me much.

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

#474

Post by MattyRad »

Geocaching! Finding my first geocache was the defining moment of the past year for me. It's the perfect quarantine activity, and what's more is that there are geocaches everywhere. Anytime I go somewhere new (or places I've been but haven't geocached) I check the geocache app. It's the perfect way to rediscover your city/town.

Some of the geocaches are incredibly clever too. Just yesterday I found a geocache on a hike. The hike was in the high desert (sagebrush mostly) where there was a lot of debris (ancient rusted cars, shotgun shells, wood pallets, etc). I was having trouble finding the cache which was GPS-ed next to a felled tree, when I noticed two shotgun shells, one yellow, one red, pushed inside each other, on the ground near the log. I thought to myself that's weird, someone was sitting on this tree log futzing with empty shotgun shells, then I continued my search. I would have overlooked it if it weren't for the hint: "blends in". Sure enough, the cache was inside the two shells! I was the 3rd person to ever find it. Very satisfying!

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

#475

Post by meken »

buzzerbetrayed wrote: post #444
meken wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. Yup, if that was my experience, I would hate driving cars as well. I’m able to drive pretty much on autopilot. Plus, I don’t feel I’m wasting time listening to podcasts/audiobooks because I’m “doing something/headed somewhere”. I’ve driven almost 20k miles in the past 3.5 months.

> I’ve driven almost 20k miles in the past 3.5 months. Wow. I drive everyday, but this is a lot of driving. You're looking at nearly 70,000 miles/year at that rate. Out of curiosity, what requires you to drive this much? And is it worth the tens of thousands of dollars you need to spend per year on fuel and car maintenance to do that (on top of the time commitment it is to drive that much)?

Haha.

I bought my car in San Diego and drove across the country to Florida. I recently did a trip up to NY/VT and back (to FL).

I do smaller, random weekend trips. I drove to Jacksonville and back this weekend. I do often drive around the Tampa area, for fun.

Regarding gas, thanks for reminding me to do the calculation, heh.

Is it worth it? I'll do the calculation and get back to you :)

I left my job in November, so I don't view it as a commitment. I just drive for fun.

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

#476

Post by meken »

derwiki wrote: post #295
meken wrote: post #223

Getting a nice car. I’m prone to depression if I stay in the house too long. Having a nice car means when I roll out of bed in the morning, I’m able to head straight to a nice, comfortable, private, warm space and start listening to meaningful podcasts, audiobooks, get breakfast, head to the gym, and get a consistent good start on the day. I’m not sure if I can go back to city living at this point if it means giving…

What do you mean by nice: new/clean or expensive?

Mm just something that you are comfortable in and feels good to be in.

I got a 2018 Camry XSE, so it's got nice comfy leather seats.

Arguably the best thing is having CarPlay. Such a nice UI for listening to podcasts/audio books, texting, calling.

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

#477

Post by cafard »

Family would be first. I would not have cared for working from home were I alone, but my wife is around. And my son moved back for a bit while changing cities of employment.

Neighbors would be second. I got more of a sense of the neighborhood working at my dining room table, from which I could see people going by on the sidewalk, and from lunchtime walks (other years downtown) and weekend runs (usually in a park that I found too crowded.)

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

#478

Post by Viliam1234 »

throwawaybbqed wrote: post #351
jmfldn wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Working from home. I realised being in an office - especially an open-plan office - was setting off my social anxiety all the time." This! It's been such a game changer for me too. My career has been turbo charged over the last year. The change has been so dramatic that I won't switch to a company that doesnt have a remote-first policy. I'll forego money and promotion opportunities for it. The stress and anxiety red…

I'd like to point out that as a manager, my stress and anxiety level have gone through the roof during this WFH period. As I was an IC for many years, I completely see your point but I'd like to point out the other side. I've talked to several other managers in my org, and I am not alone. Some part of it may be that older people (who are likely to be in management) are more likely to have kids (which led to untenable…

Does this suggest that there is a trade-off between working conditions optimal for managers, and working conditions optimal for bottom-level employees? And that perhaps until 2020, the balance kept gradually shifting in favor of managers... offices replaced by cubicles, cubicles replaced by open spaces... until it became completely one-sided?

WFH suddenly gave many people their own office room again. It's 20 years since the last time I had that.

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

#479

Post by Viliam1234 »

meowfly wrote: post #258
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,…

I realize given how much hardship other people have experienced so this comes across as rather callous, but for this reason 2020 has been one of the best years in my career. In-person interactions add stress on top of my normal work stress. I think I can objectively prove I've been more productive at home than at work too. I'm really hoping I can find a way to stay at home.

Same here. I feel guilty about the thousands of people who died to allow me this luxury... but I already feel sad about the day when I will probably have to return to the open-space hell.

And I regret I will probably never experience the combination when I work from home, but kids are at school. Instead of colleagues, spending the breaks with the wife I love.

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

#480

Post by Viliam1234 »

giantg2 wrote: post #404
Viker wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will be refusing to return to the office for several reasons: 1- the threat of Covid is not going away in the next 2-3 years. I am no risking it! 2- I and everyone in my team have been more effective, less stressed working from home for more than a year now. Why would I go back to a less efficient way of work?

I agree. Management is telling us we are more productive now that we are remote. Yet they want to bring us back to the office. The only thing I've really heard to support this (poorly so at that), is that people are feeling more burnt out. Once you add back the commute time and remove the flexibility that we got used to from working from home, do they really think this will fix the burnout? I think it will only make…

> Management is telling us we are more productive now that we are remote. Yet they want to bring us back to the office.

Apparently, the management optimizes for things other than productivity. (Is anyone surprised?)

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