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

Ask HN: What's the most life-changing blog post you've ever read?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 393 posts

Re: Ask HN: What's the most life-changing blog post you've ever read?

#81

Post by Zababa »

froindt wrote: post #76
Zababa wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The most important thing to note is that cutting your spending rate is much more powerful than increasing your income. I believe that part isn't exactly right, because you can increase your income way more than you can reduce what it takes for you to live. If you're a software engineer making let's say 70k, you can find a job where you make 150k, 200k or even more. If you currently spend 50k every year, it's way mo…

Yes, doubling your income and maintaining your lifestyle would make a huge difference. In many cases such an extreme bump isn't reasonably available. I believe GP was more referring to the rough rule of thumb is to have 25x your annual expenses by the time you retire. +5k income versus -5k expenses, you're better off cutting your expenses. By cutting expenses, the target drops by 25xExpensesCut, and you're throwing a…

All good points. The original article has a few things that are oversimplified I think, which is why I criticize it a bit. For example, if you go from a country in the EU to San Francisco, you're going to earn way more but spend way more too. But if you plan on going back to the EU when you retire, this won't matter much because your living expenses will drop.

I don't know how hard is doubling your income in general, but I don't know if it's always harder than dividing by two your expenses. The thing is that by focusing on earning more, you will end up with more money, and at that point you can always cut back expenses. While if you focus on cutting back expenses, you will end up with less money.

Re: Ask HN: What's the most life-changing blog post you've ever read?

#82

Post by the_only_law »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #80
AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The problem is that FIRE has become a magnet for people who are miserable. This subset of FIRE people see their job as the source of all of their misery and have glorified the idea of FIRE as the only escape hatch. Frankly I'm amazed that there are people who don't see their job as their primary source of misery. I mean, I can understand it on a logical level, I just can't empathize. When I take time off I get up e…

> Frankly I'm amazed that there are people who don't see their job as their primary source of misery. Wow, what a gloomy outlook. Have you really never, ever enjoyed your work or workplace? Your coworkers? I certainly haven’t enjoyed every job or workplace, but I have a lot of fond memories of many workplaces and teams. I’ve had a lot of fun throughout my career and made some lasting friendships. I suppose I’m in the…

> who haven’t ever been able to find enjoyment in their work. We literally grew up to get paid to play on computers all day.

Yeah that's the thing, I don't get paid to play on computers. I'd take such a role in minute, but there's a line of much smarter people than me there.

Re: Ask HN: What's the most life-changing blog post you've ever read?

#83

Post by phoe18 »

Rick and Morty and the Meaning of Life by Daniel Jeffries

https://hackernoon.com/rick-and-morty-and-the-meaning-of-lif...

A blog about meaning of life and its purpose using clips from popular shows and movies. I have re-read this piece several times and I come out with something new at the end of each read.

Re: Ask HN: What's the most life-changing blog post you've ever read?

#84

Post by slothtrop »

ripitrust wrote: post #46

https://blog.tjcx.me/p/consume-less-create-more This article inspired me on two things : 1) Lots of the things I do in everyday life is just to consume: buying, watching, following, etc. These things either consume my money, or my time. These things make me feel good, but it does not generate real value. In order to get rich, I need to create things. I also start to realize that great people are great because they st…

I think those of us with leisure time or "bullshit" work struggle with these questions, but I find that the consumption/creation dichotomy is the wrong approach. Arguably almost everything is consumptive in some capacity, from creating art (which is indulgent and pleasurable) to unnecessary programs (they're all unnecessary) or any other passtime. I would further reduce the problem to one of stimulus and desire. Execution and completion of tasks is in itself cognitively satisfying, that's in part why smartphone games can be so addictive, you can "fake" the experience in rapid fashion. The mechanism behind the dopamine release etc doesn't care about the context behind it, that is an existential problem. We like the flow experience. That can be "deep" work, or not.

The question of meaning behind our actions is one divorced from this, and obviously not so easily determined as whether or not an action is creative. Some of the most effective altruistic actions are boring. I'm of the type that has short bouts of investigative interest in certain topics, and that wanes, so I can't count on merely my "mood" to finish projects. I had read anecdotally that authors in particular seem to derive satisfaction from having completed a work, and find that driving themselves to finish it can be torturous. I feel that way about my projects.

Personally, it's a good day if I've "executed" and completed a lot at work. There is no objective reason why this ought to be better than those days where I struggle to finish a single assignment, but that is human nature. You can satisfy such a creature with social validation and the feedback of completing tasks, until maybe you broach the problem of meaning. I wonder how many of us in the future will spend most of our time dwelling in virtual worlds where nothing is real. If we do, then meaning is cheap.

Re: Ask HN: What's the most life-changing blog post you've ever read?

#85

Post by Henk0 »

FinanceAnon wrote: post #42
shaneos wrote: post #20

Aphantasia: How it feels to be blind in your mind By Blake Ross https://m.facebook.com/nt/screen/?params=%7B%22note_id%22%3A... Before reading this post I had no idea I had aphantasia and thought everyone else was the same as me, unable to see anything when they closed their eyes. This helped me understand myself and my relationships so much better than ever before. Thanks Blake!

That's very interesting and the term "aphantasia" only got coined in 2015, so it looks like a fresh area of research. Do you think that there are some advantages to being this way? For example, being able to live more "in the moment"?

I'm aphantasic, and I'd say one advantage is that I'm not bothered by invasive vivid memories or anxiety inducing imagery. Just on a hunch, I think aphantasics are probably less likely to develop PTSD after trauma, as a big component of PTSD appears to be just this kind of pervasive, invasive and hyper-vivid memories. I sometimes feel that I'm missing out on something, but from experiences on psychedelics, which give me closed-eye visuals of geometric shapes and colors which don't go away until the effects pass, I think I prefer the still black void and relative mental silence (apart from the soundless inner monologue) of aphantasia to a 'richer' inner world that I'm not able to shut off. Would be happy to get other aphantasics' (as well as hyperphantasics at the other end of the spectrum) perspective on this

Re: Ask HN: What's the most life-changing blog post you've ever read?

#86

Post by toastercat »

Might seem trivial, but this popular post about technical interview anxiety, "Interviewing for the anxious programmer": https://archive.is/zRFN3

It was extremely comforting to me at a time where I was suffering from depression, and jobless -- struggling to obtain employment as a Software Engineer 2 years out of college. Most of what the blogpost described was immediately relatable. It gave me some peace of mind knowing that I was not alone.

I still suffer from intense anxiety during technical interviews, but I no longer have an existential crisis about it or feel guilty for not being able to whiteboard well.

Re: Ask HN: What's the most life-changing blog post you've ever read?

#87

Post by FinanceAnon »

rolltopdesk wrote: post #77
bemmu wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still can’t quite believe there are people who can see clear images in their minds. Maybe it’s more a matter of how you report your experience? I’m very conscious of how poor my mental images are, but maybe with a little less introspection I would also say I have great mental imagery.

Yeah, I have asked people “ can you visualize Obama’s face on this piece of paper?” They say “oh, yes-perfectly! -it’s like I’m looking at a photograph” “Could you trace it and come away with a drawing that would compare well with a traced photo?” They can’t, and I think they are over-reporting the fidelity of their visualizations.

I agree that some people might under/over-estimate their abilities.

However, I am not sure if drawing is the right way to test it. I can visualise a straight line or a perfect circle, but I wouldn't be able to draw them perfectly.

Re: Ask HN: What's the most life-changing blog post you've ever read?

#88

Post by barrenko »

This still haunts me https://www.nashvail.me/blog/stop-learning.

You got to build stuff too, not just learn. Still, you also have to figure out if you're a builder or a "learner".

I like to figure stuff out, once I know the solution, my interest is minimal.

Re: Ask HN: What's the most life-changing blog post you've ever read?

#89

Post by boringg »

Maybe tone the superlatives down. I am not sure there are "life-changing" blog posts. Maybe a post that is either illuminating to a new way of thinking or point you in another direction.

To be clear - I support the idea of sharing insightful information especially as everyone takes different paths of life. I do however loathe the over the top language. This day and age everything is "life-changing", "epic", "GOAT" - its devalues the rest of the content.

Post reply on HN