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

101–110 of 393 posts

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

#101

Post by werber »

riebschlager wrote: post #93

Merlin Mann - "Better" http://www.merlinmann.com/better/ Written in 2008, but still amazingly relevant today. The opening lines are eerily prescient about our current "everyone needs to have a take on everything" culture. "Politics, celebrity gossip, business headlines, tech punditry, odd news, and user-generated content. These are the chew toys that have made me sad and tired and cynical. Each, in its own way, contr…

I love the throw away, first draft, not edited, conversational nature of HN. I love hearing and engaging with people from different places and backgrounds on here, but I guess this place is more like a message board/chat room than what the author is describing

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

#102

Post by paulrouget »

Two articles:

- https://vasilishynkarenka.com/how-to-make-hard-decisions/

That was just the trigger for me to finally take terrifying but necessary actions.

- https://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-17613/10-signs-fear-is-runni...

I hit almost all the boxes and understood why I felt like a control freak.

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

#103

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 »

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 realized that reading a book was really just like reading Reddit—both were consumptive activitives.

I disagree on this but I love and agree with the premise of the blog post. Comparing reddit to Moby Dick could not be further off. reddit (or any similar site) is a shill/bad actor/agitator/troll cesspool full of memes and clickbait.

It is important to learn to tell good shit from bad shit. Consume things produced by masters of their craft. Try not to settle for less, you have limited time here. Use this to create more.

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

#105

Post by piyh »

WhompingWindows wrote: post #94

This early retirement post got me to save a LOT more money for my future, while friends were out vacationing or even worse, buying very expensive gizmos. I have one friend who lives in a crappy apartment absolutely filled with "top of the line" gizmos, that amount of money could've had him retiring one year earlier. https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-si...

I went hard on this for 8 or 9 years for the start of my career. Now with a kid and a house FIRE is on the back burner, but I still saved a ton of money. If I were to never save another cent and just rely on growth on what I have, I'd still have a secure "normal" retirement fund. +1 for the money mustaches.

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

#107

Post by wizzwizz4 »

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.

Well, the image moves when you try to trace it, because your eyes are jumping around. Then, when you've got a wrong line, your brain tries to fit the imagined image to the wrong line by skewing it, which it does in several different ways once you've got enough wrong lines, so the wrong lines multiply.

A skilled artist can work around this, by drawing the right lines (and erasing / ignoring the wrong lines).

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

#108

Post by javierbyte »

WhompingWindows wrote: post #94

This early retirement post got me to save a LOT more money for my future, while friends were out vacationing or even worse, buying very expensive gizmos. I have one friend who lives in a crappy apartment absolutely filled with "top of the line" gizmos, that amount of money could've had him retiring one year earlier. https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-si...

Still, there is more to it. Don't wait to retire to do what makes you happy.

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

#109

Post by VBprogrammer »

barrenko wrote: post #88

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.

> You can be in the back seat and travel to a place a hundred times. But until you take the driver's seat you'll never know the way.

I know this phenomenon well. In fact, when we moved into our new house which was an easy drive from where we used to live, I drove here half a dozen times using the GPS and still had no idea where I was going until I forced myself to do the trip without turning the GPS on.

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

#110

Post by piyh »

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 can't play the piano, but I can mentally play back Flight of the Bumblebee in my head. The skill to produce and the skill to recall are different.
Post reply on HN