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Ask HN: What do you wish you had done/known in your 30s?

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Re: Ask HN: What do you wish you had done/known in your 30s?

#111

Post by HstryrsrBttn »

Eric_WVGG wrote: post #13

I wish I had realized that I was still young. I had some early startup-ish projects in the late-nineties/early-2k's, they crashed and burned with the dotcom crash, and I felt like I had lost any chance at making something cool or any kind of impact. I even felt like, at the age of 28, I was too old for dating and had missed all my opportunities. Things picked up for me in every respect — professional and personal — a…

Don't. Take time to know your partner: minimum 2years, have vacations _and_ reflect on them -- if _anything_ heavily irritating or strong arguments arise trust your gust and don't marry, don't try to justify.

Married a paranoid schizophrenic with realising to late -- didn't know all family members (several relatives on the maternal and paternal side have it too) Know the family. Don't try to justify think you picked a healthy exemplar too early -- again: wait 2y+, know their past. Any clinical interventions: stay away.

Otherwise as soon as children are involved this will be years of horror. Trust me.

Re: Ask HN: What do you wish you had done/known in your 30s?

#112

Post by i_r7al »

Start investing at least 10% of what you make even if it's too little. 10 years of too little will mount to huge amount by your 30s. You won't realize how much you missed until you calculate it. Also use a budget app track every penny of your money. I suggest YNAB.

Re: Ask HN: What do you wish you had done/known in your 30s?

#113

Post by rg111 »

themodelplumber wrote: post #106
rg111 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> vain little anti-buddhisms Really? Buddha legit allowed one to have small pleasures and advised to spend according to one's income- not be lavish nor meagre. He promoted the middle-path (majjhima pantha) more than anything else- to not be too stringent nor be too lavish. He even allowed monks to have communal properties. I agree with your point, though. Wholeheartedly. With inflation, and for some economies, contin…

Buddha the him-self is probably different from what I think of as "buddhism" with a small 'b'. Culturally-understood, outside-in, or maybe bookstore-quotes-buddhism, as opposed to the deeper, subjective, experiential, you-don't-know-enough-buddhism--which does harbor many, many contradictions on top of all the great lessons in there too. Like any belief system, religious or not. I definitely don't remember the sectar…

That makes sense.

But, Buddhism is anti-faith. You are supposed to experiment and verify.

Want to read a very short book?

Try "What The Buddha Taught" by Walpola Rahula. No BS, carefully explained guide to Buddha's own teachings.

If you limit yourself to Buddha's own teachings, there are little to no contradictions.

Re: Ask HN: What do you wish you had done/known in your 30s?

#114

Post by samspenc »

dpcan wrote: post #43

I wish I had known my wife didn’t love me through my entire 30’s. My 40’s are not what I expected.

Very sorry to hear it didn't work out. Could you share how you got over it? Any other advice / experience that might be helpful for others?

Re: Ask HN: What do you wish you had done/known in your 30s?

#115

Post by slyall »

deathanatos wrote: post #95
version_five wrote: post #3

I'm in my early 40s, I can't really think of anything, maybe because it's too close to realize what mistakes I might have made, and I don't really believe in that kind of retrospection generally. FWIW, if you are in a position where you could potentially start a family (and want to some day), consider doing it in your early 30s (or earlier), there are a lot of things that get tougher as you get older. I don't regret…

> if you are in a position where you could potentially start a family I'm in my 30s, and this seems to be the trickiest part that people older than me — sorry — seem to want to just pave over. House prices are bananas. Trump, COVID, Russia have erased years of investment gains. Student loans are a constant tax on my finances (that I'm almost free of… …soon…). Wage growth has been stagnant (my career has seen ~4.7% Yo…

I could change a few words in your main paragraph and match them to any time in the last 40 years.

You seem to be hanging on for magic better times but at the same time not expecting things to get better. This doesn't seem to be a good strategy, especially in the case of having children where delaying a few years will very likely result in more difficulties.

Re: Ask HN: What do you wish you had done/known in your 30s?

#116

Post by rdtwo »

disambiguation wrote: post #108
newacc9 wrote: post #26

Get married, have children, buy assets. There's this idea that men don't need to settle down because they can have children at any age, which I guess is technically true but it presupposes that a 30 y/o woman will want to have children with you when you're 45, but they are more inclined to go +5 years, not +15. Also take prescription labels more seriously, like don't take Advil all the time, because you will get an u…

cant you elaborate on "buy assets"? stocks, real estate, all the above, something else?

Live in a non recourse state And buy real estate with leverage. heads you win big tails you walk away with fixed losses

Re: Ask HN: What do you wish you had done/known in your 30s?

#117

Post by MaxHoppersGhost »

acidbaseextract wrote: post #89
version_five wrote: post #3

I'm in my early 40s, I can't really think of anything, maybe because it's too close to realize what mistakes I might have made, and I don't really believe in that kind of retrospection generally. FWIW, if you are in a position where you could potentially start a family (and want to some day), consider doing it in your early 30s (or earlier), there are a lot of things that get tougher as you get older. I don't regret…

I don't regret putting it off until my 40s because it let me find a person I want to have a family with Thank you for including this tidbit. I'm a man in my early 30s interested in having kids and recently discovered that I've poorly vetted my 5+ year SO's interest in having kids. Her "yeah, I'm hypothetically interested" has become "hard not interested". The requirement to break up with her if I want kids is deeply…

Break up with her now. There are plenty women your age of younger that know they are getting closer to the point of no return and are desperate to have kids. I’m similar age but my wife is 35 and lemme tell you what, she wants to have some dang kids now (and we’ll have one soon).

And what do you mean by “in time”? Assuming you are 32/33 you have plenty of time to find another partner. When you’re 50 you will feel so silly for feeling old at 32/33. Just make sure the next partner is on the same page relatively early.

It’s your life, not your partner’s, go live it how you want.

Re: Ask HN: What do you wish you had done/known in your 30s?

#118

Post by cannabis_sam »

Eric_WVGG wrote: post #13

I wish I had realized that I was still young. I had some early startup-ish projects in the late-nineties/early-2k's, they crashed and burned with the dotcom crash, and I felt like I had lost any chance at making something cool or any kind of impact. I even felt like, at the age of 28, I was too old for dating and had missed all my opportunities. Things picked up for me in every respect — professional and personal — a…

Thank you! I think there are a lot of us who need to (or at least can benefit from) hearing this.

Re: Ask HN: What do you wish you had done/known in your 30s?

#119

Post by kashunstva »

hughrr wrote: post #32
scionthefly wrote: post #17

In your 30s, if you are waiting to have kids for various reasons, you really need to stop delaying. Your probability of successfully having kids goes down every year, and by your early 40s your options for medical help if you have infertility stop being available because even those interventions lose effectiveness. If you want kids, just have the kids. You're not going to care that you were being responsible and wait…

This. I had kids in my early 20s. It’s great because I still have a connection with them even though two are adults. Kids from much older parents (40+) are also almost completely weird.

> Kids from much older parents (40+) are also almost completely weird.

By what measure? I was 42 and my wife was 40 when we had our daughter who is now 13 and headed off to full time pre conservatory program in violin next year. Well adjusted, sensitive and empathic, I can’t think of any way in which she’s ‘weird’ Certainly not by any conventional definitions of the word.

Re: Ask HN: What do you wish you had done/known in your 30s?

#120

Post by themodelplumber »

rg111 wrote: post #113
themodelplumber wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Buddha the him-self is probably different from what I think of as "buddhism" with a small 'b'. Culturally-understood, outside-in, or maybe bookstore-quotes-buddhism, as opposed to the deeper, subjective, experiential, you-don't-know-enough-buddhism--which does harbor many, many contradictions on top of all the great lessons in there too. Like any belief system, religious or not. I definitely don't remember the sectar…

That makes sense. But, Buddhism is anti-faith. You are supposed to experiment and verify. Want to read a very short book? Try "What The Buddha Taught" by Walpola Rahula. No BS, carefully explained guide to Buddha's own teachings. If you limit yourself to Buddha's own teachings, there are little to no contradictions.

You lost me at

> Buddhism is

This is where beliefs usually cross into no-true-(scotsman)-believer, or worse, victim-blaming.

You see? This is because _I_ misunderstood. The way it _really_ works is...

I studied all kinds of dichotomies in buddhism, from Batchelor to Nichiren etc. and spent hundreds of hours studying and writing about buddhism in general. I even baptized many lifelong buddhists into the home brand of religion I brought with me before I left that faith myself.

I believe I know many of the Top Sales Secrets for migrating buddhists between religions or to a religion of your choice.

But...I accompanied some of them on the way out, and buddhism as a single thing, as a belief that works like X...that's done for me except in general analogy, sorry.

Plus there need to be contradictions IMO, they are really important for contextualizing religion vs. sect. If you don't have contradictions you can't have internal structure. You'll never be able to add 1 + 1 and make anything new.

You don't have to _call_ it a contradiction though...you can say there are these "mysteries"... ;-)

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