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

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

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 287 posts

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

#201

Post by yesenadam »

Not quite an answer, but I found Gail Sheehy's (bestselling) book Passages: Predictable Crises of Adult Life super-enlightening. Highly recommended. It's like a road map of broadly what to expect as you go through life, and get older, decade by decade. Things you might think are problems unique to you, you will learn are normal and part of life. Hard to explain, but I found it mind-blowingly good. Hmm I must read it again, it's been a while. Good luck!

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/82229.Passages

Gail Sheehy's brilliant road map of adult life shows the inevitable personality and sexual changes we go through in our 20s, 30s, 40s, and beyond.

p.s. Watch this inspiring Open Mind interview with her first (it's on another another of her books, also about peoples' lives), then you'll be able to hear her writing in her voice while you read it! 27mins https://www.thirteen.org/openmind-archive/aging/pathfinders/

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

#202

Post by leoqa »

Fire-Dragon-DoL wrote: post #154
Wonnk13 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

welp i'm 33 and single and this hits home so hard. My younger brother is 30 with two under two and he looks like hell most days. I can't imagine 3 hours sleep a night when i'm mid to late 30s. christ.

The 3 hours of sleep is only in the first few months. I have an 11 months and a 3 years old and sleep 8 to 9 hours per night. The first week of the first kid, we slept 3 hours in total (that is, 3 hours in the whole week)

Yeah it dramatically improves at 3-4 months. Then it’s the odd regression weeks but I get 10 hours of sleep now. The problem is I basically work, sleep and entertain/feed in an endless cycle until he’s old enough to go to daycare or we get a nanny.

I hear two kids is pretty brutal until they’re both 3+ years old.

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

#203

Post by sircastor »

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…

This is one for me too. My whole adult life I’ve felt like I was “behind” in everything I was doing, only to realize with age that I was fine and there is no universal rule about where you should be at a given age. Make the most of yourself right now.

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

#204

Post by [deleted] »

hughrr wrote: post #125
cannabis_sam wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Kids from much older parents (40+) are also almost completely weird. They are, in every quantitative and qualitative measure, far more well-adjusted than the poor children, like yours, who had no choice but to grow up with literal children as parents. (Or maybe we shouldn’t generalize like this…?)

No please do. You’re on the mark there. I was waiting for someone to make this point. The weirdness comes from the social disparity and disconnectedness from peers their own age due to different social attitudes from parents. The generalisation comes from the observation that older parents tend to lead to less progressive attitudes.

[deleted]

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

#205

Post by Eric_WVGG »

HstryrsrBttn wrote: post #111
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…

No post body was provided.

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

#206

Post by webmobdev »

prometheus76 wrote: post #86
webmobdev wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have a hard time believing in God, then why limit yourself to just Christianity? Islam is ideal for exploring spiritualism through structure and discipline, Hinduism and Buddhism are great to explore spirituality from a psychological plane. This might offend some but while self-studying these religions, I found Christianity to be quite underwhelming, spiritually. In fact, if it wasn't for the writings of Desmo…

I agree that most forms of Christianity can be underwhelming, but Orthodoxy has a rich tradition that dates back over two thousand years of a mystical relationship with God, rooted in prayer. It's very different than any other form of Christianity that I have ever heard of.

According to Hindu philosophy, there are 4 ways to explore spiritualism:

1. Doing one's duty with detachment - the mind is trained to detach from the results of one's action and not attach positive or negative associations to it, thus weakening the ego and leading to enlightenment.

2. Self-enquiry and awareness - Pursuit of knowledge, and understanding of your own self in relation to the world to achieve a heightened consciousness of how you perceive the world through your senses, leading to liberation of the self.

3. Meditation - Related to 2.

4. Devotion - Loving devotion and surrender of self to a God leading to enlightenment.

Which one does Orthodoxy fall under? (Sounds like 4).

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

#207

Post by webmobdev »

yuuu wrote: post #109
webmobdev wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have a hard time believing in God, then why limit yourself to just Christianity? Islam is ideal for exploring spiritualism through structure and discipline, Hinduism and Buddhism are great to explore spirituality from a psychological plane. This might offend some but while self-studying these religions, I found Christianity to be quite underwhelming, spiritually. In fact, if it wasn't for the writings of Desmo…

I don't know. I guess I'd prefer to believe in a religion where I'd fit in culturally.

That makes sense. Being a minority is not a pleasant experience in any country.

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

#208

Post by Fire-Dragon-DoL »

leoqa wrote: post #202
Fire-Dragon-DoL wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 3 hours of sleep is only in the first few months. I have an 11 months and a 3 years old and sleep 8 to 9 hours per night. The first week of the first kid, we slept 3 hours in total (that is, 3 hours in the whole week)

Yeah it dramatically improves at 3-4 months. Then it’s the odd regression weeks but I get 10 hours of sleep now. The problem is I basically work, sleep and entertain/feed in an endless cycle until he’s old enough to go to daycare or we get a nanny. I hear two kids is pretty brutal until they’re both 3+ years old.

Two kids is hard at the start, but now that one is basically 1 year old, I realized my older one is doing all the work I was doing with her. That is, the favorite toy of the younger kid is the sibling, not the daddy. Spares the boring part (repetitive boring play), gives more time for instructive play.

3 years old is a full time thing, but there are things that are quite fun to do together. We play videogames, board games, or I just let her climb on me and enjoy that.

Also going to the pool together is really nice and they get exhausted.

Sometimes you TAKE your free time. Kids are bored and want to play with you, but you haven't had time for yourself in 5 days, you just take it, even if they want to play with you. They will get bored, but more often they will figure out something to play together.

Overall, pretty happy, when they are both 3+ we can play a whole bunch of things together that I'm looking forward to!

I can't tell how it would be with just one, but there are tradeoffs to both sides.

We don't use much daycare, our 3 years old goes to school 4 days a week for 3 hours only (purpose was learning, not babysitting).

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

#209

Post by clpm4j »

hallway_monitor wrote: post #23

You will be smarter than you were in your 20s. You will not be as smart as in your 40s. Your life is just starting.

If you continue working and learning throughout your 30s then how would it follow that you won't be as smart in your 40s?

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

#210

Post by hallway_monitor »

clpm4j wrote: post #209
hallway_monitor wrote: post #23

You will be smarter than you were in your 20s. You will not be as smart as in your 40s. Your life is just starting.

If you continue working and learning throughout your 30s then how would it follow that you won't be as smart in your 40s?

I thought that may have been confusingly worded. I think we agree that you continue to build intellectual power into your forties. Maybe not raw intelligence as studies have shown. But the ability to connect and integrate related Concepts more quickly.
Post reply on HN