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

Ask HN: Have you ever had a changed-your-life moment?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 247 posts

Re: Ask HN: Have you ever had a changed-your-life moment?

#31

Post by CalRobert »

In 2012 I bought a book called "Getting Out: Your Guide to Leaving America".

It had a chapter on how to move to (almost) every country in the world. Nothing seemed practical, I didn't have the skills and there was a recession.

But in the end there were some interviews with people who had left, and there was a throwaway line: "I got a working holiday visa for Ireland"

I didn't even know working holiday visas existed! I figured I could move to Ireland for a year and enjoy what I could.

6 months in I wasn't having much luck finding a longer term sponsor, despite applying lots of different places.

Then I was at the pub and heard someone having a laugh about "JSON? I said JASON!" (it was funnier when we were drunk) Had a chat, got an interview, got a job, got a green card, and recently got naturalized.

I think a lot of things in life have been small serendipities like this.

Re: Ask HN: Have you ever had a changed-your-life moment?

#32

Post by jiggywiggy »

shimonabi wrote: post #24
euroderf wrote: post #12

I had a religious experience decades ago. Stone cold sober. I only talk about it with my closest friends, because I don't want to be perceived as another nutter. But it keeps me up when I am feeling down, and holds out the promise of living a life on a proper path. My 0,02€, YMMV.

You don't have to be drunk or high to have hallucinations.

Hallucinations are often not religious experiences. Most often when people feel it's religious it's connected to a deep sense of meaning. This can be accompanied to drugs and or hallucinations but doesn't have to. Often connected to feeling of perception of self dissolving, not having any seperatioe, feeling fully one or dissolving into the "outer" world

Re: Ask HN: Have you ever had a changed-your-life moment?

#33

Post by yunohn »

trhr wrote: post #8

Once upon a time my buddy was in the data center swapping drives, so i logged onto all the servers. 8 cabinets and like ~18 or so servers in each. ~$ base64 /dev/urandom I don't know if that qualifies as 'changing my life' but when he told me he had to plug his ears and run away because it was so loud, it certainly made me want to turn this into a long-term career.

Could you explain further?

Re: Ask HN: Have you ever had a changed-your-life moment?

#35

Post by jjgreen »

A friend of mine wanted to make some speaker-stands from some thick pieces of wood, in a Z shape. He didn't know what angle to cut it, so asked me (knowing that I had, some years earlier, obtained a maths A-level). The problem reduced to solving a quadratic, but I couldn't remember the formula for the solutions (-b ± something?) so spent 2-3 days trying to reconstruct the proof (this was pre-internet). Eventually I cracked it, and enjoyed the process so much that I applied to study maths at University ... He never did make those bloody speaker-stands.

Re: Ask HN: Have you ever had a changed-your-life moment?

#36

Post by 5e92cb50239222b »

shimonabi wrote: post #24
euroderf wrote: post #12

I had a religious experience decades ago. Stone cold sober. I only talk about it with my closest friends, because I don't want to be perceived as another nutter. But it keeps me up when I am feeling down, and holds out the promise of living a life on a proper path. My 0,02€, YMMV.

You don't have to be drunk or high to have hallucinations.

Not at all surprised this is getting downvoted. There's a decent book on this theme:

https://www.amazon.com/Hallucinations-Oliver-Sacks/dp/030794...

where the author postulates that a decent portion of society experiences hallucinations at least once in their lifetime without any "helpers" like drugs or sleep deprivation. (I don't remember the exact percentage, read that thing ages ago).

I think this is how religions get started.

Re: Ask HN: Have you ever had a changed-your-life moment?

#37

Post by jiggywiggy »

MrDresden wrote: post #25

Feeling no particular drive for having children for most of my adult life, that changed when me and my partner got the very shocking news that she was pregnant last november. We were there to start the process to harvest her eggs, as she was about to undergo aggressive cancer treatment that would leave her unable to conceive children afterwards. The pregnancy turned out to not be viable, and two weeks later the treat…

Wait till you get them ;). Sort of joking. I know the feeling, also had that. Getting them is very different from this high, but probably even more worth it. Although you will be more tired and busy then ever before.

Re: Ask HN: Have you ever had a changed-your-life moment?

#38

Post by sph »

Learned I have ADHD and getting medicated in the span of 3 months has completely changed my quality of life and my outlook on the future.

The second best thing was during a dark time with work-related burnout of top to take my mental health seriously and talk with a therapist. Made it a serious commitment for a couple years and it's been the best investment in time and money I could ever have made. Learned a lot about myself, my approach to the world, the world's approach to myself and what makes me tick... just by talking it out.

Nothing else in my life has created such long-lasting and radical changes in relatively short time.

Re: Ask HN: Have you ever had a changed-your-life moment?

#40

Post by confp »

When my dad died, shortly followed by my mum.

It really made me realise the futility of life.

Since then, it's been ten years or so, and I look forward to being dead.

Not for any religious, spiritual purpose, but just to get all this life nonsense out of the way. It will be much easier to not exist any more.

Post reply on HN