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Ask HN: What's Your Biggest Regret?

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Re: Ask HN: What's Your Biggest Regret?

#31

Great question. I wish I would not change anything. Sometimes, I wanted to get out of technology and tried to find another job. Nonetheless, it was a waste of time. I should focus on software development because it's my strength. All of us should use our strength to be a giver. Money will follow.

>Money will follow.

That can be survivorship bias. Money will follow if you have a great network and/or live in a hot area with tons of networking and jobs opportunities for your trade.

Being good at what you do is not always enough to succeed financially.

Re: Ask HN: What's Your Biggest Regret?

#34

Bitcoin. I knew about it from the very beginning.

Meh, would probably have sold once my $10 investment reached $1000 or $10,000 or so anyways, no way most people would've kept their head cold (and _gambled_) on it going even further.

I sold at $100. Thought it was a massive overpriced bubble and insane that it was worth $100. No regrets.

Re: Ask HN: What's Your Biggest Regret?

#35

Last week, actually. Was a bit careless and inebriated while working on a demo and suddenly I realized I had luksFormatted the luks partition holding the only copy of keys for cryptocurrency worth ~$200k. That was a sizable fraction if my supposed net worth. Either I'm still in denial or I've risen above obsessive materialism as it doesn't affect me too much so far, though. Its just money. Unplugged the drive and hav…

If it makes you feel better I lost the keys to Bitcoin worth a few orders of magnitude more.

Life does go on.

Re: Ask HN: What's Your Biggest Regret?

#36
post #17

Letting myself get burned-out to the point of considering the s word. Every time I just thought “things will get better, it’s probably just me”. I’ve since switched jobs after a break but I still struggle with focus and attention span. Hoping that improves over time.

I'm in the exact boat as you. The burnout set in so slowly that I didn't realized I was burned out until I stopped working and had the time to look at my life.

Re: Ask HN: What's Your Biggest Regret?

#37
post #15

I am 33 years old haven't gotten a programming job yet. I could be making so much money now if I'd done it years ago. I'm hoping to finally make that change in the next few months. But I couldn't stick to one language or specialization, I have a bunch of half-working projects and nothing finished. I kept switching depending on what interested me at the time. And I kept putting it off due to poor mental health and tra…

I’ve been a software engineer for many years, I stick at it because I enjoy it. Paying well is secondary. It requires a lot of focus, but the enjoyment of solving problems and being creative, is what drives me, not financial. That’s why I still do it. If you can find that enjoyment, don’t worry about not catching up, it will come. I read the number of developer jobs doubles every 5 years. So with 5 years experience y…

>I read the number of developer jobs doubles every 5 years

Is there any indication this will go on forever? Moore's law is also dead. At one point "software is eating the world" will also come to an end. In my city it's already more difficult to find a plumber than to find an app/web developer.

Re: Ask HN: What's Your Biggest Regret?

#38

Last week, actually. Was a bit careless and inebriated while working on a demo and suddenly I realized I had luksFormatted the luks partition holding the only copy of keys for cryptocurrency worth ~$200k. That was a sizable fraction if my supposed net worth. Either I'm still in denial or I've risen above obsessive materialism as it doesn't affect me too much so far, though. Its just money. Unplugged the drive and hav…

Was it 200k at the time, or appreciated later?

Re: Ask HN: What's Your Biggest Regret?

#39
Everything and Nothing. Leaving the comfort zone more often is something which will make you grow. And I didn't do that in the past. Bit of a life story:

I'm 36 now. When I turned 22 in 2008, my mom surprised me with her having sarcoidosis, a disease which will turn functional cells into non-functional ones. Quite an issue when it starts in your lungs. A year later, my father surprised me with him having cancer.

Long story short, they passed away in 2013 and 2017. I should also mention that I have four younger siblings. I raised my little sister until the beginning of 2020, when she turned 18. And then, the pandemic hit.

I wish I'd talked more to my dad. I wish I would have been more socially active, would have gone on a fishing trip with him. Worked on the car. You know? Things you do with your dad. Instead, I buried myself knee-deep into coding. I read books. But I missed life.

And I accumulated debt. Oh, am I in debt right now. 46k still left to pay off, with which I'm struggeling.

And the path I choose? Up to today, I don't even know if it's the right one. I'm a coder. But from time to time, I need external validation. I need "the stage". And I love to teach other people stuff. Working from home, I realized that I don't have any problem talking directly into a camera. Just recently, I moderated a panel discussion with 7 participants and an audience of ~100 people. I wasn't aware of me being able to do that. But there were people in my company who believed in me and said "Do it!" and I decided to leave my comfort zone.

That was maybe the best feeling I had for a long, long time.

tl;dr:

a) Avoid the debt trap

b) Spend time with your loved ones, as much as you can. Grow bonds.

c) Leave your comfort zone. Experiment. And never be afraid to fail.

Re: Ask HN: What's Your Biggest Regret?

#40
I've consciously moved on from ruminating on the past and replaying alternate timelines in my mind, to thinking about what I actually can change: the present, and the future.

Life is a blind let's play. It's more fun to watch exactly because you don't know what's going to happen. Having the ability to play it again would destroy consequence, and thus meaning, to one's actions.

Spending extraordinary amounts of time thinking about the past got me literally nowhere. When I realized this, practically every problem in my life started unwinding and I found friends, love, passion, work, and peace.

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