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Ask HN: What's Your Biggest Regret?

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

#321

Post by ravenstine »

I regret not having more emotional maturity at an earlier age.

What a lot of people don't know about ADHD is that with it comes a likelihood of a delay in emotional maturity that leads to behavior that's not age appropriate. When looking back at my life, I can identify several times where I was behaving in a way that might have been expected of a child a few years younger than I was but wasn't appropriate for my actual age at the time. This effectively meant losing out on social opportunities, friendships, and romantic relationships. Most of my problems in life stem from this issue.

A mild example of said behavior is a time where I threw a fit in front of my girlfriend because my parents asked me to take out the garbage for them. I was living with my parents at the time and really didn't have many chores, so asking me to take out the garbage wasn't a big ask. But at the time I felt like they shouldn't have been wasting my time with that while I had my girlfriend over. Kids sometimes act out, yes, but I was 18 years old. That's even idiotic behavior for a 16 or 17 year old.

More extreme examples are the times I made inappropriate jokes or spoke my mind out loud without considering why other people wouldn't appreciate hearing them. I was also very judgmental when I was younger and for some reason thought the world ought to hear how judgmental I was, and I ended up losing some friends and romantic interests over that attitude.

It's possible there was nothing I could have done about it, so I struggle to actually regret it. What might have helped me was having an older brother or adult who could identify my behavior pattern, rather than dismiss it, and get me knock it off.

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

#322

Post by robertk »

robertk wrote: post #320
Loughla wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I legitimately do not understand the philosophical exercise of 'free will doesn't exist'. Yes it does. I could walk into the street right now. I could walk into the office next door and slap a co-worker. I could learn German. I could leave my life and walk to China. What is your justification that free-will doesn't exist? Other than biological needs like eating and sleeping, I have control over the rest. Or, rather,…

What you do and think is exclusively dictated by the input of information going into your brain coming from perception encoded as electrons and ions flowing through the atoms consisting of your neurons. If someone had a printout of the small sub-manifold of spacetime that is you they could read out everything you ever thought and did and it would all make sense (meaning, follow from Schrodinger’s equation). You have…

The statement “free will does not exist” does not imply the world isn’t Minecraft. It is. Arbitrary actions allowed by physics are indeed allowed. The problem is unpacking that you can do what you want. It is the act and nature of wanting that is also fully constrained by physics. There is no “you” and no “want,” no notion of choice that isn’t simply isomorphic to doing the basic math of quantum mechanics and molecular biology… you are “merely” math executing in time and space, and you are and shall never be nothing more. https://secularsolstice.github.io/speeches/gen/Nothing_Is_Me...

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

#324

Post by slevcom »

I regret taking antibiotics for years in high school as a treatment for acne. We just did what the doctor recommended without giving it much thought. My gut has been a mess ever since and it really impacted my quality of life during the “healthiest” years of my life.

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

#325

Post by Nomentatus »

waterfallr wrote: post #60

“Marry, and you will regret it; don’t marry, you will also regret it; marry or don’t marry, you will regret it either way.”. Søren Kierkegaard

I've usually seen this quote attributed to Socrates: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/10290499-rather-you-marry-o...

If memory serves, it's not in any of the dialogues that survive; but was anciently attributed to him.

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

#326

Post by Traubenfuchs »

RMPR wrote: post #317
Traubenfuchs wrote: post #110

Years ago, I was suffering from painful defecation, had mucus and blood come out. I always thought it would get better by just eating healthier or whatever. Never even thought about visiting a doctor. When I finally went, the doctor tested my butt for STDs and what a surprise, it was chlamydia. A round of doxycyclin quickly got rid of the chlamydia, but the damage they did lead to a (peri?)anal abscess, which turned…

bad bot

Text length has been limited and I am fed up with STDs, -100% absolute bias for all stds I can think off, the usage of the words „butt“, „penis“ and „casual sex“ will also be mostly reduced.

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

#327

Post by missedthecue »

Losing the relationship with my best friend and girlfriend when I was in my twenties. We had been friends ever since we were kids and then dated all through school and college. We both knew marriage was in the cards. But then she left. No one cheated. No broken trust. No drama. She told me she wanted to know what it's like to be alone, which I mean, fair enough after so many years of just us.

Since then, many wonderful, smart, and beautiful women have been in my life, but I have never loved anyone liked I loved her. It's an odd thing to regret, because if I could go back and live it again, I cannot think of anything I would have done differently.

I've made money and lost money. I should have applied myself more academically. I should have spent more time with my Dad. But when I am alone and reflecting on my life, that is the thing I regret the most.

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

#328

Post by r3trohack3r »

pc86 wrote: post #306
nineplay wrote: post #292

I had a great job. Great pay, stock grants that are still going up, good work/life balance, and co-workers who were friends, co-workers who wanted me on their teams. I'd spearheaded an initiative which ultimately failed but had earned me a good reputation. I went on a medication with a side effect of anger. I was told that at the beginning, I was told that there were other drugs I could use instead. I dismissed the c…

This could be me - maybe except the successful stock grants :) Some of things I said and did when I was writing PHP shitcode at 24 make me want to crawl inside my couch. I'd like to think I've mellowed out a lot , but I think everyone is susceptible to falling into this trap, especially when they're highly compensated and well respected.

It's not just you. Most, if not all, of what humanity knows is wrong. It's easy to trick ourselves into thinking our constructs reflect reality: we sit at the pinnacle of human understandanding looking forward and our constructs are correct enough that things mostly work.

I've recently taken to adopting an "antiquity mindset." Instead of imagining a piece of information as the pinnacle of knowledge in our current context, I remind myself that in 10 (or 100, or 1000) years, folks are going to look back at these ideas with a red pen marking everything we were mistaken about.

Stay humble in what you "know" - most of what humanity will discover is in the future.

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

#329

Post by Merad »

I first went to college in 2002 intending to pursue an engineering degree. At some point before I started school my dad (who had learned programming in the 90s but never did it professional) told me he thought I'd enjoy a programming career and I should think about switching majors. I dismissed it as teenagers tend to do with their parent's advice. Ended up dropping out of school and drifting through my 20s without much to show for it because I didn't know what I wanted to do. It wasn't until 2012 that I went back to school for CS. Can't help but think about how different things might be if I'd gone into the "right" major from the start and entered the industry making a decent salary 8-9 years earlier. But realistically I was a very different person 20 years ago, and just changing my college major probably wouldn't have fixed the things that prevented me from being successful the first time around.

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

#330

Post by robertk »

gilbetron wrote: post #308
Loughla wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I legitimately do not understand the philosophical exercise of 'free will doesn't exist'. Yes it does. I could walk into the street right now. I could walk into the office next door and slap a co-worker. I could learn German. I could leave my life and walk to China. What is your justification that free-will doesn't exist? Other than biological needs like eating and sleeping, I have control over the rest. Or, rather,…

I'm not convinced that free will doesn't exist for others, just myself. There seem to be people who can build their lives exactly as they want it, and maybe you are one of those, but they are the minority. Sounds like you are someone that is completely happy with the aspects of their life they can control because they are able to do exactly what they want when they want (get out of bed on time, learn a language when…

I am someone for whom the two universes are the same. I freely choose to act exactly in accordance with how I would act if I were steered by neurons and atoms, and neurons and atoms alone. And that is also the truth, so I am perfectly happy. The universe with and without free will, to me, is metaphysically identical - because of how I have chosen to live and be happy.
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