Ask HN: What's Your Biggest Regret? • Hacker News Board

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

#481

Post by throwaway2722 » Sat, Oct 08, 2022, 5:19 AM UTC

testmasterflex wrote: post #476

throwaway2722 wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is plenty of survey data to show that baldness reduces a man’s attractiveness. The effect size varies with age. Anecdotally, it also appears to have especially dire consequences in modern online dating. However, this effect surely pales in comparison to the effect of the permanent sexual dysfunction finasteride can cause. It is frankly outrageous that regulators in the United States have adopted the drug compan…

I think you should try weight lifting and see if that helps your testosterone levels to get the libido up. I’d suggest the 5x5 program. I would also not rule out how much mental stress can turn off any body function. Never give up friend!

Thanks; I appreciate the sentiment.

Unfortunately, while lifting is probably advisable for overall wellness, it is highly unlikely to change things sexually. My testosterone has been tested and is quite high even after taking finasteride. From what I have gathered, the notion that the drug’s persistent effects are the result of altered testosterone levels is misinformed. Instead, people who are adversely affected by the drug seem to acquire a condition that resembles androgen resistance - their hormone levels may be fine, but their tissues no longer respond as they should. Some experts have hypothesized the root cause to be an epigenetic change, but there is really no financial incentive for getting to the bottom of it. As with tardive dyskinesia, the condition will likely remain poorly understood and practically untreatable for the remainder of our lives.

I’m afraid details would be a bit too graphic for HN, but I can assure you some of the changes to my body cannot be explained by stress. It is much more than just ED.

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

#482

Post by fhchl » Sat, Oct 08, 2022, 5:35 AM UTC

Learning Latin in school for 8 years instead of a romanic language that is actually spoken and actually useful like frensh or Spanish.

I think there is absolutely no reason to teach kids dead languages. If they are really interested, they can do so at university later on.

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

#483

Post by fuzzfactor » Sat, Oct 08, 2022, 5:50 AM UTC

lexapro wrote: post #150

staticelf wrote: post #8

Instead of wasting all my money in my 20s it would've been much smarter to save it as I would be a lot more well of today than I am currently.

How did you waste it?

I spent most of my money on wine, women, and song.

Everything else was wasted.

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

#484

Post by squintychino » Sat, Oct 08, 2022, 6:05 AM UTC

cryptonector wrote: post #479

bloqs wrote: post #53

To everyone in this thread, a piece of advice I didn't initially believe but over many years I have understood more: "everyone loses 10 years to something, somewhere along the line"

Reminds me of Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, "and then one day you find ten years have got behind you, no one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun!".

That quote is actually from the song "Time" by Pink Floyd.

I used to listen to that several times a year to motivate myself to do more and not let the months and years pass me by.

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

#485

Post by seymon » Sat, Oct 08, 2022, 6:17 AM UTC

fhchl wrote: post #482

Learning Latin in school for 8 years instead of a romanic language that is actually spoken and actually useful like frensh or Spanish. I think there is absolutely no reason to teach kids dead languages. If they are really interested, they can do so at university later on.

This! I am from germany and had chosen latin class in school. It is a useless dead language noone speaks.

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

#486

Post by Paddywack » Sat, Oct 08, 2022, 6:25 AM UTC

mateo411 wrote: post #449

Test0129 wrote: post #315

Not spending more time being young. I never really got the chance. Due to life circumstances I had to begin working basically as young as you can work in America. I've never had a free summer, never rushed a frat, never went to dances, etc. At the time it didn't bother me but now I'm older I've seen the effects. I similarly did nothing but school and work to pay bills in college. This has had such a profound effect o…

I also like Pink Floyd's Time. It also really reasonates with me. In the song, the young folks waste/enjoy their time when they are young. You spent your time working. In the song they spent their time laying in the sun and staying home to watch the rain. Actually it seems like a pleasant youth, but then they later they regret it. I guess they had hustle culture in the UK in the 70s too.

A bit off topic, but I love “learning to fly” by Pink Floyd… “Young tied and twisted, just an earth bound misfit”.

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

#487

Post by cercatrova » Sat, Oct 08, 2022, 6:31 AM UTC

varjag wrote: post #302

elefantastisch wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Read through the thread. Look how many stories there are of people losing years and years to something that they now regret. The realization is that this is the norm , not the exception. We're all just fragile and fallible and trying to make our way through life as best we can, and we all end up messing up big somewhere along the way. It's easy to look back on 10 wasted years and think you failed, you blew your one c…

This thread is self-selecting: people who have no big regrets clearly wouldn't be posting here.

Yes, that's something I thought too when reading the parent comment. While I agree with the general sentiment of everyone losing ten years to something, I think it's hard to prove that, in a non-solipsistic way.

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

#488

Post by canadianfella » Sat, Oct 08, 2022, 6:58 AM UTC

CSMastermind wrote: post #266

I dated a girl in college, and we were deeply in love. So much so that we got engaged. The one problem was that her family didn't approve of her dating me because of my race. She had initially been hesitant to introduce me to them, but I had insisted that she do it. When they threatened to disown her if she married me, she said that we should just do it and live our lives together. But I was too much of a coward to f…

You should tell her this.

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

#489

Post by fakedang » Sat, Oct 08, 2022, 7:03 AM UTC

smoldesu wrote: post #265

matwood wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Steve Jobs turned the ideas in that quote into a commencement speech after his cancer diagnosis. It concludes with: Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is tru…

It's a shame he never took the advice to heart. Jobs' last days were unnecessarily painful for both himself and his family, who desperately tried helping him only to be pushed away and insulted. Jobs was good at echoing the wisdom of people smarter than him, but not so great at using those principles to fix his own life.

> Jobs was good at echoing the wisdom of people smarter than him, but not so great at using those principles to fix his own life.

One quote by Konosuke Matsushita that I've heard (which I think he quoted from a Japanese one) :

The light is darkest underneath the lighthouse.

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

#490

Post by sisu2022 » Sat, Oct 08, 2022, 7:18 AM UTC

I try not to regret things because in most cases that would just amount to second guessing myself with 20/20 hindsight. I do regret this one thing.

I went to boarding school from grade 5. You are probably picturing a fancy place with the "elite of tomorrow" walking around in smart school uniforms. My boarding school wasn't like that at all. It was located in a very small village, so small that it didn't even have a single shop. It cost like 250€ a month and you can accurately deduce the rest from that. Yes, some of the minders were clearly alcoholics. Yes, there were lots of troubled youths. Yes, some of the food barrels really did have "pig feed or millitary" stenciled on them. But they tried and on the whole they did a good job. I have to admit that in retrospect.

There are many activities you can do there. Painting, singing, pottery, metalworking, theatre, dance and all kinds of sports. There was even a warhammer table! This being Germany you can play soccer all day everyday.

I, however, was very cool, you see. I was so cool that I was too cool to do any of the activities on offer. So I spent my days on walks with my best friends just smoking and drinking and discussing how we would get rich. We did not get rich.

Now at 41 I am a non-smoker and learning to play soccer. If only I had played in my youth. If only I had been a person who wasn't repulsed by sweat and effort. If only I had the confidence to really try at something hard. If only I could have seen myself as someone with the potential for strength, for speed, as a team player. If only I had known myself a little better back then.