“Say Yes more. The people without passion are the ones who always say no. But the happiest people are the ones who understand that good things occur when one allows them to.”
From the brilliant book “Yes Man”, by Danny Wallace.
Ask HN: Advice that changed your life?
91–100 of 567 posts
Re: Ask HN: Advice that changed your life?
#92"People aren't against you, they're for themselves."
A classic of unknown origin.
"It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is life."
Captain Jean-Luc Picard
Re: Ask HN: Advice that changed your life?
#93“Say Yes more. The people without passion are the ones who always say no. But the happiest people are the ones who understand that good things occur when one allows them to.” From the brilliant book “Yes Man”, by Danny Wallace.
Sorry, but awful advice. Being afraid of saying "No" and feeling compelled to say "Yes" all the time and trying to make everyone except yourself happy is the worst way to life your life. Been there, done that, won't go there again.
Re: Ask HN: Advice that changed your life?
#94...that most people don't really spend their time thinking about you so don't worry too much thinking negatively about this, do your best and that's about it. It's such a simple advice but it was life changing, both personally and also professionally.
Re: Ask HN: Advice that changed your life?
#95don't play the victim mentality. you can always change things for better.
Re: Ask HN: Advice that changed your life?
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
This sounds like a universally good advice. Sometimes, it's really hard to put projects and work aside and devote time to excercise and health. It's not that amusing when you do it alone and really hard to make it a habit in the beginning.
I started with 100 situps and push-ups over an hour while watching tv and cutting dessert. One month later I looked in the mirror and was inspired to do more. Little things add up. Try something small, daily for 2 weeks.
100 situps is a lot for a beginner. Actually, after 3 years in gym I did ~80 in 4 sets. Not because I can't do more but 1) it is a high stress for a spine and 2) there are other exercises to do.
Re: Ask HN: Advice that changed your life?
#97The value of advice comes from arriving at the right moment to the right person, not some platonic, universal “goodness“. For example, I wanted to drop out of college to work on climate change, and an adult in that community who I respected immensely told me “calm down, it won’t be too late by the time you graduate“. Not too many people needed the advice to worry less about climate change (especially 15 years ago), b…
Did you get into climate change after finishing?
Yes but not in the way you expect it, he works for an oil company now.
Re: Ask HN: Advice that changed your life?
#98I was one of the people who implemented Google's top-level domain system. One day in the microkitchen I met Vint Cerf and told him what I worked on. He very curtly told me that he hates generic top-level domains, they confuse consumers, and ICANN should have been focusing on making .com / .org / .net better instead. It surprised me when I learned that I'd spent the last four years of my life working on a project where Google had bet big on gTLDs without the support of the father of the Internet. So I got a job on the TensorFlow team instead.
Re: Ask HN: Advice that changed your life?
#99The value of advice comes from arriving at the right moment to the right person, not some platonic, universal “goodness“. For example, I wanted to drop out of college to work on climate change, and an adult in that community who I respected immensely told me “calm down, it won’t be too late by the time you graduate“. Not too many people needed the advice to worry less about climate change (especially 15 years ago), b…
I've heard a similar story about a young man that wanting to become a monk, went to the monastery and one of the old monks there told him: "Go get a doctorate, then come back and choose if you really want to give up everything to meditate." or something along those lines.
Re: Ask HN: Advice that changed your life?
#100Comfort is a drug. Once you get used to it becomes addicting. Give a weak person consistent stimulation, good food, cheap entertainment and they will throw their ambitions right out the window. Comfort is a graveyard of dreams. For a shit ton of my teens all I did was chase comfort until this hit me earlier last year. Now I wait for pain to make sure what Im doing goes against the current to bend the resistance to my…
not sure why this is being downvoted - apparently you need to post only "feel-good" advice else your voice will be suppressed lol