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

Ask HN: Advice that changed your life?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 567 posts

Re: Ask HN: Advice that changed your life?

#131

Post by jemmyw »

javajosh wrote: post #124

My mother told me to not care what other people thought. She also told me that words can't really hurt people ("sticks and stones..."). She also believed its "mean" to have any preference about people, calling it a version of "keeping score". In fact, "keeping score" was one of the worst things you could be accused of in my household. Her advice fails to accept the reality of social and emotional needs. It also fails…

To be fair to your mother, this particular advice and view was rampant when I grew up in the 80s/90s. My experience was that this is quite backwards. Physical altercations at school didn't hurt that much, but the name calling, social shunning and constant verbal put down was very painful and has affected my whole life.

Re: Ask HN: Advice that changed your life?

#132

Post by roenxi »

javajosh wrote: post #124

My mother told me to not care what other people thought. She also told me that words can't really hurt people ("sticks and stones..."). She also believed its "mean" to have any preference about people, calling it a version of "keeping score". In fact, "keeping score" was one of the worst things you could be accused of in my household. Her advice fails to accept the reality of social and emotional needs. It also fails…

I have some similar stories. The issue of generic advice is it assumes a social context or a specific mistake that may not be relevant.

In a gang of violent ruffians, "be less violent!" is great advice. A gang of extremist pacifists being beaten up by outsiders probably needs "be more violent!" as advice.

Your case particularly hits a nerve with me because "do not care what other people think!" is good advice to someone who makes decisions based on where they think the crowd is going (which is the normal way) but may as well be the kiss of death to the typical engineering mind. Engineers do not need any advice that encourages them towards independent thinking. They already have lots of training in making decisions based on objective or internalised criteria. Engineering types usually need advice on how to read body language and make decisions using social techniques.

When dealing with smart, numerate people it is better to discuss scenarios or statistical frequency of mistakes rather than "give advice". Generic advice is often useless without context.

I wish I'd had some training on how to care what other people think when I was in my teens. Would have done me the power of good.

Re: Ask HN: Advice that changed your life?

#133

Post by wodenokoto »

javajosh wrote: post #124

My mother told me to not care what other people thought. She also told me that words can't really hurt people ("sticks and stones..."). She also believed its "mean" to have any preference about people, calling it a version of "keeping score". In fact, "keeping score" was one of the worst things you could be accused of in my household. Her advice fails to accept the reality of social and emotional needs. It also fails…

“Sticks and stones may break your bones, but words can break hearts”

Re: Ask HN: Advice that changed your life?

#134

Post by scombridae »

photochemsyn wrote: post #72
jbaudanza wrote: post #8

Righty tighty, lefty loosey

I always have to Google which of my bike pedals is reverse threaded. It's a bit embarrassing, as I always think I should be able to figure it out from the whole angular momentum - torque thing.

I almost lost a wrist trying to twist off a bike pedal the wrong way. Also, toilet handles, but those were more transparently reversed.

Re: Ask HN: Advice that changed your life?

#135

Post by em-bee »

beachy wrote: post #107

The things that annoy you the most about your partner will be the same things that you will miss the most when they are gone. I try and reflect on this advice when I am struggling to communicate with my wife. Having been divorced once I feel that a positive living relationship is always (well, usually maybe) within our own control.

only when those things that annoy you are not also things that hurt you.

but yes, it is good to reflect on that, and find out if something is actually a problem.

Re: Ask HN: Advice that changed your life?

#136

Post by mojomark »

aBitPlayer wrote: post #90

When I was a new developer just a couple months out of school, and was very eager to be a part of my company and fit in, an older developer told me “remember that your interests and your path are your own.” Over the years, I’ve suffered from “company man” syndrome and look back to his guidance as a reminder that I should own my skills and interests, and bring them to an employer if and for as long as the job suits th…

Thank you for contributing this. I'm 22 years into my career, mostly spent in mundane engineering roles compared to the deep research I worked on as a hobby but really wanted to do professionally. After pushing very hard for many years, I finally landed that deep R&D gig and am well compensated.

My skills and interested are more hardware oriented in a company that brought me in is much more software and math. I've felt obligated to become much more software and math capable, spending very late nights and weekends studying. It's not a bad thing to expand one's mind, but at the heart, I know I'm really doing it more so to 'fit-in' better and less to communicate with my peers better.

I will take this advice and double down on bringing my hardware skills/passions to the table, which as my wife has repeatedly told me the past several months is really why they brought me on. They didn't bring me on to mold me into a clone of researchers they already have.

Re: Ask HN: Advice that changed your life?

#138

Post by hendry »

"Don't be afraid to become the Editor of a document" is along the lines my ex-boss told me. It changed the way I think about contributing to just about anything. When you become the editor you take responsibility and you're in a much better operating position, even if you don't know everything about the subject matter of the document.

Re: Ask HN: Advice that changed your life?

#139

Post by vladvasiliu »

dinkblam wrote: post #93
andyexeter wrote: post #91

“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.

I don't think it's a question of "feeling compelled to say yes", or even being afraid to say no.

To me, the advice is more like "be open to new experiences / be willing to take a chance on the unknown". That doesn't mean you should always say yes to everyone because you're afraid of what they might think of you / might not like you / you owe them anything / etc.

Re: Ask HN: Advice that changed your life?

#140

Post by orzig »

nolroz wrote: post #80
orzig wrote: post #26

The 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?

That is a totally fair question, and I have to admit I did not - nuanced stories don’t fit in an online comment!

The Great Recession hit and Obama’s climate push failed[0], so I went into healthcare (as another thing that needed fixing, and which there was political will to do something about).

The lessons of all of those twists are more complex, but I still firmly believe that I got the right advice given what everybody knew at the time.

[0] https://www.politico.com/story/2012/11/obama-says-climate-ch...

Post reply on HN