Dwight Shrute. "Don't be an idiot". /S
Ask HN: Advice that changed your life?
181–190 of 567 posts
Re: Ask HN: Advice that changed your life?
#182My 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 some…
I had to re-read the post, because I misunderstood the opening statement.
I agree. Some of the advice we are imbued with is in 'not great' category. The more annoying thing is that it does not get better ( I got ridiculously bad generic advice looking back in my 20s, but I only had enough knowledge in my 30s to know how bad it was ).
Likewise.
Re: Ask HN: Advice that changed your life?
#183Before spending the last money I had on a coding book, the cashier could see my hesitation and said "don't worry, investing in yourself is never a waste of money". It had a profound impact on me.
I've bought thousands of books that I never read... so... yeah, that was a waste of money.
I presume you did better with your investment.
Re: Ask HN: Advice that changed your life?
#184The 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.
> always (well, usually maybe)
Yes this. There is an always an exception out there but it is never you, so it really pays to think "always".
Re: Ask HN: Advice that changed your life?
#185I'm happy to see some of the examples here are of bad advice. The worst, specific piece of advice I received was when I was choosing a major in my senior year of HS, which informed where I went to college. For some paths like engineering you need to know before you matriculate at some schools. The bad advice which was handed out in 2001, was that CS as a career had peaked and all those jobs created during the dotcom…
> The bad advice which was handed out in 2001, was that CS as a career had peaked and all those jobs created during the dotcom boom would be outsourced, so there was no point in majoring in it anymore
Hah I got a similar advice. My father even got his friend who graduated with a CS degree to tell me not to get that degree which managed to convince me at the time. I still ended up as an engineer though :)
Re: Ask HN: Advice that changed your life?
#186Earlier quoted context omitted.
Consumers also hate paying for things. I've always thought when Google came along that it was a shining beacon for being the one corporation that gives everything away for free.
As a consumer I am totally fine paying for things. But I hate being interrupted with ads for irrelevant shit I don’t want or need. Google and every other online advertiser is hilariously bad at guessing what I might be shopping for at the moment. Amazon comes close by remembering what products I looked at last. But Google is worse than dogshit when it comes to this. I’ll give you a typical example where Google could…
If you already know the product you are buying down to the model, Google isn't tailored for you. It's meant for people who have a vague idea and then pick what's at the top of the search results. This is why SEO has grown to be an entire profession.
Re: Ask HN: Advice that changed your life?
#187Always take sides. By not taking a side you are automatically wrong. This doesn’t mean you should engage in identity politics, etc. but when faced with a choice take the time to make an informed decision. If you say something “should be a thing” you are automatically now in charge of creating it or convincing someone to create it. Do not tell people who are working on things that they should realize your idea if you…
Don’t get married depends on country.
Some countries won't even let you do hospital visits if you are not family.
Re: Ask HN: Advice that changed your life?
#188I have two mantras that I heard at some point early in life and they have immensely helped me over the years:
1.) "Just remember that it's a grand illusion." - Dennis DeYoung.
Human society is a made up thing job titles and heirarchies or castes, companies, governments, money, opinions, labels ("gay", "straight", "married", "healthy", "insane", "impossible")... the whole lot of it - all made up by humans. There is no difference between you, your boss, your CEO, the leader of your country. The truth is, we are all humans living on this earth, eating-feeling-surviving. The rest is something humans just made up.
2.) "...all it takes, really [is] pressure and time." - Red (character in movie Shawshank Redemption).
This montra has never steered me wrong. Something I truly want to achieve may take months or many years, but if I stick to it, it eventually tends to come to fruition. Interestingly, the opposite is true, when I've given up on some opportunity or idea I thought was particularly worthwhile, but I ultimately gave up on and succumbed to the pressure of naysayers and my own weariness, I have seen others succeed on these same ideas/opportunities. It's not a garuntee, but a very strong trend I've observed over my 40+ years on earth.
As a child, I wanted to be a scientist (I've always been an inventor and explorer at heart) but was guided towards enlisting the military due to lack of money and honestly, I did not do well in grade school. After maturing, I've pressed on to course-correct and after 20 years I am finally a well respected research scientist in the field I'm passiknate about. It just took pressure and time (years of pushing through grad school rejections, arduously learning concepts that didn't come naturally to me, ignoring naysayers, etc.).
Sometimes, you won't break through, but I contend that the journey is still worthwhile. I have a HARD math problem that I've been picking a way at for over 10 years and I've made peace with the fact that I may never solve the riddle by the time I'm dead. However, with persistance I've made incremental progress - and I can see that I'm on a road that is being revealed in front of me inch by inch as I apply continuous pressure. Even if I don't know how long that road actually is - if I could live long enough, eventually I know I would solve the puzzle. This montra has helped me keep pushing ahead, despite not truly knowing when a break through will happen, and simply walking the path has led me to observe what feel is great natural beauty. The journey itself can be very rewarding.
Re: Ask HN: Advice that changed your life?
#189"Only boring people get bored." This has been a life-long challenge - in a good way. Whenever I feel boredom approaching, I try to change the situation or come up with a more creative way of viewing the moment. Not always successful, but it's a good practice.
This is also parenting advice I use. When the kids say they are bored (because they want to drone away on the iPad), I say ‘it is good to be bored!’
Within a few minutes they always find new ways to not be bored:)
Re: Ask HN: Advice that changed your life?
#190Before spending the last money I had on a coding book, the cashier could see my hesitation and said "don't worry, investing in yourself is never a waste of money". It had a profound impact on me.
For anyone reading this and thinking about spending your last 10 bucks on a programming book please use Libgen or a free mooc
Reference books are the one thing it's a good idea to spend money on, because flipping back and forth through a digital copy is still a miserable experience