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Life Is Short (2016)

paulgraham.com

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Re: Life Is Short (2016)

#251

Post by Glawen »

eastbound wrote: post #197
jefftk wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you mean housing and transportation, or is there really something specific to theater?

A lot of things are cheaper when you have the RSA, but granted, it’s mostly leisure and optional things (museums, cinema, holidays at ucpa.com, etc). (ucpa.com is an excellent sports camp address for 18-40, by the way).

Not only optional thing. Metro/bus/tramway are nearly free for them. They also have reduced rate for utilities. Granted it is not easy to live with 500€ a month, but you can get by.

Re: Life Is Short (2016)

#252

Post by el_benhameen »

msie wrote: post #73

At 51, I am trying to come to grips with wasting my life in my 20s, 30s and 40s. I don't remember doing anything memorable during that time. I spent too much time doing bullshit programming or doing the same old comfortable things with friends. I wish I dated more. Tried more things that young people can do. I was too scared to make mistakes. Now I can't go back. It's driving me nuts.

This is a grander version of what I do when I procrastinate: fret about the time I’ve wasted, beat myself up about what I wasted it on, and anxiously berate myself every minute that I don’t _just stop wasting time_. None of that ever works, and nothing feels better than forgiving myself for it, forgetting all of it, and just getting started. You don’t have any “then” left, but you do have “now” left.

Re: Life Is Short (2016)

#253

Post by r3trohack3r »

zemvpferreira wrote: post #219
r3trohack3r wrote: post #210

My daughter is turning 5 in a few weeks. I realized I only have 3 more of these until she’s (likely) moving out. 4x5=20, and she’ll likely be living her own life by 20. Most of the time you spend with your kids is spent by the time they’re 16. I moved away from my hometown. I see my immediate relatives twice a year now, once at Christmas and once in the summer. Most of my family is getting old. I probably have 125 or…

This is inevitably going to sound facetious but you can always move back. Give up some things, gain others. Isn't that what this essay's about? I'm 40. My parents are 75 and I recently moved back next door to them. I expect to be here until they die. Is it my favourite place to live? No. Best for my career? Couldn't be worse. But I see my folks every day. I see my childhood friends every week. I see as much of my fam…

Not facetious at all. I call it "visiting Paris."

A large number of people I grew up with "wanted to see the world." My younger self modeled a lot of my desired outcomes on people's externally stated desires.

As I got older, I started realizing something: a lot of what people said they wanted was attainable for them and their socioeconomic status if they made different trade offs. So I started poking and offering advice on how they could "visit Paris."

What I came to learn is that they wanted to be the kind of people that wanted to visit Paris. But they never would go to Paris. It was the idea they liked.

I have well off family members who talk about wishing their son lived closer. They have the means to visit him. They're retired and live near an airport with direct flights, 3.5 hours door to door. But they never go. That's their Paris.

I don't want to live in my hometown. I don't kid myself - I value raising my family here where I live more than the extra time with family. But, at the same time, when I go back I spend that time in a way maximally meaningful to me.

I try not to have "going to Paris" wishes. I sacrifice protecting my ego from my own decisions but it makes me reconcile my decisions with my desires before reaching the state of irreversible regret.

Re: Life Is Short (2016)

#254

Post by stackbutterflow »

digbybk wrote: post #239

I really like this, but to to add an alternate perspective: I’m skeptical of deathbed regrets, and regrets in general. I don’t think your present self actually knows what your past self went through. We remember events but are bad at remembering emotions except in very broad, general ways. You might say “I wish I had spent more time with my kids and less time at work”. But you won’t remember the feeling of dissatisfa…

More like you might say “I wish I had spent more time with my kids and less time at work” but you won't remember the anxiety of planning for the future. In hindsight you managed to saved enough for retirement but it didn't always looked that way when you were laid off for the second time in 4 years in the middle of an economic crisis. Your kids grew without life changing injuries but you didn't know that and you didn't have to battle a cancer.

So at the twilight of your life you might say that you wish you hadn't worked overtime for that startup or spent your weekends on side projects but at the time you were worried about paying your rent or a dead-end career path and you had to try to work harder because you had no way of knowing things would turn out fine. And maybe they turned out fine because of your efforts.

Hindsight is 20/20 and this is just as true for your future self judging your current self.

Re: Life Is Short (2016)

#255

Post by m3kw9 »

I think counting visits or counting in general isn’t as good as getting that one quality time you spend with that person that would remember for a life time. You could be visiting and just be around, while that is also good but you may wish you did way more

Re: Life Is Short (2016)

#256

Post by myth_drannon »

icelancer wrote: post #94
msie wrote: post #73

At 51, I am trying to come to grips with wasting my life in my 20s, 30s and 40s. I don't remember doing anything memorable during that time. I spent too much time doing bullshit programming or doing the same old comfortable things with friends. I wish I dated more. Tried more things that young people can do. I was too scared to make mistakes. Now I can't go back. It's driving me nuts.

Don't be 68 wondering the same thing about the last decade and a half.

That's the problem, now you can't know what you would regret in 20 years.

Re: Life Is Short (2016)

#257

Post by SyzygistSix »

jjeaff wrote: post #241
SyzygistSix wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some can slow it waaaay down too.

Does that also make those moments more memorable? I don't have any experience in it, but seems like an interesting possibility that when things seem to slow down you remember them better. Or maybe you remember them even less?

Is an experience only fun or valuable when you can remember it? What does that say about all the things we remember incorrectly?

Re: Life Is Short (2016)

#258

Post by amrocha »

andyjohnson0 wrote: post #231

An average-ish human lifespan of 80 years is approximately 1000 months, or 4000 weeks, or 10,000 days. It's frightening,but my memento mori is to remind myself of this periodically.

This seems like the exact kind of confident mistake that AIs make hahaha

Re: Life Is Short (2016)

#259

Post by watwut »

paulryanrogers wrote: post #185
watwut wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have colleagues like that. When we had kids, I started to feel sorry for their wifes and realized how egoistical those guys are.

Try not to judge, you don't know their circumstances. Some may have medical, family, or cultural challenges ("Homeschool is only way! Daycare is the devil!") that make time at home stressful.

> "Homeschool is only way! Daycare is the devil!"

If they have either of those "cultural challenges", then they are literally dropping even more work and isolation on their wifes. That is why it is egoism.

Because when they do this, their partner has no choice but to do it all. And the partner is getting no break.

I do knows guys like that. They walk around happy. Their wife's walk around stressed, tired, loosing themselves while talking about how much their husbands need to work. While I know they slack around in work padding time cause chatting with friends is fun.

Re: Life Is Short (2016)

#260

Post by alexchantavy »

> The "flow" that imaginative people love so much has a darker cousin that prevents you from pausing to savor life amid the daily slurry of errands and alarms.

This is a great sentence and I want to see it expanded on. I crave being in that flow state and enjoy what I do but it makes me very irritable to be interrupted and I realize needing this level of focus potentially takes me away from other aspects of life like spending time with my family. I’m wondering if others have dealt with these sorts of feelings. I love what I work on, sometimes to the detriment of other things and difficult for me to zoom out in the way described in the essay.

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