The Top Of My Todo List • Hacker News Board

Re: The Top Of My Todo List

#31

Post by foobarian » Sat, Apr 21, 2012, 7:37 PM UTC

dkrich wrote: post #23

At the risk of sounding cynical, I wonder how much it actually matters. We tend to live our lives thinking as we go that we should be striving to end up at some optimal place and that the purpose of our lives is desperately trying to keep us exactly on that course. If we don't ask the girl to the dance, or give up on an idea, or spend extra nights at the office to get a promotion instead of hanging out with our famil…

To add to your comment, I wonder what the "regret bulletpoints" look like for the people who actually did all those things that PG listed. Maybe they wish that they worked more instead of hanging out with friends all the time?

Re: The Top Of My Todo List

#32

Post by smashing » Sat, Apr 21, 2012, 7:38 PM UTC

dkrich wrote: post #23

At the risk of sounding cynical, I wonder how much it actually matters. We tend to live our lives thinking as we go that we should be striving to end up at some optimal place and that the purpose of our lives is desperately trying to keep us exactly on that course. If we don't ask the girl to the dance, or give up on an idea, or spend extra nights at the office to get a promotion instead of hanging out with our famil…

Advice rarely comes with the caveats, and free advice is worth every cent. Ever hear anyone write on a blog, "I wish I didn't have to spend so much time with my family." or, "Given the Dunning–Kruger effect, don't follow your dreams as you are unlikely to achieve your unrealistic expectations given your current skill level."

Re: The Top Of My Todo List

#33

Post by DanBC » Sat, Apr 21, 2012, 7:41 PM UTC

dkrich wrote: post #23

At the risk of sounding cynical, I wonder how much it actually matters. We tend to live our lives thinking as we go that we should be striving to end up at some optimal place and that the purpose of our lives is desperately trying to keep us exactly on that course. If we don't ask the girl to the dance, or give up on an idea, or spend extra nights at the office to get a promotion instead of hanging out with our famil…

> If we don't ask the girl to the dance

If you don't ask the first girl to the dance you might not be brave enough to ask the second girl to the dance and before you know it you're in a self-reinforcing loop of not asking anyone to any dances until you're old enough to realise and break out of that loop.

> Why worry about what our future selves will regret while forgoing present happiness?

I'm not sure how to grok that sentence. Here's two responses.

i) Exactly. Don't miss out on current happiness just to keep the future you happy. That's the point - future you does not want to look back on a life of hard grind and no fun just so you can do the looking back from a gold bed on your huge yacht.

ii) Because seeking contentment now is a way to ensure that you'll be contented in future and the future you won't look back on a life of missed opportunities. Missing out on happiness now is sometimes important in the short term, but it's not a great way to live a life. Perhaps a lot of grind now means you can retire early and relax and enjoy stuff. But you have to live long enough to retire, and by that time you may have missed some really fun things like babies growing.

> the reality is that life is no more valuable at the end than at the beginning or the middle

Yes. That is the point. Don't grind today to provide future you with excessive luxury. A bit of grinding might be needed to avoid future financial hardship, but other than that you should seek things that fulfil you today. Happiness today will make future you happy.

Future you is not more valuable, but s/he will have the benefit of hindsight.

Re: The Top Of My Todo List

#34

Post by mmatants » Sat, Apr 21, 2012, 7:42 PM UTC

koji wrote: post #29

japhyr wrote: post #14

There are two ways of living: fear-based, and love-based. People who live fear-based avoid things. They avoid things that might cause heartache, pain, difficulty, etc. but all of the most interesting pursuits in life have the potential to cause these things sometimes. People who live love-based move towards things that bring happiness and satisfaction in the long term. They work hard and play hard, and when they hurt…

I think this can also defined in the level of risk one's willing to accept. Fear-based is having a low risk tolerance. It's so easy to choose the safe route; steady corporate job, work your way up the ladder, etc. It's predefined and historically tested. But I fail to see a lot of happy people at the end of this line. Making big life changes is hard, and a risk. The more I talk to people about this topic, though, the…

You have described a much more "realistic" model for this - it's a spectrum of risk-aversion, not a binary attribute.

A complementary attribute is the level of "abundance mentality" present in the person.

The difficult thing, though, which is what everyone glosses over, is that it is difficult to achieve abundance mentality. It's a good metric to look at, but there is much, much more work necessary to improve it.

And that work is actually not at all trivial, unfortunately, and hard to pick up on the Internet, as it is highly personalized.

Re: The Top Of My Todo List

#35

Post by unimpressive » Sat, Apr 21, 2012, 7:43 PM UTC

sundeep_b wrote: post #25

unimpressive wrote: post #12

I once did something similar, except inverted. I'd put at the bottom of my to-do list "...Die unfulfilled and unhappy" I figured seeing that at the bottom of my to-do list would remind me to make sure it doesn't happen. And maybe even rethink the items on top.

I'm stuck whether to call this optimistic or pessimistic, but I can sure call it clever.

It's sort of like the mental trick of deciding by seeing what you hope for in a coin toss. [0]

If the line seems really dissonant with the rest of the list you're probably fine, if it doesn't, or even seems to naturally progress from it, you should seriously rethink what you're doing. [1]

[0] First result I got: http://positivemed.com/2012/04/15/when-faced-with-two-choice...

[1] At least if it's the latter.

Re: The Top Of My Todo List

#36

Post by antidaily » Sat, Apr 21, 2012, 7:43 PM UTC

K2h wrote: post #27

My boss doesn't read hn, so I can get away with this. In the last few years, after my daughter was born, I made a decision to not work too much. I consciously reduced my working hours as much as possible. To my surprise and delight, my productivity and overall work completion has actually gone up. By being time bound (I am leaving at 5 no matter what) I often have to work like mad to get my work done. I have to make…

I just forwarded this to your boss.

Re: The Top Of My Todo List

#37

Post by K2h » Sat, Apr 21, 2012, 7:45 PM UTC

antidaily wrote: post #36

K2h wrote: post #27

My boss doesn't read hn, so I can get away with this. In the last few years, after my daughter was born, I made a decision to not work too much. I consciously reduced my working hours as much as possible. To my surprise and delight, my productivity and overall work completion has actually gone up. By being time bound (I am leaving at 5 no matter what) I often have to work like mad to get my work done. I have to make…

I just forwarded this to your boss.

That made me laugh. I would be ok with it though as he is very happy with my performance. Reviews were yesterday.

Re: The Top Of My Todo List

#38

Post by koji » Sat, Apr 21, 2012, 7:48 PM UTC

japhyr wrote: post #17

tomp wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing about dreams is, they don't need to be achieved; even failing to achieve them is better than not trying - at least you've tried. I know this, now I have to go out and actually do it.

Although the trying should lead to some fruition. Always trying but never having succeeded would be a pretty sad way to end up. This awareness gives me the stamina to work through all the details it takes to end up with a polished product.

I agree that achieving your dreams often takes a lot of work, and often at the cost of other aspects of your life. Finding balance is key, but that's easier said than done. I think that's what we're all striving for, but if it was easy we wouldn't be having this conversation.

Personally, I'm working on segmenting my life. When it's time to work, work hard and focused. But remind yourself there's time to play. If you don't play, what's the point of working hard?

If anyone has figured out how to achieve your dreams while maintaining your life balance, please let us know!

Re: The Top Of My Todo List

#39

Post by koji » Sat, Apr 21, 2012, 7:50 PM UTC

sunsu wrote: post #4

mgallivan wrote: post #2

I think that the fifth rule, be happy, is either: - a guiding principle by which the other four rules are derived or... - the effect of following the previous four rules I don't think of "be happy" as a rule so much in itself.

I think that, more often than not, being happy requires choosing to be happy. There are far too many unplanned moments in life where, even if you've followed the other four rules, you will not be happy unless you actively choose to make lemonade out of your lemons.

I think this is a great point. The key to happiness is not planning, because life will not accommodate those plans. The key is to be flexible when life happens. Anyone remember the book "Who Moved My Cheese?"

Re: The Top Of My Todo List

#40

Post by dhruval » Sat, Apr 21, 2012, 7:51 PM UTC

japhyr wrote: post #14

There are two ways of living: fear-based, and love-based. People who live fear-based avoid things. They avoid things that might cause heartache, pain, difficulty, etc. but all of the most interesting pursuits in life have the potential to cause these things sometimes. People who live love-based move towards things that bring happiness and satisfaction in the long term. They work hard and play hard, and when they hurt…

To make this more relevant to entrepreneurship and startups...

It is possible to get a pretty good idea of how someone will behave under times of stress by just talking to them for a few minutes. Then gauging if most of their worldview is driven by-

- Shame / Guilt / Apathy

- Fear / Anxiety

- Anger / Hate

- Pride

- Courage

- Joy

- Compassion

Now we are often taught to 'be compassionate' or the 'enjoy life', but there is a difference between actually feeling that way and trying to convince people, including yourself, that you feel this way (which would be fear driven).

This is a bit difficult to explain, especially given my limited writing skills, but pretty easy to pick up in the subtext of conversations. For instance in the way that people phrase certain things, or tone with which they talk about certain issues.

There is probably some correlation between this sort of emotional development and conventional success. But I think this sort of development is probably more important to the subjective experience of life as a human.