When I die, I hope I won't regret not spending enough time with my family. This is a reminder for me.
The Top Of My Todo List
151–160 of 197 posts
Re: The Top Of My Todo List
#152You only get one life: use it wisely. A couple of years ago I had a conversation with a man, then aged 85. Outwardly successful, he took over and ran the family textiles business his father had built, raised a family -- "but did you enjoy the job?" I asked. Because before joining the family business he first did a degree in electrical engineering -- in the 1940s -- and joined an engineering consultancy, and worked in…
I think anything you do for a lifetime has a very good chance of becoming "ho hum." After 25 years in the field, I am starting to feel that way more and more about software development. You see the same ideas come up over and over. The same wheels reinvented over and over, but differently enough that you have to take one step back to take two steps forward. I wonder if it's really possible to for most of us to reach…
You pluck the low-hanging fruit early in your career.
This doesn't mean there isn't scope for new thinking and originality; it just means that it's much harder to do something original, and it will take you longer and make you sweat more.
The real mind-death is a job which delivers no challenges and consists of endless repetition.
Re: The Top Of My Todo List
#153When I first saw the title of this essay, I thought I already knew what I was going to say... Something about how my own todo this now has only one item on it, the single most important thing to do next. I gravitated to this based on the great quote by chess master Jose Capablanca: [When asked how many moves ahead he looked while playing]: "Only one, but it's always the right one." (from http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/…
Brilliant, always do the right thing. So catchy and yet so utterly useless at the same time. You sound just like the 'seduction' experts, 'confidence, that's what gets the girl'. My mum had an episode where she quite literally went mad. We spent a couple of weeks visiting her every day as she was confused, scared and angry. At some point I turned to my sister and said 'we have to go home, our lives have to go on'. Th…
it's going to get worse for all of us here on HN in the next 40 years. Medicine has put us in a very awkward position, one of being able to maintain the body when the mind went long ago. Or (imo worse) maintaining the body and mind when the reasons to live have gone. My friend's grandma openly talks about wanting to die as all her friends are dead. But does my friend's Mum want her Mum to die? Of course not. This is a very odd time.
Preach it. (Those who downvoted you obviously didn't read far enough.)
Re: The Top Of My Todo List
#154When I first saw the title of this essay, I thought I already knew what I was going to say... Something about how my own todo this now has only one item on it, the single most important thing to do next. I gravitated to this based on the great quote by chess master Jose Capablanca: [When asked how many moves ahead he looked while playing]: "Only one, but it's always the right one." (from http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/…
My mother went through years of taking care of her aging mother with Alzheimer's and made many sacrifices. So much so that she made each of my siblings and myself promise her that if she ever got Alzheimer's we would put her in a home and move on. She can't bear the thought of putting her children through the pain she endured. Odds are, if G-Forbid this ever happened, we would be by her side every day, telling oursel…
Reading 'Still Alice' by Lisa Genova has helped me.
http://www.stillalice.blogspot.co.uk/
Edit: Link.
Re: The Top Of My Todo List
#155What's so bad about being a cog? I work 9-5 for a large company (100,000+ employees). I clock on each day, they pay me a great daily rate and I enjoy the work that I do. Work doesn't define who I am and I am definitely not unfulfilled. I take French classes, dabble in photography and build the occasional web app. Once a month I take a 3 day weekend and go somewhere I've never been before. So far this year I've been t…
In some ways being a european cog is better than being an american cog. I wish Geneva, Brugge, Rejkjavik, and Madrid were weekend destinations for me! I also wish I had a european-cog vacation allotment!
I'm an Australian who's visited both a few times, including 15 countries in Europe and 10 states of the US last year. Now, Europe is very diverse and a great place to be, but the US is full of awesome stuff. Sometimes I wonder how many locals appreciate what they have.
Re: The Top Of My Todo List
#156I disagree. Strongly. Following your dreams, not working too much, spending time with family and friends, saying what you think, and being happy, might belong at the top of Paul Graham's todo list. He's already succeeded at what most people struggle at: making a living. He may have forgotten that getting by is hard. What's so wrong about being a "cog in a machine"? Large organizations exist partly because scale and s…
Woah, cowboy. > if a hundred people follow their dreams and fail and ruin their lives, PG never hears about it Ruin their lives? Hundreds of people fail in front of pg all the time. As an entrepreneur you fail in little ways constantly, and in big ways repeatedly. But that's ok. Failing is how we learn. Can you think of anyone who ruined their life by failing at a startup?
> Can you think of anyone who ruined their life by failing at a startup?
Yes, I can. Lots of people, actually. But that's fine, I also know plenty of people that succeeded.
Failing at a start-up can do a lot more to you than just costing you some money and some time. It can wreck your relationship with your significant other, your children, your family, your friends and so on. It can cost you more than you could afford. It can put you in debt for a long time to come.
Whether or not this happens is related to how hard you're trying and at what point you throw in the towel. Fail fast is not just a way to tell people to iterate, it is also a way to remind you that if you fail you should fail in such a way that you don't end up losing more than you can afford.
Re: The Top Of My Todo List
#157pg, you should definitely learn something about cultures that are not so self centered then the american one. Your post reads like a prove of a mathematical system that only uses parts of it's own system. Of course it sounds logical.
Paul was born in the UK.
Re: The Top Of My Todo List
#158To me this one looks buggy
> don't work too much
It implies "chillin' out" which is fine occasionally but will not achieve goal 5 "be happy" if over-used.
We put a lot of effort into planning, organising and executing our work lives and many of us are good at. The parallel tendency is ignoring our outside-of-work lives.
I'd postulate if we put the same kind of techniques we apply to work to our personal lives, it would be far more fulfilling than "chillin' out".
I'd also postulate it's a zero sum game - in any given time frame, e.g a week, we only have so much energy, desire and time to invest in being successful, planning, organizing etc.
So I'd propose changing "don't work too much" to
> reduce the effort put into work and invest that effort in personal life instead
Not so catchy unfortunately.
Re: The Top Of My Todo List
#159When I first saw the title of this essay, I thought I already knew what I was going to say... Something about how my own todo this now has only one item on it, the single most important thing to do next. I gravitated to this based on the great quote by chess master Jose Capablanca: [When asked how many moves ahead he looked while playing]: "Only one, but it's always the right one." (from http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/…
Brilliant, always do the right thing. So catchy and yet so utterly useless at the same time. You sound just like the 'seduction' experts, 'confidence, that's what gets the girl'. My mum had an episode where she quite literally went mad. We spent a couple of weeks visiting her every day as she was confused, scared and angry. At some point I turned to my sister and said 'we have to go home, our lives have to go on'. Th…
I want to write a great many things here however I don't know whether your trolling. Hopefully you're just trolling.
However, if you are not then when the denial breaks, don't hurt yourself. Forgive yourself and move to fix it.
Re: The Top Of My Todo List
#160Hmm. About 2 years ago I bought myself a canvas and wrote on it the following: Live happy, make friends, enjoy. Make those dreams happy It was for much the same reason - to inspire me. However, about 6 months later I thought those idea through and realised that, actually, it was an example of "making me feel better". I could sit and look at this poster and think; "yeh, I'm following my dream, I'm going to be happy".…
Watch out for the slump!
When the party is over, all your money is gone, your travels are done, your girls disappointed and you have to go back to more work while not being as successful as you used to be, it can be quite a hangover.