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The Top Of My Todo List

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Re: The Top Of My Todo List

#181

Post by drzaiusapelord »

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…

>That is to say I wonder whether people confuse nostalgia with regret.

This is such an excellent point. This "dying patients" list greatly ignores the opportunity cost of getting to where you managed to get to in life.

Lets say I grant these wishes. I wave my magic wand and you work less. Now your memories are full of being poor, sending your kids to some shitty school, getting robbed in a poor neighborhood as opposed to working more but being able to live in a better neighborhood, going on more vacations, having extra money.

So its like saying, "I want my cake to eat it too." Well, that wasn't possible when you were younger and its certainly not possible on your deathbed.

Re: The Top Of My Todo List

#182

Post by drzaiusapelord »

foobarian wrote: post #31
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?

My old stoner underachievers who never finished school still live in the same shitty hometown, got married young to the same high school girlfriend, have mental illness/drug issues, have kids who hate them, and otherwise live miserable lives.

I think the whole "be an underachiever, there's happiness in it you stupid capitalist" is something of a myth. Truth is, life is little more than trade-offs and opportunity costs. Truth is that if you want something of a comfortable life, want to not live in the ghetto, and do things like have expendable income, take foreign vacations, etc you need to give a good chuck of your life to work.

Re: The Top Of My Todo List

#183

Post by prawn »

Radix wrote: post #173
prawn wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

would you give some examples got those of us who may be missing out?

Apart from NY, my most recent trips have been mostly West Coast, and Chicago to LA. The real standouts have been national parks and Utah is amazing for that, but before I went I had no idea. Arches National Park is stunning and great fun to hike around but quite accessible to even non-hikers. Same with Zion (Angel's Landing and The Narrows!) and Bryce, also in Utah.

Did the Bright Angel Trail from the Grand Canyon South Rim and liked Yosemite, especially hiking Half Dome which was a favourite too.

The area around San Fran is cool, Chicago is quality, some of the smaller highway driving around Texas and New Mexico I really enjoyed. Mesa Verde. Antelope Canyon if you can handle the hordes.

If you're an efficient traveller, you could knock off three top-tier parks in Utah in a week without IMO rushing. Moving quickly yes, but not rushing.

Re: The Top Of My Todo List

#184

Post by javajosh »

pg wrote: post #66
javajosh wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This implies that you advocate working very hard for what is essentially an early retirement.

Sort of. More like working very hard till you achieve financial independence, after which you can do whatever you want. You don't have to stop working; you just never have to work on anyone else's terms.

Something bugs me about this, and I'm having a hard time putting my finger on it. The first thing that sticks out is that you kind of imply that there is no difference between work and not work. 'Working hard' is something you do for financial independence, which implies the earning of money. And yet, even after you earn enough, you say that it's okay to continue earning even more money through work? It seems to me that if one takes the dictum "don't work too hard" seriously that you'd stop earning money through work once you've earned enough. Otherwise the temptation to define work as something that you just want to do is too great, which would then render the dictum "don't work too much" meaningless.

Sorry if that's a little rushed, but there's a surprising amount to unpack about a seemingly simple statement.

Re: The Top Of My Todo List

#186

Post by jonah »

edw519 wrote: post #61

When 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/…

And then watch Kathryn Schulz's TEDx talk on the psychology of regret and why it's OK: http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2011/12/05/kathryn-sc...

Re: The Top Of My Todo List

#187

Post by Tyrannosaurs »

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #181
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…

>That is to say I wonder whether people confuse nostalgia with regret. This is such an excellent point. This "dying patients" list greatly ignores the opportunity cost of getting to where you managed to get to in life. Lets say I grant these wishes. I wave my magic wand and you work less. Now your memories are full of being poor, sending your kids to some shitty school, getting robbed in a poor neighborhood as oppose…

There are two issues with your argument:

1) Money doesn't equate to happiness - economists have shown this. It increases up to an annual income of about $60,000 then flat lines completely. So yes you need to have a solid income, but the point extra stops making a difference comes surprisingly early.

2) Even if that weren't true you've turned in into something of an all or nothing situation (I may have misunderstood here in which case forgive me). There are obviously levels within everything - yes you could work the least you can get away with or work 100 hours a week and always be on call, but you could also work 40 hours a week and take regular holidays, or work flat our for a couple of months then take a month off.

Maybe some of us are spending too much time on cake acquisition. If we spent less time doing that we may not have such a large cake but we would at least be able to eat the smaller cake that we had.

Re: The Top Of My Todo List

#188

Post by Tyrannosaurs »

melvinram wrote: post #76
ErrantX wrote: post #41

Hmm. 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".…

I struggle with this from time to time. I'm building a business that I plan/hope will allow me to have the freedom to do whatever I want with my time at some point in the future. Today, however, I work. I work a lot. 12 hours is the low end for a day. I've put work ahead of lot of things. If I were to truly close my eyes and do what I feel like, I'd be headed to a river/lake or getting on a plane. But I have clients,…

I have two concerns with the work now, enjoy later:

1) It forms habits. I think there are a lot of people who work now and just keep working because they never work out how to stop.

2) Later isn't always what you think it might be. A cautionary tale:

My parents worked (very) hard their whole lives, both became company directors, had a small shareholding in the company one of them worked for and did well out of it. They wanted to get themselves (and me) set up and get to the point they could enjoy retirement.

When they did retire (a bit after 60) within a year or so my mother had to have her hip replaced which laid her up for some time and rather scuppered many of their plans. Things got worse on that front and she ended up having both hips replaced twice. She was then diagnosed with cancer and died 18 months later (much of the enjoyment during that period limited by her treatment).

My dad is now way more than comfortable but his plans are in tatters.

In short: later is always a risk. Later may not be what you think it will. Perhaps it's best not to bet it all on later.

Re: The Top Of My Todo List

#189

Post by cjmauthor »

GET AWAY FRO0M THESE MACHINES JUST A LITTLE BIT MORE! I think technology has created this vacuum where everything around you no longer exists and you find yourself in a place of isolation. To all those like myself jumping from machines at home, to iphones on the train, to machines at work, to iphones on the way home, to machines while you eat dinner, to iphones as you lay in the bed, and finally you wake up and the first thing you do is reach for your iphone. Let's make a serious effort to spend more quality time away from the machines before it is too late!

Re: The Top Of My Todo List

#190

Post by ojr »

edw519 wrote: post #61

When 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/…

Do the Right Thing like Spike Lee
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