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The days are long but the decades are short

blog.samaltman.com

221–230 of 406 posts

Re: The days are long but the decades are short

#221
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm I always default to not "do what you love" but "love what you do" in that most work has some interesting component, and what's really important to develop is the ability to isolate that aspect and motivate yourself with it. That's something I think everyone can use, regardless of their position in life

It's easy to say, but in practice it's difficult to go home satisfied with the concept of a dead end job. Personally I found plenty of little things to love about otherwise horrible dead end jobs, but that wasn't really the reason to keep going back to work, I was there to get paid to live my life outside of work because the job itself was not really fun or fruitful.

>Personally I found plenty of little things to love about otherwise horrible dead end jobs, but that wasn't really the reason to keep going back to work, I was there to get paid to live my life outside of work because the job itself was not really fun or fruitful.

I actually think this is a better message for people...

Some jobs are going to be great, others are going to suck. That doesn't really matter because for most people its what you do outside of your job that will determine your happiness. Try and find a job/career that you like but sometimes a job is just something you do for money to fund other stuff and that is perfectly ok.

Personally I find the increasing emphasis on work as a way to derive personal satisfaction troubling. It looks like a subtle trap to me. A way to convince people to forgo time with their family, hobbies, side ventures and anything else you might possibly derive happiness from in favor of just working more and trying to convince yourself that that is enough.

If you love your job then more power to you but sometimes a job is just a means to an end and that is perfectly ok. Just make sure that you are spending the rest of your time doing stuff that makes you happy. Spend time with family and friends, make something, learn something new and make sure you are using the money from your job in ways that will contribute to your long term financial well being.

Re: The days are long but the decades are short

#222

Those of you on HN that are past the 30+ mark. What would you add to this list?

Start saving and investing as early as you can. If you haven't, do it on a war footing. Get rid of debt.

The more you invest, the more you are likely to benefit over time.

In fact you may be surprised more than anything else out there. In many cases, even more than careers, job, raises and promotions- investments play a very critical role in how well you are going to do financially.

Re: The days are long but the decades are short

#223

I believe that the title captures everything. Similar with having kids too, btw. Anything worth doing does require a lot of work. Long days, and you forget the time periods.

The days are long but the years are short: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KktuoQwb3vQ

Re: The days are long but the decades are short

#224

> On work: it’s difficult to do a great job on work you don’t care about. And it’s hard to be totally happy/fulfilled in life if you don’t like what you do for your work I get that this is aimed at the startup crowd, but I've always felt that this sentiment is pretty privileged. We, the elite, get to cherry pick our work and do what we like. But I bet 9/10 people will never feel they have this luxury, and 8/10 will b…

>I know these sentiments are a bit cynical, I just can help but feel sometimes that it's irresponsible to dump the "you can be/do anything!" sentiment on our youth when the reality is nowhere near that for most of them. I understand we need ideals and motivation to make them a reality, but more flowery advice doesn't seem to be the best tactic.

Very much agreed. In fact, I think it's far more reassuring to tell young people that the "take what you can get" world they actually experience is real, and that "we adults" aren't secretly sneering at them for failing to "do great work" or "change the world".

Most people just make a living, and that's ok.

Re: The days are long but the decades are short

#228

I was 5 minutes late to work every morning, because of taking my son to school in the neighborhood where our new house was being built. I didn't want him to have to move schools in the middle of the year. Boss said "This won't do. You'll have to examine your priorities." I thought about it all day, that night. Next morning I got to work (5 minutes late), went in his office, said "I examined my priorities. Work is #12…

Why not just leave 5 minutes earlier?

> Next morning I got to work (5 minutes late)

You showed him!

edit: No, absolutely. Leaving 5 minutes earlier is _not_ an option. How dare he.

Re: The days are long but the decades are short

#229

I was 5 minutes late to work every morning, because of taking my son to school in the neighborhood where our new house was being built. I didn't want him to have to move schools in the middle of the year. Boss said "This won't do. You'll have to examine your priorities." I thought about it all day, that night. Next morning I got to work (5 minutes late), went in his office, said "I examined my priorities. Work is #12…

Oh man. I love reading stories, knowing I will retell it many times. Cheers!

Re: The days are long but the decades are short

#230
post #183
post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You only need one metric: is the job getting done. Everything else is a distraction.

How do you measure that? My team just took tons of heat because there was a complex performance issue that needed our full attention. We clearly communicated that we would need a large chunk of time to solve it, and while we tried to stay responsive, a lot of stuff had to just get ignored for a while to be able to make any progress on it. We're finished now, and what we did will eventually save the client literally m…

Managing a client relationship is very different than managing employees. For managing clients I like over-communicating status while hiding my internal processes as much as possible to allow for a little bit of bullshiting when needed.
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