121–130 of 567 posts
"'If it's worth doing, it's worth doing well' is bunkum." Doing good enough ... can be enough.
Robert Frost, not sure if it was meant as advice: I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.
I was one of the people who implemented Google's top-level domain system. One day in the microkitchen I met Vint Cerf and told him what I worked on. He very curtly told me that he hates generic top-level domains, they confuse consumers, and ICANN should have been focusing on making .com / .org / .net better instead. It surprised me when I learned that I'd spent the last four years of my life working on a project wher…
Perhaps someone should tell you that consumers hate advertisements, and they are confused by them too :)
Her advice fails to accept the reality of social and emotional needs. It also fails to address the (sometimes severe) downside of non-conformance. This advice made me an Outsider whether or not I wanted to be. I now believe that these were tools she formed to get her through her own family and social trauma, which she falsely assumed would be generally useful, and did her best to arm her children with her best tools. I also believe there are upsides to the approach, but the trade-offs are real and cannot and shouldn't be swept under the rug. I imagine others had similar experiences with religious parents.
Advice is dangerous. It has built in moral hazard. Advice is too often given in well-meaning ignorance and pride - but ultimately advice gets someone else to test your hypothesis for you. So if you've not gotten any life-changing advice, be glad!
The best abstract advice I've been given is to say "I don't know" when I don't know. No waffle, no bullshit, no trying to save face. Saves a lot of time.
Before spending the last money I had on a coding book, the cashier could see my hesitation and said "don't worry, investing in yourself is never a waste of money". It had a profound impact on me.
For anyone reading this and thinking about spending your last 10 bucks on a programming book please use Libgen or a free mooc
Life lesson from 4 hour work week, news just isn't an important thing to keep track of, if something is really important, you'll hear about it eventually.
"Don't beat yourself up about your failures and failings. There are loads of people out there who will do that for you." "Get over yourself." "Don't choose to make enemies" My big one for anyone reading is that life can be short and difficult. You must balance enjoying your time now with investing in yourself and your future. I have had several friends who died young without living their lives while they could. All o…
> You must balance enjoying your time now with investing in yourself and your future. That is, to me, one of the most difficult things to apply in life, and I feel like the rest of your post doesn't exactly provide an answer on how to achieve this. There are so many things that I want to do in life but that I cannot afford to do now, and which I always postpone to later. And it feels like I'll let a great deal of thi…
With 20k (and if you’re really lucky no debt) and a job that most people on this site have, you are lucky and will be able to do some things others can’t.
I’ll give you one. I spent about $2,000 in 2014 to take my wife to Paris and London (part of the trip was covered by my work, so it was a little less expensive). At the time we had debt, we were young (mid 20’s) and could afford it but the more prudent thing to do would have been to throw that money at debt or invest it. The S&P 500 was roughly 1900 at that time. Today it’s 3900. So invested I would now have $4k in the bank. As someone in my mid-30s, no amount of money can bring me back to my 20s with my wife in her mid 20s, without the responsibility of kids, for a week in Paris and London.
And playing that further out - if that money even 20x’d by the time I’m 80, at that point I’d still give it up to have had the experience with my young wife.
Not sure if that makes sense - but recognizing these tradeoffs while you can and making the decision to take the action is a tricky thing to get right. You can always make more money but you can’t make more time, and you won’t get your youth back again. So have fun. But everything in moderation and recognize that you need to take care of your future self as well (e.g. don’t take two years off around Paris and London and lose your job, etc…)
Comfort is a drug. Once you get used to it becomes addicting. Give a weak person consistent stimulation, good food, cheap entertainment and they will throw their ambitions right out the window. Comfort is a graveyard of dreams. For a shit ton of my teens all I did was chase comfort until this hit me earlier last year. Now I wait for pain to make sure what Im doing goes against the current to bend the resistance to my…
I was one of the people who implemented Google's top-level domain system. One day in the microkitchen I met Vint Cerf and told him what I worked on. He very curtly told me that he hates generic top-level domains, they confuse consumers, and ICANN should have been focusing on making .com / .org / .net better instead. It surprised me when I learned that I'd spent the last four years of my life working on a project wher…
> He very curtly told me that he hates generic top-level domains, they confuse consumers Perhaps someone should tell you that consumers hate advertisements, and they are confused by them too :)