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Ask HN: What are good life skills for people to learn?

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Re: Ask HN: What are good life skills for people to learn?

#191

Post by aidos »

ilikepi wrote: post #55

I haven't seen knots mentioned yet. Learning a few basic knots from different categories may only be occasionally useful, but on those occasions it can be quite valuable and rewarding. Practicing knot tying requires minimal resources, and it can be a great activity to wind down at the end of the day.

Oh yeah, great one. I love knots. When I don’t have a technical puzzle to mull over while drifting off to sleep I like to visualise knots - it’s surprisingly tricky to follow along without a line in your hand.

Everyone should learn the bowline because it gives you a lot of bang for buck. One I discovered on the brilliant website below that I’ve really come to love is the tumble hitch (quick release hitch on a bight).

https://www.animatedknots.com/bowline-knot

https://www.animatedknots.com/tumble-hitch-knot

Re: Ask HN: What are good life skills for people to learn?

#193

Post by rzzzt »

biren34 wrote: post #124

1. How to spend less than you earn. Lots of people desire “financial freedom”, meaning they can spend what they want when they want it. Solving this via revenue leads to the hedonic treadmill, and you’ll never out earn your growing wants. Instead solve this by controlling your wants, and you’ve achieved financial freedom immediately. 2. How to take risks. Finding the balance between recklessness and absolute risk avo…

How do you know what you want?

Re: Ask HN: What are good life skills for people to learn?

#194

Post by yanowitz »

dmerrick wrote: post #176

I always think of this poem by Ralph Waldo Emerson: To laugh often and much; to win the respect of the intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to know that one life ha…

Lovely quote, attribution likely apocryphal (and I don't think it was a poem). https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/06/ is a nice writeup (assuming you trust its citations).

Re: Ask HN: What are good life skills for people to learn?

#195

Post by cableshaft »

schwartzworld wrote: post #133
biren34 wrote: post #124

1. How to spend less than you earn. Lots of people desire “financial freedom”, meaning they can spend what they want when they want it. Solving this via revenue leads to the hedonic treadmill, and you’ll never out earn your growing wants. Instead solve this by controlling your wants, and you’ve achieved financial freedom immediately. 2. How to take risks. Finding the balance between recklessness and absolute risk avo…

1. Spoken like someone who has been lucky. Before I was a dev, I worked less profitable jobs. I was no where near the poverty line, but life is expensive and you can only reduce expenses to a point. Sure, you can probably ease the burden by spending less, but at a certain point spending less means living an ascetic life, free from any frivolous pleasures. The term financial freedom doesn't just mean "making more than…

Not sure why you're being downvoted. I lived what you're saying. It's a reality for a lot of people.

Cheapest option at a proper restaurant: glass of water. I had times where that was the only option that I could manage, unless my friends insisted on paying for me. I'd feel bad, but they were better off and didn't mind (at least they said they didn't mind) and otherwise I might not have even gone out with them.

Splurging for me was going and getting 4 items off the dollar value menu at Wendy's instead of 2 or 3.

But it wouldn't really matter. I'd get sick, have to go to the doctor, get a bill I couldn't pay, it'd go to collections and wreck my credit, then my car would break down the same week, then it breaks down again in a different way a few months later, and will keep doing so because it's an old piece of shit but you can't get anything better, and there's just no getting ahead. Just sinking further and further into debt.

I didn't break out of that cycle until I got a job that almost doubled my salary and dedicated a couple of years to just digging myself out of the hole I had gotten myself into.

I'm a lot better off right now. Actually have savings, some investments. House, dogs, wife, spend more money than I should on stuff I don't really need. But I'm way, way behind others my age in my industry, and my credit is just okay now, not great.

Re: Ask HN: What are good life skills for people to learn?

#196

Post by maverickJ »

1. The power of asking the right questions. For example, if you find yourself doing learning a bunch of difficult things at the same time, the following questions can help you/ a.How many subjects am I currently learning intensely? b.Do these subjects have any relation to each other? c.Why am I currently learning the subjects? d.Have I truly made progress in any of the subjects?

To find out more about questions, this article https://leveragethoughts.substack.com/p/do-not-engage-the-mi... is fantastic.

2. The power of writing. Writing puts thoughts to paper. When you write, the structure of your thoughts becomes more visible. It can tell you if you think properly or not. By writing, your thoughts process becomes more refined. Writing is a feedback loop to your thoughts.

3. How to build relationships. We humans are social creatures. We are quite inter dependent. To navigate through life, we will need to co-operation of others. The book https://amzn.to/3mYvmqo how to win friends and influence others is incredibly good.

4. How to show our work. You can create the best invention in computer science but if it does the right audience do not know about it, the invention languishes in obscurity. This article https://leveragethoughts.substack.com/p/cracking-the-who-you... is one of the best at explaining it.

5. Financial literacy. This is incredibly important. A lot of us go through life without understanding how the financial system works. This leads to us making sub optimal financial choices. I find the book The Richest Man in Babylon https://amzn.to/3mVczMI great at introducing a financial mindset. Financial literacy is also important;Especially for technical people. The life of Nikola Tesla is an example of this https://leveragethoughts.substack.com/p/dont-hinge-your-care...

Re: Ask HN: What are good life skills for people to learn?

#197

Post by Arete314159 »

How to make delicious, nutritious meals on a budget. Bonus points if the prep work is something you can handle while working full-time.

I'll save you the suspense: the secret is buying a crockpot, putting food onto cook in the morning before work, and then voila! Dinner is ready when you get home. Best of all you can use cheap cuts of meat and/or beans.

Re: Ask HN: What are good life skills for people to learn?

#198

Post by Arete314159 »

cableshaft wrote: post #195
schwartzworld wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Spoken like someone who has been lucky. Before I was a dev, I worked less profitable jobs. I was no where near the poverty line, but life is expensive and you can only reduce expenses to a point. Sure, you can probably ease the burden by spending less, but at a certain point spending less means living an ascetic life, free from any frivolous pleasures. The term financial freedom doesn't just mean "making more than…

Not sure why you're being downvoted. I lived what you're saying. It's a reality for a lot of people. Cheapest option at a proper restaurant: glass of water. I had times where that was the only option that I could manage, unless my friends insisted on paying for me. I'd feel bad, but they were better off and didn't mind (at least they said they didn't mind) and otherwise I might not have even gone out with them. Splur…

I've been in the same boat (see other posts). It sucks so much. And so much of the problem is the expense of transport, which is externalized onto regular folks rather than being paid for with taxes.

Even when I was broke and living in NYC, I could still afford my subway pass. I mean barely, but I afforded it. That meant I could always get to the temp job I needed to get to without worrying.

If you think of car ownership as a "tax" because it's required in most parts of the country, it becomes a very expensive regressive tax indeed.

Re: Ask HN: What are good life skills for people to learn?

#199

Post by [deleted] »

JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #126
bob1029 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is by far the most important thing I can think of, followed shortly by being able to maintain a regular, high-quality exercise regimen. Meal prep is the key to keeping the discipline in terms of cooking cheap, high-quality meals for yourself. If you understand some fundamentals about how to store food and scaling recipes up, you can leverage your time very well. In a given week, I spend ~2 hours in the kitchen t…

I am envious of your food budget. A mere pound of chicken breast at my local grocery store costs ~$10/lb, though they range from about ~$5-10lb. However, at the cheaper end, the meat is a demonstrably lower quality, with odd texture issues due to chickens growing so fast (the condition is called 'woody chicken'). Your budget would get me 15 lbs of protein. That's just not enough food for 2 people (my household size).…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: What are good life skills for people to learn?

#200

Post by onion2k »

Retric wrote: post #30

Probably the most important skill people are skipping is etiquette. Which I think says a lot about HN. Communication (texting, listening, etc), maintaining and creating relationships, avoiding injury, relaxation, exercise, cooking, healthy eating, self defense, first aid, swimming, types of reading (fun, searching, learning), searching, separating truth from fiction, knowing when to seek help, a hobby, cleaning, main…

With the exception of listening every single one of the skills you've listed is about yourself. There's nothing about empathy, sympathy, helping other people, or even understanding other people.

If you want to really get ahead in life, learn to understand other people, know what pains they're suffering, and figure out how to solve them. You will never do that well if you're entirely focused on yourself.

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