Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: What is the best advice you got on any aspect of life?

news.ycombinator.com

201–210 of 281 posts

Re: Ask HN: What is the best advice you got on any aspect of life?

#202

'a_bonobo, you're lying to yourself.' I am an overly optimistic person and I was talking about how I believe my career will pan out and develop. They just stopped me and said that I was lying to myself, being way too optimistic, blindly assuming stuff that (relatively surely) would not happen or pan out. They were right. Sometimes you want to believe something so much, even though it has no chance of being true.

I too suffer from optimism. For me it’s a double edged sword. It can help you take a leap of faith, but it can also keep you from quitting. It’s really weird.

Re: Ask HN: What is the best advice you got on any aspect of life?

#203
Another: break hard things into small enough steps (and possibly write them down so you can forget all but the one you are working on). If the next step is hard, break it into small steps, etc. And pray humbly & with willingness to be obedient. Things always go better for me this way.

(It helps to have a good tool to handle the capturing and rearranging of collections of steps for various kinds of work in progress. I use the one I wrote, AGPL; in my profile.)

(Thoughtful comments appreciated with any downvotes; thanks.)

Re: Ask HN: What is the best advice you got on any aspect of life?

#205
post #2

Do you have evidence or do you have assumptions? Something I learned in CBT - while I can trust my mind to return facts I know most of the time, if I'm in a heated moment or excessively stressed out I can start making assumptions of the world (to save time and think faster?) - sometimes these assumptions are wrong. Basically the therapist taught me to be less like ChatGPT, haha. I can express my assumptions and opini…

CBT = Cognitive behavioral therapy

Re: Ask HN: What is the best advice you got on any aspect of life?

#206
post #2

Do you have evidence or do you have assumptions? Something I learned in CBT - while I can trust my mind to return facts I know most of the time, if I'm in a heated moment or excessively stressed out I can start making assumptions of the world (to save time and think faster?) - sometimes these assumptions are wrong. Basically the therapist taught me to be less like ChatGPT, haha. I can express my assumptions and opini…

CBT = Cognitive behavioral therapy

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: What is the best advice you got on any aspect of life?

#207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This attitude is a good reason to take the advice.

Honestly it’s not. I would basically be reducing my hourly rate if I _never_ stopped interviewing, because most of those are dreck that can’t meet my current comp in the first place.

Why would you apply to dreck that can’t meet your comp in the first place?

The advice wasn’t apply to jobs. The advice was to take the interview.

Re: Ask HN: What is the best advice you got on any aspect of life?

#208

Work and career progression: “always take the interview”. I reported direct to the CEO at a startup and I told him our largest customer had headhunted me, and I assumed I wasn’t special and they’re probably targeting many of us. He asked me what the process was like and what the offer was, and when I told him I didn’t take the initial call hand he shook his head. “You always take the interview. Absolute worst case is…

realistically this just ends up wasting tons of time on both sides of hiring. Interviewing is unpaid labor, do it as little as possible.

As someone who does a ton of interviews, I hope people are wasting tons of my time!

I love the opportunity to talk to people about working where I work and if a great person wants to waste my time, I’ll take the chance to sell them on where I work.

Re: Ask HN: What is the best advice you got on any aspect of life?

#209

For young, single heterosexual men; cultivate deep platonic friendships with women. Get a hobby, do charity work, find something where you meet and become good friends with multiple women of different ages and backgrounds. Do not ever attempt to date any of these women. Why? Because most men know woefully few women, and your life will be much richer. A lot of men know very little about the experiences, fears, and hop…

Eh, it depends. I don't really have many female friends and it hasn't seemed to be a negative. The biggest issue is that there are relatively few women interested in the same types of hobbies I have been. Also, shared interest is not as great a basis as shared context for building friendships. So the number of women who have the same interests and shared context are even lower. I have only a few close male friends an…

How do you know something isn't a negative if you can't test it?

Re: Ask HN: What is the best advice you got on any aspect of life?

#210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, it depends. I don't really have many female friends and it hasn't seemed to be a negative. The biggest issue is that there are relatively few women interested in the same types of hobbies I have been. Also, shared interest is not as great a basis as shared context for building friendships. So the number of women who have the same interests and shared context are even lower. I have only a few close male friends an…

How do you know something isn't a negative if you can't test it?

The same way that the other commentor contends it's a positive - anecdotal experience, plus a logical framework supporting it.
Post reply on HN