Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

What If You Could Do It All Over?

newyorker.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

231–240 of 460 posts

Re: What If You Could Do It All Over?

#231

Post by Waterluvian »

acwan93 wrote: post #8

This reminds me of “The Bell Jar” by Sylvia Plath, which has a quote Aziz Ansari used in his series “Master of None”: > "I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor,…

Forgive my nerding. This week I've been playing dark souls. I couldn't commit to a plan this time around and so now I'm part mage, part rogue, part knight, and I can't use any of the good weapons and I have like five weapons all partly upgraded. My figs all rotted and my character is just so mediocre.

Re: What If You Could Do It All Over?

#232

Post by pizza_shit »

person_of_color wrote: post #157
akhilcacharya wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

lol, which FAANG is this? I have friends that joined Goldman at the same time as I started working, and I make more and work less.

If you think everyone at FAANG makes 500k at mid-senior SWE (i.e Associate) level, you're smoking something.

Goldman banking associates do not make 500k lmao. you are smoking something

500 at Goldman is like VP with some tenure, which would be similar to E6 at Facebook

Hell Goldman sales and trading managing directors make 750-900k a year, which is what a good E7 at Facebook makes, both usually reached by age 33-35 by high achievers.

Re: What If You Could Do It All Over?

#233

Post by alltakendamned »

victorronin wrote: post #227

This is a fascinating subject. It looks like many people are commenting about alternative realities and that exploring them is a fool's game (BTW. I concur with that). The thing which bothers me is upbeat comments about living here and now and planting the seeds for future changes. It feels like current problems (and desire to wish them away via woulda/counda/shoulda) didn't happen entirely randomly. These problems a…

If everything is a priority, nothing is.

For me it's been helpful to understand who benefits from my actions in that particular moment, and then prioritized the ones where I benefit too.

In personal finance context they say to pay yourself first. I think this also applies when e.g. prioritizing health. And when paying yourself first, this also means doing things when most energy is available and leaving other things for when you're tired.

Re: What If You Could Do It All Over?

#235

Post by twelvechairs »

acwan93 wrote: post #8

This reminds me of “The Bell Jar” by Sylvia Plath, which has a quote Aziz Ansari used in his series “Master of None”: > "I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor,…

Reminds me of the famed Jacques Brel song 'La chanson de Jacky' - He sings through many possible exotic futures for himself, but what he really wants to do is return to his childhood where he can be "Beau, beau, beau et con à la fois" ("Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful and stupid at the same time")

Re: What If You Could Do It All Over?

#236

Post by Razengan »

I for one would love to reincarnate with my memories from this life intact.

The best combination of starting over + immortality.

Funnily enough, this might actually be quite possible to achieve with sufficient technology.

Re: What If You Could Do It All Over?

#237

Post by at_a_remove »

Perhaps the only productive thought that comes out of ruminating on this topic is, come the revolution, the guidance counselors will be first against the wall. Honestly, I had no idea that the profession of actuary even existed, but I would have likely been rather good at it, having built my own primitive statistical laws as a kid playing with dice and taking grad-level courses in stats as an undergraduate. And gracious did I ask the guidance counselors what was out there.

I entered college as a Nuke E, then rather quickly realized that (at the time), there wasn't much of a career in it if you didn't want to work in a submarine. A guidance counselor could have clued me in to that kind of thing. I switched to physics, as it would be more general, only to, after observing the actual lives lived by the faculty and the PhD students, that the competition was quite fierce for such meager stakes. Noticing that my brilliant professors might have second jobs or rustbuckets to get to work, noting that a few of them were looking a bit threadbare, it was quite a shock.

Guidance counselors ought to have a lot of this information on tap. Perhaps they do now, but at the time, it wasn't available at my high school.

Perhaps we are drawn to this topic if only for the younger generations.

Re: What If You Could Do It All Over?

#238

Post by seppin »

Felony_Fred wrote: post #75
acwan93 wrote: post #8

This reminds me of “The Bell Jar” by Sylvia Plath, which has a quote Aziz Ansari used in his series “Master of None”: > "I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor,…

Excellent break down of the concept by Jordan Peterson, professor of psychology at the University of Toronto ( 9:18 ); Jordan Peterson Pick Your Sacrifice https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5--W9mhC4zA

[flagged]

Re: What If You Could Do It All Over?

#239

Post by prawn »

warent wrote: post #160
abnercoimbre wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

29 and ditto. You know the phrase "30's is the new 20's." There's some truth to it, right?

I've never really understood what this means. Did people in their 20s have their life pretty well together in the past? or does it mean when you're in your 30s is the best time to start partying and throwing caution to the wind? Is your 30s when you first leave home and get a higher education? It's really a really confusing turn of phrase to me. I must be missing context

I've always taken it to be about your peak - when life is at its best. In your 20s, you're generally in good health, maintain a good social network from school or college, active social life, etc. I'm in my early 40s and feel like I have it more together now than in the past: fewer but better friendships, more interesting conversations, more means to do what I want in terms of travel or entertainment.
Post reply on HN