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Advice to young people, the lies I tell myself (2024)

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Re: Advice to young people, the lies I tell myself (2024)

#31
post #7

> How to Get a Job Idk about this, I have gotten almost every job I have ever had on cold-apply, including internships. The only one that wasn't that way was talking to a (internal) recruiter in college. Don't discount that path. I did not have the best grades or anything, but (IMO) a mix of skills that was a good fit for the job at hand and confidence I could apply them. Most of the people you will interact with in…

My last two jobs I got from Easy Apply on LinkedIn, which is the lowest effort application possible.

Re: Advice to young people, the lies I tell myself (2024)

#32

My advice is: Don’t let someone else control your life. Switch occupation every 2 years, even if you find a great environment. Don’t chase, for what you need must come to you. Understand no one can give you the answers you seek; you have to live it.

2 years of job hopping is almost a death sentence in some countries.

Re: Advice to young people, the lies I tell myself (2024)

#33
post #7

> How to Get a Job Idk about this, I have gotten almost every job I have ever had on cold-apply, including internships. The only one that wasn't that way was talking to a (internal) recruiter in college. Don't discount that path. I did not have the best grades or anything, but (IMO) a mix of skills that was a good fit for the job at hand and confidence I could apply them. Most of the people you will interact with in…

My last two jobs I got from Easy Apply on LinkedIn, which is the lowest effort application possible.

Congrats! I have never heard anyone saying that this "easy apply" function/button leads to _anything_ - Ive tried it myself couple of times, I do not get event a rejection: Its just like its going to dev null

Re: Advice to young people, the lies I tell myself (2024)

#34
Choosing is a big one. Something I learned later in life about emotional maturity and controlling your emotions is that it's just choosing to feel an emotion.

Like, feeling angry for longer than I needed because I didn't know how to make the choice to feel happy or calm.

Of course there's more nuance to it but I agree with choosing

Re: Advice to young people, the lies I tell myself (2024)

#35
post #30
post #3

My interpretation of the newspaper image-counting experiment is quite different from that of the author. My view is that unlucky people don't trust the system (for a good reason) so they don't trust the text; given the nature of the experiment, it is reasonable that they would think the text is a trap to mislead them. It actually mirrors reality perfectly because most people are constantly misled about everything...…

The reality is that nothing in life can be trusted but everything can be modeled. For example, you never know what a driver going 60 miles/hr will do, but you do know that the laws of physics say that the driver can’t suddenly go backwards. Once you figure this out, you realize you can work through absolute chaos because you can work with black boxes. It doesn’t matter if the media is lying. For example, the source m…

Sure, but I think the media mostly misleads through omission and shifting the focus.

It seems trivial, but on a national or global scale, so many things happen that it becomes a powerful force.

Every day, the media ignores millions of events that happened in the country. It only reports on a few hundreds. The way it chooses what is important give it massive power.

Every day, some politicians somewhere act in a corrupt manner. The media covers a tiny fraction of those. Instead the media might fill the space with celebrity gossip. This creates a false impression that things are alright when they are not.

Unfortunately it's hard for us to get a general sense for how people in our society are doing because our perception is badly distorted.

My sense is that our current society is terrible and many people are harmed and left behind but the suffering is covered up and nobody is held accountable. This is based on what I've observed of people who I used to go to school with (for example).

Re: Advice to young people, the lies I tell myself (2024)

#36

Choosing is a big one. Something I learned later in life about emotional maturity and controlling your emotions is that it's just choosing to feel an emotion. Like, feeling angry for longer than I needed because I didn't know how to make the choice to feel happy or calm. Of course there's more nuance to it but I agree with choosing

Emotions are not controllable or choosable but our reactions to them are trainable. One good technique for this is mindfully observing and labelling the emotion until it goes away; not trying to change it but also not acting on it. With practice one can observe the emotion subsiding within a minute or so. This, eventually, leads to less emotional reaction overall because we're taking away the habitual pattern of the mind to constantly react to everything it likes or dislikes.

Re: Advice to young people, the lies I tell myself (2024)

#37
post #3

My interpretation of the newspaper image-counting experiment is quite different from that of the author. My view is that unlucky people don't trust the system (for a good reason) so they don't trust the text; given the nature of the experiment, it is reasonable that they would think the text is a trap to mislead them. It actually mirrors reality perfectly because most people are constantly misled about everything...…

Fair to say unlucky people are skeptical/pessimistic/realistic and lucky people are naive/optimistic? If yes, the question is why? What came first? Their luck or their perspective? Maybe a couple instances of things working out tips the scales early in life!

People in my life routinely talk about how lucky I am. Its a big enough thing that it's kind of a meme. I think a big part of it is strategic disassociation. You can't do it with every decision in your life but if you pick and choose some focal points where you just pick the choice with the unknown but possibly positive outcome, commit to it fully, and internalize the value of the joy of discovery without worrying about it too hard you often come out ahead.

Re: Advice to young people, the lies I tell myself (2024)

#38
Overall I think it’s a good perspective and worth reading to learn your perspective and experience. Just for anyone who doesn’t come from a good place, please be kind to yourself. You probably really need to work exceptionally hard and need to have top 1% resume. And articles like this can be quite depressing. Don’t let it you down

The author tries to be mindful about it and I appreciate it, but from a perspective of someone from a shithole it still might feel bad

Referring to:

> I've never gotten a job by applying to it. It's always been referrals or someone reaching out to me. So honestly, my resume is shit compared to my peers. I'm terrible at interviewing, and I've never done LeetCode. This is not a brag; it's just not my style. Am I a nepo baby? I don't know. Was I a morale hire? I'm pretty disagreeable. Was it merit? Also not sure

> I recognize that not everyone has access to the same networking opportunities, and the traditional job application process can be a valid and necessary path for many. But social media, when used correctly, is a great way to get an opportunity

Re: Advice to young people, the lies I tell myself (2024)

#39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's fascinating. I know only a handful of people who got their jobs through cold applying. The majority of my friends were either referred by colleagues or received inbound recruiter email. That is, with the exception of my cohort in CS undergrad; we attended our university career fair for out entry into the workforce. It's heartening to know that the cold apply method can be successful.

Every one of my jobs has been cold applying. I don’t like maintaining networks explicitly because it takes a lot of work I have no interest in doing.

The thing is, some people don't view "maintaining networks" as work, and it's something that not only comes naturally when they do it, but they actually do it naturally, automatically.

These people have a real advantage.

It's like how I may have a real durable advantage because I really enjoy reading about software, computers, etc, so I just consume a lot of information passively.

Or maybe how I get a lot of practice arguing or convincing people on reddit or space battles.com.

If someone viewed reading Hacker News as work, I'm not sure they'd EVER do it.

Re: Advice to young people, the lies I tell myself (2024)

#40

Choosing is a big one. Something I learned later in life about emotional maturity and controlling your emotions is that it's just choosing to feel an emotion. Like, feeling angry for longer than I needed because I didn't know how to make the choice to feel happy or calm. Of course there's more nuance to it but I agree with choosing

No, people are not choosing emotions. You can show them or not, but it is not true that one "chooses" them.
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