If only.
I'd love more, judge less.
Laugh more, perhaps even cry more, but yell less.
I'd listen more, speak less.
And finally, I'd be so much less selfish, and so much more giving.
If I could do it all over.
What If You Could Do It All Over?
341–350 of 460 posts
Re: What If You Could Do It All Over?
#342I always consider my life is strange. Born in a 3rd world country in a broken home, families fight like in drama, many divorces and remarriage. I went where whoever my current father at that time went, moving from city to city, school to school. Then I find myself in the US, from odd jobs such as dry clean, laundry, sushi, deli, to church admin, to now working as SWE in one of big US tech company in NYC. Married a wi…
I have a similar life, though without the part of a broken home at childhood (parents fought but not out of ordinary I think). It's really hard not being able to visit family often, at most once a year (if you're lucky and if there's no pandemics stopping you!). The hardest part for me is that my wife doesn't like my family, so she refuses to visit them... as half the family lives in one country and half in another,…
Wow, what a question. This is exactly the kind of situation that can branch out to completely different lives.
There's an interesting contrast: the risk-taking choice into the unknown, or the comfortable but boring choice to stay.
If you choose to take the easy path, when you're old you might look back and ask, "Did I make the right choice? What kind of different life would I have had?" Or, if things go well, you might be a satisfied person.
If you choose to go into the unknown, there is a chance that things will not work out better. Maybe you'll have a more difficult life of struggle. Then you might wish that you had stayed in the comfortable but boring life you had.
> good job, great house and extreme social security here - none of which I would have in my own country
That's what you'd be risking for an unknown future..
I imagine people would recommend that you take the risk, take a chance to create a completely different life that's more interesting. But, I also imagine that those same people would choose for themselves the comfortable path. From your story, I think you'll regret it later in life if you don't take the chance.
Re: What If You Could Do It All Over?
#343Earlier quoted context omitted.
This isn't as uncommon a path as you might believe. I was enlisted in the USAF from 2005-2010, spent months and months Iraq and Afghanistan etc. I have a $500k house with a literal fig tree in my backyard now. I don't assume people in my position or better had an easier time just because they went to college. One of my best friends is a Physics PhD from an Ivy League and he's a complete wreck so, it doesn't necessari…
I have a hard time believing that a computer scientist or engineer from a top school will not have an easier time gaining admittance into software engineering than someone not. Anyone not will always have a proverbial hill to climb. I would agree that continued success has diminishing returns from a degree. This is often the argument for designing interviews that reflect real world work. That said, my point was reall…
Sorry I'm in Austin, not Silicon Valley. There are a lot of enlisted veterans here in IT, but theres just a lot of veterans here in general so it might be exceptional ;P
Re: What If You Could Do It All Over?
#344I'm 61, male, and started in software back in the mid 70s. First computer that I could physically touch was a PDP-8/M with an ASR-33 teletype with paper tape reader and punch. In my mid-50s, I started listening to Alan Watts and learning about ancient Indian religions / philosophies. My world-view today is some kind of cross between Zen Buddhism and Advaita Vedanta. I'm a free will skeptic, as well. While I'm not par…
I have a similar view, although probably much more influenced by Nagarjuna and the Mulamadhyamakakarika. I noticed most of the western philosophers who I thought got closest to the truth - Schopenhauer, Spinoza, Wittgenstein on language, Hume on the self, Parfit - all seemed to have either been influenced by or have a lot of crossover with more eastern thought, which I hadn't taken as seriously as it deserved.
Normally I can get friends to agree with most of the propositions, even that 'they' don't ultimately exist in the conventional western sense, but I don't think they buy into it emotionally, which is probably where it counts.
Re: What If You Could Do It All Over?
#345I am in my early 20s and in my first job.This thread is eye-opening.I am gonna pay my loans,quit the job and build (or start) something.I didn't know if it's the right thing to do.But after reading this thread,I feel like I am in the right path.Thanks to everyone for sharing their thoughts.
I'm also in my early 20s. Don't quit your job. Your job is stability.
If building/starting something doesn't work out then you'll be in a bad position.
Build/start something on the side, then if it becomes successful you can safely quit your job.
You might also find inspiration, collaborators or opportunities from your job. It's not all bad.
Re: What If You Could Do It All Over?
#346How does this guy know so much. Reading this article is like an phone book of name drops and references. I know ppl with master's degrees who do not even know nearly as much. I should have stayed in school longer and done more reading so I would know more. I guess that answers the question of what I would do I if had to do it allover again. Sure beats what I am doing now. I think being a success writer is one of the best jobs in the world even if the pay is not that great because it is high status and you have an impact, whereas many tech jobs may pay better but it feels like you are sometimes working in a vacuum and not getting recognized for your contributions.
Re: What If You Could Do It All Over?
#347Move away from my homecountry and from the city far sooner and care far less about money.
Re: What If You Could Do It All Over?
#348Earlier quoted context omitted.
I feel the exact same way, and am the exact same age. But we’re 29, not 49 or even 39. There’re still figs on the tree.
46 year old here. Wave I remember feeling like I'd wasted so much time and was irreversibly behind in my twenties. Like, it was all decided. There are so so many figs left. Many many chances ahead of you! That said, time is ticking and while it isn't too late, now is the best time to start!
I am 23 and thanks for this
Re: What If You Could Do It All Over?
#349Earlier quoted context omitted.
Quotes like this have gotten a lot less comforting as I've aged. It all ends in darkness and black holes, and in the end not even those. The best I've got these days is that I suspect none of it means anything. But I hope I'm wrong.
For a counterpoint, we can look to the Stoics who want us to focus on the present rather than dwell on the past: "For although in regard of that which is already past there may be some inequality, yet that time which is now present and in being, is equal unto all men. And that being it which we part with whensoever we die, it doth manifestly appear, that it can be but a moment of time, that we then part with. For as…
Another, more modern translation, from the Oxford world classics edition by Robin Hard:
14. Even if you were to live for three thousand years or ten times as long, you should still remember this, that no one loses any life other than the one that he is living, nor does he live any life other than the one that he loses, so the shortest life and the longest amount to the same. For the present is equal for all, and what is passing must be equal also, so what can be lost is shown to be nothing more than a moment; and no one could lose either the past or the future, for how could he be deprived of what he does not possess? So always bear in mind these two points: firstly that all things are alike in nature from all eternity and recur in cycles, and it therefore makes no difference whether one sees the same spectacle for a hundred years or two hundred or for time everlasting; and secondly that the longest-lived and the earliest to die suffer an equal loss; for it is solely of the present moment that each will be deprived, if it is really the case that this is all he has and a person cannot lose what he does not have.
https://global.oup.com/academic/product/meditations-97801995...
Re: What If You Could Do It All Over?
#350I'm 61, male, and started in software back in the mid 70s. First computer that I could physically touch was a PDP-8/M with an ASR-33 teletype with paper tape reader and punch. In my mid-50s, I started listening to Alan Watts and learning about ancient Indian religions / philosophies. My world-view today is some kind of cross between Zen Buddhism and Advaita Vedanta. I'm a free will skeptic, as well. While I'm not par…
> One good outcome of my world view is that I don't really worry about passing away. A less pleasant outcome is that my world view is so out of the ordinary that I don't often connect with people that I can talk about this with in any serious way.
I'm in exactly the same boat, and I am only 28.