The days are long but the decades are short • Hacker News Board

Re: The days are long but the decades are short

#351

Post by sdoering » Wed, Apr 29, 2015, 10:48 AM UTC

bandrami wrote: post #276

willholloway wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've always felt that this sentiment is pretty privileged. We, the elite, get to cherry pick our work and do what we like. But I bet 9/10 people will never feel they have this luxury, and 8/10 will be right. We (humanity) are fixing this. Never before in human history has learning the state of the art in any field been freely accessible to anyone. The tools to create a new world have never been this cheap, and ther…

Never before in human history has learning the state of the art in any field been freely accessible to anyone. Really? I'm working in Mumbai right now (outsourcing has apparently gone dyslexic, as Russel Peters said). I'll be in rural Karnataka this week, and I'm pretty sure they'd disagree that learning the state of the art in any field is freely accessible to them. And there's 65 million people in that (relatively…

Thanks. Seeing my thought put into words by another person, some thousand miles away really is a gift.

Our privileged perspectives so often cloud our ability to relate to people not that fortunate.

Re: The days are long but the decades are short

#352

Post by brc » Wed, Apr 29, 2015, 10:51 AM UTC

>Youth is a really great thing. Don’t waste it. In fact, in your 20s, I think it’s ok to take a “Give me financial discipline, but not just yet” attitude. All the money in the world will never get back time that passed you by.

This is kind of conflicting with the 'keep your personal burn rate low', and I don't really agree with it. Here's why: most young people who burn a ton of money do it on something stupid, like buying a new car they can't afford, or going on a series of expensive holidays they will barely remember, or wasting money on expensive clothing labels.

When you're in your twenties, keeping your personal burn rate low is imperative, and the excess needs to go into investment. The wonders of compounding really start to kick in right when you need it the most down the track.

I was pushed towards making investments early on and hands down they were the best decisions I ever made. It meant forgoing party holidays with friends I don't talk to anymore, and having old cars and having to stay in sometimes.

So developing financial discipline early is paramount, because the investment habit gets harder and harder as you go on, as life's luxuries and personal expectations go up and up.

For the record, eating ramen while working on startups falls into the investment category, as long as you're serious about making it work.

I don't know how rich sama is, and maybe wasting a bit of cash was fine because the cash rolled in, but for the majority of people in their early twenties, starting saving and investing 10-20% of your income now. And definitely stay away from expensive iTems bought on credit. The worst thing you can do is develop a credit habit - you'll spend the majority of life setting up someone else's retirement.

Re: The days are long but the decades are short

#353

Post by federico3 » Wed, Apr 29, 2015, 10:57 AM UTC

danso wrote: post #93

joeperks wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I admire your empathy and that you evidently examined the situation versus reacted. Props to you.

Ditto. Empathy is important...I imagine that boss, if he's relatively young, has to deal with the pressure of seeming like an effective boss, and that includes setting some hard lines...because let's face it, the boss and employee can see eye-to-eye, but that understanding doesn't always communicate across all the other employees, leaving some resentful. It's not dysfunction, necessarily, it's just the nature and fri…

Age is not an excuse for being ineffective at your job.

Re: The days are long but the decades are short

#354

Post by atmosx » Wed, Apr 29, 2015, 10:59 AM UTC

astrocat wrote: post #68

> On work: it’s difficult to do a great job on work you don’t care about. And it’s hard to be totally happy/fulfilled in life if you don’t like what you do for your work I get that this is aimed at the startup crowd, but I've always felt that this sentiment is pretty privileged. We, the elite, get to cherry pick our work and do what we like. But I bet 9/10 people will never feel they have this luxury, and 8/10 will b…

Totally agreed, but you have to put everything you read from this kind of people into perspective otherwise you miss the point.

What troubles though is the following: Most people (if not all people) know already that, eating well, sleeping well, being organised, etc. is paramount to live a good life, have a good work and so on. All of these things are more personal than anything. Why, do we still don't do these things? What is about human nature that makes us weak enough NOT to do the right thing?

Re: The days are long but the decades are short

#355

Post by TeMPOraL » Wed, Apr 29, 2015, 11:17 AM UTC

comrh wrote: post #262

andyjdavis wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Personally I found plenty of little things to love about otherwise horrible dead end jobs, but that wasn't really the reason to keep going back to work, I was there to get paid to live my life outside of work because the job itself was not really fun or fruitful. I actually think this is a better message for people... Some jobs are going to be great, others are going to suck. That doesn't really matter because for m…

I've heard advice in a similar vein as this and it really sounds great. I try to stay in this mindset but a part of me really struggles with the idea that I'm going to spend 40+ hours a week on a "means to an end". It just seems like such a long time to be unhappy, or at best not miserable?

That's why one of my personal focus right now is to slowly reduce the amount of hours I spend at work, in order to have more time for various projects outside of it. This may change if I ever hit something interesting at work, but so far, all of the things I ever done for money felt like utter bullshit. Funnily, I entered the workforce strongly believing the "work in what you love" mantra, but through years of being unable to find it in the space of available jobs I got completely cured of that belief.

Re: The days are long but the decades are short

#356

Post by koreyhinton » Wed, Apr 29, 2015, 11:33 AM UTC

mortality wrote: post #66

samsolomon wrote: post #3

Those of you on HN that are past the 30+ mark. What would you add to this list?

34yo here. Experience something horrible. I grew up in a ridiculously perfect fantasyland. My parents, who have an ideal marriage, told me I was the best at everything, encouraged every dream I had, paid for college and insulated me from all of life's difficulties re: money, stress, etc. To make matters worse, I excelled right along with the praise -- made good grades, got into a top-10 college, started a company aft…

I agree experiencing something horrible teaches you things you wouldn't learn otherwise, but certainly I wouldn't intentionally choose to do something because it will be a horrible experience. To me, it would be better to be prepared to cope with something horrible or learn how to avoid it altogether. I've struggled with being a young father, student, husband to a wife that struggles with depression, and being sole-provider living pay check to pay check for years. I was never prepared for all the stress and difficulties that comes along with all that. I've now learned to choose my commitments very carefully. When I was younger I also lived in a perfect fantasyland, but since I've become an adult I've dealt with stresses and depression for so long I relate more to advice along the lines of "take it easy", "relax", and "find enjoyable things in life". I wish earlier in life I would have been taught more about coping with difficulties and less about the long checklist of things I have to accomplish to be successful or perfect in life. I've learned to get rid of the guilt that comes along with the "being perfect" mentality. I've been told throughout my entire childhood that hardship will make me stronger. While it may be true in some cases, follow that advice to a T and you'll end up weaker. Sometimes choosing the easier path is better for your health.

Re: The days are long but the decades are short

#357

Post by saiya-jin » Wed, Apr 29, 2015, 11:37 AM UTC

sagichmal wrote: post #325

ddingus wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. Wealth is about our time. When we can purpose more of our time than others purpose for us, we are more wealthy. Lots of ways to get at that condition. Having lots of money is one way. Limiting dependencies and costs is another way. Well put. Wealthy people tend to be happy people. And in the sense of time and purpose, I believe that's fairly true. At least they have a good opportunity to be happy. The other way…

This is super off-topic, but what compels you to write like this? Putting paragraph breaks after every sentence, or every other sentence. Did you learn it from someone? Did you fall into the pattern naturally? I've seen it more and more, and it really frustrates me. In my reading it corrupts your ideas with this TED-talky, breathless, pseudo-momentousness, ruining what might otherwise be an interesting point or story…

I presume it's the dumbed down HN interface that ignores formatting. Each sentence I write here is on new line. But unless there is empty line between them, they are put together in one monolithic block, which isn't very nice to read for many including me. A bug on HN side (or idiotic feature), circumvented in this way (I don't like the result either, something in between would be the best solution)

Re: The days are long but the decades are short

#358

Post by grimp » Wed, Apr 29, 2015, 11:37 AM UTC

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #224

astrocat wrote: post #68

> On work: it’s difficult to do a great job on work you don’t care about. And it’s hard to be totally happy/fulfilled in life if you don’t like what you do for your work I get that this is aimed at the startup crowd, but I've always felt that this sentiment is pretty privileged. We, the elite, get to cherry pick our work and do what we like. But I bet 9/10 people will never feel they have this luxury, and 8/10 will b…

>I know these sentiments are a bit cynical, I just can help but feel sometimes that it's irresponsible to dump the "you can be/do anything!" sentiment on our youth when the reality is nowhere near that for most of them. I understand we need ideals and motivation to make them a reality, but more flowery advice doesn't seem to be the best tactic. Very much agreed. In fact, I think it's far more reassuring to tell young…

Yeah, I'm starting to realise more and more after fighting my way to the bottom rung of a tech industry where options and upward mobility are slim at the age of 24, that taking what i can get and not 'changing the world' or 'doing great work' is still even better than half my friends who can't even get jobs or are working in a cafe or something.

Re: The days are long but the decades are short

#359

Post by yaniksilver » Wed, Apr 29, 2015, 12:06 PM UTC

Sam has achieved a lot already at the age of 30. I will be 30 next year, and am not even close. There are a lot of decisions you make timely can change your life significantly. That's what I need to do.

I have been fighting depression since last two years...I thought to quit quite a few times. I tried to resist. But when the pressure rise...sometimes I thought to do a suicide.

I have been suffering from a depression that I didn't get what I deserve...an opportunity that can change my life. While being capable, talented, named among rising marketers around the world, mentioned in a McGraw Hill published best seller.

I wish there is a way to survive. I wish I could tell the world that I am equally capable of making things happen.

Trying hard and will resist to quit until the depression kill me forever.

Re: The days are long but the decades are short

#360

Post by willholloway » Wed, Apr 29, 2015, 12:46 PM UTC

bandrami wrote: post #276

willholloway wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've always felt that this sentiment is pretty privileged. We, the elite, get to cherry pick our work and do what we like. But I bet 9/10 people will never feel they have this luxury, and 8/10 will be right. We (humanity) are fixing this. Never before in human history has learning the state of the art in any field been freely accessible to anyone. The tools to create a new world have never been this cheap, and ther…

Never before in human history has learning the state of the art in any field been freely accessible to anyone. Really? I'm working in Mumbai right now (outsourcing has apparently gone dyslexic, as Russel Peters said). I'll be in rural Karnataka this week, and I'm pretty sure they'd disagree that learning the state of the art in any field is freely accessible to them. And there's 65 million people in that (relatively…

You are right on all those points except for 1998 in my opinion. Investment was not as founder friendly and not as available to ordinary people with a smaller idea, as it was pre crowd funding.

But I think I am right as well in that we (humans) have never been this able to solve problems like this.

Ballon based Internet and mobile devices will let developing countries leap frog the networking model of the west.

For the problem of clean water in places without public water utilities we need open source hardware projects that design cheap and easy for ordinary people/communities to make from available materials, raw and finished.

Something like a solar still that's so cheap and easy to construct it changes the entire equation.

And I know that sounds hand wavey and politics are still important. But I believe all politics get easier when there is less scarcity, and technology can reduce scarcity. And I can't fix politics, so I'm focusing on all the power I do have to make things better.