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Ask HN: How did you decide what problems to solve in your lifetime?

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Re: Ask HN: How did you decide what problems to solve in your lifetime?

#401

I want to be careful with this decision, to avoid any future regrets Don't forget to consider that you may regret whatever you do - by human nature, the grass is proverbially always greener on the other side. People who have kids may wish they hadn't, but if they hadn't, they may have regretted that - in both cases thinking they'd made the wrong choice. Socrates and Kierkegaard, among others, discussed this as a basi…

> Hang yourself or do not hang yourself, you will regret it either way How does one regret hanging himself?

There's a general consensus of immediate regret.

https://abc7news.com/society/second-chances-i-survived-jumpi...

Re: Ask HN: How did you decide what problems to solve in your lifetime?

#402
We are human BEINGs not human doings...but as makers, we're obsessed with what we're doing rather than being. To solve this problem for myself (and its one in my experience that will keep cropping up over and over again), I try to reframe the question "what should I do with my life" to how do I want to "Be" - and then work backwards towards a set of values I won't compromise when working on anything. I'm constantly pulled between working on more creative vs. more potentially profitable enterprises. Ultimately, I want to be creative, a story teller, and I want to be helpful. So my "values" are: 1) I only work on things bigger than myself (meaning I work with teams, not alone) 2) I tell stories (meaning my work is always geared around a narrative - I'm a designer / writer / marketer rather than an engineer because of this) 3) I help people directly (meaning I won't work on projects that don't have an impact).

In my experience, when I work from those values rather than towards very specific goals, the flow of life tends to take me in really interesting directions I wouldn't have found otherwise.

PS> Maybe just work in Healthcare AI?

Re: Ask HN: How did you decide what problems to solve in your lifetime?

#403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, a great poem.

It is, but like all poetry, its interpretation is in the eye of the beholder. This 2015 article suggests the poem is actually NOT about boldly taking the path less traveled. " The poem isn’t a salute to can-do individualism; it’s a commentary on the self-deception we practice when constructing the story of our own lives. “The Road Not Taken” may be, as the critic Frank Lentricchia memorably put it, “the best example…

Thanks for posting this randcraw. I was about to do the same before I saw your link.

To add to your description: The author of this article suggests that The Road Less Traveled is not about the action of taking the riskier or more adventurous path. It is about how, in the future, we need to justify the decisions we made in the past.

"According to this reading, then, the speaker will be claiming “ages and ages hence” that his decision made “all the difference” only because this is the kind of claim we make when we want to comfort or blame ourselves by assuming that our current position is the product of our own choices (as opposed to what was chosen for us or allotted to us by chance). The poem isn’t a salute to can-do individualism; it’s a commentary on the self-deception we practice when constructing the story of our own lives."

There is a lot of advice on this thread, so I might have missed it, but perhaps what I can contribute to the OP is that they should reflect on what they have the ability to change, and what they can not.

Be realistic about what you can contribute now, and what in the future you will be able to contribute with a concerted effort. Focus on your short-term ability and try to dovetail that with your long-term goals.

I don't really like quoting Tech Barons, but here's a good one from Bill Gates.

"We often overestimate what we can do in a year and underestimate what we can do in ten."

Re: Ask HN: How did you decide what problems to solve in your lifetime?

#405
Sounds like you don't have enough data - go spend a year on energy, then in AI, then in healthcare to learn about them. Then you'll have the data to make a decision that you can probably be happy with.

Also note that this decision paralysis has already led you to one regret: not getting anything done. If you still believe you should pursue regret-minimization, then I suggest start doing something (anything, really) right away.

And I would be careful about the "should" vs. "want". Thinking about it that way will just never make you happy because you'll be always wondering about the path you didn't take. I don't know what the answer is but it's just something to be aware of.

Personally, I think about "should"s. Only after that do I think about "wants". Then I start by doing the wants and try to see how it would merge with a should. Because someone once said, "Start by doing what's necessary; then do what's possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible."

Re: Ask HN: How did you decide what problems to solve in your lifetime?

#406
Old guy here.

I don't think you'll find the answers to the questions you're asking. Or, if you're like me, you will find answers. but they might change with each new chapter of your life.

At the risk of sound like a broken HN record, I urge you to check out Derek Sivers' FAQ at https://sivers.org/faq

I am also finally reading through Cal Newport's immensely popular So Good They Can't Ignore You which directly addresses and challenges the questions and assumptions you've asked about.

Sivers has some of his book notes online at: https://sivers.org/book/SoGood. Those notes give a good summary, but I'm getting a ton out of the book, too.

TL;DR: Stop looking for The Answer -- it effectively does not exist. Get busy with something/anything, make small, iterative adjustments to your trajectories. Forgive yourself, don't beat yourself up. Don't get stuck in the tool/methodology churn trap. Pick something and go.

Re: Ask HN: How did you decide what problems to solve in your lifetime?

#407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My hobby says, “implement a solution to control HVAC in a recreational vehicle using a Raspberry Pi.” I work on it when I feel like it, and if I get bored with it I repurpose the Pi for something else. My job says I have to implement a CSV parser for a customer’s unique idea of “CSV”, and by the end of the week whether I find it interesting or not. (Well, not my job, thank $DEITY. But for many.)

So.. Have you ever looked for jobs in home automation or contacted your hvac producer?

I currently work on embedded industrial control systems, I get enough of a fix there. :-)

The HVAC application is so niche that it could only be a hobby project. Basically, I don't want to dogs to fry in the RV in the summer. Some temp sensors, a few relays, and the GPIO pins on the Pi, and when it gets too hot it can kick on the generator and turn the A/C on for happy dogs. While I'm there, I might as well program in the algorithm I do in my head to tell the wife whether or not she needs the generator to make supper. "Lessee, if we've got two hours of daylight for solar that is currently putting out 221W, and the battery is at 74%, using a 1200W griddle...". Let the Pi do that math, and turn the generator on or not.

Re: Ask HN: How did you decide what problems to solve in your lifetime?

#408
post #187

It is great that you are thinking of this and from my experience, it will continue to come up even after you have solved this one and you become more of an expert in the path you have chosen. Something to help with the paralysis is to note that you are in a very privileged position. Majority of the world is not plagued by this issue because the problem they have to solve is how to survive. So, in other words, there i…

> Whatever you choose will bring positive value to the world.

This is simply not true.

There are many jobs where the company's profit and your income come from hurting or exploiting others. Yes, you would be "surviving" like everyone else. But I think you have an obligation to do some kind of good, or at least not screw over people less fortunate than yourself. This is especially true if you are coming from a privileged position.

If you have options, pick something that doesn't hurt others.

I don't mean to pick on you. I understand that none of the OP's or your suggestions are actively harmful. It's that I often hear people with options justify choosing careers that are bad for society this way (especially in tech).

Re: Ask HN: How did you decide what problems to solve in your lifetime?

#409
post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait a second... what’s stopping you from changing —this— situation then? Solve the data format problem. Make it easier for everyone to exchange data in meaningful, efficient ways. Sounds like a terrible pain that you understand well enough to be able to solve. When you have, it might remove a major bottleneck and open the floodgates for more smart people to join, ultimately benefitting healthcare in a massive way. M…

I used to work with a healthcare company and dealt the 837 file format and FTP batches and wrote a pretty neat-o parser for it, the reason is simple- inertia. And it's not like people aren't trying because there's been a huge push to get REST-like APIs in place, but when you have close to 40 years of software infrastructure in place it's non-trivial to explain to the boss why you need to spend money on something that…

oh man I'm having flashbacks to one of my first jobs after school. I spent a year writing a parser for that abomination of a format. Before I left I'd build a front-end and processing queue that did X12 -> XML and several modules to output the same data in various formats and flavors to suit the taste of various insurance companies... Parsing X12 was definitely among the least enjoyable things I've ever had to do. At the time I did it for way too little pay.
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