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Ask YC: What's the best advice you ever got?
61–70 of 101 posts
Re: Ask YC: What's the best advice you ever got?
#62100% of people who succeeded tried.
100% of people who did not try failed.
Re: Ask YC: What's the best advice you ever got?
#63Steve Jobs gave a great commencement speech at Stanford a few years ago. The best bits were: "Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it."
The best bit of that speech was the business of looking in the mirror every morning and asking if you want to do what you're going to do that day. The trouble is, I'm going to college, I am saying "no" an awful lot of the time, but I'm not brave enough to quit.
I was in the same position.
And eventually, partially because of the mirror-every-morning trick he talked about, I did quit.
Re: Ask YC: What's the best advice you ever got?
#64Even the most beautiful paintings, the best novels, and the greatest scientific discoveries were 95% drudgery to create. The reason most people never paint beautiful paintings and write world-changing novels isn't because they aren't smart enough, but because they don't find it fun.
right. they prefer pokemon or football or something that doesn't require much thought or learning. since they are smart enough to do better, they are guilty of having immoral values. they ought to find better things fun, but instead are wasting their lives. edit: looks like 8 people so far noticed that they are guilty and don't intend to change anything.
I believe that human beings have a fundamental right to waste their lives on completely meaningless pursuits. It's what separates us from the animals.
Your post made a very aggressive move by defining "contributes little back to humanity" as immoral. It's not a bad definition, but it's very different from the common definition.
Re: Ask YC: What's the best advice you ever got?
#65Three. The first is from a YC founder. I don't remember who, but he said "Always say yes." I tried that out for a while, and it has worked pretty well. A lot of where I am in my life is because I just said yes when I normally would have shrugged it off. The second is from an essay by paul graham. "When given two choices, always choose the harder one." This one has become a mantra I say over and over again to myself.…
Always say yes. Ironically, another useful rule is "say no more often". It can help protect your sanity and your focus. There are times when it's hard to know which of these excellent rules to apply. Perhaps the secret is to listen to your intuition. :)
From the newspaper London Lite on Tue 6 May 2008: "All you have to do is say yes or no to things. It's easy." -- Singer, Joss Stone, 21, has a simple trick when it comes to managing her own career.
Re: Ask YC: What's the best advice you ever got?
#66This is actually not advice but something I have learned the hard way.
It's not that the situation is bad, it's what you make of it.
Re: Ask YC: What's the best advice you ever got?
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, I wouldn't call that immoral at all. Immoral, to me at least, is when you cause harm to other people. There's absolutely nothing wrong with deciding you don't want to devote enormous amounts of time and effort to something creative. For example, you can touch plenty of people's lives and have a tremendous positive impact on the world just by being there for your friends and family, something that devoting yoursel…
The moral question is: how should I live? But anyway, use whatever words you want, I've told you what I meant: living better, more fruitful lives with more learning and thinking. And people who could do that, but don't , are guilty of living badly, living below their abilities. This is not just a matter of opinion or taste. For example, we are only able to communicate here because of scientific achievement; that is o…
Morality comes from living and the way you live, not the other way around. Morality is just one of the tools we use to live better. It's definitely not something to judge how well we live.
Re: Ask YC: What's the best advice you ever got?
#68Even the most beautiful paintings, the best novels, and the greatest scientific discoveries were 95% drudgery to create. The reason most people never paint beautiful paintings and write world-changing novels isn't because they aren't smart enough, but because they don't find it fun.
in a world that most people strive for more important stuff like their health and some food I wouldn't say fun is the reason they don't engage into creating something novel, although some go broke just for pursuing their passions.
Re: Ask YC: What's the best advice you ever got?
#69I was sitting in a coffee shop one day with a friend in Chicago, and a very intoxicated young hispanic man stumbled up to us, put his hands on our table, leaned over and gave me a smell of his breath that I still remember. Then he looked me in the eye, moved his finger within inches of my face and told me this: Never, never, ever date a Cuban woman.
To this day I've taken his advice. He seemed like he knew what he was talking about.
Re: Ask YC: What's the best advice you ever got?
#70To read the book "How to be a graphic designer wihtout losing your soul", lot's of great advice there, even for non-designers