71–80 of 406 posts
Are we really at the point where a 30 year old can offer sage advice on living life? Wow. As a counterpoint to "be the best you can be in your profession": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIJdFxYlEKE [PyCon keynote by Jacob Kaplan-Moss on 'mediocre developers'].
Wisdom can come from many sources.
I was 5 minutes late to work every morning, because of taking my son to school in the neighborhood where our new house was being built. I didn't want him to have to move schools in the middle of the year. Boss said "This won't do. You'll have to examine your priorities." I thought about it all day, that night. Next morning I got to work (5 minutes late), went in his office, said "I examined my priorities. Work is #12…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Having a child relativizes everything else and makes life so much easier because you don't need to figure out the meaning of your life anymore and you don't even need to be successful, neither personally nor professionally. This does not mean you won't be or you can't be, it just does not matter that much anymore. And this is friggin' liberating.
I have an amazing father and grandfathers, all of whom I am close with. I've dreamed of being a father for many years (26M) and think I'll make a great one someday based on the examples I was fortunate enough to have. But I don't like the thought that as soon as you have a child, you instantly have to be defined by that. Is reproduction really the meaning to life? (Biologists say absolutely). And saying you don't hav…
> 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…
Are we really at the point where a 30 year old can offer sage advice on living life? Wow. As a counterpoint to "be the best you can be in your profession": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIJdFxYlEKE [PyCon keynote by Jacob Kaplan-Moss on 'mediocre developers'].
Seriously I was hoping for something unique, but there's nothing new here if you have ever read a life advice column before or practiced any faith for a while. If anything, I only reached the same conclusion as in the end of this article: http://www.theonion.com/articles/24yearold-receives-sage-cou...
What is new and valuable to me is the combination of advice. While each individual piece of advice might not be new or unique it is still interesting to see what Sam chose to include.
If nothing else it serves as a reminder from a person you may want to learn from. That can be valuable as well particularly because people seem to make the mistake of forgetting important things in life "by default"[1]
> When in doubt, kiss the boy/girl I got slapped in the face doing that in middle school.
The first thing I thought when I read this one, "Someone is going to rip sama apart on Twitter for his binary mindset."
It's really the loss of none but their own, and it's just too bad that they consistently fail to see it.
Those of you on HN that are past the 30+ mark. What would you add to this list?
Commit to yourself now that you won't let work expand to fill the time alotted. Don't accept that from yourself, and don't accept that from others. (Within reason; everything can't get done overnight, but a "multi-year research project" often doesn't really need many person-years worth of effort, it just turns out that way because people let it.)
Are we really at the point where a 30 year old can offer sage advice on living life? Wow. As a counterpoint to "be the best you can be in your profession": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIJdFxYlEKE [PyCon keynote by Jacob Kaplan-Moss on 'mediocre developers'].
I can't say I'm surprised to see this as the top comment, but I think it's sad that you (and apparently many other upvoters) don't think 30 year olds can offer valuable advice on life. It's also wrong as proven by history. Many writers have produced some of their best works at the same age. One example is Kirkegaard who wrote "Fear and Trembling"[1] at age 30. If you think that Sam's advice is narrowminded or bad as…
The field of mathematics are rife with young contributors. Two of my favourite examples are Evariste Galois (invented galois theory, died at 20 in a duel), and one Isaac Newton. The latter is wonderfully told by Niel DeGrasse Tyson: https://youtu.be/danYFxGnFxQ (you may recognize a meme created from the end of that video).
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I can't tell if this makes me excited for parenthood or terrified of the demise it will bring to my own life.
Your life will have a demise regardless.