If you're so smart, why aren't rich yet?*
* change out rich for wealth or whatever major thing you are currently focused on.
Ask HN: What is the best advice you got on any aspect of life?
81–90 of 281 posts
Re: Ask HN: What is the best advice you got on any aspect of life?
#82[dead]
Re: Ask HN: What is the best advice you got on any aspect of life?
#83Work and career progression: “always take the interview”. I reported direct to the CEO at a startup and I told him our largest customer had headhunted me, and I assumed I wasn’t special and they’re probably targeting many of us. He asked me what the process was like and what the offer was, and when I told him I didn’t take the initial call hand he shook his head. “You always take the interview. Absolute worst case is…
I, and most software engineers, would be interviewing 24/7.
Re: Ask HN: What is the best advice you got on any aspect of life?
#84You can’t control the actions of others, only your own. Another person is like a mountain: you can’t change anything about the mountain. You can only decide whether you’ll go around it, over it, or turn back. I learned long ago to stop wasting my energy worrying about what other people did, and to focus on what I could do. Sometimes your actions can influence others, but you can’t make then do anything, they make the…
Most people are easily manipulated if you know how and are willing to do so. This has been proven multiple times, for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8BkzvP19v4 There are other ways to make people do things as well like money or force. Only strong minded people not afraid of death are truly immovable mountains.
I think this advice could be revised to.
"You can't change people, you can only manipulate them."
Re: Ask HN: What is the best advice you got on any aspect of life?
#85“…for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: ’If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?’ And whenever the answer has been no for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something. Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life.” - Steve Jobs' 2005 St…
Memento Mori https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memento_mori
But in an old man who has known human joys and sorrows, and has achieved whatever work it was in him to do, the fear of death is somewhat abject and ignoble. The best way to overcome it -so at least it seems to me- is to make your interests gradually wider and more impersonal, until bit by bit the walls of the ego recede, and your life becomes increasingly merged in the universal life.
An individual human existence should be like a river: small at first, narrowly contained within its banks, and rushing passionately past rocks and over waterfalls. Gradually the river grows wider, the banks recede, the waters flow more quietly, and in the end, without any visible break, they become merged in the sea, and painlessly lose their individual being.
The man who, in old age, can see his life in this way, will not suffer from the fear of death, since the things he cares for will continue. And if, with the decay of vitality, weariness increases, the thought of rest will not be unwelcome. I should wish to die while still at work, knowing that others will carry on what I can no longer do and content in the thought that what was possible has been done.
— Bertrand Russell
Re: Ask HN: What is the best advice you got on any aspect of life?
#86Like many other interesting and insightful comments here on the thread.
My take on advice I have heard, received and then condensed into a single sentence which benefits me the most at the current time.
-> 1. Advice I have received: Only Constant in Life Is Change
“When you are finished changing, you are finished”. - Benjamin Franklin
“Heraclitus, I believe, says that all things pass and nothing stays, and comparing existing things to the flow of a river, he says you could not step twice into the same river.” – Plato
-> 2. My advice: Get to know yourself, but be honest with yourself!
Over the years, I have listened to podcasts and read numerous books about individuals who have achieved "success" by definition and trying to understand what got them there.
Then general topics such as happiness, peak performance, personal development, introspection, ego, endurance, motivation etc etc etc.
Combining my own experience (happiness, sadness, success, failure, disappointment ... n emotions) + Insight into other people's experience.
...
Listening to a motivational speech or being enlightened by everyone else's advice will feel good in the short term (hour, day, week) as a great hit of dopamine while imagining yourself being {productive, organized, admired, respected, X, Y, Z}. However some advice/motivation will hit home harder than others / last longer or shorter depending on who you are as a person.
In my view, to maximize advice of others. Begin to really understand yourself and acknowledge every shortcoming and celebrate your virtues.
TLDR;
Only Constant in Life Is Change, Know yourself well to flexibly change with life as it changes.
Re: Ask HN: What is the best advice you got on any aspect of life?
#87Contrary to many teachings and sayings: Effort does not guarantee reward. However: Rewards have always required effort, and sometimes a bit of luck.
Great one! Digging for gold doesn't mean you will certainly find it.
Re: Ask HN: What is the best advice you got on any aspect of life?
#88[deleted]
Re: Ask HN: What is the best advice you got on any aspect of life?
#89For young, single heterosexual men; cultivate deep platonic friendships with women. Get a hobby, do charity work, find something where you meet and become good friends with multiple women of different ages and backgrounds. Do not ever attempt to date any of these women. Why? Because most men know woefully few women, and your life will be much richer. A lot of men know very little about the experiences, fears, and hop…
I'd say do that, but with men.
Men of good character, morals, aspirations and goals.
Platonic friendship between men and women is a myth. (Exceptions exists, but only confirm the rule)
Re: Ask HN: What is the best advice you got on any aspect of life?
#90Straight trees are cut first and honest people are screwed first This changed how i view people completely for good.
That's a very cynical way to live a life, isn't it?
What you choose to do with this information determines whether you are cynical or not, not the presence of the information itself.
You could throw your hands up and say the world is screwed up so I should start screwing the world, or you could say the world is screwed up so I'm going to choose to try to make things around me a little better while also protecting myself a little bit along the way.