Hacker News Reader

Comment by nostromo | Hacker News Reader

You know, once in a while, you should take a break from objectives and just enjoy life.

> But days gone by are days gone by. What can you do from here – from today – to commit fewer errors? Because the truth is you don’t have plenty of time.

These motivational posts tend to sound kind of sad and hollow to me. I love to lift weights myself, but if someone told me that a day spent with friends or family and not in the gym was an error -- I'd laugh.

Does anyone really think that when they're an old man looking back, they're going to wish they had spent more time in the gym to deadlift 800 instead of "just" 700? Or will they wish they had spent more time enjoying life and taking it a bit easier?

View on HN

> an old man looking back

Man this has to be the greatest overestimation of human memory ever.

People don't remember shit from like 20 yrs ago, heck I don't even remember 99% of stuff from like even 2 yrs ago. Even if they do at that their age , they prbly don't care about what happened like 50 yrs ago.

My memory of events from my life has changed so much over the years that I don't trust that they actually happened in the way I remember them now.

>they're going to wish they had spent more time in the gym to deadlift 800 instead

this is more likely than looking back because you have your body constantly reminding you how fucked up it is due to neglect.

What's the point in spending your entire life just so you can look back in your final months and be pleased? I can't think of a reason why your happiness at the end of your life is any more important than your happiness in the middle of your life. Rather, a life well-spent is one in which the sum total of your happiness over time was at a max. That means factoring in what's important to you now, even if it won't matter to you later on.

> I can't think of a reason why your happiness at the end of your life [...] is any more important than your happiness in the middle of your life.

Especially since it's not guaranteed. There's a lot of people who never made it to the "end of their life", and a lot more people who had a retirement planned that they had to give up because life ended up having other plans for them.

I totally agree with you. In fact, the thrust of my comment is that enjoying life today is undervalued.

I bring up the "looking back" angle only because fear of regret is a central theme to these types of "your life is ending one minute at a time" motivational posts. And it's largely false -- you will not regret having enjoyed the simple things in life.

Huh. I've thought about this issue and related issues many times, and I've already arrived at a similar philosophy to what I'm guessing undergirds your post.

However, for some reason, the way you described it combined with my current mental state caused something to click for me. Thank you for posting.

> Rather, a life well-spent is one in which the sum total of your happiness over time was at a max.

That's a bit too selfish for me. I'd rather spend my life making more than one person happy.

If that's what makes you happy ;)

Yeah! Fuck future me! http://www.pidjin.net/2013/10/24/future-me/

   > Does anyone really think that when they're an old man
   > looking back, they're going to wish they had spent 
   > more time in the gym to deadlift 800 instead of 
   > "just" 700? Or will they wish they had spent more 
   > time enjoying life and taking it a bit easier?

It's a trade-off. I look back at some of the things I did when "taking it a bit easier" and reget it today. College was pretty easy for me so I often took time off to spend a few days at the beach (I was in LA after all). Later I found that I had missed out on some opportunities to work with some of the faculty at school on interesting projects because I didn't hang around.

Do I ever look back at time spent with my kids and wish I did less of that? No. Do I ever look back at time spent on the beach doing nothing but hanging out and wish I did less of that? Yes.

It isn't so much spending all my time on my job or on getting more money or some superficial goal, its about spending my time in ways that later I'll be happy I spent it that way. I wasted a lot of it before I figured that out.

"You know, once in a while, you should take a break from objectives and just enjoy life." this is exactly the opposite conclusion to be derived from this if you are trying to achieve a goal.

Yes it's ok to live and enjoy the little things, but if you want to achieve a goal.... you don't have time. Deal with it and work within those parameters. Every second you spend enjoying your time with a beer and family is time someone else is stepping up.

I'm not saying this is right or wrong, but it just is. Maybe you want to spend time with family. But just as easily you could be forever unfulfilled because you are hyper ambitious and never applied yourself fully.

Holy cow. That has got to be the most unhealthy attitude I've heard in a long time.

It's just different. People value very different things from life. You may value time spent with family, the free time that gives you space to be more creative and better at the things you love, while someone else is completely focused on executing on a long-term vision.

>You know, once in a while, you should take a break from objectives and just enjoy life.

Man, I don't even know how to respond to this. "Just enjoy life"?

Working is how I enjoy life. My freetime is spent building art projects, or teaching workshops, or working on sidecode stuff, or just...working. Building stuff, putting stuff together, improving stuff.

If I look back on the vacations I've taken where I do "nothing", I come back extremely unhappy and antsy. When I look back at vacations where I did something useful, for instance: organizing all the tools in my late-grandfathers old workshop, it makes me feel happy and fullfilled.

So maybe to each their own. People who want to "just enjoy life" should do so. People who want to work should do so too.

To each their own. I always try to step away from software engineering because I feel I'm supposed to take a break. But am hour into a video game and I don't feel challenged or creative. So I go right back to what I love.

I suspect I'm the kind of person who will never truly retire.

If you enjoy doing those things, then do them.

I'm saying don't do them out of a fear of your impending death. Do them because you love to do them.

>I'm saying don't do them out of a fear of your impending death. Do them because you love to do them.

What does this even mean? The scarcity of life, and therefore the imperative to do things now instead of later is because of death.

I absolutely do things because of the fear of impending death. I am going to die someday, and when I die, I won't have any more opportunities to build things with my niece, or work on an art project with my girlfriend.

A day I spent sitting around instead of spending time with somebody I love is a day that is, in my opinion, wasted, and I think that it is ridiculous of you to imply that there is something wrong with this.

I think nostromo is advocating a healthy, live and let live, different people are motivated by different things mindset. I think that you are somehow imagining this to be an attack on you, when he is actually supporting your right to live the way you want to.

> Does anyone really think that when they're an old man looking back, they're going to wish they had spent more time in the gym to deadlift 800 instead of "just" 700? Or will they wish they had spent more time enjoying life and taking it a bit easier?

Why do we have to be an old man to look back? Or why would regrets there be any more valid than regrets now?

I can say with reasonably certainty that plenty of us have looked back and regret things we didn't do when we were younger. So yes, at least I do wish I've spent more time doing certain things.

I dont think he means to deprecate enjoying life and spending time with friends and family. It's more about good healthy life habits - nutrition, exercise, sleep. When you think about it all these good habits make you happier. He certainly does not advocate workaholism. At least I dont read it this way.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com