Things I Wish I Had Known When Starting Out in Life | Hacker News Reader

Things I Wish I Had Known When Starting Out in Life

zenhabits.net

20 pointssigna116 comments

He seems to be telling his younger self to do an awful lot of stuff. I'm not sure that advice would have the intended effect. It'll lead to an alternate world where he advises things like:

4. Stop it with the relentless busyness -- take some time to just be, to stop and enjoy the life you have.

10. Make time to pursue your passion, no matter how busy you are. I’ve always wanted to be a writer, and get a book published. I just never had time to write. With a family and school and a full-time job, there just weren’t enough hours in the day. Well, I’ve learned that you have to make those hours. Set aside a block of time to do what you love, cut out other stuff from your life that take up your time, and don’t let anything interfere with that work. If I had done that 15 years ago, I could have 15 books written by now. Not all would be great, but still.

I really needed to hear that.

My favs:

7. All the stuff you’re doing that seems hard — it will be of use.

10. Make time to pursue your passion, no matter how busy you are.

11. All that stuff that’s stressing you out - it won’t matter in 5 years, let alone 15.

15. Forget the drama. Focus on being happy.

19. Yes, you can do a marathon. Don’t put this goal off - it’s extremely rewarding. (I'm doing one next year!)

A successful musician told me this once: "Put 110% into everything you do, no matter how unimportant, otherwise when the time comes that it actually is important you won't know how to do it."

I see some variant of this in every "advice to younguns" list I come across. Admittedly I still suck at it.

11. - unless you get fired because you couldn't push yourself hard enough to get project X done.

Good rules but he may have added some more about human relationships, more general than "don't sell your van to a friend of a friend..."

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