Ask HN: What advice would you give yourself looking back on your journey?
Got a lot to learn, unlearn, relearn. No time to waste.
Be humble, trust win, trust lose, trust again. Adapt to the market, don't think it'll adapt to you!
Also, the real meaning of life is to find your creator, not make millions of dollars. When they bury your sad fat rear end in the ground, all you've made goes to someone else. The afterlife is a part of life. Read Acts 2:38.
He died in Jerusalem after a long illness at the age of 80 years old. He was a real estate tycoon who had become a billionaire. When he passed away, he left a vast fortune worth billions of dollars. He left 2 wills directing that one be opened immediately and that the other one to be opened 30 days later. Among the instructions left in his first will was the request that he be buried with a certain pair of socks he owned. The Reichmann children immediately brought the socks to the (religious) burial group, requesting that their father be buried in them. Of course the group refused, reminding the family that it is against Jewish law. They pleaded explaining that their father was a very pious and learned man, and he obviously had a very good reason to make this request, but the group remained firm in their refusal.
The family frantically summoned the burial group to the religious courts where the great Rabbi explained to them "Although your father left that request when he was in this world, now that he is in the world of truth, he surely understands that it is in his best interests to be buried without the socks."
Mr. Reichmann was buried without his socks.
30 days later, the second will was opened and it read something like this: "My dear children, by now you must have buried me without my socks. I wanted you to truly understand that a man can have a billion dollars, but in the end, he can't even take along one pair of socks!"
The grandparent comment literally says: "Also, the real meaning of life is to find your creator, not make millions of dollars. When they bury your sad fat rear end in the ground, all you've made goes to someone else. The afterlife is a part of life. Read Acts 2:38." Allow me to break this down philosophically from a few points of view.
"Also, the real meaning of life is to find your creator, not make millions of dollars." -- Whether you believe your creator is a "invisible sky-grandpa", a set of entirely random events that, given enough time post singularity in a statistical manner, created the perfect set of circumstances to create a small blue ball next to a rather meaningless little helium creating furnace, or an all knowing pasta based creator who's noodle-y appendages may touch you in soul changing ways, philosophically speaking is this sentence not true? I would argue regardless of whether you have an all knowing creator or a random set of events, this sentence stands true.
"When they bury your sad fat rear end in the ground, all you've made goes to someone else." -- There is no argument here. When you die, regardless of your beliefs, all you have made seemingly does to someone else.
"The afterlife is a part of life." -- This certainly means different things to a person depending on whether they believe in an all knowing creator or a random set of occurrences. Psychologically and philosophically, a part of the human condition is that coming to terms with the inevitability of your own mortality is always and certainly a part of life.
"Read Acts 2:38." -- This one cannot be argued as anything other than religious. It's definitely a philosophical passage on what a person should do in their life and what the reward of doing a simple act will be. You can discount it if you wish. I see no harm in it.
Your parent comment basically had one sentence of meaning. It was: "The real meaning of life is to find your purpose, so that you don't die meaninglessly". I understand you think this is a "terrible thing to be telling people". But again, philosophically what is the harm in this sentence that makes it so terrible? It seems to me that you and the parent comment are arguing the same exact point. He says "the real meaning of life is to find your purpose" and then goes on to explain that in finding your purpose you don't die meaningless. You argue that "a person's purpose is the sum of their experience." If the sum of their experience is less than another persons does this balanced equation make their life's purpose less meaningful? If so then you have argued the same as the parent comment. If the sum of a persons experience is irrelevant in comparison to everyone else's then I would suggest that it would seem the sum of their experiences is not a person's purpose after all. Deep philosophical points indeed.
Nevertheless, I don't believe you have shown why these comments are terrible things to tell people. These are philosophical arguments about the human condition. Their argument are valid and not terrible to share with others. Yours are also valid and not terrible to share with others. Just as the many thousands of other philosophical arguments within these lines of thought are valid and not terrible to share with others.
* Don't necessarily trust, without thorough vetting, those who made money extremely quickly and claim to truly understand business. Being successful at business and understanding business can and often are very different achievements.
* You can entirely do it on your own, you don't need anyone else. [1]
* You cannot entirely do it on your own, you need a partner. [1]
* Maybe my greatest business insight: the longer it takes to find revenue to less likely you will be to find revenue or profitability.
[1] These are not mutually exclusive. For me, I needed to realize that I did not have to be trapped by a partner. And I also needed to realize I should not be trapped by doing things by myself. Picking the right partner is essential whether in business or just in life. I have been lucky to find them in both cases.
Do what you enjoy in the evenings.
And if you still want to do a side project then work on it and market it for maximum of an hour every day but for, at least, a year before starting a next project.
I was getting up at 6am and doing the dad thing for my two kids getting them fed and ready for school. Walking the dog at 8am and then working from 9am to 5-6pm. Then I would do the dad thing again, until the kids went to bed at 7-8 pm. Spend an hour or so with my wife and then stare bleary eyed at a load of terminals and code until 11-12pm, feeling guilty that I was not the next greatest individual creating cutting edge tech.
Now I have a no work policy in the evening. I still spend time on learning new tech, but I do this for short periods during the working week / hours.
I'd add don't smoke weed much either. Ya I know, it makes you more creative and no one has ever overdosed on it etc. etc. But not many who achieve a lot smoke it habitually either. Except Snoop Dog maybe but that's probably not the career you are going for. The "creativity" is often not quite as valuable as it seems at the time. You'll spend a lot of time down dead end paths before you realize how dead end they actually are.
Don't speculate is huge. If I had the money back from when I was younger and thought I was very clever and going to make a quick mint through this or that I'd be quite pleased.
I may disagree about falling in love. The effects can indeed be bad but it can also be more than worth it. This reality is about a lot more than how much we can accumulate in life.
They aren't where they are because everything they do is brilliant. A lot of what they do can be improved upon. Admiring their accomplishments is fine. Trying to understand their success is fine. But assuming that they are unequivocally better than me in every way is problematic and simply not true.
I wish I had gotten the memo sooner that other people in positions of influence or whatever don't necessarily know more than me or have better answers than I have. It is a lot more complicated than that.
-Don't get lost in the weeds. It's easy to let small things that are immediately interesting take precedence over more important things.
-You won't be what you are now in 10 or 20 years. You'll think differently and have different abilities. Age comes before you know it. Remember this always and don't think you have it all figured out because you never do.
-Work hard but take it easy. Don't let stress over little shit destroy your long term productivity (see lost in the weeds section). It's a marathon not a sprint.
-Things change fast. Plan for the future but do so loosely because you are probably going to have to re-asses shortly enough.
-A little a day for 10 years is worth more than a lot for 1 year in terms of what it gets you. Saving, learning, all those thing. Don't plan on big windfalls.
That is a good one. Very true.
To expand on that, let's say that you want to become an uber-programmer, like John Carmack. In his own words (paraphrasing), "everyone can do it, all resources are available online, you just need sit and do it". While this is technically true, the reality is that he seems to be extremely gifted when it comes to sustaining focus when working on abstract/technical tasks (while your average developer starts checking out after 4-5 hours). If you're like that and read about people like him, the conclusion is that you're like a short person trying to compete in NBA - technically feasible, but the odds are against you.
Stand up for your real values and stay true to them.
Don't just learn something, but publish, write, talk, demonstrate what you have learned. It helps build a public profile.
Who do you give energy and to what tasks? Make sure it's good.
Make a goal because it's a good exercise to start the journey. But just follow your heart after you start walking because if it was meaningful, you will find some way to incorporate it into your life.
Go slower. Enjoy the things you could only in university; there's no need to graduate earlier; you can work while going to school, but you cannot go back to thinking like a student after you've started working.
Invest as early as possible. Don't throw away money on flashy material crap.
Take care of your health.
If it's not working for you, walk away.
Have fun. If you're not having fun, change things.
Deal with fear and anger. They're useful, but only if you take positive action. Let them fester, and they will destroy you.
There are no guarantees.
TANSTAAFL
2. Focus
3. Take a break