Ask HN: What were your naivetés in your twenties? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What were your naivetés in your twenties?

391 pointsnoname123263 comments

Oh the wise elders of Hack News,

I'd like to cheat in life and instead of learning my life lessons the hard way, I'd like to skip ahead and read the ending of the current chapter that I'm currently on.

When I was in middle school, my biggest worry was getting the latest Abercrombie & Fitch cargo pants to fit in on the school hallway, whether this girl on my school bus liked me, and if the size of my gentalia was on par with my peers back then.

When I was in high school, my biggest worry was doing well in school so that I could get into an ivy league school; tacking on a bunch of AP courses and extracurricular activities, not necessarily because I enjoyed AP Chemistry or the track team, but I had to, to get into a ivy league school; and trying to look "cool," "edgy," & "artsy" while caring to stay within the boundaries of MTV's and my high school's social conventions.

When I was in college, my biggest worry was doing well in school so I could go onto a top graduate/medical school or grab a six-figure salary at an i-bank upon graduation. Befriended certain people, chased certain girls (and botched things up royally after the chasing phase is over), got involved in some unsavory debauchery not necessarily because I wanted to live out the lives that "burn, burn, burn" but rather out of my fear of missing out on the "college experience."

Of course, it didn't all seem that way when I was in the moment - and certainly I don't regret the things I did in the past (because I can't change the past) and I'll be certain to make lots of mistakes in the future too. And even if an older version of me, traveled back in time to my middle school, told me how stupid of me it was to spend $70 of my parents' money on a pair of Abercrombie & Fitch cargo pants, I know that my middle school self would respond, "are you crazy, I need to get these pants to impress this chick on my school bus!"

I only beseech your wisdom about what mistakes/naivetes I'll incur in my twenties, oh the elders of the Hacker News, so that when I realize later how right you were after my twenties, I could slap myself silly and say to myself, in the place of your absence, "see? I told you so!"

Best, noname123

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One of the most important lesson I have learned is the importance of savings and living a frugal life. Even if you are independently wealthy, living a frugal life can give you a sense of introspection that is hard to understand for most when you are wealthy.

Save. Save. Save.

They say you learn your biggest life lesson as you stumble through your experiences in life. Poverty is something you would NOT want to experience in your life and there is no guarantee you will survive through it and when (or if) you do survive it might take a big chunk of your life you will never get back or recover from the process.

My desire to do this though, causes the problem that I feel like I can't stop working and constantly increasing my savings.

The idea that if I take time off for a while to work on something at a loss, the damage will be too great due to the long time effects of compounding interest etc and the desire to build a prosperous life for my family.

So I think I have the opposite problem. I have a hard time stepping off the gas pedal to pursue things that would probably be more beneficial and enjoyable.

it seems as though you are talking about something different from the OP. you are emphasizing building wealth, the OP is emphasizing restraint.

It is two sides of the same coin: you can't build wealth without exercising restraint. Look at all the professional young sport guys who earned millions in no time, and who wasted it all on senseless bling-bling.

And he says, "work on something at a loss", which is definitly not building wealth, it is anti-saving. If you are a saver, you'll always save money no matter how much or how little you earn. Spending your savings is against your nature.

Saving money is living in the possibilities, in the mind.

~30,000$ in rice today was significant wealth 1,000+ years ago. (It's all the calories someone needs over a reasonably long life.)

However, IMO wealth is best measured as a multiple of your lifestyle, someone with a billion in the bank who spends 300 million a year can't retire without cutting back, but someone with 1 million in the bank who spends 20k/year can.

It's not just about restraint. His point on frugality (I think) was it's important to release capital for reallocation. It depends what you read into "save", because you'll not build much wealth by holding cash on deposit. I would put it more as "invest, invest, invest". Read "The Intelligent Investor" and go from there.

i disagree, although i don't look it as the dichotomy between "save your money" vs "spend your money on stuff", either.

i don't feel like you should stockpile your money for the nebulous future. yes, you should save it up to have an emergency fund. yes, you should start saving some for retirement. yes, you should save your money to make larger purchases instead of using credit. etc..

but you shouldn't let the drive to save money create anxiety and thereby lock you into a lifestyle. save, yes, but don't let the need to save dictate your life and your career choice. if you're much happier doing something where you don't have the $ to save as much, life will be much better.

One of my "naiveties" was to believe others' post-hoc explanations of their success or failure. People usually overestimate their own impact or effectiveness in influencing their life, and that's probably a good misperception to have in order to "take control" or "be proactive", good attitudes to life. But it's a mistake to carry this bias over to interpreting other people's life. Life is usually too complex to figure out from the outside what went down and what was the kicker. Many times, I figure, people themselves don't know much about what ultimately determined their life outcome. I'm not exactly sure what conclusion to draw from this. But just be careful in mimicking other people, or even asking questions like this. It's only superficially smart. The best ways to learn from others may be to read literature or poetry, i.e. to learn from fictive others; good writers are not good writers because they write well but because of their perceptive power.

Man, forgive me for being blunt, but there's a lot of loser talk in this thread. "Oh you can't learn from others mistakes, you'll make them, blah blah blah..." - no, this is how people feel better about themselves for having not listened to advice and getting wrecked in their own life because of it. Sure, you'll make mistakes, but you shouldn't just accept wandering blindly through life dealing with stuff. This is what most people do, mind you - wander blindly through life. Like, there's tons of literature on good parenting. How many people read it? Like, none. So then they justify their bad parenting by saying "well, we all have to make our mistakes" - bullshit. Bullshit lazy talk. This is like the "you've got to earn your stripes the hard way" thing - sometimes you do, but sometimes you don't. But people who got their stripes the hard way often hate people who get them an easier way. Ignore those people.

Okay, that said, this thread was really good:

"Ask HN: What streetsmarts have you learnt?" http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1366217

I'll paste my comment from that thread, it's absolutely true and I learned it the hard way. Also, I admire you for being proactive and looking for advice to build a smarter, better life with.

Track record, track record, track record, track record. Look at the track record. Track records don't lie. Track record, track record, track record.

Someone fired from all their jobs is probably going to be a menace later in some form or fashion.

Someone who ended all their relationships on bad terms is going to end on bad terms with you.

Strong starters/non-finishers are going to start strong but likely won't be able to close it out without extra help later... which you might be oblivious to, because they'd started so strongly.

Track records don't lie. Unless you're really good at spotting diamonds in the rough, don't grab someone with a bad track record for an important role in your business and life. I've learned this one the hard way too many times. I still get tempted with, "Wow, this guy/girl is so amazing, the problem must've been the other people..."

I'm trying to not do that any more. Once? Quite possibly a fluke. Twice? Maybe... Three times? That's a track record. Also, people will always say they've changed. It's probably a bad idea to be the first person to test out whether it's real or not.

Forgive me also for being blunt ... what if the person who has the poor track records is yourself? I'm of course referring to myself and others who don't have as a tough sounding username as lionhearted.

I think we give the benefit of doubt to people that we could relate to, who have had the same disadvantages and flaws as ourselves (after all, to not do so is to reject ourselves).

Does your statement imply that we should try to align ourselves with those who have better track records than our own, and vice versa for those who are inferior? I'm not trying to be facetious, but trying to get you to elaborate applying what you said in a real world context.

> what if the person who has the poor track records is yourself?

Build a track record! :)

The problem with people without track records is that often they talk a good game but haven't built up their game. You goal shouldn't be to convince people that you're now [loyal / effective / honest / disciplined / whatever], it should be to actually build that quality in yourself.

Everyone's got no track record at some point. Build yours. Accomplish things. Be loyal. Keep growing and learning and doing things. Mostly - do things as much as possible as fast as possible. "Quantity always trumps quality" - http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2008/08/quantity-always-tru...

> Does your statement imply that we should try to align ourselves with those who have better track records than our own, and vice versa for those who are inferior?

It's not about better/inferior - it means people will usually continue to do what they've done in the past, as opposed to what they say they're going to do.

You should look to associate yourself with people you admire and like, and you should also look to find people on their way up and help them too. I don't think I've ever quoted the Bible before, but this about covers it:

"To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven. A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to reap that which is planted. A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to to mourn, and a time to dance. A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing. A time to get and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence and a time to speak; A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace."

> I'm not trying to be facetious, but trying to get you to elaborate applying what you said in a real world context.

Okay, ultra-practical rendition:

-Avoid men/women with a history of nasty endings to their relationships, even if they're charming...

-Avoid hiring people who look extremely talented but flame out without producing

-Avoid working for people that everyone says is a terrible/mean/awful boss/client/whatever, even if they seem okay

-Feel free to break this if you have a particularly good eye for talent, but only then

-If someone has rehabilitated themself, you'll generally see a good track record coming from them quickly. People can accomplish and build and do good things pretty quick after improving. Don't take anyone's word that they've improved without results, because everyone says that.

Anyway, don't sweat if you have a mixed or poor track record yet, just start building yours as quickly as you can. Accomplish things, build things, learn, and serve people, and don't forget to get some of the value you create for accomplishing, building, and serving - helping is good, but it's totally fair to get some of the value you created. As you accomplish more things, people come to know and respect you as a guy that gets things done, is a good guy, and accomplishes things. Then people want to work with you. It's a virtuous cycle.

I agree with the track record thing but it is important to compartmentalize here. Somebody might have a track record of being a womanizer but might be good at what they do eg. Bill Clinton, Tiger Woods, JFK, or they might have a gambling problem, reference Michael Jordon. With that said, only judge people on track record in the category you need them to perform in.

I don't know, I think character is a really important trait. If someone is a womanizer and consistently breaks his commitment to his spouse, why should we believe that he will deal any differently with us? One is to have the most intimate, enduring, unbreakable commitment to his spouse, and if this person considers such an intimate connection worthless, why would he place any value on your professional relationship?

The best way to find success in hiring is to hire people who are honest and moral all-around. Don't make exceptions just because someone is supposedly a "rockstar programmer"; even if he can write code 10x more efficient than anyone else, it's almost never worth the added interpersonal friction. Life -- and business -- is all about relationships, not technicalities.

Phil Jackson placed Rodman on the Bulls despite his character flaw and generally being regarded as being unstable. But Rodman was the best at what he did. I think everybody comes with their flaws but choose people based on their genius not on their lack of flaws.

I think people have this notion that a person has to be this all around good person, when it is not true. Like Woods, the media needs to present this image of being perfect. What you need are people perfect for their position and manage their other flaws

Sports stars are something of an unusual situation. Things like instability generate publicity for the given player and his team. Rodman was good for the Bulls because:

a. the Bulls is show business; people pay to see characters like Rodman

b. celebrity tabloids/news pick up on "unstable" behavior and make a show out of it, which is good publicity and marketing for the subjects

c. a long-term steady relationship is not necessarily important; you milk the characters while they generate cash for your business, and try to make it last, but if they eventually leave (in most cases, including Rodman's; MJ would be an exception) there's no critical damage to the business, just less free publicity.

It's not about picking people on a "lack of flaws" generally. It's about avoiding people who've demonstrably, repeatedly, unabashedly violated the most important and intimate commitments they have ever made, and it's about reasoning from that basis that they may not value your professional relationship so much if they won't even value their marital relationship very much.

Adultery isn't necessarily the only case where this conclusion is valid, but I think you get the point. You should avoid "bad people", even if they are geniuses. Just look around -- Ulrich Drepper is a liability to libc because of his abrasiveness and that trait has caused fragmentation of effort, Hans Reiser wrote a mighty fine filesystem, but couldn't work with others and eventually murdered his wife, and so on.

I don't know the personal lives of Drepper or Reiser so it's unfortunate to implicate them in this post, but the point is, some things are more important than raw performance in a core competency. If we accept slightly-less-awesome code in return for largely-more-awesome demeanor, interaction, and maintainership, that's a great trade because while the code may run slightly less fast, it will attract many more users and contributors, prevent fragmentation, and progress quickly and more applicably than a project run by a close-minded or hostile maintainer, no matter how great that individual's code is.

The reality is that a person's behavior in their personal life is a reflection of their behavior in professional life. You can't really segregate the two and pretend that they're completely different animals. They bleed over, a person is one individual. I would never hire someone I knew to be a fraudster or adulterer because they have already proven that they are not worthy of trust from their closest friends and family members, much less their employer.

[I didn't downvote you, I think you are making some valid points]

What I'm trying to point out is not paint with broad strokes. But evaluate everything and everyone independently of rules.

Flaws of people admired:

1) Gandhi - Racist

2) Martin Luther King - Copy someone's work for his phd. Also an adulterer.

3) Edgar Allan Poe - So disrespectful that he was disowned by his guardians.

4) Tesla - Hated fat people.

5) Steve Jobs - Erratic and Temperamental. Fired employees on the spot

6) Bill Gates - Monopolistic tendencies

7) Mark Zuckerberg - Used delay tactics on his competition to get facebook to market. Hacked people's profile.

8)Vincent van Gogh - Lived with a prostitute. Accused of rape. Was mentally ill. Cut his ear off.

I would say it's best to control these negative tendencies than to try to find flawless people.

Apple tried to control Steve behavior and you see what happened in his absent. While he went on to form NeXT and Pixar, Apple tank.

Sure it will be nice to have someone who isn't temperamental and abrasive but choose genius over any other qualities. I think the rest qualities can be managed. Give Steve a meditation coach(meditation= more empathetic)

Thanks for not downvoting me.

Again, it's not about finding "flawless" or "perfect" people. We all know these people don't exist. It's just about paying attention to a few basic moral imperatives, namely integrity; if a person has a history of adultery, that person is not likely to be a trustworthy resource. That person is willing to destroy the lives and hearts of his family for fleeting personal sexual gain. Why do you think such a person wouldn't be willing to trade the well-being of your company or other employees if the right personal incentives materialized? An adulterer is pretty much the most selfish kind of person you can find.

Of course adulterers and other people can still do good things. Everyone is capable of doing good. I am merely saying that I wouldn't invest the resources into hiring an adulterer because adulterers prove that they are suspicious and untrustworthy by committing adultery. There are plenty of non-adulterers out there that are safer investments, even if it costs me a bit of CPU time.

All of us have our limits, I wouldn't hesitate to hire an adulterer but under no circumstances I would hire a racist, a rapist, or a murderer.

Gandhi was a racist? That's news to me. Links? Citation?

"We believe as much in the purity of race as we think they do, only we believe that they would best serve these interests, which are as dear to us as to them, by advocating the purity of all races, and not one alone. We believe also that the white race of South Africa should be the predominating race. "- Gandhi

http://www.trinicenter.com/WorldNews/ghandi4.htm

Point taken. Thanks for pointing it out.

It's a general trend to rewrite history and present world leaders in glowing terms. The assumption is common people would loose faith if they know about their flaws.

I don't buy that. Ignorance, though bliss, isn't a solution to any problem. I would expect people to know the facts and then exercise their judgement.

I remember a slideshow a couple of days back from some startup which had a slide of a monkey saying "We don't write software for this", followed by a slide of Neil Armstrong on moon saying "This is what we write for; Humans who transcended moon and keep going higher"(paraphrasing).

The elite dumbasses at the top assume too much about common people.

Gandhi, "racist"?

Would you mind very much googling "Harijan"?

You seem to have latched on to a very strange definition of "racist". Gandhi might have believed during that early period in his life in keeping races separate, which is not surprising given his orthodox upbringing, but he did a very great deal, later, to unite people of all religions and races and motivate them to think of each other as equals, persuading them to literally call each other 'brothers and sisters'.

I cannot accept that that is the same as what is commonly understood as "racist".

"We believe also that the white race of South Africa should be the predominating race."- Gandhi http://www.trinicenter.com/WorldNews/ghandi4.htm

Yes, I'm talking about the early part of his life. Well if you feel comfortable - ex-racist.

Lots of people contribute nothing to racial harmony over their lives and yet they'd be sufficiently politically correct that you couldn't call them racist or ex-racist.

Gandhi ended up having undone the damage to an incredible, extraordinary extent. I'm no Gandhi fanboy, but I don't see how the hint of blame that 'ex-racist' implies can be applied to his life.

Maybe you are right. I was using Gandhi as an example of how evaluating ones fault is not necessary the way to judge people for a job. Sure he made these mistake, but it didn't take away from his ability to unite people. That is the point I was trying to make, whether he was a racist or not, his genius still stands.

this is the stupidest comment I've ever read anywhere. Mahatma Gandhi did a lot for people in both South Africa and India. By glibly calling him a racist you're insulting an entire country and a great man.

http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

You insult the whole community with your glib response. But it still stand Gandhi was racist in his early days.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/oct/17/southafrica.indi...

If you go back far enough, you won't find anyone who thought the way we do about race, so the label you're putting on Gandhi here is an anachronism and the moralism implicit in it is glib.

A more interesting place to look for Gandhi's shadow side is in the dynamics of his family, particularly his oldest son (IIRC) who lived out all the things his father hated; he became an alcoholic and, worse, a salesman.

But Gandhi shouldn't have had to be completely responsible for how his son turned out (assuming he turned out badly).

I might blame some but not all parents, as a class, if their kids became alcoholic, but in the case of specific individuals it's hard to say.

I agree with you on the first point.

Some of these are interesting. Gandhi, for instance, may have been racist in his early life. But if he changed as he aged, does that make him a racist forever? In other words, there was a racist Gandhi, but also a non-racist Gandhi. Which one gets the legacy? Both?

Neither Rodman nor Woods ever had any incentive to play poorly or otherwise screw over their team.

Hiring untrustworthy people is fine if you can make sure their incentives are 100% aligned with yours. If you can't, then I think cookiecaper's advice is sound.

"I don't know, I think character is a really important trait. If someone is a womanizer and consistently breaks his commitment to his spouse, why should we believe that he will deal any differently with us? One is to have the most intimate, enduring, unbreakable commitment to his spouse, and if this person considers such an intimate connection worthless, why would he place any value on your professional relationship?"

From what I can tell, this seems to be a common way of thinking in the US, especially in politics. Much less so in Europe (and maybe other parts of the world, I don't know). Personally, I don't see the connection between a person's romantic affairs, and their political decisions... one involves raging hormones, the other (hopefully) does not, so the decision making process is likely very different. (One could say, there are different body parts involved in the decision making... :-)

And what happens when things align such that sexual incentives occur which are contrary to relevant covenants? If we can't trust a politician to be loyal to his wife when faced with another attractive woman, why should we trust him to be loyal to political or employment covenants, by all accounts much less intimate and involved than a marriage covenant, if such a condition was presented?

For instance, if a company promises lots of pre-paid escort time in exchange for a given change to a given bill, why should we expect that an adulterer would be any more loyal to the right regarding the political establishment than his own wife and family?

And the reality is that these people don't even need an explicit sexual offer to betray their associates, there are many other bribes that appeal to the same basic desires (like money, power, status, etc.) that can be exploited to the same ultimate end.

An adulterer is a proven liability. Why should we trust him and invest a bunch of time and money and trust and secrets into him, only to betrayed when an adversarial entity lures him with money and sex? Obviously repentant people should be given another chance at some point, but I would never trust a known adulterer that wasn't completely repentant.

Wise words lionhearted. Wise words.

Note that you can hire early flameouts in bundles and rotate them when each flames out though. If you can manage that, it's like driving with NOx.

While there is truth in what you say I can only quote (or rather paraphrase from memory) Michael Mcintyre:

have you ever noticed with ATM's, you go up to it and it says "no, I have no money for you, go away". So, like a good citizen you turn round to the man behind you in the queue and say "it is out of money". And he says "thank you.....", and then steps up to try for himself anyway. "thanks, but I don't believe you, it will work for me".

So, no, you don't have to "learn things the hard way". But most people nod sagely when you give them advice and then do it anyway :) (and that is a good thing IMO)

(I agree with your track records thing; it's too easy to imagine you are giving a "last chance" and that it will really work out this time).

"Like, there's tons of literature on good parenting. How many people read it? Like, none."

I think that's a really bad example. There's a lot of bullshit in the parenting literature. In a way I find it very disturbing, that we need to learn how to parent our children.

I agree that there's a lot of junk out there. Almost all the "professional", published advice I've skimmed or read on pregnancy, for instance, amounts to "do whatever the pregnant lady says". Somehow I find this less likely to be good advice and more likely to be fodder for sales, to get women to buy a so-called "authoritative" source that justifies unreasonable behavior under the guise of pregnancy.

"In a way I find it very disturbing, that we need to learn how to parent our children."

Really? Why?

I've never understood why people look at parenting differently than any other skill you have to learn.

>I've never understood why people look at parenting differently than any other skill you have to learn.

Parenting should be assimilated (learnt if you like) gradually over time from those around you. Humans IMO function best as family groups within a [close-knit] tribal system: under such a regime one learns from one's own parents, parents of peers, parents of younger children, older intra-generation peers and peers as parents as well as from looking after younger children as a child, looking after younger children as a teen, ... you get the idea.

Even under such a regime it's possible that you can learn "better" parenting from outside the group but you're going to be able to actually do it already just like learning to eat or prepare food.

The thing is we mostly don't have such a structure.

It seems to me that society is in death throes; that as populations burgeon so we value one another and interaction with one another less-and-less. But perhaps this is just me; I tend to be too introverted and pessimistic for my own good.

From experience I've seen that this "learn by your parents" is truly starting to be weak in the Western "thinking" countries. Poor countries on the other hand use this a lot.

I was raised in a post-communist Albania, and people weren't influenced by consumerism. It was a more warm-environment for the child to grow. My sister was raised in Italy (during 00'). Between me and my sister, assuming the same age, I would learn better from my parents then her.

"Parenting should be assimilated (learnt if you like) gradually over time from those around you. Humans IMO function best as family groups within a [close-knit] tribal system: under such a regime one learns from one's own parents, parents of peers, parents of younger children, older intra-generation peers and peers as parents as well as from looking after younger children as a child, looking after younger children as a teen, ... you get the idea."

This doesn't seem to work so well in today's society, as we tend to consider older generations' ideas of parenting "old-fashioned". Maybe rightfully so, maybe not... but discarding the experience from older generations means you have to relearn everything all over. In that context, it may be useful to have books (etc) on parenting that tell you, "do X", "don't do Y", maybe put in a contemporary context, so there's less of a stigma of being "out of date".

The problem is that most parenting literature is based on one person's subjective opinion. There is a dearth of real evidence to prove that one technique actually produces better outcomes than another. So how are we to know what skills to learn?

There is a tremendous variation in individual children so mostly it has to be a trial and error process until you figure out what works for each.

Read Laura Berk. She is an awesome researcher in child development.

Look at the context for the track record: was it against all odds, or were they raised with a silver spoon? It is much easier to get ahead when having good loving parents, good teachers, good friends, but there might not be much of a fighter in those champions.

and definitely: people who bad-mouth others will bad-mouth you when you leave, no matter how noble you behave. But you still have to be noble to avoid your actions coming back and biting your ass.

how about "people will bad-mouth you." full stop. There is nothing you can do to stop it.

Now, how you respond says a lot, especially if you own a business, and people are bad-mouthing you on 'the permanent record'

1. don't respond as if you are taking it personally.

Sure, being attacked unfairly by a customer feels like a fist to the gut. But it's not. This won't burst your spleen. Man up and act rationally.

2. acknowledge problems the badmouther brings up, if some of them are valid complaints. Explain how you are trying to prevent those problems from happening again. If possible, offer a refund, etc.

3. try to deflect invalid complaints without getting angry.

Fear is not the mind killer. Anger is the mind killer. If the badmouther is being unreasonable, it's likely that others will see this as well, (If others don't see this... perhaps your idea of reasonable needs to be re-calibrated?) If you can't deal with this in a calm manner, don't say anything at all. personal attacks in response to personal attacks will make you look like a 15 year old or a politician, in any case, nobody anyone wants to do business with.

Weird, isn't your comment a bit self-contradicting?

Above the <hr> fold: "Stop the loser talk. You can learn from others' mistakes. Your fate is not sealed."

Below the fold: "Track record is king. It's all DNA. People don't change. Your fate is sealed."

FWIW, I tend to agree more with your below-the-fold views based on most people I've met.

> Below the fold: "Track record is king. It's all DNA. People don't change. Your fate is sealed."

You read it wrong - it's not about DNA or fate. It's about what a person has done recently. It's a good predictor of what they're going to do next. As soon as someone changes for real, they build a new and healthy track record.

In general, you should weight a person's actions - track record - over what they say. It's a people skills thing more than a destiny-predicting thing.

> FWIW, I tend to agree more with your below-the-fold views based on most people I've met.

Huh, well, I admire you saying that, it's not a fashionable viewpoint these days. I'd predict a person's actions 95% by what they've done recently and 5% what they talk about, but I think it's possible for anyone to change through incremental improvement. Many people won't, but everyone could. There's always some little incremental improvement you could make. But for important roles in your life, you can't gamble - look for someone with a good track unless you're in a position to make a good evaluation, and be careful even then.

Isn't it possible that a person will act the same based on track record because their environment is always the same and therefore there isn't an incentive to change their habits, especially if they are unaware of this? People can change enough to make a big difference when their eyes are opened and they realize what really matters in life. I've seen it happen.

Yes, but creating that environment for change is a pretty difficult task. As an example, several times I've hired people who did customer support before to do customer support for me, and de-training all the customer-hostile and ultimately time-wasting behaviors is really hard. I mean, sure, it can be done, if you understand the behaviors and values you want, and if the employee is willing to work with you, but it is /hard/

My experience with this sort of thing is that if the person looks like they failed in the past due to having a bad boss[1], yeah, I can fix it. But otherwise? you are in for a whole lot of work with a very small chance of success. Sometimes, it's worth it, but you need to go in with your eyes open.

[1] oh man, bad bosses do a whole lot of damage. that's the funny thing; I don't think a good boss, even a really good boss helps all that much. I mean, sure, they help a little. I try to be a good boss. But a bad boss can easily swing productivity in to the negative. Goal one is to not be a bad boss.

First - do everyone a favor and throw this "If I say bullshit enough people will think I'm good at spotting it" mindset out. While you're at leave the "there's a lot of loser talk in this thread" talk to trolls.

Second - Why in gods name would you teach yourself to view people so one dimensionally? You sound like a College Admissions rep only interested in a persons GPA.

I appreciate the basic notion, that execution matters more than words but I wouldn't waste my breath telling my naive self that. I was far too naive to take that advice to heart. And I surely wouldn't tell myself to not be the first to give someone a second chance.

I don't know what I'd tell myself, I haven't put my mind there yet, but I do know for damn sure that it wouldn't involve such a cold finite tone.

>Someone fired from all their jobs is probably going to be a menace later in some form or fashion. >Someone who ended all their relationships on bad terms is going to end on bad terms with you.

This was an important lesson for me recently. I had a friend I was spending quite a lot of time with, and was discussing starting businesses with. One day it dawned on me that there was not one job, friendship or relationship this person had not ended, usually badly. Then I realised that I was just about their only current friend, which made me realise this person eventually fell out with all their friends. Seeing the writing on the wall I staged a gradual withdrawal, and remain friendly but not friends.

1. Your friends aren't your market, so don't be surprise when they don't read your blog or join your site. It's like offering a guy a skirt to wear; it's just not something they are interested in.

2. Your friends and family really want you to succeed. Even though they might say negative stuff about you trying something new, they want you to succeed. Part of the reason they say these stuff is that they want to prevent you from experiencing failure and all the emotional baggage that comes along with it. What I am saying is to take the negative statements made by families and friends lightly. My family was surprised I sold my website when I started grad school; I thought they didn't care for it.

3. Try to network as much as possible. Most investors wouldn't invest in someone who is not properly introduce. 75% of romantic relationship are established through your network. 90% of jobs are found through networks, at least the upper echelon ones.

4. Actions over words. Do something then talk about it, not the other way around. Talking is satisfying enough that it might not lead to action.

> 75% of romantic relationship are established through your network.

Yes, but if you can cold call you'll get get a wider range of possible results (says a happily married cold caller!).

What do you mean by "cold calling" in this context?

Approaching complete unknowns outside of your network - in my case, a girl who'd spent most of her time arguing with another guy at a bar and got up to leave. This girl is now Mrs Nailer.

Two things:

1.) Save money while you're young. Keep living like a college student for 5 years after you leave college and sack away at least $10k/year. Put it into the market and don't touch it again until you retire.

Compound interest is quite a thing to behold, and 5% returns over 40 years will do some amazing things to your money. Start with 100k when you're under 30 and you probably won't ever need to worry about retirement savings.

2. Get to the point where you are provably good at what you do as fast as possible. This will mean switching jobs several times. Build things that are noteworthy and get to the point where people are recommending you to their friends.

Once you've done that, you get secret point 3:

3. You are more valuable to your employer than they are to you.

Companies spend a lot of effort making you think your job is precarious and could be taken away at any minute. In reality it will take six months to find a decent replacement for you. Once you're in and demonstrating that you can find your arse with both hands, they're not going to want to lose you.

That gives you lots of room to explore, and is the reason that I love this industry so much. I can't think of another profession where you can take nine months off every year and still make a good living.

More here:

http://www.expatsoftware.com/articles/2007/02/two-weeks-vaca...

Lessons I'm learning: Social protocol has a real impact on people. The quality of your reasoning doesn't provide you an excuse to ignore it.

It is incredibly easy to blow thousands of dollars, $20 at a time.

Smile.

Reserve judgement until judgement is required.

Helping people is more satisfying than helping yourself. This is true because you can feel like you've helped others enough, but you will always want more for yourself. ;)

Ambition isn't talent. Ambition isn't a moral quality.

Be prepared.

There is no substitute for good sleeping habits. Really.

Complex, irrational arguments and behavior are often explained by simple emotional factors.

It is incredibly easy to blow thousands of dollars, $20 at a time.

I'm only 22 and I already learned that the hard way. Spend less than you earn.

I couldn't find the original quote, but if I can paraphrase it:

Spend two pence less than you make and you'll be content, maybe even happy. Spend two pence more than you make and you'll be miserable.

Wilkins Micawber -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilkins_Micawber (A character in Charles Dickens' novel David Copperfield)

"Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery."

Complex, irrational arguments and behavior are often explained by simple emotional factors.

Understanding this, and you will understand a lot. In almost all quibbles, addressing what you've rooted up as the deep emotional reaction to whatever surface thing you talk about and watch the other person's reaction change immediately.

Find a customer first.

This is the biggest mistake I made in my twenties, and it's such an easy mistake to make that I continue to make it now even though I know better.

I continually have ideas popping into my head. And I act on many of them. So much cool stuff. If only I can get this working, it will change the world. And I love being in this mode; it's so much fun. And it can lead to great things...

But you have to know when you're going too far and wasting time, money, and energy. At some point, you have to find a customer. Any kind of customer, just someone besides yourself who wants what you're doing.

When I have had partners, they forced me into this thinking, directing our energy to where the demand was. This always worked out well.

When I worked alone, well let's just say there's tons of cool stuff still on the drawing board that led nowhere. Don't let that happen to you.

I'm not saying to suppress your creativity or experimentation. I'm just saying the point you need to find a customer is much earlier than the hacker mindset intuitively expects.

It there was one thing I could change in my twenties, it would be to adopt this thinking.

Naivetes over time:

In my 20s... I thought I knew what I was doing and was ready to take on the world with my fresh expertise.

In my 30s... I thought I knew what I was doing and was ready to take on the world with my fresh expertise.

In my 40s... I thought I knew what I was doing and was ready to take on the world with my fresh expertise.

...

You will always be a child. Whatever your age, you will think you know better, and you do not. You may know much about certain fields, but that does not qualify you for other fields. Having a child does not make you an expert on children. Being able to program a computer does not make you an expert on computers or computer programming. There is no top tier, no limit to knowledge that provides you a comfortable mountain peak to sit upon.

Do not accept limitations. Do not believe the limitations other people conjure. Experiment, even in the face of rejection, and you may learn something new and unrelated to your original experiment, or you may prove the know-it-alls wrong.

Being right is as useless in the social world as having ideas. Both are mental drugs.

Everything I said is both useful and useless. Maybe I can sum it up as, "Approach life with humility." I fail at this. Good luck!

The best advice is: Relax, it's going to be ok.

Everyone takes their own path in life. Listen to others but find your own path.

When you wake up in the morning ask yourself are you happy? If yes keep doing what you are doing.

If no, ask yourself if you could do something to change that, if you can then do that, rinse wash repeat.

If you can't do anything about it be happy anyway.

In short, just be.

http://i.imgur.com/wKKV6.jpg

Does this imply staying in your comfort zone? Is this not counter-productive?

It is very unlikely that you will always be in your comfort zone. When you ask yourself this question ever day, "Are you happy?", sooner or later you will find yourself replying back "no". Then you will need to change something to make yourself happy, the action of changing something will take you out of your comfort zone.

I try it often, it works, but you will need to be honest with yourself when you answer this question.

Depends; if you like being in your comfort zone and can maintain that indefinitely whats the problem?

The nice thing about being human is you only have to maintain it for about 80 years.

I find myself kicking me out of the zone just as it is created. Sometimes it is tiring, working on it (working on both, that is, "being comfortable" as well as not getting out too soon :) )

It may imply that, if staying in your comfort zone makes you happy. Everyone comes with a different outlook on life. For some it's important to create startups. For some it's important to have a stable income, pension, benefits, etc. There is no universal truth as to what one should do in life to be "successful". I have a feeling that if Mother Teresa and Warren Buffett were transposed that each would be unhappy.

What is important is to find out what balance of friends, family, work, charity, money makes you happiest.

Meritocracy : the reward would be function of merit.

What I've learned is that merit is a multivariate dimension with different weights on the variables. Weights varies heavily with time and context. The reward is also very relative because it has never bee what I would consider a legitimate reward.

The error was induced by school notes working model as well as by education process of parents with rewarding and praising. I assumed it would apply in "true life" everywhere with everybody that would have to judge or evaluate me.

I've written about this before actually. I hung out in a couple of supposed Meritocracy (both in real life and online) and all of them collapsed when someone asked the question "so, uh, what is merit exactly?" - because no one could agree :)

I'd like to add something I haven't seen posted yet: Your body may not last as long as you think it will, at least not in top condition. I'm 37 and I've had lower back pain due to a herniated disc for 2 years now. There's no easy fix for it. I can get around and enjoy life, but some of the extreme physical activities I used to like (example: freestyle/backcountry snowboarding) are pretty much off the menu. I'm glad I did them a lot when I was younger.

So I guess what I'm saying is, don't think you can just work a lot when you're younger and do whatever you want when you're older. Nature may limit your options. Make sure you do the things you like to do when your body is strong and healthy enough to handle them.

On that note, take good care of your back. You can heal a broken arm or leg, but you can't heal a herniated disc. You only get one back. Bend from the knees, sit up straight, use ergonomic furniture, and don't walk around with 200-pound backpacks.

- Shiny things are nowhere as much fun after you get them as before, even if they have some value. So yes, that Kindle or iPad or whatever will have a real use, and you will be marginally happier with it than without, but not as much as you think

- You can talk yourself into (or out of) anything. The only difference between smart people and other people is that smart people do this with bigger words and more complex arguments. Be confident, but also assume that you are broken in ways you can never spot. Find some ways to get a checksum on life decisions every now and then.

- You don't need very much at all. Maybe a laptop computer and a couple changes of clothes. Pictures and videos of your life. That's about it.

- Nothing will ever replace experiences. No matter how big the car, nice the house, or professional-looking the suit, it's never going to be as much fun or mean as much later as the experiences you have in life. And it's not just having the experience, it's looking forward to them, and planning them, and making pictures, movies, and blogs out of them. The best part, oddly, may be the planning. So planning a 200-dollar trip to the beach in the Fall with people you love may give you many hours of happiness this summer -- along with the fun of the trip itself.

- Learn to keep picking topics and immersing yourself in them. Most everybody will say to drop out and become part of the system -- 9-5 job and TV/games/internet in the evening. If you want a life you could sleep through, that's fine. But if you want a life you can tell stories about, keep reinventing yourself. And that means constantly learning.

- Lots of shit in life that once looked dumb or stupid opens up into this huge panorama of beauty once you learn the rules. In so many things you are like the guy who never saw a baseball game going to the world series. You kind of get it, but it all seems silly. You don't know the rules. Decide to learn how to appreciate music, for instance. Get a few college lectures on tape, get some good music to listen to, hang out with folks who are music connoisseurs. The more you know about various art forms, the richer your life is.

- Forget philosophy and meaning-of-life shit. You're too young. For now, you are what you do. Go do something worthwhile

- Stick to a daily exercise routine at all costs

- If you are changing and getting better, that means you are changing friends too. This was very difficult for me, but you can't hang out with the same folks and expect to become a better person. There are exceptions, of course, but to a large degree your life is controlled by whom you choose to be friends and hang out with. Be aware that you don't want to be the same person at 30 as you were at 20. I'm not saying be an asshole -- keep being friendly by all means -- but be very careful who you hold yourself up against as "normal"

- Dating is a numbers game, like a lot of other things. Learn the skills of dating and don't sweat picking up chicks (or guys)

- Concentrate on your weaknesses. Make them stronger. When you get to your 30s you can work from your strengths, but there has to be some time in your life to work on shit you suck at, and for me it was when I had the most motivation, my 20s.

- Speaking of which, you have to learn management. No matter what you do, there will be a manager. Even if you don't want to be one, you have to understand what the job is like to help out your manager. Being a good leader means being a good servant. This concept sounded easy (or facile) to me in my 20s, but proved hard to apply in practice.

- You are never ready for kids. Have them early while you have energy. Read all the books about kids if you must, but realize that creating a replacement is about the most biologically easy thing you could do. After all, evolution has been working on making you a great gene transferral and primate-raising machine, so don't get paranoid and neurotic about all the latest parenting fashion. Use some sense.

- Everybody wants to be a rock star and win the lottery. Nobody ever does, and the ones that do end up destroying their life. Realize slow success is a million times better than overnight success.

- Much of the stuff in life that normal people do is geared around killing time by distracting you with shiny things of no value. You may never be able to fight this completely, but you should at least deeply understand it and how it affects your goals

- Create. With a passion. There are two major kinds of people in this world, consumers and creators. The herd will push you to consume, life will push you to consume, consumption is the easy and default path, but true joy and a full life come from creating. It does not matter one bit how many people like what you create, just create. Write. Blog. Make videos. Make a movie. Write a program. The longer the format and the more creativity involved, the more you are going to turn on and exercise key parts of your brain. Nobody wants to be 80 and only have stories of being at the office, but fuck, if you were at the office creating something at least you tried to make a difference. I'd rather be that guy than the one who watched Sumo wrestling everyday (or played 20,000 hours of WoW during his 20s) The only thing you're going to have at the end of your life are the decisions you made, the things you created, and memories. Learn to maximize these things.

right on.. i can't agree more

But trust me on the sunscreen.

lol'd at that - good post though.

From this 36 year old, thank you for this wonderful note reinforcing my own thoughts and hard-earned lessons this last 16 years. I am in complete agreement with all of your points.

Excellent reply (as usual) by DBM, but I disagree with this:

Concentrate on your weaknesses. Make them stronger. When you get to your 30s you can work from your strengths, but there has to be some time in your life to work on shit you suck at, and for me it was when I had the most motivation, my 20s.

Concentrate on your strengths, even at this age. Peter Drucker's argument sold me: If you work on your weaknesses, the best you can be is, if you're lucky, acceptable. If you on your strengths, however, you have your best shot at being outstanding. You'll also have more mental energy for the fight.

I wish that, in my twenties, (1) I knew this, and (2) I had the balls to be brutally honest with myself about what my strengths and weaknesses were.

Not to disagree, but a counter-argument could be that working on your weaknesses makes you a more well rounded person.

This is a hunter-warrior/contractor vs a jack-of-all-trades/leader.

what is the advantage to being well rounded? I always thought that was a euphemism for average.

Being average at many things allows you to communicate with the wide range of people who are also average at one of those things. For a startup founder, that kind of domain knowledge can be extremely useful.

IMHO, highly specific expertise is overvalued by young people. Academia is the only place where specialization really shines; everywhere else you need to get along with people who don't understand your field.

>IMHO, highly specific expertise is overvalued by young people. Academia is the only place where specialization really shines; everywhere else you need to get along with people who don't understand your field.

really? from what I've seen of the Engineering field, there is rather a lot of tolerance for people who can't communicate with 'normal people'

My experience as a business owner has been that yeah, dealing with people outside your field is the hard part. Sure, if I had a better understanding of law, that'd be great. I'd be able to better choose lawyers.

But would I choose that better understanding of law at the expense of Engineering experience? hell no. I've set up my business so that as long as I don't make completely abysmal legal decisions, my legal decisions won't matter all that much. There aren't any weird legal twists to my business plan. As long as I can avoid getting sued into oblivion, my lawyer is doing what I want him to do.

But even a relatively small difference in the skills of the engineers I can hire for the amount I'm paying can make a huge difference, and at this point, I'm pretty much counting on my ability to spot 'diamonds in the rough' - last week a mistake made by both myself and an employee (the mistake was that it took us 8 hours to spot a problem that we should have seen in 30 mins) cost us north of ten grand in SLA credits. If I was just a little bit better (or had just a little bit more sleep) we'd have saved the SLA credits /and/ we would have saved a pretty big bruise to our reputation.

Obviously, choosing a different business model would have required that i could identify and economically purchase other skillsets; but there really is no getting around the 'It takes one to know one' principle. If you run a business, you better be good at the core things that the business needs to be good at. For me, this is why I chose the business I chose, and why I chose to bootstrap rather than run with investors.

It means you are last likely to be in a situation where you are completely stumped, and more likely to be able to find and recognize the talent in those you are outsourcing stuff too.

Furthermore, a lot of skill sets transfer over easily to related skill sets. It can help you get better at the areas where you are already strong, by pointing out specific aspects in them that you may have been overlooking.

shrugs I've usually been too much of a generalist, so I'm currently trying to specialize a bit more. Your mileage may vary.

Another advantage to breadth is that you can recognize when another field's tools might be a better fit for your current problem.

Being a pure generalist probably sticks you to the initial triage role (which is no fun), but having a very large number of baseline competencies is handy.

I'm not saying it's not handy. It's great to be good at a lot of things.

My point is just that some people learn certain subjects faster than they learn other subjects. my thought is that if it takes the same effort to learn a little in an area where you are bad as to learn a lot in an area where you are good, and you have a limited amount of effort to apply, you are better off applying that effort to the area where you are good.

I'd say that is VERY situational. If the area you're bad at is, for an extreme example, 'managing to complete tasks you start', and something you're good at is 'eating Cheetos really quickly', then you can see where it would make sense to reinforce the bad before bothering to work on the good, just because it's easier.

You have a good point. some skills are more monitizable than others, and some skills are almost required for your other skills to be useful.

I'm actually one of those people who has had a hard time 'managing to complete tasks you start' (and while i still have that problem sometimes, I think i have accomplished more than the average bear.) - now, I do fight that directly some; you are right, it's too much in the way of everything else for me to ignore it because it's hard, like handwriting. They make some /really effective/ drugs for that these days, amongst other things, but as for 'hacks' to avoid that weakness? becoming a SysAdmin is one. If you can perform well in emergency situations, where you /can't/ drop things on the floor, lots of half-finished projects get forgiven. (and really, in SysAdmin work, if you don't take care of something when it's not an emergency, you take care of it when it /is/) I mean, it's bad to not complete things in non-emergency situations, maybe even worse than being a less productive programmer. But if you can 'hero' it out, even if that is the sub-optimal solution, you usually don't get fired for it. Management forgets that you only notice your sysadmin if he's not doing his job.

But, I find even the threat of an emergency motivates me to fix things, so I don't think add sysadmins need to remain in the less-useful 'hero' role forever... but being a sysadmin does mean that our failure mode usually doesn't get us fired.

If you can manage to hold down a job long enough to get some good experience, hiring other people can also be a way to get around this. I can start something and have someone else come along and clean up behind me. Also, just working with other people, I find, helps keep me on task.

but really, if I didn't have a skill that was relatively hard to find, well, for most of my life, I'd have had a hard time holding down a job at McDonalds. Nobody is going to deal with a fry cook who keeps Engineering hours.

I think the crux of the matter is that there are so many things to be good at. Most people aren't any good at most things, so if you put a little effort it then you can be better than average even if you're not particularly talented in that arena.

Speaking of talent, another important point is that talent is overrated. You never know when you will break through from being average to good or great. People who write themselves off saying "I'm just not good at that" will never have the chance. The effort that the greats have put it in is always hidden to us.

So my advice is if you enjoy something don't worry too much about sucking it at.

I wish that, in my twenties, (1) I knew this, and (2) I had the balls to be brutally honest with myself about what my strengths and weaknesses were

I actually agree with the advice on working on your weaknesses early in life, because pushing your limits helps you better understand yourself. I don't think I was dishonest about myself earlier, maybe too idealistic trying to fix some weaknesses that I nowadays consider part of my personality. And I'm not talking about skills here, but more about mental debugging of your emotions, ambitions, relationships etc.

I think experiences are highly overrated. What I've seen, done or felt quickly gets pale and fades into the background.

For me nothing can replace learning new interesting things and understanding new interesting concepts.

So you enjoy experiences that result in learning?

No. Just learning and understanding. It happens mostly inside my head when I'm in front of a book, sheet of paper or a computer. Such interaction could hardly be called experience.

You should record something about your experiences, whether in pictures, movies, or text. Makes it very easy to relive them in your mind.

Why relive, when you can 'live' new experiences?

Personally I prefer to savor the moment uninterrupted than constantly trying to record it. So many people get so caught up in trying to capture their experiences that they cease to become experiences and just degenerate into more grist for the 'lifestyle' consumerism mill.

Learn to tell stories about it to your kids and grandkids if you must, they way people did for thousands of years before camcorders. But the actual moment is fleeting, so live it, be present in it, don't miss that trying record it.

... so live it, be present in it, forget it, make up a story about it, tell the story many times to same people ...

I can relive in my mind photos made by somebody else accompanied by a story.

I feel that history is just one of possible fictions. The fact that it actually happened (even to me personally) poses little significance to me. Physics on the other hand is something real, very distinct and intrinsically interesting.

But things you learn also fade, unless you use them.

Not for me. I can jump into something I understood at any point of my "education" and find my way around it with pleasure.

Its a proven fact that if you don't use it you lose it. Your brain is constantly rewriting your memories, and information gets lost over time. This is why police get police reports ASAP, because its the most accurate account of the person before the mind begins trying to fill in the blanks with guess work. Believe me man, you do forget things. You're personality allows you to solve problems with experiences you have, weather its the experience of learning others experience (reading books) or actually getting out and doing something. In essence, its a hacker personality. When there is something blocking you, you find a way around it using every available resource you have.

I think it's also proven that you loose things that you understand and/or care about much slower than others.

About rewriting memories... You do not only fill the blanks in your memories. Your brain also fills the blanks in what you are looking at, the exact moment you are looking at it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBPG_OBgTWg

"If you are changing and getting better, that means you are changing friends too. This was very difficult for me, but you can't hang out with the same folks and expect to become a better person. There are exceptions, of course, but to a large degree your life is controlled by whom you choose to be friends and hang out with. Be aware that you don't want to be the same person at 30 as you were at 20. I'm not saying be an asshole -- keep being friendly by all means -- but be very careful who you hold yourself up against as "normal""

As a guy in my early 20s from a small rural town that I lived in my whole life I can really relate to this. My best friends from home aren't planning on leaving and there just isn't really a place there for me. I think I sort of ruined college for myself because I didn't go far away despite going to a good school and I never really branched out because I could just go hang out with my "home" friends. It really crippled my four years. For this summer of my junior year I decided to move a few hours away to where it isn't convenient to drive home. The problem is I am trying to meet new people but that is definitely a problem in itself.

As for meeting people, most people are lonely on one level or another. If you can genuinely just say hello to random people, you'll be networking and getting to know people in no time. If it's at a social scene, or a public place, just look for someone sitting or standing by themselves, and ask if they would mind some company. In my experience, over 50% of people say yes. (If they don't, then move on to the next person.) You can combine this with walking for socialization and exercise. Along the same lines, if you are comfortable learning dancing, look for a ballroom/latin/swing with lessons that swap partners. (Every one was a beginner at some point, these places tend to keep people remembering that and therefore happy to help others learn.)

If you tend to be an introvert, then just take more time asking good questions, let them talk, and then expand upon the mutual interests. Most of my friends wouldn't know I tested on the introverted side on Myers Briggs. (I've moved towards the middle since high school, mostly because I like taking this approach to life so the answers as to what I'd do have actually changed.)

Good luck. If you throw out your location, you might be able to make some local connections through here.

Thanks that seems like good advice. I am living in Pittsburgh with my girlfriend so I am not entirely alone. However, she is busy with graduate school and I am severely lacking in the friends department.

I'm on the other side of the state, so close but not quite. I'll send this thread to one of my college friends in that area, and she can decide where to go from there.

I always feel a bit somber when I read advice along the lines of what DBM posted, in that the experience in your life are what define you and you want to live a life you can tell stories about and not one you can sleep through. The feeling of somberness comes from knowing that, thus far, I've really led a life most COULD sleep through. I don't tip the scales of introversion, but I'm not far off.

I'm commenting here because I think you've given good advice on ways to slowly step away from this and these are things I've been putting into practice when I can. I'm more confident in engaging in small talk with people now, but it's typically someone I'm forced to interact with (hair stylist, waiter/waitress, mechanic, etc). I really need to take it a step further and target people outside of that comfort zone. I specifically like your idea of targeting other people standing alone, regardless of whether or not I have the confidence to do so - it's good advice.

When my friend from college visited me (it's been many years since college, and now we both have jobs), I couldn't understand why I just couldn't hang out like before. I mean, sure, I could spend a couple of days and show my friend around the city, but I realized that for some reason, I had moved on. I kept thinking that I had become a snobbish, snooty SOB. I now know that I've just changed - I have a different circle of friends (for better or worse) and I can no longer go back to who I was in college. And I think it's OK (and in many ways, good).

> - Concentrate on your weaknesses. Make them stronger. When you get to your 30s you can work from your strengths, but there has to be some time in your life to work on shit you suck at, and for me it was when I had the most motivation, my 20s.

I don't think I could disagree more. If I focused on my weaknesses, I'd still be working on my handwriting. I spent years in school trying to learn how to write legibly, and as soon as I got out I dropped that and used a computer for everything. I'm a published author now, and without a computer I still can't legibly compose a sentence. You know what? nobody cares that my cheques are hard to read.

Sure, you can focus on bringing up the things you are bad at to 'average' and be a mediocre person, or you can min/max it, and be /really good/ at some things, and really suck at others. Sure, we'd all like to be good at everything. But you know what? for most of us, it's not happening. you need to make choices.

As a child, your mom (or, at least my mom was) all about how important doing your laundry, cooking, doing the dishes, etc... is. In the real world? you can pay other people to do that. You don't even have to pay them very much. Your first programming job will pay enough to eat out every day and have someone come by and clean your house once or twice a week. (granted, knowing how to cook is a good skill; it's usually healthier. My point is just that no matter what you are bad at, there is almost always a way to solve any problem using one of your strengths.)

granted... your first programming job won't pay for that /and/ a spiffy new sportscar every five years, but for me, the free time to work on the things I care about is worth more than a sportscar.

Figure out what sorts of things you are good at learning. Become /really good/ at those things, and put yourself in situations where your strengths matter and your weaknesses don't slow you down too much. Cultivate friendships with people who have complementary skillsets.

Your mom was teaching you more about responsibility than anything else.

I understand that was the intent. The problem is that it teaches rote work, which is quite a bit less useful than triage and delegation, I think, when it comes to general 'responsibility'

I /always/ will have more tasks that i want done than I have time. I need to decide what tasks I drop on the floor[1], what tasks i delegate to others, and what tasks I do myself.

[1]dropping tasks gracefully is a /huge/ part of being 'responsible.' part of this needs to be thought out ahead of time. Don't promise things you later are going to drop on the floor. If you must drop something on the floor that someone else is expecting (and you will need to do this, sometimes.) you need to notify them as soon as possible.

There will always be rote work, and it's worthwhile learning how to cope with it.

> If I focused on my weaknesses, I'd still be working on my handwriting.

He wasn't asking you concentrate on all your weaknesses. Prioritize your weakness based on their importance and then eliminate them.

for example: If you don't know how to drive a car- that is a weakness, and driving is a very important skill, so you try to eliminate it.

(This is just an example. You can always argue by saying that you can hire a person to drive the car for you, but think about other high-priority weakness you have)

You don't need very much at all. Maybe a laptop computer and a couple changes of clothes. Pictures and videos of your life. That's about it.

That was a huge one for me too. For years I'd thought I needed at least $50k/yr, a nice car, fancy apartment, etc.

Then I spent a few years starting a business, and really learned what I do and don't need to spend money on. When food is an opportunity cost it changes your perspective. The first thing to go was trashbags - suddenly the idea of spending money on something going directly in the garbage seemed absurd.

So, I haven't had a car in 2 years, I love my apartment but its not huge, and I don't make a ton of money. But I'm happier than almost anyone I know, I can drop everything to go on an impromptu beach trip, and I wake up every day to a job that's exciting and fulfilling.

It sounds odd, but learning to live on almost no money made me calmer and happier.

for me it's the elimination of the fixed costs that is key. my half of the rent is relatively low, and I have a car, but it's paid off. If my income were to drop dramatically next month (as it will... I just handed out north of $10K in service credits because of a huge network problem.) I can pretty instantly drop to a lifestyle that can be supported by four days of contracting a month. When things are good, sure, I buy luxuries. hell, I'll have someone clean my apartment for me- people will work for almost an order of magnitude less than I will, so when I have the money, it makes lots of sense.

The thing I've found is that getting small amounts of money is almost trivially easy... if hiring yourself out for short periods of time for $80-$150/hr is pretty easy (as it seems to be for me) optimizing things that only cost a few dollars a month doesn't make that much sense.

I think this is key to the 'living light' lifestyle. optimize the things where you get a big reward for not very much sacrifice. To me, driving a $30,000 car is nice... but a $3,000 car probably gives me 95% of the value I would get out of the more expensive car, so I drive an old beater, and I don't worry about scratches and dents. But, say, clipping coupons makes little sense, as I'm probably earning min. wage on the time spent.

I will often do my own auto repair. The person cleaning my house? $10-$15/hr. the mechanic? $75-$95/hr. And I enjoy working on my car, while I don't enjoy cleaning the kitchen.

There's really two ways to look at this:

* Eliminating non-essential expenses. i.e. Stuff you want, but not need. * Minimizing your foundation costs. Shelter, utilities (internet, phone, electricity, etc), transportation, medicine, food.

Eliminating the first is easy and can be done without sacrifice -- you don't need them. The second can be considerably harder as there's always a floor.

However I will say this, from experience. I've found many people to look very strangely at the first item. I'm not a minimalist, but I really don't own a lot of stuff. The general reaction I've gotten with dates has been initially positive (because the space itself, and what is there, is beautiful) but grew increasingly negative as a result of consumer culture. I've only found two gals who "got it".

"Forget philosophy and meaning-of-life shit. You're too young. For now, you are what you do. Go do something worthwhile"

You aren't too young. This is his philosophy which he's telling you to forget: forget every philosophy except his.

Most of this post I found myself nodding in agreement, but this part seriously disturbed me. Without thinking about things like yourself, who you are, and what you want to do in life, you're basically a directionless tool. Spiritual soundness is the basis for all success, I would argue, and philosophical reflection and introspection is an avenue to being satisfied in life, and will prepare you for your future. This part seriously disgusts me, and in my mind, thoroughly discredits the rest of your post, which I otherwise find to contain good and sound advice.

I can see both sides on this one, you should certainly be self-aware enough that you periodically reflect deeply; I think the danger is that far too many guys in their 20s get into a rut, paralysed into inaction through over-analysis; your 20s and 30s are the time you should be vigorous, active, taking risks, exploring, having experiences, and doing so will result in more self-knowledge than sitting in your room contemplating the universe. In general, it's better to err on the side of action - when in doubt, build something.

For now, you are what you do.

Gonna heavily disagree with this one... This is an attitude that turns us into machines with expected outputs rather than people. We humans spend a lot of time limiting ourselves by placing labels on ourselves and limiting our perceptions by labeling others.

Discard the labels. Do not try to fit a role. You might program computers, but you are not a programmer. You fly planes, but you are not an aviator. You play a guitar, but you are not a musician. You teach, but you are not a teacher. All these terms have extra connotations we have all built up.

Your footprint on the world is a culmination of your actions, so in a sense, your actions mark you in the perceptions of others. However, as we humans are so adaptable, we can discard the notion of who we think we are and start afresh, always pick new directions. We do not have to be what we have been, and we do not have to cater to what other people expect of us.

Just because you get a college degree in X and work 30 years in X does not mean you cannot ever do Y; that is a self-imposed limitation reinforced by the X label.

Purpose of life? To live. Nice and fundamental. Meaningless enough to show you that you can do about whatever you want if you have the interest and make the effort. Limitless enough to give hope that if, in your 20s, you feel you are not doing what you want, you can try something else.

No, you are not what you do. You are you. What you do is what you have chosen to do at that time. It is okay to change, okay to do the unexpected, okay to break out of your comfort zone and whatever comfort zones and roles that TV and society have tried to impose upon you.

Great comment, thanks.

I think you've misunderstood the comment. It isn't, "You are one single thing you've done." It's "You are what you do." If you paint, you're a painter. If you raise children, you're a parent. If you hack, you're a hacker.

They're not mutually exclusive: You might be a hacker-painter-parent. You can keep adding roles as long as you have time to do things. They're also not necessarily permanent: You can stop being a hacker if you don't like hacking anymore. But if you don't do any of those actions, you aren't any of the accompanying things.

No, I am not what I do. I do many things. If you (the general populace) must label me, just call me Xurinos. Better, call me the Xurinos that posts on HN. You use labels to conveniently understand me, but that is going to lead to mistakes and misunderstandings, broken expectations. Those are your chosen limitations.

My point is to discard the label/role from your thinking because it can lock you in place. Multiple roles suffer the same problem as singular roles in that the name has boundaries. It is harder to see where the lines blur (the shades of gray) because you have lines. Looking for the blur in the first place is a sign that you have accepted an arbitrary label with its connotations and are trying to climb your way out of that casting.

This is an example of where the language itself limits you. You hack, so you are a hacker. But "hacker" does not just mean "one who hacks". It might also make you think of Jolt. :)

The danger is when you start to mold your identity to fit in with the group that shares that label. Do you own a t-shirt that talks about your love of hackerdom? "10 kinds of people understand binary"? If you make it part of who you are, then you will find it more difficult to change.

There are several kinds of situations where this identity labeling makes someone feel trapped or slows them down. If you have never intimately known or been yourself suicidal (and managed to recover from it), for example, you would see that part of the problem is an inability to change, a clinging to the past, to an identity. Others and I were trying to eliminate that identity. We had to change in order to continue living. A similar problem exists for job loss.

Another way to look at this is to consider your choices. When your choices conflict with your identity, you have run into one of those labeling conflicts.

No you have missed the point, and out of all the comments, I can't let this mistake go. You make the decisions to do what you want to do, and those decisions -- what you do, your decisions -- is the essence of your existence.

Every minute you make new choices, do new things, and those choices and actions are your life. The things you do, the decisions and actions you take, even if nothing more than decisions to be happy under miserable circumstances, constitute your life. You own them, and by continuing to take ownership and dancing above the chasm, you live fully.

We must imagine Sisyphus happy.

We may have to disagree, then. Here is our common ground from my first post: "Your footprint on the world is a culmination of your actions, so in a sense, your actions mark you in the perceptions of others." But clinging to what you think you are based upon actions you have performed will hold you back from living. The distinctions may be subtle, but there is a kind of freedom involved here.

But clinging to what you think you are based upon actions you have performed will hold you back from living

Yes. And this is why "clinging to what you think you are based upon actions you have performed" is an exceptionally _bad_ way to make decisions and do things. Do not do this.

You are adding in a past-tense here where none is intended. You are alive this instant. You make decisions. This is your life. There is nothing in this advice about thinking you are the culmination of past decisions. You are alive now. You make decisions now. The decisions you make right now are your life.

The things you may or may not have not done in the past have nothing at all to do with it. In fact, as you point out, if you define yourself by your past actions? You've missed the point of what I was saying.

You are your decisions, but you are not the history of your decisions. You are your present-tense decisions. You exist now -- not as some trend, pattern, or tendency. People can worry about history when you are dead if they like. It's not worth your time now. Your life is the decision you make right this instant.

We are not disagreeing. I believe you misunderstand.

Ooo, we're on the same page now, and I agree with you. :)

  - Stick to a daily exercise routine at all costs

Yes, absolutely this. I can't reiterate that strongly enough. Do NOT make the mistake of letting your fitness go by the wayside. The older you get the harder it is to maintain (or increase) your fitness level... and if you spend a decade sitting on your bum eating chips and getting fat, it's a royal pain to get back into shape. Don't ask me how I know this. :-)

Dunno about you, but I know it because I did those things and now I'm fat. >_>

Great comment. A few thoughts from an older guy on naive assumptions made by younger people:

1. That your buddies will always be there in the clutch - many times they won't (a good test: whether they will value your friendship over, say, an opportunistic money grab - many people, in my experience, fail this test).

2. That you can succeed with corner-cutting (the easiest way by far to really learn something and to advance is normally the toughest way: to really dive in deeply and master the fundamentals, with hard work, and then to apply what you learned with diligence and hard work to achieve practical outcomes - the "quick" way is almost always inferior, though its lure is always there to entice you when you are young).

3. That ultimate satisfaction will come from the accumulation of money (nothing wrong with gaining financial success but money in itself can never satisfy the deeper needs of life).

4. That you can abuse your body with any form of excess without needing to care about longer-term consequences (big mistake).

5. That you can relate to others in a haughty way without consequence. Younger people are prone to have a sense of invincibility about what they can do. Don't presume. We are all frail and fallible. Treat others as you would have them treat you.

6. That you need not concern yourself with developing a core center for your character. You can lose everything and still keep your character. In the long run, this is what matters most because it ultimately defines you. Work at making it a good one.

Still in my 20's here: 1. Pareto's 80/20 principle is your friend. The closer you are to perfection the harder and more time consuming it is to get closer to perfection. There are big gains in enhancing weaknesses. At 80% I drop the ball and pick up another. 2. Prioritize: Big blocks first, pebbles last. Every block I put down, I feel lighter and I feel less intimidated and more motivated simply for the fact that no block will be bigger than the last. 3. Experience over stuff. Stuff are perishable but experiences are forever. Moreover, stuff will weight you down financially and emotionally. 4. Expect the worst and you'll never be disappointed. 5. Slow change is sure change. 6. Everything in moderation, moderation included. 7. Always ask "why" more than once and follow the money. Most people are not truly aware why they do what they do. 8. The truth will set you free but it will hurt like a b*tch at first. Be a man and take it. 9. You are not as good nor as bad as you think and things are not as good nor as bad as they seem. 10. Even the crazy has a valid point of view. You would agree with him if you had similar genes and past experiences. (caveat: opinions are different from facts)

"Shiny things are nowhere as much fun after you get them as before".... I dropped my macbook plans

Being too cocky about the experience and depth of knowledge I had at the time. I was a big fish in a small pond, and I outperformed my peers, but on once you go up the professional ladder you realize how little you know.

I 100% agree, and would summarize as "You are not as good as you think you are".

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1209119

Not only is life short, it's shorter than you think.

Make your time count.

I don't mean a life round-the-clock serious business, just be mindful of when you are pissing away your time.

Every single person I know suddenly finds themselves thinking, Holy fuck, I'm [40|50|60|...]? How in the hell did that happen?

And you will do the same.

That you never regret the big fun adventures that you decide to go on.

When faced with the decision, it can be really hard to take 6 months off to travel to the destination of your dreams - but in hindsight, these are the best times of your life and you usually don't regret them.

I recently sat with a 96 year old man, and his stories were about his trips to his hometown in Europe and to the United States, not about the job that he took or the project that he completed.

There were several articles over here about the "Experience Self" vs the "Remembering Self", all based on a talk by Dr.Daniel Kahneman (http://www.ted.com/talks/daniel_kahneman_the_riddle_of_exper...)

Some articles have a summary:

http://sheshtawy.wordpress.com/2010/03/01/experience-self-vs...

The remembering self of the old man definitely appreciated the trips better :)

My comments on Kahneman's talk:

http://web.jaguarpaw.co.uk/~tom/blog.html

I'm 22, and perhaps I'm naive in my belief of this, but one of the biggest things I've learned is that theory and practice are rarely aligned. Reading about mistakes someone else has made generally only helps you see that you've made the same mistake in hindsight; when you're heading down that same path, you tend to justify it or are completely blind to the fact that it's a mistake.

All that said, I'm curious about what comes of this thread regardless of how useful it ends up being.

You need to constantly validate your theories against the real world, what other people say is not enough.

This means: solve a lot of problems after you learned a theory, try to feel out the problem space yourself by extending the theory or applying it in a specific way, practice, practice, practice, and always look out for things everyone considers true but are not obvious from the data.

I am finding more and more as a 21 year that all the answers that you need come from within. I can read the internet all day long for advice about my life but at the end of the day I am really starting to think I am the only one that knows exactly what I should do. Actually doing what I know I should is a completely different thing however.

It's naive of you to believe you can learn from our past naivety.

You will have to do your own mistakes and learn from them.

Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught. -Oscar Wilde

Perhaps not, but I think I've learned from mistakes faster when people have warned me beforehand about them.

If you're a rational person, you can learn a lot from other people's mistakes.

Too bad we're not rational

Speak for yourself.

Unless your brain isn't the product of evolution by natural selection, it's not optional:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases

Sorry but Oscar Wilde was the original troll. If you've spent any time reading him you'd be extremely reluctant to quote him on something like this.

I think that he just wasn't very literal. In this case he's right: you have to learn everything yourself, you can't really be taught; "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink".

One of my favorite quotes is from Oscar Wilde, "Life is too important to be taken seriously".

> It's naive of you to believe you can learn from our past naivety.

Firmly disagree. You absolutely can learn from others' past mistakes - that doesn't mean you'll make no mistakes, but you absolutely can make less mistakes and recognize and correct them faster.

> You will have to do your own mistakes and learn from them.

True. But the more you can listen to and apply good guidance from people who've been there, the better chance you get there faster, more easily, and with less pain.

I wish someone had taught me to lift weights with lower weight and perfect form instead of trying to be superman - from that, I tore some cartilage in my knee doing squats with too much weight and bad form. I've showed a couple people how to lift since then, given them a stern admonition not to try to look powerful, but to focus on steady, safe gains. As far as I know, everyone getting this stern admonition with relevant stories about physical therapy and assorted misery listens to them and lifts weights in a safer, more healthy way. You can learn from others' mistakes, often refrain or minimize the mistake-making in your life, and be much better off for doing so.

There are different kinds of knowledge, and advice targeted at different kinds of mistakes.

Errors of technique, like you describe, certainly can be learned from without needing to experience them yourself - though the lesson might not be learned as well, it may be learned well enough to avoid the problem.

But other kinds of knowledge, particularly relating to emotional maturity or social interaction, are very hard to acquire from a book, as it were. You need to live the experience to properly appreciate the lesson.

But perhaps if you have the knowledge of other guys' mistakes, you can spot your own mistakes earlier. Instead of having to repeat them a hundred times before it dawns on you.

Also learning from mistakes--your own and those of other people--enables you to make different mistakes.

I'm sorry but you're talking about trivial life issue.

Do you think one could teach you how to deal with the loss of a loved one, disease, poverty, finding out who you really are, being a good friend or a good father?

That's what matters.

You will only be given what you deserve after you ask for it. And never be afraid of asking for it if you deserve it.

This is true for gratitude, raises, promotions, funding, marriage, etc.

The main things I learned:

- don't smoke. total waste of health and money.

- don't drink/hang out in bars. total waste of time and money

- make an earnest attempt at becoming a professional BMX racer or late night talk show host or whatever your REAL childhood dream was before spending too much time programming the internet.

- make a lot of friends

- if a girl doesn't sleep with you after the 3rd date, don't call her back

- always have about $30 grand in a bank account somewhere. this will give you the peace of mind to not feel pressured to stay in a job that you hate

Don't believe everything they tell you. If you listen to too many people too often, you will be average at best.

Have the conviction to be better. If you can't convince people of your ideas, it doesn't mean the ideas are bad, it just means they didn't think of them first.

Don't believe everything they tell you. If you listen to too many people too often, you will be average at best.

In other words, don't go to med school because daddy's a doctor and told you so.

There's a reason a lot of highly successful people dropped out of college or never went.

I studied engineering because daddy's an engineer. At a young age I didn't comprehend how fulfilling math and science could be, I didn't understand the creativity and depth and purpose it could bring to me. It turns out daddy has been right a lot of the time.

Also, sure some highly successful people dropped out of college, but perhaps even more highly successful people stuck with it so I'm not sure I agree with "a lot". How often does impulsiveness and ego result in one's downfall as opposed to one's success? I certainly think taking the jump is much more interesting, but we also mostly hear about the success stories. After watching plenty of crappy actresses on screen one could conclude it's easy to earn millions smiling in front of a camera, but that's not the case.

I didn't mean to appear to disparage college, I myself am a recent graduate.

The point I was making was that some people, in order to be highly successful, have to do things that seem weird, risky or downright crazy in order to get ahead (things that their friends, family, business partners, investors etc wouldn't approve of or don't see the reason for).

Examples:

- Sergey Brin is on leave from his PhD studies in Stanford. If the price of me not having to use Yahoo or MSN to find stuff online is the knowledge that one of Google's co-founders doesn't have his PhD yet because he dropped out of his studies to co-found Google, then that's a price I'm willing to pay ;-). Apparently his parents still aren't happy that he doesn't have it, even though he's the 24th richest man in the world.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergey_Brin

- A guy called Michael Burry was the first man to 'predict' the housing market collapse in the US. Author Michael Lewis profiled him in his book, 'The Big Short'. His investors criticized him for years that such a stance was insane, un-American, impossible etc. Mr. Burry didn't listen to any of them, and stuck to his guns because his own research and insight told him he was right. He made millions in a short space of time when things went pear-shaped near the end of 2008. Others copied his strategy also, and made out like bandits.

See: http://www.vanityfair.com/business/features/2010/04/wall-str...

That girlfriend material is the same as wife material.

That's startling. What makes it so?

Do you think that the converse is true, that boyfriend material is the same as husband material?

I believe the wyclif was referring to rather quite the opposite, that a former naive belief of his was that girlfriend material is the same as wife material.

This is in spite of my former belief the only thing that would ever come out of wyclif's mouth was "dollar dollar bill, y'all".

former naive belief of his was that girlfriend material is the same as wife material.

I read his original comment as "you want your girlfriend to be like your wife." That is unless you like wasting 2 people's time instead of one.

If you are just looking for "girlfriend" activities, then shes not really your girlfriend, is she?

OK, I'll settle this: noname123 is right. Remember, this is Ask HN. I just answered the question "What were your naivetés in your twenties?" That was one of mine. I'm amused that got voted up so much while being misunderstood by some...the dangers of brevity!

As someone just about to see my twenties consigned to history here you go:

* There is plenty of time to try a few things out and not feel like your doing anything wrong. I went from school to university and threw myself into a career and it brings you financial advantages which, I suppose, may compound in future life but looking around my peers nobody regrets the year travelling or the year working a couple of jobs that were never a career (teaching abroad?).

* I think most people would say its sensible to start early with savings/pensions and personally I have but, you know what, balance is as important.

* People do nice things for people they like. This, in my experience, has extended to pay rises and favours in work so I try to work for people who like me even if that involves playing a game. Another place I apply this is I'll only contradict or criticise someone at work is if they ask my opinion and even then only in the right setting.

* Finally, basically I wish I hadn't worried about stuff so much. Property prices, interest rates, fillings in my teeth, projects running over etc. At 29 I think I worry about 2% of what I did at 21.

> People do nice things for people they like.

So true. As a manager, I go the extra mile to keep employees I like.

> I wish I hadn't worried about ... fillings in my teeth

So wrong! If your teeth are fucked up, your life will suffer. Get a grade-A dentist and see him or her often. If you get fillings, go for Gold. It's crazy pricey, but they last for a very long time, don't decay, and won't fill up your mouth with mercury.

Avoid debt, Save money, Give generously, Live frugally.

If you have debt already, then pay it off as fast as possible. Go crazy to pay it off- rice and beans, beans and rice.

When you're done paying off debt, then save vigorously (before paying off debt, make sure you have ~$1000 in the bank for an emergency). But if you have no car payment, no school debt, etc, then you can save soooo much money.

When you've saved a lot of money, then you can give a lot of money. Be generous. Find an issue or something that you really believe in and give. When giving with a grateful heart, you will be really happy.

Finally, just live frugally. You don't always need the latest and greatest tech, or whatever is the cool new gadget or car, etc. Enjoy what you have.

I'm going to emphasize what david and many others said: Avoid debt whenever possible.

Being in debt feels like slavery (for example, I can't quit my job or get some unpaid vacations because I'm in debt).

Not to mention there can be some unforeseen catastrophes: a former coworker had her money frozen during the bank crash of 2002 (in Uruguay and Argentina), and had her credit card maxed out. She became almost homeless and now swore off credit.

Savings work in reverse: they allow you freedom - to take time off, to start your own company or even to indulge.

Being generous also feels good.

And lastly, the advice about stuff vs experiences posted here and higher in the thread is very good as well.

A disclaimer: I don't believe in being a luddite, and there are things I value A LOT - for example, having my own car after not having a car for 28 years - but the marginal improvement from an old clunker to a newer car is nowhere near as no car vs any car, and the same happens for Iphone 3 vs Iphone 4 or whatever - I'm not advocating having no cellphone or car or whatever, only that the difference between brand A and brand X where the price is substantially higher is probably not worth it except as an indulgence.

My twenties started 6 months ago, but I've already discovered several of these.

I discovered that despite knowing several languages and frameworks, i can't actually program. Despite being able to get descent grades in high-school without studying i can't do it with university material, so i have less time to play with computers, because i actually have to put in effort. I thought smoking is bad for you, the same way junk food is, actually it has a much bigger impact on your body, much faster. I thought i don't need to sleep...ever. I look forward to discovering more of these, as quickly as possible.

You're lucky to have discovered this now. I learned it the hard way, when I didn't have the motivation or dedication to study hard at the University. I just hadn't learned how to force myself to study.

A lot of people underestimate what higher education teaches you. You may be able to learn how to program by yourself, but you don't learn how to do the boring hard work.

After just a couple years of smoking occasionally at school mainly while drinking I can say that my health has seriously been affected far more than I ever thought it would be. I am constantly stuffed up and coughing shit up.

7 out of the 10 richest people in the world are dropouts. Women love sex but you have to look like the one who wants it more. Ask for more money or for sex and once in a while you'll get what you want.

Don't spend your time racing towards more money once you are comfortable financially. It will not make you happier.

Travel to open your horizons. If possible work overseas for at least a year. This is the best way to learn about life.

Try anything twice. Some apprehensions about food (amongst other things) are learned. You might think you don't like some food or activity but try it twice and you might find out what you like.

One: Have fun.

You have one life, and only one chance to enjoy it. If you waste your time on anger, or hate, or self-pity, you'll wake up one day, old and bitter, and wonder when the world stopped being bright and shiny.

Two: Keep it classy.

People do some awful things to each other. Don't add to that misery. You don't, and shouldn't, have to love everybody, but don't go out of your way to be a dick.

Three: Realize that it's never too late.

You can't fix past mistakes. You can fix future ones. If you regret doing, or not doing, something, then use that as a template for how you want to live from now on.

From my personal experience: - No one knows shit about they are talking about (As a corollary of life's too complex for the human mind. Or the fact that there are plenty of black swans)

You may be THE expert on whatever subject.... and you'll never know all your variables. It's imposible to always be right. It's useless to pretend so (unless you are selling something). Examples??? you'll find them in the news all the time. Subprime crisis, BP spills, etc

Do not believe what you are told. Take it as OPINIONS. And decide from that.

The developer who hasn't coded assembler in his yoth is crazy. The seasoned programmer coding assembler is also crazy.

I am in my twenties. That being said, I would answer your question in book form -- that is, books that changed the way I do things and view the world and that I wish I'd read when I was younger:

1. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

2. The Guide to Getting It On by Paul Johannides [sp?]

3. The Mating Mind: How Sexual Choice Shaped the Evolution of Human Nature by Geoffrey Miller

4. Hackers & Painters by Paul Graham

5. Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl

6. Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert

7. The Time Paradox by Philip Zimbardo.

That last one is particularly important: it points out that, once you've reached a comfortable but, for a highly educated person, relatively low level of income (around ~$40K for an individual), additional income increases do not matter for very for overall happiness.

What does? Friends, family, your sex life, meaningful work.

What doesn't help for happiness? TV. See the journal article "Does watching TV make us happy?" by Bruno S. Frey, Christine Benesch, and Alois Stutzer for more on the answer: "no."

  I only beseech your wisdom about what mistakes/naivetes 
  I'll incur in my twenties

Strangely enough, a lot of the things you look back on as being "silly" from high-school, really aren't. From a certain point of view. You can only truly live in "the now" and what seems important right now, really is what's important right now. Not to sound fatalistic, but we're not guaranteed anything, not even to wake up tomorrow.

That said, probably the biggest thing I look back on my twenties and think "I was wrong about this" about is this: When I was in my twenties, I had no conception of just how short life is, and how quickly some opportunities can vanish. So I was too patient. I believed "patience is a virtue" (and in some ways it is) but I was probably too patient, too willing to take my time and "wait for things to develop." In retrospect, there are times when being more aggressive and forcing the issue is called for.

Like Bon Jovi sang:

  Luck, it ain't enough, you gotta make your own breaks. 
  It's my life. It's now or never. I ain't going to live 
  forever. I just want to live while I'm alive ...

Sometimes you really have to say "fuck it, I'm making this shit happen and I ain't waiting."

The kicker is, there are still times when patience IS a virtue. The tough part is telling the difference. So if I had any advice for 20-something, it would be to think long and hard about situations and opportunities, do some "scenario analysis" and really consider when it's necessary to go balls out and go for broke and be aggressive.

I wish I could say there's an easy way to tell the difference, but even now at 37, I still don't know for sure. But at least be aware... You can't always just wait, wait, wait.

As a single data point - supporting the idea that your own experience is far more valuable than listening to me talk - I continue to get massive value from this (under-rated imho) essay: http://www.paulgraham.com/gap.html

I actually have to disagree with you. I think that's a terrible article. The core idea, that truly competent and motivated people are orders of magnitude more productive than others, is true. But the rest of it is a bad justification for centuries of inequality and exploitation. It confuses Is and Ought To by assuming that any market outcome is always morally good. It ignores the environment, society, and history, while claiming to be more "reality-based" than opposing views.

Travel as much as you can, in your country and abroad. Learn to appreciate other cultures, experience deserts, jungles, frost and balmy beaches.

Try to learn at least one other language, just enough to get you by. Try to live in different places. Major cities, small towns, every environment will teach you something.

Learn to appreciate the arts.

Avoid cynicism as much as you can, it is often a mask for inexperience, apathy, and fear.

Enjoy a good argument that challenges your assumptions, be prepared to change your opinions when faced with new facts, do not seek information just from the sources that feel compatible to you, cultivate media literacy.

a few thoughts:

- don't be intimidated by people who are a few years older and a lot cockier.

- don't worry about having a job / making money. Just get by and build the skills you want. Take risks. Money is easy enough to earn and should not be the primary concern at first.

- Avoid financial over-extension. No credit cards, avoid loans, etc.

- 30 is the new 20. Seriously.

- This sounds cliche, but "ship lots of stuff". Iterate.

- When you meet cool/talented people, collaborate on a small project to get an idea of how strong they are. The real stars will jump out at you.

- Find an obsession and seriously try to live it for at least 2 years. Doing that gets harder and harder the older you get.

Find a girl. Settle down. If you want, you can marry.

(Look at me - I am old, but I'm happy.)

Father and Son?

You still can't beat Cat.

One of the most inspiring lectures in history, filled with life lessons, is Randy Pausch's "Last Lecture":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo

Watch it. Many times.

Some advice I'd give to people in their 20s entering the technology business is:

Don't accept "I give you my word" as part of any business negotiation or contract. This probably applies more in the UK, where there is a tradition/myth of gentlemanly conduct between professionals. On a couple of occasions in my 20s I got caught out in situations where the business partner had seemed to be completely trustworthy and had "given their word" that they would do the right thing.

Try to live a modest lifestyle, and save money. In the technology business companies come and go, and you can never rely upon continuous employment. Even in Europe, where there is supposedly a social security "safety net", there will be times when you need to fall back on savings made during the good times (this is assuming that you don't have wealthy parents).

Even if your job appears totally secure, it isn't. When you don't have much experience behind you it is possible to be lulled into a false sense of security. It doesn't matter how big the company is, or how illustrious the clients.

If you're doing contract work, always read the terms of the contract and be prepared to negotiate over clauses that you don't like. Signing up to stuff without reading it can get you into trouble.

In the software world focussing your career around one language or platform can be a mistake. Learn as much as you can about a variety of systems. I didn't make this mistake myself, but saw people who did. Don't let yourself become a language zealot, and avoid closing your mind off to other possibilities.

-You ARE ready. Don't worry that it doesn't feel like it.

-"Long Term" is shorter than you think.

-Follow YOUR interests, not someone else's.

-Make sure you get the paperwork right.

-Money doesn't make people happy. It just makes some problems go away. Don't confuse one for the other.

-Listen to the "grey hairs", but don't just blindly follow them.

-When it seems like everyone else is being stupid, you might be right. But you're probably wrong.

-Never count on being smarter than everyone else. You're not.

-Luck is a handy substitute for knowledge. But you have to purposefully acquire either.

"... I only beseech your wisdom about what mistakes/naivetes I'll incur in my twenties, oh the elders of the Hacker News ..."

- value life: that as bad as things may get never loose sight that the objective is to get old. [0]

- time: doing a little, a lot adds up. So practice that "foo" or do that "bar" over a long period of time the repeated task adds up. Be generous in your time with others. Time is the ultimate gift.

- be good: if you see something wrong fix it, something bad speak up as evil triumphs when seemingly good people do nothing.

- work on something of value: don't waste your time on trivial crap of marginal value. Work on something that is/or will be valuable now or in the future.

- learn perspective: laugh at your misfortune, cry at injustice and don't fret at things lost.

- work hard: don't do things half-arsed.

- have fun when doing: because it makes things a whole lot more interesting.

- learn from mistakes: don't make the same ones twice.

- evaluate: don't take things at face value, evaluate and adjust to your environment such as work, friends, values.

- rest: learn that there is a time to work, a time to play and time to rest.

"... I'd like to cheat in life and instead of learning my life lessons the hard way, I'd like to skip ahead and read the ending of the current chapter that I'm currently on ..."

If you don't get burnt, how will you learn from these lessons? You really only learn from experience.

[0] After catching up with some mates last week I was amazed at the number of (male) mates who killed themselves in there 20's for what at the time seemed important but in hindsight trivial.

Everything was really easy for me, all through undergrad. I think it hurt my diligence in studying.

Because I remembered everything in lectures, I aced tests without reading a lot of the content. I feel like that hurt my depth of knowledge in areas.

I wish I had been told that skill is entirely learned and nothing innate. I thought I was naturally talented, but now I attribute it mainly to the curiosity parents instilled in me.

+1, same thing happened to me. Only this past semester when I took 8 classes did I realize the value of diligence.

By the way, hope Facebook is going well Ivan!

Disclaimer: I am not even 19 yet. So take this comment with an ocean full of salt.

I have failed in my life more times than I can remember. In fact, everything I have ever done has been a failure at some level or the other. All of my plans to get myself out of the rut and actually do something with my life have failed.

I have so many shortcomings that I can't list them in a book let alone a comment, but pitfall has taught me something. Never ever give up. It is something so cliched, but somehow it's the essence of life. All of the advice above me has taught me a lot, but the thing is that while implementing that advice you will fail.

You will fail again and again and again. I really hope that life has dealt you a fair hand, but sooner or later you will feel like everything is lost, and that life is no longer worth living. Don't listen to yourself at that time. Give yourself time, and just get up and start moving. I really do hope that you don't have to experience this, but it is quite true.

It is something so obvious, but something really hard to do when you are in that situation. I really hope that you never ever go through that pain, but whenever you do just remember that life is worth far more than what we can ever imagine.

Other than that rather obvious piece of advice I would suggest that you should surround yourself with people who care about you. Find your family. It doesn't matter if it is united by biology or sheer love, but you need people in life to love you and give you those small things that we all take for granted.

I know just how corny this sounds, but I wouldn't be alive today if it weren't for this. Whenever you know that you are loved unconditionally it gives you a sense of security and peace that no amount of money in this world can buy. Those people are the ones that make your life worth living, and help you to achieve your goals.

- Go with your gut reaction - that's all you have right now, until you build up experience. But listen to that small voice that says 'hey, this isn't right' and don't let people talk you out of it, even when you don't have a logical argument to pose to them.

- Be the person who helps old people, who holds the door for everyone, who goes out of your way to help people. There is nothing sweeter than improving the quality of someone's life.

- Money means nothing. Don't loan money to people - just give it to them if they need it more than you.

- Be very very careful about the implications of raising money for a startup. Taking investment means you are beholden to your investors to create a return. So if the company you are starting is your dream, your life, your everything be so aware that you are indeed selling this dream and you are no longer the master of it.

- Always be the better person. Time and time again people will crap upon you, and how you react is truly a measure of what kind of person you are, and how people will judge you. Don't complain, don't whine. Forgive and forget. Surprise people with your compassion and always help your 'enemies' be better people, even if they are making your life miserable.

- killer meal to cook for that special someone (if your not an amazing cook): get a couple fillet's of white fish + put a ton of lemon pepper on them + throw them in the oven until they break up easily. Steam broccoli or asparagus.

- Floss daily.

- Look around and choose which friends you will have in 10 years. Those are the relationships to foster. A good friend means you can go years without talking, then pick up right where you left off.

- Be comfortable being alone. Love being alone. If you truly believe you are amazing, other people will too. Charm will get you further than you can imagine.

- Always tip well.

Avoid religions or any kind of dogmatic systems. I wasted most of my 20's as a fervent, fundamentalist Christian. I don't have many regrets, but the ones I do have are a result of that. Develop your own moral sense, don't let anyone dictate that to you. Keep an open, critical mind. Whatever you take as absolute, unquestioned truth will cage you.

Floss your teeth. Every day. Your older self will thank you.

Agreed. There are a lot of minor defects you can hide when you get older, but bad teeth is not one of them. And getting them fixed costs a lot of money!!

- one of the keys to success is being likable. skills/talent alone won't carry you to the top. they can take you far, but if you want to be a star, you gotta know how to hustle. i.e., networking, getting your name/face out there, being likable. if, like many on HN, you want to be an entrepreneur, never stop selling yourself.

- never, ever put off pursuing things that interest you, because if you get in this habit you'll find years fly by where you did nothing but work and watch tv. and on the same token, never ever let regret about your past decisions hinder you from making the right ones going forward.

- never feel superior because you're younger. yes, society is biased when it comes to age, but focusing on your age as if you're some sort of wunderkind is immature and a huge turnoff.

> - one of the keys to success is being likable. skills/talent alone won't carry you to the top. they can take you far, but if you want to be a star, you gotta know how to hustle. i.e., networking, getting your name/face out there, being likable. if, like many on HN, you want to be an entrepreneur, never stop selling yourself.

My experience has been that this has little to do with being likable. In my experience, most less-technical people prefer confident behavior. Behavior that I (and many technical people) would characterize as arrogant.

If I was advising a younger self, I'd point out that self-aggrandizement, to a certain degree, is acceptable and even good. I seemed to figure it out on my own, though.

but, uh, yeah. being confident enough to promote yourself, on the balance, seems to be more important than not being an asshole. (now, if you can promote yourself without being an asshole, that's even better. I'm just saying, if you have to make a choice, it seems that being a self-aggrandizing asshole seems to be better than being quiet and shy, I mean, as an Entrepreneur. As an Engineer, the equation is somewhat different.)

That persuasion is about rational explanations (it's not).

Good point, and I'll add that this book is a good place to get started: http://www.amazon.com/dp/006124189X

People aren't rational. Learning about behavioral economics and Kahneman's list of cognitive failures in the early 90s (before the current boom) made me analyze my thinking and others more carefully. As someone else said, most smart people aren't really that smart. They are brilliant at rationalizing their impulsive conclusions. Where I once obsessed about what others thought of my ideas, now I can scavenge their arguments for a few morsels of good advice.

Also, stop being embarrassed about stuff. No one is looking at your zit or stained shirt or messy hair. It's called the spotlight effect: we think people are noticing the things we are self-conscious about. Everyone is too busy worrying about their own self-image.

Learn by fucking up. It's as simple as that. You will gain friends and loose some too, as well as girlfriends or any other person. But in the end, you will learn what's The Right Thing and your friends will be true friends and your GF/Wife/SO will be a person who respects and love you regardless of your flaws.

Being 36, father of three, married for the second time and doing pretty well for myself these days, I can of course only relate to my own experiences of life.

But I'm pretty sure that if I've asked anyone the question you're asking 15 years ago, I would have gotten some advice on how to get by in life, but I wouldn't have understood why the advice given to me was the right way. Experience gives you that understanding.

z80, Sweden

At 27, there is one thing I've learned that would have been quite helpful at 22:

"I'm not ready for that yet" is the magic word for a lifestyle of stagnation and missed opportunities. You're right! You're not ready, but the thing is, you never will be unless you just do it.

That things will usually turn out better than I expect. It's important to have realistic (read: deliberately-lowered) expectations in life. I always find that I am objectively better off when I don't burden myself with out-of-reach ambitions.

P.S.: I'm a college sophomore.

37, here. One of my <=20s naiveties:

- That the old saying "you can do anything" is hogwash. It gets parroted by your teachers and parents without a thought, but it's totally true. It comes down to how bad you want it and what you're willing to sacrifice.

I recently asked a question that got a lot of responses along these lines. Hope you get even more! http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1366217

This is not an answer (as I am mid-twenties), but rather a related question:

I have been told by many people more successful than I that I should always try to be friends with people older than I. How can I do this?

I don't consider myself to have a lot of friends, but I'm 28 and virtually everyone I do spend time with is older than me. I got married and had kids young, so married and parenting peers are all older. I own my own web development/consulting business, so my clients and business peers are all older than me. My path works well if you started on it several years ago. If you need a short cut, find any adult fraternal organization to join. Religious and/or service-oriented will probably be most effective. For me it would be the Knights of Columbus or Rotarians, to give a couple examples. I don't know where you are or what exists there, but they can be a great way to meet older people in the parallel- or team-work for a larger cause context that gives people the opportunity to form friendships.

Also, among the reasons older people are useful besides connections is so that you can learn from their wisdom or lack of wisdom. (It can be useful to keep a list for yourself of traits you want to root out and avoid so you don't become that guy 20 years from now.) Usually you can do this learning by active observation on your part, but sometimes people will feel compelled to teach you explicitly. God knows I'm no expert at social graces, but most of the time you probably have to let that ride, and strongly consider the possibility that you deserved it. If you're sure you didn't, try to understand why they thought you did.

It's usually just acquaintances from work or an organization.

Experience the excitement of slapping yourself silly now instead of later, because it will probably be much less enjoyable when you're older. Words of wisdom.

I'll be 35 in like a week, but a few weeks ago I had a realization that has allowed me to make a lot more sense out of things:

There is metaphysical loneliness ("What is my purpose in life?"), and romantic/sexual loneliness ("I wish I had someone to share this with"), and and they both suck and they feel kind of similar, but don't expect one thing to fix both problems.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERbvKrH-GC4

Things will start going wrong with your body in your late 30s. I wasn't expecting to be immortal, but I was expecting it to happen a bit later than that.

Don't ever move from a place that you like to a place that you don't, because circumstances will change and you will find yourself stuck there.

I believed that I would always have hair.

The only things worth spending money on are knowledge (eg, books), experiences (travel, etc.), and relationships.

Most things, at least beyond what's needed for utility (computer, shelter, reliable car if you're not in a city with good transit) are ultimately an unfulfilling waste of money.

in addition to the some excellent comments

1) you live in your own personal reality. what you see/understand/think/etc others cant and what others can you dont. when you get this, it completely changes your perspective on communication.

2) readup and learn to identify the different general personality types. and understand how they view the world

3) you dont need permission from anyone. not your mom, your boss, your friends/peers/gf/spose etc. if you want to start a company, JFD. want to travel JFD. want to change jobs JFD. life is too short so beg for forgiveness.

4) dont seek out approval. meaning dont please your friends/peers/gf/spose/boss/clients to get a pat on the head. dosent mean be an asshole and dosent mean do do nice things for people. i means dont do things to seek their approval

- Define and prioritize your values. Most people never do this, at any age, and that's too bad, it helps you make and live with hard decisions.

- Read something, write something, and build something, every day.

- It all comes down to an old Arab proverb: Take what you want and pay for it.

personal relationships > money

Probably most stupid thing was that I believed I had to do everything while still in my 20's. Now that I'm entering the year of 30 later this year, I came to realize that most productive period is ahead of me, for the next 30 or so years.

Lots of good advice from others... I'll try not to repeat:

0) Regardless of what anyone says - you get one life, and one journey - and the path you take is your own - there is no right or wrong one that anyone can decide for you. It's subjective, and up to you to do what's right for you - which could be anything from being the next Ghandi to being the next Hitler.

1) No matter how much you ask this (good for you) you're still going to be the age you are and make mistakes. Mistakes are how you learn - and that's okay.

2) Don't leave everything for the future. live in the here and now, and cultivate a lifestyle that takes care of your future as well as letting you enjoy life now.

3) Avoid debt at all costs - even when all your peers, even the whole of society seems to think it's "okay" to spend money you have and pay it back later.

4) Avoid investments unless you really understand them - there is nothing fundamentally wrong with cash in the bank. (Despite all the peer pressure to invest over the years, I've been disappointed by almost every single investment I've made, and I've been quite happy at my choices to keep cash - especially when markets crash and things go bad. That cash has kept me worry-free and happy far more than any investment.) (Of course, I might be completely wrong.. but you asked.) 5) As soon as you have an income, make sure you are saving something every paycheck - build up a cushion and keep building it up indefinitely. You should very quickly not care when payday is. IT may seem like a burden at first, but it will very quickly become a source of relief and enjoyment in life - and it keeps you open to far more opportunities. 6) Happiness is something you cultivate internally and is completely up to you - it is not based on ANY external factors unless YOU let it be. Cultivate happiness in your life. 7) Drugs are bad. Some aren't as bad as the media makes things out to be when you grew up, but they're still bad compared to not doing them. (this includes drinking and even caffeine. I'm not saying don't do them - I'm just saying, after a good chunk of your life has passed, someone I met once told me he wished he hadn't done all the substances he had done, and they weren't even what you'd consider bad, and he is still relatively healthy and quite successful.)

8) Variety is good. 9) Sleep is important. 10) Food and diet and exercise are important. 11) You sort of start going downhill around 30 (You notice changes in your body and mind - you realize you aren't going to live forever. The better you take care of yourself before this point (and after of course) the better you'll feel. Health breeds happiness. Don't wreck your health early - you may not even realize you are doing it. Save some of it for when you are older and can afford to blow some more brain cells on enjoyment - otherwise you may not be able to. 12) Never feel stuck - life is full of opportunity and happiness, and the world is a beautiful place. If you wake up and find you don't see it that way, figure out why and do something about it. It's the DOING that's important.

Not to dismiss other people's advice, but the recurring theme in your post has been seeking approval from others, and now you're doing it here.

Or...you're pandering to people's desire to talk about themselves.

I used to think I could sum up life in a blog post.

Don't cry over anything that can't cry over you.

Those stock options in the startup where you work aren't worth much, if anything. The experience is very valuable though.

Learn to fight for something bigger than yourself, and do it for those that aren't capable.

Thing is, you cannot cheat this way. I've found that mostly it's pretty useless to read valuable advice from from other people, you just have to live through it yourself. As Morpheus says "No one can be told what the Matrix is, you have to see for yourself".

We are all born with a fatal disease called life. It will kill you eventually. Use your time wisely. Wisely does not mean always working, nor always playing, but probably some kind of balance. Combine work and play for the win.

I am perfect. Not naive in any way.

I am 25.

In the year 2020, you'll find this post of yours - and have a hearty laugh. How do I know? Because around 1998 I wrote quite similar sentiment...

It seems to me that scorpion032's post is intended to be an ironic "naivity in his 20's" rather than a statement he actually believes.

I was you a couple of days ago. Now I'm 29!

How did you skip 4 years?

They skipped by themselves, overnight!

Here are my rules:

1. Don't worry, be happy. 2. If you don't use it, you loose it. 3. Take some chances

....richie

Drink white beer only in reasonable amounts!

I love white beer (Hoegaarden, Wieckse Witte), anything wrong with it?

Just that the yeast there can really make going to the toilet next day much easier :)

But, don't feel afraid to go into excess when the time permits. Life is about pushing the boundaries.

Love this thread, esp. as I'm in my 20s and directly benefit from it.

Biggest lessons that I've learned so far and would offer up are the importance of VISION, FOCUS, and PERSEVERANCE. I offer these as someone who is directly engaged in the struggle of walking my own path. I am by no means perfect or even close to achieving all 3 of these points 100% of the time, but these are the 3 that help me keep going. I hope this is helpful to you.

1) VISION: You must figure out who you really are and what you want to be, and then be it with everything you've got. Most people you meet will have a set notion of you that may not align with your vision of yourself. Don't follow their vision. Find and follow your own.

Further, a lot of our 20s peers are doing "what they're supposed to do" because they haven't put in the emotional labor to figure out "what they want to do" and "who they want to be." As a result, they spend money and time on things that don't matter and have no meaning. Don't be that guy. Figure out who you want to be and what you really care about. Then act accordingly.

I'd suggest literally writing out your vision. You will need it clearly articulated and stored somewhere so that you can revisit it when you feel like shit later on. There will be stretches of time where you think "why the hell am I doing this, again?" You need to be able to revisit your vision and re-inspire yourself with your own answer. More on this in #3.

2) FOCUS: Ignore the haters and avoid the losers. Be ruthless about how you spend your time.

-Haters: Once you figure out #1, a lot of your acquaintances who are doing "what they're supposed to be doing" and were nice, become trolls. Your inner security, vision, and that you have the balls to go for it will highlight their lack thereof. Don't listen, don't react, just get back to work on your vision.

-Losers: the people you spend time around affect your thoughts, decisions, and actions. Don't hang out with people who are negative, unsupportive, or are just plain losers. They will bring you down and eventually, you will end up resenting them for doing so and yourself for letting it happen.

-Time: Time is the most valuable asset we have in our 20s, along with energy. Consciously choose what you spend time on, and who you spend time with. Don't spend time doing shit that doesn't matter or that you hate. Don't spend time around haters/losers.

Whatever it takes, cultivate and maintain a personal network of supportive, positive, happy people. Doing so will make it orders of magnitude more likely you will be supportive, supported, positive, and happy. We are deeply affected by the people we spend time with.

3) PERSEVERANCE: No one said it would be easy to follow through on your vision. Once you've got it (#1), and are able to start focusing in on it (#2), JUST. KEEP. GOING. You will get knocked down. You will fail at times along the way. You will feel like shit sometimes. When this happens, go revisit your vision, your "why" (from #1), and put fuel back in your tank. Then... Just. Keep. Going.

Again, I'm not "there" yet but these 3 things are what help me keep going and give me confidence that I will make it. Best of luck to you on the journey -- and please, enjoy the ride!

Some inspiration: I would sum this up visually by borrowing from Hugh MacLeod. I imagine the combination of "the white pebble" and "three keys."

-White pebble: http://gapingvoid.com/2009/04/09/the-white-pebble/

-Three keys: http://gapingvoid.com/2010/02/14/three-keys/

A couple things from this forty-year old:

1. If you want to have kids, do it sooner rather than later. The sooner you have them, the better: they grow up so fast, you'll still have time in your 40's to enjoy life with them as teenagers, if you're lucky. If you leave it too late, you'll be pretty disconnected from their teen lives, and hell .. what 40-year old doesn't enjoy the odd jaunt with their teenage kids, eh? I know I wish I'd had my kids a decade sooner .. and don't let anyone tell you its hard, either. Its not hard, if you love them enough, to keep your lives together and do well as a family. Family units are the strongest groups you will ever find or belong to, if they are indeed a unit ..

2. The wisdom of the Mob. It doesn't exist in nearly as palatable a form as most people might desire, and there is also the ugly truth that the Mob can be downright stupid. Collective truth is often full of lies. You would be wise to exercise your ability to disassociate yourself from collective thought as often, and as early, as possible. This means, always question "what everyone else knows to be true" four, five, six times, before you use it as a basis for life decisions .. The Mob wishes to Eat you, Individual, and Never Forget That!

3. Save. Save, save, save. 10% of your money saved on a regular basis now is a huge relief in the future. I wish I'd enforced this on myself a bit better in the 20's .. you simply cannot avoid the fact that if you save during your most productive years, your least productive years will be better off for it ..

> 3. Save. Save, save, save. 10% of your money saved on a regular basis now is a huge relief in the future. I wish I'd enforced this on myself a bit better in the 20's .. you simply cannot avoid the fact that if you save during your most productive years, your least productive years will be better off for it ..

I just got my first a few months ago and opted to save more than 20% of my gross income (tax-free, you pay taxes when you get it out later). I wasn't used to the money anyway, yet, so it was easy.

Also, if you are not saving already: I guess whenever you get a raise, you can comfortably afford to save like 50% of it--because that money isn't planned into your budget, yet.

One step further: if you get a raise, take all of the associated money and save it. The standard of living you're used to will stay the same.

If you can do pull it off, do so. I might even try it myself.

But saving "only" 50% of your raises is something everybody can do without too much discipline, and still feel rewarded with a higher standard of living for whatever they did to get the raise. (Unless it's an automatic raise, and not something you got for some achievement.)

    1. If you want to have kids, do it 
    sooner rather than later.

My issue is that kids cost a lot of money, which means you lose quite a lot of flexibility.

I want to start my own business within the foreseeable future (probably 1-2 years, currently saving money, gathering contacts and getting more on-the-job experience in the field I want to operate in).

Right now I know that if I save 20k Euros that could easily last me for well over a year, if you have kids - not so much.

EDIT: I'm 27 and have tried doing my own thing that didn't work so well in the past - that 'failure' taught me I should probably get more experience and contacts before trying again. Saving 20-30k Euros (or more) is not the issue and is a sum I can relatively easily gather in a 1-2 years time-frame.

I have a 3 year old, a 2 year old, an 8 week old, and a startup.

Having kids has no impact on having your own business. They're completely orthogonal. Using that as an excuse for not having kids makes as much sense as saying "I don't want to eat tacos for dinner because I want to have my own business."

Note: I'm not responding directly to your comment; I'm responding to the somewhat pervasive idea on HN that kids are a substitute for startups.

"Having kids has no impact on having your own business"

You're saying that raising children has no impact on your available time and money? That seems a bit far fetched. I'd agree that it's totally possible to have kids and do a startup, but frankly you'll be working with a bit less money and less time (and for a while way less sleep).

It very much depends on how you and the mother decided to split up the work load. If she is happy taking close to 100% of the work load and letting you do your thing then it shouldn't be impossible to have basically the same amount of time.

I'd argue that if you're spending ~0% of your time with you kids then you're doing it wrong. Something has to come first, and imho if you have kids then the kids need to come first. That means spending as much time as you can with them, both to help raise them, teach them, and also to experience parenthood.

Having a kid myself, and having turned down an awesome job opportunity since it would have kept away from my daughter for too long periods at a time, I totally agree with you. That being said, I know people who have made the opposite choice, and while I don't agree with it, their kids seem to be turning out OK.

Of course raising children requires time and money, just like any other activity.

I have a friend who competes in Iron Man. It takes a huge commitment of time and energy, and every time I talk to him he has just spent $1000 for some new attachment to his super-bike. Iron Man negatively impacts his "available time and money". Oh, and he has a startup. And it's very successful.

I suspect that most of you have hobbies that consume 3-4 hours of your weekday and several hundred dollars of your monthly budget.

Now, in my case, my family is my hobby. Spending time with my kids is how I relax and unwind. I don't go out, or watch TV, or play a musical instrument, or compete in Iron Man, or participate in Renaissance Festivals. My life might seem empty and boring to you, if your idea of relaxing and unwinding is different than mine.

Having a family is one choice -- amongst many -- for how to spend your free time and disposable income. I'm not claiming that you can have it all -- for example, I don't think anyone could do startup + family + Iron Man -- but I do think that startup + family is eminently doable.

Ok, I want to know more :) Is your startup funded and do you work from home? Is your partner working?

I'd like to hear a little more about how they're completely orthogonal, as most people I know with kids would probably indicate differently.

Paul Graham, exactly one year ago: "What a startup (bootstrapped or not) takes is 100% of your performance, not 100% of your time." http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=679278

He was talking about exercise, but I think the same is true with having kids.

In my case, I spend 4 hours with my kids every workday: 6am - 10am. During that time, I get:

- Ridiculous, insane amounts of joy.

- A chance to see the way that little minds think, which usually triggers a good software idea at least once per week.

- The same kind of chemical response that I would get from volunteering. Before kids, I tried to volunteer about 20 hours per week because it released some kind of neuro-chemical that made me really happy. Helping - and in particular, TEACHING - my kids triggers a similar response.

- An opportunity to process the day's coming challenges (subconsciously)

- Lots of laughs, enough that I don't feel compelled to watch as many TV shows or movies as I did previously.

For me, it works out to a huge net positive on both personal fulfillment and professional performance.

I can't be a good dad to my 3 kids and have enough time to read a chapter in a book each day (along with employment, house chores, etc), let alone go forth with any business ventures.

Do you really find your statements to be true? If so, how do you balance them? Orthogonal seems to be an unarguably incorrect statement, though.

Agreed, if nothing else, kids motivate you. They represent something greater than yourself, which can cause you to work harder and be more determined. They also provide inate happiness and joy outside of your work life.

You will be less risky when you have kids. However, not all risk is worth it.

I often found that in college I performed better (higher GPA) with a higher work load than with a lighter work load. I think it is because I was forced to be more efficient, sharper, and wiser with my time. Having kids and starting a business is analagous. However, this is only my personal experience.

1. If you want to have kids, do it sooner rather than later.

Having kids later is like letting them time travel to the future.

I'm glad my parents had me late.

Unless there comes a new ice age and people start fighting all over the place for food and shelter, or whatever. Let's hope it won't come to that - but anyway, the future might not always just be new versions of iPhones. I think we are actually one of the first generations that never had to experience a war in their home country (speaking from my countries perspective).

That said, I am also curious about the future and hope to experiences as much of it as possible...

- You owe nothing to your employer. - If you give more than 2 weeks notice, you are sucker - Your employer will not be loyal to you - All healthy public companies gross a minimum of $200k per employee. This means you should NEVER feel guilty about insisting on the salary that you feel you deserve. - Working for other people SUCKS - If your closest friend is a woman, and you want to date her best friend, ask her first. Just do it, life will be easier. - Confidence is more important than any other skill. - Learn an alcohol, Wine or Whisky, and become fluent enough in it to fill those awkward gaps at networking events. (Warning, you'll take sides, and if you go whisky, the wine people will annoy the hell out of you with their pageantry.)

Don't compromise in order to get attention, things, connections, or money. Not only can everyone else tell (at least subconsciously) when you're faking it, but you will feel miserable.

That's not to say you shouldn't endeavor to be polite and respectful to everyone -- or that the world should accept you just as you are. (That's a knee-jerk, chip-on-the-shoulder reaction to be unwilling - afraid - to change.)

But it does mean that if you fake being friends with someone just to get something - if you fake being interested in a business because you just want the money - if you fake being passionate about a topic because you want the rewards...

You'll feel hollow inside, and miserable, and end up hating yourself, whether your plan "works" or not.

- Try not to get married until after you're 30. By the your libido will have waned a bit, and you will have a clearer head and greater experience to see what kind of person you'd like to spend your life with

- Try not to have a kid until after you're 30. A kid cannot raise another kid

- Try everything. That way you get to know what you like/hate.

- Find something you're passionate about, and learn everything about it.

- Don't incur huge debts in your prime. Do not buy (car/house/woman/kid/plane/boat/land/friend) with credit.

- Use your money for experiences. Those you'll remember and cherish.

- Learn macroeconomics/history. You'll learn why the housing bubble occured, why we're in a great depression, and how China will become the next empire. Invest properly based on those learnings.

As someone who just recently bought his first house, it seems unrealistic to have saved up that entire amount within any kind of reasonable timeframe. Obviously, you should buy a house (and other things) that is within your means, which is more what the housing bubble was all about IMO.

But I do agree with your general premise.

Just remember you'll be dead all too soon and let life flow accordingly.

This should be reposted to Reddit as well.

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