Ask HN: What heuristic made a big difference to your life? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What heuristic made a big difference to your life?

35 pointsrex-mundi28 comments

Unhappiness with my own life causes increased interest in politics and decreased interest in technology, math, philosophy, literature ...

I use it as a warning signal.

I would not put philosophy in that list though. I've noticed those arguing about politics often add philosophers' quotes or ideas in their own vague arguments.

so real

When I start to actually give a shit about politics I know I’m unhappy

It’s also a great way to rationalize why I write off all politically minded ppl as simply unhappy — when I am politically minded it is always solely the result of personal unhappiness — when I am happy I don’t care about politics

Not an (admissible) heuristic per se. But I've begun asking people: Are you living the dream?

Not only is it a fantastic conversation starter. But I am truly shocked how few people get to live it! Maybe 1% if being generous.

It's a proxy for a more meaningful encounter than what "How are you?" can elicit. And opens a space to share the most intimate threads from their personal history. As well as reinforcing my own belief in staying true to one's vision ;)

The dream has a habit of changing once you find it. Its a Changeling!

Great question and so few people ask it. Commenter also made the good point the dream can change.

Slightly different wording but "What do you want your life to look like?" is worth asking too! :)

Going to sound corny but the things that made the most difference to my life...

* Getting a good nights sleep.

* Becoming "minimalist by divorce" in 2003.

* Finally understanding true wealth is having enough.

* Learning how to ram down expenses while maximizing my Real Hourly Wage.

* Going for a 40 minute walk every day.

* Realizing for me happiness is strongly correlated with level of personal freedom (not the fake freedom you hear about in the "land of the free"). Read "How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World" by Harry Browne for more details.

* Learning to stop mulling on negative thoughts and either throwing them out forever or turning them into a positive action plan.

* Learning from "mistakes". For example, what I learned about money after going broke in 2006 resulted in financial freedom today.

* Traveling is like holding up a giant mirror on your lifestyle and beliefs. A fish in water doesn't notice water until it's yanked out of it.

* After being homeless I learnt to be more empathetic. People with no empathy have not yet suffered.

* Most people want love but don't give love freely first. If you want to be loved, love.

* Appreciate the little things. Until you can do this you will always be agitated.

* Understanding the Money Road is a dead end.

* I've driven a Cobra with a V12 Jag engine, a heavily customized Datsun 240Z, and a 1969 MGB GT, but the most fun I ever had was in my first car, a Singer Chamois, which I got for £30 from my Grandfather. Why? She was my first love and a temperamental bitch!

* If it's not fun and there are few other advantages to it, stop doing it!

Make things as simple as possible, but no simpler.

This pushed me towards minimizing and downsizing all aspects of life. I operate on a closed list of objects, habits and metrics.

I work less, spend less, achieve more and everything is much more enjoyable.

Interesting. Have you had situations where you had difficulty with this initially but it paid off. I'm asking as I am maximizer by default so I have trouble with this even though it's important

Sorry for butting in here, but I'm a minimalist and wanted to throw in my two cents. There were a few things that were difficult. One was getting housing right. It took some effort but we now have a place with more than enough space, highly energy efficient, and five minutes walk from work for her (and less for me - I work from home). Getting rid of my car took some re-adjustment. Both really worth it though. Most of the other adjustments were almost trivial. Rather than making things harder they make things MUCH easier. For example when I travel I only carry a single carry on bag. Managing finances are much easier too.

One of the hardest things is not so much doing it (which can take some juggling) but other people's reactions. I remember when I didn't have a TV (I lived for about ten years without one - partner bought one eventually though). People were literally shocked. They would literally stand there mouth agape. "How can you live without a TV" was a question I got very used to. The trouble is people take it as a personal affront. They can get quite shirty about it. Getting rid of the car caused brains to explode! :o)

What would you say are your metrics?

If someone does something once, they will do it twice. This has never failed me on the big things. People are mostly static

Job hunt:

Old way of thinking. Search jobs. Most jobs pay 100k. Most paying 120k are beyond my experience level so I'm worth 100k.

New way: Jobs pay on some kind of probability distribution. Might be a normal one but who cares. If I apply for enough jobs I can earn with some probability that I control a much higher amount for the same level of work.

yep there was a post here a couple of weeks ago about a guy who applied for 200 or so jobs over 6 weeks, every 2 weeks he increased his pay demanded by $20k ended up going from asking for $60k to $140k or something incredible.

Tried searching for that post but can't seem to find it. Do you remember what it was called?

Sorry I've just tried to search for it again too, think @AustenAllred may have tweeted it?

(went through 3 weeks of his tweets couldn't find it)

To have any kind of meaningful and successful career today, you need to be either really good with numbers (in some way) or really good with people. If you have both, you can go a really long way. If you decide to focus on one, you need at least a base level of skills in the other.

Cool question!

Reality is always complex and I have no easy heuristics, but a few basic principles that have bigger consequential insights or uses to me.

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listen to your gut, it thinks faster than your consciousness:

- but only act upon it, once you understood the reason. (I love how with math problems you often know you have valid the pathway to the answer, but don't have it in your grips just yet until a few seconds later)

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I assume everything has a cause or is (pseudo-) random. This leads to a few conclusions:

- no free will in a strict sense (I still have agency and can choose to do what I think is right)

- no bad people (I don't have to talk to assholes, but there should never be revenge, only protection of society)

- if someone is in emotional pain about something silly, the pain is still real and to be taken serious (that doesn't mean that they shouldn't be desensitized a bit)

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Before you do anything, assess the situation:

- I'm very emotional and very analytical, but before I haven't figured out the situation the emotions take the back seat.

- If something can't be changed anymore I might be sad, but have no reason to panic in to any action, where there is no reasonable one to act upon. (As you someone was talking about politics: I don't give much about local politics anymore, only want to understand the "why" of global politics. (local politics is quite approachable however, one can make changes there if one really wants to))

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Sadness is alright and should not be suppressed:

- it also doesn't exclude comedy or bitter-sweet romance

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There is always a meta-level you haven't reached yet. (And usually it's worth to get there. But as in Plato's Cave, usually it's not revealed without new insight. You can go and hunt for that insight though. So if you can, try to take a step back.)

To trust the doctor and never do private research on internet before or after the diagnosis, and don't take the before research too seriously. Also don't compare conditions with others who had been through similar thing. Related to that, never research the contents and side effects of medications as every single one of them seems to have everything from nausea to death.

In 2015 my father had an unfortunate series of events and was hospitalized four times, including a botched surgery and its repair. I did all the mentioned things the first time and was constantly apprehensive about everything. It suddenly occurred to me one night that I was being a wise ass layman and its better to stop it. In 2018 my mother had two hernia repair surgeries. I have been to hospital quite a lot recently and the enlightenment made life easy for the rest of the visits. The unfortunate mistake I did, in hindsight, was that I did all the things with my younger sister, and have taught her so well that I am unable to get her to quit it. I lecture her at every possible occasion and the progress has been geological.

When I struggle with a piece of work - I fallback on keeping a count on number of iterations to my approach/attempts. Where first iteration starts with basic premise of problem and gradually work my way up. This process somehow tricks to make progress methodically.

Show a minimum level of initiative and you will impress everyone.

Especially works with social situations - its incredible how much I've gotten out of local music just by always being on the front foot.

What do you want to have in 10 years time. Every day. Go get.

Reminded of Debbie Millman's brilliant 10 Year Remarkable Life Exercise > https://mindfulambition.net/vision-setting-debbie-millman-re...

Yup. She's rather more studious than I but ring, ring, ring.... Be careful what they wished for (because it might just come true…)

Always have a plan B. Even with the best of research and planning, plan A may fail.

The attitude towards risk taking is taking risks where you can afford to fail to live another day.

The 80:20 rule and Pareto distribution vs. Normal distribution.

"Don't be a dick."

And this too shall pass.

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