Quiting everything, because I can. | Hacker News Reader

Quiting everything, because I can.

7 pointsGDH6 comments

Life is so complicated these days. We all spend far to much time sitting at our computers, whether it's facebook, HN or even coding a project, and the majority of it doesn't make any difference in life. From now on everything I do will be purpose driven with a goal and a goal set of achievements. I'm willing to bet that in the time each of us has spent on face™book or even HN we could have developed an idea for the next big thing, coded it and launched it. Now I've got nothing against HN, it's a great community that actually contains intellectual posts for the most part, however I see so many posts on how to succeed. You DON'T succeed by simply reading how to launch your product or the "10 things your product needs". You succeed by working hard, so hard that you lose half your friends and drag yourself along as bankruptcy tries eat you alive. I'm quiting pointless socializing via the internet, we don't need 1000 friends to connect with on a daily basis and face™book knows that. You never know where your feet will take you if you take a step out the door, so take a step today.

GDH

Sorry, but I don't agree. Life is a balancing act. Maybe socialization is taking up valuable time, but cutting yourself off completely may also be destroying future opportunities and inspiration.

Exactly. It's true that one can't achieve anything without execution, but that only comes after inspiration. Ignoring sources of inspiration all together will only bring failure and thus create a negative impact. It's great that you [GDH] are looking to make your life more productive but, as tuppy said, find a balance when making reforms.

I agree with that, I still use traditional email which supports a far more professional communication. As for socializing all my close friends can call me. I found that I had far to many people on facebook who I hadn't ever had a valuable conversation with. In my opinion facebook doesn't have the balance right, email is to personal, facebook is in my opinion trying to push the "more friends are better" on us to hard.

This reminds me of when people argue that public funding should be reallocated from research in pure science to applied science. Just as it's hard to predict what the applications of any scientific finding will be, it's hard to tell from where the inspiration for your best work will come, which of your personal experiences will prove valuable, or who your lasting friends will be.

I have set myself a goal of coding/making something new once a month. I made the first thing last night, just a simple premise - but it's something. I'll share it on HN soon once it's ready.

But indeed, being a keyboard jockey does little for your success. Get off your ass and actually do and make something!

I agree with you. I'm gonna begin thinking about how to make something that really matters, something meaningful that truly helps society.

I don't know if I could really do it, but I'll do my best.

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