Life Lessons From A 27-Year Old | Hacker News Reader

Life Lessons From A 27-Year Old

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I don't like traveling. I really don't. I spend most of the time feeling uncomfortable in some way (temperature isn't right, have to use the bathroom, worried about getting robbed) and it costs money! Why do people think that because they like traveling everyone else will too? And why is "go travel" considered any kind of advice? </rant>

Probably because it involves exposing yourself to other cultures, going well outside your norms in many areas, and basically getting a huge amount of perspective. It's educational in many ways and considered valuable experience. That said, I wouldn't bother if you genuinely don't enjoy it (although personally, "man up" is a common mantra on my trips...)

I'm afraid I'm too confident in my masculinity, or lack thereof, to be much affected by any advice to "man up."

Also, I only ever enjoy traveling by the second or third time I go to a place, when that horrible feeling of being lost, helpless, completely ignorant, and not belonging has subsided a bit.

In most of my friends who enjoy traveling I see a certain histeria, a mixing of their expectations with reality that is really uncomfortable to be around (like hearing "this is paradise" to a landscape that is really familiar; like "checkpointing" by taking pictures of landmarks and signs and trivial activities everybody does; like calling fast-food "wonderful" because it comes in a pretty plate from a waiter who doesn't speak your language; etc).

I respect your opinion, but I've gotta admit I chuckled at your list of discomforts.

In my case, I find that feeling of uncertainty on arriving at a new country to be exhilarating. I feel so comfortable in my day-to-day life, that it's rare that I really need to think much about my environment. Whenever I travel it makes me think about my existence a bit differently; that is the real value I get from travel.

Travel can be cheaper than being at home, depending on where you go and where you live. And in response to your fear of being robbed; just don't travel with much of anything and get travel insurance. The worst that can happen is that you'll end up without a passport somewhere and have to go through some bureaucratic process to get a new one.

>I spend most of the time feeling uncomfortable in some way (temperature isn't right, have to use the bathroom, worried about getting robbed) and it costs money!

That's exactly why you should travel to learn about the world outside of your immediate cocoon.

I worked hard to spin this cocoon. I'm fine where I'm at.

I have to say, learning to endure holding in traveler's diarrhea really well is not one of my life goals. But to each his own.

I find travel to be much easier when you have connections to people where it is you're traveling. The company I work for has offices around the world, therefore I always have someone to help me get around an unfamiliar place.

I find traveling to be a great way to expand your view of the world. Living in Bangalore for 6 weeks changed me forever.

Traveling hackers should check in at one of these: http://hackerspaces.org/wiki/List_of_Hacker_Spaces Instant community of like(ish)minded people, pretty much everywhere.

Outcomes in the stock market and the startup world are at least somewhat correlated, which seems like a downside to being heavily invested in the stock market while committed to a startup.

To me, the best idea is to invest in areas that are less correlated with your own field.

For example, a good friend of mine works at a mutual fund as an analyst covering banks. For him, his job is already highly levered to the performance of equity markets.

Rather than invest in more stocks for his personal account, he's been looking at places where he can diversify and earn a decent return. For example, he's been investing in rental properties. Another friend works as an oil & gas ibanker, his investments are mostly concentrated in commercial real estate deals.

I have a similar feeling on big corporate employee stock purchase plans. You should always sell the shares as soon as they vest (if you have the discounted purchase price most of these do) as you will likely see a stock dive around teh same time you lose your job.

"From someone who has (hopefully) only lived about a quarter of their life"

Do other people feel the same way? Obviously future medical advances might change my mind on this, but I would prefer to die around 80...

I know the cliche is "you feel that now when you're young, you wait until you're my age and say that again"... but I suspect that when I do reach that age, my main reason for not euthanizing myself would be not wanting to upset people who know me, rather than because I actually want to live to be 100 years old.

While I completely respect your opinion and believe you and only you should be allowed to make the decision about when your life ends, I have to say that I also completely can't understand your perspective.

I want to live as long as medically possible, as long as I am not a vegetable or in horrible pain.

100 years, 200 years, 500, 1,000. I just don't think I will get bored of life.

If I don't get bored of life then I would change my mind... but I think I would, and based on, for example, old aged relatives of mine, I think they would agree with me even if they either havent said it out loud or haven't realised it themselves.

It is impossible to disentangle "bored of life" from "bored of being old" with current technology. It is very easy to imagine that people pretty freely conflate the two. Put an arthritic 80-year old on the verge of death from any of several conditions popping thirty pills a day in a fresh, healthy 18-year-old body and ask them if they're still "bored of life" in a month.

Definitely want to live as long as I possibly can. If at any point that stops being true, it's because I screwed up.

I'm sorry, but these lessons are crap. The only lesson that matters is actually from the Kenny Rogers song, The Gambler. "The secret to survival, is knowing what to throw away and knowing what to keep"

This goes for everything, girls, goals, jobs, ideas and even food =)

If you know what you want, you'll never go wrong. Most people don't know what they want, and spend forever trying to find it. But then it's too late.

Your point on be an engineer is what I have been thinking lately. I am 27 as well and not in a position to be an enterpreneur. What I have realized is I need to start developing libraries(javascript/jquery) and not just use it.

That's interesting. Why do you feel you're not in a position to be an entrepreneur? I ask because I was 26 when I started Mandalorian, which while not being an amazing world conquering business has paid my mortgage (and that of a fair few others) for the past 5 years.

Not a US citizen :(. I can't even friggin freelance.

If it makes you feel any better I'm not a US citizen either (I'm British, which comes with an automatic apology, for which I apologise).

Now that I've removed your geographical excuse, what have you got left? If you're up for it, I'm not quitting this thread till we have an idea worth pursuing between us :)

I am up for it. Where do we start from?

Ok, any other stumbling blocks to think of?

Also, where are your key strengths and weaknesses?

Finally do you want to create something to test the water or improve your skills or would you prefer to try and come up with a business model?

* Nothing that I can think of. Immigration is the biggest hurdle for me to do anything beyond my current job sponsor. * My key strengths are front-end. Javascript, jQuery, CSS * I would like to create something to come up with a business model.

* Sorry for late reply.

Hmmm... One pain point for me is developing with Django there's relatively few starting points for django templates. I don't know if you've ever heard about Ruby on Rails' scaffolding, but Django has 80% of the equivalent in it's generic views. However there's no generic view CRUD templates on the net. I'm sure it's the same for other templating languages as well.

Likewise a decent set of web app HTML, CSS and Jquery templates for dashboards, user interface paradigms to use as a starting point would be useful. I realise every app is different but when you're starting from scratch it's nice to have something to work with, even if it's just that initial iteration. What do you think?

I am aware of the Ruby on Rails' scaffolding, CRUD, DRY and MVC stuff. Matter of fact, I am currently self-learning Ruby on Rails.

Yes, it would be nice to have some template to start with. I have used YUI CSS framework, Reset, etc. to start off applications. I guess that's relevant to templates you are talking about.

I'm thinking about something like a wordpress theme site for scaffolds but with a couple of free ones and mostly paid ones but for standard web app functions, maybe mobile scaffolds too for ipad/iphone/android. What do you think?

Sounds great. I would like to hear more. jasper dot internet at gmail, if you would like to email.

I actually strongly disagree: You need to be a user of libraries not a developer of them when you work in business (that does something other than sell libraries).

I agree for most part. I think a good web developer is one who can use the existing libraries efficiently to get the job done, not necessarily build one. It's hard to build something when you have to get the job done.

I think the first poster is spot on.

Most businesses you want to work for will also develop libraries/frameworks that are used in house. Or they might develop applications which consist of more than just plugging libraries together.

You will develop code you reuse, you may even pack it into libraries, however you shouldn't be thinking this is a fundamental process of the business. It's a side effect that makes some things simpler when you do similar things repeatedly.

Somehow I think he got the definition of "f-you money" wrong

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