Ask HN: What do you wish you had done/known in your 30s?
I'm approaching my 30s, and I thought I could draw on the wisdom and experience of the HN community, particularly those of you who are 40+ years old.
Thanks.
Thanks.
I had some early startup-ish projects in the late-nineties/early-2k's, they crashed and burned with the dotcom crash, and I felt like I had lost any chance at making something cool or any kind of impact. I even felt like, at the age of 28, I was too old for dating and had missed all my opportunities.
Things picked up for me in every respect — professional and personal — at age 35. You really are as young as you feel.
Married a paranoid schizophrenic with realising to late -- didn't know all family members (several relatives on the maternal and paternal side have it too) Know the family. Don't try to justify think you picked a healthy exemplar too early -- again: wait 2y+, know their past. Any clinical interventions: stay away.
Otherwise as soon as children are involved this will be years of horror. Trust me.
I had a talk with a friend the other day about how 50 year olds used to be old. They just don’t look or feel that way now a days
George Costanza is thirty in season one of Seinfeld. He could easily go for mid 40s.
I feel this immensely at 29, turning 30 this year. Especially after moving from another country and having all my friends in long-term relationships. Now just to get out there and have some confidence in approaching people.
Hey, I have a strategy for you that I used for dating. When I was 30, and still single, it was frightening and bewildering since all my friends were married or partnered, but I wasn't. The men my age that I was meeting were still single for a reason. Without internet dating (this was the mid-1990s) I was stuck relying on friends and colleagues, who all said they didn't know anyone suitable who was still single. My chances of meeting someone were dwindling, and I was getting older. When you're female, that's a death sentence for your wish to have kids.
As my life turned out, I'm glad I didn't meet anyone and have kids at that time, because I started a company that went from zero to half-million dollars-a-year in a few years. I poured all that energy that I would have invested in a family into my business. Still, the unknown about whether I would meet someone I could eventually marry did nag at me. I knew I was past the point of having children, but still...
Finally when I was in my late 40s, artificial intelligence had matured enough that I could rely on it to find me a mate. This was in 2011. I registered for OKCupid and, after a few good dates that were a breath of fresh air after not meeting anyone suitable for so long, I met my now-husband with seemingly little effort. As if that wasn't enough of a miracle, my now-husband was a widower, and had a 7 year-old girl he had adopted from Russia. We have raised her together as our daughter. She's now 17, and is the love of my life (besides my husband, of course.)
OKCupid has since been overtaken by Tinder, Hinge, Bumble and match.com. But that's because match.com realized OKCupid's A.I. was a much better system for meeting people, and it was free, too! Match.com bought OKCupid in 2011 with the intention of burying it by doing absolutely no marketing, which is where it stands now.
The great thing about OKCupid was the match score. A caveat here- you have to answer HUNDREDS OF HARD MORAL QUESTIONS for the OKCupid A.I. to work properly. I answered 800 questions over a period of 2 weeks at night, from 10pm to midnight, after I was done running my biggish small business. My husband was, at the same time, slowly answering 1000 questions. Even just the commitment level displayed by taking the time to answer the moral questions, and to take the exercise seriously, is in itself a good indicator of whether the person is earnest or not. It certainly guarantees you're not wasting time with a bot or a scammer. (Romance scams now support the economy of entire developing countries, and have gotten super out-of-hand.)
So, once you've answered hundreds of questions, I found the match scores to be totally trustworthy. The dates I mentioned that I enjoyed were over a 90% match score. (Being a confident and smart heterosexual woman who runs a successful business was lonely in the U.S. at that time. Feminism was still just an ideal, but not a typical lived experience like it is today. Less successful women were more fashionable as mates.)
My husband got an OKCupid match score of 99% with me! And, indeed, he's one of the best-matched people, male or female, that I've ever known. We have now been married for almost 10 happy years. I credit artificial intelligence with my happiness in my marriage and with my lovely daughter, too. Good luck to you. I wish for you the same success I had in my late 40s. Luckily for you, you don't have to wait for A.I. to develop. It's already here!If you want kids, just have the kids. You're not going to care that you were being responsible and waiting when you find out waiting means you never get to have them.
Kids from much older parents (40+) are also almost completely weird.
My experience is that kids from older parents are wise beyond their years, and tend to be far more well-adjusted adults.
By what measure? I was 42 and my wife was 40 when we had our daughter who is now 13 and headed off to full time pre conservatory program in violin next year. Well adjusted, sensitive and empathic, I can’t think of any way in which she’s ‘weird’ Certainly not by any conventional definitions of the word.
I'd say that's an unfortunately rare outcome.
Perhaps even a "weird" one.
They are, in every quantitative and qualitative measure, far more well-adjusted than the poor children, like yours, who had no choice but to grow up with literal children as parents.
(Or maybe we shouldn’t generalize like this…?)
The weirdness comes from the social disparity and disconnectedness from peers their own age due to different social attitudes from parents.
The generalisation comes from the observation that older parents tend to lead to less progressive attitudes.
1) What demographics are these older parents in? Are they basically baby boomers or Gen X having kids late? Milennials are approaching 40 years old, so they could potentially be more chill as first time parents perhaps or not.
2) If both parents are old, then I could see the mother potentially feeling overprotective, feeling like all her eggs are in one basket so to speak. I'd kind of think that an older father would probably be more chill.
In 2006 I worked with a software developer that was 50 years old and was equally new to Ruby on Rails and also had his first baby on the way. He was chill and young at heart.
The weirdness is in your head, mate. (Although the generalization is your responsibility.)
I mean, people like you, i.e. people who become parents at a relatively young age, literally have their brain chemistry altered to protect their offspring, WAY before you have actually experienced life as an adult.
I could make grand speculative declarations about your children based on this, but I actually realize it’s meaningless, so I won’t.
Do you have any links or terms to Google to support this? On one hand it sounds reasonable. But on the other hand for the entirety of human history up until the last several decades what you think of as "relatively young" would have been completely normal or even unusally old. So it wouldn't make sense evolutionarily for that to be disadvantageous.
Disclaimer: had kids young and I think people that want kids and are emotionally mature enough to handle the challenge with a similarly minded partner should not wait and do it young. What is a definition of "ready for kids" that wouldn't cause 99% of people in the world to never have the opportunity to have kids.
Yeah, I love you too.
I mentioned it off-hand to an ex-girlfriend and was called a sexist (not in an angry/confrontational way, but pretty much dismissed equally off-hand).
This information is the first result when you Google "fertility by age" [0].
This should be mentioned more often, not to be sexist, but so everyone has the complete information, it's way more cruel to allow people to be deluded until their forties just for them to realize one day they can't have children.
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_and_female_fertility
> While many sources suggest a more dramatic drop at around 35, this is unclear since few studies have been conducted since the nineteenth century. One 2004 study of European women found fertility of the 27–34 and the 35–39 groups had only a four-percent difference.
From the article:
> Women who become pregnant after age 35 are at increased risk for complications that affect the parent and fetus.
I spent a lot of time wanting things to be perfect, but realized that there's never a perfect time. Other parents and prospective parents I know have said similar things.
Having kids is always a gamble, whether you've got a perfect life or not. You do have to decide if you're ready to shoulder the challenge, and don't force it if you're not, but if you're waiting for external factors to be just right you're probably wasting your time.
"Do not have children" probably isn't going to resonate with anyone. If someone wants that experience for their life it's going to be hard to dissuade, and who are you to make that decision? Should only the rich have children? only the fit? only the wise?
There are other ways to experience the joys of parenthood, especially given that most parents seem to look for any way they can find to offload such joys for some reason. Offer to look after your nieces and nephews for a time, for example. Run a volunteer daycare.
If you are not willing or able to be a good driver, you should not drive. If you are not willing or able to be a good parent, do not have children. Do think about the decision very, very carefully - the stakes are very high. If you don't end up having children - well, at least you didn't end up causing others any harm.
But I understand what you are saying - you should also recognize the situation where you are, in fact, ready. It's like being able to choose when to sit an exam - there is always another week you can spend studying, and at some point you have to decide you are ready once you are in fact reasonably prepared.
Having 50% less people would reduce the overall hunger numbers, but not the ratio.
This argument is flawed because of the we're consuming significantly more resources then our planet could provide sustainably.
Increasing the quantity of consumers will always be detrimental for as long as resources are finite.
That is not true of everyone. Billions live on/with very little, sustainably.
Generally speaking, logistics have huge economies of scale (see Amazon) so an increase in market size will reduce the logistics cost per each item of food. Especially, for cold perishable dairy foodstuffs like dairy the cold chain costs may well dominate the costs of cows.
And don’t forget minimizing waste - which is another major part of the picture.
1. You will still want to be spending overwhelming majority of your time on children in 1, 2, 5, 10 years at least and will be enjoying it.
2. You are in a position to be consistently spending enough time and effort and other resources on them.
3. You are very confident you will be able to be a good parent, and that you are bringing new life into a good environment that both you and them will enjoy.
You need to be in a very good, stable place both physically and mentally for sure before you even consider it.
I would also argue that plenty of people that go for children who are not ready for it don't make it just fine. More importantly, their children, that didn't ask for any of it, end up suffering because of their mistakes. Plenty of people have psychological issues of various degrees because of poor parenting. 15% of families in the UK are lone parent families! By age 12 a staggering 40% (!) of children are not living with both birth parents! [1] And these figures are almost twice as bad for low-income families. And out of the children that do live with both birth parents, 11-28% of the parents report an unhappy relationship. That is the catastrophe.
Humans have this strange blindspot where they tend to be irrational and irresponsible about the decision to procreate. Previous generations did not have much of a choice because of lack of available contraception, lack of knowledge. Our generation has no excuse.
[1] https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...
Secondly, I don’t think your data on single parent families really disproves anything, specifically because that data is highly confounded by drug addicts, high school dropouts, unwed couples, accidental pregnancies, and dozens of other factors. If we’re to reason in good faith, the advice I and others are advocating for is that you don’t need to be a homeowner with a 200k+ salary, although of course you should be a reasonably mature, employed adult with a mature partner.
I think it’s in poor faith as well to reduce this to “if you feel a need to have children, you’re irrational and still stuck in go-forth-and-multiply mode”. But, again, this is not an issue anyone can find common ground over with reason or data (which you can find to support any conclusion), and I expect the HN crowd falls on a particular side of this on average, so I won’t argue further.
The problem is the transition to this lower population. You’d have a period of 40/50 years where older people severely outnumber those who are relatively young, leading to massive increase in per capita healthcare expenditures coupled with a decrease in productivity. So no, at least bot in our lifetimes.
There are definitely bad times. But many of the things you mention contradict each other?
Can I afford children? Get a well paying job. Well paying jobs require more hours. That means you have less time to dedicate to your kids.
Realistically, unless you have at least $500,000 saved up, you’re taking a financial gamble having kids.
If they have serious medical issues, any amount of money could be wiped out.
I’d argue there are probably too many people who should be having kids not having kids, than people who shouldn’t be having kids having kids.
Both are obviously happening. And in probably biased because I know so many childless software engineers who make six figures.
But there really, really never is a good time.
Now, there is a difference between just getting cold feet and it actually never being a good time. For example, if you had a choice to sit an exam when ready, you could be tempted to always postpone it another week, because there is always more studying you could do. But realistically, at some point you are actually, objectively ready and should go for it.
So of course you need to consider that one of you will have to become a stay at home parent, or you will need to hire someone to do so instead. That may mean you would need to significantly cut your other expenses, have a much longer commute, live in much worse/smaller accommodation etc. Of course you need to consider if your neighborhood is child-friendly, so that your child can play outside and socialize with other children. If you are planning to involve your relatives, of course you need to first get their informed consent.
Having children is a decision and a choice. You are not forced into it. And it is a choice that must be made responsibly.
- Exercise regularly (doesn't mean hours a day in the gym, just make it a regular habit)
- Don't eat so much junk, don't drink so much
- Have a regular sleep schedule and stick to it.
- don't sacrifice for your work, unless your work is also part of your recreation.
- conversely do prioritize your relationships
- max out your retirement contributions as best you can
Age: 50s; some of above are what I did and some are what I wish I had done.
I used to be a hardcore "minimalist" throughout my twenties and into my early thirties. I didn't want to own anything at all, didn't want to have objects or things that I'd have to move, that could tie me down to a space or place. I didn't want to have to fix or maintain anything.
In my thirties, I realized that all of the spaces I had lived in were cold, unwelcoming, aesthetically anemic. It didn't look like anyone "lived" there. At 35, I started buying things I wanted to keep forever: bookshelves, living and dining furniture, rugs, art. I spent good money on "stuff" that I liked, things that I want to experience and live with every day. I purchased decent picture frames and hung photos of my family for the first time.
I also spent a lot of time setting up my living space for other people, not just for me. I could invite family over and they could stay comfortably for weeks at a time. If a friend needed to quickly get out of a tricky situation, I had a spare room ready to go. If I wanted to host a small dinner, it could happen at my place, instead of a friends house where a bunch of grown-ass adults are sitting on five-gallon buckets and yard chairs around a folding table.
All of this had a strong, positive affect on my day-to-day disposition. It made me more open to others, more willing to embrace hospitality as a mode of living. I'm less stressed about having people over because my place is actually a place people want to be, and that feels great.
It's difficult to put this into words, but for the twenty-somethings who are reading this: whether you are renting or owning, don't be afraid to settle. Buy nice stuff when you can afford it, take care of it, plan to keep it forever. Set your space up to support you and the people in your life.
Edit: Also worth reading: https://www.seanblanda.com/your-30s-are-a-time-for-to-go-for...
- Max out retirement contributions.
- Use all of your vacation time, set strict limits on work hours. [1]
- Exercise, eat real food, take time to relax. All three are connected and work together. You cannot optimize for just one.
[1] Stress is a destroyer of both your mental and physical health that has real long term consequences. No startup/job/employer/etc is worth destroying yourself over. If you are at a burn-out factory now, get out as soon as possible.
- Women are not all the same. Men are not all the same. There is no single approach. What works for your friend won't necessarily work for you, because you're different people and thus after different things.
- "pick up lines" and pick-up-artist techniques and all that kind of bullshit are just that: bullshit. At best you get a roll in the hay, and not a relationship that lasts (because you're lying).
- You really really REALLY need to be yourself. Any potential SO will discover who you really are as they get closer, and if you're putting on a front, you're attracting people to a person who doesn't exist, and won't like the person who really does exist. Look for people who are attracted to the kind of person you actually are.
- There is a certain amount of marketing involved in presenting yourself, but never go so far as to deceive.
- Don't try to change for people. You can't change who you are, and anyone who tries to change you is selfish. Don't waste your time with them.
- Accept people as they are. They're not going to change.
- The most important personality trait that MUST be compatible is dominance and submission. Two dominant people will fight all the time, have great sex probably, and a terrible relationship that's more off than on. Two submissive people will suffer in silence as their relationship gives no fulfillment or direction. You need to be compatible in who leads on what (and communicate that!).
- If you're looking to get noticed, find a way to stand out. Waiting for a potential SO to find you by pure chance is risking a life alone.
- If you find someone you like, at the very least greet them. The sooner you get the fear of rejection over with, the better.
- You'll have a bunch of failed relationships on the way to the successful one. These failed ones teach you about yourself and about what you need in a SO.
- Don't be in a hurry to get to the successful one. Slow and steady wins the race. Just make sure you STAY in the race!
- Communication is the single most important thing in a relationship. And trust. Without those, your relationship doesn't have a prayer.
This is rooted in reality and Humility.
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FWIW, if you are in a position where you could potentially start a family (and want to some day), consider doing it in your early 30s (or earlier), there are a lot of things that get tougher as you get older. I don't regret putting it off until my 40s because it let me find a person I want to have a family with, but if you have such a person, my advice is do it now.
Obviously, people should not do it if they're not ready. But people think they need to have everything figured out (degree, career, house) first. You don't. And the younger you have kids, the longer you'll be around to spend time with them (or grandkids), and the less chance you'll have fertility issues.
Isn't the conclusion here "Young children will make your life worse, do not have them"?
If you are only expected to show up for your 7.5 hours and wack out a handful of lines of code a day you have way more mental and time capacity for family.
My mother had me at 30. My wife's mother had her in her late teens. There's a big difference in energy there too. My wife's mother has more time, and energy, with our kids.
I have friends who had kids in college and a friend who had kids in high school. It seemed like a mistake back then - they could never come hang out and had to leave early cause they were dealing with kids or a wife or whatever. I'm not so sure they made a mistake now.
I would guess that late twenties are the ideal time to have kids. Early twenties you wrap up your education and start your career, thirties and forties get the kids out the door, fifties settle your retirement, sixties and on enjoy your extended family and retirement. That's how I'd plan it if I were going again.
In hindsight, I'm thinking teenage years. For all practical purposes your days are wasted anyway, so you may as well waste it enjoying your kids. They'll be much more independent by the time you're deemed old enough to begin participating in society. You are also more likely to have a larger community of people in the household at that age to help raise the children.
I think you're from a different society than me! Most of the world doesn't think this way.
The first week of the first kid, we slept 3 hours in total (that is, 3 hours in the whole week)
I hear two kids is pretty brutal until they’re both 3+ years old.
3 years old is a full time thing, but there are things that are quite fun to do together. We play videogames, board games, or I just let her climb on me and enjoy that.
Also going to the pool together is really nice and they get exhausted.
Sometimes you TAKE your free time. Kids are bored and want to play with you, but you haven't had time for yourself in 5 days, you just take it, even if they want to play with you. They will get bored, but more often they will figure out something to play together.
Overall, pretty happy, when they are both 3+ we can play a whole bunch of things together that I'm looking forward to!
I can't tell how it would be with just one, but there are tradeoffs to both sides.
We don't use much daycare, our 3 years old goes to school 4 days a week for 3 hours only (purpose was learning, not babysitting).
Thank you for including this tidbit. I'm a man in my early 30s interested in having kids and recently discovered that I've poorly vetted my 5+ year SO's interest in having kids. Her "yeah, I'm hypothetically interested" has become "hard not interested".
The requirement to break up with her if I want kids is deeply painful, but the real source of my dread is the feeling that I won't then be able to find someone good in time. I'm very glad you found someone good to have a family with.
And what do you mean by “in time”? Assuming you are 32/33 you have plenty of time to find another partner. When you’re 50 you will feel so silly for feeling old at 32/33. Just make sure the next partner is on the same page relatively early.
It’s your life, not your partner’s, go live it how you want.
Can't this be a simple yes/no answer? I have never been a relationship. So pardon me if I am being ignorant.
I'm in my 30s, and this seems to be the trickiest part that people older than me — sorry — seem to want to just pave over. House prices are bananas. Trump, COVID, Russia have erased years of investment gains. Student loans are a constant tax on my finances (that I'm almost free of… …soon…). Wage growth has been stagnant (my career has seen ~4.7% YoY gains, mostly me switching employers and trying to renegotiate higher; but I hear my father's career saw much faster progress, particularly in the earlier years…). Costs have not. (E.g., healthcare, and that's an incredible — and bad — incentive to marry.)
I imagine we'll hit a "it's now or never" point, and just sort of morally abdicate the idea of being responsible adults and "#yolo we're parents now" it. I don't really see the world changing for the better, anytime soon.
You seem to be hanging on for magic better times but at the same time not expecting things to get better. This doesn't seem to be a good strategy, especially in the case of having children where delaying a few years will very likely result in more difficulties.
Minorities in the US in particular might argue otherwise about whether the previous few decades were better than the current ones.
Whenever I feel tempted to look at the past with rose tinted glasses I only have to look at infant mortality rates which were horrifically high in even affluent countries like the US: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6487507/figure/...
We are indeed in troubling times, but the Cold War wasn't so long ago and I recall a commentator speaking about how they'd read the newspaper each morning with a knot in their stomach, wondering if a nuclear mishap had occurred somewhere in the world.
Given the Russia, Ukraine, Chernobyl situation, I think my generation also has claim to worry about nuclear mishaps caused by geopolitical wars.
If you try to get financially better off, in seven years you'll probably be only slightly better off if at all, and you won't have kids. At that point you probably can't.
If you have kids at 35, you may very well go bankrupt. It will be off your credit in seven years, and you'll have a seven year old.
The second option will be happier (if you want kids).
That seems rather pessimistic. You don't expect any career progression or wealth accumulation in seven years?
I really don't think there are a lot of people on HN who are stuck in dead end jobs with no growth.
And as harsh as it may sound, if someone can't retire before 80 despite working a tech job, I'm inclined to think they're just bad with money.
Also, a lot of people get fixated on being fully prepared for kids. Like wanting to be in a 4 bedroom house before you have the first of three kids. That'd be nice, but you've got some time before you really need that space. I'd say if you're late 20s and have a stable living environment and a desire to have children, strongly consider doing it when you're sure, even if your living environment isn't perfect. You've also got some lead time, if you're worried about your kids going to a good (enough) school, that's not something that needs to be taken care of until close to them being school aged (although certainly, it doesn't hurt to let that influence earlier choices).
I'm sorry, what asset classes did you invest in? Because Trump and the Covid stimulus were both very beneficial for my investments. Sure, the market has taken a beating of late but it most definitely has not erased years of gains.
That said, it mostly tracks the stock market, just sort of "dampened", since it has a mix of other stuff. The downswings from both Trump general craziness and COVID recovered, eventually (I was certain the downswings for things other than COVID would … COVID, I was less certain about, as this is probably the biggest thing that's ever happened in my life), of course, but it sort of feels to me like a detour where after several months you're like "yay, back to where were were". I'm a SWE, so I'm above the stimulus cutoff. (But that's the thing… well off enough that most things are fine, but … the housing market, practically speaking, wants millionaires, not "people doing decently".) But AFAICT, the cost of a home is keeping pace with gains in the stock market, particularly so if you're not in a sort of undiversified-yolo-all-in on the stock market position, which I've been told is poor form. But that makes investing for a home sort of a losing prospect: it's more just a savings account at that point, with the investment gains limiting the ground being lost. Conversely, AIUI, this is why there is so much speculation in the housing market; if the stock market were outperforming it, people would be speculating on that, instead.
What boggles my mind how anyone not in tech is making do. What I see both from people I know, and in the news, suggests they're really, really struggling.
If you hold an index fund like VTI though, that's done well. These last few months really highlight the dangers of stock picking, even with big companies.
I really, really, really hate to defend Mr. Trump, but on his first day of office the Vanguard total stock market index closed at $116.91; on his last day of office it closed at $198.86, a 70.01% increase (14.19% annualised). There are numerous reasons to criticise the former president, but the performance of the stock market during his tenure does not appear to be one of them.
There's this idea that men don't need to settle down because they can have children at any age, which I guess is technically true but it presupposes that a 30 y/o woman will want to have children with you when you're 45, but they are more inclined to go +5 years, not +15.
Also take prescription labels more seriously, like don't take Advil all the time, because you will get an ulcer and don't mix alcohol and aspirin because it causes liver damage.
Exercise and don't eat to much, and invest in your posture (don't get carpal tunnel, hunch over at the computer, etc)
I think you mean tylenol / acetaminophen (maybe aspirin is bad too?)
Even if you can find a younger mate, you'll want to participate in your kid's lives and that's much harder as an old man. If your kids are teenagers and you're in your sixties, I imagine it can be tough; and if they make the same choices as you, living to see grandchildren is unlikely
If someone told me that 10 years ago, I might have made different life choices.
Yes, and California is one of those states, for purchase-money mortgages on owner occupied properties; and after Jan 1, 2013, also for refinances of purchase-money mortgages on owner occupied properties. Foreclosing the property satisfies the loan, if there's excess from the foreclosure auction, you'll get paid; if there's a deficiency, you'll have taxable income for the amount written off. Word on the street is most California foreclosures go through the non-recourse process (private sale), even for loans that they could sue for deficiency (judicial foreclosure), because the process is quicker and simpler.
What inspired you to join it?
I listened to the Bible lectures that Jordan Peterson made several years ago, and I was intrigued because I had never heard anyone putting aside the historical story of the Bible and instead focusing on its relevance from a neuroscience point of view. This led to me eventually finding the work of Jonathan Pageau. He's an Orthodox icon carver, and he talks about the traditional worldview, how to understand the Bible from an ontological point of view (a hierarchy of being) rather than from a "scientific" or empirical point of view. It took a year or two before I really started to understand what he even meant, but once I started to understand that way of looking at the world, my whole world changed and I quickly joined the Orthodox Church.
To be more specific, I would recommend finding an Orthodox Church local to you, and just go see what it's like. Introduce yourself to the priest after the service, and he would be happy to talk with you and helping you begin to see the Orthodox way of life. The Orthodox approach focuses much more on your relationship with God, rather than a list of checkboxes of do's and don't-dos. It's very participatory. It demands a lot from the followers, but the sense of meaning, being, and purpose that have replaced my old sense of nihilism, meaninglessness, and despair...I can't even put into words how much my life has changed.
1. Doing one's duty with detachment - the mind is trained to detach from the results of one's action and not attach positive or negative associations to it, thus weakening the ego and leading to enlightenment.
2. Self-enquiry and awareness - Pursuit of knowledge, and understanding of your own self in relation to the world to achieve a heightened consciousness of how you perceive the world through your senses, leading to liberation of the self.
3. Meditation - Related to 2.
4. Devotion - Loving devotion and surrender of self to a God leading to enlightenment.
Which one does Orthodoxy fall under? (Sounds like 4).
The door is always open. Please check out: https://www.provingislam.com/
Through the work of Jonathan Pageau, I began to learn to see the world through a more traditional mindset. And I began to look at my own thinking and my previous presuppositions more carefully.
For example, you said "convince yourself that supernatural things exist". But you already believe all kinds of supernatural things exist. You believe in numbers. You believe in categories. You believe in grammar. You believe in logic. You believe in cities. You believe in political offices. Those are all above the natural world. In philosophy, that's called "metaphysics". It's "above" the physical world. You have a hierarchy of values (which is not physical) that determines how you see the world, how you act in the world, and how you categorize what your senses are feeding your brain. This is completely in line with our current scientific understanding of how our brains work. The work of John Vervaeke can also be very helpful.
Anyway, once I got over my empiricism and began to see that empiricism is completely blind to very large swathes of the human experience, it got much easier to say "well, since I have a value system intrinsically, and since a value system is completely necessary, perhaps I should put more effort into structuring it around the highest good."
Please keep in mind this process took a couple of years and will last for the rest of my life, but I hope you can see the stepping stones along the way.
And I don't belive in numbers or cities - they are just useful abstractions that stop existing when I stop thinking about them (and I'm guessing this is not a property of any potential imaginery supreme being).
As for empiricism, I certainly did not throw it out. It's useful, but not for everything. Say I have three knives in my kitchen drawer: a butter knife, a steak knife, and a chef's knife. Empirically speaking, which knife is the best knife? You can tell me all the physical properties of the knife, and the metallurgy of the knife and the shape and weight of each knife, but which knife is the BEST knife, from an empirical point of view? Empiricism has no answer UNTIL you, a person, say "I want to dice this onion" and empiricism can then arrange the knives in a hierarchical order according to which one will work best. But science has nothing to say about "best" or "worst" until an agent in the world has a purpose for which they want to use something. Then empiricism is a wonderful tool.
Another, shorter example: empiricism can help you build a rocket, but has nothing to say about whether you should aim it at the moon, or at a neighboring country.
And one more, just for fun: the empiricism that was used to detect and classify climate change is the same empiricism that was used to make the internal combustion engine. Empiricism is blind as to intent or motive. Empiricism is a toolset, but has no tools for determining a value hierarchy within the bounds of empiricism itself. Empiricism can only go to work once a person has given it a purpose or goal to work towards.
Does the poem still exist?
If You define this poem as ordered list of words that can be interpreted trough cultural and local context, then it existed even before it was written down.
If You want to go more realistic way then this poem exists only through my memory (partly as memory and partly as an emotional association) and will disappear with my demise.
"Ordered" - what is the empirical evidence for order? How can one know the difference between randomness and order with only empirical evidence? Order requires a concept of "orderliness" that one is comparing the evidence to.
"Words" - the empirical evidence of a word is a squiggle on a piece of paper. Everything else about a word and its connection to a thing is purely abstract, and not empirically verifiable.
"cultural" - what is the empirical evidence for a culture? What empirical properties does a culture have? Can it be defined merely by its physical characteristics?
"context" - what does this even mean, empirically speaking. We have infinite number of facts. How does empiricism filter relevant and irrelevant facts? What does it even mean for something to be "relevant" empirically?
"existed even before it was written down" - so something existed with no empirical evidence? How can you say it exists then?
"Memory" - what is the empirical evidence for your memory? Can I hook you up to a machine and stimulate your brain in such a way that I could get the words of the poem to read out on the screen?
"emotional association" - what does that even mean empirically?
I could go on, but I have to get back to work. I hope I have helped you clarify your thinking about how "empirical" you actually are(n't), but I've probably just lost you, and for that, I'm sorry. Please forgive my inability to speak more clearly.
Those are mental models that are useful to me but unfortunately I'm not master at using them. And what is more they are inherently wrong (because they are models and not the real thing - putting aside if anything is real).
I do not believe in them more than I need to. But they are the only way that we can communicate on high level - by establishing common model and that talking about its properties. And then we can empirically test if they really behave as we believe (if we want to, otherwise we can just leave it be and use it as toys and as a way to spend our time waiting for nothingness to take us back).
> Please forgive my inability to speak more clearly.
Likewise - as You may have guessed english is not my native language and those concepts that I speak about are not well developed in my mind - they are merly my intuitions (by which I openly admin that I use things that are not empirically proven - but only because that is the only way that our faulty mind can work - by substituting reality with simplified erroneous abstractions that sometimes work).
>I could go on, but I have to get back to work
Wish You a pleasant work! And thank You for good conversation.
I agree with your overall comment thread, that you separate empirical stuff like engines rooted in reality, from values like the highest good. You conclude that a way to achieve the highest good is to be religious. But are you sure? It's certainly good for you, your family and the community around you. But is it the highest good for the world? Across all nations, all the wars that have been fought over religion - I'd dispute that it's still the highest good.
Look at it this way: scientifically, the best explanation we have is that there was nothing and then from an infinitesimal point all of the entire universe sprang. For no discernable reason. That's pretty freaking wild.
The idea that there's a God out there past all that doesn't seem that much crazier.
Now whether or not you actually have a soul is a whole different discussion...
- If something isn't quite a regret but feels off, or like it's not working the way it's advertised: Make plans to try alternative(s) in earnest by a specific, calendared date in the future if things haven't changed (I did this with the religion into which I was born; sticking to the calendared decision was one of the best decisions I ever made and I ended up walking out)
- Think about the crazy ideas that never work for anybody, and start trying them NOW in little baby steps before you hate yourself later for being too closed-minded
- Spend more time and money on little daily comforts, the practically insubstantial, vain little anti-buddhisms that nevertheless can create a compounding comfort-debt over time (book 1, chapter 1, verse 1: Maybe go buy some new shoes that you like and then use them to walk to an ice cream parlor)
- Be more active in planning medical care, yeah you may get cancer but even in that case, it's better to schedule check-ups earlier than later
Those are just a few that come to mind...
0. https://www.friendlyskies.net/maybe/regrets-a-powerful-plann...
Really? Buddha legit allowed one to have small pleasures and advised to spend according to one's income- not be lavish nor meagre.
He promoted the middle-path (majjhima pantha) more than anything else- to not be too stringent nor be too lavish.
He even allowed monks to have communal properties.
I agree with your point, though. Wholeheartedly. With inflation, and for some economies, continued currency devaluation, it is not worth it to save a lot by denying yourself small pleasures.
I bought a more-than-expensive chair, and a high-end mechanical keyboard. I absolutely enjoy those. And, no, I did not go down a steep curve of spending that destroyed my finances.
I definitely don't remember the sectarian buddhists spending much time telling me to enjoy small pleasures! I think the closest analog to that in substance of belief would be more like "attend to your sensory interface to life." Ah? Much different in important ways. One of those approaches worked fine without buddhism in the picture. The other didn't, or so I was told. Funny memories.
But, Buddhism is anti-faith. You are supposed to experiment and verify.
Want to read a very short book?
Try "What The Buddha Taught" by Walpola Rahula. No BS, carefully explained guide to Buddha's own teachings.
If you limit yourself to Buddha's own teachings, there are little to no contradictions.
> Buddhism is
This is where beliefs usually cross into no-true-(scotsman)-believer, or worse, victim-blaming.
You see? This is because _I_ misunderstood. The way it _really_ works is...
I studied all kinds of dichotomies in buddhism, from Batchelor to Nichiren etc. and spent hundreds of hours studying and writing about buddhism in general. I even baptized many lifelong buddhists into the home brand of religion I brought with me before I left that faith myself.
I believe I know many of the Top Sales Secrets for migrating buddhists between religions or to a religion of your choice.
But...I accompanied some of them on the way out, and buddhism as a single thing, as a belief that works like X...that's done for me except in general analogy, sorry.
Plus there need to be contradictions IMO, they are really important for contextualizing religion vs. sect. If you don't have contradictions you can't have internal structure. You'll never be able to add 1 + 1 and make anything new.
You don't have to _call_ it a contradiction though...you can say there are these "mysteries"... ;-)
You clearly know more than me about Buddhism.
For me, I limit myself to Theraveda Buddhism and especially to Buddha's teachings only.
Long before I grew an interest on Buddhism, I realized that very few people actually understand great people and their teachings. Normal people dilute, misunderstand, and misinterpret what great people taught and communicated.
Years before I started studying about Buddhism, I always read original sources- Russoe, Voltaire, Tagore, Smith, Lenin, Bose, and so on.
My understanding stood correct. Very few of the people who talk about great people actually undestand them.
So, when I started with Buddhism, I told myself that I will limit myself to Buddha's direct teachings only. It's not that I will not touch Great Vehicle stuff, but I will never go deep into it. But reading never hurts. Tibetan Buddhism is interesting, colorful, and exotic. But not for me!
There are people who understand the great people that came before them- but filtering them out is a lengthy and tiring process.
But I remain genuinely interested to study deep into Dingnaga and Nagarjuna, and their philosophy ajd works.
(And, when you have listeners, co-believers, or followers, may you let yourself watch them both come and go, sensing no flaw in contradiction... --Marc)
Theravedas do not believe in any conversion ceremony unless you are going to be a monk. I have no intention of becoming a monk, as Buddha taught about six-directional duties of a man, and he himself confirmed that thousands of people attained Nirvana while being in a family (was it to Batsagotta? My memory eludes me).
And I am not sure I deserve your compliments. I drink occasionally (intoxicating drinks were forbidden by the Buddha), and I keep eating meat and fish.
I reached the conclusion of absolute nothingness and human beings being not more than complex biological machines with Science only, and no Buddhism.
I started with Buddhism to figure out what to do with the knowledge.
So far, I am very glad, and I am finding what I was looking for and beyond.
I was completely blown away by the ehipassika (come and see) philosophy, lack of blind faith, and the inherent logical structure of Buddha's teaching.
I remain deeply impressed by the same.
Aging in your 30s sneaks up on you. At 30 you can still go to the 2am punk rock show and then merely complain a bit more about hangovers getting worse. At 40 you're the weird adult hanging out with people who could be your kid.
At 30 you can drop everything and go hike the Appalachian trail for 6 months, at 40 you might have medical issues that prevent this, or kids, or just a general change in outlook such that hiking all day to sleep on the ground sounds miserable instead of fulfilling.
My advice would be, if you want to go sail the south Pacific or climb the Himalayas or backpack around Europe or volunteer in a developing country or play in a band at SXSW, go do it now.
I'm glad I went and did things while I could, and while I was the right age to enjoy them fully. I've still got plenty more living to do, but I recognize many experiences will never be the same as having done them younger.
There are outliers of course, but by and large, your colleagues, your mentors, your leaders, your enemies (you shouldn't have very many); they're all just normal people doing their best. And their best is usually just average.
People matter, even if you're an introvert. Make friends. Don't be a jerk to people.
How you dress matters, even if you think it doesn't (or shouldn't). You don't have to "dress to impress", but don't look like a slob.
Develop empathy. Don't be so focused on getting your code to work, or your hobbies, or whatever, that you don't notice when people are in pain.
Thankful to have found an occupation where every day brings some new and interesting problem to solve.
I used to have misconceptions about what ADHD really is -- that it was about the hyper kids who couldn't sit still or pay attention in class -- and the controversy over drugs that turned them in to calm, compliant little worker bee zombies.
Then I found this a few years ago from Dr Russell Barkley of Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Center: "30 Essential Ideas You Should Know about ADHD" https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzBixSjmbc8eFl6UX5_wW...
Too many of these ideas resonated with things I had literally said out loud about myself in the past.
This is breaking news, so I can't speak to how things may change, if at all. But in my 30's? Yeah, life would have been different.
Happiness is a choice.
It's only the regret for the things we didn't do that is truly inconsolable.
Good luck.
It's possible I'm self-deluding, but your comment is wise and I felt like chiming in.
(late-30s here)
I don't know what actionable advice is really there, but I ignored a lot that I didn't have to and acted invincible when I wasn't. I'm a very athletic person, played sports my whole life, joined the Army. There are a lot of things I could have stopped doing, risks I didn't need to take. I'm lucky as hell that years of surgery and physical therapy and finally listening to doctors eventually brought me much of the way back, but 30s are, or at least should be, peak years. Losing them like that really leaves a hole.
Success will come if you're a decent human being (and most of us truly are). It just may come when it's least expected, and from a completely different direction.
Oh, and 401k compounding works like a champ.
Maintenance is easier than building things up; start early.
I just want to add before taking meds or any supplements make sure you research things on your to understand the risks. Sometimes even doctors are not aware of adverse reactions.
Your health should always come first before work. Try to exercise a few times a week, going for walk/runs or bike.
It's all on you.
Any statement or conclusion from a physician is not necessarily a fact, but only an opinion of some random person you may never see again, and may have been the worst student in their class.
Start planning 5 or 10 years out; do things now that open opportunity later.
Build a reliable social network around you. Help others with no expectation of return. Reconnect with old friends and strengthen bonds with new friends.
Get and keep your body in great health; form good habits now. Fix your posture. Stretch.
Absent that, I wish I traveled more before I had young children (and before there was a pandemic).
My 40’s are not what I expected.
My life literally got flipped upside down. I’m definitely not the right person to ask how to get over it.
My attempts mostly include focusing on my children and their lives, a lot of going to the gym (daily), kayaking in the summer, snowboarding through the winter, reading, side projects.
I’m still in the “never going to be in a relationship again” phase. I hear a lot of guys go through that, but it changes supposedly??? We’ll see.
But yeah.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/82229.Passages
Gail Sheehy's brilliant road map of adult life shows the inevitable personality and sexual changes we go through in our 20s, 30s, 40s, and beyond.
p.s. Watch this inspiring Open Mind interview with her first (it's on another another of her books, also about peoples' lives), then you'll be able to hear her writing in her voice while you read it! 27mins https://www.thirteen.org/openmind-archive/aging/pathfinders/
Joking aside, you should consider investing small amounts of money or time into long-shots. Most of them won't pay off, but if 1 in 20 pans out it could repay the whole lot, and then some.
Of course, I had no money after that trip -- so we lived with my in-laws for six months to save for a house down payment. I would not recommend this!
But what I would recommend is living under your income in your thirties. It would be best if you did that forever, BTW.
And have kids. They take a lot of energy, time, and love.
Finally, invest in your career. Take new roles, try some things. Don't sweat not being the next Zuckerberg. You have three or four more decades to start a company, write your novel, or create the wondrous thing.
Load your backpack full of responsibilities in your thirties -- you are stronger than you think.
Nowadays with everything that's going on, I think it's doubly true. A lot of folks think they'll write / paint / do music 'once they retire.' Not everyone has the ability to give up their day jobs, but...do your passion at least a little bit now, while your body can still do it.
I wish I realized it earlier :)
Don't worry my youngest refers to me as a man-child(if he only know me in my 20s)
don't ever think that it's too late to start something or to start over on something. tomorrow will always come no matter how old or young you are. the key is to not let self doubt creep in.
- Register to donate bone marrow. I didn't donate blood for ages and didn't register for marrow until my 30s. I matched a leukemia patient, did a harvest and we had a successful transplant. The modern procedure is non-surgical and stem cell based. There was no pain. I later found out that there had been another search in the registry I would have matched for, but I was not registered yet. (That patient did undergo chemo and survived, but the transplant would have been better.)
- Get comfortable talking to people about your feelings. Hire someone to talk to if you don't have someone. As an engineer, if I have a problem with someone I try to logic them through it... but feelings don't work that way. "I don't like X" or "that makes me feel Y" are inputs to logical systems even if they are not logical themselves. Many jobs, relationships, etc. would have gone differently. "I am afraid of Z" has helped me in a lot of cases. People just assume I'm tough guy.
Another thing is that many people have a mid-life crisis in their 40s that can often be destructive. Try not to burn too many bridges. If you want to take some risks it's better done in your 20s or 30s.
Muay Thai. It started as a casual interest to help me get in shape. Learning about the technical, historical, and cultural aspects and nuances really hooked me. Wish I'd started much earlier. If you're interested, the best fighting art channel on YouTube IMO is https://www.youtube.com/c/8limbsUs
Music. Playing uke and singing is just fun.
Getting enough sleep. Self-explanatory.
Programming - I'm from a sysadmin background so got by on bash scripting. Then suddenly every job really requires you can at least code in python.
Driving - Even if you live in a city where you never drive it comes in useful for holidays etc.
Typing - Two fingered typing gets old
SQL - Somebody got rid of all the DBAs
Second thing! Make sure to long-term archive your memories - whatever's on your phone, old tapes, old prints, etc. Get them scanned, uploaded, and backed up to 3 distinct locations. 30 years from now, you're gonna be so happy you did. My parents kept and recently mailed me a box of tape cassettes from when I was a baby 30 years back - very enjoyable watching those with my wife, has made my parents happy to watch, and will be fun to show those to my future children.
I can trace back a year in my 30s where I went heavy on the regular.
If you don't want to get randomly sick don't order in.
Personally: Be happy, proud, and confident no matter your situation. Don't sacrifice family time for your career. Make your bed. Clean your desk. When you feel stuck, overwhelmed or discouraged, you need a "win" and it's best to take an easy win like beating a video game or finish reading a book.
Because you're approaching your 30s, you may find this advice tedious or nonsensical because you're just looking for a stack overflow answer that you can copypasta into your life that fixes everything or makes you rich. There's no magic pill or life hack that fixes your problems. Just be the best version of yourself and good things will come.
Have kids, while you are young. Your body will be able to do all the fun things along side them without worry about a bad back or something else.
Don’t worry about career progression, worry instead about adding value to yourself that transcends (think education, various employment and domain knowledge in various industries).
Have work life balance, which maybe means working at places (think public services or health care) so you can spend time doing the things you enjoy, which very well may be moonlighting on tech that is 100% your IP (to each their own)
Get a house, they never get cheaper overtime.
Then when you are in your mid 40’s and your kids are moving out you can quickly catch up in no time at all, because remember, you have been building skills and a network that are now in bat shit crazy demand.
Debt sucks and should be avoided!
I wish I would have saved more or taken pensions more seriously.
I wish I had made my kids do more chores around the house to better prepare them for adulthood.
How exactly cleaning and throwing out the garbage prepares You for adulthood ?
I could much closer to retirement.
Second, I'll throw some things out there, though, apart from what's already been said (like health and travel): - Invest in therapy, if you haven't already. Learn your blind spots, your rackets, and your stories that hold you back.
- Make new friends with younger people, whether it's via mentorship or some other means. If you don't, you'll be an "out of touch boomer" before you know it.
Unlike my 20s, I feel like I navigated my 30s pretty well, so I don't have a lot of things I wish I had done/known that I didn't already. I think that's really the difference as you get older...you developer fewer new regrets.
If you don't go back to school, be sure you save a decent percentage of your income and invest it wisely.
If you don't like living where you're at, move.
All of this is predicated on your being single, or at least not having kids. If you have kids, raise them to the best of your ability-- your life is not entirely all about you at this point.
I wish I had realized my value as an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurship provides tremendous value to society. While government gets gridlocked and seems incapable of providing even the simplest answers to human problems, entrepreneurship is solving human needs and providing value at a very fast pace. So many tools are available to ordinary people for free, that used to be My 40s were sobering.
Got debt-free by about 48.
Now 50.
Because of [continued] poor lifestyle choices in my early-mid 30s, I had to get weightloss surgery in my late 30s
You've only got one body - take care of it!
Unlucky owner of a radioactive passport now.