Ask HN: What is the best advice you received in 2022? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What is the best advice you received in 2022?

133 pointsrammy1234142 comments

I am a believer I can learn from anywhere and I thought I can ask HN folks to share what they learned or received advice that had profound impact. For me, be relentless in saying NO to things. It came from a trusted friend when I was complaining about overworked at my workplace.

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Bear with me. It may sounds little cliche, may be mildly cheesy.

I had a self realization and received the advice from myself during one of my "zen state pondering" that - being in the best shape of my health with improve EVERYTHING by 10x in my life.

A technologist for 24 years. Almost got my last product startup acquired in 2014 by a (back then) 500 million USD company. I have been obese for 15 years.

I have lost 30 pounds in last 4 months and now lifting and working out 4 days a week(I try 5 days). I look forward to working out now. I feel so much more energetic and elevated state of awareness. Everything is already so much better.

It doesn’t sound as cliche as you think — in my opinion the problem is prioritizing yourself over your productivity.

I’m a geneticist with a unique set of analytical skills that keeps me tied up in dozens of projects at a time, and my health is always the thing I let slide.

Whenever I finally decide to workout, I tell myself, “I’ll never let that much time go by between workouts again.” Then invariably, I don’t have time.

How did you overcome that?

Do a small workout every day and do it first thing in the morning.

This way you know you have to do it every day and it takes priority above everything else - if you don’t have health, how are you going to do other stuff you want to do?

Yeah not possible. Waking up to phone calls to fix things every day...

There is no magic bullet, you don't have enough time to do everything and need to prioritize. To fit exercise in, you need to let something else go.

Doing it first thing in the morning is a trick to simplify prioritization. Do not check your phone until you exercised. Obviously go to bed earlier to get better sleep.

I had the same problem and found that the extreme was the only thing that worked for me. What I mean is that for like 3 months make your first priority to work out. Not your second or your "one-of-the-important-ones" priority. Your first. Absolute first.

After 3 months your body will adjust and you will carve workout and built a habit that is easier to follow.

They way I overcame that is by realizing that working out is essential to my mental health. I wanted to level up my baseline of overall well-being so that my worst days are not that bad. Which means I can bounce quickly from setbacks. Where in the past I'd have recurring periods where find myself spiraling downwards.

Working out keeps me sharp at work which is cognitivly demanding and requires high levels of creativety and problem solving. From that angle, I take it seriously as core part of my day and my identity.

Overtime I started to enjoy doing hard thing in and of itself. Which is changing my life beyond what I could imagine.

Thanks for your comments.

Over last 15 years, I have tried to loose weight and sooner or later I ran into - "I dont have time" or "this customer proposal is more important" syndrome. Derailed my effort. Before I knew I was back to or worse than where I started.

I feel different this time. Its almost as important as eating everyday to stay alive. As important as having work to earn bread for family.

Being analytical, I have tried hard to find whats different this time. I dont think I have exact understanding but here are some factors that I came up during my pondering .

- Something just triggers this mindset where working out becomes a part of you. Almost a necessary activity like taking a bath. You can skip a day or two but it starts to smell and feel like you MUST do it.

- I feel the trigger has one or more the following components : 1) WHO - You do it for someone. It could be you yourself, family, kids, grandkids, girlfriend. 2) You have a strong realization that LIFE is finite & You want to have a better and longer life. 3) You are FED UP with something.

- Goal setting & how your mind processes goals - In past, my goals had a finish line. Like - "I want to loose weight" or "I want to run a half marathon". I was able to achieve those goals and almost soon after that my mind was like: "That's it man. We are done. Lets go back to default mode" (busy work, less active life style). This time my goal is - I WILL LIVE REST OF MY LIFE IN A HEALTHY MANNER. There is no end date or finish line. The results do not matter. I dont have goals to loose 2 pounds every week. I just do what I need to do to live healthy.

- There is also realization that EVERYONE must go through pain and pay with money and time, for your health. You do it in Gym or Doctor's office. You chose.

- Accountability was a big factor for me. In past, I would start but drop off at some point. This time I hired a gym-owner fitness trainer (awesome guy). My net investment is less than 3K a year. I go to him 2 days a week. Just that will easily help me live at least a year longer (keeping all other factors same). Whats the value of one year of time for me? Priceless. 3K is dirt cheap.

I can go on. I have been taking notes in a google doc with a hope to covert that into a eBook someday. I have thoughts from so many different perspectives, that I feel can help others too.

You have a limit of X projects so let it be say 20 instead of 30. Being fit means you will perform better at work on those fewer projects. Drop to 10 and train other people?

Other than that, I am trialing pen and paper for todos and exercise plans. I think this helps. Also see an exercise physiologist occasionally and that helps alot. A personal trainer you check in with every 4 weeks is similar.

Finally just see it as essential. You will die if you don’t do it kind of thing.

I’ll add to this advice: work out every day. It’s way easier to do it this way. If you go for few large workouts, it’s easy to skip and easy to slip. With small workout every day you know you have to do it and it can’t be pushed out from the schedule.

Corollary to this, remove friction for starting a workout. I.e. get equipment to your abode/office so you can start working out in 2 minutes.

And also: there are a lot of great work out sessions on YouTube. Dumbbells, yoga, stretching, etc.

And also also: if you don’t know where to start, just pay for personal trainer.

While solid advice, working out everyday can lead to overtraining. Happened to me and it’s not fun. Doing some yoga every day: yes. Heavy squats: no, please no.

My strategy is to go for variety. I do weights one day, cardio other day.

Overtraining is a concern, but I’ve previously done 7x per week heavy weightlifting and it’s fine so long as you cycle through different body parts and listen to your body. In the Marine Corps I’d usually work out 3x a day 5 days a week and 1x per day on the weekends. Granted I was in my 20s then, but I think what matters more than “preemptively not overtraining” is just listening to your body. Most people go way too heavy for their goals. I’ve found that’s really unnecessary and counterproductive, but exercising often is fine.

Usually when people tell me they are going heavy more than 3 times per week they usually arent going that hard, just because it is hard to recover that fast.

Emphasis on listen to your body. Plugging because I'm such a big fan, Barbell Medicine has changed my life in terms of understanding training/injury risk based on actual evidence. If you haven't tried it, highly recommend RPE based training. It's refreshing to realize that you don't need to go super hard to make serious progress. And like you're describing, it can often set you back. There's a fatigue cost to every stimulus and it's all about balancing those to get the desired adaptations.

Another thing Ive learned from them is that if something hurts or I have pain that isn't caused by physical damage, it's most likely fine to lift. Usually lifting actually helps any back pain.

A few weeks back I tweaked my back just while laying down for some reason. Hurt like hell getting up. Next day, still painful, did some light squats. During the squats the pain didn't get any worse. So I added more weight. Less pain. More weight, less pain. Until I got to my working set for the day and nailed it. The back pain got better and it was all fine.

Now the lifting may not have had any effect on the pain. It could have just gone away on its own. I'll never know. But the point being that the pain didn't indicate a structural damage that was dangerous. Lifting probably also helped my mind make that distinction.

Hell yeah. Austin Baraki's "Aches and Pains" article is great, as well as the YT video "4 step for managing pain in the gym".

I've had many similar back pain experiences to yours. Bio-Psycho-Social model for the win

YMMV: For me the physical relocation and access to lots of equipment is important. Twice a week weights suits me fine. Not saying I am right but saying there is no one way

congrats. That's a brave admission, and it took some hard work.

Thanks for sharing :-)

Awesome and is there anything particular you took to reduce weight ? Or was it a whole lifestyle change ?

Not OP. But I recently started calorie counting (I'm using MyFitnessPal, and decided to even pay the yearly sub). Its been immensely helpful in understanding the impact of various food on my daily calorie count, and showing me I wasn't getting enough protein (I now start my day with a scoop of whey protein).

>>I had a self realization and received the advice from myself during one of my "zen state pondering" that - being in the best shape of my health with improve EVERYTHING by 10x in my life.

This doesn't even have to be a theory. Being top physical shape today is a minimum requirement for top notch intellectual performance.

Read:

https://www.espn.in/espn/story/_/id/27593253/why-grandmaster...

They jog up and down the hills around the farmland,

At 5-foot-6, Caruana has a lean frame, his legs angular and toned. He also has a packed schedule for the day: a 5-mile run, an hour of tennis, half an hour of basketball and at least an hour of swimming.

"Physical fitness and brain performance are tied together, and it shouldn't be a surprise that grandmasters are out there trying to look like soccer players," Ashley says.

Viswanathan Anand, does two hours of cardio each night to tire himself out so he doesn't dream about chess;

Chirila does at least an hour of cardio and an hour of weights to build muscle mass before tournaments.

The next generation of rich, successful, with super careers and affluence will be people with Christiano Ronaldo like physique.

Think by writing. Someone on HN said this and recommended “How to take smart notes”, which I furiously read through and applied to my life.

That commenter said it and I’m gonna say it too: I’ve been able to think much more deeply, thoroughly, and most importantly much further along than my old self before doing this (and even further than my coworkers in ways that has already paid off).

One day I really went off on it and wrote out my thoughts for 4 hours on some important technical ideas I’ve been ruminating on. Not in one big doc, either, but using Obsidian to connect my ideas to each other. I used those ideas to knock out a massive technical problem we were having at work with half a day’s effort. Found a quick win swimming around in my head.

It’s been a game changer.

Edit: I found the original comment!! Read it, there’s two other books there that have supercharged my life. Probably the most influential comment I’ve read on HN https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33594264

Could you provide a link to that post or comment?

Added it in an edit.

How much of that value derived was thanks to Obsidian? I work with pen-and-paper notes, is it worth the shift?

A lot more than I expected. What I liked is that I could easily connect thoughts written down on separate notes. Lots of “oh hey…I could use this approach I outlined over there”, connecting sometimes 6 separate ideas under a new roof.

I was skeptical bc I’m huge on pen and paper, but one morning I just said screw it and put Obsidian on my phone. That alone unleashed a torrent of thought, I think always having something you can take notes on is the key. Paper isn’t always on you when an idea strikes. A phone typically is

Think its important to note here that you can use any tool and technology here (incl. pieces of paper by topic). I found that most prolific thinkers never used a PKM but have their own and usually very simple systems to take on information that is important to them and use it in the future.

Most people I've noticed that are successful and productive in their respective fields have very simple systems. Using simple systems prevents productivity porn, the act of over gardening your tool sheds. It prevents you from wasting time in things you shouldn't be wasting time on - chasing technology and processes instead of saving problems for instance.

They also publish mostly finished work (not necessarily perfect) semi frequently. These works could be blog posts, websites, YouTube videos, books, and a whole host of other things depending on what's being produced

This and 10x this :)

> ... I furiously read through and applied to my life.

how did you apply? or how does one take smart notes?

I use this method of thinking because my memory/concentration get worse sometimes and do that with age. Even a simple file or a piece of paper work like a huge L2 cache which you don’t have naturally. Outlining (indents basically) makes it even more navigatable, e.g. I write simplified sentences in a hierachical way and use that as references/structure of thought.

  Thinking by writing
    Enhances memory as L2 cache
  Simple file or piece of paper
    Outlining by indents
      Makes better navigation
      Easy references
      Allows structure overview

I usually write 2x longer sentences, the above is just an example.

I actually got mine from "Rocketman" (I watched it a bit late):

"You gotta kill the person you were born to be to become the person you want to be."

There's a lot wrapped in it: discomfort, uneasiness, and determination. It's made impact from the day-to-day life level (trying new things I wouldn't have before) to the large life-scale (quitting my job to pursue my startup).

Ultimately, you just gotta go for it.

Why does this have to be true?

My experience with life has been different.

I took some elements from the person I was born to be. Only some elements of careful choice.

This made me a better person, a better human in the long run.

In the short term, it made me fit well, and also reduced unnecessary friction, which non-trivially helped in becoming the person I wanted to be.

Killing is kinda like burning bridges.

Depends on where you're at, and where you want to be. I'm also an incrementalist, however there are some people who are stuck in a rut and would benefit from "taking the leap", whatever that leap may be.

Someone else told me to be myself, now you're telling me to be someone else... this thread is about as helpful as one can expect a general advice thread to be.

It depends on what your definition of "being yourself" is.

No conflicts in the advices. Many (most?) people live their life with default settings, simply going along with and never questioning expectations from the world around them (the life they were born to live). They're simply the instrument of a self-fulfilling prophecy. To be who you want to be, you need to be willing to change those default settings, even if that runs counter the predictions.

The act of aspiration necessarily includes being willing to be a different person by the time you accomplish the goal you are aspiring to.

If you are happy being what you are, don't change, and just be yourself.

But sometimes whatever you are happens to be something like being overweight, or unmotivated etc. That's when 'being yourself' isn't very helpful.

Love that quote (and hadn't considered media as advice), but in that vein, the TV show Severance absolutely shifted how I perceive work and my separation from it.

Allot of people who experience major weight-loss often prescribe part of their success to "killing their previous self". I guess if you truly are unhappy with who you are as a person, then breaking yourself down to rebuild yourself makes sense

"It gets better. Girls love their daddies eventually."

As the father of a 20 month old, this year has been rough; she wants Mommy all the time and now that she's mobile there's not much I can do about it short of physically restraining her.

At the end of November she finally decided that I wasn't completely terrible; I went to Vegas for re:Invent and she was going from room to room looking for me. She still wants Mommy more, but Daddy has moved up a step from "unwanted intruder" to "somebody we take for granted but miss when he's gone".

I only have one child (3.5 years old), but with my own experience as well as what I’ve talked to many people about, Dads basically spend the first 2 years loving their child but primarily supporting Mom, because the kid is so dependent on mom (literally physically for a period of time too).

Once you get to 2+ and language starts developing, your bond with the kid will skyrocket. Come up with good ideas for adventures with them and they’ll love you the way you’re hoping they will.

> Dads basically spend the first 2 years loving their child but primarily supporting Mom, because the kid is so dependent on mom (literally physically for a period of time too)

FWIW although this might be common, it's not always true.

My wife went back to work about four months after our eldest was born (her choice, no pressure from employer), I was working from home - and flexibly - and so I got a lot of quality time with him until he was 18 months and started at daycare. That including us attending the local "mother and baby" group (yes, it was called that) together.

After we had two further kids, both of which I also took to "mother and baby" group, they finally renamed the group ;)

Yeah I think it's sometimes just about time spent. I have a 15 month old and my husband and he have always had a strong bond because he's around all the time: He works from home, has more flexible work than me, and I have an office 10 min away that I go to.

I recently started getting hugs and kisses from my 2 year old daughter when I pick her up from daycare. She still likes her mother more than me but at least she started tolerating me instead of crying as she did before. :D

I had the same "issue" with my son which is older. The issues went away after some time after we started to communicate (using words).

Kids are great.

Fun thing I came up with with my daughter. Our own secret communication. She could hold my hand and squeeze once for yes, twice for no. So for example, if her mom and I were discussing where to eat lunch, she could squeeze once on the place she wanted, twice on places she didn't. She expanded on it in time.

Due to Covid I was around much more during my daughter's early years than my son's. It's been fantastic to get closer to her than I could to my son due to working.

I've been around all this time -- in fact, I work from home while my wife goes out to work -- but that doesn't change the fact that I'm the mean parent who doesn't give her milk.

I think the big change a few weeks ago was her finally understanding that Daddy is something other than "Mommy who doesn't have milk".

Little daughters are God’s way to show us mini-heaven on Earth.

My dad did try “physically restraining me” by grabbing me before I could run to my mom after I would creep down the stairs in the morning to avoid him. It did not make things better so I would not recommend it, haha. I’m sure it was frustrating for him.

Anyway, thirty years later we’re good, and I would go to my dad way before my mom to talk about any sort of personal issue and such. Of course, every situation is different, hopefully it won’t take you nearly as long as it did for us.

I have found in my personal relationships in the past few years that the more I let go and stop trying to control things or take it personally when someone doesn’t act the way I’d like, the better it all goes. Of course, for some people that means the relationship drops off entirely, but for the more important ones they got a lot better.

To be clear, the only physical restraining I do is "Mommy needs to go to work now so Daddy is going to pick you up so you don't try to chase her down the stairs". She knows she can't walk down the stairs on her own but sometimes forgets when she gets excited.

Thank you! This means a lot!

Be unapologetically authentic.

Came from one of my employees.

Always struggled with being who I think the world will allow me to be as opposed to the person I am. I flip flop between those two states. That said, I think many of us do.

Not to be confused with allowing undesirable behaviors to run free, of course. I'm mindful of being the kind of person I want to be too.

Some things just feel easier when you're just being yourself and you choose not to give a shit what others think. It seems more attractive and confident.

It can feel scary because you somehow feel like you're putting your life situation or identity at risk. But I guess I've never been good at predicting the future anyway. Might as well be myself.

> Be unapologetically authentic.

That would have me fired within 24 to 48 hours max. I'm a caustic potty-mouthed cynic outside of work, but have to basically hide a good portion of my authentic self in order to continue picking up a paycheck.

Perhaps you are not supposed to be employed? Or perhaps you are not supposed to be potty-mouthed and cynical?

Supposed to be? I don't get who's supposed to do the supposing?

I think they were a referring to the potty mouth individual. That is to say, being an employee in a uptight workplace isn't what they're cut out for.

Well then it sounds like you need to work on that. You weren't born a potty mouthed cynic, you choose to be. And if choosing to be that way makes you feel like you can't be yourself, well, you should work on yourself.

Lol, be your authentic self. Unless that authentic self is inconvinent in which case work on yourself to authentically be someone else.

If the life advice is you should be your authentic self whenever its easy and there are no consequences. Well that's easy but kind of meaningless advice.

There's a big difference between being something you're not and not being so abrasive that you'd be immediately fired.

Probably less than you think. Lots of workplaces discriminate against people based on the way they speak or cultural biases.

But nonetheless this is why be yourself, in the absolute, is bad advice. You always need a balance between individuality and conformance. Too much in either direction and you will have a bad time.

That's my argument though. If being yourself is such a threat to your way of life you feel like you'd be outcast, you need to change yourself.

If you don’t mind my asking, how has your life unfolded as a result of following that advice?

Not sure it's the best advice I got in 2022, but it is my favorite HN comment from 2022! And it's great, period.

  "There are no tricks, that's just a distraction. Just sit down and do it. Ass in chair gets you there."

credit @nso95

It's something I have seen from a few sources and it's something I really need to 'learn' in 2023.

I tend to overthink a lot, to try and 'figure it out' or to 'make sense of it all', but really I just need to do the things that I already know need to be done, I always know things I need to do, I always have the next step, but because it doesn't quite feel enough or because it's not overly clear to me how the parts fit together or what will happen, I will go back into 'trying to figure it out mode'

It's depressing when I stop to think how little time I actually spend doing the things that will actually make the difference and move forward and how much my mind goes in circles trying to figure out how I need to change to make progress, but the truth likely is, I just need to do the thing, do more of it and do it faster, everything else becomes an excuse.

In some ways it's an insecurity, because you can't know the future ahead of time and you don't know how what you are doing now will fully link up to what you are hoping to achieve on a bigger scale, but you just have to take that leap.

> I tend to overthink a lot, to try and 'figure it out' or to 'make sense of it all'

I think this is super common amongst HN at least. I had to work on it too, but the mindset I fall back on now is that you can start doing it and figure it out along the way. Works for tons of things, from software, to plumbing. Worst case, we can come back later and clean up any mess we made along the way.

Best part is, every time you do something new, you get better and the next time is easier.

A pet peeve of mine is when people I know say things like "oh I don't know how to do my taxes". Just google it, there are so many great resources and you'll be done in 2 hours. (These are people with 1 state and 1 W-2, nothing complex).

You reminded me of an Alan Kay quote:

"Then we had Dan Ingalls whose job was to be smarter than me and make it all really work,

and his favorite line was you just do it and it's done... and that's what he did and and so we had it almost right away"

("it" is an early Smalltalk interpreter).

Source:

https://youtu.be/Odmx-ScL-8o

(51m52s)

Charlie Munger said something like that too !

"Another thing you have to do, of course, is to have a lot of assiduity. I like that word because it means: sit down on your ass until you do it."

You have to go first. If you don't make it happen, it doesn't happen.

This is especially true in adults relationships. If you don't put yourself out there and voluntarily assume the risk of going first, risking rejection, etc. then nothing is going to happen. Other people are not going to call you to hang out.

I think you're right about this. Regarding people not calling you to hang out though, I do think once you achieve a certain critical mass of relationship building (usually within a group setting) you will end up getting reciprocal invitations. But like you said, you have to put in the work first before you get to reap those rewards.

That's also about how much you give to others. I find that if I am at my 'normal' energy level I receive few reciprocal invitations. But if I deliberately give off 'high-energy' it's like people have found a button which they can press to have fun, and I receive nothing but invitations. The thing is, it's generally not fun for me to be high-energy.

This includes breaking up

This rings true for me. I did my undergraduate in commercial music as a piano player which required me to take 2 years of performance practicum with piano performance majors. They were leagues better than me and I knew it, but we all had to perform many times in front of everyone each semester on very technical baroque, classical and romantic era pieces. Since I knew I was the most out of my depth, I knew I had nothing to lose by performing in front of much more seasoned pianists. The funny thing is how reluctant the performance majors were to go first. So I always volunteered first and often to practice humility, and as a way of breaking the ice. It gave people confidence to go for it if a relative neophyte was performing and doing okay. It was sometimes embarrassing if I performed poorly, but it made a HUGE difference in helping me to learn what I was doing wrong and to get rid of my fear of failure. I learned my craft a LOT quicker during this time. Fail early and often and learn :)

Every time you want to say “x is wrong”, say “I think x has problem y” and either offer a solution for y or ask how it could be solved.

Advice at work by a manager. It makes discussions less confrontational, and I found that, regardless of whether it helps the discussion, it helps me keep a positive mood.

I find this as being indirect and dancing around the issue. When I do e.g. a code review and I see a glaring defect on it - I point it out very clearly and directly to make sure there is no misunderstanding - I say, XYZ is incorrect. Because of blah-blah. No feelings attached to it, just a fact.

That's fine, but only as long as "blah-blah" explains why the code is objectively incorrect. I usually start by writing out the explanation to help with phrasing the review comment.

Maybe it would be better if you worked alone then. The advice you are responding to is much better.

My point was not really for a mistake caught in code review, more for a “not sure this approach is correct, in a design I’m not sure is a good choice, over legacy whose quality I can’t vouch for, for a feature I’m not sure should be prioritised”.

Context: After spending a few years in a well managed unicorn, I joined a small-ish startup that had managed to stay afloat with average engineers operating under constant pressure.

After getting decent funding, they decided to hire people to improve quality overall, and that’s when I came in, among others.

I have to admit it was hard for me to adapt from “I’m adding features to a well oiled machine” to “everything is full of rust and leaking and I’m supposed to build a product on top it”.

That’s why the change of mindset helped: switching the “this is shit” gut reaction into improvement plans helps you focus, prioritise, and avoid assigning blame. It also keeps the former wave of engineers from feeling attacked when they were involved in the original design and hear criticism.

https://waitbutwhy.com/2013/10/why-procrastinators-procrasti...

It's old, but timeless, and I found it last month.

Naming these concepts has made them easier to identify and has put me back in the driver's seat

One man's procrastination is another man's prioritization.

Thank you so much for sharing this, I had never seen it before and it hit home more than any article I’ve ever read.

Now bitch slap the monkey

Thanks for this! I’ve never read it. I can relate a lot. I immediately bought a plushie of the Panic Monster.

Nice, an article I can read instead of cleaning the house!

Not really an advice, but this [1] completely changed the way I look and try so solve problems.

Basically, most of the things that are put in place have a reason behind it. You don't have to agree with the reason, but you must understand it before trying to solve a problem.

[1]: https://fs.blog/chestertons-fence/

I'm not responsible for solving other people's problems and behavior.

“I can fix them,” famous last words …

"If you keep planning your whole life out like this, you're going to end up miserable".

I spontaneously proposed to my girlfriend last night. She said yes :)

Congratulations man!

“stop worrying and be happy" the advice actually made me quite angry when I received it as I was going through a really rough patch.

Just taking a long time to sink in and internalize, but I think it's spot on. Worrying doesn't help the problems or generate Solutions, it only makes it worse. Everything single thing that I thought I needed to worry about can be better achieved without the anguish. You can still think, plan, and act without doing it from a place of fear and without the negative emotional baggage.

Worry is our brain trying to control things that are fundamentally uncontrollable.

Take Action is better. So if you’re worried just write them all down. Then you don’t have to worry anymore about it cause you can go back to your notes when necessary.

I've enjoyed the posts. Excuse the religious slant of this but I think there is a principle here. Buddha taught Buddhism in India and it spread to many other countries, becoming the most popular religion in the world but did not take root in India which is a Hindu country. Christ taught in Israel and Christianity spread around the world but Israel remains Jewish. These teachers were ignored at home.

I left Australia aged 32 where my life was bogged down and meaningless and emigrated to the States where I found fulfilment. It wasn't easy, it was illegal for me to earn money but it all worked out. I think there's something about leaving one's home country that invites a brand new path, a fresh opportunity to wipe the old slate and start afresh. I strongly recommend taking the flying leap into the unknown.

How long have you been in the US? What was your path to becoming legal?

From The Crown:

Does it need to be said?

Does it need to be said now?

Does it need to be said by me?

It took a while to learn that one.

I used to worry a lot about my future relative to where I currently was. Then I noticed that the grass is always greener on the other side. If you are young and things just aren't working out in your current position - consider moving, whether it is a new position or even a new place, at the very least you will get a new perspective and experience.

The secret to life is that there is no real secret. Everything is just about going and doing stuff, experimenting and tinkering with things, choosing one area of focus and then doubling down on what works.

This applies to everything. Relationships, health, personal development, business, learning etc.

People have two lives. First one starts when you're born. Second one starts when you realize you just have one!

If you cannot manage yourself, then how can you manage the world?

These two are the best advices I received in 2022. To be honest, I gave them to me after reading something close to them in the same week.

I was advised that generic advice isn't useful

Hm, I cannot decide whether this advice is useful or not

The only thing to do with good advice is to pass it on

Oscar Wilde

generic advice is useful, as long as you know how to apply it in the right scenarios. else it's just mental mastication

"Reputation takes a lifetime to build, but only seconds to destroy." - Arnold Rothstein (Boardwalk Empire)

I will tell myself that every day. Whether it be family, work or people in general, I have seen how good reputation and goodwill get vanished within just one act of impulsiveness.

Doesn't mean I am bad. Even just a harmless tendency such as curiosity, attempting to impress someone or just forcing yourself to fit in, will sometimes cost so much trouble. I have become comfortable of editing and deleting my ideas from the internet, but that doesn't work in real life (or in emails).

I remind myself that, I have saved myself from so many problems by restraining myself from acting. Empathy is a good technique to save myself, asking myself, "how my behavior is perceived by others? Have I truly listened before I came to a conclusion? Is compromise an easier solution?"

Mediocrity is a survival technique, and it saves you from yourself. It shouldn't be ostracized. People have done more harm by trying to do the right thing they saw fit. Be the person who is generally liked, or in the worst case scenario is forgettable.

> Reputation takes a lifetime to build, but only seconds to destroy.

There was a saying in the nuclear Navy: Ten thousand attaboys can get wiped out in a heartbeat by one awshit.

“Your mind is prone to misinterpret situations and your thinking does not always reflect reality.”

-Rewire Your Anxious Brain https://amzn.to/3B3muZ9

Whatever you resist persists. Thinking about not wanting to be overweight makes me feel bad and defeated. Thinking about wanting to get fit gives me a sense of hope, and agency. Put another way thinking about what I don't want begs the question of what do I want and then I can put energy into that. Of course this does not apply to everything e.g. certain chronic diseases.

I did receive some advice relating to the gospel about fighting or letting God deal with my problems.

But here's my advice to you.

This is my command to you: love eachother.

hugs.

This is not something from 2022. I read it decades ago and it has stuck with me all this time.

"Wishing without work, is like fishing without bait."

“Speak last.”

Meaning listening to others more often than telling. In particular when you lead people. Not holding back my opinion but let the others contribute.

I particularly like the short, simple, concise statement saying everything.

“You’re unhappy in your career; you need to commit to leaving rather than just talking about it”

Work health care professional hard suggested I go to ER for a thing and I reluctantly went. Shit got way real only couple hours later to a point where I was in so much pain I hardly could walk. Luckily I was already in the ER and got emergency surgery done.

Yeah probably not the kind of advice OP was looking for but definitely the best I have gotten for multiple years.

A productivity problem is not always psychological, often it's physiological (sleep, inflammation, nutrition) as well.

By my PCP. Seriously, go get checked (and presumably treated) for Vit D/B12 deficiency, sleep issues, and inflammations and it might change your life.

"Everything has a value".

Earlier this year I was drunk at a bar, using the urinal while staring at the wall in front of me, which was full of stickers and scribbles. Then I saw this message, written by who knows who, and it really stuck with me.

Including “Negative value”, something that has a negative or detrimental effect on a situation or outcome.

Don't drink alcohol, Don't buy unnecessary things, Get one thing done a day.

I saw this in a tweet or LinkedIn post (don’t remember anymore exactly) and it stuck with me ever since: “The best way to career success is to be easy to work with”.

“Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief. Do good now! Walk justly now! No one is expected to complete the work, but neither may any one desist from it.”

Listen to both the sides in an argument/fight/confrontation even if version of one side sounds plain obvious.

(A timeless advice, not really an advice received in 2022)

Someone told me to kill myself, looking back maybe they were throwing me a hint of what's to come :/

(I kid, I kid, but being told to read some stoic philosophy was useful)

„What got you to this level won’t get you to the next.“

To me it basically means that if you want to become a better version of yourself you have to make changes.

Life is short. Don't try to change people. Try understanding them taking a step back, just observing. It's better than a movie.

https://lazydevstories.com/post/advice2022/

If something needs to be done, and it takes less than two minutes to do, just do it right now.

the problem is when it takes way longer than you thought it would and then you feel regrets for why you started in the first place.

kinda like going down the rabbit-hole of building an automated solution to save 15 minutes of manual data entry

That's why I stick to two minutes... this is about washing that dish instead of leaving it in the sink rather than problem solving.

eat that frog. gotcha!

Ive spent a lot of time this past year becoming a community mediator and learned the strongest decision a person can make is the one in which they have agency creating. It's guided a lot of my own decisions and helped my relationships quite a lot.

"use Dalle-2 to create concepts of what you want and then bring those concepts to a designer" this saves so much time and communication overhead in the design process. "I want the design to be similar to this"

That it wasn't completely insane to write a book on the linux memory manager.

Link please!

Not out for a long while yet, but https://linuxmemory.org/ :)

“I’ve given a lot of thought to the optimal use of my time, and I simply do best operating by myself.”

Just hearing someone extremely successful with effectively limitless resources say this, hearing that this is OK.

“The difference between try and triumph is just a little umph!” -Ted Jr.

if you truly want to do something, you do it

I don't remember who I heard it from

I contrast that with how some people say "I'd like to learn X language" (like Japanese, or Italian, not like Rust) and they don't, some languages are difficult (German comes to mind), but ultimately, if you want to learn a language, you do it

For stocks:

“Cash is a position.”

from a old saying: a bird in hand is worth two in the bush

be really good at what you do.

love each other.

Rocky Linux 9

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