Ask HN: What is the best advice you got on any aspect of life? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What is the best advice you got on any aspect of life?

149 pointsnewsoul268 comments

Also where did you learn and test that advice was infact true? Share your anecdotal experiences.

Work and career progression: “always take the interview”.

I reported direct to the CEO at a startup and I told him our largest customer had headhunted me, and I assumed I wasn’t special and they’re probably targeting many of us. He asked me what the process was like and what the offer was, and when I told him I didn’t take the initial call hand he shook his head. “You always take the interview. Absolute worst case is you confirm you’re happy where you are. Median case is you confirm your worth and force me to have a difficult conversation where you’ve got the most leverage. Best case is you find a new better thing. But through it all you’re exercising the muscle of interviewing while you’re at the top of your game. People always let it atrophy and then try and rebuild it when they’re at their low point. Frustrated with where they are. Unexcited about the things they’re working on, and unable to fake talking about them in the overly positive ways they need to. Don’t want until a low point to work out what comes next. Always take the interview”.

Corollary: only take the interview if you're possibly open to change. I don't often take interviews and the few times I have, resulted in a change. That's not bad, but sometimes it can be disruptive in itself. Maybe you ace an interview for the best possible job, but can't take it because you're caring for your aging parents and you knew the on-site location before the interview.

realistically this just ends up wasting tons of time on both sides of hiring. Interviewing is unpaid labor, do it as little as possible.

This is why you interview...to waste time on a 1 hour call instead of years of a bad job/candidate.

As someone who does a ton of interviews, I hope people are wasting tons of my time!

I love the opportunity to talk to people about working where I work and if a great person wants to waste my time, I’ll take the chance to sell them on where I work.

As someone else who does a lot of interviews - please god no. There is negative value in every failed interview where I could have instead been contributing to the company’s mission.

I mean I do put a lot of work into getting bad fit candidates out of the pipeline as early as possible (ideally before they speak to me or anyone else).

But the most important thing I can be doing is getting good fit candidates hired — that is how I contribute to the company mission. And I accept that means talking to some number of people who aren’t seriously considering my offer. I take it as an opportunity to change their mind or failing that to experiment with the questions I ask. Over time I become a better interviewer because of those opportunities.

Every interview has the chance to end with me hiring the best person we’ve ever hired. The upside is so high that the downside is worth it.

I can’t get upset at people who interview when they’re not serious about changing jobs. I do it all the time myself and encourage everyone I work with to do it. Can’t hold it against anyone who does the same.

"Never stop dating"

Oh how exhausting. I'd rather just die alone.

I know this statement reflects poorly on me, but I'm barely hanging on to my sanity dealing with my life otherwise and I'm not even that young anymore.

I hear you. It's not about doing that courtship monkey dance forever, just keeping current what made it exciting in the first place.

Even if you are married?

I've seen this used with idea being you treat your spouse as if you were still courting them.

Especially if you are. Date your wife/husband.

I think it's satire

I, and most software engineers, would be interviewing 24/7.

This attitude is a good reason to take the advice.

Honestly it’s not. I would basically be reducing my hourly rate if I _never_ stopped interviewing, because most of those are dreck that can’t meet my current comp in the first place.

Why would you apply to dreck that can’t meet your comp in the first place?

The advice wasn’t apply to jobs. The advice was to take the interview.

I don’t apply. It’s what shows up in my email or LinkedIn inbox. I don’t take the interviews when they are obviously misaligned with my level/skillset/interests because they are a waste of time.

Just take the intro call and tell them your expectations (while being as vague as possible). If they dont bite then you didn’t lose much

Yeah I think a qualification to add would be “Take the qualified interview.” If you apply, that’s your qualification so take the interview. If they contact you and you tell them what you want, that’s your qualification, so if they agree and offer an interview, take it.

Agreed, and I assumed people would apply some common sense to how and when to generalise 4 words.

I still get what is clearly blind spam from recruitment agencies in a country I haven’t lived in for > 15 years (so they CV they have on file would be just as old) offering me entry level positions. Those don’t ever warrant a response. But if someone has gone to the effort to actually look at your work history, see what you’ve done, and reached out… take the interview.

I know it's good advice to keep interviewing skills fresh, but boy is it a time commitment. I had to study for a few months to prepare for my last round of interviews and as the meme goes, I haven't really used leet code in my job!

Sounds like an amazing CEO

Best job I ever had working with the best people, and I have to think good leadership was a huge part of it. When everything comes together like that you can't imagine ever working anywhere else (hence my initial bewilderment and why he thought I'd take the interview). Eventually leadership changes though...

Truly a privilege to experience it at least once in your career.

This advice is solid gold. I declined many interviews when I was at the top of my game for silly-in-hindsight reasons such as I have just joined, I am happy here etc. Have always regretted it ever since.

Interviewing isn’t free. Let’s say it is $5k of time to prep for it etc. Maybe don’t say yes to all of them!

I would be very interested in learning what that startup was called.

Heroku

Small company known as General Electric

Wow, this one's amazing, and so well argumented that it finally made it click in many respects for me.

This is a mix of Buddhist, Hindu, and Stoic philosophy: Ask yourself this, why do you do anything? For the sake of Profit? Recognition? Love? Or return of any kind?

Any deed done with reward in mind creates an expectation which, if not met, causes suffering. Similarly, you will end up focusing more on the reward than the task itself and will unable to be loyal to the task. The only reason you must do a task is because you must do the task i.e. it's your duty to do so (either self-imposed or originating from a construct you follow).

This is such a conflicting piece of advice that goes against the fundamental reward-driven human biochemistry. But I've found that in following it, you really begin to tune out suffering and start to discover something that's a bit above being human.

A task that is autotelic is purposeful in itself (it is it’s own end goal, instead of being a means to another end goal).

This has been argued to be one of the defining characteristics of games.

Summarized into a saying: Treat every task as an end in itself, and you will experience more enjoyment. Enjoyment is a value in its own right. So do it, just for the sake of it.

I think this is more important in craftsmanship than we’d like to admit: striving for perfection for the sake of perfection.

It has also been argued that beauty in itself is a strong motivating force and the best heuristic to aim for in mathematics/physics.

And it's even more important in posts of power and responsibility. Carry the public office not because you want money, appreciation, and power, but because as a qualified person it's your duty to do so. Seek nothing but the joy of having been loyal to the job.

Every action is reward driven and sel-interested.

The suffering stems from the reward being external. If the reward is in the self or from the action itself, then there is less suffering. Self fulfillment.

Less suffering only, to take into account an inability to act.

Interesting outlook this: seek reward, but internal, as opposed to don't seek reward at all.

The last sentence sounds like a reward. Moreover, if I were to follow your advice, it would create an expectation of an exceptional discovery, that would cause me suffering, if not met.

That's a very valid point but I believe you touched upon the answer yourself, follow the advice but not because you want the exceptional discovery. Simply because.

Sure, I get it. BTW initially, when I read your post, I thought to myself - that's how my Roomba lives its live. It does things not for a reward, but out of inevitability. It was just constructed to be that way. Surely it's not on its way to enlightenment. But then I was reminded of the plot of a short film Zima Blue. If you ever find yourself with a Netflix subscription, you should watch it.

Ok but what if the result of contemplating this is overwhelming existential dread? This comment kind of reduces life to a give and take philosophy. One where everything you do is to accomplish a task. I'm not sure that has anything to do with Buddhism. It's my understanding that part of Buddhism is the removal of the self, and appreciating the moment. I agree that focusing on the end result can detract from appreciating being in the moment, but this sounds sounds more like self-deception.

I prefer the Japanese concept that, and I'm paraphrasing here, "every action has a purpose." Putting value on the actions themselves adds an appreciation for the moment you are in, and the process you are doing. It then becomes a sign of respect for you to do everything in your life to the best of your ability. There's a whole philosophy about this, but the name of it escapes me.

A few things I've found that are related: "The was of the peaceful warrior" - Book

This is water - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eC7xzavzEKY

Sorry if this is a little rambly, I have ADHD and my adderoll is doing its thing.

Re-program yourself. We're both the programmer and the program that we designed for ourselves.

This idea is taught in The 7HoHEP by Stephen Covey.

This just sounds like finding intrinsic motivation with extra steps. That's a good thing, I think.

Define suffering, because the absolute of what you describe requires life with zero emotion and most would agree that a life like that would be depressing as hell. I've never met a depressed person who didn't say they were suffering.

I've been exploring some of the same schools of thought mentioned by the OP, and for me, one of the most critical aspects of living this day-to-day is a daily mindfulness practice. Emotions are not discarded, but your relationship with emotions changes.

Not meditation in the "focus on one thing to the exclusion of all else" sense, but mindfulness based on the practice of Vipassana, which roughly translates to "see things as they really are" and stems from Buddhism.

As part of this practice, one is taught that emotions are just appearances in consciousness like all other appearances in consciousness (sights, sounds, smells, feelings, physical sensations, etc), and by becoming aware of/observing emotions/thoughts instead of just feeling them and identifying with them, the power they hold fades quickly.

It's hard to describe the anti-suffering impact this seems to have in words, but for me, the difference has been remarkable. Emotions are still just as critical as ever to live a fulfilling life, but how you relate with those emotions can change with practice and re-framing.

I started this exploration as the ultimate skeptic, but have found it to be far more practically helpful than I expected. Having a good teacher seems to be important, as they will continue to help you navigate the earlier stages of figuring out what you're supposed to actually do (turns out it's more about what you're not doing).

I've personally been using Sam Harris' "Waking Up" app, and find that quite useful, but there are many more resources available.

I did say that this school of thought has roots in Stoicism so what you say does indeed make sense. But I guess there's more to it which can only be found if you follow it. There are some things that just can't be described/told and have to be felt.

I think the idea is that emotion should never interfere with your actions.

Sounds like a good bedtime story for a slave owner to tell his slave.

Sometimes just doing the right thing is its own reward.. some even suggest these decisions determine your sense of morality.

Shopping Cart Theory:

https://i.redd.it/ym8g7jqtw6y41.png

Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.― Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

Better a living dog than a dead lion.

For young, single heterosexual men; cultivate deep platonic friendships with women.

Get a hobby, do charity work, find something where you meet and become good friends with multiple women of different ages and backgrounds. Do not ever attempt to date any of these women.

Why? Because most men know woefully few women, and your life will be much richer. A lot of men know very little about the experiences, fears, and hopes of women.

Be there for them. Ask them for advice. Ask them for feedback on your appearance and your personality. Tell them your hopes and fears, and listen to their feedback.

You'll become a much better partner because of it, and your romantic relationships will be far more satisfying.

A woman will very unlikely give you an honest advice. They are usually not made for that with friends. They usually just re-assure and "support" you. That's been my experience.

There are two types of woman who will be-friend you platonically: Woman who are interested in you sexually as a partner and want to be close to your radar, just in case. Woman who are not interested in you but find value in your friendship (either connections, money, emotional support, etc...)

In both cases, it's a bad deal for you. You are much better finding your own real partner instead of masquerading around other woman to forget about your lacking in that area.

Friendships with woman do exist. But they are limited by the fact that man and woman have very different hobbies and interests. That is, unless you are interested spending Saturday evening looking out for the perfect face mask or the color of your jeans; and I don't mean that in a pejorative way.

You are somewhat close minded. Don't take this as a quick accusation of some -ism. I just get that you're not at all open to new experiences.

* You think you figured out people. But non of us have figured out people. Being open minded means at least trying to give any person a chance. You already have them divided into types and dismissed.

* You think to be friends you need people with the same hobbies and interests.

* You think your hobbies and interests are already set.

Whether your goal is to find a partner or to find friends, trying to figure out and decide about people in the privacy of your mind, then projecting that on the world will hamper your goals.

Humble yourself, assume you're wrong, and allow people to surprise you.

> * You think to be friends you need people with the same hobbies and interests.

At least in that point there is some truth to it. What activities will you engage in with people, if you do not share hobbies or interests? Activities will be quite limited, unless you discover some shared interest or hobby. Maybe your shared interest will be once a week sitting in a café and talking about your job. As long as it is a shared interest, you got at least something to do with the other person.

Socialization in many countries around the world is still very much having strong bias for men and women roles and interests. Without high awareness of this, it is also very difficult for parents to do anything about this. Children are usually not 24/7 with their parents either. They spend a lot of time in other institutions like kindergarden and school, where they usually face a mainstream bias.

This means, that quite often there is a trend for men and women to also have different hobbies and interests. There is of course overlap in many areas, but not everywhere. It is slowly changing, but it will still take a long time. Just to give examples:

When I studied CS, only 10% were women. Looking at biology and psychology for example, we have almost the opposite situation.

I agree with everything you said. Of course everything you said is a description of the reasons that go into making it less common.

I disagree with the prescription that it shouldn't/couldn't. Saying something is unlikely is different to closing that door.

People and society are complex, and the long tail is really long. That's why being open minded and really giving the person in front of you some consideration is really important.

Holy shit you have not met many women.

I have been arguing with myself about replying to the comment you replied to.

Good lord that person reveals a lot about themselves in it. And none of it is good. If they didn't seem to be angry, I'd pity them.

Imagine if I summed you up based on only this comment and how you were publicly not-very-nice to a guy who volunteered his opinion/experience to further a discussion.

Most importantly, you're just attacking a human being, you haven't even engaged with them.

Or people, by the looks of it.

Holy shit.

Eh, it depends. I don't really have many female friends and it hasn't seemed to be a negative.

The biggest issue is that there are relatively few women interested in the same types of hobbies I have been. Also, shared interest is not as great a basis as shared context for building friendships. So the number of women who have the same interests and shared context are even lower. I have only a few close male friends and the rest are not that close. I don't think I have any close female friends, just some that are not that close. Many of those friendships die out when we leave the same school/team/club/etc.

Needs or goals can get in the way too, especially when younger. Pretty much anyone who shares enough values/interests/context to become a really good friend ends up on the list of dating partners because they are such a good match. It makes sense in some ways since you don't want to miss a chance with someone who is such a good match, especially when that's rare.

How do you know something isn't a negative if you can't test it?

The same way that the other commentor contends it's a positive - anecdotal experience, plus a logical framework supporting it.

I'd say do that, but with men.

Men of good character, morals, aspirations and goals.

Platonic friendship between men and women is a myth. (Exceptions exists, but only confirm the rule)

> Platonic friendship between men and women is a myth

This is a not unusual opinion amongst Americans, and one I questioned myself, but I can assure you after moving to Europe its a cultural issue(especially in the south).

Europe also has much higher infidelity rates, with France reporting over 37% of women (using women as an example since the data came up more easily) having had affairs compared to 13% in the usa.

(Not an expert) That stat would seem to show only that more French women admit having had affairs, not that more have had them.

I'm friends with most of my friends wife and most of my co-workers and honestly not super interested in banging any of them.

I also have two female friends since childhood and we never done anything and we keep in contact even though we live in different states. Yey facebook!

> Platonic friendship between men and women is a myth.

I must tell my friends about this, they will be distressed.

I bet at least some of them will actually agree with me.

I disagree but I am curious, what makes you think it’s a myth?

First, thank you for asking, I already appreciate your constructive approach.

Now I would like to be more precise: I assert that, at the very least, male-female-friendship is a deviation from the rule. I.e., it is not expected to work, but it can in some instances.

Why?

Because male and female are by default and by nature sexually attracted to each other, and if not then that is simply unexpected.

In fact, there are studies where they made strangers simply look each other in the eyes for a little while. What happened was that some of them fell in love just by doing so.

Put another way: Friendship means affection. There is no reason why such affection between a heterosexual male and female wouldn't eventually cross the sexual level of affection, at least for one of the two. It is simply to be expected more often than not. Thus it is expected that at least one of the two will - at least occasionally - have sexual fantasies about the other.

Oh, thank you for mentioning that. That’s why HN is the only place where I interact with other users, civil disagreement is appreciated. :)

Ok, I kind of agree with what you are saying. But I come to a different conclusion. I hope my text below isn’t a long unintelligible rambling.

Maybe it boils down to how one defines friendship and if friendly affection and sexual affection can coexist. I sorta see a Wenn diagram for this.

Say that I have sexual fantasies about a friend but my friend doesn’t share those fantasies. There is nothing from letting these feelings coexist inside me.

Is it easy? Not necessarily, but I believe it is it possible. One might even have to go see a therapist, so what?

I could even be so honest towards my friend and say: “Look, we are friends, but I also have romantic feelings towards you and it’s hard since you don’t feel that way. Which is totally ok! So I need a couple of weeks where we don’t hang out and it will pass”.

In that scenario, are we still friends? I believe we are. I am making an effort to make the friendship work. But I also need my friend to respect me and my boundaries.

And once those feelings has passed, because my experience is that they do, then we can continue being friends. If I wasn’t able to let those feelings coexist inside me while hanging out with that person.

One last thing. I cherish friendships, it gives me so much joy. And true friendship, that affection you mention, is also rare. So it’s not the best route to automatically exclude half of the population from being friends with you. So there is a lot to be gained from framing these different feelings of affection in a way so that they coexist. Then we get to reap the rewards of many great friendships.

I understand that you can view friendship the way you described, and yes perhaps that's how many people view it.

But for me just friendship is the type that exists among hetero men or hetero women, where there is no possibility of sexual attraction.

So I'm not denying that the type of friendship you describe can exist, but it's not "just" friendship then, like "we're just friends".

I think a metaphor that describes this well is the two magnetic poles. You can of course keep them close to each other without them touching, but that requires some constant force. This necessary constant force, that is needed to keep the distance, is a compromise to friendship as I envision it.

Now here is another crucial point I haven't even mentioned yet:

It is very well understood, that males tend to eagerly and overly interpret signals from females as sexual advances, whereas on the contrary, females tend to underestimate the sexual signals they are giving to males.

It could be a mundane joke or a wrong, unintentional move. This creates a constant granular level of tension and uncertainty that needs to be perpetually overcome, which is incompatible with "my" understanding of just friendship.

Not romantically or sexually attracted to my sister, my auntie, anyone too old for me, anyone too young for me, anyone who smokes, anyone who belittles waitstaff, peopke who overindulge (fillers, etc), people with hairy armpits, people who have strong masculine traits, people who do not wash to my standard etc;etc;etc;

There's limitless numbers of people I am genuinely not attracted to, are you saying they can't be my friends either?

Even the study you cite says “some” of the people started catching feelings.

I much more readily believe that you are either attracted or you're not, and while thats subject to change with appearance changes and so on, it is basically normal to have people you’re not (and are extremely unlikely to be) attracted to.

Obviously excluding family, since I'm appealing to nature. You're not naturally sexually attracted to your immediate family members, i.e. it would be a deviation form the norm if that occurred.

But I can't believe that's your best retort to my argument, when it should be quite obvious that's not what I'm referring to.

And yes you may not be attracted to them, but that doesn't mean some of them aren't to you.

Also it's important to understand I'm not saying you're immediately attracted to any female. That is not my argument. So it's pointless to point out you're not attracted to some random girl who smokes.

I'm simply saying that given a male and female forming a friendship, there is every reason to expect that OVER TIME, at least one of the two's affection will reach sexual levels.

My point was that there are plenty of people I’m not attracted to, not just family, whole entire categories of people.

I am also not exactly attractive. So I see no reason to believe they are attracted to me.

You just assume too much here for me to take it seriously.

If you are saying, sincerely, that every woman I am friends with is secretly attracted to me then I’m going to have some really awkward conversations.

I have plenty of friends who are women, it feels so ordinary that I can’t even imagine a world where this is not normal.

Agreed. But you can have sexual fantasies and still be friend, no ?

Not if you're married

Don't mistake your own failings for universal ones.

Cmon, what are you - a jellyfish?

I thought your initial comment—the one you deleted a minute after posting it, where you were boasting about how sexually attractive you are—had more personality tbh

You know I agree with you, but I figured the public wasn't ready for it.

Thanks though!

That's not how confirmation works.

I mean you're right, but what I really meant is that exceptions don't disprove the rule which is based on sound reasoning (see my answer to the guy that actually asked)

> Platonic friendship between men and women is a myth.

Despite all the examples to the contrary? If anything you're telling on yourself, here.

This is great advice. Different voices educate you more about the world than the echo chamber. Plus you get approached a lot more by other women when they see you can treat women like humans and not objects

Do you have evidence or do you have assumptions?

Something I learned in CBT - while I can trust my mind to return facts I know most of the time, if I'm in a heated moment or excessively stressed out I can start making assumptions of the world (to save time and think faster?) - sometimes these assumptions are wrong.

Basically the therapist taught me to be less like ChatGPT, haha. I can express my assumptions and opinions of course, but I should note (at least to myself) where something I claim is an assumption I've made rather than a fact I know.

This was primarily for my low self-esteem and imposter syndrome feelings, but it works for pretty much everything.

---

Side note it turns out actual imposters don't have a mental portfolio of projects to hand that are actually really impressive when listed off in one sitting, haha

"oh yeah I tinkered on a project for a weekend while bored which went on to (indirectly) help raise millions for charity that one time"

If you also suffer from this I'd recommend making a "brag bin" - This is a tub I store complements and success stories that I can later go through when I'm feeling useless. This I adapted from (my systems use individual cards rather than documents) https://jvns.ca/blog/brag-documents/

Thanks for sharing this, I’ll have to try making my own brag docs. I’ve recently started a new position & I can feel the imposter syndrome creeping back in.

CBT = Cognitive behavioral therapy

I followed the advice of lifting weights.

Before that I was feeling pretty tired of my life, barely played with my little son, was exhasuted in my work as data scientist and my personal relationships with my wife, family and friends were poor. Also I didn't had the energy to pursue my hobbies, was abusing cannabis and alcohol and had poor eating and sleeping habits.

Since I started going to the gym and found this simple beginner routine everything started to feel better. Something changed and feel way better and improving every other aspect of my life.

I started this program, but I think anything similar will help: https://stronglifts.com/

I also started on stronglifts and moved onto greyskull lp shortly after my progression stalled and I stared to lose interest:

https://physiqz.com/workout-routines/powerbuilding-programs/...

When the easy gains are over it becomes much less rewarding. But the easy gains themselves are worthwhile. My plan for that is to step back to a minimal strength maintenance program and focus more on sports and outdoors enabled by the strength.

Would it be terrible to mostly use weight machines? That’s all my gym has?

Using mostly machines is fine, don’t worry about what others think is optimal. The truth is, if you push yourself hard, you can get great results regardless of the equipment available to you (and you still need to push yourself hard with free weights too).

Machines trick you into thinking you're progressing. The first time I went from Smith machine squats to free weight squats, I couldn't walk the next day (went from 150kg on the machine to 80kg free weight).

I just don’t think my knees could handle squats. I was thinking to do a leg press with lower weight. Like 20 reps.

With good form, your knees shouldn't be involved that much: https://exrx.net/WeightExercises/Quadriceps/BWSquat - your knees shouldn't go past your toes.

fwiw high weight + low reps (4-6) if you want to get stronger, lower weight with more reps for getting bigger (8-12)

Have you looked into isometric weight training? Heavier weight, lower reps, static holds for longer duration. Typically used in physio for rehabilitation but can also work as exercises on their own, especially when you get older and have joint issues.

Not optimal, but there must be some program for those cases

“…for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: ’If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?’ And whenever the answer has been no for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something. Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life.”

- Steve Jobs' 2005 Stanford Commencement Address

https://youtu.be/UF8uR6Z6KLc?t=562

This is not good advice and it largely goes against steve jobs work. This fundamentally works, for a small subset of people that are predisposed via their personality to extremely high levels of dilligence and conscientiousness who need to be told to stop working.

If you are the opposite, this advice basically says "stop sacrificing the short term for the long term, and stop working towards difficult but ultimately worthwhile things, and enjoy short term pleasure" which is terrible advice if you do that by habit anyway

It's not a rallying cry for hedonism, short-termism or defeatism.

It's a suggestion to correct course; to be self-aware; to get over your fears; to ensure you're pursuing things you find worthwhile and believe in; to accept that even for those things you will have days when you don't love them, but to consider a change if that feeling persists.

He goes on to say, “…all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure — these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose”, which is less often quoted but just as important.

I don't like the appeals to mortality (at all), the "things just fall away in the face of death" argument. It is like "The Top Five Regrets of the Dying" all over again.

The "regrets" sound good, are honey for our eyes and ears. But of course, we reason, they should have—it's always them, not us—thought more about family and less about work, picked up the phone and called their friend, written a note to the family members who had invited them to their wedding anniversary.

In the end, we don't call our friend because we don't feel like it, maybe we tell ourselves that if we weren't so lazy and busy we would do it, as if laziness were an unappealable sentence instead of a choice. We don't change jobs not because we are afraid, but because we make some calculations about trade-offs.

We prefer to spend time at work rather than with the family maybe because the wife or husband has put on forty pounds since the wedding, and children surely are the greatest joy, but if we were to go back in time maybe we wouldn't make them. Plus, if we hadn't worked all those hours, who would have thrown money around the house? How can we be on social media instead of talking to our family members, friends, kids, spouse, some may ask. Maybe we are not just a victim of the times, it is just that we have talked to our friends 1500 times and in our pocket there is a world that engages us, interest us. We would have loved to be more adventurous in expressing our feelings, of course, but we were well aware that those we wanted would never come with us.

We live life now and, apart from some unfortunate fellows, we are not likely to die tomorrow or in one week or in one year. Embarrassment will maybe go away when we are dying, but what about the 10/20/30 years or more between now and then?

I know that's how people take this advice. But that's not the explicit meaning of the words. It's like me telling you that you're an asshole and you should take it to mean that I love you.

> This is not good advice and it largely goes against steve jobs work.

I’d argue the opposite. It’s exactly aligned with his stated philosophy. Particularly in how this was influenced by an early LSD experience:

> It reinforced my sense of what was important—creating great things instead of making money, putting things back into the stream of history and of human consciousness as much as I could.

I don’t think that suggests hedonism or short term pleasure by any means.

Much more reasonable advice would be along the lines of "If you aren't excited about what you are going to do today for many days in a row, you should change things up."

Substitute "excited" for any reasonable descriptor. This assumes a certain amount of agency, otherwise it is just depressing that things aren't great and you can't change them.

You should be glad if you're doing something you find meaningful. If you aren't,then you need to find reasons to be.

Memento Mori

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memento_mori

But in an old man who has known human joys and sorrows, and has achieved whatever work it was in him to do, the fear of death is somewhat abject and ignoble. The best way to overcome it -so at least it seems to me- is to make your interests gradually wider and more impersonal, until bit by bit the walls of the ego recede, and your life becomes increasingly merged in the universal life.

An individual human existence should be like a river: small at first, narrowly contained within its banks, and rushing passionately past rocks and over waterfalls. Gradually the river grows wider, the banks recede, the waters flow more quietly, and in the end, without any visible break, they become merged in the sea, and painlessly lose their individual being.

The man who, in old age, can see his life in this way, will not suffer from the fear of death, since the things he cares for will continue. And if, with the decay of vitality, weariness increases, the thought of rest will not be unwelcome. I should wish to die while still at work, knowing that others will carry on what I can no longer do and content in the thought that what was possible has been done.

— Bertrand Russell

"Chemotherapy today? No again!"

That "too many days in a row" is the critical part in this piece of advice in my opinion.

Any person or company that goes to extremes to obtain immortality* ends up dying earlier than nature intended.

It's the Voldemort rule. (In the story he died ~75ish years old after making himself immortal, where most wizards easily live beyond 100)

* Not literally yet, but probably soon.

It’s cute but it doesn’t mean what people think it means. It’s not a call for hedonism or short-term happiness, but the complete opposite: a call for transcendence and meaning and good deeds reflected in eternity (i.e. after you die today).

That might work for rich people. Most people have little choice in work etc. Often times it's better to just stick either it until the feeling passes, or to redefine your expectations to match reality. That's really hard, but much easier for most people due to lack of being rich.

Long time ago a friend copied some albums onto minidisk for me.

When I played them I saw that he had named each album and track fully. This would have been done by manually choosing each letter using the arrow keys on the remote. It would have taken many hours to do this very tedious task.

When I expressed my amazement and thanks, he shrugged and said something that stuck with me ever since:

"If a job is worth doing, it's worth doing well."

There's a better version of that last sentence:

"If it's worth doing, it's word doing poorly"

In other words, if it's worth doing, it's worth struggling through the many frustrating failures until you can do it well. Otherwise, you might get put off by not being able to do it "well"

I also took it as "even if the end result isn't perfect, having it done is better than not doing it at all."

It has helped a lot with my hesitation to start projects.

World stands on people like this. Unfortunately there are so few of us :)

I always think of this John Lennon quote:

Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans.

It's the day-to-day activities of life that are important. Even those great plans you're making, you're going to have to live through it day-by-day. The here and now is the only thing that actually exists.

As for an interesting anecdote, I had an episode where I suddenly and unexpectedly started not feeling well, was thinking I needed to lay down, and then found myself on the floor with my head on a pillow and my feet propped up. I was thinking, yeah, this is what I needed. It slowly dawned on me my wife was on the phone with 911 and was about to start chest compressions just before I came to. I heard sirens in the background and realized they were coming for me. I later learned I had slumped over in my chair.

When the medics arrived I had a very weak pulse and extremely low blood pressure. I have mild hypertension and I thought it rather funny that they were trying to increase my blood pressure en route to the hospital in the ambulance. I was extremely cold, a cold I've never experienced, which is weird because I'm always the one who's hot.

As I was laying on the gurney waiting to be admitted to the ER I had the realization today might be the day I die. I started laughing to myself as I realized nobody ever had "die" on their to-do list for the day. That gave me a deep insight into how optimistic we are - even the terminally ill never think today is going to be THE DAY. It was just an interesting observation on human nature.

Anyway, I'm fine. No blood clots, they checked my heart out and it's fine and I don't have any blockages. They don't know why it happened but I've since discovered others who've had a similar experience and like me, everything checked out fine and they never had any further issues. My own experience was over a year ago and I've had no other issues since.

Anyway, I'll leave you with this quote:

Live every day like it's your last

Because you never know which day will actually be your last. As I discovered regardless of your health condition we're always surprised when the end comes.

You can’t control the actions of others, only your own.

Another person is like a mountain: you can’t change anything about the mountain. You can only decide whether you’ll go around it, over it, or turn back.

I learned long ago to stop wasting my energy worrying about what other people did, and to focus on what I could do. Sometimes your actions can influence others, but you can’t make then do anything, they make their own choices and choose their own actions.

Most people are easily manipulated if you know how and are willing to do so. This has been proven multiple times, for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8BkzvP19v4

There are other ways to make people do things as well like money or force.

Only strong minded people not afraid of death are truly immovable mountains.

I think this advice could be revised to.

"You can't change people, you can only manipulate them."

But you're agreeing with me. You can't make them do anything, but you can choose actions that influence them. It may work, it may not.

1. “Sometimes, you just have to trust people.” Said to me by the owner of a shop at a farmer’s market after I explained I didn’t have cash on hand to pay for an item so I couldn’t accept it, but would go to an ATM to get it. She gave me the items anyway, and I promptly went to an ATM to bring her the money. I grew up in an environment where I was constantly told about all the bad intentions everyone around me had, and how dangerous the world was. It was unnerving, so that moment was refreshing and eye-opening.

2. When I was buying my first bed, I talked with an older salesperson who did a great job helping me find what I was looking for. During our long conversation, he said, “You never know what someone you’re interacting with is going through. Keep that in mind and try not to assume bad intentions.”

3. The less time I spend on the computer/looking at screens/sitting down, and the more time I spend out in the physical world, allowing myself to explore, the more my subjective well-being increases. Similarly, the more time I spend interacting physically with people, the more meaningful, nuanced, and empathy-building interactions I have. I learned this when I quit my first job and spent a week in an hostel in Alaska, and just immersed myself in _life_ for a week.

4. It’s okay to not be productive all the time. I don’t have to side hustle if I don’t want to. Not doing so doesn’t mean I should withhold compassion from myself. Remember, there are other aspects of life outside of work, and in fact, time, relationships, and health are more important than work. I learned this during COVID when I had family in a coma for multiple months.

Great advice, all four. Thanks.

Really nice, thanks.

This comes from 12 Steps/AA literature. If something external causes me to feel some way, it may be more about me than about the externality itself.

I'll try an example. If a random stranger comes up and insults me, I might start getting angry, insult him back, even start a fight. If I reflected on it a bit I might see my reaction was based on my own insecurity, my pre-existing belief that some of these insults, whatever they were, were true; or maybe a fear that these words could injure me somehow and I'd need to protect myself.

On the other hand, I can think of a very loving person I know, and if someone started insulting them, they'd be more likely to say, whoa, you poor man, you seem troubled, what's going on?

The point being responding back with anger is not a necessary reaction to this stimulus. And a strong unpleasant reaction, or avoidance, is often rooted in my own self-centeredness (which can be changed).

- to get what you have never got, be prepared to do what you have never done

- do not allow your inbox to manage your time

- Manage, or be managed

- people overpay to have you keep doing what you were already doing before.

- win:wins

- most people do not experience pmf that then warps their thinking into plateaus of mediocrity

- it is mighty difficult to create wealth being an employee. Most mansions, large homes in any neighbourhood belong to business(wo)men

- OC: what looks good from far, maybe far from good

- do not despise boredom. It is the spark that guides souls to their next passion or idea or habit

- it is mighty difficult to create wealth being an employee. Most mansions, large homes in any neighbourhood belong to business(wo)men

It's not just business; plenty of small ones struggle. It's ownership. Own that mansion, and it's rise in value will far outstrip your salary. Own other people's work, by owning a company, and even if doesn't make much profit it's probably worth much more than a salary.

Love the one from OC :)

Pmf?

product market fit

Accept that suffering is a normal part of life, and reciprocally that you're not abnormal for suffering. I feel like a lot of the modern hustle is a false promise, we are told to seek happiness (in the hedonistic sense), and suffering is presented in opposition to this as a failure both personal and existential. But suffering is not a failure, it's a frequent and normal part of life, life musn't stop or be dreaded or resented because you're suffering. And most importantly happiness and suffering can co-exist.

That's advice I gathered from personal experience and letters I exchanged with a Franciscan monk a few years back.

I think often about this one I read a while ago (paraphrased): “one of the quickest path to unhappiness is to not follow your true self”.

I believe we often face situations where we would rather be someone else or present traits that are not natural to us (eg to appear more likable). However, any behavior that is not led by who we really are, will inevitably make us like ourselves less. Stay true to yourself, your believes, and what brings you joy.

That's beautiful! That kind of explains why things have been dragging me down lately.

The Serenity Prayer (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serenity_Prayer) has helped me to put things into perspective many times.

"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, and Wisdom to know the difference."

There’s a lot that can cause you stress and anxiety that is entirely outside of your control and if you can be OK with not being able to control those things, life gets a whole lot happier.

Having tight positive feedback loops is great for motivation. For example when writing code, seeing immediately if it works. Either by hot reloading, automated testing or at least building it. I try to find the same in other mundane topics.

This resonates with me, and is what I always try to drum into less experienced engineers when we're pairing. You'd be surprised how often someone who doesn't know programming that well will sit down and code for a whole hour before checking if any of it works. I'm checking every line to see if it works before moving on!

I can't imagine coding like that. Imagine the frustration level at the end of the hour when they go to run it.

Agree, that's definitely one of the gems of wisdom from the software product world that would work in many aspects of life. Finding ways to get an MVP of something, getting feedback and iterating definitely makes one get the motivation from quick visible results, and also definitely teaches one a lesson or two about humility too.

Somebody a little topical. I don't know if Andy Reid is a perfect man in his personal life, but other than sometimes being indescribably confusing at clock-management, he's a hell of a football coach and exemplifies a lot of great leadership qualities that are worth observing.

From following his career very early on, he had a few great things that stuck with me.

> Preparation. He got the coveted job as an NFL head coach even though he was just a QB Coach and not even at the offensive coordinator level because he prepared a thick-ass notebook filled with his ideas of how he'd manage the team, scouting reports of players and coaches, lists of plays, and other things he'd do as head coach. This level of preparation and attention to detail greatly impressed the team's ownership.

> Consistency. He always had his way for preparing for a game or building a team and never deviated from it. Despite successes and failures, he'd always stick with pre-scripting the first 15 plays of the game to set a particular tone in the offense, as an example.

> Stoicism. When things were going well, he'd never gloat and get people too overconfident. When things were going bad, he'd never panic. He'd always be a rock out there that would keep people focused and level-headed.

> Egoless. He was willing to take the blame for something in public that wasn't his fault, and then deal with the players behind closed doors. He'd be willing to make self-deprecating jokes to diffuse a tough situation, putting the mission above his ego.

When I was a child in school, we had to cut a piece of paper in the shape of a flower with a hole in the middle, to put around an utensil as a gift. When I cut my flower and tried to fit it in the utensil, the hole was a bit smaller than I needed. I was ready to cut a full circle around the hole when a teacher told me “sometimes all you need is just a little bit” and she cut the smallest piece of paper and suddenly the flower fit perfectly. 30 years later I’ve followed her advice too many times to count, more than any advice I got from my parents

This is probably too literal an interpretation, but it’s similar to some of the best advice I’ve received for woodworking: sneak up on the cut. When I need to cut a piece of wood to an exact precision, I end up making 5-10 cuts to shave off a tiny piece of the end, check if it’s right, and shave again if needed.

Same with lathe/mill work. You repeatedly remove about 90% of the remaining material that needs to be removed, until you're within tolerance. Trying to aim for removing 100% will mean you'll definitely overshoot.

I got a similar lesson in kindergarten, about glue:

"A little dab'll do ya" (it's said kinda like a tongue twister, it's fun to say)

From my mom: If in a couple there is a wide intellectual imbalance, it is not going to last long. Whether it is intelligence or curiosity or culture.

Since you're on this site, sounds like your mom doesn't want you going after beautiful dummies.

My mom told me she saw lots of beautiful dumb girls marry successful men, and then their kids were dumb as bricks.

Also to be careful with dating short women because then your boys might be short. I said okay well then by that logic you don't want to date tall women either because you might have tall girls.

I'm not advocating for eugenics, but I just have to say being a "tall girl" is not in any way comparable to the handicap of being a "short boy".

> Since you're on this site, sounds like your mom doesn't want you going after beautiful dummies.

It was actually part of a discussion about other people, not a direct advice to me; however it struck me as a hard truth and something I always thought but never formulated.

i think the most important thing for a couple to have in common is values.

I’ll go esoteric.

Existence precedes essence.

I first encountered existentialism in HS within the book of “One Day in the life of Ivan D.” If a labor camp prisoner can find meaning and even beauty in those circumstances my HS self had quite a bit of opportunity around him. But it’s also a good entry point to stoicism, too.

Edit-special mention to Long Chen Pa’s “since everything in the universe is perfect in being exactly as it is, having nothing to do with acceptance/reject […] one may well burst out in laughter.” In a writing on Taoism (I think? Been way too long). Edit2-Long Chen Pa must have been writing about Tibetan Buddhism.

HS = Head'n'Shoulders, Holy Spirit, Higher Self, Hacker newS?

High school.

An ex once told me "You speak very dogmatically" and that completely turned my world upside down.

Ever since I've been exploring how I'm perceived by others and how I can improve my interactions with other people.

From a girlfriend who was my intellectually superior (which I had a hard time dealing with)

You are responsible for your actions - no one else. "But I did it because...". No. You chose to do it. You are responsible.

Other people are responsible for their actions. Not you.

She was/is right.

> From a girlfriend who was my intellectually superior (which I had a hard time dealing with)

Did she end the relationship?

You are responsible for your choices all day every day for your entire life. I agree. It is a self-destructive behavior to think otherwise, in my opinion. How can a person grow if they don't take responsibility for their choices?

Some piece of psychology research said having others depend on you is a deep source of happiness. You were contributing to the hunter gatherer tribe or whatnot.

Another piece of psychological research. When you did something for a gold star reward, and they took the reward away, people stopped enjoying the activity.

Aka, just do kind deeds for others. Everything will be alright.

Also, do stuff for others, for free, using software. It's a really important part of enjoying your job.

> Some piece of psychology research said having others depend on you is a deep source of happiness.

I find it to be the absolute opposite. It's absolutely draining.

You can quickly become exhausted and apathic when constantly having people rely on you.

There's a difference between interdependence and dependence, I believe the former is what he meant based on the tribe context

Often, what people truly need from you is a kick up the backside.

I can think of a person in my family that needs to be needed in this way. Since I am somewhat independent, she is put off, probably subconsciously. Trying to find ways to be needed feels artificial. It’s hard to reconcile this. Maybe therapy.

Explain, clearly, the fact you're perfectly alright.

And, lay out for them another important job to get on with.

Functional programming matters. You look at everything as input => output, as cause => effect,... You don't need to dive into the internal complexity of anything, because it doesn't make sense. Complexity eventually failed, so you should never take care of them.

Simplicity matters.

Finance: aim to be broke when you die.

It changed my view at the personal finance, and made some decisions much easier. If I die at the old age, my kids will be in their 40's-60's. My savings won't make a significant impact on their personal finance (assuming all is well; validated over the multiple inheritance splits within my family).

Which means, don't (extensively) save for the retirement, but invest in yourself and your children. Makes spending money for the classes, better schools, moving to the neighborhood with more options, etc. much easier decision to make.

It's true that extra money left over when you die doesn't help you, but if you aim to be broke when you die and miss in the wrong direction, you're going to have a bad time.

Don't take life too seriously. You'll never get out of it alive anyway.

In other words: relax, experiment, take a change on new or weird things, and don;t believe that the thing you're working on right now is super-duper important in the big scheme of things. Consider the size of the Universe (Douglas Adam's style), and remember that any change you make (even if traveling at the speed of light), will still be insignificant for the universe. Use this information not to paralyse you, but gain a sense of unlimited freedom.

You are free.

“It’s just stuff.”

My first college roommate made this completely off handed comment not too long after we moved in together. We were still strangers. I must have been anxious over some of my dumb crap, god knows what prompted it. But in that one moment everything changed for me, it really did. I had only been moved out of my hoarding parents’ house for a few days and that one remark snapped me out of it forever.

Sleep on it.

It's a dishonest actor who tries to rush you into a decision.

Honestly, just "programming" yourself to at least initially say no to any question with a high degree of time pressure will save you from by far most scams.

Follow your heart.

It really does know more than the rest of you. It takes courage to do it though...not surprising....root word for courage is heart.

Especially in our robotic, conformist society...this is invaluable. Lean into your intuition. Have the courage to speak from your heart, say what you feel, say what's on your mind. Best advice I ever had. When I fail to do that, it's cost me big time.

Don't waste money. It makes a huge difference when you're 40 if you've wasted your developers salaries from 20-40 or not.

Wish I'd learned this in my 20s, at least I learned it in my 30s.

"Keep God's commandments" (like the 10, and others such as all-around honesty, diligence, humility, kindness, and reading scriptures very regularly for guidance). I have found by long, oft-repeated experience and observation (i.e., the hard way and the easy way) that everything goes better when I do what I know is right, and specifically worse when I do not. Absolutely everything, large and small, in my life.

Also, lesser but still very useful, from my dad, "You might not think you can go the whole way, but you can always put one foot in front of the other."

(Thoughtful comments appreciated with the inevitable downvotes.)

I once heard, "Never trust a man who won't clean his own toilet."

Sounds silly but you'd be amazed just how much truth lies within it.

One of my favorite subreddit is /r/AskOldPeople. The posts and replies put a lot of things going on in life in perspective.

https://old.reddit.com/r/AskOldPeople/

Receiving, understanding, accepting, and implementing the following changed my life:

“The truth is, everyone is going to hurt you. You just got to find the ones worth suffering for.” ― Bob Marley

There are three guarantees in life, no matter what you do or attain.

Pain, uncertainty, and constant work.

Make peace with that and you'll find these are the spices that make life much richer.

From my father- cost of the thing is not how much it was bought for but it's replacement cost today !! Deep

'a_bonobo, you're lying to yourself.'

I am an overly optimistic person and I was talking about how I believe my career will pan out and develop. They just stopped me and said that I was lying to myself, being way too optimistic, blindly assuming stuff that (relatively surely) would not happen or pan out. They were right. Sometimes you want to believe something so much, even though it has no chance of being true.

I too suffer from optimism. For me it’s a double edged sword. It can help you take a leap of faith, but it can also keep you from quitting. It’s really weird.

Don't be a cynic.

Society is messed up. Tech is messed up. But it doesn't matter. You just have to make a positive contribution somehow, anyway.

This is so hard, especially for the analytical types.

Having a love for one's fate.

This is a common idea in Stoicism, Buddhism, Taoism, etc.

Shakespeare famously touched upon this in Hamlet:

> Why, then, 'tis none to you, for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so: to me it is a prison.

The absurdity of life is that much of our suffering is our own doing. That one has to accept this absurdity before you can find peace.

Physical reality is often easier to change than psychological reality, but culture programs us to do the latter.

Riffed on it here: https://www.leadingsapiens.com/changing-your-mindset/

question everything.

do not take internet and media at face value. many lies. half truths or zero truths.

in country where living now, me former political preference. always viewed its politicians favorably. saw problem to be “other” side.

sometime later realized the media i listen to not much different than “other” side. me favored politicians not much better than other side. they all crooks.

intention not to tune out and ignore responsibility to vote in democracy but stop political divide.

If someone does something once, they will do it twice

Maybe better said “fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me”.

I’ve done lots of things once and will never do them again.

I don’t agree and think it’s dangerous advice. You should give people a second chance - depending on the severity of the first chance, of course.

You can't always decide what's going to happen to you, but you can always decide how you will react to what happens to you.

- "if you're counting the days since you last had it, you truly haven't given it up"

It's about baggage and addiction. If you can't remember the last time you had it, then you've truly mastered the 'letting go' part

- "try everything, don't get addicted to anything"

My father said that to me when I was going to college. It took me a few years to understand what it meant.

- "accept reality as it is, not as you believe it to be, nor as you wish it was...then, adapt"

Paraphrasing from memory. I read it in a book about Jack Welch and GE when I was a teenager. Internalising this has helped me stay calm and analytical during tough situations.

The best shaving cream/soap/oil is your favorite (or least despised) hair conditioner.

I think I learned that from Neil Gaiman. I don't think the source has much relevancy. You almost certainly have all the test materials you need already.

Contrary to many teachings and sayings: Effort does not guarantee reward.

However: Rewards have always required effort, and sometimes a bit of luck.

Great one! Digging for gold doesn't mean you will certainly find it.

To get good at something, you have to be bad at it first, often for a very long time.

The master failed more often that the student ever tried.

Straight trees are cut first and honest people are screwed first <- Chanakya

This changed how i view people completely for good.

That's a very cynical way to live a life, isn't it?

What you choose to do with this information determines whether you are cynical or not, not the presence of the information itself.

You could throw your hands up and say the world is screwed up so I should start screwing the world, or you could say the world is screwed up so I'm going to choose to try to make things around me a little better while also protecting myself a little bit along the way.

I was taken advantage of by people before so this fixed my peasing/trusting people bug in me.

"Trust, but verify"

Used mostly in bookkeeping and nucleair monitoring, but very usefull outside it as well.

Constantly get yourself in new fields, practice your curiosity.

Whenever you can, learn a new tech, a new music instrument, practice a new sport, get into new disciplines ... Soon you'll end up with a brother knowledge of things, and meet people you'd never ever thought to dream of.

The thing is, in most fields, you don't need to get very experienced to develop valuable knowledge or skills. But the combined value of knowing these various things will get exponentially more valuable, socially and professionally.

If you don't think you have time to do it right, what makes you think you have time to do it over?

I like this. I counterbalance it by asking myself, "what makes you think you know how to do it right, yet?"

I can't turn doing your best into hubris no matter how hard I try.

Do not make your job (career) the main purpose of your life.

You can always course correct, but you can't steer a ship that isn't moving.

My late dad, often: "If you're afraid, don't do it. If you do it, don't be afraid."

This has guided (and possibly also saved) me numerous times, in terms of both everyday decisions and long-term plans. Great heuristic for a youngster, because it makes every decision one's own. Thanks dad!

This isn’t advice that was given to me but something I wanted for myself that changed my life.

Advice: Figure out how to exercise for the sake of exercise

In the past I exercised for a weight loss goal. I’d reach the goal then stop exercising. I spent all of last year experimenting trying to figure out how to be like those people who run in -20C. I wanted to love some type of exercise so much I’d do it in -20C.

I’m now training for a marathon. I look forward to running and get excited about hill training (running up and down a hill at moderate exertion). I find running enjoyable and meditative.

The lessons I learned I apply to other areas of my life. For example, when my brain initially rejects something I know is good for me, I think “not today” and put on my running shoes (ie do the thing).

Don’t fight for a 10% raise, fight for working 10% less at the same pay.

My brother passed down my grandma's advice on college, which was to believe that you will pick up the things you need to know one way or another so take the opportunity to learn things you will probably never encounter again. It definitely still resonates with me when I think about what skills I want to develop outside of work

Be comfortable being alone, by yourself and do not seek the company of others for the sake of any company.

In the words of Omar Khayyam:

To wisely live your life, you don't need to know much Just remember two main rules for the beginning: You better starve, than eat whatever And better be alone, than with whoever.

Best advice I got was from my psychology professor. He said "if someone asks you to do something, especially in a social situation, tell them you will think about it". It prevents you from saying yes under pressure. I still rememeber using it when someone at my old workplace wanted me to sign up to be in a club (that had a fee). I never joined and I am proud that I didn't.

Also, I've learned a few things from Jordan Peterson: (1) reframe accurately what someone is telling you when they have a problem, and (2) give someome very specific positive feedback when they do something you like.

Finally, from my mom: don't care what other people think (in the sense of not letting it get in the way of doing something you know is right for you).

And a little bit of advice from myself: less is more. Don't accumulate things, don't go after the latest gadgets. Knowledge is power but too much knowledge (in the factual, scientific sense of knowledge) can take up mental space that would be better for personal development and care for others. And show respect for others AND the whole planet. It is what gave us life, and it's not a resource to use to create mostly irrelevant crap like AI and the latest iPhone.

> if someone asks you to do something, especially in a social situation, tell them you will think about it

There's not a single socially capable person that will not straight away understand that "I will think about it" means "no".

May as well say no.

Not if you will genuinely think about it. The assumption that it means no is often wrong. I’m cautious and say this often to things I then afterwards say yes to.

Disagree. Sometimes, I really do need to think about it...and especially with people I love (family and close friends), I sometimes do come back and say yes! And to be honest, I couldn't care less what others perceive.

What is the way to genuinely communicate “I will think about it” then?

Explain which aspects you need to think about and why, and give a deadline for when you'll have the answer about those particular aspects.

The cases where you genuinely need to "think about it" are few and far between. I would even go as far as saying they are inexistant. The vast majority will be "I don't want to do it, but do I like you enough to do it?".

I will think about it

>He said "if someone asks you to do something, especially in a social situation, tell them you will think about it". It prevents you from saying yes under pressure.

This is actually extremely obnoxious behavior and a big reason I stopped speaking to my mother. If the answer is "no" say "no." Only say "I'll think about it" if you really intend on thinking about it with a plan on when you'll get back to that person. OR the person you're talking to is a salesperson who is someone you will literally never see again.

If you have trouble saying no, then it's best to work on THAT.

I don't have a problem saying no. Like I said, I sometimes do come back and say "yes", and I can recall such instances. When I mean no, I say no.

You learn more by observing than by judging

Another: break hard things into small enough steps (and possibly write them down so you can forget all but the one you are working on). If the next step is hard, break it into small steps, etc. And pray humbly & with willingness to be obedient. Things always go better for me this way.

(It helps to have a good tool to handle the capturing and rearranging of collections of steps for various kinds of work in progress. I use the one I wrote, AGPL; in my profile.)

(Thoughtful comments appreciated with any downvotes; thanks.)

Your life is yours, you own it. Its entirely up to you how you live it - nobody can make that decision for you.

Don't spoil it by making excuses. Make goals instead, and then: attain those goals.

I had planned a 3-day trip with a person (a date, let's say) whom I had met for the first time a few weeks earlier for a couple of days. I was not familiar with either the place or my date.

A few days before the trip, I saw a friend of mine, the same age as my parents. During the conversation, I asked him what to do with my date during those 3 days. He replied, "Come up with something."

Isn't that brilliant advice? When we are stuck, we have the option of coming up with something.

The best advise I ever got was: "don't get advice from strangers on the internet"

I got this advice from strangers on the internet.

Forgive my very watered-down Buddhism but the realization that desire and ignorance are at the root of suffering was big for me, and a concept that I continually return to.

I'm not a practicing Buddhist but I find myself significantly less miserable when I take the limits of gratification and the illusions I (and most people) are continually falling prey to into consideration.

There are enough assholes out there to make you think everyone is an asshole

(in reality, most people are great, and the asshole are e tiny minority)

If you think everyone else is an asshole, you might be the asshole.

If taking a nap is both practical and sounds like a good idea, do it. Being well rested just makes every single thing you do easier and better.

Conversely, and this may just apply to me personally, whatever it is, I'm not going to get up earlier in the morning to do it, unless there are serious consequences for not doing it.

Learn emacs! I wish I had done that 10 years ago… it teaches you so much about the tinker/hacker spirit. Also, it gives you an awesome community to be part of. Finally, you can have huge gains in productivity. Not just for code, but also organization, emails, taking notes, etc.

To live is a declaration that good will triumph over evil, wisdom from anxiety, and joy from bitterness.

Stop worrying over nothing young man

Do not make your job (career) your main purpose of life. Also, try not to be an a-hole.

"Not all advice from strangers is worth following; some of it might be outright lies"

Plato

Skepticism is the chastity of the intellect. Another in the same vein; the truth is somewhere in the middle.

As socio-political views and news sources get more extreme, both ring truer and truer every day.

Marriage advice: You can love many people, but you can only live with a few.

Only Bad things happen quickly.

From the excellent book Too Soon Old, Too Late Wise.

What is the goal of the advice? To self-tune oneself into enlightenment? Being a better person to society? To make lots of money to escape poverty?

So therefore, the goal is the advice.

Translated from a song:

No matter if models or shop assistants / some women will make fun of you / treat them all like princesses / and you will be a king

A smart woman at work once advised me to never bring a problem to the boss unless you also bring some potential solutions.

If you're so smart, why aren't rich yet?*

* change out rich for wealth or whatever major thing you are currently focused on.

I always disliked that saying, because i'm never in it for the money. Money often follows, through paths I could not imagine when starting the adventure, but it was never the goal.

Following your interests and going on weird adventures/side-tracks outside your comfort-zone won't make you very rich, but you'll always have enough, and a life that is fun.

It helps if you don't care to much about collecting useless stuff: Travel light!

"Listen to no one" - Eric Andre

I don't get this. Is there some context that's missing?

I think it is meant to be true and also funny. First, you can start by agreeing with the advice, imagining how listening to other’s advice can be overrated. Then you realize that by listening to Andre you are actually breaking Andre’s advice (to listen to no one, including him!). So the advice is impossible to follow and quite clever.

Feels like it's got a

> "I hate quotations. Tell me what you know." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

vibe to it...

(or a Life of Brian "you're all individuals" thing)

"If it's not a hell yeah, then it's a no"

That has saved me so much pain and time.

It was simple. Try to make today better than yesterday.

So far so good, every day is the best damn day of my life!

Do not give a fuck about things that you should not give a fuck.

Its pointless to waste your time and energy for them.

What are they?

You decide.

"You have two ears and one mouth, and they should be used in that ratio"

Get the fuck up from your computer, put down the god damn phone, and go outside!

Like many other interesting and insightful comments here on the thread. My take on advice I have heard, received and then condensed into a single sentence which benefits me the most at the current time.

-> 1. Advice I have received: Only Constant in Life Is Change

“When you are finished changing, you are finished”. - Benjamin Franklin

“Heraclitus, I believe, says that all things pass and nothing stays, and comparing existing things to the flow of a river, he says you could not step twice into the same river.” – Plato

-> 2. My advice: Get to know yourself, but be honest with yourself!

Over the years, I have listened to podcasts and read numerous books about individuals who have achieved "success" by definition and trying to understand what got them there.

Then general topics such as happiness, peak performance, personal development, introspection, ego, endurance, motivation etc etc etc.

Combining my own experience (happiness, sadness, success, failure, disappointment ... n emotions) + Insight into other people's experience.

...

Listening to a motivational speech or being enlightened by everyone else's advice will feel good in the short term (hour, day, week) as a great hit of dopamine while imagining yourself being {productive, organized, admired, respected, X, Y, Z}. However some advice/motivation will hit home harder than others / last longer or shorter depending on who you are as a person.

In my view, to maximize advice of others. Begin to really understand yourself and acknowledge every shortcoming and celebrate your virtues.

TLDR;

Only Constant in Life Is Change, Know yourself well to flexibly change with life as it changes.

"no matter where you go in life, there you are"

Never compete with anyone except yourself

You are only getting paid for 8 hours of work a day

One Day At A Time

And for me, one thing at a time. (very helpful)

Still, planning is often worthwhile.

Listening is the most underrated skill.

„Never be against Elon.” —Peter Thiel

ID mujhe chahiye free fire ka

Buddhism's 4 noble truths. Aversion & craving, impermanence, etc.

Just be urself bro

Know thyself

yolo

Not true. How I learned, at site in my profile. Really. (thoughtful comments appreciated w/ any downvotes.)

"You are mistaken, your knowledge is partial, your certainty is a delusion, and real world consequences occur as a result. You desperately need to shut up. There are no exceptions."

You can test that advice here and now, first with your own apparent belief that advice can somehow be tested to be factually true, secondly by applying it to all of these comments.

Yes, I quoted myself.

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