Tagged “life”

This quote has nice sentence rhythm

Naturally there are difference species of laziness: Eastern and Western.
The Eastern style is like the one practiced to perfection in India.
It consists of hanging out all day in the sun, doing nothing, avoiding any kind of work or useful activity, drinking cups of tea, listening to Hindi film music blaring on the radio, and gossiping with friends.
Western laziness is quite different.
It consists of cramming our lives with compulsive activity, so that there is no time at all to confront the real issues.

Incredible stats. "I think that 2021 is pretty normal in terms of flying once every 9.4 days for an average person… Since then, I have averaged 2.7 nights per place"

From her case against travel

• Novelty for novelty’s sake is addictive and makes one insufferable.
• You lose the notion of a vacation, and need to seek this in more deranged ways.
• One develops a bias towards moving, instead of a bias towards action. Moving is the most passive thing that feels active.
• One is left with a very limited amount of ability to do high-functioning tasks, like making consequential decisions.
• There are diminishing returns to awe.

• Most foreign things are romanticised to be better, they are not actually better. A prime example of this is with food, where the best ingredients are no longer consumed where they are produced

this one reminded me of a tweet about the best restaurants of a cuisine always being in another country

Before you can tire of life as a housewife, you need a house and a husband whose income can maintain a family. Before you can embark on an affair, you need to get married. It is hard to buy a sports car at forty if you’re still paying off student loans, or to enjoy a second youth while looking after your first baby.

Most people say change country

Don't base work or decisions or worries on what "most people" think

Don't agree with all of them, but plenty of good advice in there.

be less certain about things, or at least consider the possibility of being wrong

1. humility - everyone is imperfect
2. curiousity - differences are interesting, not threatening

My friends tease me about liking San Francisco, but I think it’s inevitable to have a warped, unrequited love for the place or person that first revealed you to yourself.

"a life characterized by a variety of interesting and perspective-changing experiences"

It was a time
governed by contradictions, as in
I felt nothing and
I was afraid.

Make it a game, host things, do things.
Interesting section is "What happens once you have a lot of friends?"

how to overcome almost anything, apparently

in classic HN style the first comment was "write free software to prevent authoritarian regimes".

Reading is letting someone else model the world for you. This is an act of intimacy. When the author is morose, you become morose. When he is mirthful, eventually you may share in it. And after finishing a very good book one is driven a little mad, forced to return from a world that no one nearby has witnessed.

I love this

Great list. Liked the line "Boredom is the stealthy third party in relationships". And this:

9. Talking about feelings is a trap.
   Everyone who knows me knows this is one hill I will die on. While I’m all about encouraging people to talk about their feelings, I am equally devoted to the idea we should shut up sometimes.

Sharing every little thought and feeling with partners is often born of insecurity, which is understandable, especially if your partner is not giving much (or any) feedback. But no-one can listen intently to all of it. It’s exhausting for them, not to mention a little boring.

look after your health

great advice. on being weirder, and buying multiples to save future effort

More on the loneliness/time with people charts. That novelty and learning and socialising peak, then decline for the following decades.

Solutions:

1. scheduled, recurring social events with friends and family. Make it more automatic
2. Take a break every quarter. Design another level for for life's video game.
3. Learn how to learn
4. Celebrate the 25th birthday, like a passage into actual adulthood.
5. Create rituals.

I agree that flexing the boredom muscle is good, as is finding joy in time to yourself.
But don't know if embracing solitude is the right conclusion to draw from a chart of alone time increasing over lifespan.

That you could also flex the socialising muscle, and try to buck a trend from a chart of averages.

I am already off the chart on average hours per day, so there is also that..

The little exercise of threes was amazing for me. Got this sample pack and actually finally started practicing it!

Don’t surround yourself with “smarter” people. The trick is to surround yourself with people who are free in ways you’re not.

SIFI: Specialisation is for insects.
OSTA / ULTA: We overestimate our short-term ability, but underestimate our long-term ability.
DIBTP: Done is better than perfect.

Being 20 something in a big city is both agony and bliss. Everyone is lonely,
everyone is obsessed, everyone is hungry. A collective era of being lost,
hopeful, and distracted.
Being overwhelmed with options, feeling unsure about choices.
Feeling like everything matters and nothing matters at all.

• Host something regularly
• Short term stays (couple of weeks)
• Help friends get leases
• Make friends nearby

I look out for people who have been isolating more than usual, those who are withdrawn when usually outgoing. I have learned that a simple “hello” can go a long way. This helps me from falling into despair myself.

Lot of interesting stats throughout.

1. To add enough CO2 to Mars to make the atmosphere thicker (which reduces temp fluctations), would make the atmosphere unbreathable regardless of O2 content
2. Earth-like does not mean like current earth. For most of the planet's history the water and atmosphere were toxic to us
3. It would take 79,000 years at current rocket speeds to get to Alpha Centauri

Look at their choice of spouse, how they treat service workers, how they invest their money and their time.

some of my favorites:

1. Now and then, break out the fancy china and drink the good wine for no reason at all.
2. Dance at weddings until your feet are sore.
3. Don’t fear sadness, as it tends to sit right next to love.
4. Treat your body like a house you have to live in for another 70 years.
5. Do one good deed every single day, but never tell anyone about it.
6. Time doesn't heal anything when it comes to relationships. Don't delay difficult conversations.
7. Find the things that make your eyes light up. Do more of those.
8. Always remind yourself that your track record for making it through your bad days is perfect.
9. If something has a minor issue, repair it. Minor issues become major issues over time. Applies equally to love, friendships, health, and home.
10. Getting old is no picnic, but it's much better than the alternative.
11. You may occasionally disappoint others, but make sure to never disappoint yourself.
12. Never let a good friendship atrophy. Send the text, make the call, plan the trip. Good friendships must be treasured.
13. The "good old days" are always happening right now.
14. Whenever you hug someone, make sure they are the one to let go first.
15. Taking no risk is the biggest risk you can take. Regret from inaction is always more painful than regret from action.
16. It doesn’t have to be perfect for it to be wonderful.
17. When in doubt, love. We can always use more love.
18. Stop trying to change people who don’t want to be changed.
19. Do one thing that challenges your mind every single day. A crossword puzzle, math problem, anything. Daily “exercise” will keep your mind sharp for the long haul.
20. There’s nothing wrong with shedding old relationships as you grow and change.
21. Laugh loudly and unapologetically whenever you feel like it.

Some variations, on the challenges of identifying speakers, noise, voice recognition (lot of people using Whisper now).
On perfect memory preventing you from escaping the past - getting caught up reliving things.

A random selection:

• not all life-changing advice is good advice
• An estimate is better than a guess. An measurement is better than an estimate.
• It's never the money. (They will always say it is, but it's not.)
• The best time to turn it on is before it's ready. You'll get plenty of data to finish it faster.
• Your positive mental attitude makes up for most of your shortcomings.
• Isolate. Isolate. Isolate.
• If it's not written down, it's not.
• The reason everyone we work for sucks is because those who don't suck never call us.
• Almost anyone can do almost anything.
• Always take sides

Lots on parenting and time. On choices to have kids, on free time, life satisfaction, population growth, ageing, and bunch of other random jumbles of life advice.

The utility derived from planning, having, and remembering a vacation. Wonderful stuff.

everyone loses 10 years to something, somewhere along the line

That's a fallacy. You didn't so much "lose" 10 years, it just took 10 years to come to an understanding about a meaningful part of your life. And maybe you really needed all that time to arrive there.

Whatever your goal is, try to stop having 0% days.
You don't need to have 100% days, Just avoid having 0% days.

adult-like children and childish adults

Changing norms of intimacy and love over time, and the modern shift to people who are in love want to have sex.

Archived version

Excellent review and discussion of Couples Therapy.

don't need to hyper optimize every moment all of the time

Actual practical accessibility solutions to people's actual issues.

asker is 23!

no projects, not side hustles, not reading to learn.
just sitting

don't get famous, this sounds horrendous

On portraits, and some on photography in general. On storytelling with photos, that every picture has some story.

Funny that kids sometimes didn't want photos of themselves, when people get older they complain that they look old.

I think you drastically over-estimate how "fulfilling" something like therapy is.
Day in and day out you will see people you desperately wish to help, who if they listened to 20% of what you offered would see their lives change immensely, only to watch them repeat the same behavior without change day in and day out.

your todo list actually has infinitely more items on it, and you are going to die before it's finished.

Worry about hard things before impossible ones

"For the first time since his creation man will be faced with his real, his permanent problem — how to use his freedom from pressing economic cares, how to occupy the leisure, which science and compound interest will have won.

Kurzgesagt inspired by the Wait But Why post.

I think one reason many people feel a crisis of meaning is they feel commoditized—and they are! You’re one among millions, not one in a million. Your classmates took the same courses and extracurricular activities. Your friends consume the same podcasts, books, and TV shows. Your co-workers are trained to replace you if you leave.

But we’re human beings, we do not want to be replaceable. We desperately want to be valued for who we are. Becoming disentangled from your web of mutual commitments, shared history, and collective responsibility is to be rendered into a transaction, a slave.2

I like the idea, kinda agree with "this cheat sheet is likely to be come your weakest link in your security threat model" - where should you keep it?!

via hn

Tips from Kevin Kelly :

Accept compliments with thanks.
Getting cheated occasionally is a small price to pay for trusting the best in everyone
When invited to something in the future, ask yourself, Would I do this tomorrow?
The thing that made you weird as a kid could make you great as an adult.
It’s not an apology if it comes with an excuse.
Ignore what they are thinking of you because they are not thinking of you.
If you think you saw a mouse, you did, and if there is one, there are others.
The biggest lie we tell ourselves is, “I don’t need to write this down because I will remember it.”

If your hourly rate gets too high, how to justify doing anything that isn't billable?

Some good work/life balance suggestions and options in the comments

Some good advice on finding ways of enjoying work or life or both, and being wary of taking advice from entrepreneurs - they've gambled and won.

Now that years have passed since I stopped, I don’t mind telling people that I trained to be an opera singer. I used to be ashamed of it, though I’m not sure what exactly felt shameful – the admission that I’d once wanted to be part of that world or the fact that I’d failed.

pitfalls with early retirement; planning for 7 decades of financial independence is a bigger challenge than some claim

Some interesting comments on the novelty aspect, routine, familiarity, perception of time

Advice gathered by someone smarter than me. My top three of their picks:

• minor barriers aren't minor
• remember what used to work, then do it again
• when choosing a life path, think about what contexts it puts you in

First two from Chris Sparks, third from Devon Zuegel

Perfectionism is more often about being afraid to be bad at things

Some bits on retirement and people figuring out what they want to do.

Some interesting perspectives on who/what people are like when they stop working a while. In terms of boredom, interests, and other pursuits.

Lovely memorial about his amazing dad.

When I quit smoking 17 years ago, a wise doctor counselled me that if I was going to resist cravings, I needed a more immediate reason than "I won't get cancer in 40 years." My answer: "I spend two laptops per year on a product whose makers want to murder me and my friends."

This was a pretty solid list. Mostly simple & sensible.

Link appears to have sadly already suffered linkrot, need to start backing these things up.

Good list to re-read and remember. Be more considerate of where the years go. Also learn how to come up with phrases like this :)

tldr: Do things.

Confidence comes from past performance
Recent past performance is more important than the stuff you did 5–10 years ago
You can’t ride the wave of old confidence for too long