Ask HN: What were your naivetés in your twenties?
I'd like to cheat in life and instead of learning my life lessons the hard way, I'd like to skip ahead and read the ending of the current chapter that I'm currently on.
When I was in middle school, my biggest worry was getting the latest Abercrombie & Fitch cargo pants to fit in on the school hallway, whether this girl on my school bus liked me, and if the size of my gentalia was on par with my peers back then.
When I was in high school, my biggest worry was doing well in school so that I could get into an ivy league school; tacking on a bunch of AP courses and extracurricular activities, not necessarily because I enjoyed AP Chemistry or the track team, but I had to, to get into a ivy league school; and trying to look "cool," "edgy," & "artsy" while caring to stay within the boundaries of MTV's and my high school's social conventions.
When I was in college, my biggest worry was doing well in school so I could go onto a top graduate/medical school or grab a six-figure salary at an i-bank upon graduation. Befriended certain people, chased certain girls (and botched things up royally after the chasing phase is over), got involved in some unsavory debauchery not necessarily because I wanted to live out the lives that "burn, burn, burn" but rather out of my fear of missing out on the "college experience."
Of course, it didn't all seem that way when I was in the moment - and certainly I don't regret the things I did in the past (because I can't change the past) and I'll be certain to make lots of mistakes in the future too. And even if an older version of me, traveled back in time to my middle school, told me how stupid of me it was to spend $70 of my parents' money on a pair of Abercrombie & Fitch cargo pants, I know that my middle school self would respond, "are you crazy, I need to get these pants to impress this chick on my school bus!"
I only beseech your wisdom about what mistakes/naivetes I'll incur in my twenties, oh the elders of the Hacker News, so that when I realize later how right you were after my twenties, I could slap myself silly and say to myself, in the place of your absence, "see? I told you so!"
Best, noname123
268 comments
[ 4.8 ms ] story [ 262 ms ] threadAll that said, I'm curious about what comes of this thread regardless of how useful it ends up being.
This means: solve a lot of problems after you learned a theory, try to feel out the problem space yourself by extending the theory or applying it in a specific way, practice, practice, practice, and always look out for things everyone considers true but are not obvious from the data.
Do you think that the converse is true, that boyfriend material is the same as husband material?
This is in spite of my former belief the only thing that would ever come out of wyclif's mouth was "dollar dollar bill, y'all".
I read his original comment as "you want your girlfriend to be like your wife." That is unless you like wasting 2 people's time instead of one.
If you are just looking for "girlfriend" activities, then shes not really your girlfriend, is she?
Save. Save. Save.
They say you learn your biggest life lesson as you stumble through your experiences in life. Poverty is something you would NOT want to experience in your life and there is no guarantee you will survive through it and when (or if) you do survive it might take a big chunk of your life you will never get back or recover from the process.
The idea that if I take time off for a while to work on something at a loss, the damage will be too great due to the long time effects of compounding interest etc and the desire to build a prosperous life for my family.
So I think I have the opposite problem. I have a hard time stepping off the gas pedal to pursue things that would probably be more beneficial and enjoyable.
And he says, "work on something at a loss", which is definitly not building wealth, it is anti-saving. If you are a saver, you'll always save money no matter how much or how little you earn. Spending your savings is against your nature.
Saving money is living in the possibilities, in the mind.
However, IMO wealth is best measured as a multiple of your lifestyle, someone with a billion in the bank who spends 300 million a year can't retire without cutting back, but someone with 1 million in the bank who spends 20k/year can.
i don't feel like you should stockpile your money for the nebulous future. yes, you should save it up to have an emergency fund. yes, you should start saving some for retirement. yes, you should save your money to make larger purchases instead of using credit. etc..
but you shouldn't let the drive to save money create anxiety and thereby lock you into a lifestyle. save, yes, but don't let the need to save dictate your life and your career choice. if you're much happier doing something where you don't have the $ to save as much, life will be much better.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1209119
What I've learned is that merit is a multivariate dimension with different weights on the variables. Weights varies heavily with time and context. The reward is also very relative because it has never bee what I would consider a legitimate reward.
The error was induced by school notes working model as well as by education process of parents with rewarding and praising. I assumed it would apply in "true life" everywhere with everybody that would have to judge or evaluate me.
P.S.: I'm a college sophomore.
You will have to do your own mistakes and learn from them.
Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught. -Oscar Wilde
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases
One of my favorite quotes is from Oscar Wilde, "Life is too important to be taken seriously".
Firmly disagree. You absolutely can learn from others' past mistakes - that doesn't mean you'll make no mistakes, but you absolutely can make less mistakes and recognize and correct them faster.
> You will have to do your own mistakes and learn from them.
True. But the more you can listen to and apply good guidance from people who've been there, the better chance you get there faster, more easily, and with less pain.
I wish someone had taught me to lift weights with lower weight and perfect form instead of trying to be superman - from that, I tore some cartilage in my knee doing squats with too much weight and bad form. I've showed a couple people how to lift since then, given them a stern admonition not to try to look powerful, but to focus on steady, safe gains. As far as I know, everyone getting this stern admonition with relevant stories about physical therapy and assorted misery listens to them and lifts weights in a safer, more healthy way. You can learn from others' mistakes, often refrain or minimize the mistake-making in your life, and be much better off for doing so.
Errors of technique, like you describe, certainly can be learned from without needing to experience them yourself - though the lesson might not be learned as well, it may be learned well enough to avoid the problem.
But other kinds of knowledge, particularly relating to emotional maturity or social interaction, are very hard to acquire from a book, as it were. You need to live the experience to properly appreciate the lesson.
Also learning from mistakes--your own and those of other people--enables you to make different mistakes.
Do you think one could teach you how to deal with the loss of a loved one, disease, poverty, finding out who you really are, being a good friend or a good father?
That's what matters.
Everyone takes their own path in life. Listen to others but find your own path.
When you wake up in the morning ask yourself are you happy? If yes keep doing what you are doing.
If no, ask yourself if you could do something to change that, if you can then do that, rinse wash repeat.
If you can't do anything about it be happy anyway.
In short, just be.
I try it often, it works, but you will need to be honest with yourself when you answer this question.
What is important is to find out what balance of friends, family, work, charity, money makes you happiest.
Have the conviction to be better. If you can't convince people of your ideas, it doesn't mean the ideas are bad, it just means they didn't think of them first.
In other words, don't go to med school because daddy's a doctor and told you so.
There's a reason a lot of highly successful people dropped out of college or never went.
Also, sure some highly successful people dropped out of college, but perhaps even more highly successful people stuck with it so I'm not sure I agree with "a lot". How often does impulsiveness and ego result in one's downfall as opposed to one's success? I certainly think taking the jump is much more interesting, but we also mostly hear about the success stories. After watching plenty of crappy actresses on screen one could conclude it's easy to earn millions smiling in front of a camera, but that's not the case.
The point I was making was that some people, in order to be highly successful, have to do things that seem weird, risky or downright crazy in order to get ahead (things that their friends, family, business partners, investors etc wouldn't approve of or don't see the reason for).
Examples:
- Sergey Brin is on leave from his PhD studies in Stanford. If the price of me not having to use Yahoo or MSN to find stuff online is the knowledge that one of Google's co-founders doesn't have his PhD yet because he dropped out of his studies to co-found Google, then that's a price I'm willing to pay ;-). Apparently his parents still aren't happy that he doesn't have it, even though he's the 24th richest man in the world.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergey_Brin
- A guy called Michael Burry was the first man to 'predict' the housing market collapse in the US. Author Michael Lewis profiled him in his book, 'The Big Short'. His investors criticized him for years that such a stance was insane, un-American, impossible etc. Mr. Burry didn't listen to any of them, and stuck to his guns because his own research and insight told him he was right. He made millions in a short space of time when things went pear-shaped near the end of 2008. Others copied his strategy also, and made out like bandits.
See: http://www.vanityfair.com/business/features/2010/04/wall-str...
When faced with the decision, it can be really hard to take 6 months off to travel to the destination of your dreams - but in hindsight, these are the best times of your life and you usually don't regret them.
I recently sat with a 96 year old man, and his stories were about his trips to his hometown in Europe and to the United States, not about the job that he took or the project that he completed.
Some articles have a summary:
http://sheshtawy.wordpress.com/2010/03/01/experience-self-vs...
The remembering self of the old man definitely appreciated the trips better :)
http://web.jaguarpaw.co.uk/~tom/blog.html
Okay, that said, this thread was really good:
"Ask HN: What streetsmarts have you learnt?" http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1366217
I'll paste my comment from that thread, it's absolutely true and I learned it the hard way. Also, I admire you for being proactive and looking for advice to build a smarter, better life with.
--
Track record, track record, track record, track record. Look at the track record. Track records don't lie. Track record, track record, track record.
Someone fired from all their jobs is probably going to be a menace later in some form or fashion.
Someone who ended all their relationships on bad terms is going to end on bad terms with you.
Strong starters/non-finishers are going to start strong but likely won't be able to close it out without extra help later... which you might be oblivious to, because they'd started so strongly.
Track records don't lie. Unless you're really good at spotting diamonds in the rough, don't grab someone with a bad track record for an important role in your business and life. I've learned this one the hard way too many times. I still get tempted with, "Wow, this guy/girl is so amazing, the problem must've been the other people..."
I'm trying to not do that any more. Once? Quite possibly a fluke. Twice? Maybe... Three times? That's a track record. Also, people will always say they've changed. It's probably a bad idea to be the first person to test out whether it's real or not.
I think we give the benefit of doubt to people that we could relate to, who have had the same disadvantages and flaws as ourselves (after all, to not do so is to reject ourselves).
Does your statement imply that we should try to align ourselves with those who have better track records than our own, and vice versa for those who are inferior? I'm not trying to be facetious, but trying to get you to elaborate applying what you said in a real world context.
Build a track record! :)
The problem with people without track records is that often they talk a good game but haven't built up their game. You goal shouldn't be to convince people that you're now [loyal / effective / honest / disciplined / whatever], it should be to actually build that quality in yourself.
Everyone's got no track record at some point. Build yours. Accomplish things. Be loyal. Keep growing and learning and doing things. Mostly - do things as much as possible as fast as possible. "Quantity always trumps quality" - http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2008/08/quantity-always-tru...
> Does your statement imply that we should try to align ourselves with those who have better track records than our own, and vice versa for those who are inferior?
It's not about better/inferior - it means people will usually continue to do what they've done in the past, as opposed to what they say they're going to do.
You should look to associate yourself with people you admire and like, and you should also look to find people on their way up and help them too. I don't think I've ever quoted the Bible before, but this about covers it:
"To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven. A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to reap that which is planted. A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to to mourn, and a time to dance. A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing. A time to get and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence and a time to speak; A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace."
> I'm not trying to be facetious, but trying to get you to elaborate applying what you said in a real world context.
Okay, ultra-practical rendition:
-Avoid men/women with a history of nasty endings to their relationships, even if they're charming...
-Avoid hiring people who look extremely talented but flame out without producing
-Avoid working for people that everyone says is a terrible/mean/awful boss/client/whatever, even if they seem okay
-Feel free to break this if you have a particularly good eye for talent, but only then
-If someone has rehabilitated themself, you'll generally see a good track record coming from them quickly. People can accomplish and build and do good things pretty quick after improving. Don't take anyone's word that they've improved without results, because everyone says that.
Anyway, don't sweat if you have a mixed or poor track record yet, just start building yours as quickly as you can. Accomplish things, build things, learn, and serve people, and don't forget to get some of the value you create for accomplishing, building, and serving - helping is good, but it's totally fair to get some of the value you created. As you accomplish more things, people come to know and respect you as a guy that gets things done, is a good guy, and accomplishes things. Then people want to work with you. It's a virtuous cycle.
The best way to find success in hiring is to hire people who are honest and moral all-around. Don't make exceptions just because someone is supposedly a "rockstar programmer"; even if he can write code 10x more efficient than anyone else, it's almost never worth the added interpersonal friction. Life -- and business -- is all about relationships, not technicalities.
I think people have this notion that a person has to be this all around good person, when it is not true. Like Woods, the media needs to present this image of being perfect. What you need are people perfect for their position and manage their other flaws
a. the Bulls is show business; people pay to see characters like Rodman
b. celebrity tabloids/news pick up on "unstable" behavior and make a show out of it, which is good publicity and marketing for the subjects
c. a long-term steady relationship is not necessarily important; you milk the characters while they generate cash for your business, and try to make it last, but if they eventually leave (in most cases, including Rodman's; MJ would be an exception) there's no critical damage to the business, just less free publicity.
It's not about picking people on a "lack of flaws" generally. It's about avoiding people who've demonstrably, repeatedly, unabashedly violated the most important and intimate commitments they have ever made, and it's about reasoning from that basis that they may not value your professional relationship so much if they won't even value their marital relationship very much.
Adultery isn't necessarily the only case where this conclusion is valid, but I think you get the point. You should avoid "bad people", even if they are geniuses. Just look around -- Ulrich Drepper is a liability to libc because of his abrasiveness and that trait has caused fragmentation of effort, Hans Reiser wrote a mighty fine filesystem, but couldn't work with others and eventually murdered his wife, and so on.
I don't know the personal lives of Drepper or Reiser so it's unfortunate to implicate them in this post, but the point is, some things are more important than raw performance in a core competency. If we accept slightly-less-awesome code in return for largely-more-awesome demeanor, interaction, and maintainership, that's a great trade because while the code may run slightly less fast, it will attract many more users and contributors, prevent fragmentation, and progress quickly and more applicably than a project run by a close-minded or hostile maintainer, no matter how great that individual's code is.
The reality is that a person's behavior in their personal life is a reflection of their behavior in professional life. You can't really segregate the two and pretend that they're completely different animals. They bleed over, a person is one individual. I would never hire someone I knew to be a fraudster or adulterer because they have already proven that they are not worthy of trust from their closest friends and family members, much less their employer.
What I'm trying to point out is not paint with broad strokes. But evaluate everything and everyone independently of rules.
Flaws of people admired:
1) Gandhi - Racist
2) Martin Luther King - Copy someone's work for his phd. Also an adulterer.
3) Edgar Allan Poe - So disrespectful that he was disowned by his guardians.
4) Tesla - Hated fat people.
5) Steve Jobs - Erratic and Temperamental. Fired employees on the spot
6) Bill Gates - Monopolistic tendencies
7) Mark Zuckerberg - Used delay tactics on his competition to get facebook to market. Hacked people's profile.
8)Vincent van Gogh - Lived with a prostitute. Accused of rape. Was mentally ill. Cut his ear off.
I would say it's best to control these negative tendencies than to try to find flawless people.
Apple tried to control Steve behavior and you see what happened in his absent. While he went on to form NeXT and Pixar, Apple tank.
Sure it will be nice to have someone who isn't temperamental and abrasive but choose genius over any other qualities. I think the rest qualities can be managed. Give Steve a meditation coach(meditation= more empathetic)
Again, it's not about finding "flawless" or "perfect" people. We all know these people don't exist. It's just about paying attention to a few basic moral imperatives, namely integrity; if a person has a history of adultery, that person is not likely to be a trustworthy resource. That person is willing to destroy the lives and hearts of his family for fleeting personal sexual gain. Why do you think such a person wouldn't be willing to trade the well-being of your company or other employees if the right personal incentives materialized? An adulterer is pretty much the most selfish kind of person you can find.
Of course adulterers and other people can still do good things. Everyone is capable of doing good. I am merely saying that I wouldn't invest the resources into hiring an adulterer because adulterers prove that they are suspicious and untrustworthy by committing adultery. There are plenty of non-adulterers out there that are safer investments, even if it costs me a bit of CPU time.
http://www.trinicenter.com/WorldNews/ghandi4.htm
It's a general trend to rewrite history and present world leaders in glowing terms. The assumption is common people would loose faith if they know about their flaws.
I don't buy that. Ignorance, though bliss, isn't a solution to any problem. I would expect people to know the facts and then exercise their judgement.
I remember a slideshow a couple of days back from some startup which had a slide of a monkey saying "We don't write software for this", followed by a slide of Neil Armstrong on moon saying "This is what we write for; Humans who transcended moon and keep going higher"(paraphrasing).
The elite dumbasses at the top assume too much about common people.
Would you mind very much googling "Harijan"?
You seem to have latched on to a very strange definition of "racist". Gandhi might have believed during that early period in his life in keeping races separate, which is not surprising given his orthodox upbringing, but he did a very great deal, later, to unite people of all religions and races and motivate them to think of each other as equals, persuading them to literally call each other 'brothers and sisters'.
I cannot accept that that is the same as what is commonly understood as "racist".
Yes, I'm talking about the early part of his life. Well if you feel comfortable - ex-racist.
Gandhi ended up having undone the damage to an incredible, extraordinary extent. I'm no Gandhi fanboy, but I don't see how the hint of blame that 'ex-racist' implies can be applied to his life.
You insult the whole community with your glib response. But it still stand Gandhi was racist in his early days.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/oct/17/southafrica.indi...
A more interesting place to look for Gandhi's shadow side is in the dynamics of his family, particularly his oldest son (IIRC) who lived out all the things his father hated; he became an alcoholic and, worse, a salesman.
I might blame some but not all parents, as a class, if their kids became alcoholic, but in the case of specific individuals it's hard to say.
I agree with you on the first point.
Hiring untrustworthy people is fine if you can make sure their incentives are 100% aligned with yours. If you can't, then I think cookiecaper's advice is sound.
From what I can tell, this seems to be a common way of thinking in the US, especially in politics. Much less so in Europe (and maybe other parts of the world, I don't know). Personally, I don't see the connection between a person's romantic affairs, and their political decisions... one involves raging hormones, the other (hopefully) does not, so the decision making process is likely very different. (One could say, there are different body parts involved in the decision making... :-)
For instance, if a company promises lots of pre-paid escort time in exchange for a given change to a given bill, why should we expect that an adulterer would be any more loyal to the right regarding the political establishment than his own wife and family?
And the reality is that these people don't even need an explicit sexual offer to betray their associates, there are many other bribes that appeal to the same basic desires (like money, power, status, etc.) that can be exploited to the same ultimate end.
An adulterer is a proven liability. Why should we trust him and invest a bunch of time and money and trust and secrets into him, only to betrayed when an adversarial entity lures him with money and sex? Obviously repentant people should be given another chance at some point, but I would never trust a known adulterer that wasn't completely repentant.
Note that you can hire early flameouts in bundles and rotate them when each flames out though. If you can manage that, it's like driving with NOx.
have you ever noticed with ATM's, you go up to it and it says "no, I have no money for you, go away". So, like a good citizen you turn round to the man behind you in the queue and say "it is out of money". And he says "thank you.....", and then steps up to try for himself anyway. "thanks, but I don't believe you, it will work for me".
So, no, you don't have to "learn things the hard way". But most people nod sagely when you give them advice and then do it anyway :) (and that is a good thing IMO)
(I agree with your track records thing; it's too easy to imagine you are giving a "last chance" and that it will really work out this time).
I think that's a really bad example. There's a lot of bullshit in the parenting literature. In a way I find it very disturbing, that we need to learn how to parent our children.
Really? Why?
I've never understood why people look at parenting differently than any other skill you have to learn.
Parenting should be assimilated (learnt if you like) gradually over time from those around you. Humans IMO function best as family groups within a [close-knit] tribal system: under such a regime one learns from one's own parents, parents of peers, parents of younger children, older intra-generation peers and peers as parents as well as from looking after younger children as a child, looking after younger children as a teen, ... you get the idea.
Even under such a regime it's possible that you can learn "better" parenting from outside the group but you're going to be able to actually do it already just like learning to eat or prepare food.
The thing is we mostly don't have such a structure.
It seems to me that society is in death throes; that as populations burgeon so we value one another and interaction with one another less-and-less. But perhaps this is just me; I tend to be too introverted and pessimistic for my own good.
I was raised in a post-communist Albania, and people weren't influenced by consumerism. It was a more warm-environment for the child to grow. My sister was raised in Italy (during 00'). Between me and my sister, assuming the same age, I would learn better from my parents then her.
This doesn't seem to work so well in today's society, as we tend to consider older generations' ideas of parenting "old-fashioned". Maybe rightfully so, maybe not... but discarding the experience from older generations means you have to relearn everything all over. In that context, it may be useful to have books (etc) on parenting that tell you, "do X", "don't do Y", maybe put in a contemporary context, so there's less of a stigma of being "out of date".
There is a tremendous variation in individual children so mostly it has to be a trial and error process until you figure out what works for each.
and definitely: people who bad-mouth others will bad-mouth you when you leave, no matter how noble you behave. But you still have to be noble to avoid your actions coming back and biting your ass.
Now, how you respond says a lot, especially if you own a business, and people are bad-mouthing you on 'the permanent record'
1. don't respond as if you are taking it personally.
Sure, being attacked unfairly by a customer feels like a fist to the gut. But it's not. This won't burst your spleen. Man up and act rationally.
2. acknowledge problems the badmouther brings up, if some of them are valid complaints. Explain how you are trying to prevent those problems from happening again. If possible, offer a refund, etc.
3. try to deflect invalid complaints without getting angry.
Fear is not the mind killer. Anger is the mind killer. If the badmouther is being unreasonable, it's likely that others will see this as well, (If others don't see this... perhaps your idea of reasonable needs to be re-calibrated?) If you can't deal with this in a calm manner, don't say anything at all. personal attacks in response to personal attacks will make you look like a 15 year old or a politician, in any case, nobody anyone wants to do business with.
Above the <hr> fold: "Stop the loser talk. You can learn from others' mistakes. Your fate is not sealed."
Below the fold: "Track record is king. It's all DNA. People don't change. Your fate is sealed."
FWIW, I tend to agree more with your below-the-fold views based on most people I've met.
You read it wrong - it's not about DNA or fate. It's about what a person has done recently. It's a good predictor of what they're going to do next. As soon as someone changes for real, they build a new and healthy track record.
In general, you should weight a person's actions - track record - over what they say. It's a people skills thing more than a destiny-predicting thing.
> FWIW, I tend to agree more with your below-the-fold views based on most people I've met.
Huh, well, I admire you saying that, it's not a fashionable viewpoint these days. I'd predict a person's actions 95% by what they've done recently and 5% what they talk about, but I think it's possible for anyone to change through incremental improvement. Many people won't, but everyone could. There's always some little incremental improvement you could make. But for important roles in your life, you can't gamble - look for someone with a good track unless you're in a position to make a good evaluation, and be careful even then.
My experience with this sort of thing is that if the person looks like they failed in the past due to having a bad boss[1], yeah, I can fix it. But otherwise? you are in for a whole lot of work with a very small chance of success. Sometimes, it's worth it, but you need to go in with your eyes open.
[1] oh man, bad bosses do a whole lot of damage. that's the funny thing; I don't think a good boss, even a really good boss helps all that much. I mean, sure, they help a little. I try to be a good boss. But a bad boss can easily swing productivity in to the negative. Goal one is to not be a bad boss.
Second - Why in gods name would you teach yourself to view people so one dimensionally? You sound like a College Admissions rep only interested in a persons GPA.
I appreciate the basic notion, that execution matters more than words but I wouldn't waste my breath telling my naive self that. I was far too naive to take that advice to heart. And I surely wouldn't tell myself to not be the first to give someone a second chance.
I don't know what I'd tell myself, I haven't put my mind there yet, but I do know for damn sure that it wouldn't involve such a cold finite tone.
This was an important lesson for me recently. I had a friend I was spending quite a lot of time with, and was discussing starting businesses with. One day it dawned on me that there was not one job, friendship or relationship this person had not ended, usually badly. Then I realised that I was just about their only current friend, which made me realise this person eventually fell out with all their friends. Seeing the writing on the wall I staged a gradual withdrawal, and remain friendly but not friends.
1. If you want to have kids, do it sooner rather than later. The sooner you have them, the better: they grow up so fast, you'll still have time in your 40's to enjoy life with them as teenagers, if you're lucky. If you leave it too late, you'll be pretty disconnected from their teen lives, and hell .. what 40-year old doesn't enjoy the odd jaunt with their teenage kids, eh? I know I wish I'd had my kids a decade sooner .. and don't let anyone tell you its hard, either. Its not hard, if you love them enough, to keep your lives together and do well as a family. Family units are the strongest groups you will ever find or belong to, if they are indeed a unit ..
2. The wisdom of the Mob. It doesn't exist in nearly as palatable a form as most people might desire, and there is also the ugly truth that the Mob can be downright stupid. Collective truth is often full of lies. You would be wise to exercise your ability to disassociate yourself from collective thought as often, and as early, as possible. This means, always question "what everyone else knows to be true" four, five, six times, before you use it as a basis for life decisions .. The Mob wishes to Eat you, Individual, and Never Forget That!
3. Save. Save, save, save. 10% of your money saved on a regular basis now is a huge relief in the future. I wish I'd enforced this on myself a bit better in the 20's .. you simply cannot avoid the fact that if you save during your most productive years, your least productive years will be better off for it ..
I just got my first a few months ago and opted to save more than 20% of my gross income (tax-free, you pay taxes when you get it out later). I wasn't used to the money anyway, yet, so it was easy.
Also, if you are not saving already: I guess whenever you get a raise, you can comfortably afford to save like 50% of it--because that money isn't planned into your budget, yet.
But saving "only" 50% of your raises is something everybody can do without too much discipline, and still feel rewarded with a higher standard of living for whatever they did to get the raise. (Unless it's an automatic raise, and not something you got for some achievement.)
I want to start my own business within the foreseeable future (probably 1-2 years, currently saving money, gathering contacts and getting more on-the-job experience in the field I want to operate in).
Right now I know that if I save 20k Euros that could easily last me for well over a year, if you have kids - not so much.
EDIT: I'm 27 and have tried doing my own thing that didn't work so well in the past - that 'failure' taught me I should probably get more experience and contacts before trying again. Saving 20-30k Euros (or more) is not the issue and is a sum I can relatively easily gather in a 1-2 years time-frame.
Having kids has no impact on having your own business. They're completely orthogonal. Using that as an excuse for not having kids makes as much sense as saying "I don't want to eat tacos for dinner because I want to have my own business."
Note: I'm not responding directly to your comment; I'm responding to the somewhat pervasive idea on HN that kids are a substitute for startups.
You're saying that raising children has no impact on your available time and money? That seems a bit far fetched. I'd agree that it's totally possible to have kids and do a startup, but frankly you'll be working with a bit less money and less time (and for a while way less sleep).
I have a friend who competes in Iron Man. It takes a huge commitment of time and energy, and every time I talk to him he has just spent $1000 for some new attachment to his super-bike. Iron Man negatively impacts his "available time and money". Oh, and he has a startup. And it's very successful.
I suspect that most of you have hobbies that consume 3-4 hours of your weekday and several hundred dollars of your monthly budget.
Now, in my case, my family is my hobby. Spending time with my kids is how I relax and unwind. I don't go out, or watch TV, or play a musical instrument, or compete in Iron Man, or participate in Renaissance Festivals. My life might seem empty and boring to you, if your idea of relaxing and unwinding is different than mine.
Having a family is one choice -- amongst many -- for how to spend your free time and disposable income. I'm not claiming that you can have it all -- for example, I don't think anyone could do startup + family + Iron Man -- but I do think that startup + family is eminently doable.
I'd like to hear a little more about how they're completely orthogonal, as most people I know with kids would probably indicate differently.
He was talking about exercise, but I think the same is true with having kids.
In my case, I spend 4 hours with my kids every workday: 6am - 10am. During that time, I get:
- Ridiculous, insane amounts of joy.
- A chance to see the way that little minds think, which usually triggers a good software idea at least once per week.
- The same kind of chemical response that I would get from volunteering. Before kids, I tried to volunteer about 20 hours per week because it released some kind of neuro-chemical that made me really happy. Helping - and in particular, TEACHING - my kids triggers a similar response.
- An opportunity to process the day's coming challenges (subconsciously)
- Lots of laughs, enough that I don't feel compelled to watch as many TV shows or movies as I did previously.
For me, it works out to a huge net positive on both personal fulfillment and professional performance.
Do you really find your statements to be true? If so, how do you balance them? Orthogonal seems to be an unarguably incorrect statement, though.
You will be less risky when you have kids. However, not all risk is worth it.
I often found that in college I performed better (higher GPA) with a higher work load than with a lighter work load. I think it is because I was forced to be more efficient, sharper, and wiser with my time. Having kids and starting a business is analagous. However, this is only my personal experience.
Having kids later is like letting them time travel to the future.
I'm glad my parents had me late.
That said, I am also curious about the future and hope to experiences as much of it as possible...
Make your time count.
I don't mean a life round-the-clock serious business, just be mindful of when you are pissing away your time.
Every single person I know suddenly finds themselves thinking, Holy fuck, I'm [40|50|60|...]? How in the hell did that happen?
And you will do the same.
This is true for gratitude, raises, promotions, funding, marriage, etc.
It is incredibly easy to blow thousands of dollars, $20 at a time.
Smile.
Reserve judgement until judgement is required.
Helping people is more satisfying than helping yourself. This is true because you can feel like you've helped others enough, but you will always want more for yourself. ;)
Ambition isn't talent. Ambition isn't a moral quality.
Be prepared.
There is no substitute for good sleeping habits. Really.
Complex, irrational arguments and behavior are often explained by simple emotional factors.
I'm only 22 and I already learned that the hard way. Spend less than you earn.
Spend two pence less than you make and you'll be content, maybe even happy. Spend two pence more than you make and you'll be miserable.
"Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery."
Understanding this, and you will understand a lot. In almost all quibbles, addressing what you've rooted up as the deep emotional reaction to whatever surface thing you talk about and watch the other person's reaction change immediately.
(Look at me - I am old, but I'm happy.)
2. Your friends and family really want you to succeed. Even though they might say negative stuff about you trying something new, they want you to succeed. Part of the reason they say these stuff is that they want to prevent you from experiencing failure and all the emotional baggage that comes along with it. What I am saying is to take the negative statements made by families and friends lightly. My family was surprised I sold my website when I started grad school; I thought they didn't care for it.
3. Try to network as much as possible. Most investors wouldn't invest in someone who is not properly introduce. 75% of romantic relationship are established through your network. 90% of jobs are found through networks, at least the upper echelon ones.
4. Actions over words. Do something then talk about it, not the other way around. Talking is satisfying enough that it might not lead to action.
Yes, but if you can cold call you'll get get a wider range of possible results (says a happily married cold caller!).
Being 36, father of three, married for the second time and doing pretty well for myself these days, I can of course only relate to my own experiences of life.
But I'm pretty sure that if I've asked anyone the question you're asking 15 years ago, I would have gotten some advice on how to get by in life, but I wouldn't have understood why the advice given to me was the right way. Experience gives you that understanding.
z80, Sweden
1.) Save money while you're young. Keep living like a college student for 5 years after you leave college and sack away at least $10k/year. Put it into the market and don't touch it again until you retire.
Compound interest is quite a thing to behold, and 5% returns over 40 years will do some amazing things to your money. Start with 100k when you're under 30 and you probably won't ever need to worry about retirement savings.
2. Get to the point where you are provably good at what you do as fast as possible. This will mean switching jobs several times. Build things that are noteworthy and get to the point where people are recommending you to their friends.
Once you've done that, you get secret point 3:
3. You are more valuable to your employer than they are to you.
Companies spend a lot of effort making you think your job is precarious and could be taken away at any minute. In reality it will take six months to find a decent replacement for you. Once you're in and demonstrating that you can find your arse with both hands, they're not going to want to lose you.
That gives you lots of room to explore, and is the reason that I love this industry so much. I can't think of another profession where you can take nine months off every year and still make a good living.
More here:
http://www.expatsoftware.com/articles/2007/02/two-weeks-vaca...