HN: What is something you learned way too late in life?

I'm constantly learning things I wish I had learned earlier and I'm sure I will continue to. My list for now will be supplemented regularly going forward.

I learned that life is short...

Dwelling too much on the past is more often than not a waste of time.

Im probably older than most of you at 40 and so far there isnt anything that I havent been able to fix (so nothing is "way too late"). The only thing might be have kids when you are young because the probabilities drop a lot as you get older.

What is morally wrong isn't teenagers having sex, it's teenagers having babies.

the only real difference between a child and an adult is that its easier to take an adult seriously.

Investing. And related to that, risk taking.

I learned this two days ago, so I'm still embarrassed about it because I should have known about it 10+ years ago.

In an autotools based project (one with a configure script) you can build it such that intermediate files aren't created in its source dirs. For example:

  tar xjvf gcc-4.6.0.tar.bz2
  mkdir gcc-obj
  cd gcc-obj
  ../gcc-4.6.0/configure
  make

http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/gd95k/reddit_what... clickable

Do the one thing you love doing most and that you do best. Don't chase things like prestige or supposed higher salaries.

Some of us are lucky to be intelligent enough to be able to be pretty good at many different professions. That does not mean you should chase the profession that offers the most prestige or supposedly is the best paid. You should do the thing that you are absolutely best at and you love the most (and this is usually the same thing, btw).

Because in the USA we work so hard that your life will be absolutely miserable if you do not do the thing you love. Also, if you are really good at it, you should be successful enough regardless of what various magazines say about the relative prestige or value of various professions.

I learned this during my second year in college: the secret to reaching out to people and building a strong social network is to knock on people's doors.

If someone lives in your dorm call over in the evening to chill. Call someone you've just met up for a beer. Facebook everyone you met at a house party inviting them to come to your party. You'll soon find yourself very popular.

With practice you can become really good at most things.

To write my own code instead of trying to find funding to pay others to do it.

Just freaking do it! Stop questioning yourself about everything and DO IT!

Success : Do one thing, really well. Focus.

No matter how stupid or ludicrous your idea is, there will always be someone that will want to buy it. (Now a market to support it... that's a whole 'nother thing.)

If you fold down the zipper pull, it locks. Your fly won't come undone.

That it's never too late.

That building is the act of learning.

That past successes should be built upon and not run away from.