Ask HN: What is the most important lesson you learned this year? - quantisan
======
Red_Tarsius
1) People don't hate me. I used to constantly think that I was a nuisance to
everyone. Whenever I looked at someone's body language I could only see the
anger and spitefulness. I can get past that now.

2) The following is copy-pasted from a previous comment of mine. It's a lesson
I've not fully embraced until recently:

> "I guess the hardest thing is to fully trust yourself. Other people are just
> noise, as their opinions aren’t necessarily more backed up than yours. They
> often have a unconscious secret agenda that doesn’t fully take into account
> your well-being and the more someone is close to you, the more biased he/she
> is. “Don’t take risks”, “Don’t leave this place”, “Don’t leave me”."

Last but not least, get rid of toxic people. Get away from toxic environments.
It takes time to heal from the negativity, the close-mindedness, the nihilism
that rules upon so many lives and places.

------
computerjunkie
Health comes first.

Seriously, take care of your health and everything else will call into place.
Trying to ignore something will only make it worse and not knowing whats
causing the symptoms (or what caused an injury) will only make you worry more.
Exercise (walking its actually really good exercise) and make it a weekly
routine. You will be shocked how much of a difference it makes for your mode.

I also realised that I am a social person at heart. I just finished university
and I miss all my good friends who all live in different parts of the country.
Not just friends, but family. Its made me realise that keeping in touch is
absolutely essential no matter what.

Lastly, don't be afraid.

This has been something that has been nagging me all my life. I really
struggled with taking risks in my just-starting-career and social/personal
life. Life is too short to think "Maybe I won't be..." "I don't think..." and
so on. This is part of my incredibly short list of resolutions for next year
and the rest of my life.

~~~
ddmf
I played sports in school, but then neglected my body. over time I put on
weight etc etc.

Walking is such good exercise - I walk to work pretty much every day and with
doing so I've lost 50+ lbs in the space of a year. It doesn't take me long -
about 30 mins to do 2 miles - and so what if the weather isn't perfect, you
soon dry off.

~~~
computerjunkie
I was in the same position as you. I was an avid sportsman during school. But
once I started university, everything started going down hill. Fortunately, I
realized early that this is not the way I want to live and started doing
sports again. But as responsibility grows, there is less and less time to do 3
hours of your favorite activity, so I started walking.

I still do go to the gym but walking is somewhat my meditation. Congrats on
losing 50+ lbs, keep pushing and going. The secret(or what I like to call
common sense) is _consistency which in turn becomes habit_. Keep on walking
for the next 3 years or so and try stop for a week. You will actually miss
walking because your body is used to it now.

------
shorttime
Paying attention to peoples' actions is more important than their words. I've
heard it before but I never really paid attention to it until this year. I
decided to take a new job based on the actions of my supervisors rather than
their words.

My immediate supv gave me an acceptable review and mentioned that I was
underrated. I did my work, got it done, never moving any due dates, my focus
was quality - no rework, etc. I ended up getting an engineering license, PE.
They put me on a special project that only the best, most competent engineers
get put on. But then they passed me over for a promotion. They promoted people
with less experience, less qualifications than myself. Sure, they might have
deserved it, most of us probably should have gotten more recognition than we
did. But for them to pass me up and then turn around and say I was underrated,
that's BS. So I took a new job, their actions, and inactions, were contrary to
their words. So far the new job is much better, I get along with my immediate
supv much better. The biggest thing I miss is all the cool people I met at my
old job.

~~~
artmageddon
> The biggest thing I miss is all the cool people I met at my old job.

I might find myself in this dilemma soon. On the contrary, I just got "needs
improvement" on my latest review yesterday with no warning that had been given
to me over the year, and I don't know if this means I need to be in job-
searching mode or not. I'll get a chance to further discuss it more soon and
hopefully defend my actions, but I will probably start looking anyway since I
had given it serious thought about doing so just a few months back anyway. The
biggest reason I've stayed is because I enjoy the people who I work with quite
a bit, but I figure I can still keep in touch with them after I move on if
that's what it comes down to.

------
PeterWhittaker
Changing how you perceive yourself can change a lot about you. I used to
consider myself a scientific-technology type with an artistic bent - after
all, I have worked in high tech for decades and have a degree in physics.

But this past year I started thinking of myself as an artist who happens to
work in tech to pay the bills (I act semi-professionally and write for fun).

It's like something shifted inside and all of bits got into phase with each
other. Remarkable, really.

------
snide
Work:

Pick your co-founders by their honesty and humility. No matter what happens,
you will build something together that you can all feel proud of.

Going through my fourth start-up now in 15 years. I feel so proud and grateful
working with the people I do now. No fights, no stress, just good people who
think logically and do their best to support each other.

Personal:

Starting a family is so much more fun than anything I've ever done. Jump into
it and let it envelop your being.

------
98Windows
Before this year I have spent most of my life with more than enough social
contact, often it felt like too much. But suddenly the amount of socialising
and quality of it plummeted because I moved house in the summer. At first I
thought that I could make it into an opportunity, that I could use my solitude
to do the things I'd been putting off. It turns out however that I physically
need people in my life but not only their presence, I need good quality
conversation. My mood has become volatile and I'm enjoying things less. Things
seem less interesting and I feel disconnected from society.

Basically I learnt how much I need people in my life. I'm currently learning
how to deal with their absence before I can move to a better place.

~~~
computerjunkie
Real good advice there. I have been living in semi-solitude for the past
couple of months and its truly unpleasant. I'm definitely going to be
interacting more now.

~~~
tbirdz
I wouldn't worry about it. I've been living in semi-solitude for the past few
years. There is an adjustment period, but eventually you get used to it.

------
chm
I'll add something to what user quantisan said:

Don't spread yourself too thin. I'm young, still in graduate school and have
plenty of good ideas I'd like to work on. This year I've learned to make
choices about my lifestyle, projects, interests and to prioritize some. As a
one-man team, to be successful you need to focus. Of course if I could
delegate things would be different.[1]

[1]:[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8743203](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8743203)

------
edw519
Right Hand == Back Brakes, Left Hand == Front Brakes.

Set your firmware to apply the back brakes first when suddenly encountering
the unexpected.

My inner program had me subconsciously apply the front brakes first, so I flew
over the handle bars and lost most of this year recovering from a serious
bicycle accident.

Take care of yourself or not much else matters.

~~~
robotresearcher
Reversed in the UK. A painful lesson to learn.

~~~
k-mcgrady
I thought the op had just mistakenly put things the wrong way around. Why the
heck are the brakes on a bicycle on opposite sides in the US (or UK depending
on your perspective)?

~~~
petercooper
Because the hand signal for braking in both countries (which, admittedly, I've
never seen a cyclist bother doing) relies on the traffic facing arm and if
doing controlled braking, you want to focus on the rear brakes, so the non
traffic facing side is the rear brake.

~~~
k-mcgrady
Ah, ok makes sense. I don' cycle much so I didn't think of the hand signals.

~~~
kaybe
I've never even heard of a hand signal for braking, and we were taught the
rules by the police in grade school. Maybe it's very country-specific.

~~~
petercooper
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hand_signals#Stopping.2Fbraking](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hand_signals#Stopping.2Fbraking)

Which, intriguingly, has a section saying how these signals interrupt with
people using the _front_ brake :-)

In UK law, these cycling hand signals are considered a "should" rather than a
"must" (terms with legal weight in the Highway Code) which is probably why
they're rarely used.

~~~
k-mcgrady
>> "In UK law, these cycling hand signals are considered a "should" rather
than a "must" (terms with legal weight in the Highway Code) which is probably
why they're rarely used."

I rarely saw people use them when cycling in the small town I used to live in.
Now that I'm in a city where I see hundreds of cyclists commuting they all use
hand signals. I'm in my mid-twenties and we actually had to do a class in
school when we were about 10 years old about cycling on the road, signally,
safety etc. I can't remember the name of it but it was an official government
thing I believe and we got some sort of certificate for completing it.

------
Stately
I'm too young/immature/irresponsible to be productive working remotely. And I
feel too isolated/lonely to enjoy the freedom it provides. Turns out it wasn't
the office environment what I hated from my job a year and a half ago, it was
the toxic office environment. Just started a new job in an awesome team and
it's like being born again.

~~~
r0s
I know that feeling. Working at home seems ideal so it takes some real
maturity to realize when it just isn't working.

My employer goes out of their way to make my workspace comfortable and I
greatly appreciate it. The commute still sucks, bring on the self-driving
cars!

------
quantisan
I moved across the Atlantic to co-found a startup this year. I learned a lot
about product and customer development, etc. The usual stuff people talk about
a lot. But I'm surprised at how much I got to learn about myself.

The most important lesson for me is realising the effectiveness of knowing
yourself. Know your strengths, weaknesses, how to handle stress, how to handle
conflict, know what you want, don't want, what you value, best environment for
innovative thinking, etc.

Knowing yourself well helps you become more optimal in everything that you
want to achieve.

------
blakesterz
That securing a bunch web servers full of WordPress and Drupal sites is next
to impossible now. The bad guys are so good it's just amazing.

~~~
sparkzilla
So good at what? (I run a WordPress-based site)

~~~
weaksauce
Figuring out your weakness and exploiting it.

Sql injection to get information/gain access, cross site scripting attacks,
some service that you forgot to lock down, etc... The bad guys can be
extremely smart and motivated.

------
ColCh
1) I've learned that I'm NOT ALWAYS RIGHT. Furthermore, I'm almost all the
time don't right.

2) I've understood that I absolutely know NOTHING.

... 20 age man.

~~~
wwwwwwwwww
this is definitely my favorite reply so far

i know lots of people personally and professionally who will go their entire
lives believing with absolute fervor that they're almost always right and that
they're smart.

as a result, these people stagnate like nothing you've ever seen. their world
views, technical aptitude, attitude, and intelligence end up frozen in time,
unbending and ungrowing. i've noticed that literally the most dangerous thing
someone can admit to themselves is that they're smart or a worldly person.

by actively recognizing and admitting your imperfections, you give yourself
the room needed to grow.

there's probably a Marcus Aurelius/Socrates quote hidden in this comment
somewhere but i cant find it for the life of me

~~~
kaybe
I had the biggest arguments with people where we later found we were both
right. You can be right without the other person being wrong, that's another
point.

------
adimania
Life lesson: Take care of your health. Tech lesson: Encrypt everything.

~~~
koala_man
Even in this day and age, encrypting everything is seen as some kind of
hacker's paranoia.

If a new OS install instead asked "In the event of physical theft, what would
you like to grant thieves access to?" with checkboxes for "My email account",
"My social media accounts", "My documents and photos", etc, would people feel
it was paranoid not to tick all the boxes?

------
imaginenore
Creating a community is much harder than creating a website for that
community.

------
Spearchucker
Try different things.

If you're always returning to one approach, you're missing out.

Only agile, ever, means you're missing out on amazingly useful RAD practices.
If you swear by refactoring, you may be doubling development time because
thinking a design through before starting might've saved you learning it while
typing code. If you only ever build native apps, you may not know when a web
app is a better solution. Functional programming is cool, but OO is also cool.

------
schappim
1) Back yourself.

2) People don't read. People don't read. People don't read. (Everyone:
Customers, Co-workers, Business partners etc). So don't rely only on text
based conversations.

------
japhyr
I learned how to write a book. I've been working on _Python Crash Course_ ,
which will come out this spring. It's been an incredible learning experience.

I have learned the most from having my work critiqued by so many people - an
initial editor, a technical editor, a copy editor, and a production editor.
It's been humbling and enlightening every step of the way. I can't wait to get
back to programming again, and apply what I've learned from writing at a
professional level to building things with code. My technical work will be
much stronger; writing a book has forced me to reexamine much of what I
thought I knew about programming, in a really good way.

[http://www.nostarch.com/pythoncrashcourse](http://www.nostarch.com/pythoncrashcourse)

------
eddotman
1) Sometimes big life decisions are no-win scenarios: there isn't always a
solution that leaves every party happy.

2) It's easy to fall into the trap of thinking that what you're doing is
'harder' than what others are doing. Everything is hard if you're pushing your
limits.

------
hacknat
There is pleasure to be found in even the most mundane tasks by taking the
opportunity to do it the best, most efficient, most beautiful way possible.

I still get annoyed when I feel a task is beneath me, but I've been trying
hard to find something new to learn in it and to be mindful about how the task
can be done well. Lately it's been dealing with lots of text files and classes
that have tons of fields in them. No problem, just a chance to get to know the
*nix tool chain and emacs just a bit better. I'm still not doing the best at
this, but I've gotten better, and I've found that it's making me happier and
making me a better Engineer in the more important tasks as well.

~~~
ChicagoBoy11
"There is pleasure to be found in even the most mundane tasks by taking the
opportunity to do it the best, most efficient, most beautiful way possible."

I feel like this could've been the subtitle to Richard Feynman's life.

------
mindcrime
Basically everything @computerjunkie said, is what I came here to say. Having
my own health risks and mortality exposed when I had a heart-attack a few
weeks ago[1], really drove that home. I now _really_ realize that the whole
"yes, it can happen to YOU" thing really is true. I know I can't just ignore
health & fitness issues with impunity.

The importance of eating a healthy diet, working out more, reducing stress,
etc., are a lot more vivid to me now.

On a related note however, perhaps ironically, is that I now feel a renewed
sense of "There's only so much time left on the clock, so if I want to
accomplish things, I have to sell out and go 101% to achieve then now". I'm
still trying to figure out how to balance those notions.

I mean, let's say I could work less and live an extra 10 years. Let's say
that's the difference between, I dunno, making it to 75 vs 85. The questions I
ponder now is "how rewarding will the years between 75 and 85 be?" and "how
much do I care about that?", etc. I know it sounds a bit morbid, but it's a
real question. I've never been all that scared of dying, but I am very afraid
of being old, frail, crippled, helpless, etc.

So there ya go... try to live like a rockstar now, flame out fast and die
young, or go for the longest life you can live. How do you decide _that_? Fuck
if I know... if I figure it out, I'll let you know.

And on an even less related note... well, at least vis-a-vis career / tech /
etc... facing mortality did emphasize another thing to me. Since you don't
know how much time you get, if there are things you _really_ want to do, do
all you can to do them as soon as you can. Sure, sometimes strategy dictates
waiting, and sometimes procrastinating is just easy... but they say that
people on their death-beds don't regret the things they did, but rather the
things they didn't do. An example from my life: I've had a few tattoo ideas
I've wanted to get done for years, but keep putting it off for no real reason.
Now I don't know why I get waiting. And there are plenty of similar examples.
So yeah, I'd say one important lesson is "do stuff now". :-)

------
devgutt
You don't need to launch your product at all. Start small. Monopolize this
small subset of customers and make them love your product. Don't waste your
time trying investors and accelerators before market fit.

------
kerrsclyde
Moving to a different part of the country doesn't necessarily change as much
as you think (and I thought it would change everything).

------
pcnc
1) Carefully choose the people that are going to sit next to you whenever "the
big thing of your life" is going to happen.

2) ALWAYS, but ALWAYS use contracts, even when doing something together with
your relatives, long-life friends and "that guy from university which was ever
helpful".

3) Think you're worth more than you're getting? Ask away.

4) Learn to accept critique and not dismiss it. Accepting it and making
efforts to improve on its basis is the way towards personal (and professional)
growth.

5) Nobody is always right, learn how to gracefully lose a dispute.

6) Take time for yourself, don't rush head-first into any opportunity, don't
accept every invitation, learn how to refuse. This will save you time,
headaches and integrity.

------
almassapargali
Saying "I don't know". Before everytime somebody asks me something I'd answer
anything but "I don't know", just because they asked me I was expected to know
answer, and I kinda didn't want to break expectations. But then I started
answering "I don't know" and it feels really great. Now every time I answer so
unless I'm absolutely sure on my answer.

~~~
abefight
This is gold.

------
abefight
Listen fewer to the music to increase my productivity.

~~~
wiredfool
Drinking less increases my productivity. I don't drink that much, max of a
couple drinks a night, a few nights a week. Not binge, not so much that I'd be
drunk.

There was a period over the summer where I cut it back to about 1 drink per
night on friday/saturday. Looking at my github activity, it's _obvious_ when
that was.

~~~
abefight
My philosophy is don't drink at all.

------
wallflower
That nothing ever stays the same. You can't assume the company or project you
are working on will remain the same. Management comes and goes, good people
come and go. In the end, what matters are your relationships outside of work.
Even then, those can change (but not as much). Sometimes the people you don't
see that often can be important in your life.

------
slashnull
Cool tech is only cool when used to build cool products.

Crazy obvious, I know! But it is a thing I learned this year.

------
fsloth
I started to learn to play the guitar. I haven't played anything in twenty
years... It's wonderfull to discover that drilling the chords over and over
again starts to eventually pay up.

------
bjoe_lewis
Anything - simple or complex, can be explained. If you are not able to explain
something to a child, then you probably don't know about it well enough.

~~~
showerst
Corollary to that I once heard: "Any business idea too complicated to sketch
on the back of a bar napkin won't work."

------
pearjuice
We will never see 2014 again in our current time system.

------
_RPM
I learned that C is important. And that I should learn it. And I have become
proficient in it this year.

------
7Figures2Commas
That "stuff" you stepped in on Market Street _is_ probably what you think it
is.

------
eanplatter
Small consistent effort generates massive change. Emphasis on consistent.

------
chatmasta
1) Every end has at least one means.

2) Bullshit should be applied only carefully.

------
throwawayaway
i cannot be trusted to write nice emails to people and keep a decent
rapport/cadence. ergo, i am not destined to be in charge of people or have
customers.

~~~
brador
The contents of a textbook are not the only things you can learn. Don't be so
quick to shut doors.

------
subrat_rout
Focus! Focus! Focus!

------
amrnt
tl;dr Always say NO, big no!

