

Ask HN: Share encouraging advice - faramarz

The great John Maeda once said;<p><i>"When you're younger, think less and do more; when you're older, do less and think more."</i><p>...<p>"I see a lot of (especially young) people get frozen by the paralysis of indecision. Just start making stuff until something catches." <i>~Jonathan Harris</i>
======
pmjoyce
Theodore Roosevelt's The Man in the Arena:

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong
man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The
credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred
by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short
again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but
who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the
great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows
in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails,
at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with
those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_in_the_Arena>

------
chriskelley
Too often we are scared.

Scared of what we might not be able to do.

Scared of what people might think if we tried.

We let our fears stand in the way of our hopes.

We say no when we want to say yes.

We sit quietly when we want to scream.

And we shout with the others,

when we should keep our mouths shut.

Why?

After all,

we do only go around once.

There's really no time to be afraid.

So stop.

Try something you've never tried.

Risk it.

Enter a triathlon.

Write a letter to the editor.

Demand a raise.

Call winners at the toughest court.

Throw away your television.

Bicycle across the United States.

Try bobsledding.

Try anything.

Speak out against the designated hitter.

Travel to a country where you don't speak the language.

Patent something.

Call her.

You have nothing to lose

and everything

everything

everything to gain.

JUST DO IT.

([http://joshpremuda.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/Barry-
Sand...](http://joshpremuda.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/Barry-Sanders-Nike-
Ad.jpg))

------
paulsb
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education."

\-- Mark Twain

"So I wanted to project myself forward to age 80 and say, 'Okay, now I’m
looking back on my life. I want to have minimized the number of regrets I
have.' I knew that when I was 80 I was not going to regret having tried this.
I was not going to regret trying to participate in this thing called the
Internet that I thought was going to be a really big deal. I knew that if I
failed I wouldn’t regret that, but I knew the one thing I might regret is not
ever having tried. I knew that that would haunt me every day, and so when I
thought about it that way it was an incredibly easy decision. And I think
that’s very good."

\-- Jeff Bezos, Regret Minimization Framework
(<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwG_qR6XmDQ>)

------
themullet
Nice quote there. Few of my favourites.

mark twain: "Dance like nobody’s watching; Love like you’ve never been hurt.
Sing like nobody’s listening; Live like it’s heaven on earth."

Einstein: "imagination is more important than knowledge"

Programmers quote:"I find that most people get upset by mistakes. I generally
don't. I have always thought that the reason is that I am trained to accept
that there will be mistakes, because compilation errors are a norm. When they
happen, you fix them, and move on with your life. If you get upset over
compilation errors, you won't last in this biz"

trotsky: "those who make peaceful revolution impossible make violent
revolution inevitable"

"always end on a quote"

------
blizkreeg
"Maximize your serendipity." - Nassim Taleb

"No matter how much faculty of idle seeing a man has, the step from knowing to
doing is rarely taken." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

"A regular paycheck and crack cocaine have a lot in common." - Felix Dennis

"Not the lowest hanging fruit. You want the highest RoI fruit." - Me =)

------
nekopa
"The infinite possibilities each day holds should stagger the mind. The sheer
number of experiences I could have is uncountable, breathtaking, and I'm
sitting here refreshing my inbox. We live trapped in loops, reliving a few
days over and over, and we envision only a handful of paths laid out before
us. We see the same things every day, we respond the same way, we think the
same thoughts, each day a slight variation on the last, every moment smoothly
following the gentle curves of societal norms. We act like if we just get
through today, tomorrow our dreams will come back to us. And no, I don't have
all the answers. I don't know how to jolt myself into seeing what each moment
could become. But I do know one thing: the solution doesn't involve watering
down my every little idea and creative impulse for the sake of some day easing
my fit into a mold. It doesn't involve tempering my life to better fit
someone's expectations. It doesn't involve constantly holding back for fear of
shaking things up. This is very important, so I want to say it as clearly as I
can: FUCK. THAT. SHIT." xkcd

------
wmeredith
"If you're going through hell, keep going." - Winston Churchill

"There are no right and wrong decisions. Make a decision and then [work hard
enough to] make sure it was the right one." -My Mom

 _Both of these have gotten me through some dark days, both career-wise and
personally._

------
samh
Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and
looks like work. - Thomas Edison

------
sgoraya
_If you continue to do what you do, you will continue to get what you get._

\--Anon, Chinese proverb

~~~
DenisM
And that's really the most important thing a startup founder needs to know.

------
jacquesm
"Do something that scares you, every day"

From the 'sunscreen' speech.

The whole thing is worth listening to or reading.

<http://www.google.com/search?q=sunscreen+speech>

------
samh
"The simplest way to get what you want is to deserve it"

"Deliver to world what you would buy if you were on the other end of the deal"

"Have lots of assiduity. That means you sit down on your ass and do it until
it's done"

All Charlie Munger

------
jseifer
"At any moment that you find yourself hesitating, or if at any moment you find
yourself putting off until tomorrow trying some new piece of behavior that you
could do today, or doing something you’ve done before, then all you need to do
is glance over your left shoulder, and there will be a fleeting shadow. That
shadow represents your death, and at any moment it might step forward, place
its hand on your shoulder and take you. So that the act that you are presently
engaged in might be your very last act and therefore fully representative of
you as your last act on this planet." - Carlos Castaneda, Don Juan

------
quickpost
"It's better to be a pirate than to join the Navy"

\-- Steve Jobs

------
blender
“You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.”

\- Jack London

------
dstorrs
"You are what you choose."

"No one ever lay on their deathbed saying 'I wish I'd watched more TV.'"

------
samh
The thoughts of others were light and fleeting, of lovers meeting or luck or
fame, mine were of trouble and mine were steady, and I was ready when trouble
came. \- Houseman

------
samh
"Decide what you would be and then do what you have to do"

------
samh
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEkz1XK75XE>

------
samh
"There is 0 value in fear and anxiety"

------
Mankhool
Do you want to go to your grave saying, "I wish I had . . ."?

------
chriskelley
"A prayer for the wild at heart, kept in cages."

\- Tennessee Williams

------
samh
Just do it - Nike

