
Ask HN: Of your hard learned lessons, which do you wish could’ve been easier? - arikr
Of all the hard learned lessons, which do you most wish you could’ve learned an easier way?
======
laaph
I wish I learned to take care of my health at a younger age. Of course, I'm
overdue to go to the dentist, so perhaps I'm still struggling with that.

I wish I had learned not to have a fear of other people at a younger age. It's
easy to say that I was "shy". I think it went much further than that. I'm in a
place where I don't speak the common language, and let me tell you how hard it
is to learn a language when you are "shy".

I wish I learned to recognize abusive behaviors and asshole-ism much earlier
than I did. I occasionally shock people by telling a story where awful stuff
happened and at the time I didn't think anything was wrong.

I wish I learned whatever it is that makes people want to hire you in
interviews. I've been through thousands of interviews, and the only jobs I've
ever gotten are ones where I wasn't interviewed. Even when recommended for
jobs, where I'm perfect for the position and the job is perfect for me, I've
never gotten hired that way. Most jobs don't easily let you in the back door;
usually you still have to go through an interview process. I still don't have
this one sorted out, even if the previous two I have down much better.

~~~
chrisco255
I used to be shy when I was a teenager and only started to break out of my
shell once I got sales and customer service jobs. These jobs taught me how to
interact with a wide range of people. And my success as a sales person was
literally tied to my people skills, so I learned that way.

I would say, anything you're irrationally afraid of (that isn't literally
dangerous), you should consciously seek out and force yourself into
situations.

I remember when I was younger I was conscious of the fact that I was socially
awkward, and the awareness of that just fed into my social interactions.

~~~
DecayingOrganic
As another shy, socially awkward person, I must say that getting professional
help is definitely worth it.

If you find that you can't break this wall yourself, don't be afraid to ask
for help.

~~~
fetus8
By professional help do you mean therapy?

~~~
DecayingOrganic
Sure, including but not limited to only therapy. For my case, Cognitive
Therapy helped me a great deal with both depression and social anxiety.

It's just when you are not social, you may be reluctant to ask for help when
it's actually needed the most.

------
quickthrower2
If you know someone isn't really your friend, to move on and get them out of
your life ASAP. It's a bit like breaking up, it takes some guts to tell
someone you don't want to be their friend anymore. To stop answering the phone
etc.

To generalise this, to eliminate bullshit as soon as your instinct tells you
it is BS (which is years before you may be willing to admit it!)

~~~
Prettybad
I'm really glad that I don't have a lot of friends. The one's I got are like a
very well curated box of chocolates. My friend "chocolate mint" is
interesting; super sweet on the outside, but often cold-hearted af! I still
love her very much. When my friends talk about their troubles with their other
friends it feels weird. Like "why bother?". It's easier than ever to stop
talking to a person. Just stop talking.

~~~
sidcool
That's a lot difficult when you have the 'Disease to Please'. Or even worse, a
mild case of William's Syndrome.

------
apohn
Being more objective about and positive/negatives of major aspects of one's
life.

Since this is HN, I'll talk about having a technical role/job. It's really
easy to feel that something fantastic (e.g. a great business problem, the
latest tech stack, a great work environment) is present at another job feel
miserable because your current job doesn't have that one thing. Many times
this is just your own projection (and you may not project the negatives around
that one thing) You can then jump to another job based on this projection and
feel even more miserable than you did before you took the job because now you
realize you were only projecting that this missing thing existed at your new
job.

Going along this with, you project how great that one missing thing will be,
but not realize that one missing thing is going to have negatives as well.

You can also minimize the negatives - My work environment/boss/tech stack is
terrible, but most jobs are like this so I'll stay. Again, you project the
negatives to another place out of fear that leaving your current job will be a
mistake.

It's a long and hard series of lessons to get to the point where you can be
somewhat objective what's missing, what's okay to be missing, what needs to be
there for you to be content, and the ways resolve this. That way you can be
more balanced about what you need from a job what you need to from outside
your job.

~~~
chrisco255
Oh yeah, and this applies to personal factors as well. Agree with you though.
I have moved jobs and I have found that there's tradeoffs. You may get more
pay, better tech stack, etc, but might have to live further from family &
friends.

------
mockingbirdz
1\. Take good care of your health. It impacts other areas of your life - how
you feel, how you think, your confidence.

2\. Being right is overrated.

3\. Don't get too attached to any "thing" or person.

4\. Letting go of people and things won't kill you though it hurts at first.

5\. Care less about what other people think.

~~~
EvanKRob
2\. Being right is overrated.

So true. Something I took a long time to learn. Everyone's perspective is
different so be more empathetic to it and maybe you'll find you're not right
after all.

~~~
tabtab
But us logical people cannot resist fixing lack of logic. It's in our bones.
By "logic" I mean that our arguments are based on an explicit line of
reasoning that we can articulate. When people ignore logic and trust their own
or someone else's vague intuition instead, us logical people get a mental
rash.

~~~
EvanKRob
For sure. I've come to the conclusion that most people are just too closed
minded to hear anything that does not align with their side. It is a
particularly good mindset to adapt right around election years.

------
apstyx
\- Materialism is overrated. Stuff breaks.

\- Read & learn more. No-one can take that from you.

\- Health is important. Look after yourself, no-one else will.

\- Moderation, moderation, moderation :)

\- Do not worry about what people you don't know think

\- Worry about what people you care about think

~~~
abhishekjha
>Materialism is overrated. Stuff breaks.

I get very attached to computers and monitors.

~~~
sidcool
And it breaks a lot! So checks out.

~~~
abhishekjha
Actually I am scared of them stopping to work one day. That hard drive crash
was enough emotional turbulence already. :(

------
throwaway84742
At 40+:

0\. Focus less on work and more on living a good life. Focusing on work too
much is a surefire path to burnout and hating yourself. Therefore, define
“success” mostly in terms of what you do outside of work.

1\. Take care of your health, above all else. I wish I could meet my 20 year
old self and convince him to seriously take up cardio and weightlifting while
natural HGH still makes things easy.

2\. It’s ok to not have kids.

3\. It’s ok to not buy shit you don’t need.

~~~
romanovcode
I know that there is no problem to be on HGH and even TEST therapies after you
are 40. Maybe you should try that out.

~~~
throwaway84742
HGH supplementation is not a good idea for full grown adults. It makes
_everything_ grow, including eg the heart muscle.

------
EvanKRob
Less is more.

\- You don't need that neat kitchen gadget when a knife will do just fine.

\- A small number of close friends > a lot of acquaintances. As you get older
and priorities change, maintaining those friendships becomes harder, closer
friends will understand and help maintain that connection.

\- Eat less

\- Starting fewer projects at once helps get more projects done.

\- Less distractions. Give yourself more time to think to formulate your
thoughts w/o influence or corruption.

An exception is more travel. You'll look back and never regret a travel
experience.

~~~
saiya-jin
Good list, on that topic of travel I would expand it for "adventure". You can
have adventure discovering new part of your county/country, or even your own
town. One can try some 'extreme' sports - ie parachute-related, climbing,
diving, whatever is nearby you. Pick locally. Try and decide if you once would
like to be a proficient in that activity and would enjoy it.

One can travel far for adventures, or ride a bike to them - do both!

------
LawnDart1
It is not Enough to be right, you must bring people with you.

~~~
softwarefounder
Thought provoking

------
muzani
1\. Career progress is not about more money or promotions. It's about going
from where you are, to somewhere better. Sometimes the high ranking jobs means
that you work 12 hours a day, 6 days a week, travel for months without your
family. A good career path improves your quality of life.

2\. Being nicer. I've been an angry, forceful person. It's unnatural for me,
and I thought it would get more things done. It didn't help at all and made
things a lot worse. I find that, statistically, being nice has far better
returns. You'll probably remember the few times people take advantage of it,
but in most modern, high wealth areas, it pays off very well.

------
Regardsyjc
I wish I learned earlier that it's possible to not want what everyone else
wants, in my situation, money. Growing up poor, my mom was always money,
money, money. Have to get good grades to get a good job to make money. I
joined a business fraternity in college, then a startup incubator, then became
an Amazon seller so I have consistently been surrounded by people who really
want to make a lot of money.

I had my first loss of a loved one last year and I learned the hard way that
money is trivial in the large scheme of things when you have enough. That it
is okay to not want to make huge sums of money and to focus on other things in
your life that are more meaningful to you like your relationships. But more
importantly to be aware of who you surround yourself with.

Luckily I'm 25 so maybe it's good I learned this now but I would give anything
to spend more time with the person I lost instead of stressing so hard about
making more money. That and in the larger scheme of things, most of the things
you find stressful are trivial when it comes to the big picture, death. I
watched a wonderful talk by Alexis Ohanian about "Zero Lives Remaining" and
it's true. Compared to that, a lot of the things that you thought were the end
of the world, really aren't, so take it easy and enjoy life.

------
isaiahg
I wish I had learned the difference between need and want when choosing a
service to create. You can make a profitable businesses providing what people
want for sure. But it's much better to be in the business of providing what
people need more.

If I had learned that earlier it could of saved me years of hard work over
something that turned out to be a dud.

------
kewafb14
Being cheated on by my closest friend with my ex at the time. Lost them both,
and it hurt. But in retrospect, I became much stronger, and I wouldn't be the
same today!

------
falcongod082
I wish I had used Linux instead of DOS

------
GFischer
Not to get into debt unless you REALLY, REALLY need to.

Taking a lot more care of money.

------
Krisor103
Dealing with dentists. Let my fear control me for many years after an incident
and because of that my Dennis lost his Gnasher.

Although wishing it was easier is all well and good, but these types of
incidents in life are hard to give us a better perspective on what is
important.

