
Ask HN: What has been your biggest “a-ha” moment and how has it changed you? - bobosha
What has been the biggest &quot;a-ha&quot; moment or epiphany in your life thus far and how has that changed you?
======
Jtsummers
That the past is immutable. Once I accepted it (obviously it was something I
knew, but acceptance is another matter), a lot of worry and anxiety fell away,
almost instantly. I stopped replaying moments of regret in my mind, and became
more present in the current day. Learn from the past, but don't get caught up
trying to fix it. Act in the present to create the future that you want.

The second, related, was the realization that while I had some degree of
success in life (good friends, ok job, good pay), I had coasted. I had not
taken control of my life, I had just done the things that seemed like what I
ought to do, without deliberation. This hadn't led me to a bad position, but
it hadn't brought me where I wanted. I'm still not there, but I can see the
paths now and I can make choices (in my employment opportunities, in my
actions within those jobs, relationships, etc.) to take me down the paths I
want.

The third, is that every moment is there to be lived. Until about 5 or 6 years
ago I was very much the "live for the weekend" sort. I got through the week,
but everything that really happened or mattered in my life was on Saturday and
Sunday. That's when I did the things I wanted, work left me so stressed
(perhaps just an excuse) that nothing happened during the week, in the
evenings. One day I realized how much time I was wasting, I put down the video
games and I started going out and doing the things I wanted. I organized
events with friends, took up athletics that I'd long ago set aside, and while
my job was still pretty meh, my life was substantially improved. I had
something to do after work, and it wasn't lay around feeling exhausted (I
still was), it was to be present. To learn, to socialize, to do what I wanted
to do.

These realizations were all related.

------
anotheryou
_If something is a game to you things become way easier._

You can tap in to that feeling even when something is more serious.

Especially useful for job interviews, salary discussions, not taking a
business emergencies too personal, but also for flirting (though especially in
love the "seriousness" of the situation can overwhelm you).

Sadly I have no secrete for you on how to experience this view or feeling a
first time.

\---

 _Professionals are not as perfect as one might think._

Helps with imposter syndrome, with understanding how much more you know about
your body than your doctor and with seeing the value in a plurality of expert
opinions.

\---

 _It 's OK to be "mediocre"_

Another one to cope with success stories of the lucky and privileged ones
everywhere and the expectations of others towards you. Success would be nice,
but there are bigger joys in life and the cost/risk/benefit calculation for
making it big just doesn't cut it.

And having no picture book career doesn't mean to be normcore¹ either.

\---

 _Sophistication in taste can make it diverge from what is purely pleasant_

This one is a more personal one and more the revelation of a dilemma than a
revelation itself. I think if you are really in to art/music/food there will
be less overlap between tickling your brain and soothing pure
aesthetics/pop/kitsch.

I think this also drives many good artists out of pop culture and in to
obscurity.

\---

¹ Good (arty) article about it: "It used to be possible to be special — to
sustain unique differences through time, relative to a certain sense of
audience. As long as you were different from the people around you, you were
safe. But the Internet and globalization fucked this up for everyone."
[https://khole.net/dl?v=4](https://khole.net/dl?v=4) (pdf)

------
w3mmpp
After nearly 50 years on this planet, a few in no special order:

If our imagination is limitless, our body and mental aptitude are not, which
can be painful to realize but acceptance makes for a more gentle attitude
towards ourselves and life in general.

Most people would rather be wrong in company than right alone.

Everything there is to experience and enjoy in life, family, friends, things,
is not ours, it's borrowed and we don't know when we will have to give it
back.

In everything lie its opposite: you can be peaceful in pain, relaxed in
tumultuous time or sad in what would be considered good circumstances. There's
very little correlation between our experiences and our mind states.

Most people are good but are confused, some (edit: few) are evil. Nothing to
do about it besides avoiding the second group.

You can learn about the universe in a pebble, while traveling the world and
stay ignorant.

Life is 95% boring, 5% sublime.

------
minblaster
That you can examine your negative thoughts/emotions mindfully, let them play
out and then pass away. They rarely return, and the number of thoughts that
trouble me has dropped ~95% in the last few years.

------
codingslave
A lot of life advice given by other people, even successful people, is riddled
with arrogance, jealousy, and sabotage. Its not intentional, but no advice is
ever given in a vacuum.

~~~
kleer001
In this same vein I've leaned to ignore those on the edges of the distribution
curve. They likely got there by luck.

~~~
codingslave
They also usually got there by going 100% all in on some field or way of life.
Which means they will commonly tell you all other fields/paths/ways of life
are bad, as they had to convince themselves of that to take the risk of living
such an undiversified life. Its a weird thing

------
shanecleveland
It's a great question, and a very difficult one to answer/convey in words, as
I find these types of moments are very personal and based so much on
individual circumstances.

The most valuable realizations I have made at various times in my life tend to
revolve around recognizing precious small windows of time and opportunity that
deserve more attention, such as getting the most out of relationships,
education, careers, etc.

Again, it is hard to quantify and often I find that they come at the expense
of having neglected to fully recognize an opportunity that has passed. But
learning from these "mistakes" can be as equally valuable.

Most recently, this understanding has helped me to emphasize experiences with
my young children before the opportunity passes. While I may have some anxiety
around neglecting some shorter-term responsibilities, I know that I will never
look back and wish I had spent less time with my kids. But it is surprisingly
easy to let everyday life creep in and distract me from that realization. So I
continue to draw from both times where I know I could have been more present
and great memories and accomplishments from successfully doing so in advance.

------
smarri
TLDR; I found the need for a bullsh*t detector

This isn't the biggest, but I had a moment like this last year. I realised
that almost everything published, and some people I interact with
professionally, are pushing an agenda and warping reality to suit their own
ends. It sounds naive now, but I used to create content for the love of it and
to for greater understanding (through writing, music, art), I had no angle,
and I thought others were doing the same. It's now my view that 99.9% of
conversations, posts, articles, books etc are some one or some group pushing
an agenda to either get more money, power, or influence. It's actually quite
hard, I think, to get to the objective truth anymore. One example, I know a
good salesman who sets himself up a trusted consultant - but is pushing you in
the direction of whatever product he getting commission for at that moment and
time. It's like Orwellian double speak - 'the consultant' is someone you've
brought in to help you but are in fact helping themselves. Further, any
publication produced by a business will support their worldview and why you
should buy their product.

It's changed me in the following way. I try to strip away the entire facade to
see where either the money changes hands, or where the advantage is for the
producer of the content (cui bono). When looked at in this simple way, you
soon see what's really going on.

~~~
BOOSTERHIDROGEN
Then how do you cope with the constant feeling of seeing people as enemy ?
recently I read Adlerian Psychology, from The Courage To Be Disliked [1].
Adlerian adviced we should see people as comrades as opposed to enemy, if
people taking advantages of us, is their own task, not us. that way you live a
life a simple way.

[1] [https://www.amazon.com/Courage-Be-Disliked-yourself-
happines...](https://www.amazon.com/Courage-Be-Disliked-yourself-happiness-
ebook/dp/B074TWG8V7)

~~~
smarri
I'll take a look at this book, I haven't heard of it before. Thanks. I guess I
don't see people as the enemy (but I'll watch out for that as it could be
easily done), rather I try to see what they are trying to achieve, such as
financial gain or otherwise, and make a decision from there. Rather than
getting swept up in the reality they are projecting. In Meditations there's a
passage about seeing things for what they are, like good wine is just grapes,
the best steak is just a cow and so on.its about stripping away the layers of
advertising/propaganda to see the objective truth.

~~~
smarri
The quote from Meditations that I mentioned is the second one below, the first
is more succinct;

"Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a
perspective, not the truth"

"Like seeing roasted meat and other dishes in front of you and suddenly
realizing: This is a dead fish. A dead bird. A dead pig. Perceptions like
that—latching on onto thing and piercing through them, so we see what they
really are. That’s what we need to do all the time—all through our lives when
things lay claim to our trust—to lay them bare and see how pointless they are,
to strip away the legend that encrusts them.”

------
pro_zac
Don't base your self worth solely on your accomplishments. There are so many
smart people in the world. You may have been one of the smartest in your high
school, but the bar was much lower then. Every electronic device you touch or
see in the world was designed by a team of smart people. Forming your identity
around being smart is a losing battle. It's ok to be mediocre.

------
sh87
Instead of chasing to be the best at some one skill, its more rewarding to be
great at one skill and good at another semi-related skill.

------
QueensGambit
Knowing that most of my stress comes from extrapolating and cascading the
worse case scenarios into the future. Meditation helped me understand how such
scary nightmares originate from simple problems that can be overcome. Once I
understood that, they were no longer scary.

------
adventured
\- Ideas are not quite entirely worthless, they're just close to it. There are
exceptions, however they're very few and very far between. Being able to
execute is half the battle, the idea is maybe 1-3%. I was a teenager during
the dotcom bubble and I was mesmerized by it. I had to unlearn all sorts of
bad notions that the bubble years had imprinted into my brain about how you
build Internet companies.

\- The concept of knocking down the first bowling pin when building an
Internet service, or really any type of business. Also known as finding a
market small enough to own when getting started. The smallest segment you need
to go down to such that you own a dominant position from which you can move
outwards from. Peter Thiel has widely discussed these ideas, and I've always
liked Chris Dixon's blog on this:

[https://cdixon.org/2010/08/21/the-bowling-pin-
strategy](https://cdixon.org/2010/08/21/the-bowling-pin-strategy)

\- The various concepts around value investing. It has its own sphere of ideas
and approaches to not just equity investing, but understanding how to value
something in most any transaction or business in general. From Ben Graham, to
Buffett, to Seth Klarman and several others. In my early to mid 20s they
hugely influenced how I approach investing and making various financial value
judgments.

\- Ruthlessly simplify your products. Get down to the most simple form of what
your thing is. Remove, remove, remove, remove shit from it until you're afraid
you're about to break it, and then remove some more unnecessary shit. Do I
really need that feature? No, toss it. Do not add more than necessary until
users / customers tell you they absolutely require it, and even then maintain
some healthy skepticism that that is actually true. When I was young I used to
believe there was immense value in adding to, making something big (and
usually complex); the exact opposite is more often true, the value in your
concept is unlocked for your audience thanks to simplicity, with complexity
acting as a barrier (a form of intense friction) to adoption and
understanding.

\- Focus is one of the most important things in life. Multi-tasking is
bullshit, almost entirely a lie as a concept. When I was in my early 20s I was
the type that would persistently get distracted wanting to build all sorts of
things. I'd juggle three or four projects at a time, with frequently
predictable results. I'd have an idea that intrigued me and off I'd go to
build it, with a smattering of other projects in various stages of non-
completion. Some of this is chalked up to liking the first 1/2 to 3/4 of a
project and disliking what comes after. Maturity was accepting the often
unenjoyable grind that is required to make something successful. Losing or
splitting focus is disastrous if you want to make something successful. Figure
out how to control your focus, hone that skill; it doesn't always have to be
set to ON, you can turn it off when you don't need to be so diligent (because
it can require a lot of exhaustive effort for some people). I've always liked
the generic saying about a diamond: incredible pressure on a small point for a
very long time. That's how you make something successful.

\- Exceptionally few opinions have any value. Very likely most of the people
you know, they're not experts at what you're working on, they probably do not
know better than you, their advice is likely _worthless_ ; do not take their
advice, do not seek their advice as it pertains to the specifics of your area
of work. Seeking their advice on broader life-business things or generic
business issues, sure, that might make sense. Only seek advice from people
that are experts - or as close to it as you can get - on the thing you're
seeking advice on. Everyone has an opinion, so if you ask someone, the odds
are they'll give it to you, even if they shouldn't due to their own ignorance.
People are typically terrible at self-censoring when it comes to throwing
around advice about subjects they know little about.

~~~
codingslave
"\- Exceptionally few opinions have any value. Very likely most of the people
you know, they're not experts at what you're working on, they probably do not
know better than you, their advice is likely worthless; do not take their
advice, do not seek their advice as it pertains to the specifics of your area
of work. Seeking their advice on broader life-business things or generic
business issues, sure, that might make sense. Only seek advice from people
that are experts - or as close to it as you can get - on the thing you're
seeking advice on. Everyone has an opinion, so if you ask someone, the odds
are they'll give it to you, even if they shouldn't due to their own ignorance.
People are typically terrible at self-censoring when it comes to throwing
around advice about subjects they know little about."

Yup this is my opinion too. Took me way too long to realize it.

------
downerending
Read a well-known academic text on sociobiology (no longer recall title), and
provided real enlightenment for me on how romantic relationships work. Took a
while, but now in a marriage that's aligned with those principles, and it's
working out really well.

~~~
tomasdore
This sounds almost as intriguing as Fermat's scribbles in the margins.... "Got
a great proof, no room here, brb" (I paraphrase). Hope it comes back to your
mind!

~~~
downerending
Looking on Amazon, I think it was probably one of Edward O. Wilson's books.
Probably "Sociobiology: The New Synthesis".

I was particularly struck by the typical behaviors of mates in primitive
societies, and especially patterns that indicated a partner was unhappy in a
relationship and/or trying to get rid of their mate.

We're not so far away from those that came before.

~~~
tomasdore
Thanks for replying with the potential book title! I'll take a look at it!

------
MrDrDr
Separating what you want to achieve from how. A simple idea that has massively
changed my life. I’m sure I was told/read it lots before but the ‘a-ha’ moment
only came when I had to work it out for myself.

~~~
analreceiver
Could you care to elaborate?

------
meiraleal
To eat food is to build a healthy body, not pleasure. It is a means to an end.
That made me lose 60lbs and live happier with myself, while still eating good
food, doing only one or maximum 2 meals a day.

------
ryanmercer
That alcohol and I can't be friends. Nor can I "have just one drink".

>and how has that changed you?

I'm healthier and am no longer drinking several fifths a week so saving money.

\---

In the past year and a half I've also realized that those with the means to
really make change in the world are largely full of hot hair, hopium and
unrealistic demands/desires:

Individuals love to talk about poverty, hunger, unclean water, while they sit
on billions and even trillions of dollars. The Giving Pledge has over a
trillion dollars of net worth pledged, go randomly look at what some of the
individuals have pledged money are actually doing... funding cryptocurrency
projects (Brian Armstrong, GiveGrypto), funding anti-bullying (MacKenzie
Bezos, Bystander Revolution), politics (MacKenzie Bezos, With Honor, a
nonpartisan organization working to increase the number of veterans in
political office), funding post-grad education at Cambridge (David and Claudia
Harding, $130 million donation to a school with a 6.441 billion GBP
endowment...).

Investors for example want unreal returns. YC for example wants to give you a
six figure check in hopes of you becoming a billion dollar company within a
handful of years. This is not my opinion and can be found by reading their
various material and statements from those in charge.

Investors will fund insane-sounding things, some of which are quite laughable
to anyone outside of the bay area, such as (randomly taken from
[https://yclist.com/](https://yclist.com/) ):

\- Poppy 'Poppy makes it easy for parents to find high quality childcare with
just a text' While I'm not a parent, I'm not going to just fire off a text for
child care. I'm going to want to meet multiple people, I'm going to check
mycase for my state to see what sort of legal trouble they may have had, I'm
going to go through their social media feeds, I'm going to want to talk to
references...

\- Basically all of the blockchain companies. The Bitcoin network alone uses
an insane amount of electricity, more than some first-world nations and has
yet to gain any sort of adoption aside from speculators. Even the companies
that accept cryptocurrencies don't do the bulk of their business via them.

\- Flock 'makes wireless security systems for neighborhoods'. Good luck trying
to get neighborhoods to agree on something, even those with HOAs.

\- Gameday 'Play fantasy sports with friends on Facebook Messenger' basically
"let's make money off of another platform before regulation or changes by that
platform put us out of business".

\- Leon & George 'Buying and owning indoor potted plants made easy'... or you
could go to Target or Walmart and buy a potted plant.

\- Origin 'Keurig for healthy smoothies.' It takes a minute to throw some
produce into a blendtec/vitamix, blend, pour into your container of choice and
rinse the pitcher out...

\- Yoshi 'Gas delivered to your car so you never have to go to the gas station
again.' what... I drive by like 5 gas stations on the way to work, and again
on the way back, and don't have to sit around waiting for someone to deliver
gas to my car... I can stop if the price has drastically gone up but one
station still has cheap, or you know... when I need gas and have 3 minutes to
spare.

------
celticmusic
When I was in my early 20's I once came home during a thunderstorm and walked
into my house to discover no electricity. I then proceeded to do what I did
every single day, which is walk into my bedroom and plug in my phone.

Only it didn't beep like it usually did to indicate it was charging. so I
pulled the cord out of my phone and reinserted it. I did this multiple times.
I even remember thinking to myself "you know, if the electricity wasn't out I
could turn on the lights to see if I'm just not inserting it correctly". Then
I reinserted it again.

And then the figurative light went on. I just sat the phone down, walked away,
and laughed my ass off.

I was a recent grad with a double major in CS & Math, so by no means stupid.
But I'm still a dumbass. We're all dumbasses.

