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Wastes of Time We Regret When We Get Older
- sheeshkebab 9y agoPlaying first person shooters in your twenty’s/thirties should be up there somewhere...
- IntronExon 9y agoContext matters. I regret time I spent when younger playing alone, but some of my happiest memories involve endless games of Doom II, DN3D, and Quake on the network my friends and I built in our dorms. A bunch of us around each computer, chatting, cheering, jeering, and just plain waiting for a go. Context is everything.
- fwdpropaganda 9y agoSame here, regarding StarCraft with friends vs Diablo 2/Ultima Online alone.
- IntronExon 9y agoOh yes! I remember how my friends and I were blown away by Warcraft, and then just feel into SC with abandon. Good times.
- Joeri 9y agoIf that is something you enjoy doing I would call it time well spent. What’s the point of life if you can’t find the time to enjoy it in the moment?
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- sotojuan 9y agoMeh. Last year I spent ~500 hours playing JRPGs. Enjoyed all of that. It's only a waste of time if it's getting in the way of your ogoals. For me, I had nothing else I wanted to do with that free time.
- notacoward 9y agoIt's easy for each of us to look down our noses at how others spend their leisure time, but there's an important point to be made here: leisure time and wasted time are NOT THE SAME THING. Leisure is actually quite important. Grinding away constantly can lead to burnout, poor health, frayed relationships, etc. The trick is to find balance, to fill each part of your life in the most satisfying way but not to let one part overwhelm the others. Between paid work, house/family work, exercise, etc. I work as hard as anybody else I know, and I still enjoy a good video game session. I'll be playing Horizon: Zero Dawn in a few minutes. It's a better hobby than sneering at others.
- ntsplnkv2 9y ago> Leisure is actually quite important. Grinding away constantly can lead to burnout, poor health, frayed relationships, etc. It's a shame that leisure time itself has to be framed around work. As we move forward we need to move past this concept of "work" and "productivity" as the main drivers of what it means to be human.
- Banthum 9y agoWork doesn't define humanity, but the fruits of work are what enable humans to exist. Also, work is the only means by which we do things that can benefit others. It's all very good to be concerned with your own experience, but if you want to be helpful to a partner, a family, or a community, you have to work. This is why work has such meaning. It makes benefits that are not purely selfish. Benefiting other people strikes me as more meaningful than simply attending to one's self, trying to make the days until death more pleasant. This selfishness is what has always troubled me about the popular hedonistic conception of meaning that's taken hold in recent decades.
- linkmotif 9y ago> It's a better hobby than sneering at others. GP wasn’t sneering. GP was communicating something they experienced.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- code_duck 9y agoI spent what seemed like way too much time playing video games from my youth to my early 20s. It seems like those are the days I always want to nostalgically recapture, so perhaps I was having a great time and it was well spent. I can hardly get immersed in anything that deeply these days.
- HN15718653 9y agoRight up there with reading large amounts of fiction. I mean, one should experience life instead of sitting on a couch or wherever for hours on end, staring at printed words and immersing yourself in some other person's imagination! At the end of it, so many hours every year and you have nothing to show for it.
- Infinitesimus 9y ago> At the end of it, so many hours every year and you have nothing to show for it. This one is tough for me. Must all of life come down to having something to show for it? What about those pockets of our existence where we can just _be_ and enjoy something for the sake of that enjoyment? And if people stopped enjoying fiction, what motivation would there be for others to write if they had no readership to show for their work? Productivity is a good goal but we're slightly more complicated as people than simple, single-purpose machines
- majos 9y agoI think reasonable doses of fiction -- say a couple of books a month -- are useful, so long as you choose your fiction carefully. To me the best fiction is like hanging out with the coolest, smartest, and most articulate person you've never met, and letting them show you things they believe to be important. This is not a substitute for experiencing things firsthand, but I can certainly point to many novels that shocked me into thinking about stuff differently. Good fiction reaches you in a strongly empathic way, in a place where you're uniquely receptive to it. This is valuable for teaching things about your own life and the lives of others, which seems valuable.
- imtringued 9y agoThe alternative is to work 80 hours every week with nothing to show for it.
- pbourke 9y agoI was disappointed that "commuting" was not on the list, because it's up there for me.
- trendia 9y agoI listen to podcasts or audiobooks while commuting, and I figure it's roughly equivalent to sitting on my couch reading. I commute 40-60 minutes daily, so it's pretty easy to get through long works that way.
- CaptSpify 9y agoOne of the reasons I love public transportation is that I get a good amount of reading time while commuting. While yes, I'd prefer a shorter commute time, getting a long period where all I can do is read has been great.
- hycaria 9y agoI'm now able to walk to work (<20 minutes) and I miss reading during my commute :(
- fsiefken 9y agotext to speech or use a hmd with low transparancy
- lsc 9y ago>use a hmd with low transparancy Any recommendations? I owned a Xybernaut and a bunch of other HMDs throughout the years. Few were practical for reading and walking at the same time. (Interestingly, I've had several solutions that allowed me to do cardio on a machine while watching a movie.... and watching a movie, even a regular 2d movie in an occlusive HMD is, at least for me, super immersive and fun. None of the solutions I've tried were very robust, and they all end up breaking. If someone has a recommendation for something robust-ish that is easy to hook up to the major streaming services, I'm all ears. ) That said, I haven't looked at the current Microsoft solution; I thought it was tethered to a serious PC like the oculus. I own an Oculus and haven't yet setup a rig that lets me use it on a cardio rig. As an aside, there is a lot of focus on the various two degrees of freedom treadmills look cool, with the 'teflon dish, felt shoes" design looking the most practical, of course, but I haven't even setup one of those yet; I don't know if there is a useful game ecosystem for them yet. But, yeah, if there was something in the neighborhood of a kilobuck that would let me walk and read with reasonable safety, I would be super interested. I already live in an area/live a lifestyle where the 'dork factor' isn't an issue, which I think is the hardest part of solving this problem. I'll probably be buying an oculus go (or one of the competing 'all in one' HMD products) for treadmill use, and using them for watching movies on the treadmill (watching movies on a HMD is way better supported than reading on a HMD, but that means being on a machine)
- nisa 9y agoAs someone in the early 30s that mostly wasted away the last 15 years due to anxiety, internet addiction and procrastion and unability to finish stuff: My only advise to younger ones is to work on your problems early on and focus on a stable income to survive on your own and your education. It's not getting easier and progress on these problems rewards you for years to come. If you are stuck in these loops consider taking a year off to get yourself together. I've always somehow carried on without solving any problems and things only got worse.
- ramphastidae 9y agoI am you. Same age. Same issues. Same timeline. About a year ago I finally broke, lost my job, and have since been focused on taking a break and working on my issues. Thank you for sharing. I sincerely, to the point that I am welling up with tears, hope you can resolve your issues, as I totally understand the feeling. Know that there are others like you and it is possible for things to improve. Just FYI: I am not totally over my problems, but what really helped me was therapy, medication for dermatological issues that were causing me distress and insecurity, socializing with nice friends and family and completely cutting out toxic family, dramatically cutting back on drugs I was using to cope, and creating (and doing my best to stick to) a daily self-care routine, tracked via a to-do app, that includes good sleep, daily showers and grooming, and walks. It hasn’t been perfect but it’s made a big difference and for the first time in about seven years I am feeling OK about life.
- contingencies 9y agoReading badly written clickbait articles on the internet.
- lumberingjack 9y agoI bet a young female wrote this, checks yep a young female wrote this.
- chengiz 9y ago> In order to let the past go, you must forgive yourself officially. Feel the embarrassment or shame one final time. Really feel it throughout your body. ... Finally, make the decision to forgive yourself and do it. It helps to even say it out loud. From now on, it's OK. You are forgiven. This is inane. I'm reminded of Mark Wahlberg "forgiving himself" for beating the old Vietnamese man blind.
- brucephillips 9y agoWhy shouldn't he?
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- acd 9y agoMost people regret noting living a life true to themselves, most regret working too much missing time with loved ones. Many people regret not having the courage to express their feelings. This is from the book Top 5 regrets of the dying written by a nurse Bronnie Ware at a nursing home. Here is a link about the book https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/03/top-5-regrets-of-the-dying_n_3640593.html https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/03/top-5-regrets-of-t...
- dm319 9y agoI haven't read the book, but I was going to say.. 1. Not saying what you think 2. Not doing what you think is right (even if that would have been a mistake)
- maxxxxx 9y agoIn my 20s and 30s I did what I thought was right and said what I thought. Turned out I was wrong.
- felipemnoa 9y agoI would like to learn from your experiences. Care to give some examples?
- maxxxxx 9y agoInvesting in risk real estate. Starting businesses with people other people warned me about. I thought I had figured it out. Stuff like that.
- bornonline1 9y agoI never do the 1. I don't even care myself what i think and i doubt anyone else does
- dm319 9y agoI don't believe you don't care about what you think. You must have preferences and thoughts about decisions. Sure you may have a low opinion of your own thoughts, but bouncing these ideas off other people and listening to rebuttals and criticisms of your beliefs/decision-making is useful. Later you may feel you've become an expert in something - and then it is very important to express what you think, but also to listen to what other people say too. If we don't do any of this we might as well be machines :)
- dazc 9y agoMy biggest waste of time has been procrastination, simply because it's avoidable. The time I spend thinking about doing stuff while staring at a screen is hard to justify in any logical sense. The time spent commuting, standing in-line, sitting in meetings and so on may be felt like wasted time but they are activities which are, pretty much, difficult to avoid.
- JamesBarney 9y ago10 years ago I was laid back, easy to chill, hard to get work done procrastinator. And now I'm a high strung, hard to relax, always super driven work horse. And let me tell you I'd go back to being lazy in a heartbeat. I was much less successful and poorer, but happier, calmer, and more interesting. I highly recommend procrastinating.
- zokier 9y ago> I highly recommend procrastinating. That's great if you are actually able to enjoy the time spent procrastinating. But when your procrastinating ends up with me, high strung, hard to relax, hard to get work done procrastinator, then it's not that great.
- sammoorhouse 9y agoWhat happened? Did you get promoted? Start a family? Lose a bad bet with the mafia?
- akvadrako 9y agoI would bet it's just because working is addictive.
- JamesBarney 9y agoYeah, not exactly the work. But the success work brings.
- JamesBarney 9y ago
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- F_J_H 9y agoI've posted this on HN before, and it seems appropriate here as well. I read this every once in awhile, and it never fails to inspire meet to live by what Jeff Bezos calls the "regret minimization framework": If I were able to live my life anew, In the next I would try to commit more errors. I would not try to be so perfect, I would relax more. I would be more foolish than I've been, In fact, I would take few things seriously. I would be less hygienic. I would run more risks, take more vacations, contemplate more sunsets, climb more mountains, swim more rivers. I would go to more places where I've never been, I would eat more ice cream and fewer beans, I would have more real problems and less imaginary ones. I was one of those people that lived sensibly and prolifically each minute of his life; Of course I had moments of happiness. If I could go back I would try to have only good moments. Because if you didn't know, of that is life made: only of moments; Don't lose the now. I was one of those that never went anywhere without a thermometer, a hot-water bottle, an umbrella, and a parachute; If I could live again, I would travel lighter. If I could live again, I would begin to walk barefoot from the beginning of spring and I would continue barefoot until autumn ends. I would take more cart rides, contemplate more dawns, and play with more children, If I had another life ahead of me. But already you see, I am 85, and I know that I am dying. Edit: Not sure who the author is. I've seen it attributed to Jorge Luis Borges, but am pretty sure that is incorrect.
- codeulike 9y agoNice quote but it is literally survival bias. You might hear from old people wishing they'd done more, you don't hear from young people who died while climbing mountains, swimming rivers, or ...er ... eating ice cream. Which is to say: how cautious or not to be at any point in time is actually a very complex judgement. Seizing the day and living in the moment are important, but so is planning ahead, thinking about the future, practicing restraint at the right times and knowing when not to eat ice cream.
- ntsplnkv2 9y agoYou also don't hear from the people who died in a car accident after fighting with their spouse on the way to their dead-end job. You don't hear about the people who stayed at their "secure" job as opposed to joining a more risky venture, only to lose their job the next month. > how cautious or not to be at any point in time is actually a very complex judgement. I think people are taking what was said a bit too far. You can do very safe mountain climbs and see some awesome views, and safely swim rivers near shore, You can reasonably live without taking absurd risks.
- maxerickson 9y agoI wonder how much supposed wasted time ends up shaping the person that regrets it.
- code_duck 9y agoPositively or negatively?
- fizixer 9y agoThe ideas in the post as well as the comments are a mixed bag. Case in point, we hear a lot that people say they wish they had lived more in the now, or relaxed more instead of working all the time, or given more time to family. Well, in my opinion, for every such person there are probably hundreds who actually do that and as a result get nowhere in their careers. Family, especially an SO, to an extent looks up to you based on your success, typically, and more importantly, counts on your (e.g., financial) success. If you lived in the now and didn't succeed career-wise or financially, your SO probably would've left you long time ago, and you wouldn't have a family to begin with. We don't hear from those people because they're "nobodys". We like to interview successful people, who get there through workaholism more or less, and we ask them what are their regrets and they tell us they wish they hadn't worked so hard. What they're really trying to say is that they could settle for a bit less success. But there's no guarantee they would've had minimum desired success if they didn't work as hard to begin with. Such successful people are simply telling you about their desire for some ideal/fantasy world, that doesn't exist, where they spent more time with family, lived more in the now, and still achieved the minimum desirable level of success ('minimum desirable' according to their own personal/subjective standards, which is probably not less than 80-90% of their actual success, e.g., someone with $400m net worth would think he could settle for $300m and be able to spend more time with family etc, but that's not how it works). If someone interviewed any of those "nobodys" probably many of them would say they're happy with how their life went. But you, the reader of such regret lessons, have to ask yourself what do you want to do with your life. And based on that, your have to "pick" the regret-lessons that apply to you.
- Jill_the_Pill 9y ago"Family, especially an SO, to an extent looks up to you based on your success, typically, and more importantly, counts on your (e.g., financial) success. If you lived in the now and didn't succeed career-wise or financially, your SO probably would've left you long time ago, and you wouldn't have a family to begin with." Jeepers, I really disagree with this and I hope it has not been your life experience. We're happy nobodies; we settled for modest jobs with modest incomes, limited hours, and good family time. We both contribute financially and have stability if not super-duper success. And I am certain neither of us "looks up to" the other in any way based on financial or career success.
- eliben 9y agoIsn't "taking more risks" simply survivorship bias? A-priori, you weigh every risk and try to minimize your chances of getting hurt (physically, financially, etc). But in hindsight, realizing that nothing bad happened of course you can wish you had taken more risk. I wonder how folks who took risks and got seriously hurt feel about this. Do they regret taking those risks, or do they regret not taking enough?
- code_duck 9y agoMy biggest regret is not taking my health seriously when I was younger. It turned out my nagging issues with eating were more serious than I thought, the gravity having been cloaked by the gradual onset of symptoms. By the time I was finally diagnosed with celiac, I had been suffering from debilitating issues that harmed my ability to consistently work for well over a decade. The problems with celiac shaped my life and even personality in negative ways, and I’ve been left with chronic problems related to nerve damage that may never heal.
- YeGoblynQueenne 9y ago>> "You might feel dumb asking questions, but you look dumber when you don't get it because you failed to ask." That depends on having co-workers who also think this is true. In my experience, this is not guaranteed. Frex, I used to work in that one company as a junior dev, where I was expected to know everything about the internal development processes of the dev team from day 1. Well, I hadn't taken "<that_one_company> 101" in my CS course so I had no idea, e.g. which one was the development server and how to get onto it. Still, when I asked people that information, they reacted as if I had transgressed some invisible barrier and I was taking up their time for no reason. After a lot of this, I resolved to never ask anyone anything again. I mostly kept to it (one time I was sure someone had done something incredibly stupid that I didn't want to have to take the blame for, so I called them over to fix it themselves- and it turned out I was right). The upshot of this was that I learned a metric shit ton of things on my own, but of course the people who depended on my work being done quickly were constantly breathing dow my neck in rage. On the bright side, once I felt I had received enough self-training at the expense of that company, I gave myself a promotion by finding another one, where I received some of the most brilliant mentoring I could ever expect, by co-workers who were incredibly relieved that a new hire was interested in learning about some of their legacy software.
- dredmorbius 9y agoThat's far more a sign of a toxic work environment than anything else. You survived it. You didn't do yourself any particular favours, beyond survival by the experience.
- white-flame 9y agoBut there was no downside of the anecdote you described, so it's really odd that you made that resolve. While it can be uncomfortable (no downside) or expose that you don't know what you're expected to know (but fixes that quickly), in the majority of cases people are happy to explain their expertise.
- YeGoblynQueenne 9y agoThe downside was that I spent almost two years in that first company, being treated like an incompetent idiot and developing an ulcer, before I could bail out.
- pmoriarty 9y agoIf you marry, you will regret it; if you do not marry, you will also regret it; if you marry or if you do not marry, you will regret both; whether you marry or you do not marry, you will regret both. Laugh at the world's follies, you will regret it; weep over them, you will also regret it; if you laugh at the world's follies or if you weep over them, you will regret both; whether you laugh at the world's follies or you weep over them, you will regret both. Believe a girl, you will regret it; if you do not believe her, you will also regret it; if you believe a girl or you do not believe her, you will regret both; whether you believe a girl or you do not believe her, you will regret both. If you hang yourself, you will regret it; if you do not hang yourself, you will regret it; if you hang yourself or you do not hang yourself, you will regret both; whether you hang yourself or you do not hang yourself, you will regret both. This, gentlemen, is the sum of all practical wisdom. Søren Kierkegaard, Either/Or
- arbie 9y agoSo the entirety of human existence can be summed up as "Regret"?
- Hnrobert42 9y agoThis is hacker news not reddit. Not only is this speculative fluff, it's not even relevant.
- anotheryou 9y agoI know I'll regret work, but right now I don't know a good way out of it... I just see two paths: working where the money is or trying to get by with things I'm passionate about. I'm quite fine with my current job, but for it to be more of my passion, it would have to include more art and/or science and preferably not be 40h/week + commute and breaks.
- tastyface 9y agoI'm 29 years old, and the biggest blocker in my recent life has been the regret of wasted time. I left my job in late 2013 to travel and work on my own projects, but the project-making has been very slow and sporadic at best. In aggregate, I feel like I've literally wasted about 4 years of my life — just dumped into the trash — and I don't know how to deal with that fact. (At least people with failed startups have "the journey" to learn from. Not the case when you literally can't get any work done.) Part of me feels that I should go get a real job at this point, but a) I'm pretty sure I'm now behind engineers in my age group by half a decade, and b) it will feel like giving up on my ambitions. These thoughts keeps me up at night. I wish there was some magic phrase that would convince me it's not too late to catch up. If we have aspirations, how do we stop comparing ourselves to other people?
- squidi 9y agoHow did your travel go? Careers can go like the game snakes and ladders sometimes. If you can phrase the time you spent more positively I think it can work out.
- tastyface 9y agoTo be honest, I really suck at traveling. It was a great experience to live in so many different cities around Europe, but there weren't many actual activities involved. Mostly looking around, going on long walks, and eating local food. Nothing like those Instagram travelbloggers who travel densely and intensely. Frankly, I barely even talked to anyone. The years weren't a total loss, since I did release a reasonably complex tablet app (with $10k sales) plus a bunch of smaller, less profitable ones. But it took me 3-4 times as long to develop them as it would have any competent engineer, at least based on the stuff that gets posted to HN. I still want to keep working on myself and break through to the other side of productivity, but sometimes it feels like I'm just circling the drain. My personality is such that I can lift my head one day and find that entire months have disappeared out from under me.
- jononor 9y agoDifferent people appreciate different things and to different degrees. What I really enjoy you might very well hate. So it does not make much sense to compare your life (and achievements) to that of others - there is no objective metric to go by! Next time you stay awake, go get a piece of paper and pen, and think back on your travels and current life. What things have you learned that you enjoy doing (especially things that surprise you)? What things have your learned that you don't enjoy (especially things that are often considered desirable/good)? From there you might be able to come up with some guidelines for how to chose your path forward. And you will probably realize that your traveling years has taught you a lot about the most important thing - yourself!