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The 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

The 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.
somestag 9y ago
Yeah, I think there's a certain fallacy going on with respect to uncertainty. It's like studying for exams. Sometimes in school I studied for 10 hours for exams that turned out to be trivially easy. I barely needed to study at all. I could have gotten more sleep, worked out, practiced some other skill... I would have been a much happier person if I'd spent those hours on something other than school. But then other times I studied for 10 hours for an exam, and when I saw the questions I was kicking myself for not putting in just another hour or two. The exam covered material just barely beyond what I studied, and my grade would have improved dramatically if I'd only put in a little more effort. When I put in long hours at my job--which I don't always do--I'm not doing so because I'm mistakenly believing that working is more important than relationships or relaxation; I'm working long hours because I'm unsure about the future and I want to make sure I have some minimum level of security. Sometimes I look back and those hours feel unnecessary, but other times I realize how lucky I was to have put in all that work. That said, I still think there's a lesson here. We should constantly step back and ask ourselves what we really want to be doing. Sometimes that means working less, and sometimes that means working more. Just because we worked 60 hours last week doesn't mean we need to work 60 hours this week, and by the same token we shouldn't get complacent just because things are going well and there's no immediate need for more effort. Some of my best decisions in life have been when I completely re-evaluated where I was at and decided to do something completely different. Sometimes that meant pursuing a passion, but other times it meant giving up on a passion to do something realistic.

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.

somestag 9y ago

Yeah, I think there's a certain fallacy going on with respect to uncertainty. It's like studying for exams. Sometimes in school I studied for 10 hours for exams that turned out to be trivially easy. I barely needed to study at all. I could have gotten more sleep, worked out, practiced some other skill... I would have been a much happier person if I'd spent those hours on something other than school. But then other times I studied for 10 hours for an exam, and when I saw the questions I was kicking myself for not putting in just another hour or two. The exam covered material just barely beyond what I studied, and my grade would have improved dramatically if I'd only put in a little more effort. When I put in long hours at my job--which I don't always do--I'm not doing so because I'm mistakenly believing that working is more important than relationships or relaxation; I'm working long hours because I'm unsure about the future and I want to make sure I have some minimum level of security. Sometimes I look back and those hours feel unnecessary, but other times I realize how lucky I was to have put in all that work. That said, I still think there's a lesson here. We should constantly step back and ask ourselves what we really want to be doing. Sometimes that means working less, and sometimes that means working more. Just because we worked 60 hours last week doesn't mean we need to work 60 hours this week, and by the same token we shouldn't get complacent just because things are going well and there's no immediate need for more effort. Some of my best decisions in life have been when I completely re-evaluated where I was at and decided to do something completely different. Sometimes that meant pursuing a passion, but other times it meant giving up on a passion to do something realistic.