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IMO, the best PG essay says the same thing differently http://www.paulgraham.com/vb.html http://www.paulgraham.com/vb.html. It has had a profound impact on how

IMO, the best PG essay says the same thing differently http://www.paulgraham.com/vb.html http://www.paulgraham.com/vb.html. It has had a profound impact on how I think about everything, but especially the time I spend with our now 1 year old. I'd recomend everyone read it, and internalize that you only get 52 weekends in a year. You also only get a handful of each holiday with your kids. His words are better than mine, and I encourage everyone to take the 2 minutes needed to read the essay, then implement a life strategy that gets you home with your family more.

jodrellblank 7y ago
> And while it's impossible to say what is a lot or a little of a continuous quantity like time, 8 is not a lot of something. If you had a handful of 8 peanuts, or a shelf of 8 books to choose from, the quantity would definitely seem limited, no matter what your lifespan was. And yet if you had a handful of 8 loaves of bread, it would be a lot of bread, if you had 8 luxurious chocolate truffles it would be more than you want to eat in one go. If you had 8 shelves of books the quantity would still "seem limited". If you stepped outside and there were 8 cars on your driveway, that would be a lot of cars and a long driveway, if none of them started and you had to walk 8 miles to the train station, that would be a long walk, if you went to the dentist and needed 8 fillings that would be a lot of fillings, and if there was a creature as tall as 8 humans, that would be a long horse. Just choosing that the units of measure are peanuts and books, is not enough to establish that 8 is a small quantity, objectively and unquestionably. Everything is relative, everything is viewed in comparison to something different. Peanuts compared to how filling they are, books compared to .. how much choice you feel you deserve, outside of reading time. 8 books is quite a lot of reading time. If you decide that 8 Christmasses is a paucity of Christmas, where did that decision come from? Why is it not enough, and how many would be enough? (and is the answer an eternal "just one more"?) If you have $8 but you want to spend $10 then $8 is not much money. If you have $8 but you want things which are ten a penny, $8 is a lot of things. If we can't control how much we have, but we can choose what we want, why do we so often choose to want more than we have, then feel annoyed at the disinterested universe for being so mean to us?

jodrellblank 7y ago

> And while it's impossible to say what is a lot or a little of a continuous quantity like time, 8 is not a lot of something. If you had a handful of 8 peanuts, or a shelf of 8 books to choose from, the quantity would definitely seem limited, no matter what your lifespan was. And yet if you had a handful of 8 loaves of bread, it would be a lot of bread, if you had 8 luxurious chocolate truffles it would be more than you want to eat in one go. If you had 8 shelves of books the quantity would still "seem limited". If you stepped outside and there were 8 cars on your driveway, that would be a lot of cars and a long driveway, if none of them started and you had to walk 8 miles to the train station, that would be a long walk, if you went to the dentist and needed 8 fillings that would be a lot of fillings, and if there was a creature as tall as 8 humans, that would be a long horse. Just choosing that the units of measure are peanuts and books, is not enough to establish that 8 is a small quantity, objectively and unquestionably. Everything is relative, everything is viewed in comparison to something different. Peanuts compared to how filling they are, books compared to .. how much choice you feel you deserve, outside of reading time. 8 books is quite a lot of reading time. If you decide that 8 Christmasses is a paucity of Christmas, where did that decision come from? Why is it not enough, and how many would be enough? (and is the answer an eternal "just one more"?) If you have $8 but you want to spend $10 then $8 is not much money. If you have $8 but you want things which are ten a penny, $8 is a lot of things. If we can't control how much we have, but we can choose what we want, why do we so often choose to want more than we have, then feel annoyed at the disinterested universe for being so mean to us?