7 ms·

> It was a junk show and I quickly learned that the best approach was to continue writing software and pay pros to do the job. I feel personally attacked. Real

> It was a junk show and I quickly learned that the best approach was to continue writing software and pay pros to do the job. I feel personally attacked. Really though, I wonder how many things are on my 'Someday Maybe' list, that really I should just make more money to accomplish and/or find a youtube subscription that satisfies the urge to tinker on a particular topic.

bwb 6y ago
I think you are being funny :), but just wanted to chime in and say I think what he is saying is that he didn't enjoy it, so he would rather do something he likes and pay someone to do what he does not :).
- kyleblarson 6y ago
  That's definitely true, but I also realized that the quality of construction would never be close to the level it could be if I used a contractor. I'm a stickler for quality so it would have driven me crazy. I did somewhat enjoy the electrical work and have done some more of that on our house. If I can partially retire any time soon I'd love to apprentice with a master electrician and do some work on my own. There has been a huge building boom in our valley the last couple of years and most of the contractors and trades are booked out to 2022 for big jobs.
  - mtnGoat 6y ago
    You might not need to wait that long. I know union electricians in NCW making quite a bit more than most software engineers i know. Some are clearing 6 figures their second year.
MikeTheGreat 6y ago
> find a youtube subscription that satisfies the urge to tinker on a particular topic. I think my life got measurably better when I pivoted from "I want to do this myself" towards "It's just as satisfying to watch someone else do this". Downhill extreme mountain biking is really cool. And fun to watch. And expensive. And requires much more physical fitness than I've got. And dangerous (esp. given my physical fitness :). )
- sillysaurusx 6y ago
  I think my life got measurably better when I pivoted from "I want to do this myself" towards "It's just as satisfying to watch someone else do this". So true! Works for a lot of things. It's why I stopped playing dota.
  - thefounder 6y ago
    Ha ha! I bet you spend less time warching than you would spend playing so that is another big win(for me at least).
  - screye 6y ago
    Stopping dota was the single most important decision of my life. It is an incredible game, that consumes an incredible amount of mind-space even when you're not playing it. Dota - the worst 'awesome thing' that can happen to your life.
    - grogenaut 6y ago
      Maybe the reason I was able to get to 775 MMR was because it occupied 0 of my mind-space when I wasn't playing it :)
  - pseudobry 6y ago
    Have you watched https://www.youtube.com/c/Rizpol https://www.youtube.com/c/Rizpol ?
  - oblio 6y ago
    You just opened Dota Players Anonymous, it seems :-))
  - TimSchumann 6y ago
    Ok, now I'm _really_ feeling targeted here.
- lowdose 6y ago
  You underestimate your bodies strength. There are people of 98 years that do a full triathlon, so there is no excuse for you not to able to do that. You can do anything when you put your 10k hours in, but not on the first try. If mountain biking is your dream buy a Trek with electric motor in it. They can give you extra lift till you accelerate to 75 km/hour with a dongle of $120. Instant pro biking experience without much practicing. You are too young to accept any physical limitations of your body. Navy Seals talk about that being tired is just an emotion like feeling happy. Its all about your mindset.
atourgates 6y ago
If you have the opportunity (and can find contractors willing to work with you), picking out parts of a project to DIY is a good way to build skills, and save $$s. We're building a shop. I've contracted most of the build out, but found that I could save $20,000+ by DIY'ing the radiant heat portion myself. Took about a days worth of planning and research, another to lay down the pipe before the floor was poured, and another to hook everything up. Honestly, the cost-differential was enough to make me think that I should start a company that installs radiant heating. I can't think of many other professions where I could clear $20,000 for 3-days of work. I'm planning to DIY the solar-install on the same shop here in a couple of months, we'll see if that's as much of success story.
- Spooky23 6y ago
  It’s funny how when you’re young you it’s hard to learn about these types of things. My wife went to school with a guy who didn’t like college. He took a summer job on a road crew, learned how to use an excavator and got hooked. Dropped out, saved up, and bought a used dump truck, which basically made him. Started out hauling stuff and then got into water/sewer work and excavation. He’s up to about 20 trucks a decade later, and pays the bills with the sewer work. He leveraged the assets he had (trucks, diggers) and won demolition contracts — they make money on demolition. Like $75-200k for an emergency demolition if they can get there in 90m.
  - hourislate 6y ago
    Have a buddy who got a Finance Degree. Was hired into a large financial/invest firm in a great position and salary. 1 -2 years and couldn't take it, quit to go drywall with his two older brothers. When he quit his job the parents wept. He was the first kid to go/finish University in the family. It went from 3 guys hanging board to a 40-50 million construction company in 2 decades.
    - oigursh 6y ago
      What's the company?
LeifCarrotson 6y ago
Beware of falling into the trap of replacing everything on your "Someday maybe" list with Youtube subscriptions. Did that for a while, don't have much to show for 2017. Watching someone make/do cool stuff and put it on the Internet satisfies similar dopamine reward functions as actually doing it yourself, with a lot less effort. Except you didn't actually do it, you watched someone else do it. Same with actually making a "Someday maybe" list, writing down the goal feels like it's something you're accomplishing even though it's not actually started yet. When you look back on your summer/year, what will you have accomplished? What skills will you have developed? If you don't really value a process/skill, but just want the material result (i.e. a cabin), pay a pro for it. If you just have an itch that needs to be scratched, watch someone else do it on Youtube. If you want it to be a part of who you are, pruning your list by moving items to the former two strategies should leave you enough time to develop it yourself.
- foobiekr 6y ago
  As someone rapidly approaching "old", this is the exact mode of thinking I now occupy much of the time. It's awful to think of how many summers I've passed working on code or, worse, powerpoints and documents, in a 71F office. I know quite a few very senior people who are proper old, and when I mentioned this to one of them, his response was, "at this point I'm glad to be alive, and no one glad to be alive has time for that stuff." This was just before he retired.
cercatrova 6y ago
Do people really watch YouTube or something and feel like the accomplished whatever is shown in the video? I am asking with full earnestness as I've always viewed such r/ArtisanVideos type videos as pure entertainment.
- saltcured 6y ago
  I think it might be more accurate to say that some people have more trouble distinguishing mild curiosity from "I should do that thing." And I don't mean that in a demeaning way at all. If anything, such folks have found a middle path in life. At opposite extremes, you have folks who actually have to go do all those things versus those who can squelch their own interest in nearly anything by merely thinking about it for a few moments...

bwb 6y ago

I think you are being funny :), but just wanted to chime in and say I think what he is saying is that he didn't enjoy it, so he would rather do something he likes and pay someone to do what he does not :).

kyleblarson 6y ago
That's definitely true, but I also realized that the quality of construction would never be close to the level it could be if I used a contractor. I'm a stickler for quality so it would have driven me crazy. I did somewhat enjoy the electrical work and have done some more of that on our house. If I can partially retire any time soon I'd love to apprentice with a master electrician and do some work on my own. There has been a huge building boom in our valley the last couple of years and most of the contractors and trades are booked out to 2022 for big jobs.
- mtnGoat 6y ago
  You might not need to wait that long. I know union electricians in NCW making quite a bit more than most software engineers i know. Some are clearing 6 figures their second year.

MikeTheGreat 6y ago

> find a youtube subscription that satisfies the urge to tinker on a particular topic. I think my life got measurably better when I pivoted from "I want to do this myself" towards "It's just as satisfying to watch someone else do this". Downhill extreme mountain biking is really cool. And fun to watch. And expensive. And requires much more physical fitness than I've got. And dangerous (esp. given my physical fitness :). )

sillysaurusx 6y ago
I think my life got measurably better when I pivoted from "I want to do this myself" towards "It's just as satisfying to watch someone else do this". So true! Works for a lot of things. It's why I stopped playing dota.
- thefounder 6y ago
  Ha ha! I bet you spend less time warching than you would spend playing so that is another big win(for me at least).
- screye 6y ago
  Stopping dota was the single most important decision of my life. It is an incredible game, that consumes an incredible amount of mind-space even when you're not playing it. Dota - the worst 'awesome thing' that can happen to your life.
  - grogenaut 6y ago
    Maybe the reason I was able to get to 775 MMR was because it occupied 0 of my mind-space when I wasn't playing it :)
- pseudobry 6y ago
  Have you watched https://www.youtube.com/c/Rizpol https://www.youtube.com/c/Rizpol ?
- oblio 6y ago
  You just opened Dota Players Anonymous, it seems :-))
- TimSchumann 6y ago
  Ok, now I'm _really_ feeling targeted here.
lowdose 6y ago
You underestimate your bodies strength. There are people of 98 years that do a full triathlon, so there is no excuse for you not to able to do that. You can do anything when you put your 10k hours in, but not on the first try. If mountain biking is your dream buy a Trek with electric motor in it. They can give you extra lift till you accelerate to 75 km/hour with a dongle of $120. Instant pro biking experience without much practicing. You are too young to accept any physical limitations of your body. Navy Seals talk about that being tired is just an emotion like feeling happy. Its all about your mindset.

atourgates 6y ago

If you have the opportunity (and can find contractors willing to work with you), picking out parts of a project to DIY is a good way to build skills, and save $$s. We're building a shop. I've contracted most of the build out, but found that I could save $20,000+ by DIY'ing the radiant heat portion myself. Took about a days worth of planning and research, another to lay down the pipe before the floor was poured, and another to hook everything up. Honestly, the cost-differential was enough to make me think that I should start a company that installs radiant heating. I can't think of many other professions where I could clear $20,000 for 3-days of work. I'm planning to DIY the solar-install on the same shop here in a couple of months, we'll see if that's as much of success story.

Spooky23 6y ago
It’s funny how when you’re young you it’s hard to learn about these types of things. My wife went to school with a guy who didn’t like college. He took a summer job on a road crew, learned how to use an excavator and got hooked. Dropped out, saved up, and bought a used dump truck, which basically made him. Started out hauling stuff and then got into water/sewer work and excavation. He’s up to about 20 trucks a decade later, and pays the bills with the sewer work. He leveraged the assets he had (trucks, diggers) and won demolition contracts — they make money on demolition. Like $75-200k for an emergency demolition if they can get there in 90m.
- hourislate 6y ago
  Have a buddy who got a Finance Degree. Was hired into a large financial/invest firm in a great position and salary. 1 -2 years and couldn't take it, quit to go drywall with his two older brothers. When he quit his job the parents wept. He was the first kid to go/finish University in the family. It went from 3 guys hanging board to a 40-50 million construction company in 2 decades.
  - oigursh 6y ago
    What's the company?

LeifCarrotson 6y ago

Beware of falling into the trap of replacing everything on your "Someday maybe" list with Youtube subscriptions. Did that for a while, don't have much to show for 2017. Watching someone make/do cool stuff and put it on the Internet satisfies similar dopamine reward functions as actually doing it yourself, with a lot less effort. Except you didn't actually do it, you watched someone else do it. Same with actually making a "Someday maybe" list, writing down the goal feels like it's something you're accomplishing even though it's not actually started yet. When you look back on your summer/year, what will you have accomplished? What skills will you have developed? If you don't really value a process/skill, but just want the material result (i.e. a cabin), pay a pro for it. If you just have an itch that needs to be scratched, watch someone else do it on Youtube. If you want it to be a part of who you are, pruning your list by moving items to the former two strategies should leave you enough time to develop it yourself.

foobiekr 6y ago
As someone rapidly approaching "old", this is the exact mode of thinking I now occupy much of the time. It's awful to think of how many summers I've passed working on code or, worse, powerpoints and documents, in a 71F office. I know quite a few very senior people who are proper old, and when I mentioned this to one of them, his response was, "at this point I'm glad to be alive, and no one glad to be alive has time for that stuff." This was just before he retired.

cercatrova 6y ago

Do people really watch YouTube or something and feel like the accomplished whatever is shown in the video? I am asking with full earnestness as I've always viewed such r/ArtisanVideos type videos as pure entertainment.

saltcured 6y ago
I think it might be more accurate to say that some people have more trouble distinguishing mild curiosity from "I should do that thing." And I don't mean that in a demeaning way at all. If anything, such folks have found a middle path in life. At opposite extremes, you have folks who actually have to go do all those things versus those who can squelch their own interest in nearly anything by merely thinking about it for a few moments...