7 ms·

I'll be honest here, I found this list mostly banal and also not really actionable. I think anyone could generate a similar list with a few Google searches and

I'll be honest here, I found this list mostly banal and also not really actionable. I think anyone could generate a similar list with a few Google searches and many of these tips I have seen written by other others and this guy has just re-phrased them. Basically generic self-help. I think a better option is to choose one particular thing you want to improve in yourself and have a focused plan to work on it. However this takes work and effort that most will never do. Reading a big list of 50 sentences will make zero difference to your life.

lostcolony 5y ago
A little ironic that you ding this list for being banal, not really actionable, and basically generic self-help, and then follow that with - >> I think a better option is to choose one particular thing you want to improve in yourself and have a focused plan to work on it.
- saberience 5y ago
  I could write an essay on this topic but it's far too complex of a topic to summarize in a quick comment. But for example, quickly: One thing I personally do is journal every day (yes every day) before I do anything else. That is, I get up, grab a coffee and write roughly 1000 words. I will choose certain topics on which to journal and focus on these for a few weeks, for example: looking at how my relationships are going, how I interact with people, where I find myself energised and working well with others, and where I'm getting annoyed or frustrated or otherwise have some issues. I try and increase my levels of consciousness around certain topics in my life to gain a lasting impact and changed and improved behaviors. I use certain techniques like sentence completions (thanks Nathaniel Branden!) and also asking myself provocative questions (e.g. "What did today's experience touch in my history?") to gain learning and insight in certain areas of my life. The point being that to genuinely CHANGE as a person (in my belief), reading a list of snappy aphorisms is useless, you need to change your habits, daily routines, you need repitition and work. Sincere self reflection is difficult, as is changing the habits and brain patterns of a lifetime.
  - motoxpro 5y ago
    I think they meant it was ironic because you criticized the list as generic and then gave generic advice yourself. Which obviously you don't find generic as you say "it's far too complex of a topic to summarize in a quick comment". The irony is that you weren't willing to think deeply about any of the 103 "generic" items on the list, hence you got nothing out of it.
    - lostcolony 5y ago
      Yep, it was purely calling out the irony I saw in that. I in fact I completely agree with the criticisms, though I personally find high level things like the list helpful at times because it causes me to think or provides me a heuristic to engage with. "When you lead, your real job is to create more leaders, not more followers" for instance, is not directly actionable, but it's a solid summation of and validation of a lot of the more tactical decisions, risks, and investments in people I've made as a manager. It's not directly actionable, but it succinctly puts into words a series of tradeoffs I've intentionally made in the past, which is helpful. Others on the list -are- directly actionable; for instance, I -did- use it as an excuse to go pull up a city tourist guide...and I found a few restaurants I now intend to check out, including a Spanish one with a Flamenco show that my wife will probably love, that I didn't even know existed. I actually find specific advice very hit or miss (mostly miss); I've seen similar comments on journaling in the past, and I haven't found it helpful for me. Whereas anything I can hold in my head (and aphorisms fit, if as I thought about them I found them to hold weight, rather than just being truly empty statements, tautologies or statements of empty optimism that are meant to make you feel good rather than influence a decision) means it can pop up when suitably relevant and influence my behavior. For instance, with relationships, I missed my grandfather's funeral. Not a big deal to me at the time; he was dead, and I'd get to see my grandmother a few month's later at Christmas time when the semester was over. Except...she passed the day I was supposed to drive down. And it further drove a wedge between me and members of my family (that initially was there due to circumstances beyond my control) that I've only really begun to overcome in the past few years. All of that means I periodically, at random, have "what relationships are you neglecting?" pop into my head, as well as in response to certain occurrences (weddings and funerals are always a "yes" from me now, no matter how much of an inconvenience it is), and that implies action; "Oh, I haven't heard from my cousin in a while, let me just check in with her", etc.
sandgiant 5y ago
That's odd. I found almost every point on that list immediately actionable. - Use the work "but" less often (I can practice this today with my partner). - Start looking for a new job if you work for someone you can't see yourself becoming (I can start looking for ads right away). - Spend more time with fewer people (I could make a phone call right now). - Try to forgive more often (there a conflicts in my life that I could get out of right now if I could forgive them). - Criticize in private, praise in public (I'm guilty of the opposite at work, this is a good reminder that I should try to improve). I'm not sure that "banal" is a good measure for whether something is important or not. I often ignore banal things because I forget, or don't want to remember. Having a list might actually help. Although I agree that having a list of banalities is not enough to make a difference. You definitely have to put in work as well. Thanks for reminding me.
- yobbo 5y ago
  People have different actionspaces. (Which seems obvious, but this is the reason that lots of advice sounds banal.)
  - tener 5y ago
    Care to elaborate? I'm curious about what exactly you mean by that.
    - zdbrandon 5y ago
      The same piece of advice can be life changing, completely irrelevant, or anywhere in between; depending on the life the recipient has lived before receiving it. So it’s natural that some readers will scroll through any list of advice and find little of use, while others are able to put the words to good use.
    - yobbo 5y ago
      The actionspace of super mario is {left, right, down, up} X { jump, shoot }. Meanwhile, lots of advice is "first kill those turtles, go through the castle, and save the princess. easy". "Only have good bosses ... Only work for role models" ... ? Goals should be communicated in terms of end states, but everyone already agrees on the goals. Advise needs to be actionable.
pauletienney 5y ago
Sometime a "generic self-help" wisdom strikes you and stays in you forever. When I was a young teenager my dad told me "If you a give a no, always give a yes after". He meant you always have to propose an alternative after you rejected a proposition. I have no idea why but this simple sentence became a strong principle for me. It influenced hundreds of decisions I made and my behavior in general. There can be true actionnable value in those wisdom pieces.
Dave3of5 5y ago
I agree it's most banal nonsense and none of these are backed up with an explanation which is actually the interesting part. You learn as a person when you understand why you should do something not just blindly following a list of advice.
- tener 5y ago
  Do you require a full-blown argument for every piece of advice or information you ever hear? You are supposed to weigh it yourself and see if you find it applicable to your situation or not. I think this list is great exactly for this reason: it gives you material to meditate on. I don't want any arguments for or against it, figuring those out is part of forming an opinion about it.
  - Dave3of5 4y ago
    > Do you require a full-blown argument for every piece of advice or information you ever hear? There's a lot of misinformation and opinions stated as facts on the internet. So yes for opinions / advice given online I tend to require an explanation. This list has some questionable advice an example: "Dont purchase extra insurance if you are renting a car with a credit card" This is false in the UK. Over here that's wrong advice to think you CC provider gives insurance. If that's in the US then it's not always true as well and even then comes with caveat's. I think in general that's true about almost everything on this list.
- wildmanx 5y ago
  > You learn as a person when you understand why you should do something not just blindly following a list of advice. So you are trying to drive that point home by adding to that list with this statement? I read this list more as some inspiration -- most of the points were mostly "meh, sure" and won't stick, but there were a few food-for-thought points in there that I'll likely remember here and there. If that's similar for most people reading the list, it's quite a success. (Doesn't have to be the same few points for everybody!)
superasn 5y ago
I found the same too. I think GPT 3 could write a similar list with the right prompt. It is too long and it would have been better if it was of 3 ot 5 most important items than a long list of half of which sound like cliches. Regardless one thing I do look forward to is the HN discussion here with people giving their own points. I do hope to learn a thing or two from that.
trellad 5y ago
It's also frustrating because some of these are a tiny amount of effort (take the stairs) and some are huge daunting changes in your life that will give you nonstop anxiety (what you do on your bad days is more important than what you do on your good days).
DeathArrow 5y ago
I've read some of his advices before. He does not pretend to be the original author. Everybody is free to find something useful in that list, or not. I did have some use of his advices. While I've read this year's list and the lists for the years before, I was meditating about the advices. Thinking if they will work and if so, in what context they will work. This isn't the first list of the advices I've read. Why do I think that it might be valuable? Because this man verified these in his long life. It's not a quick list compiled using Google to make an SEO optimized article. Most of the bits aren't very profound and they can occure to anyone with common sense and a bit of experience. But while any of us can think of them, we generally don't occupy our minds with philosophy of life. And even if we do, and come up with something useful, chances are we don't act on it. So, reading something useful, and thinking on it, might give us a chance to act on it when we find ourselves in that situation. Instead of acting impulsively and subconsciously, we can take a few seconds, think and maybe remind what KK said and try that.

lostcolony 5y ago

A little ironic that you ding this list for being banal, not really actionable, and basically generic self-help, and then follow that with - >> I think a better option is to choose one particular thing you want to improve in yourself and have a focused plan to work on it.

saberience 5y ago
I could write an essay on this topic but it's far too complex of a topic to summarize in a quick comment. But for example, quickly: One thing I personally do is journal every day (yes every day) before I do anything else. That is, I get up, grab a coffee and write roughly 1000 words. I will choose certain topics on which to journal and focus on these for a few weeks, for example: looking at how my relationships are going, how I interact with people, where I find myself energised and working well with others, and where I'm getting annoyed or frustrated or otherwise have some issues. I try and increase my levels of consciousness around certain topics in my life to gain a lasting impact and changed and improved behaviors. I use certain techniques like sentence completions (thanks Nathaniel Branden!) and also asking myself provocative questions (e.g. "What did today's experience touch in my history?") to gain learning and insight in certain areas of my life. The point being that to genuinely CHANGE as a person (in my belief), reading a list of snappy aphorisms is useless, you need to change your habits, daily routines, you need repitition and work. Sincere self reflection is difficult, as is changing the habits and brain patterns of a lifetime.
- motoxpro 5y ago
  I think they meant it was ironic because you criticized the list as generic and then gave generic advice yourself. Which obviously you don't find generic as you say "it's far too complex of a topic to summarize in a quick comment". The irony is that you weren't willing to think deeply about any of the 103 "generic" items on the list, hence you got nothing out of it.
  - lostcolony 5y ago
    Yep, it was purely calling out the irony I saw in that. I in fact I completely agree with the criticisms, though I personally find high level things like the list helpful at times because it causes me to think or provides me a heuristic to engage with. "When you lead, your real job is to create more leaders, not more followers" for instance, is not directly actionable, but it's a solid summation of and validation of a lot of the more tactical decisions, risks, and investments in people I've made as a manager. It's not directly actionable, but it succinctly puts into words a series of tradeoffs I've intentionally made in the past, which is helpful. Others on the list -are- directly actionable; for instance, I -did- use it as an excuse to go pull up a city tourist guide...and I found a few restaurants I now intend to check out, including a Spanish one with a Flamenco show that my wife will probably love, that I didn't even know existed. I actually find specific advice very hit or miss (mostly miss); I've seen similar comments on journaling in the past, and I haven't found it helpful for me. Whereas anything I can hold in my head (and aphorisms fit, if as I thought about them I found them to hold weight, rather than just being truly empty statements, tautologies or statements of empty optimism that are meant to make you feel good rather than influence a decision) means it can pop up when suitably relevant and influence my behavior. For instance, with relationships, I missed my grandfather's funeral. Not a big deal to me at the time; he was dead, and I'd get to see my grandmother a few month's later at Christmas time when the semester was over. Except...she passed the day I was supposed to drive down. And it further drove a wedge between me and members of my family (that initially was there due to circumstances beyond my control) that I've only really begun to overcome in the past few years. All of that means I periodically, at random, have "what relationships are you neglecting?" pop into my head, as well as in response to certain occurrences (weddings and funerals are always a "yes" from me now, no matter how much of an inconvenience it is), and that implies action; "Oh, I haven't heard from my cousin in a while, let me just check in with her", etc.

sandgiant 5y ago

That's odd. I found almost every point on that list immediately actionable. - Use the work "but" less often (I can practice this today with my partner). - Start looking for a new job if you work for someone you can't see yourself becoming (I can start looking for ads right away). - Spend more time with fewer people (I could make a phone call right now). - Try to forgive more often (there a conflicts in my life that I could get out of right now if I could forgive them). - Criticize in private, praise in public (I'm guilty of the opposite at work, this is a good reminder that I should try to improve). I'm not sure that "banal" is a good measure for whether something is important or not. I often ignore banal things because I forget, or don't want to remember. Having a list might actually help. Although I agree that having a list of banalities is not enough to make a difference. You definitely have to put in work as well. Thanks for reminding me.

yobbo 5y ago
People have different actionspaces. (Which seems obvious, but this is the reason that lots of advice sounds banal.)
- tener 5y ago
  Care to elaborate? I'm curious about what exactly you mean by that.
  - zdbrandon 5y ago
    The same piece of advice can be life changing, completely irrelevant, or anywhere in between; depending on the life the recipient has lived before receiving it. So it’s natural that some readers will scroll through any list of advice and find little of use, while others are able to put the words to good use.
  - yobbo 5y ago
    The actionspace of super mario is {left, right, down, up} X { jump, shoot }. Meanwhile, lots of advice is "first kill those turtles, go through the castle, and save the princess. easy". "Only have good bosses ... Only work for role models" ... ? Goals should be communicated in terms of end states, but everyone already agrees on the goals. Advise needs to be actionable.

pauletienney 5y ago

Sometime a "generic self-help" wisdom strikes you and stays in you forever. When I was a young teenager my dad told me "If you a give a no, always give a yes after". He meant you always have to propose an alternative after you rejected a proposition. I have no idea why but this simple sentence became a strong principle for me. It influenced hundreds of decisions I made and my behavior in general. There can be true actionnable value in those wisdom pieces.

Dave3of5 5y ago

I agree it's most banal nonsense and none of these are backed up with an explanation which is actually the interesting part. You learn as a person when you understand why you should do something not just blindly following a list of advice.

tener 5y ago
Do you require a full-blown argument for every piece of advice or information you ever hear? You are supposed to weigh it yourself and see if you find it applicable to your situation or not. I think this list is great exactly for this reason: it gives you material to meditate on. I don't want any arguments for or against it, figuring those out is part of forming an opinion about it.
- Dave3of5 4y ago
  > Do you require a full-blown argument for every piece of advice or information you ever hear? There's a lot of misinformation and opinions stated as facts on the internet. So yes for opinions / advice given online I tend to require an explanation. This list has some questionable advice an example: "Dont purchase extra insurance if you are renting a car with a credit card" This is false in the UK. Over here that's wrong advice to think you CC provider gives insurance. If that's in the US then it's not always true as well and even then comes with caveat's. I think in general that's true about almost everything on this list.
wildmanx 5y ago
> You learn as a person when you understand why you should do something not just blindly following a list of advice. So you are trying to drive that point home by adding to that list with this statement? I read this list more as some inspiration -- most of the points were mostly "meh, sure" and won't stick, but there were a few food-for-thought points in there that I'll likely remember here and there. If that's similar for most people reading the list, it's quite a success. (Doesn't have to be the same few points for everybody!)

superasn 5y ago

I found the same too. I think GPT 3 could write a similar list with the right prompt. It is too long and it would have been better if it was of 3 ot 5 most important items than a long list of half of which sound like cliches. Regardless one thing I do look forward to is the HN discussion here with people giving their own points. I do hope to learn a thing or two from that.

trellad 5y ago

It's also frustrating because some of these are a tiny amount of effort (take the stairs) and some are huge daunting changes in your life that will give you nonstop anxiety (what you do on your bad days is more important than what you do on your good days).

DeathArrow 5y ago

I've read some of his advices before. He does not pretend to be the original author. Everybody is free to find something useful in that list, or not. I did have some use of his advices. While I've read this year's list and the lists for the years before, I was meditating about the advices. Thinking if they will work and if so, in what context they will work. This isn't the first list of the advices I've read. Why do I think that it might be valuable? Because this man verified these in his long life. It's not a quick list compiled using Google to make an SEO optimized article. Most of the bits aren't very profound and they can occure to anyone with common sense and a bit of experience. But while any of us can think of them, we generally don't occupy our minds with philosophy of life. And even if we do, and come up with something useful, chances are we don't act on it. So, reading something useful, and thinking on it, might give us a chance to act on it when we find ourselves in that situation. Instead of acting impulsively and subconsciously, we can take a few seconds, think and maybe remind what KK said and try that.