55 ms·

Life is not short

• netr0ute 4y ago
  I like the article's perspective, but there's a rub. The Juanes song "La Vida Es Un Ratico" seems to say that despite the best efforts to not waste time, life is still short (the "ratico" part). And that was in 2007! Unfortunately, I don't think there's much overlap between those on HN and those listening to Colombian rock.
  • hebrox 4y ago
    They used this song in Spanish class I took in Medellin. I think I’m not the only one who spent some time there and spends some time here on HN. Don’t underestimate that Venn diagram :) (Does early Shakira count?)
• chaps 4y ago
  Hm. I dunno about others, but whenever I hear someone say that, what I hear is that sections of our life are short. Childhood is short, teenage years are short, early twenties are short, etc etc. Cumulatively it's "long", but that misses a lot of the core point.
  • czbond 4y ago
    Fair point - the sections we have to adjust to an be short, relative to how we figure them out. For example, one has to figure out how to be a man in some period of 15-23yro. Then live that. Then if one has kids, how to wholly be responsible for others in that 20's-30's range. Then wholly how to let them go, and then potentially to help one's parents after that. All while balancing self, identity, aspirations, dreams, adulting, and placing food on the table. Each period is short, in a long overarching "cumulative years"
    • BLKNSLVR 4y ago
      > potentially to help one's parents after that Tangential discussion: I have two teenaged kids, both my parents are still alive and healthy enough to look after themselves and go on overseas holidays every couple of years (pending COVID), and both of my grandmothers are still alive although neither able to look after themselves. We utilise both my parents and my wife's parents to help with school drop-offs / pickups and appointments every now and then, plus my parents have to also look after their respective mothers, including dealing with their financials and moving "homes" and what to do with their belongings etc. My mother, bless, complains about having to look after their mother's. This is a little coarse, but also understandable in that they're in their mid-70's and struggle enough with their own health nevermind the power of attorney kinds of issues required of looking after their elderly parents. Both my parents are getting noticeably older, decreasingly able to deal with their own issues. With an aging population, retirement isn't what it used to be. Retirement is ferrying grandkids and juggling not-yet-deceased estates, whilst having an increasingly full calendar of appointments with doctors and specialists to keep your own machine running. There's a potential scenario that could play out in only a few years where I could be responsible for both my parents and my grandmothers' welfare at a time my children will be in late high-school. I'm not being woe-is-me, I'm trying to explain what 'normal' may already look like for Gen X-ish, and how different it may be from expectations.
  • BLKNSLVR 4y ago
    The shortest period I've experienced is pre-10-years old kids, when they're in that beautiful unsuppressed-by-societal-norms personality discovery mode. I took lots of home video footage of my two "in their natural habitat" and goddam I miss being in the midst of it, and goddam they had a great time being free to be themselves. Everything is short when it's over. Even pain.
• nnoitra 4y ago
  Yes it is despite what seneca says. People obsessed about not wasting their lives are actually the ones that waste it.
  • simmerup 4y ago
    I suspect the only way to guarantee you’ve wasted a moment is to spend it in some unneeded state of distress. The more moments you spend worrying about whether you’re spending the moment well, the more waste accumulates
    • nnoitra 4y ago
      Yes and if naturally wired to worry ceaselessly you need significant practice to overcome it. This world will teach you everything except how to be peaceful which is the most valuable skill of all.
• yieldcrv 4y ago
  > Everyone complains about how short life is, but that perspective is broken. Life is not short. The real issue is that we waste so much of it. > Life is long enough for you to achieve your wildest dreams. You’re just so busy wasting it that you get to the end without living much of it. Hey guys, what kind of fallacy is this? This observation presented is saying its not too short to live your wildest dreams, but isn't refuting the idea that it is short, which is a common view of relative time that is shared amongst people. My observation is that we can spend too much of it chasing our wildest dreams, while their observation is that people spent too much time wasting it (as if that is exclusive from not chasing their wildest dreams). Kind of all points to the idea that it is short, and doesn't bother refuting the supposition.
  • ClumsyPilot 4y ago
    indeed, you could do one or the other, and you could fail at both. in fact for some having a decent place to live is a dream out of reach.
• sh4rks 4y ago
  > You should organize each day as if it were your last I never understood this. If you live every day as your last, surely you would only engage in short term pleasures instead of pursuing longer term hobbies/goals?
  • fbn79 4y ago
    "Today is the first day of the rest of your life" much more inspiring
  • __s 4y ago
    I recently reread Ecclesiastes & on the second reading came across what people tend to be trying to get at with that advice. I'll try give it from the Ecclesiastes perspective Whatever you go out & gather, is ultimately worthless. So if you're in a shit mood & thinking that some day this work will pay off, you'll find that your days are spent in a shit mood & thinking some day this work will pay off. & then you die & everything you did doesn't really matter, & you spent your time in a shit mood. So if instead you find enjoyment in the simple daily toll, that your work today is essentially paying for the food you'll enjoy today, then you'll find your days are spent in a good mood. & then you die & everything you did doesn't really matter, but at least you enjoyed your time while it lasted So "live it like your last" is a bit hyperbolic, but at least don't justify your suffering on the idea that life gets better To try make sense of "live it like your last", it might be better said as "go to sleep at peace with your life even if you were to die in the night"
    • jraby3 4y ago
      Great comment. I’ve always hated that comment but your phrasing makes so much sense.
    • mad2021 4y ago
      That's a beautiful perspective. Thanks for your comment.
    • throwawayarnty 4y ago
      Thanks for the clarification. I think the description “live like your last” needs to be tweaked. Perhaps what is more productive is: live your days so that when you think back on them (let’s say at a time horizon of months), you feel satisfied in what you’ve done and how you’ve grown.
• jcims 4y ago
  Most of us would be lucky to have 500,000 hours of conscious thought.
• HL33tibCe7 4y ago
  Life is infinitesimally short regardless of what anyone says
  • chasd00 4y ago
    “On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero” - Fight Club
    • phabricator 4y ago
      "Today, men still quote 'Fight Club'" - Peter C. Baker
    • paulpauper 4y ago
      or the price of crypto
  • sambapa 4y ago
    Life is the longest thing in life
• aaraujo002 4y ago
  Life is short in a sense that I know I won’t have time to learn about everything there is to learn. I won’t have time to study and understand the proof of Fermat Last Theorem, the latest breakthroughs of physics. I won’t be able learn piano like a professional or violin. I know that I won’t have time to read many classic of literature, etc. I can choose to do certain things but now I have to choose where to focus my time.
• adamnemecek 4y ago
  Life is short because society takes so much of it. School wastes so much of your time, employment likewise. Some sort of drastic change is needed.oog
  • andi999 4y ago
    Society can only give what it takes (from you and others).
    • scsilver 4y ago
      I dont think that is true, society can create value from trade and good organization providing more resources to everyone for collectively the same amount of work.
      • andi999 4y ago
        In the sense that the whole is more than the sum of its parts? Of course!
    • adamnemecek 4y ago
      This is incorrect.
    • sethammons 4y ago
      No synergy to be had?
  • derbOac 4y ago
    Yes these kind of discussions are often useless to me because they ignore the things in life we don't choose. They're written as if someone has complete agency and is just choosing between easier and less reward versus harder and more reward. For me at least the real difficulty is dealing with broken systems and all that's needed of you from them, when rejecting the system can mean complete failure of the worst kind. People don't let others steal their time because they're weak, it's because the system is so broken. It's not so much "do I put this effort into building a ship and charting new territory" it's "do I chart this ship into pirate-infested waters when then outcome could mean death, and shipbuilders are defrauding people about the safety of materials?" The correct analogy in contemporary society often isnt builders or explorers, it's refugees. Yes I'm cynical. I wish I weren't.
• ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
  I have found that I sometimes need "down time." This may involve sitting in a recliner, reading junk fiction, or watching vapid TV shows. When I am "on," I am really "on." I like to be constantly "producing" stuff. I tend to not do much "farting around." All my work needs to have some deliverable goal. It's not necessarily for the best. I probably miss out on a lot of creative exploration. I'm very empirical. I think that abstract thinkers may come up with some really cool stuff, and they may do that, while sitting in a coffee shop, staring vacantly out the window.
• verisimi 4y ago
  I personally like the idea that, when this life ends we judge ourselves. Of course, I have no idea whether this is the reality. :) Regardless, it is a idea that I find motivates me in the here and now. I don't want to act badly, have regrets, do the right thing, etc.
• globile 4y ago
  Was waiting for someone to post PaulG's take on this. So here goes: http://www.paulgraham.com/vb.html http://www.paulgraham.com/vb.html
• throwaway23234 4y ago
  At 35 I decided to fuck the "normal life" and just go RVing with my wife. We saw the country (US). Fast forward 7 years and we are now building our own house paycheck to paycheck. It's a beautiful property. I know there are people on here that have much, much more and could afford to buy an already existing house. But my dreams are to have a different kind of life, so in that sense I am definitely living that. Yes there are mornings I wish I can wake up and NOT want to install my own well pump, install mini splits in 105 degree weather, install siding, dig foundations, run 40 80-pound bags of cement in a mixer, 2 at a time. etc etc etc... But my alternative life would have been spending the last 7 years playing new versions of Call of Duty and kinda pissing time away.
  • nnoitra 4y ago
    are you happy?
    • iasay 4y ago
      Definitely subjective. Sounds like hell to me. But i respect anyone with enough energy to actually do something.
    • IncRnd 4y ago
      Not the OP, but I did something very similar with my wife and daughter a few years ago. Each day was more enjoyable than the last, especially with the RV. That was the most enjoyable time, and that enjoyment came from just existing and taking things as they come. There was never any monotony.
    • mattgreenrocks 4y ago
      I'd replace happy with content there. Happiness comes and goes. Contentment runs a bit deeper and gets at it what this article talks about.
  • foobiekr 4y ago
    two of my uncles did this - plumbers until 50, then RV life for 20 years, then built houses. as a kid they were my heroes. older, I am not so sure it worked out, but they had a good time for a while.
• zandjager 4y ago
  This is giving me a bit of a Zizek-ian "wisdom" feeling. E.g. in "Putting things off for the future is the biggest waste of a life. You deny yourself the present by promising the future." one can make the counter-argument of the entire marshmallow experiment with children where the whole point is to actually put things off for the future!
  • scottLobster 4y ago
    Yeah, those who refuse to bargain with the future end up the same as those who refuse to bargain at car dealerships. They pay the worst prices. Even hunter gatherers sacrifice for the future. I haven't read much Seneca, but this article strikes me as a shallow interpretation of him just from its Instagram-quote-ey notes that are thrown in every now and then
  • sethammons 4y ago
    I've always liked the marshmallow experiment, but it turns out less clear than we may have thought. If a child trusts the adult will be back shortly with marshmallow in tow, they may wait. But if adults in their lives are less predictable, they may reasonably choose to eat the marshmallow before the adult returns. The marshmallow experiment may show that kids that can trust adults do better in life.
  • adamwong246 4y ago
    I've found you have to balance the 2 sides- saving for the future while enjoying the present. Doing both at once is not impossible.
  • mettamage 4y ago
    My perspective: No, take things now if you can. And I can, with a very small amount of creativity involved. I realized recently I don't need to be rich/financially independent at all. I work 4 days per week, I'm living the dream as I've realized that I want to work for 3 days per week. I want to crack my brain on something for 3 days per week that I'm not necessarily passionate about, but that feels as "good brain exercise" (aka programming). So I only have to put up with 1 day per week, but I also want a bit of that I need to "put up with something", so 4 days per week is my jam, apparently. Programming allows me to stay mentally sharp, so it's a health thing as well. My free day is on a Wednesday, so my rhythm literally is along the lines of: work, work, rest, work, work, rest, bonus rest* * Aka go nuts/crazy since I'm already rested. You can have your cake and eat it too. Provided if you're Dutch, because a 4 day work week is easy to fix there. 4 days means you make about 85 to 90% of your 5 day net salary anyway, so you're not losing too much cash. It's easily doable if you spent 70% of your income anyway, which is what I was doing (and that is me being wasteful). Life is beautiful :)
• throwawayarnty 4y ago
  The days are long but the years are short. It’s all about time scales.
  • jodrellblank 4y ago
    "People overestimate what they can do in a day and underestimate what they can do in a year"
• claylimo 4y ago
  I talked with a financial advisor. He said for some of his higher end clients who have 25 million dollars that are simply sitting around in investments. The money is doing nothing for them except accumulate. He advises them to at least spend some of it.
  • TimPC 4y ago
    It's interesting how the amount of money involved can change your perspective. For me the single most important thing to do with money is save it. Nothing I can buy will give me as much happiness as being able to help make the lives of important people in my life easier. We have a broken housing system that screws over almost everyone who doesn't get help so I want to save a sizeable contribution to my son's downpayment. I want to help pay for his wedding. I want to pay for his education. I want him to have a better start to life than I did and I want him to have more opportunities than me. I guess once you accumulate enough money you can do all that and still easily have more left over for the nice to haves.
  • jodrellblank 4y ago
    https://dilbert.com/strip/1991-08-20 https://dilbert.com/strip/1991-08-20
  • paulpauper 4y ago
    don't worry. the market decline will take care of that
• mrkramer 4y ago
  I agree with this; I wasted so much time in my childhood and teenage years doing nothing and feeling bored. Eventually years later I realized how much destructive it was for me both mentally and physically. Children and young people need to be guided in the early stages of their life because they will be disoriented just like me.
• marban 4y ago
  Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent — SJ
  • endorphine 4y ago
    I watched this speech some 10 years ago and that quote has stuck with me. And particularly the subsequent sentence: "It (death) clears out the old, to make way for the new." This is from Steve Jobs' Stanford 2005 commencement address - https://youtu.be/UF8uR6Z6KLc https://youtu.be/UF8uR6Z6KLc (at 12:03)
• beebmam 4y ago
  Fundamentally I think you missed the point of Ecclesiastes. It is: anything you do is meaningless compared to God, and you should fear him and therefore do what He has commanded of you. Excuse my French, but this God is a real asshole, and I think it's best that people ignored these threats.
  • lins1909 4y ago
    Why do you have this level of vitriol? Surely if there is a "one true God", this instruction will not seem out of place coming from them? Like it would make sense that this God will say this? And given that we don't know for sure whether or not there is a one true God, why exactly are you so angry about Ecclesiastes?
  • jdsnape 4y ago
    God is an asshole if you read a random bit of the Bible in isolation of the theology/tradition that sits around and explains it. The way I’ve heard it explained by people who have lived this for a long time is a slightly different angle; which is that the way humans were created means that the way to be truely happy is to be aligned with God’s will. At the start you don’t really know what that is, which is why we have ‘commandments’/instruction, but as you deepen that relationship it becomes more and more fulfilling.
    • someotherperson 4y ago
      What you’re describing here is Stockholm Syndrome
      • JKCalhoun 4y ago
        That's funny but I get what the person you were responding to means.
    • throwaway743 4y ago
      Whatever happened to the golden rule? Do people really need instructions on how to not be a selfish ass? If this god isn't an asshole then he sure is needy in getting a ton of people to have a "relationship" with him/be aligned to his "will" in order for them to be happy.
• dinobones 4y ago
  The good health/good energy/good looking period of life is like 30 years maximum. I would consider that pretty short.
  • ozim 4y ago
    Well I am 35 and have good health/energy could drop some belly fat but I don't care. Look at the Hollywood stars 60 year olds looking still good.
  • dangus 4y ago
    You don't know any good looking 48 year olds? (18+30) If you stay thin and keep active, you could probably double that estimate to 60 years if not longer.
  • wwilim 4y ago
    A few weeks ago I saw my parents, aged 60 and 61, dance at my wedding and I would like to disagree with your statement.
• groffee 4y ago
  692,040 hours. That's short.
  • glouwbug 4y ago
    Not when you're constantly assigned backlogged busy work JIRA tickets
• alexalx666 4y ago
  DKB.show must go on!
• th2398423984 4y ago
  Any advice for someone who has not done anything other than work in the last 15 years (weekends and vacations spent home indoors etc.)? I spend my free time obsessing how I'm pissing away my time on this planet and at the same time terrified of doing something else.
  • heavenlyblue 4y ago
    Start small and spend your weekend and vacation not indoors? :) if you are really afraid of getting away from a job then just bringing some reading material for the job outside could go a long way
  • rhexs 4y ago
    Sure, see a therapist, find out why that is.
  • adamwong246 4y ago
    Time spent happily is the best possible way of spending it. Were you happy doing nothing? If so, perhaps it time was well spent.
  • justsomehnguy 4y ago
    Looks like you know what there are some problems (at least in your POV) with your current life. Take a sabbatical[0] and try to understand what do you need to be a happier person. [0] in my case it was a sessions of a late night and beer talk with a people who doesnt't know me, but was greatly supportive of my situation (beer hleped there). YMMV.
  • pcurve 4y ago
    I sort of feel similarly. I do wonder if it would be more meaningful to engage in a dialog with someone on HN beyond just one off replies. Just small talks on Discord for example. I'm pcurve#3558 In a way, HN is a forum with built in common interest.
• ryandrake 4y ago
  > It’s even worse when people come up with deferred life plans. They’ll say something like “When I’m forty, I’m going to retire and write a book” or “I’ll do this thing I hate right now so I can make money, then in ten years I’ll do what I really love”. Seriously? You think that the universe is going to let your life proceed the way you want it to? What guarantee do you have of making it to that age? This is often used as a reason not to save when you're young, and to generally dunk on the the traditional idea of retirement. Believe this and in a few decades we're going to have a large number of people aged 80-120 seriously struggling. Apart from a recent dip, average life expectancy in the US has been going up pretty much forever. Life is not necessarily long, but it can be. Yes, you might drop dead of a heart attack the day before you retire, so all that saving was a waste. You also might make it past 100. Who among us has enough savings to last until they are 100? You won't if you're spending every penny you have when you're young. Thanks to compounding interest, the best time to save and invest is when you are young. A dollar earned and invested when you're 20 is many times more valuable than that dollar earned when you're 60.
  • moonchrome 4y ago
    >Thanks to compounding interest, the best time to save and invest is when you are young. A dollar earned and invested when you're 20 is many times more valuable than that dollar earned when you're 60. And money spent on experiences in 20s can't be made up with experiences in 60s - plus the kind of experiences you have in 20s will define the person you'll be in 60s. Hell even in 30s you can't get your 20s back. There's a biological peak - saving money for your twilight years might make you safer in the far future but it's guaranteed to make you miss out on your prime. I'm willing to bet investing in yourself early will outperform the compounding interest you make on income you have at the start of your career.
    • wwilim 4y ago
      Depends on your definition of performance
      • 8jef 4y ago
• spicysugar 4y ago
• markus_zhang 4y ago
  It is uncertainty that makes us waste so much time. If you can focus early in your life, consider yourself lucky instead of being superior to your peels.
• almokhtar 4y ago
  الوقت كالسيف إن لم تقطعه قطعك
  • Tabular-Iceberg 4y ago
    Would it have killed you to provide an English translation and maybe a few lines of context? It’s especially poor form not to include an attribution.
  • keiferski 4y ago
    From Google Translate: "Time is like sword: if you do not cut it, it will cut you." It appears to be an Arabic proverb.
• dangus 4y ago
  The article is extremely dismissive toward the real reason most people waste time. The vast majority of the world is working for basic subsistence. 60% of the world's population does not have a flushing toilet at home. Hopefully the author's magic wand is a hella good one.
  • ozim 4y ago
    Is that article target audience "whole of humanity"? That 60% of population is probably not going to read that article. They will be busy with more important things like living till next day.
    • dangus 4y ago
      That's my whole criticism: that the target audience only consists of people who have the excess wealth to have these options. I might as well read an article about how to spend my time on my yacht wisely and not waste it in the wrong tropical islands.
  • WJW 4y ago
    Interestingly, Seneca himself most likely did not have a flushing toilet at home.
    • dangus 4y ago
      He did have access to Roman toilets, which were about as advanced as it got for that time. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-the-ancient-romans-went-to-the-bathroom-180979056/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-the-ancient-roman... The guy wasn't exactly a peasant, being a senator and an imperial advisor.
• Trasmatta 4y ago
  Anyone else been increasingly dissatisfied by Stoicism lately? It's been super in vogue for about a decade now in tech for some reason. I've read several books on it, and apply some of the practices, but there's something that doesn't sit quite right that I haven't fully been able to put my finger on it yet.
  • ketanhwr 4y ago
    Maybe you'll agree with this (really good) argument against stoicism: https://simonsarris.substack.com/p/stoicism-is-not-enough https://simonsarris.substack.com/p/stoicism-is-not-enough
    • Trasmatta 4y ago
      Thanks, all those points track pretty well with how I'm feeling about it.
    • brutusborn 4y ago
      Thanks for posting, it was an interesting read. I agree with the premise "stoicism is not a sufficient philosophy for a good life, only a survivable one." The rest of the article seems like a misinterpretation of Stoic ideas. For example "Our emotions and intuitions are not something to be set aside" which I think the stoics would agree with: "Don’t let the force of an impression when it first hits you knock you off your feet; just say to it, “Hold on a moment; let me see who you are and what you represent. Let me put you to the test." – Epictetus. Initial emotions should not be 'set aside' but should be 'seen for who they are and what they represent'. He admits that "Learning to tame your emotions through willpower is helpful, but your emotions themselves are still an asset." Which sounds stoic to me? Finally he provides an alternative "Instead to live well we must learn to create things outside ourselves, through ritual and poesy." Why ritual and poesy? Why not philosophy? I would love to know the reasoning behind this but none is provided. My knowledge of Stoicism is limited, but I think my criticism is on the mark. I'd love to hear the opinions of more informed HN people.
  • trgn 4y ago
    Maybe you're just a contrarian. Anything that's fashionable, especially when it's corpo-speak, rubs you the wrong way. I'll hazard another guess why you may feel this way. The current discourse around stoicism is essentially aspirational. We no longer recognize the internal fortitude stoicism requires, neither in ourselves nor our peers, so we desperately cling to its ideals. Much like toddlers repeating they're not afraid in the dark when going into the basement. See similar motivations around how all corpo-speak is now all about empathy, kindness, tolerance, and other traits we are really bad at putting into practice, but feel compelled to reiterate.
• tourist_on_road 4y ago
  Looks like the site went down due. you can access the article here -- https://archive.ph/QQ5iV https://archive.ph/QQ5iV
• Mortiffer 4y ago
  I think it's worth talking to a few people who have master or phds in Philosophie. From my sample the general rule is that staying philosophy results in your have a huge set of new questions but no answers. So i am very skeptical of spending time on reading more philosophy than i have. Just a comment on that second to last paragraph. Rest is good imo
  • hybridtupel 4y ago
    That paragraph is strange to me, too. First he says you should not waste time or let others steal your time. But then he goes on that you definitely should spend time on philosophy. And when philosophy raises more questions than it answers, isn’t it the also a waste of time?
• YoniMessing88 4y ago
  You could live your entire life right. Save money, build a family, find the love of your life, and have it all come crashing down in a single instant for any number of reasons. That terrifies me for some reason.
  • EUV071STR48 4y ago
    Why do you think there is a 'right way' to live life? 'right' needs to be 'inherent'. There is no 'inherently right' in life. So where does that come from that you think there is a 'right' in life?
  • SyzygistSix 4y ago
    Sure, but that realization is also somewhat liberating.
• tomcam 4y ago
  • t-writescode 4y ago
    That's gross.
    • tomcam 4y ago
      I hate myself
• giantg2 4y ago
  Yeah, there's not a lot of real choices in life once you hit a certain age/condition. Once you get married and have a family, it's basically just grinding away at work, with chores, etc. Stuff that just has to get done, or the consequences are catastrophic (divorce, medical bill bankruptcy, losing the house, etc).
  • onlyrealcuzzo 4y ago
    This is the bleakest picture of family life I have ever seen. Certainly you have more choices/options if you have more money, right?
    • adamwong246 4y ago
      Not when that excess income goes directly into the kids mouths.
    • giantg2 4y ago
      Maybe. But usually that means you spend more time at work. I have two family members with medical issues, so we hit the out of pocket max in medical bills every year (and possibly more due to some things being coded incorrectly and nobody being able to fix it). Then there's the fact that you need concensus for things. Like can we move to another area? No, wife doesn't want to ever leave the county. Should buy an unaffordable house? No, that's financial suicide. Wife wants another kid, but also complains that I don't do enough (not going into it, but she's way off base). I don't want another kid due to all that I have to do for the current one and her (she needs help with many things). In theory, we could each pretty much decide these things unilaterally. In practice, that's likely to result in divorce even if we have more money.
      • fastball 4y ago
        Mostly just sounds like you don't like / get along with your wife, which sucks for you but isn't true for a lot of people.
        • 4y ago
• cosmiccatnap 4y ago
  With all due respect, that is total bullshit.
• waingake 4y ago
  Read Martin Hagland for a much more applicable take on this. The primary way we waste time is via waged employment. For this reason most people have very little control over how they are spending their limited time alive https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/05/20/if-god-is-dead-your-time-is-everything https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/05/20/if-god-is-dead...
  • mettamage 4y ago
    Why is waged employment a time waste? It allows me to browse Hacker News, and take a coffee at some fun new bistro in the city center of Lisbon! ;-) Jokes aside, I'm asking this question sincerely.
• xxxtentacijs 4y ago
  AMAZING
• mjreacher 4y ago
  I would like to add a comment for a perspective that's a little different to some of the others here. I'm sure many of you here are familiar with John von Neumann. He died in 1957 at the age of 53. Throughout his life he was a busy man, and many times he deferred doing things saying that he would do them at some later unspecified date. For example he once said he would write a big treatise on von Neumann algebras, a technical mathematical subject of his own creation. However once WW2 started his interests changed and he became very involved not just in applied mathematics related to the war, but in consulting and advising too. By the 1950s the majority of his time was not spent on academic work, but rather on this latter subject, advising big important agencies of the US military on various matters. Some of his colleagues at the Institute of Advanced Study and in other places resented this. They said he was wasting his time, wasting his talent, on this work that could be done by other people, while his mathematical brain could be doing academic research that others could not do. Just shortly after being appointed commissioner of the US Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), the pinnacle of his non-academic career, he was diagnosed with cancer. Within 2 years he would be dead. At the time of his first diagnosis the main academic subject he was dealing with was his theory of automata, however at first he was optimistic about his cancer and continued working heavily on things to do with the AEC. After some time the doctors made it clear to him that he was going to die soon, and he should wrap up any affairs that he wanted to complete quickly before he died. Now he panicked, after living his life and having so many incomplete things he wanted to do he was going to die and he was running out of the one thing he could not escape from - time. He tried to finish the topic he was currently working on, the theory of automata, however cancer affected him quicker and quicker and he could not. He wouldn't even finish a lecture he was asked to give - Yale's Silliman lecture, although the lecture he didn't finish would be cobbled together and published as a book, The Computer and the Brain, as would his work on automata, which was edited by Arthur Burks. He had grand aspirations for his theory of automata, it would be his greatest work, something he created entirely on his own, combining mathematical logic, information theory and biology. However, he put other things first, and he never got to finish it, indeed it seemed like he wanted to write far more, the book edited by Burks covered only 2 or 3 of the planned set of 5 lectures, and this was only the first set of five. After he died several of his colleagues again made comments when interviewed that they felt that his talents were wasted. Considering his working life was only about 30 years they felt much of the last 10 years of his life, primarily spent consulting and working with the government, would be better spent on things that only von Neumann could do, his treatise on von Neumann algebras, his work on automata (incidentally, his theory of automata hasn't really made much progress since he died, especially in comparison to other fields), many other things that he worked on for a bit, got interested in other things, and said he would come back to later. I am not sure what conclusion I should make of this, but I hope this little story is interesting to others too.
• xchip 4y ago
  Seneca already said all this 2070 years ago https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Brevitate_Vitae_(Seneca) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Brevitate_Vitae_(Seneca)
  • nostromo95 4y ago
    Literally that’s the point of the article.
• mcm1053_ 4y ago
  These are truly my favorite types of articles on HN.
• mib32 4y ago
  Hey, but what I should do, if, say, I don’t have my own house and I really need to buy one? How can I just stop doing what I don’t love in that situation? Also, what about the situation when one day you really love your work and find it very interesting and fulfilling, but the other day it’s just the opposite?
• ulisesrmzroche 4y ago
  Ugh Seneca. No gracias. Hard pass.
• bwest87 4y ago
  > You should organize each day as if it were your last, so that you neither need to long for nor fear the next day. I've come to find this "live each day like it's your last" advice to be pretty unhelpful. My favorite quote about it is, "all that goes to show you is some people would spend their last day giving you stupid advice". The problem is that if it actually was your last day, most people would give the finger to all of their responsibilities and go party, eat cake, see friends, familiy, lovers, etc. Which is simply not an actual way to live your life. It's a way to exit your life. An alternative framing that I've come to find more helpful is to take your life expectancy, and cut it by 2/3. Now what do you do? For example, if you're 20 years old and your life expectancy is 80 (ie. 60 more years), pretend that you only have 20 more, so you'll only live until you're 40. It's nice cause it naturally adjusts as you get older. You'll have smaller windows to work with. This approach strikes a nice balance. It gives you enough time to be able to really do something and change directions if you want. But not so much time that you can really waste any. It forces you to ask the hard questions about whether your day to day is truly connecting with your dreams, and whether you're on a path to get there. Of course, Seneca didn't have life expectancy tables to work with. But I think he would have approved. :)
  • taberiand 4y ago
    I think it's good advice, when placed in the correct context. Live every day as if it could be your last - to me it's about ensuring you always strive towards being your best self, in the context of the virtues (wisdom, temperance, courage and justice) and the Stoic duty towards society. Giving the finger to the world and living a hedonistic lifestyle is decidedly not Stoic. Putting aside the distraction of past and future and focusing on the present is a Stoic ideal though: "I have to die. If it is now, well then I die now; if later, then now I will take my lunch, since the hour for lunch has arrived - and dying I will tend to later." ~ Epictetus
  • stackbutterflow 4y ago
    If you read Seneca that's not what he's saying. He says that you should live your life in such a way that if before sleeping someone told you that it had been your last day, you would feel content with what you did today. He says that you have to remind yourself that you can die at any time. So before doing something ask yourself whether you'd be proud of you if what you were about to do would be the last thing you'd do. He also says that you should strive for that life, to use this advice as a compass. Not to literally start each day and do what you'd do if you were going to die tonight. Also a good life according to Seneca is not a life full of instant gratifications like drugs, party, food. It's a simple, ascetic life.
• himalayan_yak 4y ago
  Different take - it is pointless to think life as short or long. Life just is. You ARE in this moment of conscious time (to borrow Descartes). Anything else is either memory (history) or future yet to be. You, your 'self' are defined by your memory that is the consequences of the paths you took and not the ones you could have, and just like that your future will be the paths you take in this moment. Some try to make effort to be the best version of themselves, some try to live in this moment and many are in between. I do not think there's anything wrong with either extremes as long as you consciously and willingly do it, and sign up for the consequences. But.. idk.. I find this 'life is long vs short' debate a bit besides the point. I mean we do everything to fit the curve of 100 years of life - first quarter: education, second quarter: career, start family etc. May be its a perception thing - you're 40 and suddenly you realize you didn't become the astronaut you thought you'd be when you're grow up: how quickly life has passed by. To me personally, framing life as short vs long doesn't provide much solace in this situation but rather the one with culmination of past choices does.
• woopwoop 4y ago
  I like this quote from an otherwise terrible Chris rock movie: "Some people say life is short and that you could get hit by a bus at any moment and that you have to live each day like it's your last. Bullshit. Life is long. You're probably not gonna get hit by a bus. And you're gonna have to live with the choices you make for the next fifty years."
  • javajosh 4y ago
    Oh, I was thinking of Chris Rock too, but his stand up album "Roll with the New", and his spiel about commitment vs "new women" (not the word he uses, obvs). https://youtu.be/VJpKAk4E5_k?t=130 https://youtu.be/VJpKAk4E5_k?t=130
• uvdn7 4y ago
  In this sense, TV and smart phone waste people much of their lives. And it’s only going to get worse for the coming generations.
• charlie0 4y ago
  Lots of comments here about tradeoffs between having fun and working hard. I'd say work hard, but take a year off every decade or so and just enjoy it. Personally, I find it hard to get away from work, because getting away means changing mindsets and changing mindset takes longer than 48 hours or even a week of vacation. If you've ever quit your job voluntarily and lived in another country for a bit, you'll know what I'm talking about.
  • leetrout 4y ago
    I was just complaining to my wife about this. A vacation is never a vacation. I need at least 3 months off based on how the past chances for a few weeks off has went.
    • bikingbismuth 4y ago
      I just finished a three month vacation between jobs and I agree. Getting (what felt like) so far away from my career, I really got to interrogate my dreams, goals, and plans. I’m still battling with some tough realizations from this time, but I am glad I had the opportunity to do some self exploration. Even though it’s not in my contract, I am going to negotiate a one month sabbatical every three or five years where ever I am working.
      • capisce 4y ago
        That's called the yearly summer vacation in Europe. Why only every three to five years?
        • balfirevic 4y ago
          Taking a month long vacation in summer would leave exactly zero days off for the rest of the year, for most people I know (not counting weekends and holidays). I'm in Europe.
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• renonce 4y ago
  This article just stole 10 minutes of my precious time. But I would not know if it was wasted or worth it until the time is actually spent.
• rgifford 4y ago
  Don't like most "progress people," don't like most philosophy, don't like most self help. If you have "it" figured out, why is that not enough? All I can see are ulterior motives: a desperate need to feel seen or remembered or virtuous or important, something to sell, an attempt to elevate one's status, etc.
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• assignmenthelp0 4y ago
• assignmenthelp0 4y ago
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• spongechameleon 4y ago
  Journey > endpoints "Live each day like its your last" is just as bad as "sacrifice everything so that when you turn 65 you can retire and finally be happy"
• 5350-uiop-1130 4y ago
  Was gonna write my disagreements with this article, but i think this quote sums it up: "There’s no better way to spend your time than studying philosophy."
  • brutusborn 4y ago
    I don't like the quote either, but if you expand the reasoning it makes sense. Spending time on philosophy is valuable because it can prevent you from wasting time on things that don't matter. It is like an investment, spend 2 days on philosophy now and save yourself 10 days of pointless activity. Like an investment, it can result in negative returns if not managed well. Everyone uses some form of reasoning to guide their decisions, even in the absence of philosophy. Most people take whatever philosophical / religious system they are given at birth (which is likely to be suboptimal) or invent their own from scratch and figure out the downsides the hard way. The point made in the article is essentially: "Why reinvent the wheel when you can read wisdom of people who spent their whole lives thinking about this stuff" E.g. people who try base their life on Hedonism (sex, drugs and rock'n'roll) often overindulge and eventually find it to be 'empty' in some way. If they had read some of the Stoics or Epicureans they may have discovered the reason for this emptiness and avoided the downsides of overindulgence.
• isolli 4y ago
  Related: it strikes me as a paradox that we are envious of people in their 20s because they have their whole life ahead of them, and feel sorry for people in their 80s who have their life behind them. Does it mean we value the potential more than the realized? Is a potential life worth more, perhaps because it still contains all the promises of potential futures, while a life lived has been whittled down to a single path, with all the mistakes and regrets that it entails?
  • schappim 4y ago
    > Does it mean we value the potential more than the realized? Yup, just like a pitch to a VC is easier with magical future potential numbers, rather than realised numbers. Potential is only limited by imagination, and realised numbers can’t be changed!
  • californical 4y ago
    I think it might even just be that living life is awesome in general (overall, though there are obvious ups and downs). So the more you have left to live, the better
    • isolli 4y ago
      True, but the 80-year old is guaranteed to have lived that many years, while the 20-year old could die tomorrow...
      • jhgb 4y ago
        Isn't there a bit of a sunk cost fallacy there? You can't influence the past but you can influence the future. That's why we care more about the future than about the past.
• Al-Khwarizmi 4y ago
  "No one is willing to hand out their money randomly, but that’s exactly what you do with your time. You’re very frugal with your physical possessions, but when it comes to your time, you’re wasteful of the only thing in the world that you should actually be frugal with." This is something where I frequently have arguments with my wife (mild and civilized, not that it's a real problem or anything). For example, suppose that we buy something online that is, say, $20, and it isn't up to our (or her) expectations. She will want to return it, and ask for my help. But my position is: returning it takes time (going to the website and finding out how to make a return, preparing the package, possibly waiting in a line in the post office), and for me that time is worth more than $20, so I'd rather lose the $20 and not do it (time has grown increasingly valuable in the last few years because we have a kid, so while we have decent savings, our amount of free time for ourselves -not kid-related- is close to zero). I'm pretty sure my position makes sense, but it's difficult to convey it in a way that doesn't seem like I'm just "not caring" (I think part of the issue might be that for me, devoting time to things like doing a return, taking more time for a purchase to find a discount, etc. is just a chore, and she somewhat likes it) so we end up in a middle ground where each gives in a little. PS: I am fully conscious that I'm writing this from a privileged position as there are people for whom those $20 would be a godsend, and it does make me feel somewhat guilty to take positions like this sometimes, but it's inevitable that one judges with respect to the scarcity of each resource in their own circumstances... and in my case it's free time which I consider to be very, very scarce. The fact that the $20 could be highly valuable to other people doesn't make it more senseful for me to spend some of my scarce free time on them if I need the time more.
  • pozol 4y ago
    Just throwing out as a thought, but as an alternative you could spend a minute putting it for sale online where someone would come pick it up, or even just put it up for free so someone that may need it more can get it. It can be a very quick process, especially with smaller things like that. You might even be able to just throw it on the porch when they say they’re coming.
• lemursage 4y ago
  `Life is not short if you're lucky?*` I think that's what Seneca would have said back in the day. Nowadays, at least for the developed countries we could state `Life is not short if you're not unlucky`. That said, many good things in life require time, work and careful planning (for somebody this could be building a house, finishing uni, perhaps raising a kid, tons of examples apply). Those that really bring fulfilment and satisfaction, where you can look back at this and say "I did that myself". Moment and day-like successes feel often like a serotonin hit, but do not persist long. So, I may say that I disagree with the premise of the article. What is often perceived as wasting time aka "watching Netflix", "playing games", "drinking with friends", turns out to be indispensable for us when we need to chew through mundane chores to reach the long-term goal we really strive for. But, if we're unlucky, we don't get to see the final result. A middle ground would be to start enjoying the small milestones?
• nlstitch 4y ago
  This person obviously has never had life catching up to him. My wife's parents where both diagnosed and died of cancer over an 8 year period. First my father in law had a brain tumor, went through extensive radiation an chemo therapy and when he was dying my mother in law was diagnosed with colon cancer. She also underwent extensive chemotherapy. Both were depressed during their sickness, never wanted to leave the house but where dependant on others to take care of them. Me and my wife were caretakers and simply did not have a choice to leave for the white sandy beaches whenever we wanted; thus this author's argument of "it's a choice" clearly does NOT apply.
  • xkcd1963 4y ago
    What would happen with them 100 years ago? There was no chemo or radiation.
• jdthedisciple 4y ago
  This is making me want to quit my CS program: I asked about that here recently... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31284802 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31284802 > It’s even worse when people come up with deferred life plans. They’ll say something like “When I’m forty, I’m going to retire and write a book” or “I’ll do this thing I hate right now so I can make money, then in ten years I’ll do what I really love”. Seriously? You think that the universe is going to let your life proceed the way you want it to? What guarantee do you have of making it to that age? This makes me want to quit University RIGHT NOW...
  • cheschire 4y ago
    In 2 years what will your perspective on your decision be either way? Assuming all other things are equal... Drop out: You most likely won't have wild success 2 years from now. Building marketable experience is a long uphill battle and if success were easy, then it wouldn't be considered so valuable. Or don't drop out: You'll have a better marketable baseline. School and certifications make it easier to cold-apply to places. The more relevant they are, the more they help you avoid relying too much on social networks to move up. The interviewee is talking about people who make a 10 or 20 year plan and then act surprised when life changes and they look back and feel regret over missed opportunities. They're not saying to forego building safety nets. If you have concrete opportunities that you are giving up in order to complete school, then that's a different position than simply wanting to be available for opportunities that have not yet been offered.
    • jdthedisciple 4y ago
      That's a nice perspective, thank you. And you are right, I expect to graduate within 1.5 years with a Masters degree, which is a vastly superior outlook than just working an average job with no Masters. But still, it's just a bit depressing having to study for random exams that are for the most part just academic acrobatics as I call them, rather than having a free mind to be able to work on and learn whatever I want. I do have time for that stuff in-between exam phases but usually that time flies waay too fast because I enjoy it so much, and before I know it it's time to grind for the exams again...
• icod1 4y ago
  The troll clickbait titles always get the most comments
• nlh 4y ago
  Here's a mundane (but I hope helpful) take on a portion of this: > The most surprising thing is that you wouldn’t let anyone steal your property, but you consistently let people steal your time This line struck the strongest nerve with me. I've started to REALLY pay attention to this and fight back, where I can. Example: I subscribe to a meal prep service. They recently stopped sending out the weekly reminder email to choose your meals, and I chatted with CS to figure out the issue. They said "we suggest you put a reminder on your calendar so you don't forget to order from us in case our email doesn't go out". I explained to them: "Sorry guys, I am paying you to save time. You do not get to add an item to my to-do list" and cancelled my account. This kind of thing happens SO often with businesses. "To fix your problem with us, please go through these series of steps". It's maddening. There are only 4 entities that get to forcibly add items to my to-do list: Me, my wife, my CEO, and the US government ;)
  • caminante 4y ago
    >> The most surprising thing is that you wouldn’t let anyone steal your property, but you consistently let people steal your time > This line struck the strongest nerve with me. I've started to REALLY pay attention to this and fight back, where I can. And at some point your time isn't even worth "Sorry guys..." Hit unsubscribe.
  • jonmb 4y ago
    What are you doing for meal prep now?
• hydrok9 4y ago
  My opinion as a long time gaming "connoisseur:" there are many games that can engage with your sense of empathy, wonder, reconsider your and society's ethics, and build your creative and logical problem-solving skills. All good things, but there comes a time when you are just trying to get blood from a stone. When you feel like you aren't getting as much out of gaming as you used to, retire. There's so much more to life than gaming.
• meta-level 4y ago
  sorry, what does 'dkb' stand for?
• mvkel 4y ago
  To me, the stoics come across as privileged dudes who have the resources to while away their time at the top of Maslow's Hierarchy, trying to self-actualize their way into a sense of purpose. Whenever I hear the Tim Ferriss' of the world using a stoic as a motivational lever, all I can hear is "just lift yourself up by your bootstraps."
• _hcuq 4y ago
  Stoicism is a dour, striver philosophy…. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epicureanism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epicureanism
  • brutusborn 4y ago
    I like this comparison, wikipedia can be too technical. https://dailystoic.com/epicureanism-stoicism/ https://dailystoic.com/epicureanism-stoicism/
• paymentgateway 4y ago
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