17 ms·

Life Is Short (2016)

466 points by NotYourLawyer 4y ago

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robg 4y ago
Another stat I read recently: Parents spend ~75% of their child’s life with them before the age of 12. Puts into perspective the good and bad influences long before they fly from the nest.
- user5678 4y ago
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- jmathai 4y ago
  I was explaining to my 12yo son when he wanted to play video games instead of hanging with the family that I only had 6 more Christmas eves while he lives at home.
  - quickthrower2 4y ago
    Cousins is the solution: kids get bored hanging around with olders talking about interest rates etc. Mixed age play amongst kids is magic.
  - ckaygusu 4y ago
    It's really not a great argument considering that's all he had.
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  - imtringued 4y ago
    Children live with their parents until their thirties nowadays. You mean he still has another 18 Christmas eves left. That is why life is short. The barriers to young people are growing bigger and bigger. Their adult lives keep getting shorter faster than their lifespan increases. 80 years is not a short period of time by any stretch of the imagination.
    - Nomentatus 4y ago
      The lifetime of a galaxy isn't that much different than 80 years, right? Right? As Lincoln said, everyone's legs are long enough to reach the ground; but even so, mine are short compared to his.
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mattymf 4y ago
> one should actively seek out things that matter After reading the word "bullshit" about 10 times in 5 paragraphs, a beautiful piece of advice emerged. The "bullshit" avoided in life should be replaced with something meaningful to you! At the end of the day, a proud man has the realities of his past: meaningful work done, love loved, and suffering bravely suffered. Replace the nonsense avoided with things that matter in a 1 to 1 ratio.
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FpUser 4y ago
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jdkee 4y ago
"One great thing about having small children is that they make you spend time on things that matter: them. They grab your sleeve as you're staring at your phone and say "will you play with me?" And odds are that is in fact the bullshit-minimizing option." This. He is right about this.
- tropicalbeach 4y ago
  I mean most of the time there running around breaking things and being loud wouldn't say that's great. It's better when there older.
  - hackernewds 4y ago
    You will miss these interactions as they outgrow you. No one looks back at their time when their kids were little, to miss that didn't tap more in their screen
    - dinosaurdynasty 4y ago
      There are way more things to do than "raise kids" and "tap on screen"
  - Ma8ee 4y ago
    That mostly happens when they feel they don't get enough attention from you. Sometimes you really are busy with something else, like trying to prepare food for them or answering messages from your pestering boss. But often it is because you are trying to be clever at HN instead of giving them your undivided attention.
    - isoprophlex 4y ago
      Or when they're hungry. Or over-stimulated, under-stimulated, tired, anxious over something that happened at school, hyped for the holiday season. Guilt-tripping someone who shares that they're not always having a good time as a parent is not cool. Your comment is over-generalizing, and IMO quite mean.
dang 4y ago
Related: Life Is Short (2016) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24313158 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24313158 - Aug 2020 (164 comments) Life is Short (2016) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16729555 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16729555 - April 2018 (184 comments) Life is Short - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12845945 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12845945 - Nov 2016 (11 comments) Life is Short - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10917446 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10917446 - Jan 2016 (408 comments)
college_physics 4y ago
If anything, human life got remarkably longer in the last century. Any feeling that it is "too short" is not an objective reality (compared to what?) but indicates the failure of collective societal mechanisms to put the individual at emotional ease with reality and their existence and role in it. Eliminating all existential angst of the human animal is likely impossible as various absurd religious constructs (after life, reincarnation etc) testify. But modern society performs significantly below par by failing in more basic ways. Excessive individualism, disconnecting and disregarding those living next to us, before us and those living in our future hence not living also through them is the main cause.
- ElFitz 4y ago
  > If anything, human life got remarkably longer in the last century. Well, yes and no. That we live longer than our ancestors seems obvious and is a very common belief. And average life expectancy has indeed increased. But it really isn’t that clear cut. For example: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20181002-how-long-did-ancient-people-live-life-span-versus-longevity https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20181002-how-long-did-anc...
  - jaakl 4y ago
    The only thing what has changed is childhood mortality. If you take statistical lifetime of most animals (say frogs) and count in all offspring with hope to describe their average life duration then it would be low number of seconds. Human as such seems to have always same lifespan programmed in, just natural early mortality has been taken away. Basic statistical bias. Does almost removed early mortality really make our species stronger/better is another question. Removal of one natural survival test may have its own consequences.
    - okaram 4y ago
      Definitely not the only thing. Maternal mortality is another big thing. War, famine, malnutrition.... Although the max age hasn't increased, the proportion of people who reach it has.
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henrik_w 4y ago
A similar perspective from Sam Altman that I like: "The days are long but the decades are short" https://blog.samaltman.com/the-days-are-long-but-the-decades-are-short https://blog.samaltman.com/the-days-are-long-but-the-decades...
_8j50 4y ago
8 years with your kids is short, 8 years with cancer is long, 8 seconds with your hands on a hot stove is very long. If you succeed in developing a good or at least occasionally enjoyable life, your perspective on life is different than others barely enduring it at all. In general, it is short in the way of a bell curve. It is long when you are a child or at the end of a long life enduring hardships of old age.
- kovac 4y ago
  That's brilliant. Really put things into perspective.
- menomatter 4y ago
  Most people in the third world are barely enduring it. If you have the luxury to reflect on roads not taken, I pray that you appreciate it .. a lot.
gallerdude 4y ago
There are a lot of great lines in this, but the one that’s always stuck with me is simply “bullshit is the junk food of experience.” It’s a perfect metaphor in so many ways, there’s some fundamental truth glowing behind it like a lightbulb.
- aryamaan 4y ago
  Elaborate please
- SCUSKU 4y ago
  The one I never forget is how PG describes his mother's death. "I lived as if she'd always be there. And in her typical quiet way she encouraged that illusion. But an illusion it was." I read this the last time it was posted and this scared the living hell out of me. It has reminded me to never take people, especially my family, for granted. I used to be much more reluctant to go home, but as I've grown older I now appreciate the finiteness of life.
  - gms 4y ago
    This is rather true indeed. I would always visit home often as it made my parents happy but sometimes would wonder if I should skip a visit once in a while. My dad died this year and the result of all those visits is that I have zero regrets. I'm grateful I stuck with them because having regrets now, when it's too late, would be awful.
  - tacocataco 4y ago
    I'm glad you have good people in your life, but that isn't true for everyone. My life would improve immensely if I didn't ever visit my family. I see them once a year and it is once a year to much. I love them, but ideally it would be from very far away for the rest of our lives. The ones closest to you can hurt you the most.
  - Trasmatta 4y ago
    Another line from that part: > After my mother died, I wished I'd spent more time with her. Sometimes I wonder this about my own parents. I haven't seen them in over a year. I have no desire to see them either, and am dreading the obligatory Christmas call. I see a ton of advice floating around these days about "make sure to visit your parents a lot, because you'll regret it after they die if you don't". But there's another side to the "life is short" coin: maybe it's not worth spending time with people that make you intensely unhappy, even if those people are your parents.
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raydiatian 4y ago
Here’s my perspective on life: dying is probably the whole point of your life, or perhaps coming to terms with it, and conquering your fear of it. All other forms of “importance” derive from this root. - It is is unlikely anything you do will “matter”. Out of ~117 billion people to have ever lived over countless millennia, the lives of note throughout history are what? 10k? 100k? Even if it’s 1b meaningful lives that weren’t just an aggregate in the wave of babies, you’ve got a worse than 1% chance of being meaningful. Or, perhaps all lives are significant on a level we are incapable of comprehending. If it defies comprehension, what is the use in crafting a meaningful life? - you have only the present, and your unreliable recollection of the past to mark your existence. The present is ephemeral, the past is mutable, and neither carry any clear indication that the experience of either matters beyond themselves. Time is sending us all beyond the threshold of both, as best we can tell. With such imperfect information, what planning can you rationally do? To quote Stephen Covey, if it is out of your hands, why worry? - some of the largest structural entities mankind has ever built are based on the “afterlife” (ie religion), and many possess a concept of heaven and hell. In addition, there are more modern attempts to inspect the qualia of death. The notion of going to heaven or hell intersects with the notion of having a good trip or a bad trip. And of course now I have my shining Joe Rogan moment where I cite the huge DMT trip awaiting most of us (assuming your death not by complete annihilation, such as nuclear explosion, or other). Therefore, the only thing that you really need to plan for is getting to the end of your road, and not having your exit DMT trip be sponsored by the ninth circle of hell, if you can. In conclusion it really doesn’t matter. Time eternally marches forward, there are no actual stakes because everybody is damned. Include the notion that we as a society do a pretty dog job of (1) not producing fucked up people (2) not fucking people up as it all goes and (3) pledging to change that, so it’s basically just a daydream that mankind will ever transcend to be anything of transcendent/indisputable value. Don’t know how to phrase the last part.
- loandbehold 4y ago
  How is past mutable?
  - baliex 4y ago
    It’s a reference to your memories of the past not accurately reflecting what really happened
GMoromisato 4y ago
I never feared death until I had children. Yes, life is short, and you don't even get to know exactly how short.
revskill 4y ago
The only way to lengthen the shorten of life, to me, is to improve education system. Education is the single most important reason we're born, lived, because it requires each of us to inherit human knowledge, and develop new knowledge for further generation. What a pity, that, the education system is mostly broken in several places.
kubb 4y ago
This makes you think that Paul would be interested in fighting for a world where people don't waste most of their short lives in bullshit corporate jobs because the market demands it, and instead can focus on important things like their families.
- vt85 4y ago
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- nullcaution 4y ago
  I feel that is kind of what we are seeing on mass in other sectors... quiet quitting, and the the like. People realized they don't have time for bullshit.
- tome 4y ago
  Can you say more about how that world would work?
  - fsflover 4y ago
    Fighting for a better version of this world does not imply having a utopia in mind. You can simply help people avoid bullshit as much as you can. In fact, this is what this essay does.
- ablatt89 4y ago
  Funny enough, I know some engineers who go to work, non-remote, to escape from their wife and kids for a bit and work becomes an avenue to relax! And having to take care of an aging parent who lives with me, I can understand.
  - weatherlite 4y ago
    That definitely exists. But I think there's more people who'd prefer to work less hours (and keep their current salary) than people who simply want to stay in the office more.
  - 4y ago
epicureanideal 4y ago
...but it doesn't need to be. There are people working on real, scientific, anti-aging technology, like the Longevity Escape Velocity (LEV) Foundation, SENS Foundation (I prefer LEVF though), and the many individuals involved, but especially Aubrey de Grey. One of the reasons I got into software development was to try to make enough money to contribute to these causes, or to work on the problems directly in bioinformatics. Unfortunately I haven't reached the point where I would make much of a difference, but who knows what will happen in the next 10-20 years.
- brutusborn 4y ago
  What got you interested in life extension? And how long would you want to live for? I’ve never understood the philosophy behind life extension research, because to me it seems like a case of spending a lot of resources in the hope of improving something that isn’t really broken. However I love people with passion and I value freedom, so I’m glad that people get to work on it even if I feel like it’s probably a bit of a waste.
  - epicureanideal 4y ago
    > What got you interested in life extension? Immediately when I first heard about it I thought, wow, this is fantastic, because death is a really bad thing. I believe it was mostly reading the book Ending Aging by Aubrey de Grey, although I may have heard about some related ideas on various websites before that. > And how long would you want to live for? Certainly at least a couple hundred years, and by that point I'd have time to think about how much longer I'd want. I don't really see a reason why I'd want less than infinite time if it were possible. > I’ve never understood the philosophy behind life extension research, because to me it seems like a case of spending a lot of resources in the hope of improving something that isn’t really broken. I've spent several decades working really hard, or studying. Although I hope I'll have a great time in the next several decades, I sure do want more. Also, I have many things I want to do that I know I won't have time to do in one currently normal lifetime. There are several projects like books I'd write that I will probably not get a chance to do, because there are so many other things I want to do also. Basically the rough outline of my schedule for the next 40-50 years is pretty packed. Obviously I'm going to prioritize and so a bunch of things will be pushed off the list, but I'd really like to do all the things on the list, plus have plenty of time for general entertainment, social life, and so on.
Swizec 4y ago
Life is short in many ways, but it’s also the longest thing you will ever do. There’s plenty of time if you prioritize and focus. No you won’t be able to do everything. But you have enough time to do the things you care about. And the things that run out? Enjoy them! Running out is what makes them special.
block_dagger 4y ago
Life is short if you’re enjoying it. If it’s full of unbearable torture, the opposite is true.
- cableshaft 4y ago
  Not necessarily. There are options to make their life short in that circumstance. Horrible and unfortunate options, but options nonetheless.
NovaVeles 4y ago
The Japanese concept of `Mono no aware` seemsto fit into this ideal. The tragedy and loss of life itsef https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mono_no_aware https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mono_no_aware
msie 4y ago
At 51, I am trying to come to grips with wasting my life in my 20s, 30s and 40s. I don't remember doing anything memorable during that time. I spent too much time doing bullshit programming or doing the same old comfortable things with friends. I wish I dated more. Tried more things that young people can do. I was too scared to make mistakes. Now I can't go back. It's driving me nuts.
- npc12345 4y ago
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- FartyMcFarter 4y ago
  You still have plenty of time left to do cool things.
- icelancer 4y ago
  Don't be 68 wondering the same thing about the last decade and a half.
  - myth_drannon 4y ago
    That's the problem, now you can't know what you would regret in 20 years.
- eternauta3k 4y ago
  What things do you wish you'd done, besides dating?
- Glawen 4y ago
  What can young people do now that you could not do ? Internet stuff? The way I see it, young people now can do less than when I was young. For example lots of dangerous activities got prohibited (e.g. fireworks) or they added too much regulations (alcohol, cigarettes, mopeds). For good or worse, no more compulsory army at 18. We live in a very protective society where every threatening activity gets banned. As a European, I studied in the UK and got a masters, tutions fees paid by the European Union. My children cannot do this anymore. My young is 17 and spend his free time in the gym, and he is not alone. It is true I could not do this at his age, but I do not understand it.
HellDunkel 4y ago
Started reading then realized it is def. too short to waste on pgs thoughts.
- stormking 4y ago
  It obviously isn't too short to leave a mean comment
  - HellDunkel 4y ago
    Certainly not. Happy to trade in a few of those HN points.
  - testmasterflex 4y ago
    :D
brainlessdev 4y ago
Related reads are Seneca's On The Shortness Of Life (appropriately only about 100 pages) and maybe also Marcus Aurelius's Meditations. These are recommendations from a philosophy newbie.
dynamite-ready 4y ago
Key point I think the article misses, is that 'bullshit', much like spacetime, is relative.
- passion__desire 4y ago
  What did the Leviathan of Parsonstown teach us?https://www.youtube.com/shorts/mQhBEw3gjSk https://www.youtube.com/shorts/mQhBEw3gjSk I don't know what the above youtube short means for Gettier problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gettier_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gettier_problem Any thoughts?
jbaber 4y ago
I'm able to shorten life by doing mindless "have to" tasks and consuming distracting media (music, books, movies, games, etc.) I'm able to lengthen it by deliberately, reflectively doing anything (thinking, programming, breathing, etc.). I spent almost three decades in school -- grading and getting graded. I made that time race by as much as I could so I could get to the part where I have kids and a job that I can actually enjoy. Now I'm savoring every minute. I feel the natural compression of time that comes with age, of course, but I'm more than able to counter it by consciously enjoying life.
- althea_tx 4y ago
  Well said. It’s worth adding that various mood altering substances can speed up our perception of the passage of life while impairing our ability to remember what happened.
  - SyzygistSix 4y ago
    Some can slow it waaaay down too.
    - jjeaff 4y ago
      Does that also make those moments more memorable? I don't have any experience in it, but seems like an interesting possibility that when things seem to slow down you remember them better. Or maybe you remember them even less?
      - SyzygistSix 4y ago
        Is an experience only fun or valuable when you can remember it? What does that say about all the things we remember incorrectly?
        althea_tx 4y ago
        Good question. My early 20s are a blur, partly because of recreational substances I ingested. At the time, the days felt long and full. The experience isn’t less fun or valuable but I wish I could access all of those memories. It’s not that I worry about the accuracy of the memories I’ve retained. I am saddened by the gaps in what I remember.
carabiner 4y ago
Holy god this is terrifying. It gives way to a mindset of desperate minmaxing, when conventionally we are supposed to maintain a view of abundance towards life. How can we think life is abundant when it is in fact scarce?
sriku 4y ago
Somewhat related and somewhat tangential. Slavoj Zizek on the "tautological emptiness of the master's wisdom" - """ The tautological emptiness of a Master's Wisdom is exemplified in the inherent stupidity of proverbs. Let us engage in a mental experiment by way of trying to construct proverbial wisdom out of the relationship between terrestrial life, its pleasures, and its Beyond. If ones says, "Forget about the afterlife, about the Elsewhere, seize the day, enjoy life fully here and now, it's the only life you've got!" it sounds deep. If one says exactly the opposite ("Do not get trapped in the illusory and vain pleasures of earthly life; money, power, and passions are all destined to vanish into thin air - think about eternity!"), it also sounds deep. If one combines the two sides ("Bring Eternity into your everyday life, live your life on this earth as if it is already permeated by Eternity!"), we get another profound thought. Needless to add, the same goes for it's inversion: "Do not try in vain to bring together Eternity and your terrestrial life, accept humbly that you are forever split between Heaven and Earth!" If, finally, one simply gets perplexed by all these reversals and claims: "Life is an enigma, do not try to penetrate its secrets, accept the beauty of its unfathomable mystery!" the result is, again, no less profound than its reversal: "Do not allow yourself to be distracted by false mysteries that just dissimulate the fact that, ultimately, life is very simple - it is what it is, it is simply here without reason and rhyme!" Needless to add that, by uniting mystery and simplicity, one again obtains a wisdom: "The ultimate, unfathomable mystery of life resides in its very simplicity, in the simple fact that there is life." """
- majestic5762 4y ago
  Beautiful ! :)
- deleted 4y ago
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yef 4y ago
An antidote to bullshit (e.g., unproductive meetings that you still have to go to) is journaling. When you're writing to yourself, for no other audience but yourself, you can be 100% honest. So that helps serve to counteract it and give strength, sometimes you also see things from another person's perspective. e.g. the meeting may have some value to your boss, which has follow-on benefits to you that you hadn't considered.
do_nothing 4y ago
This is the way.
srb231 4y ago
" I lived as if she'd always be there. And in her typical quiet way she encouraged that illusion. But an illusion it was. I think a lot of people make the same mistake I did." PG's writing style is excellent, conversational and clear expression of ideas. Profoundly written. Relentlessly pruning bullshit gets better with practice and age.
osrec 4y ago
> 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. I find this argument strange, especially since he uses the word "seem". "Seem" does not mean "is". If you really want to make life seem short, measure it in millennia. You only get a fraction of one. Personally, I feel it's about your state of mind. If you're depressed, life feels unbelievably long. If things are going well, then you don't want the good times to ever end, and it seems short. I don't really know how to conclude whether life is or isn't short. All I can conclude from the article is that PG is quite happy with his!
- xyzelement 4y ago
  // All I can conclude from the article is that PG is quite happy with his! A great sign that we should pay attention to his advice :)
- aktenlage 4y ago
  > I find this argument strange, especially since he uses the word "seem". "Seem" does not mean "is". As he writes in the beginning, there is no objective truth to answer this question. Since it is subjective "seeming" is all that matters. If life seems short to you, it is (for you). If not, it isn't.
emadabdulrahim 4y ago
Life is finite. Long or short is all relative and depends on your state of mind.
davidmpaz 4y ago
> If you're a freelancer or a small company, you can do this at the level of individual customers. If you fire or avoid toxic customers, you can decrease the amount of bullshit in your life by more than you decrease your income. This have been proven true to me so many times!
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r3trohack3r 4y ago
My daughter is turning 5 in a few weeks. I realized I only have 3 more of these until she’s (likely) moving out. 4x5=20, and she’ll likely be living her own life by 20. Most of the time you spend with your kids is spent by the time they’re 16. I moved away from my hometown. I see my immediate relatives twice a year now, once at Christmas and once in the summer. Most of my family is getting old. I probably have 125 or so more visits with my parents, 20-50 with my grandparents, and less than 10 with my great grandpa. I keep these numbers in mind every time I go home. Life isn’t short. Meaningful moments are. Don’t take them for granted.
- zemvpferreira 4y ago
  This is inevitably going to sound facetious but you can always move back. Give up some things, gain others. Isn't that what this essay's about? I'm 40. My parents are 75 and I recently moved back next door to them. I expect to be here until they die. Is it my favourite place to live? No. Best for my career? Couldn't be worse. But I see my folks every day. I see my childhood friends every week. I see as much of my family as I can stand - I bump into a random cousin on the daily. Do you value closeness to family above other things and would you like your daughter to value closeness to you when she grows up? Choices are here to be made.
  - r3trohack3r 4y ago
    Not facetious at all. I call it "visiting Paris." A large number of people I grew up with "wanted to see the world." My younger self modeled a lot of my desired outcomes on people's externally stated desires. As I got older, I started realizing something: a lot of what people said they wanted was attainable for them and their socioeconomic status if they made different trade offs. So I started poking and offering advice on how they could "visit Paris." What I came to learn is that they wanted to be the kind of people that wanted to visit Paris. But they never would go to Paris. It was the idea they liked. I have well off family members who talk about wishing their son lived closer. They have the means to visit him. They're retired and live near an airport with direct flights, 3.5 hours door to door. But they never go. That's their Paris. I don't want to live in my hometown. I don't kid myself - I value raising my family here where I live more than the extra time with family. But, at the same time, when I go back I spend that time in a way maximally meaningful to me. I try not to have "going to Paris" wishes. I sacrifice protecting my ego from my own decisions but it makes me reconcile my decisions with my desires before reaching the state of irreversible regret.
Jugurtha 4y ago
For anyone wondering why it is "vb.html", it certainly comes from "vita brevis" (life is short), often used as "Ars longa, vita brevis", which references Hippocrates[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ars_longa,_vita_brevis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ars_longa,_vita_brevis """ Vīta brevis, ars longa, occāsiō praeceps, experīmentum perīculōsum, iūdicium difficile. """ """ Life is short, and art long, opportunity fleeting, experimentations perilous, and judgment difficult. """
Invictus0 4y ago
Life is not short [0]: we just waste most of it. [0] https://dkb.show/post/life-is-not-short https://dkb.show/post/life-is-not-short
andyjohnson0 4y ago
An average-ish human lifespan of 80 years is approximately 1000 months, or 4000 weeks, or 10,000 days. It's frightening,but my memento mori is to remind myself of this periodically.
- handzhiev 4y ago
  4000 weeks is 28,000 days :) Otherwise, you are right and we don't even have this granted.
- tracyhenry 4y ago
  80 years = 29,220 days
  - andyjohnson0 4y ago
    Sigh... typo. Should have been 30,000. Thanks It's still not enough.
- amrocha 4y ago
  This seems like the exact kind of confident mistake that AIs make hahaha
digbybk 4y ago
I really like this, but to to add an alternate perspective: I’m skeptical of deathbed regrets, and regrets in general. I don’t think your present self actually knows what your past self went through. We remember events but are bad at remembering emotions except in very broad, general ways. You might say “I wish I had spent more time with my kids and less time at work”. But you won’t remember the feeling of dissatisfaction you had with your home life and the pride you felt when you delivered on a difficult project. You could say “I wish I was more satisfied with my home life” but how much control do you have over that, really? I don’t remember where I heard this: “every person you see is fighting a battle that you know nothing about, so be kind, always”. I think we can extend that same kindness to ourselves.
- jjeaff 4y ago
  I'd say you have about as much control over your career trajectory as you do your home life (arguably more control over how your home life turns out). And I agree that memory is fickle and weird but I think there is a reason you so rarely hear someone say, they wished they had spent more time on their career rather than family. They recognize what brought/brings them happiness.
  - digbybk 4y ago
    I suspect that a lot of deathbed regrets about not spending enough time with your kids is for the benefit of the kids. Who would say “I’m glad I didn’t spent all that much time with you and your siblings. Frankly. I had better things to do.” I’m not saying that you shouldn’t spend more time with your family. I’m saying that we should give our past selves the benefit of the doubt when it comes to their decision making, whatever your present self decides to do. It’s just an argument against regret.
    - ido 4y ago
      Not affirming or disproving anything you wrote, it just reminded me that my mother once told that in one of the last conversations she had with my grandmother, she told her she never really loved her as much as she loved my uncle (or maybe that she didn't really love her much at all, I don't remember exactly). She was eventually senile enough to be unable to talk towards the end of her life. I also found it interesting that my grandmother was extremely loving and caring to me. And my grandfather (who was ever less kind to my mother than my grandmother was) was very affectionate to his great-grandchildren (but not his grandchildren). Maybe they both regretted it near the end of their lives and tried to handle things differently with the younger generations? But yes, I agree- I would guess most people had more tact and empathy than my grandmother apparently had towards her daughter, and wouldn't say something like that even if it was true. And if they did many their kids wouldn't be too quick to recount the experience publicly?
jasonhansel 4y ago
Here's my question: why should you care what your future self thinks? Should avoiding future regret really be your primary goal now? This whole article seems a bit self-centered, in that it suggests you should first and foremost care about how things will affect you in the future, rather than caring about others. It seems to me like you should spend less time trying to prevent future regret, and more time trying to do right by other people.
- aktenlage 4y ago
  If it was only a regret on the deathbed, I'd agree. But if these regrets are held for many decades, and thus the pain from them may well outweigh a sacrifice in the presence - if the regretfullness is high enough.
netchkin 4y ago
I have recently started wondering about the nature of a very specific bullshit enabler these days, which is attention commoditization. It almost looks like in the pre-AI days, there was a surge of online marketers trying trying to learn about people and behavior, occasionally employing dark patterns to get you to click. Later, with the surge of social media use, AI models were used to recommend content incongruent with the user's best interest. And it worked as it becomes increasingly difficult to go out in the internet to get a particular job done, but the sheer amount of rabbit-holes ventured to must me astounding. And now the trend seems to be shorts/stories/tiktok, which only looks to me as means to groom human attention for even easier override with clickbaits and ads. I wonder how many people daily fail to focus on what matters because of the attention problems induced by the modern tech and is there any research about it?
m3kw9 4y ago
I think counting visits or counting in general isn’t as good as getting that one quality time you spend with that person that would remember for a life time. You could be visiting and just be around, while that is also good but you may wish you did way more
alexchantavy 4y ago
> The "flow" that imaginative people love so much has a darker cousin that prevents you from pausing to savor life amid the daily slurry of errands and alarms. This is a great sentence and I want to see it expanded on. I crave being in that flow state and enjoy what I do but it makes me very irritable to be interrupted and I realize needing this level of focus potentially takes me away from other aspects of life like spending time with my family. I’m wondering if others have dealt with these sorts of feelings. I love what I work on, sometimes to the detriment of other things and difficult for me to zoom out in the way described in the essay.
- conqueso 4y ago
  I enjoyed the piece and this is one part that I disagree with. As I understand it, being in a flow state simply means being totally absorbed by what you are doing during that time frame - it doesn't necessitate taking any more time away from other activities/priorities that you otherwise would if not in a flow state. I also enjoy working like this, and can relate to the feeling of frustration when being interrupted when the going's good. The most effective way I've found to avoid it is communicating that I'm "head down" and turn off all (non-emergency) notifications. Being able to shift away from work when you're not on the clock is a certain kind of discipline that is necessary to living a healthy and (IMO) worthwhile life - working in a flow state does not have to impede this.
up2isomorphism 4y ago
According to this, first thing we should do is quitting hacker news.
psteitz 4y ago
Beautiful post, which I had not seen. Many thanks for (re-)posting. I often use the "seems critical now" vs "will be important in the future" test and marvel at how crazy different these are. As I get older, I seem to be getting better at telling the difference. The consequence of this attitude is that you have to get used to taking a lot of immediate flack for ignoring transitory bullshit. I love the reference to children and their helpfulness in bullshit-shedding. I am reminded of one of my favorite quotes, from a somewhat sick bird who nonetheless really got the value of both time with children and avoiding bullshit: "A man's maturity consists in his finding, once again, the seriousness that he had as a child at play" -Friedrich Nietzsche
5tefan 4y ago
I try not to regret. It is a pain to do so. You can't go back in time and you can't change a thing but we torment ourselves with the wish to do so. Stop doing that. We live now and if we want to spend more time with our loved ones we have to do it. Now. Not later.
ca98am79 4y ago
Having kids is hard, but yeah it is one of the best things. My wife would get annoyed when we would pass someone walking and they would see our kids and say "enjoy your time with them while they are young!" Because she hadn't slept and was stressed out. She would think "you enjoy your freedom and your full night of sleep!" "The days are long but the years are short" is a quote I think about a lot. I think the key is the same whether you have kids or not: peace of mind in the present moment. If you are happy now you won't regret it later.

466 points by NotYourLawyer 4y ago

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robg 4y ago

Another stat I read recently: Parents spend ~75% of their child’s life with them before the age of 12. Puts into perspective the good and bad influences long before they fly from the nest.

user5678 4y ago
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jmathai 4y ago
I was explaining to my 12yo son when he wanted to play video games instead of hanging with the family that I only had 6 more Christmas eves while he lives at home.
- quickthrower2 4y ago
  Cousins is the solution: kids get bored hanging around with olders talking about interest rates etc. Mixed age play amongst kids is magic.
- ckaygusu 4y ago
  It's really not a great argument considering that's all he had.
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- imtringued 4y ago
  Children live with their parents until their thirties nowadays. You mean he still has another 18 Christmas eves left. That is why life is short. The barriers to young people are growing bigger and bigger. Their adult lives keep getting shorter faster than their lifespan increases. 80 years is not a short period of time by any stretch of the imagination.
  - Nomentatus 4y ago
    The lifetime of a galaxy isn't that much different than 80 years, right? Right? As Lincoln said, everyone's legs are long enough to reach the ground; but even so, mine are short compared to his.
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mattymf 4y ago

> one should actively seek out things that matter After reading the word "bullshit" about 10 times in 5 paragraphs, a beautiful piece of advice emerged. The "bullshit" avoided in life should be replaced with something meaningful to you! At the end of the day, a proud man has the realities of his past: meaningful work done, love loved, and suffering bravely suffered. Replace the nonsense avoided with things that matter in a 1 to 1 ratio.

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FpUser 4y ago

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jdkee 4y ago

"One great thing about having small children is that they make you spend time on things that matter: them. They grab your sleeve as you're staring at your phone and say "will you play with me?" And odds are that is in fact the bullshit-minimizing option." This. He is right about this.

tropicalbeach 4y ago
I mean most of the time there running around breaking things and being loud wouldn't say that's great. It's better when there older.
- hackernewds 4y ago
  You will miss these interactions as they outgrow you. No one looks back at their time when their kids were little, to miss that didn't tap more in their screen
  - dinosaurdynasty 4y ago
    There are way more things to do than "raise kids" and "tap on screen"
- Ma8ee 4y ago
  That mostly happens when they feel they don't get enough attention from you. Sometimes you really are busy with something else, like trying to prepare food for them or answering messages from your pestering boss. But often it is because you are trying to be clever at HN instead of giving them your undivided attention.
  - isoprophlex 4y ago
    Or when they're hungry. Or over-stimulated, under-stimulated, tired, anxious over something that happened at school, hyped for the holiday season. Guilt-tripping someone who shares that they're not always having a good time as a parent is not cool. Your comment is over-generalizing, and IMO quite mean.

dang 4y ago

Related: Life Is Short (2016) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24313158 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24313158 - Aug 2020 (164 comments) Life is Short (2016) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16729555 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16729555 - April 2018 (184 comments) Life is Short - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12845945 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12845945 - Nov 2016 (11 comments) Life is Short - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10917446 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10917446 - Jan 2016 (408 comments)

college_physics 4y ago

If anything, human life got remarkably longer in the last century. Any feeling that it is "too short" is not an objective reality (compared to what?) but indicates the failure of collective societal mechanisms to put the individual at emotional ease with reality and their existence and role in it. Eliminating all existential angst of the human animal is likely impossible as various absurd religious constructs (after life, reincarnation etc) testify. But modern society performs significantly below par by failing in more basic ways. Excessive individualism, disconnecting and disregarding those living next to us, before us and those living in our future hence not living also through them is the main cause.

ElFitz 4y ago
> If anything, human life got remarkably longer in the last century. Well, yes and no. That we live longer than our ancestors seems obvious and is a very common belief. And average life expectancy has indeed increased. But it really isn’t that clear cut. For example: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20181002-how-long-did-ancient-people-live-life-span-versus-longevity https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20181002-how-long-did-anc...
- jaakl 4y ago
  The only thing what has changed is childhood mortality. If you take statistical lifetime of most animals (say frogs) and count in all offspring with hope to describe their average life duration then it would be low number of seconds. Human as such seems to have always same lifespan programmed in, just natural early mortality has been taken away. Basic statistical bias. Does almost removed early mortality really make our species stronger/better is another question. Removal of one natural survival test may have its own consequences.
  - okaram 4y ago
    Definitely not the only thing. Maternal mortality is another big thing. War, famine, malnutrition.... Although the max age hasn't increased, the proportion of people who reach it has.

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henrik_w 4y ago

A similar perspective from Sam Altman that I like: "The days are long but the decades are short" https://blog.samaltman.com/the-days-are-long-but-the-decades-are-short https://blog.samaltman.com/the-days-are-long-but-the-decades...

_8j50 4y ago

8 years with your kids is short, 8 years with cancer is long, 8 seconds with your hands on a hot stove is very long. If you succeed in developing a good or at least occasionally enjoyable life, your perspective on life is different than others barely enduring it at all. In general, it is short in the way of a bell curve. It is long when you are a child or at the end of a long life enduring hardships of old age.

kovac 4y ago
That's brilliant. Really put things into perspective.
menomatter 4y ago
Most people in the third world are barely enduring it. If you have the luxury to reflect on roads not taken, I pray that you appreciate it .. a lot.

gallerdude 4y ago

There are a lot of great lines in this, but the one that’s always stuck with me is simply “bullshit is the junk food of experience.” It’s a perfect metaphor in so many ways, there’s some fundamental truth glowing behind it like a lightbulb.

aryamaan 4y ago
Elaborate please
SCUSKU 4y ago
The one I never forget is how PG describes his mother's death. "I lived as if she'd always be there. And in her typical quiet way she encouraged that illusion. But an illusion it was." I read this the last time it was posted and this scared the living hell out of me. It has reminded me to never take people, especially my family, for granted. I used to be much more reluctant to go home, but as I've grown older I now appreciate the finiteness of life.
- gms 4y ago
  This is rather true indeed. I would always visit home often as it made my parents happy but sometimes would wonder if I should skip a visit once in a while. My dad died this year and the result of all those visits is that I have zero regrets. I'm grateful I stuck with them because having regrets now, when it's too late, would be awful.
- tacocataco 4y ago
  I'm glad you have good people in your life, but that isn't true for everyone. My life would improve immensely if I didn't ever visit my family. I see them once a year and it is once a year to much. I love them, but ideally it would be from very far away for the rest of our lives. The ones closest to you can hurt you the most.
- Trasmatta 4y ago
  Another line from that part: > After my mother died, I wished I'd spent more time with her. Sometimes I wonder this about my own parents. I haven't seen them in over a year. I have no desire to see them either, and am dreading the obligatory Christmas call. I see a ton of advice floating around these days about "make sure to visit your parents a lot, because you'll regret it after they die if you don't". But there's another side to the "life is short" coin: maybe it's not worth spending time with people that make you intensely unhappy, even if those people are your parents.

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raydiatian 4y ago

Here’s my perspective on life: dying is probably the whole point of your life, or perhaps coming to terms with it, and conquering your fear of it. All other forms of “importance” derive from this root. - It is is unlikely anything you do will “matter”. Out of ~117 billion people to have ever lived over countless millennia, the lives of note throughout history are what? 10k? 100k? Even if it’s 1b meaningful lives that weren’t just an aggregate in the wave of babies, you’ve got a worse than 1% chance of being meaningful. Or, perhaps all lives are significant on a level we are incapable of comprehending. If it defies comprehension, what is the use in crafting a meaningful life? - you have only the present, and your unreliable recollection of the past to mark your existence. The present is ephemeral, the past is mutable, and neither carry any clear indication that the experience of either matters beyond themselves. Time is sending us all beyond the threshold of both, as best we can tell. With such imperfect information, what planning can you rationally do? To quote Stephen Covey, if it is out of your hands, why worry? - some of the largest structural entities mankind has ever built are based on the “afterlife” (ie religion), and many possess a concept of heaven and hell. In addition, there are more modern attempts to inspect the qualia of death. The notion of going to heaven or hell intersects with the notion of having a good trip or a bad trip. And of course now I have my shining Joe Rogan moment where I cite the huge DMT trip awaiting most of us (assuming your death not by complete annihilation, such as nuclear explosion, or other). Therefore, the only thing that you really need to plan for is getting to the end of your road, and not having your exit DMT trip be sponsored by the ninth circle of hell, if you can. In conclusion it really doesn’t matter. Time eternally marches forward, there are no actual stakes because everybody is damned. Include the notion that we as a society do a pretty dog job of (1) not producing fucked up people (2) not fucking people up as it all goes and (3) pledging to change that, so it’s basically just a daydream that mankind will ever transcend to be anything of transcendent/indisputable value. Don’t know how to phrase the last part.

loandbehold 4y ago
How is past mutable?
- baliex 4y ago
  It’s a reference to your memories of the past not accurately reflecting what really happened

GMoromisato 4y ago

I never feared death until I had children. Yes, life is short, and you don't even get to know exactly how short.

revskill 4y ago

The only way to lengthen the shorten of life, to me, is to improve education system. Education is the single most important reason we're born, lived, because it requires each of us to inherit human knowledge, and develop new knowledge for further generation. What a pity, that, the education system is mostly broken in several places.

kubb 4y ago

This makes you think that Paul would be interested in fighting for a world where people don't waste most of their short lives in bullshit corporate jobs because the market demands it, and instead can focus on important things like their families.

vt85 4y ago
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nullcaution 4y ago
I feel that is kind of what we are seeing on mass in other sectors... quiet quitting, and the the like. People realized they don't have time for bullshit.
tome 4y ago
Can you say more about how that world would work?
- fsflover 4y ago
  Fighting for a better version of this world does not imply having a utopia in mind. You can simply help people avoid bullshit as much as you can. In fact, this is what this essay does.
ablatt89 4y ago
Funny enough, I know some engineers who go to work, non-remote, to escape from their wife and kids for a bit and work becomes an avenue to relax! And having to take care of an aging parent who lives with me, I can understand.
- weatherlite 4y ago
  That definitely exists. But I think there's more people who'd prefer to work less hours (and keep their current salary) than people who simply want to stay in the office more.
- 4y ago

epicureanideal 4y ago

...but it doesn't need to be. There are people working on real, scientific, anti-aging technology, like the Longevity Escape Velocity (LEV) Foundation, SENS Foundation (I prefer LEVF though), and the many individuals involved, but especially Aubrey de Grey. One of the reasons I got into software development was to try to make enough money to contribute to these causes, or to work on the problems directly in bioinformatics. Unfortunately I haven't reached the point where I would make much of a difference, but who knows what will happen in the next 10-20 years.

brutusborn 4y ago
What got you interested in life extension? And how long would you want to live for? I’ve never understood the philosophy behind life extension research, because to me it seems like a case of spending a lot of resources in the hope of improving something that isn’t really broken. However I love people with passion and I value freedom, so I’m glad that people get to work on it even if I feel like it’s probably a bit of a waste.
- epicureanideal 4y ago
  > What got you interested in life extension? Immediately when I first heard about it I thought, wow, this is fantastic, because death is a really bad thing. I believe it was mostly reading the book Ending Aging by Aubrey de Grey, although I may have heard about some related ideas on various websites before that. > And how long would you want to live for? Certainly at least a couple hundred years, and by that point I'd have time to think about how much longer I'd want. I don't really see a reason why I'd want less than infinite time if it were possible. > I’ve never understood the philosophy behind life extension research, because to me it seems like a case of spending a lot of resources in the hope of improving something that isn’t really broken. I've spent several decades working really hard, or studying. Although I hope I'll have a great time in the next several decades, I sure do want more. Also, I have many things I want to do that I know I won't have time to do in one currently normal lifetime. There are several projects like books I'd write that I will probably not get a chance to do, because there are so many other things I want to do also. Basically the rough outline of my schedule for the next 40-50 years is pretty packed. Obviously I'm going to prioritize and so a bunch of things will be pushed off the list, but I'd really like to do all the things on the list, plus have plenty of time for general entertainment, social life, and so on.

Swizec 4y ago

Life is short in many ways, but it’s also the longest thing you will ever do. There’s plenty of time if you prioritize and focus. No you won’t be able to do everything. But you have enough time to do the things you care about. And the things that run out? Enjoy them! Running out is what makes them special.

block_dagger 4y ago

Life is short if you’re enjoying it. If it’s full of unbearable torture, the opposite is true.

cableshaft 4y ago
Not necessarily. There are options to make their life short in that circumstance. Horrible and unfortunate options, but options nonetheless.

NovaVeles 4y ago

The Japanese concept of `Mono no aware` seemsto fit into this ideal. The tragedy and loss of life itsef https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mono_no_aware https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mono_no_aware

msie 4y ago

At 51, I am trying to come to grips with wasting my life in my 20s, 30s and 40s. I don't remember doing anything memorable during that time. I spent too much time doing bullshit programming or doing the same old comfortable things with friends. I wish I dated more. Tried more things that young people can do. I was too scared to make mistakes. Now I can't go back. It's driving me nuts.

npc12345 4y ago
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FartyMcFarter 4y ago
You still have plenty of time left to do cool things.
icelancer 4y ago
Don't be 68 wondering the same thing about the last decade and a half.
- myth_drannon 4y ago
  That's the problem, now you can't know what you would regret in 20 years.
eternauta3k 4y ago
What things do you wish you'd done, besides dating?
Glawen 4y ago
What can young people do now that you could not do ? Internet stuff? The way I see it, young people now can do less than when I was young. For example lots of dangerous activities got prohibited (e.g. fireworks) or they added too much regulations (alcohol, cigarettes, mopeds). For good or worse, no more compulsory army at 18. We live in a very protective society where every threatening activity gets banned. As a European, I studied in the UK and got a masters, tutions fees paid by the European Union. My children cannot do this anymore. My young is 17 and spend his free time in the gym, and he is not alone. It is true I could not do this at his age, but I do not understand it.

HellDunkel 4y ago

Started reading then realized it is def. too short to waste on pgs thoughts.

stormking 4y ago
It obviously isn't too short to leave a mean comment
- HellDunkel 4y ago
  Certainly not. Happy to trade in a few of those HN points.
- testmasterflex 4y ago
  :D

brainlessdev 4y ago

Related reads are Seneca's On The Shortness Of Life (appropriately only about 100 pages) and maybe also Marcus Aurelius's Meditations. These are recommendations from a philosophy newbie.

dynamite-ready 4y ago

Key point I think the article misses, is that 'bullshit', much like spacetime, is relative.

passion__desire 4y ago
What did the Leviathan of Parsonstown teach us?https://www.youtube.com/shorts/mQhBEw3gjSk https://www.youtube.com/shorts/mQhBEw3gjSk I don't know what the above youtube short means for Gettier problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gettier_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gettier_problem Any thoughts?

jbaber 4y ago

I'm able to shorten life by doing mindless "have to" tasks and consuming distracting media (music, books, movies, games, etc.) I'm able to lengthen it by deliberately, reflectively doing anything (thinking, programming, breathing, etc.). I spent almost three decades in school -- grading and getting graded. I made that time race by as much as I could so I could get to the part where I have kids and a job that I can actually enjoy. Now I'm savoring every minute. I feel the natural compression of time that comes with age, of course, but I'm more than able to counter it by consciously enjoying life.

althea_tx 4y ago
Well said. It’s worth adding that various mood altering substances can speed up our perception of the passage of life while impairing our ability to remember what happened.
- SyzygistSix 4y ago
  Some can slow it waaaay down too.
  - jjeaff 4y ago
    Does that also make those moments more memorable? I don't have any experience in it, but seems like an interesting possibility that when things seem to slow down you remember them better. Or maybe you remember them even less?
    - SyzygistSix 4y ago
      Is an experience only fun or valuable when you can remember it? What does that say about all the things we remember incorrectly?
      - althea_tx 4y ago
        Good question. My early 20s are a blur, partly because of recreational substances I ingested. At the time, the days felt long and full. The experience isn’t less fun or valuable but I wish I could access all of those memories. It’s not that I worry about the accuracy of the memories I’ve retained. I am saddened by the gaps in what I remember.

carabiner 4y ago

Holy god this is terrifying. It gives way to a mindset of desperate minmaxing, when conventionally we are supposed to maintain a view of abundance towards life. How can we think life is abundant when it is in fact scarce?

sriku 4y ago

Somewhat related and somewhat tangential. Slavoj Zizek on the "tautological emptiness of the master's wisdom" - """ The tautological emptiness of a Master's Wisdom is exemplified in the inherent stupidity of proverbs. Let us engage in a mental experiment by way of trying to construct proverbial wisdom out of the relationship between terrestrial life, its pleasures, and its Beyond. If ones says, "Forget about the afterlife, about the Elsewhere, seize the day, enjoy life fully here and now, it's the only life you've got!" it sounds deep. If one says exactly the opposite ("Do not get trapped in the illusory and vain pleasures of earthly life; money, power, and passions are all destined to vanish into thin air - think about eternity!"), it also sounds deep. If one combines the two sides ("Bring Eternity into your everyday life, live your life on this earth as if it is already permeated by Eternity!"), we get another profound thought. Needless to add, the same goes for it's inversion: "Do not try in vain to bring together Eternity and your terrestrial life, accept humbly that you are forever split between Heaven and Earth!" If, finally, one simply gets perplexed by all these reversals and claims: "Life is an enigma, do not try to penetrate its secrets, accept the beauty of its unfathomable mystery!" the result is, again, no less profound than its reversal: "Do not allow yourself to be distracted by false mysteries that just dissimulate the fact that, ultimately, life is very simple - it is what it is, it is simply here without reason and rhyme!" Needless to add that, by uniting mystery and simplicity, one again obtains a wisdom: "The ultimate, unfathomable mystery of life resides in its very simplicity, in the simple fact that there is life." """

majestic5762 4y ago
Beautiful ! :)
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yef 4y ago

An antidote to bullshit (e.g., unproductive meetings that you still have to go to) is journaling. When you're writing to yourself, for no other audience but yourself, you can be 100% honest. So that helps serve to counteract it and give strength, sometimes you also see things from another person's perspective. e.g. the meeting may have some value to your boss, which has follow-on benefits to you that you hadn't considered.

do_nothing 4y ago

This is the way.

srb231 4y ago

" I lived as if she'd always be there. And in her typical quiet way she encouraged that illusion. But an illusion it was. I think a lot of people make the same mistake I did." PG's writing style is excellent, conversational and clear expression of ideas. Profoundly written. Relentlessly pruning bullshit gets better with practice and age.

osrec 4y ago

> 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. I find this argument strange, especially since he uses the word "seem". "Seem" does not mean "is". If you really want to make life seem short, measure it in millennia. You only get a fraction of one. Personally, I feel it's about your state of mind. If you're depressed, life feels unbelievably long. If things are going well, then you don't want the good times to ever end, and it seems short. I don't really know how to conclude whether life is or isn't short. All I can conclude from the article is that PG is quite happy with his!

xyzelement 4y ago
// All I can conclude from the article is that PG is quite happy with his! A great sign that we should pay attention to his advice :)
aktenlage 4y ago
> I find this argument strange, especially since he uses the word "seem". "Seem" does not mean "is". As he writes in the beginning, there is no objective truth to answer this question. Since it is subjective "seeming" is all that matters. If life seems short to you, it is (for you). If not, it isn't.

emadabdulrahim 4y ago

Life is finite. Long or short is all relative and depends on your state of mind.

davidmpaz 4y ago

> If you're a freelancer or a small company, you can do this at the level of individual customers. If you fire or avoid toxic customers, you can decrease the amount of bullshit in your life by more than you decrease your income. This have been proven true to me so many times!

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r3trohack3r 4y ago

My daughter is turning 5 in a few weeks. I realized I only have 3 more of these until she’s (likely) moving out. 4x5=20, and she’ll likely be living her own life by 20. Most of the time you spend with your kids is spent by the time they’re 16. I moved away from my hometown. I see my immediate relatives twice a year now, once at Christmas and once in the summer. Most of my family is getting old. I probably have 125 or so more visits with my parents, 20-50 with my grandparents, and less than 10 with my great grandpa. I keep these numbers in mind every time I go home. Life isn’t short. Meaningful moments are. Don’t take them for granted.

zemvpferreira 4y ago
This is inevitably going to sound facetious but you can always move back. Give up some things, gain others. Isn't that what this essay's about? I'm 40. My parents are 75 and I recently moved back next door to them. I expect to be here until they die. Is it my favourite place to live? No. Best for my career? Couldn't be worse. But I see my folks every day. I see my childhood friends every week. I see as much of my family as I can stand - I bump into a random cousin on the daily. Do you value closeness to family above other things and would you like your daughter to value closeness to you when she grows up? Choices are here to be made.
- r3trohack3r 4y ago
  Not facetious at all. I call it "visiting Paris." A large number of people I grew up with "wanted to see the world." My younger self modeled a lot of my desired outcomes on people's externally stated desires. As I got older, I started realizing something: a lot of what people said they wanted was attainable for them and their socioeconomic status if they made different trade offs. So I started poking and offering advice on how they could "visit Paris." What I came to learn is that they wanted to be the kind of people that wanted to visit Paris. But they never would go to Paris. It was the idea they liked. I have well off family members who talk about wishing their son lived closer. They have the means to visit him. They're retired and live near an airport with direct flights, 3.5 hours door to door. But they never go. That's their Paris. I don't want to live in my hometown. I don't kid myself - I value raising my family here where I live more than the extra time with family. But, at the same time, when I go back I spend that time in a way maximally meaningful to me. I try not to have "going to Paris" wishes. I sacrifice protecting my ego from my own decisions but it makes me reconcile my decisions with my desires before reaching the state of irreversible regret.

Jugurtha 4y ago

For anyone wondering why it is "vb.html", it certainly comes from "vita brevis" (life is short), often used as "Ars longa, vita brevis", which references Hippocrates[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ars_longa,_vita_brevis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ars_longa,_vita_brevis """ Vīta brevis, ars longa, occāsiō praeceps, experīmentum perīculōsum, iūdicium difficile. """ """ Life is short, and art long, opportunity fleeting, experimentations perilous, and judgment difficult. """

Invictus0 4y ago

Life is not short [0]: we just waste most of it. [0] https://dkb.show/post/life-is-not-short https://dkb.show/post/life-is-not-short

andyjohnson0 4y ago

An average-ish human lifespan of 80 years is approximately 1000 months, or 4000 weeks, or 10,000 days. It's frightening,but my memento mori is to remind myself of this periodically.

handzhiev 4y ago
4000 weeks is 28,000 days :) Otherwise, you are right and we don't even have this granted.
tracyhenry 4y ago
80 years = 29,220 days
- andyjohnson0 4y ago
  Sigh... typo. Should have been 30,000. Thanks It's still not enough.
amrocha 4y ago
This seems like the exact kind of confident mistake that AIs make hahaha

digbybk 4y ago

I really like this, but to to add an alternate perspective: I’m skeptical of deathbed regrets, and regrets in general. I don’t think your present self actually knows what your past self went through. We remember events but are bad at remembering emotions except in very broad, general ways. You might say “I wish I had spent more time with my kids and less time at work”. But you won’t remember the feeling of dissatisfaction you had with your home life and the pride you felt when you delivered on a difficult project. You could say “I wish I was more satisfied with my home life” but how much control do you have over that, really? I don’t remember where I heard this: “every person you see is fighting a battle that you know nothing about, so be kind, always”. I think we can extend that same kindness to ourselves.

jjeaff 4y ago
I'd say you have about as much control over your career trajectory as you do your home life (arguably more control over how your home life turns out). And I agree that memory is fickle and weird but I think there is a reason you so rarely hear someone say, they wished they had spent more time on their career rather than family. They recognize what brought/brings them happiness.
- digbybk 4y ago
  I suspect that a lot of deathbed regrets about not spending enough time with your kids is for the benefit of the kids. Who would say “I’m glad I didn’t spent all that much time with you and your siblings. Frankly. I had better things to do.” I’m not saying that you shouldn’t spend more time with your family. I’m saying that we should give our past selves the benefit of the doubt when it comes to their decision making, whatever your present self decides to do. It’s just an argument against regret.
  - ido 4y ago
    Not affirming or disproving anything you wrote, it just reminded me that my mother once told that in one of the last conversations she had with my grandmother, she told her she never really loved her as much as she loved my uncle (or maybe that she didn't really love her much at all, I don't remember exactly). She was eventually senile enough to be unable to talk towards the end of her life. I also found it interesting that my grandmother was extremely loving and caring to me. And my grandfather (who was ever less kind to my mother than my grandmother was) was very affectionate to his great-grandchildren (but not his grandchildren). Maybe they both regretted it near the end of their lives and tried to handle things differently with the younger generations? But yes, I agree- I would guess most people had more tact and empathy than my grandmother apparently had towards her daughter, and wouldn't say something like that even if it was true. And if they did many their kids wouldn't be too quick to recount the experience publicly?

jasonhansel 4y ago

Here's my question: why should you care what your future self thinks? Should avoiding future regret really be your primary goal now? This whole article seems a bit self-centered, in that it suggests you should first and foremost care about how things will affect you in the future, rather than caring about others. It seems to me like you should spend less time trying to prevent future regret, and more time trying to do right by other people.

aktenlage 4y ago
If it was only a regret on the deathbed, I'd agree. But if these regrets are held for many decades, and thus the pain from them may well outweigh a sacrifice in the presence - if the regretfullness is high enough.

netchkin 4y ago

I have recently started wondering about the nature of a very specific bullshit enabler these days, which is attention commoditization. It almost looks like in the pre-AI days, there was a surge of online marketers trying trying to learn about people and behavior, occasionally employing dark patterns to get you to click. Later, with the surge of social media use, AI models were used to recommend content incongruent with the user's best interest. And it worked as it becomes increasingly difficult to go out in the internet to get a particular job done, but the sheer amount of rabbit-holes ventured to must me astounding. And now the trend seems to be shorts/stories/tiktok, which only looks to me as means to groom human attention for even easier override with clickbaits and ads. I wonder how many people daily fail to focus on what matters because of the attention problems induced by the modern tech and is there any research about it?

m3kw9 4y ago

I think counting visits or counting in general isn’t as good as getting that one quality time you spend with that person that would remember for a life time. You could be visiting and just be around, while that is also good but you may wish you did way more

alexchantavy 4y ago

> The "flow" that imaginative people love so much has a darker cousin that prevents you from pausing to savor life amid the daily slurry of errands and alarms. This is a great sentence and I want to see it expanded on. I crave being in that flow state and enjoy what I do but it makes me very irritable to be interrupted and I realize needing this level of focus potentially takes me away from other aspects of life like spending time with my family. I’m wondering if others have dealt with these sorts of feelings. I love what I work on, sometimes to the detriment of other things and difficult for me to zoom out in the way described in the essay.

conqueso 4y ago
I enjoyed the piece and this is one part that I disagree with. As I understand it, being in a flow state simply means being totally absorbed by what you are doing during that time frame - it doesn't necessitate taking any more time away from other activities/priorities that you otherwise would if not in a flow state. I also enjoy working like this, and can relate to the feeling of frustration when being interrupted when the going's good. The most effective way I've found to avoid it is communicating that I'm "head down" and turn off all (non-emergency) notifications. Being able to shift away from work when you're not on the clock is a certain kind of discipline that is necessary to living a healthy and (IMO) worthwhile life - working in a flow state does not have to impede this.

up2isomorphism 4y ago

According to this, first thing we should do is quitting hacker news.

psteitz 4y ago

Beautiful post, which I had not seen. Many thanks for (re-)posting. I often use the "seems critical now" vs "will be important in the future" test and marvel at how crazy different these are. As I get older, I seem to be getting better at telling the difference. The consequence of this attitude is that you have to get used to taking a lot of immediate flack for ignoring transitory bullshit. I love the reference to children and their helpfulness in bullshit-shedding. I am reminded of one of my favorite quotes, from a somewhat sick bird who nonetheless really got the value of both time with children and avoiding bullshit: "A man's maturity consists in his finding, once again, the seriousness that he had as a child at play" -Friedrich Nietzsche

5tefan 4y ago

I try not to regret. It is a pain to do so. You can't go back in time and you can't change a thing but we torment ourselves with the wish to do so. Stop doing that. We live now and if we want to spend more time with our loved ones we have to do it. Now. Not later.

ca98am79 4y ago

Having kids is hard, but yeah it is one of the best things. My wife would get annoyed when we would pass someone walking and they would see our kids and say "enjoy your time with them while they are young!" Because she hadn't slept and was stressed out. She would think "you enjoy your freedom and your full night of sleep!" "The days are long but the years are short" is a quote I think about a lot. I think the key is the same whether you have kids or not: peace of mind in the present moment. If you are happy now you won't regret it later.