37 ms·

Four thousand weeks

524 points by jparise 4y ago

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
sd2022al 4y ago
Very inspiring and thoughtful ! I feel overwhelmed from time to time and this is a great reminder to prioritize and set boundaries.
- FearlessNebula 4y ago
  It’s funny, I also found this inspiring and thoughtful but for almost the exact opposite reason. I never feel overwhelmed (not that I’d like to), and feel like I’m letting life pass by while I do meaningless crap. I don’t want to work for the sake of work, I want to do great work because of the enjoyment it brings me to learn cool things and work on complex systems. I don’t want to waste more time on Reddit, I want to spend that time on a hobby, or exercise, or learning something.
localghost3000 4y ago
I’m impressed by the beauty of this site and sophistication of the UI. However I _hate_ this type of messaging that does nothing for you except make your mental health worse. I don’t want to think about how many weeks of life I have left! Inducing existential dread is NOT what any of us need to start living our lives more fully (which I assume is the intent of this site). You wanna zone out on YouTube? Go for it. That’s just as valid as staying up all night to watch a sunrise. As with all things, moderation.
- FearlessNebula 4y ago
  Tbh I don’t think you understood the goal of this post. The idea, to me, is to remind the reader of how precious life is, and to be mindful of how you’re spending it. Whether you think about it or try to ignore it, time is ticking by at the same speed. I’m only 25 but I’ve wasted way too much time on Reddit, YouTube, and even HN, in my opinion. > As with all things, moderation. Sure, but in my anecdotal experience the vast majority of people are spending more time on YouTube than what their own values would permit. And also anecdotally, people who experience more existential dread seem to be those who realize they aren’t living their life quite the way they’d like to.
  - localghost3000 4y ago
    I’m 45. Wife. Kid. The works. Painfully aware of how precious life is. 20 years ago when I was your age (which btw feels like only a few years ago…) this type of content resonated a lot more with me. I assume it was because the concept of aging was still pretty abstract. Now I’m in the shit so to speak. My point is that I’ve seen a million of these. Hell I’ve read 4K weeks! You’ll get no argument from me that spending your time wisely is important but try to keep in mind that making the most of Every Second Of The Day is a sure way to make yourself miserable. I should know. I’ve done it. So, the intent of this page might be to inspire, but for a lot of folks it will trigger unnecessary existential panic. I guess just try to remember the very wise advice from LOTR: “not all who wander are lost.”
    - tayo42 4y ago
      > spending your time wisely is important but try to keep in mind that making the most of Every Second Of The Day is a sure way to make yourself miserable. That was the whole point of the book though? Stop trying to make the most of every second and do what you think is important.
      - localghost3000 4y ago
        I'm not critiquing the book. I am critiquing the site.
    - FearlessNebula 4y ago
      That’s a good point. Whenever I’ve felt existential dread it’s been soothing to know I can improve myself and live life in a better way. However if you’re already in what you consider to be an ideal state, you don’t have any wiggle room. And with a wife and kids on top, you have others who depend on you and also your own attachment to those people, which makes it all the more difficult to acknowledge that life is finite. All of the above which I haven’t experienced for myself.
      - localghost3000 4y ago
- mateo- 4y ago
  I think it's more of the stoic "memento mori" intention. Make sure your time is well spent.
  - localghost3000 4y ago
    I understand the message. I get that it’s coming from a good place too. I’m just saying that stuff like this can make people feel bad about themselves unintentionally.
    - nine_k 4y ago
      I'd say sometimes people may need to feel bad about themselves in order to improve. And this feeling may be triggered unintentionally, too; there's no way around it sometimes. Feeling the pain sucks though.
      - localghost3000 4y ago
        We disagree. Being ready to make a change and being kind to yourself are not mutually exclusive ideas.
        dnissley 4y ago
        Are you implying that feeling bad = being unkind to yourself?
        localghost3000 4y ago
        I don’t anything is as binary as that no. I do think that there’s a difference between being ready for a change and beating yourself up about your shortcomings.
  - ip26 4y ago
    But what counts as well spent? That’s always my biggest stumbling block with this topic.
- GavinMcG 4y ago
  Who said anything about existential dread? Perhaps the fact that dread is your reaction speaks more to your relationship with mortality than to the site’s approach.
  - localghost3000 4y ago
    I mean that’s pretty much what I said. I suspect it’s not just me as well.
    - GavinMcG 4y ago
      Fair enough. I guess I read your statement as universalizing that feeling. That is, when you said "this type of messaging ... does nothing for you except make your mental health worse" it didn't seem like a statement about your reaction; it seemed like a criticism of the site. It probably isn't just you, but on the other hand, if we were to agree that existential dread is a less desirable reaction than some others (and it might not be!) there doesn't seem to me to be an obvious way to develop those more desirable reactions through methods other than exposure therapy via these sorts of sites.
- joshcanhelp 4y ago
  I feel your feels here and whole-heartedly agree that the “life is short” trope is unhelpful. But the book that this site was based on is not that. In fact, I would say that the week count that the site give you is antithetical to the book’s message. I regard 4000 Weeks as one of, if not the, most important books I’ve ever read. The message might not be important for everyone but it changed my perspective in several important ways.
  - localghost3000 4y ago
    I've read it. You're right that it's not an existential panic machine. I don't know that it resonated with me as much as it has with you but it's a good read.
- layer8 4y ago
  Had the opposite reaction. The advice is valuable, but I didn’t care much about the presentation. The purpose also isn’t to give you existential dread, but to pull you out of the daily productivity routine blinders so that you can see the broader bird’s eye view perspective.
  - localghost3000 4y ago
    I've said this in a few other comments but I'll just repeat here that I am not accusing the author of the site of trying to make people feel bad about themselves. The intent is clearly to inspire. I just think that for a certain cohort of people it will hurt more than it helps.
- antman 4y ago
  Regarding the sophisticated ui, how do you change the year?
  - localghost3000 4y ago
    Heh. Aside from that.
  - ojbyrne 4y ago
    There’s an arrow right next to January 2023 in the date selector.
- eyelidlessness 4y ago
  Not reacting to your comment, nor to any particular of the replies, but the general direction of the conversation below: I get the impression this is a lightning rod for misunderstanding, and lots of loaded assumptions around what participants in the conversation value and about the values they find disagreeable. But a common thread I’ve seen is that being adaptable to what you need and helps you thrive is better than setting arbitrary impossible expectations. That seems totally healthy to me regardless of some finer points I might dispute in individual comments. I hope there’s a chance this discussion will reach a point with less talking past each other, because there’s an awful lot that seems to be held in common.
- minaguib 4y ago
  Interesting opinion. I was mentioning the 4000 weeks idea to a friend and how I found it interesting and thought-provoking, and their reaction was quite the opposite as it was way too dark for them. I wonder if this idea highlights some fairly clear differences in people's personalities and mental models (at least, at the time and place in their life they're evaluating it).
  - mulderc 4y ago
    I deeply disliked the book not because I found it dark but instead obvious and the writer plays out the implications that we have limited time in our lives in very strange ways such as arguing against using NFC to pay for things. If you have taken an intro philosophy class or even watched some videos on YouTube you will have already seen these ideas. A much better use of someone’s limited time would be to just read an intro to Buddhism or existentialism. You will get the same basic concepts and much better ideas on how you can address these issues in your life.
- PheonixPharts 4y ago
  > Inducing existential dread is NOT what any of us need to start living our lives more fully I’ve found, as I watch friends and family age, that learning to confront and work with this dread is essential to living life fully. Especially as decline and decay start to dominate aspects of your life more and more. The people that I know that are uncomfortable talking about these topics progressively live in a world of fear and doubt as they age. The others, become increasingly resilient. Arguably the single act that defines maturity is facing this dread and learning to accept and exist with it. Until then you are living a half life, only dealing with the part of existence you find comfortable, but so much of who we are as individuals is defined by this other aspect of being.
  - avgcorrection 4y ago
    That would be nice if we were taught any concrete ways to do that. But we aren’t. “Confront”? What does that even mean? The Dalai Lama allegedly meditates on dying every day. With the whole decay visualization business.
  - WhiteBlueSkies 4y ago
    There is no decay and decline. Thinking that decay and decline is coming is the decay happening right now. This mentality needs to change ASAP.
  - ericmcer 4y ago
    So how do you accept it? I know a handful of 75+ year old family members who I am close to and they don’t think about it at all. The ones who act like they are still young and don’t dwell on death seem the happiest. It runs counter to the argument that death is something you need to meditate on and acknowledge every day. Maybe there is something to just living in denial until your quality of life has degraded and your friends are gone and death seems a welcome release.
    - waboremo 4y ago
      Acting young does not exclude thinking about death. Being able to focus on other things most of the time also doesn't exclude thinking about death. I find it difficult to believe your family members do not think about death, even if you try your hardest to avoid it, people die around you and you are forced to face reality. Accepting death will happen is a prerequisite. So many are afraid of this event, but it is just another event. What can you do about death? Nothing. So it's pointless to worry about the impending event of death. For some control freaks, this sends them into an internal spiral, and to them I say maybe reassess whatever trauma caused them to seek control over the uncontrollable. For others, this is freeing. It happens when it happens so all I can do is act on the now. This is where I think most elderly people are at, and why they feel liberated. They aren't concerned about a legacy or preventing death or reputation, they care about the here and now. Loving who they love, working on what they enjoy, saying what's on their mind, and letting go of the rest. Some people mistake this liberation to be a complete disregard for planning or the future. But on the contrary, if an elderly person sees high value in a higher education for their grandchildren for instance, they might seek to make contributions. They are acting in the now for their own benefit, understanding whatever happens when they are gone is uncontrollable anyway. Do you need to pray to the god of death every day? No, but it's helpful to frame your perspective knowing death is going to happen. Especially when doing so helps fuel better decisions. Why worry about your social perception by joining a painting class? Why not go for a nice hike today? Our problems see minute when we acknowledge death is around the corner.
- Ozzie_osman 4y ago
  "Live everyday as your last; plan everyday as if you will live forever." I try to hold both ideas in my head at the same time.
- itsallinyahead 4y ago
  If you let the bad emotions and feelings do their business, instead of constantly trying to escape from them, you wouldn't be feeling this way. You, and many others in this modern world, remind of Dostoyevskian characters: neurotic, overly-emotional, busy buzzing around, the cause of all their own problems. No one can sit still in silence, alone with themselves -- they're always running away. There's always some emotion taking hold of them, and can't simply let it run its course. No, "something must be done!" It reminds me of the Russian "martial art" система: the more you "hold on," the more pain you will feel, and less effective your moves will be. Somehow, people have never learned to let go, and become completely relaxed. They're constantly holding onto something, and being thrashed around by life. Perhaps you people need to try ayahuasca? Or maybe meditation? Maybe drink less coffee? Maybe stop forcing yourself to do all of this stuff you really don't want to do? Take a break? Become mindful of your body, mind, and soul? I have 2,000 weeks left. My life will not be lived "fully" to the standards of some over-socialized urbanite. That is fine. I have things I want to do. I don't care about anyone's opinion on them. Knowing I have lived half of my life already doesn't stir any emotions in me. There is no existential dread. There is no "start" to living a life. You're living one already. If there are things that stir emotions in you, let them. Never exploring your feelings, leading to the emotional depth of a middle schooler, is one way to not live a "full" life -- not some inanity about "spending" your time "better" (to reduce life to some abstraction is only for the soulless).
  - smallnix 4y ago
    Or consider this, a person that manages to take out a loan and then dies before repaying can cheat the bank.
    - ehecatl42 4y ago
      It has crossed my mind to take such a loan, spend it on waygu and Château Lafite and that euthanasia place (Dignitas?) in Switzerland. Cheat the bank and the pain of dying. But then again, I am curious to see how things turn out, and that I won't know until my computation is complete.
    - Dalewyn 4y ago
- kirso 4y ago
  The thing is, it can be both stress and revelation depending on how you look at it. Part of 4000 weeks is a chapter that is called "Cosmic insignificance therapy" which goes along the lines of nothing we do really matters in a grand scheme of things. Again, depending on how you see it - it can be both shackling but also liberating. The both of extremes of: - I want to put my head in the sand and ignore the reality (we are mortal) - YOLO are not exactly ideal. As you said yourself => balance.
  - twelve40 4y ago
    now I really don't want to read it, sounds pretty depressing : (
    - kirso 4y ago
      That's the point :) It is not. We are mortal, that's just a fact of life. I do agree with the comment OP though that both: - Maximising every day is bad - Ignoring life is bad In the end its all about balance and content as the top voted comment goes. I would still recommend the book to everyone! EDIT: Also as one of the comments notes here: "If you don't feel some existential dread at some point it's because you aren't being honest with yourself"
- idiotsecant 4y ago
  If you don't feel some existential dread at some point it's because you aren't being honest with yourself, which is a prerequisite to moving past that dread. IMO reminding people that they are mortal and that they should find a way to deal with that is a public service. So many of the strange things we do are because we're afraid to confront the reality that we too, some day, will die.
  - localghost3000 4y ago
    I dunno. I think you are over generalizing TBH. For some it might be a public service. For others it might damage their mental health. It's highly contextual to where you are in life.
- jraby3 4y ago
  I really love the advice at the end, and it’s not difficult to listen to. Be curious about other people. Act immediately on a generous impulse. Live with intensity and focus. Having directly actionable advice is extremely helpful, even as a reminder. And I agree with you the site is extremely well done.
- crucialfelix 4y ago
  As soon as it asked my birth date I knew it would estimate my death date and I closed the tab.
  - Tepix 4y ago
    So you're avoiding thinking about how much time you have left?
    - cpsns 4y ago
      Why not? That sort of thing isn't helpful or thought provoking for many of us. On the other hand many will find it thought provoking in extremely negative ways. Most people do not like to think about their impending doom on this hellish planet.
- bambax 4y ago
  TFA is a little pompous and purports to give advice nobody asked for. The date selector at the beginning uses the super weird American format of month/day/year that nobody else uses. And, to the best of my knowledge, there is no "Charles Eisenstien", but a Charles Eisenstein (author of the first quote in the long, interminable scroll). I'm not so sure life is short; but spending it reading self-help books and unsolicited advice is one sure way to waste time.
- komali2 4y ago
  > You wanna zone out on YouTube? Go for it. That’s just as valid as staying up all night to watch a sunrise. People should spend their time how they please but I strongly feel that feeding The Algorithm directly into your brain for hours is objectively less mentally healthy than staring at a sunrise, even if the sunrise is mind numbingly boring.
  - localghost3000 4y ago
    And vegetables are better for you than a candy bar. You should try to have more of the former than the latter but treating yourself to some junk food here and there is a good thing.
- avgcorrection 4y ago
  Couldn’t agree more. Maybe this website would serve some purpose if we weren’t constantly being reminded of getting older, weaker, not having much time left, maybe you will get Alzheimers if you don’t do this One Weird Trick, etc. But as it stands we are reminded plenty of how short our lives are.
pixelmonkey 4y ago
A nice visual version of this memento mori is Tim Urban's "Your Life in Weeks": https://waitbutwhy.com/2014/05/life-weeks.html https://waitbutwhy.com/2014/05/life-weeks.html After reading this, I used this nice online PDF generator to print out my personalized life calendar, and kept it in my home office with a pen nearby, checking off the passing weeks occasionally (every month or so). https://www.ekn.io/calendar/ https://www.ekn.io/calendar/ Spending some time to check off the first ~2k weeks -- checking a little box for each week of my life thus far -- was quite an emotional thing, actually.
- DavidPiper 4y ago
  Tim Urban also wrote a slightly haunting follow-up: https://waitbutwhy.com/2015/12/the-tail-end.html https://waitbutwhy.com/2015/12/the-tail-end.html I read it every January or so.
  - saboot 4y ago
    Man this was hard to read. My parents moved across the country a few years ago, went from seeing them every two weeks to twice a year. I'll be lucky to see them more than a couple dozen times total for the rest of our lives.
  - cezart 4y ago
    Paul Graham also has an essay which explores the same core idea, but imho he manages to explore more angles of the passage of time, and how we perceive it through the scarcity of different experiences we value. If you liked this one, check it out: http://www.paulgraham.com/vb.html http://www.paulgraham.com/vb.html
- benkaiser 4y ago
  I made a new tab page that follows the same idea: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/life-clock-new-tab-page/hpbfjnhippjockepghakfijgfjildojg https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/life-clock-new-tab...
charles_f 4y ago
I'm in the middle of the book, it's very inspirational. This websites great, thanks!
- drivers99 4y ago
  Someone mentioned this book recently on HN and I discovered I had already listened to section one of the audio version which I didn’t remember, so I listened to it again. This page seems to be a nice summary including the more practical advice later that I haven’t gotten to either time I started listening to it.
- nextos 4y ago
  Does the book have any good insights? From reviews, I kind of perceived it's only about limiting work in progress and adopting a more slow and human approach to things. I feel these insights were already brought by many industrial production methodologies, e.g. Toyota, in a more rational and less newage-y package. Am I missing something?
  - tayo42 4y ago
    Its from the perspective of someone who was obsessed with productivity porn coming to terms with the idea that none of that will ever actually work. He addresses why he thinks that and supports it with different ideas. I don't think anything is new, but he takes disjointed ideas and kind of puts it all together from his perspective. I thought it was interesting and it was a quick read.
    - uxp100 4y ago
      I think this is a good description. What I missed from some other comments on HN that were complementary to the book is how personal it is. I think people who are already familiar with Oliver would enjoy it best. Some sections were so specific to a certain type of guy, but phrased as if everyone will relate to it. I still liked it overall, but it really is for "productivity porn" strivers with a certain background. I mean, I go on HN, I'm familiar with GTD and pomodoro, I'm anxious about my own achievement, I kinda thought I was that guy. But after reading 4000 weeks, I could be like, ok, wow, uh, interesting things to chew on, but these are not really my problems. (And I am still baffled by the idea that people would look down on you for having hobbies. Is this a British thing? Do I have to ascend a social sphere to get this? Because if I am chatting with some pals, let's say could be a few other engineers, miscellaneous office workers, various retail, service and trades, well... what is going to come up? bowling, maybe model kits, horror movies, booze? Are we going to discourse seriously about public affairs? Maybe someone thinks my motor controller firmware I worked on that day is cool, but I don't really want to talk about it)
metadat 4y ago
What's with the Date-Picker widget on the first screen? Is it supposed to do something or anything at all? I'm using Brave on Android.
- drivers99 4y ago
  It’s to determine your approximate age and remaining lifespan in weeks.
- kylecazar 4y ago
  You're supposed to pick when you were born, which allows you to "scroll on". But also on Android -- am I missing something or am I supposed to scroll backwards month by month to 1989?
  - debesyla 4y ago
    At least on android chrome I could click on year number (top of the selection table) to pick the year.
    - pony_sheared 4y ago
      Thanks for this this comment, at least on Huawei's version of Android UI it's not at all obvious that the year is a button.
  - tarotuser 4y ago
    On Android/Firefox, same issue. I just closed the site. There is 0% chance I would go month-by-month to anything before 2010. And I would still have 20 more years.
    - mrfumier 4y ago
      Closed the site as well. Horrible input field.
  - layer8 4y ago
    Tapping on the year at the top in the date picker popup should open a year chooser. This should be the native Android date picker (<input type="date"> in the HTML), e.g. https://stackoverflow.com/a/56789808/623763 https://stackoverflow.com/a/56789808/623763.
Waterluvian 4y ago
Having kids saved me. You can’t procrastinate on raising kids. There are no sick days. I’ve never been more active in my life. Today I spent an hour running around avoiding lava at a playground. Before kids I’d of spent all that time and a lot more playing World of Warcraft, I believe.
- eyelidlessness 4y ago
  Having a pup and embracing her as my kid feels similar. I know it’s not the same, but I sincerely think that waking up every day putting my pup first is the best thing I’ve ever lived for. Everything else is just icing I have more reason to enjoy.
  - Thorentis 4y ago
    A sad indictment on modern society that this paragraph is able to be written.
    - infamousclyde 4y ago
      Why did you find the parent comment sad? I'm not sure I understand your sentiment.
      - jombib 4y ago
        I think that some people believe that more people leads to more progress, and disagree with the sentiments of people that don’t want kids.
      - wnolens 4y ago
        The thing that most makes this poster's life worth living is caring for an animal which was engineered to be pleasant to care for. And a lot of people use these animals to replace human relationships (I've seen it quite a few times, so blatantly) as they are simpler and more stable. And the indictment is about society (in which human relationships are really hard to have for so so many reasons), not this poster, who has figured out a real cheat code to life and love (and more power to them)
adenozine 4y ago
Unusable bc of scrolljacking. Latest Edge on latest iOS.
- Kiro 4y ago
  The whole point of the site is to use your scrollwheel to visualize it. It's beautiful and a warranted use of scrolljacking.
TurkishPoptart 4y ago
>You have lived one thousand seven hundred seventy-four of them so far That’s a significant amount of the weeks you’ll see. The psychologist Erik Erikson suggests that at this phase of life you focus on the virtue of love. Share yourself more intimately with others and invest in happy relationships so that your future weeks can be lived well with companionship and purpose. Jesus, I'm going to cry. FML.
- msie 4y ago
  I feel left behind and a failure. Where did my 30’s and 40’s go? God knows I tried.
- highwayman47 4y ago
  Same bro
harshaw 4y ago
Not the kind to usually complain about UI but on my android browser there doesn't appear to be a way to bypass the date picker meaning that I have to scroll back in time a month at a time. 576 times to be precise.
- layer8 4y ago
  Tapping on the year at the top in the date picker popup should open a year chooser. This should be the native Android date picker (<input type="date"> in the HTML), e.g. https://stackoverflow.com/a/56789808/623763 https://stackoverflow.com/a/56789808/623763.
- agentwiggles 4y ago
  You can click the year to pick a new one, saving you a few of your precious and finite seconds :) (well, next time you see the date picker, anyway)
- euroderf 4y ago
  Italic, 50%: Tap on the calendar's year to select another
lakeshastina 4y ago
There are a few ways people take such a message - yes, life is precious, be conscious of what we invest our time in. This part makes sense. Yet, it is worth asking, what makes for a meaning life? What makes the 4000 weeks worth it? For some, they chase wealth, power, career success, get one's name recognized, etc - these are milestones to be achieved. Things to accomplish. Others will say, such accomplishments are not the purpose, let us accumulate as many meaningful experiences as possible. So do things like travel the world, and so on. But it is worth reflecting, a few years from now, what really is the difference between a dream you had a few days ago, compared with an experience from, say 10 years ago? The difference is very little. Our memories are fuzzy, and to chase experiences will also likely leave us feeling unfulfilled. Human relationships are also similarly shallow, even if we seek social connection, the odds of it being reciprocated in the manner we value, or of it lasting when we need it, is low. So what's my point? The point is, whatever pursuits we undertake with the belief out there that something that I accomplish, accumulate or experience will bring me happiness and fulfillment is a futile endeavor. Instead, if we can function from a state of feeling content as we live each day, whatever the circumstances, then what we do during the lifespan given to us matters little. However long or short, the inner contentment makes it meaningful. Sorry for the long response, but wanted to share how I look upon this topic.
- deanCommie 4y ago
  Everyone needs to find the level at which they are content with asking no more follow up questions. Happiness and fulfillment are both choices. Otjerwise where does it end? You start worrying about the purpose of your legacy since what does it matter anyway the sun will explode, swallow the earth whole, and eventually the whole universe will go through heat death.
  - Aeolun 4y ago
    Some people find that very comforting.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
sublinear 4y ago
I was fine with this until the list at the end that conflates self help tips with consumer trends.
moneywoes 4y ago
yikes that calculation really triggered my depressive thoughts
Aeolun 4y ago
> We treat our time as something to horde I’m having a hard time understanding how this mistake is made. Hoard and horde are not even close to the same. They sound the same, but before you write it, shouldn’t you have read it at least once? Or consider that maybe ‘mass of people’ is probably not the same word that’s used for ‘amass a a bunch of stuff’? Actually, now that I consider it, it makes total sense that you’d use the same word for that… guess I’ve answered myself. Anyway, it’s hoard.
- lovecg 4y ago
  Some people learn language primarily by sound. Most native speakers learn that way. They’re more likely to swap their/they’re or horde/hoard as for them the scribbles on paper are secondary. Some people learn language primarily through writing - a lot of non-native speakers learn this way. To them someone making a their/they’re mistake is bewildering, but they mispronounce words in ways that seem strange to the sound-learners. The two groups don’t under each other’s struggles and often look down on the other’s language ability.
hamzareh101 4y ago
[dead]
jamesgill 4y ago
No. The point is not to focus on time, or calculating how much of it you have; the point is to live in the present and step out of time. Forget it. The past is only in your mind. The future does not exist. The only real thing is right now. If you are depressed you are living in the past. If you are anxious you are living in the future. If you are at peace you are living in the present. --Lao Tzu
- sd2022al 4y ago
  Thankyou for sharing such a nice and relevant quote, and the context around it.
  - wan_ala 4y ago
    If you like that you might want to read the daodejing, which i think that quote came from.
- jeanloolz 4y ago
  What a phenomenal quote.
- lispm 4y ago
  It's a simple quote, but not very useful. The past isn't generally depressing and there are lots of things worth to be remembered. The past is not only in my mind, it is around me all the time and it is the context I'm living in. The future needs some planning. We just need to live in the present, but also have to make decisions based on past&present&future.
  - Narretz 4y ago
    Shuzo Matsuoka rephrased this in one of his motivational speeches, and just like that it sounds less absolute: "'I want to feel alive!' Its easy. You cant think about the past. 'Why did I do that??' It'll just turn to anger. You also can't think about the future. 'Will it be okay?' It just turns to worry. In that case, hold on for dear life! Stake your entire life in here and now!"
- 4y ago
leebyron 4y ago
Site creator here! Thanks to all who spent some time reading and scrolling through. I’m happy to see such great discussion here, and gives me some confidence the excerpts pulled were the right ones to get the core ideas across.
- Starwatcher2001 4y ago
  Thanks for your site and message. Sorry but personally I found your article difficult to read. Your font choice and background, which seemed to me to overwhelm the text with little contrast, made it hard for me to see and parse the words. Sadly I think much of your message was lost on me. For reference I'm in my sixties and have poorish eyesight. I'm using Firefox. Best wishes.
- k__ 4y ago
  The site forces me to use a calendar widget to input my birth date. I have to scroll over 30 years back in time by months.
  - phrotoma 4y ago
    Yeah, I gave up trying immediately upon realizing this.
  - oliverjhyde 4y ago
    At least on android you can tap the year and get a year ticker/roller input. You definitely don't need to scroll month by month.
    - sexy_seedbox 4y ago
      This is what's frustrating with Google's Material Design. If tech-savvy users like me can't even find or know that the year is clickable, what hope do most non-technical folks or seniors have?
  - leebyron 4y ago
    I noticed a fair amount of complaints about this in the thread, so am sorry for the poor experience. In an attempt for simplicity I used a simple <input type=date> field which means it uses your OS or browser’s native date picker. As a Mac/iOS user I’m pretty familiar with those, but I’ll admit I did not test this across Windows or Android devices which apparently have not done a great job at this UI element.
sk1pper 4y ago
Man, yeah, I feel that; I just don’t have enough time to do everything I want to do. - me, laying on my couch and mindlessly browsing HN There are things I want to do that I legitimately don’t have time for, even though I have time to browse HN. Or at least, I won’t make time for them, because they’re quite time consuming. I want to learn Japanese, make my own top-down RPG, get a black belt in Jiu-Jitsu. Build some cool woodworking projects. Start a blog. Photography. Get better at golf. I’m interested in everything, I could rattle off tons more things that I would love to spend time on. But these must compete with other things I love to do, as well as things I must do. I’ve been doing some game programming recently and have gotten really excited because I finally have grokked Godot. But, I’m not sure I have the time to actually make my own game of any quality. Actually just giving up on that project might be freeing. Like when I gave up on Advent of Code on Day 17 due to problems taking me too long, I was more relieved than anything. I think this is what’s behind giving up on the idea of being able to do all of the stuff you want to do. The problem is that this is fairly soul-crushing. When I have a side project going that I’m really interested in, it’s quite fun and energizing. But I can be obsessive, so all of this extra energy goes towards the project. I think I end up netting negative, because I’m spending so much time and energy on the project. I will also start to abandon other responsibilities and fall behind in other areas of life. Exercise, chores, other but less sexy projects I care about (meditation is always the first to get discarded). Eventually I hit a point where I realize I need to get my act together, and by then, letting go of the big project is relieving, but sad. I guess the problem here is more with the obsessiveness than topics in the article, but they might be related. Like, I‘m constantly chasing novelty. This is probably common nowadays due to the internet. I’m a true geek who loves learning stuff, and I like doing it in a hands on fashion. Having an effectively infinite stream of novel things I can teach myself (minus BJJ and such) to do is just plain addicting. I’m not quite sure what to do about this. This habit has made me a much better programmer. And I’m always doing something I love doing. But there’s collateral damage to other things I care about. And eventually I start feeling like I have no time to do what I need to do, and also what I want to do.
- matwood 4y ago
  I don't know if you currently do BJJ or are only thinking about it, but I started when I was older, and may never get a black belt. But, I have moved up over the years and know that my belt color changing or getting a stripe on an existing belt doesn't suddenly make me a different person. After chasing goals for so long, BJJ is an amazing reminder that it really is the journey that matters. It's shaped me to be a better person regardless of an arbitrary belt color.
mrfumier 4y ago
Seems nice but I stopped at the first textbox. No, I won't waste my time scrolling tru a date picker while I could input the date numbers directly with my keyboard.
- shepherdjerred 4y ago
  It uses the browser datepicker widget. Use a different browser -- it works for me in Brave (Chromium-based). Either way, your comment is irrelevant to the discussion.
- audiodude 4y ago
  You can click on an element of the date and type it directly.
  - valleyer 4y ago
    It's an <input type="date">, so the UI of the date picker depends on your browser.
hellotoby 4y ago
Once you can accept that your own life is insignificant and essentially meaningless, you can stop worrying about how many weeks, days, months or minutes you'll be here for and just appreciate the moment in which you are living. Perhaps you can even be grateful that you have lived at all.
- steve_adams_86 4y ago
  “How strange it is to be anything at all” We get preoccupied with the minutiae of day to day life and forget that we didn’t even know we were dead before we were born, and we won’t even know we’re dead when we die. And here we are right now, perhaps only minutes, hours, or days before we go back to being dust. I find it helpful to think about this when my partner gets yet another parking ticket, I feel directionless in my career, or it seems like my teenage children think I’m lame. Things are fine. They’re actually great. They can get a lot worse. It is worse for many others. I’m very grateful for the cards I was dealt.
  - hellotoby 4y ago
    I guess this is being downvoted because HN isn't really a place where existential nihilists hang out. But in all honesty, isn't it incredible that anything happens at all! That gives me more hope and encouragement than anything else!
  - audiodude 4y ago
    +1 for the concept of "we were dead before we were born". I've always found that the simplest answer to "What happens after you die?" is "The same thing that happened before you were born: everything".
- hellotoby 4y ago
  To quote Dawkins: We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Sahara. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively exceeds the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here. We privileged few, who won the lottery of birth against all odds. How dare we whine at our inevitable return to that prior state, from which the vast majority have never stirred?
riazrizvi 4y ago
Time speeds up as you get older because every day is a decreasingly smaller proportion of your life lived. A fixed 24 hour duration is perceived as a smaller and smaller window into our lives, at any point in time. So life speeding up is just a mental distortion. Instead then, focus on figuring out how to live more healthily. Advances there objectively provide dividends. Also if you’re selfishly wondering what type of problems to devote your life to, develop your empathy and do things that benefit others, because as your time on the clock runs down, the value of your successes in that category don’t also diminish, unlike everything else. Giving is the gift that keeps on giving, so to speak.
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lazerl0rd 4y ago
What I never end up understanding about such topics is what is truly meant by "understanding" [that we have finite lives]. Don't we all know that anyways? Are we being asked to calm down and accept that? If so, isn't such futile for those that couldn't initially (as I don't see how reading a book would change their psyche) and placebo for those that could (as they've just never considered life in that way)?
irrational 4y ago
The older I get (I’m in my 50s) the more I look forward to death (not that I’m doing anything to hasten my way there). No more taxes. No more work. No more responsibilities. No more concerns. Rest in Peace indeed.
- quickthrower2 4y ago
  You’ll be as happy as you were in 1963!
caned 4y ago
The moral: stop worrying about productivity and get back to living and loving. Also, stop wasting hours a day reading HN.
unixhero 4y ago
I don't like these "this is the time you live" sort of analyses. They make me uneasy and potentially depressed. So no thanks, backing out here.
creatable 4y ago
Thanks for the existential dread.
jobgh 4y ago
I hadn't really calculated what percentage my life I've used up. This is so anxiety inducing. I'm realizing how much of my time I've wasted. I need to live more.
quickthrower2 4y ago
There is no way I will have fun with this; so I didn’t enter the date.
college_physics 4y ago
One of the oldest known songs is the song of Seikilos from ancient Greece. It goes like this in translation > While you live, shine > have no grief at all > life exists only for a short while > and time demands its toll. Culture and social structures can mollify or exacerbate the problem of a sentient brain contemplating its demise but wont make it go away. Once we accept that, it is an empirical problem to find which arrangements work for most of people most of the time. A frequently proposed solution that underlies many philosophies and religions is ubuntu, "finding meaning through others": from family and friends to generic strangers on HN.
Kiro 4y ago
> In an ideal world the only person making decisions about your time is you. However this comes at a cost that’s not worth paying. Big disagree on this. I'm so much happier now when I've started saying no to anything I don't want to do. What's the cost? Sure, I meet and bond with less people but doesn't really feel like a big loss. I'm happy being alone with a few good friends and family that respect my integrity and don't demand or expect me to do stuff I don't want.
mkarliner 4y ago
Sigh. Yet another HN post that doesn't work on mobile...
Freak_NL 4y ago
> Choose single-purpose devices like an e-reader where it’s tedious and awkward to do anything but read. Or, you know, an actual paper book. :)
playingalong 4y ago
Does anyone remember an early 90s program for DOS which among other things it would ask for you DOB and output your predicted DOD based on life expectancy? It was graphics, not text. I faintly remember some skeletons illustrations to this dialog.
komali2 4y ago
> Practice doing nothing I've been thinking about this a lot lately. I really like the videos by "Unmotivational Speaker Self-help Singh" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8An2SxNFvmU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8An2SxNFvmU > Just do nothing... do the least amount of work without getting fired... release yourself of obligation and responsibility... everything you think you need to do has been done before you, and will be done without you... you are not special... the world is fucked, and you cannot unfuck it, so just do you... stop searching for the meaning of life, that is futile, you will die just as confused as you are now... so just be happy Recently my partner got laid off with a 3 month severance, and after working her ass off for years it's her first chance to relax "without guilt," she's literally being paid to do nothing (and, well, look for a job, but in her market it won't take long to find another). It's been fascinating to watch her jump between guilt at doing nothing but playing Elden Ring, to righteousness that she deserves it, to fanatic exploration of new hobbies and skills, back to tremendous laziness. She complains about being bored, and it makes me think, what a fantastic opportunity, to be bored. What a privilege, honestly, what a human right, that's been stolen from all of us. The right to be bored. To sit around, having exhausted all the little means to entertain yourself, finally just sitting in your chair, thinking, what's the point? Why am I here? Why am I alive? What should I do with myself? She gets to explore what her purpose is. I think the way we've structured our society, growth capitalism, has stolen that opportunity from us. We have no chance to feel bored like that, we have to get up at 7 so we can get to the gym in time, so that we can be in the car sitting in traffic mad at eachother for 40 minutes, maybe listening to a podcast so the time is "at least productive." Then you have to be at work and executing someone else's values for 8 hours. Then home, and you MUST take your remaining few hours for either errands and chores, or, enforced leisure time, after all, when else will you get to play Elden Right? Or the hundreds of other games in your Steam backlog? Or your massive unread reading list? Or unwatched TV and Movie list? But mostly it centers around that work time stealing your purpose, your value. My purpose is I'm a really good engineer, I build really good websites with fantastic SEO, good designs that deliver high click through rates so that my company makes lots of money. That is Who I Am and What I Do Well. Take away that job, close the company down, then what are you? Well, I guess the same thing, but for someone else, soon as you can find a new job. Take it all away, then what are you? A good accusation of this position is that it could apply to any form of identity. Who are you? A good mother. Take the kids away, then what are you? Well, for a while, probably nobody. But something feels particularly, uniquely, hollow about the purpose of our life being taken away Work. I think it's long time that we leverage our incredible technology to take a load off our shoulders, let the machines do more of the work for a change, and let ourselves experience a bit more boredom. Maybe only a few of us will because everyone's netflix backlog is big enough to fit a lifetime, who knows, but that doesn't sound so bad either.
marginalia_nu 4y ago
Seneca makes an interesting point by reframing death as something that is happening every day[1]. "For we are mistaken when we look forward to death; the major portion of death has already passed. Whatever years be behind us are in death's hands." Every moment is sand through the hourglass that once expired does not come back. It's up to us whether those moments were lived well or squandered. Our final moment is when we stop dying, when the candle has burned all the way down and run out of wax. [1] https://monadnock.net/seneca/1.html https://monadnock.net/seneca/1.html
thenerdhead 4y ago
I liked this book as much as anyone else, but you can really just read Ecclesiastes, Nietzsche, or any of the big 3 stoics and come to the same conclusions of absurdity -> meaning. Cool site that matches the color scheme of the book.
justinclift 4y ago
First thing it does is ask for PII. That's a big Nope right there. :(
cod1r 4y ago
it is what it is broskies. appreciate every moment :)
jmfldn 4y ago
The older I get, the more I appreciate the wisdom of religions, especially (but not exclusively) Buddhism. Versions of this can be found in many wisdom traditions. Strive for tranquility and peace of mind by living simply, deeply caring for others, increasing genorosity, taking pleasure in the simple things, controlling the mind, cultivating positive emotions, being ethical. If you do these things you will reduce suffering for yourself and others. That to me is an ultimate goal.
time0ut 4y ago
Very aesthetically pleasing website! I was just browsing in a bookstore yesterday and this book caught my eye. I promised to myself that I’d only leave with one, so I put it down as I had spotted Jeff Hawkins latest book (from 2021) that I had planned to read. Has anyone read this book?
braindead_in 4y ago
Life is an infinite game. You cannot win it. The only way out is to realise you're the game.
jcpst 4y ago
The site is pretty. However, I do not get the same message from this site as I do from the book it’s based on. When you get farther into the site and it’s telling you what you should be doing… no thanks. That comes off as prescriptive and condescending to me. I did not get that from the book. I found the book to be more of a thoughtful reflection on “the productivity trap”. Also the pace at which the book introduces and moves past existential dread is much smoother.
- leebyron 4y ago
  The site is nearly all excerpts including the section with “practical advice” - those ten suggestions are nearly verbatim from the book author from the last chapter
reality_inspctr 4y ago
show hn: been building a calendar app around similar principles. see how many hours you have and spend them. https://sundialcalendar.com/ https://sundialcalendar.com/
WhiteBlueSkies 4y ago
This depressive garbage has unfortunately proliferated itself way too much in tech spaces like HN. Nonsense like this pretends to be wisdom but it's the very opposite of it and it has only one message: become more anxious because time is limited. No one will be helped by this, despite the gorgeous UI it's a filthy life degrading viewpoint that needs to be dismantled. Avoid those that make you fearful and sad that degrade you back into disease and death. -Rumi I may write a blogpost about this soon.
benkaiser 4y ago
For anyone wanting a chrome new tab page that shows your weeks lived / weeks left, here is one I made a while ago: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/life-clock-new-tab-page/hpbfjnhippjockepghakfijgfjildojg https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/life-clock-new-tab... It's also open source: https://github.com/benkaiser/lifeclock https://github.com/benkaiser/lifeclock
d2049 4y ago
This post strongly resonated with me. Recently I have had no external life commitments for an extended period and I've constantly had the impression that I'm wasting my life. Most days I wake up trying to grasp at something meaningful to do with my time, but no matter what I accomplish - say on personal projects that I more often than not eventually abandon - it doesn't feel enough. I routinely ask myself, "What am I doing with my life" but I don't know how to answer these questions. I tend to fill my days with consuming media, personal hobbies, socializing and physical survival (cooking, eating, sleeping) but it all seems trivial. I wish I had something meaningful to do, like working towards a cause that I deeply believe in, or raising a family, but those things just haven't happened for me yet.

524 points by jparise 4y ago

deleted 4y ago

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sd2022al 4y ago

Very inspiring and thoughtful ! I feel overwhelmed from time to time and this is a great reminder to prioritize and set boundaries.

FearlessNebula 4y ago
It’s funny, I also found this inspiring and thoughtful but for almost the exact opposite reason. I never feel overwhelmed (not that I’d like to), and feel like I’m letting life pass by while I do meaningless crap. I don’t want to work for the sake of work, I want to do great work because of the enjoyment it brings me to learn cool things and work on complex systems. I don’t want to waste more time on Reddit, I want to spend that time on a hobby, or exercise, or learning something.

localghost3000 4y ago

I’m impressed by the beauty of this site and sophistication of the UI. However I _hate_ this type of messaging that does nothing for you except make your mental health worse. I don’t want to think about how many weeks of life I have left! Inducing existential dread is NOT what any of us need to start living our lives more fully (which I assume is the intent of this site). You wanna zone out on YouTube? Go for it. That’s just as valid as staying up all night to watch a sunrise. As with all things, moderation.

FearlessNebula 4y ago
Tbh I don’t think you understood the goal of this post. The idea, to me, is to remind the reader of how precious life is, and to be mindful of how you’re spending it. Whether you think about it or try to ignore it, time is ticking by at the same speed. I’m only 25 but I’ve wasted way too much time on Reddit, YouTube, and even HN, in my opinion. > As with all things, moderation. Sure, but in my anecdotal experience the vast majority of people are spending more time on YouTube than what their own values would permit. And also anecdotally, people who experience more existential dread seem to be those who realize they aren’t living their life quite the way they’d like to.
- localghost3000 4y ago
  I’m 45. Wife. Kid. The works. Painfully aware of how precious life is. 20 years ago when I was your age (which btw feels like only a few years ago…) this type of content resonated a lot more with me. I assume it was because the concept of aging was still pretty abstract. Now I’m in the shit so to speak. My point is that I’ve seen a million of these. Hell I’ve read 4K weeks! You’ll get no argument from me that spending your time wisely is important but try to keep in mind that making the most of Every Second Of The Day is a sure way to make yourself miserable. I should know. I’ve done it. So, the intent of this page might be to inspire, but for a lot of folks it will trigger unnecessary existential panic. I guess just try to remember the very wise advice from LOTR: “not all who wander are lost.”
  - tayo42 4y ago
    > spending your time wisely is important but try to keep in mind that making the most of Every Second Of The Day is a sure way to make yourself miserable. That was the whole point of the book though? Stop trying to make the most of every second and do what you think is important.
    - localghost3000 4y ago
      I'm not critiquing the book. I am critiquing the site.
  - FearlessNebula 4y ago
    That’s a good point. Whenever I’ve felt existential dread it’s been soothing to know I can improve myself and live life in a better way. However if you’re already in what you consider to be an ideal state, you don’t have any wiggle room. And with a wife and kids on top, you have others who depend on you and also your own attachment to those people, which makes it all the more difficult to acknowledge that life is finite. All of the above which I haven’t experienced for myself.
    - localghost3000 4y ago
mateo- 4y ago
I think it's more of the stoic "memento mori" intention. Make sure your time is well spent.
- localghost3000 4y ago
  I understand the message. I get that it’s coming from a good place too. I’m just saying that stuff like this can make people feel bad about themselves unintentionally.
  - nine_k 4y ago
    I'd say sometimes people may need to feel bad about themselves in order to improve. And this feeling may be triggered unintentionally, too; there's no way around it sometimes. Feeling the pain sucks though.
    - localghost3000 4y ago
      We disagree. Being ready to make a change and being kind to yourself are not mutually exclusive ideas.
      - dnissley 4y ago
        Are you implying that feeling bad = being unkind to yourself?
        localghost3000 4y ago
        I don’t anything is as binary as that no. I do think that there’s a difference between being ready for a change and beating yourself up about your shortcomings.
- ip26 4y ago
  But what counts as well spent? That’s always my biggest stumbling block with this topic.
GavinMcG 4y ago
Who said anything about existential dread? Perhaps the fact that dread is your reaction speaks more to your relationship with mortality than to the site’s approach.
- localghost3000 4y ago
  I mean that’s pretty much what I said. I suspect it’s not just me as well.
  - GavinMcG 4y ago
    Fair enough. I guess I read your statement as universalizing that feeling. That is, when you said "this type of messaging ... does nothing for you except make your mental health worse" it didn't seem like a statement about your reaction; it seemed like a criticism of the site. It probably isn't just you, but on the other hand, if we were to agree that existential dread is a less desirable reaction than some others (and it might not be!) there doesn't seem to me to be an obvious way to develop those more desirable reactions through methods other than exposure therapy via these sorts of sites.
joshcanhelp 4y ago
I feel your feels here and whole-heartedly agree that the “life is short” trope is unhelpful. But the book that this site was based on is not that. In fact, I would say that the week count that the site give you is antithetical to the book’s message. I regard 4000 Weeks as one of, if not the, most important books I’ve ever read. The message might not be important for everyone but it changed my perspective in several important ways.
- localghost3000 4y ago
  I've read it. You're right that it's not an existential panic machine. I don't know that it resonated with me as much as it has with you but it's a good read.
layer8 4y ago
Had the opposite reaction. The advice is valuable, but I didn’t care much about the presentation. The purpose also isn’t to give you existential dread, but to pull you out of the daily productivity routine blinders so that you can see the broader bird’s eye view perspective.
- localghost3000 4y ago
  I've said this in a few other comments but I'll just repeat here that I am not accusing the author of the site of trying to make people feel bad about themselves. The intent is clearly to inspire. I just think that for a certain cohort of people it will hurt more than it helps.
antman 4y ago
Regarding the sophisticated ui, how do you change the year?
- localghost3000 4y ago
  Heh. Aside from that.
- ojbyrne 4y ago
  There’s an arrow right next to January 2023 in the date selector.
eyelidlessness 4y ago
Not reacting to your comment, nor to any particular of the replies, but the general direction of the conversation below: I get the impression this is a lightning rod for misunderstanding, and lots of loaded assumptions around what participants in the conversation value and about the values they find disagreeable. But a common thread I’ve seen is that being adaptable to what you need and helps you thrive is better than setting arbitrary impossible expectations. That seems totally healthy to me regardless of some finer points I might dispute in individual comments. I hope there’s a chance this discussion will reach a point with less talking past each other, because there’s an awful lot that seems to be held in common.
minaguib 4y ago
Interesting opinion. I was mentioning the 4000 weeks idea to a friend and how I found it interesting and thought-provoking, and their reaction was quite the opposite as it was way too dark for them. I wonder if this idea highlights some fairly clear differences in people's personalities and mental models (at least, at the time and place in their life they're evaluating it).
- mulderc 4y ago
  I deeply disliked the book not because I found it dark but instead obvious and the writer plays out the implications that we have limited time in our lives in very strange ways such as arguing against using NFC to pay for things. If you have taken an intro philosophy class or even watched some videos on YouTube you will have already seen these ideas. A much better use of someone’s limited time would be to just read an intro to Buddhism or existentialism. You will get the same basic concepts and much better ideas on how you can address these issues in your life.
PheonixPharts 4y ago
> Inducing existential dread is NOT what any of us need to start living our lives more fully I’ve found, as I watch friends and family age, that learning to confront and work with this dread is essential to living life fully. Especially as decline and decay start to dominate aspects of your life more and more. The people that I know that are uncomfortable talking about these topics progressively live in a world of fear and doubt as they age. The others, become increasingly resilient. Arguably the single act that defines maturity is facing this dread and learning to accept and exist with it. Until then you are living a half life, only dealing with the part of existence you find comfortable, but so much of who we are as individuals is defined by this other aspect of being.
- avgcorrection 4y ago
  That would be nice if we were taught any concrete ways to do that. But we aren’t. “Confront”? What does that even mean? The Dalai Lama allegedly meditates on dying every day. With the whole decay visualization business.
- WhiteBlueSkies 4y ago
  There is no decay and decline. Thinking that decay and decline is coming is the decay happening right now. This mentality needs to change ASAP.
- ericmcer 4y ago
  So how do you accept it? I know a handful of 75+ year old family members who I am close to and they don’t think about it at all. The ones who act like they are still young and don’t dwell on death seem the happiest. It runs counter to the argument that death is something you need to meditate on and acknowledge every day. Maybe there is something to just living in denial until your quality of life has degraded and your friends are gone and death seems a welcome release.
  - waboremo 4y ago
    Acting young does not exclude thinking about death. Being able to focus on other things most of the time also doesn't exclude thinking about death. I find it difficult to believe your family members do not think about death, even if you try your hardest to avoid it, people die around you and you are forced to face reality. Accepting death will happen is a prerequisite. So many are afraid of this event, but it is just another event. What can you do about death? Nothing. So it's pointless to worry about the impending event of death. For some control freaks, this sends them into an internal spiral, and to them I say maybe reassess whatever trauma caused them to seek control over the uncontrollable. For others, this is freeing. It happens when it happens so all I can do is act on the now. This is where I think most elderly people are at, and why they feel liberated. They aren't concerned about a legacy or preventing death or reputation, they care about the here and now. Loving who they love, working on what they enjoy, saying what's on their mind, and letting go of the rest. Some people mistake this liberation to be a complete disregard for planning or the future. But on the contrary, if an elderly person sees high value in a higher education for their grandchildren for instance, they might seek to make contributions. They are acting in the now for their own benefit, understanding whatever happens when they are gone is uncontrollable anyway. Do you need to pray to the god of death every day? No, but it's helpful to frame your perspective knowing death is going to happen. Especially when doing so helps fuel better decisions. Why worry about your social perception by joining a painting class? Why not go for a nice hike today? Our problems see minute when we acknowledge death is around the corner.
Ozzie_osman 4y ago
"Live everyday as your last; plan everyday as if you will live forever." I try to hold both ideas in my head at the same time.
itsallinyahead 4y ago
If you let the bad emotions and feelings do their business, instead of constantly trying to escape from them, you wouldn't be feeling this way. You, and many others in this modern world, remind of Dostoyevskian characters: neurotic, overly-emotional, busy buzzing around, the cause of all their own problems. No one can sit still in silence, alone with themselves -- they're always running away. There's always some emotion taking hold of them, and can't simply let it run its course. No, "something must be done!" It reminds me of the Russian "martial art" система: the more you "hold on," the more pain you will feel, and less effective your moves will be. Somehow, people have never learned to let go, and become completely relaxed. They're constantly holding onto something, and being thrashed around by life. Perhaps you people need to try ayahuasca? Or maybe meditation? Maybe drink less coffee? Maybe stop forcing yourself to do all of this stuff you really don't want to do? Take a break? Become mindful of your body, mind, and soul? I have 2,000 weeks left. My life will not be lived "fully" to the standards of some over-socialized urbanite. That is fine. I have things I want to do. I don't care about anyone's opinion on them. Knowing I have lived half of my life already doesn't stir any emotions in me. There is no existential dread. There is no "start" to living a life. You're living one already. If there are things that stir emotions in you, let them. Never exploring your feelings, leading to the emotional depth of a middle schooler, is one way to not live a "full" life -- not some inanity about "spending" your time "better" (to reduce life to some abstraction is only for the soulless).
- smallnix 4y ago
  Or consider this, a person that manages to take out a loan and then dies before repaying can cheat the bank.
  - ehecatl42 4y ago
    It has crossed my mind to take such a loan, spend it on waygu and Château Lafite and that euthanasia place (Dignitas?) in Switzerland. Cheat the bank and the pain of dying. But then again, I am curious to see how things turn out, and that I won't know until my computation is complete.
  - Dalewyn 4y ago
kirso 4y ago
The thing is, it can be both stress and revelation depending on how you look at it. Part of 4000 weeks is a chapter that is called "Cosmic insignificance therapy" which goes along the lines of nothing we do really matters in a grand scheme of things. Again, depending on how you see it - it can be both shackling but also liberating. The both of extremes of: - I want to put my head in the sand and ignore the reality (we are mortal) - YOLO are not exactly ideal. As you said yourself => balance.
- twelve40 4y ago
  now I really don't want to read it, sounds pretty depressing : (
  - kirso 4y ago
    That's the point :) It is not. We are mortal, that's just a fact of life. I do agree with the comment OP though that both: - Maximising every day is bad - Ignoring life is bad In the end its all about balance and content as the top voted comment goes. I would still recommend the book to everyone! EDIT: Also as one of the comments notes here: "If you don't feel some existential dread at some point it's because you aren't being honest with yourself"
idiotsecant 4y ago
If you don't feel some existential dread at some point it's because you aren't being honest with yourself, which is a prerequisite to moving past that dread. IMO reminding people that they are mortal and that they should find a way to deal with that is a public service. So many of the strange things we do are because we're afraid to confront the reality that we too, some day, will die.
- localghost3000 4y ago
  I dunno. I think you are over generalizing TBH. For some it might be a public service. For others it might damage their mental health. It's highly contextual to where you are in life.
jraby3 4y ago
I really love the advice at the end, and it’s not difficult to listen to. Be curious about other people. Act immediately on a generous impulse. Live with intensity and focus. Having directly actionable advice is extremely helpful, even as a reminder. And I agree with you the site is extremely well done.
crucialfelix 4y ago
As soon as it asked my birth date I knew it would estimate my death date and I closed the tab.
- Tepix 4y ago
  So you're avoiding thinking about how much time you have left?
  - cpsns 4y ago
    Why not? That sort of thing isn't helpful or thought provoking for many of us. On the other hand many will find it thought provoking in extremely negative ways. Most people do not like to think about their impending doom on this hellish planet.
bambax 4y ago
TFA is a little pompous and purports to give advice nobody asked for. The date selector at the beginning uses the super weird American format of month/day/year that nobody else uses. And, to the best of my knowledge, there is no "Charles Eisenstien", but a Charles Eisenstein (author of the first quote in the long, interminable scroll). I'm not so sure life is short; but spending it reading self-help books and unsolicited advice is one sure way to waste time.
komali2 4y ago
> You wanna zone out on YouTube? Go for it. That’s just as valid as staying up all night to watch a sunrise. People should spend their time how they please but I strongly feel that feeding The Algorithm directly into your brain for hours is objectively less mentally healthy than staring at a sunrise, even if the sunrise is mind numbingly boring.
- localghost3000 4y ago
  And vegetables are better for you than a candy bar. You should try to have more of the former than the latter but treating yourself to some junk food here and there is a good thing.
avgcorrection 4y ago
Couldn’t agree more. Maybe this website would serve some purpose if we weren’t constantly being reminded of getting older, weaker, not having much time left, maybe you will get Alzheimers if you don’t do this One Weird Trick, etc. But as it stands we are reminded plenty of how short our lives are.

pixelmonkey 4y ago

A nice visual version of this memento mori is Tim Urban's "Your Life in Weeks": https://waitbutwhy.com/2014/05/life-weeks.html https://waitbutwhy.com/2014/05/life-weeks.html After reading this, I used this nice online PDF generator to print out my personalized life calendar, and kept it in my home office with a pen nearby, checking off the passing weeks occasionally (every month or so). https://www.ekn.io/calendar/ https://www.ekn.io/calendar/ Spending some time to check off the first ~2k weeks -- checking a little box for each week of my life thus far -- was quite an emotional thing, actually.

DavidPiper 4y ago
Tim Urban also wrote a slightly haunting follow-up: https://waitbutwhy.com/2015/12/the-tail-end.html https://waitbutwhy.com/2015/12/the-tail-end.html I read it every January or so.
- saboot 4y ago
  Man this was hard to read. My parents moved across the country a few years ago, went from seeing them every two weeks to twice a year. I'll be lucky to see them more than a couple dozen times total for the rest of our lives.
- cezart 4y ago
  Paul Graham also has an essay which explores the same core idea, but imho he manages to explore more angles of the passage of time, and how we perceive it through the scarcity of different experiences we value. If you liked this one, check it out: http://www.paulgraham.com/vb.html http://www.paulgraham.com/vb.html
benkaiser 4y ago
I made a new tab page that follows the same idea: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/life-clock-new-tab-page/hpbfjnhippjockepghakfijgfjildojg https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/life-clock-new-tab...

charles_f 4y ago

I'm in the middle of the book, it's very inspirational. This websites great, thanks!

drivers99 4y ago
Someone mentioned this book recently on HN and I discovered I had already listened to section one of the audio version which I didn’t remember, so I listened to it again. This page seems to be a nice summary including the more practical advice later that I haven’t gotten to either time I started listening to it.
nextos 4y ago
Does the book have any good insights? From reviews, I kind of perceived it's only about limiting work in progress and adopting a more slow and human approach to things. I feel these insights were already brought by many industrial production methodologies, e.g. Toyota, in a more rational and less newage-y package. Am I missing something?
- tayo42 4y ago
  Its from the perspective of someone who was obsessed with productivity porn coming to terms with the idea that none of that will ever actually work. He addresses why he thinks that and supports it with different ideas. I don't think anything is new, but he takes disjointed ideas and kind of puts it all together from his perspective. I thought it was interesting and it was a quick read.
  - uxp100 4y ago
    I think this is a good description. What I missed from some other comments on HN that were complementary to the book is how personal it is. I think people who are already familiar with Oliver would enjoy it best. Some sections were so specific to a certain type of guy, but phrased as if everyone will relate to it. I still liked it overall, but it really is for "productivity porn" strivers with a certain background. I mean, I go on HN, I'm familiar with GTD and pomodoro, I'm anxious about my own achievement, I kinda thought I was that guy. But after reading 4000 weeks, I could be like, ok, wow, uh, interesting things to chew on, but these are not really my problems. (And I am still baffled by the idea that people would look down on you for having hobbies. Is this a British thing? Do I have to ascend a social sphere to get this? Because if I am chatting with some pals, let's say could be a few other engineers, miscellaneous office workers, various retail, service and trades, well... what is going to come up? bowling, maybe model kits, horror movies, booze? Are we going to discourse seriously about public affairs? Maybe someone thinks my motor controller firmware I worked on that day is cool, but I don't really want to talk about it)

metadat 4y ago

What's with the Date-Picker widget on the first screen? Is it supposed to do something or anything at all? I'm using Brave on Android.

drivers99 4y ago
It’s to determine your approximate age and remaining lifespan in weeks.
kylecazar 4y ago
You're supposed to pick when you were born, which allows you to "scroll on". But also on Android -- am I missing something or am I supposed to scroll backwards month by month to 1989?
- debesyla 4y ago
  At least on android chrome I could click on year number (top of the selection table) to pick the year.
  - pony_sheared 4y ago
    Thanks for this this comment, at least on Huawei's version of Android UI it's not at all obvious that the year is a button.
- tarotuser 4y ago
  On Android/Firefox, same issue. I just closed the site. There is 0% chance I would go month-by-month to anything before 2010. And I would still have 20 more years.
  - mrfumier 4y ago
    Closed the site as well. Horrible input field.
- layer8 4y ago
  Tapping on the year at the top in the date picker popup should open a year chooser. This should be the native Android date picker (<input type="date"> in the HTML), e.g. https://stackoverflow.com/a/56789808/623763 https://stackoverflow.com/a/56789808/623763.

Waterluvian 4y ago

Having kids saved me. You can’t procrastinate on raising kids. There are no sick days. I’ve never been more active in my life. Today I spent an hour running around avoiding lava at a playground. Before kids I’d of spent all that time and a lot more playing World of Warcraft, I believe.

eyelidlessness 4y ago
Having a pup and embracing her as my kid feels similar. I know it’s not the same, but I sincerely think that waking up every day putting my pup first is the best thing I’ve ever lived for. Everything else is just icing I have more reason to enjoy.
- Thorentis 4y ago
  A sad indictment on modern society that this paragraph is able to be written.
  - infamousclyde 4y ago
    Why did you find the parent comment sad? I'm not sure I understand your sentiment.
    - jombib 4y ago
      I think that some people believe that more people leads to more progress, and disagree with the sentiments of people that don’t want kids.
    - wnolens 4y ago
      The thing that most makes this poster's life worth living is caring for an animal which was engineered to be pleasant to care for. And a lot of people use these animals to replace human relationships (I've seen it quite a few times, so blatantly) as they are simpler and more stable. And the indictment is about society (in which human relationships are really hard to have for so so many reasons), not this poster, who has figured out a real cheat code to life and love (and more power to them)

adenozine 4y ago

Unusable bc of scrolljacking. Latest Edge on latest iOS.

Kiro 4y ago
The whole point of the site is to use your scrollwheel to visualize it. It's beautiful and a warranted use of scrolljacking.

TurkishPoptart 4y ago

>You have lived one thousand seven hundred seventy-four of them so far That’s a significant amount of the weeks you’ll see. The psychologist Erik Erikson suggests that at this phase of life you focus on the virtue of love. Share yourself more intimately with others and invest in happy relationships so that your future weeks can be lived well with companionship and purpose. Jesus, I'm going to cry. FML.

msie 4y ago
I feel left behind and a failure. Where did my 30’s and 40’s go? God knows I tried.
highwayman47 4y ago
Same bro

harshaw 4y ago

Not the kind to usually complain about UI but on my android browser there doesn't appear to be a way to bypass the date picker meaning that I have to scroll back in time a month at a time. 576 times to be precise.

layer8 4y ago
Tapping on the year at the top in the date picker popup should open a year chooser. This should be the native Android date picker (<input type="date"> in the HTML), e.g. https://stackoverflow.com/a/56789808/623763 https://stackoverflow.com/a/56789808/623763.
agentwiggles 4y ago
You can click the year to pick a new one, saving you a few of your precious and finite seconds :) (well, next time you see the date picker, anyway)
euroderf 4y ago
Italic, 50%: Tap on the calendar's year to select another

lakeshastina 4y ago

There are a few ways people take such a message - yes, life is precious, be conscious of what we invest our time in. This part makes sense. Yet, it is worth asking, what makes for a meaning life? What makes the 4000 weeks worth it? For some, they chase wealth, power, career success, get one's name recognized, etc - these are milestones to be achieved. Things to accomplish. Others will say, such accomplishments are not the purpose, let us accumulate as many meaningful experiences as possible. So do things like travel the world, and so on. But it is worth reflecting, a few years from now, what really is the difference between a dream you had a few days ago, compared with an experience from, say 10 years ago? The difference is very little. Our memories are fuzzy, and to chase experiences will also likely leave us feeling unfulfilled. Human relationships are also similarly shallow, even if we seek social connection, the odds of it being reciprocated in the manner we value, or of it lasting when we need it, is low. So what's my point? The point is, whatever pursuits we undertake with the belief out there that something that I accomplish, accumulate or experience will bring me happiness and fulfillment is a futile endeavor. Instead, if we can function from a state of feeling content as we live each day, whatever the circumstances, then what we do during the lifespan given to us matters little. However long or short, the inner contentment makes it meaningful. Sorry for the long response, but wanted to share how I look upon this topic.

deanCommie 4y ago
Everyone needs to find the level at which they are content with asking no more follow up questions. Happiness and fulfillment are both choices. Otjerwise where does it end? You start worrying about the purpose of your legacy since what does it matter anyway the sun will explode, swallow the earth whole, and eventually the whole universe will go through heat death.
- Aeolun 4y ago
  Some people find that very comforting.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]

sublinear 4y ago

I was fine with this until the list at the end that conflates self help tips with consumer trends.

moneywoes 4y ago

yikes that calculation really triggered my depressive thoughts

Aeolun 4y ago

> We treat our time as something to horde I’m having a hard time understanding how this mistake is made. Hoard and horde are not even close to the same. They sound the same, but before you write it, shouldn’t you have read it at least once? Or consider that maybe ‘mass of people’ is probably not the same word that’s used for ‘amass a a bunch of stuff’? Actually, now that I consider it, it makes total sense that you’d use the same word for that… guess I’ve answered myself. Anyway, it’s hoard.

lovecg 4y ago
Some people learn language primarily by sound. Most native speakers learn that way. They’re more likely to swap their/they’re or horde/hoard as for them the scribbles on paper are secondary. Some people learn language primarily through writing - a lot of non-native speakers learn this way. To them someone making a their/they’re mistake is bewildering, but they mispronounce words in ways that seem strange to the sound-learners. The two groups don’t under each other’s struggles and often look down on the other’s language ability.

hamzareh101 4y ago

[dead]

jamesgill 4y ago

No. The point is not to focus on time, or calculating how much of it you have; the point is to live in the present and step out of time. Forget it. The past is only in your mind. The future does not exist. The only real thing is right now. If you are depressed you are living in the past. If you are anxious you are living in the future. If you are at peace you are living in the present. --Lao Tzu

sd2022al 4y ago
Thankyou for sharing such a nice and relevant quote, and the context around it.
- wan_ala 4y ago
  If you like that you might want to read the daodejing, which i think that quote came from.
jeanloolz 4y ago
What a phenomenal quote.
lispm 4y ago
It's a simple quote, but not very useful. The past isn't generally depressing and there are lots of things worth to be remembered. The past is not only in my mind, it is around me all the time and it is the context I'm living in. The future needs some planning. We just need to live in the present, but also have to make decisions based on past&present&future.
- Narretz 4y ago
  Shuzo Matsuoka rephrased this in one of his motivational speeches, and just like that it sounds less absolute: "'I want to feel alive!' Its easy. You cant think about the past. 'Why did I do that??' It'll just turn to anger. You also can't think about the future. 'Will it be okay?' It just turns to worry. In that case, hold on for dear life! Stake your entire life in here and now!"
4y ago

leebyron 4y ago

Site creator here! Thanks to all who spent some time reading and scrolling through. I’m happy to see such great discussion here, and gives me some confidence the excerpts pulled were the right ones to get the core ideas across.

Starwatcher2001 4y ago
Thanks for your site and message. Sorry but personally I found your article difficult to read. Your font choice and background, which seemed to me to overwhelm the text with little contrast, made it hard for me to see and parse the words. Sadly I think much of your message was lost on me. For reference I'm in my sixties and have poorish eyesight. I'm using Firefox. Best wishes.
k__ 4y ago
The site forces me to use a calendar widget to input my birth date. I have to scroll over 30 years back in time by months.
- phrotoma 4y ago
  Yeah, I gave up trying immediately upon realizing this.
- oliverjhyde 4y ago
  At least on android you can tap the year and get a year ticker/roller input. You definitely don't need to scroll month by month.
  - sexy_seedbox 4y ago
    This is what's frustrating with Google's Material Design. If tech-savvy users like me can't even find or know that the year is clickable, what hope do most non-technical folks or seniors have?
- leebyron 4y ago
  I noticed a fair amount of complaints about this in the thread, so am sorry for the poor experience. In an attempt for simplicity I used a simple <input type=date> field which means it uses your OS or browser’s native date picker. As a Mac/iOS user I’m pretty familiar with those, but I’ll admit I did not test this across Windows or Android devices which apparently have not done a great job at this UI element.

sk1pper 4y ago

Man, yeah, I feel that; I just don’t have enough time to do everything I want to do. - me, laying on my couch and mindlessly browsing HN There are things I want to do that I legitimately don’t have time for, even though I have time to browse HN. Or at least, I won’t make time for them, because they’re quite time consuming. I want to learn Japanese, make my own top-down RPG, get a black belt in Jiu-Jitsu. Build some cool woodworking projects. Start a blog. Photography. Get better at golf. I’m interested in everything, I could rattle off tons more things that I would love to spend time on. But these must compete with other things I love to do, as well as things I must do. I’ve been doing some game programming recently and have gotten really excited because I finally have grokked Godot. But, I’m not sure I have the time to actually make my own game of any quality. Actually just giving up on that project might be freeing. Like when I gave up on Advent of Code on Day 17 due to problems taking me too long, I was more relieved than anything. I think this is what’s behind giving up on the idea of being able to do all of the stuff you want to do. The problem is that this is fairly soul-crushing. When I have a side project going that I’m really interested in, it’s quite fun and energizing. But I can be obsessive, so all of this extra energy goes towards the project. I think I end up netting negative, because I’m spending so much time and energy on the project. I will also start to abandon other responsibilities and fall behind in other areas of life. Exercise, chores, other but less sexy projects I care about (meditation is always the first to get discarded). Eventually I hit a point where I realize I need to get my act together, and by then, letting go of the big project is relieving, but sad. I guess the problem here is more with the obsessiveness than topics in the article, but they might be related. Like, I‘m constantly chasing novelty. This is probably common nowadays due to the internet. I’m a true geek who loves learning stuff, and I like doing it in a hands on fashion. Having an effectively infinite stream of novel things I can teach myself (minus BJJ and such) to do is just plain addicting. I’m not quite sure what to do about this. This habit has made me a much better programmer. And I’m always doing something I love doing. But there’s collateral damage to other things I care about. And eventually I start feeling like I have no time to do what I need to do, and also what I want to do.

matwood 4y ago
I don't know if you currently do BJJ or are only thinking about it, but I started when I was older, and may never get a black belt. But, I have moved up over the years and know that my belt color changing or getting a stripe on an existing belt doesn't suddenly make me a different person. After chasing goals for so long, BJJ is an amazing reminder that it really is the journey that matters. It's shaped me to be a better person regardless of an arbitrary belt color.

mrfumier 4y ago

Seems nice but I stopped at the first textbox. No, I won't waste my time scrolling tru a date picker while I could input the date numbers directly with my keyboard.

shepherdjerred 4y ago
It uses the browser datepicker widget. Use a different browser -- it works for me in Brave (Chromium-based). Either way, your comment is irrelevant to the discussion.
audiodude 4y ago
You can click on an element of the date and type it directly.
- valleyer 4y ago
  It's an <input type="date">, so the UI of the date picker depends on your browser.

hellotoby 4y ago

Once you can accept that your own life is insignificant and essentially meaningless, you can stop worrying about how many weeks, days, months or minutes you'll be here for and just appreciate the moment in which you are living. Perhaps you can even be grateful that you have lived at all.

steve_adams_86 4y ago
“How strange it is to be anything at all” We get preoccupied with the minutiae of day to day life and forget that we didn’t even know we were dead before we were born, and we won’t even know we’re dead when we die. And here we are right now, perhaps only minutes, hours, or days before we go back to being dust. I find it helpful to think about this when my partner gets yet another parking ticket, I feel directionless in my career, or it seems like my teenage children think I’m lame. Things are fine. They’re actually great. They can get a lot worse. It is worse for many others. I’m very grateful for the cards I was dealt.
- hellotoby 4y ago
  I guess this is being downvoted because HN isn't really a place where existential nihilists hang out. But in all honesty, isn't it incredible that anything happens at all! That gives me more hope and encouragement than anything else!
- audiodude 4y ago
  +1 for the concept of "we were dead before we were born". I've always found that the simplest answer to "What happens after you die?" is "The same thing that happened before you were born: everything".
hellotoby 4y ago
To quote Dawkins: We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Sahara. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively exceeds the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here. We privileged few, who won the lottery of birth against all odds. How dare we whine at our inevitable return to that prior state, from which the vast majority have never stirred?

riazrizvi 4y ago

Time speeds up as you get older because every day is a decreasingly smaller proportion of your life lived. A fixed 24 hour duration is perceived as a smaller and smaller window into our lives, at any point in time. So life speeding up is just a mental distortion. Instead then, focus on figuring out how to live more healthily. Advances there objectively provide dividends. Also if you’re selfishly wondering what type of problems to devote your life to, develop your empathy and do things that benefit others, because as your time on the clock runs down, the value of your successes in that category don’t also diminish, unlike everything else. Giving is the gift that keeps on giving, so to speak.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

lazerl0rd 4y ago

What I never end up understanding about such topics is what is truly meant by "understanding" [that we have finite lives]. Don't we all know that anyways? Are we being asked to calm down and accept that? If so, isn't such futile for those that couldn't initially (as I don't see how reading a book would change their psyche) and placebo for those that could (as they've just never considered life in that way)?

irrational 4y ago

The older I get (I’m in my 50s) the more I look forward to death (not that I’m doing anything to hasten my way there). No more taxes. No more work. No more responsibilities. No more concerns. Rest in Peace indeed.

quickthrower2 4y ago
You’ll be as happy as you were in 1963!

caned 4y ago

The moral: stop worrying about productivity and get back to living and loving. Also, stop wasting hours a day reading HN.

unixhero 4y ago

I don't like these "this is the time you live" sort of analyses. They make me uneasy and potentially depressed. So no thanks, backing out here.

creatable 4y ago

Thanks for the existential dread.

jobgh 4y ago

I hadn't really calculated what percentage my life I've used up. This is so anxiety inducing. I'm realizing how much of my time I've wasted. I need to live more.

quickthrower2 4y ago

There is no way I will have fun with this; so I didn’t enter the date.

college_physics 4y ago

One of the oldest known songs is the song of Seikilos from ancient Greece. It goes like this in translation > While you live, shine > have no grief at all > life exists only for a short while > and time demands its toll. Culture and social structures can mollify or exacerbate the problem of a sentient brain contemplating its demise but wont make it go away. Once we accept that, it is an empirical problem to find which arrangements work for most of people most of the time. A frequently proposed solution that underlies many philosophies and religions is ubuntu, "finding meaning through others": from family and friends to generic strangers on HN.

Kiro 4y ago

> In an ideal world the only person making decisions about your time is you. However this comes at a cost that’s not worth paying. Big disagree on this. I'm so much happier now when I've started saying no to anything I don't want to do. What's the cost? Sure, I meet and bond with less people but doesn't really feel like a big loss. I'm happy being alone with a few good friends and family that respect my integrity and don't demand or expect me to do stuff I don't want.

mkarliner 4y ago

Sigh. Yet another HN post that doesn't work on mobile...

Freak_NL 4y ago

> Choose single-purpose devices like an e-reader where it’s tedious and awkward to do anything but read. Or, you know, an actual paper book. :)

playingalong 4y ago

Does anyone remember an early 90s program for DOS which among other things it would ask for you DOB and output your predicted DOD based on life expectancy? It was graphics, not text. I faintly remember some skeletons illustrations to this dialog.

komali2 4y ago

> Practice doing nothing I've been thinking about this a lot lately. I really like the videos by "Unmotivational Speaker Self-help Singh" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8An2SxNFvmU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8An2SxNFvmU > Just do nothing... do the least amount of work without getting fired... release yourself of obligation and responsibility... everything you think you need to do has been done before you, and will be done without you... you are not special... the world is fucked, and you cannot unfuck it, so just do you... stop searching for the meaning of life, that is futile, you will die just as confused as you are now... so just be happy Recently my partner got laid off with a 3 month severance, and after working her ass off for years it's her first chance to relax "without guilt," she's literally being paid to do nothing (and, well, look for a job, but in her market it won't take long to find another). It's been fascinating to watch her jump between guilt at doing nothing but playing Elden Ring, to righteousness that she deserves it, to fanatic exploration of new hobbies and skills, back to tremendous laziness. She complains about being bored, and it makes me think, what a fantastic opportunity, to be bored. What a privilege, honestly, what a human right, that's been stolen from all of us. The right to be bored. To sit around, having exhausted all the little means to entertain yourself, finally just sitting in your chair, thinking, what's the point? Why am I here? Why am I alive? What should I do with myself? She gets to explore what her purpose is. I think the way we've structured our society, growth capitalism, has stolen that opportunity from us. We have no chance to feel bored like that, we have to get up at 7 so we can get to the gym in time, so that we can be in the car sitting in traffic mad at eachother for 40 minutes, maybe listening to a podcast so the time is "at least productive." Then you have to be at work and executing someone else's values for 8 hours. Then home, and you MUST take your remaining few hours for either errands and chores, or, enforced leisure time, after all, when else will you get to play Elden Right? Or the hundreds of other games in your Steam backlog? Or your massive unread reading list? Or unwatched TV and Movie list? But mostly it centers around that work time stealing your purpose, your value. My purpose is I'm a really good engineer, I build really good websites with fantastic SEO, good designs that deliver high click through rates so that my company makes lots of money. That is Who I Am and What I Do Well. Take away that job, close the company down, then what are you? Well, I guess the same thing, but for someone else, soon as you can find a new job. Take it all away, then what are you? A good accusation of this position is that it could apply to any form of identity. Who are you? A good mother. Take the kids away, then what are you? Well, for a while, probably nobody. But something feels particularly, uniquely, hollow about the purpose of our life being taken away Work. I think it's long time that we leverage our incredible technology to take a load off our shoulders, let the machines do more of the work for a change, and let ourselves experience a bit more boredom. Maybe only a few of us will because everyone's netflix backlog is big enough to fit a lifetime, who knows, but that doesn't sound so bad either.

marginalia_nu 4y ago

Seneca makes an interesting point by reframing death as something that is happening every day[1]. "For we are mistaken when we look forward to death; the major portion of death has already passed. Whatever years be behind us are in death's hands." Every moment is sand through the hourglass that once expired does not come back. It's up to us whether those moments were lived well or squandered. Our final moment is when we stop dying, when the candle has burned all the way down and run out of wax. [1] https://monadnock.net/seneca/1.html https://monadnock.net/seneca/1.html

thenerdhead 4y ago

I liked this book as much as anyone else, but you can really just read Ecclesiastes, Nietzsche, or any of the big 3 stoics and come to the same conclusions of absurdity -> meaning. Cool site that matches the color scheme of the book.

justinclift 4y ago

First thing it does is ask for PII. That's a big Nope right there. :(

cod1r 4y ago

it is what it is broskies. appreciate every moment :)

jmfldn 4y ago

The older I get, the more I appreciate the wisdom of religions, especially (but not exclusively) Buddhism. Versions of this can be found in many wisdom traditions. Strive for tranquility and peace of mind by living simply, deeply caring for others, increasing genorosity, taking pleasure in the simple things, controlling the mind, cultivating positive emotions, being ethical. If you do these things you will reduce suffering for yourself and others. That to me is an ultimate goal.

time0ut 4y ago

Very aesthetically pleasing website! I was just browsing in a bookstore yesterday and this book caught my eye. I promised to myself that I’d only leave with one, so I put it down as I had spotted Jeff Hawkins latest book (from 2021) that I had planned to read. Has anyone read this book?

braindead_in 4y ago

Life is an infinite game. You cannot win it. The only way out is to realise you're the game.

jcpst 4y ago

The site is pretty. However, I do not get the same message from this site as I do from the book it’s based on. When you get farther into the site and it’s telling you what you should be doing… no thanks. That comes off as prescriptive and condescending to me. I did not get that from the book. I found the book to be more of a thoughtful reflection on “the productivity trap”. Also the pace at which the book introduces and moves past existential dread is much smoother.

leebyron 4y ago
The site is nearly all excerpts including the section with “practical advice” - those ten suggestions are nearly verbatim from the book author from the last chapter

reality_inspctr 4y ago

show hn: been building a calendar app around similar principles. see how many hours you have and spend them. https://sundialcalendar.com/ https://sundialcalendar.com/

WhiteBlueSkies 4y ago

This depressive garbage has unfortunately proliferated itself way too much in tech spaces like HN. Nonsense like this pretends to be wisdom but it's the very opposite of it and it has only one message: become more anxious because time is limited. No one will be helped by this, despite the gorgeous UI it's a filthy life degrading viewpoint that needs to be dismantled. Avoid those that make you fearful and sad that degrade you back into disease and death. -Rumi I may write a blogpost about this soon.

benkaiser 4y ago

For anyone wanting a chrome new tab page that shows your weeks lived / weeks left, here is one I made a while ago: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/life-clock-new-tab-page/hpbfjnhippjockepghakfijgfjildojg https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/life-clock-new-tab... It's also open source: https://github.com/benkaiser/lifeclock https://github.com/benkaiser/lifeclock

d2049 4y ago

This post strongly resonated with me. Recently I have had no external life commitments for an extended period and I've constantly had the impression that I'm wasting my life. Most days I wake up trying to grasp at something meaningful to do with my time, but no matter what I accomplish - say on personal projects that I more often than not eventually abandon - it doesn't feel enough. I routinely ask myself, "What am I doing with my life" but I don't know how to answer these questions. I tend to fill my days with consuming media, personal hobbies, socializing and physical survival (cooking, eating, sleeping) but it all seems trivial. I wish I had something meaningful to do, like working towards a cause that I deeply believe in, or raising a family, but those things just haven't happened for me yet.