TE
TechEcho
Home24h TopNewestBestAskShowJobs
GitHubTwitter
Home

TechEcho

A tech news platform built with Next.js, providing global tech news and discussions.

GitHubTwitter

Home

HomeNewestBestAskShowJobs

Resources

HackerNews APIOriginal HackerNewsNext.js

© 2025 TechEcho. All rights reserved.

Ask HN: What would you tell your younger self 10 years ago?

22 pointsby tsywke44over 3 years ago
Mindset, lifestyle, lessons you’ve learned the hard way<p>No ”lottery ticket numbers” or ”buy bitcoin” please.

27 comments

rramadassover 3 years ago
* Always care for your Health both Physical and Mental; this means proper Food and Rest along with a &quot;Healthy Lifestyle&quot;. Your &quot;Wellbeing&quot; IS &quot;You&quot;.<p>* Always keep yourself First i.e. try to garner an advantage in every situation. The &quot;World&quot; doesn&#x27;t care about you one whit and thus you need to fight for what you want with everything that you have got. In &quot;Human Societies&quot; this takes many forms (eg. Power play, Negotiation, Politics etc.) and you need to be aware of them all. Learn to &quot;Survive&quot;.<p>* Always make sure that you have some education&#x2F;skill to earn you a steady income.<p>* Always save Money for a rainy day. Always live within your means.<p>* Try and become &quot;Good&quot; in <i>something</i>. This will give you a Goal&#x2F;Meaning to your Life. Pursue &quot;Knowledge for Knowledge&#x27;s sake&quot;. Study &quot;Philosophy&quot;.<p>* Our World is based on Consumerism and Unlimited Distractions; thus if you are not careful you can lose everything. Moderate your appetites and enjoyments. Simplify your Life.
chaircherover 3 years ago
1.Curate your relationships more harshly.<p>2.Ready meals are better than no meals.<p>3.It is not your responsibility to rescure people from situations they put themselves in because they want to be rescued.<p>4.You don&#x27;t have to pay your dues by working shit low wage dead end jobs for no reason - just apply for what you actually want to do.<p>5.Job stability is an illusion.<p>6.Be wary of people who encroach on your goals and achievements.<p>7.You are not a side character or an audience, and your life is not a stage for other people to trample across.<p>8.Wash your damn hands and don&#x27;t hang out in enclosed spaces with people with contageous illnesses.<p>9.Buy non-synthetic clothes only.
评论 #28741719 未加载
评论 #28744106 未加载
jokethrowawayover 3 years ago
1) You failed your own business. That&#x27;s ok, try again as soon as you can. Don&#x27;t feel like you can&#x27;t do it or that you need contracting or a perm job or better contacts, you can do it.<p>2) You may not realise it but you&#x27;re going through depression. You will never go to a therapist, for sure, but you can at least read on cognitive behavioural therapy and try to get your shit together.<p>3) Read about philosophy, the same philosophy you bullshitted through in high school. Philosophy will give you tools to understand more and to function better. Read on stoicism and on nihilism.<p>4) Everything will be fine. And if it doesn&#x27;t, it doesn&#x27;t matter.
giantg2over 3 years ago
Don&#x27;t trust companies&#x2F;managers, specialize in tech that is not so obscure, and job hop.<p>I spent too much time in the company and that lead to a stagnate and boring career. I trusted them about having a long career and ended up learning obscure tech only to have my position outsourced (which they also said they never do). That obscure tech experience greatly limits my options to leave.<p>On a personal side, stay single and don&#x27;t have a kid. Be able to retire early and do the things you want to do instead of the things you have to do.
helldritchover 3 years ago
You have untreated ADHD, that&#x27;s why your life keeps feeling apart when you make impulsive decisions.<p>They missed it when you were a child and none of the specialists thought to diagnose it as an adult.
muzaniover 3 years ago
1. Before anything, develop morals and emotional intelligence. That means no complaining, being more patient and more trusting that things will turn out well. Everyone says be more patient but you have to be a <i>lot</i> more patient. Impatience screws everything: gaming, relationships, career growth, spiritual growth. This is why every insists on meditating.<p>A good question to ask yourself is if some celebrity posted this on social media, would you respect him more or less? Vulnerability is also overrated.<p>Corollary: never put yourself in a situation where you can&#x27;t afford to be patient. The greedy people will seem successful until they get screwed by The Pandemic.<p>2. The best investment is in yourself. Max out salary before thinking about stocks.<p>3. Read a company&#x27;s Glassdoor before the interview.<p>4. Focus on one thing at a time until you have intuitive control over it (especially code).<p>5. Buy the Microsoft Ergonomic Keyboard 4000 as soon as you can afford it. You&#x27;ve been typing wrong your whole life.<p>6. Rule of thumb with cash investment is a 10x return. Rule of thumb with time investments is a 1x return within 2 years.<p>7. Don&#x27;t work with&#x2F;for anyone who you don&#x27;t admire. Don&#x27;t &quot;settle&quot;. There are plenty of good people in the world and the best way to meet them is to become an upstanding person yourself. Following the bad ones will lead you into a pit of other bad people.
评论 #28745986 未加载
jf22over 3 years ago
You are bad at resolving conflicts. You think you aren&#x27;t.<p>This will cost you jobs, friends, and relationships before you figure it out.
martinmakesgameover 3 years ago
Would you even want to tell yourself advice learned from ten years of experience?<p>If I learn from the past ten years and then go back and tell myself two outcomes are possible. My past self listens and changes my future self or my past self doesn&#x27;t listen and then end up who I was anyway. If my future self changes then they no longer exist to tell my past self and a time paradox is set up where they can&#x27;t tell my past self advice.<p>With all that has been gained by the present self would you really want to give that up?<p>If I had told myself that I can live a life free of afflictive emotions, emotions of attachment, free of ego ten years ago, I would never have learned how to do this or how it is possible.
p0dover 3 years ago
I have lost 1&#x2F;4 of my body weight over the last 9 months. I would say to myself 10 years ago, &quot;hey fatso, stop eating so much crap. Eat lest bread, butter, chocolate, sugar, crisps, processed meats and walk for 45 minutes a day&quot;.
smackeyackyover 3 years ago
It&#x27;s good to trust people, trusting people will continue to enrich your life.<p>It&#x27;s not good to ignore those inner warnings about trusting particular people. That spidey sense is dead on correct every time.
Xophmeisterover 3 years ago
Beware of abusive relationships.
Irongirl1over 3 years ago
&quot;Leave, leave now...and don&#x27;t look back.&quot; &quot;Head to the UK or France, both places you&#x27;ve always dreamt of living. Don&#x27;t let the leeches and life killers drag you down.&quot; &quot;GO!&quot; &quot;Don&#x27;t worry about not speaking French or finding work...just run like the hounds of heck were on your heels because if you stay you&#x27;ll be trapped forever.&quot;
评论 #28743714 未加载
评论 #28743472 未加载
评论 #28746420 未加载
laxminover 3 years ago
1. Learn about investing and invest. 2. Publish early, publish more. 3. Exercise more. Eat more healthy. 4. Don&#x27;t take things for granted. The world can change and will do. 5. Start a startup, don&#x27;t be afraid of failure and cling to a safe job. Opportunities are a plenty. Don&#x27;t be too risk averse.
gjvcover 3 years ago
don&#x27;t take that &quot;startup&quot; job; stick with the bigger companies
评论 #28744374 未加载
评论 #28744102 未加载
true_religionover 3 years ago
People are older than you think... especially your parents. If you don&#x27;t spend time with them now because you&#x27;re busy in academia, pursuing startup ideas, getting rich, then one day you&#x27;ll end up wealthy and well educated but alone wondering if you made anyone proud.<p>If you think it&#x27;s hard to find friends in your 20s and 30s, imagine being in your 50s or 60s so say yes to going out now, because in the future... they&#x27;re not all going to be around.
评论 #28747295 未加载
v1lover 3 years ago
All the things you&#x27;re not paying attention to, that you know you should pay attention to, start paying attention to those things.<p>This applies to fitness, investments, making an effort at work, family ties, relationships, sleep, &lt;fill in the blanks&gt;.<p>We often know what we need to do better but keep ignoring&#x2F;procrastinating&#x2F;letting inertia get the best of us. It&#x27;s this stuff that you&#x27;ll wish you had paid attention to 10 years later.
themodelplumberover 3 years ago
1. He wouldn&#x27;t have listened.<p>2. No...”buy bitcoin” please. &lt;-- he would have said that too, when asking for advice, but he could have made a lot of money had he bought bitcoin. I&#x27;m not sure why you wrote it, but he would have written it because 1) he thought of himself as deadly serious, and didn&#x27;t want to take things like bitcoin seriously and 2) he would undermine those attempting to give advice by using tools like: Attempting to predict what those people would say. He saw this as cutting through the bulls** but another answer was that he was subverting good answers for emotional reasons. An interesting emotional reason likely being that asking others for help felt at some level as if it meant that one&#x27;s own approaches or ideas weren&#x27;t good enough.<p>3. He should listen, try completely new things, evaluate them, and aim to make lots of fresh mistakes.<p>4. But his biggest mistake was that he was not listening. He was waiting for his own heroism, his own tools to become his proven answer to problems that could have more easily been solved using other tools. He was in his own way.<p>5. In the meantime he should take better care of himself, or expect surprising moments of self-centeredness to break out when least desired. He shouldn&#x27;t wait for others to defer to his own ideas or opinions so much.<p>Hurts to write all this, but I appreciate the exercise.
raptorraverover 3 years ago
Please, stop smoking weed now. It won&#x27;t give you anything it&#x27;ll just make you unhappy under performer.
theoutcomeover 3 years ago
Do not become a programmer. You, as a high schooler, are too young to know what you want with the rest of your life. Take that (temporary) job as a translator in military, be present, think about only tomorrow, there will be plenty of time for everything.
sparker72678over 3 years ago
You’re enough. You’ve always been enough. You always will be.
Gtex555over 3 years ago
1. Learn how to program instead of playing video games.<p>2. Try as many start up ideas while at University.<p>3. Don&#x27;t waste so much time on the opposite sex.<p>4. Stop TV shows and movies (read novels).<p>5. Stop watching porn.
评论 #28744383 未加载
nowherebeenover 3 years ago
People gaming the system at work are the smartest; fighting the system is 10x more work and not worth the personal gain
评论 #28754077 未加载
phil3kover 3 years ago
Less partying, focus on improving yourself (money, fitness, friendships), don&#x27;t get married before 35.
sovaover 3 years ago
Keep the faith. Keep your confidence. Realize that for success you&#x27;ll have to do the same thing ten thousand times, and then you might be half-decent at it. Stay curious about other people and don&#x27;t hesitate to break the ice. Build prototypes and demos of all the stuff you want to work on. Leave your demo applications online and maybe even showcase them in job interviews. For every 100 applications you send to jobs, maybe 4-10 will give you a callback, and maybe 1-4 will give you an offer. Prep for interviews like prepping for final exams, spend about 2+ weeks voraciously consuming all the mock&#x2F;sample content you can find online (youtube). Make yourself an expert in a handful of things. Strive to surround yourself with ethical people who are driven to succeed and benefit others. Keep an eye out for cool hiking trails. Keep a daily logue of things you did. Keep a todo list of things you wish to accomplish. Imagine the ideal life, ideal surroundings, and ideal people in your surround and work backwards from the result. Avoid complaining and criticizing. Develop your empathy and compassion for all beings as frequently as possible. Meditate daily, for there are stains only meditation can clear away. Don&#x27;t dwell too much on the past or on your troubles. Get excited and get happy for the outcomes you want. Find a few people you really admire and study their lives intensely. Prefer places to work where you get along with the people well. Invest in yourself. Write often. Get in the gym three times a week and sweat it out. It&#x27;s okay to leave a disruptive situation. Remind people you love them and care about them. Don&#x27;t let politics stress you out, don&#x27;t play the game. Write more essays with a coherent thread or call back. Keep a list of good jokes that you add to as funny things happen. Don&#x27;t shirk away from being in control of a situation, don&#x27;t lose your kindness and your calm even when you want to beat your chest and scream at the absurdity, it&#x27;ll all flow more smoothly with some discipline. Stay stretchy. Alternate use of left hand and right hand and stay ambidextrous, you&#x27;ll prevent nerve damage. Get out into the open air. Beep at drivers who are asleep at the wheel. Pray for love and safety and freedom for yourself and others every morning and every night. When meeting someone new, get their contact information. When in a really good mood, reach out to others. Mix your toothpaste with activated charcoal (whitening++). Mix your coffee with activated charcoal (tummy ease++). Don&#x27;t wait for a hand-out, perfect yourself, create value. Keep applying to jobs even when you have interviews lined up. Follow-up with all your interviews even when it seems that one is a certainty -- you can leverage offer letters against one another for a better outcome. Rather than demand a rate, say &quot;make an offer.&quot; Edit parts of a lease you find unsavory and have the landlord or their rep initial them before signing. Every contract is editable, is a negotiation. Things happen once or not at all. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain in approaching new people. Learn how to sell stuff. If a friend&#x27;s situation seems weird or strange or creepy, find out why, don&#x27;t wait for tragedy to strike. Avoid smoking, there are cleaner ways to get interesting substances into your body. Avoid blaming others, take responsibility even when it&#x27;s clearly not your fault, this can lead to healthy laughs and joyful perplexity. Focus on landing a good job, building a passive income stream, and taking good care of your psyche and spirit. Make efforts to increase the prosperity for yourself and others. Learn new instruments and record the melodies you invent on your phone or audio recorder, listen to them weeks or months later. Buy in bulk. Focus your energies like a laser beam on what will be of long-term benefit. Don&#x27;t be selfish. Think Big.
评论 #28742073 未加载
评论 #28741326 未加载
评论 #28742238 未加载
caslonover 3 years ago
&quot;It never gets better; you know what to do.&quot;
willciprianoover 3 years ago
Relax, it all works out in the end.
rl3over 3 years ago
Don&#x27;t waste your life.
评论 #28744155 未加载