<i>"... After a 40-Dunhills-a-day-habit for nearly 20 years, I stopped smoking ..."</i><p>Best advice.<p><i>"... Before I got sick, it was hard for me not to interfere in every single decision that was made here at GigaOM ... When I returned, I had to choose to let go ..."</i><p>Second bit is subtle. By letting go you decrease your stress. I like Om for his different take on technology. Here's for his recovery & better health.
"When faced with a binary choice — live or die — I made the following upgrades..."<p>I find it fascinating that death is one of the biggest agents of change that we know of.
I think that this kind of post here is good. I mean, this community may have a really positive effect on each one of us (maybe a tiny influence, but still) because of this kind of post. It gives me some examples to follow. And for that, reading HN is a good thing.
I'm a bit sick of lists of advice on blogs. I wish this trend would stop.<p>Also, and I mean this as politely as possible, the advice is pretty obvious in this case. Nothing really controversial here to make me think.