Ask HN: What things have richly rewarded the time invested in mastering them?

&quot;Fighting fair.&quot;<p>It&#x27;s a term I heard a Minister tell the bride and groom during his speech at their wedding. He talked about how you&#x27;re going to fight with your spouse, but the challenge is to fight fair. Hear the other person. Try to see their perspective with sympathy, if not empathy. Avoid trying to &quot;win&quot; fights, that&#x27;s never the point.<p>I talked about this with my then girlfriend. She was a vicious fighter. I was too. We knew each other&#x27;s weak spots and knew exactly what to say. But we spent a few years slowly getting better. And now our fights are almost always about a rational disagreement on perspective. They get heated. We get emotional. Because we both really care. But we fight fair now, and that means our fights are productive and usually rather short. For me it means forcing myself to stop the argument for a moment, truly process and soak in everything she&#x27;s said, try to understand why she feels that way, and see if maybe she&#x27;s got a point. On more than one occasion, we&#x27;ll be a few minutes into a yelling match and one of us will just abruptly say, &quot;oh my god you&#x27;re right...&quot;<p>It&#x27;s easily the most powerful skill I&#x27;ve developed in my adult life.<p>I&#x27;ve been married to her for 2 years now. I&#x27;ve got 78 more years to go with her and I feel more confident every day that we&#x27;re going to make it.

I’m still very much in the earlier stages of learning, but I’ll say negotiation. Recognizing that virtually any situation involving an “exchange” between two interested parties can become a negotiation has been a great insight into control for me.<p>People often think of negotiation as business, however it can be much more personal than that and can be very useful for your interpersonal relationships as much as it can be for your professional relationships.<p>Understanding how you can leverage another person’s empathy (and your own) in your favour without exploiting the other person is tremendously valuable whether you’re trying to get your kid to eat their vegetables or trying to convince a terrorist organization to free their hostages.<p>I’ve learned a few simple techniques that have honestly improved my ability to not only negotiate but communicate and understand people better in general.<p>I bought Chris Voss’ book on negotiating and it’s been really pivotal for my understanding of, well, humanity to a certain extent. Highly recommend it to anyone who wants to make a stronger person out of themselves.<p>No affiliation with the book btw but I’m a huge fan of the author as a result of his book.

Computer Science degree.<p>Sure, lots of us &quot;learnt&quot; programming in our bedrooms or whatever by doing our own thing and messing about in whatever language. I went into my compsci degree arrogantly thinking that I pretty much knew how to code already so please just give me the bit of paper saying I have the degree and I&#x27;ll be on my way thanks very much.<p>I was very wrong.<p>Although I was pretty good at the coding (or at least I like to think so), I learnt so much more of the theory that is as relevant today as it was then, and as it was decades before that too. It stretched me in ways I did not even know I could be stretched - I dont think I would never have learnt the &quot;hard&quot; theory that transcends specific programming languages if I was just tinkering around on my own or reading a &quot;How to program Python&#x2F;Visual Basic 6&#x2F;PHP&#x2F;C#&quot; books etc (aged myself there with VB6!).<p>More or less every day I still use those skills&#x2F;knowledge I learnt on my degree, but not only that I came out beaming with confidence and the knowledge that I <i>knew my stuff</i>.<p>As a direct result of my degree I enjoy a pretty cushy, well-paid, well-perked, and secure job at a company that many people dream of working at, and have done for years. Sure it was 4 years and a few thousand GBP (at the time in the UK - more expensive now) but totally 100% worth it - I genuinely dont think I&#x27;d be where I am now if I had not done the degree.

Cooking. I am not a chef, but I have spent the time and effort to be able and willing to tackle nearly any recipe in the cuisines I&#x27;m familiar with. More importantly, I&#x27;ve made my wife, family, friends, strangers, and myself, happy at my table and via gifts of food. In terms of books, the biggest difference-makers have been &#x27;The Way to Cook&#x27;, Julia Child, &#x27;The French Laundry Cookbook&#x27;, Thomas Keller, et al, and &#x27;The Flavor Bible&#x27;, Page and Dornenburg.

Readline —- I’m sometimes amazed at the number of relatively seasoned developers who don’t know simple commands like ctrl-r. This one really pays off because almost all shells and repls like ipython or the mysql client implement it.<p>Sample cheat sheet:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;readline.kablamo.org&#x2F;emacs.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;readline.kablamo.org&#x2F;emacs.html</a><p>You don’t have to learn it all, but mastering the basics like moving to the end&#x2F;beginning on the line, moving&#x2F;deleting by word, yank, history search and the like will pay off handsomely.

I&#x27;m going to say something out of the blue - Building speakers.<p>Building speakers look complex from the outside, but are pretty rewarding once you know the basics (Thiele parameters, enclosure design and tuning). You can put together your own speaker with just a couple of parts from eBay or anywhere else on the internet really and sometimes can end up with really high quality boxes that can outperform much more expensive commercial ones available in the market.<p>Speaker design is one of those things that the more time you put into it, learning, studying, testing, the better rewarded you&#x27;d feel. To add to the mix there&#x27;s also amplifiers - Class A, B, C, D and even tube amps and each combination of amplifier and crossover sounds totally different.<p>Each speaker box I design, I feel is like good food. Different flavors, different combinations, different possibilities. You will never feel bored and never feel you&#x27;ve hit an end. You&#x27;re always discovering something new.

Being good at reading and writing.<p>The ability to quickly and efficiently understand and mentally absorb large amounts of the written word, and the ability to write clearly, simply and coherently about subjects both simple and complicated.<p>Being good at reading is a force multiplier in everything academic I have ever done, and continues to be a huge advantage in both learning and simply doing my job, and in so much of life in general. So much information about how everything works, physical devices and procedures and interacting with governments and organisations, is provided as the written word. If you can do it quickly and correctly, you&#x27;re ahead of the game.<p>Being good at writing helps me transmit knowledge and instructions across time and space to other people, helping them understand faster and better. It also saves me time; I work with people who genuinely struggle to express precise technical information through the written word, spending large amounts of time producing text that really isn&#x27;t adequate. Often they write as if they&#x27;re speaking, which just doesn&#x27;t work.<p>A lot of people go through life with just functional literacy; being good at reading and writing is a force multiplier across so many activities in life, right from early education all the way through such a huge range of jobs and careers. The return on investment spent on being good at reading and writing is huge.

Learning how to smile. I would spend time in front of the mirror practicing my smile for different situations.<p>During interviews I would force myself to smile. It helped get rid of some nervousness. When I get stuck on a problem I would smile stupidly and usually the interviewer would help me out.<p>When I feel like conversations are getting heated I would take a step back and smile, it helps me direct the conversion to a more positive place.<p>Sometimes when stuff happens outside my control and life just sucks I&#x27;ll force myself to smile and handle things to the best of my ability

Learning Sanskrit. I have spent the last few years learning it and it&#x27;s been tremendously rewarding. Sanskrit is a beautiful language. Learning it is a great mental challenge and gives great satisfaction (to me). Before learning Sanskrit I had never really pursued a hobby this seriously. Since I have been doing this I no longer feel like a machine who just goes to work, eats and sleeps. Before this, I used to feel great despair if the work in the office was not to my satisfaction. Since I have started pursuing this passion, work no longer dictates my life. Work is not the only thing that makes my life meaningful. I view work as one of the important things in life and not the only important thing in life. And that has made all the difference. My contentment and happiness level has gone up dramatically since I have been learning Sanskrit.

Drinking lots of water.<p>It might not be the same for everyone. However, I have noticed that I rarely drink water. It is interesting that I only noticed that this year (late twenties). The effects on my body and mind were phenomenal. I used to drink less than 1 liter a day.<p>I don&#x27;t feel thirst. So I don&#x27;t drink water when I&#x27;m dehydrated (because I almost never feel it). Instead, I have a prescribed quantity that I drink everyday. Also when I&#x27;m out for food&#x2F;coffee&#x2F;bar I always order a bottle of water. I might not drink all of it, but it&#x27;ll help me drink.<p>You should drink 3-4 liters per day to feel the difference. The difference will be massive only if you are dehydrate it without realizing it. In my case, I was severely dehydrated, but I never noticed it.<p>The effects: I feel fresher. Smarter. More active. My eyes are much less sore and I suffer less when I&#x27;m looking at a screen. It is interesting I have never noticed or thought that water dehydration was the cause. The first days that I started the water dosing, I felt that the exhaustion was relieved.<p>To give you an idea of how serious this is. Look at this chart: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;i.pinimg.com&#x2F;originals&#x2F;3e&#x2F;ed&#x2F;4a&#x2F;3eed4ad01533479b473ee0fffb240cba.jpg" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;i.pinimg.com&#x2F;originals&#x2F;3e&#x2F;ed&#x2F;4a&#x2F;3eed4ad01533479b473e...</a> My pee color was always on the extreme side before. I have never questioned it. Talk about ignorance.<p>The very first days of hydration, I felt almost 10 years younger. By continuing I certainly no longer feel the effects since I&#x27;m used to the new standards. But I&#x27;ll never forget the day I discovered that I was in severe dehydration. I also will not forget the almost instantaneous change in my body after the few hours of drinking.

Programming<p>(I feel like that might be cheating on HN...)<p>I started programming about 16 years ago (I think), when my Dad bought a basic introduction to HTML for himself, which I ended up &quot;borrowing&quot;. I super geeky teenage life followed where I learned various languages, including Python, Delphi and an obscure language called RapidEuphoria (honest, that is a programming language, with some interesting features actually). Fast forward through a Maths degree and 2 internships, I&#x27;m now a happy Engineering Team Lead at Bloomberg, generally utilising JS, Python and C++ as appropriate.<p>Of course, there are a bunch of other skills needed to be a successful software engineer, but I think turning my hobby into my career has been the most richly rewarded skill so far.

My marriage.<p>No one else in my life has my back, protects my confidence, and shares this wild adventure like my wife does. We have invested a LOT of time and money into getting better at overcoming disagreements, digging deeper into what is actually causing a rift between us, defining the company we want to keep, etc.<p>We are both athiests, so we didn’t have access to church or religious marital counciling (probably for the best). We took it upon ourselves to study all we can, to treat our marriage as a foundation to improve our self-awareness and help each other see their blind spots.<p>Some education that has been helpful: - Nonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg. Great foundational book. His other book “Speaking Peace” is a how-to manual for conflict resolution between warring communities&#x2F;tribes&#x2F;nations. Both are VERY powerful and cheap. Both have audiobooks.<p>- Wired for Love by Stan Tatkin. Great book about building a foundation in a partnership.<p>- “Deep Psychology of Intimate Relationships” course (DPIR) from RelationshipSchool.net and the free “Smart Couple Podcast.” DPIR is a “masters degree” in building a rock solid partnership, and the podcast offers some great ongoing commentary. What secular relationship books or courses or events do you recommend?

SQL. Ultimately a software company is a business, run by business people who have to solve business problems. Often to do that they come up with questions which need to be answered by ad-hoc (written on the fly for one purpose) SQL queries. Having that ability, to answer arbitrary questions FAST will elevate your status in the minds of managers and business people.

Going to a gym two to three times a week for small group training sessions.<p>In terms of investment, it is not as expensive as private training and it keeps you on track. The real investment is in you. Your most important asset is your ability to produce income. Having a healthier body helps maintain that ability. The damage that I do through typing is only barely counteracted by these training sessions. I don’t take typing for granted, having had soreness and pain for many years, and going to the gym and lifting weights has been the best action I’ve done towards addressing that. For you young and older people out there, do not take your ability to pound at a keyboard for granted. One day, it may start to lead to soreness which goes away after some rest. Eventually, the soreness does not go away.<p>The true returns are the cumulative effects of sticking with a healthy habit. You may not become “jacked” and super muscular but you will become fitter.<p>After almost two years, the benefits of regular exercise are so apparent that I have to hold back getting on my bully pulpit to encourage other friends to do so.

Learning Photoshop. My photo restorations:<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;imgur.com&#x2F;a&#x2F;uzUzP" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;imgur.com&#x2F;a&#x2F;uzUzP</a> <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;imgur.com&#x2F;a&#x2F;BuwKp" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;imgur.com&#x2F;a&#x2F;BuwKp</a> <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;imgur.com&#x2F;a&#x2F;q61eH" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;imgur.com&#x2F;a&#x2F;q61eH</a> <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;imgur.com&#x2F;a&#x2F;1lp9O" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;imgur.com&#x2F;a&#x2F;1lp9O</a> <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;imgur.com&#x2F;a&#x2F;OyMWI" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;imgur.com&#x2F;a&#x2F;OyMWI</a> <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;imgur.com&#x2F;a&#x2F;iVhUq" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;imgur.com&#x2F;a&#x2F;iVhUq</a> <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;imgur.com&#x2F;a&#x2F;4zv43" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;imgur.com&#x2F;a&#x2F;4zv43</a>

Learning a musical instrument to a high degree of proficiency.<p>What&#x27;s a &quot;high degree of proficiency&quot;? Obviously somewhat subjective but I&#x27;d argue its one of:<p>1) being able to play intermediate to advanced pieces in the standard repetoire. In the case of my instrument, piano, it&#x27;s being able to play Bach, Brahms, Debussy, Bill Evans, T Monk, etc.<p>2) being able to think of a musical phrase and then play it on your instrument without much&#x2F;any guesswork.<p>My parents forced me to take piano lessons - classical - for 6 years starting when I was 9. I hated it. When they finally let me stop we moved across the country and I fell in with some new friends, one who played bass and the other drums. They would regularly get together to do something called &#x27;jam&#x27;, which I&#x27;d never heard of. They invited me and although I only knew one non-classical piece - a simple blues - the feeling of playing&#x2F;making music with other people was electrifying.<p>I ran home and asked my mom if I could start taking lessons again - this time jazz. I went on to attend a music school for undergrad and have never stopped playing, picking up guitar, bass and drums along the way.<p>Playing&#x2F;making music has been one of the greatest sources of comfort and pleasure. I don&#x27;t often get depressed but on those rare occasions when I do, being able to sit at my piano and play something like [0] is the best medicine.<p>[0]<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=kIGjguSEmcg" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=kIGjguSEmcg</a>

Meditation -<p>I wouldn&#x27;t say I&#x27;ve mastered it, but after 4+ years of study and practice including several 5-7 day retreats I can honestly say I&#x27;m far more emotionally balanced, calmer, happier, more insightful, more confident and comfortable in my own skin, better at dealing with setbacks and difficulties, ...<p>There&#x27;s many things that call themselves meditation and as far as I can tell the majority of them are legit. I&#x27;d advocate picking one large and well established school &#x2F; method and sticking with it for a few years rather than attempting a breadth-first search of the space or going into some niche branch that really just has one charismatic instructor.

Planting fruit trees on the property. Fruit trees require little maintenance and can, when mature and when things have been done right, produce amazing yields year after year for several decades. The previous grass lawn mono-culture has given way to several rows of apple and cherry trees, thanks to a few hours spent learning how and digging the holes. I know of nothing more rewarding as a function of the (tiny) time and money invested.

- Learning x86 assembler back in school: knowing what everything comes down to in the end has no price.<p>- reading &quot;Smashing the stack for fun and profit&quot;: I learned so many things from that article, that I felt like a god when I finally understood all the things. And all of those things are still relevant today when debugging stuff.<p>- learning ruby: when rails came out I jumped on the hype train and started learning ruby. I was mainly a java dev, so learning all the new ways of doing things made me grow a lot.<p>- javascript: I hated the language, but once I bit the bullet and overcome my hate for it and started learning it, I now love all the things I can do.<p>- learning git: it was an uphill battle at the beginning, but now I can&#x27;t live without it.<p>I am sure there are a lot of other things I am forgetting, but these come to mind now.

Flamenco dancing, from Andalucia in Spain: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;t5nusnPUXSY" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;t5nusnPUXSY</a><p>I had never danced before, had no coordination, and was petrified of looking stupid in front of others.<p>Then five years ago, I saw an ad for beginners&#x27; flamenco dance classes and decided to give it a go. Right away, I got hooked on the physically demanding athleticism, the precision of the complex rhythmic structure, the way you make the music with your feet stamping on the floor, and the way it requires total concentration. After a high-pressure day in front of the computer at work, I love leaving that behind and walking into the dance studio...<p>The most rewarding part is I now take classes taught by the top Spanish dancers. It&#x27;s a real buzz to see them perform on stage on a Friday night then spend the Saturday and Sunday in workshops with them teaching the same choreographies.<p>Incidentally, that You Tube link above is of Marco Flores and Manuel Linan, two of my favourite male flamenco dancers. I will be doing a workshop with Manuel Linan this Christmas and one with Marco Flores in Spain next February.

Directed meditation.<p>I read a weight loss book called &quot;the Gabriel Method&quot; and it changed my life. Besides all kinds of food related things, it teaches a sort of goal-oriented meditation&#x2F;visualization technique that I found to work for many more things than changing eating habits.<p>I&#x27;ve felt more like good food and less like bad food so I eat healthier without needing to muster discipline. Lost 10 kilos so far without really trying all that hard.<p>I&#x27;ve been procrastinating less because I changed the way I feel about many of the tasks I&#x27;d keep postponing.<p>My relationship has never been better, despite our lives having become more, not less, busy during the same period. We fight way less because I&#x27;m less annoyed by things and I&#x27;m better at not letting things escalate when she&#x27;s annoyed by things.<p>Frankly it&#x27;s been pretty spectacular.

1. Learning Chinese characters with Anki. After a decade out of practice, I realize I would have done a lot better in my college studies if I <i>actually studied.</i> Wild idea, I know.<p>One thing that prevented me from memorizing characters was the idea that it wasn&#x27;t worth doing. However, this passage from the Self-Regulated Learning paper [0] that circulated around HN convinced me otherwise:<p>&quot;We need to understand, too, that our capacity for storing to-be-learned information or procedures is essentially unlimited. In fact, storing information in human memory appears to create capacity — that is, opportunities for additional linkages and storage — rather than use it up.&quot;<p>2. Learning (even very basic) Chess has opened my eyes up to how interesting a &quot;solved&quot; game can be.<p>[0]: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.excaliburtsa.org.uk&#x2F;wp-content&#x2F;uploads&#x2F;2017&#x2F;11&#x2F;Self-regulated-learning-Bjork.pdf" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.excaliburtsa.org.uk&#x2F;wp-content&#x2F;uploads&#x2F;2017&#x2F;11&#x2F;Se...</a>

Learning English.<p>It opened up a whole new area of the internet that I was excluded from simply because I didn&#x27;t know the language. There are communities that I can actively participate in and learn from.

Playing Go.<p>I picked the game up around the time when AlphaGo was on the up and up. My goal with it was to work on patience and fulfill my competitive drive. It proved to do so much more for me - a year in, I got to play solid games, experience success against players stronger than me, meet a lot of awesome people, travel a bunch and, most importantly - and probably the most cliche - learn a lot about myself, about my character and how to become a better person in general. People think it&#x27;s impossible to improve significantly after a certain age, but, whilst I certainly don&#x27;t have enough time or drive to pursue the highest echelons of rankings, I have been steadily getting better and better and the end isn&#x27;t anywhere in sight. Can&#x27;t get enough of playing in tournaments either - not only do you get to really duke it out with others, you get to learn a ton from them, form great relationships and sight-see a whole lot.<p>In my limited experience with classical board games and extensive with video games, I found Go (known also as Baduk and Weiqi) to be the most fun, the most challenging, the most social game out there. Simple, yet complex - you can learn the rules in two minutes, but learn all the intricacies of the board for years. I strongly recommend checking out a local club at least once - there&#x27;s a strong chance you&#x27;ll really enjoy playing the game with the people there.

Learning to use a modern DSLR camera in fully manual mode. I now intuitively understand the relationship between the control inputs of shutter speed, aperture and ISO and the outputs of image brightness and depth of field (I still mostly use auto-focus). I have sufficient muscle memory for the controls that my big complex camera is truly a point and shoot device and I can have a few pictures in the can while the crowds with their mobile cameras are still waiting for the things to focus. Don’t get me wrong, I use my iPhone camera all the time, but if I want to get pictures that are different from most other peoples, I can.<p>I’ve also learned to take a portfolio perspective to photography (building sets of pictures that tell a story) rather than instantly uploading everything in a competitive search for ‘faves’. I’ve rediscovered younger me’s joy in photography, whilst posting less than I have for years.

Learning Linux&#x2F;UNIX has by far yielded the most return in my life. I started at 14. It turned into my career. It has been very lucrative and I still love it. In contrast: I started learning how to draw digitally ~2 years ago and it’s mostly just painful and unrewarding. I feel like an emo teen again. I can’t quit though because I have strong feelings about the sunk costs :V

Relationships; my wife, my child, my family, my friends, my employees, my peers and my bosses. I find all my real regrets and upsets stem from not doing these right, they all compete for time, but in the end they make the tapestry of your life.

This may sound weird, but estimation. This book literally changed my thinking and how I do a lot of calculations<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;web.mit.edu&#x2F;6.055&#x2F;book&#x2F;book-draft.pdf" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;web.mit.edu&#x2F;6.055&#x2F;book&#x2F;book-draft.pdf</a><p>Basic physics principles combined with the above. Being able to not only see how something works, but to be able to at least estimate it&#x27;s parameters is invaluable to designing anything new

Typing. The bulk of my communication is text, and being able to type fast and effortlessly makes basically my whole life easier.

- touch typing - this is a no-brainer<p>- english at C2 level - the current lingua franca. You really want to be able to accurately express yourself<p>- vi&#x2F;vim. Available everywhere.<p>- UNIX networking<p>- shell and shell programming. Turns you into a power user<p>- at least one programming language and its important frameworks<p>- regular expressions. Super useful everywhere. Learn why they are slow&#x2F;fast as well.<p>- low level computer stuff. It helps you analyze higher level problems

Running. Been running ~ 2 years fairly seriously. Lost a lot of weight, and have never been healthier. Now have run marathons under 3 hours, qualified for Boston, ran in international races, Hawaii, etc. Running and any active sports feel fun when you are fast.

Public speaking is by far and away the best ROI I&#x27;ve had on a new skill.<p>Being able to communicate effectively to a group of people has positive impacts in all aspects of my life.

Learn the constellations. It doesn’t take very long, and it’s quite satisfying to walk our at night and immediately be oriented. How many things can you look at that are largely unchanged from when your ancestors looked at them thousands of years ago? Plus, you can tell directions at night without a cell phone!

Sound engineering. If you&#x27;re a good sound engineer, you can basically get any album or record signed. All major labels look for excellent sound engineering first, and creativity second. This may sound counterintuitive, however if something is very creative and sounds unprofessional, they won&#x27;t sign it. If it sounds excellent though very uncreative, it&#x27;s still professional so there is a high chance of them signing it.<p>Of course you need both, much like anything great, however a well engineered track will get you significantly further than a creative track with poor engineering.<p>If you can do both, you will be a rockstar, literally.

Dance lessons Was particularly helpful to me because it taught me so much more than how to appreciate human movement as art or to exercise. It taught me the intricacies of human interaction, especially with the opposite sex, because my computer oriented hight school was practically a monastery.<p>Its a highly structured way to learn about those things, so easy on software people - just read and follow the instructions, and was (is) very fun in its own right :)

Learning the very basics of photography: what shutter speed, ISO and aperture do, and how to adjust them for each situation.<p>It takes literally half an hour to learn this, and of course you won&#x27;t be taking professional quality photos, but your photos will go from crappy to OK or even good, even if you only have a phone (as long as it has manual mode). You know that time you took a random photo and the light and colors came out better than normal? You can achieve that consistently.<p>After learning this, I felt dumb for not having spent that half an hour years before.

Learning more about how to use the editor you use every day. Take notes. Review, at least monthly, and make sure you always incorporate new learnings.<p>Do not worry about which editor, there is something about the one you use right now that makes you using it, your best bang for the buck is to learn how to use this particular editor better. Returns will be immediate (no learning curve to learn a new one). Returns will be huge: Not learning advanced usage is literally wasting a bit of time every time you use your editor. If you work with computers (ops, dev, etc...), you spend a lot of time inside your editor.<p>If in six months you find your editor too limiting, or somebody convinces to use another one, so be it. The time you spent learning the current one isn&#x27;t wasted, you have raised the bar to what you need from an editor, and, will learn the new one faster, because you now have advanced patterns that you need and will immediately look on how to do that with the new tool.

Deep work.<p>Not a huge time investment, but an indispensable skill or revelation I wish I had before starting college. Think I&#x27;ve found the book here on HN: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.goodreads.com&#x2F;book&#x2F;show&#x2F;25744928-deep-work" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.goodreads.com&#x2F;book&#x2F;show&#x2F;25744928-deep-work</a>

I’m really surprised this hasn’t been mentioned yet, but; playing a musical instrument.<p>I don’t know what it is that makes music pleasurable, but when you get in the flow and the music is just coming naturally to you, it feels like you’ve been taken over by a higher power. Somehow, the next note and lyric just comes to you. You lose control, in a way, and the music takes over.<p>I know that’s a corny, irrational explanation and I’m hoping someone can back me up with more eloquent words, but <i>goddamn</i> it feels good play music.

Penmanship &amp; Calligraphy. One of my non-computer fascinations that turned out to be spiritually rewarding. Once one gets past shallow modern trends, there&#x27;s so much to discover, study, learn, practice, master and let loose with. It&#x27;s really fun. I don&#x27;t necessarily ship or sell anything, at least as of yet, but still the act itself is kinda like meditation.

Learning to make&#x2F;compose music. I&#x27;s very rewarding to listen to your own music, mostly because you make the stuff YOU like.<p>And being able to play whats in your head on an instrument makes playing allot more fun.<p>And there are a some extremly valuable lessons to be learned from spending hours a day practicing.<p>1) I learned how to practice efficiently (which made learning porgraming languages and university for me allot easier)<p>2) I learned that I can do everything and it&#x27;s just a matter of how much time I&#x27;m willing to invest.<p>3) I spend allot of time on my creative process which also helps allot with problem solving in daily life (and programming)

Software Development interview questions. My skills, experience and education don&#x27;t seem to matter as much in the industry. Those questions were the single factor that got me better jobs and increased my salary several times, the effects of which extend to myself and my family.<p>I don&#x27;t even like the questions. They&#x27;re mostly puzzles, which I&#x27;m not good at, in the guise of programming questions.

Regular expressions and SQL. It boggles the mind to think of the imperitive version of custom logic you&#x27;d have to write to accomplish the same things. Two of my most prized technical tools...

Learning Jiu Jitsu. It is a art form in the truest sense and is an incredible equalizer of humans. You can not truly participate in the sport without learning discipline, patience, humility and passion. The sport has nourished my soul in such a way I detest imagining a life without it.

Think about WHO AM I.<p>I think this is the most important question one can have for his entire life.<p>I am 28, but I have spent about 15 years to think about who am I? Where am I come from? Where will I go?<p>And gradually, I get clearer and clearer about it.<p>And knowing who am I is the greatest source of happiness, strength and calmness.<p>If you also do this, I think you may understand. You will have small enlightment day by day, and finally a big enlightment.<p>What you really need to do is keep thinking, and you body will take you to where you belong.

The subtle art of small talk. There are so many benefits, from flirting to sales and whatnot. Especially in business relationships it helps smooth the process and make people feel comfortable with you. Over the years I&#x27;ve noticed that people who are very good at sales are masters of small talk.

Breathing. So much can be accomplished with something seemingly so simple.

Social dancing, in particular <i>argentine tango.</i> Would totally recommend it to all the nerds here, it attracts quite a cerebral crowd. You can go to any major city and there will be tango to be found and people to meet there. Definitely saved my ass from oblivion more than once. Doesn&#x27;t matter if you&#x27;re the ugliest dude in the room, if you can dance then the girls will want some.

Investing. Read a few solid, no BS books by people like Bernstein. Realize that there is a ton of BS out there. Develop your own investing strategy and execute it yourself.<p>In the end you save money, get some financial security and stop asking yourself “do I know what i’m doing?”

Learning to touch type properly. A short course I took in the summer pays off every time I use a keyboard, which is all day.<p>The other one was a summer course in basic accounting that taught the basics of double-entry bookkeeping, balance sheets, and income statements. That has paid off literally, ongoing, and well. Very good investment of time.

Learning to control impulsive eating, and starting to exercise. Weight control never seemed difficult afterwards.

Mediatation.<p>I’ve been meditating daily using the app Headspace for the past 3 months and have seen improvements in my focus and a reduction in anxiety.<p>My mind would previously wonder off in meetings and I would miss a lot of the discussion, but with meditation I’ve noticed that I’m alot more focused and my mind doesn’t wander off as much.<p>I’ve also felt alot happier and less anxious, as meditation has allowed me to notice my thoughts and feelings and let go of those that are negative.

Health and fitness. I see the subthread about producing income, but you can’t produce income if you’re dead, and you can’t produce as much income if you’re fat, out-of-shape, and can’t hink straight for hours at a time. Not to mention that fitness allows people over 25 to more easily expand the executive functions in the brain, which increases your ability to produce income.

Understanding risk vs reward, and maybe some math behind it. It sounds simple on the surface, but once I deeply understood it, it just keeps showing up again and again in life: financial investing, trading, playing poker, taking risks in life, making better decisions, etc. Where other people see &quot;gambling&quot;, I see calculated risk taking. And it pays off.

For me it has to be the following two:<p>1.Learning languages,<p>2.learning to play musical instruments.<p>They are both great for someone like me because they enhance your social skills and facilitate interpersonal relationships

Perl. Knowing perl removes the need to know the tricky parts of awk, sed and bash. It is the most pleasant language when you need to extract data from badly formatted files (like log files or even binary recordings) and provide a report. It is a very good glue language. The autovivification is really handsome and helps to code very very quickly.

Riding a bike and driving a car. While I didn&#x27;t really chose to do these (my parents chose for me) they both provide immense use from getting to work, fitness and recreation to exploring the country. I&#x27;m glad I learned them young.<p>Also, I think this has been mentioned, but learning to cook. I never really formally made an effort to learn but my mom is a great cook and I seemed to have absorbed the knowledge&#x2F;natural ability and over a decade of trial and error I seem to have managed to be decent. Useful day to day and for special occasions. Only downside is eating too much.

Flying. It&#x27;s hard to put into words. Heightens your senses. Teaches discipline and planning. Requires and teaches concentration and assertive communication. Builds confidence. You&#x27;ll meet interesting people and go places you never would have otherwise. It&#x27;s forcing me to face some of my deepest demons.

18 years of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu transformed me from an insecure geek into an alpha male.

Reading &quot;How to Win Friends and Influence People&quot;, &quot;Badass: Making Users Awesome&quot; and some other book on understanding human psychology and how to understand better.<p>In a world where millions of developers rush to compete to build the best, most sophisticated apps, Understanding user &#x2F; audience &#x2F; customer has become an overlooked field.<p>Understand your user &#x2F; client&#x27;s pain points so well that they love you so much by buying your products &#x2F; continuing to hire you for consultation feels really good.

Learning to play piano later in life. I&#x27;ll never be close to being professional but I&#x27;ve spent enough time and effort in practice to become proficient enough to confidently play in front of others. My only regret is why I didn&#x27;t start earlier.

emacs, it has paid so much of dividend over the time. Sometimes i regret not having adopted it earlier.

Painting&#x2F;drawing<p>I am horrible at drawing, even doodling, but I spent a few weeks taking a drawing class that covered the basics (perspective, lighting, seeing shapes etc) and it&#x27;s amazing how rapidly you can improve with just a little practice. It taught me that you could really learn anything (even things you think you are bad at) if you put in consistent practice over time. It also taught me that doing drills is not useless. It&#x27;s best to do drills, get the hang of the small skills that you routinely use on a bigger project then take on the bigger project once you&#x27;re comfortable.<p>Everyone should find an outlet to experience that slow and incremental improvement of skills especially hands on skills like painting and drawing. Be sure to keep your earliest works to look back on how much you&#x27;ve improved.

Enjoying my own mind, either when or when lying down eye closed just thinking through different ideas. Amazed at how many people don&#x27;t enjoy their own mind.

A lot of mine have been covered here already, so I’ll keep it to Drawing.<p>No matter where you’re at — even if you can only draw stick figures — working on drawing skills is an incredible, compounding investment that pays continual dividends.

My case: reading poetry.<p>At the starting point of my poetic journey, I was ignorant of the genre, very opposed to it (for I couldn’t make the sense out of it) and arrogantly sure that poetry was mostly a scam.<p>Fortunately for me, a teacher of mine at college had this whole class around Portuguese poets. We had to read them for each other and explain the meaning, while he provided solid interpretations to the texts we were working on.<p>Thinking I had something in me clearly broken for I could not make the sense of any of the readings we were assigned, I got myself to go the library, picked up one of Fernando Pessoa’s heteronyms to read, and gave myself the task of reading at least a poem a day, trying to make whatever sense I could make out of it — whatever long it took for me to read the whole book. Also, if poetry was supposed to be this highly aesthetic experience, I would have to read the poem (or poems) out loud. And that I did.<p>When I had finished Pessoa’s book, I felt something was changing in me. Most of the poems still sounded nonsensical, but the ones that <i>worked</i>, the ones I felt I got a sense out of it, really made me feel that I was heading somewhere. So I drudged along.<p>After the finishing the first book (after a month or two), I picked up another. This time one Alberto Caeiro, one of Pessoa’s most beloved heteronyms. I can’t exactly pinpoint where the magic happened, but, suddenly, I was no longer the same self that started that journey. Now I was not reading out of obligation, but reading as a necessity. Poetry had gone under my skin, and I was starting to get this huge crave to read more and more poetic works.<p>To make a long story a bit shorter, nowadays I’m an avid reader of poetry, having read most of the great poets of Portuguese literature. I find particularly at home in the poetic genre and I’m even trying for a masters degree in philosophy working on... a poet!<p>This to me was the thing that I felt most accomplished by putting myself to master it. Looking back to how I felt before; knowing what I now know about poetry, my thoughts are the exact opposite of what they were in regards to poetry. Now I cannot even imagine how I managed to live my whole life at that point without giving poetry a try.

Cunnilingus. I&#x27;m dead serious.

Learning the concept of meta, meta skills, particularly learning how to learn, distinguishing what is useful to learn from what is not, constructing a comprehensive view for navigation in all circumstances.

Learning to learn. Being able to go from &quot;I know nothing about this subject&quot; to 80% in a year or so for the most complex subjects has completely changed how I approach professional challenges.

Common Lisp. I can&#x27;t even begin to describe how much leverage I&#x27;ve gotten out of that over the years.

Toastmasters — I only did it for a few months but it was enough to get over the general fear of public speaking and make it pretty easy for me to get up and give presentations. Highly recommended.

Learning the game of Go to a medium proficient level (3kyu). It&#x27;s a humbling experience, but the insights and lessons about strategy, influence, timing and prioritization feels universal.

For me, it has been the ability to build websites. This is the very skill that changed my life for the better. Why? First of all it opened so many more job opportunities. I graduated in Economics and Management, just like tens of thousands of other kids. Very few of them though knew HTML, leave alone a full-stack web framework. Coding was an incredible asset that landed me great executive digital jobs all over the world and made my low grades much less important.<p>So from a career and safe job point of view it was great. But even more important is that somehow i am the go-to person when a friend of mine wants to build a brand new digital business, which today&#x27;s always requires a website of some sort. Being able to bootstrap a digital business is an incredible way to increase my chances to reach financial independence.<p>Being able to build any kind of website has thus been the greatest advantage and has definitely shaped my life for the best.<p>All the time spent reading programming books, tutorials and debugging my early apps really has paid off. When i look back, i am amazed by how much each single hour i have invested into web development, has given back to me as financial return.<p>This however has shaped a bit negatively the way i relate to learning new skills. When i am comparing each potential new skill i have to invest time in, with the incredible returns i got from web development, i find tough to invest time in something difficult to monetize immediately. In the end i guess each skill you learn enrich you somehow.

Learning to touch-type. I spent maybe a few days in aggregate when I was in high school to learn it on my own, and it&#x27;s a skill that massively paid off in the almost 20 years since.

Cognitive behavioral therapy - (CBT) is a short-term, goal-oriented psychotherapy treatment that takes a hands-on, practical approach to problem-solving. Its goal is to change patterns of thinking or behavior that are behind people&#x27;s difficulties, and so change the way they feel. &gt;<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;positivepsychologyprogram.com&#x2F;cbt-cognitive-behavioural-therapy-books&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;positivepsychologyprogram.com&#x2F;cbt-cognitive-behaviou...</a>

VIM - it makes programming more enjoyable, but I use it for other kinds of text editing as well.

Judo.<p>But not for the reasons you expect. When you learn Judo you spend the first weeks learn how to fall, followed by people picking you up and slamming you into the ground alternating with you picking them up and slamming them into the ground. The amount of body control you learn is amazing - it&#x27;s like doing gymnastics, but in a cement mixer. Turns out learning how to land safely in unexpected situations is amazingly useful and makes you a lot safer (I&#x27;ve never broken a bone), and things like falling off a 3 story building is unlikely to cause you too much damage. Unlike karate Judo is mostly harmless as there is no striking - it&#x27;s best described as Japanese wrestling.<p>I&#x27;ve done a lot of other sports, some more enjoyable Judo, and sadly Judo is more of a young persons sport. All have something to teach you about teams, practice and persistence. Some like, swimming, teach you things a skill that is useful in the obvious places. But surprisingly to me, Judo was the one that always that unexpectedly saved me when I did something stupid, which in you younger days I did at least once a year.

Really inculcating that the conservation laws of physics are inviolate and provide the solid reference point that any analysis must satisfy. They&#x27;re a &quot;have to have&quot; not a &quot;nice to have&quot;.<p>And when they are violated you can be confident some sleight of hand is in play (I&#x27;m looking at you &quot;the holes of semiconductor physics&quot; and the RF &quot;path loss equation&quot;.)

Meditation and all forms of activity (contemplation, journaling, calligraphy, singing, drumming, guitar playing, painting, skateboarding, etc) that put me in a meditative state. My mind is primary to everything in my present and future experience and cleaning it up and keeping tidy has brought unimaginable (to me prior to experiencing it) joy and peace into my life.

Emacs, the One True Program.

Thinking of working with systems rather than towards goals. I got this idea from How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big: Kind of the Story of My Life <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.amazon.com&#x2F;dp&#x2F;B00COOFBA4&#x2F;ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&amp;btkr=1" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.amazon.com&#x2F;dp&#x2F;B00COOFBA4&#x2F;ref=dp-kindle-redirect?...</a><p>Learning to type - Enhanced productivity <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;hkelkar.com&#x2F;2014&#x2F;03&#x2F;02&#x2F;learn-to-type-before-you-learn-to-code&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;hkelkar.com&#x2F;2014&#x2F;03&#x2F;02&#x2F;learn-to-type-before-you-lear...</a><p>Writing a blog has been extremely rewarding. It takes effort to Blog Over the years I published a book based on the blog.<p>Understanding Compounding.<p>Learning Python for fun. Learning Python was really the stepping stone to learning other interesting things.

Hobbies - Rewarding not in money but in enjoyment and experiances<p>Learning to play a music instrument. I started playing the piano as an adult. I can highly recommend learning to play an music instrument if you ever felt like you wanted to play. It teaches you coordinate your hand and feet with your brain and you have to keep rhythm. Being able to play music is relaxing. Its humble feeling to be an improving beginner.<p>Photography being able to capture moments in your life. Being able to capture better pictures of your family and friends is rewarding.<p>Scuba diving, it is beautiful to watch the creatures and landscape of underwater places. Often if its beautiful under water it is also a pretty place above water. Plus you get to move around when on vacation so you see more of the vacation place. You usually meet new people when diving.

Cooking. I can’t imagine how much less enjoyable (or more expensive) life would be without cooking skills.

Learning to type faster.<p>I used to have a &quot;hunt and peck&quot; typing style requiring me to always look at the keyboard. I spent about 40 hours practicing over the course of a month and went from ~ 20 WPM to about 60 WPM.<p>I can now be looking at the screen about 99% of the time.

Sitting meditation &#x2F; mindfulness with a Shinzen Young &#x2F; Culadasa vibe.

I know I sounds like every other functional programmer but this year I spent the time to learn about monads after 5 years of copying IO examples from the internet. The last few weeks my boss let me do a prototype using haskell and the ease at which it came together was amazing. I don&#x27;t know if I will ever use Haskell or any other functional language at work, although I can hope, and I don&#x27;t think that every needs to know how to use a monad but the experience for me of learning a new problem solving tool and then using it effortlessly was extremely rewarding.

Learning how to create OS packages. Learning auto mechanics. Mastering UNIX.

Blind typing on a keyboard.

Music with programming, mostly with SuperCollider and TidalCycles. :)

A few things. - A habit of reading: Took a while but, whenever I am traveling, I am reading stuff. Books, articles you name it. But strictly no social media. BTW, Pocket is a great app for this. - Learning vim: Writing code faster has really paid off. I have reached a point where I don&#x27;t remember the vim key bindings. But my hand does. So things are pretty fast. - Learning emacs org mode: All the writing and planning activities have become much simpler. Highly recommend it.

To answer this one could list things that lasted in time and thus the reward from compounds over time. For example , C, vim, touch typing, HTTP&#x2F;Html&#x2F;PHP&#x2F;javascript&#x2F;mysql , weightlifting, calculus&#x2F;geometry , English (if not your native tongue), the piano.<p>OTOH what are the things i have avoided learning because of perceived short-term value: ios development, android development, toolshelves of javascript gimmicks that only google needs, ORMs, various javascript frameworks, R.

Nothing but I think if I had mastered another language that would probably be very rewarding. Actually I think mastering just about anything must be very rewarding. The more you put in the more you get out. There were subjects I did in school that were boring only because I didn&#x27;t put enough into them to find them interesting. So my answer would be just about anything. Except don&#x27;t go for something at which you know you don&#x27;t have the attributes for.

Learning Japanese. Although this can apply for any language different to your own, it opened my eyes to a new way of thinking and lots of literature, ideas and culture.

&quot;Master&quot; is a strong word - feeling more like a perpetual student than approaching mastery.<p>Before I became a developer, learning to play music. There is almost nothing more rewarding than the ability to speak a non-verbal, near-universal language in order to express yourself.<p>Private pilot&#x27;s license.<p>Podcasting.<p>Understanding more about cognitive bias. Rhetoric and logic.<p>Philosophy.<p>(Not sure you can master these last two within a lifetime.)<p>Fatherhood and being a good husband to my wife. These are easily the most rewarding experiences of my life.

Learning sales. I use to only code and my ability to make money doing things I enjoy went way way up once I dedicated $$$ and time to learning how to sell.

Home brewing, although I wouldn&#x27;t say I&#x27;ve mastered that craft yet. I still have a lot to learn, and of course much more stainless steel to buy.

Understanding the concept of &quot;negative feedback&quot; in control systems.<p>Really. That&#x27;s how you get accurate instruments out of mostly widely varying parts.

sex

Most definitely dance lessons. I&#x27;ve taken both salsa and tango classes and from day one it&#x27;s been a rewarding experience.

Ear training. After spending twenty minutes a day at it for two months, I could hear an unfamiliar meldoy and know how to play it.

Critical self-analysis, and, though I don’t think there is a “mastery” to be achieved, seeing a therapist weekly is a huge improvement in my life. As the current top commenter said, “After almost two years, the benefits of” therapy “are so apparent that I have to hold back getting on my bully pulpit to encourage other friends to do so.”

Learning English. It allowed me to work as a remote developer. I earn a lot more than senior developers who work locally.

Been learning hiragana for a few months with my girlfriend. We are both pleased at our ability to recognize symbols even if we do not understand all the words we read. The joy of taking something completely foreign and over time becoming familiar with it is incredible.

Singing in a choir. There&#x27;s no sound so beautiful, especially when you&#x27;re in the middle of it, making it. It combines the benefits of music and martial-arts-like breathing practice (each mentioned more than once in this thread) with intimate teamwork.<p>It&#x27;s cooperative, not competitive (though choirs can optionally compete). Anyone can participate. While rough skill parity helps, stronger singers naturally help weaker ones, so it&#x27;s less sensitive to skill disparity than many other activities.<p>The drawback is that it requires teammates. Basic music literacy, and especially choir singing, has been in decline in the West for at least four decades. All the best stuff to sing is Christian, so you have to get over that. I&#x27;m an atheist but somehow I love the lyrics (I would also love it if choir singing were revived and a new repertoire with inspiring humanist lyrics appeared).<p>One subculture that is relatively healthy or even growing is Sacred Harp singing. There are groups meeting weekly at many universities in the U.S. While the repertoire is somewhat limited, it&#x27;s a good way to get started.<p>I think there&#x27;s potential for choirs at tech companies. I nearly started one at Apple back in the aughties, but I was so busy with work and a new family that I decided against it.

7 Habits of Highly Effective People

Deferring judgement, especially when it&#x27;s negative.<p>I&#x27;m still terrible at it. But whenever I can refrain from destructive criticism, judgementalism, and general cynicism, I enjoy life more and I&#x27;m sure others near me do too.

Learning logic and set theory, even if it is only really scratching the surface.

Family:) But I wouldn&#x27;t dare say I have mastered it

Totally unrelated to each other, but I have spent the last few years learning Chinese and pursuing a degree in Economics (and I&#x27;m 41).

&quot;Ask HN: What things have richly rewarded the time invested in mastering them?&quot; - For me personally: Linux, C++.

Learning swimming. I learned in my late 20s. It has changed my relationship with water bodies.<p>Next goals: driving, a musical instrument.

The blade, blockchain and inner strength.

Beatboxing.<p>You get so much respect when you have a party trick that can turn any gathering into an improv acapella concert.

Giving a talk &#x2F; presentation is consistently rewarding, but also very demanding of time and effort.

Deep meditation. It is not quick to learn but it profoundly changed circumstances around and within me.

Learning to read has worked out well.

Masturbation

Hand tool woodworking, although I can&#x27;t say I&#x27;m anywhere near mastering it.

Not me, but my boss knows regex and I probably should too as he is a wizard with it.

Activism work, and the research and learning about the world to try to do it better.

Combining running and massage has been amazing. They both make the other easier.

Psychology, especially cognitive behavioral therapy for depression and anxiety

Vim

Touch typing - got me interested in programming<p>Python - made programming enjoyable

basic economics. it helps if you have a great teacher.<p>it tells you how the world works. basically when i started high school i was a communist. if i had gone on with that worldview i would have found things very difficult, like why this person has x and other person has y. doing stuff like calculating the market price of a good kinda helps with that. and understanding the economy and what people do in business helped me understand things better. It gave me a healthy dose of cynicism and a better idea of what behavior can be productive and what things are ultimately admirable sentiments that lead to nothing. in terms of practicality i use some of these ideas to adjust the price of the rooms i let out. no doubt being able to keep them filled without being unnecessarily cheap is profitable.

Going to local meetup groups, meeting and talking to people!

copywriting skills; humor; basic graphic design skills.

Regular Expressions and SQL.

CS: Not ever graduated, but once I had to sort a pile of letters by zip code I knew the education would come in handy. Although, because I couldn&#x27;t remember anything, I resorted to bucket-sort (the difference wasn&#x27;t measurable anyhow).<p>Sports: Incidentally, that internship at a local governing sports association left a lasting impression. A two week course on sports training theory from a graduate was really inspiring and transferable to all sorts of learning, in spirit. It&#x27;s probably meaningful that high-school (college) in German is called &quot;Gymnasium&quot;.<p>Language: Understanding syntax and semantics helps so much. It&#x27;s also a hobby that works in every situation. Just for a topical example: master, muster and pattern - I&#x27;m not very good at it, mind you - those words highlight different aspects of the same problem. A master piece is a prototype, a new pattern, compare &quot;gold master&quot;; And it is a work to be mustered. In fact, German &quot;Muster&quot; means pattern. A &quot;Muster-Schüler&quot; is a top notch pupil, a role model, you might almost call that a master student. IMHO this gives a different view on the master-slave-replication naming issue. Also consider the British pronunciation of master (ie. muster). If you look it up, it will say something different, but it will not account for the derivation of &quot;magnus&quot;-<i>big</i> to &quot;magister&quot;-<i>teacher</i> with any semantic aspect, other than the big cheese, although that may be explained by &quot;monstrare&quot;-<i>to show</i> which even explains &quot;minister&quot;, too, usually given as &quot;minus&quot; + either &quot;-ister&quot;, or the comparative suffix &quot;-tero&quot;, but better explained with the Proto-Indo-European root <i>men- (</i>to think), whence indeed &quot;monstrare&quot;. That doesn&#x27;t exclude an influence of <i>méǵh₂s (</i>big<i>), though. There is enough time for that to have happened before the classical Latin. Compare also &quot;meist&quot; (most), &quot;Meister&quot; (master), &quot;most&quot; and &quot;utmost&quot;; also &quot;μύστης&quot; (mústēs - initiated one), </i>mewH- <i>mew-, </i>mey-. Classical Latin likely established the folk etymology. There&#x27;s the lesson applicable to history in general - it is written by the masters.<p>Signal-Processing: Information science is often transfered wrongly in metaphors to the universe and everything. Still, as far as simple concepts are concerned it&#x27;s illustrative of how we get a clear grasp of things. It re-appears in physics, music, art and statistics. It&#x27;s a shame that it&#x27;s not in the standard curriculum in the information age.<p>Maths: Logic fits in with language. Linear algebra and related fields (no pun intended) fits to signal processing<p>Overall I&#x27;m not a master of anything and wasting my live away and that of others. So if know anything, it&#x27;s to be quiet. And I try to achieve that like everyone does, by being the loudest quieting everyone else down. Then enter a feedback loop and ultimately try to be an example staying quiet, adjusting my expectation of silence.

Studying english language

Programming

Mathematics

SQL

Emacs.

Golf

&gt; Your most important asset is your ability to produce income.<p>I think that&#x27;s an incredibly sad way to view yourself and your life, albeit I bet that for many people producing income is the single most important thing.<p>I see that as a consequence and a failure of society.

From my experience:<p>After my startup got acquired, i ended up with lots of money (10s of millions, small start-up) and time. This created a vacuum in my life. I was very sad having finally made it.<p>I had no purpose in life.<p>Since then,<p>Self Acutualization - walking the path devised by yogic culture of spritualism.<p>Cannabis - The king of herbs, it helps me in self Acutualization and achieving state of trance aka ultimate ignorance.<p>Knowledge is only born out of something you don&#x27;t know. If i accept my ignorance, suddenly it&#x27;s no longer ignornance but something &#x27;unknown&#x27;<p>If you already know something, then you won&#x27;t gain any knowledge from there.<p>What did i gain? Finally, i am happy and content. My all questions about life have been answered. I&#x27;ve no need of traveling afar and exploring new places, I&#x27;ve no desire to travel back in past or future or to some distant planet.

&gt;<i>Your most important asset is your ability to produce income.</i><p>You... may want to reconsider that one.

Linear algebra and linear programming. So many problems in so many fields boil down to matrix manipulation in the end.

Languages. English to start with. French, because of quality of life. Dutch for business and education for kids.

Programming: I&#x27;ve spent the longest on this but I can now use a computer to solve some of my problems.<p>Guitar: I like being able to make music come out of an acoustic instrument.

Why is it necessary to truly avoid exploiting the other party, instead of merely maintaining for them an illusion that they&#x27;re not being exploited?