Ask HN: What have been your best decisions in life?

1. Working out regularly (3 times a week lifting weights), eating healthy, and playing team sports (co-ed soccer and volleyball). In my 30s, and still in the best shape I have ever been.

There was a time when I didn't work out regularly, and I have to say that a 'weak' body affects you in many way down the road. Trying to 'save time' by skipping working out, or not doing physical activities is counter productive. Similar to skipping sleep because you don't have time. It destroys your health in many ways.

2. Moving to the US as an exchange student (in high school), and living for a year with an american family that I had never met before.

3. Studying Computer Science

Being ruthless about removing people from my life who are bringing me down, or who have a view of me that may be accurate, but is pessimistic.

Picking the right spouse.

Edit: Picking the wrong partner can be catastrophic financially and emotionally. Pick someone you can trust, rely on, and who compliments your strengths and weaknesses. Be prepared to go to great lengths for them when necessary.

1. Choosing Computer Science in a less-reputed (but still decent) college over a different major in a better college. All credit to my dad.

2. Coming to the US for an MS rather than doing an MBA in India (my original plan when entering college). All credit to the cultural milieu of my undergrad college.

3. Paying a lawyer myself to apply for a Green Card in a more ambitious category. All credit to my first co-founders in SV for connecting me to a good lawyer. With hindsight I got in through a 'loophole' that was plugged soon after.

What's common in all three: zero rational decision-making, huge influence from others, lots of luck in happening to be congruent with broad trends in society.

Like most decisions that turned out to be good financially, it was purely by luck.

* Buying real estate... a lot of it

* Staying out of the stock market until after 2009... then leveraging and buying a lot of stocks

* Playing inverse volatility until 2017... missed out on the VIX termination event in Feb 2018

Some things that didn’t turn out well:

* Crappy career. Had to quit after many years of training to get there due to external pressures. Fortunately the above compensated many times over.

Life isn’t perfect, but I’m lucky to be relatively healthy and living in a safe part of the world.

* My parents leaving Romania for the US (on the Greencard lottery) when I was 10. * Leaving a large company to work on a product I believed in (Airbnb 2012). * Not paying too much attention to my peers and doing what felt right: not getting a service job as a teenager and freelance coding(even when my effective hourly rate ended up being lower than working at Subway), becoming a farmhand after working as an engineer; taking a job at an art hedge fund in NYC while living in rural Washington. * Viewing money as a side product rather than a goal.

1). Marrying my wife

2). Sticking it out in CS undergrad when I was having a hard time with the material instead of dropping out

3). Leaving shitty jobs(though I could've left sooner at each instance) for greener pastures

4). Instead of resorting to drugs or alcohol to deal with bad times and loneliness in my life, turning to running instead and running the Marathon des Sables(and unrelatedly but subsequently finishing my pilot's license) which made me believe in myself

This question is far less interesting than how you made those best decisions. We make decisions constantly, and any of those have a chance to be good or bad depending on circumstances. Just because "moving to a different country" was great for randomPoster35 doesn't mean that moving is generally a good idea.

My best decisions were made with a feeling of rightness. Even when it was hard, either involving sacrifice or letting other people down, I was able to think about them and know that they were the right decisions to make. Years later, it's obvious to me that I did the right thing in that scenario. Now that I've learned to trust that sense, it's easier for me to make good choices without endless hand-wringing.

My best decision was probably (however banal that would sound) accepting myself. After I realised (the realization is still work in progress) that I am just who I am and nothing else, I started working on eliminating ties and traits I didn't personally want myself but which I have developed earlier due to some societal accepted "norm". It turned out to be rewarding - I love living, I am becoming more and more calm with time. I am becoming more calm with time also due to that with self-acceptance came slow and on-going realization of that I am nothing. It may seem dreading but it is opposite.

As to why I came to this realization (someone else in the comment section said this question is of no lesser interest) - I've been through some deaths (four of them to date) of my relatives, which were dreadful for me, I've seen more deaths than that too, which was dreadful for me too, I was looking how to stop deaths from coming, in 2010 I was seeking a refuge in Abrahamic religions and soon abandoned them because it turned out I didn't believe in any of that, in 2010 I abandoned almost all tries to explain deaths in any otherworldly or supernatural manner, and with time, slowly, this realization came, of that it is just how it is in this world, it is what it is. Deaths are deaths. With that realization came some inner calm and gradual self-acceptance. Prior to that, as a boy, I used to imagine myself this and that and since self-acceptance came the pretending of being something practically disappeared. Buddhism also helped in 2014, as I was close acquaitance with a guy, who turned out to be a Buddhist so to outwit him I was reading some books on it. I didn't accept it at all, but instead of learning how to outwit that guy I took some clues from it, since it heavily resonated with my conclusions about that world is just what it is. And it brought even more calm.

1. Marrying my wife.

2. Not leaving her when things got hard.

3. Having children.

4. Learning how to program.

(in no order and i might have left out some)

1. Traveling and living overseas for over half of my twenties. Gave me a world and multi-cultural perspective.

2. Getting emotional healing from an abusive childhood. Gave me confidence to pursue life from a place of healing and peace.

3. Getting married to my wife who I share everything with, including being work partners.

4. Having children which has opened up a whole new aspect of wonder, curiosity and adventure.

Taking a sabbatical and going to the Recurse Center (http://recurse.com)

1. Working hard through university.

2. Picking my first job out of university based on interest rather than money.

3. Brushing my teeth twice a day and having a good oral hygiene routine.

4. Travelling as much as possible.

5. Telling awful clients to go whistle.

6. Reducing alcohol consumption.

7. Exercising daily.

8. Spending more time with family.

9. Paying mortgage off as quickly as possible.

10. Reading HN.

It's difficult to answer because we don't know what we the roads not taken would have been.

For me, the best decision was to move to a foreign country. My life has been much more exciting in so many ways. One of my regrets is that I could have done it sooner.

After missing out on Bitcoin from inertia and putting a little too much weight on efficient markets, I resolved that next time I saw a good bet, I'd actually buy it. That turned out to be the Ethereum presale.

Moving to a different country

Joining the Peace Corps; deliberately and stubbornly (though often gracelessly) tackling the ways my upbringing had left me with lenses and reactions that harmed me and those around me; marrying well. There’s no way to disentangle these decisions from each other, as they’re interlinked and support and demand each other. What they all have in common is an unceasing demand that I be willing to reevaluate, surrender, and ultimately change my perspective.

Working out improves my life very much and is a good balance between life and career. I go to the gym and do cross fit once a week in the park. Another good decision was to join Zenkit (a project management tool) as COO. This tool is amazing and I´m so proud what it became in about 1,5 years and I´m curious what it will become in the future. It´s a lot of work but I love what I do.

Ditching my smartphone.

Taking a remote job and moving to Oregon. I grew up in the mid-west and worked for a family-run real-estate business, it took a lot to leave that environment, but the housing crash of 2008 made it easier as it was a very real possibility that the company would go bankrupt.

I got a remote-job and since I could live anywhere I took the opportunity to also get away from Indiana and I haven't looked back since.

Acting on the few things that I knew I’d regret if I didn’t try at some point. For me, those were starting a company and living in different countries than I was born in.

Getting thousands of hours of experience in something useful - vocation, hobby, whatever - before I got out of school. I was fortunate that I still loved it and it became a career, but even if it hadn’t, I learned what it takes and feels like to get really good at something.

In unspecified order:

- Maxing out the 401k early

- Marrying the right girl, also not marrying the wrong one

- Ensuring (in my own religious views) my eternal salvation. This one brings great peace of mind.

- Doing volunteer book reviews for programming books. This has opened a great many doors.

- Giving up alcohol after my kids appeared

All these have brought great payoffs. I can't say I made any of these decisions out of wisdom (most were just luck), but I am very happy with the way they've all turned out.

Eating low carb, high fat.

Trading options and taking risks generally. Not "diversifying."

Not watching TV or owning one. I seem to have much more time than my friends to start all kinds of projects.

Reading literature and learning to think in a literary way instead of a rationalist way. Coming to terms generally with humans as non-rational beings and treating them as such.

Moving to the US.

Quitting tuba.

Learning to program.

Lifting, learning to count calories, healthy habits in general.

Staying out of the sun.

Moving out of the rust belt.

In preparation for moving, moving back in with my parents and getting close with them after a period of about a half decade of taking my family for granted.

- Quitting my great job as a digital artist to learn web development and build a startup.

- Adopting a healthy lifestyle - healthy diet, daily jogging.

- Developing a habit of listening to audiobooks every day.

Traveling slowly for almost two years. I tried staying at least a week in each place and at least a month in each country. Stayed in some places like Peru for longer (9 months total).

1. Seeing a doctor about my anxiety issues.

2. Deciding not to pursue a career in software development. I enjoy programming way more as a hobby that I can take a break from whenever I want.

Never financing or leasing a car. Never using any credit or loyalty cards. Befriending odd people. Staying with a small/niche software company.

Taking the huge step of quitting a well paid normal job as a software developer to become a freelancer. It has been much more rewarding than I expected.

Life - Dropping out of a for-profit college and moving from Atlanta, GA to San Diego, CA

- Focus on my own goals

Career - Javascript! Javascript! Javascript! - Starting my own company

Deciding as a 13yo that I would be a games developer.

Sticking with a project in college out of interest, despite pressures from family and friends to ditch it or not work as much on it.

Having more than one kid - one kid is a pain. Two kids are still a pain but it's twice as fun. Repeat.

Traveling all over the world... while young.

If the question about business life, leaving an SV-based company. Otherwise, marrying and having children.

1. Moving out of Russia (to Canada)

2. Picking up jogging - really helped me to fight anxiety and started thinking straight

1. Maintain relationships with positive winners exclusively.

2. Pass on cushy full-time employment for something riskier

3. Antidepressant

4. NoFap

5. Ovo-lacto-pesci-vegetarianism

6. Start conversations with strangers every day, anyone and everyone. No anxiety, no fear and no fucks given.

7. MGTOW. j/k. Cultivating abundance so there’s little attachment and plenty of options.

8. Not jumping into any commitment milestone too quickly. Also, filtering carefully and firing soon.

Living below my means, both when I was "poor" and now that I have more money.

Quitting alcohol. Going vegan. Learning a trade (programming).

drugs

Moving away from a city into a quiet clean area

Travelling

Leaving Los Angeles.

Moved to Tokyo

Bought a bike

Started bike camping

Staying sober, leaving bad relationships and jobs, helping other people/volunteering, educating myself and getting a job that pays reasonably well.