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Comment by sharadov | Hacker News Reader

I am glad that you are in your early 20s and understand this fundamental life truth - I am in my mid-40s, met some friends this past weekend, friends since elementary school, some more successful than others, in the capitalist sense of the word, although all of us are pretty well grounded. One of my buddies, who had more fun than the rest of us was complaining how his 20's and early 30's were all about experiencing life - and he wished he had focussed on his career and saved more. But at the end of the day, he has more stories to tell that anyone else. At the tail end of life, those stories are all we have..

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"The grass is always greener" seems to be a fundamental human condition.

Your friend wished he had focused on his career while the people who focused on their careers wished to have lived more experiences.

Married people wished they were single to enjoy the freedom and live a simpler life. While single people wished they met a SO to be less lonely.

People with stable high paying jobs like many developers, daydream about financial independence and quitting their jobs. While most other people dream of just finding a stable high paying job.

People from 1st world countries complain a lot about their own countries while most people in the rest of the world would literally die crossing the border to get there.

Young people wish they were rich. Rich people wish they were young.

And the list goes on and on. This seems to be something very human... Why do we think so much of the things we lack/didn't do but seem to forget what we have/have done?

Just to refute one of these as it’s a bit of a misconception.

> Married people wished they were single to enjoy the freedom and live a simpler life. While single people wished they met a SO to be less lonely.

What single people want is the option to not be single and to not be lonely. When people are married and wish to be single - it’s not that they wish to be lonely, it’s that they wish they could have more freedom. (This has little to do with marriage and more to do with other life choices. I know married people with more freedom than single people)

I think you’re oversimplifying things by ignoring the fact that people want both and not either/or. They want to be young and rich. They want to have their health and their wealth. They want to be single but not fucking lonely.

It’s really not that hard to understand when you don’t make false equivalencies and bullshit narratives.

You have summed me up pretty well. Have spent years trying to figure out how to just be content and happy.

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