Ask HN: What is something that had the largest positive impact on your life? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What is something that had the largest positive impact on your life?

Could be a person, book, diet, lifestyle change or really anything you think had a very positive impact on your life.

For me it's my religion. I say religion to encompass: things I personally believe, the core teachings of my faith ("the gospel"), and the church that supports it.

I'm a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It's not a perfect church, and there's definitely some weird stuff in the culture that it's so often tied to. I don't like a lot of the strange tacked-on culture stuff. And I don't think the organization is perfect.

That said, I am deeply grateful that I'm a member of this church because it's given me so many chances to help people from very different walks of life that I wouldn't have come into contact with otherwise. I've gotten practice teaching, running meetings, getting out of my comfort zone, helping others, getting help myself.

Then there's the gospel: I've gone through life much happier believing that there's a purpose to life, that death isn't the end, that family can be together forever. Christ's teachings have pushed me to be a kinder, more understanding, and more forgiving person than I otherwise would have been.

I know there are plenty of atheist and anti-theists here. I respect you! I hope you can appreciate that my religion has done fantastic good in my and my family's life.

WFH.

- Save 10+ hours a week in commuting. - Save $$ on lunch - Spend more time with my family. - Get more done in both work and personal stuff.

Also work from home for me too. I'd add to your list: I eat healthier and I sleep better

Finding your tribe.

A few comments here refer to religion, but I think this is a better label.

I've restarted life a few times, moving to foreign countries where I didn't know anyone.

Each time, it isn't as if I landed and just instantly had a group of people I related to and enjoyed spending time with. It usually has taken a year, and it's a tough year when I was thinking "maybe I made a mistake".

It wasn't as if I didn't have "friends", but I didn't feel like the people I was spending time with were "my people". Which was fine.

But then, sometimes, you find a group that you really click with. The nice thing about this is that you really appreciate how rare it is to find your tribe, particularly when you've been spending time with people who aren't yours.

I think this might be along the same line as religion and parenthood. Though parenthood is kinda forcing the world to accept that you're making your own tribe, but maybe we just ignore that.

You can also belong to more than one tribe, which is nice. I have my social tribe, and my work tribe, and I truly feel connected to both of them.

Growing up, I never had a tribe until I moved away from home, and even then, I knew that the friends I had wouldn't be friends for life.

I think most people accept that their family is their tribe, and though I'm still close with a few of my siblings, I probably wouldn't have known what it feels like to be free of a family which isn't your tribe, unless I had moved away (which I did in high school).

Kids.

I've gained much more focus and I live more in the moment.

I also don't care as much about work things.

Loads of technical debt, unsustainable roadmaps, weird coworkers, bad bosses, who cares?

Unfortunately it is the opposite for me. My children are five and two and these have been the worst years of my life. I never knew unhappiness like this before. I've had depression since a few months after the birth of our first child. He has adhd and autism and has been extremely challenging. I should have known better, as a childhood adhd sufferer (on medication for most of school age), known that I probably wasn't a good fit to be a parent.

I have realised too late that my coping mechanism for dealing with the complexities of the world is retreating to a safe space when I need to. That usually involves getting away from everyone and playing a computer game for a few hours, or going for a long hike, or just driving somewhere to be by myself. And it needs to be frequent.

I cannot do that any longer. Our kids are so challenging that leaving one partner to cope by themselves is too hard. I never get to escape and I find it bordering on impossible to deal with the world. I have been suicidal at times. I'm on medication for it.

> That usually involves getting away from everyone and playing a computer game for a few hours, or going for a long hike, or just driving somewhere to be by myself. And it needs to be frequent.

I could write out this exact same sentence. You're not alone with your overall experience.

I needed that "time out", too. Weekly.

But your spouse/partner may also need to be able to get away. (My wife did, though not as often as me.) Maybe you could tag-team breaks for each other?

For me, it needs to be more than weekly. I seem to build up a debt of "something" which seems to be resolved by doing something I love. Mostly this had been walking, surfing, hiking, reading, gaming, rugby, and so on. And now it is impossible to get time for that. Once a week we each get to do something for ourselves, but only for a few hours. Looking after the two children alone is tough for either of us, so we don't leave the other person alone with them for too long.

It seems to have impacted me far worse though, for whatever reason. I never knew what depression actually was before I had children.

Nothing beats reading a toddler bedtime stories and then having them fall asleep in your arms.

"Parenting is about growing. It's about our own growing as much as it is about our children's growing and that kind of growing happens little by little." - Fred Rogers

- The Incerto by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. My entire way of life, my persuits, career choices, health choices, life choices are based on this.

- Homo Ludens by Johan Huzinga (The highest calling a human can partipate in is play). My goal in life is to have has much play time as possible, it is all I am aiming for right now. Probably How I will measure how my successful my life was (how much did I play?)

- Adam Curtis Documentaries (Power & how it shapes societys). Opened my eyes to what exactly political struggle is. I don't see politics the same way again after watching those documentaries. I rewatch one every few months. There is so muc to learn from them.

- The Singularity is Near by Ray Kurzweil. Got me to start taking computers seriously.

- Hacker News. This is the highest quality social community that I am part of. I learned so much from here. And it feels like the only place where I can meet and have a conversation with like minded people. I genuinely feel like I have an edge in life over other people just by being part of the HN community.

Religion. I want to ride off the top comment here, but I have a slightly different take on it.

I think what matters is having a core, something you accept as absolute truth. Make new assumptions around this truth. What happens when science conflicts with your truth? You abandon the lower truth and follow the higher truth. Abandon lower truths for higher ones, like a bubble sort. Is scientific evidence the highest truth? For many it is, but you should get there by thinking rationally.

This absolute truth is bigger than yourself. It makes everything else seem really tiny by comparison - you could lose a limb, a child, your wealth, your life, and that's fine. It's an incredibly solid shock absorber.

Then what's the meaning of life? It's difficult to define by life itself, but you can look at the absence of life -- death. What does dying mean, what happens after, and what should you do before? If you're about to die, do you travel the world? Do you shoot up bullies? Do you write a book? All of us are about to die, some are well past half our lifespan. Religion answers a lot of these questions.

Then you work on things with the urgency of someone who is about to die and who knows what they need to do.

That compass is important. It doesn't have to be a god, but if you believe in the highest power, why wouldn't you do whatever they say? Some are polytheists with indifferent gods, but they still have an idea of what happens after death. Your compass can be the world, you can be out to save the world. It can be yourself - plenty of people leave their homes in search of themselves. You'll have yourself through all your life. Why not look after yourself? There's a religion for that too.

Nothing can ever make losing a child 'fine'. You must not have children.

I have 3.

My family always ate wholegrain products when available, many years ago gave up adding sugar to tea/coffee and reduced all sugar consumption. Ultimately switched to Mediterranean diet (not for weight loss) due to its excellent health benefits. Became aware of the Pareto Principle and how often it applies to every day situations. https://edition.cnn.com/2022/01/04/health/mediterranean-diet... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle

Living abroad outside the US for a considerable amount of time. Not because America is terrible and Europe is amazing (both places have their positives and negatives), but because it becomes easier to understand America and what being American means from the outside. It’s not an accident, I think, that Fitzgerald wrote The Great Gatsby while in southern France. Being outside of something helps you understand it more, and I think this is not an experience that a lot of people are lucky enough to have.

Having children. It was the best of times, it was (almost) the worst of times.

Getting into outdoor activities (kayaking, climbing, hiking etc). Made the best friends, travelled worldwide, saw interesting places, got fitter

Music, listening and playing instruments. (and I guess programming to an extent) always nice to have a skill and something you can do when nothing else is going on. Quite meditative too.

Going to be ironic and say reducing my time on forums massively.

Like many nerdy tech guys I spent most of my teens and 20s on forums. I'm 30 now, younger than many here, but I've come to realize spending more than an hour per week in them is a waste of time.

Finding a romantic partner and getting married, easily. The person I was before meeting my wife and the person I am after being with her for a year are unrecognizably different.

And when you get divorced, you’ll rediscover yourself and never change for anyone again. You’ll ask yourself why you changed and gave up activities you enjoyed while picking up activities you dislike.

This rings true to myself. While I thought I changed for the better, I did, but sacrificed all the things I really enjoyed doing. Best thing I did after 15 years was find myself again. What I can’t discount is I’m a better version of myself than I was prior.

I think this doesn’t just apply to Divorce. I stopped attending a church after 20 years and rediscovered some things I’d given up because I thought they were “unbecoming” of a dedicated follower. On the other hand, there are some philosophies taken from that time that I am glad are part of me.

... Are you okay?

I would heed his prophecy rather than dismiss it per ad hominem, because it's an extremely common fate for many a man. If you believe you're special, that you're immunized from such a fate, you'll let your guard down, and when you get hit with your guard down, the hit comes harder.

I see we disagree about the likelihood of an easy to measure event. I'll bet you one dollar at even odds that I am not divorced from my current wife by 2028-12-21, UTC midnight. Considering you consider this outcome "extremely common" 1:1 odds is a statistical bargain for you.

Why even worry about this in advance?

The point is to not give up what makes you, you for another person, regardless how invested you are in them. And don't feel obligated to take on their hobbies, etc.

No.

Spending less time on the internet, and more time in real life.

Growing up in the mountains and spending my childhood in nature.

LASIK. Crossfit / weightlifting. Learning programming and getting hired early at a unicorn.

I took up swing dancing (originally Lindy Hop and now Balboa). I'm a very different and much happier person as a consequence. YMMV.

Ritalin.

Moving to another country.

Do you mind explaining? What country did you leave / moved to?

From Germany to Cyprus (island/country in the Mediterranean Sea). Could speak hours about that but to name some bullet points about the pro sides:

* Weather (over 300 sun days)

* Health improvements

* doing more outdoor sports (e.g. swimming in the sea)

* Culture difference, Cypriots are friendly people

* Living a slower paced life (and different life)

* More (new) friends than ever

* Lower taxes

* Lower cost of living

* Less crime

* More freedom (personal and business wise)

Going full indie.

Do you mind expanding on this? What do you do exactly and how did you make the move?

leaving religion

leaving reddit

avoiding marriage&kids (okay actually i only bring it up cuz the default replies seemed incredibly un hacker news to me, more like boomer news "religion, marriage, kids" lol, bruh one of my college buddies is big into religion and now he is married and has a kid and he used to be almost as smart as me now he probly couldn't program his way out of paper bag)

keeping a productivity computer where I have youtube&hacker news banned via host file

Don't compare your choices to other's. That is unhealthy, whether you admire or dislike their choices.

Certain choices work for some people and make them happy. Perhaps your friend doesn't give a rats ass about coding out of a wet paper bag and sees you as a miserable shut-in.

i'm just sad I can't talk to him about anything more interesting than a marvel movie anymore

there's plenty of venues where you can find people advocating for those lifestyles, hn shouldn't be. the replies to this should be something more like "wrote my own emacs extension" or maybe like "took venture capital from some specific vc" or something...

this kind of ironic self hatred stuff is a big part of why leaving reddit is on my list...

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