Ask HN: The most important thing you learned in 2013?

1) Right and Wrong are just perspectives

2) True happiness is in doing what you really enjoy and being in control of yourself all the time

3) There are always more unfortunate around you

4) World is full of irrational behavior; but good part is you got choices

5) One-thing-at-a-time is a myth; you can do what you believe you can

6) No matter how bad it looks, convincing most of the people is mere wastage of time; they hear what they want to hear

7) Reading is an unpleasant process for majority and so is easy explanation

8) Working hard is fine only when you're learning

9) Business is all about minimizing the risks - contradictory to the general belief

10) The universe doesn't give a flying fuck about you. So go out there and live the life the way you dream of.

When we get older we generally don't get wiser we simply get more habitual and become more of what we already were in the first place. If you have strong intellectual/creative habits early on in life (even if you ask lots of stupid questions and flunk out of school) it can serve as a self regulating mechanism later in life. What I mean by this is if you (for lack of a better way to phrase it) start becoming a fucking zombie with a rote 'job' who plops down in front of the TV box and the like every day after work, eventually you will feel like something is missing from your existence due to your earlier childhood habits of curiosity etc. If those earlier habits were strong enough your won't be able to help yourself in finding a better path as it becomes a compulsion. Unfortunately its been my experience that most people are the inverse of this. Ask a question that requires more than 2 brain cells and they change the topic or miss the point....simply out of bad habits. Our habits have a tenancy to lock us into a path, so have good habits early on and never be afraid to yank yourself out of bad ones even if it hurts and makes you feel awkward.

Of course I already intuitively knew all this as it is just common sense and very remedial but the above was a crystallized theme for moi this year.

1. With purpose comes passion. With passion comes Enthusiasm. So We need to set a purpose for the whole year. My passion for 2013 was to train atleast 1000 students on technology.

I ended up training 1315 Students and 40 Teachers in Java, Android and other latest technology. My purpose of 2014 is to create lasting impact through my work. (author a book, fitness, Instructor for online course)

Here is my blogpost of my learnings and events in 2013: http://santhoshthepro.in/snapshot-2013-a-year-of-giving

I learned that events (conferences) are a good place to find leads for the kind of business I'm in.

Also, I discovered "Complexity Economics"[1] this year, and that has changed my world-view in many ways and has given me a lot of ideas and inspiration.

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complexity_economics

That my government is doing just about everything a tinfoil crazy could come up with. I live in a true surveillance state.

Constraint is no less important than freedom.