How do you manage to have a life?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6308955

by cautious • 13 years ago

13 23 13 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

I moved cities to work on an start-up and after more than a year I still can't say I have made friends here besides my colleagues (and that's mostly a during work hours thing). I love my job but I fear that I'm letting life pass by.

Has anyone here been through this? Do you have any advice?

YuriNiyazov5• 13 years ago

I guess it is unclear to me what the problem is. You haven't met anyone because you work 100 hours a week and don't do anything else, or you haven't met anyone because after a day of work you go home and watch TV and browse Hacker News?

cautious3• 13 years ago

The latter I guess. I do work long hours but not always. It's hard to go out alone though.

YuriNiyazov5• 13 years ago

meetup.com

shire• 13 years ago

You kind of hinted at your problem here well technically not a problem more of a barrier. Have you tried dating sites? Okcupid.com is a popular one surf that thing. Plenty of busy people look online to meet people if the bar or club doesn't work out for you.

cautious3• 13 years ago

I guess that could work but okcupid has no presence here.

tbirdz• 13 years ago

I wouldn't really say I have friends or a life (or at least a "social" one) outside of work. But I wouldn't really say that's a bad thing. I mean you get used to it after a while. If your work is rewarding, then you hopefully you won't feel like your "life is passing you by".

ep103• 13 years ago

Yeah, same problem here really. You just have to find a niche, some activity that you enjoy as much as your job. Then you'll find you're always finding free time to do that as well. Hopefully the nice / activity you choose is something that can be done with other people too, and then that's how friends appear.

adamzerner• 13 years ago

1) I think socializing is overrated, and doing work that is meaningful to you is underrated.

2) It's really all about balance. You probably need a good mixture of the following to be happy: socializing, exercise, work, alone time. A lot of times situations occur where you have to sacrifice one area for another. Like with a startup, you probably have to work a lot more and won' have time for other things. For this reason, I think startup life is unsustainable (because it'll probably make you sacrifice too much socializing/alone time/exercise). However, the upsides of startups are still great, and I think worthwhile, so I think it'd make sense to make a ton of money from a startup after working for a few years, and then rebalance your life afterwards and benefit from the money.

3) Friendships seem to be a function of repeated, unplanned interactions, and of situations that encourage you to let your guard down. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/15/fashion/the-challenge-of-m.... I'd suggest doing something you love, or starting a new hobby. I meet a lot of people playing basketball. You could take a kickboxing class, or a guitar class, or a dancing class. But maybe you don't want to pay money. Maybe theres a ton of people like you. Maybe there's an opportunity to organize a group of people together, each an expert in something, and you guys take turns teaching each other something new and fun...

AtTheLast• 13 years ago

Talk to everyone. The person that makes your coffee, the person in line at the grocery store, your next door neighbor and so on. Get in the habit of talking with everyone you meet. This could help you become more connected and could possibly lead to some new friendships.

watershawl3• 13 years ago

I agree with this wholeheartedly. It's how you build your own personal community made up of all of your stops throughout the day. It can be incredibly rewarding for both you and the people who get to know you.

bliti• 13 years ago

I would look for meetups to attend. You could start by attending the local tech/startup meetups. From there you may try other types and keep moving as you meet people. One thing to do is smile, shake hands, and listen to what others have to say. Buy a beer or two to those whose conversation you enjoy.

watershawl3• 13 years ago

One thing I've learned about meetups is that to make the lasting friendships there, you can't just show up and leave. You have to close the meetup down and see who's still around, then ask them to go get a beer afterwards. In that way, you'll create a much deeper, longer lasting relationship with someone that could become a friendship.

warcher• 13 years ago

Nobody works more than fifty hours in software. Tops. Few can work for fifty hours a week, really. You'll start lagging, or doing what a charitably call 'fake work', where you are around the office but not really being productive. (There are a thousand ways to do this.)

When you find yourself doing this, go home. You think you're doing something bad, but you are not. Your output will get better, in fact. You are not at some fortune 500 company where you need to play politics by appearing busy. You are at a startup where you need to DO GOOD WORK OR YOU WILL BE OUT OF WORK. Go. Home. Let your product do the talking.

watershawl3• 13 years ago

Pick one habit to change such as your drive home. Here are some variations to your drive home:

A) Instead of driving straight home, stop at a park and walk around. B) If you are the first person to leave, be the last person to leave. C) If you always take the same streets home, purposefully take a different path.

Here's another habit you could change: the ride to work:

A) Instead of driving to work, see if there is a way to carpool, walk, or ride a bike to work. B) Wake up one hour earlier than normal and be the first person in a local coffee shop in the morning. C) Instead of listening to the radio or music, find a podcast or sit in silence.

The idea behind making slight changes to your daily habit actions is that they can cause unknown, unintended, changes (like the butterfly effect) that will lead you down a different path than the one you're on now. In addition to small changes in your habit actions, here are some pretty standard things you can do to "have a life" and "make friends."

1) Be thankful for the life you already have. 2) When someone asks you to do something you wouldn't normally do, consider doing it this time. 3) Join a local church. 4) Find a local meetup on meetup.com. 5) Start a new habit and do something consistently to see who else is doing that same thing consistently. Talk to that person. 6) Help someone younger than you or older than you without expecting to get paid. 7) Look for ways to volunteer. 8) Join a coworking facility. 9) Consistently visit a bar or coffee shop at a certain time. 10) Be the friend you want to have - invite other people to lunch with you, tell other people what you are doing and invite them to join you, throw a party at your house or apartment, rent out a gym and play some dodgeball, join a softball or kickball league, play a pick-up basketball game at the local park.

To do the things you're not doing now, you're going to have to do the things you're not doing now. That means taking a different path through life, doing things a little bit differently, going places you normally don't go, doing things you normally don't do - and being consistent about it.

cudawas• 13 years ago

Try out to host people on couchsurfing or go to cs meetups. It's a very good way of meeting people!

digitalzombie• 13 years ago

I have a good resume and a chill work place (kinda). So I work 8 hours mostly. If I fear that they'll get mad that I'm not working hard enough then fuck it, I'm finding another job. My career is not going to take over and force me to sacrifice my life.

But I chose to live nearby a university so I go to Starbuck and stuff and talk to students there, mostly women.

On Friday and Sat I go out and hit on women at clubs. Shrug. I'm also going to go to the University gym twice a week and take some improv and probably vocal coach. I also chose to stay in touch and live nearby an area where my friends are within a 50 miles radius.

Spend those money on hobbies and building your life.

meerita• 13 years ago

I came to the city of Barcelona without having friends. Being Latin I had no trouble socializing with Europeans, the trick is don't give a about trying. I made friends quickly and still making friends until today (11 and a half years have passed).

The main tactic I've took was to make friends with people from work. This introduced me to the social circle of several people, especially second tier, friends of my coworkers. This had good crop of friends but not enough nor quality.

The second tactic I've took was dating women. Every woman I met in person I was proposing stuff, to do things, practically, this was my shameless attitude and gave many fruits, especially because Europeans love the active attitude to the passive one. Dating out with girls I met more friendly people, but the bad thing was that leaving the girl i was losing also mostly of their friends.

The third tactic was going to conferences and meetups small issues where I met people who liked the same thing to me, basically, is where most friends did and where I had more sexual adventures too :). Basically, after meetups I invited everyone to party at my flat, or dinner, the usual stuff europeans do.

After 11 years I can not complain, I feel supported by my friends.

What I learned is: learn more languages to speak the the most possible people and be open, relaxed and careless. Life came a bit easier this way. I don't know if this can apply perfectly at USA but in Europe isn't so easy as in Latinamerica.

SJALLEN• 13 years ago

sometimes we can experience a sense of "something missing" - it could be a small voice or internal sense that something awaits us - Joseph Campbell called this the "call to adventure"...if we do not respond by stepping out of our comfort zone, life will usually conspire to force us out into new, challenging, unknown realms.

What might be calling you?

How do you manage to have a life?

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