Ask HN: What is the most important lesson you learned this year?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8745450

by quantisan • 12 years ago

66 73 12 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

quantisan• 12 years ago

I moved across the Atlantic to co-found a startup this year. I learned a lot about product and customer development, etc. The usual stuff people talk about a lot. But I'm surprised at how much I got to learn about myself.

The most important lesson for me is realising the effectiveness of knowing yourself. Know your strengths, weaknesses, how to handle stress, how to handle conflict, know what you want, don't want, what you value, best environment for innovative thinking, etc.

Knowing yourself well helps you become more optimal in everything that you want to achieve.

98Windows• 12 years ago

Before this year I have spent most of my life with more than enough social contact, often it felt like too much. But suddenly the amount of socialising and quality of it plummeted because I moved house in the summer. At first I thought that I could make it into an opportunity, that I could use my solitude to do the things I'd been putting off. It turns out however that I physically need people in my life but not only their presence, I need good quality conversation. My mood has become volatile and I'm enjoying things less. Things seem less interesting and I feel disconnected from society.

Basically I learnt how much I need people in my life. I'm currently learning how to deal with their absence before I can move to a better place.

computerjunkie4• 12 years ago

Real good advice there. I have been living in semi-solitude for the past couple of months and its truly unpleasant. I'm definitely going to be interacting more now.

tbirdz• 12 years ago

I wouldn't worry about it. I've been living in semi-solitude for the past few years. There is an adjustment period, but eventually you get used to it.

k-mcgrady5• 12 years ago

I went through the exact same thing a few years ago. I've always been a loner (I have a decent group of friends but I'm happy to see them once/twice a month when they see each other several times a week). Then I moved abroad. I thought it would be fine but I quickly realised how much that once/twice a month mattered and the lack of social contact/failure to meet new people because of anxiety caused me to be very 'down' for several months. It was strange to find myself craving social interaction considering how often I made excuses to get out of it before. It's also interesting to note that having daily contact with these people on Facebook/Skype etc. wasn't a substitute. Without it I would have been even more depressed, it definitely helped, but it was no where close to a decent substitute.

blakesterz2• 12 years ago

That securing a bunch web servers full of WordPress and Drupal sites is next to impossible now. The bad guys are so good it's just amazing.

sparkzilla• 12 years ago

So good at what? (I run a WordPress-based site)

weaksauce• 12 years ago

Figuring out your weakness and exploiting it.

Sql injection to get information/gain access, cross site scripting attacks, some service that you forgot to lock down, etc... The bad guys can be extremely smart and motivated.

blakesterz2• 12 years ago

Yes, what weaksauce said. The bad guys are so good at being bad now it's amazing. Even the smallest, lowest traffic, lowest value little tiny nothing seemingly useless WordPress site will be found and used.

abefight3• 12 years ago

Listen fewer to the music to increase my productivity.

k-mcgrady5• 12 years ago

This is an interesting one. I've always listened to music throughout the majority of the day. However I've noticed recently that for certain programming tasks (anything that requires serious thought or I haven't done before) I work much better with silence. However when doing stuff I've done before (CRUD apps, writing boilerplate code necessary before the fun stuff) I am more productive with up beat music.

chrishynes• 12 years ago

I find it also depends a lot on the genre. Music without lyrics, whether that be trance, classical, or jazz can be great for focusing because it drops into the background but the beat drives you forward almost subconsciously.

wiredfool• 12 years ago

Drinking less increases my productivity. I don't drink that much, max of a couple drinks a night, a few nights a week. Not binge, not so much that I'd be drunk.

There was a period over the summer where I cut it back to about 1 drink per night on friday/saturday. Looking at my github activity, it's _obvious_ when that was.

abefight3• 12 years ago

My philosophy is don't drink at all.

chm• 12 years ago

I'll add something to what user quantisan said:

Don't spread yourself too thin. I'm young, still in graduate school and have plenty of good ideas I'd like to work on. This year I've learned to make choices about my lifestyle, projects, interests and to prioritize some. As a one-man team, to be successful you need to focus. Of course if I could delegate things would be different.[1]

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8743203

Spearchucker• 12 years ago

Try different things.

If you're always returning to one approach, you're missing out.

Only agile, ever, means you're missing out on amazingly useful RAD practices. If you swear by refactoring, you may be doubling development time because thinking a design through before starting might've saved you learning it while typing code. If you only ever build native apps, you may not know when a web app is a better solution. Functional programming is cool, but OO is also cool.

edw519• 12 years ago

Right Hand == Back Brakes, Left Hand == Front Brakes.

Set your firmware to apply the back brakes first when suddenly encountering the unexpected.

My inner program had me subconsciously apply the front brakes first, so I flew over the handle bars and lost most of this year recovering from a serious bicycle accident.

Take care of yourself or not much else matters.

robotresearcher• 12 years ago

Reversed in the UK. A painful lesson to learn.

k-mcgrady5• 12 years ago

I thought the op had just mistakenly put things the wrong way around. Why the heck are the brakes on a bicycle on opposite sides in the US (or UK depending on your perspective)?

clarry2• 12 years ago

Left Hand: the brake that makes me slip and crash on ice. Right Hand: the brake that doesn't work.

jacquesm2• 12 years ago

You need better brakes and stronger hands.

cantcode• 12 years ago

I want my strongest most dexterous hand dealing with the front brakes.

shorttime• 12 years ago

Paying attention to peoples' actions is more important than their words. I've heard it before but I never really paid attention to it until this year. I decided to take a new job based on the actions of my supervisors rather than their words.

My immediate supv gave me an acceptable review and mentioned that I was underrated. I did my work, got it done, never moving any due dates, my focus was quality - no rework, etc. I ended up getting an engineering license, PE. They put me on a special project that only the best, most competent engineers get put on. But then they passed me over for a promotion. They promoted people with less experience, less qualifications than myself. Sure, they might have deserved it, most of us probably should have gotten more recognition than we did. But for them to pass me up and then turn around and say I was underrated, that's BS. So I took a new job, their actions, and inactions, were contrary to their words. So far the new job is much better, I get along with my immediate supv much better. The biggest thing I miss is all the cool people I met at my old job.

artmageddon• 12 years ago

The biggest thing I miss is all the cool people I met at my old job.

I might find myself in this dilemma soon. On the contrary, I just got "needs improvement" on my latest review yesterday with no warning that had been given to me over the year, and I don't know if this means I need to be in job-searching mode or not. I'll get a chance to further discuss it more soon and hopefully defend my actions, but I will probably start looking anyway since I had given it serious thought about doing so just a few months back anyway. The biggest reason I've stayed is because I enjoy the people who I work with quite a bit, but I figure I can still keep in touch with them after I move on if that's what it comes down to.

computerjunkie4• 12 years ago

Health comes first.

Seriously, take care of your health and everything else will call into place. Trying to ignore something will only make it worse and not knowing whats causing the symptoms (or what caused an injury) will only make you worry more. Exercise (walking its actually really good exercise) and make it a weekly routine. You will be shocked how much of a difference it makes for your mode.

I also realised that I am a social person at heart. I just finished university and I miss all my good friends who all live in different parts of the country. Not just friends, but family. Its made me realise that keeping in touch is absolutely essential no matter what.

Lastly, don't be afraid.

This has been something that has been nagging me all my life. I really struggled with taking risks in my just-starting-career and social/personal life. Life is too short to think "Maybe I won't be..." "I don't think..." and so on. This is part of my incredibly short list of resolutions for next year and the rest of my life.

Rainymood• 12 years ago

Seriously, take care of your health and everything else will call into place.

"Your most important asset is your health" - Warren Buffet

Its made me realise that keeping in touch is absolutely essential no matter what.

Don't wait for people to reach out to you; reach out to them. What is the last time you reached out to someone?

computerjunkie4• 12 years ago

I'll definitely start reaching out to people more. As I mentioned earlier, leaving university and not seeing your good friends regularly has made me realise I should reach out to people.

ddmf• 12 years ago

I played sports in school, but then neglected my body. over time I put on weight etc etc.

Walking is such good exercise - I walk to work pretty much every day and with doing so I've lost 50+ lbs in the space of a year. It doesn't take me long - about 30 mins to do 2 miles - and so what if the weather isn't perfect, you soon dry off.

computerjunkie4• 12 years ago

I was in the same position as you. I was an avid sportsman during school. But once I started university, everything started going down hill. Fortunately, I realized early that this is not the way I want to live and started doing sports again. But as responsibility grows, there is less and less time to do 3 hours of your favorite activity, so I started walking.

I still do go to the gym but walking is somewhat my meditation. Congrats on losing 50+ lbs, keep pushing and going. The secret(or what I like to call common sense) is consistency which in turn becomes habit. Keep on walking for the next 3 years or so and try stop for a week. You will actually miss walking because your body is used to it now.

throwawayaway• 12 years ago

i cannot be trusted to write nice emails to people and keep a decent rapport/cadence. ergo, i am not destined to be in charge of people or have customers.

brador• 12 years ago

The contents of a textbook are not the only things you can learn. Don't be so quick to shut doors.

adimania• 12 years ago

Life lesson: Take care of your health. Tech lesson: Encrypt everything.

koala_man• 12 years ago

Even in this day and age, encrypting everything is seen as some kind of hacker's paranoia.

If a new OS install instead asked "In the event of physical theft, what would you like to grant thieves access to?" with checkboxes for "My email account", "My social media accounts", "My documents and photos", etc, would people feel it was paranoid not to tick all the boxes?

imaginenore• 12 years ago

Creating a community is much harder than creating a website for that community.

Red_Tarsius• 12 years ago

1) People don't hate me. I used to constantly think that I was a nuisance to everyone. Whenever I looked at someone's body language I could only see the anger and spitefulness. I can get past that now.

2) The following is copy-pasted from a previous comment of mine. It's a lesson I've not fully embraced until recently:

"I guess the hardest thing is to fully trust yourself. Other people are just noise, as their opinions aren’t necessarily more backed up than yours. They often have a unconscious secret agenda that doesn’t fully take into account your well-being and the more someone is close to you, the more biased he/she is. “Don’t take risks”, “Don’t leave this place”, “Don’t leave me”."

Last but not least, get rid of toxic people. Get away from toxic environments. It takes time to heal from the negativity, the close-mindedness, the nihilism that rules upon so many lives and places.

eddotman• 12 years ago

1) Sometimes big life decisions are no-win scenarios: there isn't always a solution that leaves every party happy.

2) It's easy to fall into the trap of thinking that what you're doing is 'harder' than what others are doing. Everything is hard if you're pushing your limits.

PeterWhittaker• 12 years ago

Changing how you perceive yourself can change a lot about you. I used to consider myself a scientific-technology type with an artistic bent - after all, I have worked in high tech for decades and have a degree in physics.

But this past year I started thinking of myself as an artist who happens to work in tech to pay the bills (I act semi-professionally and write for fun).

It's like something shifted inside and all of bits got into phase with each other. Remarkable, really.

devgutt• 12 years ago

You don't need to launch your product at all. Start small. Monopolize this small subset of customers and make them love your product. Don't waste your time trying investors and accelerators before market fit.

ColCh• 12 years ago

1) I've learned that I'm NOT ALWAYS RIGHT. Furthermore, I'm almost all the time don't right.

2) I've understood that I absolutely know NOTHING.

... 20 age man.

wwwwwwwwww• 12 years ago

this is definitely my favorite reply so far

i know lots of people personally and professionally who will go their entire lives believing with absolute fervor that they're almost always right and that they're smart.

as a result, these people stagnate like nothing you've ever seen. their world views, technical aptitude, attitude, and intelligence end up frozen in time, unbending and ungrowing. i've noticed that literally the most dangerous thing someone can admit to themselves is that they're smart or a worldly person.

by actively recognizing and admitting your imperfections, you give yourself the room needed to grow.

there's probably a Marcus Aurelius/Socrates quote hidden in this comment somewhere but i cant find it for the life of me

kaybe2• 12 years ago

I had the biggest arguments with people where we later found we were both right. You can be right without the other person being wrong, that's another point.

snide• 12 years ago

Work:

Pick your co-founders by their honesty and humility. No matter what happens, you will build something together that you can all feel proud of.

Going through my fourth start-up now in 15 years. I feel so proud and grateful working with the people I do now. No fights, no stress, just good people who think logically and do their best to support each other.

Personal:

Starting a family is so much more fun than anything I've ever done. Jump into it and let it envelop your being.

schappim• 12 years ago

1) Back yourself.

2) People don't read. People don't read. People don't read. (Everyone: Customers, Co-workers, Business partners etc). So don't rely only on text based conversations.

pearjuice• 12 years ago

We will never see 2014 again in our current time system.

hacknat• 12 years ago

There is pleasure to be found in even the most mundane tasks by taking the opportunity to do it the best, most efficient, most beautiful way possible.

I still get annoyed when I feel a task is beneath me, but I've been trying hard to find something new to learn in it and to be mindful about how the task can be done well. Lately it's been dealing with lots of text files and classes that have tons of fields in them. No problem, just a chance to get to know the *nix tool chain and emacs just a bit better. I'm still not doing the best at this, but I've gotten better, and I've found that it's making me happier and making me a better Engineer in the more important tasks as well.

ChicagoBoy11• 12 years ago

"There is pleasure to be found in even the most mundane tasks by taking the opportunity to do it the best, most efficient, most beautiful way possible."

I feel like this could've been the subtitle to Richard Feynman's life.

bjoe_lewis• 12 years ago

Anything - simple or complex, can be explained. If you are not able to explain something to a child, then you probably don't know about it well enough.

showerst• 12 years ago

Corollary to that I once heard: "Any business idea too complicated to sketch on the back of a bar napkin won't work."

Stately• 12 years ago

I'm too young/immature/irresponsible to be productive working remotely. And I feel too isolated/lonely to enjoy the freedom it provides. Turns out it wasn't the office environment what I hated from my job a year and a half ago, it was the toxic office environment. Just started a new job in an awesome team and it's like being born again.

r0s• 12 years ago

I know that feeling. Working at home seems ideal so it takes some real maturity to realize when it just isn't working.

My employer goes out of their way to make my workspace comfortable and I greatly appreciate it. The commute still sucks, bring on the self-driving cars!

slashnull• 12 years ago

Cool tech is only cool when used to build cool products.

Crazy obvious, I know! But it is a thing I learned this year.

fsloth• 12 years ago

I started to learn to play the guitar. I haven't played anything in twenty years... It's wonderfull to discover that drilling the chords over and over again starts to eventually pay up.

amrnt• 12 years ago

tl;dr Always say NO, big no!

7Figures2Commas• 12 years ago

That "stuff" you stepped in on Market Street is probably what you think it is.

japhyr• 12 years ago

I learned how to write a book. I've been working on Python Crash Course, which will come out this spring. It's been an incredible learning experience.

I have learned the most from having my work critiqued by so many people - an initial editor, a technical editor, a copy editor, and a production editor. It's been humbling and enlightening every step of the way. I can't wait to get back to programming again, and apply what I've learned from writing at a professional level to building things with code. My technical work will be much stronger; writing a book has forced me to reexamine much of what I thought I knew about programming, in a really good way.

http://www.nostarch.com/pythoncrashcourse

subrat_rout• 12 years ago

Focus! Focus! Focus!

kerrsclyde• 12 years ago

Moving to a different part of the country doesn't necessarily change as much as you think (and I thought it would change everything).

pcnc• 12 years ago

1) Carefully choose the people that are going to sit next to you whenever "the big thing of your life" is going to happen.

2) ALWAYS, but ALWAYS use contracts, even when doing something together with your relatives, long-life friends and "that guy from university which was ever helpful".

3) Think you're worth more than you're getting? Ask away.

4) Learn to accept critique and not dismiss it. Accepting it and making efforts to improve on its basis is the way towards personal (and professional) growth.

5) Nobody is always right, learn how to gracefully lose a dispute.

6) Take time for yourself, don't rush head-first into any opportunity, don't accept every invitation, learn how to refuse. This will save you time, headaches and integrity.

chatmasta• 12 years ago

1) Every end has at least one means.

2) Bullshit should be applied only carefully.

eanplatter• 12 years ago

Small consistent effort generates massive change. Emphasis on consistent.

almassapargali• 12 years ago

Saying "I don't know". Before everytime somebody asks me something I'd answer anything but "I don't know", just because they asked me I was expected to know answer, and I kinda didn't want to break expectations. But then I started answering "I don't know" and it feels really great. Now every time I answer so unless I'm absolutely sure on my answer.

abefight3• 12 years ago

This is gold.

mindcrime• 12 years ago

Basically everything @computerjunkie said, is what I came here to say. Having my own health risks and mortality exposed when I had a heart-attack a few weeks ago[1], really drove that home. I now really realize that the whole "yes, it can happen to YOU" thing really is true. I know I can't just ignore health & fitness issues with impunity.

The importance of eating a healthy diet, working out more, reducing stress, etc., are a lot more vivid to me now.

On a related note however, perhaps ironically, is that I now feel a renewed sense of "There's only so much time left on the clock, so if I want to accomplish things, I have to sell out and go 101% to achieve then now". I'm still trying to figure out how to balance those notions.

I mean, let's say I could work less and live an extra 10 years. Let's say that's the difference between, I dunno, making it to 75 vs 85. The questions I ponder now is "how rewarding will the years between 75 and 85 be?" and "how much do I care about that?", etc. I know it sounds a bit morbid, but it's a real question. I've never been all that scared of dying, but I am very afraid of being old, frail, crippled, helpless, etc.

So there ya go... try to live like a rockstar now, flame out fast and die young, or go for the longest life you can live. How do you decide that? Fuck if I know... if I figure it out, I'll let you know.

And on an even less related note... well, at least vis-a-vis career / tech / etc... facing mortality did emphasize another thing to me. Since you don't know how much time you get, if there are things you really want to do, do all you can to do them as soon as you can. Sure, sometimes strategy dictates waiting, and sometimes procrastinating is just easy... but they say that people on their death-beds don't regret the things they did, but rather the things they didn't do. An example from my life: I've had a few tattoo ideas I've wanted to get done for years, but keep putting it off for no real reason. Now I don't know why I get waiting. And there are plenty of similar examples. So yeah, I'd say one important lesson is "do stuff now". :-)

wallflower• 12 years ago

That nothing ever stays the same. You can't assume the company or project you are working on will remain the same. Management comes and goes, good people come and go. In the end, what matters are your relationships outside of work. Even then, those can change (but not as much). Sometimes the people you don't see that often can be important in your life.

_RPM• 12 years ago

I learned that C is important. And that I should learn it. And I have become proficient in it this year.

Ask HN: What is the most important lesson you learned this year?

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