Otherwise, there are various clichés. People will say their family is most important and money is meaningless or some variation. I think those truisms are worth the amount of time it takes someone to repeat them, which isn't much at all.
And I love that scene in Fight Club where Brad Pitt is telling Ed Norton that he won't be truly enlightened until he knows, not just thinks, that he is going to die. I wouldn't risk your life or hurt yourself to figure this out, but if you're in your 20's and haven't had any near-death experiences, as you get older, you will DEFINITELY realize that your life is finite and it will change your perspective. There will be a thousand things that in the back of your mind you always have thought you'd have time to do, but then you turn 30 and start to realize that you probably won't. And that you need to start economizing and prioritizing.
It's very difficult to find contentment in oneself - most people will call it a cynical and pathetic look at life. However, that's what life is. At the risk of sounding cliched - it's YOUR journey on the train. Everyone departs along the way. Some you will get to know more than others, but at the end of the day being aware that it's your journey and yours alone helps you not get attached to other things that might eventually end-up crumbling your world.
To me, living life and always wondering whether I'm making the most of it every step along the way takes the fun out of it. Of course some introspection is good, of course, but I don't like to take life so seriously.
but then!
> I wouldn't risk your life or hurt yourself to figure this out
why not? life IS meaningless after all, unless you're trying to imply that there is something more important than life...?
I'll send you a copy if you like...
Absolutely! Start doing those things, pack them in. And when you're done with those, find some more and do those. This is the difference between living and waiting.
>Personally I've decided that MY life is absolutely meaningless,...
You "value" your family. What does that mean? You spent one hour pushing your kid on a swing because you realized you don't have the confidence, discipline, or perseverance to do the things you really want to be doing.
You "value" your family because you hate yourself, but you don't have the confidence to admit it.
IOW, you live your life however you want to and when you feel like it you just move the goalposts to make sure you look successful. Depressed people are the ones with the integrity not to move the goalposts.
I value my career and achievements but I'd swap it in a second for my immediate family.
It's nothing to do with depression, fear, or failing - it's absolutely the way it should be.
What if what you really want to be doing is being with and enjoying your family?
For me, you can view that problem two ways, "I'm going to work harder and prove my value to the company" or the move the goalposts approach, "I really didn't want that promotion anyway, I'll spend more time with my kids! No one will judge me as a failure if I do that."
Shifting priorities can be rational if you honestly realize your tastes and interests have changed over time, but most often it seems shifting priorties are just a manifestation of weakness - a decision to flee rather than fight.
Given you are the product of a family (and, given your presence on HN, you were born into privilege). Have some respect for people who want to do well at raising a family.
Depressed people have different brain chemistry than non-depressed people. It's unrelated to integrity, or goals. (Except for where the two effect brain chemistry, which is very little). Science FTW!
Obtaining money takes far too much time when you could be having fun (fun rarely involves much expenditure).
On the other hand, though, there is an enormous amount of freedom and peace-of-mind that comes from having a healthy pile of cash and relatively liquid investments. If I look back at the 10 years or so since I started working full-time, my increase in income has been nice, but the increase in savings has improved my life substantially more.
I agree there's no point to being the richest person in the graveyard, but I'd prefer dying with a little excess money to being in a position where I was always a few paychecks away from serious financial trouble. Balance is key, I guess.
To assume a healthy savings means I must be a miser is unwarranted. Most who are thin are not anorexic.
Go to far and you are right.
I'm still trying to figure out what I'd be doing with my time instead of working for a living. I think it would be working.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/may/22/internet.so...
Shuttleworth continues to fund Canonical (although I think they may be closer to breaking even). Whatever you think of Ubuntu, it has certainly made a difference.
I'm in about that boat. Paycheck aside, I feel like contributing in a meaningful way through work has far more lasting value than indulging in hedonism or art.
Armstrong would have had a heck of a time getting to the moon, if it were not for those who worked to put him there.
Even if you are only an average artist yourself, and your own works will not be appreciated by many in the future, for many people they would like nothing more than being able to spend time creating art. Besides, software is half science, half art...
Perhaps you didn't intend it, but putting art in the same boat as hedonism is giving the latter way, way more credit than is appropriate. :)
Pretty much all problems are taken care of this way. Time working/salary ratio? Too much to do/boredom? Just keep optimizing.
I do make a bit of an exception. If helping someone else makes them happier at the expense of some of my own, I'll go ahead and (try) to do it. Normally, helping someone else makes me happy too, but occasionally there's times where the kindest thing to do isn't the most enjoyable.
I absolutely hate the saying "you only regret the things you didn't do when you die not the things you did". Really? I suspect some aids victims regret things they did. I'm guessing meth addicts also regret somethings they did. I don't see how this cliche helps you decide what to do and what to avoid.
For a less dramatic example my father recommends choosing a high paying job that is not so interesting over a more risky job that's more fun. His experience is he took the a risky job, though whether it was fun or not I don't know, the risk didn't pan out. Now he's 69 and driving a delivery truck because he can't afford to retire.
It would be nice to hear more failure stories to contrast with success stories
instead of wishing you weren't a meth head, use the experience to your advantage. help other meth heads get clean, since you can relate with them more than someone who has never been there.
wishing you didn't do something rarely helps.
life shouldn't be measured by success or failure. life just is. if you ever get a chance read siddhartha by herman hesse, a brilliant story of self-discovery.
>To make money we lose our health;
>And then to restore our health we lose our money...
>We live as if we are never going to die;
>And we die as if we never lived...
Try to take that into account when you're making decisions.
[1] http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Tenzin_Gyatso,_14th_Dalai_Lama#... [2] http://www.reata.org/interview2.html
As a parent with two small children, I'm constantly faced with two paths: I could work really hard, the result being eventually enough money that would bring me more "happiness" (travel the world with my wife and kids, for example); or I could extract every memory possible while my kids are this age.
When I think about being on my deathbed and looking back on my life, what will I be thinking? Will I have wished I worked longer hours? Or will I have wanted more memories of my kids laughing with me?
(This is largely why I'm building slow growth, sustainable lifestyle businesses over moving everyone to SF and working 100 hours a week at some startup.)
Those who prefer the 100-hour weeks will no doubt say work is the number one priority. See "saving money for the future" vs. "spending money in case you die tomorrow" as other examples.
2) If you have relationships you value, people around you that you love, a future you want to build; do it. Show them your affection, build that better home or that better future.
Both will make you happy.
Some comments were already saying what the point is on saving money when you get some terminal disease and slowly pass away sitting on a pile of cash. Being sick at home for over 3 months makes you contemplate a lot about your current status quo and question the life matter a lot. Why am I stuck here? Why now? What have I done so far that made me crash like this, etc.
A friend made me a striking comment: "I'd be interested in how much momentum your mind gained in this forced downtime." And that's where this is good for in my case: I slowly gain inspiration and frustration about my life, charging a battery which will be set loose once I recover.
Think back on a vacation you took a few years ago. Now try to remember other weeks that year. It's variety that builds memories and leads to creativity.
The more your life is a big homogenous block, the less you will have to look back on. "The memories of a man in his old age are the deeds of a man in his prime".
Create some memories, but create them with people. Memories you can share are so much richer than memories alone. This is one important reason to preserve relationships.
WP:
> John Clifton "Jack" Bogle (born May 8, 1929) is the founder and retired CEO of The Vanguard Group. He is known for his 1999 book Common Sense on Mutual Funds: New Imperatives for the Intelligent Investor, which became a bestseller and is considered a classic.
Might is the key word their.
How would you live, if tomorrow _might_ be your last day?
