To laugh often and much;
to win the respect of the intelligent people
and the affection of children;
to earn the appreciation of honest critics
and endure the betrayal of false friends;
to appreciate beauty;
to find the best in others;
to leave the world a bit better
whether by a healthy child, a garden patch,
or a redeemed social condition;
to know that one life has breathed easier
because you lived here.
This is to have succeeded.2. How to take risks. Finding the balance between recklessness and absolute risk avoidance is about managing downside, so you get a chance at the upside with acceptable consequences if things go wrong. Get this right, and the world is your oyster, even if this is your only skill in life. Get this wrong, and it will swamp every over accomplishment, skill, and strength you may have.
3. Know what you want, and why you want it. The worst thing in life is time wasted winning at unfulfilling endeavors. The “winning” sucks you I’m and keeps your trapped in a local maxima, where all roads look like moving backward. (Usually, this means understanding and controlling your need for status vs your other needs—-and that requires a lot of introspection.)
Obviously a little distraction and fun is good. But these days it easier than ever to waste an entire day or two watching Netflix and staring at your phone.
Communication (texting, listening, etc), maintaining and creating relationships, avoiding injury, relaxation, exercise, cooking, healthy eating, self defense, first aid, swimming, types of reading (fun, searching, learning), searching, separating truth from fiction, knowing when to seek help, a hobby, cleaning, maintenance, organization, managing money, taxes, investing, personal grooming, shopping, transportation (public transit, biking, driving etc.), reading a map, looking for work, putting something together from instructions.
PS: Maintaining physical and mental heath is not really a specific skill, but much of the above falls under that category.
Don't take the following as an authoritative source on the subject. Use it to get started on your own path of development.
1. Meditation. It's in fashion for a very good reason. People continue to recommend it as the single most valuable practice one can adopt to improve oneself. As you grow more mindful of your feelings, you can better manage them. Meditation is a practice. You can think of it as going to the gym for half an hour and training on one single muscle. The more you train, the stronger that muscle gets!
2. Cognitive behavior therapy (CBT). This is a broad subject. A therapist is very helpful, if you can afford one, but own your self improvement and try not to depend on financially unsustainable counseling. Therapy is very helpful and sometimes essential. Use it to acquire life skills. The aspect of CBT that I would like to draw attention to involves the ability to manage fears and anxieties, and consequently depression, using the process of identifying cognitive distortions and reframing concerns. A great intro book to the subject is "Feeling Good" by David Burns, who recently published a sequel, "Feeling Great" after almost forty years of development since the book was published. Burns has a blog, podcast, and teamed up with product folks to create an upcoming mobile app.
3. Rest and recovery. Initially, I was just going to mention sleep, which is a very tough subject, especially when dealing with insomnia. Not resting enough taxes the system. Plan down time and protect it. Address insomnia holistically.
Be well, my friends.
"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."
I'd possibly leave out the militaristic stuff, but the rest of it is pretty much spot on :)
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!The next time you have elemental cravings for food, drink, sex, and other more-short-term dopamine hints (people pleasing, superficial personal relationships, appeasing, etc.), not in line with your goals, stick to your goals.
This is a big part of military courses.[2] You're capable of a lot more than you think (at a physical level, what you think of as your max is likely 30-40% of your capacity.. be cognizant though that 70-100% borderlines on death, but it's unlikely a person not training for a long-time would have to worry about hitting those limits).[3] The same thing applies up each level of Maslow's hierarchy.
Many consumer businesses are built on you not doing so and conflating convenience and activities slowly detrimental to healthy life goals. The best thing you can do is practice slowly not doing those things. Every time you stick to your pre-frontal cortex and don't give in to your primordial mind, you become stronger at more difficult things. And it compounds. Each basis point (eating healthy v. eating unhealthy; learning how to cook something well, etc.; putting down that TikTok feed; persisting with that design or SaaS side project, etc.) compounds.
Charlie Mike.
[1] https://www.amazon.com/General-Theory-Love-Thomas-Lewis-eboo...
[2] https://bootcampmilitaryfitnessinstitute.com/media/tv-docume...
[3] https://www.forbes.com/sites/chrismyers/2017/10/06/the-40-ru...
To be continued... nice thread!
Develop inquisitiveness. Related to critical thinking. Always be asking 'why?'.
Develop grace, encompassing manners, humility, self-control, compassion, etc.
Learn how to interact with government and institutions. For example, how do you even hire a lawyer? When should you?
Personal finance, as others mention, but I see a great many false prophets in that area. IMHO there doesn't seem to be any proven method. One rule I follow is 'never borrow to consume', though that may depend on how enlightened the society you live in is. Everyone needs to eat after all.
For practical skills,
Cooking. It may become obsolete in future, but being able to cook a basic meal is useful and satisfying.
Gardening, basic farming. Again, eating a lettuce you grew yourself is quite satisfying.
If you didn't get a standard western upbringing, then all the basics; learn to swim, ride a bike, tie a shoelace and a necktie, basic knots, basic music/play an instrument, host a party, basic painting/drawing, sportsmanship, read, write, at least, algebra, etc.
How to take advantage of people... that way they are less likely to be taken advantage of
Restraint enough that, though they know how, they don’t take advantage of others
How to look for sense of self satisfaction within yourself rather than in the approval of others
Not really a skill, but a habit of intense exercise at least 30m a day. Running and swimming are great for this.
Similarly, a habit of reading books.
Personal finance
Some keys: be calm and stay in the beginner's mindset. If you're frustrated and reactionary, you will learn much less effectively. Be like a happy child, curious about new things, and be interested in self improvement always.
One of the more rewarding experiences I had last year was attending Meetups with people significantly older than myself.
The older you get , the harder making friends becomes. It's so bad I'd suggest to comp sci majors to consider a Liberal Arts degree instead if they're having trouble socializing.
You're not perfect and mistakes will be made. Becoming a father showed me that I've sometimes said and done stupid things in front of a very impressionable small person, but all I can do is to promise myself that I won't do that again, find a way of avoiding that situation in the future, and move on.
Berating yourself over ancient history is incredibly toxic for mental health.
Learn to cook and prepare food, especially your favorite foods. Then you can make better decisions when buying packaged food, when eating out and also not be dependent on someone or some establishment for something as basic as food (of course, you can take this further and get into gardening and such, but just start with cooking from ingredients you can buy).
Listen to people without interrupting and trying to solve their problems. Listening is a gift to others and to yourself.
Learn to write better, since we (the readers and writers here) depend on written communication a lot more than people from the last century and before.
Learn to manage expenses, followed by learning to manage investments (start by understanding the power of compounding).
IMO, playing an instrument and learning a sport are hobbies, not necessarily life skills.
How to take care of your physical and mental state
- That might mean meditation or mindfulness or whatever else it takes to deal with adversity and difficult situations
- Understand what your specific body needs in the way of activity and diet to keep the engine running as best it can
With those two under your belt you can generally build and acquire any other skills you need for your specific situation to the extent that it is possible
Patience and also how to firmly and kindly say, "no."
Art is a pretty nice hobby that works your ability to observe and visualize. Sort of like meditation when you're in the "flow" of it.
Playing an instrument is similar. Having a hobby that is active, not passive, and relaxes you is great.
Learn how to take smaller steps.
Learn how to balance.
Learn how to focus.
From past personal experience: get an old vehicle and make like new; learn linux on machine not best-suited to it; and, with out getting overly specific, gain skills by getting involved with people outside your milieu--volunteer, or get a side job that teaches you a useful skill via mentors with perspectives you do not normally encounter.
In my experience, learning a complicated system translates well to another.
Finally, and perhaps this will sound a bit life-coachy--sorry: learn to suffer, dynamically. Learn that your limits are often imagined, and that you can "put away" unpleasant feelings in order to perform adaptively within, or even enjoy, struggle. This a skill of mine that not many people have. It's probably not crucial, as people without it seem to function fine, but it does afford me unique opportunities.
- water and electric installations. Most things that usually break in a typical house can be easily fixed by the average person with some tools, water is easier, electricity is extremely risky if you don't know what you are doing, but fine if you do (you don't need a college to be an electrician). I would also mention some carpentry, but that requires more tools than what people keep around the house.
- build, maintain and repair a bicycle; it is extremely easy if you spend a bit of time doing it and it is extremely useful if you do mountain biking and you have a problem in the middle of nowhere; also it is a lot cheaper and quite fun to fix or upgrade your own bike or spend some good time with friends working on their bikes
- fixing small things on a car or motorcycle, like changing oil, brake pads, bleed the brakes. It does well with the bicycle skills, some are transferable.
- if you like hiking, knowing how to pack light, to find a good place to mount a tent, first aid and a bit of survival skills are useful
If you like hiking, depending on your country and area you spend time it would be a good idea to learn how to properly carry and use a firearm for self-defense against wild life. Where I go there are plenty of bears and boars, they are both stronger and faster than me, I had a few encounters but it was either from a distance or I was not on foot, so I left in a hurry :) Less applicable in West Europe (no bears, some boars) and in Eastern Europe (no guns allowed), but still something to think about
- cooking. It's a hit or miss, but you can try. Anyone knows how to make tea or some eggs, it's trivial to do French fries or a steak (not a good one, but something you can eat), so for me cooking means to do something more complicated than basic food.
Learn not only to drive a car, but a bicycle, a motorcycle, a manual transmission car and even a small truck. You never know when one of these can be useful and they are partially related, so it's not that much to learn.
Our world is changing faster than ever and the only way to catch up and remain relevant is to master the art of learning. Learning through failures, learning through experience, learning through active discussion or learning through teaching—doesn’t really matter the mode, but find one that works for you and master this art. I find myself learning best through application, so I constantly find small opportunities in daily life and at work to try new techniques.
I’m believe that formal education (the kind you get an education loan for) is no longer sufficient to get ahead in life. Learning to self educate is key.
I've learnt several physical stuffs (e.g. bodybuilding, music), several emotional stuffs (e.g. meditating, music) and other intellectual skills (e.g. game theory, the humanities and programming of course...) and if I had to choose one to recommend to the HN community, it's language.
Unfortunately, it's high reward [0] also comes with high effort. Even with the best resources, it will take time and patience. But you can start at anytime of your life and at anywhere.
Enough knowledge in psychology and neuroscience such that you can have a decent understanding of how the human mind works (and ways in which it fails imperceptibly). Time spent in psychedelic and spiritual realms seem to be quite practically useful for this type of learning.
Systems thinking - gain an understanding of the presence and importance of unseen systems, and the unseen complexity and causal relationships contained within. For example, we live in a system (that itself is composed of numerous subsystems), and each of us is a system (our mind, itself composed of two distinct parts, the conscious and subconscious, each consisting of numerous subsystems). Such things are very easy to forget in real time, but even if remembered, our perception of the state and behavior of these systems is extremely inconsistent (sometimes even backwards) with how they actually are.
Realize that outside of the hard sciences, we are rarely dealing with facts, but rather coarse approximations, and that this is often completely not realized (to put it mildly). It seems this can be decently learned from an abstract perspective, but the degree to which this abstract knowledge can be drawn upon in real time seems extremely inconsistent.
(Meta) In general, people's minds (and broad Western culture) often seem to find these sorts of ideas instinctually repulsive, so exercise disciplined skepticism with those who dissuade you from study.
In no particular order:
- Food science; Nutrition
- Family planning: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_planning
- Personal finance (see the link above for resources)
- How to learn
- How to teach [reading and writing, STEM, respect, compassion]
- Compassion for others' suffering
- How to considerately escape from unhealthy situations
- Coping strategies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coping
- Defense mechanisms: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defence_mechanism
- Prioritization; productivity
- Goal setting; n-year planning; strategic alignment
Life skills: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_skills
Khan Academy > Life Skills: https://www.khanacademy.org/college-careers-more
1. Learning to learn. When you learn to play an instrument or a language you should learn to learn better. So learning something new becomes easier.
That is learning about space repetition software and how your memory works. Physical and mental fatigue,moderate stress, diet, relaxation times and sleep.
One of the best abilities that you could master is the ability to learn from the masters in any discipline, what is called in psychology "modeling", and it is natural for kids. That usually takes letting some part of yourself to die, accepting that you are wrong at something, and it for adults is incredible painful and rewarding at the same time.
2. Managing your emotions in front of your opposite sex, in front of threats, in front of a big audience. In front of important work to do.
Getting gradually out of your comfort zone. Taking and handling bigger and bigger risks while knowing your limitations. Again that means accepting (a small)suffering as a routine.
Being conscious about what you are feeling at every moment and knowing what to do helps you master procrastination in you and in others.
That makes you incredible attractive and resourceful person.
To speak in front of lots of people you need to have something important to say to them. You need to find something more important than yourself.
In general those skills are counterintuitive, like doing routine exercise means suffering a little every day but over months or years it improves you so much most people just wont be able to compete with you at psychical or metal tasks.
I'm serious.
The more I (as a developer trying to master design) delve into the product design space. The more I see that there is no more fundamental skill in design than that of constructing 'information architectures'. Essentially, mapping (or diagramming) the most important pieces of a design that you are making.
It is literally the key to creating a great design.
I wrote more about this in a guest post here: https://simpleprogrammer.com/information-architecture-develo....
Think about the design of Apple products, is it really just the way they look that makes you love them. Or is it more subtly, the way the work (of which UI is a component), and how that makes you feel?
Definitely worth thinking about.
By nicely I don't mean like for a wedding or expensively, just plain nicely with your day-to-day apparel. Combine garment styles and colors and subtle details. I have a feeling I would have it easier on some occasions if I just payed attention to how I look instead of just making sure my weewee isn't in the open and the cloths covering me are clean. When I do try, I turn out looking goofy so I stick to my plain, bland, inoffensive elements.
So my answer to OP's question is: learn to be compassionate with yourself.
To find out more about questions, this article https://leveragethoughts.substack.com/p/do-not-engage-the-mi... is fantastic.
2. The power of writing. Writing puts thoughts to paper. When you write, the structure of your thoughts becomes more visible. It can tell you if you think properly or not. By writing, your thoughts process becomes more refined. Writing is a feedback loop to your thoughts.
3. How to build relationships. We humans are social creatures. We are quite inter dependent. To navigate through life, we will need to co-operation of others. The book https://amzn.to/3mYvmqo how to win friends and influence others is incredibly good.
4. How to show our work. You can create the best invention in computer science but if it does the right audience do not know about it, the invention languishes in obscurity. This article https://leveragethoughts.substack.com/p/cracking-the-who-you... is one of the best at explaining it.
5. Financial literacy. This is incredibly important. A lot of us go through life without understanding how the financial system works. This leads to us making sub optimal financial choices. I find the book The Richest Man in Babylon https://amzn.to/3mVczMI great at introducing a financial mindset. Financial literacy is also important;Especially for technical people. The life of Nikola Tesla is an example of this https://leveragethoughts.substack.com/p/dont-hinge-your-care...
I can't believe this basic lesson wasn't taught to me at all during my formative years, either by my parents or in school.
I'll save you the suspense: the secret is buying a crockpot, putting food onto cook in the morning before work, and then voila! Dinner is ready when you get home. Best of all you can use cheap cuts of meat and/or beans.
I am 58, and I didn't always know how to make a list like this in a way that makes sense to me now.
Would you mind if I ask how old you are, and what you imagine will be important to you when you are looking back on your life, as an old, old, old person?
Ability to grind and realize you can do anything.
Ability to let go of things that hold you back.
Ability to love.
Ability to inspire.
Ability to find peace within.
Critical thinking, note taking, accounting, mindfulness, efficient reading, persuasive writing, chess and/or go, poker, heavy lifting, endurance running, self-defense, and love making.
So yeah, how to lie is number one skill.
It is good to have a thing to do that exercises the body instead of the mind.
https://www.amazon.com/Nonviolent-Communication-Language-Lif...
A human being should be able to:
- change a diaper
- plan an invasion
- butcher a hog
- conn a ship
- design a building
- write a sonnet
- balance accounts
- build a wall
- set a bone
- comfort the dying
- take orders
- give orders
- cooperate
- act alone
- solve equations
- analyze a new problem
- pitch manure
- program a computer
- cook a tasty meal
- fight efficiently
- die gallantly
Specialization is for insects.
* identifying weakness: embarrassment, offense, narcissism, intimidation, hostility (I am deliberately excluding fear from this list)
* writing
* personal finances/accounting
* product design: accessibility, usability, performance, engagement, organization (I am deliberately excluding vanity from this list)
* emergency car repair
* house maintenance
* horticulture
* accuracy with a rifle
* philosophy
* history
* homeopathy (plant chemistry kind, not the pseudo science kind)
* leadership
* listening
* benevolence
* maintaining a healthy marriage
* honesty
* automation
> A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyse a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.