Ask HN: What to avoid in life?

Student loans.

I understand it’s difficult, especially when you’re conditioned to get one since the conversation about college starts when you’re young, but I took one look at it. Saw it was going to be six figure sums, and said no way. Much to the horror of my siblings, parents, friends etc.

Got a job doing help desk and within a year taught myself programming in spare time and landed a well paying job as a developer. I was paid more than the university graduates they were hiring.

I know that university is largely to force people who don’t have enough discipline to self teach AND make social connections, but is that worth hundreds of thousands in debt? No.

There’s going to be a bunch of hate replies to this by people rationalising their debt, who are largely lying to themselves about its worth because they are in too deep, but this thread is about “things to avoid” and my vote is student loans.

Nullius in Verba - think for yourself, make your own decisions

Per Michael Pollan:

Don't eat anything your great grandmother wouldn't recognize as food. When you pick up that box of portable yogurt tubes, or eat something with 15 ingredients you can't pronounce, ask yourself, "What are those things doing there?".

Don’t eat anything with more than five ingredients, or ingredients you can't pronounce.

Stay out of the middle of the supermarket; shop on the perimeter of the store. Real food tends to be on the outer edge of the store near the loading docks, where it can be replaced with fresh foods when it goes bad.

Don't eat anything that won't eventually rot. There are exceptions -- honey -- but as a rule, things like Twinkies that never go bad aren't food.

Always leave the table a little hungry. Many cultures have rules that you stop eating before you are full. In Japan, they say eat until you are four-fifths full. Islamic culture has a similar rule, and in German culture they say, 'Tie off the sack before it's full.'

Families traditionally ate together, around a table and not a TV, at regular meal times. It's a good tradition. Enjoy meals with the people you love. Remember when eating between meals felt wrong?

Don't buy food where you buy your gasoline. In the U.S., 20% of food is eaten in the car.

In summation:

Eat real food, probably less, mostly plants, with friends/family.

Bad managers.

A bad manager will make or break your experience at a company. Doesn’t matter how great the project is, or the people you’re working with. Do your due diligence, ask around, and if you get even a hint of shenanigans run for the hills.

Similarly if you find yourself with one plan an exit asap.

The priority order when you find a team is: 1- manager, 2- team and 3- how closely the project as is aligns with your interests and expertise. 2- changes over time and 3- is often within your control once you join, but 1- is an awful lot of work to extricate yourself from after.

Social media.

Obviously not all of it is equal, but there’s certain low-hanging fruit culprits (Facebook and Instagram immediately come to mind). I see far too many people endlessly scrolling IG loops, and apparently many spend an hour+ daily doing so. These applications hijack the brain’s reward pathways and are inherently addicting by design.

Facebook is a trash advertising company with no regard whatsoever for privacy and I’m absolutely stunned that they haven’t imploded yet.

Toxic relationships. Also: looking for love instead of a partner that you can love. Nothing holds people more from goals in life than having a partner that is not similar in what you want from life. In the grand total, you should both want the same. You might have individual side hobbies (but try to share the main hobbies, too!), sometimes fight over the way to go next, that is all ok. But to make it big, two people can handle more than one person.

I see many people wanting "love". If I had chosen my wife the same way I had chosen girlfriends before, probably we would have been divorced by now. While I undoubtedly love my wife a lot, I was really careful to primarily find a partner in her, a person with similar goals in life, a person that I might still want to be with and be able to talk to at the age of 99, sitting next to her in a wheelchair. So absolutely avoid not being very, very, honest to yourself and letting alone love and pure attractiveness govern your search for a partner for life. Turn your brain on.

Avoid toxic people and drama.

There are people who want to focus on everything wrong around them, and tend to amplify it and create drama. If you find yourself around people like this try to create some distance or cut them out of the picture entirely. If you find that you’re always surrounded by people like this take some time to try to figure out how and why that is happening.

Bad company. Not (necessarily) meaning where you work but more generally the people you surround yourself with.

You'll find yourself much happier in life spending energy to find good company (of people you enjoy being with) instead of trying to make things work with the people you just happen to be around with. It takes active effort to meet new people but on the long run it's worth the effort many times over.

Cults. Learn to see what they are early on, learn what groups are considered to be cults, read Lifton's "Thought Reform and the Ideology of Totalism" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought_Reform_and_the_Psychol...), stay away.

Regret.

The older I become, the more I’ve come to terms that one day I’m going to die. I’ve watched both my parents pass and I’m fairly young (36). Since my mother’s death, I’ve focused on my own demise in a productive way: I always ask if my actions can lead to regret. Not the nonsense regret of not picking the correct job, stock, or purchase but real regret.

Is this release getting in the way of me being a better husband? Is my work trip causing me to miss family time?

Everyone is driven and I’m no exception but what can I do to minimize my regret?

In other words, on your death bed, will I regret not having X more money or will I regret not seeing my kids first steps? Rephrase that question to suit your situation and that should be your driver.

And if you will regret not making more money or doing X product, that’s fine too; that should be your focus. Just figure out what you want, regardless if it changes year to year and pursue it.

P.S. Also avoid caring what others think. They’re not going to die instead of you. Their opinion is worthless. (This includes me if you disagree)

Avoid taking "advice" from anonymous people on the internet. For example, let's say someone told you that coronavirus can survive for extended periods outside of a living body, and therefore, any packages you receive from China could be a health risk. Should you filter out this "advice"? Well, if it is just "advice", then you should look for substantiation. Without proof, it has little or no value. Now can someone tell me what to do with the package sitting on my front porch (please provide references).

Add "Ask HN:" to the submission title to make clear that your submission is asking a question and is open for discussion instead of linking to an article that tries to answer it.

Avoid increasing your expenses in line with increases of your income. It’s an easy to fall into the trap on the way up, and a difficult one to escape.

Sales.

As an engineer by training (and vocation), exposure to a cesspool of over-excited sales teams with overinflated egos, impossible targets, zero alignment with reality and the “always be closing” mentality nearly drove me insane, especially when I was called in to bring “technical credibility” to stuff that defied logic or when I was told I was “a negative influence” by pointing out (internally) that the sales pitch had the solidity of warm, brown fudge.

Toxicity usually escalates very quickly from then on.

Proper consulting (which also involves _pre_-sales, but which has to be grounded in reality because you’re gauging commitment and risks to all parties) is much saner in comparison - the rule of thumb here is to never work in a customer-facing position with people who will vanish from sight the moment a deal is signed.

Following social conventions. The more I grow up, the more I have the feeling this lead people to the wrong path to happiness. Having the ability to be and act different is harder than it seems to. But when you know deep inside how you should do something, do no let society tell you how to do it.

Recently I found out that some people are truly happy being single. They're not acting. The only problem for them, is how people treat them in a condescending way: "Don't worry, love is coming for you, you'll be lucky too".

High risk (as in life-changing) situations that can be avoided: driving drunk, unsafe sex etc. Most other bad stuff can be handled with money and/or time.

- Avoid borrowing money, be it in the form of credit cards or even worse, mortgage. I know this is not something you want to hear if you are on a mortgage deal already. But borrowing can limit your freedom in ways that are not immediately obvious. You trade your freedom for illusory prosperity. That said, a business loan for your business may not be such a bad idea.

- If your plan is to become an entrepreneur, start building your network early. Build slowly but surely, there is no rush, but one of the worst things that can happen to an entrepreneur is to be alone with your ideas and visions.

- People change as they age or when they get rich. You don't have to.

Don’t get tricked into playing zero sum games.

Status, prestige, being the “best” are relative, not absolute measurements. Someone else’s gain is your loss.

Health, love, education (to build a skill) are absolute. Someone else’s gain can benefit and inspire you.

Don't argue on the Internet. Information transfer is a gift. Use it on people who appreciate it. Know that the people who do not appreciate it are not eager to receive it and will not alter their behaviour.

Renting.

Okay, I know that's not possible for everything. Renting a home is virtually a must in places with high housing prices, and a mortgsge is often needed when buying a house.

But in 95% of cases, renting something is a worse deal than buying it outright, and will leave you worse off as a result.

1. It's more expensive, especially in the long run. There's a reason so many companies have gone with the whole 'SaaS' model, and that's because it costs the customer a lot more to keep shelling out cash month on month.

2. It's a liability if you run into financial difficulties, since you have to either stop using said thing, or keep paying money you might not have/might need for more important things. Actual property can be sold instead.

3. And it's a security risk/livelihood risk that can be targeted by your enemies. The only reason stuff like cancel culture even 'works' is because so many companies would rather save their own reputation than stand by their csutomers, and because that can be exploited against others.

A seemingly pithy statement would be: Avoid Avoidance.

Most spiritual texts talk of the dangers of following desires, and avoiding something is almost the same as following one's desires. The degree of difference is in how you look, either toward what you want, or away from what you don't want.

Unfortunately, as I go thru life I realise the spiritual texts are probably right and that giving into desires leads to more selfishness, which leads to giving into more desires... a never-ending cycle.

So I would dispute the wisdom in 'filtering' out undesirables, and realise that we're all on this rock, and being selfish leads nowhere but different peoples being unable to communicate and relate.

It's better to learn acceptance, and if something comes your way that you don't like, then try and learn why it is so & why you react so. Asking "why?" Is a far more powerful concept than 'filtering'.

People or programs that claim they can teach you complex things quickly, easily, or painlessly. Learning hard things worth knowing is painful and excruciating. People who try to avoid that end up not learning.*

*thats not to say there aren’t more effective ways to learn hard things. But that’s just optimizing in return per minute of pain :)

I feel that you should find something you like and avoid everything else.

Toxic personalities and flakes.

The former are easier to spot, the latter much harder especially if they are extroverts and radiate a sheen of confidence or capability.

Addictive drugs

Keeping all your money in cash. On the long term anything else is better, and some cash is necessary for short term expenses.

There are many great HN threads of investing, and the earlier you start, the earlier you can retire if you want.

Alcohol

Scams. Some are getting a lot more sophisticated, but I really mean the "if it's too good to be true..." scams.

Comparing yourself with others.

Advice, especially the unsolicited kind

Fear.

To consciously avoid, is to avoid conscience.

Avoid marriage until you have an income that can support a family. Make that a passive income.

The internet. Too late.

Internet forums

Death

Sympathy.

Things. Stuff. Collections of ... whatever, really. Don't get too attached to things and widgets and thingamabobs and artefacts and all the other man-made objects which supposedly are there to serve you but which end up needing service in some way or another, from simple storage service - where are you going to put it all - to actual upkeep. Just keep the minimal required to live your life in a way you find worthwhile and decide that anything more is optional. That doesn't mean you need to go out and actively get rid of stuff to lead some ascetic life of frugality, it just means you might want to dump it the next time you move without bothering to bring or replace it. Make sure whatever you have and keep around you is there to serve you and don't fall for all those gadgets which are being pushed upon you.

Don't do drugs - it's retarded.