<story><title>Ask HN: What were your naivetés in your twenties?</title><text>Oh the wise elders of Hack News,&lt;p&gt;I&apos;d like to cheat in life and instead of learning my life lessons the hard way, I&apos;d like to skip ahead and read the ending of the current chapter that I&apos;m currently on.&lt;p&gt;When I was in middle school, my biggest worry was getting the latest Abercrombie &amp;#38; Fitch cargo pants to fit in on the school hallway, whether this girl on my school bus liked me, and if the size of my gentalia was on par with my peers back then.&lt;p&gt;When I was in high school, my biggest worry was doing well in school so that I could get into an ivy league school; tacking on a bunch of AP courses and extracurricular activities, not necessarily because I enjoyed AP Chemistry or the track team, but I had to, to get into a ivy league school; and trying to look &quot;cool,&quot; &quot;edgy,&quot; &amp;#38; &quot;artsy&quot; while caring to stay within the boundaries of MTV&apos;s and my high school&apos;s social conventions.&lt;p&gt;When I was in college, my biggest worry was doing well in school so I could go onto a top graduate/medical school or grab a six-figure salary at an i-bank upon graduation. Befriended certain people, chased certain girls (and botched things up royally after the chasing phase is over), got involved in some unsavory debauchery not necessarily because I  wanted to live out the lives that &quot;burn, burn, burn&quot; but rather out of my fear of missing out on the &quot;college experience.&quot;&lt;p&gt;Of course, it didn&apos;t all seem that way when I was in the moment - and certainly I don&apos;t regret the things I did in the past (because I can&apos;t change the past) and I&apos;ll be certain to make lots of mistakes in the future too. And even if an older version of me, traveled back in time to my middle school, told me how stupid of me it was to spend $70 of my parents&apos; money on a pair of Abercrombie &amp;#38; Fitch cargo pants, I know that my middle school self would respond, &quot;are you crazy, I need to get these pants to impress this chick on my school bus!&quot;&lt;p&gt;I only beseech your wisdom about what mistakes/naivetes I&apos;ll incur in my twenties, oh the elders of the Hacker News, so that when I realize later how right you were after my twenties, I could slap myself silly and say to myself, in the place of your absence, &quot;see? I told you so!&quot;&lt;p&gt;Best,
noname123</text></story><parent_chain><item><author>lionhearted</author><text>Man, forgive me for being blunt, but there&apos;s a lot of loser talk in this thread. &quot;Oh you can&apos;t learn from others mistakes, you&apos;ll make them, blah blah blah...&quot; - no, this is how people feel better about themselves for having not listened to advice and getting wrecked in their own life because of it. Sure, you&apos;ll make mistakes, but you shouldn&apos;t just accept wandering blindly through life dealing with stuff. This is what most people do, mind you - wander blindly through life. Like, there&apos;s tons of literature on good parenting. How many people read it? Like, none. So then they justify their bad parenting by saying &quot;well, we all have to make our mistakes&quot; - bullshit. Bullshit lazy talk. This is like the &quot;you&apos;ve got to earn your stripes the hard way&quot; thing - sometimes you do, but &lt;i&gt;sometimes you don&apos;t&lt;/i&gt;. But people who got their stripes the hard way often hate people who get them an easier way. Ignore those people.&lt;p&gt;Okay, that said, this thread was really good:&lt;p&gt;&quot;Ask HN: What streetsmarts have you learnt?&quot;
&lt;a href=&quot;http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1366217&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1366217&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;I&apos;ll paste my comment from that thread, it&apos;s absolutely true and I learned it the hard way. Also, I admire you for being proactive and looking for advice to build a smarter, better life with.&lt;p&gt;--&lt;p&gt;Track record, track record, track record, track record. Look at the track record. Track records don&apos;t lie. Track record, track record, track record.&lt;p&gt;Someone fired from all their jobs is probably going to be a menace later in some form or fashion.&lt;p&gt;Someone who ended all their relationships on bad terms is going to end on bad terms with you.&lt;p&gt;Strong starters/non-finishers are going to start strong but likely won&apos;t be able to close it out without extra help later... which you might be oblivious to, because they&apos;d started so strongly.&lt;p&gt;Track records don&apos;t lie. Unless you&apos;re really good at spotting diamonds in the rough, don&apos;t grab someone with a bad track record for an important role in your business and life. I&apos;ve learned this one the hard way too many times. I still get tempted with, &quot;Wow, this guy/girl is so amazing, the problem must&apos;ve been the other people...&quot;&lt;p&gt;I&apos;m trying to not do that any more. Once? Quite possibly a fluke. Twice? Maybe... Three times? That&apos;s a track record. Also, people will always say they&apos;ve changed. It&apos;s probably a bad idea to be the first person to test out whether it&apos;s real or not.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>leelin</author><text>Weird, isn&apos;t your comment a bit self-contradicting?&lt;p&gt;Above the &amp;#60;hr&amp;#62; fold:  &quot;Stop the loser talk. You can learn from others&apos; mistakes. Your fate is not sealed.&quot;&lt;p&gt;Below the fold:  &quot;Track record is king.  It&apos;s all DNA. People don&apos;t change. Your fate is sealed.&quot;&lt;p&gt;FWIW, I tend to agree more with your below-the-fold views based on most people I&apos;ve met.</text></comment>
<story><title>Ask HN: What were your naivetés in your twenties?</title><text>Oh the wise elders of Hack News,&lt;p&gt;I&apos;d like to cheat in life and instead of learning my life lessons the hard way, I&apos;d like to skip ahead and read the ending of the current chapter that I&apos;m currently on.&lt;p&gt;When I was in middle school, my biggest worry was getting the latest Abercrombie &amp;#38; Fitch cargo pants to fit in on the school hallway, whether this girl on my school bus liked me, and if the size of my gentalia was on par with my peers back then.&lt;p&gt;When I was in high school, my biggest worry was doing well in school so that I could get into an ivy league school; tacking on a bunch of AP courses and extracurricular activities, not necessarily because I enjoyed AP Chemistry or the track team, but I had to, to get into a ivy league school; and trying to look &quot;cool,&quot; &quot;edgy,&quot; &amp;#38; &quot;artsy&quot; while caring to stay within the boundaries of MTV&apos;s and my high school&apos;s social conventions.&lt;p&gt;When I was in college, my biggest worry was doing well in school so I could go onto a top graduate/medical school or grab a six-figure salary at an i-bank upon graduation. Befriended certain people, chased certain girls (and botched things up royally after the chasing phase is over), got involved in some unsavory debauchery not necessarily because I  wanted to live out the lives that &quot;burn, burn, burn&quot; but rather out of my fear of missing out on the &quot;college experience.&quot;&lt;p&gt;Of course, it didn&apos;t all seem that way when I was in the moment - and certainly I don&apos;t regret the things I did in the past (because I can&apos;t change the past) and I&apos;ll be certain to make lots of mistakes in the future too. And even if an older version of me, traveled back in time to my middle school, told me how stupid of me it was to spend $70 of my parents&apos; money on a pair of Abercrombie &amp;#38; Fitch cargo pants, I know that my middle school self would respond, &quot;are you crazy, I need to get these pants to impress this chick on my school bus!&quot;&lt;p&gt;I only beseech your wisdom about what mistakes/naivetes I&apos;ll incur in my twenties, oh the elders of the Hacker News, so that when I realize later how right you were after my twenties, I could slap myself silly and say to myself, in the place of your absence, &quot;see? I told you so!&quot;&lt;p&gt;Best,
noname123</text></story><parent_chain><item><author>lionhearted</author><text>Man, forgive me for being blunt, but there&apos;s a lot of loser talk in this thread. &quot;Oh you can&apos;t learn from others mistakes, you&apos;ll make them, blah blah blah...&quot; - no, this is how people feel better about themselves for having not listened to advice and getting wrecked in their own life because of it. Sure, you&apos;ll make mistakes, but you shouldn&apos;t just accept wandering blindly through life dealing with stuff. This is what most people do, mind you - wander blindly through life. Like, there&apos;s tons of literature on good parenting. How many people read it? Like, none. So then they justify their bad parenting by saying &quot;well, we all have to make our mistakes&quot; - bullshit. Bullshit lazy talk. This is like the &quot;you&apos;ve got to earn your stripes the hard way&quot; thing - sometimes you do, but &lt;i&gt;sometimes you don&apos;t&lt;/i&gt;. But people who got their stripes the hard way often hate people who get them an easier way. Ignore those people.&lt;p&gt;Okay, that said, this thread was really good:&lt;p&gt;&quot;Ask HN: What streetsmarts have you learnt?&quot;
&lt;a href=&quot;http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1366217&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1366217&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;I&apos;ll paste my comment from that thread, it&apos;s absolutely true and I learned it the hard way. Also, I admire you for being proactive and looking for advice to build a smarter, better life with.&lt;p&gt;--&lt;p&gt;Track record, track record, track record, track record. Look at the track record. Track records don&apos;t lie. Track record, track record, track record.&lt;p&gt;Someone fired from all their jobs is probably going to be a menace later in some form or fashion.&lt;p&gt;Someone who ended all their relationships on bad terms is going to end on bad terms with you.&lt;p&gt;Strong starters/non-finishers are going to start strong but likely won&apos;t be able to close it out without extra help later... which you might be oblivious to, because they&apos;d started so strongly.&lt;p&gt;Track records don&apos;t lie. Unless you&apos;re really good at spotting diamonds in the rough, don&apos;t grab someone with a bad track record for an important role in your business and life. I&apos;ve learned this one the hard way too many times. I still get tempted with, &quot;Wow, this guy/girl is so amazing, the problem must&apos;ve been the other people...&quot;&lt;p&gt;I&apos;m trying to not do that any more. Once? Quite possibly a fluke. Twice? Maybe... Three times? That&apos;s a track record. Also, people will always say they&apos;ve changed. It&apos;s probably a bad idea to be the first person to test out whether it&apos;s real or not.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ErrantX</author><text>While there is truth in what you say I can only quote (or rather paraphrase from memory) Michael Mcintyre:&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;have you ever noticed with ATM&apos;s, you go up to it and it says &quot;no, I have no money for you, go away&quot;. So, like a good citizen you turn round to the man behind you in the queue and say &quot;it is out of money&quot;. And he says &quot;thank you.....&quot;, and then steps up to try for himself anyway. &quot;thanks, but I don&apos;t believe you, it will work for me&quot;.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;So, no, you don&apos;t &lt;i&gt;have&lt;/i&gt; to &quot;learn things the hard way&quot;. But most people nod sagely when you give them advice and then do it anyway :) (and that is a good thing IMO)&lt;p&gt;(I agree with your track records thing; it&apos;s too easy to imagine you are giving a &quot;last chance&quot; and that it will really work out this time).</text></comment>