Ask HN: What do you wish you had done differently in life?

[astronautmonkey]

Hi HN, my wife and I had our first baby 3 weeks ago https://x.com/paramjaggi42/status/1922661763373309961

In a sleepless blur, we've been talking a lot about our life before our son was born and what we wished we had done differently. For me, I wish I had enjoyed my time in college more and took more non-engineering classes. Maybe also bought Tesla stock at $20 per share.

What do you wish you had done differently in life?

[cratermoon]

In the late 1980s/early 1990s my dad prodded me into becoming a programmer rather than what I was really interested in doing after college, becoming a photographer. His view was that it was more of "real" job: stable, pays well, lots of room for growth. I had some programming experience as a hobbyist and took a few CS classes in college as electives, so it wasn't completely out of the question.

Here I am in 2025, having had many jobs, many layoffs, some lean years, and facing age discrimination.

I ask myself, would I have done worse had I followed my real interest?

Cue LLMs eating up all the creative output and upending the market for original, real photography.

[astronautmonkey]

Appreciate you sharing this.

I'm a first generation Indian raised in the US. There's a big push from parents in my culture for stability over happiness (cue Indian doctor joke). Sounds like you went through something similar.

[AnimalMuppet]

I wish that, when I had kids, I had been more present for them. Not physically present, but mentally. I wish I had let them pull me out of my own world more and into theirs.

I was trying to maintain my own mental space, maintain some time to do the things that I wanted, but I short-changed them. (And skimped on part of parenting, which was my duty.) Now they're grown, and I can't get it back.

Be there for your kids. Let them have your mind for a while. They won't take it forever - 5 to 30 minutes is typical - but give them those minutes, willingly, rather than trying to defend your own mental headspace.

One of my biggest regrets.

[Ocerge]

I wish I hadn't worked 2 jobs while getting my CS degree. I have lots of acquaintences and friends in my mid-30s, but no friends from college or earlier. I have a lot of memories that I can't really share with anybody who was also there, and it's only sort of showing up now that I don't have any really deep friendships, and it mostly started from me doing nothing but work or study during the time when I should have been growing socially.

[seanmcdirmid]

+1 to that. I missed half of my college because I was grinding to make enough money to live without very supportive parents. I figured something out for my last 2-3 years so it wasn't as bad as your case, but I envy the kids who actually got to live in the dorms and party and stuff.

[5bolts]

* studied more * explored tradeschool * saved more * told my parents i loved them more often * sped less (i had a heavy foot as a young adult) * drank less if at all * took a few more chances, especially in the dating realm.

[aaronbaugher]

I could co-sign all of these, especially the last one. There's a line from one of Tom Selleck's Jesse Stone movies that I wish someone had told me at 18: "I'd rather regret the things I've done than the things I haven't done." The "what if I'd taken the chance" regrets are the worst by far.

[astronautmonkey]

> told my parents i loved them more often

This hit me hard. Appreciate you sharing.

[_DeadFred_]

Number one I wish I didn't grow up a latch key kid so alone. But for changeable...

I let myself be walked over/'sacrificed' for others, which ironically made me more selfish because it built resentment inside me and then my internal resentment (which I chose, not them, because I didn't speak up, I just 'sucked it up') impacted others who had no idea/no control over the resentment. If you do something, great, but don't keep score. You didn't do it for anyone else, you did it because ultimately YOU chose to.

I let things get unhealthy because I had zero outlets. Stopped surfing. Stopped mountain biking. Stopped the gym. Stopped writing music. I was able to go 14 years on zero me time/zero friends before I blew everything up. Keep friendships if you can. Keep some you time.

Use your words. Talk, don't go to court about things in your head. Talk to the people involved. Make it safe to talk, for you to talk to your partner, for your partner to talk to you. Setup a time to check in with each other, and not stop the check in when it gets uncomfortable. Keep talking. Exhaust yourselves with talking. If you find you are putting more time/energy into changing your car's oil more often than maintenance on your relationship, that's not good.

Vacations make zero financial sense. Take them anyways. I would take more. You will never get that time with your kids back. Find something in each vacation to bring back home and incorporate into life. Maybe vacation pictures on the wall. Maybe food dishes you eat once a month that you 'discovered' (even if you had before but it was the kids first time).

[toomuchtodo]

Would’ve put more time into being curious earlier, same with letting my ego die. Peace is positive nihilism, meaning is understanding.

[astronautmonkey]

Thank you for sharing! Can you elaborate on "letting my ego die"? Curious what this tactically means as you get older.

[hnthrowaway0315]

Since you just had a baby, my recommendation is to think about things that you want to do but haven't done yet, and do that ASAP.

Life after having a baby is completely different from life without one. There is only enough free time to do just ONE thing outside of parenting and work. Pick that wisely.

[solardev]

Congrats on the baby! Better pick and choose which parts of your current life you really want to keep, lol.

For myself, don't think I would really change much, except maybe having learned more music and languages.

My teens and 20s were a shitshow and 30s just barely better, but they made me who I am today.

[paulcole]

I guess I don't think this way?

Obviously with hindsight and a do-over I'd be incredibly rich. But that's a silly thing to fret over. I'm not the kind of person who would've bought bitcoin early on because I didn't (and still don't) understand it.

The same with other "regrets" like that. Would you have actually enjoyed the non-engineering classes if you'd taken them when you were 20 or whatever?

I'm comfortable with the decisions I make because they're a reflection of who I am not some kind of never-going-to-happen idealized version of myself.

That said, I can make different decisions in the future. But I'm still probably not going to take a big flyer on a stock that might 40x because that's not how I invest.

[eyesofgod]

Wished I would have gone to school. For the experience, for the, but honestly in a large part the opportunity as well. Too many things I'll never get a chance to do or even get the chance to figure out whether I'm capable of doing.

I also wish I had gone into any of my other interests career wise. Even if I ended up wanting to go work in software anyway, it's immensely more feasible to go from [something else]->[software] than the other way around.

[mrdependable]

I would probably give people more of a chance. I decided years ago I was done with people and stopped taking an interest in meeting anyone new.

[muzani]

I had a friend. We made games as teenagers. Just strangers over the Internet nerding out on random things. We clicked real well, better than I do with many IRL friends.

But she lied to people. She was trans. People don't like being lied to. The LGBTQIA+ community defended her, until she became inconvenient for them and they ditched her. She fell in with the more militant crowd. Her social media presence became just full on hatred. I told she wasn't making friends that way; she insisted she's being an activist. We drifted apart because of this, but we still nerded out on random things every 3 years or so.

Once, she sent me a message out of the blue once saying that she appreciated me backing her in hard times. We chatted for two hours or so about liberalism and programming best practices. I then excused myself to get back to work.

That was the last conversation I had with her. She committed suicide publicly a few months later.

I don't think I could have done anything differently. Maybe I should have stuck up for her more? Or at least talked to her about random stuff. But if I had a one-shot time machine, I'd probably have prevented that decline rather than buying bitcoin.

[fuzzfactor]

If I would have just spent a few short years of full-time effort preparing for natural disaster, that would have made the biggest difference in hindsight.

More so than buying a handful of bitcoins as a novelty when they were only $1 for instance.

[astronautmonkey]

Like this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ws-YEa9ykEs

[fuzzfactor]

Excellent choice :)

But not exactly. I was thinking more like facilities enhancement and having insurance in a lot better balance and strength than I had :\

Although after the flood(s) the survival rations at work do ring a bell now.

I still had a laboratory refrigerator for chemicals, but when I was on my own I didn't get another one for office food supplies for quite a while. I would still pick up plenty of snacks every week but mostly non-refrigerated except for a few things that would fit on ice in a cooler, and I wasn't going back for more ice again the same week.

Things like a gallon of milk were only a fraction more money than a half-gallon, but they would outlast the ice and still be good toward the end of the week once the ice had all melted, when it was still somewhat cool water in the ice chest. But not for very long after that. So on a regular basis I would consume more toward the end of the week than I would the first few days. Stepping up to the plate to get the cooler ready to dry out for Monday. Just reaching the "end-of-the-line" more frequently than the doomsday approach in the Office video :)

[amcunicorns]

Congrats on the new addition to your family! For me, I wish I had spent more time building deeper relationships with friends and mentors. The grind made me miss out on a lot of connection that now feels more meaningful than ever.

[bilsbie]

I wish I had held out for jobs in areas that interested me. I’ve always gotten bigger paying offers in boring jobs and gone with those but now I’m pigeonholed into boring skills and industries.

[mikewarot]

I wish I had spoken up and got rid of all of the stuff 25 years ago. This was the single worst self own in my life.

Never pay to store stuff.

[the__alchemist]

Went to a research university and studied a hard science.

Did steroids in my 20s, long-enough to secure a long-term partner.

[billconan]

work harder at school/invest when I had cash