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

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.

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).

* 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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Went to a research university and studied a hard science.

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

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.

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.

work harder at school/invest when I had cash