Ask HN: What book changed your life in 2015?

Re:Ask HN: What book changed your life in 2015? by meric on Saturday January 16, 2016 @06:10AM (#10914995)

There's an idea in my mind I've been trying to make happen. I started learning programming when I was 11 to build it. I've tried numerous times, each time, for a lack of skill it was beyond reach. It's only this year, 15 years later, I feel like I have the knowhow and resources to complete it. It's on this path that I've been following for the last decade and a half, I've gotten into this software engineering career, I met my girlfriend in the office building where I work, I've become best friends with a fellow programmer for the past 10 years, and I find a kind of peace and contentment every time I find myself taking steps to actively pursue this idea. I never knew, never thought about and still don't know whether achieving the idea will make me money, make me more attractive to the opposite sex, or help me become popular and make new friends, but looking back in hindsight, it's because of moments when I didn't think about these "things", when the idea is consuming me and I can't help but try to work on, that I have all these things, today. And it's when I've temporarily given up on my idea to pursue these "things", I lose them.

Do I have the idea, or does the idea have me?

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Re:Ask HN: What book changed your life in 2015? by drakonka on Saturday January 16, 2016 @10:36AM (#10915518)

I'm in what seems like a similar situation. I've had an idea for ten years and have actively or passively worked toward the direction of implementing it since then. At this point the idea has almost become like a living thing in my mind, and when I get distracted from it with other things like work (or even just relaxing instead of thinking about in my spare time) those things suffer, too. It's like the drive towards the idea fuels other, seemingly unrelated aspects of daily life.

I don't think of it as an "it has me or I have it" situation - it's become almost a symbiotic relationship. I help bring the idea to life, it helps me maintain focus and improve knowledge in other aspects of my life. If I abandon it other things seem to suffer, too.

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Re:Ask HN: What book changed your life in 2015? by cconcepts on Monday January 18, 2016 @01:52AM (#10922969)

I can't tell you whether something has you or you have it, but I think this quote by Albert Einstein is helpful:

“We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us happy is something to be enthusiastic about.”

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