> Find pants that fit/look good/are comfortable and buy 15 pairs.

Until your waist size changes and excess pairs go to waste.

I have 15 pairs of size 38 (thanks 'rona years) 8 pairs of size 36. It is stupid to get rid of the ones that don't fit, your weight will fluctuate throughout your life. Also you will eventually need new pants.

Then try to make sure that both you and your pants are well fit before buying them, as a shopping hack.

Then keep your waist size the same over the long term as a life hack.

Good luck with keeping your waist size into your 40s

That's why it's called a hack, there is some luck involved along with the perseverance.

In my case I've recently been rewearing a much older less stylish belt as an example of what life was like when Ronald Reagan went from the first low-class actor in memory to become elected president of the USA.

It was just barely tight enough to begin with and I ended up having to poke some additional holes so it would still hold up my pants. For that reason it's been relatively ugly for quite some time, but has never failed to fit.

A common saying back then was "belt tightening of the '80's".

That was 40 years ago, but no better time than the present to break it out again.

I have fluctuated 36-40 (mens US) for the last 20 years. If you are gaining or losing tremendous amounts of weight in a short period of time you should probably talk to your doctor because there may genuinely be something medical going on.

How about dont smoke as a life optimization hack

Well that's too much optimization, nobody wants that.

Literally stated in the response that this was meant as a way to approach things other than smoking and stated that i havent smoked in over ten years but kudos to you for the one upmanship. Once the reddit strike is over take this kind of posting back over there.

What does it mean for other aspects of life? Funny you mention reddit when my account is about 40x older than yours.

It means efficiency, organization amd optimization. I have had maybe 12 different usernames since starting hn. I routinely get off the site for long periods of time because interactions like this are why I got off reddit circa 2013, and got on hn some time after that.

Years before I started, I made a habit of carrying one or more lighters around. Was real handy when somebody needed one, even if most of the time the only use I got out of it was melting stray threads coming out of my clothes.