Ask HN: What have you done that mattered?

9 points by 57844743385 4 years ago | 25 comments

JohnFen 4 years ago |

I try to do something that makes a positive difference in someone's life every day (even if only a little).

But I suppose, if I had to pick one thing, it would be a habit I started with my very first successful business. Getting a business going taught me that without the support of my community, no success is feasible. So I started consciously repaying my community for their help.

Ever since then, I take 10% of every dollar that comes in my door and put it away somewhere where I'll keep my hands off of it. That is money that no longer exists in my mind, and I call it "paying myself first". Then, I take 10% of the remaining money and donate it to my community.

I don't necessarily donate it all in cash, but count volunteer time as part of the "tithe" as well. Some of that money goes to making care packages that I personally give out to homeless persons as well. And I try to focus on smaller, local charities that are usually overlooked by others.

I know for a fact that this habit has made a very serious difference in at least several people's lives.

throwaway8451 4 years ago |

I pulled back a friend who had already stepped onto the street when a truck suddenly and unexpectedly turned right. To this day, I think that I saved his life.

cm2012 4 years ago |

I've paid millions of dollars in federal and state taxes, which mostly goes to social security, medicare and medicaid which are vital services for the poor.

Of course I have lots of random things outside of that but when I look at the scale of it it's probably the biggest.

mikece 4 years ago |

Having and raising children.

jimmyvalmer 4 years ago | |

A stock answer to be sure, but we have to assume "mattered" in this context refers to a nontrivial improvement to our species. Bearing children is arguably a trivial process (in the sense that nature has made it as frictionless as possible), and the improvement is yet to be substantiated.

mikece 4 years ago | | |

Going through the physical acts required for procreation could be trivial to some, I suppose. What's not trivial is the sense of wonder and amazement when you hold your child in your arms for the first time, as well as the realization that nothing you've done or will do in your life will compare to how you protect, raise, encourage, and prepare this child to be a powerful force for change in the world long after you have gone.

JohnFen 4 years ago | | |

As a parent, I'd just like to say that having children is easy. Being a decent parent, however, is very difficult!

Having babies alone doesn't make a tremendous difference. Raising children well, however, does.

h2odragon 4 years ago |

Agreed that "Kids" is the first answer. My second is "puppies"

Somewhere further down the list is this: https://web.archive.org/web/20030601115204/http://www.snafu....

For a bit there I helped a lot of people do some creative things including what became "VPNs". and almost without effort, merely by sharing something I'd made for myself.

flightless 4 years ago |

I make a monthly donation to charity: water that I believe directly impacts the life of some ~20 people in South America, Africa, and Asia who otherwise wouldn't be able to access clean drinking water. It's not like I created the charity, so I don't think I'm some superhero for doing the minimal thing of giving them some of my hard-earned money, but I do think the charity is making a difference in real peoples' lives.

f0e4c2f7 4 years ago |

I've helped some friends learn how to get into tech who now make a great living and enjoy their jobs.

I consider that among my greatest accomplishments.

luhego 4 years ago |

I helped a friend to land a programming job. He was smart but he had a harsh life.

mvind 4 years ago |

I matter to myself, hence my existence seems to answer your question

giantg2 4 years ago |

First we have to define what matters.

Even without a strict definition, I don't think I've contributed anything that truly mattered to society. And I probably never will.

mindcrime 4 years ago | |

I don't think I've contributed anything that truly mattered to society. And I probably never will.

Consider time-scales and scope. On the time-scale and scope of "lifetime of the universe" where everything dies in the end, and the universe probably ends as a cold, lifeless nothingness, I think it's fair to say that pretty much nothing matters at all.

On the other hand, at a more local level, if a homeless person is pan-handling on a street corner and you give them 10 bucks which they use to buy a hot meal afterwards, that likely mattered to them very much indeed.

Heck, just saying "thank you" or "you look nice" or paying some other compliment to a fellow human at the right time and place might actually be something that really mattered although you may never wind up realizing it.

JohnFen 4 years ago | | |

> Heck, just saying "thank you" or "you look nice" or paying some other compliment to a fellow human at the right time and place might actually be something that really mattered although you may never wind up realizing it.

It has happened twice in my life that something someone said -- just in my earshot, not even directed at me -- has caused me to make a major change in my life that was very much for the better. The people that uttered the words will never know the serious impact they had on me.

I often wonder if it has happened that something I was saying was overheard and had a similar impact on someone else. I hope so.

runjake 4 years ago |

Not much.

- Raised a few decent humans.

- Saved a few people's lives (violence, accidents, drowning). I seem to show up in the right (wrong?) places at the right times.

- Helped a few animals.

JohnFen 4 years ago | |

I think you understate your actions. Raising decent human beings is something that matters to us all. Saving someone's life is something that means literally everything to those people and their loved ones. It's hard to matter more than that.

You've done quite a lot.

runjake 4 years ago | | |

Yeah. I meant "not much" with regard to tech/work. I'm just a code monkey/netadmin/sysadmin, haven't done much except keep the gears turning.

WRT to some of those people's lives, I've checked in with a couple of those people years after and they have families and kids now, so that is indescribably-heartwarming to see, but not in a back-patting kind of way, if that makes sense.

mindcrime 4 years ago |

Honestly? To my mind, the answer is "Not much". And pretty much zero of that involves my work in tech, as much as I hate to admit it.

Probably the biggest thing I've done in my life that truly "mattered" was the time I spent volunteering as a firefighter. During that time I was never involved in any dramatic, news-reel-worthy rescues or anything, but there were some times that our presence made a difference in terms of saving someone's home from burning down or whatever. And we probably helped save a life or two, with some of the vehicle extrications and other non-fire calls we were at.

One call in particular stands out in my memory, but let me give you some background info first. With pure volunteer fire departments, its often quite difficult to get a "quick stop" on a structure fire and keep the fire to "room and contents". Quite often on structure fires in rural areas, the home is damaged beyond repair, if not burned "to the dirt" as they say. The reasons are multiple, but a lot of it reduces to response time (from dispatch to "on scene") due to travel distances + the time it takes volunteers to respond to the station from wherever they are. This is especially pronounced in the daytime hours when volunteers are more likely to be at work, or further away for various reasons.

So one day I was at our (Supply VFD) station during the day, just hanging out. I think I was working a night job at the time. Or maybe I just had the day off, I don't remember now. Anyway, I'm at the station and we get paged out along with Bolivia VFD and Winnabow VFD for a structure fire in Bolivia's district (but near the line between their district and ours). I radio in to dispatch to say our engine is standing by waiting for a crew. By happenstance a member from another neighboring department was driving by and was more or less right in front of our station. We were old friends as I'd formerly been with that department, so he radios me and asks if I want him to come roll with me. I tell him yes and a minute or two later we're en-route. We're already way ahead of the normal VFD response curve at this point, and we wind up being the first arriving engine. Bolivia's chief was on scene via personal vehicle, and he and I took a 1-3/4" attack line in and knocked down the fire, while my friend from the other department ran the pump. The fire had started in the kitchen, probably on the stove-top, and we managed to contain it to the kitchen and save the structure to the point that the family was able to have the damage repaired and keep living there.

That didn't happen a lot for the response time reasons mentioned above, plus water supply issues and other factors that make firefighting difficult in rural areas. Most of the time we wound up focusing on protecting exposures more than "saving" the original fire building.

So yeah, small thing in the grand scope of things. But to the family that lived in that house, our actions that day "mattered". It's one of the few times in my life I can look back and see that very clear, direct line between my participation in something and an outcome that mattered to somebody.

poulpy123 4 years ago |

Nothing really

superflit2 4 years ago |

A lot.

1. Saved a friend from killing his cheater girlfriend;

2. Saved a lady from Rape;

3. Mentored a guy selling Coconut at beach to learn programming and now his is buying a House for his mother;

4. Shredded a mortgage application from a friend 1 month before the real state going bust, saving him Thousand of dollars

5. Mentored a lot of people helping cope and fix their problems.

I am not perfect not even a "decent" guy. I am just polite and gentle. Open doors to people, helping people carry stuff from the car to the house. Etc.

Then if you think I have all figured it out? Lame guess.

31k in Debt, no direction on career and working long hours. Not super smart. Not social skills aware.

Just your normal asperger guy that like to help.