Claude helped me find direction in life

7 points by timoth3y 62 days ago | 2 comments

This is not a programming achievement or a side hustle. It’s just something I think the HN community will appreciate.

About 16 years ago I was going through some rough times, and I started a daily habit of writing down anything that happened that made me feel happy, connected, or worthwhile and noting why it did so.

Even after life improved, I enjoyed this practice so much that I made a Sunday ritual of looking back on the week and writing down all the little magic moments in my life.

I turn 60 in a few months, and have been wondering what I should be doing next.

I asked Claude to analyze over 16 years of these weekly notes and to highlight any common themes and patterns found in the things that have made me feel happy and fulfilled over the years and to illustrate those themes with specific examples.

The results are a bit too personal to share here. They weren’t surprising exactly, but reading them over was an emotional experience. In the end, it turned out that Claude’s analysis of what really made me fulfilled was better than my own.

adamredwoods 62 days ago |

I'm glad it has helped you. I've used it for some mild life experiences, but I am suspicious about sharing deep emotional experiences with a private company that stores everything. I wonder if creating a throw-away account would offer more anonymity.

timoth3y 61 days ago | |

I thought about that as well. It's certainly a concern.

In the end I decided that the concrete benefits from giving Anthropic access to this kind of data outweigh the potential risks. Granted, they might be banking on me making this exact, naieve calculation, but still.