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Ask HN: What are the most inspirational blog posts you've ever read?

140 points| ruswick | 14 years ago | reply

What are the posts that have inspired you the most?

51 comments

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[+] edw519|14 years ago|reply
I know OP is asking for a blog post, but there is no blog post that inspires me more that either of these 2 short videos:

Dick and Rick Hoyt: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UH943Az_lPQ

Derek Redmond, 1992 Olympics: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZlXWp6vFdE

[+] solutionyogi|14 years ago|reply
I can not watch Dick/Rick Hoyt's video without choking up. Whenever I am feeling down and feel that there is no way out, I watch their video for inspiration.

I personally think that this video of Team Hoyt has better details about the story behind their struggle.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDnrLv6z-mM&feature=relat...

[+] relaunched|14 years ago|reply
I'd never see the Hoyt video before and that had me in tears. As a father, I'm humbled.
[+] jseliger|14 years ago|reply
I send this as part of my "last e-mail" to students every semester:

This is the post that could but probably won't change your life: "There’s no speed limit. (The lessons that changed my life)" http://sivers.org/kimo . I say "could," because most of you probably won't click the link; of those of you who do, most of you won't read the whole thing; of those of you who do, most of you won't get it; of those who do, most won't implement it. On the off chance that one out of 50 of you let this change your life, however, I'm sending it. Derek Sivers, who posted "There's no speed limit," also wrote a book called Anything You Want, [1] and reading it is probably one of the best ways you can spend an hour.

[1] http://www.amazon.com/dp/1936719118?ie=UTF8&tag=thstsst-...

[+] Sukotto|14 years ago|reply
Why not send that at the start of the school year instead of the end? Maybe along with a challenge to learn your class material in half the semester. Or assign it as an optional reading assignment worth a small bonus % if they submit a brief plan on how they would apply the advice in that article in your own class.

Is the tone of your email what you really intend? To me it reads like "I'm probably wasting my valuable time casting pearls before you swine. But just in case even ONE of you is worthy, here is some good advice from Derek Sivers". I find it dismissive, bordering on contempt.

[+] hef19898|14 years ago|reply
Yep, definitely agree!

And a lot of the things pg wrote. Not a single essay, more the overall picture he discribed.

[+] sachitgupta|14 years ago|reply
Mark Cuban on success and motivation: http://blogmaverick.com/2011/04/07/shark-tank-success-motiva...

The whole post is gold, but this is the best part:

  The point of all this is that it doesn’t matter how many
  times you fail. It doesn’t matter how many times you almost  
  get it right. No one is going to know or care about your  
  failures, and either should you. All you have to do is
  learn   from them and those around you because…

  All that matters in business is that you get it right once.
[+] olalonde|14 years ago|reply
Paul Graham's "How To Make Wealth" was truly inspiring to me at the time. http://paulgraham.com/wealth.html
[+] SatvikBeri|14 years ago|reply
This part really struck a chord with me, and forced me to stretch beyond merely doing slightly better than the average:

"a smart hacker working very hard without any corporate bullshit to slow him down should be able to do work worth about $3 million a year."

[+] firefoxman1|14 years ago|reply
A lot of the links I've seen people post in this thread are the kind of stuff I used to see a lot more on HN. Sure, I enjoy the HTML5/Rails/Python/(insert buzzword) posts, but it's too bad that a lot of new HN members will miss out on awesome posts with titles like "it's not about the idea" or "just ship it" etc.
[+] jonwjones|14 years ago|reply
Iron and the Soul - Henry Rollins http://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/2009/03/16/iron-and-the-soul...

Technically it is a magazine article but I stumbled upon the repost of it on nerd fitness.

[+] debacle|14 years ago|reply
As a side note, I used to think Henry Rollins was kind of a douche until I started reading his writings.

I still am not really interested in listening to him speak, but he is a very compelling writer.

[+] dhathorn|14 years ago|reply
Non-technical.

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~pausch/news/index.html

[+] igorgue|14 years ago|reply
"The Last Lecture" is probably my favorite book, I recommend it to everyone.
[+] relaunched|14 years ago|reply
This was another amazingly inspirational talk. I highly recommend it to everyone. It's funny, emotional, well thought through and with everything going on in Prof Pausch's life at the time, one could only hope to leave this type of message to their family / children and the world.