The advice I'd give to my 18 year old self is funnily enough something I knew at the time: Kill yourself now, it's all downhill from here. 52 yrs old now and the slope is getting steeper lol
I know a number of folks who remarried and found happiness, and even had kids (!) after 50-55. Life isn’t over until you decide. Engage with the world, try new things for a time and see what sticks.
I have kids who are successful and seem happy. I sincerely regret ever single sacrifice I made to get them there. I wish I could have my life again so I could fuck it up even better :|
"I'll tell you an anecdote that played a role in my life. I was about twenty-two and one day I was in a terrible state. We were living in Sibiu, a city in the provinces where I spent my whole youth, and where my father was the priest of the city. That day only my mother and I were home.... All of a sudden I had a fantastic fit of despair, I threw myself on the sofa and said "I can't take it anymore." And my mother said this: "If I had known, I would have had an abortion." That made an extraordinary impression on me. It didn't hurt me, not at all. But later I said, "That was very important. I'm simply an accident. Why take it all so seriously?" Because, in effect, it's all without substance."
- Emil Cioran, Writing at Risk: Interviews in Paris With Uncommon Writers
The older you get the less you have to lose. It sounds like you need a midlife re-evaluation of what makes you happy. Go run up some credit card debt and live a little. They won't make you pay when you die.
Along these lines, I don't have any words for my younger self, but I would probably thrash the hell out of him with my fists until he stopped being such a brat.
To respond to a comment like that with a goading personal attack is a whole new level of unkindness. That breaks the site guidelines badly. If you keep doing that, we're going to have to ban you. I don't want to ban you, so would you mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the spirit of this site more to heart?
If the spirit of the site is "someone advocating suicide and telling a board full of people - many of whom are young - that life is downhill from 18" is perfectly kosher, then I think you do want to ban me, because I find that abhorrent. Sucks that that guys life went badly, boo hoo etc, but the least we can do is prevent his poisonous mindset influence even more people.
So yes I can see why you find my comment objectionable. If you did not find his comment even more objectionable, let's call it quits.
I don't see the comment as an attempt to influence others. It describes the commenter's experience. We have a site guideline that covers such cases: "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."
