I feel like there is wisdom in "Make hay while the sun shines." When you're young and unencumbered by responsibility and family, when your cognitive abilities are at their peak, when your energy is endless, when your body is strong and healthy, when your knees work, and your fingers can type without arthritis: that's the optimal time to work and earn. Min-max that salary and stay healthy. Due to compounding interest, a dollar made in your 20's is far, far more valuable than a dollar made in your 60's. Every morsel you make and save early means your retirement comes earlier. There will never be a more efficient time to earn those days of leisure that will come later if you stay healthy.
Take that vacation to Bali when you're young, and you are wasting your prime, strongest days that could be making you financially secure and/or independent. Go windsurfing for a year in Ibiza after college, and you're adding 5 years to your working life--retiring at 62 instead of 57. It didn't sound like much time when I was young, but today, as I turn elderly, I'm counting down the years until I can finally retire, and kicking myself for goofing around when I was younger. If I could do it all again, I'd have tried harder to get into big tech early, I'd have taken comp and 401(k)s and advancement more seriously. I'd have played fewer video games, traveled less, and relaxed on the beach less.
Life isn't short--it's LONG, and you have a brief moment in that life to maximize your preparation for the rest of it. Use it wisely.
> I'd have played fewer video games, traveled less, and relaxed on the beach less.
This seems totally opposite of what old people say on their death bed. You sound so obsessed with money here. My guess is your probably very wealthy relative to the average peer and your too naive to realize it. You have to keep telling yourself this philosophy to justify not wind surfing in Bali.
You think your gonna wind surf when your 60? You think it's smart to spend your 'non arthritis' fingers on coding?
Lots of people I know in a generation or two above me regret not saving when they were younger. Now they're nervous about being 70 and having to retire soon but not feeling stable, or feeling that they may financially burden their children.
Compounding interest on money means, as previously mentioned, money you earn at 20 will be 10x as valuable compared to money earned towards a typical retirement age. With tech having strong early salaries and heavy stock compensation I think this is even more the case.
> You think your gonna wind surf when your 60? You think it's smart to spend your 'non arthritis' fingers on coding?
How about 40? Because if you start working at 21 in tech and you're aggressive about your career that's when you can retire.
Do experiences compound? Will I enjoy an experience more at 25 than 45? Maybe, and there's always some balance, of course. No one should work themselves to death.
But I worked obscene hours for my first 4 years of my career, lived with many roommates, and saved a lot of money. And I started years later than most, as I entered the market at 24 instead of 21.
It buys me great peace of mind to know that I am financially stable and independent, that I can take care of friends and family who are not, and that I have bought myself decades of retirement.
> Do experiences compound? Will I enjoy an experience more at 25 than 45? Maybe, and there's always some balance, of course. No one should work themselves to death.
There are experiences you may be incapable of considering later in life. Doing stupid, immature shit is fun and forms a person in many ways. Some errors are also better made earlier.
Yeah I mean I'm not advocating for some sort of monk-like isolation where you have No Fun and work 24/7. Just as I'm sure people aren't suggesting living a wild life where no consequences or future is considered.
I'm just saying that tipping the balance for a few years can be a really good tradeoff, and to counter the "deathbed" anecdote above.
I think many experiences do compound. Most people who take the traditional path of working straight after school trade security for reference experiences which help in understanding what they want, and helping deal with challenges further down the line. For some this is fine, security is what they want and the 'what ifs' and opportunity cost on growth experiences will not bother them. For others this may cause more existential problems down the line.
As a generalising anecdote, some of the greatest people I have worked with had very non-traditional paths early on, and I find them to have a greater 'big picture' sense, more resiliency and more humour in the face of adversity. But are not as rich in their 40s as others.
I think the question of how experiences compound is totally interesting and worth asking (which is why I did :P). It's something I think is worth considering when thinking through how you prioritize your life and your goals.
Doing things that make you a happier, healthier (mentally and physically) person at age 25 my seriously pay off vs doing those things at age 45. In fact I strongly suspect they do.
> Do experiences compound? Will I enjoy an experience more at 25 than 45? Maybe, and there's always some balance, of course. No one should work themselves to death.
It doesn't really have to compound. If you travel a few weeks every other year in your 20s or 30s it adds up to a lot more experiences than if you hadn't. When you get up to 40 it makes a meaningful difference.
Before the pandemic you could take a flight almost anywhere for less than $1000. Not using that opportunity ends up defining people, or at least their situation, whether they like it or not.
And don't get me wrong. I understand that it isn't always so simple. Still if I had to choose I would choose the version of myself that is willing and capable of traveling.
Could you go traveling when you are 40? Sure, but it isn't necessarily the same thing.
The author of “Die With Zero” makes an interesting observation: Experiences do compound in a way: the longer you have an experience, the more you can surface the memory over your life, leading to memories of memories which are themselves pleasant.
Has it ever occured to you that you are getting paid off the work off your friends and family and by giving their money back they are simply back to square one?
I saw this posted elsewhere on HN and it really resonated with me.
“I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.”
It pays to understand oneself. Why do people want _every_ fig on the tree? It's because of greed, and desire.
If yo can imagine yourself be satisfied with obtaining just one of those figs, instead of only being satisfied from having it all, you'd have a much better time alive.
It's the same root philosophy as finishing one project to completion, rather than start many but never finishing it to the end.
I made the decision to take the nearby fig, because, like, it's there, it's a little green, but hey, enjoy it! And I did. And you know what? After I awhile, I decided I didn't like it after all. I spit it out. I climbed for another fig, and even though I got that one too, it turns out...I really enjoy climbing for figs, perhaps more than I enjoy figs.
This probably changes depending on who you talk to, to me idk if its about wanting every fig. I think its worrying about which fig is the best, and trying to figure out what "best" even means. and curiosity of other figs.
And how much time should you spend on trying to know your self, to pick the best fig.
Figs are disgusting. Now I'll try and visualize desirable kinds of things as fig trees, making it easier to quickly pass them up and go for something I'd want more. Thanks.
Write down the things you love and find an intersection or invent that intersection. You can't enjoy them all 100% but you don't have to leave all the things you love behind.
It’s pretty easy to get a PR in Canada. Once here, get a tech job. In 3 years you will have a citizenship and a easy way to get a big tech job in the US ( TN Visa).
Not at all. If your road in life reaches a certain level of fulfillment, you stop thinking about what could have been and spend your days counting your blessings.
Many of us have an innate drive for diverse experiences and forming fond memories around them, to the point it feels like it's never enough.
Sometimes it is those who are looking for a void to fill in life, because their childhood lacked a crucial element to healthy development that they end up looking for anything that could scratch that itch; and that itch is often nostalgia waiting to be found, perhaps falsely, because that void seeks something else to satisfy it relationally.
Just as you can find meaning in the path you took. See how people will be happy even after missing some opportunities - https://youtu.be/4q1dgn_C0AU?t=1001 . It depends on our prefrontal cortex!
Old people on their death bed are telling us what they want to do now, couched as what they would have wanted to do. But they made the decisions they did for reasons that seemed good at the time, and it might well be that they'd make the same ones. Wishing things were different is not the same as a plan to make them different.
Or, as I've said about this before: why worry about what death-bed you wants? That person literally has no future, but you do have a future to worry about!
I probably said this before. The deathbed perspective is an exercise of taking your entire life experiences and distilling them to get a concrete core as seen from the "final checkpoint". The key is knowing that there will be no future experiences to alter the result, and that makes the determination as final and as accurate as it can ever reasonably be. It's not a decision making tool, it can't be used to alter the future. It's a conclusion, a punchline.
But if you want to see what's important now that's a decision, a seed for your future, and it's open to change and evolution. This cannot be more different from a real deathbed perspective. So taking this decision by imagining one of infinite possibilities of your future up to your distant deathbed makes no sense. Even meeting your future self wouldn't give good insights on any "road not taken". An imagined, relatively random, and distant future outcome can't help you decide what's best in the present more than flipping a coin will.
The people drawing these conclusions may have no future but they do have the entire past. When you ask for a game review you're more likely to go for one coming from someone who's finished the game rather than someone who played the tutorial. That deathbed conclusion is meant to pass on what were the best and worst parts, not what should have been done differently because finishing the game means you know the outcome of exactly one of the possible move combinations. So if most old gamers say a particular mission deserves attention it's not a guarantee it does but it's a strong indication.
> Old people on their death bed are telling us what they want to do now…
Are they? I assumed they were telling you what has given the most fulfillment, what were their wisest decisions now that they can Monday-morning quarterback.
When I tell my kids my home has been my greatest financial asset and I wish I had bought a home earlier, I am not wishing to buy another home now.
> But they made the decisions they did for reasons that seemed good at the time…
Agree, but the point is that they have hindsight now and, had they this knowledge 50 years ago, they believe the calculus driving those decisions likely would have been different.
I wish I had asked my older relatives more about their younger days before they died and took those experiences with them to their graves. I am very much into recording our family genealogy for my children and future generations and I have lost a trove of valuable narratives because I turned to genealogy too late in my life.
I use it as another example of legitimately wishing I had made different decisions earlier in my life.
That's funny, and a good point. Although I think the whole deathbed thing is more of a framework for figuring out what you want, now, without over-prioritizing preparing for the future
It is important to realize in America at least, retirement seems a bit further out of reach to younger generations. So this may be really important advice for those entering what may well be the peak of an unprecedented bull market that padded the accounts of those retiring or retired, but that may not have done anything for someone young under or unemployed.
So maximizing income seems like pretty good advice right now, especially if we have bumpy economic roads ahead.
The good news is that thanks to a shift towards remote friendliness, holding a high paying tech job (which I'm assuming is something many on HN are capable of) while in Ibiza or Bali may not be as incompatible as it was for older generations, wifi permitting.
> This seems totally opposite of what old people say on their death bed.
You should nevze give any weight to whatever strangers say on their deathbed because they actually could have done things the way they wanted but every living day actively chose not to do it. Regrets are bullshit.
It's tough... at 47 I'm old enough to have felt the decades past turn into a scant handful of memories. When you're older, the past matters less. The now matters more. Not being able to pay for good health care matters. Not being able to eat what you want or take vacations matters. When you're old, you realize "Oh yeah, life goes on, long after the thrill of living is gone" and you have the now to worry about. But I don't know, even if I can't remember all of it, some of what I did when I was younger made me who I am now. I'd say plan on working until you're at least 50 and taking some time to smell the roses, especially if you have kids.
The other thing I've realized being old: if you're going to have kids, have them young. There is absolutely nothing on this earth which is as valuable as the time you'll have with your children. I've waited until late in life to have kids, and it strikes me now that it means I might not ever get to meet my grandkids. I'll have decades less time with my kids to pass on advice and support them. I think if there's anything I'd trade my youth for, it's spending time raising kids. I'd gladly work a few hard years in my 40s and 50s for that privilege.
The need for balance cannot be stated enough. All things have to be done when it's their time. Spending your entire youth working yourself to the bone to retire early is just as bad as trying to spend all your old years globetrotting to make up for not doing it earlier in life.
Life is like good food: you'll want all ingredients properly mixed in at the right time (with some added randomness and creativity). Trying to eat the ingredients one by one in some order that you think will make the food better is almost guaranteed to disappoint.
> if you're going to have kids, have them young. There is absolutely nothing on this earth which is as valuable as the time you'll have with your children
This is entirely self-centered. The kids, instead, benefit immensely from having parents with experience, emotional maturity, financial stability, better work-life balance.
You might not get to meet your grand[grand]kids but this is a sacrifice parents should be willing to make to provide a good life to their kids.
I believe what is being said is that in non-Western/fully isolated nuclear families you have a lot of people and experiences you can rely on. So having a child at a younger age like your mid-20s is not that big of a deal.
I had a friend with parents who were retiring when they were in early high school. It sounded like a rather lonely childhood borne of a fifty year age gap. When they wanted to play catch with dad- well, dad was sixty and no longer spry.
I very much agree with your sentiment about children. I'm into my 30's and feeling the ticking clock. Part of me wishes I had had children 10 years ago. Unfortunately, having children means less time and effort to put into career advancement. Getting and keeping a job as a software developer is challenging enough already without trying to keep a family together too.
35 is considered "advanced maternal age", where there is more risk to both the mother and baby. Given that it takes ~2 years to make a baby, ideally you should start having kids no later than 35 - 2n, where n is the number of kids you plan to have.
I wish we'd stop perpetuating this myth of "the time that's right for you".
Biology unfortunately or fortunately requires women to have healthy kids until a certain age, and the more women are aware of it the better for them (that is if they plan on having any)
That sounds terrible. You're waiting to be old to be happy? To enjoy life?
Maybe it's just how you sounded - maybe you're telling people not to sacrifice their future for their present. But no one should sacrifice their present _completely_ for their future.
Mostly because, well, you don't know if you'll have a future. "Stay healthy" won't stop you from developing cancer, heart disease, etc.
Fwiw I have luckily been able to do what the grandparent suggested. I entered big tech early in my career, worked hard and advanced, by luck or by skill who can say? My ship rose with the tide. Now I'm wealthy enough to provide anything my family could reasonably want for the rest of our lives, barring some kind of black swan event. And I am well pleased with this outcome.
This did not require a decade and a half of unhappiness! Did it require me to sometimes put aside my immediate wants for the sake of the future? Yes. Did it require some measure of frugality? Also yes. But I also had great times with friends. I got married and had kids. We took vacations, spent time with family, engaged in hobbies, etc.
There are some things I couldn't do while I was working hard. A gap year was out of the question. But those things are not necessary for happiness.
> I entered big tech early in my career, worked hard and advanced, by luck or by skill who can say?
You can. If you earned a significant amount of your savings because of stock or an exit event then it was, likely, biased in some way. It is truly great for you to have had everything come together as described.
> Now I'm wealthy enough to provide anything my family could reasonably want for the rest of our lives, barring some kind of black swan event.
This is not the usual outcome. Plenty of people have burned out going for it. Sometimes multiple times. And some have struck it big with little to no effort, right place right time as it's said. There is no right answer to this topic that anyone else can prescribe. It's up to you and if you don't own the path and the outcome you will feel a level of "waste" if and when your life doesn't yield the expectations you've set.
I bet a gap year was not out of the question. Or at least a gap 3-6 months between switching jobs is easily doable.
Perhaps they are not necessary for happiness but I bet if you had took that 3-12 months to do whatever it is you wanted to do it'd be the time you look back at most fondly.
Compound interest is great but salary tends to compound as well. At least in the tech sector. I've gone from 60k to 200k in about 8 years. So even though I'm missing that nest egg saving today is way easier than it was in my 20s.
Yeah, but sometimes… Life hits hard and you‘ll miss out on these days.
When I turned 22 in 2008, my mom surprised me with her having sarcoidosis, a disease which will turn functional cells into non-functional ones. Quite an issue when it starts in your lungs. A year later, my father surprised me with him having cancer.
Long story short, they passed away in 2013 and 2017. I should also mention that I have four younger siblings. I raised my little sister until the beginning of 2020, when she turned 18. And then, the pandemic hit.
Now, I‘m ready for everything I missed in my mid-twenties. Party like there is no tomorrow, make stupid mistakes and f*ck around (literally and metaphorically).
Yet that means I‘ll be unable to live a „normal“ life by our societie's standards, because I already should have wife and kids by the age of 35…
I'm 36,
my 11 year old son's mom passed away from cancer last year, and 2 days later cancer was found in my fiancee. She passed away 3 months ago.
I now share custody of my son with his stepdad...
There's not much "normal" about it, but it's the best thing I/we can do for him given the circumstances. Family is what you make it.
I would focus on enjoying life and doing what you feel is best with no regard for what seems normal.
Why did you raise your younger sister until she was 18? Did she go off to university?
You can also party and fuck around in your 30s. It's different than 20s of course, but still great!
Also, I'd try to refrain from comparing yourself go the "normal" life. You've clearly had a unique journey (beyond "normal" might be in TV shows), and I am certain you've learnt a lot through it.
You're clearly a legend for looking after your family in the way that you did. I am sure your brother's and sisters will appreciate it in the future if they've not made it clear already.
Well, in Germany you are no longer a minor after passing 18. Before that, you need to have someone to look after you. Usually, that's your parent's job, but if they are gone, it can be grandparents, aunts & uncles, your older siblings or a complete stranger. So I applied for that role, as that was the last promise I gave to my mum - that I would look after my little sister. Well, my sister had a boyfriend at that time she turned 18, so they wanted to move together. And legally speaking, my guardianship ended on that day she turned 18.
I’m one of those fools who took a few years off before college, after college, and decided to up and move to a faraway country while I was young.
It’s very likely I’d have more money if I went straight to work while I was younger instead of goofing off. I could probably have paychecks twice as big as I do now.
But you know what? My worst days in the place I live now are better than my best days in my home country. My money goes farther here. I feel like the things I do actually matter now. I had time to develop personal skills and I feel like a better person for it.
Want to pursue money and prioritize your last 5 years of life (and ignore the very real possibility you’ll die or become disabled before then)? That’s fine. But you’re not going to be a failure if you forgo that unless you’re defining success as purely moving up a massive corporate ladder.
Go windsurfing for a year in Ibiza after college, and you're adding 5 years to your working life--retiring at 62 instead of 57.
You may have a grand plan to retire at 57, but what if you love the work you're doing then? What if you die at 56? What if your employer is ageist and fires you at 50? What if the economy collapses in 30 years time and wipes out your pension fund? What if your knees give out at 57 and you're confined to your house for your entire retirement?
You're not giving up a year of fun aged 20 for 5 years of fun at 57 - you're trading a year of fun now for the potential of 5 years more fun in the future. Maybe that's a great tradeoff, but if definitely isn't a simple tradeoff. There are deep rabbit holes of probability to explore deciding whether it's worth the risk.
What if you'd die wind surfing? What if you would have cured cancer if you'd only worked that one extra day? What if you would have met the love of your life on the train to work?
Asking a bunch of hypotheticals isn't a great way to make your point. Yes, as time goes on the chance of "bad things happens" increases. But we can also make a lot of assumptions. I don't plan to die at 57, I don't plan on being expendable at 50, I don't plan for economic collapse. They're all possible outcomes, but they're also not what I consider likely at all, or things I can reasonably prepare for.
Asking a bunch of hypotheticals isn't a great way to make your point.
The hypotheticals are the point. When you're thinking about how to live your life, to windsurf or to build your savings for example, you're considering hypotheticals because you have to make a choice about which one to do. All the others are hypotheticals because you end up not doing them. Planning is all about hypotheticals.
I guess my point is that your hypotheticals are very leading and lack important context like probability. People generally don't plan to die at 57 because most people don't die at 57 (or 40). Planning your life like that isn't really sensible.
Based on my observations (so anecdotal probably), it seems that being happy doesn't depends on what you did in the past or what you intend your future to be, but what you're doing now.
Looking bad at your younger self won't make you happy.
Looking with envy at your older self won't make you happy.
Regarding your comment, I've never found someone saying "I wish I did things differently" and being happy. The sheer fact that they spend time regretting their past shows that their present self is not fulfilled.
I agree. There's also a difference between happiness, fulfillment, and "a good life" for many people.
I can be happy playing video games and relaxing, but maybe not fulfilled. I can work hard on interesting problems and feel fulfilled, but if that's all there is in my life I wouldn't say I lived well.
Confronted with death we look to our past for comfort. We're about to experience a total loss of everything and so, naturally, we search for meaning - "it can't have all been for nothing".
That's why the "death bed" thought experiment is interesting but also probably not the right way to frame things. It forces you to question life's intrinsic meaning and value but you should also think about how you feel right now, regardless of death or meaning or value.
Here’s an interesting thought experiment for you - if you could trade 20 years of your life for 10 billion dollars, would you? Just step in a room and walk out a billionaire.
I have yet to meet someone that would accept the offer. So if you do the math, they value their time at a shockingly high rate. I’d argue, trading the best years of your life for an early retirement is the same proposal.
Steve Jobs would have given his fortune many times over to have a couple extra years. Why trade the best years of your life for an uncertain future?
I think it's worth playing this out a bit, because I'd claim there's an exponential curve here.
Offer someone 500m (hell, even 1m for many) for one year, and I doubt you'd find many who would say no. There's a margin at which you would be losing so much life experience that you wonder what you even live for (20y), while shorter periods (1, 2, 5, even 10y) aren't so defined.
Also, I read this as you lose 20y from the point of the deal (eg. 20yold coming back as a 40yold) rather than taking years off the end of your life, which I suspect is a more palatable interpretation for most.
When I have that 10 billion, I might want to extend my life just to enjoy it more, like all the rich people do. But right now? I don’t even need to think twice to accept that offer lol. My time isn’t that precious when 50% of it is spent working for food and shelter, and trying to stay fit so that I don’t stop being capable of working.
This proposal could be thought of a couple ways. Maybe I prematurely age 20 years? That sounds pretty bad. I'm currently 42. That would make me effectively 62. With twin 3 year olds and a 6 year old. That doesn't sound fun.
But what sounds even worse is they won't graduate from high school until I'm 77. Decent odds I would die before then. Even with 10 billion. Fuck that.
The other interpretation could be: the world moves on but you "fast forward". Well, I likely get to see my kids as adults, but it all zipped before my eyes.
And that sucks too. Things moves so fast at younger ages, and so far from 0-6 each age is unique, different experience. And I would never want to fast forward over that.
Maybe if I were still hanging out, playing games, and talking with friends - sure. What's 20 years - maybe I'm a little worse at games. But kids change the whole thing for me.
No I don't have kids, which is why I'm able to imagine making that choice. I agree different people will have different choices, just that the parent might need to ask a different demographic.
Even with kids, parents that aren't well off often sacrifice their wellbeing for their family. For example, people that work two jobs for a total of 16-18 hours a day aren't rare where I live. They are aware this affects their health, shortens their life span and their time with kids, but they make the choice so that their family could survive.
That was my thought too. Childhood feels so bad to many kids yhat the would happily jump 20 years ahead especially if that meant turning into billionaires. Some of them hope they'll achieve exactly that with effort and luck, and you'd be giving it to them for free.
I think you're severely underestimating what 20 years mean for your body. I'm a very fit 37 year old, and I very much notice the continued wear and tear. Recovery takes a lot longer, and the body just isn't as limber as it used to be. Partying for days on end, or some extreme sports, and maybe even some intellectual persuits are just WAAAAAY harder then they were 20 or 15 years ago. I can still do them all, but someone who thinks it's a good idea to trade in their 20s for more free time in their 40s is in for a rough surprise.
I'm not considering that at all, no. From talks with all my peers, it's pretty obvious to me that this is the very normal aging process, and TRT has too many known side effects (and unknown 2nd order side effects) to be worth it
If I could use the money to reform all economies to have a land value tax and implement a -5% interest rate on cash then surely the importance of the bottom 95% of humanity's billions of years in aggregate would massively outweigh 20 of mine. Not to mention that I myself would benefit from peace and stability which could be worth 20 years if I were to die in a conflict that cuts my life short, not to mention all the technological progress that would be accelerated and thereby improve the healthcare system.
It would be more interesting to ask how many people would trade one month for 40 million. Or six months for 250 million. It’s the same exchange rate, but I think you’d get many more takers.
I think the real problem is you’ve never met anyone who has any idea what to do with 10 billion dollars.
> if you could trade 20 years of your life for 10 billion dollars, would you? Just step in a room and walk out a billionaire.
i think it depends on which 20 years are taken - the old ones, where you're unable to anything anyway, or the young ones, which you'd need to enjoy that 10 billion?
Life is long for most, but statistically there's about a 5% chance you'll die before 50, it's better to hedge your bets imo. Also, wind surfing in Ibiza doesn't sound that fun at 60.
I worked as a software dev for a large company for 3 years and it was a complete waste in retrospect. I now make much more money and curse every second I spent in that cubicle. The corporate ladder is a low-risk low-reward path that's generally unfulfilling. For a young person it's much better strategy to explore rather than exploit early on.
I've seen more than one person die with an unspent fortune, having worked at a menial job their entire life. Don't let it happen to you.
I feel like the big tech corp life has a lot to offer but I had to grind it out for 7 years at small and mid-size companies first. I sense people who go straight into it from school don't appreciate it as much.
If your goal is maximizing money then you are somewhat correct. But that's not a good goal to have.
And even if it was ... Work is overrated. As a way to make money and altogether.
If you are in a place where they are giving you unfairly large amount of money for doing something ... sure, stay there for a while. Otherwise move. Don't think you'll be retiring at 57 or 62. Life is not that easy to predict. If you stay in the wrong place you'll never retire. And if you move to the right place in your life you might retire before you are 40.
> Due to compounding interest, a dollar made in your 20's is far, far more valuable than a dollar made in your 60's.
For me that doesn't sound solid as well. Inflation compounds too and black swan events of your life show up occasionally. In your 20's you earn so little that you can't save much, and just 10 lazy years into your career you'd be earning so much that you'd be saving many times more than you were earning in your 20s. If you don't burn stacks of cash to warm your soul, as you accumulate more knowledge and expeirience, money just starts accumulating on their own once you reach a certain age if you remained mobile and just went where their are paing best.
yes let's spend our 20s and 30s hoarding money and never doing anything fun, then when we're older and tied down with spouses and kids and aging parents we have a gigantic pile of money we can use to go on slightly "better" vacations one week a year
I don't think there's a single dying person on the planet that wishes they experienced life less in favour of making stacks.
yeah i feel this way already, at 31, starting to really feel options closing, and realizing how insignificant a lot of decisions were in the end I wish I did more with my 20s some how (not like i had a lot of money to do much with anyway)
I think the window of opportunity to keep traveling and exploring is closing fast, life's milestones are pretty much happening soon, buying a home, getting married and starting a family. I don't think Ill ever get a chance to live in another country besides the US, even for a short period of time. I probably should settle down at some point instead of constantly leaving friendships behind.
At this point its pretty clear I'll never advance as far as I would like in my physical hobbies without sacrificing a lot in my other aspects of life.
Food and cooking is something I can't really explore beyond a interest and just being an eater. I think this ties back to travel too.
There are a lot of things that are really tied up in academia. I got pretty interested in philosophy of mind last year but my enthusiasm died pretty quickly when I realized there is really no where for me to take this hobby other then satisfying my own curiosity. Somewhat similar in programming, more paths seem unobtainable. I don't think I'll ever do something like work on operating systems, anything that intersects with electronics or cutting edge. I don't have the education or even a way to test the waters. This ties back to before with life's milestones, I don't know if i feel comfortable about a risky career switch when Im making tons doing what I am already.
Please don't sell yourself short. Yes, your window of opportunity is closing at 31. But don't miss the forest for the trees: you still have a huge window.
I always had an interest in traveling and was able to do some travel in my 20s and 30s, but nowhere near the amount that I had dreamed of. A trip at age 38 made me realize just how important seeing the world was to me and I left the US the same year. I have been living abroad ever since.
I've met expats who have been living abroad since their 20s and 30s, and others who didn't leave until their 40s, 50s and 60s. And I know plenty of people who have spent even 1-3 years abroad and are now back home and they are different people (in a good way I think) because of those years.
31 is a perfect age to do many things, including live abroad. If you're "making tons", you have more options to do this than many people. The only thing stopping you is yourself. If you want to do something, "just do it". There will never be a perfect moment, and you'll never be 100% comfortable before you take the plunge.
Thanks! Yeah there's still some chance I guess but it seems to be harder to figure out how to every day. At the same time Idk how I feel about continuing to keep pushing back the other things in my life (especially with a biological clock ticking). Not sure which sacrifices are the right ones to make.
I'd suggest there are no right or wrong sacrifices when it comes to these kinds of matters. You have to decide what you want most and go for that, and find a way to not dwell on the path you didn't take.
In terms of a biological clock, nothing prevents you from meeting someone, falling in love, and starting a family if you live overseas. Lots of expats meet partners and in many places, you'll find that a lot of expats with residency are married to locals.
You can’t explore food and cooking? What are you talking about? You have to eat. So If you want to cook, then cook! One year is more than a thousand meals to develop your skill. It’s a fantastic interest to piece into a life of other things.
Heh yeah it sounds nonsensical like that. Ill explain! I mean going beyond average home cooking. Exploring cuisines and history of other cultures. Think more like tied to traveling. Like during the covid lock downs I spent a lot of time learning thai and sichuan cuisines as much as I could. I don't think without actually visiting those places, and spending time there to be immersed, talking to chefs I can never say I really know those cuisines. I cant even reliably get the ingredients in the US.
Also I cant really go train with top chefs in the world and get feedback and learn. Home cooking is a hard thing to share besides glamouring up things for like instagram. I can cook pretty well, probably put together a better meal then most local restaurants, but there's still a large gap between what I can cook and some of the places Ive eaten at just in technique and espcially creativity. I don't think I can close that gap.
Yeah but there are trade offs to these, taking a sabbatical might mean pushing off owning a home or starting a family, or moving out of this apartment that I dont like living in. Or not travelling as much as i would like or advancing in other hobbies.
> they are literally the pros.
But the chances for me to pursue something like that is disappearing.
I need to be more selective about what is important, those other doors and paths in life are closing.
> Take that vacation to Bali when you're young, and you are wasting your prime, strongest days that could be making you financially secure and/or independent.
You are lucky if you can take advantage of compounding interest. A dollar you spend on food in your 20s is just as valuable as a dollar you spend on food in your 60s.
Also, interest rates are lower than inflation in many cases.
I have a good job and a bit of money invested (about a new cars worth maybe) but there is no chance that I can become "wealthy" or retire early just by saving.
By compounding interest they don't mean bank interest rates, they mean that the US economy averages about 7% real gains every year when taking historical data back from the 1800s to now. Check out some financial independence calculators [0], you are pretty likely to retire early as long as you invest your money into the US stock market.
"Life isn't short--it's LONG, and you have a brief moment in that life to maximize your preparation for the rest of it. Use it wisely."
Anyone can die any time if they're unlucky enough. Leaving much of the fun until you're old may thus be a very bad strategy.
I agree one should focus on productive activities already in their 20's, but meaningful leisure is important too. It's meaningless leisure that you do only out of boredom that people should restrict more - for me that would be social media, news and gaming.
> Life isn't short--it's LONG, and you have a brief moment in that life to maximize your preparation for the rest of it.
The reality of life is that you don't know how long it will last, or for how long you'll have the physical, mental and/or emotional health to enjoy it.
You could make hay while the sun shines, only to get hit by a typhoon (literal or figurative) and find that no amount of money will restore your ability to enjoy life to its fullest. Wealth can't always buy health, and when your number is called for good, there's no amount of money you can pay the Grim Reaper to spare you.
My mom used to work with a man who was big on the "make hay while the sun shines" approach to life. He had his Hawaiian retirement planned out to the last detail and even though he was able to retire early, ran the numbers and delayed retiring by a few years so that he could further maximize his pension.
He did make it to Hawaii, but died less than a year into his retirement.
> Every morsel you make and save early means your retirement comes earlier. There will never be a more efficient time to earn those days of leisure that will come later if you stay healthy.
But what is "retirement"?
The biggest flaw I've personally witnessed with this line of thinking is that when you're young, your concept of "leisure" and what you'd do with "leisure time" is different than what "leisure" and "leisure time" is realistically going to look like as you age. Put simply, a day of leisure isn't the same at 25 versus 55. Heck, it's not even likely to be the same at 25 versus 40 for the average person.
While this doesn't mean that older people aren't able to enjoy life, even the healthiest people 50+ on average have various issues that people in their 20s and 30s typically don't have. These issues can make it more difficult and/or less pleasurable to engage in various activities, especially those that are highly physical or require peak mental acuity and stamina.
As an example, I'm an avid traveler. Elderly travel doesn't look anywhere near as pleasurable as young and middle-aged travel. And I've been to plenty of places where older people are highly limited in their ability to enjoy activities (i.e. you're far less likely to be able to trek 15km in steep, jungle terrain to catch a glimpse of a rare species when you're 65 than when you're 35).
Kids are a whole different amazing experience though.
I’m glad I got wasted and partied in my youth. I’m glad I travelled and saw different countries. I’m glad I dated a bunch and fell in love with several women. I’m glad I held a few jobs through most of that and have the career I do now. I’m glad I’m with my amazing wife and our two young kids bring joy and light into every day. I’m glad I sunk a bunch of time/money (once) into buying and fixing up a place.
A lot of these responses seem to imply it’s either/or. That’s not the case at all, and indeed I’d say doing any ONE thing for your life, even if it’s laying in a hammock on a tropical beach, gets boring after a while.
Mix it up. Variety is the spice of life. Savor the world in this one life you have. I’d say the one rule is not to F-up so badly you can’t recover from it.
I’m certainly happy I got wasted in my youth. Doing it now is a horror that takes multiple days to recover from, and then we’re talking about having 4 beers…
Ultimately not everything in life went as I would have wanted, but if I compare my situation with others I think I can be well satisfied.
I don’t particularly mind the idea of working until 65 either, I’m going to be doing something anyway. As long as it’s interesting and I get rewarded enough to be happy, that’s fine with me.
Maximize your preparation as much as you want. Let's just hope you don't get diagnosed with cancer with 60. At that age more and more friends are dying and you wonder whether you shouldn't have gone more often to the beach or have travelled to Bali when you were young enough to fully enjoy the experience.
Get depression and puff 10 years are gone and you life expectancy likely decreases too due to unhealthy living for 10 years.
Get a child and for the next few years there is only a child in your life, and after it is still a majority factor (if you are/have the chance to be a responsible parent).
Also don't count on you life post 70, it might be grate. But it's not unlikely to be but so grate even if you have money.
Lastly if you are working to hard and are too much used to working hard all the time you might not be able to enjoy it, either because you have to learn again how to enjoy life it because of health issues due to so the stress you put on your body.
A counterexample. My father died when he was 59 after a decade of ill-health. He'd had to give up many of the things that he loved doing as an individual (sailing) and with us as a family (caravanning, long walks, etc). This made a big impression on me (I was mid-20s when he died) and I resolved to focus on things other than wealth maximization but still retire early enough to (hopefully) enjoy my health.
I'm now 60. I retired two years ago after working 3 day weeks for the two previous years. I then transitioned to volunteering for a conservation organisation, and started career 2.0 totally independently of my prior experience / education (software). It was a blast!
Then, five months ago, I had a cardiac arrest - ventricular fibrillation, from which I was de'fibbed and had an ICD [0] fitted. It seems to be a genetic thing rather than lifestyle as my cardiac health is otherwise good. Because of the UK's rules, I lose my driving license for six months from the date of the VF episode. I understand why, as once the VF starts I have less than ten seconds of useful consciousness before passing out, and, if the ICD operates, I get a painful kick in the chest. Thanks to underinvestment, the UK's driving agency currently has a backlog of at least three months in reissuing licenses, so I will likely have nine months not being able to drive (which means that I can't do my volunteering).
My point? Don't assume that you will maintain your youthful vigour for ever as life can throw curveballs.
Well stated, Ryan! Contrarian but sane and very good advice.
The propensity to deal with bullshit, crap that doesn't matter including other people's mission (e.g. startup founders), the internalization of the limited time we have makes the early professional/working years so much more valuable and hence something to maximize.
It's a different path but that pays off handsomely if things work out half as well.
Yea thats what my dad did. head down, work hard. "save for retirement"
He finally retired and had a stroke a year in. Thankfully he's still with us but with limited mobility. That trip to africa to see wild animals that he was waiting for retirement to do? yea not happening now.
My parents now see the wisdom of me traveling now. Travel and LIVE while you're young enough to enjoy it.
> Due to compounding interest, a dollar made in your 20's is far, far more valuable than a dollar made in your 60's.
Yes. But you'll be earning relatively little when you're young so there won't be too many dollars left at the end of your fixed expenses to pull that trick with, besides, the interest rates are negative at the moment.
Whereas later in life you will likely make a multiple of what you make in your twenties, comfortably offsetting your gains.
Indeed, life is short. So while you're young and healthy, first and foremost ENJOY LIFE rather than to be focused on money and your old age all the time. Those will come anyway.
It's a fine line between having fun and enjoying life versus 'goofing around', but the big trick is to not look back with regret on what you could have done, but instead to appreciate what you have. If you don't your life will be an endless source of frustration.
> Yes. But you'll be earning relatively little when you're young so there won't be too many dollars left at the end of your fixed expenses to pull that trick with, besides, the interest rates are negative at the moment.
I don’t think you understand it. The intent is to invest that dollar into a basket of investments for 40 years. The stock market is up this past year, not negstive.
Sure Interest rates are negative but OP did not suggest sticking it in a bank. Besides, inflation eats at the value of a dollar.
Yes, I totally understood it, but thank you for saying it again.
Compound interest does not apply to the stock market, it applies to savings.
The only way stocks can compound is if you re-invest dividends, and that's not 'interest'.
Inflation eats at the value of the dollar, but not at the value of real estate, so that's one way to make this all work for you: buy a house when you're young at the current low interest rates so that you have a chance to pay it off, and better make sure that you do this in a place that isn't subject to boom/bust cycles.
I wish I could downvote this twice. Don't postpone your life indefinitely in the name of efficiency: plenty of people trying for FIRE die or become injured or diseased before retirement. Live your life. Tomorrow is not guaranteed.
The exact opposite is as bad. Spend all the money for cars, entertainment and fun and your elderly days will be miserable. In addition to health and maybe movement problems you will have trouble to afford medicine, rent or an elderly care and you will be eating cheap junk food. Don't forget that average life expectancy is rising...
Nowhere did I suggest to blow it all on cars and entertainment. If I were to make a suggestion, I would suggest that balance is key. But OP suggested that a trip to Bali was a waste of time and instead that time would be better spent working in big tech. I mean seriously, I get that this is HN but we're getting into satire territory here. A trip to Bali costs what, a few thousand dollars? Big tech salaries are 100k and up, commonly much much more. What do you think money is even for? What are you looking forward to so much in retirement that a trip to bali when you're young is a waste of time?
I did the contrary.
Completely wasted away my young years and money in endless world travels.
Couldn't be happier of my decision.
It's very subjective tough, and highly dependent on your risk tolerance.
> Go windsurfing for a year in Ibiza after college, and you're adding 5 years to your working life
Mist young people can't afford that anyway.
Maybe if you have a wealthy starting points and high standards doing that is a problem.
But for most people retiring before the official retirement age is unlikely, especially given recent economical development.
Similar theire starting point is at a place where for many carrier path that year doesn't matter that much and if you spend it expanding your world view (e.g. work and travel, in the non luxus at all version) might even help you.
My constant dilemma these days is whether to focus more of my young years in new experiences and fun, or if I'll regret it later because I should have invested in a more financial goal. Because the future where I'll see the consequences materialize is so far in the future, and because by then, I'll be too far from choosing another path.
> focus more of my young years in new experiences and fun
i think there's a happy balance to be had, and that balance is determined by the amount of money you're making _right now_ (rather than future money).
If you're rich already, then you can push for more consumption over investment/work. It's true that you cannot buy youth.
The problem is when people want to live the life they cannot afford (meaning, they're eating into future retirement funds to live the dream life now), and then expect that the state to secure their retirement years.
Though I like your balanced view I don't agree that life is short or long. In my experience the length seems less meaningful as opposed to the life long friend you made surfing Bali.
I took the message as set your own direction and then sieze the day. Whatever you choose to do surf or work or both.
> When you're young and unencumbered by responsibility and family, when your cognitive abilities are at their peak, when your energy is endless, when your body is strong and healthy, when your knees work, and your fingers can type without arthritis: that's the optimal time to
...capture the value of those ephemeral capacities directly yourself, whether in recreation or otherwise, rather than yield them to the capitalist capturing the surplus value of your labor.
That sounds about right? I get from the structure of your comment you're trying to imply that "capture the value of those ephemeral capacities directly yourself" is better than "rather than yield them to the capitalist capturing the surplus value of your labor", presumably because 100% for the former is bigger (and therefore better) than some fraction less than 100% for the latter. The flaw in that analysis is that in entirely ignores the compounding effect of returns that the parent poster mentions, which allows you to spend more time on yourself later on. Whether the trade-off is worth it depends on a variety of factors, but it's not as simple as "recreation good, capitalists bad".
> I get from the structure of your comment you’re trying to imply that “capture the value of those ephemeral capacities directly yourself” is better than “rather than yield them to the capitalist capturing the surplus value of your labor”, presumably because 100% for the former is bigger (and therefore better) than some fraction less than 100% for the latter. The flaw in that analysis is that in entirely ignores the compounding effect of returns that the parent poster mentions,
No, it doesn’t.
Weighing potential compounding of deferred gratification forms of capture when compared to recreational capture against nearly guaranteed degradation in some of the capacities to actually enjoy things and the risk of gambler’s ruin is an issue, sure, which the upthread paean to deferred gratification ignores the latter side of, but “capture for yourself, recreationally or otherwise” includes capture for deferred gratification that doesn’t yield the lion’s share of the value to a remote capitalist via wage labor.
>but “capture for yourself, recreationally or otherwise” includes capture for deferred gratification that doesn’t yield the lion’s share of the value to a remote capitalist via wage labor.
Okay, so it's the same "100% good, some fraction less than 100% bad" argument from before, but instead of being applied to your time, it's being applied to your potential earnings? That line of thinking is also flawed, because even though you theoretically capture 100% of the value when you work for yourself, the value you generate might be less than the value you generate when working for someone else. For instance, working on your own SaaS startup might allow you to capture 100% of the profits of the company, but you also have to take on a bunch of unrelated responsibilities (marketing, sales, accounting, legal, etc.) that you're not good at. For someone who's core competency is just programming, it's plausible that they make more working for themselves than trying to strike out on their own. Not to mention, the risk profiles of "working at MANGA" is entirely different than "working on your own SaaS".
> rather than yield them to the capitalist capturing the surplus value of your labor.
why would someone give you recreational leisure if you don't have the equivalent money to pay? Who will grow the food you eat, produce the electricity and water you consume etc?
When your family and kids appear, work stops being a 0-sum game. Instead, you're constantly arbitraging between it and the rest of your life. The good news is that you can recognise and structure it as a positive or a negative sum game.
That’s the worst piece of advice I have ever read. We are humans not machines, chasing money should never be a goal in itself. Manu people have a successful and accomplished life by non financial metrics.
Wrong. Making your youth all about money is as wasteful as making it all about spending it. You can do both you know, make money but not spend all of it.
Take that vacation to Bali when you're young, and you are wasting your prime, strongest days that could be making you financially secure and/or independent. Go windsurfing for a year in Ibiza after college, and you're adding 5 years to your working life--retiring at 62 instead of 57. It didn't sound like much time when I was young, but today, as I turn elderly, I'm counting down the years until I can finally retire, and kicking myself for goofing around when I was younger. If I could do it all again, I'd have tried harder to get into big tech early, I'd have taken comp and 401(k)s and advancement more seriously. I'd have played fewer video games, traveled less, and relaxed on the beach less.
Life isn't short--it's LONG, and you have a brief moment in that life to maximize your preparation for the rest of it. Use it wisely.