I hate these kinds of articles because they can put tremendous pressure on people. There isn't a "right" way to spend your twenties (or thirties, or any decade) and comparing yourself to Einstein and Newton and Kepler like this article does is worse than counterproductive. The only way you should concern yourself with living is to try to be happy every day, whatever that means to you. Listening to pundits showing you charts and graphs and science about how you're wasting your life will just invite stress and pressure.
Especially idiotic are the random references to successful people.
As if not "wasting" your 20s (whatever that means) would somehow improve your odds to become the next Einstein.
If you happen to be the next Einstein then I firmly doubt reading baseless self-improvement drivel makes a difference towards realizing or not realizing your potential.
> If you happen to be the next Einstein then I firmly doubt reading baseless self-improvement drivel makes a difference towards realizing or not realizing your potential.
GEORGE: They always make me take stock of my life. And how I’ve pretty much wasted all of it, and how I plan to continue wasting it.
JERRY: I know, and then you say to yourself, “From this moment on, I’m not gonna waste any more of it.” But then you go, “How? What can I do that’s not wasting it?”
ELAINE: Is this a waste of time? What should we be doing? Can’t you have coffee with people?
Some people do need to hear this though. I spent ages 15-23 playing video games for hours. I could have learned programming in that time. (Probably would have, if someone had told me that programming existed)
It was fun at the time, but not really fun to reminisce on (unlike partying, which I don't regret). If I could say two things to my younger self, 'ditch video games and do something with more value' would be the second.
When speaking about learning stuff, some people are more ready to learn than others.
Programming is tough. If you lack the patience and the passion and the resources, you aren't going to learn programming, no matter how many self-improvement articles you may read.
I tried hard to learn programming since I was 12 years old. This was in 95 and I didn't have an accessible Internet connection or books and Linux was awful back then so I was working with QBasic and a pirated Turbo Pascal and 1 or 2 shitty books. I was also not ready for it, as I was lacking the necessary knowledge or the patience for doing things bigger than bubble-sort and hello-world. Only in high-school I managed to get more serious about it, but even then I lacked the resources and good teachers and I also had lots of other problems on my mind, as any other teenager.
Of course, for you playing video games was probably a waist of time, but if you wouldn't have had played those games than you have no idea how you would have filled that surplus of time.
And really, where's the rush?
I admire 12 year-olds that hack on stuff, but they do so because that makes them happy and because we live in a different age. Not because they are rushing to get somewhere.
I completely agree. I didn't really do much programming until I was perhaps 17 or 18 because I found it tediously dull until then. In the time since then, I've taught myself a whole range of programming languages because I started to enjoy doing it. I'm not sure if I had to mature a little to get there, or whether the little forced programming I did in college gave me enough of a knowledge boost to make it fun. Now I do programming and electronics projects in my spare time because I enjoy them. I also go to clubs because I enjoy them. Is one of those a waste because it's not seen externally as constructive? I don't think so.
I've recently been appreciating Cal Newport's latest book "So Good They Can't Ignore You". Wish I was able to read it when I was younger, but like most I was caught up with the "find your passion" hypothesis. The book deconstructs this passion hypothesis for a fallacy, and prescribes a craftsman mindset ("what can I offer the world?") over a passion mindset ("what can the world offer me?").
Don't worry about finding your true calling, just get good at something which few other people are good at (skills in low supply - so not video games, sports, etc). Get good by doing "deep work", not just superficial exposure. This Ira Glass quote spoke directly to me: "I feel like your problem is that you're trying to judge all things in the abstract before you do them. That's your tragic mistake."
Doing "something with value" requires (valuable, low supply) skills ("skills trump passion". skills also trump courage, as in the "all it takes is courage to follow your dreams" message of courage culture from which comes the OP article). Developing skills requires deep work. The deep approach is to narrow the focus from "be good at math" or "be good at programming", or even "understand functional programming". This is the broad/abstract approach I've had in the past, which, in retrospect at the ripe old age of 28, has not worked super well.
New plan is to hone a craft by choosing to work intensely with "this particular design pattern" or "this particular javascript library" (looking at you d3). Most importantly, to get good at building stuff by building stuff (craftsman mindset). Get good first, because you won't become passionate about something you're not good at.
very much enjoyed your comment, something I very much needed to hear. I myself am a comp sci graduate and I feel I have no programming skill whatsoever, especially now after almost 2 years of support work in banking. So essentially I feel like I've a software development degree and lack the skill to be a software developer. I've looked at my current passions and the Ira Glass quote also speaks directly to me as I'm looking at potential avenues and saying no, no, maybe with little to no actual experience of these avenues!
May I ask if you've always been a developer and this was limited to languages / paradigms or was this am I a DBA/Systems Analyst/Dev or perhaps even wider?
Thanks, I'm glad typing that wasn't just for myself.
In college, my major was math and biochem (with an eye toward computational biology or computational chemistry). So no, I haven't always been a developer, my interests were very wide: everything from systems biology to quantum mechanics. So wide that I ultimately dropped out at the start of my senior year, rather than choose some specialty for graduate school. I don't regret that, since at least I have a couple friends who did go on to different grad programs (physical chemistry, molecular biology) and I still appreciate the independence and freedom that comes with dropping out.
Anyway, I always wanted to be more of a big picture / theoretical guy and sort of poo-poohed programming. I thought it was more important to have deep understanding of mathematical formulas and creative theoretical research ideas (the passion). But I've come to appreciate that implementing such formulas/ideas as code (the skills) is much harder than I imagined (as is any type of coding), and also the best way to gain a deep understanding.
So that's how I came back to programming in the past few years, which I always treated rather casually growing up (started with some visual basic in my early teens).
How did you end up in banking support work? Maybe thought it was an avenue to wall street quant/HFT work (wild guess)? In Cal Newport's book he does say there are certain jobs where the best option is to leave, eg when there's little opportunity for growth and learning (building "career capital"). But his overall point is to stop chasing a passion by looking for an expected dream job right out of college. Instead, develop it over time by earning and leveraging/parlaying career capital. Going through the motions, gaining experience, and developing valuable skills through hard work. You should check it out (I finally found a pdf online only the other day), sounds like it will be worth your read.
Screw that. There's a thing called balance. I would never trade my time going out/video gaming for more hours of programming. I balanced fun and work and I would consider my career successful. Youth is something you only have for so long. You still have 30+ years to program hardcore after your 30s.
You feel that you would have been better off hearing that, but you're also forgetting that some people will feel the exact opposite. I also spent my late teenage years playing video games. I do not regret it at all, and I have tons of great memories of that time in my life. If I were to give younger me advice it would be to relax and enjoy yourself while you don't have bigger things to worry about.
Exactly. Save the serious stuff for later.
When else will you be able to have the most fun?
When are you the prettiest, the strongest, the wildest?
Enjoy yourself in your twenties. Isn't that what life is really all about?
Sex, drugs, and rock n roll. Friends. Your tribe.
You can recover in your thirties and get serious, work long hours, enjoy your children, and watch the wrinkles on your face grow.
Way to confuse nurture and nature. This is just very bad pop science. As if curiosity wasn't something that could be nurtured, or evaluating risk something that came with life experience..
No need for the barf response. It's actually the truest and best advice one can get.
Genius does what genius knows will make him/her happy[1].
That's it. Simple as that.
___
[1] Of course we know and appreciate the difficulty of defining that. Or that we've appreciated that happiness is probably only "achievable" obliquely. Or that happiness isn't what we are after ... after all, and that it's meaningfulness that we seek. Or that even after searching for meaning we come to the absurd conclusion that our existence is devoid of any meaning! Doesn't matter really, just be happy. FFS.
Fair point. Chasing happiness (esp. short term pleasure) as an end in itself, rather than as a side effect of doing valuable things, is unlikely to result in happiness.
But I think a strategic view of "what big choices in life will contribute to long term happiness?" is a still good thing to consider.
I think if a person's "happiness every day" is "smoke crack and gamble in search of a short-lived rush", he needs to reevaluate, because that won't serve long term happiness.
OTOH, if a person's "happiness every day" is "do yoga, spend time with family, and work reasonable hours at a job he enjoys", then that's a good idea.
Ideally, the short term and the long term are reasonably aligned, otherwise you get problems.
What does this even mean? Surely it's all relative, measured by our interpretation of what's great. I'm sure many theoretical physicists would consider their life work to be great, while many others would consider abstract theoretical physics with no practical application completely useless.
Personally, I aim to enjoy life and ensure that any children I have can do the same. I'm not sure if I'd see a point if there wasn't happiness in it for me. Fundamentally, we're fairly insignificant. Your interpretation of life is all you have. Why not be happy?
This article isn't trying to promote the "right way" to spend your twenties. It ends with asking the question, "But what kinds of things should you channel [20s brain power] towards?" It's just trying to highlight many of the advantages young brains have that are often overlooked. Especially in traditional careers where the 20s are consumed by degrees and climbing corporate/professional ladders.
Here are three of my decades thus far. I'm trying to decide which of these was "wasted" according to the article:
Phase I, 21-30: "Work hard/Play hard" mode, socking away retirement savings, building skills & reputation to prepare for Phase II, nights & weekends packed with climbing trips and going out. "I think I can get a full night sleep the weekend after next".
Phase II, 30-40: "Semi-retired nomad" mode, working short (~3mo) contracts about once a year, logging several laps around the world & entire seasons spent chilling at some of the best climbing areas anywhere. Building SaaS products from the beach to finance Phase III.
Phase III, 40-: "Comfortable family guy" mode, working remotely from a little village in the countryside south of Paris with some of the best bouldering in the world, playing with the kid in the garden, and doing "vacations" involving actually booking hotel rooms and not forcing myself to live on $15/day when on the road.
I think according to the article, I was supposed to swap out the "work for employers" part of Phase I for the "build products" part of Phase II. But I'm not sure where Phase II would have come in, had I done that. It's tough.
I guess the best a fella can do is pay attention to one's life and try to at least have a plan. Had you asked 25 year old Jason what his plan was, he would have described something remarkably similar to the above. Except that Phase III might have involved a 19 year old Swedish girl and happened in his sixties:)
Hi Jason,
I looked at your business http://www.expatsoftware.com/
why does it have to be " staffed by a number of expatriate Americans."??? Good developers don't depend on citizenships. The world is flat now.
Similar trajectory here. Probably a number of HN'ers in the same boat?
Phase I, 18-29. "Work, train (athletics), travel, and save money." Started working at 18. Never settled down anywhere, after 21 I started saving money. Also building contacts that will carry me into phase II.
Phase II, 29-34 (now). "Husband/father/freelancer/student/athlete/coach". Pursuing studies in Math (my passion) getting ready for Grad school (2014). Funding it with Phase I and working part-time from home. Lots of family time and staying in good shape. Keeping a consistent routine (something I never did in Phase I).
Phase III. Probably starts around 35 next year: Math PhD? Post-doc, etc. Nothing set in stone. But without Phase I in my 20s the way it was I wouldn't be in the position to do this now.
I think I was supposed to be a student first, then start a career. Not the other way around.
Clearly the lives you describe are interesting. And probably happy. Many middle-class-and-upper people strive for such a life. But these lives also seem quite photoshopped, like a packaged tour version of life. Not judging or anything, but i'm wondering if, given its utmost uniqueness, a life should be lived on a predefined plan.
It's also quite unlikely that they summarized the entirety of their lives in ~6 sentences. Nuances and changes of plans aren't mentioned. These summaries are in retrospect. The plans are plans, and subject to change.
I think it just so happens that when you look at comfortable people's lives from 30,000 feet, they look similar. "I was young, did a bunch of fun stuff, thought about the future", then "I started a family, or got less risky", then "I know what I want to achieve next".
Well, I'm only 24, but my life seems to be taking a pretty similar route already :)
Mind if I ask where this beautiful bouldering near Paris is? Are you referring to Fontainebleau? I've really been meaning to take advantage of being in Europe and heading down there but haven't had the chance to yet. Perhaps this summer.
Yep, Fontainebleau. Ten minutes on foot to Franchard Carriers, or five minutes in the car to most of the better known areas. Close enough that I can bill a full day and still get out on the rock for a full session if conditions are good.
Property in France is amazingly cheap if your only other point of reference is Southern California.
My advice to the kids or the weak willed reading either the article or the HN commentary is to study the wikipedia article for "survivorship bias" and think really hard about how if you're only "beginning things" in your 20s and "building things" in 30s etc then you're doing it horribly wrong. For a small fraction of people who are very lucky this is almost useful, but everyone else needs be able to handle what could negatively be described as rebuilding after disaster or positively described as lifelong learning. You shouldn't stop "beginning" until you're dead, not on your 30th birthday or whatever. Never stop "beginning".
Always be resilient... Ask any "old" person, eventually, you're gonna crash and burn even if you think you're conservative. What really separates the winners from the losers is how you react when at the bottom, not when peaking or at the top...
Another thing worth considering is living in the world, not in a plan, although goals are OK. A plan is nice, but as an engineer I assure you that physical reality follows its laws, not your plan, and you'd best get used to living in the world instead of in a plan. Not that planning as an abstract concept is always a waste of time, it just usually is. Goals are good and are not detailed plans. A goal is something like meet the ideal spouse and live happily with them. A plan has ridiculous metrics and set pointless scheduled firm dates, like meet spouse at exactly age 26, married by 28, squirt out precisely 2.1 kids by 32, etc. Plans are doomed to failure and unhappiness, goals on the other hand are OK.
Finally a really good piece of advice is broaden your horizons and question your definitions, especially if the definitions don't benefit you and come from people making a profit off you. "Kids" think the definition of socializing is staying up all night drinking until you vomit and make a fool of yourself then miss work the next day. Therefore the 20s are when you should socialize. Uh, no, you need a new definition of socialize and you should be doin it all your life not just 20s or until your liver gives out. I was ignorant too, and I survived and improved since, so don't feel bad if you have to do the same.
At Age 20: I was partying like a madman, it was awesome
At Age 21: Graduated, seeing a great girl, making a little money, enjoying city life
At Age 22: Still having fun, meeting and sleeping with new people
At Age 23: Yup. Same.
At Age 24: New girl, same awesome life
At Age 25: Lots of international travel this year. More great friends made Fun!
At Age 26: More of the same.
And I'm still doing financially fine (though have not ever really settled into home ownership, I'm too fond of packing everything in and moving round the world), and am building a business based on the technical experience I gained in that decade. Also now in my mid 30s I still like learning and I still enjoy risk-taking.
You'll never make me regret not taking life seriously, and channelling my awesome early-20s brain-power into socialising and enjoying myself.
Do you have any pointers for us early-twentysomethings? I've just turned 23 and while I'm having fun in the city, enjoying the world of work, it doesn't sound quite as interesting as the same part of your life. How did you meet new friends, expand your social network, sleep with new people, and enjoy the metropolis? I've found the transition from university to work has made all of the above more difficult.
Find a hobby (preferably separate from what you do at your job, but whatever) and find people who participate in it. I chose auto racing, and I'm volunteering to do corner stations at one or two ChumpCar races this summer. Hoping to get a team together next year.
If you're not the social type, don't worry about having lots of friends. For me, there's probably around 10 people that I consider friends and that's plenty. Just find something you like and find some other people who like doing it.
I guess in my case I guess had a hook, I was part of a scene (the goth scene, in case you want a laugh, though in the UK it isn't/wasn't synonymous with angry teenagers or Marilyn Manson).
Once you're on the inside of something like that then the barriers to meeting new people within the scene are significantly reduced, though obviously you're perceived to have put up barriers to everyone else to a greater or lesser extent. Also it turns out a lot of goths are software engineers...
I guess what I'm saying is if you have a thing (be it goth, learning the ukelele, mountain climbing, whatever) don't be afraid to embrace the thing, and don't let the day job take over your whole life :)
--edit-- Also, just do stuff. Take a risk, meet people off the internet. I organised a couple of 'fark' meetups in London back then, and even have a couple of pretty good IRL friends met through some much shadier sites.
'Just do stuff' (or, more specifically, 'take more risks') is my one resolution for 2013. I'm meeting new people through online meetups, CouchSurfing, Twitter, and just randomly chatting up strangers (a skill I'm trying to actively develop). It's a fun ride.
Thanks for the advice! If you're ever in London, let me buy you a beer.
Hehe... They're long gone now, I had a lot of fun though. After that little catalog of hedonism I moved to Australia for a while, then back home and now I'm trying the settle-down thing.
Which, incidentally, I don't advise putting off for quite as long as I have, there's a balance somewhere and I think I might have overshot, but I did have an awesome decade.
I'm a little disappointed in the middlebrow dismissals here. Let's set aside the brain stuff and do some simple math: you're going to live anywhere from three to seven decades after you reach 30, but only one decade of adulthood before. Therefore your have the opportunity to build a foundation for your life's happiness in your 20's. Economists have this notion called the "discount rate", which is the degree to which one favors instant gratification over greater long-term returns. The younger you are, the more biased towards long-term returns you should be, largely because you have a longer long-term to enjoy them in. This principle is just as true in life as in financial investing. Likewise, as in financial investing, it's prudent to take more risks while younger since you have more time to recover from them.
Of course, we say such things to comfort ourselves now. Advice is wasted on youth.
Activity and sociability are exactly the resources you use to create your investments, by achieving real accomplishments, building your skills, and meeting the people who will become your lifelong friends. Hell, you should even have a lot of fun--having good memories and stories to tell are an investment, too. But bias yourself towards things you'll want to have done later, not just things you want to do now.
> However there is a thin thread of causality that leads me to the life I lead now.
While I'm still early in my 20s this is what I've realized as well. I spent much of 2011 battling depression. That year sucked and I used to wish I hadn't had to go through it and that the events which led to it hadn't happened.
Then I realized if that wish came true, I wouldn't have the friends I have today, I wouldn't have had the experiences I had in 2012 and I wouldn't be where I am right now. There's no way to see that line of causality until it's said and done.
My experience has been somewhat different. 2012 was a wholly miserable year for me and I honestly feel that it was rather pointless ordeal exacerbated by toxic relationships I lack the means to escape.
Sometimes I worry that I'm missing my twenties. I'm 26 now and occasionally wish I had done more.
But if you look back there are lots of things you've done. They might not be as crazy, exciting or important as some people manage. But the truth is your probably ahead of the curve; very few people achieve truly extraordinary things.
I've travelled, met amazing people, started my own business, fallen in and out of love. I could have maybe done more of all these things, but it's hard to regret them.
Don't waste any decades of your life. But also, don't think about your life experience so far as wasted. That's silly.
I often think that if I could talk to myself when I was younger I would change a lot of things in my life but the truth is my younger self would not listen. By definition I made the decisions that I thought at the time were right.
If you don't have regrets you must be one of those alpha males I hear so much about.
Articles like this remind me of "Spreadsheet CEOs": people who focus only on what is visible in the numbers, and not on all the little underlying things that make all that possible. Save costs by removing trash bins from every desk. Make money by focusing on the best-selling products or services only.
At the age the people mentioned in this article were busy starting businesses and winning nobel prizes, I was busy discovering my personality, improving my soft skills, getting over myself little ridiculous situations that had always made me nervous, and developing a small set of real, true friendships. Is the result measurable on my CV? Surely not. Did I spend a significant amount of time in bars or hung over? Definitely. Were my twenties wasted? I can't see how.
There is no such thing as 'wasting your life'. You live every second of your life, how you live it is up to you, and to a smaller (but not always small) extent up to the circumstances around you. Every decision you make (or don't) pushes you in a direction, sort of a life vector. You can change the direction and the size of the vector, but it's yours, no matter what, and it's not a waste. Even if you live your entire life and leave not a ripple behind you, your life still has worth. Don't read articles like this and let them make you feel bad about what you think you haven't accomplished.
For those interested, there are two great works that go into much more detail on not just 20s, but the other decades of peoples' lives.
The Seasons of a Man's Life (http://refer.ly/a4hO) is the work of a few researchers. They were frustrated that most work in psychology studied childhood development in depth, but little research was done into development during your 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s. The research is focused entirely on guys (sorry ladies). Not surprisingly, he was able to find several phases most men go through. Several friends have found the book really helpful when they're reflecting on life.
The Up Series (http://refer.ly/a4hN) is a set of films, each shot every 7 years that chronicles the real lives of a dozen people from England. While it has a bit of reality TV "drama", most all of it is the real unvarnished changes that people go through as they age, including their regrets and accomplishments. It's a remarkable watch, given that you get to see people age from 7 to 56. Just as an example, I feel it prepared me ahead of time to deal with the death of my mother, and savor the time that I have with my dad who's still alive. Ultimately, we all have to face up to a lot of the same things, and it's comforting to have a bit of a map.
The master advice for being happy at any age isn't even in the article: Surround yourself with interesting people; build meaningful relations.
Every study, every social comparison comes up with this factor as prime factor. It's not money, it's not social recognition, it's not fame. Your happiness is mainly influenced by how much you are tightly integrated into a happy group.
Can someone properly define "wasting" please? Accomplishments, last I checked, don't have a youth fetish.
This one was well written, but these types of articles miss the point. You can't make sweeping generalizations based on brain chemistry alone. Experience and background plays a large part of who we are, not just genes.
You succeed when you succeed, if it happens. Sometimes, maturity is essential for the process, but age is often not a factor on the Internet. I remember an article posted here (can't recall at the moment, maybe my 30yo brain failed me, HA!) where a designer discussed how people disregarded his accomplishments and talent because he was comparatively young. Well, after going exclusively online, that's not a factor. Same applies for older people as well.
Curiosity, passion, innovation, all the things that make the 20yo brain so wonderful, according to the article, can be sustained well into later years as well.
In my opinion it's all about the golden mean. Party too much and you will regret not achieving anything in life, working a shitty job you hate for mediocre money. Work too much and you will regret not having fun being young, realising it's too late now and even the money you have won't make for the lost time.
"Special" hardly does Newton justice - not many top scientists have made a succesful jump to undercover secret service agent fighting organised crime...
What I mean is, when you look at the list of people in the article: pick one of them and odds are high that this person is just completely over the top, super smart, IQ over xxx and whatever. When you think you are super smart, you are probably not so smart in comparison to this person.
This article is self-contradictory. On one hand a person should follow their dreams, take risk, blahblahblah and on the other worry not to waste that time! To take risk I need to be able to forget about potential waste and opportunities lost.
I didn't read the article other than the comparison with all those great minds. I don't feel that concerned when it comes to comparing myself to such persons. I mean, should I have been the next Einstein, I would have know before reaching my 20s. Nevertheless, I'm a very curious person, thanks to my dad. I want to understand and know many many things (not everything), and for the last year I've spent most of my time learning, reading interesting articles here and there, following classes, reading the f*g manual. Eight months ago, I never had touched Linux. Last week, I installed Arch Linux. I didn't know how to program a year ago. Now I touched SQL, VBA, C/C++, Python, Haskell. I'm no expert in any of these language, but I do my best to learn a handful of languages before sticking to one/a few. I try to learn something new every day, and I don't even feel like I'm trying. All the information just flows at me. For each new thing I understand, there are 1000s more questions that appear. I don't feel like I'm wasting my 20s even though I'm not building the next Microsoft. I'm constantly learning and I couldn't be happier about it. I feel like I'm doing a ton of investment for my future, and I'll never stop learning.
I'm nearly done with my thirties - a time when many of us start to feel uncomfortable about how much time we have left to make our mark.
I didn't make a ton of money or change the whole world in my twenties, but I did marry a great woman early (at 20), and begin to raise 3 great kids. I feel good about those decisions, but won't settle, I still feel that I've more growing up to do and greater days are ahead.
I would consider my 20's to be wasted, but yet I'm definitely not the same man I was at 20. So was it really wasted? I have little to show on paper or as paper, but I learned much about myself and others so that I could make better decisions later in life. Basically, I made a ton of mistakes and had my mid-life crisis early. I hope it will be worth the investment.
I also improved my social skills, had a long term relationship, taught myself programming, learn how to have investment failures, quit my job, tried a few jobs, understood my family dynamics, faced my emotional issues from childhood, developed an athletic body, earned a black belt, learned proper nutrition, etc.
So were my 20's wasted? Only because I wish I was 20 again and had more fun. But I'm told 30 is pretty good too.
Edit: I also completed an MS degree during this time, but funny, I completely forgot to include it. It wasn't intentional. The truth is that I don't find it as valuable nor much of an accomplishment as it was just falling into a path not chosen consciously.
No matter what the age, you can still take control of your life. Also, time wasted enjoyed is not wasted time. So what if your peers were successful in their 20's and you spent your time enjoying what you wanted. Agreed, that with age you are a different person in your physical and mental ability, you got to make the most of your time here and and have no regrets.
You shouldn't waste your life, no matter how old you are. But one person's 'wasting' is another person's 'enjoying', so articles like this don't really answer any questions.
I got bit depressed when I read the article, but was cheered up when I read the comments here. You guys are awesome!!!
I think a better article could have been "Don't waste your day". Who has seen tomorrow, and they are talking about planning a whole decade!
Keep your expectations low, work hard, give more than you take and be grateful. If you are to become next Einstein, your destiny will find you by itself. That's the best I can think for myself.
god damn stop it with these articles! they are based on pointless and handpicked quips, and frankly they just drop my brain chemical levels and depress me until i go out to lunch for tasty burritos in 3 hours.
and the god damn brain formation things PLEASE neuroscience is at the most 10 years old we have no idea what the brain is doing and won't until we monitor brains the way we do now for a generation.
Don't waste your twenty minutes reading this article. Go play with your spouse/children/cat/dog/friends for twenty minutes instead and then read the desiderata (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desiderata) for instructions on how to live life at any age.
That's an interesting point, because in roughly that timescale an awful lot of people had their passions and fearlessness subverted and channelled into pretty awful directions.
As long as you're willing to go through the early phases of sucking at things during adulthood you'll be fine. Most people are uncomfortable sucking at things any other time than childhood. Get rid of that limitation and your whole life is time to grow not just coast.
And I suspected that in a long time... And I fear I am too slow to do what I must.
At least, I DID went into some crazy life changing adventures last year, against all "adult" advice. But this year I already started to want to give up and go in a safer path.
I find it hard to take seriously any information coming from a domain called "artofmanliness.com". I find myself wondering whether the Art in question is Donovan, Garfunkel, or Carney.
I agree that no one should waste 10 years of his life-- that seems obvious-- but the article itself is a mix of pseudoscience and anecdote.
In fact, the people who seem least to be "wasting" their 20s-- the ones in IBD analyst programs and MBA programs-- are the ones losing their creativity the fastest. If you play the corporate game, creative atrophy sets in, and it's a rapid process.
This is what I realized. I did what a "successful" college grad is supposed to do: I joined a large company right after college and started a career. Problem was, I got screwed around by them and quit after six months (finishing up my two weeks notice right now).
Part of this is that I picked a bad company to join (they had me filling out dozens of meeting invites in Outlook and doing SAP data entry when I was supposedly hired as a developer) but I also spent those six months really thinking about what I wanted to do on a day-to-day basis and where I wanted to end up in 5, 10, 20 years. I realized that I wasn't creating anything, I was just following a process. Filling out database table request forms and bashing my head over trying to explain a cursor to a supposedly senior developer.
So I quit after saving up about a year's living expenses and I'm going to use the next year to figure something out, not sure what just yet. I've been kicking around a few ideas and we're going to start talking to potential customers at the end of the month.
I'll probably end up burning through my savings and going out to find another job a year from now but at least I'll have tried. If I don't do something creative I feel like I'm going to forget how. Five years from now I think I'll regret not trying more than I'll enjoy the fruits of a five-year-old career.
