You can compare yourself to others to some extent as part of a [life long] learning process but make it productive: don't go too far and extract a few key points that are viable for your own improvement at this point in time and apply them. Do it again. You have lots of time at 23. You don't have to start coding at age five to be a descent software engineer, but it will take a few years, possibly a decade. Who knows, maybe the next Carmack started later too.
Ask HN: How can I come to peace with the years I wasted on pointless things?
211–220 of 277 posts
Re: Ask HN: How can I come to peace with the years I wasted on pointless things?
#212I have been programming since I was 10 and I had exactly the same regrets as you. Stop thinking you should use your life in a "productive" way. You don't exist to be "productive". Just enjoy your life.
Re: Ask HN: How can I come to peace with the years I wasted on pointless things?
#213Consider if you will a person who read Tracy Kidder's The Soul of a New Machine [1], a start up non-fiction book about a bet-the-company moment in time where humans had to develop and bring a wildly new computer system to market.
I read this book in 1982 as a junior in college who had the good fortune to be using a DEC-2060 - the PC's across the hall seemed toys by comparison (ha ha).
After reading the book I felt like I was late to the party - I'd missed everything! All that time spent on Adventure, VTTrek, Empire!, and using FTP and Telnet to explore the ARPAnet was wasted time.
Now some 40 years on and after a fun career, I hadn't missed a thing. What comes next for you is going to be fascinating and engaging. Onward!
1. https://www.tracykidder.com/the-soul-of-a-new-machine.html
Re: Ask HN: How can I come to peace with the years I wasted on pointless things?
#214It's not about what you did in the past. It about what you do in the future.
Re: Ask HN: How can I come to peace with the years I wasted on pointless things?
#215I used to feel that way then I realized everything else is a bit pointless anyways
Re: Ask HN: How can I come to peace with the years I wasted on pointless things?
#216You will live a life of misery if you constantly compare your life to others' lives. Take it a step at a time and try to be better than you were the day before. Carmack lives in a different time, under a different environment with a different set of genes. He is an outlier through and through. Inferiority complex can push you to go past your own limits, but beating yourself up for "being interior" doesn't help.
Don't fret about factors that are not under your control. Social media and some video games are viruses pushed down by greedy unethical corporations that infect your mind to ignore your responsibilities by hijacking your attention. Sure, they can be good in some ways but those few positive side effects are not why they were created. Don't beat yourself for falling into the trap, but at the same time don't expect anything else to pull you out. You have to push yourself out.
Good thing is you have the ability and ambition to realize the farce and want to live a more rewarding life. Many don't realize and many more dont care to leave the passive plane of existence even once they do find out.
All the best.
Re: Ask HN: How can I come to peace with the years I wasted on pointless things?
#217I spent a heck of a lot of time in my youth playing video games and do not regret a minute of it. Video games can be quite mentally enriching and provide a community of friends.
My advice is to pick up meditation to think about how you'd rather spend your time if gaming isn't it and just do it.
Ultimately, your happiness is all about having a positive attitude. How you spent your time is not pointless if you enjoyed it, and you can't change the past - so don't worry too much about it.
Re: Ask HN: How can I come to peace with the years I wasted on pointless things?
#218You say you are 23. You've got your whole life in front of you. It seems to me that your interest just changed. Go ahead and start working in your current interests. Don't dwell on your past actions. You were happy at the time. That's what counts.
Let me give you my example: I'm 40 years old. Started coding at 9 y.old a d did a lot of cracking, reverse eng , game dev and even electronics when I was a kid. I have a degree in Soft Eng and a PhD in CompSci... and a successful career in several startups. you know, the perfect plan.
But at my 40, life made me realise that I had neglected my health for too long. The body is starting to charge interest in the years and years of sitting in front of a computer.
So now, my interests changed to sport, fitness and wellness. I dont think I wasted my previous years , but I have decided to focus on my health first at this point in my life.
So dont feel bad for your choices. You are extremely young and have s really good chance to make a turn in your life to achieve what you find exciting now.
Re: Ask HN: How can I come to peace with the years I wasted on pointless things?
#219Don't well on the past, you can't change it, but what you can change is the direction of your future.
You've learned a valuable lesson the hard way: that time is the most valuable resource, that you can't get it back and that it is non-fungible. Some people don't learn that until it's far, far too late. You've learned it early, use that knowledge to direct the rest of your adult life.
Re: Ask HN: How can I come to peace with the years I wasted on pointless things?
#220Your generation is taught to be unreasonable in their expectations, this website is basically made up of prodigal children who all missed some substantial developmental milestones but who ended up being rewarded for years of interest in very specific topics. Bertrand Russell correctly stated that time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time. If you have now decided you want change, then great. However, you have played s…
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