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You are not 'behind'

zackkanter.com

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Re: You are not 'behind'

#41

Post by manmal »

The way I can feel really good about my life is this (actually very similar to what OP says):

- Accept this very moment, and all the moments before this one as unchangeable. Since any additional decision or action will take place in the future, this moment is the only possible state of the world I currently live in. Fate/environment/god/entropy/myself (whatever one believes in) led me here, and it could not have happened in any other way, or it would have.

- What I can have an effect on is the future (as the article says) - I can STRIVE to make a certain improvement or reach a goal.

- Whether or not I reach a goal is almost always not entirely dependent on me, and is therefore uncertain, and it would not make sense to expect it 100% to happen. So I don't fully rely on it, and have a Plan B and maybe C available. Fate/environment/god/entropy always has the last word on my reaching a goal, and since I cannot change that, I also have to accept it.

Not accepting unchangeable situations is IMO a major source of suffering. Finding out what I can or can not, or maybe should not change is an ongoing struggle.

Re: You are not 'behind'

#42

Post by thewarrior »

jblow wrote: post #23

The article as a whole is nonsensical. It is a little bit correct when it says that regret is not a useful reaction to a past you're unhappy with, but even that by itself is misleading. Regret is a useful emotion that helps you shape future actions. What is not useful is paralyzing regret, or any flavor of regret that keeps you wallowing in the past. When he says "you are not behind", that is mostly wrong. If you're…

Just like that Van Gogh dude who just started seriously drawing at 25.

Way behind he was.

And don't get me started on that slouch Cezanne . What with becoming a master in his 60s and all that.

Re: You are not 'behind'

#43

Post by johncolanduoni »

thewarrior wrote: post #42
jblow wrote: post #23

The article as a whole is nonsensical. It is a little bit correct when it says that regret is not a useful reaction to a past you're unhappy with, but even that by itself is misleading. Regret is a useful emotion that helps you shape future actions. What is not useful is paralyzing regret, or any flavor of regret that keeps you wallowing in the past. When he says "you are not behind", that is mostly wrong. If you're…

Just like that Van Gogh dude who just started seriously drawing at 25. Way behind he was. And don't get me started on that slouch Cezanne . What with becoming a master in his 60s and all that.

Also people who do a PhD in the physical sciences (just restricting it because I don't know how long other PhDs generally take) without doing anything groundbreaking by their 4th year are behind. Which I guess is true as long as there are Terence Taos around.

Re: You are not 'behind'

#44

Post by tastyface »

jblow wrote: post #23

The article as a whole is nonsensical. It is a little bit correct when it says that regret is not a useful reaction to a past you're unhappy with, but even that by itself is misleading. Regret is a useful emotion that helps you shape future actions. What is not useful is paralyzing regret, or any flavor of regret that keeps you wallowing in the past. When he says "you are not behind", that is mostly wrong. If you're…

Oh man, I wish I knew how to better deal with that paralyzing regret. I'm turning 29 in a few months, and I've been spending the last ~5 years almost entirely trying (and usually failing) to work on major personal projects, solo. Sometimes I tally up all the months where I effectively did nothing and gape in horror. Usually I'm fine, but on some days, after seeing all the 25-year-old creators peddling their incredible companies, art, games, etc. on HN and Reddit — which in turn took them 5-10 years prior to that to get good enough to make — I fall into a nearly catatonic despair. When will I have time to learn all that stuff? Was it really worth giving up 5 years of my social and professional life just to chase some stupid dream? Emotionally, I often feel like a 80 year old man, seeing no real future in front of me.

Common advice is "learn to be happy with what you have", but that will never work if your dream is to do something Great, for future generations to remember -- to not throw away your shot.

What noticeably cheers me up is reading about all the people who started doing interesting things only in their 30's and forward, or those who reinvented themselves at some point in their lives and went on to be famous only on their second (or third) wind. I wish we had more of their stories instead of the endless parade of young genius entrepreneurs. Learning about the breadth and diversity of human experience is always such a pleasure, and it helps me remember that shaping your life and personality to meet your intellectual goals can be a grueling, decades-long process.

(Incidentally, reading Show Stopper! about the NT kernel was really great for this: although Dave Cutler was clearly a very accomplished engineer at the start of the book, he was in his 40's and experienced mostly in "archaic" technology when Microsoft decided to hire him. This wasn't at all the focus of the book, but it was wonderful to witness the power of a competent mind so quickly and confidently adapting to new technologies and problem domains!)

Re: You are not 'behind'

#45

Post by bluejekyll »

aaron-lebo wrote: post #34
bluejekyll wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Being complacent and saying it's fine, I am only 25, no wait 26, no wait 27 until you are 40 isn't going to help either. I don't think I read it that way. There are many reasons why someone was not able to or capable of doing something at age 25; finances, experience, whatever. Maybe you just didn't discover the thing you were passionate enough to follow. Maybe you had to care for an ailing family member for 10-15…

Tesla was digging ditches for competitors at 27. Was digging ditches a waste of his talent? Yes. Would he have been capable of giving his name to a car company without that experience? How would we know? (In comparison, fellow eccentric Howard Hughes had his entire public career - aviation records, hit movies, plane designs, business moves, social life, by the same age Musk is now).

It's worth noting that Hughes started out with a 1 million dollar inheritance from his parents. He managed to convert that to a 2 billion dollar fortune.

Tesla on the other hand was always struggling for money (much of that could be attributed to poor management of what he had).

Re: You are not 'behind'

#46

Post by flachsechs »

tastyface wrote: post #44
jblow wrote: post #23

The article as a whole is nonsensical. It is a little bit correct when it says that regret is not a useful reaction to a past you're unhappy with, but even that by itself is misleading. Regret is a useful emotion that helps you shape future actions. What is not useful is paralyzing regret, or any flavor of regret that keeps you wallowing in the past. When he says "you are not behind", that is mostly wrong. If you're…

Oh man, I wish I knew how to better deal with that paralyzing regret . I'm turning 29 in a few months, and I've been spending the last ~5 years almost entirely trying (and usually failing) to work on major personal projects, solo. Sometimes I tally up all the months where I effectively did nothing and gape in horror. Usually I'm fine, but on some days, after seeing all the 25-year-old creators peddling their incredib…

stop wishing you would do something great, and do something, period. nobody talks about their crappy first or second attempts, because they almost always are not worth talking about.

Re: You are not 'behind'

#47

Post by tastyface »

thewarrior wrote: post #42
jblow wrote: post #23

The article as a whole is nonsensical. It is a little bit correct when it says that regret is not a useful reaction to a past you're unhappy with, but even that by itself is misleading. Regret is a useful emotion that helps you shape future actions. What is not useful is paralyzing regret, or any flavor of regret that keeps you wallowing in the past. When he says "you are not behind", that is mostly wrong. If you're…

Just like that Van Gogh dude who just started seriously drawing at 25. Way behind he was. And don't get me started on that slouch Cezanne . What with becoming a master in his 60s and all that.

And Henri Rousseau, who only started painting in his 40s! Largely self-taught, too.

Re: You are not 'behind'

#48

Post by tastyface »

flachsechs wrote: post #46
tastyface wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh man, I wish I knew how to better deal with that paralyzing regret . I'm turning 29 in a few months, and I've been spending the last ~5 years almost entirely trying (and usually failing) to work on major personal projects, solo. Sometimes I tally up all the months where I effectively did nothing and gape in horror. Usually I'm fine, but on some days, after seeing all the 25-year-old creators peddling their incredib…

stop wishing you would do something great, and do something, period. nobody talks about their crappy first or second attempts, because they almost always are not worth talking about.

Yes, I'm learning that lesson more and more as time goes on. I just wish I could look at the calendar of my life and be able to emotionally deal with the 3-4 years of "lost time".

Re: You are not 'behind'

#49

Post by z3t4 »

This reminds me that I should be working instead of reading HN. It's Sunday evening and family is asleep, you now got around one hour where you can either do house chores, relax, or work on something. One life, one hour, make it count.
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