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35 Over 35

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Re: 35 Over 35

#91

Post by CalRobert »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #81
CalRobert wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's the age, it's the other life obligations. In my early 20's I was in college. Graduated in 2008 in to the recession and was lucky to have _any_ job. Spent all of my nights learning coding. In my mid-late 20's, starting in 2011, I finally got a crappy job with a pay cut in tech (sort of) doing ad operations. I worked hard and spent the evenings getting better at Java so I could use the Dart For Publi…

Did you move to Germany/Austria/Switzerland by any chance? The colleague you described who has no life except work rings very familiarly with my time there. In my experience, wherever I went, there was always a no-lifer on the team(no kids/wife/girlfriend, no sports/hobbies) who used to answer emails after midnight and push to git on a Sunday hoping to get that pat on the back from the managers. Career advancements w…

No actually, I just really like the language and the nations that speak them. Could imagine perhaps living there someday (I'm a sucker for Fachwerk architecture, if nothing else!) Though I hear it's hard to make friends, which is an issue since I'm already old, as discussed.

I live in Ireland, which was one of the easier places re: visa, cultural integration, language, etc. and it's been pretty good to me all things considered.

Re: 35 Over 35

#92

Post by rglover »

As long as you're breathing and can do the thing you want to do, your age doesn't matter. Go do what you want to do.

Re: 35 Over 35

#93

Post by cafard »

A very odd list.

Yes, Lampedusa had been dead for a year when his book was published--but how old was he when he wrote it? U.S. Grant was otherwise occupied for much of the time before he began his memoir, wasn't he? Burgess's Little Wilson and Big God shows that he did quite a bit of writing before he got Time for a Tiger published.

Re: 35 Over 35

#94

Post by sharadov »

Ok, they wrote their magnum opus or the book that got them famous after 35, but it says nothing about all the writing they were probably doing before that. A lot of writers slave away in obscurity while holding down other jobs. Then they might publish that book which makes them famous.It does not mean they just woke up one day and wrote that book ( may happen in a few cases..). You may be writing for unknown journals, or may be writing but never have the contacts to get it published, or you may be writing, but never think your work is good enough to be read...

Re: 35 Over 35

#95

Post by 0xcraft »

arethuza wrote: post #63
tjbiddle wrote: post #58

I don't understand: Is 35 normally considered too old to make something of yourself by society? I'm turning 28 this month and I feel like I'm quite far ahead compared to my peers, yet feel like I'm absolutely still fumbling through life. And when speaking to friends older than me, the majority seem to still be fumbling through as well. Every rotation around the sun my opinion is solidified that we're all just wingin'…

I think it's a reaction to the published lists of people who are under something like 35. NB Regarding the "fumbling through" feeling, I'm 53 and I think one of the comforting things about getting older is realising that it's not just you but that, in general, everyone is pretty much making life up as they go along :-)

At 53 also and a number of career reboots, as well as staying at home raising kids, my observation is the same about the making life up as they (we) go along. Conversations with friends who cashed out at 7 figures after reaching very high levels in very large corps just affirms the view for me. Pretty much everyone appears to be winging it. There is a definite comfort and freedom in this realization.

Re: 35 Over 35

#96

Post by cafard »

tjbiddle wrote: post #58

I don't understand: Is 35 normally considered too old to make something of yourself by society? I'm turning 28 this month and I feel like I'm quite far ahead compared to my peers, yet feel like I'm absolutely still fumbling through life. And when speaking to friends older than me, the majority seem to still be fumbling through as well. Every rotation around the sun my opinion is solidified that we're all just wingin'…

Writers actually tend to be rather slow starters. You don't hear about a mathematician's "juvenilia", but a search on Amazon for "juvenilia" turns up quite a few--quite a lot of Jane Austen, but also Charlotte Bronte, W.H. Auden, and Leigh Hunt.

Re: 35 Over 35

#97

Post by rch »

tjbiddle wrote: post #58

I don't understand: Is 35 normally considered too old to make something of yourself by society? I'm turning 28 this month and I feel like I'm quite far ahead compared to my peers, yet feel like I'm absolutely still fumbling through life. And when speaking to friends older than me, the majority seem to still be fumbling through as well. Every rotation around the sun my opinion is solidified that we're all just wingin'…

The market seems to reflect that age is a valuable attribute for entrepreneurs[1], and I'd be curious to know the average age of published authors, composers, mathematicians, and so on; particularity when it comes to works that society deems important long term. But anecdotally I'd say that an individual's future potential is more interesting to society at large, based on prevalence in the media and the social cachet of hanging around with people in the 30 under 30 crowd.

I also think that success is too broad a term to characterize generally, but if you think about different opportunities and pressures in each logical window of time in an average person's life then it should be apparent that different varieties of success are more probable for each timeframe, even if chance contributes on an equal basis with any other personal attribute.

In any case, being comfortable with wingin' it is probably itself a favored characteristic.

-- https://hbr.org/2018/07/research-the-average-age-of-a-succes...

Re: 35 Over 35

#98

Post by [deleted] »

tjbiddle wrote: post #58

I don't understand: Is 35 normally considered too old to make something of yourself by society? I'm turning 28 this month and I feel like I'm quite far ahead compared to my peers, yet feel like I'm absolutely still fumbling through life. And when speaking to friends older than me, the majority seem to still be fumbling through as well. Every rotation around the sun my opinion is solidified that we're all just wingin'…

[deleted]

Re: 35 Over 35

#99

Post by radcon »

tjbiddle wrote: post #58

I don't understand: Is 35 normally considered too old to make something of yourself by society? I'm turning 28 this month and I feel like I'm quite far ahead compared to my peers, yet feel like I'm absolutely still fumbling through life. And when speaking to friends older than me, the majority seem to still be fumbling through as well. Every rotation around the sun my opinion is solidified that we're all just wingin'…

> I don't understand

Have you not noticed the constant barrage of stories like "21-year-old sells billion-dollar company!" or "Teenager discovers new medical breakthrough!"? Or the dozens of "30 under 30" lists?

This seems to be a response to that.

Re: 35 Over 35

#100

Post by FilterSweep »

tjbiddle wrote: post #58

I don't understand: Is 35 normally considered too old to make something of yourself by society? I'm turning 28 this month and I feel like I'm quite far ahead compared to my peers, yet feel like I'm absolutely still fumbling through life. And when speaking to friends older than me, the majority seem to still be fumbling through as well. Every rotation around the sun my opinion is solidified that we're all just wingin'…

I turned 28 this year and I feel the exact same way.

I’m floating along okay, but I’m deathly afraid of dev jobs and employers locking me out for being too old or not having some TED talk in my field.

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