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Time anxiety: is it too late?

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Re: Time anxiety: is it too late?

#31

Post by achenatx »

Grzegrzolka wrote: post #18
programmerdude wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a software eng who has always had a lot of hobbies, it's almost alienating how so many people in the office are only into TV shows, super hero movies, sci fi books, video games... It's like, there's a whole world out there people!

Serious question, what other hobbies can one have?

here are the hobbies I have had

archery, bowling, pool, mountain biking, ice hockey, inline hockey, floorball, ultimate frisbee, sailing, windsurfing, kitesurfing, rock climbing, shooting, reloading, hunting, home improvement (has a lot of sub areas), games programming, tae kwon do, kung fu, krav maga, jiu jitsu, paint ball, role playing games, online games, being helpful on forums, scuba diving, piano, golf, camping, chinese, poker, chess, settlers of cataan, cooking.

These are all activities that I have done for at least 6 months on a regular basis.

There are many things Ive only done a few times but will definitely do in the future (surfing, snowboarding, drone flying, 3d printing,etc)

At this moment I mainly mountain bike, kitesurf, krav maga, and bjj. In the winter I will snowboard and on my next beach vacation I will hopefully surf.

Re: Time anxiety: is it too late?

#32

Post by x2f10 »

pier25 wrote: post #24

I remember in my 20s I had this constant anxiety about running out of time. That if I didn't accomplish whatever I wanted to accomplish soon I'd never be able to do it. The emotion gradually disappeared during my 30s. In a way I was right. I'm 40 now and the things that seemed of extreme importance in my 20s are mostly gone now. In retrospect it's not that I wouldn't be able to do those things, but maybe I feared tha…

I'm not in my early thirties and time anxiety is actually growing stronger. I worry about the big three: children, career, and personal health. My idea is that with kids... my finace and I are aging. Are we going to do this or not? We have to know within the next 2ish years. With career... what career path do I want to take? I need to focus on schooling or professional certificates ASAP so I can utilize those as I age. With health... how many years of testosterone do I have left? I'm very skinny and would like to build a basic muscle structure, not for vanity but for general health.

Re: Time anxiety: is it too late?

#33

Post by okmokmz »

Grzegrzolka wrote: post #18
programmerdude wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a software eng who has always had a lot of hobbies, it's almost alienating how so many people in the office are only into TV shows, super hero movies, sci fi books, video games... It's like, there's a whole world out there people!

Serious question, what other hobbies can one have?

I started doing Muay Thai recently, and I quite like gardening

Re: Time anxiety: is it too late?

#34

Post by ksdale »

joshkaufman wrote: post #27
ksdale wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would take it even farther than that and say that people vastly overestimate the time it takes to get good at most things. It might take 10,000 hours (or more) to be considered an expert pianist, but you could spend a tenth that much time getting good enough to impress everyone you know with a few songs at parties, and with just 50 hours of practice, you'll be better at the piano than basically everyone you know (y…

I wrote a book on this topic: https://first20hours.com There's a ton of (replicated) psychology research that supports this thesis: the early hours of skill acquisition are very effective/efficient in terms of improvement-per-hour-invested. 20-50 hours is enough to see very substantial improvements in any skill, even if you have no prior knowledge or experience. I wish more people focused on the early process of skil…

Very cool! Thank you for the link.

Re: Time anxiety: is it too late?

#35

Post by thegeomaster »

pier25 wrote: post #24

I remember in my 20s I had this constant anxiety about running out of time. That if I didn't accomplish whatever I wanted to accomplish soon I'd never be able to do it. The emotion gradually disappeared during my 30s. In a way I was right. I'm 40 now and the things that seemed of extreme importance in my 20s are mostly gone now. In retrospect it's not that I wouldn't be able to do those things, but maybe I feared tha…

I'm interested in your perspective. What do you mean by "gone now"? Is it that now those things are not of importance anymore?

Re: Time anxiety: is it too late?

#36

Post by hathawsh »

thesausageking wrote: post #30
dcolkitt wrote: post #19

Personally speaking, the biggest specter for time anxiety is age-related cognitive decline. Unfortunately it happens much earlier than most people think. Especially with regards to both creativity and fluid intelligence. Tech entrepreneurs are disproportionately clustered at 20-34. The probability of making a major scientific discovery starts declining at 40. Poets peak in their early 40s, and novelists not much long…

> Tech entrepreneurs are disproportionately clustered at 20-34. Do you have a source for this? The article you linked to quotes one 2014 HBR article and then walks it back, saying, "all studies in this area have found that the majority of successful start-ups have founders under age 50". And there was also this more recent HBR article "The Average Age of a Successful Startup Founder Is 45": https://hbr.org/2018/07/re…

Very interesting article. It even says that founders between the ages of 50 and 60 are significantly more likely to succeed at creating "extreme startup success":

https://hbr.org/resources/images/article_assets/2018/07/W180...

"... it appears that advancing age is a powerful feature, not a bug, for starting the most successful firms."

Re: Time anxiety: is it too late?

#37

Post by oob205 »

joshkaufman wrote: post #27
ksdale wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would take it even farther than that and say that people vastly overestimate the time it takes to get good at most things. It might take 10,000 hours (or more) to be considered an expert pianist, but you could spend a tenth that much time getting good enough to impress everyone you know with a few songs at parties, and with just 50 hours of practice, you'll be better at the piano than basically everyone you know (y…

I wrote a book on this topic: https://first20hours.com There's a ton of (replicated) psychology research that supports this thesis: the early hours of skill acquisition are very effective/efficient in terms of improvement-per-hour-invested. 20-50 hours is enough to see very substantial improvements in any skill, even if you have no prior knowledge or experience. I wish more people focused on the early process of skil…

Yes! Expertise is good, but overrated. I've found that you can be much happier getting good enough at a broad range of skills that combine professional, personal and whimsical

Re: Time anxiety: is it too late?

#38

Post by munherty »

Can confirm , in my 20s and it feels like the interal pressure to create something gets greater everyday.

The worst part is that I came close a few years ago but couldnt rally my partners to continue past the research phase...

However more recently ive been calming myself by just focusing on the present

Re: Time anxiety: is it too late?

#40

Post by jwilber »

Grzegrzolka wrote: post #18
programmerdude wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a software eng who has always had a lot of hobbies, it's almost alienating how so many people in the office are only into TV shows, super hero movies, sci fi books, video games... It's like, there's a whole world out there people!

Serious question, what other hobbies can one have?

You can have literally any hobby. Two of my lifelong hobbies, skateboarding and surfing, may seem somewhat atypical for the average software engineer, but you'd be surprised how many do at least two of the three.

My favorite example, William Stein (https://wstein.org/). Math/CS Professor at UW - absolutely kills it on a skateboard.

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