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I thought I would have accomplished a lot more today and also before I was 35

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Re: I thought I would have accomplished a lot more today and also before I was 35

#471

Post by brian_cunnie »

Aeolun wrote: post #395
WrtCdEvrydy wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Noone posts about how their startup exploded and took 5 years of savings in their prime money earning years.

Are you suggesting that your twenties are prime money earning years? I know that for me my earnings have only gone up over time.

My personal experience is that the older I get, the more I make, even when taking inflation into account.

After 32 years it's only 2.5x what I made when I was 21.

I wrote a blog post with a graph describing my income [0].

[0] https://medium.com/@brian.cunnie/software-engineering-income... special "friends" link does not count against Medium's quota

Re: I thought I would have accomplished a lot more today and also before I was 35

#472

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

frankbyte wrote: post #456
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like that. Thanks for sharing it. I'm 58. I spent over thirty years, writing and managing software projects that other people generally didn't use well (or mishandled while developing). It was frustrating, but they paid the bills, so there wasn't anything I could do about it. Since leaving my last job, I started to look at working, and immediately , and with extreme prejudice, slammed into the notorious ageism in t…

You just became the first GitHub profile I follow. Good luck bro! I’m still just 35 but I know I’ll face the same music in 20 years or less.

That’s the puzzling thing about the ageism. The folks practicing it are gonna get to be in this seat, before they know it.

Hope that they are saving and investing, instead of splurging on Teslas and Mission District cribs.

Re: I thought I would have accomplished a lot more today and also before I was 35

#473

Post by 7thaccount »

sizzle wrote: post #460
quickthrower2 wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess you have babies? It gets easier!

Nope, but my siblings had their first and I witnessed how life altering of an experience it was for them where they had to put their careers on hold and nothing else mattered other than this new born (justifiably so), pregnancy was also rough for the wives so the husbands has double duty, taking care of newborn at all hours and recovering wives from c-section and complications. Not looking forward to the first year.…

Just know there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Your children are so helpless and require constant attention and mine woke up hungry basically every 2 hours for almost the first year. You get through it. It helped that my wife took a year off. My kiddo started sleeping through the night at 11 months and that made everything much better. A lot of newborns will do much better and maybe only wake up once per night after a few months. The hard part is also that they can't communicate with you outside crying for like at least 18 months. Once they hit 3 though you should be able to communicate very easily about anything troubling them and that makes life so much more rewarding. My advice is to read to them a LOT and talk to them even more. Do so like they're an actual person and not a child. If you're kid is falling behind in milestones, look and see about early childhood speech therapy. My kid was a good bit behind, but someone working with them helped (probably would've been fine regardless) and they never stop talking now. My in-laws are always confused that I stop and spend time explaining stuff to my kid as they always treat children as things that should obey them without question. It is a little surreal, but parenting method norms have changed a lot in the last 30 years. Reading to them, talking to them, singing to them every night, and doing counting and other activities helps them learn and bond with you.

Know exactly how to get to the hospital when you need to and which have a pediatrician on staff for emergencies.

Start saving for college. Don't worry about fancy clothes as they grow out of everything immediately and nobody cares. Always have spare diapers and sippy cups.

Re: I thought I would have accomplished a lot more today and also before I was 35

#474

Post by quickthrower2 »

sizzle wrote: post #460
quickthrower2 wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess you have babies? It gets easier!

Nope, but my siblings had their first and I witnessed how life altering of an experience it was for them where they had to put their careers on hold and nothing else mattered other than this new born (justifiably so), pregnancy was also rough for the wives so the husbands has double duty, taking care of newborn at all hours and recovering wives from c-section and complications. Not looking forward to the first year.…

My tip is get as much help as possible. Extended family and friends. Help can be babysitting or preparing food or helping with diy.

And have cash to pay for convinence.

Don’t buy anything (clothing, Furniture) new except of course toiletries and diapers - that’ll save you 3k or so that you can invest in eating take out. I’m serious ;-)

Uber eats is your go to baby gift to ask for!

Cruise at work as much as possible - avoid getting promoted. Avoid trying to improve things or caring too much. Just do your job well based on what they expect.

Take it in turns to get a good night sleep. The couch will be the 5 star hotel!

Finally it’s hard to do but relax. Don’t read too many baby books you’ll probably learn enough from prenatal classes. Just know the medical stuff, when to go to the doctor etc.

And find time to go out and have fun. Once a month for a couple of drinks should be possible.

If you don’t have much money all this is going to be really hard and I am not sure what to advice there. Get as much help from friends as possible. You might want to move to where they mostly are.

C sections are horrible. Some OBs love em though. So get multiple opinions and decide yourself. Sometimes unavoidable of course but question a planned one. Don’t believe the 6 week recovery driving again bull shit. Be prepared for 6 months of pain.

Finally my pay has increased at the highest rate since having kids. Part of that is software eating the world, mixed with the lack of the luxury to accept low paying but interesting jobs. I’m not coding Haskell, but hey Typescript is still pretty nice!

Re: I thought I would have accomplished a lot more today and also before I was 35

#475

Post by shrimpx »

It’s ridiculous to think that you’ve failed unless you’re the founder of a smash hit company, or a movie star, or a hundred millionaire, or a famous scientist. Those are very very low probability outcomes.

The worst life to live is where you’ve sliced up your day into strict intervals of mantra contemplation, deep work, practicing guitar, working out, eating on a strict diet, etc., basically becoming your own slave, ultimately to no great outcome, because it turns out those “great outcomes” are not a function of this militaristic masochism.

Re: I thought I would have accomplished a lot more today and also before I was 35

#476

Post by [deleted] »

goatherders wrote: post #324
WrtCdEvrydy wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Noone posts about how their startup exploded and took 5 years of savings in their prime money earning years.

Mine wasn't a startup per se, but my first business exploded, cost me my marriage, six figures of debt and a 70,000 IRS tax bill.

[deleted]

Re: I thought I would have accomplished a lot more today and also before I was 35

#477

Post by [deleted] »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #472
frankbyte wrote: post #456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You just became the first GitHub profile I follow. Good luck bro! I’m still just 35 but I know I’ll face the same music in 20 years or less.

That’s the puzzling thing about the ageism. The folks practicing it are gonna get to be in this seat, before they know it. Hope that they are saving and investing, instead of splurging on Teslas and Mission District cribs.

[deleted]

Re: I thought I would have accomplished a lot more today and also before I was 35

#478

Post by Toutouxc »

yelloweyes wrote: post #291
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #102

I've been mentoring CS college students and new grad SWEs for a while. It's shocking to see how many of them perpetually feel like they're overwhelmed and short on time, yet they can't account for where they've actually spent their time. It's not uncommon for new grad SWEs to complain that an 8-hour work day is somehow consuming 100% of their weekday hours, leaving them without any time to do anything else. On furthe…

>Nobody likes to be told that they're wasting their free time, Wasting free time, a.k.a living? Capitalist propaganda is so godamn effective. People now believe that every minute you spend not working is wasted time. Dear lord.

That's not what the original sentence says at all.

Every minute spent not working is free time, that's pretty much true no matter how much work you do.

And you can use that free time to actually live, i.e. have deep, meaningful experiences, or waste it by consuming cheap, addictive and mostly fake content on the social network du jour.

Re: I thought I would have accomplished a lot more today and also before I was 35

#479

Post by alexmingoia »

Accomplishments should serve self-esteem. I want to be proud of what I did. You really only need one endeavor, and it doesn’t need to make money. It matters not whether your accomplishments are numerous or lucrative, but that your accomplishments make you feel good about yourself.

Where people lose their way is playing games they can’t win, or that they aren’t proud of. A common example is a career doing work you’re not proud of, that you get no respect for. You may “win” but you don’t feel any better. Or you spread yourself too thin preventing any meaningful accomplishment.

When I was a 9-5 software engineer I had low self-esteem. I was making great money, had a good job, but we weren’t creating software I was proud of. Meanwhile, I fell in love with and mastered a sport outside of work. The pride of mastering something I and others cared about and respected made me feel better than I ever did at my job. I realized then I should be chasing accomplishments that I can be proud of. That I should focus on doing less, and only doing what I derive my self-esteem from. I realized I didn’t need a fancy career or lots of money, I needed to do something I was a proud of.

I think a lot of people are doing something they really don’t care about, and justifying it to themselves because it’s lucrative, or a “good” job, or other people tell them to be proud of it but they personally aren’t.

Re: I thought I would have accomplished a lot more today and also before I was 35

#480

Post by tomcam »

sizzle wrote: post #283
bstar77 wrote: post #245

I was incredibly driven about 7 years ago... I was a founder of a startup and had really lofty aspirations. I told my wife that it was very possible that we would be millionaires by the time we hit 40. Fast forward to today and that did not happen. The startup is no more, but mainly due to burnout. We made money and did well, but not well enough. I never made my millions, but did have a substantial aqui-hire opportun…

Did you have kids? I feel like that is a hard stop and pushes you beyond burn out with sleep deprivation and all your undivided attention, free time and career notwithstanding.

I had multiple kids, two of them severely handicapped. It did not stop me. I am a stay at home dad.
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