281–290 of 305 posts
The most difficult task will be getting your foot in the door. After that, you’re golden.
I switched wives at age 42. That was my biggest life-change ever. That old saying "Life begins at 40" is so very true.
Here's the thing: "YOU CAN SWITCH CAREERS NO MATTER WHAT AGE YOU ARE."
Most of us have opportunities to switch careers many times during our lives. Some of us take one or more of those opportunities as they arise, and some of us don't. It's your choice.
Some of us are forced into different careers, because of external factors. That can be at any age. I was forced to take over the family property-rental business when I was 62. Yes I'm still 'working' a decade or so later, if you call working one to two hours a month 'working'. Money ceases to be a factor in your life when you have more money available than you can reasonably expect to spend in the years you have left.
In my forties, I passed up an opportunity to become a computer programmer in the medical field when my first wife declined to move to a larger city.
Five or so years later, I qualified as a commercial pilot, but the aviation downturn in the early nineties meant I earned more in my normal career as pharmacist at that time, then later on I was no longer able to pass the Aviation Medical.
While she's a very difficult person, I do admire this trait and willingness to reinvent herself, and I think I've been more fearless in some ways because of it.
In my admittedly still short life, I have started to notice something: you can broadly divide the world into two groups - those who do things and those who keep wondering if they should have done things. So for what’s worth, here is my advice to you: drop Gladwell and self-help books, if you want to and can switch to a new job, do it. Should it work or fail, you will have experienced trying. If you don’t feel like it…
I know this is just one person who was in a different time and under different circumstances, but I've found it inspirational to put age into perspective. Grace Hopper first entered computing at age 38, completed the first compiler at age 46, influenced the design of COBOL at age 53, wrote COBOL for the Navy through her 70s, retired from the Navy aged 80 and only then became a consultant for DEC. So for me , at least…
I don't know about this one. She got a Ph.D. in Mathematics from Yale when she was 27. This was in 1934, before Computer Science was an established academic field (it was the 60s before anybody got a "Ph.D. in Computer science"), so everybody was coming from some other academic background, often maths/engineering/physics.
The Gladwell book is so bad it's laughable. It's a gross misrepresentation of the work of Anders Ericsson, with completely unfounded extrapolations. So bad it prompted Ericsson to get a non-academic writer to work with him to write his own popular science version of his work, which is titled "Peak". Outliers is the worst example I know of of popular authors bending facts to make a narrative they want to tell. In a nu…
> (ie the Beatles example is complete bullshit, gigs are not practice) Why doesn't that count as practice?
The Gladwell book is so bad it's laughable. It's a gross misrepresentation of the work of Anders Ericsson, with completely unfounded extrapolations. So bad it prompted Ericsson to get a non-academic writer to work with him to write his own popular science version of his work, which is titled "Peak". Outliers is the worst example I know of of popular authors bending facts to make a narrative they want to tell. In a nu…
There is a much better lesson to take from practice theory, and that's the skill curve. You might see it and think "oh it takes 10,000 hours to become a master". But it only takes 10 hours of practice to become better at something than literally almost everyone at any task. And in 100 hours of practice you would be considered a worthy peer in almost any community. 1000 hours will make you a respected professional in…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The culture of dad having a mid life crisis being frowned upon and only seen as a means to provide for the family by placing their desires above his own could be why soccer son often ends up beng raised by single mom. Dad needs help and soccer is the most irrelevant thing in the world right now.
I find the notion incredibly selfish. My family is accustomed to their lifestyle. There are certain realities that can occur that would require a reduction in that lifestyle, but I should not deliberately cause them to happen. Sometimes the right thing to do is to sacrifice your dreams for others.
Good on you for putting your family first, and total respect for parents and parenthood, but man, reading lines like that reinforce my decision to stay free of those sorts of obligations.
I don't ever want to leave camp "do what you feel like doing".
Most things aren't exactly walking on a rope between skyscrapers level risky that you need absolute practice and perfection. You get lots of room to make mistakes and learn, and beyond all this doing things that matter is a matter of priority not practice.
Whatever it is, get started now.