21–30 of 174 posts
I've had a saying recently. I'm making a lot of sacrifices in my 20's so that I'm established and ready to start a family in my 30's.
Hopefully not too many sacrifices though. Life should be about much more than creating new life. The 20s is the time to focus on yourself.
Contra: you only live once. The risk with spending so much of your youth building for a future - in essence, living for the tomorrow you're trying to create - is that you won't want it when you get there. When you're young, you're at the point at which you most likely have fewer worries of any kind than you will in the rest of your life. And you won't appreciate this until it's gone. A slightly more advanced career i…
Well said. Now that I'm 30, I'm pretty much living the dream I had for myself when I was 20, but it hasn't turned out to be exactly what I thought it would be.
I'm not sure there is any way you can win though. If I had lived my life differently in my 20s and not had fulfilled the goals I set for myself, I'd be still dreaming the same dreams wishing I could achieve them. The grass is always greener and all that.
I've spent a considerable amount of time thinking about this, ever since the topic came up on reddit about why so few people in their 20's seem to "have their shit together." I think it comes down to two reasons. The first one is huge, but its essentially luck. I think the reason I'm even afforded the opportunity to take my 20's seriously is almost completely happenstantial. Looking at my friends and (distant) family…
Career-building is unattractive to most 20-year olds, but it becomes very attractive to these same people once they get into their early 30s.
Contra: you only live once. The risk with spending so much of your youth building for a future - in essence, living for the tomorrow you're trying to create - is that you won't want it when you get there. When you're young, you're at the point at which you most likely have fewer worries of any kind than you will in the rest of your life. And you won't appreciate this until it's gone. A slightly more advanced career i…
I set an upper bound of 1 year maximum to be out of the field of programming. When I came back (should have kept programming while unemployed, stupid, I know) not only had my skill set deteriorated but so did my market rate. Out of college my salary was $98,000. By the time I had gotten back into the work force my salary was $65,000. It took about 1.5 years of hard work and a lot of overtime to get back to where I was. And during this time my peers that stayed employed have grown a lot both in terms skill set and market rate. So basically because I took 1 year off, I lost ~2.5-3 years of my career because I had to work back to where I was before.
I think if I were to get a do-over I would have not have taken a year off. But the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence, as they say.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The older we get the less open we are to new ideas. I agree with this point of view insofar as that's the behavior we usually observe in most people. I think it's also true that it is possible to stay open-minded your whole life and never get stuck in one way of doing things. It's not easy though, and of course we all develop habits over the course of our lives which can be very hard to shake off.
> I think it's also true that it is possible to stay open-minded your whole life and never get stuck in one way of doing things. What you do is be open-minded in your 20s. Then you get "set in the way" of being open-minded, never to change that.
I've spent a considerable amount of time thinking about this, ever since the topic came up on reddit about why so few people in their 20's seem to "have their shit together." I think it comes down to two reasons. The first one is huge, but its essentially luck. I think the reason I'm even afforded the opportunity to take my 20's seriously is almost completely happenstantial. Looking at my friends and (distant) family…
I've spent a considerable amount of time thinking about this, ever since the topic came up on reddit about why so few people in their 20's seem to "have their shit together." I think it comes down to two reasons. The first one is huge, but its essentially luck. I think the reason I'm even afforded the opportunity to take my 20's seriously is almost completely happenstantial. Looking at my friends and (distant) family…
If you wanted to move to such a career center, I would suggest NYC since it's close to your family and the dating is better for men there.
There is nothing wrong with wanting a social life. Having a social life is independent of career ambitions.
Take advantage of your lack of setbacks and get ahead in life.
I thought about why, and my theory is that it's probably a lot scarier if you haven't really accomplished anything yet, however you define accomplishment. Having your youth go away when it's a part of how you identify yourself by is a scary thing. If it's not, it stings less.
Get to an MVP quickly: Find a way to practice your target profession as soon as possible. (Don't spend hundreds of thousands getting a law degree just to discover you hate the actual work.) This is easy for programmers: just start building stuff before applying to the CS program.
After MVP, iterate quickly: So you know Ruby? Time to learn another language, or about compilers, or about web typography, or about finance. Don't stand still.
Be ready to pivot: If you discover you find your work unfulfilling, the time to change is now. Don't wait to switch careers until your 40s.
Don't prematurely optimize: Your 20s should be about gaining skills and experience, not about getting big paychecks. The best paying job a 20 year old can get might be in construction or the military, but this may limit your upside down the road.