11–20 of 174 posts
first shouldn't you take every discrete chunk of your life seriously?
to the degree to which this is true, its true because we tell ourselves its true, most people don't reinvent themselves past their 20s because they choose not to, not because the obsticles standing in their way are insurmountable
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.
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.
It really depends on how deep these things are. When it comes to certain matters such as faith, family values or even programming habits they're much harder to change. Sure, anybody can try sushi for the first time when they're 50.
It is much much harder to ask someone to be open to a new way of seeing life, especially in the areas you mentioned. Pick your favorite controversial political topic - a prime example of how difficult it is to get people to open up.
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 sometimes feel guilty because nothing bad has ever really happened to me in my life, whereas they've had to put up with all kinds of weird shit. For many people I know not being able to take their 20's seriously as powerhouse career years is sort-of excusable. They were spending them trying to survive, or raise a family all-too-soon.
But me? I'm young (24), well educated, I live in a huge Victorian-era house near main street nearly for free, programming job, walk to work every day, have a book deal (boring HTML5 book), brag, brag, etc, etc
But somehow I feel I'm just infinitely lucky. Lucky that my parents are two normal, well adjusted people. Lucky that I could be awkward and nerdy as all shit through middle school and high school and nobody was ever unpleasant to me. I was never bullied. No weird drama ever entered my life. I exited college with $0 but debt-free, thanks to Bank of Dad, who carefully engineered my experience to be basically broke but never in-the-hole so long as I worked (got an internship every summer and winter).
Lucky lucky lucky. Thanks everyone in my life so far. Really.
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On the flip side I think that such a lifestyle (very career focused 20's) is seen as unattractive to a lot of 20-somethings. At the least, I think most people in my age range would describe people like me as boring (though I am never really bored). I spend most of my days reading, writing, sitting in cafes, programming, or doing art things. Right now and for several more months, its nearly 100% career activities. If I had to put together a dating website profile, it probably wouldn't look particularly attractive to other 20-somethings.
Put another way, most of my hobbies are either career related or solitary acts. Not that people can't appreciate them, just that none of them are exciting, and most of my 20-something friends (none of which IRL are programmers, I lead a lonely career here in NH) that proclaim me to be one of the few who has their shit together would also not want to be me.
None of them want to work desk jobs and then go home and work some more. They want to work in food/bar services or have a whatever-job, drop it at 5pm and go do fun 20-something things. Career development it seems isn't fun to most 20-somethings, socializing at bars is, moving out to Montana to climb things and work for a harvest season is, saving up to hide away in Peru for a year is, writing music with friends while working retail is, but not career development. Not to disparage these things, it just a sampling of their goals.
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.
edit: Before I get downvoted, insert "... and want children"
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, shit.
- in 20s you party
- in 30s you raise family
- in 40s you build business
And, don't worry: if you are very creative in 20s you will be the same creative person with new ideas in 40s.
While it's true that those in their 30s or older can be closed to new idea, that's not because they're "old", it's because they're people and some people are closed-minded.
I find a lot of these complaints are more about the cultural and lifestyle gap between those in their 20s and those who are older.
I remember the 80s. I'm not particularly interested in going bar-hopping. I find most social media to be an annoying drivel from people who vary between exhibitionists to just liking the sound of their own voices (everybody is talking, nobody is listening). I don't have that same sense of enthusiasm because for me everything isn't new. Most things really are derivative. To paraphrase something Don Draper said, I've reached a point on my life where I think I've basically met every kind of person there is. That's not to say that people can't surprise you. They can. It's just that you realize they're not as different as they once seemed.
This is exacerbated in the startup world since so many are cut from the same cloth: valedictorians in high school, magna cum laude, graduates of Stanford/MIT/CMU/Columbia, interned at Facebook/Amazon/Microsoft/Google, now working for one of those or some hot startup. It's a whittled down group of the technocratic elite who often-times don't really know how privileged and lucky they are.
At Google there tends to be two kinds of people: those who have worked in the outside world, particularly in Corporate America, and know how lucky they are and how different this is. And those that haven't and think this is just how the world is.
I don't begrudge them their successes and accomplishments but it is a form of cultural isolation--even inbreeding.
All of this means there tends to be a smaller set of common social norms with the "20s set".
At the same time, I pick up new technologies, languages and frameworks as much as I ever did. Possibly more so. Just now I've been doing a lot of AngularJS. That certainly didn't exist in my 20s. While I may not have the same youthful exuberance, I have experience and can draw lessons and parallels from programming in every stage of the Web's development (from CGI scripts on).
I will say this to those planning to have children: do it while you're young and it has nothing do with fertility. Children simply take an enormous amount of energy and commitment and this is far easier to bounce back from the younger you are.
As for the rest of it? Take another comment on this thread:
> Once somebody is fully set in their ways it's almost impossible to change their mind without divine intervention
That's fairly blatant ageism but, more than that, it's from someone who only knows people like him- or herself that wants to surround themselves with the same. Like I said: commonality and shared social norms are really what's in play there.
Yes, our bodies haven't kept pace with society and technology. If you ever want to have kids, ladies need to be finished having children by 35. Start before 30 but if you know you have potential fertility issues start as early as possible after getting an education. You'll only miss out on happy hour where people get fat and dissolve their their faces with alcohol anyway.
One downside is you may not feel as credible as someone older when trying to make a sale in-person. However, some older people will give you the sale because they like you because you're a younger version of them.
Another downside is establishing appropriate relationships with employees that are about your same age. Attila doesn't drink with the huns. You can't tell if they actually like you because you're paying them so you're probably not as funny as they make you feel. If you get rich they're going to hate you anyway; even if they get some of the loot too it won't be enough. That doesn't go for real partners - you need a small senior team of complementary people that live and die with the company - that's hard to find but critical.
Luck favors the prepared. You can be almost completely invisible to the world and still make enough money that it changes the course of the rest of your life. Time will pass regardless and you're probably going to be working anyway so why not place your big bets when they only affect you?