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Don’t Waste Your Twenties

artofmanliness.com

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Re: Don’t Waste Your Twenties

#11

Post by moe »

acabal wrote: post #5

I hate these kinds of articles because they can put tremendous pressure on people. There isn't a "right" way to spend your twenties (or thirties, or any decade) and comparing yourself to Einstein and Newton and Kepler like this article does is worse than counterproductive. The only way you should concern yourself with living is to try to be happy every day, whatever that means to you. Listening to pundits showing you…

Especially idiotic are the random references to successful people.

As if not "wasting" your 20s (whatever that means) would somehow improve your odds to become the next Einstein.

If you happen to be the next Einstein then I firmly doubt reading baseless self-improvement drivel makes a difference towards realizing or not realizing your potential.

Re: Don’t Waste Your Twenties

#12

Post by VSerge »

acabal wrote: post #5

I hate these kinds of articles because they can put tremendous pressure on people. There isn't a "right" way to spend your twenties (or thirties, or any decade) and comparing yourself to Einstein and Newton and Kepler like this article does is worse than counterproductive. The only way you should concern yourself with living is to try to be happy every day, whatever that means to you. Listening to pundits showing you…

Way to confuse nurture and nature. This is just very bad pop science. As if curiosity wasn't something that could be nurtured, or evaluating risk something that came with life experience..

Re: Don’t Waste Your Twenties

#14

Post by pkorzeniewski »

In my opinion it's all about the golden mean. Party too much and you will regret not achieving anything in life, working a shitty job you hate for mediocre money. Work too much and you will regret not having fun being young, realising it's too late now and even the money you have won't make for the lost time.

Re: Don’t Waste Your Twenties

#15

Post by philwelch »

I'm a little disappointed in the middlebrow dismissals here. Let's set aside the brain stuff and do some simple math: you're going to live anywhere from three to seven decades after you reach 30, but only one decade of adulthood before. Therefore your have the opportunity to build a foundation for your life's happiness in your 20's. Economists have this notion called the "discount rate", which is the degree to which one favors instant gratification over greater long-term returns. The younger you are, the more biased towards long-term returns you should be, largely because you have a longer long-term to enjoy them in. This principle is just as true in life as in financial investing. Likewise, as in financial investing, it's prudent to take more risks while younger since you have more time to recover from them.

Of course, we say such things to comfort ourselves now. Advice is wasted on youth.

Re: Don’t Waste Your Twenties

#16

Post by arethuza »

Matti wrote: post #2

It would be interesting to have this contrasted with an article written about the same age span 75-150 years ago.

That's an interesting point, because in roughly that timescale an awful lot of people had their passions and fearlessness subverted and channelled into pretty awful directions.

Re: Don’t Waste Your Twenties

#17

Post by blablabla123 »

pkorzeniewski wrote: post #14

In my opinion it's all about the golden mean . Party too much and you will regret not achieving anything in life, working a shitty job you hate for mediocre money. Work too much and you will regret not having fun being young, realising it's too late now and even the money you have won't make for the lost time.

Yeah I agree. 20s are the time in which you basically bootstrap your life.

Anyway, did the author ever think for a minute that Kepler or Newton were probably pretty "special" people?

I don't believe any article about the human brain except it is from a decorated Neuroscientist... ;)

Re: Don’t Waste Your Twenties

#18

Post by Nursie »

philwelch wrote: post #15

I'm a little disappointed in the middlebrow dismissals here. Let's set aside the brain stuff and do some simple math: you're going to live anywhere from three to seven decades after you reach 30, but only one decade of adulthood before. Therefore your have the opportunity to build a foundation for your life's happiness in your 20's. Economists have this notion called the "discount rate", which is the degree to which…

This neglects that for many people your 20s are also when you're at your most active, most sociable and all-round most alive.

To me an over-emphasis on 'investing' during this period is the real waste.

Re: Don’t Waste Your Twenties

#19

Post by dualogy »

moe wrote: post #11
acabal wrote: post #5

I hate these kinds of articles because they can put tremendous pressure on people. There isn't a "right" way to spend your twenties (or thirties, or any decade) and comparing yourself to Einstein and Newton and Kepler like this article does is worse than counterproductive. The only way you should concern yourself with living is to try to be happy every day, whatever that means to you. Listening to pundits showing you…

Especially idiotic are the random references to successful people. As if not "wasting" your 20s (whatever that means) would somehow improve your odds to become the next Einstein. If you happen to be the next Einstein then I firmly doubt reading baseless self-improvement drivel makes a difference towards realizing or not realizing your potential.

> If you happen to be the next Einstein then I firmly doubt reading baseless self-improvement drivel makes a difference towards realizing or not realizing your potential.

Thanks. My quote of the day!

Re: Don’t Waste Your Twenties

#20

Post by jessriedel »

acabal wrote: post #5

I hate these kinds of articles because they can put tremendous pressure on people. There isn't a "right" way to spend your twenties (or thirties, or any decade) and comparing yourself to Einstein and Newton and Kepler like this article does is worse than counterproductive. The only way you should concern yourself with living is to try to be happy every day, whatever that means to you. Listening to pundits showing you…

> The only way you should concern yourself with living is to try to be happy every day, whatever that means to you.

Barf. There's a lot more to life and human flourishing than just making yourself happy.

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