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I thought I’d have accomplished a lot more today and also before I was 35 (2020)

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Re: I thought I’d have accomplished a lot more today and also before I was 35 (2020)

#181

Post by Draiken »

chiefalchemist wrote: post #169
Draiken wrote: post #135

This is always a tough subject for me because everyone seems to have at least an idea of what they want to achieve. When I was younger I had these silly dreams of moving to another country, getting married, becoming a programmer to make games, have my own company and get rich (haha). I did become a programmer and got married, but never left the country or became rich. Now on my 30s I know how limited my options are.…

> I could try to focus on my hobbies, but you realize very quickly that to get good at anything, you need hundreds/thousands of hours. Be careful. You might regret this, or at least wished you'd done otherwise. Some years ago I bought a guitar. Worked at it initially - got distracted - and then put it aside. I now realize had I continued to pick it up everyday (or so) for say 20 to 30 mins I'd be able to play well en…

Funnily enough I got the exact same situation happen.

My wife got me a guitar as either a nice decoration piece or something I could actually use if I wanted to. I never had the opportunity to learn that when I was a kid, so I tried to learn it.

Quickly I realized I'd need to practice at least an hour a day for years before I could play one single song from my favorite band. It just made me quit after a few months.

Worst part is that I knew that when I started. I told myself "I'll practice just a bit and when I'm 50 I'll be good at it".

The problem is that I realized I did not enjoy practicing it every day. Drills, exercises over and over. It seems to me I enjoy the idea of being a person that can play the guitar well, but I don't really enjoy the journey to that.

Re: I thought I’d have accomplished a lot more today and also before I was 35 (2020)

#182

Post by rsyring »

Draiken wrote: post #163
randomsearch wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What's the point of it? Live for others. You (and I) are incredibly fortunate. We have our basic needs taken care of. We have more than that. There are many, many, people in the world who have problems that you can help solve. That could be - spending time with a lonely elderly person, volunteering with the homeless, building a website for a charity that can't afford to pay for a great one, building a startup that…

It's noble, but for me it's once again... pointless. I don't have the money or power to enact any meaningful change. I can give my time or some money to others, but I'm not really fixing anything. I'm just drying ice. Maybe I'm not selfless enough? I've never tried anything like that, so that's at least something new. Might give it a try

I think your definition of "meaningful" might need to be revisited. It seems it was forged from the perspective of a younger self whose understanding of what was likely or even possible was ungrounded.

You've now adjusted somewhat to the new reality but the sense of what would really be valuable is stuck in the past. It's ok to, and even necessary, to adjust your sense of what's valuable and meaningful. Yes, you probably won't make world scale changes, but that doesn't mean the more ordinary things one can do to serve others is meaningless. It's just different meaning.

There's a book, Ordinary by Michael Horton, the first two chapters of which were instrumental in helping me make a transition like this. That book is coming from a Christian worldview so some will object to that perspective. Unfortunately I don't know of anything like it from a secular perspective that I could recommend.

Re: I thought I’d have accomplished a lot more today and also before I was 35 (2020)

#183

Post by askonomm »

leetrout wrote: post #144
Draiken wrote: post #135

This is always a tough subject for me because everyone seems to have at least an idea of what they want to achieve. When I was younger I had these silly dreams of moving to another country, getting married, becoming a programmer to make games, have my own company and get rich (haha). I did become a programmer and got married, but never left the country or became rich. Now on my 30s I know how limited my options are.…

I am not being trite: Thats the point! There is no single point except to exist and from that to try to exist peacefully with your fellow people. You are right, we are here briefly. No different than a flower blooming for a time. Whats the point to blooming just to die? Thats the point. As alan watts said... the journey itself is the point.

What you wrote reminded me of this extremely powerful (to me at least) bit by Jim Carrey on the latest The Weeknd album (which is about being in a state purgatory):

  Heaven's for those who let go of regret
  And you have to wait here when you're not all there yet

  And if your broken heart's heavy when you step on the scale
  You'll be lighter than air when they pull back the veil
  Consider the flowers, they don't try to look right
  They just open their petals and turn to the light

Re: I thought I’d have accomplished a lot more today and also before I was 35 (2020)

#184

Post by Anthony-G »

Mark Kozelek beautifully expressed a more melancholic version of this sentiment in 24, the first track of Red House Painters’ first album: https://invidious.snopyta.org/watch?v=i0-FA_svTKg

In the song, he acknowledges his lack of accomplishments as he gets older. There’s ambiguity as to whether he’s more regretful that he never achieved the heights that his younger self envisioned – or if he’s coming to accept this. While he wrote the song in his early twenties, I guess this is a sentiment we can all relate to: there’s always some age-related milestone looming ahead of us.

Re: I thought I’d have accomplished a lot more today and also before I was 35 (2020)

#185

Post by AnonCoward4 »

GuardianCaveman wrote: post #176
Draiken wrote: post #135

This is always a tough subject for me because everyone seems to have at least an idea of what they want to achieve. When I was younger I had these silly dreams of moving to another country, getting married, becoming a programmer to make games, have my own company and get rich (haha). I did become a programmer and got married, but never left the country or became rich. Now on my 30s I know how limited my options are.…

What the point? Exceed your potential. Set goals like becoming rich, climb a mountain, start your company, fail many times if it takes it. Take 6 months off for around the world travel. You said you dont have the drive as before. That’s your choice. Drive is something we can choose and cultivate. If you’re happy the way you are then that’s one thing but I for one am not going to lean on my insignificance when compare…

> Drive is something we can choose and cultivate.

That sounds like hybris. I am not disagreeing that you can alter it to a degree, but it is certainly not something you choose. Just think about how you feel when you are ill and now think of people with allergies for example, that can always feel ill depending on circumstances.

These limits exist always and they are different from person to person and these limits are not always set by (obvious) illnesses, but by the body in general.

edit: limit => limits

Re: I thought I’d have accomplished a lot more today and also before I was 35 (2020)

#186

Post by Draiken »

jokethrowaway wrote: post #153
Draiken wrote: post #135

This is always a tough subject for me because everyone seems to have at least an idea of what they want to achieve. When I was younger I had these silly dreams of moving to another country, getting married, becoming a programmer to make games, have my own company and get rich (haha). I did become a programmer and got married, but never left the country or became rich. Now on my 30s I know how limited my options are.…

There is no meaning in life except what you make of it. You can argue those goals are just external influences that got imprinted in you in a period of your life in which you were prone to start dreaming. Still, why not follow the goals you feel you should pursue? Do what makes you happy, do what you can look back and say "that was cool", write a book you would read with your life actions.

> Still, why not follow the goals you feel you should pursue?

I think that's the problem I tried to describe: I don't have any.

It seems everyone has goals that they put aside for one reason or another. I achieved the majority of the goals I had, dropped some that made no sense and now there's no path set out anymore. I don't feel I should pursue anything.

Re: I thought I’d have accomplished a lot more today and also before I was 35 (2020)

#187

Post by kilroy123 »

dagw wrote: post #26
asplake wrote: post #9

Personally, I’ve done some of my best work in my 40’s and 50’s. And so different to anything I was capable of doing in my 20’s and 30’s. The funniest thing is that I chose not only my university degree but also my optional modules based on a career choice that I moved on from well before I was 30. I don’t generally do regrets, but older me would tell younger me to relax a bit. There’s plenty of time and lots of thing…

Yes. I'm 43 and I'm feeling that I'm only now just hitting my stride, career wise, with good idea what I'm actually good at, want to do and can contribute. 20-40 was basically floundering around, trying things, learning things and working out what I wanted to do when I 'grew up'. And looking back, I wouldn't want to have had it any other way.

This gives me hope! I'm mid-thirties and getting older.

Re: I thought I’d have accomplished a lot more today and also before I was 35 (2020)

#188

Post by asd »

kuntau wrote: post #174
Draiken wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(GP) I actually have a 21 year old. When I married he was 7, so I probably lost the craziness of the early years. However I raised him as my son the best way I could. I don't particularly like the idea of having more kids though. Put them on this world? Ugh... I know, I'm a bit too pessimistic

Quoted post unavailable.

> It's not too late to find the truth.

What is the truth?

Re: I thought I’d have accomplished a lot more today and also before I was 35 (2020)

#189

Post by cheeko1234 »

SMAAART wrote: post #166

If most people feel this way, does it mean that it's "normal" to feel this way? I torment myself with similar thinking. 1. Objectively speaking I have achieved a lot in my life, from where I started to where I am now, I am living the American dream, and then some. 2. I KNOW that I have a lot of unfulfilled potential. No, it's not the sugar-coated way to say that I am a loser, my "problem" is non-crippling anxiety: wh…

I think people that were told that they were special and that they'd amount to something great as children are the ones that suffer most from this mentality.

The expectation of performance was artificially inflated which leads to difficulty dealing with failure and constant feelings of dissatisfaction.

Re: I thought I’d have accomplished a lot more today and also before I was 35 (2020)

#190

Post by manmal »

Draiken wrote: post #181
chiefalchemist wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I could try to focus on my hobbies, but you realize very quickly that to get good at anything, you need hundreds/thousands of hours. Be careful. You might regret this, or at least wished you'd done otherwise. Some years ago I bought a guitar. Worked at it initially - got distracted - and then put it aside. I now realize had I continued to pick it up everyday (or so) for say 20 to 30 mins I'd be able to play well en…

Funnily enough I got the exact same situation happen. My wife got me a guitar as either a nice decoration piece or something I could actually use if I wanted to. I never had the opportunity to learn that when I was a kid, so I tried to learn it. Quickly I realized I'd need to practice at least an hour a day for years before I could play one single song from my favorite band. It just made me quit after a few months. W…

Sounds like you need to set intermediate goals. When I started playing the guitar, I asked my teacher „Do you think I‘ll be able to play anything from Muse soon?“ He was like „Uhhm maybe, if you practice super hard? But let’s focus on getting this Smoke on the water to sound absolutely sick!“

For a long time, my only goal was to make the finger exercises sound good. Play them with a metronome and push the number higher and higher. Integrate little licks into the practice routine, keeping pace with the metronome. My guitar teacher was _extremely_ motivated and this was contagious.

Before I knew it, I could easily play most pop songs and many rock songs. I didn’t even notice when I became able to play Muse because my interests had shifted by then. I joined a band and stayed with them for 5 years…

(Addendum)

… until I quit because having two little kids doesn’t mix well with a highly motivated band on the side. I guess I also had kind of a music playing burnout because the band was kinda toxic.

Haven’t touched the guitar for two years now, but I‘ll probably pick it up soon again, and learn new songs. Maybe record a reinterpretation of some electronic music I dig. Or make electronic music with guitar elements, like the late Daft Punk or something.

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