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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)

#351

Post by adamsmith143 »

benibela wrote: post #142
WJW wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For sure. When I was 15, I looked back on my 10-year old self as someone who didn't know anything but now I had learned a lot. When I was 20, I looked back on my 15-year old self as someone who knew nothing but now I was an adult. At 25, I looked at my 20-year old self in the same way. Repeat for the next few steps. I'm now 35, pretty happy with how it is going life- and career-wise and I look back on my 30-year old…

On the other hand, now I am 32, and when I look at back at my 15-year old self, I just knew everything back then. I am only regressing since then in all ways

Maybe in feeling but certainly not literally. A 32 year old working in a field is going to know far more than their 15 year old counterpart. Of course you may be getting into the "I know that I know nothing" regime. While your 15 year old self subjectively thought they knew everything.

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

#352

Post by croutonwagon »

matthewdgreen wrote: post #208
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.…

This happens to everyone in their 30s. You realize that "dying someday" -- which seemed like a big distant hypothetical when you were a kid -- is actually a thing that will happen on a timescale you can reason about. Your career gets hard and you don't really know the point of it. It takes a while to get over it. Then you hit your 40s and you realize that since you're going to die anyway, why waste the time and die b…

>"I've hit 30 and my life is basically over" is just BS you're telling yourself.

I wouldnt categorize my internal struggles this way. Because I have already hit this point (below) despite being in my mid 30's now.

>you realize that since you're going to die anyway, why waste the time and die bored and mediocre?

That said, the struggle I find is its all a sliding scale. That I am butting up against realistic time limits.

That pushing more here (ie: career) means i have to sacrifice something else or re-prioritize a hobby, family, etc. And I have a good equilibrium. So how do i do it while no upsetting that and maintaining the things that keep me grounded and from burning out.

Ultimately i KNOW patience and waiting for the right time is probably the right answer. But life happens, and a buddy of mine, same age and kids and all just passed, and it again will make you reconsider perspective (for me, on several different "planes".)

One thing i have realized is that many that are very successful in a traditional sense, dont always have the best equilibrium and have achieved that at a cost. And I am not sure if thats a cost im willing to risk.

I really need a damn vacation maybe.

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

#353

Post by Decabytes »

I’m currently in a transitory period between moving from a rental into a house. I just want the next 3 months to fly by. But I have to keep telling myself that if I don’t focus on my life in the present, then I will effectively just have lost 3 months of my life because I’ve been so focused on what’s at the end of it, and not what happens in between.

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

#354

Post by kirsebaer »

roci-ceres wrote: post #286
cl42 wrote: post #271

The young man, who does not know the future, sees life as a kind of epic adventure, an Odyssey through strange seas and unknown islands, where he will test and prove his powers, and thereby discover his immortality. The man of middle years, who has lived the future that he once dreamed, sees life as a tragedy; for he has learned that his power, however great, will not prevail against those forces of accident and natu…

how would one go about skipping directly to the thrid?

You can experience heroic drama, tragedy, and comedy all at the same time or all within the same day. Just look for them as they happen. Or think back to what you did yesterday and interpret what you did from the perspective of each of these stages.

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

#355

Post by nradov »

Sevii wrote: post #304
roci-ceres wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

how would one go about skipping directly to the thrid?

You can't skip to wisdom.

Sure you can. Learn from people wiser than yourself. A lot of them have written books.

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

#356

Post by kirso »

daSn0wie wrote: post #211
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.…

The only point of life is whatever you make it. Life's your own video game and you set the rules of what defines winning or losing it. There are definitely lots of external pressure trying to get you to align to what their game is, but I think you've come to realize that those rules aren't the rules you want to live by. I felt the same way in my 30s. The thing that changed it for me was when my father passed away, my…

Actually this is correct but something that supports this point is the: Cosmic insignificance therapy - https://tim.blog/2021/12/15/the-liberation-of-cosmic-insigni...

In the end, everything is pointless and it can be either depressing or liberating.

So all you described - just do the things that you feel are enjoyable or meaningful - it doesn't have to be a startup, it can be as much as caring for elderly or even running naked in the forrest, whatever it is.

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

#357

Post by Sirened »

talentedcoin wrote: post #345
nonono1 wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The point of hobbies is not "getting good at them". It's enjoying them for their own sake. Otherwise they turn into ... work. For some of us, the point of almost any endeavor in life is to be “good” at them. That isn’t even to say you can’t enjoy it, or you have to feel anxious about whether you’re good enough at it. The point is the go through the process of becoming good at the things you choose to do because we…

But it _is_ OK to suck at something as long as you enjoy it. What does "suck" even mean in this context? A composer might still "suck" if they compared themselves to Johann Sebastian Bach, but is that the most important question in the scheme of things? The one thing we can all become experts at is being ourselves. Nobody in the world, in fact, can do it better. I think it's best to focus on that. The anxiety you're…

++ I suck at rollerblading. I look goofy, I can't do any fun tricks, and it's not even practical for commuting. I love it all the same because it feels good and it's a nice quiet activity I can do while listening to music to just decompress.

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

#358

Post by kirsebaer »

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.…

Being a solid adult member of your community has lots of value. Think "It's a Wonderful Life".

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

#359

Post by my_usernam3 »

croutonwagon wrote: post #352
matthewdgreen wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This happens to everyone in their 30s. You realize that "dying someday" -- which seemed like a big distant hypothetical when you were a kid -- is actually a thing that will happen on a timescale you can reason about. Your career gets hard and you don't really know the point of it. It takes a while to get over it. Then you hit your 40s and you realize that since you're going to die anyway, why waste the time and die b…

>"I've hit 30 and my life is basically over" is just BS you're telling yourself. I wouldnt categorize my internal struggles this way. Because I have already hit this point (below) despite being in my mid 30's now. >you realize that since you're going to die anyway, why waste the time and die bored and mediocre? That said, the struggle I find is its all a sliding scale. That I am butting up against realistic time limi…

I'm in the same boat friend, yet I don't remember buying a ticket.

> I really need a damn vacation maybe.

We should both make this happen. I'm going to plan today not tomorrow.

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

#360

Post by FFRefresh »

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.…

Ultimately, it's up to you to decide the point of it. You are the universe made self-aware, packaged in a meat suit with some primitive impulses that just so happens to be living in the most convenient/low friction environment for those primitive impulses in human history thus far.

Our culture biases towards certain life meanings (get rich! be famous! do high class things! be higher status than others! belong to the cool in-group!), and our primitive impulses are very attracted to those meanings. But as we accomplish those things, they don't end up feeling super meaningful or fulfilling.

We will all be forgotten, the universe doesn't care about our lives. But we are the universe made self-aware! How awesome is this? Yeah, we need to balance a lot of the human concerns because we're embodied in these meat suits that have certain needs. But there's so much to think about/discover/appreciate about it all while we can!

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