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I really like the advice in this. At the same time, I often find it dispiriting to hear "it takes x amount of time", be that 10 years, 10,000 hours or a lifeti

I really like the advice in this. At the same time, I often find it dispiriting to hear "it takes x amount of time", be that 10 years, 10,000 hours or a lifetime. While I understand that it is important to have these metrics precisely to dispel the idea that anyone can learn c++ in any meaningful way in 24h, at the same time I find it harder to start something when I am constantly reminded of the fact that nothing I produce will be worth anything compared to those with a giant head start (yes, yes, never compare yourself to others, just to yourself from x time ago). The 10 year thing means I can meaningfully learn, what, 70 thing in life if I am not spending the vast majority of my time at a full time job? So, that makes it 3-4 things? How depressing. Admittedly, I feel I have almost never studied deliberately. I happen to have learned about 3 things to reasonable expertise in my 30 ish years. All three just happened. It was effortless to learn, as it was interesting to learn. I simply cannot imagine what it would mean to have to dedicate 10 years or 10,000 hours of practice to something I am not interested in. In my own experience I would go so far as to say that I either love something enough to want to do it 8h a day, or not at all. I wonder if I'll ever find a 4th thing, later in life. I really want to learn more things, but the rule of x hours is discouraging to think about when I have 30 something years less left on this planet than when I started.

icoder 5y ago
Yes our lives are limited so we can not do it all. And comming to peace with that is a process that is different for everyone. Every choice rules out others, hence the paradox of it. Your own struggle with learning new things does have some openings to look at it a bit lighter. Most things are already useful, fun, interesting with less than 10k hours. Way less. You don't need to be an expert to enrich your life and that of others with a new skill! In addition, learning related things goes much quicker (ie I enjoy doing CAD recently using Fusion 360 and I find that many aspects of it fit my programmer mind very well, same for expanding foreigbln languages, different instruments, etc).
eggdie 5y ago
If you are 30ish now, you will be 40ish in 10 years. Might as well develop a new skill or two. Though I completely agree that it should be something you are truly interested in.
nathias 5y ago
That just applies to the one thing, you can find things that fit well together where some portion of you other skills still apply, but that will depend to the individual. You also shouldn't only learn things to be an expert in them, a very small initial input makes a lot more of a difference than honing those skills.
hellbannedguy 5y ago
I think the 10 year, or 10,000 hours are for learning stuff you are not completely in love with. It would take me 10,000 hours to become a proficient Programmer. Now---stuff I am truly interested in took me less time to learn. I was going to say "master", but I didn't master anything in my life. I'm a good mechanic, and Watchmaker only because learning it was easy because I was interested. It took me less than 4 years to become good at Watchmaking. Why--because for some reason I became facinated with watches, and clocks. I can strum exactly 12 guitar chords. I memorized the charts, and then memorized the finger positions on the fret. I can play a few songs. I sometimes wonder why I don't practice more. The reason is I don't love it. When playing a mental picture of Blutto pops up from Animal House. Pick something you love. You never know where it will take you. Then again--maybe I should have learned things that society valued, and paid highly for?

icoder 5y ago

Yes our lives are limited so we can not do it all. And comming to peace with that is a process that is different for everyone. Every choice rules out others, hence the paradox of it. Your own struggle with learning new things does have some openings to look at it a bit lighter. Most things are already useful, fun, interesting with less than 10k hours. Way less. You don't need to be an expert to enrich your life and that of others with a new skill! In addition, learning related things goes much quicker (ie I enjoy doing CAD recently using Fusion 360 and I find that many aspects of it fit my programmer mind very well, same for expanding foreigbln languages, different instruments, etc).

eggdie 5y ago

If you are 30ish now, you will be 40ish in 10 years. Might as well develop a new skill or two. Though I completely agree that it should be something you are truly interested in.

nathias 5y ago

That just applies to the one thing, you can find things that fit well together where some portion of you other skills still apply, but that will depend to the individual. You also shouldn't only learn things to be an expert in them, a very small initial input makes a lot more of a difference than honing those skills.

hellbannedguy 5y ago

I think the 10 year, or 10,000 hours are for learning stuff you are not completely in love with. It would take me 10,000 hours to become a proficient Programmer. Now---stuff I am truly interested in took me less time to learn. I was going to say "master", but I didn't master anything in my life. I'm a good mechanic, and Watchmaker only because learning it was easy because I was interested. It took me less than 4 years to become good at Watchmaking. Why--because for some reason I became facinated with watches, and clocks. I can strum exactly 12 guitar chords. I memorized the charts, and then memorized the finger positions on the fret. I can play a few songs. I sometimes wonder why I don't practice more. The reason is I don't love it. When playing a mental picture of Blutto pops up from Animal House. Pick something you love. You never know where it will take you. Then again--maybe I should have learned things that society valued, and paid highly for?