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I’m 37 and I feel the same. Learning a brand new subject is difficult for me, mostly because I just feel too tired to push myself to do it. On the other hand,

I’m 37 and I feel the same. Learning a brand new subject is difficult for me, mostly because I just feel too tired to push myself to do it. On the other hand, my brain feels like it has marinated in 37 years of general experience, such that I can take on projects of significant complexity and not think too hard about it.

djtriptych 5y ago
I think if you're in this position (which I am at 41), you've mostly used your prime brain time well. Turning high-effort, high-value brain pathways and operations into basically no-ops is the point.
lostcolony 5y ago
That rings true for me as well. I think it's -because- there are areas that have had so much experience and focus and come so easily, that everything else feels hard by comparison. While I can identify with feeling too tired, I don't know if that's really different than when I was younger, it's just when I was younger I had nothing easier to fall back on to feel valuable.
Swizec 5y ago
> mostly because I just feel too tired to push myself to do it As a 34 year old this scares me the most. I don’t want real life to accumulate and accrue around me so I don’t have the energy for curiosity and intellectual pursuits. But the harder I fight, the more cruft there is to think about.
- svachalek 5y ago
  It's like the old parable in 7 Habits, "I don't have time to sharpen the ax, I'm too busy chopping". You have to get strategic about it, you can't just plow through like you did when life was simpler. Cut things that aren't such a high priority out completely. Reconsider division of labor in your household. Outsource. Batch process. Block time out on your calendar to do things you want to do, on a repeated schedule so you don't have to find time again. Put them in the form of classes, if social pressure helps. Yeah it's a job but if it gets your life back, isn't it worth it?
kitsunesoba 5y ago
At 33 I’m feeling something similar. I wouldn’t say that new subjects are hard, necessarily, but they do take a type and quantity of mental energy that’s not always available, making for a sense of tiredness in these situations. I could be wrong but I feel like this would improve a lot if I didn’t have to work a job for a while. The bulk of each day’s mental energy goes into writing code, which doesn’t leave much for other things.
- DavidSharff 5y ago
  Same age, same boat but I wonder about two independent factors: how my cumulative health decisions have depleted my energy reserves, and if being lower on the Dunning-Kruger curve had some distinct advantages earlier in life (i.e. I expect things to be harder now which adds an additional mental obstacle and fatigue). I also gave a shit about far less thus further freeing mental capital. Then again, outside of sports, nothing in my youth was taxing (particularly not school). The only real mental investment I had to make was verbal sparing with friends, and video games. It was easier to do math in my head but I had been doing it regularly for years (full stack web apps call for very little), and it was much easier to keep momentum on something like Tolstoy (could also be health related though). What about you? Any specific things you think you could incontrovertibly do better in your youth that aren't likely confounded by other variables?
  - kitsunesoba 5y ago
    > how my cumulative health decisions have depleted my energy reserves I wonder about this too. Goodness knows that sleeping for ~4 hours or pulling all-nighters, eating the cheapest things on the shelf, and not getting in much physical activity late in high school and through college weren't sound decisions and are likely to haunt me for the rest of my days. > if being lower on the Dunning-Kruger curve had some distinct advantages earlier in life (i.e. I expect things to be harder now which adds an additional mental obstacle and fatigue) This isn't that much of a problem for me. In fact when it turns out that things put up less resistance than expected it's kind of refreshing and helps pull me along. The trick is getting to that point in the first place. > What about you? Any specific things you think you could incontrovertibly do better in your youth that aren't likely confounded by other variables? Hard to answer, really. Maybe sitting down and getting lost in the process of doing something creative… it came extremely naturally to me in my teens and early 20s but there are so background processes associated with being a responsible somewhat functioning adult running in my head now that it's considerably more difficult. Probably fixed by removing the need for those background processes to run, but that's not exactly practical.
LocalPCGuy 5y ago
I also think a part of this is having enough experience to notice the cyclical nature of things also. Yes, that brand new thing is cool, and in my 20s I mighta jumped to learn it. But now, I see it's just a re-imagination of something from 10 years ago, that I learned back then, so it doesn't excite me in the same way. I might look at it to understand the parts that are different/re-imagined, but often not going to deep dive into items that fit that description. And yes, not everything is just repeated, but it was an aspect I hadn't seen anyone else talk about.
QuercusMax 5y ago
I'm 39, and a fairly decent pianist. I learned a bit of guitar when I was younger, but just recently started learning guitar/uke more seriously. I'm keenly aware of the skills that I spent hours and hours practicing that are now second nature to me on keyboards (such as scales, chords, names of notes) that I need to learn for guitar. Intellectually I understand how things work on guitars, but in order to get decent, I need to start putting in the time to practice playing scales, learning the fretboard, and even just teaching my fingers how to move in certain ways. And it's not any harder to do this stuff than when I was a kid - in fact, in some ways it's easier. But it takes time and dedication. I have to keep reminding myself that I am actually making a ton of progress. But the tiredness / busyness can make it difficult to put in the time.
- nhlx2 5y ago
  Why the delayed interest in guitar?
  - QuercusMax 5y ago
    Just never clicked with me when I was younger. My younger brother was super into guitar so that was kind of "his thing" and I had other interests. I spent a lot of time playing keys in my late 20s / early 30s, including being in 2 different bands, one which played several shows every weekend. ...but a piano or keyboard is not very portable, and not everything is a good fit for keys. I especially love the portability of the tenor uke.
- tastysandwich 5y ago
  Tell me about it! When I was younger I'd tunnel vision on things and get insanely good really quickly. The price was that everything else in my life was totally neglected. But I could totally afford to spend 6 hours after school, and entire weekends, on whatever I was into. I just picked up guitar last year as an adult. I'm consistently practicing, but man progress feels slow! It feels weird not being able to tunnel-vision on a hobby
  - danielvaughn 5y ago
pelasaco 5y ago
I'm 42, I'm finishing my game development degree, doing my ham radio license, and I was never so sharp as now in my life. Maybe as younger hacker, I could learn harder, but i used to have much less focus and waste much more time than now. Now I know myself, I know how I learn and what I want to learn. What works for me: I study always from 7 until 8:30. To be able to do that. I wake up 5:30, do my sports and then start to study. I'm blessed to have a wife and kids that just support me to be "weird" and hungry for learning and knowledge. I dropped as well my workload to be able to spend as much time as I can learning.
- danielvaughn 5y ago
  The sports bit might be the key. I think I need to start exercising daily - currently I only do once per week.
  - pelasaco 5y ago
    I do it every day. Even if you are feeling not so up to do sports, grab your phone, tune your favorite podcast and walk at least 30 minutes, following it by a stretch session. Something like that https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_xrDAtykMI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_xrDAtykMI would be enough.
pyuser583 5y ago
How much sleep are you getting? I had a similar problem. Getting 8 hours of sleep every night, no exceptions, helped immensely. It’s really hard. I even have a self-imposed rule that I always send my kids to sleep away camp in the summer. It’s necessary to escape the grind and take care of myself for a few weeks. But if you look at medical research, it’s absolutely insane how sleep is related to everything.
- danielvaughn 5y ago
  I tried sleeping a solid 8 hours. Didn’t work. Weirdly enough, if I only get 4 hours of sleep, I’m wired for the entire day and I feel great. But it’s not sustainable.
  - zxcero 5y ago
    Maybe look into polyphasic sleep. Instead of sleeping continuous 8 hours you can have main sleep chunk with short naps sprinkled throughout the day.

djtriptych 5y ago

I think if you're in this position (which I am at 41), you've mostly used your prime brain time well. Turning high-effort, high-value brain pathways and operations into basically no-ops is the point.

lostcolony 5y ago

That rings true for me as well. I think it's -because- there are areas that have had so much experience and focus and come so easily, that everything else feels hard by comparison. While I can identify with feeling too tired, I don't know if that's really different than when I was younger, it's just when I was younger I had nothing easier to fall back on to feel valuable.

Swizec 5y ago

> mostly because I just feel too tired to push myself to do it As a 34 year old this scares me the most. I don’t want real life to accumulate and accrue around me so I don’t have the energy for curiosity and intellectual pursuits. But the harder I fight, the more cruft there is to think about.

svachalek 5y ago
It's like the old parable in 7 Habits, "I don't have time to sharpen the ax, I'm too busy chopping". You have to get strategic about it, you can't just plow through like you did when life was simpler. Cut things that aren't such a high priority out completely. Reconsider division of labor in your household. Outsource. Batch process. Block time out on your calendar to do things you want to do, on a repeated schedule so you don't have to find time again. Put them in the form of classes, if social pressure helps. Yeah it's a job but if it gets your life back, isn't it worth it?

kitsunesoba 5y ago

At 33 I’m feeling something similar. I wouldn’t say that new subjects are hard, necessarily, but they do take a type and quantity of mental energy that’s not always available, making for a sense of tiredness in these situations. I could be wrong but I feel like this would improve a lot if I didn’t have to work a job for a while. The bulk of each day’s mental energy goes into writing code, which doesn’t leave much for other things.

DavidSharff 5y ago
Same age, same boat but I wonder about two independent factors: how my cumulative health decisions have depleted my energy reserves, and if being lower on the Dunning-Kruger curve had some distinct advantages earlier in life (i.e. I expect things to be harder now which adds an additional mental obstacle and fatigue). I also gave a shit about far less thus further freeing mental capital. Then again, outside of sports, nothing in my youth was taxing (particularly not school). The only real mental investment I had to make was verbal sparing with friends, and video games. It was easier to do math in my head but I had been doing it regularly for years (full stack web apps call for very little), and it was much easier to keep momentum on something like Tolstoy (could also be health related though). What about you? Any specific things you think you could incontrovertibly do better in your youth that aren't likely confounded by other variables?
- kitsunesoba 5y ago
  > how my cumulative health decisions have depleted my energy reserves I wonder about this too. Goodness knows that sleeping for ~4 hours or pulling all-nighters, eating the cheapest things on the shelf, and not getting in much physical activity late in high school and through college weren't sound decisions and are likely to haunt me for the rest of my days. > if being lower on the Dunning-Kruger curve had some distinct advantages earlier in life (i.e. I expect things to be harder now which adds an additional mental obstacle and fatigue) This isn't that much of a problem for me. In fact when it turns out that things put up less resistance than expected it's kind of refreshing and helps pull me along. The trick is getting to that point in the first place. > What about you? Any specific things you think you could incontrovertibly do better in your youth that aren't likely confounded by other variables? Hard to answer, really. Maybe sitting down and getting lost in the process of doing something creative… it came extremely naturally to me in my teens and early 20s but there are so background processes associated with being a responsible somewhat functioning adult running in my head now that it's considerably more difficult. Probably fixed by removing the need for those background processes to run, but that's not exactly practical.

LocalPCGuy 5y ago

I also think a part of this is having enough experience to notice the cyclical nature of things also. Yes, that brand new thing is cool, and in my 20s I mighta jumped to learn it. But now, I see it's just a re-imagination of something from 10 years ago, that I learned back then, so it doesn't excite me in the same way. I might look at it to understand the parts that are different/re-imagined, but often not going to deep dive into items that fit that description. And yes, not everything is just repeated, but it was an aspect I hadn't seen anyone else talk about.

QuercusMax 5y ago

I'm 39, and a fairly decent pianist. I learned a bit of guitar when I was younger, but just recently started learning guitar/uke more seriously. I'm keenly aware of the skills that I spent hours and hours practicing that are now second nature to me on keyboards (such as scales, chords, names of notes) that I need to learn for guitar. Intellectually I understand how things work on guitars, but in order to get decent, I need to start putting in the time to practice playing scales, learning the fretboard, and even just teaching my fingers how to move in certain ways. And it's not any harder to do this stuff than when I was a kid - in fact, in some ways it's easier. But it takes time and dedication. I have to keep reminding myself that I am actually making a ton of progress. But the tiredness / busyness can make it difficult to put in the time.

nhlx2 5y ago
Why the delayed interest in guitar?
- QuercusMax 5y ago
  Just never clicked with me when I was younger. My younger brother was super into guitar so that was kind of "his thing" and I had other interests. I spent a lot of time playing keys in my late 20s / early 30s, including being in 2 different bands, one which played several shows every weekend. ...but a piano or keyboard is not very portable, and not everything is a good fit for keys. I especially love the portability of the tenor uke.
tastysandwich 5y ago
Tell me about it! When I was younger I'd tunnel vision on things and get insanely good really quickly. The price was that everything else in my life was totally neglected. But I could totally afford to spend 6 hours after school, and entire weekends, on whatever I was into. I just picked up guitar last year as an adult. I'm consistently practicing, but man progress feels slow! It feels weird not being able to tunnel-vision on a hobby
- danielvaughn 5y ago

pelasaco 5y ago

I'm 42, I'm finishing my game development degree, doing my ham radio license, and I was never so sharp as now in my life. Maybe as younger hacker, I could learn harder, but i used to have much less focus and waste much more time than now. Now I know myself, I know how I learn and what I want to learn. What works for me: I study always from 7 until 8:30. To be able to do that. I wake up 5:30, do my sports and then start to study. I'm blessed to have a wife and kids that just support me to be "weird" and hungry for learning and knowledge. I dropped as well my workload to be able to spend as much time as I can learning.

danielvaughn 5y ago
The sports bit might be the key. I think I need to start exercising daily - currently I only do once per week.
- pelasaco 5y ago
  I do it every day. Even if you are feeling not so up to do sports, grab your phone, tune your favorite podcast and walk at least 30 minutes, following it by a stretch session. Something like that https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_xrDAtykMI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_xrDAtykMI would be enough.

pyuser583 5y ago

How much sleep are you getting? I had a similar problem. Getting 8 hours of sleep every night, no exceptions, helped immensely. It’s really hard. I even have a self-imposed rule that I always send my kids to sleep away camp in the summer. It’s necessary to escape the grind and take care of myself for a few weeks. But if you look at medical research, it’s absolutely insane how sleep is related to everything.

danielvaughn 5y ago
I tried sleeping a solid 8 hours. Didn’t work. Weirdly enough, if I only get 4 hours of sleep, I’m wired for the entire day and I feel great. But it’s not sustainable.
- zxcero 5y ago
  Maybe look into polyphasic sleep. Instead of sleeping continuous 8 hours you can have main sleep chunk with short naps sprinkled throughout the day.