3 ms·

Lucky you! I was 20, brilliant and totally lost. Now I'm 36...

• chasingsparks 17y ago
  The title of this thread and your post almost replicated the lyrics to Counting Crows' song, All My Friends (which is one of my favorite songs). Oh, HN.
• dschobel 17y ago
  To quote the famous (unfortunately hoax) Vonnegut speech: Don't feel guilty if you don't know what you want to do with your life. The most interesting people I know didn't know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives. Some of the most interesting 40-year-olds I know still don't.
  • bmj 17y ago
    On the other hand, we have John Milton lamenting his 23rd birthday (http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/milton/sonnet7.htm http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/milton/sonnet7.htm): HOW soon hath time, the subtle thief of youth, Stolen on his wing my three and twentieth year! My hasting days fly on with full career, But my late spring no bud or blossom sheweth. Perhaps my semblance might deceive the truth, That I to manhood am arrived so near, And inward ripeness doth much less appear That some more timely happy spirits indueth. Yet be it less or more, or soon or slow, It shall be still in strictest measure even To that same lot however mean or high, Toward which time leads me and the will of heaven. All is, if I have grace to use it so, As ever in my great taskmaster's eye.
    • dschobel 17y ago
      23 could be a bona fide mid-life crisis in the 17th century :)
      • req2 17y ago
        A 23 year old in the 17th century would expect to live nearly as long as a 23 year old today- the depressed life expectancy statistics are largely due to the fact that 3 out of 4 children died before they hit the age of five. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy
        • pg 17y ago
          What you say about life expectancy at birth is true, but it's also true that people who made it to adulthood didn't live nearly as long. I'd guess the average life expectancy of a 23 year old in 17th century England was under 60.
          • nostrademons 17y ago
            You don't have to guess if you're willing to move a little forward in time: http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0005140.html http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0005140.html So the average 20 year old in 1850 could expect to live an additional 40 years, to roughly age 60. The curve started flattening after WW1 and continued doing so until around the 70s and 80s.
            • req2 17y ago
              Rome wasn't much worse off- a 20 year old would expect to hit 54. Here's hoping for the hockey stick. http://www.utexas.edu/depts/classics/documents/Life.html http://www.utexas.edu/depts/classics/documents/Life.html
            • ido 17y ago
              England in 1850 was already industrialized. I suspect there were significant differences in life expectancy between the 17th century and 1850.
    • wallflower 17y ago
      "Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them." Henry David Thoreau
  • gnosis 17y ago
    Youth is wasted on the young. -- Mark Twain