7 ms·

I'm 45, and have about 60 unfinished side protects in my /Dev folder. I've also just reached the feature complete milestone on my first side project that will a

I'm 45, and have about 60 unfinished side protects in my /Dev folder. I've also just reached the feature complete milestone on my first side project that will actually ship. After working on it, or a variation of it for SEVEN YEARS. Your question made me smile. Are you having fun? I'm having lots of fun, and have had throughout my career. There was a time in my 20's where I felt exactly the way you do. Don't sweat it. Live life, and it will come to you. Focus instead on making memories that will make you smile when you're 80.

elwell 12y ago
> I'm 45, and have about 60 unfinished side protects in my /Dev folder Random, but I think there's a correlation between "age > 30" and capitalization of folder names.
sklivvz1971 12y ago
I endorse the previous comment. I am 44 and have had the same experience.
monk_e_boy 12y ago
I'm 40. I had a nice open source project that went well (it's a bit dated now) ... but my regret is not having my kids younger. The work. projects, start ups and all those dreams still live on. But having kids is a lot of fun.
- fit2rule 12y ago
  Yes, definitely this! If you're in your 20's and feeling like your "whole life" is wasted/lame/you're a loser .. well, have kids. It'll change your whole outlook, hopefully before you hit 30. Kids are awesome. They teach you that, at 20-something, you're not actually that experienced. You don't actually have a lot of time on the Earth. 20-something year olds - you're still kids. There's 3 or 4 more decades ahead of you, to do stuff - real stuff, not just "my whole life" sort of thinking .. if you're in your 20's your whole life is still way, way ahead of you. Don't neglect that. Have kids, it'll help along the way as you hit 35 .. 45 .. 55 .. 65 ..
  - M8 12y ago
    Don't assume everyone is lucky enough to have someone to have children with. Kids are awesome. Having millions is awesome. Being in perfect health is awesome. Having the right citizenship is awesome. Many things are awesome. But they are mostly hard work and/or luck.
  - wcummings 12y ago
    Having kids is taking on a huge responsibility, I don't understand why people are so quick to suggest it as a panacea for everyones' personal problems. Feeling insecure (like OP) is a really bad reason to have kids.
  - mattmanser 12y ago
    What confuses me is how every person I know with kids complains their life is over, they don't do a lot, they have no control, they have no time for themselves and their life is basically over. And this is a mid-30s guy with a lot of friends with kids. And yet having kids is wonderful. I joked to my friend it is like Stockholm Syndrome. You have no choice. You made your bed and must now live in it. Of course you are going to enjoy your kids, it is biologically wired into you and you also have to do it, regardless of how overwhelmed every other part of your life has become because of that one decision. It has also become very trendy in the last decade or two to devote your entire life to your kids and to never leave them alone, to invade every aspect of their day to the detriment of a parent living their own lives. Extreme detriment. Constant parental involvement. Vicariously living life through your children. It's actually fairly distressing to see adults so subservient to their children. A very modern malaise, this was not how parents acted 20 years ago. Never trust a parent telling you having kids is great. I am personally undecided, but I'm deadly serious, never trust a parent saying having kids is great. It's quite literally like they're some sort of possessed zombie, everything they say is basically "HELP! HELP! This is AWFUL! All joy apart from worshipping my child has been DESTROYED!". And yet they all say "Oh, it's wonderful!" in the next breath.
    - sbov 12y ago
      I think people just like to complain about something. If you have kids its that. If you don't its your annoying coworker or that rude waiter or your car is making a funny noise and its brand new so WTF. If your friends are doing nothing, and they aren't a single parent, it's their fault - because they would rather be with their kids, or doing something else. It doesn't take two people to watch/play with a kid. I have one and it isn't so bad. I'm more productive at work because my time is more accounted for. Things are a bit hectic but it's not like I'm in some coal mine in Siberia. Life is mostly the same. We can't do all night 5am ragers, but we can individually show up and go home around midnight. My wife still does happy hour once a week. I usually get some extra time on weekends to play some games. A friend of ours still watches 2 movies/week in the movie theatre, because that's what she really enjoyed. Another goes to brunch every sunday, because it's a tradition with her friends. Basically, you pick what you care about the most, and cut the things that don't matter as much to you.
- junto 12y ago
  I agree with this. Being an older Dad is extra tiring! I wish I had the energy I had ten years ago.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
ganeumann 12y ago
I'm 48. More productive in the past ten years than ever before. I used to feel the way you do, in my twenties. A lot of it was just jockeying for position among a group of high-achiever friends--trying to be the alpha in a group of alphas--and some of it was having been the big fish in the small pond of my immediate peers and finally being thrown into the big pond. But none of that really matters. Don't plan for the next three years. Life is long, plan for that. Many of the people I worked with in the '90s achieved a sort of fame like the fame the people you see achieve today. But when their achievements were superceded, they didn't go and do new amazing things. Instead they didn't do much at all, or did things that were completely tangential to their skill set, things they couldn't really excel at. Part of the reason was that, having worked their way to huge XP, they couldn't start at 0 when they needed to restart the game. So they just didn't play. But we all start back at 0 when we do something new. We progress faster the second and further times around. We talk about learning from failure and doing better the second time around. These people couldn't learn from success. So now I admire most the people who can achieve thing after thing, even if each of those things is not fame-worthy, not so much the people who have done a single thing, even if that thing gets a TechCrunch headline. The turtle, not the hare. I think the turtles do more good over their lifetimes than the hares, and that people who continue to be productive year in and year out are much, much happier. My fears now are a different sort: do I still have time to accomplish the things I want to accomplish? Then I remind myself that I still have another 30 or 40 years of work left, as much in front of me as behind me. I encourage you to think that way: you have another 60 years of work left...what can you do over the course of 60 years? Pick a long-term goal (interstellar flight, artificial intelligence, peace on earth, whatever), break it into manageable projects, then start.
- shrikrishna 12y ago
  That comment made me smile. We are so caught up in short term happiness, and excitement, that it's easy to forget what all this is about. Thank you for that last sentence :)
- M8 12y ago
  > Pick a long-term goal (interstellar flight, artificial intelligence, peace on earth, whatever), break it into manageable projects, then start. Let's think strategically: if your first project is curing aging and achieving immortality, then every other project after that is just a matter of time. Just sayin'.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

elwell 12y ago

> I'm 45, and have about 60 unfinished side protects in my /Dev folder Random, but I think there's a correlation between "age > 30" and capitalization of folder names.

sklivvz1971 12y ago

I endorse the previous comment. I am 44 and have had the same experience.

monk_e_boy 12y ago

I'm 40. I had a nice open source project that went well (it's a bit dated now) ... but my regret is not having my kids younger. The work. projects, start ups and all those dreams still live on. But having kids is a lot of fun.

fit2rule 12y ago
Yes, definitely this! If you're in your 20's and feeling like your "whole life" is wasted/lame/you're a loser .. well, have kids. It'll change your whole outlook, hopefully before you hit 30. Kids are awesome. They teach you that, at 20-something, you're not actually that experienced. You don't actually have a lot of time on the Earth. 20-something year olds - you're still kids. There's 3 or 4 more decades ahead of you, to do stuff - real stuff, not just "my whole life" sort of thinking .. if you're in your 20's your whole life is still way, way ahead of you. Don't neglect that. Have kids, it'll help along the way as you hit 35 .. 45 .. 55 .. 65 ..
- M8 12y ago
  Don't assume everyone is lucky enough to have someone to have children with. Kids are awesome. Having millions is awesome. Being in perfect health is awesome. Having the right citizenship is awesome. Many things are awesome. But they are mostly hard work and/or luck.
- wcummings 12y ago
  Having kids is taking on a huge responsibility, I don't understand why people are so quick to suggest it as a panacea for everyones' personal problems. Feeling insecure (like OP) is a really bad reason to have kids.
- mattmanser 12y ago
  What confuses me is how every person I know with kids complains their life is over, they don't do a lot, they have no control, they have no time for themselves and their life is basically over. And this is a mid-30s guy with a lot of friends with kids. And yet having kids is wonderful. I joked to my friend it is like Stockholm Syndrome. You have no choice. You made your bed and must now live in it. Of course you are going to enjoy your kids, it is biologically wired into you and you also have to do it, regardless of how overwhelmed every other part of your life has become because of that one decision. It has also become very trendy in the last decade or two to devote your entire life to your kids and to never leave them alone, to invade every aspect of their day to the detriment of a parent living their own lives. Extreme detriment. Constant parental involvement. Vicariously living life through your children. It's actually fairly distressing to see adults so subservient to their children. A very modern malaise, this was not how parents acted 20 years ago. Never trust a parent telling you having kids is great. I am personally undecided, but I'm deadly serious, never trust a parent saying having kids is great. It's quite literally like they're some sort of possessed zombie, everything they say is basically "HELP! HELP! This is AWFUL! All joy apart from worshipping my child has been DESTROYED!". And yet they all say "Oh, it's wonderful!" in the next breath.
  - sbov 12y ago
    I think people just like to complain about something. If you have kids its that. If you don't its your annoying coworker or that rude waiter or your car is making a funny noise and its brand new so WTF. If your friends are doing nothing, and they aren't a single parent, it's their fault - because they would rather be with their kids, or doing something else. It doesn't take two people to watch/play with a kid. I have one and it isn't so bad. I'm more productive at work because my time is more accounted for. Things are a bit hectic but it's not like I'm in some coal mine in Siberia. Life is mostly the same. We can't do all night 5am ragers, but we can individually show up and go home around midnight. My wife still does happy hour once a week. I usually get some extra time on weekends to play some games. A friend of ours still watches 2 movies/week in the movie theatre, because that's what she really enjoyed. Another goes to brunch every sunday, because it's a tradition with her friends. Basically, you pick what you care about the most, and cut the things that don't matter as much to you.
junto 12y ago
I agree with this. Being an older Dad is extra tiring! I wish I had the energy I had ten years ago.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

ganeumann 12y ago

I'm 48. More productive in the past ten years than ever before. I used to feel the way you do, in my twenties. A lot of it was just jockeying for position among a group of high-achiever friends--trying to be the alpha in a group of alphas--and some of it was having been the big fish in the small pond of my immediate peers and finally being thrown into the big pond. But none of that really matters. Don't plan for the next three years. Life is long, plan for that. Many of the people I worked with in the '90s achieved a sort of fame like the fame the people you see achieve today. But when their achievements were superceded, they didn't go and do new amazing things. Instead they didn't do much at all, or did things that were completely tangential to their skill set, things they couldn't really excel at. Part of the reason was that, having worked their way to huge XP, they couldn't start at 0 when they needed to restart the game. So they just didn't play. But we all start back at 0 when we do something new. We progress faster the second and further times around. We talk about learning from failure and doing better the second time around. These people couldn't learn from success. So now I admire most the people who can achieve thing after thing, even if each of those things is not fame-worthy, not so much the people who have done a single thing, even if that thing gets a TechCrunch headline. The turtle, not the hare. I think the turtles do more good over their lifetimes than the hares, and that people who continue to be productive year in and year out are much, much happier. My fears now are a different sort: do I still have time to accomplish the things I want to accomplish? Then I remind myself that I still have another 30 or 40 years of work left, as much in front of me as behind me. I encourage you to think that way: you have another 60 years of work left...what can you do over the course of 60 years? Pick a long-term goal (interstellar flight, artificial intelligence, peace on earth, whatever), break it into manageable projects, then start.

shrikrishna 12y ago
That comment made me smile. We are so caught up in short term happiness, and excitement, that it's easy to forget what all this is about. Thank you for that last sentence :)
M8 12y ago
> Pick a long-term goal (interstellar flight, artificial intelligence, peace on earth, whatever), break it into manageable projects, then start. Let's think strategically: if your first project is curing aging and achieving immortality, then every other project after that is just a matter of time. Just sayin'.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]