Don't be sad that you can't change the past: you weren't the person you are now 6 years ago. But be happy that you can change yourself, and get better over time

Don't be sad that you can't change the past: you weren't the person you are now 6 years ago. But be happy that you can change yourself, and get better over time. Don't let the stress of not measuring up destroy you, but definitely let it propel you forward, to keep pushing yourself to do better. Not better by someone else's metric but by your own. Would you like to create and maintain useful projects that you love to write and people love to use? Then it's not to late at all! Edward Kmett maintains a ton of widely used haskell libraries. He had a successful career as a software developer, went back and got his master's degree in his 30's, learned haskell, and became a leading figure in the community. Not just as a hacker, but he gained a deep knowledge of the mathematics behind haskell and made numerous contributions. Think about that. At 26, you may not even have found the thing that you'll become famous for yet. You may not even know anything about the field that it'll be found in. The only way to get better is to push yourself, and little by little you'll become more disciplined, and learn more. Read, push yourself, code, learn. You aren't dead yet, and don't let the achievements of people younger than you make you feel like you are.