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I honestly think more folks need a much bigger fire up their ass. Taking until 30 to start doing something productive with your life and to end the party-party

I honestly think more folks need a much bigger fire up their ass. Taking until 30 to start doing something productive with your life and to end the party-party-party phase is, well, slow? Why spend your most productive years in the wilderness? I do much of what I do from compulsion - I never had the luxury of being able to sit around and contemplate my future on someone else's dollar - I left university heavily in debt, paying my brother's school fees, lumbered with a mortgage on a great aunt's house, with two parents who had gone into hiding on opposite corners of the globe, deep in denial over their divorce proceedings. I left uni with nowhere to go, no money, lots of obligations, and about a week to find myself income before my world imploded. I found my first job three days after graduating - I went up to London, and went and annoyed financial services companies by literally banging on their doors and going 'interview me'. Eventually someone bit, I spent 18 months there before jumping ship and starting my own thing. This isn't some dim mythical past when jobs grew on trees, rather 2005, and most of my cohort ended up moving home with the folks because they couldn't find jobs - because they didn't try hard enough, because moving home with the folks was an option. When you remove your fallbacks, all you can do is climb and hope there's somewhere you can take a rest further up. When I look at my brother (seven years younger) and myself, there is one defining difference between his upbringing and mine - there's always been someone there to bail him out, to pick up the pieces, to solve his problems for him. Far too often that someone has been me. He's leading his own path, finding his own way, but he is going to be 30 by the time he finds it. Finally, part of finding the path is realising that there is no path but the one you make, and that it is its own goal. There's nothing at the end of it, enjoy the walk.

icebraining 11y ago
If there is no path but the one you make, why is partying until your 30s any less valid than an early start to doing something productive? Seems contradictory.
- madaxe_again 11y ago
  I meant that rather more in the scope of "holding pattern" behaviour. Most folks I know in their early 30's who are still leading that life are still looking for that training contract, or are doing their fifth degree in a new topic. Some want that life - that's cool, but only if it's a decision, rather than a default option. Direction, even if it's to be a directionless wanderer, matters.
1stop 11y ago
An alternate narrative for your story: Your hard work was not the defining characteristic of your success. But it was in fact luck. And your rant could amount to: I won the lottery, why the hell doesn't everyone just do that! Look at my brother... he's never won the lottery, what a chump.
- UVB-76 11y ago
  Indeed; also note that traits like intelligence and motivation are highly heritable, so the lottery metaphor is not as outlandish as it might seem. More to the point, though, when did we all agree on a single definition of "productivity", and when did we decide to hold it up as the purpose of life? I must have missed that AGM.
- madaxe_again 11y ago
  If starting life £200k in the hole with two dependants and nothing to my name is luck, then I'd hate to imagine what bad luck is. My brother is no chump, he just has the (seeming) luxury of being able to take his time - something we have far less of than we think. I'm really not clear on what lottery you think I won. I won't deny that much of life is serendipity, but the difference is having to seize every opportunity you come across, no matter how slight - and we all have plenty of opportunities, but when there is no burning need to assume the risk that goes hand in hand with them, one does not. I suppose, if anything, the moral is that having both everything and nothing to lose is an almighty motivator.
  - kijin 11y ago
    > If starting life £200k in the hole with two dependants and nothing to my name is luck, then I'd hate to imagine what bad luck is. Not even being able to take out a £2k loan, let alone £200k? Having three dependents, two of whom have serious disabilities that require all of your time and money to care for? Even your definition of "starting life" is ridiculous. You define it as leaving uni with a degree that would allow you to cold call financial services companies. How about growing up in a place where nobody ever teaches you that uni is within the realm of possibilities, and everyone bullies you for daring to think that it might in fact be possible? All because you were born to the wrong parents. I agree with you that your brother enjoyed a lot of luxuries. I'm just pointing out that you also enjoyed almost all of the same luxuries.
Matt_Arnold 11y ago
Your post follows a pattern we hear quite often: "I had a lot of problems I overcame them. I'm proud of that. So we should perpetuate problems, in order to have something to overcome and be proud of." Imagine we are all carrying a ladder, and eventually we have to climb it. You were forced to immediately lean your ladder against whichever wall happened to be nearby. As a result, you now are trying to justify the value of reaching the top of that particular wall. Your life choices were made when you were not yet ready to make good choices, and to avoid admitting that, you redefine "good" to mean whatever you ended up with.

icebraining 11y ago

If there is no path but the one you make, why is partying until your 30s any less valid than an early start to doing something productive? Seems contradictory.

madaxe_again 11y ago
I meant that rather more in the scope of "holding pattern" behaviour. Most folks I know in their early 30's who are still leading that life are still looking for that training contract, or are doing their fifth degree in a new topic. Some want that life - that's cool, but only if it's a decision, rather than a default option. Direction, even if it's to be a directionless wanderer, matters.

1stop 11y ago

An alternate narrative for your story: Your hard work was not the defining characteristic of your success. But it was in fact luck. And your rant could amount to: I won the lottery, why the hell doesn't everyone just do that! Look at my brother... he's never won the lottery, what a chump.

UVB-76 11y ago
Indeed; also note that traits like intelligence and motivation are highly heritable, so the lottery metaphor is not as outlandish as it might seem. More to the point, though, when did we all agree on a single definition of "productivity", and when did we decide to hold it up as the purpose of life? I must have missed that AGM.
madaxe_again 11y ago
If starting life £200k in the hole with two dependants and nothing to my name is luck, then I'd hate to imagine what bad luck is. My brother is no chump, he just has the (seeming) luxury of being able to take his time - something we have far less of than we think. I'm really not clear on what lottery you think I won. I won't deny that much of life is serendipity, but the difference is having to seize every opportunity you come across, no matter how slight - and we all have plenty of opportunities, but when there is no burning need to assume the risk that goes hand in hand with them, one does not. I suppose, if anything, the moral is that having both everything and nothing to lose is an almighty motivator.
- kijin 11y ago
  > If starting life £200k in the hole with two dependants and nothing to my name is luck, then I'd hate to imagine what bad luck is. Not even being able to take out a £2k loan, let alone £200k? Having three dependents, two of whom have serious disabilities that require all of your time and money to care for? Even your definition of "starting life" is ridiculous. You define it as leaving uni with a degree that would allow you to cold call financial services companies. How about growing up in a place where nobody ever teaches you that uni is within the realm of possibilities, and everyone bullies you for daring to think that it might in fact be possible? All because you were born to the wrong parents. I agree with you that your brother enjoyed a lot of luxuries. I'm just pointing out that you also enjoyed almost all of the same luxuries.

Matt_Arnold 11y ago

Your post follows a pattern we hear quite often: "I had a lot of problems I overcame them. I'm proud of that. So we should perpetuate problems, in order to have something to overcome and be proud of." Imagine we are all carrying a ladder, and eventually we have to climb it. You were forced to immediately lean your ladder against whichever wall happened to be nearby. As a result, you now are trying to justify the value of reaching the top of that particular wall. Your life choices were made when you were not yet ready to make good choices, and to avoid admitting that, you redefine "good" to mean whatever you ended up with.