
You are not running out of time - complexmango
http://rahulbijlani.com/essays/you-are-not-running-out-of-time-essay/
======
grellas
In a sense, each of us lives our life in _Titanic_ style, setting forth in the
confident assumption that we are unsinkable and placing an unduly high value
on our capacity to meet any challenge, panicking (or at least feeling a sense
of stoic distress) at the mid-point as it first truly hits us that we are
about to slam into the iceberg of inevitable aging and decline, sweating it
out over a seemingly interminable period as our vessel creaks and groans its
way toward destruction, and finally salvaging what we can from the wreckage
and setting it off in a few lifeboats intending to keep hope alive for the
next generation of humanity. In the process, we hope to do something more
meaningful than spend time rearranging deck chairs as we decide upon our
life's focus.

This is not intended as a grim metaphor on life. In fact, I am a supreme
optimist about the beauty of living and about having hopes of doing great
things and doing one's best to achieve them. But what are those things when
the reality is that one's individual life is finite? That is the challenge
faced by every human being who has ever lived.

This piece attempts to answer it by saying, in effect, be careful to set your
goals on things that ultimately matter. Whether the author, at age 30, has
enough perspective to answer this question well is something we can all
ponder. But we all need to try, and this piece is a thoughtful attempt to do
so.

~~~
paganel
> panicking (or at least feeling a sense of stoic distress) at the mid-point
> as it first truly hits us that we are about to slam into the iceberg of
> inevitable aging and decline,

Maybe a little OT, maybe not:

> Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita

> mi ritrovai per una selva oscura,

> ché la diritta via era smarrita.

> Midway upon the journey of our life

> I found myself within a forest dark,

> For the straightforward pathway had been lost.

The first three lines of Dante's _Paradise Lost_.

~~~
mapleoin
Dante wrote _The Divine Comedy_. Milton wrote _Paradise Lost_.

~~~
steveh
These are the opening lines of Inferno (first book of The Divine Comedy)

------
equalarrow
This essay is definitely something to keep in mind, albeit it's probably
easier in theory than practice.

I'm probably a little older than most of the Y crowd. I've worked at a few
very successful startups - pre and post dot com. For one of them, which
changed the travel industry, I was literally one of the first people to put
down code and my own stab at defining their architecture - I was there before
there were any formal employees.

But now, I have a kid on the way, never really made millions (sorta got
close), can't seem to find that 'magic' again, and there is definitely that
notion that time is fleeting. Over the past decade I studied a lot of
philosophy - mostly buddhist and hindu. I meditated, quieted my mind, enjoyed
my moments, and felt very peaceful while the world flew by. I dropped out of
working for a year to learn how to write electronic music (played music my
whole life, got pretty good at the electronic stuff) - this was probably the
happiest I'd been in a long time and I 100% did live day to day, creating,
constantly getting better.

Lately over the past few years though, life's changed. The thought that I am
getting closer to getting older and starting a family adds additional
pressure. It seems much simpler when you're by yourself - which is why monks
follow that route. Ultimately, we make the decisions we make and we have to
learn from them.

As someone who's been programming most of my life, loves technology, and still
appreciates the latest and greatest, I'm still drawn to it. At this point, I
can see how things should work and feel like I really appreciate things that
are designed well. However, there's only so much time in the day and I don't
really crank on code for 10+ hours anymore. I keep thinking that I can compete
with a lot of people for tech knowhow, but maybe my real potential is to pass
all this on to the next generation.

I'm sure that I've been more fortunate that a lot of people on this rock, but
I still don't feel I've felt that success I've wanted and, yah, it does feel
like time _is_ running out.

~~~
linuxhansl
I feel exactly the same. Incidentally just today I have to decide between a
job that I know at a company I had been at for a while and new job with more
responsibilities, slightly lower pay, longer commute, that might boost my
carrier from a "programmer" to something more. I am old in software terms and
that might be one of my last chances to do that. I have a son, and spending
time with him is one of the most important things for me.

I am good and successful at what I am doing, but one always looks for the next
thing.

As you I spent a lot of time the past ten developing my spiritual side. I
meditate a lot, went to 10 day silent retreat... At this junction my peace
fails me, though.

------
reasonattlm
Beg to differ. I'd say that if you're not feeling pressed, that you have too
little time left, then you don't have anywhere near an adequate view of the
plausible future. A golden age lies ahead, of glittering marvels to make all
that has come so far pale to insignificance. But unless we step up to the
plate and master biotechnology a lot faster and better than is presently
managed, all of us reading this now will miss both that future and lives of
health and transcendence lasting centuries in which to enjoy it.

As I put it here:

[http://hplusmagazine.com/2011/07/13/longevity-science-
needs-...](http://hplusmagazine.com/2011/07/13/longevity-science-needs-
documentation/)

"We all express the symptoms of a fatal, inherited degenerative condition
called aging - or so the joke goes. It's a dark joke, but there's truth to be
found in it, as is often the case in black humor. Unfortunately, all too few
people think of themselves as patients suffering aging, and fewer still would
call themselves patient advocates, agitating for research leading towards
therapies and cures for aging. This is a sorry state of affairs: given that
our time is limited and ticking away, the tasks upon the table should always
include some consideration of aging. What can we do about it? How can we
engineer a research community, funding and support to make real progress
within our lifetimes? If you don't spend at least some of your time on this
issue, then you're fiddling while Rome burns. Time is the most precious thing
we have, and we live on the cusp of technologies that will allow us to gain
more of it - but those advances in medicine won't happen soon enough unless we
work at it."

~~~
john_b
I think you missed the author's point. The article wasn't about gaining more
(or infinite) time. It was about maximizing your joy in life by living in such
a way that you can be proud of your accomplishments without being overwhelmed
by the need to continually out-do yourself or others. How long you live is
completely irrelevant to that point. And if you are not enjoying your life
because you're feeling so pressed and anxious, then living forever won't
change that--that's a mentality problem.

Not to mention the disappointment you might feel if you die before the onset
of the much hyped biotech revolution, having placed your hopes for happiness
in its arrival.

~~~
Jach
While I can agree with the author's point I think it was poorly expressed
(your summary is better) and the way he suggests embodying the point seems
contradictory to making an effort against Death. Though I think if people did
have a certain expectation to live billions of years we wouldn't have very
many hurried people around, though that's just my own speculation.

> Not to mention the disappointment you might feel if you die before the onset
> of the much hyped biotech revolution, having placed your hopes for happiness
> in its arrival.

At least the disappointment would be brief since by the time you're close
enough to death to feel it you won't be alive much longer. Though I would find
it pitiable that a person refuses to be happy their entire life and would only
be happy being essentially immortal; it seems like many 'immortalists' are
actually quite content in their current lives but want that to go on as long
as possible.

~~~
kiba
They would also take great effort to find black swans and long shot. Living a
really long life can make you ambitious.

If you're an old 75 years old, than you might be predisposed to the short
term.

The young don't know they have it, and the old don't care.

If you're going to live on the average lifespan of a 100,000 thousand years
and improving, than 50 years is no problem to be wasting your time on big
projects.

You can wait for your space probes to report to you, make big colonization
effort that span centuries, and solve scientific questions that will take
decades to unravel.

~~~
say_
Ironically, such a world would have to be populated by people born after the
epoch, not before, to fully take advantage of the conceptual freedoms it would
have to offer.

~~~
pjscott
People change. And they would have plenty of time to get used to it.

------
Jach
The sort of mentality championed here is important to keep in mind, but it can
also be dangerous if implemented the wrong way. I keep this in mind, too:

"The ninth virtue is perfectionism. The more errors you correct in yourself,
the more you notice. As your mind becomes more silent, you hear more noise.
When you notice an error in yourself, this signals your readiness to seek
advancement to the next level. If you tolerate the error rather than
correcting it, you will not advance to the next level and you will not gain
the skill to notice new errors. In every art, if you do not seek perfection
you will halt before taking your first steps. If perfection is impossible that
is no excuse for not trying. Hold yourself to the highest standard you can
imagine, and look for one still higher. Do not be content with the answer that
is almost right; seek one that is exactly right."
<http://yudkowsky.net/rational/virtues>

~~~
sonnekki
That link is really cool! Thanks for posting, it will be going on my cube wall
at work.

------
a3_nm
> what do I want to see grow? What do I want to build?

The problem is that in the vast majority of cases, unless you managed to build
something successful by the time you die, then your work will die with you and
nobody will care.

The article makes the tempting assumption that progress is monotonic, and that
the work that you do will eventually find its use. I don't think this is right
-- the vast majority of stuff ever created gets thrown away or forgotten. In
this sense, you are running out of time: you have only so much time left to
accomplish something which will really survive you.

(Note that this applies to intellectual achievements, not so much to building
a family and the like.)

~~~
mechanical_fish
_your work will die with you and nobody will care_

 _You_ should care, while you are alive. Whether your successors care or not
is optional, and frankly is their problem, not yours.

There are many recorded instances of work that was generally ignored by the
creator's immediate successors - or even by contemporaries - but was
eventually appreciated decades, even centuries later. Classic examples: Bach's
fugues went terribly out of fashion even during his lifetime; Shakespeare's
biography is obscure mainly because his works went through a period of
obscurity; Mendel published his work to no acclaim whatsoever, went on to have
a completely different non-science career, and died before other scientists
(two of them simultaneously!) discovered his work. Johannes Vermeer, Jane
Austen, Emily Dickinson...

Other artists were hailed as legends during their lifetime and then promptly
forgotten. Maybe they will remain forgotten. More likely some will be
rediscovered next year or next century. Make what you want to make. Let the
future take care of itself. It probably won't listen to you anyway.

~~~
felipemnoa
Good advise. The takeaway from your advise is that you should make sure that
your work can be discovered in the future several decades or hundreds of years
after your death. Contributing to a reputable science journal is a good way to
make your work last for a long time.

~~~
kiba
Or making your content public domain and spreading it as widely as your
marketing skill can.

------
lotharbot
A key mental transition to make is from asking the question "am I winning?" to
asking the question "am I doing something worthwhile?"

~~~
zbisch
Your point reminds me of Colbert's speech at Northwestern this year. Towards
the end (the more serious part) he says something along the lines that, you
don't really "win" at life. I'd say more, but Colbert says it better:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6tiaooiIo0>

~~~
daimyoyo
Awesome speech. Thank you for posting it.

------
mmatants
I generally agree with the sentiment, but it seems like the author never
really shed the dependence on having an arbitrary material goal.

I think a more Zen-like direction is to just apply the "friend in a pub" test
- if you can describe your motivations and actions to an (intelligent) peer
and have them nod in approval, then that's it. And yes, there are _many_ such
choices, which is the whole point - it doesn't really matter beyond that
threshold!

I remember that moment of epiphany for myself, when I realized that nobody
else really gives a shit what _specifically_ I do, as long as it's a
reasonably fine decision.

And no, that does not mean slacking/etc. Wasting one's potential is definitely
not reasonable.

------
samspot
Let's not get mixed up by calling it the "Game", the right term is the "Rat
Race". Comparing ourselves to others excessively is the highway to
unhappiness. The secret to the rat race is that you can never win... as the
author says, the goalposts keep moving. There is always someone richer,
someone more recognized, someone happier.

Do your best at the things you enjoy doing, and make time for the things that
are really important you.

Who would have thought a key secret to happiness is found in the 10
commandments: "Thou shall not covet"

------
sayemm
My econ professor in undergrad did some interesting research on utility and
happiness: <http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mkimball/pdf/uhap.pdf>

I think the sooner you figure out exactly what your utility curve is (e.g.
what really drives you and what you're looking for out of life), the more
successful you'll be at maximizing it and living a fulfilling life.

The meaning of life is to make the most meaning out of it.

------
BasDirks
" _What that quickly meant to me was that wasting time and opportunities were
criminal, with my own potential achievements as victims that needed to be
rescued from the assault of lost hours and non-productivity._ "

Beautiful writing.

------
ImprovedSilence
It never gets easier, you just go faster. - Greg LeMond.

~~~
simonsarris
That reminds of a similar quote from F1 racer Mario Andretti:

"If everything seems under control, you're just not going fast enough."

------
impendia
I recommend reading about Buddhism for anyone who was inspired by this post,
as I was. Anything by Pema Chodron is a good place to start. For HN'ers in the
Bay, the SF Zen Center cheerfully welcomes walkins.

------
flocial
The way I read the essay is different stages in life require different
perspectives. All night hacking sessions on Red Bull and ramen work until your
mid 20s. In your 40s it'll kill you, quick and you're knowledge or ability
will not be any better for it. You need to spend time to sit down and absorb
the knowledge.

Games like golf and I don't know skeet shooting show how you can do more with
less. However, that doesn't mean the foundation you built in youth with
intense practice or an unforgiving drive to achieve is now worthless.

Rahul can say "you are not running out of time" because he stepped on the
pedal damn hard. To each their own. I'm pretty sure that if Rahul went
bankrupt tomorrow he'd be back to his 17 year old self hustling with
everything he's got but if he did that now he'd be putting more at risk than
he has possibility to gain.

------
grisha
“What I realized was that playing the game the right way isn’t good enough –
it needs to be played for the right reason: it has to be played to build
something, to see something grow. Gordon wasn’t building anything at all, not
even a family, and his emptiness showed dramatically.”

Gordon suffered because of split personality: one was enjoying the game he
played, another was generated by social pressing – goals like family,
relationships and so on. When you see something grow, you are measuring that.
When you measure something, you compare that with similar things. When you
compare, you trace your progress balance. When you trace, you predict wanted
future. And whole this way leads to “moving goals”.

Author began from right point – it’s all about feeling and enjoying moment.
That’s all.

------
abhaga
I am reminded of what C P Snow wrote about the beautiful piece of writing
called "A Mathematician's Apology" by G H Hardy:

 _A mathematicians apology is, if read with the textual attention it deserves,
a book of haunting sadness. Yes, it is witty and sharp with intellectual high
spirits: yes, the crystalline clarity and candour are still there: yes, it is
the testament of a creative artist. But it is also, in an understated stoical
fashion, a passionate lament for creative powers that used to be and that will
never come again. I know nothing like it in the language: partly because most
people with the literary gift to express such a lament don't come to feel it:
it is very rare for a writer to realise, with the finality of truth, that he
is absolutely finished._

------
raleec
My parents made me memorize a poem at a young age:

I have only just a minute, only sixty seconds in it, forced upon me, can't
refuse it, didn't seek it, didn't choose it. But, it is up to me to use it. I
must suffer if I lose it. Give account if I abuse it, just a tiny little
minute - but eternity is in it."

Which I interpreted to mean that life is really about process. It's very
distracting to focus on long term goals in many cases, as it can cause you to
overlook the steps that need to happen _each minute_ , especially if you think
that you can make up that minute later. Long time scales also force you to
make impossible predictions about how long you'll even be alive(which can be
underestimated as easily as over estimated).

------
yrislerlhf
Very good post, I like the use of two themes: playing games and building
things. I think he places too little emphasis on the importance of games
though, and to my ears, he is advancing a false dichotomy between game-playing
and thing-building. Playing games to win them can be very satisfying.

There are a couple of games that are somehow larger: the great game of empire
and the money game, measured by net worth, but others such as the tour de
france and nascar provide the winners with substantial social status. As an
aside, not sure where musicians fit into this world-view.

The separation of concepts of game player and thing builder are useful, but it
is easy to go too far. Bill Gates is well known to be intensely competitive,
and to suggest that he was somehow building something for the good of mankind
is deluded. In fact, this paragraph is pure confusion regarding Bill Gates'
leadership of Microsoft:

'''Even Bill Gates seems to have an opinion on this. “I’m a great believer
that any tool that enhances communication has profound effects in terms of how
people can learn from each other, and how they can achieve the kind of
freedoms that they’re interested in.” And sure enough, he’s been building
these tools all his life. All the money he made doing it? He’s giving it away.
And he’s enjoying that process too!'''

Philanthropy is somewhat common behavior among highly successful people, at
least in the USA, but to suggest that fortunes are made for the sake of giving
them away is to confuse life trajectory with motivating beliefs.

The game is to win! Empires are built to crush other empires, and athletes
build their bodies to defeat their opponents! This is Drama, and it is stuff
of Life.

To win big one must build big, but if the aim is simply to build big, it is
easy to drift off into cult territory like this guy:
[http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/07/25/110725fa_fact_...](http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/07/25/110725fa_fact_cassidy)

I am suggesting that the competitive context is useful not only for
germinating the building of things but also for integrating them into the rest
of society once they have been built.

------
dkrich
Great post- definitely one of the most insightful that I've read on Hacker
News.

The other day I was thinking about why humans seem to be conditioned to ignore
the failures, both their own and those of the people around them, often to
their own detriment, while at the same time often quite accurately seeing the
deficiencies of those closest to them. I concluded that there must be
something evolutionary in that behavior, given that it is so prevalent in
society.

But in any case, what is the alternative? To give up before you start? I know
a lot of people who have gone that route, and overall it doesn't seem to be a
recipe for success or happiness.

------
jmitcheson
While we're all sharing..

The article focuses on macro level time; I often stress about micro level
time. I read so many stories about startups getting funded, aquired, launching
products and so on. I constantly feel like I just need to code a little
longer, work a little harder on my startup; like everyone is on my heels, and
I'll be left behind if I don't launch sooner, iterate sooner, expand sooner,
etc.

It's irrational, but I constantly have these thoughts. I don't mean to go all
self help but I get the feeling other people must feel like this. Am I alone
or does this ring bells? :)

------
guylhem
Interesting - that's close to what I understood of Nietzsche philosophy :
define your own goals, try to reach them and that's the process where
happiness is found - not in some temporary "status" like money/vacation/home
etc.

I could be wrong, but so far it seems to work.

My method : I keep a list of objectives, which are defined after some
introspection about what I like and enjoy. They are then redefined as "goals
to tend to".

I guess I could say I let my reptilian brain decide on the goals, and the
advanced cortical functions design the strategy and plot the right path :-)

------
orochimaru
Essays like this are good, and this one was good too, but I wonder how such
essays boil down to the lower strata of the society, for example - janitors.
Nobody wants to be a janitor, but the world needs janitors to function. Same
for other thankless jobs. How does a janitor adapt this essay to his/her life
?

Otherwise, reading this essay provided me with a temporary sense of calm, like
so many other inspiring essays do - i only hope I'm able to inculcate some of
the ideas mentioned in this post in my own life :)

------
donaq
I doubt Bill Gates agrees. You do not get to be the richest man in the world
(without being the monarch of an oil-rich country) without a strong streak of
competitiveness.

~~~
astrofinch
Your comment reminded me of this awesome story about Bill Gates.

<http://www.borrett.id.au/computing/petals-bg.htm>

------
dsmithn
_Existence precedes essence_

I came to similar conclusions of this author after reading Camus' _The
Stranger_ (and many other Existential books thereafter) in high school.

There's no meaning to life other than what you make of it. This author finds
meaning in building things, seeing things grow. Other people find meaning to
their lives by shining shoes and are just as happy. Or at least they find
contentment in what they do, which in many ways is better.

------
keeptrying
I think this only applies when your actively pursuing your dreams. Ie you keep
challenging yourself and are never in autopilot mode. As soon as you become
complacent I think you are again running out of time.

If you've never taken the time to pursue your own goals is another situation
in which your definitely running out of time. For example: If you've always
wanted to start your own company but you've never tried because of the fear of
failure.

------
epenner
It's hard not to compare with your peers, colleagues, and classmates. I was a
year into my first job as a developer before being laid off and am now
planning my next steps. At 23 this sounds fairly ridiculous but the feeling of
running out of time weighs heavily on my mind. Here's what I'm struggling
through.

1\. Following the steps of alumnus a tried and true path seems to be going
back to grad school for a masters degree, studying something that requires
advanced mathematics (i.e. graphics programming) and then getting that job at
Google. But what if <insert dream company> is not cracked up to what I imagine
it to be? When I graduated I was head over heels about working full time as a
developer. However the actual experience of working with a very large &
complex legacy C++ codebase was more frustrating and painful than I could have
possibly imagined. Velocity and skills development was slow (it was not
uncommon to spend several days investigating a single bug) and most of my time
was spent slogging through very complicated and undocumented code, trying to
figure out the intent of the original authors. Not having other jobs to
compare it to, <dream job at dream company> could be much the same. In any
case if I don't upgrade my arsenal or credentials I feel like I will always
doomed to work at second-rate dev shops where employees are ever susceptible
to unpleasantries like mediocre salaries/advancement and layoffs. Companies
here cannot just cannot compete with tech giants.

2\. Find another job. I have a 2-3 month window to quickly find another job as
there seems to be some stigma associated with unemployment. The city I live in
is a technological wasteland and opportunities for pure software development
are relatively limited, so realistically my next employer is likely to be an
Oil and Gas company. While that certainly pay the bills it kind of limits your
career to other oil and gas companies.

3\. Forget about societal pressures and do my own thing. I have enough savings
to take a year off, develop my skills, fill in gaps in my knowledge and work
on toy projects. Unfortunately this means having to explain a gap year where I
might have very little to show for it. The skills I develop will probably not
be directly applicable to a job.

Like many I aspire to become the best I can be and like to think of myself as
somewhat respectable but at the end of the day I'm just an average developer.
I guess the point is if you aren't a genius/wizard you have to deal with your
inadequacies and "running out of time" is always in the back of your mind.

~~~
BrandonM
I think you're overestimating the difficulty of getting a job. It's your life
and no one else's. You don't have to fit someone else's mold of an ideal
employee just to get meaningful work.

Take that year. Meet some people. Talk to business owners and other money
creators. There's always opportunity to improve someone's life and improve or
build on existing solutions using your skills. You might even find money in
that.

Build your projects. Download the source for an open source tool you use.
Learn how it works, write some documentation, and add functionality for
yourself. Find problems that frustrate you and others and solve them. You
might even find money in that.

Get a job as a freelancer, a server, a valet, a bartender, a hotel front desk
overnight receptionist. You'll extend your runway, gain a lot of perspective
and insight, pick up useful skills, and meet people entirely different from
those you've met up to this point. You might even find money in that.

If none of that "works out" at the end of a year or two, start looking for a
traditional programming job. The gap year(s) and lack of a Masters won't be
detrimental; in the programming world, it's all about what you've done. Any
company worth working for will take one look at your projects and start
recruiting you to work for them.

As the article said, enjoy the journey. As Randall Monroe said, "...the
solution [to seeing what each moment could become] doesn't involve watering
down my every little idea and creative impulse for the sake of someday easing
my fit into a mold. It doesn't involve tempering my life to better fit
someone's expectations. It doesn't involve constantly holding back for fear of
shaking things up."

<http://xkcd.com/137/>

Shake things up. Make your own path in the world and enjoy yourself along the
way. Good luck!

------
kplusd
Most of you will know it already, but Steve Job's commencement speech at
Stanford speaks in essence about finding the 'right' path as well:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc>

(for those who haven't seen it: it's a must...)

------
Kilimanjaro
Ah, the game of life, where nobody ever ends up alive. What a stupid game to
play, yet we all play it betting all our hopes on being the only winner this
time. Thank god I got my loaded dice somebody sold me in a dark alley for a
kidney. My turn to roll...

------
sidwyn
I thought the exact same thing yesterday, 'Am I running out of time?'.

This essay is like a godsend.

------
stretchwithme
A friend of mine once told me she was too old to leave her cult-like religious
group. She was 22.

That was 25 years ago and it seems she's still with them. I think her
estimates were a little off.

------
ricardobeat
Funny to see this at the top right before StayFocusd (chrome xt) warns me I
have 5 minutes browsing left!

------
michaelochurch
Yes and no.

The good news: if you're in your 20s now, you have 60 or 70 years of life
left, and scientific advances being what they are, they'll probably be mostly
good years. That's a lot of time. Also, the common trope about poets and
mathematicians peaking at 20 is the exception, not the rule, and doesn't apply
to modern times anyway (mathematics is so specialized that modern
mathematicians are just getting started at 25-30). The actual cognitive peak
is somewhere around 50, and the drop-off after that is health-related rather
than hard-coded, so if you stay healthy, even into your 80s the decline will
be slight to nonexistent. Using vocabulary as an example, you probably won't
gain many words from 50 to 80, but if you're healthy, you won't lose many
either. So yes, if you're 25 or even 50, you have a hell of a lot of time
left.

The bad news: society is incredibly ageist, and as you get older, the amount
you need to have achieved in order to be taken seriously ratchets up. Do you
think Mark Zuckerberg (who is as much a VC invention as most celebrities are
Hollywood inventions) would have gotten the support, mentoring, and funding
that he did if he were 36 instead of 20? Almost impossible. Being young is a
hard-to-tap (if you're not perceived as being exceptional, you'll be typecast
as a "young pup" and not taken seriously) but extremely powerful asset in
business: the "boy wonder" archetype. Perhaps it's utterly moronic that it
works, but it is very powerful when it hits.

This is even worse in the big-box corporate world than in technology, where
your age and job title define who you are as a person. In big-box corporate,
VP at 35 means you're serious, whereas VP at 50 is a consolation prize. This
is why people in that world bump their college degrees up 5 years and pay for
plastic surgery, the latter being an investment that pays itself off
immensely. It's not just that people want to appear younger; it's that they
benefit immensely by the appearance of being in their current position at a
younger age.

So, you are running out of time, not because of biology, but because of the
general shallowness of most people. At age 40, you have one-fifth as many
options as you did at 22. It sucks, but that's the way the world works now.

~~~
eavc
Great comment.

As a 27-year-old who has had several false-starts in my career, I'm already
feeling some of that pain.

It strikes me that, since there are some important elements of human
personality that can change over time, there are some 'geniuses' that blossom
later or who are late to really get going for some reason.

This might be a point worth reflecting on for hiring in competitive fields.
You could find some A+ candidates that have slipped through the cracks.

~~~
chipsy
26 years old today. Definitely reflecting on this. I recall once reading that
there are two kinds of breakthrough successes - younger "rockstar" successes
driven by narrow, intense passion, and older "masters" who have accumulated an
unmatched breadth and depth of experience. While I can see elements of both in
myself, I can see the door for the first closing rapidly.

------
StephanieKim1
good online experience,should save it.

------
forcefield
I am counting on longevity as my most worthy talent.

------
schiptsov
I think this site could be brought by Cosmopolitan some day. ^_^ Top stories
are exactly fit for it.

------
nachteilig
This seems really inappropriate for HN, to be honest with you. Please, with
all due respect, leave this stuff for digg or reddit.

~~~
danilocampos
> This seems really inappropriate for HN, to be honest with you. Please, with
> all due respect, leave this stuff for digg or reddit.

I'm always curious upon what basis comments like this are made.

I mean, if the test for HN-worthiness is "nerds think it's interesting" and
you have evidence that, say, 87 nerds find it interesting enough to make the
top post, what's missing? Is this an odd myopia/literalism thing where
_everything must be startups and compilers and funding and nrghlhmm_?

~~~
nachteilig
That's sort of the theme of this site, no? We have reddit and such for this
kind of writing.

~~~
m_myers
_"If your account is less than a year old, please don't submit comments saying
that HN is turning into Reddit. (It's a common semi-noob illusion.)"_ \-
<http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html>

There is much more interesting (and useful) to hackers than pure startup and
tech news.

~~~
nachteilig
Too bad you wouldn't know anything about that.

