
Why you should take your 20's seriously - jevanish
http://jasonevanish.com/2012/11/01/why-you-should-take-your-20s-seriously/
======
crazygringo
I "agree", but draw the exact opposite conclusions.

You should take your 20's seriously... because it's the only time in your life
that you _aren't_ encumbered by building a career, having kids, etc.

So you should take your 20's to do the things that you won't be able to do
later. Work as a bartender, play in a band, travel the world on the cheap,
teach English abroad, date the kind of people you wouldn't marry. You don't
have serious responsibilities, so take advantage of that while you can.

Don't waste your 20's "building a career". You've got your 30's and 40's and
50's to do that. Don't be in a rush to have kids too soon.

Obviously, don't throw your 20's away. But spend them doing life-experience-
focused things, not career- or family-focused.

And this gets at the author's third point: "Your brain finishes forming in
your 20′s". If that's even true (although I doubt it), then you'd better get
in all those varied life experiences sooner rather than later. Learn a second
language, learn to cook, learn to play music.

Don't waste your 20's on grinding away at traditionally career-oriented stuff.
That part of your brain is probably already fine. Your 20's is the time to
look for diversity in your life, not to focus narrowly on any particular part.
You've got all the decades afterward to work on narrow refinement and career
progression...

~~~
flyosity
I'm a 29-year old male who spent his 20s building a career I love and now has
a 6-month old daughter, so this quote:

> Don't waste your 20's "building a career". You've got your 30's and 40's and
> 50's to do that. Don't be in a rush to have kids too soon.

Doesn't really make sense to me. If you don't build a career and finances in
your 20s, you either can't afford to have a kid in your early 30s or you have
one and can't provide the life and opportunities they should have. And it
seems you skipped over the part about women having extreme difficulties having
children later than their mid-30s, or the children they have are at a higher
risk of birth defects and miscarriages. Typically, a guy by himself cannot
create a child without a woman, so if you're going to party in your 20s and
not think about finances and a career until your 30s, and kids later than
that, you should know going in that your partner will be need to be much
younger than you to accomplish this.

I don't mean to ask personal questions here, but it seems apropos considering
your guidance: how old are you? do you have a spouse? a son or daughter? Does
your guidance match up with how you've lived your life, and are you now
successfully balancing a budding career and family in your older years after
living your 20s in various countries like China, France, Brazil and others?

~~~
kahawe
I more or less just came into my 30s and I spent my 20s pretty much
exclusively on computers, studying and working and playing. Computer were
pretty much 95% of my life. Last time I changed job, I more than doubled my
after-tax salary and I have not once had to go through the process of really
applying; whenever I showed up to HR things were pretty much decided already
in advance, they just had to keep up appearances. I have always been the guy
everyone goes to for help, I have more than once fundamentally changed the way
people work, think and approach problems for the better. Where I have worked
for the last 5 to 7 years, I am pretty much the last line "of defense", so to
speak... because every time something stopped working and I could not figure
it out, it would go on taking the support team of one of the biggest names in
IT literally a year trying to pinpoint the issue only to not being able to
come up with a solution in the end. This is not meant to boast, I am working
towards a point:

So I would say my "career" is there... yet my personal life and emotional
happiness is in complete ruins; while my age and point in career match at
"30", emotionally and as a person, a human being, I feel like I am 12. I feel
like I have completely wasted my 20s, I have never had a chance to actually
grow up, I just worked on "career" which is what everyone told me to; the rest
of the time I sedated myself with video games and food and otherwise spending
the money I had made to numb down any and all bad feelings. I don't think I
could ever get these 10 years back and grow into a strong minded, healthy
human being now that the time is gone. Everyone at my age now is lightyears
ahead of me both emotionally and in terms of experience and other skills.

That is why from my own experience, I cannot imagine having the opposite "20s"
to be ANY worse because at least if you "wasted" your 20s, at least then you
had fun and had good moments to think back on and you matured as a human being
but you got something out of those 10 years and your 30s are early enough to
be working on "career" with all the skills and the strength you gathered by
the experiences you made in your 20s.

For me, now, I feel completely stuck and wasted, at a complete emotional and
existential low point of no return. I have to try and use what little energy I
have left to battle against all sorts of addictive behaviour and means of
escape that I developed in those lonely, hard working 10 years. Whatever money
I am making does not matter because I don't really get anything valuable and
truly good from it. And even if I desperately tried to change now, I would
have to invest all that energy while everyone else is free to use the same
energy to lead a happy and fulfilled, enjoyable life. I just cannot win
anymore.

If I could do it over again, I would do nothing but drink, party, meet people,
be BOLD and strong, teach myself more about computers and do all that in a
foreign country and develop a personality before anything else. Go play in
your 20s, everyone else is pushing you towards "career" anyway so at least you
yourself need to take very good care of yourself as a human being and develop
that side and make sure you get enough "play".

~~~
neverm0re
Speaking from the other side here, I started programming at eight and
abandoned that in my late teens for partying, sex and adventure through my
twenties. Despite landing a scholarship at a respectable school, I walked out
the door two months later to go chase a girl.

It's only been now in my thirties that I've taken programming and such
seriously, because it's suddenly far more fun to me than social games. There's
this vague sense of regret much like you're describing, except inverted -- I
could have probably accomplished a LOT had I stayed on point. Despite that,
I'm still successful by standards I set out for myself in my early twenties
and I've got some rather ambitious plans for my forties, yet.

At the end of the day: I've been here since Usenet was a thing, dotcoms are
still as hilarious as they were in the 90s and I honestly think it's just the
media fixation on the notion of precocious children that perpetuates this
culture obsessed with how we're all supposedly dead at thirty -- when really,
that's when many creative individuals begin to hit their stride as many
artists discover their talents later in life.

Really, people should stop worrying about any of this shit, as most of it is
just talk from people trying to sandbag you.

+1 for being brave enough to talk so candidly.

~~~
D_Alex
>There's this vague sense of regret much like you're describing, except
inverted...

Let me tell you a little joke, it is a running joke in our family. A young man
goes to his father for advice: "Should I get married to my girlfriend Jenny or
stay single?" Father replies "Son...My dear, dear son... whatever you do,
you'll end up regretting it."

But when we are not joking, the advice we give each other is usually "well...
whatever you do, things should turn out okay". And that is in fact how it has
been.

So, IMHO:

>Really, people should stop worrying about any of this shit

is exactly right.

------
barrkel
Contra: you only live once. The risk with spending so much of your youth
building for a future - in essence, living for the tomorrow you're trying to
create - is that you won't want it when you get there.

When you're young, you're at the point at which you most likely have fewer
worries of any kind than you will in the rest of your life. And you won't
appreciate this until it's gone. A slightly more advanced career is a poor
substitute.

I'm not arguing in favour of feckless youth. In fact, you should be serious
about one thing - not wasting your time. But building a career that you
abandon in your 30s or 40s may also be a waste of time.

~~~
dclusin
Agreed. One thing I've noticed about my own life is how hard even 1 year out
of your career track hurts you both professionally (skill set) and personally
(income/wealth). I was doing financial services programming for a big bank as
my first job right out of college before the housing bust. I ended up getting
laid off and enjoying the "funemployment" people talk about: 6 month full
severance, unemployment at the top rate after that, living at home with the
parents, no debt, and doing whatever strikes my fancy.

I set an upper bound of 1 year maximum to be out of the field of programming.
When I came back (should have kept programming while unemployed, stupid, I
know) not only had my skill set deteriorated but so did my market rate. Out of
college my salary was $98,000. By the time I had gotten back into the work
force my salary was $65,000. It took about 1.5 years of hard work and a lot of
overtime to get back to where I was. And during this time my peers that stayed
employed have grown a lot both in terms skill set and market rate. So
basically because I took 1 year off, I lost ~2.5-3 years of my career because
I had to work back to where I was before.

I think if I were to get a do-over I would have not have taken a year off. But
the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence, as they say.

~~~
Cyclic404
Did you go back to the same field and responsibilities? I'm taking almost 2.5
years off but I don't really think I'll suffer a set-back.

~~~
engtech
So much of it has to do with where the economy is.

Looking for a job in 2000 vs 2001 was a change in what you could demand as a
salary. Same in 2008 vs 2009.

~~~
Cyclic404
Well that makes sense. Also would make sense that this is possibly why he got
laid off in the first place.

------
agentultra
Good luck trying to tell other people how they should live their lives.

I can tell you that there are probably a hundred things I could've done better
with my time in my twenties. However there was no way that I would have known
then what I would be like today and what makes me happy now. Back then I
thought I would keep gigging in bands and I'd scrape together a record label
and have a long career in music. That's what made me happy at the time and
what I sought out to do. How could I have known that I would change? I have a
wife now and a daughter on the way, I've become a mild-mannered programmer who
enjoys mathematics and literature, and rather than getting pissed on a Friday
night and making a lot of noise I like to hang out with my friends and play
board games. But if I was wiser I might have went to university and worked on
getting a PhD then I'd probably be better off now, today. Hindsight...

What I'm saying is that humans are terrible planners. We're good at adapting
and adjusting but we can never seem to be able to accurately predict outcomes.
I think that we glorify those people who seem to far surpass the status quo
and bend their stories into myth. It's romantic to think that Einstein or
Steve Jobs had set out to change the world when they were young but if we're
honest about their history it's more likely that they drifted towards those
things and all the right pieces were in place at the right time to make great
things happen.

And it doesn't end when you hit thirty. I'm still as ambitious as ever and I
see new currents that I'd like to follow that I would never have thought
possible before. You don't just become a dumb, boring, cantankerous old person
over night. Quite the contrary; I find that my tastes are far more refined, I
can see dead-ends before going down the path, and I am more adverse to wasting
my time. You start to see patterns in the ocean and can navigate the seas with
ease.

So plan all you want but be prepared to fight the current and the winds!

~~~
kpennell5
Beautifully written, thanks for the insights.

------
guylhem
I disagree with a lot of the comments - and with the article point.

We should not think about taking any age seriously or not, but of the bigger
picture instead, ie one's goals in life.

Unfortunately, they are not written down for you, and they can be quite hard
to find.

There are various algorithm that may work, but all I see in the article and
the comments are basically 2 opposite proposals :

\- plan A: explore in your twenties to make sure you properly identify your
goals

\- plan B : commit to your career in your twenties to take advantage of
compounding interest (in life as in money)

But we all know alternatives approaches - like iterating between exploration
(finding a local maxima) and exploitation (taking advantage of this local
maxima)

I guess it all depends if you have already found your fancy, and all longs it
will take to get you bored out of it, but it seems to be a much better
approach - especially if you do not ignore the money aspect of your fancies
(ie starting a band might be fun, but odds of financial return are low)

Also, it seems to me a lot of the comments insist about family and children.
These are individual decisions - not givens, something the author clearly
stated ("if having a family is part of your life's goals").

Fortunately for men, there is no age limit (and if we keep our rate of
technological progress in stem cells and differentiation into germinal lines,
there is no reason why it couldn't be also possible for women)

Currently, at least for 50% of the readers, age should not be factored in -
opening the door for more iteration of the explore/exploit loop, with the
always present opportunity to have kids.

I guess I don't understand or I'm missing something, maybe like the preference
of dating someone of a similar age (which might then impose its own preference
on optimal child bearing age)

~~~
LVB
_Fortunately for men, there is no age limit_

Maybe. Some newer evidence shows older fathers are more likely to pass on
genetic mutations.

[http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000087239639044481270457760...](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444812704577605282821235136.html)

------
wheels
This is rather straw-man-ish. He equates having a fun, care-free life as ...
working at Starbucks.

I don't know anyone who's ever said, "Well, why don't you just work at
Starbucks for a decade? It'll be fun and you can get a real job when you're
30!"

What's _actually_ said is more like, "Take a few months and a backpack and go
travel somewhere" or "start a company with no idea if it'll pan out". Party.
Start a band. Chase some girls [or guys]. Read a lot.

It doesn't mean "throw away a decade" -- it means "do the important things
that it'll be harder for you to get away with if 10 years from now you have a
family and mortgage."

I visited over 30 countries in my 20s. Even if that would have kept me from
advancing my career (it didn't), I wouldn't trade that for being a year closer
to a promotion in an IT job.

~~~
zpk
"What's actually said is more like, "Take a few months and a backpack and go
travel somewhere" or "start a company with no idea if it'll pan out". Party.
Start a band. Chase some girls [or guys]. Read a lot."

I am in my 30's and I hope to continue/start doing some of this.

------
grecy
Ugh. I've been having this conversation a lot lately.

> Your 20′s lay the groundwork for success in the rest of your career.

Can also be said as: While in your 20's, you should start living like you're
in your 30's, 40's and 50's, so you can do that and only that for your entire
life.

I completely reject that way of thinking.

There are many things we all want to do in our 20's we will not want to do
later in life, which is all the more reason to do them in your 20's, lest you
never get to do them at all.

As anecdotal evidence, I spent 2 years of my life from 27-29 driving from
Alaska to Argentina, because I wanted to. Will I want to sleep in a tent for
>500 nights when I'm 50? doubtful. Am I extremely happy that I did? You bet,
best experience of my life. Did it "harm" my career? No, I'm working right now
as a Software Engineer.

~~~
jonstjohn
Absolutely agree with you. I went on a wild adventure through my 20s, spending
time in Alaska, working as a baker, managing an organic farm for several years
- living for the most part from the seat of my pants just following what felt
right.

I'm sure I sacrificed some aspects of a 'career' because of it but I had an
incredible life experience. And when I turned 30 I met the love of my life,
finally committed full time to developing software (after a number of fits and
starts) and never looked back.

I never spend a day feeling like I 'missed out on something'. Rather, I'm
really enjoying my life where it is at right now, cool career, wonderful wife
and 2 1/2 year old son.

I do kind of look forward to when my son gets a little older though so I can
get a van and take him on some wild adventures ;)

------
grantph
Here's some insight which I had with a senior partner at a "big 4 consulting"
firm and their attitude to age.

The buy up highly educated people in their 20's because they're cheap and
eager to work. In fact, they're cheaper than most people when you do an hourly
analysis (probably cheaper than cleaners).

BUT... the simple fact is, they also know they burn out by their 30's. Life
takes over. The doubt. What am I doing with my life? Why don't I have a
family? Maybe I missed out on other things my friends were doing?

By that stage, they no longer care about you because they've got a new batch
of cheap 20's burning the midnight oil.

However, the good news is that they noticed that there's a reversal when
people reach their 40's. They've got experience in life and business. They're
no longer in doubt mode.

Ironically, these organizations have standard pitches to sell the career
delusion. "People are our greatest assets" and similar rhetoric. The reality
is ... THE DO NOT GIVE A CRAP ABOUT YOUR CAREER. Careers do NOT exist. It's
like selling women the idea of being a "homemaker" in the 1950's.

I have noticed that people are more likely to be successful in their 30's and
40's (read some evidence that suggested that too but can't remember the
reference). People getting rich in their 20's is an aberration.

Neuroplasticity (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Brain_That_Changes_Itself>)
also suggests that we never stop learning, so I have to disagree with point 3
"Your brain finishes forming in your 20′s." Dribble! That's like the rhetoric
about careers. People just get lazy.

What people have going for them in their 20's is no commitment and all the
time in the world. But no experience which can also be a disadvantage. If you
can recreate "no commitment" in your 30's-40's (20's + real experience), then
you should excel because your ideas are more mature and hopefully clearer!

You're more likely to be successful as an actor in your 30's for the same
reasons!

------
cletus
This is a delicate subject because one can view it as a call for those in
their 20s to make the most of that time, which is a fine message, to something
tantamount to ageism.

While it's true that those in their 30s or older can be closed to new idea,
that's not because they're "old", it's because they're people and some people
are closed-minded.

I find a lot of these complaints are more about the cultural and lifestyle gap
between those in their 20s and those who are older.

I remember the 80s. I'm not particularly interested in going bar-hopping. I
find most social media to be an annoying drivel from people who vary between
exhibitionists to just liking the sound of their own voices (everybody is
talking, nobody is listening). I don't have that same sense of enthusiasm
because for me everything isn't new. Most things really are derivative. To
paraphrase something Don Draper said, I've reached a point on my life where I
think I've basically met every kind of person there is. That's not to say that
people can't surprise you. They can. It's just that you realize they're not as
different as they once seemed.

This is exacerbated in the startup world since so many are cut from the same
cloth: valedictorians in high school, magna cum laude, graduates of
Stanford/MIT/CMU/Columbia, interned at Facebook/Amazon/Microsoft/Google, now
working for one of those or some hot startup. It's a whittled down group of
the technocratic elite who often-times don't really know how privileged and
lucky they are.

At Google there tends to be two kinds of people: those who have worked in the
outside world, particularly in Corporate America, and know how lucky they are
and how different this is. And those that haven't and think this is just how
the world is.

I don't begrudge them their successes and accomplishments but it is a form of
cultural isolation--even inbreeding.

All of this means there tends to be a smaller set of common social norms with
the "20s set".

At the same time, I pick up new technologies, languages and frameworks as much
as I ever did. Possibly more so. Just now I've been doing a lot of AngularJS.
That certainly didn't exist in my 20s. While I may not have the same youthful
exuberance, I have experience and can draw lessons and parallels from
programming in every stage of the Web's development (from CGI scripts on).

I will say this to those planning to have children: do it while you're young
and it has nothing do with fertility. Children simply take an enormous amount
of energy and commitment and this is far easier to bounce back from the
younger you are.

As for the rest of it? Take another comment on this thread:

> Once somebody is fully set in their ways it's almost impossible to change
> their mind without divine intervention

That's fairly blatant ageism but, more than that, it's from someone who only
knows people like him- or herself that wants to surround themselves with the
same. Like I said: commonality and shared social norms are really what's in
play there.

~~~
diego
I completely agree with what cletus says. I'm 43 years old today. Some things
just feel uninteresting because I started doing them too young. Interestingly
programming is not one of them, I have been doing it for 30 years. On the
other hand, I have been rock climbing for 7 years and I'm better than ever [in
case you care: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olEgfe4cYuU> ]. It still feels
pretty new to me. I know 25-year-olds who started climbing as kids, reached
their potential and lost interest.

Everyone is different, every decade in a person's life is different. In my
personal case, my work between 30 and 40 was far better than what I did
between 20 and 30. I feel pretty inspired right now.

This type of post is the stuff that you want to say to yourself at every point
in your life (you can only make the best of the present, after all). It
doesn't really work as advice to others.

~~~
irahul
> On the other hand, I have been rock climbing for 7 years and I'm better than
> ever

OT(as far as the OP is concerned) questions from someone who is considering
taking up climbing.

1\. Isn't what you are doing in the video called bouldering?

2\. Do you usually climb in your jeans? I am wondering does it allow you
required flexibility?

3\. Do you work on your core for climbing or climbing works your core?

4\. What would you say about artificial walls and bouldering arenas for a
beginner?

~~~
dekz
Way OT but let's do this. Note: climb V5/6 currently.

1\. Yes that is bouldering, but bouldering is a subset of rock climbing, as is
sport climbing.

2\. Bouldering is frequently about balance and power, for some problems
flexibility isn't as crucial. I climb in jeans outdoors, sometimes it's the
best option as rock can quickly cut through lighter materials. My jeans are
skinny and stretchy.

3\. Climbing works your core, simply by climbing more and more.

4\. Don't play the grades game, don't buy a hangboard. Go into a gym and have
fun on the boulder. Don't try too hard and hurt your tendons, they take years
to grow accustom to the stress induced by hard bouldering.

------
nostromo
Most startup advice is also good advice for 20-somethings.

Get to an MVP quickly: Find a way to practice your target profession as soon
as possible. (Don't spend hundreds of thousands getting a law degree just to
discover you hate the actual work.) This is easy for programmers: just start
building stuff before applying to the CS program.

After MVP, iterate quickly: So you know Ruby? Time to learn another language,
or about compilers, or about web typography, or about finance. Don't stand
still.

Be ready to pivot: If you discover you find your work unfulfilling, the time
to change is now. Don't wait to switch careers until your 40s.

Don't prematurely optimize: Your 20s should be about gaining skills and
experience, not about getting big paychecks. The best paying job a 20 year old
can get might be in construction or the military, but this may limit your
upside down the road.

~~~
randomdata
_The best paying job a 20 year old can get might be in construction or the
military, but this may limit your upside down the road._

From a purely financial perspective, money now is better than money later
though. A 20 year old who secures a job that nets him enough to save $15,000
per year until retirement will ultimately have a lifetime net savings of about
the same as someone who finally finds a job that pays enough to save $50,000
per year at the age of 40.

~~~
hudibras
And as for the military, cashing out at twenty years of service with a $47,000
annual pension (starting immediately and inflation-adjusted over time) plus
the G.I. Bill is not a bad deal at all.

The downside is that you have to be in the military for 20 years.

------
pitt1980
I think this is sort of bullshit

first shouldn't you take every discrete chunk of your life seriously?

to the degree to which this is true, its true because we tell ourselves its
true, most people don't reinvent themselves past their 20s because they choose
not to, not because the obsticles standing in their way are insurmountable

------
tlogan
Interesting post. There is also other school of thought:

\- in 20s you party

\- in 30s you raise family

\- in 40s you build business

And, don't worry: if you are very creative in 20s you will be the same
creative person with new ideas in 40s.

------
levesque
I wholeheartedly disagree and I might add that this is bullshit. Do whatever
the hell you want to do with your twenties. If your idea of a perfect life is
a flawless career, then go for it. Go where your interests take you. As long
as you get bread on the table and don't bury yourself in debt, there is no
reason why you should feel you are wasting some grandiose opportunity. Life
isn't only about work and money.

------
jakejake
The irony of life is that you don't truly understand what is important in your
20's (or any age) until you are much older. Not only do we fail to understand
things until we get some outside perspective - but also our priorities change.

In my 40's I wish I had done certain career things differently. But I can
imagine myself in my 80's wishing I had goofed off more, traveled the world
and not taken anything too seriously. As the old joke goes, not too many
people are on their death bed wishing they had worked harder.

------
simonsarris
I've spent a considerable amount of time thinking about this, ever since the
topic came up on reddit about why so few people in their 20's seem to "have
their shit together."

I think it comes down to two reasons. The first one is huge, but its
essentially luck. I think the reason I'm even _afforded_ the opportunity to
take my 20's seriously is almost completely happenstantial.

Looking at my friends and (distant) family I sometimes feel guilty because
_nothing bad has ever really happened to me in my life_ , whereas they've had
to put up with all kinds of weird shit. For many people I know not being able
to take their 20's seriously as powerhouse career years is sort-of excusable.
They were spending them trying to survive, or raise a family all-too-soon.

But me? I'm young (24), well educated, I live in a huge Victorian-era house
near main street nearly for free, programming job, walk to work every day,
have a book deal (boring HTML5 book), brag, brag, etc, etc

But somehow I feel I'm just infinitely lucky. Lucky that my parents are two
normal, well adjusted people. Lucky that I could be awkward and nerdy as all
shit through middle school and high school and nobody was ever unpleasant to
me. I was never bullied. No weird drama ever entered my life. I exited college
with $0 but debt-free, thanks to Bank of Dad, who carefully engineered my
experience to be basically broke but never in-the-hole so long as I worked
(got an internship every summer and winter).

Lucky lucky lucky. Thanks everyone in my life so far. Really.

\---------------------

 _On the flip side_ I think that such a lifestyle (very career focused 20's)
is seen as unattractive to a lot of 20-somethings. At the least, I think most
people in my age range would describe people like me as _boring_ (though I am
never really bored). I spend most of my days reading, writing, sitting in
cafes, programming, or doing art things. Right now and for several more
months, its nearly 100% career activities. If I had to put together a dating
website profile, it probably wouldn't look particularly attractive to other
20-somethings.

Put another way, most of my hobbies are either career related or solitary
acts. Not that people can't appreciate them, just that none of them are
exciting, and most of my 20-something friends (none of which IRL are
programmers, I lead a lonely career here in NH) that proclaim me to be one of
the few who has their shit together would also _not want to be me._

None of them want to work desk jobs and then go home and work some more. They
want to work in food/bar services or have a whatever-job, drop it at 5pm and
go do fun 20-something things. Career development it seems isn't fun to most
20-somethings, socializing at bars is, moving out to Montana to climb things
and work for a harvest season is, saving up to hide away in Peru for a year
is, writing music with friends while working retail is, but not career
development. Not to disparage these things, it just a sampling of their goals.

~~~
purplelobster
Great post. I also consider myself very lucky, much the same way as you. I've
had some setbacks, but nothing that couldn't be handled. I also feel this pull
from these two lifestyles, the "boring" stable desk job, or traveling the
planet, code whatever I want and live life like there's no tomorrow. My
fiancée is two years older than me (27), so that puts some pressure on getting
kids and settling down fast. I've managed to save up what I consider a lot of
money, but I feel the need to use that towards buying an apartment or house.

~~~
saryant
Other than being single, I'm in the exact same position as you. I'm pulled
between building a career and travelling the world.

I graduated last spring and spent the summer backpacking in Asia before
starting a boring desk job. I live with my parents still so I'm saving almost
all of my income.

Now I'm seriously considering quitting in six months and heading back to Asia
until I figure out what I want to do. My job is terrible, especially since I
was effectively lied to about what I'd be doing, but I'm more or less getting
paid to do nothing. In six months I'll have enough money to spend a _year_
backpacking across SE Asia, Eastern Europe, South America, wherever.

Or I could just quit now and go find a job I like. I'm honestly not sure what
to do.

~~~
jevanish
Life is too short to do something you hate. Do whatever you need to to find
out what you're passionate about. Building a career around that will be 100X
more fulfilling.

As Steve Jobs said, "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do
what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too
many days in a row, I know I need to change something."

------
engtech
"2) Statistically, women need to have all their children by 35.

According to the author, a woman’s ability to get pregnant plummets starting
in her mid-thirties. To make matters worse, the odds of a miscarriage for a
woman over 35 is one in four."

Our family doctor gave the odds as 3 in 5.

In practical experience, I know of four friends who have miscarried at 35
(after being pregnant for over 3 months), out of about 11 who had kids at that
age.

My wife and I have always suspected that the 3 out of 5 statistic also
includes miscarriages in the first two months of pregnancy where you might not
have been sure you were pregnant or late.

~~~
hudibras
The one-in-four statistic is for miscarriages after the sixth week of
pregnancy. In the general population, the percentage of miscarriages is 15%,
or about one-in-six.

One thing to keep in mind is that a miscarriage is not the end of the world.
Heartbreaking, yes, but it's not too late to try again.

~~~
a_bonobo
I think that the word "miscarriage" carries extreme connotations with it, you
instantly imagine giving birth to a dead baby.

In Germany, if a fetus or embryo does not continue development at an early-ish
stage and is expelled by the womb, midwives (I used to date one for 2 years)
usually use the word "Schwangerschaftsabbruch", which translates to
"discontinuation of pregnancy".

I think that's a word which much better describes what's happening without the
emotional baggage and which might prepare people better to what's going on -
my girlfriend is 37 and we're trying to have kids but it's hard, and I know
that we're going to run into a few "discontinuations" before anything is going
to happen.

------
icesoldier
The issue I have with seeing life advice posts is that I've begun to see this
dichotomy between "follow your heart" advice and "follow your head" advice.
And I personally have a split between the two: my degree is in CS and my
current job is in programming, but by "pie in the sky" dreams involve writing
and performing music. I happen to have more knowledge in the former as a
consequence of my degree, but I didn't really passionately pursue any major
side projects. (This hindered my job hunt slightly, but I still managed to
circumvent it via personal connections. It does pay to know people, in my
experience.)

As I was closing in on the end of my college degree plan, I felt torn between
these two seemingly divergent ends. As a result I crept into a disillusioned
depression fueled by the realization that it was too late to switch degrees
that wildly and by firsthand experience of the job hunt as a CS student from
west Texas with little heart in the industry.

So I'm just taking solace in the fact that I'm working a job with a really
short commute and a good environment where I can go home at 5:00 and pursue
music as a hobby. I might even notice eventually that my life's passion
doesn't land in either music or programming, and to be honest I'd be okay with
that if it gave me a direction to point in. But at this point, having only
graduated from college this year (turning 23 next week), it feels like I just
need to to _something_. Unfortunately, I feel like I'm coasting now that I've
"made it" out into the world relatively unscathed.

~~~
jevanish
Have you thought about trying to find the intersection of the two? Is there a
company or something you can work on that takes advantage of both skillsets?

I think the real challenge in life is to get heart and head in alignment. It's
not easy, but who said it would be?

~~~
icesoldier
I had put some thought in that direction, and thought about finding companies
that made DAWs. However, this space turned up dead ends, at least when I was
looking. The other thought I had was indie game dev, which I thought needed a
bit more time investment than I had before it would pay off. (I was thinking
in terms of when I was finishing college, after which I would have to escape
the shadow of my parents, who can only be _so_ nurturing.)

And I like your point there about the challenge of life.

------
andreipop
I find your desire to "build a large company" interesting - I shared this
until I realized that almost nobody gets out of bed in the morning because
they say "I want to build and run a large company" - this is fundamentally
unsustainable. Instead finding problems you care about or find interesting
might be more motivating and put less pressure on your psychological well
being. This helps you get rid of the time pressure you seem to be feeling and
will bring a new sense of focus and purpose.

------
Hawkee
This is especially true concerning the mind. The older we get the less open we
are to new ideas. Once somebody is fully set in their ways it's almost
impossible to change their mind without divine intervention. I just take this
as a warning as somebody who is older to be open to change and be willing to
embrace new ideas.

~~~
bitops
_> The older we get the less open we are to new ideas._

I agree with this point of view insofar as that's the behavior we usually
observe in most people. I think it's also true that it is possible to stay
open-minded your whole life and never get stuck in one way of doing things.
It's not easy though, and of course we all develop habits over the course of
our lives which can be very hard to shake off.

~~~
genwin
> I think it's also true that it is possible to stay open-minded your whole
> life and never get stuck in one way of doing things.

What you do is be open-minded in your 20s. Then you get "set in the way" of
being open-minded, never to change that.

~~~
bennyg
Sounds pretty closed-minded, getting "set in the way" like that. ;)

------
sunjain
On the contrary, I suggest 20s is the best time to explore who you actually
are - so called "hippy" stuff. As later on it just becomes that much more
difficult. Whether you end up building a great company or end up doing a
regular job in your later years, it will not mean much if you did not find out
who you actually are, what is your purpose in life (all those silly questions
we all pondered sometimes but never actually pursued). Once explored
thoroughly, and if the conclusion was that your purpose in life was to do a
start-p(or startups) and establish a successful company, then it will be worth
it. Otherwise, neither your startup will be successful, or if successful, your
life will still be miserable. Better to figure all this out in 20s, instead of
focusing primarily on your career.

------
OldSchool
IMO 20-something is THE time to go for it. You'll only get more encumbered by
personal expense overhead and non-monetary time commitments as you get older.

Yes, our bodies haven't kept pace with society and technology. If you ever
want to have kids, ladies need to be finished having children by 35. Start
before 30 but if you know you have potential fertility issues start as early
as possible after getting an education. You'll only miss out on happy hour
where people get fat and dissolve their their faces with alcohol anyway.

One downside is you may not feel as credible as someone older when trying to
make a sale in-person. However, some older people will give you the sale
because they like you because you're a younger version of them.

Another downside is establishing appropriate relationships with employees that
are about your same age. Attila doesn't drink with the huns. You can't tell if
they actually like you because you're paying them so you're probably not as
funny as they make you feel. If you get rich they're going to hate you anyway;
even if they get some of the loot too it won't be enough. That doesn't go for
real partners - you need a small senior team of complementary people that live
and die with the company - that's hard to find but critical.

Luck favors the prepared. You can be almost completely invisible to the world
and still make enough money that it changes the course of the rest of your
life. Time will pass regardless and you're probably going to be working anyway
so why not place your big bets when they only affect you?

------
willholloway
I have a different take:

College Years, 18-23: This is the time to just be. You can treat college as a
stressful strive-fest for meaningless grades, or you can treat it like a 4-5
year vacation. Optimize for gentleman's C's. You still get all the social and
class benefits.

23-30: These are your prime productive years. This is the time to amass your
fortune.

30 to death: Travel, play golf, foster community and friendships. Get married,
have kids. All of these things will be much more enjoyable with some cash.

~~~
steve-howard
It really just depends, doesn't it? We all regret some things, and we probably
fail to appreciate some things we've done right.

------
fitandfunction
An easier way to think about this is that life, like money, compounds.

Good decisions you make early in life compound and pay dividends for the rest
of your life.

------
weej
>I need to develop as many of the skills I need to lead such a company now,
because in a few years it may be difficult or almost impossible to grow in the
ways necessary to handle the role.

This neurological development is completely misinterpreted. I already posted
on this exact topic not that long ago, but I'll reiterate.

The poster is correct in noting neurological development does come with age in
your 20s when one's frontal cortex (or lobes) of the brain fully develop.

This has nothing to do with "developing new skills", but rather its your
ability to control higher-order functioning. This could range from long term
planning, motivation, and inhibition towards behavior.

When you're young you're somewhat crazy and brash. This allows one to take
chances, push the envelope, and reach breakthroughs. If anything this counters
the poster's logic, and they should be creating a start-up in their teens
instead.

With that said it works both ways. The youth lack the ability fully reason,
plan, and in SOME cases think logically through a problem (in the sense of
understanding the repercussions of their actions).

------
nckbz
What's the point? I'm 24 years old. Education was expensive, so I worked my
way up as a programmer and web developer right out of high school. I've worked
at some pretty big corporations and now I'm looking to buy a house while my
friends are just getting out of University with junior developer positions
while living at home. My co-workers are all around 10-20 years older than I
am. I've made senior developer, but I won't be able to move into any type of
management positions for another 5-10 years just because of my age. There's no
additional advancement or benefits to a slightly early head start on a career.
People who give advice like this probably don't remember what it was like to
be this age.

My advice? If you have the chance to see the world, have a cool college
experience, or the opportunity to do something unique with your life follow
through with it.

Climbing the corporate ladder in any field at any age is difficult at best,
but doing so at twenty? Probably one of the main drives behind talented 'kids'
joining startups now days.

------
milroc
Concepts like this seem very specific to obtain a certain desired lifestyle
rather than advice on how to live.

1) Don't put off your career: While I agree it mainly correlates to two
things. a. Spend as much time as you can doing what you have a drive to do.
(e.g: setting yourself to be financially above or where you were when you grew
up, trying to start a band, or trying to create the next major startup). c.
Make sure to live below your means. (i.e: Ensure if you make 100 dollars after
tax regardless of pay 25 of it is being saved. This gets harder and harder as
there is a asymptote decided by the market (cost of living) and situation
(whether or not your parents basement is available) you live in).

2) Children: There is a lot of qualifications here that were taken in place in
the article. While the clock is ticking and I agree, people look at children
as a chore taken to ensure a certain lifestyle later in life; or just want
them and are willing to sacrifice whatever else to enjoy having children. Both
are generally the case but I feel the set of things that people choose to give
up is too large. You should ensure that your finances should be in place to
support them but the amount in which you should support them should vary based
off of your financial situation (by this I do not limit it to the children's
wants (less toys) but rather also the child's needs (why pay for a private
school if you can't afford it? because it's worth the difference in learning
experiences? What about no private school and finding other means of educating
the child?))

3) Brain Finishes Forming: Fight it if you think that this is going to be the
case (and care; I know a very large set of people who enjoy being close
minded. It means that their life is less complicated by relatively asinine
decision making, when they would prefer the action portion of the work (I
can't understand this but have debated it with individuals)).

~~~
milroc
Advice on how to live is simple: 1) Learn (travel, fail at something, shadow
someone) 2) Prune (decide what is worth learning (e.g does learning another
programming language add much value compared to learning about the behaviors
of a market or larger ones like learning about a girl))

I'm definitely going to look into this book because it seems like it helps
people work on pruning which I believe is the hardest part of life.

However I feel that you (Jason) may have taken away some wrong things from the
book because: "This is how most successful people I know have built their
careers, and it always starts small." While this may be one of the largest
pipes that create your definition of success, it is not the only one. People
may need the life experience of working as a barista before starting their
career for several reasons; or they may want to work at a hostel while
traveling for several years to learn more about the world. The rate in which
careers develop vary greatly from person to person and at what point; why base
it on the average successful individual?

------
ececconi
I've had a saying recently. I'm making a lot of sacrifices in my 20's so that
I'm established and ready to start a family in my 30's.

~~~
genwin
Hopefully not too many sacrifices though. Life should be about much more than
creating new life. The 20s is the time to focus on yourself.

~~~
nsxwolf
Unless you are female. There really is such thing as a biological clock.

edit: Before I get downvoted, insert "... and want children"

~~~
marquis
Having children when you're young is a good idea primarily because kids are
exhausting, and take up a LOT of time. Have them as young as you're able and
wanting to do so: nothing to do with your gender. Men have fertility issues as
they age also.

~~~
guylhem
If you can make a resource by yourself, outsource- in this case, adopt.

It will make some of the exhaustion go away, since it seems to be due to
diverging circadian rythms between a newborn and an adult.

A say 4 years old kid would logically be less exhausting to raise.

Also, if the kid is adopted, it also removes fertility issues concerns.

Strike 2 birds with 1 stone!

~~~
marquis
I wish I could agree but a) 4 years old are just as exhausting (the first year
is actually the easiest in terms of time you have available) and b) adoption
is increasingly more difficult. I have friends who just adopted a baby after 5
years of tests and checks and more checks.

Foster care is another option, it's easier to 'sign up' and you can get
school-age kids, who need just as much help as an adopted kid.

~~~
guylhem
Interesting - when does the exhaustion function reaches a maximum ? I thought
it was the hardest in the first 4 years.

(regarding the difficulties of adoption, they could be compared to the
outsourcing cost :-/ foster care is a great idea, but may not work for people
who want to have "their" kids)

~~~
marquis
To put it simply: exhaustion becomes superseded, or exchanged in kind, by fun
as kids gain more ability to communicate and comprehend the world around them.
It's up to you as the parent to decide what is fun and what's not: an engaged
parent is going find almost anything fun when their kids are involved and
equally engaged, tantrums aside!

------
chris123
You should enjoy life, love, learn, teach, travel, and have fun from zero to
death. The 20s are no different. I for one had an absolute blast in my 20s,
did well financially, and didn't take myself "seriously." Different strokes
for different folks. People should just plain think for themselves and NOT
take themselves too seriously, IMHO :)

------
xenen
Having read a bunch of the comments and the OP, I think everyone has shared
something that makes good sense. The problem is, though, that as much as these
"lessons" make sense to us when reading them, it makes absolutely no sense to
try and apply these lessons to ANOTHER PERSON.

Each and every one of us have formed our own opinions about things, shaped by
each and every one of our unique life experiences. To try and apply it to
someone else is pointless, and futile.

Instead, be happy. Do whatever it takes to find happiness. Apply whatever
lessons are necessary to find the motivation behind YOUR happiness, and go
after it. Strong, focused motivation is the most scarce resource for a human's
life, and the path to finding that motivation is different for every one of
us.

We live for nothing else but the pursuit of happiness, and there's an infinite
number of shapes it can be. Find yours.

------
freyr
There are some good points here, but my advice is that you should take your
teens seriously.

It seems like the prevailing advice today for anyone in their teens is to live
their lives free of any commitments and as independent and undirected as
possible. But lately I realized the importance of my teens to a degree I never
had and it has changed how I plan to approach the last few years of my teens.

I'm not going to wait until my twenties to move into my parent's house and
work on my startup. I already live in their house, so why wait?

Also, since everybody peaks in their twenties, why waste our best years making
mistakes? By starting early, I'm getting lots of mistakes out of the way. By
the time I hit my twenties, I'll be at peak performance and have tons of
experience under my belt.

But sometimes I wish I'd started as a tween.

~~~
neverm0re
> Also, since everybody peaks in their twenties

Oh how you're going to laugh at that one later on.

~~~
freyr
My comment was meant as parody (I'm not actually in my teens), but I guess it
missed the mark. I agree with the general sentiment of the article, but it
would carry a lot more weight coming from someone who has actually lived a
little.

------
flyosity
I don't like the idea that "having fun" and "building a career" are mutually
exclusive entities that don't touch on a Venn diagram. I built a career in my
20s based on things that excited me as a teenager, and I'm still excited by my
career and consider my job a lot of fun. I didn't live in exotic countries or
lounge around aimlessly because I'd rather be designing and building software:
that's my fun. I suspect a lot of people on HN feel the same way, and just
because one person's idea of "fun" is to travel around the world doesn't mean
that they have a monopoly on what fun means.

------
scheff
Re: "Your brain finishes forming in your 20′s" See:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroplasticity>

Specifically: "During most of the 20th century, the general consensus among
neuroscientists was that brain structure is relatively immutable after a
critical period during early childhood. This belief has been challenged by
findings revealing that many aspects of the brain remain plastic even into
adulthood."

------
peterwwillis
There's only one thing about your age that definitively affects your life:
Your body. Past concerns of the flesh, stop trying to box your experiences
into meaningless numbers and just do things you want to do as you feel like
it, at any age.

------
adrianwaj
I'm on my feet, step aside man

Get out my way, I got a mind of my own

Beat all my fears as a young man

Now that I'm grown, I don't fear the unknown

\-- Living Colour - Young Man - <http://youtu.be/T7e2kVEFPrE>

------
sh_vipin
Not sure if any other venture than Mc D was started in post-30s. I guess Mc D
was started in 40s but otherwise most of the startups were founded by its
owners in 20s itself.

------
staringispolite
I don't know how I feel about a blog that drives you to click an Amazon
affiliate link. Nevertheless, the points seem valid and thought-provoking.
Thanks for sharing.

------
davepeck
There's no one path.

It's good that our poets still keep things in perspective:

<http://www.panhala.net/Archive/The_Ball.html>

------
danielrm26
Good content. Thanks for sharing it rather than cowering before the self-
publishing police.

------
scottmcleod
You should take all of your life serious, but not so serious you do not enjoy
it.

~~~
sh_vipin
I agree with you. Probably the meaning of "serious" has to be understood
better. "Serious" doesn't mean lack of fun. If that would be the case, there
would be no lounges, beer bars, cafes in bay area for entrepreneurs.

And on the other hand, no point in getting HIV in 80s either :)

------
pennig
Well, shit.

~~~
fatbird
I know how you feel, but my response to this guy was to want to take him, put
my arm around his shoulder, congratulate him on finding a way to motivate
himself as he is right now, and warn him that he's got five, maybe six decades
ahead of him, every one filled with possibilities that _aren't going to depend
on what he does right NOW NOW NOW_. There's time. Everyone always has the
wherewithal to change things, to start things, to build things, and to make
things better, no matter how the past went.

------
mrharrison
Why you should take every moment seriously. Live life now!

------
abdelmaalik
how about: 'spend your thirties fixing all the mistakes you made in your
twenties'

there, now that sounds fun

------
taurath
NO PRESSURE.

------
naturalethic
Go fuck yourself. Seriously.

