
I'm a loser and I want to change that - now - qisine
I have been a dreamer all my life. It took me until last year to figure this out, and only thanks to this community. I hardly ever tried - and when I tried, I didn't persist. It has been my goal to start a business since ever I can remember. And yet I never really tried (until last year, which resulted in abysmal failure). Not even something small, like selling stuff online. I was always good at dreaming up new ideas. But never executed on any one of them.<p>Likewise, I have been programming on and off since the age of 17. Unfortunately, I started out with C++. As soon as I hit pointers, I made up my mind that programming was only for people smarter than me. Somehow, I did get back into it a few years later, but I never really became proficient at it. Again, I was good at learning the basics, reading code, messing around with code snippets on the command line. But I never built anything of value.<p>I don't have too much time left. My 20ies are gone. This is my chance to turn the boat around, and realize my goals. So, this is meant as much for the rest of the world as it is meant for myself. Usually, I would have just signed up with yet another anonymous name. Not this time. I want to keep myself honest. I need to break out of my own little word (unfortunately, besides being a loser, I'm also a loner).<p>HN, here I am. My name is Stefan Kueng, I'm 30 years old, based in Switzerland. For better or for worse. This is my last chance to get my life back on track. If anyone else reads this, wish me good luck.<p>[EDIT] Thanks for your all your responses! I really appreciate it. I admit that my post probably was a bit too much drama. Actually, I have been wanting to say what I said for a long time. But I restrained myself, because I didn't want to decrease the signal-to-noise ratio on HN. But this time I felt I just had to.    
I'll probably not get to answer to everyone of you tonight. Just once again, a heartfelt thanks to you guys. HN really is a great community.     
And yes, I will consider all your advise. But I'm definitely going ahead with my plan to start building stuff - and eventually to start a business. I have long ago made up my mind that I have only one life. I could go the safe route and work a regular 9-to-5 job, perhaps start a family, and lead a long and happy life. Or I could bet everything on something that's far less likely to succeed. Even if I fail and the resulting stress cuts a few years off my life span, it will have been worth it. I have been wanting to start my own business for too long. I just can't let go of it.
======
recuter
> I don't have too much time left. My 20ies are gone.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckminster_Fuller#Bankruptcy_a...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckminster_Fuller#Bankruptcy_and_depression)

"By age 32, Fuller was bankrupt and jobless, living in low-income public
housing in Chicago, Illinois. In 1922, Fuller's young daughter Alexandra died
from complications from polio and spinal meningitis. Allegedly, he felt
responsible and this caused him to drink frequently and to contemplate suicide
for a while. He finally chose to embark on "an experiment, to find what a
single individual [could] contribute to changing the world and benefiting all
humanity.""

You're a young man from Switzerland whose biggest problem (from what you say)
is loneliness. _Could be worse_ , don't you think?

Your life is hardly over, it hasn't even _begun_. Justin Bieber is 19 and has
quite a few #1 albums already, should every 20-something singer feel bad about
themselves as a result? You need a new yardstick to measure yourself by.

Happiness, whatever that means, peace, it comes from within. You can't succeed
your way to it really, money and position will only marginally improve your
internal world. Don't conflate the two. My advice is to more accurately
attribute your ennui to "wasting your 20s" as in postponing life to when you
"make it" - allow yourself to start living now the way you truly want to and
enjoy yourself, time goes by fast. You can be happy no matter how things play
out, at least happier than you are now, and try your darndest to make your
mark all at the same time.

Edit For context : I'm 23 and have been hell bent on "startups" since I was 16
for various reasons. Sometimes I can't sleep because the ol' noggin won't shut
off and thoughts fly at a million miles an hour, its a certain feeling that
burns you from within. It is a good thing, ride it.

~~~
vahidR
dude.. your link was Awesome.. I'm on my early 30s and have some difficulties,
as well. It gave my hope back

------
rohern
Look. Becoming a programmer is NOT going to give you a satisfying life. Being
a programmer is fucking boring. Companies do not give a shit what cool stuff
you've built once they hire you. They want you to spend your time figuring out
why their automated build system is broken and optimizing their databases.
Sitting in front of a screen for 8-12 hours a day is a terrible approach to
achieving satisfaction in your life.

Starting a company is different, and if you are massively interesting in
solving a problem, that can be a great way to go. But starting a company is
completely unpleasant a lot of time and if you want to pick a job that is
going to fill your plate with bullshit, that is a good choice.

The best advice I ever received in regards to this topic is still pretty
worthless, because almost all advice is worthless. You cannot learn wisdom
that way. You learn it through experience. But here it is: Pick a problem that
is meaningful to you and work on it. Optimize this by working with people you
like and who share your passions.

That advice was given to me by one of the most famous computer scientists
alive who also happens to be worth tens if not hundreds of millions of
dollars. Note that his advice did not involve becoming a good engineer,
getting papers cited, or starting a company.

I keep an index card in my pocket that says: "Never again have reason to
regret." This is not "live without regrets". I think that attitude is mostly
contemptible. Rather, spend your time -- all of your time -- on things you
will not regret having done when you climb into bed at night. If nothing else,
every day that I have obeyed this rule unfailingly I have slept well and
awoken excited and optimistic in the morning. That's all the wisdom I have.
The rest is just get damn lucky.

~~~
knightni
> Being a programmer is fucking boring ... They want you to spend your time
> ... optimizing their databases

Honestly, I really fucking love optimising databases. I can't believe my luck
that people want to pay me to do that sort of work for 8 hours a day.

To me, hell is having to define and defend my own problem. I would loathe
running a startup - I love the feeling, instead, of having people come to me
to solve their problems. Fortunately, I've managed to arrange a situation
where enough of those problems are reasonably interesting to my apparently
unusual tastes :-).

This is not meant as a dig against those who run startups, just a note from
someone with a very different perspective.

~~~
rohern
You are probably a wonderful person to work with and any team is really lucky
to have you. Having someone who is deeply passionate about these problems is
very important and these are important problems!

~~~
knightni
That's kind of you to say! I think, honestly, that it's great to work with/for
anyone who takes joy in what they do.

------
AlexDanger
Please consider this extraordinary advice:

 _If you want an average successful life, it doesn’t take much planning. Just
stay out of trouble, go to school, and apply for jobs you might like. But if
you want something extraordinary, you have two paths:_

 _1\. Become the best at one specific thing._

 _2\. Become very good (top 25%) at two or more things._

 _The first strategy is difficult to the point of near impossibility. The
second strategy is fairly easy._ [0]

I used to do 1.) and now I focus on 2.). Its been very effective for my career
and general happiness. I consider myself a dreamer and this philosophy leads
me to generate very actionable ideas. If you can read code and understand what
code does - you're well on your way to being in the top 25% of people working
in IT. Getting into the top 25% of programmers is probably easier than you
think.[1] There are so many careers where even a basic understanding of coding
will give you a huge advantage. You'll be a superhero if you take these skills
to a job where you're surrounded by non-programmers. Seriously.

One more thing: C++ is not a wise choice for a first language. Its fucking
hard. Python is considered a good choice to learn programming.

[0]
[http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2007/07/care...](http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2007/07/career-
advice.html)

[1] [http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2007/02/why-cant-
programmer...](http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2007/02/why-cant-programmers-
program.html)

~~~
derekp7
What you say about being surrounded by non-programmers is spot on. The way I
got my start (and initial boost of self confidence), I was the only one who
knew programming in a small business (about 200 employees). And what I was
doing wasn't much, mostly just writing report generator programs using Awk and
shell scripts). But it got so much attention that it was like lighting a
rocket under my self esteem, enough so that I went on to be proficient enough
in C (this is before C++ was mainstream) to code up some fairly interesting
projects.

------
tptacek
You sound depressed, and I think you should be talking to people about getting
help.

Your career will be fine no matter what you do. Please take your health
seriously.

~~~
seiji
I read it as very self-reflective, but not in a bad way.

His slight self-degrading humour strikes a chord with me as a soon-to-
be-30-year-old who is still an utter failure (by "millionaire by 23,
billionaire by 28" standards).

~~~
lilsunnybee
Those are very destructive thought patterns. If you are not already depressed
you will be soon if you keep thinking like that, and depression makes
achieving your goals near impossible.

------
edw519
_I have been a dreamer all my life. It took me until last year to figure this
out, and only thanks to this community._

Great. Dreaming is necessary but not sufficient for great accomplishments.
Glad you're one of us.

 _I hardly ever tried - and when I tried, I didn't persist. It has been my
goal to start a business since ever I can remember. And yet I never really
tried (until last year, which resulted in abysmal failure). Not even something
small, like selling stuff online. I was always good at dreaming up new ideas.
But never executed on any one of them._

I am about to tell you a bunch of stuff, but this is the most important. You
have to get this or you will never break out of your rut:

The reason you're stuck is because you're too focused on yourself. Remember,
it's _not_ about you. It's about others.

The reason for building great things is to help others achieve their goals.
It's not about how rich you'll become, or how famous, or who will like you, or
how much fun it will be. (Well maybe a little of that last one.) Until you
find someone else who must have something, you will always quit when things
get tough. And they always get tough. Having someone else (a customer, a user,
someone...) is the key ingredient that many miss on the road to "must build".
Find someone, then find something that you _have_ to build. You won't want to
disappoint someone who is depending on you. Believe me, in your case, this
will probably make all the difference.

 _Likewise, I have been programming on and off since the age of 17.
Unfortunately, I started out with C++. As soon as I hit pointers, I made up my
mind that programming was only for people smarter than me._

There will _always_ be someone smarter than you. DO NOT let that stop that
from building what you must build. It's better to be junior than to be weak.

 _Somehow, I did get back into it a few years later, but I never really became
proficient at it. Again, I was good at learning the basics, reading code,
messing around with code snippets on the command line. But I never built
anything of value._

Stop reading code. Stop messing around. Find something that needs to be built
(preferably by someone other than yourself). Then build it. Trust yourself and
trust the process of building. You _will_ learn what you need when you need
it. I promise.

 _I don't have too much time left. My 20ies are gone._

Bullshit. I didn't do my first startup until I was 32. Stop thinking like
that. If you're a programmer, your prime is still 20 years ahead of you.
(Believe me, I know.)

 _This is my chance to turn the boat around, and realize my goals._

Good. It's definitely not your last chance, but glad to see you're prepared to
make the most of it.

 _So, this is meant as much for the rest of the world as it is meant for
myself._

It better be. Until you realize that your work is for others, not yourself,
you will continue to spin your wheels. The biggest byproduct of recognizing
the needs of others is that you will automatically and subconsciously start
solving your own problems as well.

 _Usually, I would have just signed up with yet another anonymous name. Not
this time. I want to keep myself honest._

Good. Always be yourself. Who else are you going to be?

 _(unfortunately, besides being a loser, I'm also a loner)._

You're not a loser, so get that disempowering thought out of your head
forever. A loser would never have opened up like you just did. And if you are
a loner, that's not unfortunate, it's probably normal. Maybe even necessary.
You see, despite what people may think, the best software is still written by
one person, alone with their thoughts. Embrace your lonerness!

 _For better or for worse._

There is no worse. What you _think_ is worse are just speedbumps on the way to
better. The sooner you realize that, the sooner you will see these things as
what they really are: the feedback you need to get on track to get better.

 _This is my last chance to get my life back on track._

No it's not. (See above.)

 _If anyone else reads this, wish me good luck._

Fuck luck. Just quit you're stinkin' thinkin' and get to work. I know you want
to and I have proof: you're here.

I have something way better for you: Best wishes, Stefan. Get to work and keep
us posted. Don't get discouraged and come back for motivation and guidance
whenever you want. We'll be here.

~~~
nashequilibrium
In 2007 i read a blog post similar to this.... here is an excerpt:

" It was in February this year that I decided to try and make triathlon my
career. It was a leap into the unknown: I knew nothing about what it meant to
be a professional athlete. Now, two months down the line, I am still climbing
that steep learning curve. And believe me, it’s a long slow climb. But what
made me take the plunge, give up my job and throw myself into a life of
continuous physical pain and torture? It was a case of ‘now or never’. Having
just turned dirty thirty, I was getting on a bit and knew that my shelf life,
at least at Olympic distance racing, was limited. I had watched the elite
women race at the World Champs in Lausanne last February. Could I be as good
as them, if not better? Had I fulfilled my potential, or did I have more to
give? Had I pushed my mind and body to the limit? If not, what were those
limits? What stars was I capable of grabbing? Without giving it a shot I would
never know. I never want to look back and say ‘what if’. "

So i said let me come back see how well this person does, will they be a
success? Nobody knows. To find out here is the blog from the first post,
<http://www.chrissiewellington.org/blog/taking-the-plunge/>

~~~
simplon
wow thanks for the link.. i watched the highlights of the Ironman 2010 where
she won despite recovering from a recent horrid bike crash.. amazing..

------
elptacek
I'm having a bit of trouble writing a couple of sentences that explain why you
should listen to me. I think this is partly because I'm not good at selling
myself. But I've been where you are, had the same thoughts over and over, only
I have a few years on you and have some life experience to offer. Like a great
number of people, I have changed careers multiple times. It's not a big deal.
As of right now, I've got another 40-50 years to fill up that I don't relish
spending in front of a television drooling on my bib.

I told myself the same thing in my 20s. It was data structures for me, not
pointers. I remember thinking, I'm just not smart enough to write code. Man,
no lie... I'm slow and these concepts are tough. What's different now is that
I know a number of people who are willing to take time out of their busy days
and explain stuff to me when I get stuck. Very few people build things alone.
Even using a language to build a thing of value is going to leverage libraries
and packages that someone else wrote.

If you feel like a loser and a loner, this tells me that you somehow feel
isolated and that you don't feel like you have a peer group of like-minded
people to associate with. For me, the internet has helped tremendously in this
way. Many times you cannot talk to someone candidly in person, but you can do
this online. The fix for this (which you seem to have already discovered) is
to find some way to talk to people, and talk to a lot of people, until you've
talked to enough people that at least one of them sees something valuable in
you.

Honestly, the words "This is my last chance get my life back on track," are
melodramatic. Every day, people all over the world set different goals for
themselves and learn new habits in order to meet those goals. If you are
convinced you "don't have much time left," you are setting yourself up for
failure. How long do you think you will live? After you turn 30, then you turn
40. Then you turn 50. And so on. How many times will you screw up in those
decades? Lots. The only way to learn how to make better decisions is to make
bad ones.

And to cap this inspirational response off with something totally saccharine,
willpower (or discipline) is like a muscle. The more you use it, the more of
it you have.

Viel gluck!

~~~
jtheory
A related point about learning -- pointers, data structures, etc. -- tough
concepts are tough because they're unfamiliar.

For whatever reason, some things will come easy and some won't; that does
_not_ mean you should avoid the ones that don't come easy; they are often a
signal to you of some foundational skill you need, or an underlying concept
you haven't really grasped yet. Don't _avoid_ that stuff to focus on the easy
things; that's like oiling the wheel that doesn't squeak.

If you want it, keep poking at it, keep circling back around and picking it up
again; get familiar and comfortable with your questions, confusions, problems,
and then they'll melt away.

------
demian
Feeling like a loser/winner is counterproductive.

The first step is to understand that social labels are bullshit, and the only
truth is that we are all going to die. Look up, pretend you have purpose,
that's "hope". People with hope attract other people, they glow.

The second step is to understand that there is not such thing as obligations
in the universe. They don't exist. There are only actions, consequences and
how you feel about yourself. The only other people that matter are the ones
that also care about you.

The third step is to see the narratives in society. There are entrepeneurs
from all walks of life, but some get promoted because they fit the current
narrative, they sell news articles (for example, the dropout hacker with the
social media company).

The fourth step is formalizing your objectives. Lists. Be realistic.

The fifth step is formalizing your assets. Lists. Be realistic.

The sixth is fiding a vector. In which direction you have to push to get where
_you feel you need to be_.

The seventh is start pushing without doubt. Don't doubt, be clinical, get
"feedback" and respond.

Remember there is no "failure", only changing pathways and goals.

------
mattgreenrocks
First, who are you accountable to? Saying "HN" is too easy. Find someone who
will keep you on track with this. A close friend/significant other is a good
start. Second, what's your plan? I didn't see one. You need to have some
objective metric you will be accountable to.

Finally, be careful what definition of success you accept. Dont pin your self-
esteem on this new change. You don't want that kind of pressure. HN is replete
with self-congratulatory blog posts and Super Important Business Talk that is
sometimes more posturing than reality. Change because you want to (it sounds
like you do), and work on yourself as hard as you do this endeavor. Even if
you crash and burn, you will come out far, far ahead.

You damage yourself when you couple your self-worth with your accomplishments.
It's a natural tendency in high-achievers, but that doesn't make it a great
idea.

P.S. don't be hard on yourself for being a late bloomer. Just work your ass
off at something that you like.

~~~
qisine
> First, who are you accountable to? Saying "HN" is too easy. Find someone who
> will keep you on track with this.

Actually, I already found someone. Right before posting this. It was my
motivation to "come out" in the first place.

> Second, what's your plan? Start building stuff. Starting tomorrow morning.

~~~
brador
> Starting tomorrow morning.

Do you see the problem?

~~~
pknerd
Well said. Tomorrow never comes.

------
lionhearted
I heard a quote from the actor Will Smith recently. He was talking about how,
when he was 12 years old, his father made him rebuild a brick wall that seemed
impossibly huge to do.

It took a year and a half, which must seem like an eternity for a 12 year old,
but eventually him and his little brother did it.

So Will says -- "The way to do things isn't to focus on building a huge brick
wall. It seems impossible. Instead, it's to lay one brick as perfectly as you
can."

So, do big things. But do them by laying bricks.

Also, you don't have to go it alone. People are _surprisingly_ scarily
helpful. Reach out to people and ask smart questions. My email is in my
profile if you like.

One brick at a time. Godspeed.

------
charleshaanel
Step 1 is changing your self perception and self efficacy. A wise man once
said "success is 80% psychology, 20% mechanics"

I'd like to refer 2 resources. One is Dr. Robert Maurer's "The Kaizen Way: One
Small Step Can Change Your Life".

This book is about how you can bypass the fear mechanisms of the brain, which
cause procrastination and failure.

The second is "The Winner Effect" by Ian H. Robertson.
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlxCN1aCa2M>

Both of these books are grounded in research and not "rah rah" feel good
stuff. With regard to Dr, Robert Maurer's Book "The Kaizen Way". I'm a living
case study. Through direct application of his theories in less than 4 months I
accomplished something that I had been "thinking" about doing for 8 years.

Totally ground-breaking. I'd also recommend Darren Hardy's "The Compound
Effect" and Jeff Olsson's "The Slight Edge".

All these books are about understanding how the brain works and using it more
effectively to get results - THAT STICK AND LAST.

If I had to throw another one in it would be Charles Duhigg's "Habits". It's
been said that up to 50% of our daily actions are habits - things we do
without thinking about it. That included "how" we think. Right now if you see
yourself as a "failure" you're going to have to work to alter that. You have
the mindset and daily habits of a "failure". So you have to literally program
in the habits and mindset of a "winner". You could try a gazillion things
right but if you miss that, it will be all for naught.

Good luck!

------
forgottenpaswrd
I , I , I ...

me, me , me...

You are not a loser, you are someone who is enormously lucky to live on one of
the wealthiest places in the world and does not now it.

I have seen 16 years old die on motorcycle, or 20 something die in car
accidents, 8 years old die of leukemia while facing it like grown up men or
women(I bet you have leukemia kids near you, if you try to help them you will
discover that they help you much more, this will work on your me-centric
problem).

You are not a loser.

You are alone and feel that "realizing your dreams" will solve your issues. It
wont. You have a bad strategy and need to change it, or after the initial
determination you will fall again.

Read or hear the book or Audiobook "The now habit" by Doctor Neil Fiore to
discover why your vision of the world is destroying you.

Do not pity yourself but celebrate how f _ching lucky you are!!

Find a woman and make her the happiest women on earth,f_ck her with passion.

Do not compare yourself to others, be happy and transmit it to everyone.

Start thinking on other people like part of yourself, it takes guts, specially
for emotionally castrated Swiss.

Travel the world and learn to love others and what they need.

Money will come after that.

~~~
solistice
Did I just stumble onto reddit again or am I still on HackerNews?

------
grist
I felt the same way a few years ago. If you'd like some advice, here's what I
learned on the long climb out:

Dedicate at least one night a week to a project. When you get home from the
day job, you start work on the project, and you keep at it for at least 6
hours. Make sure this night becomes a sacred obligation, you don't skip it for
anything but weddings/funerals.

This helps ensure the project progresses on a weekly basis. It protects the
time from family/friends/spouses who may not understand or accept that you are
busy at random times, but can understand a scheduled obligation.

caveats: One night a week is usually too slow for any project, so don't use
this as a crutch, you should still pour hours into whatever you do throughout
the week out of passion - this is a safety valve for busy or passionless
times.

It is a lot easier to pull this off with a group of like-minded people, try to
get a couple other people (even remote) to join you in the endeavor.

Good luck!

~~~
qisine
> It is a lot easier to pull this off with a group of like-minded people, try
> to get a couple other people (even remote) to join you in the endeavor.

Thanks for your kind advise. This is what I intend to do. If anyone else would
like to join me, please let me know. My gmail id is kungs10.

------
LarryMade2
Thirty?! There are many folks who make a big name for themselves at double
that age. Not everyone has their day early in life, and no one has their day
if they keep thinking they are past their prime. The main thing is keep
working at stuff, fail, fail again, and get back up, and see what the next try
will make.

I think of my age not as wasted but experienced, I have learned and observed
things that only come with experience of time. Many creations of greatness
can't come early because it takes experience to get there.

Here is one of many articles of folks who found success after middle age
(which is still a number of years away for you, BTW):

[http://www.arinanikitina.com/top-10-late-bloomers-why-age-
do...](http://www.arinanikitina.com/top-10-late-bloomers-why-age-does-not-
matter-when-it-comes-to-success.html)

------
iandanforth
I'm in a similar boat. How did I start to change? I thought long and hard
about what was important, not just for myself, but for the world, for
everything. I looked for the most important thing that I could possibly work
on. (For me that turned out to be AI). After that all my day-dreams of things
I _could_ be doing circled back to "but that's not as important as AI so get
back to work."

Then I found a community of people who were doing what I wanted to be doing. I
quit my well paying job and did a short series of internships (one paid, one
unpaid) at companies in these communities. I got in by learning as much as I
could as fast as I could, caring deeply and honestly about the work these
places were doing, and interviewing well.

One led to a job where I worked for 2 years. In this new community I was able
to build skills and connections that gave me the confidence to break out on my
own when the company started to diverge from my Most-Important-Thing-In-The-
World.

I'm now working on my own start-up. It doesn't have customers or a product
yet, but even if I don't 'make it' with this one I am _doing_ every day, and
making things with my own hands, and it's an incredible feeling.

You can do it too. If I can help just drop me a line. (Contact info in
profile)

------
eof
Hey, I am 30 and also a loser! I have built some things, including a web app
that got exactly one customer who runs his business on it, and I just let it
sit there month after month, not failing, but not growing because I don't
market it and it needs more features.

But I feel like a loser in the sense that I have not done nearly anything near
what I feel capable of; and have spent several thousand hours of my 20s
reading the internet and playing video games and smoking weed and _/maybe/_ a
quarter of that much time actually being productive.

Good luck Stefan. I also feel like with my 20s being gone that I'm going to be
looking _back_ on my life, rather than _forward_ any minute now.

~~~
ScottBurson
Always look forward. That doesn't mean you can't take a few minutes now and
then to look back; just don't get stuck in it. Get back to looking forward.
You always have the choice.

------
nathell
There once was a guy who, at the age of 24, wrote a short text moaning about
how he seemed to have been accomplishing little in his life, and how his peers
were having a better start.

His name was John Milton. That text was Sonnet VII, "How soon hath Time the
subtle thief of youth..." And it wasn't until thirty-five years later that he
published "Paradise Lost", the work that made him widely regarded as one of
the most outstanding English poets of all time.

You never know when your prime time -- the time for your opus magnum -- will
come.

------
soneca
Good luck!

My advice would be, start something that will make you accountable to other
people. I am a dreamer too and I am not a competitive type of guy. I just
don't care if I lose something. But I was very committed to be good at soccer,
only because it is a collective sport, so I would try to help my team win
because of my friends that played with me, not because I wanted to win. Using
your real name is actually a great first step. Now, make this promise to
everyone you care about! Family, friends, everyone! Don't use the mind
(escapist) trick to convince yourself that you will _surprise_ everyone with
your great project! Don't go on _stealth_ mode. Promise you will achieve your
goal and make yourself accountable for it!

Oh! And forget all about this "this is my last chance", "my 20ies are gone"
and yada yada yada. As in glasner comment "It's not your last chance; it's
your next chance." This is equivalent to me saying "OMG Mozart wrote a
symponhy by the age of 8, I am already 33 and don't even know how to play an
instrument! I am SUCH a loser!!" It is BS. I just can't use other people
achievements as my parameter of success (neither the kind of achievement, much
less the age of it).

Good luck!

------
emcl
I go through some form of that feeling everyday and have found that listening
to that voice that keeps telling you how much you suck will only make things
much worse. I have yet to solve the problem of regularly getting seduced by
the idea that i am hopelessly untalented, which makes me feel entitled to laze
around and waste whatever is left of my life. But it gets more powerful with
each day that i waste.

------
glasner
It's not your last chance; it's your next chance. Good luck Stefan!!

~~~
qisine
I told myself this too often. I have to succeed this time. Thanks for your
support!

~~~
dualboot
The funny thing about success is that it's highly subjective and sometimes the
perception of failure is just a issue of narrow perspective.

If during the course of working toward some arbitrary goal you enjoy yourself
and learn something then you have accomplished something that is more
important than most end results.

What you do for a living does not define you as a person. It's just the
shortcut that others use to categorize other people into easy to quantify
values for comparison. You can certainly through the course of your
professional life enact change that touches the everyday lives of countless
people. The majority of actions that change lives though are the plain,
boring, and downright ordinary actions of the majority. The combined
machinations of our every day lives and how we impact those directly connected
to us are just as important as that next disruptive idea that shifts culture.

Live inspired and find joy in the things that really matter.

------
tgreenhaw
I'm 53 and I hardly feel like my life is over. At 30 you are just beginning. I
am still a dreamer an I've always felt like I'm a winner. You need to have
confidence in yourself. Remember - the key to success is not giving up.

Consider the story of Ely Calloway. He worked his way up the company ladder at
a major textile firm. When he retired, he decided to plant a vinyard and
started up a winery. Calloway is a suucessful vinyard and winery in Temecula
California.

After starting the winery and as an avid golfer, Ely Calloway decided to make
golf clubs (Big Bertha) and founded Calloway golf. Calloway golf is obviously
a very successful company. This was his third career started well into
retirement.

The moral of the story is that your life is far from over. In fact, you should
expect to live a longer more productive life than you can dream possible at
this point.

Be persistent. Be positive. Life is good. Be a winner.

------
Tonysr
Anything one human can do another can do as well. Only the time to master the
skills might differ. it is the pattern of thought which enables the completion
of mental tasks. Learning them takes time and persistence and the motivation
to stick with the task. Sometimes one or the other of these requirements are
missing in a persons background due to faulty instructions during childhood.
Defining which tasks are missing and correcting the behavior will result in
success or an emotionally created stuck spot in the strategy. This can be
fixed by thinking carefully about how the person achieves the failure and
replacing that strategy with a successful one. One method of doing the
discovery is to simply type out the internal dialog verbatim and correcting
that dialog, or the conclusions of the dialog, which will be the limiting
instruction.

------
orionblastar
I am 44 years old, I ended up on disability in 2003 and haven't worked a job
ever since. I have two degrees one in computer science and one in business
management. I earned the later after I was disabled and graduated with honors.
I suffer from schizo-affective disorder and when I developed that mental
illness I lost 95% of my friends and family who basically abandoned me, and
wrote me off as a loser and failure. I lost my job and my career was basically
ruined as well.

I learned over 37 different programming languages over 30 years of my life,
and most if not all are obsolete. Like Turbo Pascal, FORTRAN, COBOL, ADA, 8086
Assembly Language, JCL/JECL, etc. Yes I worked with a variety of different
operating systems and computers. Even mainframes and minicomputers as well as
many old 8 bit microcomputers, etc.

Pointers, basically some modern languages did away with them. It seems one has
to learn how computer memory works to figure out how to use a pointer, and for
that one has to learn how a computer works. But if they can eliminate pointers
and direct access in modern languages then more people can learn how to
program. Many programmers forgot to set their pointers and ended up with a
null pointer that may have been set to the address of 0 (system memory) or may
have been set to some random address that happened to be in the memory the
location of the pointer is stored at. Basically a pointer holds a memory
address to a block of memory that data is being stored at. But it seems to be
too complex for most people to understand. Back in my days in learning Pascal
and Pre-ANSI C it was required to learn.

Anyway don't feel like you are a loser or a failure, just learn from your
mistakes and failures and then keep trying until you get better. That is how
we human beings learn. It is how we learned to walk as infants. We fell down a
lot, had to crawl first, but basically we put one foot in front of the other
and learned how to keep our balance and walk. But we don't remember all the
times trying to walk that we failed and made mistakes.

Startups are like that too, I want to share a link to a blog. Some flag it as
offtopic because it talks about mental illnesses and technology and startups,
yet when others post those same things it makes the front page. This post in
the blog is about losers and why there are no losers:
[http://fakemdc.blogspot.com/2013/02/there-are-no-losers-
just...](http://fakemdc.blogspot.com/2013/02/there-are-no-losers-just-people-
who.html)

Steve Jobs suffered failures and mistakes and it cost him his job at Apple in
1985. But he didn't give up, he kept trying and trying and learning from
mistakes and failures. Many people did the same thing.

If you want to talk about it, my email is orionblastar@gmail.com

------
manarth
"It has been my goal to start a business since ever I can remember." "This is
my chance to turn the boat around, and realize my goals."

Make lemonade, sell it on the streets at weekends. Voila! You have a business,
and realised your goals. Right?

I'll go out on a limb here, and suggest that your goal has more to it than
that. You need to understand your constraints, and where those constraints
come from.

One constraint might be that the business needs to generate EUR x thousand per
year, and the source of that constraint is probably your bills, rent/mortgage,
etc. Another might be the location, or you might decide that actually that's a
constraint you're happy to take away.

Either way, and it's by no means the only consideration, thinking through
these can help you focus the direction your business goes in.

Oh, and good luck!

~~~
solistice
Yeah,it's imperative to properly define your goal. You can't ever reach an
undefined goal, and if you can't reach it, you've failed by definition. Tim
Ferriss book "The 4 hour workweek" goes into defining goals pretty well, but
don't neccesairily believe everything in the book, because some of it is just
designed to make you feel good. Still, it's handy to start of with.

------
earbitscom
Hey Stefan,

Take it or leave it, but I started www.Earbits.com 3 years ago, when I was 32
years old. For all of my professional experience, so little of it has helped
me prepare for the challenges of building Earbits. My co-founder is one year
older than me and his professional experience before Earbits was almost
exclusively music production and composition. Now, not only does he manage the
music department of Earbits, but most of our sales, editorial content,
accounting, and frankly, he is the yin to my yang that balances out Earbits in
so many ways.

30 is a great age to start something new and significant. The first startup I
worked for took 5 years to sell for $15M. You could be retired by 35. Get on
it. If you want to chat, email me. -Joey

------
hawkharris
I'm not sure that you should pursue your dreams.

Happiness is the gap between results and expectations. The greater the gap,
the less satisfaction people feel. If you need, I mean really NEED, to start a
technical business, I'm sure that you will strategize, break the goal into
tangible pieces and accomplish it.

But if you haven't started a business by now, maybe there's a good reason.
Maybe your personality, interests and talent aren't in line with that
objective. And, if that's the case, it's okay.

In other words, I support your decision to strive for different results if
that's what you really need, but I think it's also important to calibrate your
expectations.

------
coldtea
Good luck man.

But you should just try to achieve doing something that makes you happy.

Making boatloads of money, the next Google, or some other goal that 1/10000000
people would ever achieve is not the be all end all of it (if it's even a
valid life goal).

~~~
qisine
Yes, but so far, I literally haven't achieved anything. I'm not shooting for
Google or Facebook. If only I can find a small niche market, I would be
perfectly content with that.

~~~
goldfeld
Then that puts you in a position to achieve fulfillment at an earlier age and
with less risk than most twenty-something startuppies dreaming of an exit most
won't ever get. Even though you're a dreamer, keeping realistic expectations
and finding some project you care about is gonna put you on a fast track.

I learned coding within the last 2 years or so, and before that I had felt
quite as you did. I dabbled in Visual Basic at 14, but then I came upon this
huge wall of C++. I couldn't grasp OOP and it's weird Cat cat = new Cat() for
the life of me, and I though I just wasn't smart enough, so I stopped playing
with it until recently. In the last year especially I got comfortable (and
grew to love) the command line, git, vim and a bunch of technologies I thought
I would never have the patience or diligence to wrap my head around. Really
the last year has got me so far. You can do a lot in a year's worth of spare
time, if you can find a practical project to motivate you.

~~~
solistice
I agree with goldfeld on this, there is this barrier with every language that
many people get stuck on. In Java it's Cat cat = new Cat(), in C it's *fu, in
Perl it's s/win/fail, in Assembly it's Assemlby, in C# it's LINQ, etc. But
once you manage to get over the first or second hurdle, your perspective on
technology widens and you are ready to take on more hurdles.

~~~
solistice
Additional examples: Haskell - monads, Lisp (()())()()((())), Whitespace

------
seiji
> I need to break out of my own little word (unfortunately, besides being a
> loser, I'm also a loner).

Visit NY for a week or two:
<https://secure.iqres0822.com/iqreservations/asp/IQHome.asp>

We can save you from yourself.

Look at <http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/690958main_p1237a1.jpg> \-- every
dot in that image is a _galaxy._ Each galaxy has over 100 _billion_ stars. Do
whatever the heck you want in this world. It'll work out.

~~~
admford
> Visit NY for a week or two.

I can also agree to this. I was more or less in the same boat (possibly a bit
worse at times). I had my idea for a startup and decided to use it as an
objective to get me moving forward again. The first step for me was going to
London and checking out the startup scene there (Techhub). It in a way, it
gave me a boost and energy to flesh out my ideas and plans.

Sometimes, a change of atmosphere helps give you the initial push that one
needs to move forward.

------
geekam
I have been dealing with similar issues. Never been successful at anything I
have done and I began programming later than you did, with C. I did run after
a lot of tech, new toys etc. Even though it is nice and many times important
to know the new and emerging stuff, I accepted that it overwhelmed me and I
have to narrow down a bit. So, I started learning a (only one) new language
and chose Python because it seemed easier to focus of the task at hand with
Python and not get drowned in gory details of the tool.

I figured that I will work on what I like rather than what is or will be
'cool' after 4 years of this struggle. There were humanitarian projects I had
thought of as a junior in college that never saw the light of day. I have
begun those. It makes me happy to work on things that I want to work on,
rather than what can become a great business. At least that's a start. I have
started thinking in terms of how can I deliver a great product to my users
from the idea I have and love.

Don't get me wrong, I am still learning. I have to make a mental note every
hour of the day to not compare, not get distracted. My physical therapist told
me that one has to make a mental note of their posture. That is termed as
"body mechanics". I think that that goes with our minds too. You have to keep
training yourself to stay positive by little tricks like avoiding comparison,
recognizing what you want to do and accepting reality etc.

Maybe not the best advice but my 2 cents.

Good luck!

------
damoncali
_I don't have too much time left. My 20ies are gone._

This, and I mean it in a kind way, is totally batshit absurd and thinking this
way will only hold you back. I know the feeling. I felt it myself and spun my
wheels for years because of it.

When I turned 30, I had just graduated from business school (which I went to
because I couldn't figure out what to do with my life). I had never built a
real piece of software, and object oriented programming seemed to be too much
for me - I too had started that journey with C++ and failed. (For me, it was
Ruby that made it click, for what it's worth).

So here I am, 30, with some interest in technology with an MBA and no
programming skill. I truly thought I had wasted the last 8 years of my life
since college. What was I doing during those years. I was working at NASA. On
the Hubble Space Telescope. I was paid to scuba dive with astronauts and build
hardware that would fly in space. I own not one, but TWO pieces of the actual
Hubble Space Telescope that flew in space. Looking back, that job was a dream
come true - jobs do not get much better. But at 30, looking forward I thought
it had all been a waste of time - my 20's were gone, and I was woefully
unprepared for the business I wanted to start. There were people smarter,
younger, and more successful than me everywhere I looked.

It was a ridiculous way to think for me, and it is for you too. Enjoy life,
and don't compare your inside to someone else's outside.

~~~
qisine
> I was working at NASA. On the Hubble Space Telescope. I was paid to scuba
> dive with astronauts and build hardware that would fly in space.

In comparison, I worked lowly office jobs at Swiss insurance companies and
banks. But your point is well taken. I put too much drama into my post.

------
junecpy
Overwhelming responses!

Giving you my best wishes. Also to share with you that I've been thru very
difficult life for 7 years, between 19-26. [1] I've spent 1.5 years to find my
current tech co-founder. [2]

Just don't give up. No matter what. No one will be a loser if he/she persists
to actualize the dream.

[1] Quora: What mindset should one possess to be more comfortable when things
are miserable? <http://goo.gl/dIcji> [2] How I found my tech co-founder.
<http://goo.gl/oBKKz>

------
belezbar
I am 39 years old, I have a similar problem. Here is a short excerpt
(unfortunately, the quality of the translation may not be very high quality)
from
[http://lurkmore.to/%D0%9A%D1%80%D0%B8%D0%B7%D0%B8%D1%81_%D1%...](http://lurkmore.to/%D0%9A%D1%80%D0%B8%D0%B7%D0%B8%D1%81_%D1%81%D1%80%D0%B5%D0%B4%D0%BD%D0%B5%D0%B3%D0%BE_%D0%B2%D0%BE%D0%B7%D1%80%D0%B0%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B0)

First of all out of your head delusion that "time lost", "polymers fucked",
"clock is ticking" and that your age is not something to achieve. Only where
the roads are closed to you - is the astronauts (in flight school adult uncles
are not accepted) and the police (by law there are taking up to 35 years,
though ...). And then, there is nothing stopping you hard earn money, and
eventually fly to this your fucking space tourist. Also, you will be quite
difficult to set a world record in some sports disciplines (although not
impossible). Everything else is affordable 40-year-old man in the same way as
25-year-old. Of course, this does not mean that you should continue waste a
time, but count every second - at least, stupid. Currently live as he lived,
but finally put a clear goal, and achieve it as sought would be if you were 20
now. The result will be exactly the same. Errors makes all but the biggest
mistake - if I think that they can not be fixed.

------
vamonos
I could say pretty much the same thing as you did - I'm 40, always wanted to
do something great, but its just never happened.

I'm still working on it one brick at a time, and have a couple of pieces of
software out there, but no-one really using them as far as I know. Haven't
even had any feedback.

<http://photo-sorter.appspot.com/> <http://vs-console.appspot.com/>
<http://www.globalmartialartsdirectory.com/> <http://www.mydailyactivity.com/>

I like the LEAN movement, whereby you validate your market first, do the
minimal amount of work possible, and launch ASAP - then respond to feedback.
They say, if you aren't embarrassed by your first release, you did too much!

See: Start small, Stay small <http://bit.ly/YIP5tu> The Lean Startup
<http://amzn.to/XjbdYO>

This podcast is brilliant too for many reasons, one of which is that you don't
have to do the programming yourself! See
<http://automatemysmallbusiness.com/podcast-subscribe/>

But: Don't get distracted Validate you have a market before you start building
Figure out how to market it so people find it START

(All easier said than done).

Good luck, and all the best!

------
jk4930
You already have some assets that will help you: You're interested and have
knowledge in the technical aspects, you have imagination regarding projects
(don't know how realistic, but let's find out) and the willingness to do
something.

Do something small first: duration 3-6 months, can be done by yourself alone
(maybe with outsourcing parts, but nothing with a team/partners), little costs
and risks. Don't focus too much on the technical side, i.e., look for a
problem to solve and only use the tech you can handle (thus making it a
product exercise, not a tech/programming exercise).

1st lesson: Execute something from start to end.

2nd lesson: While doing the whole process (coming up with a goal, planning,
researching, building, contacting prospective customers or users) you see
where your strengths and weaknesses are and what you like. Focus on what
you're good at. You might find that you have a technical understanding but
aren't enthusiastic enough to do the technical nitty gritty yourself. Maybe
you're good in understanding the big picture of a market or you see that
you're actually pretty good in negotiating.

This gives you an understanding of the process. Then you have to look for the
problems you really want to solve. This exercise gives you hints whether to do
something alone or with other people.

------
codeboost
First off, you are not a loser. It is a word that you decided to label
yourself with, it's totally arbitrarily chosen and not based in reality if you
really think about it.

Second , this is not your last chance. Life is a collection of tries and
failures but it is important to distinguish between yourself as a human being
trying to win at the game of life and your professional achievements (or
failures). They are not the same thing! Like every living organism, you are
part of this infinitely complex ecosystem, proliferating, processing and
modifying the light from a star. You are the spearhead of thousands of
generations of winners at this game of life, who managed to transmit their
strong features into the future with the ultimage goal of achieving a form of
immortality. If you look at yourself from this perspective, rather more
important and deep then whatever number is associated with your bank acount in
some SQL database on some server belonging to some bank, then the term
'sucess' or 'loser' is really unapplicable.

Likewise, success is a rather arbitrarily chosen label. Our society generally
defines it as people who were lucky enough to be in the right place at the
right time and be born into the right parents and to have met the right people
and to have been blessed with the right obsession (which we call talent) to
become sucessful at increasing their financial and political score.

But this is just a small piece of the whole puzzle!

My sugestion is to really try to look at your spiritual side and try to
realise what your other purposes (besides making money) really are.

Eventually, who you are is really what stories about yourself you believe in.

Oh, and your life is only just begining !

------
dmfdmf
You need a system to translate your ideas and dreams into consistent action.
Don't feel like you to reinvent the wheel here. I recommend some kind of
dayplanner/calendar system to keep control of tasks, there are electronic
options today but I use the Franklin-Quest system (on paper!). Also, take a
look at Ray Dalio's principles here;
[http://www.bwater.com/Uploads/FileManager/Principles/Bridgew...](http://www.bwater.com/Uploads/FileManager/Principles/Bridgewater-
Associates-Ray-Dalio-Principles.pdf)

... as a system to translate those dreams and ideas into consistent actions
over time. Dalio identifies some important, unavoidable choices that you must
make to be successful;

1) Honest Self-Assessment versus evasion or rationalization. 2) Selfishness
and your values versus Others and external expectations as the primary
motivation of your actions. 3) Self Responsibity versus blaming others or
wallowing in self pity. 4) Pro-Effort versus Anti-Effort, achievement is work.
5) Long range action and motivation versus short range mentality. 6) Adult
versus a child's reaction to the inevitable frustrations of purposeful action
over time.

Good Luck.

------
fxtentacle
I've spent 2 Months in Geneva in 2008 and I found that your country is pretty
open towards strangers and nerds. Lauseanne is also great. In that regard,
you're lucky that you live in Switzerland :)

I was single during my trip to Geneva. So I filled my backpack with beer cans
and decided to spend the whole evening until midnight away from home. I just
walked around and asked random strangers where I might go to spend a nice
evening. I gave a can of beer to everyone who was nice towards me. At around
22:00, some random dude invited me to a party where I spent the rest of the
night.

I noticed that many people (especially girls) in Geneva feel like no one
really listens to them. If you are somewhat nice towards people, show some
interest in them and are willing to just listen and let them tell you about
their life, you'll be astonished by how easy it is to make new friends :)

As for your goals:

Ask people for their advice on how you might reach your goals. Most of them
will give you bullshit, because they have no clue, but you might just get
lucky and meet someone who can either help you or give you great advice. Play
on that luck by asking A LOT of people :)

Cheers, Hajo

------
intesa
Hi there Stefan.

I'm in a similar situation as you are, even though my journey to get there has
been a bit different. I recognize the feeling you have of being a "looser" and
I'm also looking for change.

I left my day job 5 years ago to pursue my dream of starting something of my
own in the it-business. 18 months of hard work later I had failed, but still
managed to get picked up by another startup, where I have been working since.
It has been a good journey but this weekend I took the decision to start
another chapter of my life and try to make something of my own again.

The funny thing is that I have actually been planning on moving to Switzerland
at the same time too. Have been there many times and I just love it there.
Feels like my life is to short not to be where I want to be, and not doing the
things I want to do, so why not change it all at once? :)

I consider myself pretty proficient in programming and got some experience
with startups, so maybe we could exchange some ideas and knowledge? My email
is intesa@hush.com, just drop me a line if you want to someone to talk to on
mail, skype or even meet up for a coffee next time I'm in Switzerland.

Tschuss!

------
sixQuarks
I'd like to recommend a book for you: The War of Art
[http://www.amazon.com/War-Art-Through-Creative-
Battles/dp/19...](http://www.amazon.com/War-Art-Through-Creative-
Battles/dp/1936891026)

It's a very short book, but it may change your life. Read it twice. It is for
procrastinators. I'm one of the worst there is, yet this book has helped me
tremendously, and helped a ton of others as well.

Good luck

------
lesterbuck
Be aware that the word "loser" is loaded in modern culture, in a rather
illegitimate way. I wish this were available in text format, but listen to
this four minute essay and I feel sure you will have a different perspective
on your situation:

<http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=3200029>

As for making progress on some goals, I'd check out the literature on
deliberate practice, and the strategies on the Less Wrong and Overcoming Bias
blogs. (Your note is displaying a range of cognitive biases.)

The recent book on Mastery by Robert Greene lays out a lot of tactics. The
good and bad news for you is that almost all approaches to mastery require
becoming more involved with other people. The Mixergy interview with Robert
Greene is excellent. I don't remember ever hearing Andrew Warner as excited
about a book. This interview is not behind the paywall yet, so enjoy it while
you can:

<http://mixergy.com/robert-greene-mastery-interview/>

------
Tonysr
The human learning system has a major flaw. The first 5 years of human
learnings are based on emotion, and contain most of the automatic emotional
response system used thruout the rest of your life. Many of the instructions
you learned were meant as momentary instructions, but were highly emotional as
well, and as a result are remembered as important and therefore used over and
over again thruout the rest of your life time. These emotional reactions are
known as Injunctions. These are often intended to limit your behavior and they
will continue to limit your behavior in particular ways until you change them.
Your conscious mind will not become aware of these limiting behaviors because
the fact that the limit of consciousness is only 5 to 7 chunks of data at any
one time. In addition, your conscious mind works to achieve the unconscious
goals of your early emotional learnings, unless you make conscious goals to
direct the activities of the unconscious.

So the bottom line is you have two methods of thinking. Emotional and
Cognitive and they are not aware of one another due to the evolutionary nature
of our brains development process. This means that the learnings of childhood
run the show based on reactions learned very early and they are often not
functional as an adult. Fixing them is the task of trained therapists. I
recommend Transactional Analysis. it deals with teasing out the old, dis
functional, emotional, irrational behavior and the decisions which describe
their reasoning, which will be discovered to be childlike. New decisions
supported by current adult observations will correct the limiting behavior and
replace it with more resourceful reprogramming.

This is quick and instantly gratifying and is goal directed by the
Patient/customer. The only function of the therapist is to insure the fastest
and most helpful changes, along with permission and protection for the client
during the change process. Good luck

------
n2dasun
Thanks for posting this, OP. I'm saving this to read in detail later because
we share much of the same frustrations (though I would never call myself a
loser). I reached the same epiphany a few times, but have always been too
comfortable in my situation at the time to make the necessary change. Last
summer, while recovering from a motorcycle accident and working in a well-
paying but soul-sucking job, I made a few do-or-die decisions. Since then,
I've started grad school for Software Engineering and I'm on the job market,
hoping to pull in a career, rather than just another paycheck. I've still got
the same habits that have held me back from getting my ideas made tangible,
but I'm learning the tools that I need to turn that around.

------
angkec
I can relay to this. I'm like you, starting things but can't persist. I grow
tired and frustrated easily from mundane works such as make a pretty landing
page, beef up our application's UI etc. Anything that requires 40+ hours of
working is like a sea of burden to me.

However I had the great opportunity of having an awesome co-founder. He seems
to be picking up where I left and finishes them off beautifully. Server side
coding? check. Server side UI remake? check. Landing page details? check. I
grew very interested in the fact that facing the same amount and type of work,
why can he persist and why not me?

I think I had the answer this morning after quite of few months of
introspection. The difference between me and him is that I look at how things
were supposed to be, while he looks at how things could be. Let me make an
example.

Remember the old story that half a glass of water can be both viewed as still
a half remaining or a half missing, generating different moods? Well my tiny
story is a twist to it. Say you were to fill a bigger glass with a tiny ink
converter. Let's say it will take about 2hrs of mind-numbing work. After one
hour with half a glass, I would look at the task and say, oh my, still a half
to go. How grueling can this be? Then I'd feel frustrated and give up. Just
like what I did to many of the tasks I started but never finished. My co-
founder, I suspect, will look at the remaining work and say, oh my, only one
more hour to go then I'll have this wonderful filled glass of water! That's
why he stays up and working and never seems to have burn outs. I guess
positive emotions never gives you burn outs. It is persisting under negative
emotions gets you burn outs.

So I'm guessing the key is to catch yourself thinking in a bad way that is
generating negative emotions, then turn the thinking in a better way that
generates positive emotions.

I just realized this this morning. There should be a few points that I'm
missing but I think I'll figure more out in the coming days/weeks. Meanwhile I
am logging my thoughts and see if I can turn my emotions around and if that
makes a (at least) personal difference. Hope it is useful for you.

------
nate
With calling yourself a loser, I bet you're full of self doubt.

I've been paying the bills with my startups for over 7 years, and I still
drown in self doubt.

A technique I've used to short circuit that thinking is simply this: Ask
yourself every day, "How can I accomplish this?"

For some reason, forcing myself to ask the question How, crowds out the doubt.
My mind starts cranking on solving problems rather than worrying about my
ineptitude.

I'm always impressed by how well just putting myself into a problem solving
mood works.

It was awesome to see Daniel Pink's most recent book, To Sell is Human,
explore this. He showed studies of how a group of people who were put into a
"self-questioning" mindset solved 50% more puzzles than a rather than folks in
a "self-affirming" mindset.

------
krapp
I kind of feel like i'm in the same boat you are and I have the same fears.
That the trajectory of my life has already reached its inevitable apex and
can't fail to land somewhere, predictably, in failure and regret. But in my
opinion (which won't even buy you a cup of coffee) you can't waste time on
fear. Even if it is true, and rational. All you can do is live in the world
until they shovel the dirt onto you. You and I are never gonna be 20 again.
I'm sure that sounds trite but I don't mean it to be. We only get to be the
old guys, or the older guys, or the even older still guys, but we're not dead
yet at least, so good luck.

------
jiggy2011
You don't specify much about where you are now and where you want to get to.

Do you have some job at the moment? Is it a programming job or something else?

Just "starting a business" is easy but the harder thing is having a profitable
business that you enjoy working on enough to make it a success. Does it have
to be a tech business or just any business?

How profitable do you have to be to consider yourself successful, is paying
your own bills good enough or do you want "fuck you" money?

Perhaps just concentrate on building a small tool that makes some tiny aspect
of your own life easier or more fun in some way then launch it here. Charge
money for it, or don't. Get feedback, make it better etc etc.

------
gandalf1
If you're unhappy with your life, but despite that feeling you're unable to
change things, it could be a strong indicator for depression. Dreamer, loser
and loner reads like lack of motivation, low self-esteem and loneliness. All
symptoms of depression. I've been through this myself and while I couldn't see
it for a long time, now I know life is full of joy and opportunity, there is
really no need for anyone to describe himself as a loser. Depression is not a
character flaw, it's a disease. I can only encourage you to seek for
psychological help. You don't have to be ashamed and you can only win by doing
so.

------
iplaycool
Better Late than Never. Try, Try, till you succeed. Best of Luck !! God Bless
You !!

~~~
qisine
I really appreciate your kind words!

------
skoky
Do not worry - I started to programming in Java also after long pause (more
than 10 years) in my early 30s, now I am 6 years in Java development and I
greatly increase my value on the market and it is fun. Java is simple
comparing to C++ so do not worry and start with something. More or less
nowadays is more about knowing libraries/frameworks and combine them together.
It is doable if you have basics from C++. At the end it is just about taking
data from point A and transfer them to point B with some transformations on
the way (if I take mainstream programming nowadays)

------
spacecowboy
Try to surround yourself with others, spend time with people either online or
face-to-face. Start one or two other physical activities to help you get your
mind off things.

Then, start with a really small bite-size idea, something that seems so
trivial and implement it and get it done. Then slowly start building on that
tiny idea and keep adding to it. This will help you show progress, will allow
you to focus and get a feeling of accomplishment. Over time, which by the
way,you have the rest of your life, you can build on that and figure out what
you really want to do.

Hang in there.

------
sarde
Oh wow, your first two sentences were so misleading. "I have been a dreamer
all my life." I thought you meant DREAMER, as in undocumented immigrant. "It
took me until last year to figure this out." You didn't know you were an
illegal immigrant until last year? :P

Your post is pretty melodramatic, but I just want to reiterate that 30 is not
too late at all. Plenty of people never come to the realization that you do
way past their 30s and turn too late to others for help. I'm glad you realize
that you can't accomplish things in a vacuum. (I'm 23, and I still am working
on getting my Bachelor's, though most of my friends are in grad school by now.
I don't feel like I'm less of a person because I didn't follow the "set
schedule" of life, and you shouldn't either)

That being said, another good point that I'm sure has been made already is not
to focus too much on being the absolute best in whatever field you try. So you
could program for a million years and never be as good as so-and-so. So what?

No one usually starts out and suddenly she's a programming whiz. We all
started somewhere, and just because you got stuck at pointers in C++ doesn't
mean that you should just give up. No one has just breezed through all
programming problems or concepts in the world like they're no big deal. Stop
comparing yourself to an imaginary image of perfection and start doing things
like the real person that you are.

My advice is to do one thing first: read. Learn! You seem like you have the
drive to do a business, but perhaps not much of an idea of what kind of
business. So read, or watch MOOC videos if that's how you learn best--really
build a solid knowledge base of what it takes to run a business, what sorts of
business ideas you'd be interested in, etc.

I think after dreaming and before doing, you should prepare, and that's a step
that I feel might be lacking in others' steps-to-success plans for
entrepreneurship.

After you've prepared, just (fking) do it. Don't be afraid to fail; failing is
how we learn. Don't listen to naysayers who only believe that people can
accomplish acts of genius or good in their youth--human history isn't built on
the accomplishments of young prodigies alone. Instead, believe in yourself,
because no one else will.

And as for luck, create your own!

------
darylteo
I feel exactly like you, friend.

If you haven't already, I highly recommend hitting the gym. The amount of
self-confidence you get when you look in the mirror and see yourself in good
shape is priceless. That, and the number of hours you'll be sitting in that
chair will pretty much require if it you don't want to suffer any health-risks
=)

Everything goes from there... you talk to people better, you posture yourself
better, eventually you'll look at yourself better and maybe even start
believing that you could do it.

Daryl Teo - also a loser like you. But that only makes victory more sweet.

------
vellum
You shouldn't let lack of experience or knowledge discourage you from
programming. I think too many people fall into the trap that they have to know
every arcane detail of the API to become an "expert." Making something cool,
start small, and learn as you go. There are a lot more resources than when you
were 17, like stackoverflow. Anything you really need, you can learn. And
choose a language with lot of resources, like python or IOS. Any problem you
run into while coding has already been encountered by someone else.

------
RougeFemme
At least at first, stop comparing yourself with others. Compare yourself today
with yourself yesterday and look for improvement. This is absolutely _not_
your last chance to get your life back on track. Your last chance won't occur
until you are on your deathbed. And maybe look a little beyond HN. There _are_
people out there who are _still_ asking, optimistically,"what do I want to be
when I grow up?". . .and enjoying the journey, which is rarely a straight
line, travelled through a fraction of your life.

------
matehat
Two things:

\- "Seek the journey, not the result" (seen on a random card, in a Frank & Oak
shipment) \- Look into <http://executebook.com> \- if that can get you methods
and motivation in executing your own projects.

It also seems to me you think you'd be feeling a lot better with some
impressive accomplishments. Start by building some simple stuff, but getting
them done and gathering feedback. The experience alone will be worth it and
will give you the guts to go for more ambitious projects.

------
swayvil
I think that I relate. I also think that no amount of thinking is going to
change anything. Brainspace is devoid of solutions.

Possible solutions :

DRUGS. Speed gives you power and focus, the cornerstone of any successful
endeavor. I'm talking cocaine, adderal, etc. Psychedelics can crack your head
open and show you new stuff.

WORKING OUT. Raises your life energy level, upon which everything depends.
Gets you high. Great antidepressant.

MEDITATION. Like working out except for a different part of you. You can
really blow up your life in a good way. New powers and freedoms.

------
aw3c2
Check out this thread, there are lots of great advice in it.
<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5378462>

30? pffff ;)

------
Aqueous
It's not your last chance. You are not a loser. That dichotomy (the one
between losers and winners) is false.

There is no such thing as 'losers' and 'winners.' Life is not actually a
competition, despite what the marketplace and Western culture want you to
believe. Every single one of us dies - we all lose in the end.

Don't pile the stakes so high. The more pressure there is, the more stressed
you will be, and the less likely you are to succeed. Just do your best and
hopefully things will work out.

------
realrocker
Start failing hard. Pick a thing which you know you are going to fail at.
Don't choose small or sane. Choose ridiculous and impossible. On top of that
you have to fail within a deadline, say 12 weeks. Then go at this thing with
all your might. The objective is to fail with dignity. Try it. It will snap
you out of your comfort zone and jolt you into frenzied action.

Good Luck!

Also: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog>

------
isarat
It's good that you're not satisified with what you've now and reailze some of
the important things missed out. Everyone feels it in the same way at any
point of time in their life.

This question reminds me of another interesting post I came across Quora. Must
be worth reading - [https://www.quora.com/Life-Advice/I-am-in-my-late-20s-and-
fe...](https://www.quora.com/Life-Advice/I-am-in-my-late-20s-and-feel-I-have-
wasted-a-lot-of-time-Is-it-too-late)

------
gnosis
You seem to view yourself and your life as a failure, as a "loser", and think
you have a long-term record of failures.

Such an ingrained self-image is not going to be magically changed by any
advice from a web forum or self-help book. Even were you to find what you
consider "success" (which is most likely merely monetary), I doubt it would
really make much of an impact in the long run. Take a look at the countless
lottery winners who wound up miserable or worse, or the startup founder
suicides that have been in the news lately. Wealth and "success" did not solve
their problems in the long run.

If you are really serious about changing your life, I strongly recommend
taking up therapy with a therapist you respect and trust, and be prepared and
committed to doing a lot of hard work on yourself, with their help.

Though CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy)[1] and other short-term, "evidence
based"[2] therapies are very popular and nearly the only kind insurance
companies want to pay for these days, I personally look at them as a
superficial bandaids[3][4], and antidepressants as emergency tourniquetes at
best.[5] My own inclination is towards something like Logotherapy[6] (which
focuses on helping you to find meaning in your life), Jungian[7],
Transpersonal[8] and Humanistic[9] therapies.. so that's where I'd personally
steer you to.

But whatever therapy you pick, it's most important to find a therapist you
respect and trust. If you can't respect and open up to your therapist, or if
you can't commit to lots of often painful hard work with them (because looking
deeply and honestly in to yourself is often painful and difficult), your time
spent in therapy will be wasted. Try as many therapists as you need to to find
a good one.

[1] - <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_behavioral_therapy>

[2] - <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidence-based_medicine>

[3] - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidence-
based_medicine#Limita...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidence-
based_medicine#Limitations_and_criticism)

[4] - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidence-
based_medicine#In_psy...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidence-
based_medicine#In_psychiatry)

[5] - <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antidepressant#Controversy>

[6] - <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logotherapy>

[7] - <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analytical_psychology>

[8] - <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transpersonal_psychology>

[9] - <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanistic_psychology>

~~~
Yaa101
What helped me was the realization that depression is only a hallucination
triggered by the brain, after that realization there was nothing left to feed
that depression and it deflated.

~~~
ivanhoe
Exactly, rationalization is one of the most effective and powerful technics in
fighting all kinds of phobias, neurosis, panic attacks, etc. Once you know
what is really going on, why do you feel that way and what is causing it, it's
instantly much easier to deal with the problem.

------
Tonysr
Go to a Tranactional Analysis therapist. The will help you figure out how you
stop your self from succeeding. Your language is a clue. The term try,
psychologically speaking means "Permission to fail". TA is simple and quick. I
am a therapist and I can vouch for their model being easy to understand,
effective and quick. Your own desire and clarity will be very useful to help
speed your learnings along. Good luck in your quest.

------
craig552uk
> I don't have too much time left. My 20ies are gone.

In the first decade of life, you are who your parent want you to be.

In the second decade of life, you are who your friends want you to be.

In your third decade of life, you discover who you want to be.

In the fourth decade of life, you become who you want to be.

You've got all the time left. You've only just started.

I'm also 30, and only now do I feel that I'm emotionally and intellectually
mature enough to claim my life as my own.

Good luck.

------
johncarpinelli
Stefan,

Lower your expectations. Be grateful for your health and living in a developed
country like Switzerland. You have awesome mountains there.

Startups are an escapist fantasy for millions of people. I would guess 99% of
web startups make no money. Most HN readers are in the same situation as you,
but that doesn't make them losers. Enjoy life and think of your startup like a
lottery ticket.

------
halayli
Take baby steps. Whatever you do, start with something small. A project you
can finish in not more than 2 months would be ideal.

If you want to establish a business, don't invent something new, pick an
existing business and compete. Pick a business that interest you, and you
think you are passionate enough to stay with it. Running a business is a
marathon and not a sprint.

------
wknight97
Hello HN

The following Chinese Proverb will fit you :

人生不是赢在起点，而是赢在转折点

What really matters if you can grab the opportunity when it comes ... cause
"opportunity" crops up when you not expected ! So prepare yourself, listen to
your heart, and when it comes - grab it!

the full Chinese proverb illustrated @
<http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_53729c5e0102eeel.html>

Good Luck !

DC

------
corkill
I suggest the book "Release your brakes" for removing some of the self
limiting beliefs that are coming through on your post.

I used to always think I was too old, had missed by chance, the ridiculous
thing was at the time I was like 20. Not I'm much older and realize that
thinking is counter productive and untrue as long as your alive you can
improve your life.

------
verbalist
Just saying, this would be a great way to embarrass someone. I could think of
a few friends I'd love to humiliate by posting to HN -- "I'm a loser. { } My
name is _____."

[http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v230/gaboman/Perry%20Bible...](http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v230/gaboman/Perry%20Bible%20Fellowship/KickMeSign.jpg)

------
niggler
"I don't have too much time left. My 20ies are gone. "

There's no question that many of Steve Jobs' greatest innovations and ideas
came late in his life. Many great people are late bloomers, and its by
selection bias that you think most people achieve greatness at early age.

You should have an email address or something else so that we could reach out
to you directly :)

------
clockwerx
Is the TortoiseSVN development team trolling?

~~~
readme
Yeah -- I am wondering if possible troll?

I think it's unlikely that there'd be more than one Stefan Keung in
Switzerland coming to hacker news.

So if OP is who he says he is, then he's seriously delusional right now.
TortoiseSVN is a huge accomplishment and there's no way someone who's
contributed so much should feel this way.

~~~
rb12345
> I think it's unlikely that there'd be more than one Stefan Keung in
> Switzerland coming to hacker news.

It's possible that it's a namesake, I suppose ... but I agree with you if it
_is_ the same Stefan. Trolling might be a bit of a stretch, but if creating
TortoiseSVN counts as "loser" territory, there's a lot of HN users that are
far worse!

------
makyol
Good luck Stefan! Don't think like every is going bad or this is your last
chance. 30 is not a old age, you have still many years to live, many years to
succeed. Keep on trying, buddy.

Other than that, you don't have to be the best programmer ever to build
something, just try to do your best and start creating something small and
build on it.

------
michaelrhansen
Don't be so hard on yourself. "Building a business" is one of the most
difficult adventures you can take in life. Stop worrying about how much time
you have too, that is ridiculous. I have family friends in retirement (65+
years old) that are building incredible little niche companies. What do you
want to build?

------
danbmil99
> I don't have too much time left. My 20ies are gone

Sorry, but that made me laugh. You just turned 30. Talk to anyone over 40, 50,
or 60, and ask them whether they wouldn't love to be 30 again, just to have so
much time ahead of them.

Point being, you have _plenty_ of time left. Time is not your problem --
motivation and focus are.

------
jayfuerstenberg
Think of success like a staircase.

You can't reach the top in a single bound.

You have to take small steps and lots of them all the while measuring your
progress or lack thereof.

I'm like you. I've dabbled in things and made some small successes here and
there and am constantly learning.

I'm in my late 30s now and will never give up. That's the guaranteed way to
fail.

------
dutchbrit
Keep in touch with someone that will push you, and push him or her too. I am
great at procrastination and could use with extra pushing. I have some people
that kick me up the butt when I need it, which is nice. Do you have any kind
of IM? If so, shoot me an email (see my profile).

------
zerooneinfinity
_HN, here I am. My name is Stefan Kueng, I'm 30 years old, based in
Switzerland. For better or for worse. This is my last chance to get my life
back on track. If anyone else reads this, wish me good luck._ You'll have
plenty of chances my young friend :), but get to work!

------
t0mislav
I'm in mid-late 20s with 9-to-5 job and in my case this is definitely not way
to long and happy life. There is a lot of stress, bosses do wrong decisions
all the time, small salary. So yeah, my own personal business is just matter
of time. I'm working on it in my free time.

------
pjbrunet
You're still dreaming. Get the 9-5 and do this on the side. Most businesses
fail, and most of the ones that do succeed were inherited from a family
member. The odds are against you are terrible, especially for somone
intimidated by pointers--that's the cold hard reality.

------
RachelCHRIS
Don't think about the past, concentrate on the future, and live in the moment.
You can't change the past, but you could change the way you feel and act right
now, this minute, hour, day, make your time useful and positive now, it will
build.

------
johnnyg
I respect you putting yourself out there and wish you well on your journey.

I run CPAP.com and work with several other businesses.

If you find yourself stuck on strategy or business operations stuff, please
feel free to give me a skype (johnnywgoodman) or email (in profile).

------
thatsamiam
Feeling like an idiot is a big part of learning. The key is to persist with
whatever you are learning and doing. It's not too late, but you need to start
making changes now so that you don't find yourself where you are now in 10
years.

------
rasur
Whereabouts in Switzerland are you? There's plenty of stuff going on here..
certainly if you picked something like Ruby, and became proficient, you'd be
able to find work..

(edit: I realise finding work probably isn't the focus, but.. just saying)

------
Mahn
Just do it. Get started, make a move. Thinking and reading advice about it on
HN won't get you anywhere without action. You are not a loser, but you've got
to stop thinking and start doing. (I've been there, hence the tip)

------
phektus
Your from Switzerland who's in one of the most financially rewarding
industries of the modern age. Sorry but reeks of too much 1stworldproblem for
me.

Plus you're a male, I assume, so you don't have menopause. Stop worrying about
your age.

------
WalterBright
> If anyone else reads this, wish me good luck.

You don't need luck. Just put your sails up, and the winds will come sooner or
later.

I.e. you can't win if you're not in the game. Get in the game. Do it every
day.

------
systematical
You could try an easier language than C++. Also I've "failed" at nearly every
business I've tried. I take a break, don't repeat the same mistakes and try
again. Chin up and try to enjoy the things you can control.

------
mtowle
OP, read this post all the way to the end, let me know what you think:

[http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2011/04/the_abusive_boyfriend...](http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2011/04/the_abusive_boyfriend.html)

------
tamirs9876
I can recommend you reading this article: <http://sivers.org/15-years> And I
believe it will give you some hope and you will believe that you aren't a
fail.

------
panbhatt
That's awesome Stefan. Hats off to you and wish you great luck in your next
assignment. Wish everything goes right.. With you.. and will be there for any
help that i can do....at panbhatt at gmail

------
cglee
Stefan, I operate an online school to teach people web development. Send me an
email and let's see how we can help you. If you have the desire, I'm confident
we can teach you to launch a product.

------
ehmuidifici
Good luck, I know you feel. I'm almost 30 and starting to feel the same. Then,
let's do something to change this.

Feel free to contact me if you need something, if there is something that I
can do to help you.

------
raheemm
My hat's off to you for being so vulnerable and courageous. I don't have any
advice but wish you the best and thank you for sharing this thread. I can
relate to so much of what you have said.

------
wglb
Keep in mind that Ray Croc didn't start McDonalds until he was 50.

~~~
zpk
Glad you mentioned this, the point often gets missed...Colonel Sanders didn't
start KFC till his 40's. Dangerfield didn't get into comedy(again) until he
was in his mid 40's. I wish we could find some examples in the tech arena, to
break this under 30 stereotype... Actually one person comes to mind, Larry
Ellison, he found Oracle in 1977 ~age 33.

------
inquist
Good luck! I wish you the best. You can do it! I have a similar sense that I
need to do my best right now to set the remainder of my life on a good
trajectory. I just turned 27.

------
jamespitts
Get over to the nearest meetup, hachathon, or tech conference. Help out in any
small way, learn a few important skills more thoroughly, and slowly build up
traction from there.

------
aln
Good luck with your endeavors!

I thought I would share something kind of relevant:
<http://paulgraham.com/reminder.html>

------
Vivtek
Oh dear God, 30 already? You've got one foot in the grave!

People start things when they're 75, man, and succeed. The best time in your
life to start _anything_ is _now_.

------
SolarUpNote
Good luck man. It takes a lot of guts to put yourself out there like that.

(by the way, you live in one of the best countries in the world, that's gotta
provide an added boost)

------
bhashkarsharma
Damn! I remember getting drunk last night, but can't recall writing this post.
It sounds like me, except that I have a few years on my hands before I hit 30.

------
l33tbro
Best wishes with everything. I admire how brave you are to take responsibility
for what's not working in your life. So many of us can't do that.

------
davidtanner
From the sound of it you need to focus on getting your _life_ together and
worry about programming and starting a company later(if at all).

------
akane
Like others have said, it sounds like you may be depressed. Untreated
depression can lead to serious problems. Please talk to your doctor.

------
kummo666
Fucking HN... Now every people tends to think "My 20ies are gone. I'm screwed"
WRONG! Keep on working on your dreams till you make it.

------
scotty79
Probably not very constructive: <http://xkcd.com/1027/> \- but true for me.

------
EugeneOZ
Good luck. Less procrastination, less reading of "useful" news, less
reinventing the wheels. More concentration on result.

------
mkr-hn
No great work is done in 30 years. Important steps are made a few years at a
time, but what counts happens in a lifetime.

------
Swisscoder
I learned alone at Hackernews and codeacademy/treehouse tons of stuff.Which i
used in a project. You can do it too...

~~~
klepra
Me too, those are great for learning alone.

------
eranation
I'm 35 and still think my best is still ahead of me, don't compare yourself to
others, compare yourself to yourself.

------
drivingmenuts
Good luck!

Some of us never quite make that leap. Hope your landing is a good one! And if
it isn't, well, do it again anyway.

------
kome
Dear Stefan Kueng, please read "Mars" of your compatriot Fritz Zorn. Please do
that. You will understand why.

All the best.

------
ebiggs
Being a loser is a good thing. Every success I've had is just me failing a
little less hard each time :)

------
joezhou
Good luck man, even though you have the community behind you, ultimately it's
still you vs. the world.

------
meerita
There's more time than life, buddy. Get up yourself and start trying
everything so you find your path.

------
paulovsk
This is totally what you need to read.

<http://tynan.com/lovework>

------
jcfrei
hey stefan, fellow swiss guy here - not sure what your intention with this
post is. I can wish you all the good luck you want, though I'm sure that's not
gonna be much of a help to you. If you wanna chat, just contact me - you'll
find my email, etc. in my profile.

------
benatkin
OP might be a desperate narcissist. If he is the best thing he can do might be
to give up being an entrepreneur, and find get into contributing to (but not
starting, at least at first) open source.

I didn't see his post as being very humble. The humble thing would have been
to bring his expectations more in line with reality, not to melodramatically
call himself a loser.

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viame
So many posts, I cannot read them all however, great post and great answer by
Ed. Good luck with everything.

=)

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maurits
Hi! I am in Switzerland, Genf. Drop me a line if you are in for a coffee on
the lake sometime.

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tlongren
Good luck Stefan. Just keep trying. I've had lots of failures, but ya just
gotta keep at it.

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verysoftoiltppr
The good news is the track you want to put your life on doesn't really exist,
so chill out.

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Hermel
If you have good business ideas, zeeder.ch might be able to help you and get
you connected.

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yale8848
Come on man!I am coding near 3 years.But nothing done.Hope we make progress
together :)

------
xkiwi
Be agile, I thank myself for being that way;

Join a Startup if you cannot create one.

------
JuranLiu
I wish you good luck! I also like you. Different,I made in China.

------
pckhoi
you're not a loser. Sometime I feel like a loser too, but sometime I don't
feel that way. It's something that stick to your identity at some points and
falloff at other points.

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rooshdi
You're not a loser, just human. Hope you make it happen bud!

------
lignuist
Now I believe in you. :) Do you already have concrete plans?

~~~
ommunist
Meh, iron deeds are better than concrete plans. But smelting goes first. And
this is what happening with him now.

------
ebbv
> I don't have too much time left. My 20ies are gone.

Little over-dramatic there buddy. You're still incredibly young. You're very
likely only about one third of the way through life.

That kind of over-dramatic, unrealistic thinking is not constructive.

------
venusbai
My dream is live in Switzerland! So... A Chinese Coder...

------
kkt262
Stop posting on Hacker News and start getting shit done.

Good luck.

------
rabid
I am in the same boat, keep rowing, I know I am.

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baiki
Same here, over 40 and Swiss. Let's do someting.

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zzy1993
come on!after reading your experence,i thought a lot,you are a man with
dreaming,you will be succeed i believe,work hard.

------
blufox
Dont give up. Dont ever give up. Good Luck

------
jyf1987
consider that you've live in a area which wont let you died as hungry, so why
not just do it?

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tekniiq
get rich or die trying... good luck or just work hard and go home, nothing's
wrong with that

------
silentwind
Get it done man, good luck!

------
j45
My friend:

"To be who we are, first let's forget who we think we are" - Paulo Coehlo.

Your thoughts and feelings are like your body. Don't feed them well, or bathe
them regularly, and your thoughts and feelings will smell as bad as your body
if you don't shower for a few days, or weeks.

<http://Joel.is> has some fantastic articles about the inner development of an
entrepreneur. Ultimately what you do will only be as good as you were,
internally and externally at any point in your life. Make it your life's work
to become better every day and everything else will.

\---

Don't be so focused on a destination. What no one tells you is the only
destination worth pursuing is creating a mindset for any journey you
undertake.

After over a decade pursuing entrepreneurship, some scraps of knowledge I've
learnt the hard way..

An entrepreneur must remember:

\- Building and practice discipline in anything you need to do is the master
root skill of every success or thing you'll ever want, or come across. Be
disciplined and you'll be better ready to exploit opportunities that come.

\- Hard work is not special, it's entry to get a chance to pursue what you
want. Hard work isn't in hours, it's in effectiveness in creating value.

\- Positivity (negativity gets nothing done)

\- Optimism (blind doubt, and blind faith are both bad, but you are in the
business of creating value)

\- Creating value - make stuff people actually want and want badly enough to
pay for regularly

\- To always cultivate a healthy inner dialogue (no one speaks to us like we
do, you must stop)

\- learn to be a friend to your future and present self in all your actions
and thoughts

\- Don't fake it till you make it. It's for phony nobody who are trying to fit
in instead of standing out. Instead keep it real, honest, and you scare away
the phonies and will attract those who will always have your back. the phonies
become your friend again

\- Don't be afraid to stand out and be remarkable. Literally, remark-able. Do
stuff that can be remarked about.

\- Cultivate and keep a mindset of possibility (innovation and creativity live
in possibility)

\- The freedom to fail is the ultimate freedom to learn and grow in some ways.
Insignificance is the freedom to be free and make those positive dents in the
universe within yourself and around you.

\- Avoid all doubt worshippers (those who believe their own doubts are so
insurmountable that they start spreading that to others so they doubt
themselves)

\- Be positively unreasonable - all innovation comes from it.

\- Be positively non-conforming - all innovation comes from it.

\- Become and stay self-directed - an entrepreneur's only skill is to find,
learn and do what needs to be done

\- Do what everyone's doing, and you get what everyone else gets (a lot of
bsing, faking it till you make it, "going hard" and then "going home")

\- Understand you're in this for the long haul, much longer than you think

\- Knowing you are doing this for the long haul, understand the entrepreneur

\- Leadership is actually about leading yourself, not others

\- The better you understand yourself, the better you'll be able to understand
others, including customers and their needs

You call your 20's a failure. If you're going down and failing, why bother
being affected by what you think of yourself, or what others might think?
Writing this post, as you've said is proof you care. It's just a matter of
when you get disturbed enough in a positive way to no longer tolerate how
you're being, and to be better.

Don't decide that your doubts are insurmountable that you feel a failure. This
is entirely up to your perception, interpretation, and ultimately acceptance.
Question your perception. Question your interpretation. Accept nothing but
better from yourself through developing the skills above.

My belief: I'm going to do this for as long as I want and it will all be on my
neck one way or the other to become better than anything I've imagined.

We're only a failure if it seems easier that way. Failure is not learning
positive lessons from your experiences to move forward. Failure is quitting
instead of changing your approach and improving yourself to get a better
response.

Instead of dwelling on failure (much like dwelling on anti-war instead of pro-
peace) let's think success through building and keeping a positive nature.

Success beings with you, from the inside, out. Our thinking when fed to be
negative will not help. Our feelings when fed to be negative will not help.

Conquer the mind, and you very well may conquer the world, both within, and
around you. :)

Ps., Think this post was about you? It's a reminder to myself, because no-
one's actually alone in this.

------
namank
All you gotta do is try.

------
baiki
dot_baiki@hotmail.com lass uns etwas machen. Good Luck!

------
shayounala
Good luck!

------
ommunist
Jonathan Swift started to write when he was 53. And delivered a hell lot of
worthy software, rewriting the wetware of his generation.

You have plenty of time, man.

------
omfgitsbacon
I want to give you hope but to be blunt, if your 30 an not an established
coder your not going to be. I started coding when I was 11 (dumb stuff of
course, but actual coding), went to university and got a CS degree, now I'm in
my late 30s and I have been coding for a good ~25 years, ~12 professionally
(as in day job).

You have to compete with people like me, people who enjoy coding, people who
go to work then come home to work on their own stuff. It's just not going to
happen. Granted you can get a more "noobish" job BUT your going to have to
compete with people in their early twenties who will work longer hours, less
money and complain less. And these are people that want this as a career and
are willing to learn/endure considerbaly more bullshit.

I'm not saying don't go for it, but it's going to be a hard road. And if you
fail, which is likely, your going to be 40 with no "life track" as you put it.

Think long and hard. Don't let the non-programmers here who are "social-
hackers" and every unbelievably stupid variation of the now-ruined word
"hacker" tell you that you can do it. Seriously, your against the odds here,
not impossible, good ideas are VERY important, but if you cannot do them
yourself don't bother.

~~~
indymike
I've been coding since age 14. I got my first real programming job at age 16
writing medical software. Sure, I wasn't as good as people twice my age... but
$20/hour at age 16 in 1986 wasn't bad.

You know what? I quit being amazed that other people could learn to code a
long time ago. I've seen children, old people, blind people, and even almost
illiterate people learn to code. There was always someone telling them it was
a waste of time or they didn't have the aptitude because if they did, they
already would be able to program.

To be a coder, all it takes is writing code that works (what works at ABC
Widget Co might be different than Mountain View Startup Co).

When I was asked to manage, I learned that less experienced coders are often
more productive than more older, more experienced ones. I also learned that
some of the best and most productive of all came in a 8 and left at 4:30 and
flat out refused to work stupid hours. They had lives and they learned to work
smarter and more intensely than others so they could go home to whatever it
was they really loved to do.

If someone wants to be a programmer when they grow up, even if they are 40 or
50 when they start the journey... encourage them. As for qisine... I wish him
well on his journey. Programming has been good to me.

~~~
omfgitsbacon
Your advice is rainbows, ponies and nice and all but he's not asking "should I
start programming", hes asking more along the lines of "should I start a
career in programming".

Two completely different paths, getting into this profession or any technical
profession, where you just can't do it on a whim is going to be a challenge at
any age.

I've been a senior developer for a long time, and I keep reading this bullshit
on HN about "hey, no coding skills, start a internet startup!" and "I'm in
marketing and I started a wordpress blog about hacking and now I'm an
entrepreneur". You want to get into coding, listen to the real coders, PERIOD.

------
andyl
Chill Stefan, then just get to work doing something you like. You've got
skills to work in a great industry, living in a great place. Drop the negative
inner voices, work hard, enjoy the fact that you've already got it made.

