Hi HN - I have always enjoyed being part of this community. I am turning 40 within a month and would love to have any personal and /or professional life advice you might have to give a curious person (and a techie) who is married and a father of two. Look forward to all you have to offer!
1. Health. Your health is the most important thing. Yes it's more important than your family. You're no good to your family sick or dead.
2. Family and friends. It's a lot easier finding another job than another wife. You're at the age where you should be working smart not hard. You're too old to be sacrificing your time and your health to make a corporation money by working 60 hour weeks.
As far as friends, I've had to make an effort to keep in touch with friends and cultivate friendships. It's well known that men don't focus on deep friendships like women do.
3. Work. Keep your skills up, study, and stay current with technology. By the way, you don't have to keep up with the cool kids. There are plenty of boring corporate jobs where you can put in your 40 hours a week and go home. As long as you keep your skills up, you really don't have to worry about ageism.
Couldn’t agree more. I have already made these exact 3 items my focus since last 2 years when I came across naval ravikant. (Credit where credit is due: he had distilled this pretty well I thought (if curious google his blog post “startup boy life formula”)
I find it’s quite hard to narrow the focus to activities that truly fall in these three buckets as anything could technically fit in one of these, generally speaking. I keep trying though and put myself back on the focus path when I find myself veering off.. any tips to stay focused are welcome.
On a side note I had reduced item 2 in your list to just “relationships”.
Health - I use to be a part time fitness instructor up until my mid 30s when I got married. I saw first hand the difference between people who let their bodies get in disrepair from years of neglect and people who were running and teaching dynamic classes in their mid 50s and people who are still running in their mid 60s. I turned one of our spare bedrooms into a gym that I use regularly.
Family. My wife and I are both on our second marriages. We both know how emotional devastating divorce is. In some cases it happens because only one person is willing to put in the work, in others it's because the couple doesn't make a conscientious effort to put each other first. We both make an effort to raise a red flag when outside obligations are interfering with our time and keep us from investing in our relationship.
Career. I've also seen first hand older developers who got comfortable, got blindsided by a layoff and had trouble getting a job because they didn't keep themselves marketable. That happened to me at 34. I stayed at a job for 9 years, stop learning after two and my skill set was woefully out of date. I studied for six months, took what was an entry level job after being in the industry for 12 years and aggressively learned and job hopped for the next nine.
I'm 46 and being in LA have no choice but to work 60+ hours a week. All my friends and support network were destroyed in 2008 and I have been unable to re-create them so I live with no community, no friends, nobody cares about how I'm doing. The last time I tried to go to a doctor to check out my health I was fired for missing 4 hours off that job. I can't have a romantic partner and live as best I can off one meal a day and roughly 3-4 hours of sleep. It doesn't matter if I drop dead because as an engineer in LA I'm less than worthless as a human being.
Why stay in LA if it sucks that much there? With no support network you're free. And why not cut expenses significantly? No family to support means you can get a flat mate and learn to cook.
Anyway bud sorry if I sound critical just trying to help but you didn't provide too much info on your skill set and reasons for so little sleep, salary etc.
Unless you have a huge reason to stay in LA, I'd consider maybe moving to Phoenix, Houston, Atlanta or SLC. Really good income to cost of living. The work in phx may be more boring corporate stuff mostly, but work-life balance is way better.
IMHO, second tier would be around Seattle, the DC area or NYC. But with much higher cost of living, and imho the ratio ovs pay to cost of living isn't as good.
LA and NorCal make very little sense to me for most.
BS you have every choice, you’ve just given up. Get out of LA! Go somewhere where people will treat you with respect, somewhere beautiful where you can explore the wilderness, somewhere where the pay is good, somewhere like Bellevue WA.
Agreed. If life as an engineer in LA sucks, and you have nothing left in LA, then move on to greener pastures. It won’t be easy, but it sounds like you need a change.
Start of the Great Recession. S&P 500 went from 1400 to 800 in six months. I lost 40% of my retirement investment and it was ... distressing to say the least.
1] Job gets eliminated just when you have been hitting a nice earning "peak". You now get to look for work along with millions of other out of work professionals and you are overqualified for many of the available jobs.
2] Home loses 40% of its value. I waited this one out and was fortunate to have not upgraded to a bigger home and mortgage when the income was flowing nicely in 2006 to 2008. In my area housing values are just now getting back in the general range of 2007 values. So waiting that one out was both possible and good.
3] Retirement portfolio loses 40% of its value. And, yes I would have been fine if I just waited it out. However, Because I struggled to get any decent paying work during 2008 to 2012 and the expenses of a family with 4 kids doesn't just stop. I ended up cashing out some of my retirement. And, some of the cashing out was done when the stock market was at its worst point. I didn't cash out because I was scared of the market going lower, I cashed out so that we could pay bills and not lose our house.
In retrospect, there are things I could have done better be better prepared when the income was flowing and to manage through the downturn. But, my point is that sometimes life's difficulties hit on multiple fronts and the choices are difficult.
People started worrying about their own situation. And in some cases they lost their houses and had to move out. This would be highly embarrassing, so they probably avoided friends who would ask questions about what happened.
Thinking about it some more - it wasn't just the house - it was having to pull their children out of private school, no more activities for the kids, having their car(s) get repossessed. Hugely embarrassing to a family that tried to keep up with the Jones'.
Another movie that came out about the same time that was marketed as being a comedy, but turned out to be disturbing (or at least I found it to be so)
I never understood the concept of paying for private school. Why not spend the money on a house in a neighborhood zoned to a better public school district? Especially if you have more than one child, I just can't see how the numbers make sense.
And this is coming from someone who went to a private elementary school.
> There are plenty of boring corporate jobs where you can put in your 40 hours a week and go home.
Where does one find those? And how well do they pay?
I’ve been at points in my career where I felt overwhelmed by the need to learn a new thing every other week, and I just wanted to quit and find one of those elusive “40 hour a week comfy corporate job”, but I have no idea where to find that.
Every company these days seems to be rewriting their stack and moving to the cloud and whatnot. Sometimes I wish I could just find a boring job where I just write Java every day and don’t need to care about much else.
Try contracting in investment banking technology. There are plenty of legacy Java and C++ systems that need support and maintenance. Often provides a very nice living for a large number of developers. I even know a perl guy earning 800 GBP a day for maintaining some scripts for a market risk system. All the scripts do is clean up some CSV files! Also, the guy leaves at 4:30 pm on the dot.
The cost of living in most of those cities are much lower and there are plenty of jobs.
"A boring job" doesn't mean you don't have to keep learning new technology. A boring job means you can work 40 hours a week and not try to chsnge the world.
49 here, 2 teenagers.
When you grow older, the things you truly like doing don't change that much. It's the things you don't like that you hate doing every day a little bit more. You should plan for that.
I see too many friends who have been micromanaging their lives since when we were in our 20's and now feel entrapped and miserable because of work and/or partner and/or relationships...
As many have mentioned here, the first thing is to focus on your health, mental and physical. Absolute necessity.
The second thing is to develop optionality for later instead of closing doors as many do. Plant seeds for your future life. You don't know what will work or not for you in the future. So, while you're busy living your current life, plant seeds that all have a reasonable chance to grow into a life scenario that you would enjoy later. Don't focus on a single objective, make sure you pursue at least a handful. No need to be obsessive. And then, water the seeds when you can, abandon those who die, replant when necessary. It is mostly a background process, be gently alert to spot potential future opportunities. It has made wonders for me.
Could you give some examples of "seeds" you've planted?
Do you mean to cultivate new hobbies, or keep paths open in your professional life (e.g. become a manager, or have a side project), or grow friendships with common interests that may remain common after ten years (e.g. not drinking buddies)?
Life is probabilistic, you can't define your future for sure but I believe you can increase the expected enjoyability of the outcome by working on adding potentially enjoyable scenarios to the collection of potential future outcomes. As for examples, I invested in some friendships at moments when there were more pressing rational things to do, thinking that maybe, some day, it would flourish and be worth it. Or I managed to set up a working environment where I sat for 10 years in the same space as a friend I would love to build a business with though we had completely different jobs. I was patiently waiting for a real opportunity for us to work together, all the while I was embracing my regular job. I was also building new skills in things that interest me. I was always acting with determination but not with obsession and anxiety. I was mentally accepting whatever scenarios would eventually materialize, I was only optimizing on increasing the quantity of possible enjoyable scenarios. But, as said before, all this is worth nothing if you don't treat your body with respect and are not very disciplined with your finances.
Prepare to start experiencing age discrimination. Over the next ten years you'll notice it. Especially if you don't stay fit. It's subtle, but you're going to become less relevant, less respected, and gradually fade into the background.
Professionally, you'll see the subtle pressure to become a manager. If you're not already. Decide if you're OK with this. If you are, start a part-time MBA (the stuff on leadership in an MBA course is going to be useful). If you're not, then you need to develop a strategy for not becoming a manager. Get known as a specialist in some niche, join a company that has separate grades for managers and techs.
At some point you'll probably have your mid-life crisis. This can take many forms, but it's basically an assertion of your vitality. You're still strong, fit (did I mention staying fit?) and capable, but your mortality is approaching and you suddenly realise time is limited. But there's time left to get all those things you wanted to do done, if you start right now!
The body is going to do strange things. There's all sorts of odd ailments that hit in the 40's because evolution. Your hair will do things you don't expect. Your libido will drop, and finally you can get five minutes of peace and quiet without thinking about sex all the time. Your wife, assuming she's a similar age, will have the reverse. She'll get horny all the time. Just when you don't want it any more, you can get it whenever you want. Still, it helps with the cardio.
Keep learning. You can cheerfully sink into your comfort zone and let your opinions ossify into grumpy-old-man syndrome. Don't do that, it's not pleasant for anyone. Take up a new hobby, switch technologies, learn something new all the time. Keep stepping outside your comfort zone. It's like staying fit for the brain.
Watch out for your mental health. Depression and anxiety especially hit hard around this time. Exercise really helps with this.
It's fun, though. There's a lot of benefits to it all, too. But I'll let you discover them for yourself.
I am 38. I feel as sharp as ever. I have two kids as well. I don't have any earth shattering advice for you. Keep hacking. As a consultant for the last ten years I think this may be our sweet spot in our 40s and 50s. The pay is great. People listen, even young startups. We can leverage our experience. It isn't perfect, but ageism is a zero factor in my world and I enjoy computers as much as I ever did. We (myself and two partners) have slowly grown a consulting company to almost 15 employees over the last 5 years. I have never been as rewarded and actually humbled in my career spanning almost 20 years. Work with people you like, stay curious and keep at it. Not much else to do :)
edit: and teach your kids curiosity... So many kids stare at screens and seem to lose the spark I think I had at their age. Pardon my navel gazing.
Wrote to myself, day i turned 30. Still holds true for most. Hope it helps.
1. Family comes first
2. Avoiding alcohol can do magic to your health
3. Run & exercise regularly for better physical and mental health
4. Keep your heart open.Let love seek you instead of running after it
5. Distinguish between great mentors and teachers. keep upgrading yourself time to time
6. Be very careful of what you read and what you learn out of that. And needless to say, the source.
7. A daily to-do list to be practiced on a hard form. Once a task is accomplished, strike it off the list.
8. Being empathetic to others for your mind and heart to be at peace.
9. Most of the things around us are temporary including current state of mind, the weather, our pains. Permanent decisions should not be made giving importance to temporary things.
10. Pen down everyday about anything and everything. Mastering the art will take time but venting out thoughts on the paper brings sanity.
11. Don’t be ashamed of taking feedback from those whom you respect for your own development.
12. Life is no cake walk. Failures/Criticism/Happiness, all of them are a part and parcel of the deal called life, stay equanimous.
13.Rectify your eating habits to stay disease free.
14. Watch and observe patiently at times. Fighting everything doesn’t help always.
15. Learn one new activity/skill every month. It can be painting, dancing, or even a foreign language.
16. Having a huge circle is great but make a few friends who accept you the way you are.
17. Happiness is a state of mind & requires thinking beyond materialistic world.
Not advice, but for my 40th I visited nearly every important friend I've had. Several I'd basically lost touch with. I asked them deep questions about their lives and hopes and perspectives. It was quite a journey, and was heartening to connect to times long past (though I wasn't left missing any of it). The biggest thing I gleaned was the dissipation of angst among those with families.
The people with families seemed settled with their lot (which isn't to say they were without regrets), while the ones without families were sort of still searching for something. To me it just underscored the importance of focusing on the family if you have one.
Theres a desolation that settles into your soul around your late 40s or early 50s. Not everyone, but its fairly common. You have to figure a way out of it. People think its about accepting the increasing context of limitations in your life, but I think its more than that. You just dont give a shit anymore about so many things. Like going to work and keeping your boss happy. Or where you want to travel on vacation.
It would be interesting to hear more people’s experiences with that. It resonates with me already; so many things I cared about no longer matter. It’s not exactly bad, but a little unsettling. Will I eventually care about nothing?
Just turned 40. One thing my old landlord taught me about ten years ago is that as you get older, it's valuable to have a default known-good method for things. Always put your keys in a bowl next to the door. Shit, shower, then shave. This goes double as a manager and a developer. Have a process for starting a new project, hiring a new employee, spinning up a new bank of servers, etc. Some of these can be shell scripts, but lots are documents that are regularly updated.
Time is your most valuable resource - always pay attention where you spend it and with whom.
Optimize for the long haul, never take shortcuts.
Your goal is to keep mind, body and soul in balance - everything else will work itself out and not worth worrying about.
I'm 39 and plan for a life span of at least 130 but try to live every day like I'm going to die tomorrow - context matters and helps bring perspective.
+1 on the time. Also keep reading/learning. Not sure when it happened, but at some point I stopped arguing with the gray beards and am now turning into one (43).
Historically, we're underestimating technological progress. What seems impossible with today's standards may be the new normal tomorrow.
Having said that, the specific number is less relevant and it's more about putting things into perspective.
If you believe you won't live past 80, 40 is half of your life and you may think it's too late to start something new. However, if you up the number to 130, then 40 seems like just the beginning.
What's the question, exactly? Are you feeling like you might have reached your sell-by date and are looking to avoid getting the chop because ageism? My advice, do nothing out of the ordinary. Dont freak out and try to cram the latest (or any) javascript framework. Dont start scanning hn anxiously trying to intuit which hot new language/framework/library/text editor is going to be the key to continued relevance in the industry. Dont do anything. The tech stack most devs cut their teeth on 20 years ago is still running more of the web than any four competitors put together with zero change on the horizon. Let the kids distract themselves and each other with the recursive wheel-recreation. Keep trucking.
I'm 38. I think I'm teetering now on the edge of two outcomes - physically speaking. Either I strive to stay active and remain active and healthy until I die, or, if I let go of exercise, will slowly glide into crippled senescence.
For me, Marcus Aurelius's "Meditations" was a really good book to read at this age (I'm 38). The bullshit a civilized society prods on one has not changed in two millenia, and it's very relatable.
I got lucky by few years then, Marcus Aurelius's "Meditations" has left great impact on me and i see myself and relationship with world in totally different manner.
I think there has been some great feedback here but one really valuable bit of advice has not been mentioned (that I can see).
"Do something you love"
All the people I know who are doing something they love have a much better quality of life than the ones who are just earning a living.
Also, perhaps if we do something we love it can help with the big three - health, relationships & family - because we are more satisfied and every day is something to look forward to.
45 here. Two in college, two teenagers and my wife is back in school. I've managed software teams in the past and have done my share of coding but today, I work from home and code for a living which I truly enjoy but would definitely entertain the opportunity to have my hands in more things. I think the biggest things I have discovered in my 40s is a refocus on my physical and emotional health especially by discovering meditation - at this point I feel that meditation has had the biggest impact so far. I also try not to overreact to things in my life and to try to enjoy the moments more and try to be supportive of my wife and kids as much as I can. As far as professional development, try to do side projects that scratch an itch and allow you to develop skills you wouldn't normally be able to develop at a day job. Try to stay up-to-date in industry and attend conferences when you can, they are great for the exposure to what's going on in industry but its also nice to meet other professionals, network and get out of the office.
Discovered it by accident. I'm not into the religion but I discovered meditation by listening to the talks recorded by an American Buddhist monk. You'll need to distill it but the knowledge is in there and the workings and mechanics of the mind is described in such detail that I have never heard about it anywhere. https://www.dhammatalks.org/mp3_collections_index.html
Today's 40 is different than the last generation's 40. It became clear over the last 20 years that the job of an engineer was to continually keep learning and adapting. Gone were the days of mastering a single skill and refining it over a lifetime. The last batch of 40 year olds weren't privy to that information and may have been the cause of ageist stigma. Being 40 today means you've been in this new mode of operation for 15-20 years and you know the deal. In which case you are likely extremely valuable with the benefit of experience, and will continue to be so until it you can no longer keep learning.
Exactly... I haven't seen too much ageism... but I work in Phoenix, not San Francisco. I spent a good 20% of my day looking into things, reading, learning, experimenting. It's constantly changing.
Only additional advice is to do some of it at work... part of your job should be to learn. Get your work done, but also keep learning a priority.
No kidding... started Keto, one meal a day (OMAD) and Crossfit last year... my all-time high weight was 460... last April 416.. now 361. a lot of hard work, and sprints of discipline. Still so much longer to go, and so much more time to recover.
Maybe not as much... however the rules can vary dramatically person to person. I discovered I was actually allergic to legumes early last year (just dropping them made me feel so much better), I knew I was sensitive to wheat/grains already... so now I'm mostly paleo/keto because it's easier.
Yep. For me, that "much harder" is a painful knee joint. If your joints go, then you can't exercise. Don't risk it. Get the vitamins needed for bones and cartilage. Don't risk a slip on ice or down a staircase. Don't choose downhill skiing or tackle football as your exercise.
1. Evaluate what took you this far, and shed things that didn't directly benefit you or downright hindered you; whether relationships, eating habits, shell, editor, thought/behavior patterns or what have you.
2. Revisit yourself at ~18, but don't seek their approval. Find out what stunned them and do your best to describe it. If you're unhappy with the description, it's an opportunity to learn.
3. If you could sum up your Profession into a specialty that would take you into retirement, what does that look like? How does it feel?
4. "Don't sweat the petty things" is pretty solid advice at any age. Just another Cheerio under the sofa cushion of life.
5. What was old becomes new again. There are Generations of knowledge locked up in old papers, studies and magazines waiting for the "time to be right". That time is now.
6. Take some time to lay out a map to your passionate understanding of tech for your offspring to discover. Think "Treasure Map" not "Syllabus". (See point 5)
For those who still harbor a child-like curiosity about happiness (and have not given up on it, like a cynical adult), it would be helpful to observe the folks who have succeeded in discovering it. Here's one: http://www.actualfreedom.com.au/richard/articles/richardsres...
I'm younger than you, but the best thing I could say is this: follow your career dream. If that means starting a business, working for a particular company, totally changing to a different line of work, whatever, just do it. Colonel Sanders didn't even open the first KFC restaurant until his 60s. It's not going to be easy, but you can get what you want!
Hard to give generic advice, everyone is different, but just the good ol basics of always making steps (often small ones, but sometimes big) towards the things you want from life, and always be ready to adapt to change, both good and bad.
Enjoy your kids, partner, and family.
40s don't really feel much different from any other age I've been. But good time to reconsider any unhealthy habits you have that you always delay doing something about. It's slowly getting more common that people I know of a similar age are getting things like cancer and other problems.
Tech is always full of opportunity, keep informed ( you are on HN, so you probably are ), keep learning, experiment. But always maintain strong fundamentals.
At 44 i've realized, nothing matters, everything matters.
"After the game, the king and the pawn go into the same box."
That is whatever little world you've built around you that's all you've got and all you are ever going to get. And this little world principle even applies to people like Musk,Putin,Trump,Thiel,Bezos and so on.
Best case scenario in a 50-70 years you are going to be very dead. We have not made a real breakthrough in life extension yet.
Sure health is very important but you are buying yourself maybe 10-20 extra good years. That's nice, but how nice?
People delude themselves that what they are doing is important it really isn't. As long as you can keep the fiction up that's great.
It is a depressing thought but also liberating.
Chances are you are a decent person, that's fantastic.
You have a family that's great, if someone's single at 40 that's fine too.
You have an urge to skip in the meadows go for it. You want to play videogames all day go for it.
You want to enter hackathons go for it, you want a startup, go for it.
I wear mismatching socks, my teenage daughter abhors the thought, but mismatching socks do not worry me.
You're about to enter your prime time in terms of professional life. Your experience gives you a good understanding of risks (technical, people, etc.) and means of achieving goals. You mostly control the flow of events in your life, rather than the other way around. If you've been thinking about doing something significant, early 40s is the best age to step out of regular routine and do it.
there is this question on life - to be or to wanna be.
it's time to stop any of the wanna be, and enjoy who you are.
mental fit may be harder to keep than physical. YMMV. simplify your life, throw away anything that's not real (tv,news,fb,whatever-your-everyday-itch-for-no-reason is).
As of health, the saying goes "if something hurts when u're 30 and nothing hurts when u're 40, then stuff is real baaaad."
Lots of already good advice on health, family and friends.
My suggestion regarding career is to do some career planning/mapping on at least an annual basis, or quarterly, to help you focus and control your work life:
- Goals
- Responsibilities
- Requirements
- Gaps
- Growth Plan
This will help you find mentors, skills, opportunities, and things to spend less time on.
If they’re 10+ I’d suggest taking one with you to visit old friends. It can be a great way for them to learn indirectly about their father and I’m sure they’ll look back on it fondly as well. Nothing beats hearing salacious stories of one’s old man from eyewitnesses. They’ll appreciate it years from now.
Start doing extreme sports before it's too late. You can still start surfing, parkour or basically whatever you want, but in another 10 years you probably won't.
1. Health. Your health is the most important thing. Yes it's more important than your family. You're no good to your family sick or dead.
2. Family and friends. It's a lot easier finding another job than another wife. You're at the age where you should be working smart not hard. You're too old to be sacrificing your time and your health to make a corporation money by working 60 hour weeks.
As far as friends, I've had to make an effort to keep in touch with friends and cultivate friendships. It's well known that men don't focus on deep friendships like women do.
3. Work. Keep your skills up, study, and stay current with technology. By the way, you don't have to keep up with the cool kids. There are plenty of boring corporate jobs where you can put in your 40 hours a week and go home. As long as you keep your skills up, you really don't have to worry about ageism.