I "agree", but draw the exact opposite conclusions.
You should take your 20's seriously... because it's the only time in your life that you aren't encumbered by building a career, having kids, etc.
So you should take your 20's to do the things that you won't be able to do later. Work as a bartender, play in a band, travel the world on the cheap, teach English abroad, date the kind of people you wouldn't marry. You don't have serious responsibilities, so take advantage of that while you can.
Don't waste your 20's "building a career". You've got your 30's and 40's and 50's to do that. Don't be in a rush to have kids too soon.
Obviously, don't throw your 20's away. But spend them doing life-experience-focused things, not career- or family-focused.
And this gets at the author's third point: "Your brain finishes forming in your 20′s". If that's even true (although I doubt it), then you'd better get in all those varied life experiences sooner rather than later. Learn a second language, learn to cook, learn to play music.
Don't waste your 20's on grinding away at traditionally career-oriented stuff. That part of your brain is probably already fine. Your 20's is the time to look for diversity in your life, not to focus narrowly on any particular part. You've got all the decades afterward to work on narrow refinement and career progression...
I'm a 29-year old male who spent his 20s building a career I love and now has a 6-month old daughter, so this quote:
> Don't waste your 20's "building a career". You've got your 30's and 40's and 50's to do that. Don't be in a rush to have kids too soon.
Doesn't really make sense to me. If you don't build a career and finances in your 20s, you either can't afford to have a kid in your early 30s or you have one and can't provide the life and opportunities they should have. And it seems you skipped over the part about women having extreme difficulties having children later than their mid-30s, or the children they have are at a higher risk of birth defects and miscarriages. Typically, a guy by himself cannot create a child without a woman, so if you're going to party in your 20s and not think about finances and a career until your 30s, and kids later than that, you should know going in that your partner will be need to be much younger than you to accomplish this.
I don't mean to ask personal questions here, but it seems apropos considering your guidance: how old are you? do you have a spouse? a son or daughter? Does your guidance match up with how you've lived your life, and are you now successfully balancing a budding career and family in your older years after living your 20s in various countries like China, France, Brazil and others?
"Don't waste your 20's "building a career". You've got your 30's and 40's and 50's to do that."
It's hard to try to pivot in your 30s if you don't have a resume with at least some points to match your future career.
If you haven't used anything from your post-secondary degree 8 years after getting it... employers are going to notice that and assume that your degree is worthless.
I say this having seen far too many friends get stuck in the waitress/bartending life only to find out that you plateau in your 30s unless you go into the high end fine dining, sommelier, running your own place, etc.
Same thing has happened to friends in retail after they reached manager or assistant manager at a store that was supposed to be their part time job.
This third point is, by the way, completely wrong. Not only does he blow a minor thing completely out of proportion by applying it to the whole brain and intelligence, there hardly is any real evidence to back up that you cannot learn new things later in life - on the contrary, check out "Guitar Zero", Gary Marcus does a great job of debunking the "not worth it to try anymore" myth.
Contra: you only live once. The risk with spending so much of your youth building for a future - in essence, living for the tomorrow you're trying to create - is that you won't want it when you get there.
When you're young, you're at the point at which you most likely have fewer worries of any kind than you will in the rest of your life. And you won't appreciate this until it's gone. A slightly more advanced career is a poor substitute.
I'm not arguing in favour of feckless youth. In fact, you should be serious about one thing - not wasting your time. But building a career that you abandon in your 30s or 40s may also be a waste of time.
Agreed. One thing I've noticed about my own life is how hard even 1 year out of your career track hurts you both professionally (skill set) and personally (income/wealth). I was doing financial services programming for a big bank as my first job right out of college before the housing bust. I ended up getting laid off and enjoying the "funemployment" people talk about: 6 month full severance, unemployment at the top rate after that, living at home with the parents, no debt, and doing whatever strikes my fancy.
I set an upper bound of 1 year maximum to be out of the field of programming. When I came back (should have kept programming while unemployed, stupid, I know) not only had my skill set deteriorated but so did my market rate. Out of college my salary was $98,000. By the time I had gotten back into the work force my salary was $65,000. It took about 1.5 years of hard work and a lot of overtime to get back to where I was. And during this time my peers that stayed employed have grown a lot both in terms skill set and market rate. So basically because I took 1 year off, I lost ~2.5-3 years of my career because I had to work back to where I was before.
I think if I were to get a do-over I would have not have taken a year off. But the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence, as they say.
The risk with spending so much of your youth building for a future - in essence, living for the tomorrow you're trying to create - is that you won't want it when you get there.
Well said. Now that I'm 30, I'm pretty much living the dream I had for myself when I was 20, but it hasn't turned out to be exactly what I thought it would be.
I'm not sure there is any way you can win though. If I had lived my life differently in my 20s and not had fulfilled the goals I set for myself, I'd be still dreaming the same dreams wishing I could achieve them. The grass is always greener and all that.
The more I think about it, the less I understand this common concept of sweating and working NOW for the good you might one day reap... having been born in the West, you are in the extremely fortunate position of being able to perfectly work on skills and slowly building a career while at the same time enjoying life to the fullest. It is a very strange thing we always put the good times off for later and slave away now only to make more money to one day finally eventually reap all the benefits when we are 50, 60 or 70 - a time in life when your options are way more limited than they were in your 20s and 30s.
I agree with you, we live too much in the "one glorious day" fantasy world and we agree too much to become chased rats battling for minor increments of personal wealth when the truly wealthy people of the world are absolutely untouchable and forever out of our reach.
Good luck trying to tell other people how they should live their lives.
I can tell you that there are probably a hundred things I could've done better with my time in my twenties. However there was no way that I would have known then what I would be like today and what makes me happy now. Back then I thought I would keep gigging in bands and I'd scrape together a record label and have a long career in music. That's what made me happy at the time and what I sought out to do. How could I have known that I would change? I have a wife now and a daughter on the way, I've become a mild-mannered programmer who enjoys mathematics and literature, and rather than getting pissed on a Friday night and making a lot of noise I like to hang out with my friends and play board games. But if I was wiser I might have went to university and worked on getting a PhD then I'd probably be better off now, today. Hindsight...
What I'm saying is that humans are terrible planners. We're good at adapting and adjusting but we can never seem to be able to accurately predict outcomes. I think that we glorify those people who seem to far surpass the status quo and bend their stories into myth. It's romantic to think that Einstein or Steve Jobs had set out to change the world when they were young but if we're honest about their history it's more likely that they drifted towards those things and all the right pieces were in place at the right time to make great things happen.
And it doesn't end when you hit thirty. I'm still as ambitious as ever and I see new currents that I'd like to follow that I would never have thought possible before. You don't just become a dumb, boring, cantankerous old person over night. Quite the contrary; I find that my tastes are far more refined, I can see dead-ends before going down the path, and I am more adverse to wasting my time. You start to see patterns in the ocean and can navigate the seas with ease.
So plan all you want but be prepared to fight the current and the winds!
I disagree with a lot of the comments - and with the article point.
We should not think about taking any age seriously or not, but of the bigger picture instead, ie one's goals in life.
Unfortunately, they are not written down for you, and they can be quite hard to find.
There are various algorithm that may work, but all I see in the article and the comments are basically 2 opposite proposals :
- plan A: explore in your twenties to make sure you properly identify your goals
- plan B : commit to your career in your twenties to take advantage of compounding interest (in life as in money)
But we all know alternatives approaches - like iterating between exploration (finding a local maxima) and exploitation (taking advantage of this local maxima)
I guess it all depends if you have already found your fancy, and all longs it will take to get you bored out of it, but it seems to be a much better approach - especially if you do not ignore the money aspect of your fancies (ie starting a band might be fun, but odds of financial return are low)
Also, it seems to me a lot of the comments insist about family and children. These are individual decisions - not givens, something the author clearly stated ("if having a family is part of your life's goals").
Fortunately for men, there is no age limit (and if we keep our rate of technological progress in stem cells and differentiation into germinal lines, there is no reason why it couldn't be also possible for women)
Currently, at least for 50% of the readers, age should not be factored in - opening the door for more iteration of the explore/exploit loop, with the always present opportunity to have kids.
I guess I don't understand or I'm missing something, maybe like the preference of dating someone of a similar age (which might then impose its own preference on optimal child bearing age)
This is rather straw-man-ish. He equates having a fun, care-free life as ... working at Starbucks.
I don't know anyone who's ever said, "Well, why don't you just work at Starbucks for a decade? It'll be fun and you can get a real job when you're 30!"
What's actually said is more like, "Take a few months and a backpack and go travel somewhere" or "start a company with no idea if it'll pan out". Party. Start a band. Chase some girls [or guys]. Read a lot.
It doesn't mean "throw away a decade" -- it means "do the important things that it'll be harder for you to get away with if 10 years from now you have a family and mortgage."
I visited over 30 countries in my 20s. Even if that would have kept me from advancing my career (it didn't), I wouldn't trade that for being a year closer to a promotion in an IT job.
"What's actually said is more like, "Take a few months and a backpack and go travel somewhere" or "start a company with no idea if it'll pan out". Party. Start a band. Chase some girls [or guys]. Read a lot."
I am in my 30's and I hope to continue/start doing some of this.
Ugh. I've been having this conversation a lot lately.
> Your 20′s lay the groundwork for success in the rest of your career.
Can also be said as: While in your 20's, you should start living like you're in your 30's, 40's and 50's, so you can do that and only that for your entire life.
I completely reject that way of thinking.
There are many things we all want to do in our 20's we will not want to do later in life, which is all the more reason to do them in your 20's, lest you never get to do them at all.
As anecdotal evidence, I spent 2 years of my life from 27-29 driving from Alaska to Argentina, because I wanted to. Will I want to sleep in a tent for >500 nights when I'm 50? doubtful. Am I extremely happy that I did? You bet, best experience of my life. Did it "harm" my career? No, I'm working right now as a Software Engineer.
Absolutely agree with you. I went on a wild adventure through my 20s, spending time in Alaska, working as a baker, managing an organic farm for several years - living for the most part from the seat of my pants just following what felt right.
I'm sure I sacrificed some aspects of a 'career' because of it but I had an incredible life experience. And when I turned 30 I met the love of my life, finally committed full time to developing software (after a number of fits and starts) and never looked back.
I never spend a day feeling like I 'missed out on something'. Rather, I'm really enjoying my life where it is at right now, cool career, wonderful wife and 2 1/2 year old son.
I do kind of look forward to when my son gets a little older though so I can get a van and take him on some wild adventures ;)
Here's some insight which I had with a senior partner at a "big 4 consulting" firm and their attitude to age.
The buy up highly educated people in their 20's because they're cheap and eager to work. In fact, they're cheaper than most people when you do an hourly analysis (probably cheaper than cleaners).
BUT... the simple fact is, they also know they burn out by their 30's. Life takes over. The doubt. What am I doing with my life? Why don't I have a family? Maybe I missed out on other things my friends were doing?
By that stage, they no longer care about you because they've got a new batch of cheap 20's burning the midnight oil.
However, the good news is that they noticed that there's a reversal when people reach their 40's. They've got experience in life and business. They're no longer in doubt mode.
Ironically, these organizations have standard pitches to sell the career delusion. "People are our greatest assets" and similar rhetoric. The reality is ... THE DO NOT GIVE A CRAP ABOUT YOUR CAREER. Careers do NOT exist. It's like selling women the idea of being a "homemaker" in the 1950's.
I have noticed that people are more likely to be successful in their 30's and 40's (read some evidence that suggested that too but can't remember the reference). People getting rich in their 20's is an aberration.
Neuroplasticity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Brain_That_Changes_Itself) also suggests that we never stop learning, so I have to disagree with point 3 "Your brain finishes forming in your 20′s." Dribble! That's like the rhetoric about careers. People just get lazy.
What people have going for them in their 20's is no commitment and all the time in the world. But no experience which can also be a disadvantage. If you can recreate "no commitment" in your 30's-40's (20's + real experience), then you should excel because your ideas are more mature and hopefully clearer!
You're more likely to be successful as an actor in your 30's for the same reasons!
This is a delicate subject because one can view it as a call for those in their 20s to make the most of that time, which is a fine message, to something tantamount to ageism.
While it's true that those in their 30s or older can be closed to new idea, that's not because they're "old", it's because they're people and some people are closed-minded.
I find a lot of these complaints are more about the cultural and lifestyle gap between those in their 20s and those who are older.
I remember the 80s. I'm not particularly interested in going bar-hopping. I find most social media to be an annoying drivel from people who vary between exhibitionists to just liking the sound of their own voices (everybody is talking, nobody is listening). I don't have that same sense of enthusiasm because for me everything isn't new. Most things really are derivative. To paraphrase something Don Draper said, I've reached a point on my life where I think I've basically met every kind of person there is. That's not to say that people can't surprise you. They can. It's just that you realize they're not as different as they once seemed.
This is exacerbated in the startup world since so many are cut from the same cloth: valedictorians in high school, magna cum laude, graduates of Stanford/MIT/CMU/Columbia, interned at Facebook/Amazon/Microsoft/Google, now working for one of those or some hot startup. It's a whittled down group of the technocratic elite who often-times don't really know how privileged and lucky they are.
At Google there tends to be two kinds of people: those who have worked in the outside world, particularly in Corporate America, and know how lucky they are and how different this is. And those that haven't and think this is just how the world is.
I don't begrudge them their successes and accomplishments but it is a form of cultural isolation--even inbreeding.
All of this means there tends to be a smaller set of common social norms with the "20s set".
At the same time, I pick up new technologies, languages and frameworks as much as I ever did. Possibly more so. Just now I've been doing a lot of AngularJS. That certainly didn't exist in my 20s. While I may not have the same youthful exuberance, I have experience and can draw lessons and parallels from programming in every stage of the Web's development (from CGI scripts on).
I will say this to those planning to have children: do it while you're young and it has nothing do with fertility. Children simply take an enormous amount of energy and commitment and this is far easier to bounce back from the younger you are.
As for the rest of it? Take another comment on this thread:
> Once somebody is fully set in their ways it's almost impossible to change their mind without divine intervention
That's fairly blatant ageism but, more than that, it's from someone who only knows people like him- or herself that wants to surround themselves with the same. Like I said: commonality and shared social norms are really what's in play there.
I completely agree with what cletus says. I'm 43 years old today. Some things just feel uninteresting because I started doing them too young. Interestingly programming is not one of them, I have been doing it for 30 years. On the other hand, I have been rock climbing for 7 years and I'm better than ever [in case you care: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olEgfe4cYuU ]. It still feels pretty new to me. I know 25-year-olds who started climbing as kids, reached their potential and lost interest.
Everyone is different, every decade in a person's life is different. In my personal case, my work between 30 and 40 was far better than what I did between 20 and 30. I feel pretty inspired right now.
This type of post is the stuff that you want to say to yourself at every point in your life (you can only make the best of the present, after all). It doesn't really work as advice to others.
> I don't have that same sense of enthusiasm because for me everything isn't new.
I agree. I think one of the reasons why people in 30s seem to be more "close-minded" to new ideas is because they already have a decade of experience of the (then) fresh new stuff. This is especially true for the IT world.
Let's face it, we are reinventing the wheel in every 5 years. Just look at how frameworks and programming languages go in and out of fashion. You may say "oh man, not again!" when an enthusiastic young programmer tells you how great node.js is - which may be true, but in your open-minded 20s you already learnt Erlang, Twisted, EventMachine and Java NIO for the very same thing.
I'm not yet 30, but I already feel that I am becoming more conservative. I have seen a lot of "hot stuff" come and go, so I try to learn from technologies that seem to persist. Look at C, this old monster: it survived its creator, and for a reason. Now look at YUI or ExtJS: they were so "hot" around 2007, and I haven't even heard them mentioning for a long time. When somebody says that framework/language X is so great and "hot", I am a bit more careful now that 5 years ago: will it be around in 2 years? If not, does it worth even bothering?
Is this closed-mindness or wisdom? Very hard to tell. I am trying to be open-minded in a sense that I try to look and evaluate everything new, but I'm sure that I say "no" to much more things than 5 years before. I wonder how I would see myself in the eye of my 5 year-old younger me.
While it's true that those in their 30s or older can be closed to new idea, that's not because they're "old", it's because they're people and some people are closed-minded.
I feel social pressure plays a big part. Even the so-called open-minded 20 year olds will make fun of people in their 30s and 40s who still try to live an "unsettled" lifestyle. To accept wild and crazy ideas in your 20s just means you still have some growing up to do. To do the same later in life shows an abandonment of your responsibilities, which is frowned upon by society – in North America, at least.
Yes, it's blatant ageism. As much as we hate to admit it, our minds and bodies start to decline almost as soon as we reach maturity. Not only does raw intelligence drop as we age, but some personality traits change. Of the Big Five, openness to new experiences takes the biggest hit. See http://www.gwern.net/DNB%20FAQ#aging and http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/www/external/labor/agin... for the scientific evidence.
Obviously these stats don't mean that old people are stupid and close-minded. Knowledge accumulates and helps offset many of the deficiencies. Still, this evidence does suggest that young people might want to change their behavior to benefit their future selves. This doesn't just mean making the most of the time you have. Exercise, continuous learning, and a few drugs can help to slow the decline. As an analogy, think of athletes. A 50 year-old is never going to win the Boston marathon. But with proper training, nutrition, and maybe a few performance-enhancing drugs, they can beat 95% of 25 year-olds.
> those who have worked in the outside world ... and know how lucky they are and how different this is. And those that haven't and think this is just how the world is.
As a mid-30s guy at Google for 2 years, I'm never sure whether fresh grads getting their first job at Google will ever know (or need to know) how lucky they are.
I agree with the author's view. For the lack of better words, I think the author intends to imply that the struggle to learn new skills in the 20's is what leads to a successful later life. In the 20's you can take a lot of chances, risk misfires and learn from it. A personal cognitive pattern recognition for problem solving emerges from these struggles to learn new things. This pattern recognition when applied later in life with maturity and deep thought result in successful decisions. Please don't make ageism such a taboo. For example I have never heard or seen anyone applying ageism to children and old men. Ageism has a lot to do with biological growth than social apartheid.
Most startup advice is also good advice for 20-somethings.
Get to an MVP quickly: Find a way to practice your target profession as soon as possible. (Don't spend hundreds of thousands getting a law degree just to discover you hate the actual work.) This is easy for programmers: just start building stuff before applying to the CS program.
After MVP, iterate quickly: So you know Ruby? Time to learn another language, or about compilers, or about web typography, or about finance. Don't stand still.
Be ready to pivot: If you discover you find your work unfulfilling, the time to change is now. Don't wait to switch careers until your 40s.
Don't prematurely optimize: Your 20s should be about gaining skills and experience, not about getting big paychecks. The best paying job a 20 year old can get might be in construction or the military, but this may limit your upside down the road.
The best paying job a 20 year old can get might be in construction or the military, but this may limit your upside down the road.
From a purely financial perspective, money now is better than money later though. A 20 year old who secures a job that nets him enough to save $15,000 per year until retirement will ultimately have a lifetime net savings of about the same as someone who finally finds a job that pays enough to save $50,000 per year at the age of 40.
first shouldn't you take every discrete chunk of your life seriously?
to the degree to which this is true, its true because we tell ourselves its true, most people don't reinvent themselves past their 20s because they choose not to, not because the obsticles standing in their way are insurmountable
I wholeheartedly disagree and I might add that this is bullshit. Do whatever the hell you want to do with your twenties. If your idea of a perfect life is a flawless career, then go for it. Go where your interests take you. As long as you get bread on the table and don't bury yourself in debt, there is no reason why you should feel you are wasting some grandiose opportunity. Life isn't only about work and money.
The irony of life is that you don't truly understand what is important in your 20's (or any age) until you are much older. Not only do we fail to understand things until we get some outside perspective - but also our priorities change.
In my 40's I wish I had done certain career things differently. But I can imagine myself in my 80's wishing I had goofed off more, traveled the world and not taken anything too seriously. As the old joke goes, not too many people are on their death bed wishing they had worked harder.
I've spent a considerable amount of time thinking about this, ever since the topic came up on reddit about why so few people in their 20's seem to "have their shit together."
I think it comes down to two reasons. The first one is huge, but its essentially luck. I think the reason I'm even afforded the opportunity to take my 20's seriously is almost completely happenstantial.
Looking at my friends and (distant) family I sometimes feel guilty because nothing bad has ever really happened to me in my life, whereas they've had to put up with all kinds of weird shit. For many people I know not being able to take their 20's seriously as powerhouse career years is sort-of excusable. They were spending them trying to survive, or raise a family all-too-soon.
But me? I'm young (24), well educated, I live in a huge Victorian-era house near main street nearly for free, programming job, walk to work every day, have a book deal (boring HTML5 book), brag, brag, etc, etc
But somehow I feel I'm just infinitely lucky. Lucky that my parents are two normal, well adjusted people. Lucky that I could be awkward and nerdy as all shit through middle school and high school and nobody was ever unpleasant to me. I was never bullied. No weird drama ever entered my life. I exited college with $0 but debt-free, thanks to Bank of Dad, who carefully engineered my experience to be basically broke but never in-the-hole so long as I worked (got an internship every summer and winter).
Lucky lucky lucky. Thanks everyone in my life so far. Really.
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On the flip side I think that such a lifestyle (very career focused 20's) is seen as unattractive to a lot of 20-somethings. At the least, I think most people in my age range would describe people like me as boring (though I am never really bored). I spend most of my days reading, writing, sitting in cafes, programming, or doing art things. Right now and for several more months, its nearly 100% career activities. If I had to put together a dating website profile, it probably wouldn't look particularly attractive to other 20-somethings.
Put another way, most of my hobbies are either career related or solitary acts. Not that people can't appreciate them, just that none of them are exciting, and most of my 20-something friends (none of which IRL are programmers, I lead a lonely career here in NH) that proclaim me to be one of the few who has their shit together would also not want to be me.
None of them want to work desk jobs and then go home and work some more. They want to work in food/bar services or have a whatever-job, drop it at 5pm and go do fun 20-something things. Career development it seems isn't fun to most 20-somethings, socializing at bars is, moving out to Montana to climb things and work for a harvest season is, saving up to hide away in Peru for a year is, writing music with friends while working retail is, but not career development. Not to disparage these things, it just a sampling of their goals.
Having just "got my shit together" at 30, I can compare our lives and remark on the great value -- not just emotional, but also economic -- of having well-adjusted, supportive parents. They've helped you, instead of trying to guilt you into supporting them and their poor life decisions.
Career-building is unattractive to most 20-year olds, but it becomes very attractive to these same people once they get into their early 30s.
Great post. I also consider myself very lucky, much the same way as you. I've had some setbacks, but nothing that couldn't be handled. I also feel this pull from these two lifestyles, the "boring" stable desk job, or traveling the planet, code whatever I want and live life like there's no tomorrow. My fiancée is two years older than me (27), so that puts some pressure on getting kids and settling down fast. I've managed to save up what I consider a lot of money, but I feel the need to use that towards buying an apartment or house.
I think because 20-somethings with ambitions tend to move and live in career centers. Come to SF or NYC and you'll find a lot of ambitious 20-somethings that care about their career. I know of mid-twenties women who've dumped their long term boyfriends because the boyfriends were unambitious and didn't want to get anywhere in their life other than dead end retail jobs.
If you wanted to move to such a career center, I would suggest NYC since it's close to your family and the dating is better for men there.
There is nothing wrong with wanting a social life. Having a social life is independent of career ambitions.
Take advantage of your lack of setbacks and get ahead in life.
My perspective is that life circumstances often force you to "get your shit together." Specifically, having a spouse and kids to support provides an instant shot of maturity and focus for most (decent) people. That was certainly the case for me after having my first child at 26. Since more educated adults these days seem to be delaying marriage and children into their early thirties, it naturally follows that more twenty-somethings would lack the motivation to lead a more disciplined/career-minded lifestyle.
"2) Statistically, women need to have all their children by 35.
According to the author, a woman’s ability to get pregnant plummets starting in her mid-thirties. To make matters worse, the odds of a miscarriage for a woman over 35 is one in four."
Our family doctor gave the odds as 3 in 5.
In practical experience, I know of four friends who have miscarried at 35 (after being pregnant for over 3 months), out of about 11 who had kids at that age.
My wife and I have always suspected that the 3 out of 5 statistic also includes miscarriages in the first two months of pregnancy where you might not have been sure you were pregnant or late.
I read The Baby Chase: An Adventure in Fertility last year and I think everyone in their 20s should read it. It's about the author's struggles to have a baby and it made a huge impression on me as a woman in my mid-twenties. I'm not going to rush into anything, but I'm not going to date people who aren't ready to have a family anymore. I do wish I were a man sometimes though so I wouldn't have to worry about this as much.
The one-in-four statistic is for miscarriages after the sixth week of pregnancy. In the general population, the percentage of miscarriages is 15%, or about one-in-six.
One thing to keep in mind is that a miscarriage is not the end of the world. Heartbreaking, yes, but it's not too late to try again.
The issue I have with seeing life advice posts is that I've begun to see this dichotomy between "follow your heart" advice and "follow your head" advice. And I personally have a split between the two: my degree is in CS and my current job is in programming, but by "pie in the sky" dreams involve writing and performing music. I happen to have more knowledge in the former as a consequence of my degree, but I didn't really passionately pursue any major side projects. (This hindered my job hunt slightly, but I still managed to circumvent it via personal connections. It does pay to know people, in my experience.)
As I was closing in on the end of my college degree plan, I felt torn between these two seemingly divergent ends. As a result I crept into a disillusioned depression fueled by the realization that it was too late to switch degrees that wildly and by firsthand experience of the job hunt as a CS student from west Texas with little heart in the industry.
So I'm just taking solace in the fact that I'm working a job with a really short commute and a good environment where I can go home at 5:00 and pursue music as a hobby. I might even notice eventually that my life's passion doesn't land in either music or programming, and to be honest I'd be okay with that if it gave me a direction to point in. But at this point, having only graduated from college this year (turning 23 next week), it feels like I just need to to something. Unfortunately, I feel like I'm coasting now that I've "made it" out into the world relatively unscathed.
Have you thought about trying to find the intersection of the two? Is there a company or something you can work on that takes advantage of both skillsets?
I think the real challenge in life is to get heart and head in alignment. It's not easy, but who said it would be?
I find your desire to "build a large company" interesting - I shared this until I realized that almost nobody gets out of bed in the morning because they say "I want to build and run a large company" - this is fundamentally unsustainable. Instead finding problems you care about or find interesting might be more motivating and put less pressure on your psychological well being. This helps you get rid of the time pressure you seem to be feeling and will bring a new sense of focus and purpose.
This is especially true concerning the mind. The older we get the less open we are to new ideas. Once somebody is fully set in their ways it's almost impossible to change their mind without divine intervention. I just take this as a warning as somebody who is older to be open to change and be willing to embrace new ideas.
> The older we get the less open we are to new ideas.
I agree with this point of view insofar as that's the behavior we usually observe in most people. I think it's also true that it is possible to stay open-minded your whole life and never get stuck in one way of doing things. It's not easy though, and of course we all develop habits over the course of our lives which can be very hard to shake off.
On the contrary, I suggest 20s is the best time to explore who you actually are - so called "hippy" stuff. As later on it just becomes that much more difficult. Whether you end up building a great company or end up doing a regular job in your later years, it will not mean much if you did not find out who you actually are, what is your purpose in life (all those silly questions we all pondered sometimes but never actually pursued). Once explored thoroughly, and if the conclusion was that your purpose in life was to do a start-p(or startups) and establish a successful company, then it will be worth it. Otherwise, neither your startup will be successful, or if successful, your life will still be miserable. Better to figure all this out in 20s, instead of focusing primarily on your career.
IMO 20-something is THE time to go for it. You'll only get more encumbered by personal expense overhead and non-monetary time commitments as you get older.
Yes, our bodies haven't kept pace with society and technology. If you ever want to have kids, ladies need to be finished having children by 35. Start before 30 but if you know you have potential fertility issues start as early as possible after getting an education. You'll only miss out on happy hour where people get fat and dissolve their their faces with alcohol anyway.
One downside is you may not feel as credible as someone older when trying to make a sale in-person. However, some older people will give you the sale because they like you because you're a younger version of them.
Another downside is establishing appropriate relationships with employees that are about your same age. Attila doesn't drink with the huns. You can't tell if they actually like you because you're paying them so you're probably not as funny as they make you feel. If you get rich they're going to hate you anyway; even if they get some of the loot too it won't be enough. That doesn't go for real partners - you need a small senior team of complementary people that live and die with the company - that's hard to find but critical.
Luck favors the prepared. You can be almost completely invisible to the world and still make enough money that it changes the course of the rest of your life. Time will pass regardless and you're probably going to be working anyway so why not place your big bets when they only affect you?
[+] [-] crazygringo|13 years ago|reply
You should take your 20's seriously... because it's the only time in your life that you aren't encumbered by building a career, having kids, etc.
So you should take your 20's to do the things that you won't be able to do later. Work as a bartender, play in a band, travel the world on the cheap, teach English abroad, date the kind of people you wouldn't marry. You don't have serious responsibilities, so take advantage of that while you can.
Don't waste your 20's "building a career". You've got your 30's and 40's and 50's to do that. Don't be in a rush to have kids too soon.
Obviously, don't throw your 20's away. But spend them doing life-experience-focused things, not career- or family-focused.
And this gets at the author's third point: "Your brain finishes forming in your 20′s". If that's even true (although I doubt it), then you'd better get in all those varied life experiences sooner rather than later. Learn a second language, learn to cook, learn to play music.
Don't waste your 20's on grinding away at traditionally career-oriented stuff. That part of your brain is probably already fine. Your 20's is the time to look for diversity in your life, not to focus narrowly on any particular part. You've got all the decades afterward to work on narrow refinement and career progression...
[+] [-] flyosity|13 years ago|reply
> Don't waste your 20's "building a career". You've got your 30's and 40's and 50's to do that. Don't be in a rush to have kids too soon.
Doesn't really make sense to me. If you don't build a career and finances in your 20s, you either can't afford to have a kid in your early 30s or you have one and can't provide the life and opportunities they should have. And it seems you skipped over the part about women having extreme difficulties having children later than their mid-30s, or the children they have are at a higher risk of birth defects and miscarriages. Typically, a guy by himself cannot create a child without a woman, so if you're going to party in your 20s and not think about finances and a career until your 30s, and kids later than that, you should know going in that your partner will be need to be much younger than you to accomplish this.
I don't mean to ask personal questions here, but it seems apropos considering your guidance: how old are you? do you have a spouse? a son or daughter? Does your guidance match up with how you've lived your life, and are you now successfully balancing a budding career and family in your older years after living your 20s in various countries like China, France, Brazil and others?
[+] [-] engtech|13 years ago|reply
It's hard to try to pivot in your 30s if you don't have a resume with at least some points to match your future career.
If you haven't used anything from your post-secondary degree 8 years after getting it... employers are going to notice that and assume that your degree is worthless.
I say this having seen far too many friends get stuck in the waitress/bartending life only to find out that you plateau in your 30s unless you go into the high end fine dining, sommelier, running your own place, etc.
Same thing has happened to friends in retail after they reached manager or assistant manager at a store that was supposed to be their part time job.
[+] [-] eru|13 years ago|reply
> Learn a second language, learn to cook, learn to play music.
Yes, late is better then never. But please do not wait until your twenties for those.
[+] [-] kahawe|13 years ago|reply
This third point is, by the way, completely wrong. Not only does he blow a minor thing completely out of proportion by applying it to the whole brain and intelligence, there hardly is any real evidence to back up that you cannot learn new things later in life - on the contrary, check out "Guitar Zero", Gary Marcus does a great job of debunking the "not worth it to try anymore" myth.
[+] [-] gnaritas|13 years ago|reply
It is true.
[+] [-] barrkel|13 years ago|reply
When you're young, you're at the point at which you most likely have fewer worries of any kind than you will in the rest of your life. And you won't appreciate this until it's gone. A slightly more advanced career is a poor substitute.
I'm not arguing in favour of feckless youth. In fact, you should be serious about one thing - not wasting your time. But building a career that you abandon in your 30s or 40s may also be a waste of time.
[+] [-] dclusin|13 years ago|reply
I set an upper bound of 1 year maximum to be out of the field of programming. When I came back (should have kept programming while unemployed, stupid, I know) not only had my skill set deteriorated but so did my market rate. Out of college my salary was $98,000. By the time I had gotten back into the work force my salary was $65,000. It took about 1.5 years of hard work and a lot of overtime to get back to where I was. And during this time my peers that stayed employed have grown a lot both in terms skill set and market rate. So basically because I took 1 year off, I lost ~2.5-3 years of my career because I had to work back to where I was before.
I think if I were to get a do-over I would have not have taken a year off. But the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence, as they say.
[+] [-] randomdata|13 years ago|reply
Well said. Now that I'm 30, I'm pretty much living the dream I had for myself when I was 20, but it hasn't turned out to be exactly what I thought it would be.
I'm not sure there is any way you can win though. If I had lived my life differently in my 20s and not had fulfilled the goals I set for myself, I'd be still dreaming the same dreams wishing I could achieve them. The grass is always greener and all that.
[+] [-] codegeek|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kahawe|13 years ago|reply
I agree with you, we live too much in the "one glorious day" fantasy world and we agree too much to become chased rats battling for minor increments of personal wealth when the truly wealthy people of the world are absolutely untouchable and forever out of our reach.
[+] [-] agentultra|13 years ago|reply
I can tell you that there are probably a hundred things I could've done better with my time in my twenties. However there was no way that I would have known then what I would be like today and what makes me happy now. Back then I thought I would keep gigging in bands and I'd scrape together a record label and have a long career in music. That's what made me happy at the time and what I sought out to do. How could I have known that I would change? I have a wife now and a daughter on the way, I've become a mild-mannered programmer who enjoys mathematics and literature, and rather than getting pissed on a Friday night and making a lot of noise I like to hang out with my friends and play board games. But if I was wiser I might have went to university and worked on getting a PhD then I'd probably be better off now, today. Hindsight...
What I'm saying is that humans are terrible planners. We're good at adapting and adjusting but we can never seem to be able to accurately predict outcomes. I think that we glorify those people who seem to far surpass the status quo and bend their stories into myth. It's romantic to think that Einstein or Steve Jobs had set out to change the world when they were young but if we're honest about their history it's more likely that they drifted towards those things and all the right pieces were in place at the right time to make great things happen.
And it doesn't end when you hit thirty. I'm still as ambitious as ever and I see new currents that I'd like to follow that I would never have thought possible before. You don't just become a dumb, boring, cantankerous old person over night. Quite the contrary; I find that my tastes are far more refined, I can see dead-ends before going down the path, and I am more adverse to wasting my time. You start to see patterns in the ocean and can navigate the seas with ease.
So plan all you want but be prepared to fight the current and the winds!
[+] [-] kpennell5|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] guylhem|13 years ago|reply
We should not think about taking any age seriously or not, but of the bigger picture instead, ie one's goals in life.
Unfortunately, they are not written down for you, and they can be quite hard to find.
There are various algorithm that may work, but all I see in the article and the comments are basically 2 opposite proposals :
- plan A: explore in your twenties to make sure you properly identify your goals
- plan B : commit to your career in your twenties to take advantage of compounding interest (in life as in money)
But we all know alternatives approaches - like iterating between exploration (finding a local maxima) and exploitation (taking advantage of this local maxima)
I guess it all depends if you have already found your fancy, and all longs it will take to get you bored out of it, but it seems to be a much better approach - especially if you do not ignore the money aspect of your fancies (ie starting a band might be fun, but odds of financial return are low)
Also, it seems to me a lot of the comments insist about family and children. These are individual decisions - not givens, something the author clearly stated ("if having a family is part of your life's goals").
Fortunately for men, there is no age limit (and if we keep our rate of technological progress in stem cells and differentiation into germinal lines, there is no reason why it couldn't be also possible for women)
Currently, at least for 50% of the readers, age should not be factored in - opening the door for more iteration of the explore/exploit loop, with the always present opportunity to have kids.
I guess I don't understand or I'm missing something, maybe like the preference of dating someone of a similar age (which might then impose its own preference on optimal child bearing age)
[+] [-] LVB|13 years ago|reply
Maybe. Some newer evidence shows older fathers are more likely to pass on genetic mutations.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000087239639044481270457760...
[+] [-] wheels|13 years ago|reply
I don't know anyone who's ever said, "Well, why don't you just work at Starbucks for a decade? It'll be fun and you can get a real job when you're 30!"
What's actually said is more like, "Take a few months and a backpack and go travel somewhere" or "start a company with no idea if it'll pan out". Party. Start a band. Chase some girls [or guys]. Read a lot.
It doesn't mean "throw away a decade" -- it means "do the important things that it'll be harder for you to get away with if 10 years from now you have a family and mortgage."
I visited over 30 countries in my 20s. Even if that would have kept me from advancing my career (it didn't), I wouldn't trade that for being a year closer to a promotion in an IT job.
[+] [-] zpk|13 years ago|reply
I am in my 30's and I hope to continue/start doing some of this.
[+] [-] grecy|13 years ago|reply
> Your 20′s lay the groundwork for success in the rest of your career.
Can also be said as: While in your 20's, you should start living like you're in your 30's, 40's and 50's, so you can do that and only that for your entire life.
I completely reject that way of thinking.
There are many things we all want to do in our 20's we will not want to do later in life, which is all the more reason to do them in your 20's, lest you never get to do them at all.
As anecdotal evidence, I spent 2 years of my life from 27-29 driving from Alaska to Argentina, because I wanted to. Will I want to sleep in a tent for >500 nights when I'm 50? doubtful. Am I extremely happy that I did? You bet, best experience of my life. Did it "harm" my career? No, I'm working right now as a Software Engineer.
[+] [-] jonstjohn|13 years ago|reply
I'm sure I sacrificed some aspects of a 'career' because of it but I had an incredible life experience. And when I turned 30 I met the love of my life, finally committed full time to developing software (after a number of fits and starts) and never looked back.
I never spend a day feeling like I 'missed out on something'. Rather, I'm really enjoying my life where it is at right now, cool career, wonderful wife and 2 1/2 year old son.
I do kind of look forward to when my son gets a little older though so I can get a van and take him on some wild adventures ;)
[+] [-] grantph|13 years ago|reply
The buy up highly educated people in their 20's because they're cheap and eager to work. In fact, they're cheaper than most people when you do an hourly analysis (probably cheaper than cleaners).
BUT... the simple fact is, they also know they burn out by their 30's. Life takes over. The doubt. What am I doing with my life? Why don't I have a family? Maybe I missed out on other things my friends were doing?
By that stage, they no longer care about you because they've got a new batch of cheap 20's burning the midnight oil.
However, the good news is that they noticed that there's a reversal when people reach their 40's. They've got experience in life and business. They're no longer in doubt mode.
Ironically, these organizations have standard pitches to sell the career delusion. "People are our greatest assets" and similar rhetoric. The reality is ... THE DO NOT GIVE A CRAP ABOUT YOUR CAREER. Careers do NOT exist. It's like selling women the idea of being a "homemaker" in the 1950's.
I have noticed that people are more likely to be successful in their 30's and 40's (read some evidence that suggested that too but can't remember the reference). People getting rich in their 20's is an aberration.
Neuroplasticity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Brain_That_Changes_Itself) also suggests that we never stop learning, so I have to disagree with point 3 "Your brain finishes forming in your 20′s." Dribble! That's like the rhetoric about careers. People just get lazy.
What people have going for them in their 20's is no commitment and all the time in the world. But no experience which can also be a disadvantage. If you can recreate "no commitment" in your 30's-40's (20's + real experience), then you should excel because your ideas are more mature and hopefully clearer!
You're more likely to be successful as an actor in your 30's for the same reasons!
[+] [-] cletus|13 years ago|reply
While it's true that those in their 30s or older can be closed to new idea, that's not because they're "old", it's because they're people and some people are closed-minded.
I find a lot of these complaints are more about the cultural and lifestyle gap between those in their 20s and those who are older.
I remember the 80s. I'm not particularly interested in going bar-hopping. I find most social media to be an annoying drivel from people who vary between exhibitionists to just liking the sound of their own voices (everybody is talking, nobody is listening). I don't have that same sense of enthusiasm because for me everything isn't new. Most things really are derivative. To paraphrase something Don Draper said, I've reached a point on my life where I think I've basically met every kind of person there is. That's not to say that people can't surprise you. They can. It's just that you realize they're not as different as they once seemed.
This is exacerbated in the startup world since so many are cut from the same cloth: valedictorians in high school, magna cum laude, graduates of Stanford/MIT/CMU/Columbia, interned at Facebook/Amazon/Microsoft/Google, now working for one of those or some hot startup. It's a whittled down group of the technocratic elite who often-times don't really know how privileged and lucky they are.
At Google there tends to be two kinds of people: those who have worked in the outside world, particularly in Corporate America, and know how lucky they are and how different this is. And those that haven't and think this is just how the world is.
I don't begrudge them their successes and accomplishments but it is a form of cultural isolation--even inbreeding.
All of this means there tends to be a smaller set of common social norms with the "20s set".
At the same time, I pick up new technologies, languages and frameworks as much as I ever did. Possibly more so. Just now I've been doing a lot of AngularJS. That certainly didn't exist in my 20s. While I may not have the same youthful exuberance, I have experience and can draw lessons and parallels from programming in every stage of the Web's development (from CGI scripts on).
I will say this to those planning to have children: do it while you're young and it has nothing do with fertility. Children simply take an enormous amount of energy and commitment and this is far easier to bounce back from the younger you are.
As for the rest of it? Take another comment on this thread:
> Once somebody is fully set in their ways it's almost impossible to change their mind without divine intervention
That's fairly blatant ageism but, more than that, it's from someone who only knows people like him- or herself that wants to surround themselves with the same. Like I said: commonality and shared social norms are really what's in play there.
[+] [-] diego|13 years ago|reply
Everyone is different, every decade in a person's life is different. In my personal case, my work between 30 and 40 was far better than what I did between 20 and 30. I feel pretty inspired right now.
This type of post is the stuff that you want to say to yourself at every point in your life (you can only make the best of the present, after all). It doesn't really work as advice to others.
[+] [-] gyim|13 years ago|reply
I agree. I think one of the reasons why people in 30s seem to be more "close-minded" to new ideas is because they already have a decade of experience of the (then) fresh new stuff. This is especially true for the IT world.
Let's face it, we are reinventing the wheel in every 5 years. Just look at how frameworks and programming languages go in and out of fashion. You may say "oh man, not again!" when an enthusiastic young programmer tells you how great node.js is - which may be true, but in your open-minded 20s you already learnt Erlang, Twisted, EventMachine and Java NIO for the very same thing.
I'm not yet 30, but I already feel that I am becoming more conservative. I have seen a lot of "hot stuff" come and go, so I try to learn from technologies that seem to persist. Look at C, this old monster: it survived its creator, and for a reason. Now look at YUI or ExtJS: they were so "hot" around 2007, and I haven't even heard them mentioning for a long time. When somebody says that framework/language X is so great and "hot", I am a bit more careful now that 5 years ago: will it be around in 2 years? If not, does it worth even bothering?
Is this closed-mindness or wisdom? Very hard to tell. I am trying to be open-minded in a sense that I try to look and evaluate everything new, but I'm sure that I say "no" to much more things than 5 years before. I wonder how I would see myself in the eye of my 5 year-old younger me.
[+] [-] randomdata|13 years ago|reply
I feel social pressure plays a big part. Even the so-called open-minded 20 year olds will make fun of people in their 30s and 40s who still try to live an "unsettled" lifestyle. To accept wild and crazy ideas in your 20s just means you still have some growing up to do. To do the same later in life shows an abandonment of your responsibilities, which is frowned upon by society – in North America, at least.
[+] [-] AngryParsley|13 years ago|reply
Obviously these stats don't mean that old people are stupid and close-minded. Knowledge accumulates and helps offset many of the deficiencies. Still, this evidence does suggest that young people might want to change their behavior to benefit their future selves. This doesn't just mean making the most of the time you have. Exercise, continuous learning, and a few drugs can help to slow the decline. As an analogy, think of athletes. A 50 year-old is never going to win the Boston marathon. But with proper training, nutrition, and maybe a few performance-enhancing drugs, they can beat 95% of 25 year-olds.
[+] [-] gefh|13 years ago|reply
As a mid-30s guy at Google for 2 years, I'm never sure whether fresh grads getting their first job at Google will ever know (or need to know) how lucky they are.
[+] [-] realrocker|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Cacti|13 years ago|reply
Yes, 20s are awesome, but, unless you're producing Nobel-winning stuff in your early 20s, then you had best learn to age well.
[+] [-] nostromo|13 years ago|reply
Get to an MVP quickly: Find a way to practice your target profession as soon as possible. (Don't spend hundreds of thousands getting a law degree just to discover you hate the actual work.) This is easy for programmers: just start building stuff before applying to the CS program.
After MVP, iterate quickly: So you know Ruby? Time to learn another language, or about compilers, or about web typography, or about finance. Don't stand still.
Be ready to pivot: If you discover you find your work unfulfilling, the time to change is now. Don't wait to switch careers until your 40s.
Don't prematurely optimize: Your 20s should be about gaining skills and experience, not about getting big paychecks. The best paying job a 20 year old can get might be in construction or the military, but this may limit your upside down the road.
[+] [-] randomdata|13 years ago|reply
From a purely financial perspective, money now is better than money later though. A 20 year old who secures a job that nets him enough to save $15,000 per year until retirement will ultimately have a lifetime net savings of about the same as someone who finally finds a job that pays enough to save $50,000 per year at the age of 40.
[+] [-] pitt1980|13 years ago|reply
first shouldn't you take every discrete chunk of your life seriously?
to the degree to which this is true, its true because we tell ourselves its true, most people don't reinvent themselves past their 20s because they choose not to, not because the obsticles standing in their way are insurmountable
[+] [-] tlogan|13 years ago|reply
- in 20s you party
- in 30s you raise family
- in 40s you build business
And, don't worry: if you are very creative in 20s you will be the same creative person with new ideas in 40s.
[+] [-] levesque|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jakejake|13 years ago|reply
In my 40's I wish I had done certain career things differently. But I can imagine myself in my 80's wishing I had goofed off more, traveled the world and not taken anything too seriously. As the old joke goes, not too many people are on their death bed wishing they had worked harder.
[+] [-] simonsarris|13 years ago|reply
I think it comes down to two reasons. The first one is huge, but its essentially luck. I think the reason I'm even afforded the opportunity to take my 20's seriously is almost completely happenstantial.
Looking at my friends and (distant) family I sometimes feel guilty because nothing bad has ever really happened to me in my life, whereas they've had to put up with all kinds of weird shit. For many people I know not being able to take their 20's seriously as powerhouse career years is sort-of excusable. They were spending them trying to survive, or raise a family all-too-soon.
But me? I'm young (24), well educated, I live in a huge Victorian-era house near main street nearly for free, programming job, walk to work every day, have a book deal (boring HTML5 book), brag, brag, etc, etc
But somehow I feel I'm just infinitely lucky. Lucky that my parents are two normal, well adjusted people. Lucky that I could be awkward and nerdy as all shit through middle school and high school and nobody was ever unpleasant to me. I was never bullied. No weird drama ever entered my life. I exited college with $0 but debt-free, thanks to Bank of Dad, who carefully engineered my experience to be basically broke but never in-the-hole so long as I worked (got an internship every summer and winter).
Lucky lucky lucky. Thanks everyone in my life so far. Really.
---------------------
On the flip side I think that such a lifestyle (very career focused 20's) is seen as unattractive to a lot of 20-somethings. At the least, I think most people in my age range would describe people like me as boring (though I am never really bored). I spend most of my days reading, writing, sitting in cafes, programming, or doing art things. Right now and for several more months, its nearly 100% career activities. If I had to put together a dating website profile, it probably wouldn't look particularly attractive to other 20-somethings.
Put another way, most of my hobbies are either career related or solitary acts. Not that people can't appreciate them, just that none of them are exciting, and most of my 20-something friends (none of which IRL are programmers, I lead a lonely career here in NH) that proclaim me to be one of the few who has their shit together would also not want to be me.
None of them want to work desk jobs and then go home and work some more. They want to work in food/bar services or have a whatever-job, drop it at 5pm and go do fun 20-something things. Career development it seems isn't fun to most 20-somethings, socializing at bars is, moving out to Montana to climb things and work for a harvest season is, saving up to hide away in Peru for a year is, writing music with friends while working retail is, but not career development. Not to disparage these things, it just a sampling of their goals.
[+] [-] stephengillie|13 years ago|reply
Career-building is unattractive to most 20-year olds, but it becomes very attractive to these same people once they get into their early 30s.
[+] [-] purplelobster|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mahyarm|13 years ago|reply
If you wanted to move to such a career center, I would suggest NYC since it's close to your family and the dating is better for men there.
There is nothing wrong with wanting a social life. Having a social life is independent of career ambitions.
Take advantage of your lack of setbacks and get ahead in life.
[+] [-] dan_yall|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] engtech|13 years ago|reply
According to the author, a woman’s ability to get pregnant plummets starting in her mid-thirties. To make matters worse, the odds of a miscarriage for a woman over 35 is one in four."
Our family doctor gave the odds as 3 in 5.
In practical experience, I know of four friends who have miscarried at 35 (after being pregnant for over 3 months), out of about 11 who had kids at that age.
My wife and I have always suspected that the 3 out of 5 statistic also includes miscarriages in the first two months of pregnancy where you might not have been sure you were pregnant or late.
[+] [-] mamoswined|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hudibras|13 years ago|reply
One thing to keep in mind is that a miscarriage is not the end of the world. Heartbreaking, yes, but it's not too late to try again.
[+] [-] icesoldier|13 years ago|reply
As I was closing in on the end of my college degree plan, I felt torn between these two seemingly divergent ends. As a result I crept into a disillusioned depression fueled by the realization that it was too late to switch degrees that wildly and by firsthand experience of the job hunt as a CS student from west Texas with little heart in the industry.
So I'm just taking solace in the fact that I'm working a job with a really short commute and a good environment where I can go home at 5:00 and pursue music as a hobby. I might even notice eventually that my life's passion doesn't land in either music or programming, and to be honest I'd be okay with that if it gave me a direction to point in. But at this point, having only graduated from college this year (turning 23 next week), it feels like I just need to to something. Unfortunately, I feel like I'm coasting now that I've "made it" out into the world relatively unscathed.
[+] [-] jevanish|13 years ago|reply
I think the real challenge in life is to get heart and head in alignment. It's not easy, but who said it would be?
[+] [-] mattgreenrocks|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] andreipop|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Hawkee|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bitops|13 years ago|reply
I agree with this point of view insofar as that's the behavior we usually observe in most people. I think it's also true that it is possible to stay open-minded your whole life and never get stuck in one way of doing things. It's not easy though, and of course we all develop habits over the course of our lives which can be very hard to shake off.
[+] [-] sunjain|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] OldSchool|13 years ago|reply
Yes, our bodies haven't kept pace with society and technology. If you ever want to have kids, ladies need to be finished having children by 35. Start before 30 but if you know you have potential fertility issues start as early as possible after getting an education. You'll only miss out on happy hour where people get fat and dissolve their their faces with alcohol anyway.
One downside is you may not feel as credible as someone older when trying to make a sale in-person. However, some older people will give you the sale because they like you because you're a younger version of them.
Another downside is establishing appropriate relationships with employees that are about your same age. Attila doesn't drink with the huns. You can't tell if they actually like you because you're paying them so you're probably not as funny as they make you feel. If you get rich they're going to hate you anyway; even if they get some of the loot too it won't be enough. That doesn't go for real partners - you need a small senior team of complementary people that live and die with the company - that's hard to find but critical.
Luck favors the prepared. You can be almost completely invisible to the world and still make enough money that it changes the course of the rest of your life. Time will pass regardless and you're probably going to be working anyway so why not place your big bets when they only affect you?