- Early in your career, if you ever find yourself saying "I wish I could do X, but I work to much/have already used all my vacation time, etc" - without question you should to do those things and work less. Nobody ever looks back in time (especially in a situation when they are out of time) and says "gee I really wish I worked more".
- You are about to enter the age of drinking/bar/club/happy hour culture. Sure, have fun. But remember that there is almost never any return on this investment. All that time spent in the bar (and the time spent recovering from it) costs you time that could be spent pursuing your passions, hobbies, fitness, etc. Those things return in MULTIPLES later in life.
Except at 18 it's often your own raging insecurities that instantly label people as bad. More so, the main thing to tell my 18 year old self would be to just relax and open up around people who knee-jerk make you feel insecure - athletic, good looking people, really smart over-confident people, attractive women, etc. I put up all sorts of defenses when I was younger, and I paid for it, even now moving into my 30s. It's obvious now I could have easily befriended these people, or dated others, if I had just relaxed and kept my wits about me.
At about 24 I consciously ended that period of my life. At 27 I have my scuba certs, pilot's license, a piano that I'm finally learning to play, a hang glider, a 4x4 which I used to take off road regularly before I got all the other stuff, etc. These have even led to several related career opportunities.
The only caveat is that these things do take money and time, and you will need strike the right balance with work. If you find you don't have enough time for something, cut your losses and focus more on what you do have time for. It's probably more important to you. I'm only just now selling the 4x4 ...
Tell your loved ones that you love them.
Exercise classes can be really fun.
That calculus class the university thinks you tested out of is pretty important and you should take it anyway because EE classes will make a lot more sense if you already know Taylor series.
Also, take stats in college even though you don't have to.
This. Reminds me of the quote from the movie "Rounders". At the very end.
"People insists on calling it Luck."
Exercise more. Don't let yourself get fat.
Stick with the guitar or piano or whatever instrument you play.
Put off marriage as long as possible. At some point you will have an urge to reproduce. Until then, enjoy life. Once you have kids your priorities dramatically change and by the time you can get back to what _you_ want to do, you'll be too old and broken down to do it.
Don't get into debt. Better still, live below your means and save like crazy. When you do spend money, spend it on experiences (like travel) rather than things (like a car). The memories of your experiences will stay with you for the rest of your life, while the things you buy will get put aside as soon as you have kids.
Spend quality time with your parents. When you're older and they're dead you'll wish you had.
Keep a journal.
You won't magically turn into who you want to be. If you want to be a hard working person then start working hard. If you want to be an independent person stop depending on others. If you want to be a nice person then start being kind and empathetic towards others. You have to BE, right now and in the present, who you want to become.
So simple and self evident but I didn't figure it out until my mid-late 20s.
I would second the never start drinking and stop doing drugs advise but pretty sure 18 year old me would never listen to that advice.
Depending on where you live / the culture you grow up in, this may be easy or challenging. I had to make up for "lost time" after I arrived in America as a 24 year old from India (where, as you may or may not know, dating is(was?) a taboo.)
Youth is fleeting.
In the real world nobody cares that I was a nearly straight A student, and my grades haven't helped me move forward in my career in the slightest.
I should have taken more time to cultivate my friendships and get out more.
Web frameworks are a great idea anyway, you'll be happy you used one.
- Every project needs an interface, stop neglecting subjects like typography and really learn how to make something good.
- Read CLRS start to finish. This will make you more employable than most other ideas you pursue.
- There's a bus stop just up the street from you, it's not actually that hard to go places and the world isn't that dangerous. You should get out more, it'll be good for you.
- You're going to forget where you're at right now with this place in your life, this is a problem because such amnesia makes it hard to evaluate long term growth. You should write down what you're doing and keep records that your future self can use to evaluate his progress. Start logging your emotional state with the experience sampling method. As a heuristic if you wouldn't be in trouble losing the last six months of skill growth you have major problems.
- Stop focusing on being rich by making lots of money at a job and focus on being rich by investment and steady growth. There are people who make 300k a year in Silicon Valley that live paycheck to paycheck and people who make 90k a year but live like they make 40k while investing the rest. You would much rather be the latter than the former.
All the awesome things you were promised that adulthood would be? Adulthood is only like that between 18 and 30 (or even only at university).
Staying up as long as you want to, waking up when you want to, drinking, partying, flirting, getting laid (with different partners), being at peak physical health without doing much for it, having time to study something deeply, taking a stab at changing the world and having the illusion that you will live to see your utopia, travelling the world, disconnect from everything, or go right into the middle of the action... That life that you couldn't wait to grow up into is over quicker than you think.
I don't want to sound too depressing. Life after 30 has it's own benefits. You finally really feel like an adult, and can say fuck it, I'm buying that grill, that car, because I earn enough and it's my decision now. I'm participating in grown-up politics and business without feeling like a pretender. And having a family is incredibly awesome and rewarding.
But you're never going spontaneously get wasted with your friends on a Wednesday night tequila party again. It has its good and bad sides...
Also, STOP DOING DRUGS.
2. DEFINITELY DON'T HAVE A CHILD WITH HER.[1]
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[1] I love my daughter to the end of the universe and back, but my ex-wife...? Um, not so much.
The right girl is out there. She's very much worth the wait. Be patient.
very very very true.
- live while you're young. All of the talk about saving while you're young and let compounding work for you is mathematically true, but you'll probably make enough more later on so it won't matter. Once you have kids, mortgage, and responsibilities you'll regret not spending your youth having fun.
- on the other hand live below your means. Don't obligate yourself to high fixed costs - like an expensive car, house, apartment. Have enough disposable income to gain experiences.
I enjoyed my younger, single years and now that I'm older and settled, I don't go through life questioning what would have happened if I took more risks.
Don't stay in one place too long, changing jobs every 1-2 years worked out pretty well for you!
Trust your gut feeling about people. If someone feels shady, they probably are. You got burned a few times not trusting your gut.
Call and hang out with your friends and family more. The days when people will reach out to you first will start to end and all the days will start to feel the same.
That was back in 1994. Back then I felt pulled in multiple directions because I was in a band, hanging out with hippies, writing music, but I also loved hacking and all things computer related. I was raised to believe we all must do our best to have the maximum positive impact on the world, and anything less would be selling yourself short.
I also wanted to be a programmer, maybe eventually a game developer, but back then the only programming jobs required a CS degree. I went through some books and wrote a few apps, but it all seemed out of reach back then.
I eventually settled on I.T. but stayed in the SMB space due to bad experiences in the corporate world early on. I hit rock bottom after failing to run my own business during the late 00's. I was ready for a career change when I stumbled on an enterprise I.T. gig. About 2 years ago I discovered DevOps and now I'm a full time developer focused on simplifying, automating, and abstracting complex infrastructure tasks. It's so fun! Python, HTML, and JS all day!
So yeah, I should have stuck with programming, I had no idea how fun it would be. Maybe back then I didn't have the focus or perspective to really engineer complex projects. I was also intimidated by all the maths.
Going to office hours isn't just for suck-ups and people who can't keep up with the work. And professors aren't strange incomprehensible creatures from another plane - they're just human beings.
This will pay off when you need a thesis advisor, need references for entry-level jobs, apply to grad school, etc. Plus, yanno, new friends. Human relationships are kind of the point of being human.
The marginal cost of an additional class in college is entirely in time (see above).
Study languages more. Do not stop with the minimum requirements for your degree, continue on to at least sound reading proficiency.
Take more math classes.
That VDT with a blinking cursor? Learn something about it. Computers are more usable when you can get away from punch cards.
-Work hard at being a good person and helping people.
-The only problems are the ones that money can't solve. (life,death, health, etc) Everything else is just figment of our fears or insecurities or lack of hard work.
If you get in, make friends with that Andreessen kid.
Here is all the investment advice you will ever need: Open a Schwab account, and buy their S&P 500 index fund (SWPPX). There are no fees to open a Schwab account, no trading fees to buy the fund, and essentially no fees to hold it. Do not sell if you think it's going to go down. Just keep buying with whatever extra money you have month-to-month. That 8% per year (plus dividends) will add up fast.
Once you have some assets to your name, managed investment firms like JP Morgan will be courting you. Don't be fooled -- they won't do better than the market over the long run, and you'll pay a 1% per year management fee regardless of how well they do.
And if you're wondering "who is this guy and what is his authority to speak on this?", consider that Warren Buffet, world's greatest investor, agrees with me. Look it up.
1. Schwab is pretty much the best bank in the world for many reasons. Most professional service, no fees for banking, and minimal fees for trading.
2. With a Schwab account, buying and selling SWPPX incurs no trading fees -- since they own the fund.
3. The fund expense ratio is ever-so-slightly lower, 0.03%. VOO has 0.04%.
..but if that doesn't work for you for whatever reason, VOO is great!
My main point is that too many people are either afraid to invest at all, or they get robbed blind by investment managers like JP Morgan who take 1% of your money every year, regardless of their own performance.
That said:
- Your drug and alcohol use is covering up a larger problem, so work on that.
- Similarly, your aversion to Christians is because you are scared they might be on to something.
- There is no substitute for hard work, either in results or life satisfaction.
- Women are neither a piece of meat, nor a Venus of Botticelli. They are not a goal to be attained, they are human beings with cares and concerns of their own. Seriously. If you want to work so hard on a personal goal, work on yourself.
It won't. The world is small, and few people can keep up the glint and gleam. Technology becomes propped up by massified consumerized systems, only experts get to play, and creativity wanes. It's up to the very very few to band together tightly with the other hopeful would bes and to build, not a future, but an active boisterous present, one they are satisfied living in. Build your own means, and share, radiate out to the world, be a beacon for other individuals creating and being creative with the high tech they craft and fit.
Oh, and switch your damn major to Comp Sci, music is a waste of time AND money.
I would also thrown get into good shape, take college seriously and get your depression treated.
- Stop telling people that their problems are pragmatically easy to solve.
- Find a mentor in whatever currently interests you.
- Learn to collaborate.
- Hesitate to start intimate relationships; be a friend, first and foremost.
- Stop believing you are alone in the world.
Don't wait 10 years to realize that no one will ever implement your ideas. In IT times, this is similar with an eternity.
You have more of an advantage when you are young as time is something you have less of when you get older.
the real learning begins now in the real world, not in a room where you take tests.
Get enough exercise to maintain the excellent health you're in
Ask her out GODDAMMIT
Write diary daily
Call GGD more often
For example -- buying BTC is a bit expensive today and will likely be more expensive in the future. You could buy 1 BTC today and hope that it goes up significantly in the future. OR you could look at Ethereum and realize that it's in a similar place to BTC and that in 7 years from now you may be wishing you had purchased it today.
I'm sorry, you're not going to die young.