Hacker News Reader

As you get older you'll realize that "adults" don't know any better than you do. Consider that moving forward. Nobody has all the right answers, and even fewer people know what the right answer is for you.

I'm reminded of this quote by Baz Luhrmann:

> The most interesting people I know didn’t know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives, some of the most interesting 40 year olds I know still don’t.

Incidentally, I'm in the same boat as the OP. I've done coding, I've done the management gig, not sure what life has for me in store in the next 5-10 years.

PG has one too (I think; a quick search can't find it) but there is a perspective change:

"At age 20 if you're not doing bad you fell good. At age 50 if you're not doing well you feel bad."

I find that to be true, causes you to question a lot of what you've done in your past, and what you're doing in your future with the limited time you have left.

My dad will be 75 in a little over a week. I told him I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up (I'm 43). He said he still didn't know.

A close family friend is a recently retired federal judge, about that age, maybe a little older. He and his family are some of the unpretentious, intelligent people that I've met. He said the exact same thing.

> If you're 43, you should know what you want to do.

In a word, no.

You can change what you want to do at any age. At 29, I chose to put academia behind me to "go industrial". At 37 I started my own company. At 51, I joined another company. And again at 53.

You might have a general idea of what you want to do at some age, or something very specific. A particular itch you wish to scratch (see my 37 year old self wanting to prove that I could do "it" better than some of my predecessors).

Today, my 54 year old self wants to continue to enjoy working with very smart people, on hard projects, making material impacts upon top line and bottom lines of larger companies. In a real sense, my employer, those who actually pay my wages, changed 6 days ago.

In all these transitions, I've altered what I did, what I wanted to focus upon.

You shouldn't be scared of being old. Age is, for the most part, only a number. It is not relevant, unless you wish it to be. Or deal with some idiotic companies that think it is important.

You retire when you want. A friend 10 years my junior retired 2 years ago. He's bored silly now, but still, you can choose what to do, when you want to do it, modulo physical/health issues. For me, I think I realized I couldn't keep going at the powerlifter rate in the gym after I hit 53. I had to leave weights for the younguns to lift :D

> If you're 43, you should know what you want to do.

LOL no. I'm 43. And I change my plan more now as I get older. Probably as I am less scared to change and no longer live paycheck-to-paycheck. The kids act like a small anchor to prevent me from going backpacking for a year but otherwise feel free to change my mind all the time.

Granted I have some friends/ex-colleagues at my age who knew what they would be doing until they retire. But they knew that when they joined some medium-to-big corp at 25-30 and never left.

But I also have more and more people my age (35-45) who change radically what they do as perhaps it is a midlife crisis or just realised they can afford to change now or need to before it is too late. I am not sure it ever is too late.

True, 25-years-old-me thought 35+ me would be a settled dad in a big corp and go fishing each weekend. And it turned out 36-years-old-me old left big corp to oscillate between startups and contracting and hacking each weekend instead.

> I hope I don't sound like a jerk, but this is really what I feel

You are saying that OP's question makes you afraid. This has nothing to do with OP but everything to do with you. Go chart your own waters.

I just clocked in 30 and post like OP's make me rethink the position I've held up until now which is I have until I am 40 in tech. I love what I do and if there is a way for me to do for more than 10 years then Great!