You are not running out of time

This is not intended as a grim metaphor on life. In fact, I am a supreme optimist about the beauty of living and about having hopes of doing great things and doing one's best to achieve them. But what are those things when the reality is that one's individual life is finite? That is the challenge faced by every human being who has ever lived.

This piece attempts to answer it by saying, in effect, be careful to set your goals on things that ultimately matter. Whether the author, at age 30, has enough perspective to answer this question well is something we can all ponder. But we all need to try, and this piece is a thoughtful attempt to do so.

I'm probably a little older than most of the Y crowd. I've worked at a few very successful startups - pre and post dot com. For one of them, which changed the travel industry, I was literally one of the first people to put down code and my own stab at defining their architecture - I was there before there were any formal employees.

But now, I have a kid on the way, never really made millions (sorta got close), can't seem to find that 'magic' again, and there is definitely that notion that time is fleeting. Over the past decade I studied a lot of philosophy - mostly buddhist and hindu. I meditated, quieted my mind, enjoyed my moments, and felt very peaceful while the world flew by. I dropped out of working for a year to learn how to write electronic music (played music my whole life, got pretty good at the electronic stuff) - this was probably the happiest I'd been in a long time and I 100% did live day to day, creating, constantly getting better.

Lately over the past few years though, life's changed. The thought that I am getting closer to getting older and starting a family adds additional pressure. It seems much simpler when you're by yourself - which is why monks follow that route. Ultimately, we make the decisions we make and we have to learn from them.

As someone who's been programming most of my life, loves technology, and still appreciates the latest and greatest, I'm still drawn to it. At this point, I can see how things should work and feel like I really appreciate things that are designed well. However, there's only so much time in the day and I don't really crank on code for 10+ hours anymore. I keep thinking that I can compete with a lot of people for tech knowhow, but maybe my real potential is to pass all this on to the next generation.

I'm sure that I've been more fortunate that a lot of people on this rock, but I still don't feel I've felt that success I've wanted and, yah, it does feel like time is running out.

As I put it here:

http://hplusmagazine.com/2011/07/13/longevity-science-needs-...

"We all express the symptoms of a fatal, inherited degenerative condition called aging - or so the joke goes. It's a dark joke, but there's truth to be found in it, as is often the case in black humor. Unfortunately, all too few people think of themselves as patients suffering aging, and fewer still would call themselves patient advocates, agitating for research leading towards therapies and cures for aging. This is a sorry state of affairs: given that our time is limited and ticking away, the tasks upon the table should always include some consideration of aging. What can we do about it? How can we engineer a research community, funding and support to make real progress within our lifetimes? If you don't spend at least some of your time on this issue, then you're fiddling while Rome burns. Time is the most precious thing we have, and we live on the cusp of technologies that will allow us to gain more of it - but those advances in medicine won't happen soon enough unless we work at it."

"The ninth virtue is perfectionism. The more errors you correct in yourself, the more you notice. As your mind becomes more silent, you hear more noise. When you notice an error in yourself, this signals your readiness to seek advancement to the next level. If you tolerate the error rather than correcting it, you will not advance to the next level and you will not gain the skill to notice new errors. In every art, if you do not seek perfection you will halt before taking your first steps. If perfection is impossible that is no excuse for not trying. Hold yourself to the highest standard you can imagine, and look for one still higher. Do not be content with the answer that is almost right; seek one that is exactly right." http://yudkowsky.net/rational/virtues

The problem is that in the vast majority of cases, unless you managed to build something successful by the time you die, then your work will die with you and nobody will care.

The article makes the tempting assumption that progress is monotonic, and that the work that you do will eventually find its use. I don't think this is right -- the vast majority of stuff ever created gets thrown away or forgotten. In this sense, you are running out of time: you have only so much time left to accomplish something which will really survive you.

(Note that this applies to intellectual achievements, not so much to building a family and the like.)

Do your best at the things you enjoy doing, and make time for the things that are really important you.

Who would have thought a key secret to happiness is found in the 10 commandments: "Thou shall not covet"

I think a more Zen-like direction is to just apply the "friend in a pub" test - if you can describe your motivations and actions to an (intelligent) peer and have them nod in approval, then that's it. And yes, there are many such choices, which is the whole point - it doesn't really matter beyond that threshold!

I remember that moment of epiphany for myself, when I realized that nobody else really gives a shit what specifically I do, as long as it's a reasonably fine decision.

And no, that does not mean slacking/etc. Wasting one's potential is definitely not reasonable.

I think the sooner you figure out exactly what your utility curve is (e.g. what really drives you and what you're looking for out of life), the more successful you'll be at maximizing it and living a fulfilling life.

The meaning of life is to make the most meaning out of it.

I have only just a minute, only sixty seconds in it, forced upon me, can't refuse it, didn't seek it, didn't choose it. But, it is up to me to use it. I must suffer if I lose it. Give account if I abuse it, just a tiny little minute - but eternity is in it."

Which I interpreted to mean that life is really about process. It's very distracting to focus on long term goals in many cases, as it can cause you to overlook the steps that need to happen each minute, especially if you think that you can make up that minute later. Long time scales also force you to make impossible predictions about how long you'll even be alive(which can be underestimated as easily as over estimated).

Beautiful writing.

1. Following the steps of alumnus a tried and true path seems to be going back to grad school for a masters degree, studying something that requires advanced mathematics (i.e. graphics programming) and then getting that job at Google. But what if <insert dream company> is not cracked up to what I imagine it to be? When I graduated I was head over heels about working full time as a developer. However the actual experience of working with a very large & complex legacy C++ codebase was more frustrating and painful than I could have possibly imagined. Velocity and skills development was slow (it was not uncommon to spend several days investigating a single bug) and most of my time was spent slogging through very complicated and undocumented code, trying to figure out the intent of the original authors. Not having other jobs to compare it to, <dream job at dream company> could be much the same. In any case if I don't upgrade my arsenal or credentials I feel like I will always doomed to work at second-rate dev shops where employees are ever susceptible to unpleasantries like mediocre salaries/advancement and layoffs. Companies here cannot just cannot compete with tech giants.

2. Find another job. I have a 2-3 month window to quickly find another job as there seems to be some stigma associated with unemployment. The city I live in is a technological wasteland and opportunities for pure software development are relatively limited, so realistically my next employer is likely to be an Oil and Gas company. While that certainly pay the bills it kind of limits your career to other oil and gas companies.

3. Forget about societal pressures and do my own thing. I have enough savings to take a year off, develop my skills, fill in gaps in my knowledge and work on toy projects. Unfortunately this means having to explain a gap year where I might have very little to show for it. The skills I develop will probably not be directly applicable to a job.

Like many I aspire to become the best I can be and like to think of myself as somewhat respectable but at the end of the day I'm just an average developer. I guess the point is if you aren't a genius/wizard you have to deal with your inadequacies and "running out of time" is always in the back of your mind.

Games like golf and I don't know skeet shooting show how you can do more with less. However, that doesn't mean the foundation you built in youth with intense practice or an unforgiving drive to achieve is now worthless.

Rahul can say "you are not running out of time" because he stepped on the pedal damn hard. To each their own. I'm pretty sure that if Rahul went bankrupt tomorrow he'd be back to his 17 year old self hustling with everything he's got but if he did that now he'd be putting more at risk than he has possibility to gain.

Gordon suffered because of split personality: one was enjoying the game he played, another was generated by social pressing – goals like family, relationships and so on. When you see something grow, you are measuring that. When you measure something, you compare that with similar things. When you compare, you trace your progress balance. When you trace, you predict wanted future. And whole this way leads to “moving goals”.

Author began from right point – it’s all about feeling and enjoying moment. That’s all.

A mathematicians apology is, if read with the textual attention it deserves, a book of haunting sadness. Yes, it is witty and sharp with intellectual high spirits: yes, the crystalline clarity and candour are still there: yes, it is the testament of a creative artist. But it is also, in an understated stoical fashion, a passionate lament for creative powers that used to be and that will never come again. I know nothing like it in the language: partly because most people with the literary gift to express such a lament don't come to feel it: it is very rare for a writer to realise, with the finality of truth, that he is absolutely finished.

There are a couple of games that are somehow larger: the great game of empire and the money game, measured by net worth, but others such as the tour de france and nascar provide the winners with substantial social status. As an aside, not sure where musicians fit into this world-view.

The separation of concepts of game player and thing builder are useful, but it is easy to go too far. Bill Gates is well known to be intensely competitive, and to suggest that he was somehow building something for the good of mankind is deluded. In fact, this paragraph is pure confusion regarding Bill Gates' leadership of Microsoft:

'''Even Bill Gates seems to have an opinion on this. “I’m a great believer that any tool that enhances communication has profound effects in terms of how people can learn from each other, and how they can achieve the kind of freedoms that they’re interested in.” And sure enough, he’s been building these tools all his life. All the money he made doing it? He’s giving it away. And he’s enjoying that process too!'''

Philanthropy is somewhat common behavior among highly successful people, at least in the USA, but to suggest that fortunes are made for the sake of giving them away is to confuse life trajectory with motivating beliefs.

The game is to win! Empires are built to crush other empires, and athletes build their bodies to defeat their opponents! This is Drama, and it is stuff of Life.

To win big one must build big, but if the aim is simply to build big, it is easy to drift off into cult territory like this guy: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/07/25/110725fa_fact_...

I am suggesting that the competitive context is useful not only for germinating the building of things but also for integrating them into the rest of society once they have been built.

The other day I was thinking about why humans seem to be conditioned to ignore the failures, both their own and those of the people around them, often to their own detriment, while at the same time often quite accurately seeing the deficiencies of those closest to them. I concluded that there must be something evolutionary in that behavior, given that it is so prevalent in society.

But in any case, what is the alternative? To give up before you start? I know a lot of people who have gone that route, and overall it doesn't seem to be a recipe for success or happiness.

The article focuses on macro level time; I often stress about micro level time. I read so many stories about startups getting funded, aquired, launching products and so on. I constantly feel like I just need to code a little longer, work a little harder on my startup; like everyone is on my heels, and I'll be left behind if I don't launch sooner, iterate sooner, expand sooner, etc.

It's irrational, but I constantly have these thoughts. I don't mean to go all self help but I get the feeling other people must feel like this. Am I alone or does this ring bells? :)

I could be wrong, but so far it seems to work.

My method : I keep a list of objectives, which are defined after some introspection about what I like and enjoy. They are then redefined as "goals to tend to".

I guess I could say I let my reptilian brain decide on the goals, and the advanced cortical functions design the strategy and plot the right path :-)

Otherwise, reading this essay provided me with a temporary sense of calm, like so many other inspiring essays do - i only hope I'm able to inculcate some of the ideas mentioned in this post in my own life :)

I came to similar conclusions of this author after reading Camus' The Stranger (and many other Existential books thereafter) in high school.

There's no meaning to life other than what you make of it. This author finds meaning in building things, seeing things grow. Other people find meaning to their lives by shining shoes and are just as happy. Or at least they find contentment in what they do, which in many ways is better.

If you've never taken the time to pursue your own goals is another situation in which your definitely running out of time. For example: If you've always wanted to start your own company but you've never tried because of the fear of failure.

(for those who haven't seen it: it's a must...)

This essay is like a godsend.

That was 25 years ago and it seems she's still with them. I think her estimates were a little off.

The good news: if you're in your 20s now, you have 60 or 70 years of life left, and scientific advances being what they are, they'll probably be mostly good years. That's a lot of time. Also, the common trope about poets and mathematicians peaking at 20 is the exception, not the rule, and doesn't apply to modern times anyway (mathematics is so specialized that modern mathematicians are just getting started at 25-30). The actual cognitive peak is somewhere around 50, and the drop-off after that is health-related rather than hard-coded, so if you stay healthy, even into your 80s the decline will be slight to nonexistent. Using vocabulary as an example, you probably won't gain many words from 50 to 80, but if you're healthy, you won't lose many either. So yes, if you're 25 or even 50, you have a hell of a lot of time left.

The bad news: society is incredibly ageist, and as you get older, the amount you need to have achieved in order to be taken seriously ratchets up. Do you think Mark Zuckerberg (who is as much a VC invention as most celebrities are Hollywood inventions) would have gotten the support, mentoring, and funding that he did if he were 36 instead of 20? Almost impossible. Being young is a hard-to-tap (if you're not perceived as being exceptional, you'll be typecast as a "young pup" and not taken seriously) but extremely powerful asset in business: the "boy wonder" archetype. Perhaps it's utterly moronic that it works, but it is very powerful when it hits.

This is even worse in the big-box corporate world than in technology, where your age and job title define who you are as a person. In big-box corporate, VP at 35 means you're serious, whereas VP at 50 is a consolation prize. This is why people in that world bump their college degrees up 5 years and pay for plastic surgery, the latter being an investment that pays itself off immensely. It's not just that people want to appear younger; it's that they benefit immensely by the appearance of being in their current position at a younger age.

So, you are running out of time, not because of biology, but because of the general shallowness of most people. At age 40, you have one-fifth as many options as you did at 22. It sucks, but that's the way the world works now.