Great story, and a thought-provoking title. I LLOLed at "We’ll just tell Steve you did move."
I'm 45, so I'll mark my 2nd quarter-century in the not-too-distant future.
Very approximately, so far:
0-25: learning
25-50: doing
50-75: TBD
I'm 45, so I'll mark my 2nd quarter-century in the not-too-distant future.
Very approximately, so far:
0-25: learning
25-50: doing
50-75: TBD
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C4%80%C5%9Brama_(stage)
0-25y grow and study
25-50y develop your household, your family, your community and gain wealth (non-extractive, provide value).
50y-75y hand over all worldly things to the next generation, advise, teach and help those around you. Focus on your spiritual enlightenment.
75y- renounce the world and disappear into the forest as a monk / hermit.
Edit: Not talking purely about financially giving back, but also volunteering your time.
You can more easily invest your second million than your first (Because you probably need that (Or at least a portion of that to live)
There's also no significant reason to start earlier (or later), unless you factor in dying as your stopping point, worthwhile causes aren't going anywhere
The "Andrew Carnegie Dictum" was:
- To spend the first third of one's life getting all the education one can.
- To spend the next third making all the money one can.
- To spend the last third giving it all away for worthwhile causes.
“while in the original system presented in the early Dharmasutras the Asramas were four alternative available ways of life, neither presented as sequential nor with age recommendations.”
That's why many books contradict each other. Some books prescribe an age and order for such steps, others don't, etc. They weren't meant to be all collected, all studied, and all chosen piecemeal by one observer. But over time it has evolved into a much different thing than when it started
In my case it was closer to:
0-25: dicking around, with some incidental learning
25-35: learning how one gets screwed in business deals (by getting screwed in business deals)
35-40: dicking around pretending to work and thinking this is called "startups"
40-50: actually doing stuff, working on meaningful things that people pay for and making a good living off that
I am looking forward to the future :-)
This goes across the spectrum: from knowing what to do (and more importantly what NOT to spend time on) to build a business that earns money, to avoiding jumping onto the latest and greatest JavaScript framework.
Incidentally, one amusing side effect is that I tend to disagree with >90% of HN commenters and often regret posting my comments, because I get downvoted or criticized into oblivion. I might of course be wrong. But then again, when I look at the depressing comments even in this discussion, or at comments from people worrying about their job, securing income, etc, and compare this to my situation, which I've ended up in by following my own compass — I stop worrying, take a deep breath and continue to do my thing :-)
But from my current training, I don’t see any reason that isn’t achievable. No part of my body is giving me warning signs and the training isn’t any harder than it was 15 years ago.
As far as “ageism”, I changed jobs at 40, 42, 44, 46, 49 and last year at 50 and neither time did it take me more than 3 weeks to get a job. I got my first only and hopefully last job at a “FAANG” at 46.
None of those were management jobs and I’m now a “staff software engineer” at a third party cloud consulting company.
I’m well aware that my body will decline over the next 20 years. But no need to give up prematurely
He decided not to let it happen to him, so he got into triathlon. Now, he’s doing Ironman races every year for the last ~10 years, and he started at around 50 (maybe 49 or 48, don’t remember).
Other host was an alcoholic who bounced back into a very healthy life. Both are inspirational, but I think the other applies to you more.
Point is, you can do it! You don’t have to do a whole Ironman, obviously lol, but making choices to be healthy like you are is an amazing step. And it’s absolutely possible to start at 50.
If you want motivation, the Crushing Iron podcast has some great episodes (and some kinda boring ones). Check out this one, “Out alone in the dark”.. I like their episodes from a couple years ago (and older) the most. Also 667 and 685 are a couple I had saved recently as good ones.
Out alone in the dark: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/crushing-iron-triathlo...
#667 Play like a kid: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/crushing-iron-triathlo...
#685 stop waiting for life: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/crushing-iron-triathlo...
Couple bonus episodes I love:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/crushing-iron-triathlo...
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/crushing-iron-triathlo...
I have been lifting weights for years now, and it does wonders for my health (for example: all my back pain and back injury problems are totally gone).
I would highly recommend to past myself reading "The Barbell Prescription: Strength Training for Life After 40" (https://www.amazon.com/Barbell-Prescription-Strength-Trainin...) and starting earlier.
Or you can be a couch potato and suffer.
You can stay impressively fit well into your 80s :)
My mom is 80, active and I don’t see her slowing down, she is still comfortable driving from south GA to central Florida where we live and the other surrounding states as long as it’s daytime.
I’ll be happy if I can still be as active as my dad
0-22 - I’m someone else’s responsibility - graduated college degree in CS
22-36 - shuffled aimlessly between two meaningless jobs, a horrible mistake of a marriage (and divorce), got into real estate too heavily and the crash of 2008, taught fitness classes on the side as my only outlet.
36-46 - got remarried and became an instant father to a 9 and 14, rebuilt my career from scratch and hopped between 5 jobs, got my finances under control after walking away from 5 mortgages, built a strong marriage and both (step)sons graduated. “Retired my wife” when she was 44.
46 - present - transitioned into consulting, got first and only job at BigTech, (working remotely cloud consulting department), moved permanently into what was a vacation home in Florida, and start traveling extensively post Covid including doing the digital nomad thing. Left BigTech and enjoying a nice balanced life with my wife while I work remotely and she enjoys her passion projects.
Honestly, though her spending money was a matter of selling 2 shares of AMZN pre split every six months when I was getting RSUs.
We cut our fixed expenses dramatically after Covid and our younger son graduated, downsizing and moving to a state tax free state.
[1] Kagi's response provided by WordsAPI, I'm not sure if linking a technically paywalled would be the reasonable thing https://kagi.com/search?q=unemployed+meaning
[2] https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/unemploy...
The official definition as far as the BLS.
http://www.mississippi.edu/urc/downloads/econ101-01_151118.p...
> Finally, other individuals who are not working or seeking work for pay or profit are not included in the labor force.
> BLS considers the unemployed as those individuals without a job who have looked for one in the past four weeks and are available to work. Looking for work involves an individual taking some action to obtain a job, such as completing an application, sending out a resume,contacting an employment center, etc. Individuals who have been temporarily laid off are considered unemployed regardless if they have looked for work in the last four week
This is the same definition the UK uses
https://www.ons.gov.uk/file?uri=/employmentandlabourmarket/p...
Australia
https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/detailed-methodology-infor....
And the international OECD
https://www.oecd.org/en/data/indicators/unemployment-rate.ht...
I couldn’t find a single English speaking country that didn’t use the same definition.
The percentage of people who are working/total adult population or a subset is the labor participation rate.
Why would the OECD want things to look “rosy”?
And how would someone “find a job” if they aren’t actively looking?
What exactly is “the government” if it’s not “the people”? Every country I cited is one where the government is democratically elected.
We should instead use a definition that a random person on HN think is more appropriate?
Tell me why they shouldn’t count the hopeless as unemployed?
Because “Words Mean Things”. Every single country’s government that I could find - including non English speaking countries (I just looked up the definition in Japan) define unemployment the same way.
The unemployment, the homeless and the labor participation rate are all statistics that are reported by the government and one isn’t ignoring the other.
And you don’t think it is “unreasonable” to make up definitions instead of using ones that are accepted globally?
By the time Covid lifted, we had decided to fly around the country taking one way trips and she was deeply into her passion projects.
We got rid of everything we owned that wouldn’t fit into 4 suitcases. Our official home was our vacation home in (state tax free) Florida that was being rented out while we were traveling as a short term rental.
The “state tax free” came in handy when I was getting RSUs/pro rated signing bonuses
States typically define residency as either based on domicile, or a statute. In other words, some of the states you "traveled" to undoubtedly have laws stating that if you are in the state for a certain number of days out of the year, you are automatically a resident, not a visitor, and liable for taxes on your world-wide income.
It just happens to be a moot point in Nevada and Texas since they were both state tax free states.
When we do it again probably in summer 2027, those also happen to be the two states we will be spending the majority of our time. My wife knows a lot of people in both states
I am not saying you have to be in a relationship to have stability. Of course it’s better to be single than being involved in a bad relationship.
Looking back, what really started things going bad was a lack of self confidence and wanting to be in a relationship.
I was a short computer geek, kind of awkward. I got better. Now I’m very comfortable talking to anyone. It’s my $Dayjob.
Ironically enough though, I had no trouble being in front of people at 28 and had been a part time fitness instructor for 3 years by then as hobby. I was in great shape.
I met someone who was physically attractive and was interested in me after being friendzoned all of my adult life. I got married and I should have seen the signs.
That led to everything else that happened for the next 6 years - staying at a job too long, getting too heavily invested in real estate trying to make more money, stagnating both technically and financially. Got divorced at 32.
At 34, in 2008 around the time of the real estate crash, I just had to accept the fact that everything I had done up to that point was a waste and be comfortable starting over from scratch.
I got ready to interview after being at my second job for over 9 years and did a vertical move to another job that would let me get some real world experience with an in demand language - C# and the startup was working with ruggedized mobile devices right when smart phones were taking off.
I wasn’t trying to date anyone at that time and my now wife had to basically shove her number at me once we had been working together for over two years. She was in another department. I told her all of the shit I was going through at the time with my real estate and she was still interested.
We both got laid off when the company went out of business and she got a job quickly that had benefits and I got a good paying contract without benefits. I proposed to her while I was working as a contractor with the plan for us to get married after I got a permanent job.
She suggested we get married sooner so I could be on her benefits. That arrangement kept until 2020 when I was 46. It allowed me the freedom to jump back and forth between full time and contract jobs to build my resume.
In 2020, as a direct result of me being able to aggressively job hop, a remote position at AWS (Professional Services) fell into my lap in 2020.
The difference between what I was making pre-AWS and post AWS was 3x what she was making. But there is a direct line from her supporting my career to me being able to do that.
I have no problem with my wife not working so she can pursue what she wants. It gives us a chance to travel like crazy and it’s not like my life is stressful once I left AWS.
It made me remember about that rumor of Musk firing people at random, but afterwards their immediate superiors just make them to move to another office whatsoever - Musk won't remember the next time he'd be there.
One day we worked an all nighter. The entire department. The next day we were still there. Having solved the problem, most of us were asleep at our desks.
The VP made an unannounced visit and walked through the office. None of us noticed him. He walked to my bosses bosses office and asked him to assemble us in the meeting room.
He walked into the meeting, said he was impressed with how hard we were working, pointing out that our heads were down in deep thought. Then he left.
These days, I think he was trolling us.
I got to know him quite well later in my career. I never saw him fire anyone.
As much as everyone loves to hate these guys, they're the most powerful men in the world and they clearly didn't get there by fading into retirement from the age of 50 onward. I guess it depends on what you want in life but I wouldn't mind taking a hint from them. You clearly don't need to stop when you're old. For some, life appears to be a continual doubling down for higher and higher stakes.
I'm in my mid 40s and as my resources expand all I want to do is ante up and wrestle with bigger demons. Every decade for me is one more chance, maybe the last, to reclaim the stolen aspirations of my youth. The ticker will give out someday, but until then I don't want to ever stop. I'm the healthiest and probably also the angriest I've been in 20 years. Whatever else may transpire I hope to be a bit like those croaking old fuckers and never go gently.
> Fiche bliain faoi bhláth,
> Fiche bliain ag meath
> Agus fiche bliain gur cuma ann no as.
"Twenty years growing,
Twenty years in bloom,
Twenty years in decline,
And twenty years when it makes no difference if you're there or gone."
That does not seem to picture today's reality all that well, considering that most power in the world is concentrated in the hands of 60+ year old people.
0-25: Arrogance, ignorance, stupidity, delusions, boring normal person
25-50: Obsessive learning/study, application, and passion, finding myself
50-75: Not there yet
I just turned 30 and I'm having a blast learning graphics and audio programming, mostly in C! Found my passion, raycasting, audio engineering, and building desktop software
Perhaps whatever we might call it.
0 - death -> Doing things.
This is just how it unfolds.
https://youtube.com/clip/Ugkx1T-qoilkYC6vZ48N8US2aM9nHiFTq2I...
Unfortunately I already feel like a theme of 50-75 is "forgetting."
I remember very well the stuff I learned from 0-25 but damned if I remember last month.
We know that our field already has a lot of age discrimination.
Why reinforce that message with grassroots chatter that impressionable new startup founders and young engineers will see on HN?
AFAIK, representatives of other discriminated-against groups aren't coming to HN to voice silly negative stereotypes directly related to workplace performance.
0-25: learning
25-50: earning
50-75: returning
0-25: Act I 24-50: Act II 50-75: Act III, the final act.
Either it's a life worth living, or forced shutdown for me, while I still have a say.
You can't imagine being healthy at 75?
Most of my family members 75+ are still doing quite well.
My great grandma lived to 99 and wasn't particularly unhealthy until 98.
My mom's best friend's dad is 98 now, and was in pretty good health until 96.
None of them were poor and burdens on society.
My bleak answer is a refutation of the idea that merely "staying alive" is a goal. Staying physically alive is not enough.
25-50: doing
50-75: enjoying
75-100: leaving