Comment by ChuckMcM | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ChuckMcM | Hacker News Reader

God it sucks to hit 35 doesn't it? That was a really rough couple of years for me. You are like halfway to 70, and 70 is like way old. What is worse is all these "You can be anything" dreams start becoming undeniably impossible, like being a fighter pilot or competing in the Olympics. But the worst bit for me was thinking "Wow, that didn't seem all that long, am I really going to be 70 in just that much more time?" And frankly a mixture of panic and depression set in. I'm never going to be "somebody", I'm over the hill, all of my heroes were famous by this age, Etc. It doesn't stop.

And for me it was the time where I really internalized that life isn't about the goals, its about the trip and the stops along the way. Imagine your life is to drive from the San Francisco Airport to JFK in New York and catch a flight and fly back. That is your life. And sure you put goals in like "see the Grand Canyon" or something which takes you down a side path but once you have seen the Canyon, maybe hiked Zion, skiied the Rockies, you just have to keep driving east. And you hit Kansas which goes on and on and on and on and on.

I had started piling up things from the 'someday' pile into the 'remember when?' pile, like from 'someday I'll have kids' to 'remember when we didn't have kids?' When that 'someday' pile gets smaller you can imagine it has nothing in it but 'someday I'm going to die' well that is a scary thing to imagine indeed.

So it sucks, but what can you do about it? The thing I found that got me past that was focusing really hard on what I had (a great family), what I could change (where I wanted to be), and how I felt about the world (my outlook on the future). By focusing on that I kept from looking at that ugly visage of Christmas Yet to Come, and the fear and guilt that came along with it. I stopped following the news for a while since it only wanted to reinforce my fear of the future. I fed my curiosity and tried to seek out sources of wonder again (rocketry, quantum physics, and robotics systems are all amazing things to me).

That keeps me engaged and interested and learning, and in so doing keeps the future away in the future.

I feel like you didn't read the post at all.

He said 2 things:

1. These are weirdly contrived generational categories...

2. You have no idea about student debt, underemployment, life-long renting. “Stop feeling special” is some shitty advice. I don’t feel special or entitled, just poor...

So basically, the post is about the Huff Post author being detached from reality. "You just want to feel special- get over it" is really shitty advice, he's right. They teach you not to say things like that at work. At least I hope they do.

I'm a bit above 35 (past the next "old" barrier that starts with 4), and although I fall more into the Huff Post author's vision of the sad yuppie close to the start of gen Y, it pisses me off that on Marketplace (PRI radio broadcast on NPR stations) today they were basically trying to convince everyone that no one knows what the middle class is and that we should just get used to the new normal and should even consider wealth redistribution as a way to deal with it (I'm not joking- this was really said and the Marketplace idiot went along with it- seriously L.A.- are these the people you want representing you?).

So, I'm with Adam Weinstein on this one saying, "Fk you".

I didn't sign up for the economic situation we're in, and I feel that our fiscally irresponsible government is to blame. Wealth redistribution? No, I don't think socialism or communism is a good idea. The only countries in which either are working having been abandoning them for capitalism, from what I see (specifically, India and China).

Can we stop threatening to bomb people, open borders again fully to allow all kinds of immigrants, hire ex-Israeli soldier elites to profile passengers and replace the TSA and no-fly lists in our airports/etc. (like Israel does), and have less government. Our government has better things to do than to try to tell us how to live and how we should manage our money. Did you notice how the Democrats were giving Yellen a hard time because she was female? Almost completely washed over in the liberal media. Shame! So much bullshit. I cannot wait to cast my vote next time to oust every single one of the losers currently in office.

>I feel that our fiscally irresponsible government is to blame. Wealth redistribution?

The irony is that (in my opinion) all of this was created because we wanted to redistribute wealth - but we did it by creating easy access to debt (dominantly, debt access for real estate and debt access to college, two signifiers of wealth that possessing them, as it turns out, does not make you wealthy), and because we wanted to grant everyone the luxury of illusory security that the rich "enjoy" without considering the upside cost of trying to cover everyone with no holes in the social service. So we got a whole bunch of bureaucratic overhead to make sure we are in compliance with artifical metrics and schemes to guarantee equitability, yet more people are falling through the holes. There's a greek word for this: ὕβρις,

Truly, our society in many ways is no better than the cargo cults.

Forcible wealth redistribution is a bad thing. Worse, when it has been done, it is done in a band-aid approach. Let's subsidize subsistence as a way to chain people to job searches. No thank you.

But having said that, I think it is reasonable for encouraging a sane wealth distribution to be a part of public policy. This doesn't have to be done through taxes just for owning something. It could be taxes on renting something for example, unless that is a rent to own agreement. The idea would be simply encouraging ownership to align with utilization rather than life-long renting as the norm.

I would recommend reading some conservative alternatives like Chesterton's "An Outline of Sanity" or Belloc's "The Servile State" for alternatives that are more historically grounded.

Actually I did read it, several times actually trying to tease out the angst from the fiction.

The author, Adam, is angry, that much is clear. And he writes that he is angry at people who write pieces like the HuffPo one [1] which is "full of crap". That piece, basically labels people of a certain age (by calling them 'Gen Y') and then disparages them as being unrealistic in their expectations and their self image.

So what can we infer from that? Well first, if this was a single instance then it probably wouldn't be emotional for Adam; Second, if the complaints that the HuffPo piece was disparaging weren't complaints that Adam had been espousing he would have ignored it, and third he chose not to argue the merits, rather to argue the presentation and author.

Now, my opinion here is that the HuffPo article was a hit piece aimed right at Adam to generate rage views. And the HuffPo author tapped into that mid-life angst about how the world isn't what you imagined it would be, and twisted as hard as he dared to maximize the rage views. As for the 'weirdly contrived generational categories' every group of people gets exposed to the world (or made aware of it) around 15 - 25. And the 'big themes' in that time period become influential in their lives. These categories are self creating.

What I was trying to point out was that the anger over life not being what one hoped it isn't unique to any generation, the Economist article mentioned in this thread talks a bit about that.

So to address your second point, awareness about debt and underemployment and life-long renting. One can be aware, and care, and still have perspective.

And then you said, "I didn't sign up for the economic situation we're in, and I feel that our fiscally irresponsible government is to blame." This is where you have to choose. (And this is why, for me, 35 was pretty painful) You have to choose to either be a victim or to not be a victim. Do you look for 'blame' or do you look for 'fixes'. The Marketplace episode pissed you off because it was wrong, you can either show them how it was wrong or you can whine about it.

For me, when I hit 35 was when it sunk in that there wasn't any "they" anymore, there weren't grown-ups which were going to fix things. That was up to me, being one of the grown ups, I had to start fixing things. And I was irritated in the mess the previous generation had left behind.

[1] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/wait-but-why/generation-y-unha...

I found this article interesting: http://www.economist.com/node/17722567

Self-reported well-being follows a U curve. "Happiness" declines starting at age 18 and keeps going down until it bottoms out in middle-age. But then, interestingly, it rises, and keeps rising, all the way to end of life. This has been observed all over the world.

What's the global average least-happy age? 46.

Weird, I'm on an upward trajectory since 18. At 18 I was a total mess with low self esteem. Now I'm doing pretty damn good other than the constant poverty.

This shows that individuals are unique and you can't generalize a whole population based solely on when they were born, like a horoscope.

Funny that, eh?

Though I understand the sentiment, and agree massively, I am clearly am somewhat of anomaly, I can still, though, see the benefit of broad statistical analysis. Sure, I'm doing okay, however, if I'm not a fit for the data, and most people are going downhill after 18, perhaps that is a reason not for sweeping judgements but at least a degree of concern, and an avenue of understanding?

46 is also the average age for a first-time Porsche buyer.

That U curve makes sense. It aligns with when people usually work.

So it sucks, but what can you do about it?

Live life as you're doing, and consider supporting sens.org. Aging is terrible for many reasons, but we might actually be able to do something about it in the not too distant future.

>So it sucks, but what can you do about it?

Stop driving northeast -- Gone south to the Grand Canyon? Don't get back on track to NY, head to Philly or DC or NC or Florida instead. Better yet, make a J and head to Seattle.

Today I saw a kid walking down the street with an ice cream cone in his hand. His girlfriend was with him, he was in his 30s. But his inner child held the cone. Just because you age doesn't mean you can't still be a child.

Edit: from my profile -- Therein lies the best career advice I could possibly dispense: just DO things. Chase after the things that interest you and make you happy. Stop acting like you have a set path, because you dont. No one does. You shouldnt be trying to check off the boxes of life; they arent real and they were created by other people, not you. There is no explicit path Im following, and Im not walking in anyone elses footsteps. Im making it up as I go. - Charlie Hoehn

> But the worst bit for me was thinking "Wow, that didn't seem all that long, am I really going to be 70 in just that much more time?"

To make it slightly worse, the second 35 years will feel like they pass faster than the first 35 years.

On the other hand, could get hit by a bus tomorrow.

You must be fun to talk to at parties.

Which makes his plan to enjoy life all the more valid ;)

I cannot believe how many times a project manager has said this to me when asking if I have documented a change.

After a while I start to think they are wishing it on me.

Well that's depressing - I was banking on 30s being a lot better (at least for dating) than early twenties. I guess I didn't consider the inevitable midlife mortality crisis. Guess I'll have to make the most of late twenties and early thirties.

>>I was banking on 30s being a lot better (at least for dating) than early twenties.

In my early 20s I was in college and the place was full of young, single girls. I'm 28 now and it is pretty depressing how everyone has either married or at least in stable long-term relationships. So yeah, the trajectory is not moving towards "better."

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