Stats for nerds
2recommend
3mentions
3people
2010–2016years
67% recommend33% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- For those interested, there are two great works that go into much more detail on not just 20s, but the other decades of peoples' lives.
The Seasons of a Man's Life (http://refer.ly/a4hO) is the work of a few researchers. They were frustrated that most work in psychology studied childhood development in depth, but little research was done into development during your 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s. The research is focused entirely on guys (sorry ladies). Not surprisingly, he was able to find several phases most men go through. Several friends have found the book really helpful when they're reflecting on life.
The Up Series (http://refer.ly/a4hN) is a set of films, each shot every 7 years that chronicles the real lives of a dozen people from England. While it has a bit of reality TV "drama", most all of it is the real unvarnished changes that people go through as they age, including their regrets and accomplishments. It's a remarkable watch, given that you get to see people age from 7 to 56. Just as an example, I feel it prepared me ahead of time to deal with the death of my mother, and savor the time that I have with my dad who's still alive. Ultimately, we all have to face up to a lot of the same things, and it's comforting to have a bit of a map.
- No comment on whether the $1M AUD goal is reasonable (other than you have to start where YOU are and don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good). But, since you mentioned your age and other posters are also commenting on it:
1. Ignore those who say "don't be so serious at 20." You're VERY WISE to consider the path that you're on: you're not going to magically become experienced when you reach a certain age, and it's a competitive job market, and brutally so for the younger and less experienced. You're facing the classic dilemma of how to get enough experience to be employable...one which I'm also struggling with and I'm older than you. I wonder if some of the "superstars" in your program had parents or older siblings who were in software, to provide them with "tribal knowledge" and connections.
Anyway, it's your life, and I commend you for examining its direction so that you can do something about it.
2. Consider reading "Seasons of a Man's Life" by Levinson. It starts very slowly, and is somewhat dated (life today is a little more flexible and fluid, but not that much), but it's an interesting guide to the different stages of adult life. Again, if you're like me, you had some idea of what was expected of you in childhood and teens (Prepare For University!), but not so much after that. It turns out that for most of us, life is both richer and less predictable than "secondary school, university, job, marriage, gold watch retirement, death."
- There are in fact-- seasons of a Man's Life, this theme is as old as time (see 1 Corinthians 13:11).
Relative to worrying about no new areas to become interested in-- I was reminded of the Sharon Gannon quote “We create the world we live in. If we want to change what we don't like in the world, we must start by changing what we don't like about ourselves.”
