I’m turning 40 later this year. I have a lot to be happy about — a wife I love, three great kids, a career and a comfy middle-class lifestyle.
Being nearly 40 means I am now technically broadly in the middle of my life and career. How to accelerate from here? What could I do better? One way to figure out is to look back and try to understand what’s been holding me back.
I feel that the recent experiences of my late thirties have not yet formed into a story in my head. But — as I’m a decade from the end of my twenties, I’ve started to see a few vicious circle patterns in hindsight.
So — if I could be a Yoda on the shoulder of myself as a 20-year old young man — this would be the philosophical advice I would give myself.
Be deliberate
A lot of the choices in my twenties were made by others for me and I just went along.
I feel like I was coasting along for a significant part of the decade. Not coasting as in being lazy— day-to-day, I was working quite hard and feeling anxious and tired about it — but coasting as in not deliberately making choices for myself.
I did get a few things right in hindsight — decided to leave my home village to live alone at 15 to study in a good high school in the local town, picked computer science as my university major, left the first university I attended for a better one, and applied for an Erasmus scholarship that ended up really broadening my mind.
But beyond that, I spent a big part of that decade in slow motion, in a 10 year “groundhog day” of adulthood without really going anywhere.
My first 3 jobs were picked for me — by a friendly classmate or a boss inviting me to a company and me just going along. These were not necessarily bad companies, but also nothing special. I had no real goal for myself. I just delivered the next tasks that someone asked me to do and then went home.
I saw some people around me doing interesting stuff — working on a future “unicorn” company, building “expert systems” — stuff that would later be called Machine Learning, going for a PhD programme. I had chances to join in. But — I didn’t have the mental clarity nor guts to make the decision and break my safe life where someone else decided what was success. What if I failed?
The first job I deliberately chose —left my then current company with a serious argument with my boss, accepted responsibilities I didn’t really know how to do — was 7 years after I started working as a software engineer. The second job I deliberately chose 3 years after that ended up changing my life.
I also spent years in romantic relationships that “just happened” — where I kind of ended up dating a partner where our main draw was accessibility, rather than actual proper love and compatibility.
It was easy and it wasn’t all bad, but I spent years living “one day at a time”, not having a vision for long term future together. It was grinding me away inside. I finally had a breaking point at 28 years old, vowed to myself not to enter into another relationship unless I really wanted to spend the rest of our days together and ended up spending a great year alone. This lead me to pursuing a romantic relationship with my now wife.
I don’t think I could have somehow made “the right choices”, but at least I should have made choices — my own, deliberate, conscious choices — far sooner.
You’re ready for it
For most of my twenties, I felt I wasn’t ready to make serious life decisions.
I mean — technically, I was an adult — financially independent, lived on my own, had friends, a job, responsibilities.
But, I stayed away from any major decisions. I definitely wasn’t ready to buy an apartment, although I had earned a salary for years that allowed me to buy a reasonable apartment. I for sure wasn’t ready to get married and even more surely, I wasn’t ready to have a child. I wasn’t ready to manage a team of people at work. Running a marathon — not ready! And so forth.
I was waiting for someone else to tell me what to do, or perhaps a sign from the universe, to tell me that “it’s time now for X”.
That, of course, never happened and I had to “grow a pair” in my early thirties and make these decisions myself.
Looking back — at 26, I was ready to buy property, get married and have a child. I’m glad I did not do all three at 26, but I did spend the next 5 years in a twilight zone of quasi-adulthood waiting for a sign.
It’s about self-actualisation, idiot
At the end, what matters? Your basic needs met, physical and mental safety, good relationships with friends and family, recognition / status and actually achieving your full potential.
I’m a lucky guy — 3/5 of these were fulfilled for me from the start. And I spent a decade working for the fourth — external recognition.
After graduating from university, I needed relatively little. Every single job in the software engineering field gave me enough income to satisfy my basic needs. I was living in 21st century Europe, attending a decent university interacting with a lot of smart and interesting people, I was in a physically and mentally safe place by default. I had a loving family, I got lucky to find a solid group of friends in university that I’m still friends with now, 20 years later.
So — in my twenties, I put most of my effort into achieving external recognition, respect and status.
In the university, I worked to graduate cum laude — without really going deep into or enjoying any subject in particular. At work, I pushed hard to deliver what was expected to me. My work ethic was “execution at all cost” — whatever it was, as long as someone higher up wanted me to do it.
It resulted in a few promotions, raises and a bunch of pats on the back. But at 31 years old, I discovered myself doing IT compliance and financial reporting in a mega-corporation, working 13h a day, 15kg overweight and probably clinically depressed.. but hey, I earned a top grade in my yearly review from the department manager’s boss.
How the f**k did I get here?
And I’m glad I somehow saw the light — I needed a deliberate life decision to focus on what I actually wanted to do. It ended up being a completely different (scary) job with a major pay-cut in a much less stable company with no clear external targets.
But I’ve never looked back.
