Hell Im 23, and even with easy access to information its difficult if you have to work full-time to pay the bills. Ive been working full-time since I was 15, and no matter how many courses I completed or books I read, without financially stable parents there is no way a normal person can do this. Thats why most of us attend public school.

I have full confidence most people are capable, but they would need some exceptionally staunch parents and finacial stability. Plus a lot of drive to accomplish these goals (it is not for everyone).

The obligations and circumstances that get in the way are as challenging as ever. Time is the only constant in our experience. However kids today have instant access to MIT lectures and problem sets. I had to sneak out textbooks on classical mechanics and applied mathematics and that's all I had for years. Technology today has enabled us in so many ways that I envy my children who will get to have what I never did. So cool.

    > Thats why most of us attend public school.

This has to be the single most confusing AmE/BrE difference..

In case people don't know what is being referred to here, it's that in Britain a Public School is something you pay for, and in America (and Australia!) a Public School is funded by the government and not the individual.

I wish I had the drive / focus / interest that you sound like you had when you were at school. I hung around with the wrong people, didn't put enough thought into what I might like to do for a career, valued the wrong things, and as a consequence spent my twenties in lots of meaningless, unsatisfying jobs. I'm in my early thirties now and am lucky in that I've managed to change my circumstances and begin a career as a software developer. But I feel I will never be able to achieve the success I could have if I had only gotten my arse into gear and taken my education seriously when I was 16. Now I find myself spending most of my free time trying to learn things that I should have learnt when I was 18.

> I hung around with the wrong people, didn't put enough thought into what I might like to do for a career

You say that like they're necessarily causal/correlated.

When I was in high school I was clinically depressed, smoked weed every day, shoplifted whenever I could just for the thrill of it, failed most of my classes, and in my afternoons, late nights, and sometimes up to 6am, I was contributing to opensource, writing phpBB mods that thousands of people were using in their bulletin boards. My most popular mod had over 10,000 downloads. They even accepted me into the official mod approval team for a while.

And despite my obsession with coding and working on my career, I was also an adolescent delinquent.

Life is funny that way.

> I feel I will never be able to achieve the success I could have if I had only...

Learn from your past, take things from where they are today, and change the things that you can, now, going into the future.

There are other people like you today; some of them will do that, others will only continue to live in regret.

10 years from now you can be the person that they will look at and say "if I had only..."

Awesome maxims from the aspirational side.

From the more practical side- the time you spent 'wandering' can pay big dividends over those who are more tightly-focused, when you get to a more strategic role. Having tons of varied experience makes you a better communicator, teacher, & leader...

I had this conversation with a co-worker recently. I complained about how I avoided partying in university years and wasted a perfect opportunity to make friends with diverse people from all kinds of occupations. He said he regrets that he partied a lot instead of sitting like me and engaging in creative hobbies and/or learning career-relevant stuff.

We came to the conclusion that no matter the path of life you end up taking, you'll regret missed opportunities. I could have studied hard since 9 years old, skipped high school and be a PhD now or something, but then I'd probably talk with some people and start regretting that I haven't the time to read the books and watch the movies that could have shaped my imagination.

So the real advice is - instead of obsessing over the road not taken, focus on what comparative advantage you got from your experiences. Even if you "wasted" half your life drinking with random people, there's still a lot to learn and use from those experiences. The reason we have brains is to figure out how to make the best of what we have.

Well said! The grass is(and looked) always greener on the other side of the fence.

I decided to become a musician when I was 15 and wasted 6 years pursuing the unrealistic dream. I somehow managed to gave up the dream and became interested in computing in college. I sometimes wish I had become interested in programming instead of drums in junior high, but those 6 years of hustles taught me a lot about team management, entrepreneurship, and how to learn new things. So I don't think I wasted 6 years. As Paul Graham says, you should explore when you are young.

You are absolutely right. It's easy for me to think when I'm 43 I'll be past it. But I'm pretty sure my 43 year old self will think otherwise, and will be very glad he made the effort 10 years ago!

It isn't cause for despair. In the grand scheme of things, none of us is so important and the desire to "achieve" more than we have is, in some sense, a wish to bless ourselves.

There's nothing to prevent you from studying those things today, within the constraints of your spare time. If you find the study intrinsically gratifying, I see no reason you should enjoy it any less because it probably won't result in a professorship.

It's not so much despair but longing for something that never could have been. My parents knew what was wrong with me but couldn't understand it themselves. They thought it would be best to hold me back so that I learned how to socialize. It was a rough education.

When I do have spare time you bet you'll find me working on a problem, reading a paper, or studying. It's almost like regret knowing that I won't be able to dedicate my life to something I love for the mere circumstance I come from.

When I read about stories like this one I can't help but feel happy for them. They're lucky! They got exactly what they wanted and needed! Not all of us can say the same.

I don't know your personal circumstances, but I do know that there are roles for mathematicians to play in many areas outside of academia, and that your age wouldn't preclude these possibilities. If you haven't already, there would be no shame in beginning a PhD at your age (even some successful academics have done so).

We are all lucky and unlucky relative to someone else. I think time used on regret or "longing for what could have been" is simply time misspent, much like you might regard your childhood. Best of luck overcoming this natural tendency.

I was lucky in my own ways too!

Life is nothing but an inevitable race to the end. I try to take it slow and steady. Having some regrets is unavoidable! But it makes stories like this all the more sweet. Not all of us had the same chances but someone made it through and that brings a smile to my face.

>>It's not so much despair but longing for something that never could have been.

Providing an amazing environment for my children has erased all regret for my own childhood. I can see a new hope filled future with new eyes.

Yeah, same. Well, almost same. I have to remember not to be too eager!

Update: Also... kind of terrified of the public education system. No time for home schooling though. Damn circumstance!

I've know two really good parents that have claim that if you spend about an hour each day "detoxifying" the children when they get home that they can survive public school. They let their children know that the public school is a manufactured environment, how to combat child peering (where children look to other children for role models), talk with them about their frustrations, and generally spend about an hour discussing ideas of substance.

So far, it seems to work - the children have a certain detachment to the school environment and a mindfulness about them when they talk about their situation.

> I'm 33 now and I'd kill to be able to study mathematics full time and be a professor some day.

I started my PhD in math at 36. Admittedly, I made some life choices (savings, no kids or mortgage) that kept options like this open.

Good for you! I hope you are/have enjoying/enjoyed it. I made some different choices (savings, but kids and mortgage). It'd be awesome to start a PhD but completely irresponsible of me as I'm the sole income provider for our family at present.

For now I content myself with following my fancies and working on digestible problems in my spare time (devoured ONAG a couple of years ago, graphs, sets, concrete mathematics... found Martin Gardner and enjoying devouring his recreational maths books). When I get the chance in my work I tend to enjoy the maths more than the programming... distributed systems, computer graphics, compilers. But most commercial programming is book keeping.

C'est la vie.

If you want to practice math, look at math.stackexchange.com.

It's hardly too late to go back to (grad) school at 33.