I'm not going to bother reading the article, but title reveals wrong mentality. It should be replaced with: "What it's like to pursue a dream for 30 years (among pursuing other dreams), then deciding it failed and then stopping the pursuing and not pursuing any more." 1) Failure is never absolute. 2) Every situation is relative. Apple opened their first shop when Compaq closed their last. 3) Absolute terms, like doing something for 30 years is misleading. It's generalising and it's not objective.