Compounding interest on money means, as previously mentioned, money you earn at 20 will be 10x as valuable compared to money earned towards a typical retirement age. With tech having strong early salaries and heavy stock compensation I think this is even more the case.
> You think your gonna wind surf when your 60? You think it's smart to spend your 'non arthritis' fingers on coding?
How about 40? Because if you start working at 21 in tech and you're aggressive about your career that's when you can retire.
Do experiences compound? Will I enjoy an experience more at 25 than 45? Maybe, and there's always some balance, of course. No one should work themselves to death.
But I worked obscene hours for my first 4 years of my career, lived with many roommates, and saved a lot of money. And I started years later than most, as I entered the market at 24 instead of 21.
It buys me great peace of mind to know that I am financially stable and independent, that I can take care of friends and family who are not, and that I have bought myself decades of retirement.
There are experiences you may be incapable of considering later in life. Doing stupid, immature shit is fun and forms a person in many ways. Some errors are also better made earlier.
I'm just saying that tipping the balance for a few years can be a really good tradeoff, and to counter the "deathbed" anecdote above.
As a generalising anecdote, some of the greatest people I have worked with had very non-traditional paths early on, and I find them to have a greater 'big picture' sense, more resiliency and more humour in the face of adversity. But are not as rich in their 40s as others.
Doing things that make you a happier, healthier (mentally and physically) person at age 25 my seriously pay off vs doing those things at age 45. In fact I strongly suspect they do.
It doesn't really have to compound. If you travel a few weeks every other year in your 20s or 30s it adds up to a lot more experiences than if you hadn't. When you get up to 40 it makes a meaningful difference.
Before the pandemic you could take a flight almost anywhere for less than $1000. Not using that opportunity ends up defining people, or at least their situation, whether they like it or not.
And don't get me wrong. I understand that it isn't always so simple. Still if I had to choose I would choose the version of myself that is willing and capable of traveling.
Could you go traveling when you are 40? Sure, but it isn't necessarily the same thing.
You might also have so much saved up you can buy private insurance for the rest of your life.
“I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.”
Sylvia Plath
If yo can imagine yourself be satisfied with obtaining just one of those figs, instead of only being satisfied from having it all, you'd have a much better time alive.
It's the same root philosophy as finishing one project to completion, rather than start many but never finishing it to the end.
And how much time should you spend on trying to know your self, to pick the best fig.
Why wouldn't people want every fig on the tree? It's because of indifference and lack of passion.
In a world where aging was solved, we could get every one of them. And it wouldn't be greed, it would be just living.
Sure I'd like to get myself into big tech (not necessarily in America). But... I don't even know where to start.
this make me want to give up anything and try any crazy way to get money:(
Sometimes it is those who are looking for a void to fill in life, because their childhood lacked a crucial element to healthy development that they end up looking for anything that could scratch that itch; and that itch is often nostalgia waiting to be found, perhaps falsely, because that void seeks something else to satisfy it relationally.
Or, as I've said about this before: why worry about what death-bed you wants? That person literally has no future, but you do have a future to worry about!
But if you want to see what's important now that's a decision, a seed for your future, and it's open to change and evolution. This cannot be more different from a real deathbed perspective. So taking this decision by imagining one of infinite possibilities of your future up to your distant deathbed makes no sense. Even meeting your future self wouldn't give good insights on any "road not taken". An imagined, relatively random, and distant future outcome can't help you decide what's best in the present more than flipping a coin will.
The people drawing these conclusions may have no future but they do have the entire past. When you ask for a game review you're more likely to go for one coming from someone who's finished the game rather than someone who played the tutorial. That deathbed conclusion is meant to pass on what were the best and worst parts, not what should have been done differently because finishing the game means you know the outcome of exactly one of the possible move combinations. So if most old gamers say a particular mission deserves attention it's not a guarantee it does but it's a strong indication.
Are they? I assumed they were telling you what has given the most fulfillment, what were their wisest decisions now that they can Monday-morning quarterback.
When I tell my kids my home has been my greatest financial asset and I wish I had bought a home earlier, I am not wishing to buy another home now.
> But they made the decisions they did for reasons that seemed good at the time…
Agree, but the point is that they have hindsight now and, had they this knowledge 50 years ago, they believe the calculus driving those decisions likely would have been different.
I wish I had asked my older relatives more about their younger days before they died and took those experiences with them to their graves. I am very much into recording our family genealogy for my children and future generations and I have lost a trove of valuable narratives because I turned to genealogy too late in my life.
I use it as another example of legitimately wishing I had made different decisions earlier in my life.
Because death-bed you is the one that knows whether what to present-you is the future worked out satisfactorily or disappointingly.
Maybe because nobody is around to listen to, or cares about, the old people saying in their death bed "maybe I should have worked harder"
Unlike everyone else, someone on the deathbed doesn't have to think about the future.
So maximizing income seems like pretty good advice right now, especially if we have bumpy economic roads ahead.
The good news is that thanks to a shift towards remote friendliness, holding a high paying tech job (which I'm assuming is something many on HN are capable of) while in Ibiza or Bali may not be as incompatible as it was for older generations, wifi permitting.
You should nevze give any weight to whatever strangers say on their deathbed because they actually could have done things the way they wanted but every living day actively chose not to do it. Regrets are bullshit.
No.
> You think it's smart to spend your 'non arthritis' fingers on coding?
Yes.
This seems totally opposite of what old people say on their death bed. You sound so obsessed with money here. My guess is your probably very wealthy relative to the average peer and your too naive to realize it. You have to keep telling yourself this philosophy to justify not wind surfing in Bali.
You think your gonna wind surf when your 60? You think it's smart to spend your 'non arthritis' fingers on coding?