Comment by crystal_revenge
1 day ago
> life is half over by 23 or 24
I'm just a few years shy of being 24 years older than 24, but I have to say my lived-experience does not agree with this observation. The time from 24-today seems much longer than the time from 0-24.
I do remember a period in my early 30s where time seemed to move fast, but hasn't felt that way in over a decade.
Though I suspect, agreeing with much of the article, this is because my life has had a fair amount of novelty in it, even as I age. I often marvel at how impossible to predict my life has been even a year out. Even a year ago I would not have imagined doing the job I'm currently doing, traveling to the places for work I currently need to, meeting the new people I have, solving problems in a space I had no understanding of.
As contrast I've often been shocked to talk with former coworkers to find that have had nothing change, not even what they're working on during the day, in the span of time that has resulted in my making multiple moves, changing multiple jobs (arguably even careers), learning new skills, etc. The most extreme was a college roommate I hadn't talked to in 20 years, and barring his marriage a few months after we last spoke, his day-to-day routine was identical to what it was 20 years ago. We only had a chance to meet up because I had briefly moved back near the area we went to school.
The more responsibilities you take on the harder it is to make big changes.
I moved to a new country when I was 29 and it wasn't too hard. Doing it again, at 40, with 2 kids, was probably 50 times as hard (if anything I am understating it)
My mom, at least, tells me that life can get more interesting once the kids are 10 or so, apparently.
It’s seems bizarre and alien to me as a relatively new parent that you don’t seem to consider that a big change but instead an impediment to your travel plans.
Ummmm… I think you misunderstood what I meant, or I failed to communicate this well. Becoming a parent was the biggest change in my life and nothing else remotely compares, but with kids my day to day life follows a pretty standard routine and novelty usually makes them tired and cranky.
I barely remember the first 10-12 years of my life and had extremely little agency, so I've always seen age 24 as "having about ten years of experience being alive". You have the potential to learn so much in the first decade or two of adult-hood that it can entirely change what you even consider life to be.
Many people don't but life isn't over just because some people quit.