Twenty-five
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Today, I’m twenty-five. A quarter century. According to this, I’ll live 82.53 years. I have 69.7% of my life remaining. So much left to do.
I set a goal to retire at 25 (which really means financially independent) about two years ago. While I still have to work, I have plenty of time to work on whatever I want. I don’t consider the goal met, but I’m on my way. I’ll take that.
Now that I’m older, I feel more perspective. I still constantly disappoint myself. I wish I was more productive. I feel like I can accomplish anything and then work on stuff that doesn’t matter or no one will ever see. It’s depressing.
I feel like I’m wasting away some of my best years to make things. I don’t know what I need to make. There’s no shortage of people telling me what I should care about. Sadly, I haven’t found something I do care about that I want to solve.
My friend Noah Stokes wrote a great article on his birthday recently. It was inspiring. I wish I could write something like that but I feel an intense sense of failure.
I think of that John Mayer quote in Where the Light Is. Going from memory, it was something like:
There’s a copy of my sitting in front of myself performing calling out everything I do. “Oh that was from someone else. Not impressed.”
I don’t feel that I’m particularly good at programming. I feel a decent amount of people respect me for making stuff but all I have to show for it is a clock.
I am happy with some of the stuff I’ve made, but honestly not much of it. Everything that I’ve been most proud of is either rooting away with someone that just used me to get what they wanted, got killed by the company I worked at at the time, or never launched.
Did you ever use Hipstamatic D-Series? I worked harder on that than I have probably anything else. Ever use Cheddar? I spent every penny I had and half a year on it. Nothing to show for it. Execute iOS… you get my point.
I’m so discontent with my accomplishments. Part of me feels bad for feeling this. I’m supposed to be content with things. My life is great. I’m content with most things, but not this area. I want more. I want to help my people’s lives better. I want to make difference somehow. I’m going to allow myself to be discontent in this area and keep striving for greatness.
Hopefully this wan’t too depressing. I try to be as honest as possible online so I thought I’d share. The truth is I’m excited for what’s coming. I don’t know what’s next, but I’m excited. Go!