What if all I ever am is a high achiever who never goes out and is generally boring? What if that's me for the rest of my life? I'm young and I'm supposed to be out living, but I'm not. I'm in my room doing work, or going to work. I don't really want to go out and have fun. I've become an old bag lady and I'm only nineteen.
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Not yet ... don't think too much & don't complain. You're gonna do fine!
So you have forgotten that life is not about a destination, it's about the journey. There is no rush to graduate. Perhaps it's time to focus on working, saving and traveling. The world and travel are a classroom more important than any campus of bricks and mortar. e.g. go live in Cuba and study Spanish at the University of Havana.
Strongly disagree with Anon. The problem is that if you have goals, your ability to gain the skills you need to reach those goals diminishes as you get older. Its not that you still can't pick up what you need to know, its that your pace gets slower, both due to a loss of mental acuity, and other life responsibilities getting in the way(career, family, kids, aging parents, etc). I'm only in my early 30's, but I can feel the difference from where I was ten years ago, and so can my friends(was just talking about this today in fact).
I *do* think the journey is important, and that you should take some time to do the things that you won't have the ability to experience later for the same reasons I listed above, but at the same time you need to push through your goals while you are at your peak, everything you put off now will be at least twice as hard to accomplish in a decade, and it gets worse after that.
OMG – ReflexVE – what a crock of shite. I agree with Anon above. We have our whole life to get those little obligatory pieces of paper and a career BUT we have the most energy in our twenties and should take advantage of travel, and alternates away from Brick and mortar when young not later. As far as your antiquated view that we are smart young and stupid old that is such a myth. We never lose the ability to learn. What does happen is that many people once they’ve reached that “degree” and take a job STOP learning AND start to get lazy and less fit. Ability to learn is based on fitness. If one stays fit and is willing to learn one never loses that ability. However, once the knees or back start to go with age, one may not find hiking up to Machu Pichu or Tibetan monestaries as easy. Get off the campus Sixteen and get out into the world.
"The human brain is able to continually adapt and rewire itself. Even in old age, it can grow new neurons. Severe mental decline is usually caused by disease, whereas most age-related losses in memory or motor skills simply result from inactivity and a lack of mental exercise and stimulation. In other words, use it or lose it." The Franklin Institute
I would travel. I am right now after 2 years at Uni. I want to get it out of my system. I'm working and traveling - right now in England at a spa. Don't return Sweet16 until you are darn well "ready to be miserable" participating in the daily grind, and perhaps having a family. Travel looks good on a resumé.
My boyfriend and I traveled for 10 months and figure we saved a bundle becaue of student discounts. Some of the best travel discounts around are those given to 12-26 year-olds. They're generically called "student discounts," but you needn't be a student to get 'em -- you do get these kind of age-based discounts again when you're a senior traveler - 65+.
As long as school is inspiring you, making you happy and you’re full of energy to get up go to class and study every day of the week – stay in post secondary. If you already feel tired/ exhausted at the end of the day/ week, then set school aside. You can go back and study off and on for a lifetime. I agree with anonymous who said it looks good on a resumé. What helped me stand out from the crowd when I applied for my medical internship, was that I had worked as a labourer, for a year, saved and traveled for 10 months when I was 20 and 21 after two years at University. I don’t think I got travel out of my system but I was far more energetic and inspired to study harder when I did go back to school. I look at it this way. By the time I got to college I’d been in school 13 years since Kindergarten. I just need a break from studying although I learned so much studying Let’s Go Europe on lunch breaks at work, then while traveling. All in all it made me a better person.
ReflexVE “ goals ”
Perhaps it’s more important to learn how to get more experiences under one’s belt than the status-quo education that University offers all students. Society and the pkanet are changing so fast that the “goal” one may be shooting for is constantly being moved. Travel and a diversified education teaches one to stick-handle more accurately through one’s life.
Keep in mind- this is the same ReflexVE who responded “ *laff* Hilarious stuff there. Sky falling much? ” to the comments “Keep in mind that by 2020 life will be extremely different throughout the world.” The same ReflexVE who denies that the world climate and weather are not changing all that quickly. Australia has had ten years of drought – even the Dust Bowl years only lasted 4 years. Major extreme weather events are going from frequent to more frequent.
If it’s time Sixteen, take a break from University, work full time, travel and learn.
You shouldn't not be doing what you want because you are old, or because you are young. People who say you are 'supposed' to be having this or that kind of fun and travel aren't helping at all.
It's important to pursue your goals, and to have enough awareness of yourself and the world to be able to set them for yourself.
I'm especially wary of travel for travel's sake. Unless you're just traveling for pleasure (which is of course valid; it's quite pleasant!) you should make sure you're doing something meaningful with your time there. Probably best for it to be something that you couldn't just as effectively but much more efficiently do near to home.
You should be having fun, but you shouldn't expect the things you have to match up with most of your peers'. It's just not necessarily so.
First Anon: From the tone of your post, your age is obvious. Your belief system is common among the young. Then you get older and one day look back and go "damn, apparantly I couldn't stay 21 forever". My gf is a scientist, competitive athlete, and 25 and she can already feel the difference in her ability to learn(she is working on her PhD now). I work a challenging job in software development for one of the biggest corporations in the world, and do competitive speed skating. I am in decent shape, although I could still lose a few pounds. But I certainly get plenty of exercise, both mental and physical.
In other words, your theory is hogwash. I never said you *can't* learn later. Only that it becomes slower. And its not simply because of biology, its also because life responsibilities get in the way. I have a mortgage, which is a fantastic long term investment, but hamstrings what I can do today. I did not have a mortgage at 21. Right now I couldn't go to school if I wanted to since I still have bills to pay that are larger than any student loans will cover. I also have an aging father to care for, and when the gf is done with her PhD, I'll likely get married and have kids. All of these things will significantly slow down any attempts to go back to school.
Second Anon - I'm sorry that it bothers you so much that I don't buy into conspiracy theories and tend to go with the prevailing scientific point of view rather than your personal invented universe. I highly suggest the book "Why People Believe Weird Things" by Michael Shermer. It might help you sharpen your cognitive processes, and was required reading for incoming freshmen back when my gf first went to school. Great and fun read.
Sixteen - One thing to realize, I didn't say you had to stay in school no matter what. My gf burned out bad after her sophmore year. She took a year off, stayed with me, and worked locally. After that year, she went back with new perspective(and a little extra cash she'd saved). It helped propel her through the final four years(she got two degrees) and reminded her of life without higher education due to the minimum wage job she did during that time. She also found ways to deal with her wanderlust, she took two study abroad oppurtunities, one for three weeks in Australia, and one for a month in Panama. Both had the dual advantages of getting her out of the country and into other cultures, and advancing her studies.
You might want to see if there is anything like that available to you.
First ReflexVE - the types of grammatical errors in your writing suggests your education was somewhat lacking period - perhaps to tech / Math oriented.
Hogwash??? – most of the great inventors did their most important work well after the age of 30 – whether or not they had kids and a mortgage. Just as some people are early risers and some owls, you and your gf may feel you are getting stupider, but other people will find learning comes more easily with age. Sixteen may find once she gets through her younger life issues, Jake type stuff out of the way, she’ll embrace learning more effectively and efficiently. BTW - Windows was a dog until Gates was over the age of 30 and ‘re-thunk’ the whole thing – of course it still sucks compared to MacOS X.
Second, I have three grown children but no mortgage. When they were going to school we all did homework together because after I retired I embraced volunteer website stewarding for non-profits as well as taking advanced Spanish. (Yes language is the one thing children learn more quickly!) BUT they did not slow me down.
I’d suggest you perhaps read some of the books I have since retiring younger, with more money than I’ll ever need, from one of the world’s largest software development companies - Why Your World Is About to Get a Whole Lot Smaller- Jeff Rubins, The Weathermakers - Tim Flannery, Heat: How to Stop the Planet From Burning - George Monbiot, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed AND Guns, Germs and Steel - Jared Diamond, Shock Doctrine - Naomi Klein , Climate Wars - Gwynne Dyer, A New Green History of the World - Clive Ponting, Sea Sick – The Hidden Crisis In The Global Oceans - Alanna Mitchell, World Made By Hand - James Kuntsler, AND perhaps the typical BS posted by the right wing Fraser Institute - Understanding Climate Change 2008
- My gf nor I feel we are getting 'stupider'. In fact, that was never stated by me at all. I simply pointed out that both life and biology conspire in ways that slow down the ability to learn new things as a person gets older. The mixture of which is specific to the individual, of course, and some do better than others. But anyone who pretends they learn as quickly, sharply, and without interference at age 40 as they did at age 20 is a liar, or someone who never actually adopted any level of responsibility for others beyond themselves in their life.
- The unsupported assertion that 'most of the great inventors did their greatest work after age 30' is an oversimplification. Certainly some did. However for many, the work they are known for took decades of their life, unlike in the movies it was not some 'eureka' moment, but instead a series of proofs, debates, experimentation and hypothesis, culminating in theories or inventions that often were only very crude in the time if the person in question and refined by those who followed them. For instance, the Theory of Relativity was not 'invented' by Einstein, it was first proposed nearly 300 years before by a female French aristocrat and seen as a curiosity in mathematics until Einstein came up with a proof of it. Incidentially, the work he is most known for, Special Relativity, was first published when he was 26, and nothing he did after remotely revolutionized the field of physics to that degree.
- Many of the 'inventors' you mention, did indeed continue to focus on thier work into advanced age. Edison, Galileo, Einstein and others spent their whole lives on their work. However they also had another trait in common: They focused on their work to the detriment of all else. What Einstein did to his family was a travesty. And few accounts of Edison paint a positive picture. These people kept much of their mental prowess, but they did so by sacrificing other aspects of their lives. What once was easy for them(Edison proving relativity and also managing a life with his wife and kids) soon became impossible(ditching the wife, ignoring the kids and living practically in his office) if they held themselves to the same high standards. In other words, they could no longer 'do it all' at the same level of energy as they had in their youth, and made choices to start cutting out what they considered non-essential.
Your assertion about Bill Gates is also similarly off the mark. The current version of Windows is based on a design by David Cutler, not Bill Gates. It was originally called Windows NT, and was released in 1991. Cutler based much of its core architecture on an earlier OS he had designed for DEC called VMS, a highly regarded Unix variant. Windows NT became Windows 2000 and then Windows XP, which with the death of the Gates designed Windows 9x series became the primary Microsoft operating system. As for OS X, thats a holy war debate, but quite frankly its threading model and hacked in approacch to 64bit addressing relegate it behind Windows, Linux and current branches of BSD in terms of architecture. Not that that matters much to an end user, mind you. But it is a major reason why it has so many security issues nowadays.
If your going to cite people as 'proof' of your points, you may wish to fact check your history.
I'm glad you feel that you are just as mentally acute as you were in your 20's. Good for you. However that dosen't change the fact that most people do not feel that way, even those of us who are mentally and physically active later in life. Perhaps you have good genes. However if your the same anon who is busy busting out "The world is ending in 2020" theories of global warming I would question your evaluation of your mental state. ;)
Most people understand that “Bill Gates” refers to the autocratic dictatorial CEO of Microsoft who was also Chief Software Architect – the fact is, it did not matter who wrote the code, he approved it or it didn’t ship and he has shipped lots of shite. You missed my point though - once he was well into his 30s he finally started making smarter decisions as he learned. *see below for quotes. Regardless - Windows in every permutation sucks compared to the MacOS (and Linux for that matter). Sixteen may eventually want to switch platforms.
The one thing Sixteen may want to do, in order to maintain her intellectual development into her later years, apparently unlike other folks, is not hammer her brain with alcohol as she seems to have done a fair number of times so far. She may also want to ignore those who tell her, her best years of learning are soon to be past. For my part I’ll go with large modern Dutch studies which show that “metacognitive skills, intellectual ability, prior knowledge, generation of causal mechanisms and learning performance showed that scientific reasoning develops with age while further co-relational analysis shows that inquiry learning abilities are equal in the learning process of children and adults up to and well beyond middle age”.
Or perhaps we can go with a simple – use it or lose it. The human brain, if constantly exercised, challenged and kept healthy throughout life only continues to grow in strength of intelligence. There are obviously those however, who continue believe the old myth that an old dog cannot learn new tricks or that being distracted by daily chores, mortgages, child care and other responsibilities are a burden on intelligence.
Sixteen may prefer to go with – her most productive years may well be ahead of her so YES there is time to ditch school and experience the world and travel.
Pissing contest over.
* "From Microsoft's founding in 1975 until 2006, Gates had primary responsibility for the company's product strategy. Gates met regularly with senior program managers. Firsthand accounts of these meetings describe him as verbally combative, berating managers for perceived holes in their business strategies or proposals".
Most people understand that “Bill Gates” refers to the autocratic dictatorial CEO of Microsoft who was also Chief Software Architect – the fact is, it did not matter who wrote the code, he approved it or it didn’t ship and he has shipped lots of shite. You missed my point though - once he was well into his 30s he finally started making smarter decisions as he learned. *see below for quotes. Regardless - Windows in every permutation sucks compared to the MacOS (and Linux for that matter). Sixteen may eventually want to switch platforms.
The one thing Sixteen may want to do, in order to maintain her intellectual development into her later years, apparently unlike other folks, is not hammer her brain with alcohol as she seems to have done a fair number of times so far. She may also want to ignore those who tell her, her best years of learning are soon to be past. For my part I’ll go with large modern Dutch studies which show that “metacognitive skills, intellectual ability, prior knowledge, generation of causal mechanisms and learning performance showed that scientific reasoning develops with age while further co-relational analysis shows that inquiry learning abilities are equal in the learning process of children and adults up to and well beyond middle age”.
Or perhaps we can go with a simple – use it or lose it. The human brain, if constantly exercised, challenged and kept healthy throughout life only continues to grow in strength of intelligence. There are obviously those however, who continue believe the old myth that an old dog cannot learn new tricks or that being distracted by daily chores, mortgages, child care and other responsibilities are a burden on intelligence.
Sixteen may prefer to go with – her most productive years may well be ahead of her so YES there is time to ditch school and experience the world and travel.
Pissing contest over.
* "From Microsoft's founding in 1975 until 2006, Gates had primary responsibility for the company's product strategy. Gates met regularly with senior program managers. Firsthand accounts of these meetings describe him as verbally combative, berating managers for perceived holes in their business strategies or proposals".
1) Seeing as I spent nearly a decade working for Microsoft, I respectfully disagree. There is a huge difference between 'being responsible for an overall product strategy' and actually making the decisions about how an individual product will be developed. Directives for Windows came from Dave Cutler on the NT side, and during the switch from the old consumer Windows core(Win9x) came from Brian Valentine. Currently the former head of the Office division is in charge. While it is true that ultimatly these managers are not completely autonomous and they answer to Ballmer(and before him, Gates), the day to day decisions, coding and architecture are handled by the management and architects of the projects themselves.
2) Gates primary focus at MS was always their coding tools. He started as the creator of a BASIC interpreter and environment for various IBM machines back in the 70's, and up until he retired he was most interested in the Visual Studio line. Microsoft is first and formost targetted at developers, and products are designed with developers as the focus. Windows itself is simply a platform upon which to sell development tools from the company perspective.
3) Your welcome to your opinions on OS architecture. But I'll wait to debate you until you can come up with more than simply assertions.
And finally, I'm glad your willing to quote(although not cite) scientific studies when you feel they support your assertions. Its too bad that such studies are ignored when you do not feel they support your assertions and previously held beliefs. Once again I suggest the book "Why People Believe Weird Things" where you can learn about logical traps such as Confirmation Bias.
Darn ReflexVE! No advice there for Sixteen big guy.
I was hired by MS out of UBC in the summer of '79 before I even had a CompSci degree, and started work at the original old Bellevue bank building living in Queen Anne heights riding across the Evergreen Bridge if we ever slept at home. We worked hundred hour weeks some times 50 straight for at least for 4 years. Yes! We all smoked pot on the roof doing crazy shite during breaks. Let's say I was one of the first, well before 500 employees (just so you don't go digging in the archives to figure it out), was fully vested, burned out by mid '83, went traveling for 14 months, got married, took on some Microsoft stuff in Europe and Israel. Spring of 1986 my brother-in-law, an accountant, arrived at our BC lakeside cabin and asked my wife how much stock we had. His response to hers was - "You two will never have to work again". Many stock splits later that proved more than true - but I continued to lead special short term projects as well as always being involved with MS AppleMac projects as well. Let's say my three kids when they were younger, played with Jen, Rory and Phoebe at Xanadu and were not impressed by it's size. Over the years I stood my ground on core project work with the man (always got along great with Paul), and I'm standing my ground now with you - NOTHING ships in English that Bill doesn't know of or approve of - other than stuff he trusted us to do in Europe. I've been around computers since the only IBM Mainframe in Vancouver when I was a young teen waiting for my dad to run data. We built a Heathkit together so the guts part I know. I'm pretty sure I don't ned any lessons on the history of computers and software from someone who feels a mortgage keeps him from feeling intellectually as able as he was when he was 25 or 30.
Sixteen - "this is what you call a pissing match".
The lesson you may take from all this Sixteen is that, if some day you find you have more money than you could ever use - stay at home with your kids when they are toddlers, take on volunteer work - like the web-stewarding I have do now for numerous non-profits and yes some are "save the planet and farmland" types.
I love internet tough guys. At the end of the day I call bullshit. Someone with the experience you claim would never have made so many factual errors. Hell, you don't even know who was behind Windows, and sorry, no, Bill hasn't called the shots on Windows since the early 90's, pre-Win95. Sure, technically as the largest shareholder and CEO he *could* have involved himself at any level he wanted. But he didn't.
On any of my teams, all of which were in the Core OS division, for more than a decade, Gates involved himself exactly *once* and it was a minor coding technicality he was making a suggestion on. I'll give you that he pays attention, but quite frankly he never showed up at strategy meetings or anytime decisions were made, and I never *once* saw him override anything. Quite frankly after his mother died, he flat out checked out of the company and was just going through the motions while working towards his new passion, the B&M Gates Foundation.
If your story is true, good for you. But its still your personal story and has nothing to do with any of the BS advice you try to give Sixteen, or your weird conspiracy theories about the world, Global Warming and many other issues of the day.
We all went to Hood Canal for the annual Olympics for years after Mary died in '94, even that very year and he was always so grateful and philosophical about both her life and death so I get to call bull-shite on your mommy died scenario. Sixteen should live a life half as wonderful as her as long as she, unlike some people on this blog believes the human brain does not get soft due to mortgage-interuptus.
p.s. ReflexVE
Traditionally you more recent youthful micro-serfs lived in the grey world of corporate mystique, rumour, corporate conspiracy and outright lies - so I'll have to discount much of what you "know" about how the real company works. If, say, you were a major employee shareholder who had retired to renovate some massive Puget Sound mansion I'd perhaps listen to your corporate drivel. Perhaps stop in and chat with Oki and Raikes at their homes sometime - although they are somewhat above me in the alumni hierarchy.
Again Sixteen testosterone bluster and wind that hopefully Jake never has too too much of.
BTW - my daughter and older son pointed me at your Sixteen Secrets blog for feedback in their own search to understand where their generation around the world is heading. You Sixteen - pretty typical in your exploration. Others I'd say are pretty fucked up and lost in their own searches just like the mix in my own boomer gen.
Doubter ReflexVE and FYI Sixteen check out these photos. Perhaps hotshot code-hacker ReflexVE can track down who posted them at this random website - http://www.wreckbeach.org/MSOriginals/MSOriginals.html
ReflexVE and Sixteen perhaps
Try this hot link for images as the blog somehow cut off the previous hot link code
<a href="http://www.wreckbeach.org/MSOriginals/MSOriginals.html</a>Microsoft Originals</a>
ReflexVE Code hacker extraordinaire will understand I dropped the last quotes so here we go again so you don't have to copy and paste - link HERE for
Microsoft Originals
Um, your 'proof' is to post photos that I saw in the 25th anniversary book they gave to all the employees? Um, congrats..?
Regardless, your still avoiding the point: You were factually incorrect in your statement about Gates being 'proof' that people are as sharp or sharper in their later years than their younger years. Gates had little to nothing to do with the NT line of Windows, which is what the big change was in 2001 when XP was launched. By that time he was well on his way out the door, and spending more time at the B&M Gates Foundation than at Microsoft.
Furthermore, none of the rest of the examples really panned out either. In other words, you were talking out of your ass. All this garbage about supposedly being an early alumni is a distraction from the point you made, and which I refuted. You have yet to address my criticisms of my post beyond simply making unfounded assertions.
It is called a rut. Everyday isn't going to be balloons and cupcakes. Use this free time to reflect on your goals. As you get older, you'll appreciate the time you have to do nothing. You are a smart young lady.
Hey! Brain hardening olde thirty something guy. This was all about you comment that we should not hesitate to establish our careers when young when our brains are still keen and mortgage free.
The sideways glance was due to my comment that Gates was most productive after age 30. I stick to that because we all were. Hey! I never got an anniversary book! Perhaps I was in Palestine voluntarily teaching coding to students there in my retirement or maybe just wasn't high enough up your list.
Here's a little clue about a few of the photos - they're originals mounted on hardboard withe captions on the back.
"Gates had little to nothing to do with the NT line of Windows... By that time he was well on his way out the door,"
Hey dick for brains - my point was that when Gates was in well into his thirties he was all over development. NT shipped when Gates was 38, BUT was a dog. He was then all over the OS as he had been, until V-5.0 in 2000. YES! Then in 2000 he slowly began to start his transition to the foundation. By then he was as anyone can find out from the internet 45 - although to me it was when I had turned 48 as I was always 3 years older than him.
And you're telling me after the tidal wave memo he trusted everyone to just do his bidding and bowed out! Bull-shite!
You can have the last word on this one now and I'll bow out because it has nothing to do with feedback of any use for Sixteen who like me has likely grown tired of you. See you at
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