I more or less just came into my 30s and I spent my 20s pretty much exclusively on computers, studying and working and playing. Computer were pretty much 95% of my life. Last time I changed job, I more than doubled my after-tax salary and I have not once had to go through the process of really applying; whenever I showed up to HR things were pretty much decided already in advance, they just had to keep up appearances. I have always been the guy everyone goes to for help, I have more than once fundamentally changed the way people work, think and approach problems for the better. Where I have worked for the last 5 to 7 years, I am pretty much the last line "of defense", so to speak... because every time something stopped working and I could not figure it out, it would go on taking the support team of one of the biggest names in IT literally a year trying to pinpoint the issue only to not being able to come up with a solution in the end. This is not meant to boast, I am working towards a point:
So I would say my "career" is there... yet my personal life and emotional happiness is in complete ruins; while my age and point in career match at "30", emotionally and as a person, a human being, I feel like I am 12. I feel like I have completely wasted my 20s, I have never had a chance to actually grow up, I just worked on "career" which is what everyone told me to; the rest of the time I sedated myself with video games and food and otherwise spending the money I had made to numb down any and all bad feelings. I don't think I could ever get these 10 years back and grow into a strong minded, healthy human being now that the time is gone. Everyone at my age now is lightyears ahead of me both emotionally and in terms of experience and other skills.
That is why from my own experience, I cannot imagine having the opposite "20s" to be ANY worse because at least if you "wasted" your 20s, at least then you had fun and had good moments to think back on and you matured as a human being but you got something out of those 10 years and your 30s are early enough to be working on "career" with all the skills and the strength you gathered by the experiences you made in your 20s.
For me, now, I feel completely stuck and wasted, at a complete emotional and existential low point of no return. I have to try and use what little energy I have left to battle against all sorts of addictive behaviour and means of escape that I developed in those lonely, hard working 10 years. Whatever money I am making does not matter because I don't really get anything valuable and truly good from it. And even if I desperately tried to change now, I would have to invest all that energy while everyone else is free to use the same energy to lead a happy and fulfilled, enjoyable life. I just cannot win anymore.
If I could do it over again, I would do nothing but drink, party, meet people, be BOLD and strong, teach myself more about computers and do all that in a foreign country and develop a personality before anything else. Go play in your 20s, everyone else is pushing you towards "career" anyway so at least you yourself need to take very good care of yourself as a human being and develop that side and make sure you get enough "play".
Speaking from the other side here, I started programming at eight and abandoned that in my late teens for partying, sex and adventure through my twenties. Despite landing a scholarship at a respectable school, I walked out the door two months later to go chase a girl.
It's only been now in my thirties that I've taken programming and such seriously, because it's suddenly far more fun to me than social games. There's this vague sense of regret much like you're describing, except inverted -- I could have probably accomplished a LOT had I stayed on point. Despite that, I'm still successful by standards I set out for myself in my early twenties and I've got some rather ambitious plans for my forties, yet.
At the end of the day: I've been here since Usenet was a thing, dotcoms are still as hilarious as they were in the 90s and I honestly think it's just the media fixation on the notion of precocious children that perpetuates this culture obsessed with how we're all supposedly dead at thirty -- when really, that's when many creative individuals begin to hit their stride as many artists discover their talents later in life.
Really, people should stop worrying about any of this shit, as most of it is just talk from people trying to sandbag you.
>There's this vague sense of regret much like you're describing, except inverted...
Let me tell you a little joke, it is a running joke in our family. A young man goes to his father for advice: "Should I get married to my girlfriend Jenny or stay single?" Father replies "Son...My dear, dear son... whatever you do, you'll end up regretting it."
But when we are not joking, the advice we give each other is usually "well... whatever you do, things should turn out okay". And that is in fact how it has been.
So, IMHO:
>Really, people should stop worrying about any of this shit
Your post somewhat strikes a chord with me in a way.
Where I come from, most guys at around 20(after junior college) would have to serve the army for 2.5 years. I felt that, that part of my life was seriously wasted since many of my friends who didn't have to serve were doing so many different and interesting things with their life. I felt kinda robbed. Robbed of the prime time of my life. After serving time there, I decided to find a job and started working.
I spent most of my waking hours on computers(programming) and not much on developing personal relationships. At that time, I thought that was the right thing to do, going by social norms.
Had a career so to speak and a girlfriend and I was ready to settle down. But things fell apart and in hindsight, I'm glad that it happened. Like you, I feel that I have not grown emotionally and I'm saying this as someone who just reached 30.
I am in love with the idea of just leaving everything now and try to fix whatever damage I have mentally. Take some time off to travel by myself. I have the time and the resources but I just couldn't bring myself to do it(mental block, fear and uncertainty of travelling alone).
If I could do it all over again, I would have moved somewhere else(if it means being apart from family) and try to find out what I really wanted to do in life and basically just having fun while at it and not worry about having a 'proper career'.
Sorry about going off on a tangent, I didn't think it would be this many lines when I first started typing this.
As a fellow Singaporean I feel the same way about NS, and also regret not investing in personal relationships as much as I should have. I'm trying to fix that now, but it doesn't come naturally to me.
I actually kept away from programming and tech for many years because I felt it wasn't "practical" - instead I went towards business and finance because that was where the well-paying jobs were. I regret that choice now, because I always really enjoyed the times I dabbled in coding.
You can still leave everything to discover yourself, even at 30. But I think if you really like tech, you'll come back to it soon enough - whether in a town in Vietnam, or a hostel in Europe. Good luck.
The upside of having a good career is you can use the extra money to pay for therapy. I've done it off and on for the last 15 years and have really gotten a lot out of it.
So I would say my "career" is there... yet my personal life and emotional happiness is in complete ruins; while my age and point in career match at "30", emotionally and as a person, a human being, I feel like I am 12. I feel like I have completely wasted my 20s, I have never had a chance to actually grow up, I just worked on "career" which is what everyone told me to; the rest of the time I sedated myself with video games and food and otherwise spending the money I had made to numb down any and all bad feelings. I don't think I could ever get these 10 years back and grow into a strong minded, healthy human being now that the time is gone. Everyone at my age now is lightyears ahead of me both emotionally and in terms of experience and other skills.
That is why from my own experience, I cannot imagine having the opposite "20s" to be ANY worse because at least if you "wasted" your 20s, at least then you had fun and had good moments to think back on and you matured as a human being but you got something out of those 10 years and your 30s are early enough to be working on "career" with all the skills and the strength you gathered by the experiences you made in your 20s.
For me, now, I feel completely stuck and wasted, at a complete emotional and existential low point of no return. I have to try and use what little energy I have left to battle against all sorts of addictive behaviour and means of escape that I developed in those lonely, hard working 10 years. Whatever money I am making does not matter because I don't really get anything valuable and truly good from it. And even if I desperately tried to change now, I would have to invest all that energy while everyone else is free to use the same energy to lead a happy and fulfilled, enjoyable life. I just cannot win anymore.
If I could do it over again, I would do nothing but drink, party, meet people, be BOLD and strong, teach myself more about computers and do all that in a foreign country and develop a personality before anything else. Go play in your 20s, everyone else is pushing you towards "career" anyway so at least you yourself need to take very good care of yourself as a human being and develop that side and make sure you get enough "play".