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comment by user-inactivated
user-inactivated  ·  4313 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: What are you doing with your life, why, and how do you feel about it?

I'm a programmer at a nonprofit. I was working on a PhD in math for a few years, but I didn't have time to do both and family obligations demanded more money than I could get as a research assistant, so I stuck with the job. It's not interesting work, and I get paid a bit less than I would at a for-profit tech company, but I have enough to help out my family, and enough time and money left to study math as an avocation. I'd rather be doing math full-time, but I'm content enough.

I did feel like there was a clock ticking when I was younger, after reading Hardy and internalizing the idea that I had until I was 30 to do anything that mattered. I'm not quite 30 yet, but I stopped believing that in graduate school and sometime after that stopped feeling like there was a deadline looming over me.





user-inactivated  ·  4313 days ago  ·  link  ·  

When I was your age, the yardstick was "$1K annual income per year of life". I've stayed well ahead of that for 20 years. As long as you have time to do something that makes you happy, then you're good.