I am similar to you in where I am in my career, also similar profile in terms of how I got here, but I don't agree with you. I think this is a natural cycle and it shouldn't be sold as an insight or a learning.

Learning compounds, so if you spend an extra hour at 20 that is like a 1000 hours when you are 40. It is what it is. You have to balance at all times so as to not go over the edge, and loose touch with the feeling of meaning. So I don't regret burning myself from both ends at 20.

I have a kid now, and a family. Things are different, as much if not more fun. But I wouldn't want this life for my 20 year old version. He found meaning and growth in the trenches.

I suspect the only people in their 30s who can honestly say they spent their entire 20s in full-time pursuit of a career in their passion and got nowhere are PhD graduates. This says more about PhDs and mistaken beliefs surrounding them than anything else.

I feel like I had more options for what to be (i.e. career) than I was aware of, it's just the "how" that was left out.

Maybe it's not about "too late", but I think it gets a lot harder to change yourself as you get older. If you're on a good track, you're more likely to stay on a good track; the same for the less-than-good tracks. Creative people will continue to gain creative competence, which is why most peak in their 50s-- it takes a long time to get good-- but I think that someone who voluntarily gives his creativity up, in order to become a social climber, if he hasn't reclaimed it by middle age, probably won't.

There are a lot of people who go into banking and consulting expecting to cash out, retire young, and become novelists or philosophers. Very few of those actually do it.

When you're young, you're at the point at which you most likely have fewer worries of any kind than you will in the rest of your life. And you won't appreciate this until it's gone. A slightly more advanced career is a poor substitute.

I'm not arguing in favour of feckless youth. In fact, you should be serious about one thing - not wasting your time. But building a career that you abandon in your 30s or 40s may also be a waste of time.

1. I’m not talking stupid risks. But smart, calculated ones.

And the problem is: when you're 21 and have never started a company, you don't yet have the experience and knowledge to judge the risks properly. This point is based on hindsight, which just just don't have when these decisions are to be made.

2. Literally everyone worth a damn complains they wasted time early in life. You know what: I think it's because that 'wasted' time is an essential part of what made you who you are. You consider it wasted, because you didn't learn anything tangible in those times. But learning isn't all about tangible skills. Denoting that time as 'wasted' means you haven't looked closely enough into what that time actually brought you. Consequently, you don't actually have that much time to 'nail the fundamentals'.

On the side, about the typing speed fallacy: I spend most of my time behind the keyboard thinking, not typing and I hope you're doing the same, otherwise what you are typing isn't worth a damn.

3. Depends very much on the person that you are. Some excel when they are surrounded by unbelieving critics. Others are best when those around them don't pester them continously about 'succeeding'

4. Basically the same as 1: you don't know your 'bliss' yet when you start out. Moreover, your 'bliss' changes with time. You are basically encouraging your 21 year old self to follow a bliss he didn't consider bliss yet.

5. And again: hindsight. When you are older, you know that your opinion was the right one, but how many wrong ones were corrected by good advice from others? When looking back, you're bound to suffer from confirmation bias, only considering those opinions of which you now regret that you let them be influenced. Was that really the important majority?

So what ? You will probably live until you're in your 80s, and work (if you want or need) until you're into your 60s.

You have plenty of time - I suggest not to rush - you won't turn it around in 3 months. But you definitely can turn it around in 1-2 years. As someone wise said - people overestimate what they can do in the short term, but also underestimate what they can achieve in the long term.

Don't bother with the resume or marketable skills. Decide on what you want to do, and go after it. If you do it for a year, every single day, confidence and motivation will take care of themselves, and I can guarantee you will be surprised how far you can go.

99% of success in anything worthwhile in life, is just showing up, every single fucking day !

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".

I'm 31. I'm working on a project with a low chance of success, but it will change the world if it does succeed. (Granted, it's done as part of a large organization, but I also haven't ruled out startups if the large organization ceases to be a good place to innovate, and now I have the financial wherewithal to do so.) The main difference now vs. when I founded a startup at 26 is that now I know the chance of success is low, but I don't care. Because I've learned that just because I don't see a solution immediately doesn't mean that one doesn't exist. And that this is what I want to do, my basic needs are taken care of, and so it really doesn't matter if it doesn't work, I'll be happier having tried. And that other things that would otherwise be distractions are only distractions to the extent that I let them be so - my friends will be there when I want to invite them out, my bills are on auto-pay, and I have the right to say "no" to other projects at work.

Your 20s are a time when you outgrow most of your insecurities and learn who you are and what you really care about. If accomplishing great things or founding a startup or just plain innovating is one of them, then you can do that for the rest of your life. If you're just doing it because the Internet says you should, then you won't be any happier having finished it off in your 20s than if you spent that time learning about yourself.

I also improved my social skills, had a long term relationship, taught myself programming, learn how to have investment failures, quit my job, tried a few jobs, understood my family dynamics, faced my emotional issues from childhood, developed an athletic body, earned a black belt, learned proper nutrition, etc.

So were my 20's wasted? Only because I wish I was 20 again and had more fun. But I'm told 30 is pretty good too.

Edit: I also completed an MS degree during this time, but funny, I completely forgot to include it. It wasn't intentional. The truth is that I don't find it as valuable nor much of an accomplishment as it was just falling into a path not chosen consciously.

> I still feel like I wasted the years from age 16 to age 25, but I no longer feel like I've wasted my entire life

I shall steal this turn of phrase, can relate so much.

To the fine OP: success is not guaranteed but I've met so many people that have pivoted their entire careers and lives later than you'd think. If you have the drive and privilege to give it a real try, you have a chance to join the ranks.

If you don't... you won't.

The buy up highly educated people in their 20's because they're cheap and eager to work. In fact, they're cheaper than most people when you do an hourly analysis (probably cheaper than cleaners).

BUT... the simple fact is, they also know they burn out by their 30's. Life takes over. The doubt. What am I doing with my life? Why don't I have a family? Maybe I missed out on other things my friends were doing?

By that stage, they no longer care about you because they've got a new batch of cheap 20's burning the midnight oil.

However, the good news is that they noticed that there's a reversal when people reach their 40's. They've got experience in life and business. They're no longer in doubt mode.

Ironically, these organizations have standard pitches to sell the career delusion. "People are our greatest assets" and similar rhetoric. The reality is ... THE DO NOT GIVE A CRAP ABOUT YOUR CAREER. Careers do NOT exist. It's like selling women the idea of being a "homemaker" in the 1950's.

I have noticed that people are more likely to be successful in their 30's and 40's (read some evidence that suggested that too but can't remember the reference). People getting rich in their 20's is an aberration.

Neuroplasticity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Brain_That_Changes_Itself) also suggests that we never stop learning, so I have to disagree with point 3 "Your brain finishes forming in your 20's." Dribble! That's like the rhetoric about careers. People just get lazy.

What people have going for them in their 20's is no commitment and all the time in the world. But no experience which can also be a disadvantage. If you can recreate "no commitment" in your 30's-40's (20's + real experience), then you should excel because your ideas are more mature and hopefully clearer!

You're more likely to be successful as an actor in your 30's for the same reasons!

You should take your 20's seriously... because it's the only time in your life that you aren't encumbered by building a career, having kids, etc.

So you should take your 20's to do the things that you won't be able to do later. Work as a bartender, play in a band, travel the world on the cheap, teach English abroad, date the kind of people you wouldn't marry. You don't have serious responsibilities, so take advantage of that while you can.

Don't waste your 20's "building a career". You've got your 30's and 40's and 50's to do that. Don't be in a rush to have kids too soon.

Obviously, don't throw your 20's away. But spend them doing life-experience-focused things, not career- or family-focused.

And this gets at the author's third point: "Your brain finishes forming in your 20's". If that's even true (although I doubt it), then you'd better get in all those varied life experiences sooner rather than later. Learn a second language, learn to cook, learn to play music.

Don't waste your 20's on grinding away at traditionally career-oriented stuff. That part of your brain is probably already fine. Your 20's is the time to look for diversity in your life, not to focus narrowly on any particular part. You've got all the decades afterward to work on narrow refinement and career progression...

Accepting the reality, that he's done nothing for the last 10 years, SHOULD get him to pick something, anything, that he would be proud to build up over the next 10 years.

Pretending he is similar to Steve Carell does him a disservice.

There, I just saved you 10 minutes of reading the article.

But will this change our perception of people in their 20s-30s that do pursue their dreams and are behind in their careers and finances?

At what point is a quarter/mid-life crisis not just an acceptable adult YOLO?

The author has some initial regrets on building up their savings and network, and I wonder if additional perspectives will be made by me posting this

What about feelings of regret later down the line? I already regret not doing more in my life in my teenage years (I spent it all studying alone). I cannot imagine what feelings of regret I would have if I spent all of my 20s working non-stop.

Come back to me when you’ve been at it for 30 years. At year 5 or 6 of working FT professionally, which came after ten years of working through college, I started getting jaded, same thing, same stupid “mistakes” (choices really), etc. Towards the end of my sixth year, I ended up getting a full, unfiltered view of inequity and the brutal sausage making that is all sizable organizations.

30 years in you realize that sitting all day and killing it to 2am takes a huge toll on your body and even 8 hour stunts may not be all that good, standing desk or no.

By the time you lose your youthful bliss, it’s too late to start saving. You need to take it on faith that future you has seen more of the operational realities of the world and this has not improved their existence.

The whole FIRE thing is a way to package and sell stuff; the dominant bloggers In the community who are “retired” are doing between 40k and 500k a year in web ad revenue. They mostly do not actually live the life they are suggesting: they have not retired, they’ve changed to a higher risk career. (Exception: earlyretirementnow.com ).

That said, like sites dedicated to exercise or eating well, the basic message is a good one and not a new one (see The Richest Man In Babylon, Your Mobey Or Your Life, etc.). So in that sense, anything that sells the mindset is a net good.