<story><title>Don&apos;t Waste the Good Days</title><url>https://seths.blog/2021/12/dont-waste-the-good-days/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>nightowl_games</author><text>&amp;gt; I&amp;#x27;d have played fewer video games, traveled less, and relaxed on the beach less.&lt;p&gt;This seems totally opposite of what old people say on their death bed. You sound so obsessed with money here. My guess is your probably very wealthy relative to the average peer and your too naive to realize it. You have to keep telling yourself this philosophy to justify not wind surfing in Bali.&lt;p&gt;You think your gonna wind surf when your 60? You think it&amp;#x27;s smart to spend your &amp;#x27;non arthritis&amp;#x27; fingers on coding?</text></item><item><author>ryandrake</author><text>I feel like there is wisdom in &amp;quot;Make hay while the sun shines.&amp;quot; When you&amp;#x27;re young and unencumbered by responsibility and family, when your cognitive abilities are at their peak, when your energy is endless, when your body is strong and healthy, when your knees work, and your fingers can type without arthritis: that&amp;#x27;s the optimal time to work and earn. Min-max that salary and stay healthy. Due to compounding interest, a dollar made in your 20&amp;#x27;s is far, far more valuable than a dollar made in your 60&amp;#x27;s. Every morsel you make and save early means your retirement comes earlier. There will never be a more efficient time to earn those days of leisure that will come later if you stay healthy.&lt;p&gt;Take that vacation to Bali when you&amp;#x27;re young, and you are wasting your prime, strongest days that could be making you financially secure and&amp;#x2F;or independent. Go windsurfing for a year in Ibiza after college, and you&amp;#x27;re adding 5 years to your working life--retiring at 62 instead of 57. It didn&amp;#x27;t sound like much time when I was young, but today, as I turn elderly, I&amp;#x27;m counting down the years until I can finally retire, and kicking myself for goofing around when I was younger. If I could do it all again, I&amp;#x27;d have tried harder to get into big tech early, I&amp;#x27;d have taken comp and 401(k)s and advancement more seriously. I&amp;#x27;d have played fewer video games, traveled less, and relaxed on the beach less.&lt;p&gt;Life isn&amp;#x27;t short--it&amp;#x27;s LONG, and you have a brief moment in that life to maximize your preparation for the rest of it. Use it wisely.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>staticassertion</author><text>Lots of people I know in a generation or two above me regret not saving when they were younger. Now they&amp;#x27;re nervous about being 70 and having to retire soon but not feeling stable, or feeling that they may financially burden their children.&lt;p&gt;Compounding interest on money means, as previously mentioned, money you earn at 20 will be 10x as valuable compared to money earned towards a typical retirement age. With tech having strong early salaries and heavy stock compensation I think this is even more the case.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; You think your gonna wind surf when your 60? You think it&amp;#x27;s smart to spend your &amp;#x27;non arthritis&amp;#x27; fingers on coding?&lt;p&gt;How about 40? Because if you start working at 21 in tech and you&amp;#x27;re aggressive about your career &lt;i&gt;that&amp;#x27;s&lt;/i&gt; when you can retire.&lt;p&gt;Do experiences compound? Will I enjoy an experience more at 25 than 45? Maybe, and there&amp;#x27;s always some balance, of course. No one should work themselves to death.&lt;p&gt;But I worked obscene hours for my first 4 years of my career, lived with many roommates, and saved a &lt;i&gt;lot&lt;/i&gt; of money. And I started years later than most, as I  entered the market at 24 instead of 21.&lt;p&gt;It buys me great peace of mind to know that I am financially stable and independent, that I can take care of friends and family who are not, and that I have bought myself decades of retirement.</text></comment>
<story><title>Don&apos;t Waste the Good Days</title><url>https://seths.blog/2021/12/dont-waste-the-good-days/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>nightowl_games</author><text>&amp;gt; I&amp;#x27;d have played fewer video games, traveled less, and relaxed on the beach less.&lt;p&gt;This seems totally opposite of what old people say on their death bed. You sound so obsessed with money here. My guess is your probably very wealthy relative to the average peer and your too naive to realize it. You have to keep telling yourself this philosophy to justify not wind surfing in Bali.&lt;p&gt;You think your gonna wind surf when your 60? You think it&amp;#x27;s smart to spend your &amp;#x27;non arthritis&amp;#x27; fingers on coding?</text></item><item><author>ryandrake</author><text>I feel like there is wisdom in &amp;quot;Make hay while the sun shines.&amp;quot; When you&amp;#x27;re young and unencumbered by responsibility and family, when your cognitive abilities are at their peak, when your energy is endless, when your body is strong and healthy, when your knees work, and your fingers can type without arthritis: that&amp;#x27;s the optimal time to work and earn. Min-max that salary and stay healthy. Due to compounding interest, a dollar made in your 20&amp;#x27;s is far, far more valuable than a dollar made in your 60&amp;#x27;s. Every morsel you make and save early means your retirement comes earlier. There will never be a more efficient time to earn those days of leisure that will come later if you stay healthy.&lt;p&gt;Take that vacation to Bali when you&amp;#x27;re young, and you are wasting your prime, strongest days that could be making you financially secure and&amp;#x2F;or independent. Go windsurfing for a year in Ibiza after college, and you&amp;#x27;re adding 5 years to your working life--retiring at 62 instead of 57. It didn&amp;#x27;t sound like much time when I was young, but today, as I turn elderly, I&amp;#x27;m counting down the years until I can finally retire, and kicking myself for goofing around when I was younger. If I could do it all again, I&amp;#x27;d have tried harder to get into big tech early, I&amp;#x27;d have taken comp and 401(k)s and advancement more seriously. I&amp;#x27;d have played fewer video games, traveled less, and relaxed on the beach less.&lt;p&gt;Life isn&amp;#x27;t short--it&amp;#x27;s LONG, and you have a brief moment in that life to maximize your preparation for the rest of it. Use it wisely.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>randallsquared</author><text>Old people on their death bed are telling us what they want to do now, couched as what they would have wanted to do. But they made the decisions they did for reasons that seemed good at the time, and it might well be that they&amp;#x27;d make the same ones. Wishing things were different is not the same as a plan to make them different.&lt;p&gt;Or, as I&amp;#x27;ve said about this before: why worry about what death-bed you wants? That person literally has no future, but you do have a future to worry about!</text></comment>