Using the medical school example as a rule is absurd . A majority of passions don ' t require that much of a time investment . The point is whether you want to upgrade your courses , take on an after degree , start a hobby like art , or even get into computing sciences rlearn programming and rcscareerquestions are full of adult selflearners who are finding success it ' s not too late . It could even be a fitness goal ! I think a lot for people in their late 20 s and beyond feel like if they ' re not set in a career yet or haven ' t pursued their lifelong passion they ' re behind and it ' s too late when there are so many people in the same boat . We set a lot of internal milestones for ourselves like be done school before I ' m 30 . Or we look around at our peers and feel like we should be where they are . But if it hasn ' t happened yet , it ' s because it isn ' t time yet . If you are where you are because of mistake after mistake , you were meant to make them in order to learn from them . We might haunt ourselves with thoughts like if only I put in more effort when I was x age completely ignoring other circumstances that might have contributed . Our priorities , motivations and views of the world were different in the past , for valid reasons , and so there ' s no point in wishing we saw things differently in the past . We can ' t change who we are in the past but we can learn from it and use that to make for a better future . If you decide to go for a masters or professional program I know a lot of these are assuming you have means at 35 , by the time you are 37 and on your way it won ' t matter when you started . The whole point of this post is that while yes some passions may take many years of preparation and investment like medical school , many don ' t and there isn ' t a deadline to pursuing them or trying something new . To try and suggest that doing things differently at age 16 is the best or only way to have reached your passion is harmful and reads like a projection of personal insecurities onto the people of this sub who are trying to motivate themselves for change . To operate as though we ' ve missed our one big shot is to cripple ourselves completely .