How can I come to peace with the years I wasted on pointless things?

Your generation is taught to be unreasonable in their expectations, this website is basically made up of prodigal children who all missed some substantial developmental milestones but who ended up being rewarded for years of interest in very specific topics. Bertrand Russell correctly stated that time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time. If you have now decided you want change, then great. However, you have played so much World of Warcraft, you are beginning to view life as some sort of RPG you need to min/max. You don't. While removing distractions can be useful, your interest led you where it led you. I'm much the same and am now happily employed as a dev and I still game in my 30s. I have fantastic and substantial memories of virtual worlds and summers with amazing people and alone. 23 is ridiculously young, by western european standards these days you are effectively still an adolescent.

In terms of comparisons, John Carmack made some decent contributions, but you have zero insight into the costs of it. Much of compulsive recreational thrill seeking is due to emotional instability from childhood, so I think a small amount of therapy, and cutting yourself some slack is in order.

You shouldn't look back, but look forward instead. At 23 you should have most of your life still in front of you. At 57 I'm painfully aware that I don't have all that much time left so I'm trying to make the most of it, there is no reason to wait until you are old to start realizing that your time on this rock is finite. At least you realize it now, some people never do, and I hope that you had some fun.

I have something of a counterpoint. I've been coding since I was 5 and I look back and wish I had spent time playing more games; I didn't and I missed out on some defining years which you probably had, and are probably taking for granted.

I don't regret that however, instead it's something to learn from, and I now attempt to find a balance between all of them.

Don't compare yourself to others, only that if you realize something that you could be doing better, then resolve to do that from now on. You always have time.

I am over 50 now. I started programming when I was about 10 years old and (probably not coincidentally) I made a career out of programming. I am pretty good at coding and I still love it.

Yet, when I look back at those teenage years spent in a room behind a computer screen I feel pangs of regret as well. Before I met my first computer and fell madly in love, I used to read, draw, write, collect stuff, play outside a lot. I was interested in astronomy, chemistry, history, archeology, painting, art, etc. etc. That all stopped with my first computer and I became a monomaniac.

Carmack once said: "being well balanced is overrated". After years of being not so well-balanced, I am not so sure of that.

“I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don't let anybody tell you different.”

Kurt Vonnegut [0]

You have nothing to regret, and don’t look back, only forward. There is no such thing as wasted time as long as you are enjoying yourself.

People like Carmack are the exception to the rule, they are the 0.0001%, trying to compare yourself to them is irrelevant.

0: https://richardswsmith.wordpress.com/2017/11/18/we-are-here-...

The surest way to get depressed is to worry about what everybody else is doing, and compare yourself to them.

My recommendation is to fill your mind——every waking moment——with ideas, plans, hopes that inspire you, that you want to chase whether anyone else ever sees or knows or appreciates. Things you’d chase on a desert island or the middle of Manhattan.

Then find people you can share them with, that can magnify what you love.

Occasionally you might find yourself tempted to make value judgements about what happens. Don’t do it. Things aren’t good or bad, wonderful or a waste. They just are. You can’t choose the thoughts that intrude, but you can choose how you respond to them. Practice choosing to respond by being in the moment, and making the moment be about pursuing something you love.

Most people I know are controlled by ideology. Imagined imperatives handed down from ancestors and influencers. Their loves take a back seat or remain undiscovered and they get old with regrets. What I propose is the opposite. Let the philosophies and values of the day burn. They can't offer you anything you can’t offer yourself. Make the things you love eclipse everything else around you. You only live once. This is your chance to be free.

Best of luck.

I was browsing Carmack's twitter feed, and stumbled on some posts in there from his ex-wife of 20 odd years, saying he was an absentee dad and husband. Sort of opened my eyes a bit. He also famously took his work computer on his honeymoon. Yes, Carmack is a programming legend, and I respect him greatly (he is one of my personal coding heroes), but I think what we may see as outsiders doesn't always tell the whole story.

You only have one life to live. Do the things that make you happy. I think society pressures us to do well in career and this can put an enormous mental toll on us. And guess what happens when you get there? Zuckerberg just talked about how waking up each day felt like getting punched in the stomach. Yeah, you're not going to be any happier, as long as you are trying to conform to society/external expectations.

You gotta find what makes you happy. Maybe that's playing WoW 10 hours a day. As long as you can support yourself, maybe that's okay.

I guess the first thing to note is that in a hundred and fifty years, you'll be dead and unless you're one in a million or maybe ten million, nobody alive will know you existed. So it's not a competition, there's no prize ceremony at the end for the guy who did the most stuff, there's no one way you should be living your life.

The second thing is, the past is dead and gone. You can't do anything about it. You can learn to let go of it or you can let it consume your present and deny you whatever future you're trying to make for yourself. There is only now.

Third, you've got to make time to do the things that you enjoy; unless studying computer science is the thing that you enjoy most in the world, you're going to be miserable if you don't do some other stuff. Carmack and Romero spent all their spare time writing code because that's what they loved to do. If that's what you loved to do, you'd have been doing the same thing.

Finally, you're still very young. You have many years ahead of you and what you think will be fulfilling will change, probably more than once. Your life will not turn out how you think it will. That's fine, that's just the way it goes.

That's all I have.

I am in the opposite boat

I spent most of my childhood coding (learning to code, working on projects and just messing around with computers), playing video games (mostly Half-Life and Portal mods and maps, and trying to develop my own source and goldsource engine mods) and studying (I was the teacher‘s pet and was always obsessed with my grades).

I am successful in my career but I often feel like I wasted my childhood. I wish I had more fun, I wish I played a sport or learnt a music instrument.

Looking back, my childhood was so boring and lonely

I often pass a football (soccer) field for a middle-school on my way to/from work and I feel jealous. I literally feel jealous of children

I often think to myself „if only I could go back in time“

I only made some friends at the end of my school days and in college, so my social skills suck

I am almost 30 and have never been in a relationship

I wish I went to more parties

I wish I had done something rebellious or bad when I was a child/teen

I am often jealous of my colleagues who are also software developers but had much better childhoods and generally normal lives, and even in software engineering, many of them are better than me

Yes, I spent my childhood coding, but I often feel like my skills are mediocre

Many of my colleagues who started coding in their 20s are much more advanced than me

I feel burnt out; my whole life seems to revolve around my career and I am Not evening that good at that

/rant over

My therapist says it's important to accept my personal story of how I came to be here. Sometimes that means grieving all the missed opportunities from the past. It's important to integrate the past into the present so you can confidently move into the future. Just make sure that you are a friend to yourself as you take stock of your past. YMMV.

Assuming you successfully did the hard work above, or have opted to skip it... Let's think about the future. Try to imagine where you want to be in 5 or 10 years. What does that look like? Is it an accomplishment? A style of living? A feeling? Freedom? Think however makes sense to you as we all have different sense of what we want. That's your end point that you'll try to target. Try to think of what would have to happen each year, each month, each week to get there. How can you do that sustainably? This is a type of thinking that may be helpful to you.

In my opinion it's good that you're auditing yourself like this. Maybe you don't really want to be doomscrolling your life away. But the hard question to answer is where do you want to turn your attention? What is important to you?

Hope some of this helps.

Come to terms with the following facts:

1. There are morons who are millionaires, and there are people who slack off through life and live in luxury.

2. There are genuses who are broke, and there are people who work their asses off through life and are still hopeless.

3. It is possible to fail upward every time you screw up.

4. It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. (a.k.a. the Captian Picard advice)

Life isn't fair--It just is. And before you beat yourself up over the time you wasted playing video games, realize there are people who did the same thing you did and are suicidally depressed, as well as there are people who did the same thing you did and are now happily married with kids and became wealthy by owing fifty dry cleaners in their state. None of it is fair. There is no justice, or reason, or determinism in the universe.

Carmack didn't become "The Great John Carmack" by cosmic fate. He didn't achieve because he studied hard or worked his ass off. He didn't get there by squeezing productivity out of 100% of his time. So much of it was luck and circumstance and fortuitous timing, and any one of us could have been him if the billions of dice rolls that happen every day everywhere came up differently. Coming to terms with this has made me a whole lot happier and more satisfied with my life's meandering trajectory.

I see 2 paths to forgiving yourself. You can either use a valid reason that proves your gaming experience was truly valuable (maybe even more important than staring at OS and driver docs for 20 years), which means you stop beating yourself up -- after all, you did the "right" thing! Or you just make a conscious choice to let go and forgive yourself -- sort of like if a close friend or relative hurt you deeply in some way, and there's no way they can make it up to you, but you chose to forgive them and bury the hatchet anyway. The latter is not fair, but it's not reasonable to expect fairness in everything.

----

Similar boat as you. I had no close friends growing up and all I did was go to school, play video games, watch gaming channels on YT, eat, and sleep. I spent little time with family. All I ever wanted as a kid was to shun the world, eat junk and be in front of a pc/console forever.

Today, I work as a programmer. I have some close friends from college. I am feeling the gaming drive go away, not 100% sure why. But my gaming experience doesn't quite apply as well to my everyday experiences as it used to. It helps me to just make peace with myself even though I didn't "optimize" that part of my life. I'm still happy and tremendously lucky. (oh yeah, that's another thing -- it might help to be grateful you didn't end up on the street, working shitty jobs, not smart enough to be in tech, dealing with terrible health conditions etc. Life could always be so much worse.)

You say you are 23. You've got your whole life in front of you. It seems to me that your interest just changed. Go ahead and start working in your current interests. Don't dwell on your past actions. You were happy at the time. That's what counts.

Let me give you my example: I'm 40 years old. Started coding at 9 y.old a d did a lot of cracking, reverse eng , game dev and even electronics when I was a kid. I have a degree in Soft Eng and a PhD in CompSci... and a successful career in several startups. you know, the perfect plan.

But at my 40, life made me realise that I had neglected my health for too long. The body is starting to charge interest in the years and years of sitting in front of a computer.

So now, my interests changed to sport, fitness and wellness. I dont think I wasted my previous years , but I have decided to focus on my health first at this point in my life.

So dont feel bad for your choices. You are extremely young and have s really good chance to make a turn in your life to achieve what you find exciting now.

You have already taken the first step. Recognizing your past choices, their results and what you want for your future.

At 23 you have a long and potentially successful career ahead of you. Good luck with completing your CS course.

What has happened in the past is what it is. You can't undo the past, so there's nothing to be gained by beating yourself up over it.

When you think of reaching for SM or WoW, reflect on the feelings you have posted here. Instead, complete an assignment, read up on some area of technology, try out a new programming technique, whatever. If none of that appeals, go for a walk, clear your head and visualize yourself as having put your past obsessions behind you.

It's like the 12-step program. You take each day, each moment one at a time and affirm to yourself the changed person you are becoming.

"Honestly i can only guess but i don't know how to handle that i lost so much viable time"

"I am 23"

I can only smile at this. You have got tons of life ahead. Instead of comparing yourself with John Carmack, do what you want to do and you still have plenty of time.

Remember this "Don't compare with someone else. Compare yourself with yourself from the past. If you are doing better than you did in the past, be happy and keep moving forward. If you are not better than your past, work harder and keep moving forward"

Wasted time? Try feeling like your prime years were wasted on repeat trips to Afghanistan and Iraq. Maybe I helped at least one person. Maybe they’re long dead. At least I got to come back.

However, now I have a wife and kids who adore me. I get things done that other people find useful. I’m active and close with extended family. Things are pretty good, no regrets. Thinking about it, I’d do it all again.

Point is, worrying about what you could have done is wasted energy. Accept where you are and make a plan for where you want to be. Realize that after you’re gone, the likelihood of people remembering you outside of those you touched is small.

It’s healthy to grieve things we regret. Let yourself feel that loss and process it. If you’re struggling to do so, then seek professional help, because nobody here can really give you personally-relevant advice.

For the future, dig into yourself and find out what need you were trying to meet by wasting all that time. Maybe it wasn’t 100% a waste, but maybe also there are healthier ways to meet those needs.

Most of all, choose to live with a free conscience for today. It sounds like you’ve already made some admirable changes, but remember you are in control only of what you do today. Let tomorrow worry about itself.

As for me, I had a similar childhood to yours it sounds like. I spent nearly all my waking hours playing video games as a teenager. I eventually picked up guitar and became a bit more social through that hobby. But I was still basically addicted to video games (and porn). It caused a lot of pain early in my marriage (married at 22). I’m 37 now, and when I look back I see a lot of mistakes still, but a lot of growth, too.

I managed with God’s help to save my marriage, kept my family together, and my early background in computers has translated into a very stable lifestyle for my family to enjoy. They’re my mission now. That’s what really helped me change my priorities. I found something more important than following my vices to work on.

Your interests and passions will change over time, and every time a new interest comes up you will wish you started doing it sooner. At some point in the past I wished I started playing chess when I was younger (I no longer care about chess). I also was, like you, highly interested in reverse engineering. I'm not anymore. And so on. Focus on the present, on your newly found interest. Put time and effort into it and enjoy the journey. You can become an expert very fast.

I didn't go to the best college (not a bad one either), I wasn't top of my class in high school. I moved to Boston and was surrounded by MIT and Harvard people. I had a complex for years about never being good enough because I wasn't credentialed in that way. I poured hours upon hours in my early career getting better and working late and reading incessantly and writing and rewriting PR's. Working through design tradeoffs over and over. Working on passion projects at work that no one was asking for. And at the end of all that, I was easily playing at or above the level around me. A lot of people stop investing in themselves post college and feel that after they've done the school thing and secured the job they can coast, but I'll tell you that if you deeply invest in yourself in your work years and don't just do what's expected, you will see the growth and change and it will be marked.

You can't reclaim those early years. Have some empathy for your younger self, you may have been avoiding the pain of living. You may still be, get a good therapist. If not just know that those companies worked very hard to create random reward loops that your brain ate like candy and the real world will absolutely not reward you like that.

"Comparison is the thief of joy." - Theodore Roosevelt

You're very lucky that at the tender age of 23 you know what it is you want to do! At 23 you learn much faster and have much more stamina than a child. You can achieve a lot in this world if you decide to.

I started young with tech. Grinded my way through a tough systems career in my 20s. Spent every waking moment on call. Lucked out into a promotion, did some architecture and am now on a very senior role.

Here's some things I've learned: - age based promotions are real. Not intentionally, but people hire themselves. Most senior leaders are older. They don't trust somebody who doesn't share their world views. - my biggest regrets are when I was not a good person in life. As I age, what haunts me is the stuff I did that wronged people. That friend I lost. That girl I was meaner than I should have been. My failed marriage. Etc.

My advice.

Nobody really knows why the hell they are doing. We are all that teenager in some form. Just be honest. Reliable. Enthusiastic. And most importantly, it's a balance.. Say when you want a bigger role.

As a leader I can tell you when somebody says nothing and are good at their jobs, assumed happy. If somebody says, hey I'm thinking of my next step.. Any advice? Or I want to be X.. I'll do whatever I can to help. So will most people...IF you are deemed worth taking a chance on.

> "how would my life be if i spent that time coding/reverse engineering/learning the internals of OS, reading books, or generally developing my interests instead of playing wow and mindlessly scrolling on SM?"

Most computer science undergraduates at many universities don't do a lot of this. A lot of people see computer science just as a way to a stable, high-paying job; it's rational and there's nothing wrong with this, but this means that you're not that much 'behind' versus many computer science graduates.

> 'Would i still be in the same position in my life, the same person, as i am now?"

You could have also burned out on computer science and switched career paths. Now that you've delayed it, you likely want it more.

Even if you really are "behind," you don't need to be as good as John Carmack to make a positive impact in the workplace. There are a lot more niches than a top computer scientist. Many, many people (especially in software development, and even computer science research) started at an older age after a first career. You can too.

My advice? Don’t define yourself by your work. Your work is simply something you can do to live. You are trading your time and labor so you can do whatever it is you want to do.

At your age it’s common to think you’re going to change the world. Some people get bitter when this doesn’t happen. I’ve seen this and it’s not pretty. Almost nobody changes the world.

In tech you see this with people who have were the smartest in their high school, went to a great college and have basically been told their entire lives they are amazing and smart. At some point they get to a room where they’re not special and that can be a hard pill to swallow.

So if you want to change the world it just do something really meaningful you have to commit to that. But why are you doing it? Will it make you happy? It is that simply something you feel like you should do rather than something you want to do? And do you really want to make that impact or do you just want the adulation that entails?

Life is short. Consider yourself lucky if you have a skill that will let you live comfortably. Enjoy the ride.

Everything is pointless, depending on one's perspective. One could ask "Why is spending Carmack's talent on developing games meaningful? Why not use his talent to progress bio-chemistry computing and save lives?"

Money, career success, "normal life" will not bring you happiness. Unfortunately, I do not know what will bring you happiness, because it is something very personal, and changes constantly over time. Things that make you happy today, will seem to you pointless after 10 years.

You definetely need to survive to be able to be happy. So you will need some type of occupation to provide food and shelter, and make sure that the activities that make you happy do not harm you, or others. Other than that anything is fair game.

But don't confuse your career with finding purpose. Your career is just a ticket to financial security, aka enabling you to do things that make you happy. If you can build a career doing something that you do not hate, that is great already!

In my 40s now and I still love playing video games, which I have been playing since I was 5 years old, starting with Space Invaders on the Atari 2600.

I’m doing alright, and don’t regret a thing as I have found that play is as important as work in life! Here’s John Cleese from Monty Python speaking about this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pb5oIIPO62g

You are you and your life is your life. Try not to compare yourself with others and you will be happier!

The thing to realize here is that these "legendary developers" grew up in a time where the MOST addicting thing to do was write programs on a screen or read books. There was LITERALLY nothing more exciting to do.

No games, no good tv/phones, and no social media.

And my theory was (essentially) confirmed when John Carmack tweeted[0] about how he avoids distractions in the present day. So it's safe to assume he would've struggled with distractions just like we did growing up (if said distractions existed at that time).

Point being, don't stress too much. We grew up in a different time. At a young age, we just didn't know any better. At least now you are more aware and can make better decisions.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32583257

I'm 37 and just started my new career after many years of doing computers and programming more or less as a hobby with the odd professional part here and there. I worked in physical security for most of the years after school and I feel like I have wasted a lot of time. In 2020 I decided to take some time to go to school again and ended up taking QA for three semesters. I now work as a developer, QA and part-time project manager. Hopefully I will have a long career in front of me but I fear all the time that it's too late.

23 is a good age to start out, and you had some fun in your teens. You'll be fine.

I also spent most of my early life close to computers but as far as programming I only remember learning actual programming (in C) in my late teen years. It’s really hard for a 10 year old kid to really grok stuff like that. So if you are comparing yourself against people that you think had a head start then at most you are a couple of years “behind”. But also, as a 23 year old your learning pace and ability to focus should be higher, so you can recover lost ground very fast. In summary, the best time to start something was yesterday, the second best is today. Realize you are not much “behind” and get started. But also take the time to enjoy it.

Another thing is comparing yourself to Carmack… c’mon man, you have to cut yourself some slack. He is one of greatest programmers to ever live, he is _not_ a realistic yardstick to measure yourself against. You should only compare today’s you vs. yesterday’s you. That’s the only comparison that matters. For as long as that comparison trends positively you are in the right path.

And finally, you will realize that it takes time to digest things down and progress to mastery. As you grow older and get exposed to more and more fields you will start seeing connections that you can explore. But this takes time, as much as for Carmack as for yourself. This is how you grow and it is inescapable that it will take time. You have to understand it and accept it.

Nothing you do is pointless if you had fun doing it. Think of life as a landscape to explore with peaks, plains and valleys. Every person gets their own uniquely generated landscape.

Life goes in phases based on age, events, crises etc. At each phase you need to figure out what is important for _you_. It could be a well defined purpose or it could be something vague like being happy or being with someone. You do your best to make that thing work and reward yourself for your efforts not for results. Learn from failures and celebrate the fuck out of successes. Within your limits, if possible, help people around you accomplish what they set out to do.

Life can take weird turns and luck plays a big part. It is self-inflicted suffering to evaluate your past or your present based on things that you didn't set out to do. So, like most of the comments say don't measure your life with others' accomplishments or failures.

Looks like you had a fantastic childhood playing games that you wanted to play, you survived hard obstacles to achieve what you set out to do - get into university, I presume you are working hard to finish it. You are living your life very well.

If you are inspired by John Carmack, set your goals for the next phase of your life based on his achievements but you are not in a race with John Carmack (or anyone else). You cannot have a race with someone when their landscape is completely different from yours.

Good luck :)

1. You're still very young. Your life has barely started.

2. Regret is a bigger waste of energy than the things you did that you now regret. Don't waste time and energy on regret.

Just do whatever it is you want to do now. Sitting around regretting past choices is just an excuse to not do something now.

Just be glad you got out of being addicted to video games. Some people never get out of that and it ruins their lives, or at least massively wastes their potential. Unless you personally know someone who has a sibling or son or daughter with video game addiction you'll never really hear about it because it's the kind of addiction that doesn't cost a lot of money or cause deadly health or behavior problems and because of that never makes the news. It's just pathetic.

I've spent most of my life depressed. I'm talking full-time planning my suicide, if doing anything at all. My tip: just don't chase that inner peace. Regret is not depression. Depression is static. Regret is tension. Anything that's tension can be exploited as a gateway to find energy and purpose. Use that inner fire that burns you from the inside and turn it into an extra fuel tank to get an edge in whatever your working on.

The time you think you wasted is time in which you were learning many, many things. Yes, you could have been learning other things. So what? There is an old saying: "You can't have everything.". A corollary of that is (when going to a show, or art gallery, or museum, or sports event) the simple fact that "You can't see everything, so enjoy what it is that you do see."

A side effect of what you have learned is that it indicates to you what it is that you need to learn. I'd say that you are at that stage right now. Learning is a life-long experience.

Life is not static. Once upon a time, a person would find a career and remain in that one career till he/she retired in their sixties. Today, many people will have two, three or more careers in their lifetimes. My four incipient careers were: pharmacist, computer programmer, commercial pilot, commercial landlord - completely different careers that depended on minor decisions to lead me down one path or another. I ended up doing two of the four long-term. The timing wasn't quite right to become employed as a computer programmer as my first wife didn't want to move several hundred miles, or as a commercial pilot due to a downturn in the early 90s General Aviation industry. I started off as a pharmacist, and later became a commercial landlord when my brother died and I was forced to take over the reins of the family business.

At twenty-three you have so much ahead of you. Don't sweat the outcomes. Oh, and I will probably be downvoted greatly for this:

Do not let "Duty" (also known as "Society's Expectations") control your life. You do not have to marry the good-looking girl. You do not have to have children. You do not have to have the big house. You do not have to have the prestigious job. You do not have to have the expensive house, or the expensive car. You do not have to be 'successful' by the age of 30/40/50/whatever.

If those things happen in your life, that's well and good. But never feel you are obliged to do those things. We sometimes do those things because Society brain-washes us that we have to do all those by a certain age.That is wrong.

Live your life according to what you want. Yes you will make mistakes. So what? Every life experience is what makes you, you.

It’s good to be inspired by the greats like Carmack, but understand that they are a representation of a transcendent ideal to strive for.

Also when you were in your formative years, your time playing video games was not entirely wasted. During young adulthood your brain is still growing, video games are giving your neocortex practice at:

- Fine grained motor control - The ability to concentrate - Understanding the complex interactions of rule based systems

Now that you’ve got a little older you are starting to appreciate and question the strategic value of those actions and not just the tactical benefits - welcome to adulthood - your perception of time is broadening, your meta-cognition had formed, and you’re ready to enter the world and push at the edges of yourself.

Self doubt is normal, but make sure that it’s driving constructive criticism of your actions and not over analysis that leads to paralysis. Failures are a necessary part of the path, so take every valuable learning from each failure, re-orient yourself upwards, and keep going. We have never been in a better position as a society for industrious people to launch companies, for the information to self teach to be freely available, and for an ambitious young person to maximise their potential, keep going!

You will live a life of misery if you constantly compare your life to others' lives. Take it a step at a time and try to be better than you were the day before. Carmack lives in a different time, under a different environment with a different set of genes. He is an outlier through and through. Inferiority complex can push you to go past your own limits, but beating yourself up for "being interior" doesn't help.

Don't fret about factors that are not under your control. Social media and some video games are viruses pushed down by greedy unethical corporations that infect your mind to ignore your responsibilities by hijacking your attention. Sure, they can be good in some ways but those few positive side effects are not why they were created. Don't beat yourself for falling into the trap, but at the same time don't expect anything else to pull you out. You have to push yourself out.

Good thing is you have the ability and ambition to realize the farce and want to live a more rewarding life. Many don't realize and many more dont care to leave the passive plane of existence even once they do find out.

All the best.

You're 23. Just think how relatively bad it would be if you were 38 thinking this. You're young. Plenty of time. Keep taking risks. Be grateful you recognize this now, and trust the process. Everything happens at the right time. The dots make sense looking backward, you have to trust that, but may not make sense looking forward, to paraphrase Steve Jobs commencement speech, which I think you should watch right now. It's inspiring to hear someone share this at such a young age, because I think of all the cool things that you'll do now, that you realize the value of time. But the motivation has to come from you, intrinsically, can't come from wanting to emulate or a type of FOMO jealousy of some "hero" types...tho do be inspired, don't be driven by a sense of comparative inadequacy, is what I'm saying in this my last point to you now, be driven by your own sense of wonder. Love to hear you share this! :) ;p xx ;p

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hd_ptbiPoXM

To see what I mean, imagine the following scenario: Joe Haskeller is trying to learn about monads. After struggling to understand them for a week, looking at examples, writing code, reading things other people have written, he finally has an “aha!” moment: everything is suddenly clear, and Joe Understands Monads! What has really happened, of course, is that Joe’s brain has fit all the details together into a higher-level abstraction, a metaphor which Joe can use to get an intuitive grasp of monads; let us suppose that Joe’s metaphor is that Monads are Like Burritos. Here is where Joe badly misinterprets his own thought process: “Of course!” Joe thinks.

“It’s all so simple now. The key to understanding monads is that they are Like Burritos. If only I had thought of this before!” The problem, of course, is that if Joe HAD thought of this before, it wouldn’t have helped: the week of struggling through details was a necessary and integral part of forming Joe’s Burrito intuition, not a sad consequence of his failure to hit upon the idea sooner.

our growth occurs in curious ways.

I'm 67 and I don't think I've ever discovered a "passion". For many people, the one true passion meme is a myth. Me? I seem to be infinitely curious and have bounced from one interest to the other, throughout my life. I had a successful career, married, more interests than I can ever "master". But, I have fun. I learn new things. I don't give a big rip about many of the hot topics that the younger generation seems to think matter, e.g., identity politics, climate change, etc. As some have noted, life isn't a video game. It's a journey. Travel well and enjoy it. I once had a guy working for me that took ADHD drugs to allow him to "focus". All he did was program and have dinner with his girlfriend, who eventually left him because of his monomaniacal immersion in .NET. I can't think of a worse way to live. And WOW 10+ years ago consumed some of my time as well. Though it's been so neutered, it's hard to imagine anyone still plays it.

I no longer really play games, but I once played a lot. More than I care to admit.

One day I became interested in game development itself, and started reading about the psychology of why we play video games. I became fascinated by a book called "Glued to Games"[1], which looked at the question through the lens of self-determination theory. It suggested that we play games to satisfy our basic human needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness. As I read the book, it suddenly became clear to me why I spent so many years of my life playing video games; I wasn't getting those needs satisfied anywhere else. Where would I have turned for that same fulfillment if I didn't have video games? Perhaps nowhere. In that way, games saved me. They kept me alive.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Glued-Games-Video-Spellbound-Directio...

Look how many comments here are top level with no replies! I don't think I have ever seen anything quite like it in many years of HN-ing.

What does it mean? I suppose people are immediately identifying with OP and posting their own personal reflections. There's a lot of agreement among the posts, and many are expressly or implicitly Stoic.

I reckon it’s ok to be a kid and do fun things such as games, who knows maybe games spurred your current interest in tech and developing etc. Make the best of how you feel now and start reading about your new interests, you can develop on any pc it does not need to cost a large amount of money. Remember to still have fun too though!

Consider if you will a person who read Tracy Kidder's The Soul of a New Machine [1], a start up non-fiction book about a bet-the-company moment in time where humans had to develop and bring a wildly new computer system to market.

I read this book in 1982 as a junior in college who had the good fortune to be using a DEC-2060 - the PC's across the hall seemed toys by comparison (ha ha).

After reading the book I felt like I was late to the party - I'd missed everything! All that time spent on Adventure, VTTrek, Empire!, and using FTP and Telnet to explore the ARPAnet was wasted time.

Now some 40 years on and after a fun career, I hadn't missed a thing. What comes next for you is going to be fascinating and engaging. Onward!

1. https://www.tracykidder.com/the-soul-of-a-new-machine.html

Read Masters of Doom.

You're either interested enough [in studying those things] to start now or you're not. If you want to look back when you're eighty and take pride in achieving and enjoy that stuff for fifty or sixty of them, then start now and write off the last ten as finding yourself, which always has a cost and is incurred by everyone. I was always a voracious coder ten to fifteen hours most days of my life. Even then, it's not with gaming, reading, travel, and family/friend development in order to feed my relationships(because code can't share your happiness and doesn't take care of you when you're sick) and give me a little variety so as to be able to think through problems while away from the screen for a little bit.

You probably won’t ever fully come to peace with it. All you can do is make use of the time you have.

If you’re worried about wasting time on pointless things, keep in mind that worrying about stuff you can’t change may be the most pointless thing you can possibly do.

While it is a worthy goal to achieve mastery of such techniques I do not believe they would inherently make you happier or better. Years will pass and soon enough you will come to regret the care-free life of a teenager. Take it easy mate.

You might find the book "Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals" by Oliver Burkeman helpful. It's not all about productivity, but also how we relate to time. (we didn't always worry about it so much)

Here are a couple of the more detailed summaries I've found:

https://www.sloww.co/four-thousand-weeks/

https://youcanflymate.org/four-thousand-weeks-by-oliver-burk...

One quick little thing that you might have missed from that interview is when Carmack said that he has never been predisposed to any kind of mood issues or depression or anything of that sort. So he already started this adventure of human life with better cards than most of us. It wasn't because of success that he was like this it was just because that's the way the dice rolled for him. So if you already have any sort of mental health problems that developed then don't try to emulate him 100% directly because you can't and you won't and you will just harm yourself.

Take all of this for what it is, advice from strangers on the internet. I'll lay out what I think is the best advice I can give, but do realize that we are strangers on the interwebs.

First, everyone has regrets. Some you can't fix and some you can't really atone for. Those, you need a psychologist for. It just happens and there's no shame in that. The others you fix with hard work going forward. You're young, you've got plenty of time.

Second, and this is a tough one... maybe the hardest. You have to learn to stop comparing yourself to other people for your sense of intrinsic worth. You can kind of do it for inspiration, but not what have you done. You should only compare yourself today to what you were yesterday. Are you better today than you were yesterday?

Third, get off social media... maybe not entirely (I say as I write this on social media) but mostly. This is the only social media platform I'm on, and TBH I need to cut down on it. But you gotta set limits. Games need limits too. I play MMO's and I put limits on them too. Those things are a reward, not a given.

Fourth, discipline is important. It sounds dumb, but if it helps you to set a routine, then set a routine... I have to. I makes me work out, study the things I need to, set aside enough time for my family and my relationship, remember my vitamins, eat, all the adulting I need to do. If I get all that stuff in, then I get some gaming in. If I wing it, I won't get it done =/

Fifth, don't forget to make some friends and have some fun along the way. I hope you had a close friend or two that you could also reach out to with this issue and bounce some ideas off of. They're important and as I've gotten older, they're more important and harder to find in my life. Could just be me.

Lastly, good luck with college! You are going in the right direction. I'm proud of you. Also from an internet stranger, but still... education is awesome and will open up venues of thought and projects that you didn't have before. Hopefully it will open up opportunities for you that you didn't have in the past. Good luck in the future!

EDIT: Grammar and me don't get along at 6:30 in the A.M.

At 23 you are thinking this. Kudos for that first! You have all the time rest of your life! You should pluck "regret" at its root and resolve that. Regret would always exist. Even if you had spent time coding/OS etc, regret would've shown in different form. And regret will always be your shadow and you need to make peace with it. Someday, one these regrets will propel you to do something radical and THAT will be the thing that will resolve this truly. Until then make peace with the fact that you are now self-aware and still got so much time left!

Try not to think about that too much, you can't change the past and you only have the present. Once you realize that you can start enjoying the present moment doing whatever you like and can.

If you start coding everyday now in a few years these worries will seem silly to you and you will have new worries to think about.

In the end it doesn't matter, whether you are the most productive person even or a drunk homeless outcast, your time will run out one day and you will be gone. If you can accept this you can free yourself of regrets.

You're still young, and have an enormous amount of time ahead of you that you can put to good use, if you have the motivation and discipline. If you begin getting serious about developing yourself now, and devote your efforts towards reading, learning, traveling, gaining experiences, and otherwise becoming a more informed and well-rounded person, by the time you're 30 you'll be way ahead of most people of that age.

I'm 43 right now, and I still have an immense passion for learning new things. I love exploring new concepts or going over ones I've previously learnt in more depth, and that includes areas of computer science (both related to my career and not), as well studying music as a hobby. The wonderful thing about life is that there's always more to learn and discover, and that it's never too late to start. I hope to continue learning until the day I die.

Everyone is different, so I can't say what specifically what you should do, but I can say there's nothing to be gained by regretting the past. It's actually not that big a deal since lots of people don't make good use of that time, and anyone trying to compare themselves to John Carmack is being unfair on themselves. My point is the only thing that matters is what you do from here. Figure out what you want to explore and go for it.

The real question is: Did it bring you joy, happiness, or entertainment while doing it?

For years I collected and spent an inordinate amount of money on antique telephones. Cleaning, conserving, researching, writing, and then one day it started to be less interesting. I've sold off almost my entire collection. When I think about the many hours and dollars spent on the hobby, I don't see it as wasted. I see it as endeavors that entertained my mind and passions. Now I have new projects and hobbies.

You are still 23. There are many many many, hundreds of thousands, millions, people who wasted their life until they are 40, 50. I see it everyday.

Take a look at people outside who works dead end job, who can’t negotiate their salary, who don’t have multi talents/skills, who are average.

Take a look at those people, they are 35 but their skills are like 21 year old. Meaning, after they graduate college they didn’t improve a single thing in their life, not their mindset, not their practical skills, not their hobbies.

You aren’t too late. You can change now. Just keep building yourself day by day, a little bit at a time, any subject is fine, any exercise is fine, any hobby is fine, but don’t stop. Skill, knowledge, compounds far more than finance. You keep getting better day by day, by 35 you’ll beat a lot of people around you in your age. You’ll be a polymath, with T shaped expertise good enough to be dangerous in a number of areas. Knowledge compounds even in seemingly unrelated areas.

Don’t take it too crazy either. It is easy to be too workaholic and burnout. You want to be consistent. Consistency is key.

Don’t be extremely dilligent. Don’t be lazy. Don’t be average.

Just be above average.

Also, at one point you might amassed skills/knowledge complex enough that you’ll feel that games aren’t that challenging anymore and you’ll automatically reduce gaming to just casual gaming.

Beware, I warned you. But do it, its worth it.

One thing you learn as you get older is that everybody is in the same boat in this journey on earth and there’s likely no truth and no point in excessively pitying yourself or think of what you experienced as anything unique or extraordinarily awful. This is the human condition and we need to learn to embrace it and be at peace with it. In fact I have probably done much more than a lot of peers of the same age group (how much of that is “useful” in a practical sense is dubious, e.g. achieving N1 level in Japanese, about which I also used to wonder whether I could have spent such time programming more, but on the other hand learning languages was part of my identity, so I was generally happy to have spent time on them), but even then, when I was younger, I was constantly anxious that I was not doing enough and just wasting my life away. Now I feel less afflicted by that thought. It doesn’t mean I shouldn’t dedicate my time to meaningful and productive endeavors, but you may find peace in knowing that people like Carmack require so many things to go their way to get there, and statistically speaking you’re much more likely to not reach that level than do, and there’s nothing to be ashamed of in that fact.

Part of getting older is mourning the person you could have been. You have inherent worth as a human being.

I'm 33 and started playing a new instrument and am more creative and driven than I have ever been. There is not a time limit for getting good at something, it just takes dedication and time.

That lame proverb: "The best time to plant a tree is 10 years ago. The 2nd best time is today" is absolutely true.

Also... don't compare yourself to the 0.001% of talent. They succeed due to a mixture of timing and luck. Well, maybe not Carmack. He is sincerely a genius. But also grew up during the most prosperous age of American history and had a stable home life. And also had the timing to have the passion and training for a game as simple as Doom to be released and make a huge splash. If Carmack was 10 years older or younger, where would he be?

There are tons of people who started programming/drawing/playing music in their early life and now just... don't do it anymore. They didn't become John Carmack or Thundercat.

One thing you have to face is your time management probably sucks and you need to improve it if you want to be different. A therapist can help with this.

If you want some recommendations on how to have better time management:

1. Deep Work - Cal Newport

2. Atomic Habits - James Clear

3. 15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management - Kevin Kruse

1. Accept that feeling regret and self-doubt is normal and uncomfortable.

2. While accepting the feeling and not trying to change it, understand that it is a feeling and, therefore, not evidence of fact (no matter how compelling the feeling may be).

3. Recall a time when you felt strongly about something, and with the passage of some time, you came to feel differently about it. It almost seems like a different thing now, with the perspective that time provides. Know that it is quite possible you are in the same situation now -- how you feel about your "wasted" years may not be how you feel in the future. You may, in fact, come to adopt a very different evaluation of how you spent that time. Accept that you will not have access to this future understanding until more time passes.

4. It's natural to wish for a better past, because it always carries with it the wish for a better present. But when spend time wishing for something we don't have, it makes what we do have seem much worse than it is. When you sit around wishing to change the past, you are throwing away the present. Fortunately, ruminating on wishes and regrets is just a habit, like nail-biting. Every time you catch yourself doing it, know that it's normal, but NOT helpful. Then gently bring your focus back to what you'd like to be getting out of the current moment.

5. This stuff is easy to write, but hard to understand - until one day, you do. Therapists specialize in helping their clients get to the place where they have this sort of perspective deep in their bones. If you have the ability to see a therapist, I'd highly recommend it.

> I'm 23 and I spent my entire childhood wasting my time on Social media, World Of Warcraft, and other pointless stuff. Literally 10-14 hours a day.

If you want to come to peace with them, just walk carefully through what you did, and observe without judging [1]. Think about it. Perhaps you're a certain level in WoW. Perhaps you made some friends in a guild. If you're studying Computer Science, maybe that'll give you a leg up; you can work on building Wow addons or something!

> how would my life be if i spent that time coding/reverse engineering/learning the internals of OS, reading books, or generally developing my interests instead of playing wow and mindlessly scrolling on SM?

You might think you know an answer to this, but really the answer is "it depends". Maybe you would have done great. Maybe you would have burnt out and abandoned the idea of CS forever. Maybe you would have been brilliant, but an extreme loaner doing computing contests and nothing else. You can never really predict stuff like that, so don't beat yourself up over it.

One thing I have observed in life is that it's not necessarily the things you do consistently to get ahead that might end up getting you ahead. Despite this, the sheer feeling of excelling at something is rewarding in itself.

----------------------------------------

[1] This sounds a bit woo-woo, but helped me overcome the instinctive and fundamental cringe that I often had when looking back at myself regarding anything – life circumstances, friendships, hobbies, you name it. Maybe it just comes with age; but perhaps if you get this ability at 23, you'll do great.

I was teaching myself computers and programming while also playing games as a child but I didn't really start doing any lasting/significant work until I was your age.

As another person mentioned, you aren't going to grok much as a child. You should be having fun but if your pursuits involve scrolling social media or otherwise engaging with big tech I would be concerned somewhat...depending on the child.

Nonetheless, you have plenty of time if you can start now. Try not to get sucked into the grind of work until you have had time to explore technologies on your own.

I worked in a family retail store at about your age which gave me unlimited time to read books, tinker with Linux, and start some serious coding while handling an occasional customer. I also freelanced as a computer/network support person for small businesses.

After that, my wife worked for a few years while I stayed home with our son and programmed nearly 24/7, testing ideas that had bloomed while working in the retail store.

That time was priceless in regard in to my technology skills. The low level inner workings that I explored across a variety of tech put me way ahead of everyone I ran into once finally taking a job in tech.

I belong to an elite contracting firm now (software engineering and data engineering) and have my choice of client and tech to work with.

There was more, after my wife worked a few years she went to college while I worked, and then I followed and did the same...studying math, accounting, and electrical engineering, eventually obtaining an associates degree in MIS and joining the corporate world. That was ten years ago, now I desperately want out of the corporate world.

Fortunately you're still in your early twenties with enough time for you to feel as though you can make amends. Don't waste your twenties on social media and other timer wasters because once you hit thirty you are on the downturn and will really regret your time wasted. Focus on positive stuff that sets you up to be a success in life because it get harder to get out of the starters blocks as you get older.

Regret serves a purpose - it makes things memorable and makes them affect your decision-making. If you regret wasting time on pointless things, hold onto that regret and use it as a driving force to work now and in the future. That's the proper way to cope with regret.

In an alternative universe where you don't feel that regret, you could probably keep wasting time for the rest of your life without ever noticing.

When I was your age, I also worried along the same lines. As you get older though you realize it doesn't really matter.

You are still very young, no matter how much you may think otherwise. There is still an incredible amount of time ahead of you which can be put to any use you so desire.

Just spend the time you have wisely, don't worry about it when you do not, and above all else have fun. All of us only get one go on this ride.

I'm 30 and recently wrote a book(in bio) about how I found peace with wasting my teenage & young adult years on technology and internet addiction.

While you can think all you want about how if you spent your time doing something differently, it won't change the now. Don't ask "what ifs", be pragmatic by removing these things from your life to add more back to it that feels more meaningful.

You have one life. You are not necessarily meant to spend every waking moment doing something productive. Humans are not machines. We are complex beings with feelings, hopes, and fears. As long as playing World of Warcraft didn't cause your grades to slip in school, your graduation to be delayed, your personal relationships to falter, or your life goals to be delayed, then there is nothing to regret. You played a game because it brought you happiness, joy, entertainment. You did the thing you wanted, even if it didn't help further any of your long term life goals. The game brought you something positive in the moment. Given the resources at your disposal and your limited knowledge of the world at the time, you did the right thing for yourself. Don't beat yourself up. There will be plenty of time to take care of the important things when you get there. You have one life, and even more importantly, one youth. What's more typical than a 14 yo playing WoW? You shared a positive experience with millions of other people your age.

Simple: realise that some extremely high percentage of the people you're asking feel the same way, and are on average probably about 10y older. (Idk if anyone's done a survey or HN poll or something, but 30-35 would be my guess for the median.)

They still have time, and you'll have just as much then too after spending the next ten years(!) doing something you currently consider meaningful.

(1) Plenty of people spent their teens/young adult years doing drugs and getting into drama. WoW isn't "wasting" compared to that.

(2) Don't compare all-of-you to the individual best parts of everyone else.

(3) Who did you hurt to feel so much guilt? Some magical future self that you were "supposed to be"? This regret is a dillusion and self-inflicted torture that will only distort your view of the world and yourself, harming you until you drop it. There is "now" and how you act now. Free yourself/mind from the weight/lies/chains/whatever that you put on yourself. There answer is NOT "Step on the gas to make up lost time." Don't act out of neurosis. Find lightness and clarity -- not concerning the world (that will always be murky) -- but in yourself and your own decisions (don't live in constant second guessing.)

(4) To paraphrase: "When I was young, I admired the smart; Older, I admired the wise; Finally, I admired the kind".

I used to suffer from regret a lot and I'm not entirely sure how I got over it. It could be just that I'm older and have had more opportunities to see that no matter how many of my dreams I achieve there is always room for perfectionism and regret to wedge their way in and dominate my thinking.

One's life isn't supposed to look a particular way, and international recognition and fame isn't a prerequisite for living a fulfilled and meaningful life. Fulfilment and meaning come not from making all the right choices every second of the day, but rather from just spending more of one's time following one's joy (and expanding the set of things that one finds joy in).

If gaming used to bring you joy but now programming does, then great, do programming. It will take you places and you don't have to worry about where, exactly. Just a high level directive like "this seems like it will be more productive than that, in general" is sufficient direction.

Everyone thinks like that, in every field. I suggest you just accept that you did not grow up in an environment surrounded by hackers/programmers that pushed you to write code. Instead you had fun with your friends, which is fine. You are 23 now, that is a perfect age to start building your skill-set and set a path towards the person you want to become. When you are 30, you are going to be like, damn, it was a good idea to start hacking at 23, now I know all these things and have a deeper grasp on technology.

And don't forget that you are born, then you live and finally you die. Whatever you do or do not do, the universe will forget about you. Might sound cynical, but that is the reality. So do whatever you want to do, the important thing is that once you decide to do something, you do it. You can (almost) become anything you want, so imagine your future self and set a course towards that future.

The best way to predict the future, is to create it.

A few thoughts:

- Do you actually want to do all that engineering, or do you just want to be like Carmack, having done all that engineering? Would you be okay with having been similarly productive as him, but not having the commensurate rewards in return?

- Carmack isn't on a higher plane of existence. He still has to shit, still has to arrange to have dinner every day. As per his own recent admission, he still gets distracted and has to modify his environment to cope with that.

- Much like the protagonist in the Bell Jar, you are focusing only on the alternative time streams that appear to you as better. In reality, there are tons of far worse outcomes that you have successfully avoided, but Western culture encourages us to ignore these entirely.

- Humans are notoriously bad at evaluating their own future emotional states in response to life events.

- Fam, you are 23. All else being equal? I would pick being you over being a legendary and wealthy 50+ year old programmer. No offense to the greybeards reading this passage.

There are lots of great comments here. I would also add, what would have been the point of learning computer science earlier in life? You could have started a career earlier? That’s just a different way to squander you childhood and college years.

To quote one the oldest but truest cliches: youth is wasted on the young. There’s just no way around it. It’s ok to move on.

Reading this post it feels like I’m the one who wrote it… to that end, I am 21 years old and I constantly find myself thinking and feeling regretful that I didn’t spend more of my teenage years pursuing my ambitions (of which there are lot), and building my skill set… instead, just like you, I spent my childhood playing video games in my room, watching YouTube, not doing my school work on top of that, etc… I was more or less a couch potato.

This issue isn’t so black and white also, let’s assume a hypothetical scenario where you did everything you regret not doing now… would you feel content? Or would you feel like you should’ve spent more of that time doing more those “pointless” activities. Nobody knows the answer to those questions, and you probably don’t either… but what’s important to remember is that life has at least taught me that balance is extremely important, not only for your mental health and fitness, but especially to ensuring long term success.

I still struggle with this line of thinking to this day, and I can’t say I’m any closer to a resolution. But here’s what I do know; Self pity is cancerous… it starts out being about one thing, but if you keep obsessing over it then it will slowly but surely consume your life, and you won’t know until it’s already happened… then it becomes an addiction. Don’t be like me, learn to forgive yourself and be reasonable about your expectations.

If I were you (which in way I am haha) I would focus on getting a win under my belt, no matter how small… an easy and highly rewarding technical win is spinning up your own Stable Diffusion instance on a cloud GPU vm or if you have a decent GPU run it locally (decent = 8GB> vRAM), if you don’t know it’s an open source version of DALL-E 2 that was released a few days ago and setting it up is fairly straightforward and it will help you feel that wonder of using new technology, and getting some work done at the same time.—perfect avenue if you’re trying to kickstart yourself into CS.

Everything you do is ultimately pointless. You feel that becoming a particular type of engineer you aspire to is meaningful, but once you get there you’ll realize you’re still yourself and you didn’t ascend to some higher level of being. Probably the most meaningful thing we can do is through social interactions. Your time in WoW must have incorporated social interactions. Be proud of those experiences - they’re in no way worse than others. Enjoy who you are and where you’ve been, avoid hurting people directly or indirectly, and you’ll be fine. If now you value your work with computers more then pursue that with the same vigor - but realize it’s not more meaningful than playing WoW, because meaning is what you make of it. Our culture will tell you productive activities that create capital and productivity are meaningful, but they only are if you find meaning and purpose in them for yourself without regard to the monetary necessities. I’m certain you felt purpose and meaning in your WoW playing at the time, and maybe you’ve just grown and changed. That’s ok too. Just because you wouldn’t spend your time doing WoW now doesn’t change you were driven to then, and the fact you could have “leap frogged” your current skill doesn’t matter one little bit. It’s not a race.

First and foremost, take a deep breath. I'm in a very similar position that you are (23 y/o, interest in CS, for-longing the time spent on fruitless efforts) which I hope brings you some relief. What I've learned is that aspiring to focus every moment to a point is a fools errand. Time will escape you in which case, congratulations you've just had fun! I've also learned that dwelling on actions past almost never results in better future action. Ask yourself if what you do now is of benefit to future goals and move from there. There are no refunds.

But that time was spent making you there person you are today. The skills, perspective, and ambitions that grew from what you "wasted so much of my life on" makes you whole. Learn to accept that because there is no goal oriented outcome that will relieve you. Today you lament leisure and not study, tomorrow you reverse.

> I spent my entire childhood wasting my time on Social media, World Of Warcraft, and other pointless stuff. Literally 10-14 hours a day. I don't regret my gaming interests, but i do regret the fact that i wasted so much of my life on games like World of Warcraft (I started playing when i was 10 years old) instead of finding and developing my future interests

Man, you are describing exactly the younger life of about the vast majority of technical workers nowadays. You are describing a cliché of barely anyone in this industry. Frankly I’m even surprised that WoW is still going strong.

You wasted nothing. I know a lot of successful programmers with great careers and most of them "wasted" years on WoW (some of them are still playing sometime) and they now enjoy a fulfilling life. The teenage-myself would probably not imagine any of those nerds working and having a family but hey, there we are.

Oh, son (and I say this because my son is also 23, spent a lot of his life on League of Legends and kind of regrets that, and is just now finishing college) - that way lies madness.

You know what I was doing with all my time when I was your age? Reading a whole lot of science fiction books. Sure, I also did a lot of programming, which later turned into a career, but the bulk of my time was spent in books that never paid me a nickel. I could have been learning more languages. I could have had a doctorate.

We all have that stuff. If you'd spent all your time learning code, maybe you'd regret all the fun times you had with your gaming buddies. If I'd focused more on math and logic, maybe I'd feel impoverished by never having learned about the Ringworld. I promise you there's always something you can feel you missed out on.

All you can do is decide what to do today. And then go do it.

You're 23.

You'd be a massive outlier if you'd spent more of your childhood reverse engineering an OS than playing games, or indeed any time reverse engineering an OS at all, and it wouldn't necessarily lead you to be any more successful than someone who didn't even look at a command prompt until the age of 23

I struggled with this for ages. I have spent loads of time playing MTG and WoW, eschewed a traditional career path for something more relaxing. I am not a software wunderkind and for a long time that bothered me. But then I decided to just do my best, enjoy the time I spent coding, the time I had with my friends, and somehow it all fell into place. I am coming up on my 30th birthday quickly now and I am happy, at peace. Don’t lament what could have been but instead what could be my friend. Now that I have given up worrying over others accomplishments I find myself even more productive. Sure, there will always be those that break boundaries, at especially early ages. But there is no better time to plant a tree than today. Er, well, 20 years perhaps… good but luck with that ;)

Action and inaction is a choice.

23 is a great time to realize this. I did too around 23. It’s hard to know what to spend time on and what to value in our 20s.

I used to game 8-12 hours a day no problem.

I realized it might be more interesting to build worlds for others to participate in instead of participate in the worlds others have created. Beyond comp sci, that’s what really got me going into getting better at creating experiences which create beginners and ultimately scales.

It might hard to remember, but there was little to no social media for John Carmack to play in the late 90s like there is today, it helps with focus.

It’s important to focus on creating and not consuming.

Here’s what I remember for me. I don’t game at all anymore. I bought a PS5 and it’s still in the box.

If you are down a few rabbit holes it’s important that it’s been recognized because you can choose to break the cycle. It might be helpful to reset and disconnect by deleting all your distractions to let the attention span and dopamine hunting brain.

Your experience consuming the creations of others whether it’s games or social will not be a waste because it has set you up to understand what is engaging. If you start creating, what you think is obvious will not be to other software and product folks. There are transferable skills.

Sometimes trying is scarier than doing. Just start. Just try. Just for 5 minutes at first and it will build from there as you not always stop after 5 minutes.

Learn how to learn, stumble your way along, ask for help, and help someone a few steps behind you. Don’t take advice from someone who hasn’t done what you’re trying to do and don’t give advice on what you haven’t done yet. It’s all a distraction from creator time.

For some, time is only useful if you are creating for the sake of creating and learning from it.

  You might find a book like Deep Work by Cal Newport interesting.

Holy shit, son. You are 23. I was _still_ doing "stupid shit" when I was 23 and most people are. The fact that you're in Uni now and you realize the value of it sets you in front of probably 90 percent of the other people there. People shouldn't go to college until they're at least like 25 in my honest opinion. College is wasted on the young. Anyway, you're OK there. Just keep yourself in a position where you 1) Feel OK about what you're doing (and check with yourself every few months to affirm that) 2) Are learning the most you can, even if you have to make less money. That's all you can control, anyways: The rest is an illusion people create to make you feel bad about yourself so they can have more influence.

If you enjoy something it is not wasted time. Listening to speakers like this and engaging in communities like this can cause negative feedback loops. Don't be frustrated about it. Just realized you are normal and a human being with your own unique circumstances. Don't judge yourself based on the backgrounds and privileges of others. If you have an interest in something meet new people and see if you can explore interests together. Sadly our current world doesn't allow for people to be able to do this outside exclusive groups. To say the least don't feel down about your situation. If you weren't part of these groups originally the likelyhood of you joining them is low. We as humans naturally tend to exclude newcomers.

>>the fact that he's coding since he was a kid and spent hours upon hours in front of a screen and keyboard writing code.

Stop being impressed by people who do lots of work. For every John Carmack working hours everyday and winning, there are thousands who've worked equally hard if not more and failed. Some people just get lucky, almost everybody else doesn't.

Don't be impressed by survivorship bias. If you had fun playing games and hanging out with your friends, it was time well spent.

If you want to work hard and build software you have whole life ahead of you and you can do that as well. But as a middle aged programmer, if I were starting out, I would put my health, relationships and retirement on high priority than putting Lines of Code as a measure of success.

>How can I come to peace with the years I wasted on pointless things?

You shouldn't. It should make you angry and determined.

You have one life. In that life you have very, very few opportunities - combinations of ability, support, interest, and need. Most opportunities fail. We first-worlders in a tipping-point era are responsible for what happens next; it won't only be your life you're wasting, but generations and the planet.

And even if you're on some "right path", it's very, very easy to live life on automatic, which, as Socrates suggests, is a life not worth living.

My advice would be to stop searching to satisfy yourself, whether through games or socially-rewarded skills.

Do some good.

Do that, and everything else falls into place.

You may not appreciate it but we all learn from our experiences, somehow. I am by no means a Carmack but spent more time on code than MMOs (fair share of gaming though, NGL!)

I'm certain you have a completely different level of understanding of social dynamics and culture in those spaces. If I would be building a team targeting something around metaverse, I may prefer your profile over mine (depending on team balance and profile), given that you still pass the bar otherwise.

Many people credit MMOs with their ability to do effective teamwork online both synchronously and asynchronously even under high pressure and I believe it.

I'm certain you have something to show for it, whatever it is for you. Play your strengths.

And if only you played more guitar, you'd be a rockstar. More sports, a sports star. It's unfair to yourself to compare yourself to icons, very few people can be a legend.

Most people are trying to figure out their career around your age. Many will change careers again later. Instead of comparing yourself against the top 0.01% you should focus on incremental self-improvement. Take on a project, complete it, release it. Get feedback, identify gaps and try and close them. Purposeful improvement over time will eventually outpace any amount of random tinkering as a child. And don't focus self-improvement solely on your career, grow your life skills, get a hobby.

It is important to understand the purpose and nature of life, and know the things that bring real peace, growth, & direction, and help us overcome all our regrets. We will all have some, but what we do about them is imporant (and some matter, and I guess some don't, really). We existed before this life and will continue to exist after, which (for me at least) takes pressure off significantly.

Learning and service to others can come in many forms, whether or not one is religious, and they can bring joy that lasts. More at my web site (in profile, a simple site; click 1/2-way down on "Things i want to say..." then "purpose in life...").

You cannot change the past, start now. I know, once out of school, you get the first feeling of "I'm not young anymore" - but you're still are! You can still read books, acquire skills, take part in activities, get to know people, etc. Just do it now.

Also, I wouldn't reduce wasting time on games/social media to your personal problem. Of course you have influence about that stuff (especially now that you know about it), but this is something that is literally affecting generations. It's a much wider problem and one our industry is actively trying to worsen. The solution to that is not in promoting "personal responsibility".

You've learned to tell apart the meaningful from the meaningless. You've done this by the age of twenty three. Your time was only wasted if you don't take advantage of this excellent foundation.

Go forth and do that which you think is significant.

Dude, if you’re looking to do software development and especially game development, having 13 years of WoW experience will be especially beneficial to understanding what makes a game interesting, engaging and what provides a good experience.

At 23 you could be about to enter the best and most productive point of your life, or perhaps you'll find your pace at 33, or maybe 43 or 53. point is, you have a while yet.

Most people rue time wasted on 'frivolous' or 'pointless' activities, but I'd argue that Carmack, much as I respect him, wasted most of the only chance he'll ever have at childhood. Being a kid is about playing, and it sounds like you did a lot of that, at least.

You've got to remember that the vast majority of people aren't actually special, yet we all get to read about the literal ones in millions who are, and so compare ourselves to them.

I have been programming since I was 10 and I had exactly the same regrets as you. Stop thinking you should use your life in a "productive" way. You don't exist to be "productive". Just enjoy your life.

> i do regret the fact that i wasted so much of my life on games like World of Warcraft

You might be able to parlay that into a career in game design / programming? I also spent unreasonable amounts of time in WoW (and still sometimes do) but it taught me a lot about effective game design.

I've incorporated so much of what I learned from that game into games of my own: level scaling with the sqrt of XP, social features like clans (structured like guilds), chat, friend lists, achievements, in-game economy management, the importance of mechanics that feel good right away but have a (somewhat) high skill cap, and the list goes on.

Maybe gaming carried you through the hardest times of your mental illness and now you're ready to learn computer science deeply? Never too late. Especially at 23... People successfully do huge career changes at 50.

You’re 23 - I used to have similar thoughts and beat myself up about it, general anxiety.

The right framing (imo) is that your previous behavior is a learning experience that enables you to make the decisions you want now. It’s okay it wasn’t optimal because you’re able to have learned from it and can grow.

Ruminating on it is not useful and ignores the growth that came from it.

This framing is both true, and generally strategically helpful for not being afraid of failure and trying new things. It also helps coming to peace with “wasted years”.

Don’t worry about it basically, focused time will let you catch up and surpass nearly everyone if it’s a goal.

I’ve started coding at your age, while I was in Veterinary School. Now I’m 37 and I’m a pretty good developer, not (only) because of my technical capabilities, but because of my communication skills and empathy, that’s something that you can learn elsewhere. Last year I was a bit depressed because I haven’t achieved great goals (midlife crisis) and so I started learning something new (Jazz Piano) from start, and that is bringing me joy again. This makes me feel that the joy is in the process, I will never be Jhon Carmack or Bill Evans, but I’m always growing and that is beautiful.

We’re all living on borrowed time. And the past is immutable, the future is ever changing with too many variables to calculate. There’s nothing productive from regretting enjoying your youth. I’m around your age and got into programming as a junior in high school. I would program on the side and play video games with friends make movies et cetera. I loved all of it, i still enjoy playing games with friends though it’s not as frequent now.

You’re in college, enjoy it use it to learn computer science. People switch careers up later in life, you’ve got time and can do whatever you want

From now on, then, resolve to live as a grown-up who is making progress, and make whatever you think best a law that you never set aside. -Epictetus

Doesn’t matter when you start, only matters if you ever start.

Try not to worry about how you've spent your life up until now. You likely have many, many years left to live your life and focus on the things that matter to you.

I used to think similarly, lamenting mistakes made and time wasted in my earlier life, but as I get older, I now look ahead to eternal oblivion, and realise that in the grand scheme of things these concerns aren't really important.

I just try to use my time as best I can now without being concerned with the past, knowing that my future could end at any moment.

Time spent wallowing in regret is also time wasted.

Wait until you're in your mid to late twenties haha...

I realized I "wasted" time trying to work on startups and mildly borking the beginning of my career - but eventually this results in two camps.

a) people who realize they sort of fucked up, end up working even harder to improve themselves and figure things out.

b) people who give up, become complacent and just coast until they die.

If you're worrying about this it's because you're smarter now, know yourself better and want to improve. Be grateful you were smart enough to end up in this situation. See a psych, manage the anxiety and keep working!

do not regret my friend. as others have said, you have already taken the first step, which is to recognize that something needs to be changed. but you will later thank your past experiences, believe me. i spent 10+ years playing quake world, more than 5h/day and i am very grateful for that period, because it was my first contact with some kind of programming, i made my best friends at that time there and got fluent in english. despite the enormous amount of time spent, I do not regret that period, in fact, I am very grateful for it to have happened

I recently saw a book whose title (in German) was "Life doesn't gave a reverse gear" ... which simply means one cannot go back and change things.

But you are young and have many decades left which you can use to do what you now consider worthwhile.

One last tip: even if you now plan to do better with computers, always try to have a hobby away from computers. Or else you might someday regret that you (again) spent too much time in front of digital devices. Using certain devices outdoors is ok though IMHO, for example at photography (digital cameras) or geocaching (gps).

Maybe regret (about the past) and worry (about the future) are similar because they serve to deflect one’s attention from the here and now.

Trust that your past self chose as best they could then, and have compassion for that past self. Those experiences gave you skills and perspective you can use now.

I have found that big changes can be good, but never underestimate the power of marginal changes too. Walk instead of drive, go out a different exit, ask someone to lunch, try the random thing on menu, stay up later or get up earlier, try the book on the Librarian’s Choice table.

My take is that you lack a sense of purpose or self-esteem. As others have said, chasing the next title/accomplishment is not going to bring fulfillment. Once you’re an engineer, your attention will move on to the next thing. My advice is to see a therapist, they will help coach you into a better mindset that is accepting of yourself. Be passionate about stuff, be lazy when you want to, always keep showing up to things and don’t get defeated by setbacks in work/romance- there are always more people to meet and more jobs to do.

As a software developer who also wasted a decade of his life on WoW (30y/o now),

I think you're underestimating the connections you'll be able to make with other people when you start talking about your first time trying to solo the Deadmines, or the time your guild beat 25-man Lich King, or when you tried to get the Battlemaster pvp achievement.

Do the things you wish 12-year old you had done now. Software development has more breadth than depth so just get good at things one at a time and build things that interest you. No need to regret the past

I think you should make peace with yourself. At the time, it was the right thing to do (even if you think the complete opposite now), and you did it. Learn from it, consider everything as an experience, and keep doing what you love. 23 is nothing, you have plenty of time ahead and many people start their lifelong hobbies/passions at a later age anyway.

Nothing is wasted. You enjoyed your time playing WoW, and now you want to try other hobbies, go on and try them! Whatever you do, don't consider anything in the past as "wasted".

Do not compare yourself to Carmack at all. I really respect him as a programmer but I don’t think his lifestyle or story is ‘normal’ and can be emulated by regular people. Nearly none of his advice has helped me, for instance. He occasionally stoops to the level of regular people and says something like “If you aren't sure which way to do something, do it both ways and see which works better.” As for his history, focus, lack of social philosophising, working regime… it’s not for regular people.

Asking the question is a step in the right direction. I would try to examine your short term and long term goals and strive to make a positive contribution to the world. But those goals can be incremental. Like today you inspired me to go visit my mom. You don’t have to cure cancer to make a positive impact. And also don’t beat yourself up about video games or screen time. People need down time and pleasures to look forward to. The video game creator gets credit and satisfaction for creating a game you enjoy.

Think about what you want to do in the next 5 years, then do it.

After that, you will learn that those other 5 years playing were just 1/16 (or more) from your life.

So, focus on the next 5 years learning from the last 5.

Value what you have, not what you lack.

The experiences you made, be it bad or good, look at the positives of it. For me I’ve spent a good chunk of my life playing a particular game (I’m in my thirties). I loved the memories I’ve made and the friends I’ve gained through it.

I’ve also realised that the game is what I enjoy as long as I still progress in my life in other aspects. These days I enjoy 20-40 mins a day playing it if I have the time. I try to balance it with my other things/pillars in life: money, relationships, health, fun

There will always be more to regret than not to regret. In life we can only be mindful of a tiny subset of possibilities. The choices you make and have made, leave ample room for regret. Each second focused on regret, the regret can only mount. 'Oh if only I had done so and so instead of this and that.' There is no reason to believe you would not be steeped in regret, if you had made other choices.

Regret can only exist while looking at the past.

Do you wish to do away with regret...?

Then focus on achieving your future goals instead.

Consider the following: You are 23 and realizing this. You can totally "make up" for it if you want to.

Better now than to wake up much later and go "dang, now that was wasted years".

How do you make peace with it? Start doing the things that seem important to you now.

Here is one problem to remember... do not be mad at yourself if you wake up when you are 46 and say "you know, I feel like I wish I had worked hard on this OTHER / DIFFERENT thing than the one I choose when I was 23". Just... do it again. :)

Embrace the absurdity of the human experience and accept that what you're doing now is probably also a total waste of time for some reason that's not yet obvious to you.

I spent a heck of a lot of time in my youth playing video games and do not regret a minute of it. Video games can be quite mentally enriching and provide a community of friends.

My advice is to pick up meditation to think about how you'd rather spend your time if gaming isn't it and just do it.

Ultimately, your happiness is all about having a positive attitude. How you spent your time is not pointless if you enjoyed it, and you can't change the past - so don't worry too much about it.

You can compare yourself to others to some extent as part of a [life long] learning process but make it productive: don't go too far and extract a few key points that are viable for your own improvement at this point in time and apply them. Do it again. You have lots of time at 23. You don't have to start coding at age five to be a descent software engineer, but it will take a few years, possibly a decade. Who knows, maybe the next Carmack started later too.

Essentially a religious or faith question.

There's infinite things you can imagine. Infinite decisions you made and didn't make. Let yourself imagine good things. If you commit to these imaginations, solemnly and gratefully let yourself be corrected by your own logic.

You're not alone in this feeling and yet your future is not decided. Everyone longs to imagine the future so they could bend it their advantage. Same with the past. In the end, it's not up to you entirely. Forgive.

Sit still and let all your thoughts play out. Let all the remorse and sorry out. Be completely open and accepting of all your feelings. Let them out. We don't struggle with ideas, we struggle with our own feelings but they are just feelings. They can't hurt you. Quite the contrary actually. Your feelings are _you_ and they are a wonderful part of the experience. Open up to your feelings. Accept them and be free. :)

The gaming industry and the addiction they manufacture are our contemporary opium traders. The entire concept of the gaming industry is unethical by nature, it is a leech upon the world, and is a powerful coefficient in the destruction of culture and of social bonds in civilization. A healthy culture has strong foundation and is lived, owned by those who live it. Culture has become mere spectacle, to be watched and emulated.

I am 29, I wasted my youth playing games.

When I was younger, I spent 10-14 hours a day on my bike or skates, with friends, and in later years I spent the same on WoW, now I spend that time at work -- if I'm including commuting. They're all different types and stages of socialization.

Don't lose sight of the fact that your fun and escape is actually the bleeding edge of technology - the Fridman podcast isn't exactly light listening - and you're familiarizing yourself through play.

I'm curious, what did that time playing games give you? Nothing?

I spent a lot of time on MUDs and EverQuest. But I gained lifelong friendships from it.

Sometimes I think back to all the time I spent with regret. But that helped form who I am today. Without it I would be a very different person.

Beyond that, life is not a straight line from A to B. There's twists and turns as everyone tries to figure things out for themselves. And on top of that, sometimes shit happens.

I really don't think you appreciate how much time is still ahead of you. If you start now to do the things you want to do, you will be just fine. Even ahead because for lots of people it takes much longer to figure out what they want. Also, don't compare yourself to people on the internet. Even if they are based and humble, you'll never see what they have going on internally, how gifted and rare they are. Etc.

Maybe try to realise that the past is past and can’t be changed, but the future of yours to mould as you please. When you do that, don’t compre yourself to others, find your own unique way to be you. Be honest to yourself, and be kind to yourself. The worst thing you can do for your happiness is trying to hold yourself to unreasonable standards, or other people’s standards. You are unique and beautiful as you are.

Having lost what I wanted out of my 20s to miserable disability, I envy your position. You’re young and doing what you really want to.

Which is to say, there are different trajectories and it’s enough and good to follow the one that’s yours and to not feel bad about it.

You’re finally on the path you’ve chosen! It sounds fun. You love what you’re doing, so try to savor that. Also, the best ideas happen during the journey, so you’re well on your way.

Don't well on the past, you can't change it, but what you can change is the direction of your future.

You've learned a valuable lesson the hard way: that time is the most valuable resource, that you can't get it back and that it is non-fungible. Some people don't learn that until it's far, far too late. You've learned it early, use that knowledge to direct the rest of your adult life.

You come to peace with it by recognizing how it made you what you have become today. It comes from developing a keen sense of self and requires curiosity, not regret.

Also, don't be hard on yourself. Nothing good comes from it. And, as many comments on the thread have already pointed out, you have your entire life ahead of you, so look forward to all the amazing things you will come to do from _today_.

Spending time on video games and social media can be a coping mechanism for financial hardships. They are both relatively low cost ways to socialize, world of Warcraft let’s you go to events for around 10 dollars a month.

If you finish your comp sci program you are unlikely to experience financial hardship regardless of your dedication to the field. What you do with the financial freedom is up to you!

Maybe you shouldn't come to peace with it, and let that be what helps drive you to start following your passions in a more positive manner. I'm twice your age and haven't come to peace with the fact I've not made good use of my passion for writing music the last 20+ years - and hope I never do until something finally clicks and I re-ignite my drive to do so.

Do you endlessly worry about the billions of years that existed before you were sapient?

Do you endlessly worry about the potentially trillions of years that will exist after you are no longer sapient?

Your mind is a gift. And as a gift it is yours to do with as you wish. There's no annoying older relative bullying you over whether you've played with that star wars toy "enough" to satisfy them.

That interview has a line where John says you can sleep 8 hours a day and work 100 hours a week if you 'prioritise correctly'. 40ish minutes in.

He also made the point that keeping working past diminishing returns of effectiveness gets more done than stopping at that point.

Making peace with past waste will only make it easier to waste the future. None of that. Focus on getting more done today.

Oh lord! You’re 23!! You have a lifetime ahead you!

You've come to value your limited time at a fundamental level by 23; many people spend their whole lives without really taking time to think about what is really important (either to them personally, or to in principle). IMO, that's more important than having earned some credential, or being "recognized" by the masses in some particular way.

Maybe your passion IS video games and not programming? These days you can build just as good a career out of that – maybe start a youtube channel or start streaming on twitch? Everybody cannot be John Carmack, he is quite an exception. Don't try to be someone who you are not. Find your unique strengths and try to figure out how to best leverage them.

Live is only one, go enjoy it and forget about being an outlier.

When you are 40 you'll miss the time when you are 23 and will laugh at this concern.

To me your younger life sounds a lot more fun. But that is me. I'm sure for some kids writing hours of code or doing hours of math or hours of reading was more fun. I was much like you and did more than just fine in life (in terms of material wealth). Like someone pointed out, ultimately everything is pointless. Just have fun in whatever you do.

Carmack is the Michael Jordan of programming.

23 year old guys who have never played basketball shouldn't suddenly be sad they didn't wind up living Michael Jordan's life.

I don't regret any time I spent on anything before I was about 26. You still haven't started. You still have time to have two full, successful careers.

Just get started and don't quit easy.

When I saw the title I thought this might be from someone in their 50s or 60s.

At 23 you haven’t wasted anything. You’re just getting started. I would argue instead how boring things would be if you just picked something at 10 and only did that.

We’re supposed to change as we get older. You’re not the person you were before so just focus on who you are now.

Burn that regret as fuel.

Just know what you want to turn your attention next. People like Carmack are not so frequent. Go read about the life of someone like June Huh instead. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/June_Huh

You want what you want today because of the experiences you have lived. If you’d lived a different life, you’d want different things and the “you” asking this question on HN wouldn’t exist. Thankfully you do exist, so keep taking in new experiences, adjusting your goals & moving forward.

OP,

I have been programming since I was a kid. I was fortunate to grow up in a time before social media took over and internet was still for weird people. Viewed externally I wasted a lot of time on the internet. I played a LOT of video games, which was my primary impetus for learning to program. I wanted to build trainers and tools someday because I looked up to the crews who were so popular when I was young.

I got into to school and it took me 6 full years to graduate. I programmed and gamed (and when I wasn't doing this I was working) so much I did terrible academically in high school. I started from the bottom. I ended up graduating at 25 with a degree in computer science years behind everyone else. For a long time I regretted this because everyone I worked for was far younger than me (18-22). I then wasted several years in graduate school, which I didn't finish because it wasn't my thing, and then wasted several more years drinking at bars for no reason other than boredom. I regretted everything for a long time wondering who I'd be if I was a social person, better in high school, did more things, was more popular, etc. I still have these regrets. They never go away, you just learn to deal with them because you don't get any redos.

You will make it. You're having a quarter-life crisis. Carmack is an incredible programmer but it helps to remember he was just in the right place at the right time and success builds success. How many failures did he have? Tons. It also helps he was a programmer in a time when there wasn't millions of them. These days it's far harder to get recognized. Perhaps comparing yourself to him is not worth the trouble.

What you should focus on now is simply deciding something to do and going with it. You're young with plenty of screw-up room in front of you. Keep focused on your education and don't force anything else. Meet people outside of programming that are more difficult to make a direct comparison to. Go be a young person - after all youth is wasted on the young. As it turns out the more I talk to people outside of my field, the more I realize they look at me and have the same regrets about themselves. It's okay to have regrets. Don't let them keep you tied to the bed wallowing in your own self pity.

Oh...if you're going to dump anything in order to change your life it should be social media. All social media in any quantity is the most lethal poison you will ever take. It creates the exact kind of comparison you are doing now to other people but scaled infinitely.

I feel like the way we spend time is always a tradeoff of one thing or another. Use those regrets to try to prioritize your time moving forward. You're only human so it's okay if you screw up sometimes. Keep your eye on where you're trying to go and do your best.

The second best time to plant a tree is today, so adjust how you spend your time. Think of it like a life experiment. Commit to starting a new habit. If it sticks and you’re happier, do it again until the low hanging fruit (of a more meaningful life for you) is picked.

I suggest trying to come to peace with yourself. You're so young. Take you "self" out of the equation for a year. Who are you bringing up in your surroundings? What are you sharing, and with who? No time to self-lament when solving someone else's problems.

"It ain't where you're from, it's where you're at."

There's 8 billion people in this world, and one single John Carmack. Everyone's experience is unique, so do you. Think about what you can change today instead of focusing on the immutable past.

Here's a perspective to consider: the regret is a safety mechanism to keep you from doing, in the present, what you aspire to do.

If you make good use of the present, your regret for the past will fade, you'll have less time to indulge in it and no reward for doing so.

In twenty years you could very well wish that you spent your current years doing something other than wasting your time on computer science (or not). Take some time now to do some serious introspection and meditation and figure out what is really worthwhile.

Google: "Ignore sunk costs"

Viewing your lost time this way is both rational and emotionally liberating!

I suggest reading Feynman's letter to a former student about "worthwhile problems".

As someone older than you, take it from me that at 23 you have a world of time and options available to you. Many of my pursuits and interests started at that age.

If you're 23, you probably have 47-67 years left.

Don't sweat anything that might have been done differently in the prior 23. Go make the best of the 47 to come, with the extra advantage of the lessons you've already learned.

Your best years are ahead of you. Go get 'em!

You are 23. Knowing what you know live your life in such way that in the age of 40 you regret nothing. That's what I did, though my wake-up age was 26 and before reaching that age I was wasting my life on, well, worse things in many ways than you.

Don't be so hard on yourself, and don't compare yourself to a computer science prodigy. You can teach yourself to become a decent web developer in 1 year and take it from there, your life is far from being wasted in any sense.

I've spent a lifetime coding from a very early age. I don't dwell on it, but sometimes I think back and regard a lot of that coding as pointless. I wrote a lot of code for startups (successful and failed) that no longer exist.

Buddhism and meditation. Buddhism will teach you what is pointless and what is not, lets you become fulfilled with whatever you go through, and meditation will give you the strength to pursue your interests without being distracted.

It’s not pointless if you’re having fun doing it. Almost everything you mention as being important wasn’t even possible until 500 years ago at a minimum, what would you say about humans before then?

I feel the same as you, only I'm 21. I wasted all my youth, I had opportunities, but I blew them all. All I did was playing video games. I just can't look at myself in the mirror now.

Start today, my friend, start today!

No time for regrets. Take the steps toward becoming your most real and authentic self. You have lifetimes ahead of you to master any art and science, if only you start today.

You're only 23. Plenty of time to course correct. Coming to this realization in your early 20s instead of your mid-30s is a huge step in itself. Good luck!

Go to Church. Or perhaps you have to decide how to fill this particular restlessnesses. Everyone experiences it.

I learned a few things about how to be a manager by playing World of Warcraft and EverQuest so it’s not all bad. You have to find the unexpected and unintuitive skills being taught by “wastes of time”. Leading raids way back and organizing guilds is surprisingly similar to corporate org structures.

Look past your initial categorization to figure out what you were doing beneath the surface. You might find something valuable.

But more important is to just do stuff. Don’t worry about what the best allocation of your time is right now. Have faith that you will find the right path.

Sunk cost.

You can use bitterness to motivate, or you can use it to justify the same behavior.

You wake up in this body and ask: What's the most important thing I could be doing?

Get obsessed with something that pays off.

The trouble with criticizing your past self is that you're comparing a real timeline, with its warts and disappointments, to a fictional timeline that has neither.

Recognise that the time you spend worrying about years wasted on pointless things is itself wasted on a pointless thing, and just get on with what you want to do.

You’re 23. Seriously stop thinking like this. You have a lot of time.

I’m 37 and I’ve just started out. I know at this point my career has a low ceiling. But I’ll try my best.

I created account for reyply you! if your future purpose contain game development, do you think people want to a game designed by someone never play game?

Similar to what others have said... don't let regret become your new sm/wow - aka the new thing that you spend 'wasted' time on

Afaik what you describe is not too far off Romero, playing Doom 10-14 hours a day instead of helping with Quake, leading to him getting fired from ID.

When you're 33 you'll probably wish you spent more time with your friends and family over the last decade.

There's only now forward. Want it? Do it.

Two of the things I repeat to my kids: You cannot change your past but can change your future. The success of others is not your failure.

Forget about the things you can’t change. Channel that regret towards not making the same choices for the next 50 years of your life.

Whatever you do, eventually it is pointless in the vast universe. Just keep moving forward, it is animal instinct.

mourning. by that i mean literally crying. tears, without any shame. this might not be easy, it’s frowned upon in western culture, in particular if you are male (boys don’t cry).

it will likely bring you a lot of softness and spaciousness, connect you to your deeper longings and let you see more clearly where to go from here.

Don't compare yourself to others. Focus on what you want to do now that would make you happier. Love yourself.

An elder pulled me aside and whispered, “you’ve got one foot in the past and the other is in the future…”

Yeah?

“You’re pissing on the present.”

Okay since you mentioned games, let me drop gaming analogies on you.

Way I see it, life is a little bit like Minecraft, (or the other way around. :) You know there's a dragon at the end, but the game is not about the end. You don't win the game. It has no meaning or goal inherent to it, you make up your meaning out of it, sometimes copy others. It becomes meaningless if you can't come up with a new goal anymore and can't find inspiration elsewhere.

I feel like people pry at each other's life way too frequently over the little windows they're provided, and whatever they see there, they take it as a high score board and take note of how low they score in someone else's life.

There's a certain image of happiness in our collective minds, and it leans very extroverted and centered around material gains. Of course, give it a shot, try some other passions and see if some stick, but in the end if what makes you happy is to play WoW, then take care of your responsibilities first, and then play WoW like there's no tomorrow.

Over time you'll discover new passions, and you might want to keep or ditch previous ones. That's something to celebrate, not to mourn. It's as if you unlocked a new chapter in life. If your passion happens to be the next Carmack, then you will work towards it, and enjoy the ride even if you never reach the destination.

tl;dr life is fleeting. chill out. enjoy the ride.

well, you never know how something you do today could be useful tomorrow, a la first star wars movie...

anyway, motto in our house is "it seemed like a good idea at the time", and if it did, it probably was, or at least best choice you knew to make.

"Don't look back in anger"- Oasis.

you can't change the past. you can influence the future. but you only ever live in the present.

If it makes you feel any better, it's all equally pointless. Might as well do what you enjoy.

Don't hate the path that leads to success.

If you're 23 and motivated then you're on the right track.

23 is relatively young and be patient. Good things in life isn’t instant. Fruition takes time.

It's not too late to start now, you are wasting time right now thinking about this

Google: "Ignore sunk costs"

Viewing your lost time this way is both rational and liberating!

I used to feel that way then I realized everything else is a bit pointless anyways

It's not about what you did in the past. It about what you do in the future.

23!

Hah!

That's all I'm going to say... in a "you've got nothing to be worried about" way...

"The best time to start was yesterday. The next best time is now."

Spending a lot of time worrying about the past is just as much of a waste.

Give up. You cannot win the fight at the level of the fight.

Every good day leaves regrets of the past further behind.

dwelling on regret is one of the biggest waste of time.

There's only 17 years between 23 and 40!

You should read masters of doom.

And you are very young still.

Stop falling for the productivity cult.

i dont think you've learnt anything yet if you're spending 5hrs watching lex pods.

fussing about the past wastes time. the time to start any great pursuit is right now.

You can't change the past.

23. gtfo

Meditation. Psychedelics.

Read philosophy.

My unprofessional assessment: you're looking at a quarter-life crisis and reevaluating your view of the world. Your perspective is shifting and now your questioning the path forward and looking at the path behind.

I did this around the same age. I was the complete opposite of you. I was knee deep on computing like Carmack and such, not saying I was a savant or anything, but I was obsessed, it was mucuh of my childhood. Spent most my days and evenings focusing on computers, tech, buulding things, early web development, design, software engineering, "hacking", everything... I was all over the place and said this was it I do this and I'll be happy. Not only do I enjoy it, I have a plan that this will lift me out of poverty and I'll worry about dating and being happy after.

At some point in my early 20s I began questioning if I was missing out on-life. I had very few intimate relationships at that point, neglected time with my friendships, had liited social life.. I was so focused on tech and ultimately being "successful." Then I started thinking about all the things I was missing out on, playing video games, intimate relationships, partying and going out with friends...

What would I value long term? Was the tech that important to me? What about all the messy human things like relationships, having a partner, family, kids... are those important to me and am I going in the right direction.

For me the answer was I felt I made a mistake with too much focus and I still agree with that decision. I missed out on some (not all) teen and young adult experiences I now somewhat regret but to some degree eventually experienced later in life. I shifted time away from chasing the latest tech and trying to make a fortune from some business idea to focusing on myself: started exercising, sleeping more, eating healthy, actively dating and improving my personality, fostering and growing friendships even if it sometimes meant sacrificing time doing things I didn't quite want to do. I got happier, a lot happier, and realized my happiness was far more important to me than whatever contrived external measures of success society and others may have originally helped set in my mind.

Ultimately all that focus wasn't lost, I had and still have a leg-up in some domains of computing due to the years of, albeit unprofessional and childhood, training but not too far off from professional levels of training and exploration. That ultimately set me up for great positions many others can't compete in, high income, and financial stability that I have as a base for all the other things in life I enjoy to sit atop of. But none of that matters to me anymore beyond its ability to provide stability for the rest of things in life like my partner, family, friends, and things that make me happy.

So, all that to say, think about what you really want in life. The good news is you're still very young and still have plenty of time to course correct if you find you're off. But sit down, think about it, find what makes you happy, and don't let others shift your vision unless they have good feedback that your approach won't get you to your goals. Maybe what you're doing does make you happy and others are painting a picture of what you should do but that isn't going to get you to what you want in life and you're questioning that, or maybe you do want to be more career focused and need that shift in time.

I've adopted a rather epicurean take on life since that point and I haven't regretted it (so long as my enjoyment isn't at the cost of others' enjoyment--I practice restraint). It's all up to you how you want to shape your life but I say think about what you want and always be open to reevaluate your choices and goals but don't dwell on it too much. Enjoy life, you only live once (at least in my framing of reality) as cliche as it is.

There's a lot to this question, and there are a lot of suggestions I can make.

First, we all have a choice which thoughts we will entertain and which ones we will shut down. We can intentionally choose to think about something, such as when trying to solve a problem or when trying to make the body perform some complex physical task. But what tends to be the case is that our brain seems to run on its own, and our thoughts come at us (seemingly randomly).

Some meditation can be like mental exercise in that we practice either focusing one one thing or avoiding focus on any thing.

At any moment, we have a choice what we will think about. We can choose to think about something outside of our control (such as our past, or the behavior of someone else, or our current bank balance), or we can stop lines of thought and replace them with another focus.

One matter of thought which tends to get too much time/attention is self comparison. There's always someone who is more this or that or who started doing something earlier and was more dedicated. Let them be inspiration, not competition, or it will drive you mad (or make you obsessed).

What was generally have control of is what we choose to think about and what we do right now. We cannot change the past. Perhaps we can learn from it and direct our future in a certain way, but the only actual time is now.

My past includes over a year of actual human time in WoW. It was an escape for me, and looking back it could be viewed as a supreme waste of a year of my life. I would do something else in place of it if I could rewind, but I cannot. So instead I try to learn from it. What I have learned is that there tends to be an underlying reason we "waste time". Perhaps it is an escape from an unpleasant reality, or quite often it is an avoidance of doing something difficult or scary or which was don't know the next step to take. For each of those root causes there can be a solution if we pause and consider (rather than taking the easy path of avoidance/distraction).

If you genuinely want to learn OS internals and be a high performance nerd (not a bad thing, but definitely a choice of direction), then go for it. But try to evaluate periodically why you're doing what you're doing. If the reason is not sound, or it's an excuse (because there's a different underlying reason), you may find yourself without the real motivation to work hard. In other words, you may not have the actual passion necessary to become great. It's ok to be mediocre at something, but it will cause mental conflict if you tell yourself you want to be great at it but don't follow through with the necessary effort.

It's common to not really know what motivates us. Try not to confuse "can" with "should". I could do a lot of things really well if I focused. I have done a number of things well above average with modest effort, so in theory I could have taken any one or few of them and become great. But I didn't really have the passion, so I didn't push. That's ok!

Doing something with passion and love (for yourself or for the results) will make you happier and more importantly satisfied. Chances are, you will also be great at it with seemingly less effort than expected.

I am going to say many things and many of them may come off as insensitive and even hurtful, but do please read until the end. I focus a lot of my comments around John Carmack and WoW because you mentioned them multiple times and I personally see that as an indication that addressing your angst necessarily requires addressing these influences.

1. Your life experience has parallels with mine in terms aspiring to be proficient at my career from a young age: my personal view is that point of view was instilled into me by my parents as part of being a middle class family. It definitely had benefits and continues to do so, but my opinion today is that my parents should have tempered this point of view with concepts like the law of diminishing returns and the power law in an educational setting where graduating/selecting into a more competitive school means more work for each additional percentage point improvement.

2. WoW captured the imagination and time of an entire generation, and many people feel exactly the way you do. There are many arguments as to why and what can be done about it, but those will not help you immediately at this moment. TL;DR you are not alone.

3. You did what you wanted to do at the time, and many people did not and still do not get that chance.

4. Hindsight is 20/20, but getting to the point where something is in hindsight is not a guarantee. WoW is coming out with a new expansion (Dragonflight) soon as well as relaunching an older expansion (Wrath of the Lich King). However, you've decided that you have other priorities at the moment and you've decided to focus on them. TL;DR you came to a realization, and you decided to move in a different direction.

5. I agree that having that early start coding as kid would definitely be an advantage. However, Is that early start to coding a necessary precondition to becoming a good software engineer? Yes, there are more distractions today, but there are also resources available to you today that weren't available during his childhood.

6. In contrast to 5, suppose that the early childhood start at coding is a necessary precondition to being a good software engineer. Is it the end of the world for you if you cannot be a good software engineer?

7. Did John Carmack have mental health problems, serious financial hardships, etc on his path towards becoming who he is today? If he did not, then how likely would it have been for him to become who he is today if he had those problems in his life? TL;DR we do not pick our initial conditions / spawn point as easily as it is to pick a character in WoW, and we cannot reroll characters.

8. What did spending all those hours WoW leave you with? You likely interacted with other people, played in a party or in raids, and maybe organized raids or assisted in guild management. You might also have used voice chat software to communicate with others. Those are useful skills and you built them without complaint and maybe also while having fun. https://www.wsj.com/articles/can-warcraft-game-skills-help-l... - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8174480 . Every skill you build invests in your future, and I would argue that the lessons I learned when I was enjoying myself were the ones that stuck the most with the least deliberate effort.

9. This question is rhetorical one: what else do you have outside of the time you spent on WoW and social media? It is very easy to compress your life story into a number of milestones and influences because we are used to seeing other people do the same in interviews. I do it all the time. However, this compression is lossy: it throws out many other important influences and events that we should be thankful for.

10. Suppose being "the next John Carmack" was your absolute number one goal. Then, you realize 6, but you still have that fixation. What is the next best thing? What about being the giant on whose shoulders the next John Carmack stands on? No, you do not have to have children if you do not want to, but you can be mentor via things like Big Brother/Sister/Sibling mentorship programs, or informally mentoring and supporting a younger relative. TL;DR Even if you cannot be the one to fell the dragon, you can still be instrumental to helping the one who can.

The above list is incomplete given the time I can spend today.

I too have failed to be who I wanted to be: however, I am thankful for the role of my faith, my family, my friends, my knowledge, my elixir, and the ittehbittehkittehcommitteh in being who I am today.

The general truth of things I've found is you wouldn't be the person you are today if you were able to go back and makee any changes with that foresight.

You would be doing it blind as in the butterfly effect, and you could easily go down any number of worse paths or be a much worse person if you think about going down that what if tree scenario. Instead of being regretful of what you think you lost, consider being grateful for what you have.

What you are asking is really a deeper question.

Are you happy with who you are and where you are. If not, what changes do you need to make to get to where you want to be.

You can't go back and change things so you shouldn't be upset about a missed opportunity that you never had. Not letting go of anything that doesn't move you in the direction you want to go is the reason why most people stall and get nowhere.

The only thing you can actually do is take the lessons you've learned, distill them,put the time in to formulate it so you can pass those lessons down, either to your kids, colleagues, or community in some effective form with the intent to give others opportunities you did not have. So they are better prepared than you were. So they have more opportunities than you did.

The next few decades are likely to turn out to be particularly hard, if we manage to survive it at all, and that's being practical not nihilistic.

Financial hardships are borne out of poor financial education and the decisions that arise out of that initial state of education. Not being able to comprehend or understanding how debt works for example is one of the things that we are not taught but critically undermine our success.

Mental health issues often have a physical cause. Either diet, exercise, or it can be circumstances. For example, Toxic Lead/Arsenic/Mercury exposure/poisoning often mimic or induces symptoms similar to ADD/ADHD/Autism and are hard to conclusively test because they bind so quickly. Some people have experienced severe headaches from eating cilantro (because it unbinds those metals if they were previously exposed). This is where finding a doctor that will listen to your concerns and take the appropriate professional steps instead of selling a lie because they get kickback bonuses for meeting budget is necessary.

You should be asking yourself more appropriate questions. For example, why did you waste so much time on WoW, and other games in the past, do you still do it and why?. Did the developers do anything that triggers certain things (sound effects to certain actions), associate things and then repeat/reward in a similar cycle. It wasn't just fun, it was exciting too right? How did they do that?

If you do a bunch of research, you might come to a thought that reframes it like this, and its hard to hear but bear with it and then test whether it could be true based on your experiences.

How do teens generally handle addiction? More specifically, why is it that you couldn't stop eating sugary things on your own when you were a little kid, that your parents had to basically take away the box or limit how many twinkies, donuts, or other sweets physically and how you salivated like you could almost taste it; but now have such a low interest in it now. In most US households this is a globally accepted truth kids can't stop eating sweets until they get amazingly sick from doing it.

You will find over time, that there are deep secrets to be found if you decide to go looking and you can only find them if have your mind open to the possibilities. Secrets that some people can never believe is true. Secrets that you may even be persecuted for knowing, specifically more about how things actually work than others.

Horrifying, amazing, monstrous, and enlightening, the world is ugly and beautiful in different ways.

Getting a degree is a good choice, whether it will pan out as an investment is tough depending on the debt you are going to have (most student debt is bad because it can't be discharged), it probably will situate yourself better than certifications if you can succeed given the only alternative (certifications).

There is a massive amount of fraud in certifications which you don't realize, and you have to recertify regularly. Business Insurance often requires degrees or certifications to prove you are qualified. If you don't have them, its a justification to low-ball your salary and kick you to the curb if you don't come in for pennies. I've had someone in a salary negotiation try to drop my base salary by 20% just because I didn't have a piece of paper (and have a track record of years of professional experience doing the exact same job, years being almost decades). Yes I walked.

The thing no one talks about is how much people lie, mislead, and deceive and then get away with it. Fraud for example is just a deception but what can you do to hold people accountable for it? How do you go about structuring your actions to hold those accountable to what they promised. That's something you should think about as you age.

Any investment you make in yourself is not a lost investment. You never know when you will come across something that is absolute gold, sometimes the authors and books that you hate the most or disagree with the most have something so great that it makes up for hating them (you can still hate them). You can hate them, and use what they taught you for yourself.

That said, there is a lot of junk and snake oil out there.

I would recommend starting with a book like Introduction to NLP because it will give you a solid mental framework to improve everything which compounds and you want your effort towards improvement to compound.

Spaced repetition and the ebbinghaus forgetting curve are useful to know about. Hypnosis is real (not like it is depicted in movies)

Meditation is especially useful (its not what you might expect, its practicing ways to force or still, your thoughts through visualizations and other forms).

Then psychology, Customer Service Rep tactics, sales, all directly impact communication. If you can express yourself clearly, professionally, de-escalate, and handle communications with ease it will command respect and everyone generally will treat you better than someone that can't do those things. If you mispell have bad grammar or poor english there is a widely held bias that you are stupid regardless of any truth to it.

Being able to judge credibility and how lack of credibility works in a negotiation is important as well. When dealing with people that lie, this is critical.

Knowing history is especially important, especially the history they don't dare teach in schools.

Most bad history books simply have a narrative they are trying to push. The best history books provide the context so that you can understand the reasoning of people at that time, the problems they faced, as well as what they would see and hear. In learning to pick these things out, it gives you warning signs because everything is cyclical given a long enough time horizon. If you invest wisely knowing what the trends will be you will hopefully do well. Fraud, Corruption, and Graft these days is everywhere because its gone unchecked and unpunished in important ways since the previous generational cohort took over. You will also be surprised to find that elements of socialism are just about everywhere as well and if you don't understand how to recognize it (and know its failings) you can be side-swiped by trends that depend on that lie.

You need to develop a robust system of personal risk management, and learn to quantify counter-party risk for yourself.

Ideally you need to be debt free with a 20% down payment saved for a starter house by age 30. If your student loans don't allow you to do that; you need to figure out a way for you to make that happen.

If you don't have that taken care of, you likely won't have kids, won't get married, won't be financially secure enough to do anything but work until your dead. Any inheritance you might receive will come too late to be of any useful help. This is what they do not tell you.

Much of what people learned growing up in the late 1970s and forward are at best half-truths, if not outright lies at this point, and those have been repeated since regularly then. It falls far closer to indoctrination than preparation for adulthood.

These are dark times, when you have a chance check out the book 'Influence' by Cialdini. It covers common pitfalls with practical examples of techniques and tactics used by just about everyone of important to manipulate people; its written by a psychologist. Some people would argue that manipulating people is evil but influencing them is not. The difference between the two is whether only one party benefits while the other party losers, or alternatively if both parties receive benefit from it.

If you are a Lord of the Rings fan, you may remember this memorable quote:

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/12357-i-wish-it-need-not-ha...

Hope this gave you some food for thought. Lots of toxic individuals on social media (mostly bots done at someones behest to persecute others or isolate them). You need a real thick skin to deal with some of those types these days.

You definitely did screw up, but imagine how much bigger your screwup will be if you don’t do anything about it now.

33 should look a lot better for you, focus on that. You’ve identified the thing you wish you had done, and you have the time to correct the regret.

On the other hand if you’re still not motivated, then at least you have your answer; you’re not capable of more, and should find ways being content as you are.

WoW is a fun and social game; if that’s all you’re going to do with your life, at least you’ll find some moments pleasurable.

Really, I’m not knocking the idea of throwing your life away to video games, but recognize that’s what it is.