I have two friends who treated good women badly in their 20s because they were sure the grass would be greener somewhere else. They are now single, in their early 40s, and really really want to meet a good woman and get married, but they keep dating psychos with too many issues.

I want to say how jealous I am of your 9 hours of sleep. I'm lucky if I get more than 6 hours and 7 seems like some minor miracle.

My son is, sadly, a morning person while I am a night person, and I haven't managed to train him to just go play with his toys and let me sleep yet.

There are a lot of cool things about being an older dad (I'm 43, my son is 5), but there are times I wish I'd had a kid 5-10 years earlier. You just don't have the same energy in your early 40s that you have in your early/mid 30s (at least, I don't...).

Really? Most people end up doing something based on decisions they made when they were 16-24 and likely had no clear idea of what they were getting themselves into.

I mean, I guess it depends how you define "enjoy". My work is generally not unpleasant and sometimes challenging and interesting, but I'd be lying if I said I enjoy it. But the pay is decent and I don't really have financial worries, which is worth a lot to me.

And it's not like I can just shift careers mid-career without a massive cut in pay (although since we are having a lot of layoffs at my company I may be getting a chance to try that out soon).

really? i would bet the VAST majority of people either don't like their job or make terrible money at one they love.

This is why my advice to a young person would be to find a career that they like, you know, when they're young.

And you really can't think of a single career you could have gone into as a young person that you might actually enjoy doing? Really? There's not one thing?

That's why my advice is to not do that. The VAST majority of people suck.

Look, it's simple supply and demand. Think of the relative economic cost of the things you use each day: roads, house, buildings, clean toilets, clothes, cars, toilet paper, produce and meat, lots of electronics, mobile networks, lots of software, take out/fast food, mundane accounting/banking services, plastics, chemicals, etc. The cost of these things is a decent proxy for labor. The economic value of these dwarfs that of the handful of interesting service jobs. Hence the vast majority of jobs that need to be done are not interesting, fun, or high paying. And even those jobs aren't that great except for particular personalities - I would never be an academic or accountant for example (I have too much self respect and love of life), but some people with boring personalities enjoy it.

People look for meaning (not present in 95% of jobs), fun/travel (not present in 95% of jobs), and high pay. Jobs with these qualities are usually high end or have small niches and usually require special qualifications and sacrifice to get there. Some more common jobs people find enjoyable (i.e. child care, teaching) don't usually pay that well.

Your advice might be ok for a 16 year old, who has time to plan out his life, but for a 25 year old it's pretty bad. I really don't get how you could be shocked that most people won't enjoy their jobs, even intelligent and capable people.

Of course. Give me a time machine and let me go back to freshman year in college, and I'll make some different choices for sure.

But, as it was, the plan I had in college was to get a PhD and be a college professor. When I was 21-23, I felt pretty good about that plan.

Then my 2nd year in grad school I realized that I really didn't want to to do that, which was sort of a problem, as I hadn't had a backup plan.

Truthsayer,

You seem to be misunderstanding. I'm not saying everyone can enjoy their job. And I'm not shocked that most people don't enjoy their job. That's not what I said at all.

Also, 25yos are still quite young, especially in our society today. Most people will make a significant career change at 25+.

Set aside some money in a bank account or in treasury bonds (i.e. not invested in any stocks) while developing a specialized expertise either in work, investing, or some skill of value. There will come a time where you will be presented an opportunity where your expertise can make a difference, and you want the cash on hand to play it as hard as you can once it is presented to you. It could fail, but your expertise should help you recognize when it is +EV for you.

I passed up several such opportunities because I had no spare cash on hand and they required a lot of capital but were risky enough that I didn't want to take a loan to act on them. Had I had the cash on hand, I would have triple the networth that I have now.

Also, learn backgammon. You can learn a lot about life from backgammon.

I'm interested in what those opportunities were if you don't mind telling us.

I've heard the statement of "find what you love and then figure out how to make money from it" since I was a kid.

But at some point, I started to realize that this is probably not a very good strategy and it is also not very realistic:

Firstly, our ideas of what we might find fulfilling are very inaccurate and tend to follow societal pressures/tendencies. We are basing our plans not only on incomplete information, but more importantly, on skewed and inaccurate perceptions. We have a tendency to look at the famous examples, and ignore the rest of the average masses (in part because no one ever thinks they are "average")

Secondly, a lot of things that are fun to do end up being cumbersome and annoying when you have to do them 8 hours per day, 5 days per week, 50 weeks per year - for years on end. I noticed that there are many things I love to do as a hobby, but would hate to do as a job when I realized what it takes to do that job.

Thirdly, I have a feeling that a lot of satisfaction comes from variety of tasks and variety of pursuits. If you do the same thing every day, no matter how great, it will get mundane and boring. It will be just another job as you try to put in the hours. Variety of tasks and projects is important.

Fourthly, interests naturally change over time. As you grow older, you discover yourself. What gave you satisfaction before, may give you boredom in the future. Even if you knew exactly what career is right for you right now, by the time you get to your goal your interests are likely to change.

Lastly, my impression is that there is a higher correlation between happiness and finances and time than career track. There is definitely a sweet spot for this. Many people work very lame jobs but get enough money and time to enjoy their lives as they please.

I think ultimately, happiness is very internal. Some people seem to be happy regardless of how ****ty everything is going for them. And other people seem to be very unhappy regardless of how awesome everything is going for them. Your career choice has little to do with it. Having the time and money to do what you want with people you want is much more important. As long as you pick a job with a bit of variety, it's probably not a big factor for your happiness.

quit running around trying to be the alpha party animal and go pay attention to your wife who is sitting at home alone with two babies.

I imagine most people would prefer a reasonable job with good money over a good job with reasonable money.

This is a great point. I'd love to design video games, but in reality it's 10% coming up with ideas (fun!) and 90% crunching code (vomit).

+1 on everything dc_publius just said.

This is pretty good advice.

http://www.esquire.com/blogs/news/ka...o-become-a-man

Max out 401K and IRA contributions starting at your first job no matter what it takes. $50,000 saved at 25 could be worth more than $500,000 saved at 45.

Enjoy raising your kid. It (despite that I'm sure you feel exhausted) does keep you young. Raising kids has been the most amazing experience I have ever had.

My early career was quite similar. ABD in psychology. Left because it didn't suit me. Couldn't have known that before trying it out.

This is pretty excellent understanding of how people work. The only issue I have with it is that some people don't like specifically what you like (variety, etc.).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=LqeAiz691-s

The issue is... well, is what jb9 says below :

Many young people have no idea what they want to do when they enter college. Some people have an idea, and some people are pinpointed (lawyer, engineer, etc). Many times, however, things change as they start going through it. I took the "wait and see" approach, as did some of my friends. I decided I wanted to do Comp Sci because I enjoyed working with computers. 1.5 semesters into it I realized I hated the people that I was taking classes with, and that the classes were extremely difficult. I switched. Another friend of mine really enjoyed his psychology classes, so he graduated with a bachelors in Psychology. He had to go back and get a masters in Comp Sci. (I switched to Finance).

Then there are the English/History/Criminal justice majors who just had no clue what they wanted to do so they just picked something and realized they were competing for jobs that people without degrees were competing for.

The entire issue isn't as easy as it seems. It's actually quite stressful.

Yep, agree with above 28-36 is prime time in NYC but if you work out/look young it extends into your 40s. They just start throwing themselves at you: 30-somethings, rich 40-yr olds, 25-yr old grad students, 22-yr old analysts, college girls.

30 is a very sexy age for a guy to be -- for many, many, many women in NYC. And 40 is even better for a lot of them. You think a hot 21-yr old model thinks there's a real diff btw dating a successful guy who's 32 or 38?

Nope. Not even a little bit. Guys their own age have no clue, no money, and generally no class or culture. I sure as hell didn't at that age, either.

DC has given some of the world's worst advice in this thread.

False.

Easily & demonstrably false just from personal experience of myself and my fellow fin'l friends and co-workers. At least in NYC and all major EC cities. I can't imagine LA/LV hot girls don't date up, either. JFC what a load of crap.

The fact that you think -- simply because a woman is in your cohort -- is more likely to be 'normal' and 'un-damaged' is one of the funniest things I've read on 2p2. The 27-29-yr old single girls in NYC are def more damaged, bitter, harpies than the younger ones, ceteris paribus.

AINEC.

The only important advice in this thread is to find a job/career that you really, REALLY like. Because you're all going to be working for a long, long, long time. Get a job that's not 'work.' I don't tap-dance to work every day like WEB, but I have a great job and basically don't even return recruiter's phone calls anymore.

Yes, I specifically said New York and Boston would be exceptions. 98% of the human race lives elsewhere.
Less time bolding, more time comprehending? I never said anything of the sort. In fact I say the exact opposite in the very bit you underlined.

Of course they are. Which is exactly everyone's point. Desirable women (for a long term relationship/marriage) quickly disappear after 25. You lose most of them by 30. And the majority of desirable women under 25 do not want to date someone more than 10 years older. Nearly all very desirable women (highly attractive, intelligent, fun, good character) stay away from older men like the plague, because of all the ways in which older men are inferior mentally, physically, and socially.

I agree that if you're not very picky and don't want something long term, and live in a large materialistic city, you can date 25yos well into your 40s. Hell, you can date 20yos into your 40s in those kind of places. NYC is a giant bubble though and doesn't represent the real world.

Naj,

I agree that finding a job/career you like is important, but I don't think it's the only important advice in this thread.

Can you please elaborate on why you think DC gave bad advice? I respect both of you, and agree with almost everything he said, so I'd like to hear where you disagree and why. I'm well past 25, but I always like learning, especially when I'm wrong about something.

I'd also like to add that I've come to realize that if you're a thoughtful, philosophical type person, you may very well never be satisfied/happy. Talking to a friend of mine about this one time he said that "guys like us will never be happy. We'll get to some place we think we want to go, be happy for a few months, then start looking again."

I know I feel like this in my professional life. I'm in a strange spot where I'm happy with what I make but I feel stagnant. I'm not learning new things or developing new skills, I'm simply reacting and doing my job that I've been doing for 3 years now. The issue is I've felt this way about all my jobs - learn it, do it well, move on. Now that I've gone to a higher spot, I'm stuck. I want to learn more and do more, but I don't really want to work more. So I think I'm unhappy. I fill the void with my personal life (friends, family, child), but deep down inside I feel like I'm giving up professionally because I'm ignoring that part of my life.

It's a strange thing.