At age 40+, my biggest regret is that I mess around with a lot of things but never focused on one long enough to make any meaningful progress.
My list of messing around:
- Back in high school, I read a biography of Bill Gates and found it cool to learn some programming. Back then we were taught FOXBASE but I taught myself FOXPRO because it is more pretty with all those Windows UI. I asked my parents if I could do some work for their university (they worked as professors back then) but didn't get any reply. I messed around for a bit longer but then my bad grades caught up so I never did any programming for a long while
- In university I got fancied by level design (big thing in late 90s/early 2000s), again only learned a few tools and made some samples. Never drove myself deep enough and gradually lost interest after a couple of years
- Fast forward maybe 10 years, finally mustered enough courage to teach myself C++ as game programming seems to be fun. Learned a lot and made a few simple games including half of a Ultima spin-off in 3 months. Life was a bit hard at the time so had to focus on getting a job and working as a salesman (really hate it).
- Worked hard to squeeze into IT as I still like programming. Wasted a few years on that sales job but eventually landed a BA job. After a couple of hops I managed to land an IT job (current one). In the middle married my wife and got a baby, but never truly found the focus/passion of life. Actually, the closer to my target IT job, the less passionate I'm. I still pick up hobbies nowadays (am reading binary analysis today) but don't really think I can drill deep in any of them.
Yeah Ian see that. Actually I kinda give up and just pick up new things and drop them at will. Ironically Kid, work and school leave me little time for hobbies actually. I guess this is...more productive?
My list of messing around:
- Back in high school, I read a biography of Bill Gates and found it cool to learn some programming. Back then we were taught FOXBASE but I taught myself FOXPRO because it is more pretty with all those Windows UI. I asked my parents if I could do some work for their university (they worked as professors back then) but didn't get any reply. I messed around for a bit longer but then my bad grades caught up so I never did any programming for a long while
- In university I got fancied by level design (big thing in late 90s/early 2000s), again only learned a few tools and made some samples. Never drove myself deep enough and gradually lost interest after a couple of years
- Fast forward maybe 10 years, finally mustered enough courage to teach myself C++ as game programming seems to be fun. Learned a lot and made a few simple games including half of a Ultima spin-off in 3 months. Life was a bit hard at the time so had to focus on getting a job and working as a salesman (really hate it).
- Worked hard to squeeze into IT as I still like programming. Wasted a few years on that sales job but eventually landed a BA job. After a couple of hops I managed to land an IT job (current one). In the middle married my wife and got a baby, but never truly found the focus/passion of life. Actually, the closer to my target IT job, the less passionate I'm. I still pick up hobbies nowadays (am reading binary analysis today) but don't really think I can drill deep in any of them.