I'm 27 years old. How do I stop getting in my head about my age? I keep feeling like it's too late to succeed in what I'm doing. I just want to be a good software engineer.

I know that blaming my age is an just a lame excuse not to work hard and contains a silent comparison to my peers.
I know you always lose the comparison game. I know that only a single of my peers has successfully started a startup in his 20's out of all of my friends.
I know I'm comparing myself to outliers.
I know that using your age as an excuse is just wallowing instead of confronting my mediocrities.
I know it's rooted in an anxiety of trying to predict the future and I know it's an obsession over possible outcome instead of process. I know that I either have to lower my expectations or change what I'm doing drastically.
I know it's not going to happen as quickly as I want it to.
I know that I have the power to change this, I just seem to be stuck in inaction and hopelessness.

Why can I know all this and still not just move on? I guess nobody can take the first step for me, right? What's the smallest step I can take to a positive direction?

>>33344435 (OP)
Because it is. 30 is the line dude. Anything you don't have or get by 30 you are not going to get ever. Anything you lose after 30 you are never going to get back. Whatever it is you are looking for you better hop to it.

>>33344607
What is your autistic fixation with 30?

I don’t know if I’m going to make it but I’m going to die trying.

>>33344435 (OP)
In 26 and now I've gotten to a point where I don't give a shit about anything or anyone except money.

>>33344435 (OP)
Bro. Most billionaires didn't get to that point until their 50s. And most have gone bankrupt multiple times.

Unlike women, we don't have a biological clock. We don't even fully become "men" *until* our 30s. And our prime reaches it's peak in our 40s. Dude. You're literally just getting started. Around your age is when we as men finally *start* getting our shit together and catching a real stride in life.

This is part of why women generally prefer older men to look at this from another perspective. It's way more common for a 40yo man to have a nice 20yo piece of ass than a 40yo woman with a 20yo dude. Yeah it happens, but it's way less common.

Either way you need to stop over thinking. You're literally just now actually starting at the game of life and you're worried it's too late. Nah. It's too late if you're a woman, because pregnancy is basically geriatric in your 30s. Otherwise chill and buckle up bro.

>>33344435 (OP)
I'm 26, I had an athletic friend who's great at a sport lament about how he used to beat a guy that is now semi pro.

I didn't know he felt that way, because I felt the same way, reading over Forbes 30 under 30 over and over, looking at the startups background since I want to do the same. You should compare yourself but life is like that, even people who say that you shouldn't compare and earnestly mean it...still compare.

For me the saddest thing is revisiting plans I had when I was 20, and realising that I should be living the things I wanted to now, but im far from it. I created a powerpoint document with a system I have to approach life, pictures from Pinterest for each one, e.g goal physique or basketball in the fitness section.

I'd say know what you what, set up a realistic time line. Mine was meant to be now but is going to be pushed to 30. You will have to sacrifice a lot and put everything you have into this pursuit. People who become "great" did this. They thought Muhammed Ali was gay since he focused solely on his craft and not women when he was locked in.

It's not over yet, truly it isn't over till life is done, but it even in the "old" way, it's not over. But it will be soon, and we don't have the same time an 18 year old has. Poop or get off the pot. I don't know if you can make it, only you do.

Stop talking to, reading posts from, and taking seriously the words of Gen Z. They are literally neurotic about their age. Almost all of them are unemployed, unemployable, and borderline retarded. The ones that are "doing well" absolutely have help you don't have access to. 30 is just a normal adult age. Why do you think most popular media is about people in their 30s and up?
>inb4 manga/anime
Japanese people literally only have neoteny going for them, so this is to be expected from their media. Disregard it.

>>33344607
I am 41. My earlier adult life has been pretty shit and spiraling down into meaninglessness and despair until I was 29. (Big problems with broken, dysfunctional family, everyone traumatized and mentally ill, stinting all progress towards meaningful existence for everyone.) Then I turned that around, gradually tried to fix what is broken, realizing that suicide is not an option and would just make it worse for everyone. Life improved gradually through a lot of right effort.
Family is still largely broken but I am free now because I tried my best and tried very hard. My life is good. I have built decent skills suffering through shitty low-paid jobs for many years. I have not too much trouble finding meaningful work with reasonable pay now.
Just gave away all my little savings to various good purposes, thought of becoming a buddhist monk. But then was distracted by a nice woman, and now working towards getting married and having 37 children instead. I've never been more optimistic.

>>33344435 (OP)
>What's the smallest step I can take to a positive direction?
Giving to people in need, but even more so serving people who are worthy (not easy to find). Association with good people. Generosity, giving all you have to give to those who deserve it, including time, effort, skill. Abstinence from drugs and hedonistic shit, always occupying your mind with good purposes, doing good and useful things for yourself and others. Cultivating joy for others' success instead of feeling jealous, cultivating patience, tolerance and forgiveness in the face of abuse and ill-treatment, cultivating compassion to replace your own ill-will, cultivating generosity and frugality to curb your own needs and desires and enjoying the goodness of your own heart, being confident that everyone inherits the results of their own actions and intentions and there is nothing else to rely on.

Just fucking start already

>>33344607
How old are you anon? 30 is still very young. If life wasn't so stifled by economy/politics, 30 would be more progressive, but obviously we're seeing a regression.

>>33348252
What did you end up doing career wise anon? I'm 29 and at a rock bottom. All my friends are either settled or not looking to move together. Broke up with fiance, had to move back in with my family and we're poor. All I can think of is how the fuck can I get myself out of this mess.

A 27 year old won't have access to the pool of opportunity an 18 year old does (socially, mentally, physically, professionally), but that doesn't mean it's over. You have to look at what you can still do today. You can grieve your adolescence and college years but after that try your best to move forward

t. 0 in bank at 27 loser to 7 figs in bank at 32 (still loser but I'm trying to not be)

>>33348733
>implying the average 18 year is or even can take full advantage of most of these things
Lel

>>33349350
Youth is wasted on the young, yep

I feel like out of all of those at least compared to a 27 year old the social aspect is the most pronounced in terms of exclusivity to that age. You can't really replicate it or anything close to it for a number of reasons later on. The biggest blackpill is the first time you are seen as "not like us" by college aged kids. But that's how life works

>>33349363
I know what you're saying. It's just that most guys like op were ALREADY outcasts when they were 18,22, etc and already didn't have friends or women in their lives.

Its like if you completely bombed and dropped out of high-school and sit around stewing about it years later instead of just getting a GED

>>33348663
I'm a web shitter with an unncecessary math degree (German "Diplom", equivalent to Master's before that international system was introduced in Germany), have been working as pizza delivery guy and taxi driver before.