Here's something these posts never touch on: dealing with the inevitable routine and the boredom that comes with it. You always read that life is short, seize the moment, etc. and I call BS. I like to think I did all that, I'm well under 40 and have really travelled the world, succeeded professionally, lived in 10 countries, did everything I ever wanted to do. And now what? The problem with achieving things is that you run out of goals. I find it harder and harder to find things that excite me. I have no desire to network aggressively with "smart people" like these posts tell you to. What's the point, ultimately more opportunities i.e. money? That doesn't motivate that much anymore. I want that feeling back, the anticipation when I was about to go to a new place or have a new experience. That's the most precious thing there is and I miss it.
I feel you, there's a certain feeling of ephemeralness if you step back and think about it that way. Put another way, "The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away".
The thing that changed this for me is, no joke, having kids. This brought me away from the feeling that life is fleeting with little point to the minuscule things I may accomplish and showed me a grander scale. As an engineer, I'll never be a Maxwell, Shannon, etc., but I can raise the generation to come in a way that - though I may never know it - could have an incredible influence on the world.
That’s why there’s a biological impulse to procreate, such that by the time you’ve reached your 30s/40s your main drive is not to fulfill your own goals, but help tiny humans navigate the world and fulfill their own. That becomes your metagoal, and adding a 25th stamp to your passport or getting 100 more stars on your GitHub library doesn’t seem to matter as much.
How did you do these things, though? E.g. traveling is incredibly easy nowadays with smartphones and flying by plane. Have you biked across Euroasia with no internet access and and paper guidebooks? There's a good chance that magic of not knowing what comes next will come back when you ditch the GPS and internet.
btw, I know the other commenters mean well with sharing their experiences, but to be blunt, folks should not be having kids because there's something missing.
> There's a good chance that magic of not knowing what comes next will come back when you ditch the GPS and internet.
Of course, with everyone else having GPS and the Internet, it becomes much harder to find somewhere to sleep, because the amazing places you may have discovered fifty years ago will now be fully-booked months in advance.
The truth is that a dream isn't meant to be reached or achieved, it's meant to inspire people to do more than just sit around under trees smoking pot all day. It's a nice lie they tell themselves as to why they're trading time with their families for time at the office.
