To think that since I haven’t achieved anything yet my life is basically a write off?

[TimeWoundsAllHeals]

I’m going to be 33 in May and I have never achieved anything. I’ve learned things don’t get me wrong but I’ve done f all with it. When I was a kid I thought I was so smart and everyone showered me with praise for it and said I was full of potential. Now I’m 32 and I feel like I’m no better off than I was when I was a kid except now I’m old and even if I did achieve something now I’d be playing catch up against all the normal people and I’d still come out the loser in the end as a result.

I mean don’t get me wrong. I’m not giving up on life. I don’t want to die so all I can do is live. But I feel sad I’ll never amount to anything.

Maybe you havent, but 'never amount to anything' is bullshit - you could start right now, if you chose to.......

Just feel like I’m competing with people who “started” when they were 12 and I’m never going to catch up.

Well that's bollocks. People start their lives (sometimes multiple times) at lots of different points in their lives. The ones who start things later in life are often more successful because they are more focussed/dedicated/ambitious.

I guarantee though, if you carry on making excuses you will get nowhere and sorely regret it. You are nowhere near old now, but one day you will be.

I know how you feel. I'm 40 and feel exactly the same. Don't know what the answer is.

Making excuses for what?

What's 'anything' to you? To some amounting to something is being famous, to some it's changing the world, to some it's having a family, or travelling, or being happy. What do you actually want to achieve?

And what do you mean by catching up with 'normal' people making you still be a loser?? Who the fuck are normal people? And who decided you're not one of them. Is the problem you think because you're 'smarter' you should have automatically achieved more than most. Cos life doesn't work like that. If you've done fuck all with your education, sitting around continuing to do fuck all isn't going to get you any further. Stop regretting what you haven't done and get off your arse and do something.

This attitude is what is stopping you.
Start now.
I know plenty of people who didnt attain any specific success (career, house, marriage, children, whatever you see as a success) till nearing 40s

I only started to sort my career out at 27. Others in my dept were 19. Im 31 and a few colleagues are early 20s.
My BIL didnt have a gf till 36! Hes now married with a child at 39.

Why do you want to compete or catch up to anyone? Do it for you!

Sounds a bit like a self-pity party to me and you should maybe get a grip and consider people who really are in shit street one way or another.
Go do some charity work if you need validation but sitting around whining about your perceived 'failure' is just ridiculous.

You're using your age as an excuse, and you've already decided you'll 'never amount to anything'.

Fine if that's what you want, but it's up to you. You can change this.

Haven’t achieved ANYTHING? There is definitely something you have achieved. You can write coherently at least so that’s something! May be a low bar but come on. Make a list. There is stuff. Perk yourself up. Make some goals. You’re in a pity pit!!

Also, 32 is young. Fuck. I’m 30 next year, don’t freak me out like that. 32 is no age these days.

You are 33
Not 93

Like what specifically got me upset is yesterday I was doing this capture the flag game and I managed to reverse engineer a binary (something I’ve never done before) and workout how it encrypts some text and then I failed to decrypt the text even though I knew how it worked and I know what I did wrong but you only get to do the quiz for it once - I was just too tired because I spent 3 days learning how to reverse engineer binaries (in between looking after 2 kids under 2). And on the one hand I’m proud of myself for learning that and on the other hand I feel like I’m still a dumb kid doing dumb kid things and it’ll be years before I’ve got enough practice with ctfs to handle a real bug bounty or something and there’s so many people who are so smart and so brilliant and have been focused on learning this stuff since they were kids and who am I to even dip my toe in the water, some fucking loser who turns out is pretty stupid really compared to everyone else.

I’ll keep doing ctfs because they’re fun. But I hate that I suck and I don’t believe I’ll ever be able to compete with the real players and that makes me sad.

But you could apply the basic psychology to anything. I’m not using it as an excuse not to do it, I just feel like crap, if anything I want to do another one ASAP in the hope I win and feel better about myself.

Yeah you really do need to change your attitude. I mean that kindly!

What excites you? What makes you tick?

One of my kids is over two dunno why I said 2 under.

You don't need to "achieve" anything to be happy and content. If you have enough money for your basic needs and a few treats and have good friends and family, you are successful.
If you feel a need for more then you can do it if you want it enough. It won't just drop into your lap without any effort on your part though.

Are you talking about gaming?

I could go into a speech about how success is defined but I have felt pretty much like you. At 46 I'm in my second year of a four year degree. I know having one will not mean I'm more worthy than anyone else but its already changed my outlook on life and has shown me that there is more going on 'up top' than I ever gave myself credit for. I had a first essay mark of 43 percent and I'm now hitting 70 +.
I know you aren't necessarily talking about education, but I wanted to demonstrate that its never too late to improve your lot.
I don't own a house, don't know if I ever will but I'm having a bloody good go.
If I look at my friends who did all this at the 'expected' age I could deem myself a failure. But then I look at my other friends who are in the same boat as me who bemoan their predicament but won't take even the smallest step to change.

I think it's Malcom Gladwell (?) who write about people who discovered their thing later in life and I mean a lot later than 30's. One lady became a writer in her 50's and started publishing in her 60's. It's not over til it's over, and you've probably got 50 odd years in which to achieve something,

You need to know what though- do you want more friends, to do an exciting hobby, buy a house/flat to rent out, an interesting job, to find someone and get married, have children, be an artist, write a book?

Being a good neighbour and a good friend is also an achievement- start small and start thinking how you can contribute in the life you already have rather than beating yourself up as you don't have an 100 grand job right now.

Susan Jeffer's book 'Feel the fear and do it anyway' is an oldie but a classic which might kick you up the butt a bit- it did me when I read it in my twenties anyway!

Ok I have no idea what this capture the flag game is, but really is this whole breakdown over some game?? I thought we were talking real life stuff here!! Zoom out your perspective a bit. Sounds like you’re focussing I’m minutiae. Are the 2 kids yours? That’s an achievement. Do you have a job? Home? Sounds like you have a degree? I don’t have a degree but I DO have self esteem, career, kids, perspective etc.

You feel like this because of a game?!

It’s a specific kind of game called a capture the flag. You have to exploit vulnerabilities in software to find a hidden or coded message in the software or on a server. It’s basically gamified hacking.

You have two children, isn't that an achievement?
I have no idea what you're talking about and I am fairly techy :o I do get what you mean about being behind but most people have complex lives, sometimes make silly choices, sometimes get 'ahead' and sometimes feel they're lagging behind. That is quite literally life.

Also, that sage piece of advice the Sunscreen Song ‘some of the most interesting people I know didn’t know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives, some of the most interesting 40 year olds still dont’ or something along those lines. Maybe that will help. But I’m confused as to what this is all about actually, if it’s just a game then surely that’s easy to solve. You need to do something that is more fulfilling!

A lot of people achieve things after their 30s:

Samuel L. Jackson didn’t get his big break until he appeared in Spike Lee’s Jungle Fever in 1991 at the Hollywood-old age of 43.

Stan Lee is considered the godfather of Marvel comics. However, he didn’t create his first comic until he was 39.
At nearly 40, Lee created the first The Fantastic Four comic, which later led to him co-creating Spider-Man, Black Panther, the X-Men and countless other legendary superheroes who now dominate the box office decades later.

Charles Darwin was 50 years old before he published On the Origin of the Species in 1859, the book that espoused the theory for which he best known today.

There's loads more people out there if u google: uk.businessinsider.com/24-people-who-became-highly-successful-after-age-40-2015-6?op=1?r=US&IR=T