[dswalter]

Something about not being young anymore is that I am much more comfortable leveraging small changes consistently over time. When I was 16, the idea of doing a little bit of practicing vocal exercises each day in order to improve over time would have seemed an insurmountable challenge. I needed things to improve over the course of days or hours. (In this, I was terribly short-sighted).

But now that I'm considerably older than that, I can mentally afford to allocate a little bit of time over the next six months toward achieving a goal like improving my typing, or getting better at vocal onsets. Being better at something a year or two from now feels very worthwhile, and I know I'll be at that future me fairly quickly.

It would have been better for me, of course, to have gained this ability back when I had lots of time at my disposal. But I can still have an impact because I can be the drop of water shaping the stone over time.

[Starwatcher2001]

I'm doing something similar. I've decided at 62 to learn to play the keyboard and be able to read music. It's late in the day but I'm slowly getting there 30 minutes a day.

[MrVandemar]

Never, ever, too late. Heard a story of an 80 year-old who said, "If I'd taken up violin when I was 60, I'd have been playing for 20 years by now."

Anything you can do that brings you satifaction or exercises your brain and keeps it sharp is a great thing.

[hinkley]

I did the math on the 10,000 hours theory once and concluded that this gives me permission to start something late in life. If you went as hard as you can you could reach expert level in a dozen things in a single lifetime, if that was your goal. It's perfectly reasonable for someone to expect to be able to achieve two or three. Even if they consider their youth 'wasted'.

Used to know a guy who was as old as I am now when he took up Go. Took him less than ten years to reach a 3 dan rating, which is on the edge of where common wisdom says you need to start as a child to achieve better than that. But any time he wasn't working, he was looking at Go games (and I suspect sometimes when he was working). If he started 5 years younger or lives long enough I expect he'll disprove that rule.

Of course it always helps if you're a polymath. There's a lot of social friction involved with picking up something that is expected of 14 year olds. If you can teach yourself you can skip over a lot of that.

[rrrrrrrrrrrryan]

I met a woman who picked up painting after she retired. After a few years she got pretty good, and after a decade she got really good, and by the time I met her she was in her late 70s, happy as hell, and making more money painting than she ever did during her actual career as a teacher.

She was doing a lot more than 30 minutes per day, but it was pretty comforting for me to realize that nothing's really stopping most people from continuing to learn and grow deep into their twilight years if that's what they want to do.

[maskull]

My library has a Great Courses piano course available through hoopla/kanopy. It's really well done!

[sureglymop]

That's awesome!!

[JohnFen]

I don't know if it's age or not (I'm no spring chicken), but I do the same. As an example, I became quite skilled with the slingshot exactly this way. I set up a target catchbox between my office and my kitchen, and for a couple of years now, I take a couple of practice shots when I go between the two, or when I'm waiting for the microwave to finish, etc.

It was a year or so of doing this before I became a consistently good shot. Not quick, but if I had tried to set aside longer blocks of practice time, I wouldn't have done it at all.

Slow progress gets you to the finish line. No progress does not.

[screwturner68]

It doesn't hurt that now a month goes by in a blink of an eye but when you are 16 a month feels like forever.

[kashunstva]

> When I was 16, the idea of doing a little bit of practicing vocal exercises each day in order to improve over time would have seemed an insurmountable challenge.

And this is probably true of most 16 y/o.

I work as a collaborative pianist, which means essentially “accompanist”; so I work with young musicians a lot. This transition to tolerating and embracing slow incremental work in service of a larger goal is what distinguishes those kids who are successful from those who get stuck. But it’s really a mindset that they can acquire at any point. Some are ready earlier than others.

I try to get the students I work with to adopt at least the habit of reflecting on their practice by writing down three things each day: Where did I put in honest effort? Where did I experience some resulting success? And where did I make some measurable progress? So E,S,P prompts. It’s based on the work of psychologist Nate Zinsser. The idea is to make visible the input and output of slow incremental effort.

[krat0sprakhar]

Exact same mindset change happened with me (and I wish I had known the power of small changes over time earlier). I picked up the guitar at the age of 33 and just playing 15-30mins a day over a year has led to so much improvement. The slow but steady process is so rewarding.

[adversaryIdiot]

I say that its the exact same situation for me. Except by being older, I'm only 25 now. My suspicion is that this effect to due to my prefrontal cortex maturing? Because I'm much more introspective and meticulous now when it comes to learning, thinking, feeling etc.

[JohnFen]

At 25, this is a superpower. Even if you just practice a thing for 10 minutes a day, by the time you're in your 40s (which is about when life starts getting really good) you will be fantastic at it.

[Scalestein]

What makes your 40s so good? I'm approaching them and would love some more things to look forward to!

[JohnFen]

A million things. Of course, there's no hard date such that when you turn 40 then everything changes. It's just a rough age range.

I'll answer your question by repeating the most common things I've heard from others, not my own experience, in an attempt to reduce the error band by not having a sample size of 1.

By your 40s, you generally have at least a direction you're going. People tend to take you more seriously. You have a greater sense of what's actually important and what's not, and stop wasting energy getting as worked up by things that don't really matter. You are still young enough that you aren't yet battling many adverse effects of aging.

You also tend to be at your most physically attractive point. Your career path is likely to be established and less uncertain. Romantic partners tend to be more stable, so your love life brings more joy. Speaking of romantic partners... relationships are better because (as a friend of mine once put it) "sex isn't such a fucking emergency anymore". Your relationships tend to be more balanced. And so forth.

I think, really, it's an age where you have gained more perspective and are still young enough to use that to live a better life.

[RHSman2]

The ‘fuck it’ bucket. You realize that life is here and you stop caring about the social constructs you’ve been part of. Also, while you aren’t your virulent former self, you can do things well OR you can dive into something with the curiosity of a kid knowing you don’t need to be great.

[JohnFen]

> The ‘fuck it’ bucket.

Damn! You managed to say in four words what it took me a small essay to say. A tip of my hat to you, sir!

[RHSman2]

I can’t claim it. An older friend passed that to me.

[marssaxman]

For me the increased awareness of time has been a double-edged sword. More patience for slow progress and sustained practice, maybe; but there's also come a much greater awareness of the immense investment of time it takes to reach mastery, which leaves me feeling like it's usually not worth beginning at all.

[RHSman2]

The journey, not the destination. The destination is death so have some enjoyment!