Curiosity is an antidote to getting old (mentally)

Also, a reminder that I'm turning 30, not 60.

Photo by Claudio Schwarz

Recently two things made me feel pessimistic about turning 30 next month.

No more ice cream.

Last month, my wife and I visited our favorite all-you-can-eat hotpot restaurant in the Bay Area. The wagyu and pork slices were great, as usual. But we noticed the dessert bar was empty.

Empty!

There used to be a mountain of Haagen Dazs ice cream cups.

My wife, the optimist, said, “They must’ve just changed how they serve it. Maybe we need to ask the waiters for the ice cream now.”

So, we asked.

And soon, the waiter confirmed my pessimism. They were no longer serving Haagen Dazs to reduce costs.

After the waiter left, I turned to my wife with a half-smile.

I said, “Everything’s only going to get worse.”

It was meant as a joke, but the words somehow lingered with me. They’ve only grown louder as my 30th birthday approaches.

What if that was actually true?

The coding machine has a cooldown now.

And the reason why we visited the expensive all-you-can-eat hotpot place?

That was because I wanted to compensate myself for completing a seemingly impossible mission: I had just finished a complex 4-week Android project in just 2 weeks – because that’s how much time our team had left before the code freeze¹, not because I randomly wanted to challenge myself.

I mean, I wasn’t even an Android engineer.

Coding 8 hours straight every day used to be a blast for me. Getting to do that and having a legitimate (and even glorified) excuse to push off meetings was the main reason I decided to take on the project.

But it turns out, that after the first week, I already had headaches after work.

I needed to massage my head while driving home with sore eyes every day.

The soreness upset me. But what pained me more was the fact that I’m no longer the coding machine I was. Not anymore.

Not physically.

Looking for an antidote…

I hate to be pessimistic.

But how can I not when both our favorite restaurant and my proudest skillset are regressing at the same time.

Or, is “becoming a naggy person” yet another symptom of getting old?

“Getting old”... Did I just say that?

30 isn’t even that old.

But I guess, after 30, part of me feels like I’m getting old instead of getting mature.

But, man, when I think back to turning 20, I remember something else.

I remember the excitement of having unanswered questions and getting closer and closer to the answers². There was joy in the not-knowing, in figuring things out, and in making progress.

And maybe that’s what I can focus on – Questions I can promise myself that I’d make progress towards. Maybe, instead of worrying about how things will change for the worse, I can and should focus more on the questions I still have for the world, for myself, and for the future.

And that means,

I know what I’m going to gift myself for my 30th birthday.

Questions.

Just a bunch of questions.

In the next month or so, I’ll intentionally jot down the thoughts and questions I have. Then, I’ll publish them in January, and revisit them in ten years.

Will there be answers?

And, perhaps more importantly — will there be new questions at 40?

Thanks

Thanks to

Matt Cyr

,

Becky Isjwara

,

Zeyad Mahran

,

Eva Juretic (Thumb)

,

Matthew Argyle

, and

Nat Lee

for sharing early feedback and spending time on this essay!

Preview of the next essay…

My plan for the next essays is to explore some of these topics:

1. Who am I in 2025?

2. Questions I have at 30 years old.

3. My favorite books in 2024; and the books I want to read in 2025.

If these look interesting, please consider subscribing to this newsletter! I’ll publish 2 essays every month :)

1. “Code freeze” is a 2-week period, during which we “freeze“ the codebase. Nobody gets to push new code so nothing’s broken, and everybody enjoys a peaceful holiday season.

2. Some examples of my questions at 20 (that I remember): Where would I end up after college? How would I make a living? Am I going to build something great for the world (Yes, completely lol at my romanticism)? And, how would I spend the money I make?