These past few weeks, I’ve been pulling some major hours to complete two projects. One is almost four weeks past its original production release date because of modified requirements (shocking!) and, thus, has pushed the project that I was supposed to start after it back – now at two weeks behind.
Two weeks ago, I was up to 58 hours and last week I was over 70. This week, I’m on track to hit that mark again. I’m telling you, it’s nowhere near as easy at forty as it was at thirty. Every night I go to bed utterly exhausted. When I get home at night and spend time with my daughters, I find doing simple things to be tiring and my patience level has significantly decreased.
My dreams, almost always very strange, become absolutely psychedelic when I’m this tired and for about eights nights in a row now, I’ve woken up ready to start writing a book. Perhaps this is how Stephen King comes up with all his weird ideas.
I see some light at the end of the tunnel, and by the time the holidays hit, I’ll be ready for some serious R&R. I’ll just tell my wife to hide the eggnog from me this year.
3 Responses for "I hate admitting that I’m not young anymore"
I’m only 28 and I can notice a stark difference when pulling crazy hours compared to my “younger” days.
God, you’re telling me. 10 years ago when I was 18 I could work all night.
And what’s with all these aches and pains and stuff?
Why do people make babies when they know that for 25 years they’re going to be stupid, and for the next 25 they’re going to have aches and pains (and probably still be stupid)?
From my perspective, you are still young at 40. I would have been starting to college about the time you were born. Do the math.
I still average 50-60 hours a week, but you learn how to manage better as you get older. Focus is important. Time management is important. Non iterative development is important (i.e., do things once.) Soft skills are incredibly important.
I try not to give advice since I know that I didn’t want to hear it when I was younger. The only thing I would say is to budget some time to live life in the real world. The next thing you will know is that your kid will be graduating from college and you will have a sick feeling in the pit of your stomach that you gave everything to the job and missed some really important family time.
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