Time is not forever. But my experiences are.
*Or whatever year it is when you’re reading this.
Yes, It Is
I was always hesitant to start new things because I had already missed the boat.
Social media has been utilized as a source of one’s livelihood for well over a decade. Those who post videos to YouTube are the most prominent example.
Ten years ago, I was only 12 years old.
I thought it was a dream job back then. Nowadays, not so much. But I used to think I would want to do it.
However, over the past decade, I never gave it a real shot. Sure, I uploaded videos onto the platform, but it was more for personal matters. I had ideas, but I never had the courage to execute them.
YouTube has been around since 2005. I saw YouTubers really become big in the early-2010s. And by the time I’m pondering this now, it’s been 17 years since it all started.
For someone who entered their twenties only years ago, 17 years is a lot. One could say it is a lifetime away. And because of that, I felt discouraged at the time.
What was the point if I was 17 years late to the party?
I would never be able to catch up. After all, time only moved forward.
If someone else started in 2006 and I started in 2016, no matter how much time passed, I would still be 10 years behind.
That was how I saw it.
However, I realized how ridiculous this sounded. I doubt most people will look down on someone for having 10 years of experience, just because someone else has 20 years.
Nowadays, the idea of being a YouTuber isn’t as appealing to me. In fact, it almost seems like a nightmare. However, this idea applied to pretty much everything else I wanted to do in my life.
I thought all this time, that I wanted to be the pioneer of something. The first, the best, or whatever.
I thought I specifically wanted to be someone who “started in 2005”.
But that really wasn’t the case.
What I actually wanted was to reach those milestones that came with starting that early. To have that “5 years of experience” or “10 years of experience”.
But I was too afraid to start. Too doubtful of my own abilities to get there. And every year that passed, I would loathe myself.
2019: If you had started in 2009, you could have had 10 years of experience.
2020: If you had started in 2010, you could have had 10 years of experience.
2021: If you had started in 2011, you could have had 10 years of experience.
There will never be another 2009 again. There will never be another 2010 again. There will never be another 2011 again.
You missed your chance to start then. It’s too late now.
…
This was pretty ridiculous in hindsight.
Isn’t That Everything?
This mindset I had was completely ridiculous. Because I could have applied it to literally everything.
Yes, there will never be another 2010. I missed the chance to be a “2010 starter”. And the “2011 starter” bus left me in the dust as well.
But there also won’t be another 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, or 2022.
This year won’t happen again either.
After December 31st, the year 2023 will be gone forever.
And get this… there won’t be another 2024 either. Or 2025.
There won’t be another Spring of 2026. Or Autumn of 2027.
Nor will there be another October of 2028. Or an April 2029.
Barring some world-ending disaster that forces the entire timeline of humanity to reset, there will never be any of these dates in history again. Ever.
However, to the contrary, there are plenty of opportunities to gain 10 years of experience.
Since I started writing on Medium in 2023, I can gain those 10 years by writing until 2033. But let’s say I only mustered the courage to begin my journey in the year 2024.
I can still get to 10 years by 2034. I’m not dying anytime soon. At least I don’t think I am…
What is this blue splotch over here?
Selective Moping
I wasn’t applying this mindset to everything equally. I was only thinking this way regarding newer or less mature industries.
(Such as online content creation and indie visual novel development.)
There were other activities I started without a thought. I began working on them with no reservations whatsoever.
Photography and videos were invented in the early 1800s. When I picked up a camera in 3rd grade, I was over 150 years late to the party.
But that didn’t stop me from learning anyway.
Computer science is a relatively new field, but computational devices also existed 100 years ago.
Of course, the rise of tech in recent decades changes the perspective somewhat. But computers have been around since the mid-1900s. Yet, I don’t see myself as being 70 years late.
I realize now that I had been selective in choosing what I thought was too late to start with.
Maybe because these developments occurred after I was born, I never took the time to look back at the past. Since I was unaware of those facts, it never bothered me.
Hell, engineers have been around for thousands of years. Those guys were building temples and pyramids in like 3,000 B.C.
Are all the engineering majors five millennia late to the engineering party?
Think Of The Children
And I couldn’t have forgotten all the kids who haven’t even graduated. Or the babies who are yet to be born. If it’s really too late to try, they certainly have a tough road ahead of them.
When a 1st grader in 2023 finally graduates college, it will be in the year 2036. By then, time will have moved even further. Something like YouTube will be over 30 years old.
That’s thirty whole years for others to have started before.
That kid won’t have the choice to begin earlier. I was like 4 years old when YouTube first came out. It’s not likely I could have started a career then. But it is still possible.
However, that kid will have had to be born around 2016. That’s a full decade after YouTube was released. They never had a chance to compete against the “firsts”. Unless you count the ones in the comments.
“FIRST COMMENT 😊😊😊”
I thought about how I would feel. How I’d respond if someone in 2036 asked me whether they should start any endeavor, not just on social media.
I wouldn’t blindly tell them that it’s a path to victory. But, of course, I would encourage them to try.
“Yeah. It’s never too late to start.”
That’s what I would say to anyone, in fact.
Anyone except myself.
Apparently, I was some special exception.
Conclusion
There’s a lot I’ve been working on. Some of which, I’ve accumulated years of experience in. Others, I still haven’t begun the journey on.
However, I’ve stopped caring about when the right time to start is. I try not to compare with those who started earlier.
That may have been the right time for them.
But it doesn’t mean it was the right time for me.
I’ve learned that by starting, I may reach that point eventually. I might not be able to surpass them, but that shouldn’t matter. It’s not a competition.
I will not regret starting in the future. Sure, I may have done so in 2023 instead of 2013. I didn’t make the best use of my time.
If I write on Medium until I am 100 years old, I will only have a mere 77 years of experience, as opposed to 87 years. With my dying breath, I will curse myself for not starting sooner.
Maybe my work will be good.
Maybe it will suck completely.
But after my death, all that will become meaningless to me. And within the next few centuries, it’s likely I will be forgotten.
However, I will be able to say this.
In my limited time on Earth, I tried. And I did.
And I won’t regret having done so.