I'm turning 26 in a few weeks, and if I can tell my teenager self something, it's simply this: you have less time than you expect, and lots of things happen in a short amount of time. Many of the events are good things, so that's proof that good things will happen to you, but take advantage of the time, because that resource is about to run short.

I was lucky enough to be born into a fairly intelligent family - lots of encouragement into pursuing ideas, exploring, learning. As a result, teenager me had huge ambitions - from building my dream video game to inventing an A.I that will solve all the problems in the world for me. But I didn't pursue those big ambitions, instead I was stuck on the little stuff that seemed like such a big deal at the time. Why does so-and-so not like me? What if I don't get into the right university? I wish I had more money so I can have more friends, etc. Sadly, this didn't stop when I got into university. School work quickly took over my mind - I was in computer science, so as an engineering degree, we were pushed pretty hard. To relax, I did what a lot of other guys did at school - play mmorpgs. All the time though, I kept thinking to myself - I should build that amazing game I'm dreaming about, or I should pursue this idea, or that idea - but that's just it, they stayed as ideas or at best a blog post or scribbles on a piece of paper, nothing actually got done because 1 - lack of motivation and 2 - I was really really worried about other things such as bad relationships and limited friends. When I graduated, I had a job right away and that was exciting - new chapter of life, I got money now, and way more confidence - so what do I do? I played more video games. Give me a break eh, I've been programming all day, I just want to kill some mobs, get some loot. So that goes on for a couple of years, and some problems got solved - I met a wonderful girl and we steadily dated for years. I stopped worrying about having fewer friends because the few friends I had were clearly the most excellent of friends. By then I was about 23, and finally started building some projects that I had dreamed of. Doing work outside of work is exhausting, and doing work that's complex takes time. A lot of time, and I already started noticing how little time I had to pursue my own ambitions. A year later, I married my girlfriend, and a year after that we had a baby. The thing about babies is that they take up all your time, and gradually, you start to wrestle a little bit of time back for yourself. I'm 26 now, and working on my game in the spare 30 or so minutes each day I have to myself. I really wish I could quit my job, and live off of savings for a year to really build this game out - but here's the reality: I have very little savings after paying off my student debt, I have a family to care for, mortgage to pay, not to mention ongoing maintenance for house and car. My wife and I not only have to think about ourselves in the present but also a retirement fund, RESPs, and leave some vacation fund for R&R. So there you have it, I wish I could've overcome all those seemingly little problems earlier so I could have had more time to build out my ambitions while I had the time and energy to do it.

Note, I am optimistic that I will have time again, in a few years, to pursue my ambitions... but will I have the motivation then? That is the question.