Too Late To Start

I have a fuzzy recollection of some news circa 2010 that Microsoft acquired some technology developed by a teenager for a multi-million dollar figure (I always remembered it as Microsoft Silverlight but I think my wires are crossed because that’s what Line Rider was built with). Even though the specifics are lost to time, I can still feel my astonishment that one person could just apply themselves and net that much money from one project. Even more so, I remember lamenting that it was too late for me to do something similar, and thinking that unless I had started learning earlier, I’d never be able to pull off something like that. It was too late to start.

I was 11!

How young did I think I had to be to start learning? How could I possibly write off starting a technology project when I was essentially the minimum age to even understand the concept? It seems ludicrous now that my time horizon was so short that I wrote off learning a new skill when I was in grade 5. Is it really any less ludicrous when we use that thought process as adults?

I think it comes down to the fear that starting from where we are will ‘take too much time’ – that we have to sacrifice a portion of the future to commit. I resisted starting Uni for years because it would span a timeframe that I wasn’t comfortable thinking about losing. But I constantly have to remind myself that the time will pass regardless. We can’t hold on to it. We can give it, or it will be taken from us.

If only I had started that day and pursued one skill for the last 14 years instead of writing off every idea as being too late. And if only, I’ll say in another 14 years, I pursued the ideas I put off today because it was too late to start.