One of my own 'AHA' moments was when I discovered that you can't. Yes you can never take control over your life. You need to relax and go with the flow. We all think that we are controlling our lives, but consider this, suppose time is a river and your life can be represented by you sitting on a small boat. You can puddle a bit and control a little bit of where you are (akin for example to choosing a career or job).<p>However, the flow of the river determines the overall direction! Now, for the interesting part. Now and then other people get on your boat. A girlfriend, a child a wife! As you go along the river, people come and go.<p>Another interesting part is what I call 'crossroads', they also appear almost randomly. Situations where a 'do this' or 'do that' can influence the journey. You will probably get about four in life. Most of the times when this happens you will not know is happening. For example you went on holiday to Costa Rica and ended up meeting a girl in the Airplane, should you eventually marry this girl it can influence the rest of your life.<p>Money and success can give you a temporary dejavu of control. You can have a great business, you control your time, your health is tops and out of nowhere your boat hits a rock, or somebody came in the boat and drilled a hole.<p>This is advice from a 'baby boom hacker' they exist on HN too! :). Married same day as Charles and Diana! So far the score is on my side! Had a lot of bumpy rides, married three times, 5 kids, a number of businesses, went bust twice, lived through two wars (Cyprus and Gulf), lived through the bad years in South Africa, worked in five countries.<p>Control? We can't even determine the outcome of a program with certainty!
Ask HN: Have you stopped beating your wife yet? ;-)<p>FWIW, I do drive a stick shift, and I've always driven a stick shift (so, close to 10 years now...) I learned to drive on one. I think my stall-count was 5 on the first day and 37 on the second day, and I only got the car moving about twice on the second day...
When my kid was born. That was a pretty good wake up call. I was 28 at the time and up to that point just taking whatever gig that I could get. Lots of money one part of the year, dirt poor another, it didn't really matter.<p>The extra responsibility helped me to focus quite nicely.
I painted myself into a black hole of frustration. The situation was bound to fall apart, and it did about a year ago. Unfortunately, not at my initiative.<p>I am hoping that this is the time when I take control. Better late than never.<p>(In some ways, I've always taken control. In never being satisfied with the -- usually inefficient and boring and mistake-laden -- status quo. However, trying to introduce changes from the bottom up, or even just follow your own road, has limited effectiveness in some organizations.<p>That's just the way they are. You could say it was my fault for not getting out sooner, but then I was dealing with a lot of stuff on multiple fronts.)