It's Never Too Late

Feb 15, 2025

Hey there everyone. Today, I wanted to take a moment to talk about something that’s always been very important to me and something I’ve always struggled with - self improvement. Self-improvement has always mattered to me — maybe too much. I’ve spent years chasing it while wrestling with undiagnosed ADHD, a battle that shaped nearly every chapter of my life.

A Childhood Struggle with ADHD

Let’s go back in time. My story is a familiar one. I was always a “smart kid,” but I struggled academically. I had trouble sitting still, paying attention, and focusing or engaging with the class. Despite performing well on cognitive tests and being placed in the “gifted” program, I had mediocre grades. Teachers and guidance counselors urged my mom to seek treatment for my ADHD but this was in the ’90s when much of the narrative focused on “are we over-medicating our kids?” That, combined with the fact that my mom struggled with various substance abuse issues when she was a teenager, and my adamant stance that I didn’t want to take some pill that would “turn me into a conformist zombie,” (I was super edgy like that) led to me never being formally diagnosed or treated. I wish I had been; my life probably would be a lot different by now. Not that things aren’t pretty great for me now, but I definitely took the long road to get here.

Navigating High School and Beyond

My ADHD symptoms worsened as I grew older, impacting my performance in high school and beyond. Though I scored high on exams, I neglected homework and attendance, resulting in below-average grades and limited college options. I was placed in AP and Honors level classes, hoping the challenge would encourage me to try harder, but that was also ultimately unsuccessful. I had a problem with authority and cared way more about chasing girls than my report card. I also had absolutely no idea what I wanted to be when I grew up. My whole life everybody told me that I could do anything I wanted with my life. Nobody told me what I should do with my life.

Unsure of my future, I enrolled in an online Video Game Design program. While enjoyable, it wasn’t particularly practical. I did get much better grades, but I credit that to it being online and my grades being almost entirely based on my final exam scores and project assessments. But if I had been smarter I would have stayed at home and gotten a nice Computer Science degree from my local college, milking that free rent and cheap in-state tuition.

After college, and still lacking direction, I coasted through my 20s, settling for relatively low-effort, high-paying tech jobs. I justified it by telling myself I was working jobs that would give me the freedom to work on my side projects, believing that I would inevitably come up with some app or idea or something that would change the world (and make me rich). I was “really smart,” after all. That’s what everyone always told me. It didn’t matter that most of my ideas never made it past the “hello world” phase (I would always inevitably get distracted or come up with an “even better” idea). It was only a matter of time…right?

Pro Tip to all the parents of “gifted” children out there: Telling your kid that they can do anything they want is great and all, but please also make sure to tell them they’re still going to have to work for it. The world isn’t going to just recognize their inherent greatness and hand them everything (unless you’re already rich, of course; then take advantage of all that nepotism I suppose).

A Turning Point

Then my nephew was born. And he is the most perfect, awesome little human that has ever existed. But more than that, it was no longer just about me. Now there was another person out there for whom I had the responsibility of being a role model. Someone that I might need to take care of one day. Someone that I could guide and help them not make the same mistakes that I did. It was the wakeup call I needed to stop slacking and do something with my life.

It didn’t happen overnight, of course. I still had untreated, fairly severe ADHD that hindered my efforts. It’s not that I don’t like learning; I love it. It’s that I am easily distracted bby shiny, new things. My biggest issue is that I will be learning about A Thing, and while learning that Thing I will come across another Thing, and my brain goes “ooh, this new Thing sounds very exciting; clearly, you need to drop everything and learn that first, then you’ll circle back.” I was perpetually 20% of the way through several books and online courses at any given time. Wikipedia rabbit holes are my drug; I’ll lose entire weekends to them.

Determined to succeed, I set my sights on a career in software engineering. This was the time of the Great Developer Shortage (or so all of the tech blogs would lead you to believe), where everyone was talking about how learning to code was the ticket to wealth and coding boot-camps with six-figure job guarantees were popping up left and right. I had taken some Computer Science courses in high school and college, I had dabbled in it ever since, and at the time I was working for a web company. My job did involve some very basic web development. I began auditing classes through my alma mater and taking some online MOOC style courses. I figured I could learn enough to get an entry-level programmer job somewhere and work my way up. That’s not what happened.

Instead, I landed a job at an Atlassian consulting startup. There was absolutely an element of luck here, a right place, right time thing to be sure. I had a friend who was working there, they were expanding fast and they just needed smart bodies that they could train up, no experience required. I applied, interviewed, and started pretty quickly. And I’ve been doing the Atlassian thing ever since. And it’s been good to me. In less than a decade I’ve more than tripled my salary. And along the way I developed a lot of personal systems, routines and habits to counteract my ADHD tendencies.

I now work for an amazing company that does awesome things, and I am making more money than that poor kid who grew up in rural Alaska could have ever dreamed.

Finally Getting Help

About two years ago now I finally did what I should have done 20 years ago, I sought professional treatment for my ADHD. There was no one local that had any availability, but I was able to see someone through Talkiatry. It took a while to dial in my medication, but it has been an absolute game changer. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t regret not doing this years ago.

Cliché Inspirational Takeaway

I guess what I’m trying to say is that it’s never too late. It’s a bit cliché to say, but it’s true. I didn’t get my act together until my early 30s. If I can do it, then you can too. So, whether you’re in your 20s or your 60s, remember that the opportunity to improve yourself is always present, especially now in the age of the internet.

The Future

This post is significantly longer than I originally planned it to be and has delved significantly off-topic. It was initially going to be more of a fluff piece on my plans for self-improvement over the next year, but as I decided to add a little context and backstory, it took on a life of its own. I was raised as part of the “men don’t admit weakness or share their faults” generation. But maybe by putting this out into the world, it will help someone else. Or maybe it was just nice to get it off my chest.

But that’s now a topic for a future post.

Thanks for reading and keep killing it out there everyone. We’re all in this together.