I'd argue running a laptop from the 00s is the least boomer thing to do. Buying a new Macbook every two years while complaining that you don't have enough money and joking about how you're spending your kid's inheritance is the boomer thing to do.
Astrophysics/cosmology. I'm more artsy geek than STEM geek, but there is a tremendous amount of beauty found in what we know and don't know about the universe.
This is generally what I came to say, except to add that Gen Z is giving me (old millennial) some hope. We were frogs in the pot, but it's a rolling boil and zoomers like Greta, David Hogg, and the 12 year old who interrupted COP28 seem alright.
Ultimately, I'm determined to break the cycle of previous Gen calls current Gen lazy. These kids are alright and I wish we had left them better.
Rubber ducking, not just for programmers. Listen, acknowledge what you're hearing, ask open ended questions (not leading), and learn from and about their experience. You'll grow closer and both people can gain a lot from it.
I'm coming to the belief that sometime this is an overblown excuse. I'm sure it's not true everywhere, but I just visited a friend in a medium sized (well under 100k people) Florida city, and spent a day going around by bus and foot, and it was great. Buses were reliable, air-conditioned, cheap, and traveled all the main routes, running about 18h a day, but they were barely used. Still loads of 6 lane roads, paved everything, massive parking lots, and more SUVs than I could count.
Even if you have a car for some trips, people in this city could easily reduce their usage, but they've become far too reliant on car culture. A trip to the store, 15 min walk, hop in the car. A trip downtown, 10min walk and 30min bus ride, nope... Car.
If we want more public transport, we need to encourage people use what exists when they can.
You jest, but honestly this is what helped me. I felt very alone, deeply depressed and held a long rooted belief that I wasn't important enough to deserve better.
Knowing that this person was listening because they were being paid/it was their job, helped be get past the guilt and open up. Likely saved my life. AI would not have given me that.
In the first episode of Picard, playing chess with Data... "Because I don't want the game to end." Man, on so man levels, it was a few weeks before I could even say that line without getting choked up.
I grew up as a little boy watching every TNG with my dad, I don't want the game to end either.
I have two:
Way back when I was 16, I worked as a host at a busy restaurant, I would get really stressed when we had a long line at the door (the wait would easily get up to 1 hour on weekends), and I just started repeating, "you can only do what you can do, you can't do any more". As someone who has always really struggled with the need to please everyone all the time, it's really helpful when I'm running busy events (I work as an events manager now) or when anything is approaching FUBAR because of things beyond my control.
On a broader, life-changes perspective, I always loved a quote from The Riches (said by the actor now known as Suzy Eddie Izzard),
"Life's a river kid, you gotta go where it takes you."
Its helped a very risk-adverse me take some huge leaps and I've not regretted any of them.