[HN Gopher] Ask HN: How to optimize your career for happiness?
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Ask HN: How to optimize your career for happiness?
I'm mid-thirties working in Software/Data Engineering. I've been
working at different companies during the last decade, and
currently making ~$120k, and hitting no more than 40h/week. I
don't consider myself especially intelligent. Neither I'm dumb. I
suffer from imposter syndrome from time to time, especially when I
start a new job/challenge. I usually acknowledge these situations
and manage to drive them without major problems. I have been in
places where I was making way more but the job was boring, in
startups where I was learning x10 every single day, I cut my salary
to join especially talented teams, I stayed at places that required
less than 10h/week while being paid for 40h... Sometimes I have
been focused on pursuing a bigger salary, a promotion, or becoming
a manager. I successfully accomplish most of these challenges.
Every single situation had pros and cons, and none of them made me
feel completely full-filled. I thought I had a pretty good work-
life balance but lately, I've been through health issues and every
single doctor/therapist is pointing out to stress and sedentarism.
Due to that, I've been reading some articles where researchers
explain how people in tech started to care more about happiness and
less about salary. I thought I was already doing that but looks
like I've been doing something wrong with my professional career,
and there is a path more equilibrated and focused on happiness I
should follow. Do you do something special?
Author : __all__
Score : 250 points
Date : 2021-12-19 14:15 UTC (8 hours ago)
| endymi0n wrote:
| Addressing this point of yours...
|
| > Every single situation had pros and cons, and none of them made
| me feel completely full-filled.
|
| ...I wanted to share this piece of experience that resonated with
| me back then.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15107818
|
| [Maybe we all need a little less balance -- NYT]
|
| The point being: I've found that simply accepting no single way
| living my career has been able to strike a perfect balance _all
| at once_ already was a key piece that let me feel more at ease.
|
| Your way of trying out a few different things at different times
| seems to not be the worst strategy in that regard.
|
| I'd say I'm 80% happy now with my job, but I know there will
| always be parts I dread. And doing something different will
| simply trade them for others.
| stayux wrote:
| In 2019 I closed my company, middle size web-dev shop.
|
| I used the pandemic situation to reevaluate and rearrange my
| life. Turns out that I want to do product design and development.
| And all the experience as a business owner, product manager, etc,
| is coming handy when crafting new products.
|
| I have survived several burnouts in those years of pushing myself
| harder. Learned my lessons.
|
| Balance is the key. Physical and mental health are most important
| things, everything else comes secondary.
|
| After my first burnout, I created a simple priority checklist,
| which I apply every year.
|
| It is simple:
|
| 1. Health.
|
| 2. Fulfillment / Meaning.
|
| 3. Experience.
|
| 4. Monetary reward.
|
| 5. Career development.
|
| If something in this list changes priorities, I stop, take a
| vacation and reevaluate.
|
| You cannot be happy if you are not healthy.
|
| You cannot be healthy if you don't have enough sleep and proper
| nutrition.
|
| You cannot have enough sleep if your nervous system is on
| overload.
|
| You cannot work meaningfully if you don't "play" regularly.
| Mariehane wrote:
| Do you mean that if you start prioritising things differently,
| then that is a cause of concern? And so you take a vacation in
| order to 'reset' your priorities?
| stayux wrote:
| Yes, I have dedicated financial backup just for this
| "procedure". At any given moment, I can stop and reevaluate
| my professional options and life choices.
|
| Vacation is not the full description.
|
| Usually, this means to abandon work and create enough
| personal space for deep meditation and entertaining
| activities. After this the answers come naturally and with
| minimal bias.
| rodrigosetti wrote:
| My two cents: being happy most of the time in your career is an
| impossible goal.
|
| Everyone struggles. Sometimes they are miserable, bored,
| frustrated, burned out, overwhelmed, confused, tired, etc. no
| matter what career you choose, how lucky or skilled you are.
|
| This is not to say that attempts to improve are futile, but it's
| better to dispel the illusion that career heaven exists, so we
| have a sober and liberating experience when dealing with its
| challenges.
| james_s_tayler wrote:
| I'm OK with not being in career heaven, so long as I'm not in
| career hell.
| siproprio wrote:
| I'm currently 27, and I would really like to know where are those
| people who make 120k on a 40h/week job working, and how do I get
| there!
| bluishgreen wrote:
| I will just add one point regarding health and sedentarism. Going
| completely remote saved about 2 hours a day from commute. This is
| big. This is not just 2 hours, but at the end of those 2 hours
| you won't be in a mood to do pretty much anything. I ended up
| working out for 30 mins and going on a long 90 min walk everyday.
| People tend to think 2 hours of physical activity is a lot and
| 'too much', but given how sitting oriented our jobs are - I don't
| believe this is the case. I don't even walk to get a lunch, once
| you wear a fitbit or some such device this becomes so clear how
| much of a sitting oriented life we have acquired. Also when I was
| monitoring weight, bp and other such parameters - nothing other
| than 2 hours made any dent. So 2 hours it is. Just wanted to add
| this perspective. Hope it helps.
| [deleted]
| carapace wrote:
| The open secret to fulfillment and happiness is to help other
| people.
| lucb1e wrote:
| This is basically as far as I got as well. Instead of sitting
| in an office telling people how not to do their job (I'm a
| security consultant), I feel like I might have more fulfillment
| doing basically any human-facing job. Perhaps cashier is
| stretching the idea a bit too far, but anything where someone
| gets something personally useful to them.
|
| Now the problem is how to do that.
|
| I've done some IT support but this basically comes down to
| reinstalling Windows a bunch of times (e.g. after ransomware)
| or telling people they should, after ten years, _really_ be
| upgrading to a new computer (for which they don 't have money)
| rather than trying to get me to fix it up. Wasn't that
| fulfilling and the pay is pretty mediocre even for student
| standards.
|
| I'm good at two foreign languages, perhaps I could teach people
| that?
|
| Or rather do volunteering part-time? Question would be what to
| do, but not getting paid would probably make it easier to
| broaden the scope beyond specific competencies.
|
| How to go about the actual execution without a huge pay cut is
| where I think advice would be most helpful.
| bserge wrote:
| > Sedentarism
|
| Exercise. Seriously exercise, not just 30min/day. Exhaust
| yourself.
|
| As for happiness, help the less fortunate, be it humans or other
| animals, or even plants.
|
| There's nothing in this life that brings more "true" happiness
| than that.
|
| When you see a bunch of kids at an orphanage getting
| sweets/smartphones/bikes or a single pregnant young woman getting
| a flat after being homeless, you'll get it.
|
| You likely won't see this because I'm banned for saying
| uncomfortable things, but here it is, the secret to happiness.
|
| If doing _real_ change in this world by _directly_ affecting
| other living things and changing their lives won 't help you feel
| better, then comparing your own cushy life to theirs will.
|
| And if neither works, you can just stop because you're already
| dead. Get some good medication and hope that works long term.
|
| Also, don't just think local. The world is huge.
| ssijak wrote:
| It is a curse of human condition. Never feeling 100% satisfied
| for any longer period of time
| odiroot wrote:
| Buddha wants to know your location.
| k8sToGo wrote:
| Is it really a curse? It is the motivation that drives you to
| change and become better after all.
| ssijak wrote:
| Yes, you are right, it is a blessing if you learn to look at
| it like that and flow with it. But it is a curse if you
| can't.
| mattgreenrocks wrote:
| The special thing I've done is mostly being willing to sit with
| hard questions like "who am I" and "what do I really want out of
| life and a job?", sometimes for years at a time (low-key).
|
| The answer is always the same, and will probably always the same:
| I am motivated by mastery and autonomy. Thus I put lots of time
| into finding work that is interesting and has a lot to dig into.
|
| I routinely annoy the institutions I work for because status and
| titles do not work for me. They are empty pursuits that hinge too
| much on the fickle perceptions of other people who may not share
| my values. My dream is to work for myself making software
| customers love. I have made some small steps[1] toward that this
| year, but replacing my current income will need a lot of work on
| the side, and that's fine.
|
| I'm playing a game of sorts, where I have a job I really like
| that is challenging and fits my goals as an individual
| contributor, whilst also dabbling in learning to make and sell
| things on the side. Both pursuits support the other, and I don't
| have to win at either in order to feel "justified."
|
| This is just one way to approach the job issue. There are a bunch
| of other good ways to tackle it!
|
| 1:
| https://apps.apple.com/us/app/audiowrangler/id1565701763?mt=...
| ReactiveJelly wrote:
| > The special thing I've done is mostly being willing to sit
| with hard questions like "who am I" and "what do I really want
| out of life and a job?", sometimes for years at a time
|
| A couple years ago I watched "Avatar: The Last Airbender" for
| the first time, having skipped its original run.
|
| When Uncle Iroh says to Zuko, "You need to start asking
| yourself the important questions, like _who am I?_, and _what
| do I want?_" it kinda hit me.
|
| I don't have much of an identity and I spend a lot of time
| bored and aimless because all I want is to be happy and one day
| retire, which isn't short-term or specific enough to get me
| through the weekends.
|
| I still don't know what I want, and that kinda sucks.
| shrimpx wrote:
| I think that's ok. Even people who really know what they want
| to do can easily reach a point where they don't know anymore.
| They may even pursue something else, their "dream career",
| only to reach a point where they're bored with that, too. I
| would go as far as saying that being in limbo, insecure,
| bored, questioning without answers, is the natural state.
| Being pointedly secure in your vision is probably an unstable
| state.
| yboris wrote:
| Your mention of "mastery" and "autonomy" fits directly with
| _Self-determination theory_ (that posits that "Competence",
| "Autonomy", and "Relatedness" are three important components to
| a good life).
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-determination_theory
| stingraycharles wrote:
| I feel like this advice focuses on execution ("I know that
| mastery and autonomy make me happy, $this is how I achieved
| that").
|
| It's much harder to actually understand what makes you happy,
| and when your mind is deceiving you: you may not fully
| appreciate what you have to give up to achieve a certain goal.
|
| Would you be able to elaborate how you realized that mastery
| and autonomy were the things that make you happy?
| mattgreenrocks wrote:
| Mastery was a recurring theme. My happiest times in life were
| always marked by intense learning, and intense learning
| usually accompanies things that get labeled hard. Now, you
| don't do hard things because other people say they're hard;
| you do them because they're interesting to you and they push
| back when you dig in, causing you to need to bear down. In
| the process of that, then you start clawing back to beginners
| mind, and getting closer to be able to let this new thing
| reshape you in some small way. I love that feeling, it is
| like discovering a new conceptual world. Of course, it only
| makes sense if you're intrinsically interested in said thing,
| and willing to let it change you.
|
| Stuff like virtual machines, interpreters, systems
| programming languages, Haskell, etc is all stuff I just
| wanted to know how it worked at one point, and I'd get sucked
| into more and more cool things to learn. I'm not a
| professional at all of those things (Haskell is a lifetime of
| learning) but I still enjoy them quite a bit, and have gotten
| a chance to use all of those professionally. Over time, they
| become competencies that are increasingly rare, so this has
| positive effects for future career choices.
|
| Re: autonomy, I've always inferred this from my general
| attitude toward hierarchy, personality type, and watching
| myself across years and companies fail to be motivated at
| _all_ by the usual things that people seem to be motivated
| by. I feign interest in them and accrue enough of them to be
| reasonably autonomous, but I'm not going to be working
| weekends for months on end to beat other people at changing a
| word on my job title.
|
| That's the type of thing that flows directly from knowing who
| I am. I don't need an upgraded title to hope to know who I
| am. I'm happy to receive it if it is given to me, but if it
| isn't; that's fine.
| sjtindell wrote:
| Digging the overall message but honestly people who say "I
| don't like titles" come off as so pretentious to me. People
| care about titles by necessity. If you're in a position to not,
| you're lucky, not uniquely cool or smart.
| akdor1154 wrote:
| You might be able to make your point in a less antagonistic
| way..
| Mezzie wrote:
| I'm a weirdo: I've been doing web dev since the 90s and made a
| very conscious decision NOT to go into the tech industry,
| primarily for my own happiness.
|
| It sounds like what you've liked in your previous jobs are the
| ability to learn, and that your current goals aren't scratching
| that itch. I'm the same way: If I'm not learning and challenging
| myself intellectually on a regular basis, I end up depressed.
| Which isn't something society is very well set up for in my
| experience.
|
| There are a couple of ways to proceed:
|
| 1.) Try to focus on career paths that allow you to learn/be
| happy. Going into research, returning to working at startups and
| accepting the stability limitations, etc. To do this, you want to
| look for positions where you learning directly helps the company.
| That way your interests are aligned.
|
| 2.) Decouple your intellectual life/happiness from your career
| path; whether this is possible depends on how much work demands
| from you. This is mostly what I do: I only work 20-30 hours a
| week in a non-tech job, so I have time to build terrible tech
| projects in my spare time + no pressure to learn or build for the
| sake of my career. I can just do whatever I want. It's very
| freeing, but of course, this has its downsides as well: I'm not
| well integrated into the tech community, for example.
|
| Also consider that some of the stress may stem from your reliance
| on your career as well: Any situation where a single
| mistake/firing has devastating consequences results in stress.
| Minimizing this would involve building incomes, networks, etc. so
| you have a safety net.
|
| Sedentarism, I can't help you, I'm reading the advice along with
| you, but that's my advice for happiness as somebody who
| prioritized doing work I like + makes the world better over
| money.
| ultra_nick wrote:
| I'm just looking for an interesting low-stress job that pays
| well. I suspect the rest of my happiness will come from other
| sources.
|
| Specifically:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow's_hierarchy_of_needs
| k__ wrote:
| I simply don't work much anymore.
|
| Below 10h a week on average.
|
| I haven't set an alarm for years anymore and sleep 9h a night
|
| That made me quite happy.
| Strom wrote:
| I've done the same for more than a decade now. It's pretty nice
| indeed, especially the sleep without an alarm.
|
| I've also found that just directly making myself happy, by
| following urges and wishes, is a local maxima. I get a lot
| higher peaks of happiness by helping others. Thus a great
| factor in improving my overall happiness has been spending a
| bunch of that freed up time on altruistic work. Usually unpaid,
| just wanting to help others with those same skills that allow
| me to spend so little time working on my career.
| __all__ wrote:
| How do you accomplish that? Does your manager just don't care
| about you? Do you work for yourself? Are you retired?
| k__ wrote:
| I'm a freelancer.
| lucb1e wrote:
| That sounds like the advice is basically to be rich and go into
| semi-retirement. Not sure how generally applicable that is.
| k__ wrote:
| I don't know either.
|
| I did it mostly by lowering my costs of living.
| Strom wrote:
| You need to think more outside the box. Think more _cut
| costs_ than _be rich_. Costs can be cut radically, you can
| just move to the middle of nowhere and work remotely. Of
| course everyone 's situation is different in regards to where
| their friends & family are located etc, but the point is that
| there are a lot more options beyond just being rich.
| curiousllama wrote:
| Lots of good advice here. One additional thing to consider: why
| is your mind on stress from work?
|
| How's your marriage? How are your parents doing? Your kids? Who
| are some of your best friends?
|
| How often are you physically active? Do you often go for walks,
| or play tennis, or garden?
|
| How well are you sleeping? Do you love your mattress?
|
| Any habits you've struggled to kick lately? Conversely, any
| hobbies you've really gotten into?
|
| Personally, I've always noticed my personal happiness correlating
| MUCH more closely with the above than with work. If work isn't
| it, you may want to consider some other angles.
| ReactiveJelly wrote:
| I don't have friends. This is probably why I've struggled to
| maintain mental health and happiness for several years now.
|
| I just don't have any intention to fix it, because the fixes
| look difficult.
| chronofar wrote:
| This appears a strange mindset. You see the issue, you see
| solutions to the issue, but you imagine these solutions are
| too difficult? Are they more difficult than the mental health
| and happiness struggles you've been having?
|
| I certainly get anxiety especially when unpracticed in the
| subtleties of forming meaningful connections, so I understand
| what's likely holding you back. But I think it's likely
| important to realize your rationalization here doesn't make a
| lot of sense.
| Vedor wrote:
| For me, almost everything starts at my work. Not sure what's
| wrong with me, maybe I'm too engaged, maybe I feel too
| responsible for my job... But my actual well-being is almost
| 100% related to the work.
|
| I'm stressed almost all the time. Won't go into the details,
| just the management sucks big way.
|
| Long story short, after work (including weekends) I'm so tired
| that I need a lot of totally lazy time. I strive for activities
| which are the least engaging. Even when I waste my spare time
| playing games, I'm looking for games that don't need much
| attention and are easy to play. With one hand only, if
| possible.
|
| In November, I was on paid leave for 3 weeks. First I got a
| nasty infection, and just after that I somehow strained my
| back.
|
| From the perspective, I don't believe how much stuff I got done
| during this time. Among others, I designed a board game about
| off-road driving that I had been thinking about for a long
| time; I was programming a lot (it's just a hobby for me, I
| don't work in IT); I kinda reconnected with a brother I hadn't
| spoken to in a long time... Had time to cook, had energy to
| clean flat thoroughly.
|
| And all that being sick and having back pain. And it was enough
| to not worry about job things.
|
| It feels like I could do anything if I wasn't so stressed all
| the time.
|
| edit: typo
| [deleted]
| lawlorino wrote:
| How have you found things since going back after the 3 weeks?
| I identify with what you're saying quite strongly, I'm still
| debugging the fundamental issues and how to fix them. For my
| situation I suspect a strong component is personality-related
| and that I probably need some prolonged period of time away
| from work to reset my body and brain and be free from high
| stress situations for a while. From browsing past threads of
| others' experiences with burnout and stress on HN I keep
| seeing 3 months mentioned as the magic number, but I'm
| worried this is too big of an ask from my current employer.
|
| Although I suppose that raises the point that part of solving
| these issues is learning to put my wellbeing above my
| employer's problems.
| Vedor wrote:
| > For my situation I suspect a strong component is
| personality-related
|
| I think that's true for me, too. While the work
| organisation and environment is simply bad, I believe that
| the large part of harm is self-inducted in my case.
| Changing workplace would definitely help, but I definitely
| need to work on the underlying personal issues. I think
| about some kind of therapy to worry less...
|
| I kind of trained myself to worry less. But the work-
| related stress is stronger, so in the end I care less for
| some important personal things, and I'm still frustrated
| with work.
|
| > How have you found things since going back after the 3
| weeks?
|
| I felt much better... for around a week. When I went back
| after 3 weeks, I had a clean slate. Some topics were taken
| over and completed by colleagues, while others were not
| taken over and there was nothing to save.
|
| But after that? It returned to "normal" state of being
| tired and stressed. That's not only my issue - it's a small
| company, and we all are overworked. Physically, we are
| unable to meet production deadlines, answer all emails,
| prepare all projects. That's just how it works. So after
| two weeks, I was sinking in emails, had to deal with calls
| from angry clients, etc.
| Jarwain wrote:
| Maybe it's time to look into hopping jobs? Maybe something
| with better work/life balance?
| Vedor wrote:
| Definitely. I was poking the job market for a long time,
| but here is the thing: I made several stupid decisions in
| my life, and I don't have higher education nor decent
| papers. I have the most professional experience in sales
| (maybe not in the traditional sense), but I fear to end in
| a worse place. In the current place I have, at least, good
| autonomy and interesting technology.
|
| Alternatively, I could go work as a CNC operator - I have
| experience as turner / miller. That's worse pay and usually
| three-shift or four-crew work.
|
| I tried to retrain. Got some online testing experience, and
| ISTQB FL papers. Didn't work out.
|
| I'm going to set up a small CNC shop in the near future
| (2-3 months) - I'm working on it for half a year already
| and it's close.
|
| Probably I should talk to some kind of therapist instead of
| writing such posts on Hacker News - while I don't mind
| personal stories when I read them, then when I'm an author
| I feel it doesn't belong here.
| Jarwain wrote:
| That's fair, it sounds like you have a path forward!
|
| I can see how it would feel weird venting in a forum like
| this. I think one of the benefits of a therapist is that
| you also develop a sort of relationship; they have a
| better grasp of your context and history over time and
| that allows for more targeted support than whatever
| offhand/generic wisdom people on a forum might provide.
| hermitcrab wrote:
| I guess it is part of our evolutionary heritage not to be
| satisfied with what we have. Our ancestors that were, probably
| had happier lives, but less offspring, and so eventually
| disappeared from the gene pool. But, as long as we are mindful
| where this dissatisfaction comes from, we can fight it.
| ronenlh wrote:
| I don't remember the source of the study, but commutes are one of
| the most important factors in happiness at work. Optimize for
| short pleasant commutes on bike or train, as opposed to bus or
| car.
| alecbz wrote:
| I've never chased down the source but I'm pretty sure this is
| bullshit, or at least wildly misunderstood.
|
| I believe that:
|
| * especially long, unpleasant commutes can be a significant
| source of unhappiness
|
| * shorter commutes are _consistently_, across different people,
| a source of happiness (whereas any other thing might bring a
| lot of happiness to some people but not so much to others)
|
| But I think it's absurd to think that for any given person, a
| short commute is high on their list of things to make them
| happy or fulfilled (especially if they're not already actively
| unhappy with their commute).
| archydeb wrote:
| I think the popularity of this notion comes from the fact
| that it's one of the few effects upon happiness that doesn't
| wash out over time. People adapt to changes in circumstance
| remarkably quickly, adjusting their expectations to the new
| normal and ceasing to derive any pleasure from it (the
| "hedonic treadmill"). A long commute seems particularly hard
| to adjust to, and thus the negative utility of a long commute
| often outlasts the positive utility of e.g. the higher salary
| you attain by the commute.
|
| Source: https://www.uzh.ch/cmsssl/suz/dam/jcr:ffffffff-866d-1
| ee0-000...
|
| Edit: typo
| BlueTie wrote:
| I'm not particularly happy but I do know that pursing happiness
| as a goal is a bad idea. It's worth trying to set a different
| goal (health, career, family, whatever) and pursue that. Once you
| feel like you're making progress toward something meaningful
| happiness usually shows up as an ancillary benefit.
|
| Check out number 39:
| https://gist.github.com/hcgatewood/dfcd27127cd977762ea038a75...
| hyperpallium2 wrote:
| > stress and sedentarism
|
| Exercise. Choose an activity you enjoy, and do it in a _way_ you
| enjoy. e.g. Don 't cycle to pace other cyclists; cycle for
| scenery. Swim for the aerodynamic sensation. Don't aim to run
| further every day; aim to run closer (so any extra is a bonus).
| Key is turning up consistently... making it enjoyable makes you
| look forward to it.
|
| This directly addresses stress and sedentarism... and indirectly,
| by building familiarity with what you enjoy. Know thyself. This
| can extend into career choices - which I agree sound pretty good
| already in themselves. What may be missing is self knowledge.
| Mikhail_Edoshin wrote:
| You cannot optimize for happiness :) happiness is open to
| everyone on every moment, but it cannot be achieved by force.
| What's happening is that you're approaching the midlife crisis,
| so try to learn about it. It's a spiritual crisis.
| pjohri wrote:
| Happiness has not that much to do with a career, or anything
| external for that matter, once your basic needs are met.
|
| It has everything to do with how well you understand yourself and
| can manage your mind.
|
| Unfortunately, people are always looking for prescriptions for
| happiness, and ignoring this simple fact.
| sys_64738 wrote:
| Once you are earning so much money ten another $10k here or there
| makes no difference. When you hit 30+ you start to see that
| you're mortal and time is more important than chasing the $$$. I
| value my time more than doing any overtime in any job. So I
| don't. No overtime for me. Sack me if you want. I don't care.
| Time off is incredibly important as you get older.
| argentinian wrote:
| Certainly you can't buy time and it's a limited resource.
|
| I like the concept of 'time-millionaires', once I read about
| the idea in an article shared here on HN. The idea is that
| nowadays many people think about wealth in monetary units, but
| that it would be healthier to consider that wealth is more
| about the time you have available to do what's valuable for
| you.
|
| So somebody who makes a lot of money but hates his/her job is a
| 'time-pauper'. Of course, if you like to work 50 hs a week you
| would not be a time-pauper, because you enjoy it.
|
| I find the idea of individual net-worth as quite insane. It
| places value mainly on things instead of placing it in
| subjective well-being. In the USA it seems that there is more
| time-poverty than in Europe, where people have much longer
| vacations.
| sAbakumoff wrote:
| Read some good classics regarding Buddhist perspective of
| happiness. For instance, https://www.amazon.com/Joy-Living-
| Unlocking-Science-Happines...
| thanatos519 wrote:
| Use your career/job to support your life, then get a life. Become
| an artist, author, clown, or build some awesome technical system
| because you want it to exist. GPL it.
|
| Don't ask for anything, especially not happiness, from your
| "career". I put it in quotes because it's conceptually bankrupt.
|
| https://www.roystonguest.com/blog/why-happiness-is-not-a-des...
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| larrymyers wrote:
| Good podcast on the idea that it's scam that people are
| expecting happiness from their job:
| https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/19/opinion/ezra-klein-podcas...
| pronlover723 wrote:
| So Ezra Klein hates his job and tries to do as little of it
| as possible? It suspect it's not practicing what he's
| preaching
| eVoLInTHRo wrote:
| I haven't listened to this specific podcast, but Ezra Klein
| went on paternity leave a couple months ago. He didn't host
| this episode, per the description.
|
| Seems like he's prioritizing something other than career at
| the moment?
| MeinBlutIstBlau wrote:
| I'm happy at my job. Although I've worked every bottom of the
| barrel awful job there is to know that what I have is not
| only easy and rewarding, but people believe it's difficult,
| which helps keep me employed :)
| systemvoltage wrote:
| > GPL it.
|
| MIT/Apache/BSD it, IMO.
| goodpoint wrote:
| No thanks. Belonging to a community and helping it grow is
| important for happiness. Community building (and empowering
| users) is the main point of copyleft.
|
| Permissive licenses are equivalent to unpaid labor in the
| eyes of SaaS companies and other freeloaders.
| pronlover723 wrote:
| Worrying about
|
| > Permissive licenses are equivalent to unpaid labor in the
| eyes of SaaS companies and other freeloaders.
|
| Is a way to unhappiness. I MIT/BSD stuff and no worry about
| who uses it and how much money they make. The attitude
| above is like given to poor people at the sour kitchen and
| then getting angry if they make it out of poverty, become
| successful, and don't follow in your foot steps. What they
| do after I've given them the soup is irrelevant.
| ReactiveJelly wrote:
| But the point of a soup kitchen is to give without
| expecting any RoI, not even non-monetary return.
|
| If I want to build a community of people who upstream
| patches for a project, copyleft does it better than
| saying patches are not required.
|
| MIT is like a soup kitchen because soup kitchens are like
| MIT. I don't want to work in a soup kitchen.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| I've dealt with enough GPL crusaders. They're the most
| unhappiest bunch. I _love_ the philosophy of FreeBSD. Old
| school Berkeley liberatarianism.
|
| > Permissive licenses are equivalent to unpaid labor in the
| eyes of SaaS companies and other freeloaders.
|
| Or... you could be less resentful (and therefore happy) and
| think about helping the 'small guy' make it out and compete
| with large companies. I sometimes forget that we're on a
| startup tech forum.
|
| I know you're not saying this, but in general I am fed up
| with the idea that anything commerical == evil. How the
| hell is it evil to build something, improve the world,
| provide value to others and get paid to put food on the
| table for your family? If you were to survey people that
| work in private companies, they're just like you and I.
| Normal people. They have not a shred of evil in them.
|
| That said, ethics is important. I'm down with shaming and
| naming (or sueing) anyone that violates T&C of a license,
| GPL or BSD, doesn't matter.
| alecbz wrote:
| What if working with others and having an impact is what brings
| me the most fulfillment?
| azemetre wrote:
| Then offer to do work in your community than your employer.
|
| There are many food banks and code for america (and other
| country equivalents) that can use your help to impact your
| community.
| mattgreenrocks wrote:
| I'll flip the question it's head: how do you know that is
| worth putting all your resources into?
|
| Going all-in on one area of your life is not a good bet.
|
| I know because I've tried.
| alecbz wrote:
| I didn't say anything about putting _all_ my resources into
| it? Are you saying that a career, uniquely among things one
| can spend their time on, requires putting _all_ one 's
| resources into it?
| mattgreenrocks wrote:
| No, just that it can end up that way if you are avoiding
| other parts of your life. :)
|
| I will say that the overall concept of a "successful
| career" that is pushed is very, very overrated. You get
| the sense it is a message meant for a specific type of
| person that needs that void filled, and it is sent by
| that same type of person. To which I say: don't be that
| person, so you're not unduly manipulated by the
| messaging.
| alecbz wrote:
| I'd say I think I need a sense of purpose or fulfillment
| in my life. If you're describing that as a void that
| needs to be filled, than sure, that's me.
| bitlax wrote:
| And for those who are able, getting married and having children
| will tend to bring even more fulfillment than becoming a clown.
| thanatos519 wrote:
| I did that, and I agree in principle, but I regret that my
| child will experience the collapse of civilization before he
| knows what it means.
|
| I don't think it's a good idea to make more humans right now,
| because they will not have a very good life.
| jen729w wrote:
| I'll just chip in as someone who has never ever wanted kids,
| who met a lovely girl who was so thankful to also meet
| someone who has never ever wanted kids.
|
| So just because you're 'able' doesn't mean that you should.
| Just wanted to put this here in case others think they're
| weird for really, really not wanting kids. You're not.
| redisman wrote:
| 100%.
|
| Having kids is by far the most life constraining thing you
| can do. Don't do it unless you want to be a parent! I have
| two kids and my life is unrecognizable from what it was
| before. I enjoy my new life but it is 85% dad, 15% old me.
|
| I would recommend the general area of making sacrifices and
| servicing others in some form. I think that is a big part
| of the "spiritual" fulfillment of parenting. I used to be
| so much more self centered. But now I get up every day
| thinking how to make the lives of my kids and the world
| better, rather than "what would my lizard brain enjoy today
| "
| simonbarker87 wrote:
| Upvoting this as I've always been this way and I'm noticing
| many friends hit their mid thirties saying "oh I don't want
| kids and it feels so good, like a weight has been lifted"
| bitlax wrote:
| "tend"
| knuthsat wrote:
| Yep, me and my wife have so much fun without kids. We are
| also not spiritually empty and we find deep meaning in
| things we do through our life together.
| [deleted]
| mattgreenrocks wrote:
| My twenty-year-old self wasn't ready to hear this, but it's
| absolutely true.
|
| Fulfillment follows from meaning, and meaning flows from
| responsibilities we bear.
| closeparen wrote:
| This idea is basically conservatism. It works for a lot of
| people, there must be something to it, but it's not some
| kind of objective truth or the only outlook on life.
| suriyaG wrote:
| As a twenty three year old. I'm curious to know more.
|
| why take on responsibility through having children? Why not
| pickup any other type of responsibilty? like, community
| service, tutoring/helping kids from less fortunate places
| or in the worst case even Picking up more responsibility
| from work?
|
| Is it more of a genetic thing where it makes the pain of
| responsibility more pleasurable?
|
| I'm even more curious to know if you think it could be some
| form of "endowment bias" that could be happening. From an
| objective standpoint, of course.
| smusamashah wrote:
| It looks like just a responsibility and you might only
| see the trouble they make when you don't have them. I use
| to see the same way.
|
| When you have a kid, seeing them smile and grow and all
| thi gs they do gives the happiness you might have never
| felt before. Closest thing you could compare it to might
| be when you create something (a painting, project etc)
| and in the process each small accomplishment gives you a
| spike of happiness. Here it's a kid who cries for a need,
| and then you solve that need and make him smile. You make
| a human smile who can't even tell you what's there
| problem and make them feel protected enough that they
| sleep without a care in the world. There is lots of
| fulfillment steps in the whole process.
|
| That's the best I can explain what it is about.
| mriet wrote:
| > Is it more of a genetic thing where it makes the pain
| of responsibility more pleasurable?
|
| To be blunt, assume that the smartest psychologists in
| the world still don't really understand more than 20% of
| human behavior or how we think.
|
| Those are the experts, then it's a given that you and I
| only understand about 20% of what they understand, so 4%.
|
| Assume that all of your reasoning above is based on
| incorrect assumptions, but that a lot of people become
| parents and a lot of parents are glad they've become
| parents and say that this has enriched their lives --
| despite this being a grueling experience for years at a
| time.
|
| There's something incredibly complex going on there and
| you can not simplify it to an algorithm.
|
| It's possible that they're all hallucinating about it
| though.
|
| Lastly, just because, think about how little we knew, in
| general, in 1700, 1800 and 1900. Why do you think that
| 2021 is any different?
| kv12291 wrote:
| Major issue is Community service and tutoring/helping
| kids lack involvement. If you can be fully invested and
| involved then that's definitely better way to do. But
| most people can get much more involved easily when it's
| thier own children.
| torbital wrote:
| But having kids is all-in: there is no turning back and
| no flexibility
|
| I would feel so much more limited and bounded in what I
| can do in the world, because my own financial future and
| my own mortality would be way more relevant with
| dependents.
| fartcannon wrote:
| Yeah, it's just biology. Works for some, not for others.
| The problem with the advice 'have kids for meaning in
| life' is if you do have kids and you get nothing out of
| it, you might resent the kid which would ruin two lives.
|
| That said, I didn't have my first kid until my late 30s
| and every thing I did prior to that seems like a
| pointless waste of time now. YMMV.
| CodeGlitch wrote:
| > why take on responsibility through having children? Why
| not pickup any other type of responsibilty? like,
| community service, tutoring/helping kids from less
| fortunate places or in the worst case even Picking up
| more responsibility from work?
|
| The other day I was flicking through my notepad in my
| home office and found hand written notes from my 6 year
| old daughter saying how much she loved me. Yes kids are a
| massive responsibility, but the payback you get if you do
| it right is immeasurable.
|
| I'm not sure you'd get quite the same from the things you
| listed, perhaps a little...?
|
| Anyway what is suggest is you enjoy your 20s, but make
| sure you are in a position to have kids by your early
| 30s... Otherwise it may be too late for your other half
| (women's clocks do tick rather fast). If you wait until
| she is 40 then you are really risking it.
| optymizer wrote:
| Here's some "clock" info from my fertility doctor I wish
| I knew when I was 20-something:
|
| 35 is roughly the cutoff for "everything's going to be
| fine without much effort or thinking", so plan ahead.
|
| That's when you're going to start getting help from
| fertility doctors, consider IVF, get test results showing
| that your own sperm's motility is not perfect (i.e.
| you've got a clock too), higher chances of Down syndrome,
| etc.
|
| For some folks that's not a lot of time to get married,
| buy a house, a car, get a stable job and bring your
| financial situation in order. These aren't strict
| requirements, but the amount of stress involved when one
| of them is missing is something you'll have to handle, so
| at the very least you and your partner shouldn't be
| completely oblivious of the soft deadline at 35.
| andreilys wrote:
| _I 'm not sure you'd get quite the same from the things
| you listed, perhaps a little...?_
|
| The note from your daughter, while sweet, can also come
| from those you help. For example, sponsoring a childrens
| school in India, or mentoring an orphan through a Big
| Brother program.
|
| I think the main point here is you are in service by
| helping others, instead of focusing on yourself.
| redisman wrote:
| If the customer relations specialist from one of the
| charities I donate to wrote me a note about how much they
| love me I'm not sure how I would feel about that
| tmnstr85 wrote:
| Imagine what happens when it doesn't go right with
| children and you're in this situation. I have a daughter
| who caught bacterial meningitis at birth and had to have
| a brain surgery to solve the infection. Her existence is
| tragic, she is with us but she is going to have a
| lifetime of challenges and we've already been through the
| ringer. Now ever day is like waking up with a mortal
| wound, and to have other kids who need our help and
| support, its not rewarding. Add in a job where the
| culture is toxic and you're being persecuted for doing
| your job well. its not worth it... none of its worth it.
| bckr wrote:
| Thanks for expressing this. I think it gets left out of
| the conversation due to stigma. People are expected to
| say how happy they are to have disabled children because
| anything less is, I suppose, considered inhumane.
|
| However, it's very humane to bring to other people's
| attention that their prospective children might not be
| healthy.
| sjtindell wrote:
| Thanks for sharing this. I hope you find a way through
| and wish your family the best.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| "why take on responsibility through having children? "
|
| I doubt there is a absolute answer. You either want it,
| or you don't. Or you are not sure and then it might just
| happen one day and then, "well, let's go with it".
| Despite not having perfect conditions.
|
| I think I wanted to have kids at around your age, but was
| clear, to wait until I could provide a adequate perfect
| base. And then years later it just happened, before me
| being ready and the responsibility for sure was and is
| very intense. But mostly of a good kind.
| Gatsky wrote:
| There is one misconception to avoid about having kids.
| People focus too much on the part where children are
| young, presumably because this is the part they see
| happening around them. At the same time they ignore what
| it means to have children over the whole course of their
| lives. Consider for example the relationship one has with
| one's parents as an adult.
|
| Let me add the disclaimer that of course some adult
| parent-child relationships are terrible and off-putting.
| My point is to seek out a perspective which is not too
| short-sighted regarding procreation.
| huijzer wrote:
| > Is it more of a genetic thing where it makes the pain
| of responsibility more pleasurable?
|
| Is responsibility painful?
| suriyaG wrote:
| It's a trade off, I think. When you have responsibility
| you are sacrificing something to complete that task. so
| yeah, responsibilities come with a baggage and the
| baggage are some times painful.
| optymizer wrote:
| I have two young children. I'm objectively less happy
| than I used to be, mostly because I lost the freedom to
| do whatever I wanted and the time to do whatever I
| wanted, on top of gaining all of these new stressful
| responsibilities, and I've always liked to travel, be
| productive and create things.
|
| That said, when I look back at how I was using that
| freedom and time, it wasn't very efficient, but even if I
| optimized my use of it, I would have reached a local
| maximum of happiness, because I think there's only so
| much happiness one can bring onto themselves by mastery,
| shipping products and having hobbies, and, in order to
| experience additional happiness, major external factors
| must influence your life.
|
| Having children is that external factor that initially
| introduced a ton of responsibility and cost (monetary,
| health, mental and time), but, if the early data points
| are any indication, the maximum happiness level should
| exceed the previous local maximum by an order of
| magnitude. The instant happiness I experience right now
| just from interacting with them already makes the
| responsibility worthwhile.
|
| With time, I expect to get back some of the previous
| freedom and time, and, with that, the happiness it brings
| me, which should be an additive operation, pushing the
| overall happiness to a much higher level than the
| previous local maximum.
| travisporter wrote:
| I wish I could hug you. This is exactly how I feel but
| didn't have the words to express it.
|
| Kids take up so much time that I often wonder why -> how
| did I spend time before kids -> why am I not that much
| less productive now -> awww -> everything's gonna be all
| right.
|
| But that being said it's absolutely okay to not want kids
| and be extremely happy with your life. If only there was
| a shareware parenthood.
| redisman wrote:
| Having kids can be a way out of from a too-comfortable
| hedonistic life. I also realized I had just frittered
| away precious time doing nothing of much value for the
| last 10 years.
|
| For data points, while I'm tired as fuck all year I've
| never (maybe as a child) smiled so much as when my new
| infant tries to constantly get my attention and then
| giggles when she does.
| Stronico wrote:
| Many things can be said but you will experience an
| emotional range like you've never felt before - the lows
| are really low and the highs are really high - plus a lot
| of your life will no longer be within your control, which
| always adds a bit of adventure to things.
| chronofar wrote:
| Because the evolutionarily programmed rewards from
| parenting will typically outweigh the rewards from
| general altruism. Your child becomes the most important
| thing in the world by default, which can flip all sorts
| of joy and fulfillment triggers in your brain that are
| difficult to flip in that way via other means. Having
| children is your genetic purpose, so much of our biology
| is driven to that end, thus it would figure to provide
| uniquely strong rewards.
|
| I say this as someone who does not have kids and has no
| plan to have kids as I don't care to pay the immense
| costs required, so maybe I shouldn't even be replying to
| this, but I tend to see the same sorts of replies to
| these sorts of questions which I think put a bit of extra
| gloss that obfuscates the true motivators a bit.
| pjerem wrote:
| > pay the immense costs required
|
| I'm not trying in any way to change your mind but I want
| to say that this is only an opinion.
|
| If you are ready to have kids, those costs are pretty
| easy to support. As you said, you are biologically
| programmed to support them (the costs).
|
| I would die without a fear if my son's life depended on
| it, and still I'm far from suicidal.
|
| It's just that, your brain naturally accepts the costs.
| Even if we are only talking about not being able to go
| that random party you would never miss before. You will
| be annoyed, for sure, but you'll be granted with what
| you'll live instead.
|
| But I do think there is something that triggers in your
| brain starting from the moment when you want a child and
| it looks like it's lasting a lifetime.
|
| However, I would never recommend having children to
| anyone who don't want them for any reason. Chances are
| that it turns out to be nice. But I wouldn't take the
| risk. I see a lot of children whose treatment by their
| parents makes me really sad for them. The last thing a
| toddler want is to feel like a burden. So, better not
| create yourself this burden.
| helpfulmandrill wrote:
| Tough to get a life when work takes up so much of our time. I
| think that's why people try to find or build careers they can
| love.
| ivanhoe wrote:
| IME working less itself doesn't solve the problem, it's more
| about how you organize your time. I had free Fridays and I would
| still end up sitting in front of computer all Friday, just doing
| something else not work... and back when I was freelancing
| "because that way I can work from anywhere", I've still spent
| like 99% of days sitting in my home office. In order to change
| the lifestyle one needs a bit of self-discipline to actually use
| the chances that they have instead of falling for the routine. If
| you don't want to live a sedentary lifestyle that just come up
| with things you can do to change it, like use a standing desk,
| make small breaks during the day to exercise, go to gym after
| work. Sticking to it is far harder than finding the time to do
| it.
| destitude wrote:
| Are you happy with the area of work you are working on or is it
| just a job? Working someplace where you feel like you have an
| impact on something meaningful can also help a lot with
| happiness.
| brailsafe wrote:
| From your other answers, you do seem to acknowledge that you know
| the answer, but aren't motivated to do anything about it. My
| answer, like others, is that if you're anything like my hometown
| friends in their 30s, you haven't made new friends in a while,
| don't exercise much, and don't spend much time in nature. Tech
| sucks. It's boring, stressful, you don't meaningfully improve
| anyone's life directly, and you often don't make as much as the
| general contractor who fixes your drywall. Working backwards from
| that might be how you adjust your career accordingly, starting
| with a hobby where you spend at least 3 hours a week hanging out
| with random people in a totally neutral space.
| yboris wrote:
| Optimize it by learning about happiness via _Positive Psychology_
| , a direction of inquiry about what makes people happy (above
| baseline).
|
| One gem from the field: _If Money Doesn 't Make You Happy Then
| You Probably Aren't Spending It Right_ [0].
|
| Great books from the field: _Stumbling on Happiness_ by Daniel
| Gilbert [1] and _The How of Happiness_ by Sonja Lyubomirsky [2]
|
| [0] https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/danielgilbert/files/if-
| mon...
|
| [1] https://www.amazon.com/Stumbling-Happiness-Daniel-
| Gilbert/dp...
|
| [2] https://www.amazon.com/How-Happiness-Approach-Getting-
| Life/d...
| yboris wrote:
| As for career-specific advice, keep _Self-determination theory_
| in mind. The three foundational components are CAR:
|
| - Competence (work on something that demands skill and
| attention from you)
|
| - Autonomy (be able to determine what you'll be working on
| next)
|
| - Relatedness (feel like your work is contributing to a greater
| whole - helping others)
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-determination_theory
| the_only_law wrote:
| Those all sound pretty difficult to fine with 1 being the
| easiest and 2 being the hard.
| quadcore wrote:
| Could that be youre anxious because youre not getting __all__ the
| "special" attention you think you deserve? If yes, then trying
| everything in terms of career to get enough attention wont help,
| getting "attention fix" on hn either. Are you capable of being
| alone or does that makes you miserable?
|
| I dont know what it is, but its not your career. Youre telling it
| yourself, youve been doing everything right.
| __all__ wrote:
| You bring a topic I have been myself concerned about but never
| managed to articulate. I'm usually performing quite well at my
| job, and easily get "special" attention and recognition which
| is good. At jobs, I tend to start motivated just by the work
| itself but at some point, after a few victories, recognitions,
| salary increases, or promotions I discover myself being that
| guy seeking attention and recognition and start feeling
| demotivated if I'm not getting it.
|
| Perhaps, that's the big thing to solve. Being
| attention/recognition dependants doesn't look like being a good
| professional.
| quadcore wrote:
| You were supposed to show any, even slight form of anger if I
| was right. You say "doesnt look like being a good
| professional" ( _good boy_ ), who are you trying to please?
| Are your parents proud of you?
|
| Simply follow things along those lines. Pay attention to your
| vocabulary: __all__, special, good professional, ive been
| doing everything right, etc. Thats how you do basic
| psychology. Youre subconscious is talking, just listen :)
| hope that helps
| mattm wrote:
| My first programming job was unionized and the hours were
| strictly from 8:30-4. With breaks, that worked out to be about
| 6-6.5 hours per day. I would leave work with lots of energy and
| be energized to start the next day. I left that job for another
| one but needed to work 1 hour more per day. It was a pretty
| similar office environment. I was amazed at how much just one
| hour a day changed my mood. After a few weeks I no longer had
| that energetic feeling anymore when leaving work or when waking
| up.
|
| If you're optimizing for happiness, I think a 30 hour work week
| is ideal. 10 hours a week is too little to feel happiness and
| fulfillment from that.
| linuxdude314 wrote:
| For me the key was to stop trying to find fulfillment in work.
| It's a myth that your work needs to provide a deep sense of
| fulfillment or satisfaction.
|
| It's important to not hate your job or be in a toxic environment,
| but work should not be the locus of your happiness.
|
| If you don't have a hobby try and find one you like!
|
| For me learning to appreciate beauty in the small things (even
| something simple like a pleasant interaction with a cashier or
| watering my garden) helped me gain a new outlook on life.
| dmje wrote:
| My context: 49y/o. Salary: we have a 2-person husband/wife micro-
| business so "it's complicated" but I pay us PS5k GBP ($6.3k usd)
| p/m so that's ~$80k take-home p/a.
|
| Working hours: absolute max 40 (although I'm taking a day off a
| week right now to do my own thing), very strict "no evenings or
| weekends" (apart from site launches and big deadlines of which
| there are about 3 a year), no work email on phone, long holidays
| (for example we take August off annually, and do it properly, no
| email, no phone, no client contact). I think probably I take
| 30-40 days holiday a year maybe? I don't actually count :-)
|
| We've absolutely, 100% optimised for family. It started off as a
| semi-deliberate choice and then we moved to Cornwall (for a year,
| it made us happy so we stayed) and it became more and more clear
| that being in the now is the focus that makes us happiest. We
| have 2 teen kids, and we need to be in their lives for the short
| amount of time (18 years really does fly...) before they leave
| home and go do their own thing. I have friends who have risen
| through the ranks of their careers and now pull in anywhere from
| PS150k-PS1m++ but every single one of them leaves the house at 7,
| isn't back before 9 and does it 6 days a week. They employ people
| to look after their kids, they employ people to clean their
| houses, they don't know each other, the families are isolated
| from each other, the kids are fkd up, everyone drinks too much,
| everyone is intensely stressed all the time... There is
| absolutely no point, none whatsoever.
|
| I could be dead tomorrow. It could be a speeding car, or a lump,
| or a mis-step or a stroke. So I try to maximise now. I'd rather
| have this time hanging out with my family than working (and I
| love my work - I just don't love it as much as my family!). I
| know that I'll probably be poor when I'm old, but to be able to
| eat a meal, sit and chat, go surfing with my kids and wife - I'd
| make that choice again a million times over.
|
| So - finally - to answer your question. In my humble opinion (and
| yes, this is opinion, and yes, you have to have some luck - which
| I have had, at least so far - for these to work...):
|
| 1) There's no point in doing work that makes one unhappy. If
| you've got the choice (and most people do who are commanding
| north of $100k) then choose a lower salary which gives you more
| flexibility and life balance than a higher one that doesn't
|
| 2) Be in the now. It's all we've got. Sorry to be an old hippy,
| but it's true.
|
| 3) If you can, get a meditation practice going. If you can spare
| the time, extend this into a week long silent retreat every so
| often. These give (both) you time to recharge, to consider, to
| see life in context, to understand that there are bigger things
| at play than just you.
|
| 4) Be fit. It really helps.
|
| 5) Eat well. I'd go further with my opinion and say - be
| vegetarian - but at least minimise your meat consumption.
|
| 6) Be with the people you love. Maximise for this time.
| Everything will end - your life, your friends' lives, your social
| circumstance. Friends and family are literally the only thing
| that matters in the end, so make the most of them.
|
| 7) Do things that aren't anything to do with screens. Read.
| Listen to music. Be bored. Walk. Get a dog. Be away from that
| little rectangle of light for long periods of time.
|
| 8) Avoid debt if you possibly can. I'm not talking mortgages -
| they're pretty much inevitable - but if you can't afford a
| (luxury thing) then don't buy it, save for it. The people I know
| who are really, badly in trouble financially are the ones who see
| a thing and buy it on credit, then it bites them on the ass
| later.
|
| Good luck out there.
| throwaway-blue2 wrote:
| Thank you for writing this, it really resonated with me. I'm
| moving back to Cornwall with my family after a stint working on
| the London grind to focus on our careers - I think there's been
| some benefit to us doing that but Cornwall has always been
| where we wanted to raise our kids, so now we've got one and
| it's possible we decided now is the time to do it! I can't wait
| to get back, it really does feel like a different life there.
|
| I think for us getting to the point where all of our needs are
| covered by our income, it's been a learning curve to really
| experience that it doesn't suddenly make you feel happy or
| fulfilled. It's an absolute privilege to not be worrying about
| day-to-day living costs now, but I find there's always
| something else to be worrying about, and easy to find yourself
| feeling like there just isn't enough time to do what you really
| want to and not feel stressed.
| wpietri wrote:
| Happiness depends on a lot on what you truly want, as opposed to
| what you want to want, so I'd encourage you to get familiar with
| where those diverge. E.g., a lot of people want to want to get
| rich, but as you've discovered, more money doesn't actually leave
| them more fulfilled. If you're finding that hard to discover, a
| good therapist can help a lot, as talking with a lot of people
| lets them see patterns an individual can't.
|
| Personally, I am also not great at telling when I'm stressed. So
| I've learned to look for obvious correlates. As an example, I am
| normally the sort of person who spends change. That is, I
| generally don't have more than $1 of coins, as I use them to make
| purchases. But when I'm stressed or depressed, I'm less likely to
| take the time to count out change, so I end up with an increasing
| number of coins on my dresser. That's a sign to me to ask what's
| wrong.
|
| Also useful to me has been tracking the number of steps per week.
| I have a Garmin running watch I never take off. If I'm stressed,
| I'll become more sedentary. That's not just bad for my long-term
| health; it also decreases my resilience in the face of stress.
|
| These things sound small, but they're useful to me as clues to
| the bigger things in life. If these indicators tell me I'm not
| doing well, I'll go down a mental checklist of things that could
| contribute. Am I sleeping enough? Eating well? How much alcohol
| am I drinking? How much sunlight am I getting? How do I feel
| before starting work? After the first couple of hours of work? At
| the end of the day? How are the important relationships in my
| life?
|
| With that mindset, you can turn it into a debugging problem.
| E.g., if being too sedentary is one hypothesis as to why you're
| not happy, there's lots to experiment with there.
| Kooshaba wrote:
| +1 to therapy.
|
| Specifically, a therapist that cares about your condition long-
| term. I went through a bunch of therapy apps with very
| transactional therapy sessions which didn't get my anywhere. I
| eventually found a therapist I visit in person a few times a
| month who has numerous multi-year patients. It's been an
| entirely different, enlightening experience.
| samhw wrote:
| > talking with a lot of people lets them see patterns an
| individual can't
|
| This is a really nice distillation of the value of talking to a
| therapist. I really appreciate this comment.
| wpietri wrote:
| For sure. And I should add it may take people a few tries to
| find the right therapist. Because it's not just seeing the
| patterns, it's also being able to explain them to the
| individual in question.
| pasquinelli wrote:
| i quit being a programmer and now work as a janitor. it's amazing
| how much of a difference moving and not getting emails made for
| me.
|
| that's perhaps a bit of a drastic swing.
| axxto wrote:
| Do you mind expanding on that a little bit? How did that come
| to be?
| potatoman22 wrote:
| Is this post-retirement? Or do you have other sources of
| income? Either way, I respect the hell out of that move.
| pmorici wrote:
| Get a gym membership and go every day. If you have trouble going
| routinely sign up for classes or a personal trainer so you feel
| more obligated to go on a regular basis.
| SlowAndCalm wrote:
| It sounds odd but I believe sometimes creating that obligation
| can hurt people's efforts. Anecdotally, I've seen many people
| sign up with a personal trainer, planning to go regularly, find
| the first few training sessions hard and then not want to go
| again as they know the trainer will push them. I try to give
| people the advice of going routinely even if they don't have a
| routine once they're there. Associate it as a place you go
| before you associate it with any other feelings and you might
| find yourself having a workout just because you're there.
| lucb1e wrote:
| Heh, that sounds like a nightmare for me personally. If going
| to an artificial place to get tired _every day_ works for you,
| that 's great, but this is not generally good advice. If it's
| purely about physical fitness (I'm really not quite sure what
| your goal with this method is, perhaps you could edit to
| clarify), going into nature to cycle or jog is much better due
| to the nature-happiness correlation (e.g.
| https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/001391651245190...
| but there are many sources for this).
| pmorici wrote:
| Op said he had a problem with being sedentary. That is
| largely a problem of habit. If you are already in the habit
| of jogging or cycling regularly good for you but if you
| aren't you almost certainly need some kind of structure (ie:
| scheduled time and place someone is counting on you to be
| there) to get to a place where you are doing it on a regular
| basis and not regularly rationalizing reasons to skip a day.
| ozzythecat wrote:
| > Heh, that sounds like a nightmare for me personally.
|
| I will share my anecdote with you.
|
| I did light jogging and weights in the gym, 3x a week. Then
| in 2020, the gyms shut down. COVID was raging throughout my
| country. I stayed at home all day and worked from home.
|
| I struggled with work ever day. I felt work was too hard. Not
| being in the office and not being able to whiteboard with
| teammates felt like a rapid change i didnt know how to
| handle.
|
| My stress and anxiety shot up to an all time high. I would
| work from 9am-6pm, keep thinking of work into the night, and
| feel tired, exhausted.
|
| I was desperate to get some sense of my former life back. I
| started ordering food on Uber Eats and Door dash for comfort.
|
| I tried eating healthier options, but my weight ballooned by
| 20lbs. I went from being able to do 30 push ups in one set to
| not being able to do 3 push ups.
|
| This year, I rejoined a gym. I started going 5 days a week,
| even if it meant just sitting idle for 15 minutes of my 35
| minute work out.
|
| I not only lost a bunch of the weight, I got much stronger. I
| learned to realize when I was feeling anxious or stressed,
| and my exercise actually helped me overcome it. Regardless of
| the work situation or tight deadlines, I wouldn't skip the
| gym. I wouldn't skip meals anymore. I'd drink lots of water.
|
| Now - my health comes first. And for the most part, I've
| gained more peoples respect in my professional life. My
| company didn't lose any money because I started valuing
| myself as a person. My company didn't fire me either.
| sinenomine wrote:
| I wouldn't deny benefits of exercise, due to too much
| research pointing out to it being really beneficial. For
| example, this one is one of the latest:
| https://www.fightaging.org/archives/2021/12/plasma-
| transfusi...
|
| My take on this is, one has to find an exercise form that is
| (un)pleasant enough to engage in long-term. For me it's
| biking and mostly bodyweight exercise in my improvised home
| gym.
|
| It's really worth it every time I do it, and I do it just 2-3
| times a week.
| lucb1e wrote:
| > I wouldn't deny benefits of exercise
|
| Sorry if it came across like that, this is not what I
| meant. It's just about going to the gym specifically, and
| daily to boot, not about being fit in general.
| rapfaria wrote:
| > If going to an artificial place to get tired every day
| works for you
|
| So, the office?
|
| If it doesn't work for you, fine, but the gym is a great
| place to go. Stop discouraging people because you don't like
| it or having a single goal (physical fitness) is bad.
| lucb1e wrote:
| I don't pay for going to the office, so I don't think that
| comparison really works.
|
| > having a single goal (physical fitness) is bad
|
| What part of my comment gave you that notion? I should edit
| this because it's absolutely not what I meant (a sibling
| comment also commented as if I said getting fit has no
| benefits).
| thanatos519 wrote:
| Yes! Physical fitness is super important. If you have trouble
| going routinely, find something more interesting, like rock
| climbing. Use a bicycle for personal transport if you live
| somewhere civilized.
| hermitcrab wrote:
| +1 for physical exercize. So important to happiness and
| mental health for people with jobs that involve sitting down
| all day.
| heliodor wrote:
| I can second rock climbing, whether outdoors or inside. Its
| format is addictive. I also found tennis very easy to fall
| into. On the opposite end, there's running and swimming. They
| feel like misery for me personally. Others find them easy to
| do routinely. Just have to find what works for the
| individual. There are sports out there that won't feel like a
| chore.
| throwaway984393 wrote:
| The only way to be happy _from_ your career is to get paid for
| what brings you joy. If your current job doesn 't bring you joy,
| ask yourself what brings you joy, and make that your job. Maybe
| it's music. Maybe it's dance. Maybe it's walking in nature. Maybe
| it's painting Warhammer figures. Whatever it is, just figure out
| how you can get paid enough to do it that you can live off that.
| That may not lead to a big fat retirement account, or a boat, or
| even a house, but it will certainly get you on a path to
| happiness. It's the things we do and the relationships we
| cultivate that bring happiness. Not the things we have or can
| get.
|
| This is probably the best time in history to be connected to
| people around the world who will pay you to do whatever it is you
| love to do. All you have to do is connect the dots.
| sinenomine wrote:
| I have given advice just for this case here:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25509941
|
| So far it is working out pretty well for me. To be quite honest,
| you don't have to have passion for your job to perform well
| enough in accord with your salary and incentives. I'd say even
| more, overworking oneself is a "grave sin" against your future.
|
| One's time and intelligence are better spent optimizing one's
| family size (in upwards direction) and health.
|
| > I thought I was already doing that but looks like I've been
| doing something wrong with my professional career, and there is a
| path more equilibrated and focused on happiness I should follow.
|
| In addition to my advice, I recommend you to read this thread
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29581125
|
| Several things should be pretty evident by this point:
|
| 1. Software engineering sub-niches are grossly different in
| pay/effort ratio, overtime expectations and ageism prevalence
|
| 2. Overperforming expecting a raise is a poor strategy in most
| cases
|
| 3. Discrete option/bonus increase thresholds doled out according
| to perceived effort/visibility are a devious trick to lure a
| significant part of workers to invest more effort than they would
| otherwise (and still fail to get over the threshold to get the
| bonus). Don't fall for it.
|
| And in any case: I think one of the most valuable things one can
| do is raise a big family, while investing into stock market and
| slowing down one's aging as much as possible, to reap all this
| compounding interest.
| thanatos519 wrote:
| That's pretty good advice except for the part about kids. This
| planet is screwed and it's not kind to introduce any new humans
| to the horrors we face.
| sinenomine wrote:
| I do think that anti-natalist sentiment is very much
| overblown in the United States, while in the EU we don't see
| this position being claimed in public a lot. If by "screwed"
| you mean anthropogenic climate change, then by now it's
| pretty obvious that it will be mitigated via some form of
| geoengineering (see, for example recent guardian's
| popularizing take on it: https://www.theguardian.com/books/20
| 21/sep/30/geoengineering... )
|
| To anyone who can look at the fertility curves and population
| pyramids, it should be pretty obvious that the real problem
| of the coming decades is demographic shift, and corresponding
| growth of dependency ratio. Compared to climate change, our
| authorities don't really propose a good solution for this
| crisis, except vague wording about more automation and more
| immigration (from the countries which, by they way, live
| through the same falling fertility curves).
|
| If this reasoning still doesn't convice you, consider how
| hellish your own personal life is going be without
| grandchildren to take care of you. Western nursery homes
| staffed by min-wage workers speaking another language are not
| the place I'd wish for anyone to live in, but it's a de-facto
| place where grandparents of middle-class families are left to
| experience their final years.
|
| In any case, I urge the readers to open the mentioned curves
| and statistical data and do the math to come to their own
| conclusion.
| thanatos519 wrote:
| It's not just climate change, which is a runaway effect
| that is unlikely to be effectively mitigated by
| geoengineering without even worse side effects. I know an
| old lady who swallowed a fly.
|
| It's global ecosystem collapse: grandparents, and
| eventually parents, will gladly die so that the children
| can eat.
|
| There is no point in having savings or a pension, because
| the system that connects money to value is a dead man
| walking.
|
| I live in The Netherlands and I have a child. I'm trying to
| figure out how to waterproof the bottom half of my house.
| alecbz wrote:
| "Please Don't Give Up On Having Kids Because Of Climate
| Change" https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/please-dont-
| give-up-on...
| thanatos519 wrote:
| It's not just climate change. It's humanity's collective
| decision to walk into the abyss.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5AoMNF7dnE
| aliceryhl wrote:
| https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/please-dont-give-up-
| on...
| thanatos519 wrote:
| There are plenty of parentless children available for
| adoption. Save them first.
| optimalonpaper wrote:
| Changing the perspective helped a lot, as others have said:
| treating job as just a job.
|
| 1. Remove stress - as I'm working with data, I tried to automate
| as much as I could, so I really don't have situations when you
| need to build a report very fast (reduces stress really well) 2.
| Have a back up plan - I found a part-time research assistant
| position which I actually enjoy and if I lose my main job, I'm
| not in the rush to find the next one (so I'm not worrying as I
| used to)
|
| Then after 6pm you just do whatever that keeps you going, e.g.
| every day I try to see my girlfriend / friends, go to movies,
| cafes
| optimalonpaper wrote:
| Then again, when you live near Russia, it's a constant stress.
| So the last thing I'm worried about is my job haha
| sabman83 wrote:
| Is there something that you enjoy or love doing? And is there a
| career to be made out of that even if it means taking. Pay cut? I
| quit programming because I didn't enjoy it any more. I switched
| to a career in film /tv development and I am much happier. I make
| 1/4 the salary I used to make but I am not complaining.
| [deleted]
| fxtentacle wrote:
| I have found that for me, the biggest boost to happiness is the
| ability to say no to things I don't want to do.
|
| I truly enjoy working in tech, but not on every project. At first
| I was worried that I wouldn't find enough new projects, but now
| looking back, I never had much downtime after I started being
| much more selective. It's just that instead of SQL / Excel stuff,
| I now work on real time audio video processing, AI and robotics.
| And that makes me happy :)
|
| Plus recently, a friend and me have been wasting a lot of time on
| the Gocoder Bomberland competition. Both the social aspect and
| the immediate feedback of video game development make that really
| enjoyable.
| sys_64738 wrote:
| Being able to delegate stuff to others is also a boon. Keep the
| interesting stuff for yourself then delegate if you can. Love
| doing that.
| chriseidhof wrote:
| I'm very happy with my career. We run a small website teaching
| advanced iOS development (objc.io). We write books and make
| videos. I run it with my co-founder and that's basically it. We
| have some really good people we work with, but 80% of the time
| it's just the two of us, and we're pretty aligned in what we
| want.
|
| When my daughter was born (almost 4 years ago) I switched to not
| working a lot. Maybe 5-6 hours a day. I spend almost every
| afternoon with the family (after my daughter wakes up from her
| nap). In the early mornings I do my workouts. The combination of
| this makes me really happy.
|
| We make more than enough money (we live a modest lifestyle), even
| though I could probably make a lot more in a real job. But having
| the freedom -- both in doing what we want work-wise, as well as
| having a lot of family time -- is pretty amazing. I have no
| regrets so far.
| jonas21 wrote:
| Don't listen to the naysayers who are telling you to give up on
| finding fulfillment in work. It is possible, but you need to be
| intentional about it.
|
| Step back and find a worthy goal, something that you believe will
| advance humanity and make the world a better place. Take some
| time to think hard about this -- there is such abundance in our
| field that it can be easy to bounce from one opportunity to the
| next without stopping to think about what it is that you want to
| accomplish over the long term.
|
| Once you've decided on your goal, figure out what you can be
| doing to advance that goal. Optimize career decisions toward
| reaching that goal. Maybe this means changing jobs to work with
| experts in a particular area. Maybe it means finding a startup
| that is doing interesting work in that area, or starting a
| company of your own. You mentioned that you're able to work for a
| lower salary. Take advantage of this, and realize how lucky you
| are to be able to do so.
|
| There will be some (perhaps many) days that are frustrating and
| draining. Accept that this is part of the process. Anything worth
| doing is hard. And don't give up. This won't guarantee success or
| fulfillment, but it raises the odds. Realize that progress comes
| from lots of people working hard on things that are important.
| Some will succeed individually, others won't, but collectively
| they will move things forward.
|
| Finally, get some exercise. It really does help with health and
| mood!
| tuan3w wrote:
| I share with you a bit about what I have learned. I've struggled
| a lot. Everything is like broken. I'm still struggling right now.
| However, I'm still working on something to make our situation
| better. I do several research and experiments on Happiness,
| psychology, neuroscience and here are something I'm want to
| share.
|
| + Hedonic adaption: Hedonic adaption is special psychological
| effects that explains about how we perceive about happiness. Even
| after a big happy moment, our level of happiness do down quickly.
| We adapt our perception to our current situations. So it's like
| nothing will last forever. Hedonic adaption is both good and bad.
| It makes us adapt quickly with any situations. It keeps us safe.
| So we should appreciate it and learn how to make use of this
| effect rather than blaming it. Learns to attend with everything
| you do even it's bad, explore something news. It will help you
| deal with bad effects of hedonic adaptation.
|
| + Mindfulness: Do some mindfulness exercise. We feel stress
| because our mind think we're having problems. Our mind made up
| our feelings to keep us safe [7]. It's good for us. Mindfulness
| help us understand more about feeling and more enjoy the moment.
|
| + Mind body connection: Your health affects your mental, and your
| mental will affect your health. To me, it's not because some
| spiritual belief, but it's how systems work [3] [4]. Our body,
| our mind are systems. They are part of bigger system. They
| connect each others and interact with each other, sending some
| feedback. So try to improve both your health and your mental. Try
| to improve your health diet, do exercises and taking care of our
| thoughts and feelings.
|
| + We aren't rational. Our thinking system is optimal but it has
| limitations [3]. It has a lot of problems (cognitive biases).
| Learn to appreciate and find a way to make it better. For
| example, we can adapt. We update our belief overtime. Try to make
| new better habits[5]. Make small steps.
|
| + There isn't perfect things. Every systems aren't perfect. Our
| immune system, our cognitive system, organizations, data
| structures, design patterns,... Appreciate what works, what not
| and improve it.
|
| Some interesting books, articles you might interest:
|
| [1] https://www.plantinghappiness.co.uk/hedonic-adaptation/
|
| [2] https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Fast-Slow-Daniel-
| Kahneman/dp...
|
| [3] https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Systems-Donella-H-
| Meadows/dp...
|
| [4] https://www.amazon.com/Mindbody-Prescription-Healing-Body-
| Pa...
|
| [5] https://jamesclear.com/atomic-habits
|
| [6] https://www.coursera.org/learn/the-science-of-well-being
|
| [7] https://www.amazon.com/Wisdom-Insecurity-Message-Age-
| Anxiety...
| gabo733 wrote:
| I go for a run everyday after work. When it is raining or too
| cold I do 15-20 minutes weight training at home.
| eloff wrote:
| I've optimized for different things at different parts of my
| career. I've made FAANG level salaries working 7 days a week as a
| consultant. It was horrible.
|
| I'm currently making a little less than you but working 20 hour
| weeks. It's amazing, and I spend the rest of my time usually
| working on side projects I hope to monetize one day. Since
| September I've just been traveling with my wife.
|
| I'm very happy doing that. So my suggestion is find part time
| work even if it means a pay cut off you want to optimize for
| personal satisfaction.
| sarp wrote:
| any tips on how to find part time work?
| lucb1e wrote:
| Ask your boss if you can work less?
|
| I vaguely remember hearing that it's actually illegal for
| your boss to deny this without some good reason, but I
| suppose it might not be that hard to come up with some excuse
| either.
|
| Sometimes jobs have a minimum number of hours per week
| posted, but most of the time it's simply part of the benefits
| negotiation. Paid days off per year, public transport pass,
| salary amount, how many hours per week, IP of any open source
| projects I work on, it's just part of what I talk about when
| negotiating my contract. And it doesn't have to be at the
| beginning of your employment.
| Mezzie wrote:
| In my case, I just took a full time non-tech salaried job and
| used my tech skills to automate my duties or do them more
| quickly. So I work 20 hours but get paid for 40. My company
| is results oriented and they don't care; they're generally
| pleased as pie I have a little extra capacity for when
| emergencies crop up.
| halkony wrote:
| I'd be interested to know what non-tech work you do. I'm
| unemployed right now for similar reasons as OP (looking for
| happiness). Does your current job satisfy the "programmers
| itch"?
| Mezzie wrote:
| I work in political communications, but that was an
| accident. I trained/was planning to do tech work for
| libraries and academic institutions. (So things like
| working for JSTOR, ProQuest, LexisNexis, etc.) They're
| not tech companies, but they do need tech expertise,
| particularly on the back end.
|
| The nice things about academia are that if you're not on
| the tenure track, you don't have to spin your wheels
| trying to publish or perish, you get to meet and talk to
| a lot of intelligent people outside of your field, and
| they often have a decent work-life balance. The downsides
| are that you're not going to be working with the newest
| tech, people sometimes poo poo what you do/there are a
| lot of status games, and it's SLOW.
|
| It does not satisfy my programming itch, but I prefer for
| my tech projects to be on my own time and for play.
| eloff wrote:
| The idea has crossed my mind before, so I'm quite
| interested to find someone doing it. What line of work are
| you in?
| Mezzie wrote:
| I work in political communications, but I trained/planned
| to work for libraries and academic institutions/companies
| as a tech person/tech adjacent person. So places like
| ProQuest, LexisNexus, or being an academic librarian who
| did research relating to HCI.
| eloff wrote:
| Look for European companies, they tend to be more flexible
| about that.
| tekkk wrote:
| Surround yourself with people who you like. Or find something
| else to do beside your job that makes you happy. I think one
| needs some big event to make you realize your priorities and to
| find what you truly care about.
|
| I, for example, have grown bit weary of programming. Emotionally
| I think it brings mostly numbness and you become over-focused on
| abstract things, at the expense of your true emotions. I don't
| want to become a robot.
|
| In my spare time I now try to avoid conversing too much abstract
| things and rather ask how people feel or intrigue them to analyze
| emotions rather than go on lectures. But certainly doesn't work
| for every person I interact with.
| aspaviento wrote:
| Sadly it's an unhealthy profession. Spending 8 hours a day
| sitting on a chair with your neck fixed in the same position
| watching a screen harms your body a lot, even if you try to keep
| a good posture and do stretches from time to time. If you add
| stress to it, which tenses your muscles unconsciously, it just
| gets worse.
|
| I don't have any good advice other than try to reduce that time
| as much as possible. Your body will feel better and hopefully
| your mind too.
| asdfjke wrote:
| The software industry is designed by nature to be an absolutely
| soul sucking experience. Operating off the premise that most
| people get into computer science and programming because of the
| control, and general artistry, involved:
|
| 0. You are a cost center as a software engineer even if you
| produce value well outsized relative to your salary. You will
| always be a cost center because some party school MBA can't
| factor you into an excel sheet.
|
| 1. Sprints are way to reduce you to a set of numbers and a stupid
| jira photo.
|
| 2. PMs exist only to justify their own existence. They are middle
| managers and the modern adaptation of "agile" is some combination
| of Office Space and Idiocracy. From (1) the tool they use to
| justify their existence is some meaningless "burn down" chart
| they show the executives. The formalization of the process works
| for actual engineering (Toyota) but does not translate well to an
| industry that only values half-baked solutions "we'll fix at
| launch". It's a joke, and so are PMs.
|
| From these points we reach the most important point
|
| 3. The industry does not value the beauty, the art, the talent,
| and the critical thinking required to develop good software. Room
| temperature IQ CEOs, VPs, and middle managers either don't
| understand you or are intimidated by you.
|
| Since most of us get into this industry for that my solution to
| this emotionally draining and bankrupt industry is to use it to
| fund my own things. I went back to school, bought 3d printers and
| other physical-tech, and used my money to fund adventures
| elsewhere where creativity and problem solving is valued. I go to
| my job, work my 40 (or less) hours, meet EXACTLY the requirements
| of my title, and go home with a clear conscience. I take 5 weeks
| of vacation per year and don't feel bad about it for even a
| nanosecond. I hardly program outside of work and I've, to be
| honest, never felt better.
|
| Once you realize you're just a cog in a very expensive machine, a
| cost center to the people who decide raises, and the (especially
| if you're senior+) the first to get fired and replaced with
| foreign contractors, it becomes obvious the only solution is to
| use the industry to fund your talents rather than view it as a
| source of anything other suffering. I would estimate 70% of
| engineers say they enjoy their job. 10% of those engineers work
| for "fun" companies, and the other 90% are lying. So find
| something fun to do and _never_ try to find some semblance of
| meaning to your job. There isn 't any.
|
| I used to work long weeks. 50-60+ hours "for the company". I rose
| to nearly staff engineer level before I was let go after so many
| empty promises. This happened several more times in my career. I
| come off bitter, not because I hate the software, but I hate the
| tacit manipulation and "family" style gaslighting the modern tech
| company does.
| netman21 wrote:
| I have found that there are two types of people who are happy in
| their work. 1. Those that help others, like teachers and nurses.
| Their jobs can be stressful and not very financially rewarding.
| But they take satisfaction from seeing patients get healthy or
| students learn.
|
| The other type are people who create things. If you are not of
| the first type I highly suggest that you find a career where you
| make things. Creating a software product definitely fits the bill
| for some people. But if you can't see what you are making because
| all you do is fix bugs, or work on small components, you might
| not get the job satisfaction you need. Seek out work that
| involves making things.
| the_only_law wrote:
| Most nurses I know don't particularly love their work and many
| are looking for a way out. It seems like a decent career in
| that it pays better than what else available to many people
| going into that career and the education is made more
| accessible thanks to incentives set up because of shortages.
| srfwx wrote:
| > I've been through health issues and every single
| doctor/therapist is pointing out to stress and sedentarism.
|
| I'm in the exact same position right now. Can you elaborate on
| the symptoms your seeing?
| NDizzle wrote:
| Start having kids in your twenties. After the second one, you or
| your spouse stops working. The person who works, works from home
| at a project based company, where you do at most a stand up per
| day for set meetings. Start work early enough to be done at 3:30
| or 4 pm. Raise your kids yourself, with your spouse. Coach youth
| sports.
|
| That's my recipe for happiness.
| atmosx wrote:
| We live in the post-modernism era. The common theme is the
| maximisation of hedonism, and through that we pursue "happiness".
|
| Happiness needs to be experienced. Explaining what it is or how
| it feels is of low value. The problem is that happiness is
| directly linked to unhappiness. It's like notes and pauses: if we
| remove pauses from a melody, the melody turns into a "sound" that
| doesn't give us any pleasure.. it's not music.
|
| So to experience happiness, we need to experience unhappiness for
| long stretches of time.
|
| All this to say that happiness shouldn't be the end-goal IMO.
| Meaning makes more sense as an end-goal. If we can live
| "meaningful" lives, happiness could be a byproduct. Being happy
| is easy but transient (e.g. eating ice-cream can make someone
| happy). Finding "meaning" is difficult but way more permanent
| than "happiness".
|
| I would separate career from "meaning" though. The two rarely go
| along and I also like to think that myself and everyone else is
| more than a "career".
| SMAAART wrote:
| How about a different perspective? Forget happiness. Period.
|
| Think in terms of satisfaction, satisfaction for a job (as in a
| project) well done, and then continue on to another project; all
| the while enjoying the work, the process of doing and making and
| shipping, including the failures, and not the outcomes/results?
|
| And forget a life-work balance, but integrating both.
|
| "The master in the art of living makes little distinction between
| his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and
| his body, his information and his recreation, his love and his
| religion. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his
| vision of excellence at whatever he does, leaving others to
| decide whether he is working or playing. To him he's always doing
| both. "
| wasnthere wrote:
| I agree with a lot of what people have said here about a job
| being a job. However, my personal experience on this subject is
| -- start with defining what happiness means for you!
|
| This is a LOT harder than you think and in trying to answer the
| question you will hopefully (as I did) get in touch with
| yourself, your emotions, your identity, etc.
|
| As you continually evaluate these things in trying to understand
| what happiness is for _you_, you will automatically have an
| answer to your question.
| markus_zhang wrote:
| I guess no. I've trying to jump through a linked list of job
| positions to reach the ultimate objective but so far I'm pretty
| far. I agree with a fellow commenter that a job is just a job but
| I recommend you seek what you really love and turn it into a
| career.
| didip wrote:
| What made me happy is more money. The more I have, the more
| security (for the future) I could provide to my family.
| whiddershins wrote:
| I would suggest reading 'so good they can't ignore you' very
| inspiring about building a career that makes you happy.
|
| Basically look for - autonomy - meaningful goal - good coworkers
| peterkelly wrote:
| Forget about chasing high salaries. It's just not worth it. As
| long as you're earning enough to comfortably support yourself and
| those that depend on you, that's enough. Health and happiness
| come first.
|
| Don't tolerate bullshit from anyone, especially yourself. Set
| high standards and meet them; the satisfaction of a job well done
| is a reward in itself. Take pride in what you do and approach
| your work as a vocation, not a job.
|
| If you find yourself in a toxic environment, leave. After seeing
| my father suffer from the stress of one in my formative years, I
| made it a policy from the start of my career to avoid large
| corporate environments at all costs. Maybe some of the are good,
| but I don't want to take the risk.
|
| Become an expert in something. Make a substantial original
| contribution to knowledge in your field that advances the state
| of the art. This is actually an explicit requirement if you want
| to get a PhD, which I've found to be a valuable way of opening up
| fulfilling career opportunities that would otherwise not be
| available to me. Caveat: The process of getting there won't
| necessarily be a pleasant one, and some parts of academia can be
| just as toxic as corporate environments. I was pretty lucky in my
| experience with this.
|
| Move to a country with a low cost of living, while working
| remotely for a company in the west. Your income will go a lot
| further, and you can use that to either support a more
| comfortable lifestyle or work only part time while still being
| able to support yourself.
|
| Do something you're passionate about. I know this one is a cliche
| and lots of people will tell you it's unrealistic, but they're
| wrong.
|
| Stay away from circumstances that cause you to descend into
| cynicism. It's very easy to become negative and give up hope when
| you're in a toxic environment, and if you find yourself in one
| than you need to escape. There are good companies out there run
| by people who have a clue and are genuinely nice to work with.
| Don't settle until you've found one.
|
| Most people usually suggest making your children a priority, and
| not let your career get in the way of a healthy family life.
| Generally speaking they're correct. However if you don't already
| have kids, be aware that when the time comes you might suddenly
| discover that for medical reasons you are not going to be able to
| have them. If this happens to you, and you suddenly realise that
| all you have left is your career, you better be damn sure you've
| prepared in advance for this so you've got something to fall back
| on. It softens the blow, a bit.
|
| Find good people to work with. This is probably the single most
| important thing, from my experience. A good manager and good
| colleagues are worth their weight in gold. Treat them with
| respect and loyalty, and they'll do the same for you.
|
| Strive to leave a legacy. We all have a short time on this
| planet, and there's a lot to be said for leaving the place a
| little better off than the state you found it in.
| the_only_law wrote:
| > This is actually an explicit requirement if you want to get a
| PhD, which I've found to be a valuable way of opening up
| fulfilling career opportunities that would otherwise not be
| available to me.
|
| As someone who's considering getting a PhD, how do you know if
| you're capable of completing it. I hear a lot that academia is
| a lot of bullshit and that you don't have to be particularly
| competent to get one.
|
| But at the same time, contributing novel research to a field
| just seems so foreign to my own abilities. Particularly when I
| haven't historically been very academically gifted in some of
| the areas I'd need to be to succeee in the fields I'm
| interested (to be fair though, the last time I was in school
| was high school, where I was much less mature and there were
| many things other than just intelligence that negatively
| affected my performance)
| throwawayboise wrote:
| Ph.D. research is not novel research in the sense you may be
| thinking. It's generally just exploring in depth a very
| focused issue or question in an already well-understood
| field. The work isn't necessarily very intellectually
| demanding but does require some academic discipline in the
| sense of keeping good notes, documenting experiments and
| results, and citing supporting or contributing work.
|
| Also whether the research is of any practical use is almost
| entirely irrelevant.
|
| I would add though, that if you only have a high school
| education I am not sure how or where you would get into a
| Ph.D. program. It may be possible, but I have never heard of
| it.
| the_only_law wrote:
| > I would add though, that if you only have a high school
| education I am not sure how or where you would get into a
| Ph.D. program. It may be possible, but I have never heard
| of it.
|
| I plan on beginning an undergrad degree next year. The
| reason a PhD is in my long term vision is because I'd like
| to do industrial R&D in a certain field
| whateveracct wrote:
| Set personal goals - not necessarily salaried-career related. And
| then start going after them as much as you can!
|
| For instance, want to be an indie gamedev? Do a Ludum Dare.
| enobrev wrote:
| Some excellent advice in this thread. One thing that I was
| fortunate to learn early on, as I've been working from home for
| 20 years, that many should consider now that they are as well, is
| that it's ok to befriend people at work if you like them, but you
| don't have to be friends with people at work. You have to work
| with them, and that requires some sort of relationship involving
| politeness, trust, and honesty, but that's it.
|
| Make friends with people who share your joy in things outside of
| work. Music interests, food interests, travel, art, comics,
| robots, crappy television, creating a family, making fun of
| people with families, whatever. Get a life and make that life
| with people who aren't paid to be there every day.
|
| When you have a solid group of people who basically don't care
| what you do for a living, the job will matter far less and the
| things and relationships you share with those people will
| continue to matter.
|
| Your job can give some fulfillment, of course by way of some
| semblance of security and accomplishment. But the long lasting
| stuff comes from the things you aren't paid to do - because
| anything you're paid to do is generally done for someone else's
| happiness. That's what they're paying for.
| yodsanklai wrote:
| > that it's ok to befriend people at work if you like them
|
| It's something I regret having done in the past. I'm a little
| more cautious about this now. I don't think it's necessarily
| wrong to befriend colleagues, but think twice before sharing
| too much.
| dinkleberg wrote:
| Why?
| throwaway98797 wrote:
| wrong framing.
|
| what do you need to do to be happy is better.
|
| what do you need to do to not be sad is best.
|
| then what work should be becomes obvious.
| toddm wrote:
| For me, the special part is truly viewing any job as just that: a
| job.
|
| I no longer assess my worth as a person as a function of job
| title, salary, or anything else.
|
| I take contracting work primarily and expect absolutely nothing
| more than a paycheck. Work is a transaction and I deliver what I
| can and am not a jerk.
|
| Almost every disposable penny goes toward physical fitness. My
| spouse happens to be cut from the same cloth, which is a big
| plus.
|
| We don't live extravagantly unless you count the money for
| fitness, but we consider that to be an investment and not a
| frivolous expense.
|
| Satisfaction in life for me comes from every angle EXCEPT my job,
| and that's my secret.
| sillynonce wrote:
| May I ask how does one start their contracting path? Is it
| feasible with say 2 years of experience in the industry?
| benp84 wrote:
| How do you mean you spend money on physical fitness? It does
| sound like a great investment.
| animal_spirits wrote:
| Not OP but I spend money on gym memberships, outdooring
| equipment (backpacks, boots, tents, hammocks) so that I can
| enjoy the physical activity of hiking and trail walking which
| is not only a great exercise, but a fantastic way to get into
| nature and away from technology.
| HalcyonicStorm wrote:
| This is the direction I find myself going too. I am a runner in
| NYC. Its also fulfilling my social needs because I am a member
| of multiple running clubs. I get to interact with people
| outside of the tech bubble from all walks of life. I also have
| met people who are role models for different stages in life. I
| now have an idea of what I want to be like in my 40s, 50s, 60s,
| 70s because of the people I've met since I've started running.
| beaker52 wrote:
| I've always thought that a job worth doing was a job worth
| doing well. It's put me through a lot of pain and stress
| because almost no-one else feels the same way.
|
| I'm coming to terms with the realisation that for most people,
| a job is just a job. To others, a job is a ladder to climb in
| the pursuit of wealth. Neither of those are me, but I need to
| find a way to be content in an environment full of people like
| that. It's a struggle, but I'll work it out.
|
| It seems a shame to spend the majority of one's life doing a
| job that's just a job, and being too tired to apply oneself to
| other endeavours. But that's what it appears at least I am
| faced with. And contentedness lies in the acceptance of it.
| idrios wrote:
| > I've always thought that a job worth doing was a job worth
| doing well.
|
| Kind of off topic but this made me laugh because I once saw
| the phrase "anything worth doing is worth doing poorly" and I
| have found massive inspiration in that, as it has helped me
| overcome my perfectionism and just get more things done.
| astockwell wrote:
| I don't think the two are mutually exclusive. A lot of folks
| work continuously to 'find the middle ground' of doing their
| job in a thoughtful, efficient, effective manner, whilst
| still defending their boundaries of work vs life. Finding
| that balance is probably what gives rise to so much
| discussion around 'not doing every last work task' that you
| possibly can, but rather prioritizing work tasks by
| impact/importance and letting some drop (with appropriate
| comms to your leadership/team etc etc etc).
| mikotodomo wrote:
| It sounds like you just spend too much time sitting down and
| reading/computing, which is a major reason why I'm still not sure
| if I want my career to be coding.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| Know your worth. Don't hustle out of constant fear you'll be
| fired. Don't answer the phone after 5. Work 40 hours or less.
| Work is a distraction from life; It isn't life. Do as little of
| it as you need to, to achieve your financial goals. Have concrete
| financial goals. Don't listen to fearmongering coworkers who have
| put themselves perpetually on call. If the company loses a
| customer because you don't answer your phone, that's on them not
| you. And they need to correct their staffing and expectations.
| Don't be afraid to ask for more money. Don't be afraid to quit
| and find another job. The overwhelming majority of your raises
| will come from changing jobs. Your company doesn't care about
| you. It's not a family. You're there because they pay you to be.
| HR isn't your advocate. Stock options are a lottery ticket, not a
| proper form of compensation. Practice being tolerant of some
| louder, younger engineer having loud opinions about how to do
| something because ultimately the way they do it wrong probably
| won't matter much. Don't obsess over software purity. If you need
| your code to be beautiful and elegant at all times, take up a
| side hobby instead. At least one person will have different
| opinions on each one of these points.
| unbanned wrote:
| Easy.
|
| Maximise salary. Minimise work.
|
| We all die in the end, no one ever wishes they worked longer or
| harder.
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