[HN Gopher] Ask HN: Have you found something you love to do? If ...
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Ask HN: Have you found something you love to do? If yes how?
I have worked in many different fields(web dev, analytics, product
management) but can't seem to stick to one. Is it about the field
or something about myself that I need to change? How do I go about
solving this??
Author : aj_nikhil
Score : 132 points
Date : 2021-12-25 17:30 UTC (5 hours ago)
| bahumbug wrote:
| I really like selling drugs. I mean, I really like it. I spent 25
| years coding, and I hated it. I hated the techbros who ruined the
| industry, I hated the dudebros who invaded every San Francisco
| coffee shop to talk loudly about their investments, and I really,
| really hated the way the tech crowd shifted from being kind of
| wild anarchist DIY hippy hackers to being right-wing law and
| order, thin-blue line types.
|
| Now I produce sell Cannabis & Psychedelics in California where
| it's sort of legal. I have a huge social life, I've networked
| with dozens of other artisanal pushers, and now I can pickup
| like-minded girls and guys by saying "Hey, want to come back to
| my place and roll Molly or trip on shrooms?"
|
| I make more than twice as much as I did as a backend developer,
| mostly in BitCoin and cash, and all I do is hang out with people.
| I haven't had a major depressive episode since my last day of
| work where I quite by sending him some scat porn and a video of
| me pissing on my work laptop.
| deltaonefour wrote:
| It's cool I'd be down to spend the rest of my life hanging out
| with people but not into the drug aspect of it. Glad you found
| something you love.
| sebastian_z wrote:
| For me the key is intuition. I do what feels right. If you come
| across something that you like, do it.
| thatsamonad wrote:
| I enjoy working on and solving technical problems, but the "core"
| thing that I've found I really love is working with other people
| to figure things out together (even though I'm fairly
| introverted). Once I realized that it shaped my perspective on a
| lot of work tasks and hobbies.
|
| For example - a good friend and I regularly play battle royale
| and co-op games together after work in the evenings. The joy of
| those games, for me, is that we are communicating and working
| together to achieve something or win. I don't get the same kind
| of enjoyment from single player games or games where I'm just
| grinding alone.
|
| I think looking at "core values" and trying to extrapolate from
| there might be a good approach (or at least it has been for me).
| If you don't have a sense of what those are, maybe take some time
| to reflect and see if you can find or create them.
| polishdude20 wrote:
| This is exactly me. I get super bor d of playing single player
| games and I don't even play multiplayer games alone. I always
| need to play with a friend over discord. It's my way of
| socializing and getting that feeling of playing a team sport.
| Overwatch has been really fun over the years.
| mattlondon wrote:
| I think for me it was kinda letting go of what job title or self-
| imposed "career objective" I had set myself and just focusing on
| trying to identify the things I found the most satisfying. Or at
| the very least what I _disliked_ the most.
|
| I stopped trying to weasel my way to the "right" job/role to get
| one step closer to my "career goal" or had the right job title,
| and focused on some self reflection about what I get the biggest
| kick out of. If you had a good day at the office today,
| _actively_ try to identify what it was _specifically_ that made
| your day good (was it a day of code? Bug fixing? Debugging?
| Meetings? Design work? Etc)
|
| Sounds obvious and simple but I think it took me a decade or so
| to realise this. Perhaps I could only really come to this
| conclusion once I had already "proven" myself career-wise and was
| making enough money to come to the realisation that I could stop
| trying to climb the career ladder and focus a bit more on what I
| get a kick out of, and not if the next role was a steppingstone
| to something else.
| adamcharnock wrote:
| After 15 years as a freelance developer I've started a rural
| wireless ISP. It hasn't entirely displaced my freelance work, but
| allows me to help people in a way that being a developer didn't
| (tangibly, at least).
|
| Now I install internet access for people, on infrastructure I
| have built, and I see how happy they are when they go from 2 to
| 100mbps (this is often in a field in the middle of nowhere). This
| means they can talk to their families, actually do the work that
| pays their bills, and just generally entertain themselves.
|
| It is very rewarding. And I know all these people as they are
| essentially my neighbours.
| bahumbug wrote:
| I know some people who made millions working the Universal
| Service Fee system, getting paid gobs of subsidies to provide
| DSL / wifi to hillbillies in West Virginia. It's like digital
| gold if you know how to really work the system.
| gremlinsinc wrote:
| I've thought of doing something like this in southern Utah ...
| but we've got 1 gig fiber even in some smaller communities...
| but there probably are certain places that don't have good
| coverage..
| rubyist5eva wrote:
| Congrats, if you don't mind me asking where do you get the
| capital to do something like this? Other than "wage slave for a
| decade and live like a student".
| spaetzleesser wrote:
| That's the nice thing about a lot of small businesses. The
| fruit of your work is much more tangible than working at a
| corporation.
| civilized wrote:
| What an awesome and fascinating thing you're doing! Could you
| possibly explain at a high level what you had to do to start
| the ISP and make it accessible in these areas?
| rasengan wrote:
| You might find this guide [1] useful as well as the
| experiences of the poster. Also, I agree, what he does is
| absolutely amazing.
|
| [1] https://startyourownisp.com/
| liketochill wrote:
| Check out http://dslreports.com/forum/wisp
|
| It is a forum for wireless isps and they talk a lot about the
| equipment and business of it
| tomarr wrote:
| Do you expect Starlink (or equivalent) to radically alter this
| space?
| barbazoo wrote:
| That sounds extremely gratifying, congrats on finding a passion
| that's so beneficial to the people around you.
| Beldin wrote:
| Have you managed to find decent employment in al of those areas?
| If so, why worry?
|
| Why not try to accept you are who you are, and apparently this is
| part of who you are currently. It seems to work out fine (if it
| does), so no need to worry.
| galacticaactual wrote:
| Treat life like a gradient descent algorithm. Analyze your
| current landscape, adjacencies, possibilities and try different
| things. See what happens. You will get disinterested or fail 99%
| of the time. But that 1% will lead you to the next iteration down
| the gradient. Rinse and repeat.
| moksly wrote:
| It's very hard to answer for you because it's likely about
| personal growth and realisation more than anything else. But I
| can tell you what I did, or rather what happened to me.
|
| I started as a developer, because I was good, I gradually became
| the lead enterprise architect (I've never hated anything more
| than TOGAF by the way), and eventually "fell" into management.
| While doing this I rode locally fame ladder in Danish public
| sector digitalisation which means I've had a massive impact on
| our overall national strategy for IT architecture but like 5
| people know who I am. I'm not sure I ever actually liked that
| work, but it was thrilling to be part of something "important",
| so I felt like I liked it. Eventually I had my first child, and 9
| months later I had a depression caused by stress so severe I
| spent a night in a psychward. Long story short I was diagnosed
| with ADHD at almost 40, and told that I needed to figure out how
| I wanted to live my life.
|
| Turns out I like problem solving and that I hate project
| management. So I quit the public sector and found a job in a
| company where I could be a programmer again, I made sure to find
| a company where I wouldn't have to deal with a whole lot of the
| Atlassian sort bureaucracies surrounding programming and it's
| frankly been a bliss.
|
| I've gone from not thinking I could ever work more than 30 hours
| a week until my children left our house to back to full time.
|
| So chances are you probably already know what kind of work you
| like, but it's just really hard to figure it out. One thing that
| I thought I would miss was feeling "important" but the truth is
| that I was never actually "important". If it hadn't been me
| someone else would've done it.
|
| (For reference I'm Danish, having a break down here gets you 6
| months sick leave with pay and costs you basically nothing out of
| your own pocket. This made things easier to say the least.)
| oxplot wrote:
| Working in a lot of fields and not sticking to one is in itself
| valuable. You should capitalize on your need for novelty and
| perhaps work at a higher level, a generalist who can connect the
| dots across many areas and lead others.
| crawfordcomeaux wrote:
| I didn't truly love what I was doing until I found a personal
| purpose for life that ties together all aspects of my life so
| far. Essentially, I had to reflect enough on what I've gone
| through to see what paths I'm on and where I want to go.
|
| I seek to help all beings collaboratively learn how to better
| program their bodies and meet all needs while denying none,
| through science, art, and love.
|
| Since then, I've rebuilt my identity a few times over. I've also
| helped conceive and am nurturing a new person. Helping them
| explore the world everyday is so exciting and challenges the
| status quo of parenting in the area we live so hard, some people
| literally get angry watching us, will take clandestine photos,
| and call the police.
|
| I've also come to enjoy the process of exploring and healing from
| traumas I've experienced.
|
| There's a finite list of human needs for surviving and thriving.
| Learning about those gave me something to reflect on and pinpoint
| needs I wanted to focus on helping others meet.
|
| Also, finding ways to integrate what I've learned from different
| fields into what I'm doing may have helped me keep from feeling
| boxed in.
| lostlogin wrote:
| > people literally get angry watching us, will take clandestine
| photos, and call the police.
|
| What is it you are doing?
| crawfordcomeaux wrote:
| So far, it's when they're outside naked or in a diaper in the
| cold or if we're playing near an intersection.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I like making things that people use. I have done systems and
| infrastructure programming, but making frontend stuff is where I
| really like to be.
|
| I consider it a craft, as opposed to a vocation.
| rasengan wrote:
| You might find benefit to writing down your thoughts about each
| one of the previous occupations and see if there are any
| recognizable patterns that you can identify and address.
| justinlloyd wrote:
| I love to write code, I love to ship products and I love to build
| businesses.
|
| But what I really love, what drives me, is solving interesting
| problems. That's my entire career. Solve interesting problems.
| "We're building a web2.0 exercise tracking..." No! "We're
| putting health records on the block..." Nein! "We're
| improving how people buy insuran..." Non! "We're creating
| a mobile app to submit expens..." Nee! "We're building a
| SaaS to improve cable modem analy..." Nie!
| "We're using computer vision to identify fossilized cat shit." Oh
| hell yes!
|
| I've built websites and CRUD apps and mobile apps, out of
| necessity, but they are universally boring endeavours with little
| to give them any merit beyond a tiny sliver of an interesting
| problem. Most of the work that is out there is just grunt work
| that should be farmed out and then extensively code reviewed.
|
| At meetups people ask me, "what do you do?"
|
| And I respond, "Whatever the !@#$ I want to, it makes money, and
| everyone goes home happy."
|
| I haven't worked a day in my life. I play, every day. And any
| time I've come close to discovering "it's just another job" I go
| and find something else to do.
|
| My response on LinkedIn or AngelList when approached by business
| people and recruiters with their dreadful job opening is usually
| along the lines of "Thanks for making me aware of this
| opportunity. Sounds boring. Good luck in your continuing
| candidate search."
| TruthWillHurt wrote:
| That's pretty much the tech scene in London right there..
|
| "We're creating a new way for super-rich people to access their
| swiss bank accounts!"
|
| Yey...
| justinlloyd wrote:
| Recruiter: "We're doing <solved problem> to <extract money>
| from people by implementing <unnecessary subscription
| service> that attaches <internet stuff> to <something that
| doesn't need it>. Also, we'll have <creepy video technology>
| installed in people's homes for <nothing bad ever happened
| doing that>helping them live healthier, happier lives whilst
| partially clothed</nothing bad ever happened doing that>.
| We've raised <large amount of VC measured in hundreds of
| millions> that guarantees <anybody with equity is so diluted
| they'll never see a payout>, with that <equity on a stick
| dangled out in front, we think we can convince you to take a
| lower salary>."
|
| Paraphrasing from a recent recruiter pitch.
| mrfusion wrote:
| I'm sold. How do I achieve this?
| loonster wrote:
| Many ways to do it * Become really good at something * Live a
| modest lifestyle * Have low debt * Have decent savings
| mrfusion wrote:
| How do you find problems to solve?
| loonster wrote:
| You need to get known for being really good at something,
| then the problems will find you.
| [deleted]
| tppiotrowski wrote:
| Web developer for many years. Lost interest in CRUD apps
| because they're mostly the same architecture with different
| content.
|
| I've been learning WebGL and using math more than I have since
| college. It's very rewarding and what I feel my Computer
| Science degree prepared me for. I spend a lot of time outdoors
| and my project is a map simulation of terrain shadows. Every
| time I'm outdoors and my model lines up with physical reality,
| I have an almost spiritual moment of feeling like I can
| comprehend the universe. :)
| carlmr wrote:
| >My response on LinkedIn or AngelList when approached by
| business people and recruiters with their dreadful job opening
| is usually along the lines of "Thanks for making me aware of
| this opportunity. Sounds boring. Good luck in your continuing
| candidate search."
|
| Thank you, this is what I always think with these job adverts.
| It's almost impossible to think about anything less appealing
| than a list of technologies they require without any motivation
| why.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| The worst is when the company brags about their funding as if
| it makes any difference to me. If anything, it makes their
| shitty offer look even more shitty. If you're gonna brag
| about millions, you better offer me a decent cut.
| jerrygoyal wrote:
| I built a fairly simple browser extension that users love to use.
| Heck, people even paid for it (it's freemium but an open-source
| project). Now and then, I get an appreciation email from a user,
| a notification from the chrome web store that someone rated it
| 5-star, or a new purchase notification from Stripe. Random doses
| of serotonin make my day. In a nutshell, I love working on it
| because people find it helpful and value it.
|
| https://gourav.io/notion-boost
| technological wrote:
| I love talking, so started my own podcast in my native language
| (Telugu). Always wanted to talk on stage or do stream on YouTube
| but never was confident but with podcast I can speak anything I
| want and don't worry about anyone judging me.
|
| Even though I don't have very large number of subscribers but I
| am satisfied with the few people who listen and like . I don't do
| any post processing, just raw recording.
|
| Any interested listeners can check out it at -
|
| https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/vinandi-na-sodi-telugu...
|
| https://pnc.st/s/abhi-podcast
| nurettin wrote:
| >> worked in many different fields(web dev, analytics, product
| management)
|
| I followed this approach: Find something that really excites you,
| fake it 'till you make it, learn from your mistakes and never
| stop improving.
| leto_ii wrote:
| The problem, as far as I can make it, is that the thing(s) you
| love will probably not look like a corporate job.
|
| It's my strong feeling that people don't actually love jobs, they
| love kinds of work, but only as long as they have agency. Once
| the work becomes a job it tends to get subordinated to profit
| motives, instead of your own creative drives.
|
| My best bet is that if you want to do something you love you have
| to somehow end up working for yourself.
| mrfusion wrote:
| My problem is I get bored and lose motivation when working
| alone. I'm thinking a job would be a good way to keep me moving
| forward?
|
| I've tried teaming up with people on projects but it seems like
| if it's not tied to a paycheck they flake out pretty quickly.
| leto_ii wrote:
| Working with others is definitely important for motivation
| and for technical progress.
|
| > I've tried teaming up with people on projects but it seems
| like if it's not tied to a paycheck they flake out pretty
| quickly.
|
| Maybe something like contributing to an existing open source
| project or doing some small projects of your own (e.g.
| writing a blog about smth that your really like, without
| aiming to monetize it) could help.
|
| The best case scenario would be to start a self-supporting
| company or something of that sort.
| Aulig wrote:
| For me it was starting my own business. Just coding away is not
| interesting to me - even though coding is the thing I enjoy most
| about my work.
|
| To me it's important that I get to decide what I want to work on
| and what direction I take with the business. A big part is also
| that I own the code I write.
| rdegges wrote:
| I work as a manager of a Developer Relations team, but I'm also a
| software engineer and writer. I've identified two things I "love"
| to do in my life: writing software (usually automation-type
| things that make my life or someone else's life easier), and
| writing (articles, books, etc.).
|
| I discovered that I love writing software when I was a kid (maybe
| 12 years old?) by writing automation bots for video games: it was
| so incredibly fun to write a bot that would play the game, level
| up your characters, and do things that would otherwise take
| thousands of hours of human grinding to achieve. This passion
| never left me, and now, more than 20 years later, I still spend a
| good chunk of time building little scripts/tools/utilities/apps
| that help me in various ways.
|
| The writing was something that I also got started on early. I
| discovered my love of writing through IRC where I'd routinely
| answer people's programming questions and eventually write blog
| posts explaining answers in more depth than I could fit into a
| short IRC conversation.
|
| I don't blog as much today (life gets busy), but I do spend a lot
| of time writing at work, working on the occasional long-form blog
| post, and ... journaling.
| georgefrick wrote:
| You can't find what you are passionate about, it's not something
| that gets discovered. You pick it and hone it. Getting
| experienced, acknowledged by peers, and executing from knowledge
| all come with time and dedication and you become passionate as
| you want to drive that thing forward. I've struggled with this
| myself, and learned over time that I'm passionate about
| delivering software - I love it. Now I look for the next
| harder/larger project and see if I can make a difference for that
| business.
| beej71 wrote:
| It must depend on the person. I discovered the things I love
| (writing, teaching, programming, dualsport motorcycling, GIS)
| by stumbling across them, then honed (a continuing process for
| life) those skills because I love them.
|
| Did I choose those things? Or was the moment of discovery the
| moment of choice?
| ChuckMcM wrote:
| Try something further afield?
|
| I have talked to lots of people who were trying to find their
| passion and had limited themselves to looking in an area where
| they felt they could be "well paid." This isn't too surprising
| because surviving is first, passion is second.
|
| However, what they often don't consider is that compensation is
| just a part of the picture. If you're making $X and living in New
| York City you might only be able to rent a room, but making $X in
| a small town in Minnesota and you can buy the best house in town.
| Not that I'm advocating you move to Minnesota, rather that one's
| "Quality of Life" is the complete circle of income/cost of
| living/friends/opportunities.
|
| Now I have no idea what you're looking at so this might be
| completely useless but oddly enough, reading people's biographies
| can give you insights into other choices made and their impact
| and effect. If you can imagine yourself in those other choices,
| you can sometimes discover something you would like to try before
| you've "wasted time" trying something you didn't like. Reading
| non-fiction for exposure to other life experiences can be helpful
| in other ways as well, it can help you understand others from a
| perspective that isn't your own lived experience.
| Artistry121 wrote:
| Hello! Great question.
|
| The past year I've fallen in love with life. This has been a
| combo of a few things - I found work as a consultant where I get
| to share a unique perspective that when paired with the work of
| others produces outsized results.
|
| I get paid moderately well by nearly a dozen clients but am the
| lowest paid team member on each team on a monthly basis - so I
| don't feel too much pressure to deliver exceptional results all
| the time - and the number of clients I have means if I get 1 win
| a year for all clients I can have a true win each month
| professionally.
|
| These wins and experiences make me feel like I'm growing and
| contributing.
|
| Aside from that I've developed open and honest relationships with
| my lover and my friends and see them regularly and I live with
| housemates so I get my extraversion solved through work and
| natural interactions even in covid. The honest relationships with
| my lover and number and depth of friendships has allowed me to
| not hold any desires back from asking while having less pressure
| to be the doer of everything. Teams and ideas naturally form over
| time which has led to fun side projects and profit as well.
|
| I prefer now to give perspective rather than advice but I'd say
| having a "deal centric" attitude and meeting a lot of people and
| trying to start things with them - usually based on some process
| that provides value so you have a process to lean on - seems
| pretty solid.
|
| For instance building internal portals for small teams or
| organizations and taking a small ongoing fee to do it could help
| you. Instead of project based work with a time bound - low to
| moderate monthly fees with a variety of people can allow you to
| find creative energy where product management, analytics, etc can
| help other peoples visions come true over years.
|
| You can see visions come to life without too much stress and
| avoid a single point of failure.
|
| Happy Christmas and lmk if you'd like to work together on
| something like this.
| coffeefirst wrote:
| Love to do? No. But I've found some things I'm good at that are
| useful and I don't seem to get sick of, and after that what seems
| to matter more is the people you work with.
|
| Ultimately even if you like a job it's still a job, and the
| widely promoted notion of passion rarely holds up.
| [deleted]
| exdsq wrote:
| It'll suck up much less if you know your real passion is
| outside of work. Instead of stressing about getting a staff
| engineering title, I enjoy senior and make some money to simply
| support that passion :)
| koksik202 wrote:
| For me it is whatever keeps me excited I went from ops to
| engineering to automation to data analytics and learning data
| analytics as I do my job. I take advantage of internal transfers
| and I am open about what my areas of improvement are when it
| comes to tech knowledge it didn't stop managers from hiring me.
| Be honest with what you can and can't do and don't be scared to
| try new things and take opportunities within your own
| organization (much easier to go back to your previous
| responsibilities if things don't workout)
| alfor wrote:
| Take the test https://www.understandmyself.com (not free)
|
| If you are high in openness (likely) you will need change and
| creativity to feel alive. On the other hand, most job will want
| to keep you in the same place to extract the maximum value from
| what you know.
|
| You might need to find something where that part of you can grow:
| start a company, technical sales, consultancy, etc
| wellthisisgreat wrote:
| I have one thing that gives me a deep sense of fulfillment and a
| feeling that I was not living those few hours of my life in vain.
| That is writing fiction.
|
| paradoxically (or maybe not) it is not as rewarding process-wise
| as writing software, which has the strongest instant
| gratification loop after, maybe, video games.
|
| You can't really be a writer, however, unless you want to die in
| poverty, etc.
| empressplay wrote:
| You can make a living as a writer but you need to crank out 4-5
| novels a year, which is more than I can do!
| stazz1 wrote:
| I reckon that would certainly affect the quality of the
| compositions. Unless, of course, 4-5 is the natural output of
| some monster writers.
| throwaway6734 wrote:
| Was doing web & mobile dev. Went back to school for an MS and was
| able to score a more research oriented role after getting lucky
| getting an internship and then busting my butt to prove myself.
| strictfp wrote:
| I got into gamedev in my thirties. The last few years was baptism
| by fire but it's loads of fun.
| steelstraw wrote:
| What do you do for fun? Any hobbies?
| renaldomagic wrote:
| danurman wrote:
| For me, what helped was paying attention to what I liked about my
| work and leaning in a direction that emphasized those kinds of
| tasks - though it was kind of just luck that I found a job that
| let me do that.
|
| I got my start in web development because I had picked it up as a
| hobby and (at least at the time) it was a good way to get
| reasonable money without a degree. But my favorite parts were
| learning new techniques/technologies (I started out without a
| team to steer me toward best practices so I did a lot of
| experimentation, self-teaching, and reinventing the wheel -
| probably made my projects take longer but meant I learned a lot
| more) and then using that expertise to help my colleagues (once I
| did have a team, my deeper understanding meant that I was the one
| to go to when something didn't work right in IE6 or something).
|
| At one point, I was having dinner with a friend at his startup
| and happened to meet one of their product support engineers. She
| explained that the role involved becoming an expert in their
| highly-technical, fast-growing product and then using that
| expertise to help customers (internal and external ones). I
| realized that was an entire job made of my favorite parts of my
| previous job. I applied to join her team and I've happily worked
| in product support for tech startups ever since. Before this
| point I never would have considered product support, because I
| just had a stereotypical vision of it as sitting in a phone
| center reading from a script. The ideal field for you might be
| out there without you realizing it exists.
|
| I still try to identify the things I like doing and spend more
| time doing those things. Sometimes that means spending time
| working with folks on other teams - not all companies are
| flexible enough to allow this, but I think healthy ones will
| because the added perspective usually will make you more valuable
| to the company as well. Making sure to have these varied
| experiences and keep learning new things has been a great way to
| keep up my engagement over time.
| exdsq wrote:
| I enjoyed support when I used to do it - I'm pretty sure my
| social skills suffered when I started working in isolation on
| dev tasks
| ssss11 wrote:
| I've jumped around a bit, I've done many different tech roles in
| end user companies (client side).
|
| I've found I love three things - designing tech solutions but
| only what I'm passionate about, business (non-tech: finance, risk
| mgmt, commercial etc) and am passionate about empowering people
| rather than fleecing them (in a b2c context).
|
| I'm happy with what I'm currently doing as I'm working in the
| business space now but ultimately think my place would be
| bootstrapping a user enabling solution and I'm in the early
| stages of making a side project to hopefully achieve that.
| honkycat wrote:
| I'm not obsessed about "working for my passion" or anything like
| that. I have a good life outside of work, supported by my high
| paying programmer job.
|
| I did a lot of job-hopping the past few years looking for the
| right place to work, and I finally found it. I look for companies
| that respect work-life balance, don't want me to work too hard,
| and have excellent engineering culture that values high quality
| work and has managed to retain their senior employees. I deliver
| great work, they make money off of the code I ship, everybody is
| happy. I can crunch every once in a while but we all understand
| that it sucks and isn't a long-term strategy.
|
| My father was a funeral director & coroner. He would NEVER claim
| he "loves what he does", but he used his career to build a life
| for him and his family. I look at my career the same way.
|
| What do I ACTUALLY want to do? Develop video games, make music,
| write fiction. But nobody is shelling out for that, and even if
| they are, I'm not good enough at it to compete. I know if I
| pursued any of my passions, I would have to work much harder for
| much less pay, and be treated much more poorly by my employer. I
| know my limits and I know that I cannot thrive in a situation
| like that, I've done it before, no thanks.
|
| Part of growing older is mourning the person you could have been.
| If I had a time machine, I would have stayed in better shape,
| practiced guitar more, invested my time more wisely. But I can't,
| and honestly my life has turned out pretty great by trusting my
| instincts.
| Dopameaner wrote:
| Out of curiosity, how old are you if I may ask? I just entered
| 30, but I do share some of my regrets and life perspectives
| from this post. Thanks for sharing your perspective!
| d23 wrote:
| I'm really early thirties and it resonates with me. I've been
| successful, but it's hard not to look at any of the other
| paths I could have taken and wonder "what if." Or, more
| precisely: what now?
| falafelite wrote:
| Thanks for writing this. I've been feeling mournful about
| "giving up" and returning to a "normal" software engineering
| job, but the things in quotes here are a matter of perspective.
| Ain't nothing wrong with doing good work and using the fruits
| of it to enjoy your life. Thanks for sharing your perspective.
| d23 wrote:
| "Part of growing older is mourning the person you could have
| been."
|
| One of the wisest and most succinct things I've read on this
| site.
| MilnerRoute wrote:
| Some highly intelligent people simply need new challenges. So
| maybe you don't need to change yourself so much as embrace this
| new-challenge-seeking behavior as one of your strengths.
|
| As to finding something you love, for a lot of people the problem
| really isn't the finding. There is something they love, and the
| hard part is finding a path to the doing of it -- to dropping
| what they're currently doing, and finding an easy viable way to
| do the other thing while paying their rent and other bills. And
| honestly, this is usually made easier by money. If you could
| stockpile a "stake" and then take some time off to explore only
| things you're deeply interested in, that might help. Another
| avenue toward that might be living someplace cheaper, so the
| money piles up quicker, ultimately giving you more flexibility
| and freedom to pursue things you love.
|
| Along with this, it's important to be honest with yourself. If
| you can really get in touch with what you like and don't like
| about the fields you've been in -- those are the truest clues for
| what you'll want to do. (I mean, your only other option is to
| talk to other people doing many different things, until you hear
| about something that also sounds interesting to you.)
|
| I guess the last bit of advice is have hope. Because that's where
| it starts.
| 0atman wrote:
| For me, it was producing a scifi/mental-health podcast which
| blended my three great passions of music, programming, and love
| of my own voice^H^H^H writing fiction.
|
| The experience has been life changing!
|
| More people should try podcasts: They're almost as simple as a
| blog to produce, but allow you to present your story or
| information in a much more evocative and personal medium: Voice,
| sound, and music. Additionally, and unlike something like Youtube
| or Spotify, you retain total control. All you need, essentially,
| is a website to host MP3s, and an XML file that tells people
| where those MP3s are. There are plenty of services that will do
| this for you for a few dollars a month (I use Spreaker), but
| that's what it boils down to: No gatekeepers, no monopolies, no
| algorithms.
|
| I wrote a step by step guide to getting into this, based on my
| own experience of writing and publishing 6 seasons (so far!) on
| my blog, here: http://www.0atman.com/articles/21/make-fiction-
| podcast
| rg111 wrote:
| In this regard, you might want to read _" So Good They Can't
| Ignore You"_ by Cal Newport.
|
| I know. The title is cheesy and melodramatic. But this book was
| really helpful in shaping some of my worldview.
|
| This book goes vehemently against the "discovery" of "passion",
| and instead provides some practical insights on how to do work
| that you will love. Or how to reach there.
| pjm331 wrote:
| This book is in a genre I call "once you've read the title
| you've read the book"
|
| Definitely aligned with the idea but if you already agree with
| the title you can save some time and skip the read
| rg111 wrote:
| > _This book is in a genre I call "once you've read the title
| you've read the book"_
|
| Hard disagree. Have you actually read it?
|
| It offers much more than the title.
| vaylian wrote:
| No. One important aspect of the book that doesn't appear in
| the title is: People who get really good at something useful,
| also enjoy their work a lot more. The public view is often
| that passion leads to success. But the book argues that in
| many cases it is actually the other way around.
| therealasdf wrote:
| Nice. Now i dont need to read the book
| TruthWillHurt wrote:
| That's a big part of my problem - as a generalist I know
| many things, but am not an expert on anything specific.
|
| Taking on a focused role leads to disappointment and loss
| of self esteem.
| Overtonwindow wrote:
| Follow the Dopamine. I listen to my brain very carefully, and
| when it shows the slightest interest in anything, I pursue that
| interest. I have bad ADHD, and it's the only thing that has ever
| really helped.
| SilasX wrote:
| Yes, whatever microcorruption.com is. Linked from here, product
| of tptacek.
| wenbin wrote:
| My two cents -
|
| Don't feel too bad if you can't find something you love to do for
| a long period of time. Many many people don't know what they love
| to do their entire life. And that's totally okay.
|
| We've been exploring... We might like doing A for 1 year or 2,
| then switch to love doing B for a few months, then switch to C
| for another 3 years... It's normal.
|
| How about thinking in this way - What you don't like to do? Just
| avoid things you don't like to do as much as possible, then
| you'll be happier.
| knob wrote:
| Not sure it will "solve it"... yet following Adam's (Douglas?)
| suggestion to become top-25% in three fields. Then merge those
| fields.
|
| That has worked awesome for me. I merged technolgy (software
| dev/sys adm) with motor sports and with management. Love it so
| far. Good luck and Merry Christmas!!
| dmoy wrote:
| Too bad there's no good payable intersection of software dev,
| video games, and three position bullseye rifle. Hah :(
| rzzzt wrote:
| Sounds like VR is the answer!
| needSomeCoffee wrote:
| Actually there is. When my daughters were on the Airgun 10
| meter team (recent national champs), I spent some time
| investigating how to create a low-cost SCATT system using a
| relatively inexpensive laser with 3D-printed mount, USB
| connected cameras, and OpenCV. Something kids could use in a
| hallway at home vs. the range. The solution was very feasible
| as I got to the point of mocking it up and testing it.
| Daughters decided to drop shooting, and other side-dev
| projects took over. But you sound like you might love doing
| this. Cheers.
| Cycl0ps wrote:
| Got curious, and it looks like it was _Scott_ Adams, at least
| the source I found
| https://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2007/07/car...
| dillondoyle wrote:
| Maybe look outside of work?
|
| People who are truly passionate about their work are lucky.
|
| But IMHO it's more realistic to find a job that isn't stressful &
| that one enjoys a bit (if one still needs to pay the bills).
|
| There's a ton of happiness and fulfillment to be found outside of
| your career.
|
| But you need to have the time and mental capacity to get there.
|
| Works sucks up all of those resources for a lot of people.
| [deleted]
| sokoloff wrote:
| Lots of good advice here about paying attention to the patterns
| of what you like versus dislike.
|
| For me, I love being able to sit down and concentrate for 5 hours
| and make progress on a coding activity. (Advent of Code is almost
| catnip for me; I'll save up a week's worth of them and blow a
| half a Saturday on them.) Other people thrive on social aspects
| of team/project work.
|
| Naturally, I picked a job that gives me virtually none of that
| focused coding time, so there's that...
| barbazoo wrote:
| I gave up trying to find a job that I "love". Don't get me wrong
| I absolutely enjoy programming, I love many aspects of it, there
| are just too many things out of my control. I found hobbies like
| home improvement, home automation, pet projects around
| development a lot more "lovable" and easier to stick to.
| baby wrote:
| You need to be bored. Long period of boredom.
| kradeelav wrote:
| I'm a corporate design manager (happily so), so my industry is
| slightly different than yours, but I see this question pop up
| enough in my circles it felt relevant to say the below ...
|
| One of the greatest mistakes I see fellow designers do is try to
| make their 'passion' into their job - expecting their moonshot
| webcomic idea to be the bread+butter income, artisanal print
| hobby to pay the same as a corporate career without a sizeable
| investment or insane time sunk into marketing, you get the
| picture.
|
| Early on I made a point to do short contract/internship stints to
| find our what I "didn't" like to do corporate-wise (packaging,
| digital design, print design), and narrow down to the parts that
| left me vaguely looking forward to the next day (experiential
| design, a team that's enjoyable to work with, autonomy,
| management). Note that the happy bits are almost as much team
| dynamics is it is the work itself, if not moreso.
| derekp7 wrote:
| For me, I started computers at around age 13. Didn't know at the
| time that most computer jobs were highly specialized, so I
| absorbed knowledge and developed skills in a wide variety of
| areas. Ended up as a SysAdmin simply because that was the
| majority of my responsibilities at my first computer related job.
| But I also program, design/architect solutions, do low level
| hardware, etc. That means I can have a job in one area, and use
| the other skills to make me more valuable in that role than I
| otherwise would be. So that is my passion, impressing others and
| being a highly prized asset due to bringing in multiple other
| skills into my primary role.
|
| The other passion I have (that really is very similar to my
| primary skill) is woodworking. Anytime I need a particular
| furniture piece, I design it, buy the materials, cut it up /
| drill holes, and make my own flat-pack kits for final assembly.
| This hobby got a lot more fun when I finally realized that I
| could actually make straight cuts if I properly squared off the
| saw blade, and started using higher quality wood (instead of
| standard-grade construction lumber).
| barcoder wrote:
| The Art's Way by Julia Cameron
| [deleted]
| jensneuse wrote:
| Five or so years ago I started to "implement" GraphQL, the Query
| language from scratch. Lexing, parsing, designing an AST. I had
| to rewrite everything multiple times, added validation and an
| execution engine. At some point I realized what I've actually
| built, the foundation to create an npm-like system for APIs,
| using GraphQL as the universal integration language for any kind
| of API. Since I understood how powerful this concept is I'm
| unable to stop working on it. I'm now turning this into a
| product/company, it's called WunderGraph:
| https://wundergraph.com/ Btw. the engine and everything is open
| source, it's written in Go: https://github.com/jensneuse/graphql-
| go-tools
| mwidell wrote:
| After some burnout after building a tech company, I saved up
| money and left my job, and decided to take 2 years just doing
| whatever I feel like doing each day, until I find something I
| really, truly love, that I can build a new career from. I tried
| some different things, and in the end I found my new calling. I
| think the key is to free up time so you can experiment with
| different things with no pressure to make money immediately. In
| this video my whole story
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfHvh87gm7M
| falafelite wrote:
| If book suggestions are helpful, I found "Designing Your Life" by
| Bill Burnett and Dave Evans to provide a helpful framework on how
| to think/act/prototype your way to what works for ya. Not sure if
| it's everyone's cup of tea but I found it useful.
| dutchblacksmith wrote:
| What did you like to do when you were about 8 years old?
| seb_urban_plan wrote:
| You can do all those things meaningfully: I think it's really
| about the end product (physical or not) - if you are making
| something you don't believe is useful to society, or don't have
| control over how your efforts are being used downstream, then it
| can easily become inherently meaningless.
|
| There are basic needs: clean water, clean air, infrastructure,
| transportation, logistics, etc., etc. And also "non-tangible
| ones". You can get much more authentic social respect if you work
| on products/services that people unambiguously like and need.
|
| I recommend, for example: - Biomedical: signals, images, ...
| (I've done a bit) - Anything GIS, urban/transportation planning,
| geo-spatial analytics, cities, etc. (my chosen specialty, very
| fulfilling).
|
| There's lots of number crunching, but also human-entry string
| processing (fuzzy matching, etc.). Actually, very versatile
| programmatically. And then there is fast graphics (OpenGL, etc.)
| - not my favourite part, actually, but you can outsource it
| partly.
|
| You get to work in very multi-disciplinary groups, so you can
| really assess where you want to go long-term. I was surrounded by
| people with very similar training to mine - technologically it
| was pretty good, but topic-wise it was a bit of an echo-chamber.
| laurent92 wrote:
| I love building Web products. Being a Product Owner.
|
| How: By quitting every company after doing my maximum. I'm deeply
| sour, because many people around me succeeded younger at being
| recognized, generally because of ethnic or gender reason, but I
| had to walk away and I have succeeded in establishing my company
| and I'm the PO. I'm also the laundry guy, the accountant and the
| principal engineer with my 2-5 employees, but I'm still making
| half a million dollars, so it does seem that I was discriminated
| in companies compared to my abilities.
|
| I wish I hadn't a million dollars a year and I had a sense of
| belonging instead, and wasn't sour, but such is life. I feel like
| Donald Duck.
| sokoloff wrote:
| Striking out on your own and being successful at it is
| impressive and congratulations for that. It doesn't seem to be
| evidence to me in any direction about whether you were
| discriminated against in prior companies. The outcomes, whether
| good or bad, are concentrated when you own the company.
| jcun4128 wrote:
| I did, when I was younger. It was from the environment (lived in
| Anchorage, lots of bush planes, got into model airplanes). I
| spent about 8+ years doing it... in 2008 or so would get lost in
| it. At that time I was in high school, didn't have much money but
| I built all my planes from scratch with foam. Those were times I
| felt truly happy/in the moment just being in the sun alone
| flying. I can do it now sure, have money now but I lost it that
| drive/happiness to do it. Finding real passion can be hard vs.
| external factors eg. money. It's like you could say you want to
| figure out GAI but if you're doing it for money/fame vs. truly
| pursing it out of personal passion, I don't know if it'll happen
| (aside from being hard).
|
| I like writing code now, it's like a tool, can build things in
| that space. Don't think it's a passion though. I didn't come from
| it, I barely used a computer when I was younger. I say I want to
| pursue robotics but I'm not pouring myself into it either. Been
| spending a lot of time consuming as someone else mentioned
| (tv/social media). Anyway I hope I get it back, true drive vs.
| drive from sharing/points online. Generally I like creation
| though, solving things.
|
| Part of the younger days probably just because no responsibility
| other than doing homework/passing tests.
| anamax wrote:
| Civilization relies mostly on people doing things that they don't
| love.
|
| Plumbers may like to plumb, but they don't like doing it in bad
| conditions or as many hours as they do. Same for farmers,
| construction workers, garbagemen, and so on.
| mlcrypto wrote:
| errantmind wrote:
| First, be wary of general advice.
|
| That said, do you find yourself spending most your time making or
| consuming? At some point I just started making stuff for the
| majority of my time and this was a tipping point for starting to
| improve my skills in particular areas and narrow my focus.
| derekp7 wrote:
| Regarding Making vs Consuming, I realized why I never got
| consumed by gaming. I can only sit down and play a game for a
| short while, before my brain starts wandering and thinking how
| I could build something myself.
| analog31 wrote:
| I fell in love with developing measurement equipment. It started
| in grad school, realizing that I really wasn't cut out for a
| basic research career (in a massively overcrowded academic job
| market), but that I got a lot of satisfaction from being able to
| solve hard technical problems.
|
| Today, measurement systems combine many of my hobbies, including
| electronics and programming. I would get bored with becoming a
| specialist in a narrow tech field. This is also an area where I
| feel that I can genuinely help people, not just with immediate
| business problems, but also where I can credibly justify a
| socially redeeming purpose.
|
| I like the fact that the ultimate judge of my success is mother
| nature, who doesn't tolerate bullshit.
|
| Advice: Can you work on something that you actually believe in? I
| read a lot of comments (HN and elsewhere) from people for whom
| "work" is just an empty cash transaction, and who respect no
| distinction between good and bad work. (For instance threads on
| doing little or no actual work without getting caught).
|
| Or, can you completely detach yourself from your day job, satisfy
| yourself with the empty cash transaction, and get your personal
| satisfaction in some other way?
| yoyohello13 wrote:
| Developing measurement equipment sounds really intriguing to
| me. Do you have any stories about particularly fun/challenging
| projects you've done?
| russelltran wrote:
| Hey, are you interested in climate change at all? Would you be
| interested in developing new measuring equipment for methane
| emissions in rice paddies? This is a completely white space.
| https://www.ricemethane.org/ Let me know, thanks!
| Shared404 wrote:
| Those last two paragraphs feel like the trick to me. Either
| work on something you're invested in, and if you can't, pick
| something outside of work.
|
| I personally like D&D. Spending time with good friends wroting
| stories together is one of my favorite ways to spend time, and
| the excitement for it has gotten me through more than one hard
| week.
| User23 wrote:
| > For instance threads on doing little or no actual work
| without getting caught
|
| I imagine there are exceptions, but I think a lot of this is
| people doing jobs that are fundamentally pointless to begin
| with. When what you're doing is of no practical value to
| anyone, it's difficult to remain motivated.
| akeck wrote:
| I've always done flat art (painting, drawing, etc.). I'm now
| getting into handmade books. I'm looking forward to making books
| of my art by hand.
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