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I appreciate the spirit of what you're saying, though I disagree a bit with the details.

I worked a blue collar job manufacturing commercial signage for several years before I got a job as a programmer. I'd wake up at 5, work on learning to code, and then go to my job. Sign making isn't coal mining but it is a low wage job with few benefits and negative impact on your health. I didn't find much of the stoic worker type you describe among the people I worked with. Most had families. Everyone hated their job. It breaks you down physically, the boredom wears on you mentally, and providing for someone else doesn't make this easier.

I am grateful that I now get paid 5x what I used to make, sit in an expensive chair, and get free beer at the office. But I think it's good to be honest with yourself when what you have doesn't feel like enough. Trying to push that feeling away doesn't help to resolve it, in my experience.

I do think that an attitude adjustment is called for. But I'm trying to sort out what is a product of attitude and what is a product of external circumstance.

Finally, I think a world where everyone has the freedom to pursue what they're interested in would be an ok world. It's not always possible but it wouldn't be wrong if it was.

> I like to think about the guy stuck in a shit town, working in a coal mine. Maybe they all drink themselves to oblivion and I'm delusional

> Guy goes down there and busts his ass all day in the dark, getting dirty as fuck, probably doing long term damage to his lungs and such. But it's his job and at the end of the day he goes home to his wife, kids, and dog, and realizes that work is just something he has to do to support the parts of his life he cares about.

Where this romanticizing of hard work comes from? Protestant work ethics? A coal mine person working "down there" better find a partner before starting the career (i.e before the age of 18). Otherwise with the low status of the job and its hardness one has zero change finding partner afterwards. Many don't do and wreck themselves from misery by reaching, lowered already usually, retirement age. Yes it's devastating for their health and lungs.

These "be a man" life advices are almost always obsolete.

Life is hard and it will demand hard people.

I regret having only one upvote.

Although there’s a certain segment who would/could react positively to that kind of approach in the second half, I’d just caution anyone reading who finds it demotivating to not get down on yourself about it. I’d personally offer two observations:

1. At micro, any job will have good times and bad times. Times when you’re super engaged and times when you’re slogging through it. Try to push through a bad time, there’s a feeling of accomplishment in coming over the hump. Try to find change when the hump is insurmountable over a long period with no chance of change.

2. At macro, everything in life is like this too. Some periods will just be about showing up, and that’s okay. Showing up is something you can build on. If all you’re doing is showing up and it ends up not being a period but a new normal, seek change.

Entitlement has become this derogatory term over the last several decades, but every person is entitled to pursuing greater levels of happiness. Good on you for not settling.

While it might feel good to admonish people and tell them that they have to get tough and suck it up and pull themselves by their bootstraps, it typically does not do anything to help them; particularly if they are taking the initiative to ask for help in the first place.

OP more likely than not realizes that they are in a situation of privilege compared to someone working in the mines to sustain their family; if they are posting here, then clearly that insight alone has not sufficed to help them deal with what they are feeling.

All we know from OP is 3 paragraphs of text they wrote, asking for help; telling them to stop “acting like an entitled little child” is downright rude and not what HN is about.

I realize my response may not be helpful and is not in the normal spirit of HN. But OP said this "My ideal life would be one where I am free to explore things that interest me and share that knowledge with others."

Look, not everyone can be an Instagram model or a YouTube star. Sometimes a good smack in the face is what's needed to spark a little motivation. Sometimes not, but I think it's worth putting out there.

For some less harsh motivation I'll offer this:

https://www.ted.com/talks/mel_robbins_how_to_stop_screwing_y...

I don’t think OP wants to be an instagram star. They want a change in career and have only a nebulous sense of what exactly they want. “Suck it up” is not only a mean spirited response, it is beside the point.

To be fair, is that not everybody's ideal life? To not have to truly "work", just to do things they find enjoyable? Feeling entitled would be demanding that from every job, being realistic would be understand that normal jobs can help motivate you to get to that "ideal" life.

https://twitter.com/dril/status/473265809079693312?s=21

I think it says a lot about your worldview and experience if you think there are only two careers (industry drone and Instagram celebrity). There are lots of jobs people find happiness through, like teaching or creating art. If you have some time off work for new years, I'd recommend playing the game The Stanley Parable.

Do you think the person you replied to would really think their world view is based off the two paths you've listed? Also deferring to a video game for philosophical discussion....

I think the tone could have used improvement, but the underlying perspective has been useful for me when getting through hard times of all sorts. It's easy to lose perspective and focus on the negative parts of life, and often times, I've been able to find comfort in difficult situations by reminding myself that everyone has struggles and acknowledging the positive aspects of life. At least to me, a simple shift in perspective can have a huge effect on my mood and happiness.

The needless aggressiveness aside, this goes completely against my job experience. The boring workplaces were those in which putting in the effort was actively discouraged and punished. Consider yourself lucky if you never worked in one of these places.

This matches my experience as well. I've worked at places that were boring because everyone was checked out and didn't care about the work. I've also worked at more interesting jobs where the people were far more engaged. The latter type of job tends to be more challenging, better paying, and more conducive to learning.

It's possible that OP's problem is largely that he has worked for bad companies/managers.

I guess maybe you were trying to give OP some tough love here but it came off a bit misguided to me. I think it all depends what your philosophy towards work is and what you want to do with life. Your analogy kind of illustrated this, at least to me. The idilic coal miner gets meaning from building a family and doesn't give a shit about his job, others might choose a different path to that. Telling someone who's dissatisfied to basically "harden up" might work in a different context but is not constructive here. Why does OP not have the right to question the meaning in their work and surroundings?.

Why? Why should life be that way? What’s the point of doing unfulfilling things that make you die sooner?

> Why should life be that way?

The point is that life is that way, not the way we would like it to be.

> What’s the point of doing unfulfilling things that make you die sooner?

The point is that (almost?) all jobs are like that.

Airline pilot? Yeah, you fly, and that's cool. Get to see the world? Also cool. Get to travel the world and not see it because you have to fly back out? Less cool. Being chronically sleep-deprived? Not good for your health. Waking up when the alarm goes off in some random hotel room, and not knowing what city you're in? Not so glamorous.

Even computer work is bad for your health. Sitting around being sedentary, for years? Not good. That's without carpal tunnel, but that can come from the work too.

Now, neither of those are as unfulfilling or as dangerous as working in a coal mine. But all work is unfulfilling, at least some of the time. If you don't understand that, you're going to be unhappy no matter what you do.

That said, some jobs are a whole lot more fulfilling than others. More: Some jobs are a lot more fulfilling for you than others. It makes perfect sense to try to figure out what kind of work you would find more fulfilling, and how to get a job doing it. But if you expect it to be fulfilling always and never unfulfilling, it will disappoint you.

In fact, I'd say that you need to find your real fulfillment somewhere else. That way, you can come to work without expecting it to fully fulfill you. You then won't try to squeeze out of your job what it can never give you, and then reject it because it couldn't give you what you wanted.

Horrible advice. If everybody thought like this then we would still be living in caves.

If nobody thought like this you wouldn't have people building sky scrapers and collecting garbage in the winter