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Comment by smallgovt | Hacker News Reader

I've found that this 'crisis of meaning' is driven by having personal values that are based on extrinsic criteria.

That is, when you value things that are based on things outside your control e.g. social validation, financial success, you will struggle to be happy.

When you value things that are intrinsic e.g. integrity, contribution, creativity, you will have a much better shot at staying happy.

The problem with 'intellectuals' is that they are more often pulled into the rat race where you are chasing extrinsic things. Also, they often value 'intelligence' itself, which makes you feel bad when you realize that the world is filled with smarter people. Also, intelligence deteriorates as you age.

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The idea of intrinsic vs extrinsic validation is called "Locus of Control"[0]. A great book that explores that concept in a little more depth (while still accessible) is Non-violent Communication [1].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locus_of_control

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonviolent_Communication

It's also a core principle of Stoicism.

>when you value things that are based on things outside your control e.g. social validation, financial success, you will struggle to be happy.

These are outside our control? I found both were achieved by choosing to be an engineer and going above and beyond.

I think you probably have a lower bar for social/financial success than what OP is talking about. You are neither famous nor rich, and people want to be famous and/or rich.

Mad props to you if you are 100% satisfied with you social status & financial success, though. I wish that I were. :)

Yes, they are outside of your control but you just don’t realize it yet. The “financial success” aspect can become a thing of the past pretty quickly if a dot-com crash were to happen again or if the next recession were to bring the FANGs back into “normal companies” territory when it comes to their total valuation, and I assume the “social validation” aspect will become a thing of the past for most computer programmers pretty soon, especially if AI will end up consuming even more existing jobs among other the general populace.

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