Ask HN: How to optimize your career for happiness? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How to optimize your career for happiness?

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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?

View on HN

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.

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.

Good for you, and keep it up - just finding a workout group or running buddies is a great investment for encouraging you to stick with it. Plus the ROI - low blood pressure, heart health, and so on - is almost infinite given the low cost of entry.

That's exactly how I see it. A manyfold return on the money investment. I was an obese sedentary homebody before I signed up for a running class on a whim. It's been 3 years. Every run is a celebration of what I can do. I'd cut many other things before I cut my running expenses if push comes to shove.

What is your view on joint damage?

Is this some sort of weird gotcha or are you sincere?

Joint damage is not really statistically correlated with long distance running, and anyone targeting a sub 20 minute 5k is going to have their weight and form so dialed in, it probably is barely a risk at all.

I never progressed past 30km from hearing all of these people quiting to save their knees. I wondering where that sentiment comes from if there is no correlation.

My understanding is that people destroy their knees in many ways over the course of their lives and that running makes that painfully obvious to them so they stop.

I think its related to weight. We have to acknowledge that there is a serious obesity epidemic in the developed world. The majority of adults are overweight and obese. This is anecdata from what I've seen: you see fat runners. you see old runners. You dont tend to see many fat old runners.

The other thing is that if you dont regularly change your running shoes, you will absolutely hurt yourself. I get knee pain if I don't swap out my shoes every 250 miles or 3 months.

My view, on top of what my sibling comment said, is that even if joint damage was a risk ( and it shouldn't be because I'm doing strength training with weights under a certified coach to prevent stress from going to where it shouldn't be), I'd rather take that risk than be sedentary, fat, and at home all the time like I was before I started running. I found a community on top of an activity I like. I found that I have goals beyond just my career goals. I got into coooking and baking because nutrition is important for an athletic lifestyle.

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.

> 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.

G.K. Chesterton I believe. Referring, I think, to the joy of truly amateur pursuits.

I've not read GKC but it seems applicable to professional pursuits too. E.g., "Perfect is the enemy of good" has the same sentiment.

Also, it's a curative to people of a perfectionist bent. Perfectionism often keeps one from trying something new.

Per a sibling, it is Chesterton, from his work What's Wrong with the World:

* https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1717/1717-h/1717-h.htm

An explanation:

> Chesterton consistently defended the amateur against the professional, or the “generalist” against the specialist, especially when it came to “the things worth doing.” There are things like playing the organ or discovering the North Pole, or being Astronomer Royal, which we do not want a person to do at all unless he does them well. But those are not the most important things in life. When it comes to writing one’s own love letters and blowing one’s own nose, “these things we want a man to do for himself, even if he does them badly.” This, argues Chesterton (in Orthodoxy) is “the democratic faith: that the most terribly important things must be left to ordinary men themselves – the mating of the sexes, the rearing of the young, the laws of the state.”

[…]

> In What’s Wrong with the World, Chesterton foresaw the dilemma of daycare and the working mother, that children would end up being raised by “professionals” rather than by “amateurs.” And here we must understand “amateur” in its truest and most literal meaning. An amateur is someone who does something out of love, not for money. She does what she does not because she is going to be paid for her services and not because she is the most highly skilled, but because she wants to do it. And she does “the things worth doing,” which are the things closest and most sacred to all of humanity – nurturing a baby, teaching a child the first things, and, in fact, all things.

> The line, “if a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly,” is not an excuse for poor efforts. It is perhaps an excuse for poor results. But our society is plagued by wanting good results with no efforts (or rather, with someone else’s efforts). We hire someone else to work for us, to play for us (that is, to entertain us), to think for us, and to raise our children for us. We have left “the things worth doing” to others, on the poor excuse that others might be able to do them better.

> Finally, and less heavily, we should also point out that the phrase is a defense of hobbies. […]

* https://www.chesterton.org/a-thing-worth-doing/

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).

I agree with you about doing a job well. I just don't put the job at the top of my list in terms of where to focus my efforts.

Mind you, I'm not FAANG material nor the entrepreneurial sort. The feeling is mutual: I'm not interested in devoting my time to reach those heights in the workplace. They are not interested in hiring people like me. I don't apply for those jobs, and they don't try to recruit me. I'm sure the work is fine there but I can't see myself getting excited about it.

Now, let's talk about my FTP or VO2max and what I'm doing to increase my numbers. I'm really interested in my HRV and what factors affect it. I'm presently also interested in building an analog compressor - electronics are cool - and not at all interested in Tensorflow, deep learning, or spending my free time taking Coursera classes. Why would I spend time learning Rust when I can be improving my flexibility with some yoga? But that's just me.

And finally, I do get what I "deserve" on the job front: I'll always be a middle-of-the-pack guy and not a hot shot. I'm not lazy, but my ambitions are not in career advancement. So I get paid accordingly. But to me, a real hot shot is a 52 year old guy nailing a sub-20 5K.

I think you're way overestimating "FAANG material" FWIW. At least at Goog there are a huge number of people that just do what they need to do and nothing more, don't respond to anyone or anything outside of normal hours and spend their time doing stuff with their kids / family / friends etc. Obviously these are not the people you hear about from outside Google, but if you work there then you work with many of them.

> I've always thought that a job worth doing was a job worth doing well.

I think you were right, and I am learning that it doesn't have to be painful if you consider "your job" to be the best you can in the moment and given the circumstances (including co-workers that don't feel the same way).

As Lao-Tzu put it: "Do your job, then step back. The only path to serenity."

How do you mean you spend money on physical fitness? It does sound like a great investment.

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.

We spend a lot of money on a personal trainer; and a coach specific to my poison (cycling). The personal training and coaching are the greatest expense and I will allow my lights to get turned off before I let that lapse - it's that important to me.

There has been a significant investment in a rowing machine, indoor smart trainers for cycling, and quite a bit of free weights. My wife runs, and she spends a healthy amount on running shoes.

There are monthly subscriptions for things like Trainerroad, Zwift, and "upscale" yoga. The yearly cost of all three might be $500.

I invest in a DEXA scan at least once a year for about $50. Workout clothes wear out and need refreshing, but we go cheap on that and the expense is minimal.

There are periodic expenses - a new Fitbit, or a heart rate strap needs to be replaced - but they are not frequent or costly.

There is a large upfront cost to all of this - I now mention the 2 pretty expensive road bikes we use, but they are years old and have more than paid for themselves by helping us attain better heart health - but it's not prohibitive.

I will also note that we have consciously chosen this route vs. maxing out 401(k) or similar. We are not wealthy (in the financial sense) nor are we sitting on a nest egg or in line to inherit a large sum of money.

Finally, we're not monomaniacal about fitness. We like good food, going to movies, socializing, and so on. We could do 3 nights in NYC for about $2500 - or we can skip that and use the money for new equipment or a trial run at, say, a new gym. We choose the later 9 times out of ten.

>> I will also note that we have consciously chosen this route vs. maxing out 401(k) or similar. We are not wealthy (in the financial sense) nor are we sitting on a nest egg or in line to inherit a large sum of money.

This caught my eye. Not maxing out your 401K is leaving money on the table. Money that could make your life easier later on. I'm curious to know what items/activities you'd need to give up in order to max out your 401K.

Is it not worth it?

What if your current employer doesn't match your contributions? Is maxing out the 401k still advisable?

Even if your current employer doesn't match your contributions, deferring your taxes from now to the future (when you might not need to pay as much due to lower tax bracket) is considered good practice from a tax perspective. Of course there are edge cases when that may not hold (e.g. you have a pension) and have more income in retirement compared to now, but it's a good rule of thumb.

It is absolutely worth it if you can afford to do so. When I have worked at a place that offers a match, I always do the amount for the match.

My situation is probably different from most people who began making real money fresh out of college: I was in academia until the age of 35, making peanuts and paying off exorbitant student loans incurred as an undergraduate.

As someone who was not free of student loans until 2008, I have really only been in the position to put (max) money into 401(k) plans for 13 years. I was able to max-out for 4 years (2006-2010) but had to liquidate (with penalties) for unexpected expenses.

Several of those 13 years were spent working for myself or at short-term engagements with start-ups where a 401(k) was not on the table.

Presently, my maximum contribution is $26,000/year (I get to "catch up" because I am over 50). That represents a very large percentage of my take-home, so I forego it except for the match part.

As for what items/activities would take the hit, the first one is the personal training and coaching. The second one is home repairs on a 100+ year-old house, and that's not optional. The unexpected roof replacement was $16,000. The new HVAC will be $10,000. The "little things" that are a few hundred to a thousand dollars do add up. And so on. We could finance those or pay them off, and we choose the latter. Cars don't matter: 10+ year-old Hondas that never break down and are paid for.

Yes, more money tucked away for later in life would make things easier: no argument. That said, we both plan on continuing to work - if you asked me what I'd do all day if I suddenly got rich, I'd say "ride my bike more" - and so we gamble in the sense of optimizing physical fitness at the expense of future income.

I think if I'd have thought of these expenses as "buying physical fitness" I would have spent more. Thanks for the perspective!

May I ask how does one start their contracting path? Is it feasible with say 2 years of experience in the industry?

For me, I networked via LinkedIn with some old classmates in different fields of study. I truly accepted anything I could do at first. There were bumps in the road. There were mismatches between my skills and what was expected. I believe most others who contract will report the same.

There are organizations that are clearinghouses for outsourcing contract work, and my name and CV is with most of ones I could find.

Be proactive. Reach out. Apply for stuff on LinkedIn (most of it goes into /dev/null but not all of it) and just get going. One other piece of advice: if you have any desire/skill at technical writing, that is a great angle. Pay is good and there is always demand.

Yes, you just need to know your stuff. I started contracting 2 years into my career. Best decision I ever made and never looked back.

What are you spending fitness money on? Dumb bells and a gym membership don’t break the bank for most software engineers.

See below - the biggest expense is personal training and coaching.

I am not a software engineer, and I have never commanded software engineer salaries. I am what they call a "data scientist" and I have an academic background in the sciences. My wife is a project manager at a big company that is nowhere near the FAANG level.

We have a bare-bones yearly burn rate of about $40K: that's mortgage, utilities, rice and beans. Given our combined take-home (post-tax) of about $100K, the $10-$15K we spend on physical fitness per year represents about 20% of our disposable income.

I think i have a similar background to you. Mind sharing how you got into data science contractual work? Is it through academia or in the business world?

It was initially an extension of a relationship I had while in academia. Several regular employment stints came afterwards, just from talking to people.

There are a few contract engagements I don't put on my resume: adding stuff to a few WordPress sites for friends; setting up a small Beowulf Linux cluster; debugging a Microsoft Access application for a small business. The main reason I don't list those (and a few others) is that I don't want to do them ever again. The secondary reason is that I don't want a full-time employer to know that I am/was working on the side.

More recently, a old classmate from grad school - with whom I worked recently - recalled that I was/am a specialist at running and interpreting the results of a clunky piece of software.

Presently I am not working and am starting a contract as a GIS data scientist for a telecom company in January. That one I got from a recruiter who needed someone with my skill set.

Note I have updated my contact information on my HN profile, from which you can infer what my LinkedIn profile is and have a look.

Swing a kettlebell, squats, pull ups, running, yoga, hill sprints… those all cost about 200 bucks

What have been the best investments you’ve made?

0. Taking up yoga in 1995

1. Personal trainer and sport-specific coach (recurring)

2. Professional bike fit and really good cycling shoes (infrequent)

    (a) Periodic lactate threshold and/or FTP testing (few times per year)

    (b) TrainingPeaks/Trainerroad/Zwift/Strava subscriptions (recurring)

3. Wahoo KICKR smart trainer (non-recurring)

    (a) Rollers for a very challenging workout (non-recurring)

4. Concept2 rowing machine (non-recurring)

5. Assorted kettle bells and dumbbells (non-recurring)

6. Fitted really good running shoes (infrequent for me)

7. Garmin running and cycling computers (infrequently upgraded)

8. Fitbit Charge 4 activity tracker

I loved my Concept2 erg (vintage Model B that I found on CraigsList for $100, and refurbished it using parts that the company still had in stock). I bought it after the Concept2 and treadmills were my favorite machines in two gyms.

I regretted selling the Concept2 just before my last apartment move, and I plan to buy one again when I have a stable place to put it.

The Concept2 erg is expensive, and a matter of taste. So, if a person has never used one, they might want to try one out at a gym first.

Fantastic contractor mentality I also share.

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...

And for those who are able, getting married and having children will tend to bring even more fulfillment than becoming a clown.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Isn't that precisely why it works? Any life change you make where you have an out, you're likely to bail the first time it goes a little bit wrong. When I'm thinking about decisions like this, I remember one of the battles in Romance of the Three Kingdoms where the general (sorry, forgetting who) just deliberately leaves his army with their back to the water to make it clear, the only way is forward.

The last point is the one that I think gets almost zero attention. People talk constantly about how great and fulfilling it is to help bring a child into the world, see it grow, teach it all the things you know, etc. What they actually mean is that it's very gratifying to have kids that are yours and look like you and came from you, because deep down we are all narcissists.

When you start talking about how they could have done literally all of those things by adopting any one of the bajillion kids that need it, most people will openly tell you that they would never consider it and don't feel even slightly hypocritical about it.

> Is it more of a genetic thing where it makes the pain of responsibility more pleasurable?

Is responsibility painful?

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.

To express it in more “pragmatic” terms, the responsibility is essentially acting as “having skin in the game”. If there is no skin in the game, then you can’t expect to get that much out of it.

And yes, having skin in the game doesn’t automatically make things better. It actually introduces potential to make things more painful, in case things go wrong. But it also increases the ceiling on what you can get out of it, not just increasing the ceiling on what you can lose. Which basically makes things feel more meaningful and rewarding.

"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.

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.

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.

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.

Thanks for an amazing explanation that I feel can both reach someone who is not a parent through how it modifes the local maximum, but also verbalizes the feelings and "justification" for being a parent so well.

> 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.

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.

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.

They might not, but is there any way you can live where you're free from the risk of terrible calamity? If you become close to another person, you don't know if they'll get hit by a car tomorrow and suddenly leave you grieving in a way you'd never be if you never met them in the first place.

> is there any way you can live where you're free from the risk of terrible calamity?

No.

> and suddenly leave you grieving in a way you'd never be

And we should consider that when deciding to enter a relationship.

The notion of a life lived without any relationships with other people seems too grim to contemplate.

I find it helpful to contemplate just that. Helps me realize that I am in all of my relationships through choice and to appreciate them before their inevitable end.

Thanks for sharing this. I hope you find a way through and wish your family the best.

Very sorry to hear this. Its hugely challenging, in ways that IMHO most people can't comprehend /imagine. In my experience, sibling(s) of a severely disabled person, while they get things put on them that are unfair, also can emerge with great resilience, caring nature, and extra qualities they wouldn't have otherwise had. Perhaps leading to greater happiness. "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger" . IMHO there's no real problem caring for a severely disabled person, if the rest of society understood a bit more, and things were better resourced, high quality respite easily available etc, people were willing to pay a bit more tax to help others in need. But the world isn't like that. There are hacks though. Thank goodness for working in tech, where one can at least earn decent money and throw money at challenges. Could you and your partner work 4 days a week each and have a weekday off together? That may be an effective way to get respite and some time together. Best wishes :)

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.

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.

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

It could be but realistically, is that going to be anywhere close to as moving from someone you've never met? And on their side too, they may appreciate the help, but you're not exactly going to replace their parents in their hearts. It's just a totally different level of engagement.

Big brother/sister programs are highly personal where you interact with the person directly.

I imagine it’d be incredibly fulfilling to know that you helped coach a troubled youth through a turbulent period to land in a good place.

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.

> the lows are really low and the highs are really high

This resonated with me; I am yet to experience the lows because my kids are still young - the highs are just unparalleled. The happiness and calm I feel from having my son putting his head on my shoulders listening to bedtime stories is unmatched by anything else going on in my life.

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.

> 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.

Right, the thing is before you have children you can weigh the costs/rewards dispassionately, but after you have a child the calculus changes because now this person exists who is now the most important thing in the world to you. As soon as that person exists your life is no longer yours, it is in service of that child (assuming everything goes according to plan, of course it doesn't always work out that way), so of course rationalizing any cost at that point is just part of the deal.

I want my life to be my own, thus the costs are not worth it to me. If I had a kid tomorrow of course that equation would change and it would be in my best interest to rationalize all costs in service of the child, and surely I would and suddenly they would be "worth it." I do not view this as an argument in favor of having children, rather I view it as a a specific detail of the biological programming working its magic.

I'm not a never-kid person either. I am open to the idea that one day I may decide the costs are indeed worth it and seek to have children. I think that seems unlikely, but part of the freedom of designing my own life is having the space for my preferences to change, and I could envision a world in which I would be happy as a parent. It would not be in a nuclear family as is common in the west, but that is perhaps for another discussion.

Just wanted to share appreciation for how well-put your perspective on reasons to have children is - sorry to add, but especially as a non-parent (since, as you say, it's hard to take into account what happens after the "flips" happen), as well as reasonable and respectable your current stance for not having children is. If more people could see both sides that well, there would be more happy children and less unhappy parents.

>It’s just that, your brain naturally accepts the costs.

There's a big percentage of parents that have some form of post-partum depression (a quick search offers something between 10% to 20%)

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.

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.

It is simply natural/biological. A bit like eating good food or having sex is pleasurable and essential but of course in a different way.

Your body is tuned for that and without it you lack something (way more true for females). You might be able to put something in its place, but it might not do the job.

Consider that when a men is in presence of youngs kids his hormonal balance change so he become more caring, more in tune to their needs. When they get older that phase out and the kids become more annoying, signaling that it’s time for them to find their way, to distantiate themselves progressively from their parents. I found out that I cannot stand anymore the kids movie I used to watch with them multiple times when they were younger.

I find also that the life in big cities is less conducive to having a family, we tend to think about the space we have (bedrooms) and size of cars to decide on family size where it should go in the other direction. If I was younger I would have move to the country sooner and have four kids instead of just two.

I think it give your life meaning to care for people that are going to outlive you. You have to think about their future, how can you help them develop in a good directions, what are their specifics needs to maximize their potential, what did you wish was done for you that you can pass on to them.

Female are more tuned to the need for kids. Most of the time they will know the right time and will push enough to make things happen.

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.

Its more universal than that. You can find the sentiment in Eastern and Western traditions.

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.

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”

"tend"

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.

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 “

> 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"

This is the key insight. No matter how much dopamine you shovel onto your lizard brain, it will just adapt to it and demand more. There is no maximum speed on the hedonic treadmill. Serving others is the polar opposite of that, you sacrifice the things that would provide you with an immediate reward and the reward you get has nothing to do with satisfying a want. The only way I can describe it is you are only aware of it when it's not there, when you're not doing the right thing by someone, it feels like an absence of something expected. Like putting your hand in your pocket and finding nothing where something should be.

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.

A child born today in the west has a better life expectancy than any other period in human history. Despite all the global challenges, we still live in the most prosperous age ever

Whoever calculates those life expectancy numbers needs to update their methods.

I know you don’t mean it this way, but this general attitude sees life as a Ponzi scheme. For your kids to find meaning, they are forced to have kids too? And if they can’t? Suckers holding the bag.

Fulfillment must be discoverable outside of that specific path, otherwise it’s cruel to bring someone into existence as a means for your end.

What if working with others and having an impact is what brings me the most fulfillment?

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.

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?

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.

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.

> I know because I've tried.

Can you please elaborate?

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.

Volunteering is nice but I think rarely takes up enough time to be a significant part of one's life. I'm not going to form deep connections with people or feel a deep sense of accomplishment volunteering somewhere for an hour or two a week.

Even if I quit my job, lived off savings and did volunteer work full-time, I'm likely not going to run into many other people like that. I could start taking a more active role and organizing, maybe with other full-time volunteers.

The work I'm doing while volunteering is also generally likely going to be less interesting to me than the software engineering work at a tech company. Maybe I'd be doing some kind of software engineering work full-time at a non-profit.

But at that point I've just traded in my job at a tech company with one at a non-profit. Ignoring whether this is better for the world overall (I'm skeptical it is, but whatever), how is it better for me?

edit: Not to imply that for some people, full-time work at a volunteer or non-profit organization can't be fulfilling, but I'm very skeptical that this is the case for most, or even many people.

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...

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

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?

> GPL it.

MIT/Apache/BSD it, IMO.

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.

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.

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.

> 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

I'm confident that you can't back that up with any facts. MIT/BSD projects are doing just fine at community and patches.

> The attitude above is like given to poor people at the sour kitchen and then getting angry if they make it out of poverty

Absolutely not. A correct comparison is volunteering at a soup kitchen while see someone hoards the food and sells it back to homeless people and pockets all the profit.

And sometimes even takes credit for the quality of the food.

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.

Sorry for the offtopicness but could you please email hn@ycombinator.com? I want to send you a repost invite.

> think about helping the 'small guy' make it out and compete with large companies

The small guy is free and very welcome to use GPLed code.

> I know you're not saying this, but in general I am fed up with the idea that anything commerical == evil.

Yes, I'm not saying this. On the contrary, I have bills to pay and I'm paid to develop software. One reason more not to give away gifts to freeloaders.

> That said, ethics is important.

And yet you also said "you could be less resentful"...

GPL is part of why SaaS happened. It doesn’t prevent commercial use and it doesn’t require distributing source code if the user never gets an executable. SaaS is the textbook way to work around the GPL.

And thus, GPL has evolved to match?

Sort of, with AGPL.

No, there's AGPL for that.

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.

If you deprioritize money, getting part time work is always an option.

But then what do you do with the time?

Fulfill your happiness?!

Second that. Use that money to do and try all kinds of activities. Learn dancing, surfing, climbing, self defense, archery, carving, pottery, wood working, cooking, singing, sailing, horse riding, blues harp, build a permaculture garden/do guerilla gardening, build a race bike from parts.

There are endless things to engage and challenge your body and mind. Enjoying these activities with friends gives me the most joy. My job is just a crutch to support that.

COVID had a huge impact on all of those though.

I hear this a lot and I used to find it persuasive but now I'm not so sure. Like it or not, 40 hours a week is a lot of time to do anything. It seems like wishful thinking to say we can just ignore the role of this tremendous amount of time in our subjective sense of well-being.

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.

Due to pandemic I had to go full remote. Lines blurred for work and personal hours. Not so much for the employer, but for myself. So the first thing I will do once the dust of pandemic settles, if it settles anytime soon, I’ll find a job in my city (my company is based in another city right now) and just go to office everyday.

Back then I honestly didn’t even have it in my mind that I do this work at this company after 5pm when I left my workplace. Now my house is my workplace. It used to be my most personal space.

I made a similar adjustment when fully remote! I actually prefer to do other forms of exercise, but at the end of each day, if I haven't done any exercise, I just go for at least a 30 min walk. It's been surprisingly enjoyable and beneficial.

I moved closer to my job during the pandemic, meaning I got 25 minutes of biking every day to get to and from work (this is in a small-ish Swedish town). I also live a lot closer to just about the only workout I can tolerate: swimming.

My son goes to a preschool about 4 minutes away instead of 10 minutes in the wrong direction (meaning I had to drive 10 minutes in the wrong direction, and then 20 minutes to work).

It has made me value one thing: simplicity. For me, I lack the inner drive of some people. I NEED the simplicity of the life I have now. Especially since I am getting a new kid. I have colleagues that commute for 3h every day. For me that feels like a waste of life - but everyone is different. For them that might be the simple solution.

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.

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?

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.

May I ask, what kinds of things do you rely on to check the fulfillment / meaning box?

pyramid of maslow hierarchy of needs might be intresting for you.

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.

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

Maybe it's time to look into hopping jobs? Maybe something with better work/life balance?

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.

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.

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.

> 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.

I identify with what you say about part being personality-related.

In the past I once did an ACT therapy. It was focused on making me experience (feeling my body's response, not experiencing intellectually) the difference between different approaches to work and dealing with problems (of whatever kind).

Through it I've learnt to gauge my bodies response better, which helps with "emptying the bucket prematurely" when it comes to stress-buildup. Often the signs are there in early stages, but you're not yet aware of them.

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.

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.

Join a fitness group, martial arts etc (I recommend muay thai, brazillian jiujitsu). You get the physical activity, learning of an art, and socialisation.

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.

> 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.

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.

Absolutely. My dad's a psychoanalyst, and he's always emphasised to all of us that - if you see a therapist - you're not evaluating them as a person or as a professional, you're evaluating the 'spark' between you and them. It's not an indication of fault on either part if it doesn't work out.

+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.

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=...

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

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?

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.

I’ve found what makes me happy. The issue is that it is not something I can get out of work or a business.

As a smaller example. I know we were all lied to that you just need to find what you love and then do that as a job. For me it just killed the enjoyment for one of my passions for years (video games). I enjoy them so much more since moving to general web dev.

I also used to love programming but 14 years of doing it as a day job has sucked most of the enjoyment out of it. Now it’s just a great career which is not too bad of an outcome.

> 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.

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.

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.

You might be able to make your point in a less antagonistic way..

Agreed. My bad. Coming up without a formal degree, a title felt important for me to get a foot in the door where I could then prove I can code. I got defensive.

That’s fair. I’m speaking as someone who has been in industry for 17 years now. Of course I can say things like that.

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.

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!

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.

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.

Exactly.

I’ve lost my source, but teachers had the highest job satisfaction of any job in the US when surveyed at a random point in the middle of the day (they rated it lowly overall due to low pay, but during an average day at 2pm they were enjoying themselves)

Nurses hated their job.

I agree. It's those two missions that I've found consistently compelling oer the 35 years I've been a pro. Both missions focus your attention away from distractions like climbing ladders to nowhere and the many subterfuges intended to that end.

Thus far, I've spent more effort on helping than hewing. But if I were to do it again I'd invest more effort in creating, either as part of my job or as an endeavor aside. There's something timeless and satisfying about immersing the self in invention and elbow grease.

Someone on HN recommended taking a Sparketype career test, which broadly categorizes people into the two groups you mentioned.

I found it to be helpful, and OP may find value as well…

Welcome to the thirties, I am in my late thirties, and recently I retired after 14 years of short career.

Here is what I think, Pretty much what you explained, is some what on the lines of burn out and mid life career crises. It happens, our priorities does not remain same as it was when we were 20 or 25. Over the time, priorities changes, definition of happiness changes, and I believe you are in that changing phase.

In my short career of 14 years, I worked with many startups and did two- three of my own also, and It takes a toll on our mental health and life. Throughout these 14 years, I could not gain even a single KG of weight, and since I took retirement, I gained 5 KG (I was underweight), My quality of sleep has improved a lot.

Mind needs a break, it needs some healthy exercises, one of the ways to do is to indulge in creating activities like art, helping out at an NGO, spending time in activities which means nothing like binge watching etc. Spending time with family, kids also add to the happiness quotient. Instead of 5 days a week, working only 4 days a week and spending rest of the time in other things usually calm down the mind and help to relax, Most significantly keeping the work in the work time frame i.e. 9 to 5.

I always wonder about one thing, why do we keep on running, running behind promotions, running behind money, running behind almost everything except the small things which brings happiness.

Evaluate your priorities once, may be re-prioritising the things will bring change.

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.

Is this post-retirement? Or do you have other sources of income? Either way, I respect the hell out of that move.

Do you mind expanding on that a little bit? How did that come to be?

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.

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.

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.

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.

How do you accomplish that? Does your manager just don't care about you? Do you work for yourself? Are you retired?

I'm a freelancer.

That sounds like the advice is basically to be rich and go into semi-retirement. Not sure how generally applicable that is.

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.

I don't know either.

I did it mostly by lowering my costs of living.

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.

Could you elaborate more please? This sounds idyllic, but without any context or details, this doesn't sound realistic (or useful) considering OP's question.

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.

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.

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.

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/2021/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.

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.

"Please Don't Give Up On Having Kids Because Of Climate Change" https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/please-dont-give-up-on...

It's not just climate change. It's humanity's collective decision to walk into the abyss.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5AoMNF7dnE

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/please-dont-give-up-on...

There are plenty of parentless children available for adoption. Save them first.

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".

Well said. How do we know what happiness feels like unless we have experienced unhappiness? This doesn't answer OPs question, but it is still worth thinking about.

“Meaning” ends up being empty too.

In truth there is no lasting meaning. Eventually the Earth and the solar system will end, followed by the galaxy, followed by every star.

Shoot for contentedness instead. Enjoy the life you’ve been given for it’s own sake and without preconditions.

> “Meaning” ends up being empty too.

Not really. Meaning can change in scope at a moment's notice. We are the only creatures on earth that I can think of with the "divine power" to add or remove "meaning". We should exercise this power as best as we can.

> In truth there is no lasting meaning. Eventually the Earth and the solar system will end, followed by the galaxy, followed by every star.

One could argue that enriching the human race with books, speeches, youtube videos, cooking or code for 1.5k years is "enough". You said "contentedness" is key, so there you go. Or one could hope that our species alongside a world-wide library on a usb-stick could embark on a trip go a galaxy far-far away a-la "Space Cowboy" or "Foundation".

s/happiness/meaning

end up in the same boat

Quoting F.N. “If you know the why, you can live any how.”. Meaning in the _why_. There's no guarantee or expectation of happiness.

> Being happy is easy but transient (e.g. eating ice-cream can make someone happy).

Are you sure you're not confusing happiness with pleasure?

Yes, pretty much. Feel free to expand though. I enjoy these kind of conversations and there's always the possibility I might got this whole thing wrong.

My insight comes straight from the Dalai Lama's book "The Art of Happiness".

He explains that often people mistake please for happiness, so he suggests that you contrast the two by asking yourself: "Will this bring me happiness or pleasure?"

Happiness as described in the book is much closer to contentment in my opinion. The best I can describe it is the deep contentment after helping someone, resting after having done a good job or finding beauty in seemingly ordinary things.

To me, it appears to be less dependent on external circumstances, and more dependent on a state of mind. It appears to be less fleeting and less addictive. The mind becomes more still because of it, whereas the mind tends to be come addicted to pleasure.

Happiness appears to find you, whereas the mind endlessly chases pleasure.

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.

Thanks for posting this Chris, I've always wondered this about people in your position who could arguably get top positions at any top tech company of choice but choose to work on teaching instead. I can't tell you how much I appreciate objc.io, I still go back the issues from 2013-2015 for reference. Keep up the good work!

Thank you! Yeah I really do enjoy my work. I’m not sure what it’d be like working in such a position, and I'm not sure I’d be good at it :).

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.

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.

+1 for physical exercize. So important to happiness and mental health for people with jobs that involve sitting down all day.

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.

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).

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.

> 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.

> 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.

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).

> 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.

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.

There are some really nice gyms out there that are almost like spas. You don’t have to go and work out like an animal every day. Sometimes I’ll go and do a light workout, maybe swim, and then soak in a hot tub.

Some days I’ll run in the woods near my home but that’s not so enjoyable in the winter.

That does sound very nice actually! I should look out for one of those, might actually be something :)

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.

Standard gym is quite boring for me. I'd suggest martial arts-muay thai, brazillian jiu-jitsu etc.

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.

any tips on how to find part time work?

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.

The idea has crossed my mind before, so I'm quite interested to find someone doing it. What line of work are you in?

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.

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"?

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.

Look for European companies, they tend to be more flexible about that.

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.

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.

This is so true. No way my mechanic or the electrician don't make much more than me.

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.

> 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.

Why?

Not a big deal, but I regretted oversharing with people who later became my manager or with whom I had conflicts over work related matters. I can't say it ever became an issue, but it could have been.

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.

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...

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

Those all sound pretty difficult to fine with 1 being the easiest and 2 being the hard.

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.

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.

I think the key for me is working for good people. They're "hard" bosses, but equitable.

The second is to find purpose. AvE, a hilariously non-PC Canadian youtuber, actually has quite a deep video on this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7RgtMGL7CA&t

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.

I found a company where the people are lovely, it's pretty small (45 people) and we make enough money to pay everyone and give raises. The leadership don't force you to eat shit and they actively back you up when you need help, advice, or the client needs a reality check.

I've never been happier and I'd stay even if my pay stagnates.

I don't know where you live, what your budget is, or whether it's an option but if it is - try going part time for a bit. It opens up time for other things in a really significant way and almost forces your job to be relegated to "just a job". The simple act of "sorry I can't make that meeting, it's my day off" can push you do spend that time on something meaningful and put up healthy mental barriers around work.

It may not be something you want to maintain forever, but dropping down to 3-4 days a week for a year or so can be super refreshing.

In fact just starting to say things like “sorry I can't make that meeting, it's my day off” or “it’s my off time” even in a full time job can make your life so much better. Or at least make you leave that job if that’s met with resistance.

Most of the time and I mean most of the time people add you to odd hour work or more work because you don’t say no.

The open secret to fulfillment and happiness is to help other people.

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.

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.

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

A related question: what type of software engineering work is the most relaxed? So far I have only worked in live services and while I don't feel overworked, I often have background anxiety that I will break something and cause a huge impact. Are there any product areas found at FAANGs that don't cause this anxiety?

Corporate, project and product based work. I was used to working slowly, lots of testing involved etc. No real stressful deadlines. (UK based).

I'm very satisfied not working for software companies. My clients businesses revolve around real estate, transportation, manufacturing, etc. For them, software is a tool, not a product. Apart from stuff you mentioned, such as relaxed deadlines, it's also much more interesting for me.

When I was working for software companies, understanding the core business of our clients wasn't really that important, at least not at my position - just bunch of APIs around RDBMS, that sort of stuff.

Now I get to talk to end users and they get to talk to me, resulting in me learning a lot of stuff completely unrelated to software development (which is often exciting) and them getting something they actually want.

Also, for some reason, SCRUM was very stressful for me. No matter the actual deadlines, the everyday standups, all the organizational meetings and constant surveillance made me think that all the issues are urgent, which was rarely the case.

Work contract.

You can pick and choose the projects you want to work on.

You are paid day rate and much higher than permanent staff.

You can choose when to work. Spend the free time working on other things or travelling, relaxing.

Much higher levels of independence and freedom.

I spent a decade contracting and it was fantastic. I had the best life-work balance out of any one I know.

How did you find contracts? And any advice for someone looking to get started without much of a network

Initially CV sites, spam it out. Then linkedin-there are millions of recruiters on there it's crazy, feels like my network is over 50% recruiters. The more you connect the more jobs you will get spammed, then just set up filters on your email, ignore most things select what you want. Some websites like indeed.co.uk let you filter for contract work.

Add your profile to decent job sites, HN jobs, stackoverflow etc. Make sure you have an attractive profile or cv. Once you get a contract or connect with recruiters it's pretty easy the jobs just come to you. As you build a real network over the years friends and ex contacts can help.

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. ”

If you have not already done so, consider orienting your work and home location such that you can walk or bike to work, or have a very short commute.

There are several studies that suggest long commutes are terrible for your health and happiness.

> A Swedish study found that people who endure more than a 45-minute commute were 40% more likely to divorce.

> Stutzer and Frey found that a person with a one-hour commute has to earn 40% more money to be as satisfied with life as someone who walks to the office.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/nov/01/secrets-worl...

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.

> 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.

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.

At one point my life turned upside down, imposter syndrome wasn't bearable anymore and trying to find motivation again directly pulled me into burnout.

I was working with a super small team, in my favourite coding languages, was earning really well, very low stress on job and I never witnessed a better company culture. It didn't help.

I quit everything and went travelling, I learned that making some money as a coder is kinda easy so I just did just enough of that to have food and some luxury on the table.

Over time I would just invest more and more time into things I care most about and managed to earn more and more money with it.

It took a while but today I work when I want to and earn enough to don't worry and be able to execute new ideas whenever I want. This is where I found happiness in my life. Less in form of being happy all day, but rather so low stress that I enjoy every moment. May I start farming this spring? Because why not :)

That said my partner isn't there (yet?) She needs validation for her doings, for her low stress means high security also in forms of income. Everyone is different I guess

Edit:// I still code, sometimes sell what I created. But I don't code for others anymore.

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.

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.

I have had to make these choice(s) before. Here are some of my thoughts:

Do what make you happy. A caustic workplace is not worth it. The levels at work to me are meaningless. Don't worry what other people think.

Your health (physical and mental) & happiness is priority 1. You can always save money and work with it intelligently - if you need help -- get an investment advisor.

Stress and being sedentary are two different things. Getting out of being sedentary does reduce the stress. Walking is a great way to start and it is often underrated. Have the implicit belief that it does.

Stress and anxiety is complicated. Different people (genetics etc.) react to stress and pressure in different ways. I would seek out a therapist who can help you on this.

Remember -- we are in a pandemic -- so it all adds up

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.

Health becomes more important as you get older. Start investing now and it will compound.

I like to walk/hike before work each day. I think this helps with circulation and thinking.

Intermittent fasting is something I have also been applying. I managed to lose a little weight.

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

Then again, when you live near Russia, it's a constant stress. So the last thing I'm worried about is my job haha

One thing I've noticed about these quandaries: there's very little consideration for what one owes their society. Doing something in service to others may not bring an immediate 'happiness' but if you're looking for satisfaction in life, it's worth including in the balance equation.

And perhaps that's what the work you're doing can provide, if viewed from that perspective. Too many people seem to just automatically view work as soulless BS, to which I might suggest those people are simply in the wrong career.

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.

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).

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-1ee0-000...

Edit: typo

My answer might be the opposite of what's expected, but I realized what I wanted was not actually to just coast on something easy and found my way into a more engaging and challenging environment. No, I don't want to put in a gazillion hours, but I also don't want to essentially watch a clock for 40 hours a week.

And I'd be remiss if I didn't say, my wife did a lot of the work on this realization. Always good to have someone you can talk to.

My context: 49y/o. Salary: we have a 2-person husband/wife micro-business so "it's complicated" but I pay us £5k 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 £150k-£1m++ 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.

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.

Hey, glad my ramblings were of some use! Sounds like you're making a move that makes sense. We loved London when we were there but for family I think there are better places...

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.

I'm OK with not being in career heaven, so long as I'm not in career hell.

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.

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.

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.

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

I am trying to optimize for what I want to do in these eight hours of work. I mostly want to lead a technical front end team, have most of the "dirty" work done by lower grade engineers and be able to focus on a mixture of harder work, refactors, texting while trying to give my engineers one day a week for experimenting or studying.

This is what I can consider fun and engaging.

I think that happiness is the feeling of progress toward a goal.

we need a goal + we need progress.

One you attain a goal, the whole reward system collapse and you need something else.

People used to have religion and have ultimate unattainable goal (be the best version of themselves) so they always had something to work toward.

I think that we need something similar at this point, a hero’s journey that is worthwhile.

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.

Find a language you LOVE. To not mince words I mean something like APL, Haskell, F#, prolog, LISP etc. Life is too short to live in a state of tolerance of your language. Finding a place that will employ you using LOVE language is the next step towards happiness optimization. Note this does not preclude a startup!

Have a sense of who you want to become, your values, what you aspire to be. Make decisions that bring you closer to that identity, instead of closer to more money or status.

Also, pick jobs that have some mission focus. Jobs where people are attracted by money only can result in toxic cultures (at my least so far in my career).

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.

Wanted to add a different thought on this topic. I started working for a mental health company this year that practices what they preach and it seems like something you might look into. Everyone odds always talking about mental health and psychology which is helpful and fascinating.

Read some good classics regarding Buddhist perspective of happiness. For instance, https://www.amazon.com/Joy-Living-Unlocking-Science-Happines...

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.

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.

Are you trying to optimise for your own satisfaction, or sacrifically trying to serve and love your neighbour more than yourself?

The most satisfying times for me are when I'm part of a solution that helps someone, even if it's painful - it's for a good cause.

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.

> 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?

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.

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.

Do things you enjoy, automate or delegate things you don't enjoy.

I highly recommend watching this video by fasterthanlime:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52pdPQHDKho

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.

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

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!

It’s not hard. Just interview around in higher pay locations. I’m not even that good and I’m at 140k now for Java

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...

I'm sorry OP nothing to advice your becasue of lack of experience, but can you please share your? What tech stack do you work with?

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...

What made me happy is more money. The more I have, the more security (for the future) I could provide to my family.

I go for a run everyday after work. When it is raining or too cold I do 15-20 minutes weight training at home.

It really sounds like you don't know what would fulfill you, especially outside the context of a job. For me, that was a sign that I hadn't experienced or done enough different things to know what was missing from my life.

After my first startup job flamed out after going through several different roles and having similar feelings about feeling unfulfilled, I left, spent some of my savings _not_ working, and tried out tasks (some for myself, some for others; some paid, some not) in other fields that I thought I'd enjoy. When I hit on one, I pursued it as a career, at least briefly.

The end result wasn't me landing on my dream job, though over time I did apply and even get an offer for a couple, neither of which fully worked out either. What I learned was that a job in the definition of having a time when you come in and a time when you leave, a boss, a salary, benefits, none of that was fulfilling as a structure for my life.

Unfortunately, from where I'm born and live, and circumstances and consequences of my life, it's more difficult and expensive for me to live in a place where it's feasible ot escape that structure and survive. I make up for it by, unfortunately, working more — but by doing things I enjoy, for others, outside of that structure. I do those things on weekends or by taking PTO or even unpaid leaves to do it while retaining work that I don't love, but at least makes sure I can continue doing what I do if I get sick or need to support someone else.

I don't want to get into what that special fulfilling work is to me, because one thing I've learned about career advice is that each person's dream of labor is at some level nobody else's dream. And I want to emphasize that this is what worked FOR ME; some people ARE fulfilled by the structure, but not their tasks in it; some people aren't fulfilled by labor at all, and won't feel genuine fulfillment until they are no longer required to work. Even in my case, some people are fulfilled by freelance work where the structure is designed by you, others by entrepreneurship where your structure has to constantly adapt, others even by gig work some people consider to be too menial to justify any structure.

So for a "path more equilibrated and focused on happiness I should follow", to me at least, it's something that each person has to discover, and that it takes resources and privileges not everyone can afford. If you can, it also requires time and a willingness to be without a compass, a manager, or even any specific direction while you experience new things, meet new people, and learn about new opportunities and forms of creativity until you come across something that ignites that fulfillment in you.

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.

It is a curse of human condition. Never feeling 100% satisfied for any longer period of time

Is it really a curse? It is the motivation that drives you to change and become better after all.

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.

Better? Or different?

Buddha wants to know your location.

Get to a place where you have to work as little as possible, but do it honestly.

Easy.

Maximise salary. Minimise work.

We all die in the end, no one ever wishes they worked longer or harder.

Had this problem. Started hitting the gym daily. Fixed it.

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.

> 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)

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.

> 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

Do a small research project first to get the taste of it and see how you go. One option is a masters by research; another is an honours degree (this is something we have in Australia and at least in CS includes a research project, not sure about other countries).

You mentioned in another comment you're about to start an undergrad degree. I'd recommend getting to know some professors early on and letting them know of your intentions; they'll be able to give you guidance and maybe give you some exposure to an existing research project their group is working on.

Also a "substantial original contribution to knowledge in your field" isn't as big as it sounds. See https://matt.might.net/articles/phd-school-in-pictures/

People chase a higher salary so that the work they do now through clenched teeth will seem worthwhile one day. So what's the solution for those people? They need to make sure today is good. Not tomorrow.

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