How can I create an Impact in the world when all I know is how to make software? | Hacker News Reader

How can I create an Impact in the world when all I know is how to make software?

9 pointsAdityaSanthosh7 comments

Background: I am 22. I am backend dev working in a massively growing fintech in India. And my salary is quite decent. I like to solve codeforces problems, play Video Games. I got great applauses at my work for my performance and business impact(i automated something business critical).

But I have this feeling inside me that I am not doing anything useful to the world. These ecommerce, fintech, Data Engineering, Analytics etcetc though i like them, i feel like i am not doing useful things unlike a doctor, scientist. I am interested in Space, BioInformatics for a long time. I explored a few Open Source Science Software to contribute to, but it seems like most of the algorithms are implemented by the people who knew physics and math stuff. I feel like apart from making good software, i do not have any other skills in any other domain like science.

My family is not yet financially stable and i cannot afford to lose my job and do masters in aerospace engineering or start a startup. Maybe I can startup, maybe i can succeed. I dont know. The worst part is that i do not have american Visa which disqualifies me to work for many interesting startups in US. But I am looking for inspiration. I want to be rich but i am not that interested in money. I just want to do something important and be at peace and not overthink like this.

Any advice people?

I am 51 and have learned that peace does not come from our work alone. I believe our lives are about family, community, work and worship. For me worship is in the context of being a Christian and following the teachings of Jesus.

Whatever your religious background I would suggest not placing all your hopes in your work. If you do you will measure success in monetary terms. It can be surprising after spending a lifetime making yourself financially secure you can still be left wondering, "what next?".

Enjoy your work and your family. Try not to compare yourself to others so much and this will help with the overthinking.

Do you have to be useful? Figure out how to be happy, and be a good person, a good happy version of you first, then you will naturally be useful to the people closest to you, and to yourself, and that is a very good thing.

So much of society pushes us to be "useful", and in fact we are (most of us) dutifully join the march through the education system and into the workforce, allowing the system to fill us with information that it deems useful for its own perpetuation. So you are already playing a "useful part" from the point of the system in which you came up.

Given that, sounds like you are really more asking about "significance". How can you do something "significant". What is significant for you? That's what matters. There's always millions of super critical and significant problems in the world that you could solve: only matters is what ones do you care about yourself. If you don't care about it, you probably cannot really have an impact in significant way.

So I guess you have to maybe find out what you really care about first. Then the answer may seem natural to you about what to do. How can you find this? I guess, get more life experience and try many things, and reflect on your experiences, thoughts and feelings to know yourself better, and to know the world better: then you can make better choices for you in it. :)

But if just not overthink, disconnect from your own mental and emotional drama. Do meditation and yoga. Let your life be happy. Watch some Sadhguru videos on youtube. You can probably not figure things out when your mind is racing in this kind of way.

You can't change the world alone unless you are Steve Jobs. But you can do your share.

What I do is I develop small parts of the software for our (Ukrainian) drones that are used to combat the russian army.

Wow. That sounds cool. I wish i can do that too but probably regulations right.

This is quite an amateur approach, but it's winning. No regulations necessary, it's just a UAV with cameras.

On the topic of obtaining a science background, you can try working through/skimming some textbooks regarding the topics that interest you.

i mean, that's actually a lot more praise worthy than accidentally killing a patient or exploding yourself in a chemistry lab.

if your web app is so efficient it solves a handful of their problems effectively in a timely manner, you are giving other people more time to allot on their hobbies passions friends families and lovers. that alone is impact itself.

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