Hacker News Reader

Comment by jp57 | Hacker News Reader

It took me into my forties to realize that I needed to stop thinking about what I want to be and focus on what I want to do. Only then did I have enough perspective to understand that when I tried to make career decisions based on expectations about what it means to be in a role, it always steered me wrong.

OTOH, when I focused on doing what I wanted to do or enjoyed doing, I generally ended up both happy and successful. It has, however, led me into roles where I have a hard time explaining to people what I am, exactly.

View on HN

The roles that are hard to define are the most interesting, often to others as well. Just practice a few different responses to "so what do you do?" that come from a few different contexts. The definition of self is fully embedded in your answers.

Honest answer? I make rich people richer.

Probably best to not look at the self too much, down that way lie essays about alienation of labor.

What's awesome about tech is that the vast majority of what I'm paid to do loses rich people money. I can often even tell in advance that's what'll happen. After 20 years in this career I'm honestly not sure if the realized value of my work product is even in the black, LOL.

"I make rich people poorer" is kinda a fun reframing of "I make stuff that gets thrown away without ever doing any good."

Wow, talk about life goals! Now I'm curious! I'd love to know any specifics that you feel like sharing. As someone in the usual "make shareholders even richer" industry, I can't think of a more noble goal than actually taking the rich down a few rungs.

Startups with mediocre ideas and execution, large companies launching initiatives that are crazy-expensive and probably not helpful, agencies taking projects from those two categories.

Anything that improves normal people's lives is probably more noble than trying to take money from rich people.

I don't even try to answer that question seriously anymore.

"I run a team of hackers. Did your power go out last night for 10 minutes? That was us."

"I sell hemorrhoid cream."

"I'm a small business owner. We make teledildonics."

To this day, nobody has ever asked me what "teledildonics" is. Either they already know or they don't care.

Even to people you might want to impress?

When was the last time you can remember being impressed with somebody solely because of what they said they did for a living?

A fighter pilot.

That would strongly depend on whose side they were fighting on.

Whose planes are unimpressive to fly?

Seven months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41021527

somewhat tongue in cheek

Have you considered the risk of ending up in an hour long conversation about buttplug.io and VRChat modding?

This really resonated with me (I'm now in my 40s).

I missed out on so much because I never pushed back on management who asked me to do X, Y, or Z. "Oh, that's the priority" I'd tell myself. Nope, that was their ass getting promoted by managing a bigger team.

Repeatedly hearing "we don't do X, Y, or Z" when I saw an opportunity to innovate. Nope, that was just an uncreative bored person who didn't want to play along.

I simultaneously feel so lucky to be where I am and so absolutely frustrated at how poorly run and disorganized EVERYTHING seems to be.

I've decided in the next phase of life to kind of do like you suggest. Focus on "the doing" of something I like.

I may even have that opportunity, but my area is facing a lot of instability lately, so I hope it works out.

> It has, however, led me into roles where I have a hard time explaining to people what I am, exactly.

what about "doing what you love"? "I am doing what I love, which is X"

Reply on news.ycombinator.com