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Ask HN: How to optimize your career for happiness?

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Re: Ask HN: How to optimize your career for happiness?

#161

Post by enobrev »

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.

Re: Ask HN: How to optimize your career for happiness?

#162

Post by helpfulmandrill »

thanatos519 wrote: post #35

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...

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.

Re: Ask HN: How to optimize your career for happiness?

#163

Post by smusamashah »

suriyaG wrote: post #86
mattgreenrocks wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 y…

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.

Re: Ask HN: How to optimize your career for happiness?

#164

Post by stayux »

Mariehane wrote: post #125
stayux wrote: post #60

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 m…

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.

Re: Ask HN: How to optimize your career for happiness?

#167

Post by NDizzle »

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.

Re: Ask HN: How to optimize your career for happiness?

#168

Post by yodsanklai »

enobrev wrote: post #161

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 t…

> 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.

Re: Ask HN: How to optimize your career for happiness?

#169

Post by knuthsat »

jen729w wrote: post #130
bitlax wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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.

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.

Re: Ask HN: How to optimize your career for happiness?

#170

Post by bluishgreen »

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.
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