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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?

#221

Post by [deleted] »

pjerem wrote: post #192
chronofar wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 fig…

> 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.…

[deleted]

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

#222

Post by tmaly »

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.

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

#223

Post by filoleg »

suriyaG wrote: post #99
huijzer wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

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

#224

Post by iamthepieman »

idrios wrote: post #186
beaker52 wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. I…

> 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.

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

#225

Post by sjtindell »

akdor1154 wrote: post #177
sjtindell wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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

#226

Post by toddm »

beaker52 wrote: post #176
toddm wrote: post #111

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 c…

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. I…

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.

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

#227

Post by ashwinipatankar »

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.

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

#228

Post by splittingTimes »

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...

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.

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

#229

Post by epolanski »

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.

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

#230

Post by epolanski »

brailsafe wrote: post #185

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 do…

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