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Ask HN: When you feel stuck in life
291–300 of 360 posts
Re: Ask HN: When you feel stuck in life
#292Welcome to your 30's. I don't mean that to be dismissive, but more to tell you that feeling the way you do is completely normal and has happened to just about everyone I know. Most of my life I felt like I was doing all the right things, but really I was following a script that society had laid out. Do well in school, get a good job, be successful, etc. Follow your dream! Achieve your goals! The problem was that thes…
Maslow's hierarchy of needs - a job fullfills the lower rungs of shelter and sustenance but does not necessarily entail the pleasure of self-actualization.
Re: Ask HN: When you feel stuck in life
#293Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is one of those puzzling comments that I can't tell if tongue-in-cheek or actually serious. I like it! Life's too serious and people need some chaotic ambiguity to spice it up. > Don't work hard. Try to reduce your productivity. Sounds good. Most people aren't as productive as they think they are, imho. I'd rather not buy into their facade and just be as productive as I need to be when I need to be! > Don't work…
> Seek to abolish the existing world order. Seems like abolishing world orders takes a lot of work. At least more than ten hours per week.
10 hours a week would be fantastic. Or any non-zero amount of time. If everyone did this it would be a revolutionary force the likes of which have not been seen in decades.
Re: Ask HN: When you feel stuck in life
#294I'm 29 years old, I come from a CS background, I'm not religious and I've felt that way as well. Like most of us here.
Watching this course has helped me a great deal: "Personality and its transformations", by Jordan B. Peterson at University of Toronto. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL22J3VaeABQAhrMCQUa6s...
Here's a TEDx talk by the same professor that can serve as a glimpse of the course: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLteWutitFM
Not all of it is as scientifically rigorous as we are probably used to, but It's plenty of valuable insights very hard to find anywhere else. I can't begin to express my gratitude to that man.
I hope you find it as useful as it was to me, and I wish you well.
Re: Ask HN: When you feel stuck in life
#295i am in your shoes - so I'm going to Guyana as a volunteer to fly an air ambulance - pretty sure that 90+ degree days, malaria, zika, piranha, sick and injured people - will all help me to feel less stuck :-)
Suriname was surprisingly good for my health, something about the air I think. Now if I could only find more people to send me on short scientific errands around the world..
Safe flying! How long are you staying?
Re: Ask HN: When you feel stuck in life
#296What ever you do, remember to eat and sleep well and exercise. You may do those already, but those are lowest building blocks of mental health and are kinda the most obvious actionable answers to your question.
Just pointing those out because they are what I neglect occasionally when feeling down and end up feeling ever more miserable.
Folllowing our intrinsic motivations is usually very pleasurable. Perhaps there is some hobby you enjoyed that you've not done in a while?
"This" is what life is - and no one owns your life except you. Dreaming of having a ferrari is a stupid dream. Rich peoples lives are potentially just as hollow as median income ones. The only thing I'm aware to bring people joy constantly is being able to follow ones intrinsic motivations. You don't need to be 'something' to be happy - just you, and being able to be you. If you feel there is nothing pleasurable in life you may have a depressive period. Usually these pass - without medication. Note: it's quite common to have a slight depressin after achieving a major life goal. After getting my MSc I felt empty and dissatified - and am quite content now.
Re: Ask HN: When you feel stuck in life
#297You aren't wrong. Most of us are stuck in conformist, drab and conservative societies, where we're forced to participate in the market economy. This is soul-crushing, and bad for nearly everyone, but especially those in poor countries. I recommend: 1. Don't work hard. Try to reduce your productivity. 2. Don't work long hours. Reduce your working week to the minimum necessary. Most university graduates earn enough to…
You aren't forced to. You could always choose to be in poverty instead, if you don't care to do produce any wealth.
If I put a gun to your head, I'm not forcing you to do anything - you can always choose the bullet.
That market economy is running only on voluntary trade is one of the biggest and weirdest misconception that's being spread. Most of the transactions we make are ones we cannot reasonably choose not to make. We can at best choose the vendor we're dealing with.
Re: Ask HN: When you feel stuck in life
#298I didn't real every comment - there are many. But here is my opinion: This is pretty common in the late 20's. Lots of changes, then suddenly, it is the same thing every day. I am about 10 years older, and my life has completely changed since then, part luck and part my own choices. My advice:
1. You aren't your job. Concentrate on something other than work. Have a truthful answer to "what do you do?" that isn't work. I'm an artist, but the pay is terrible, so I gotta make money other ways. What do you do?
2. But I understand the job has a big impact. Take an honest look. Do you actually hate the work? Is it tolerable? Stressful? Boring? Or are you simply coming to terms that your dreams that you worked towards haven't quite come? There isn't much to do about the last, but all the rest are fixable. You have a flexible degree, and you can use it in different industries. Schools, retail, and so on. If you are actually unhappy, see how far you can use that degree you have.
3. If you are in a relationship, decide if you are happy in it. If not, make changes. They don't have to be extreme changes. This might be more true if you've been in a relationship for many years, as both of you have probably changed since your early 20's.
4. If you are single or do not have children, start getting out of the house regularly. It is difficult, but worth it. This isn't bad advice with children, just harder, and possibly easier if you involve a child or children in this case.
5. If you have a weird thought that you might be depressed or anxious, get this checked. Or if this doesn't seem to lift after some time and action - or if action seems to be too much - get checked. It won't take care of your problems, but it will make it much more likely that you'll be able to take the action necessary to do them and get yourself un-stuck.
Re: Ask HN: When you feel stuck in life
#299Earlier quoted context omitted.
Employment contracts aside... Let's just ask ourselves, is having a job optional? Of course it is optional, because no one is holding a gun to your head, right? But "everybody knows" that 1. if you don't work, you'll sooner or later (perhaps sooner!) be homeless and 2. homelessness can lead to sudden, violent death. Just because the trigger and the barrel are far apart doesn't mean it isn't a gun.
I, too, hate the endless mouse wheel of employment. However, having a job is a COMPLETELY OPTIONAL choice that one makes; nothing is stopping any of us from living on a deserted island without a job. Having a job is the cost of living in society. It sucks and needs improvement, but it is not as bad as slavery where you have no choice and not much gain.
Yeah, I stopped calling it "slavery" because it tends to derail the discussion. However, if you say that slavery gives you "no choice and not much gain" then the jobs are mostly improvement in the second aspect - you still don't have a choice, but you get a bit more in return.
Re: Ask HN: When you feel stuck in life
#300Earlier quoted context omitted.
Slaves don't get to pick where they sleep, either. Thing is, neither do most people. SELECT TOP 1 job,residence FROM jobs JOIN residences WHERE jobs.pay > residences.rent ORDER BY jobs.pay DESC, residences.rent ASC it's common to add some qualifications like... AND jobs.category NOT IN ('murder','prostitution') AND residences.crime_factor ...etc. But that doesn't change the fact that LOTS of people believe in their h…
In those terms, we are enslaved by the existence of personal property. Or maybe by the existence of society, in general. Society's requirements force you into a certain set of paths. > Why exactly is it so hard to survive without a job, in 2016? Why should it not be, for a sufficiently broad definition of "job"?
Because it seems that the "survival" part could - and should - be automated away in this day and age. Just like we try and do with all the other boring stuff we don't want to do over and over and over again.