I have worked in many different fields(web dev, analytics, product management) but can't seem to stick to one. Is it about the field or something about myself that I need to change? How do I go about solving this??
Ask HN: Have you found something you love to do? If yes how?
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Re: Ask HN: Have you found something you love to do? If yes how?
#2Not sure it will "solve it"... yet following Adam's (Douglas?) suggestion to become top-25% in three fields.
Then merge those fields.
That has worked awesome for me. I merged technolgy (software dev/sys adm) with motor sports and with management. Love it so far. Good luck and Merry Christmas!!
Re: Ask HN: Have you found something you love to do? If yes how?
#3First, be wary of general advice.
That said, do you find yourself spending most your time making or consuming? At some point I just started making stuff for the majority of my time and this was a tipping point for starting to improve my skills in particular areas and narrow my focus.
Re: Ask HN: Have you found something you love to do? If yes how?
#4Not sure it will "solve it"... yet following Adam's (Douglas?) suggestion to become top-25% in three fields. Then merge those fields. That has worked awesome for me. I merged technolgy (software dev/sys adm) with motor sports and with management. Love it so far. Good luck and Merry Christmas!!
Too bad there's no good payable intersection of software dev, video games, and three position bullseye rifle. Hah :(
Re: Ask HN: Have you found something you love to do? If yes how?
#5After 15 years as a freelance developer I’ve started a rural wireless ISP. It hasn’t entirely displaced my freelance work, but allows me to help people in a way that being a developer didn’t (tangibly, at least).
Now I install internet access for people, on infrastructure I have built, and I see how happy they are when they go from 2 to 100mbps (this is often in a field in the middle of nowhere). This means they can talk to their families, actually do the work that pays their bills, and just generally entertain themselves.
It is very rewarding. And I know all these people as they are essentially my neighbours.
Re: Ask HN: Have you found something you love to do? If yes how?
#6It’s very hard to answer for you because it’s likely about personal growth and realisation more than anything else. But I can tell you what I did, or rather what happened to me.
I started as a developer, because I was good, I gradually became the lead enterprise architect (I’ve never hated anything more than TOGAF by the way), and eventually “fell” into management. While doing this I rode locally fame ladder in Danish public sector digitalisation which means I’ve had a massive impact on our overall national strategy for IT architecture but like 5 people know who I am. I’m not sure I ever actually liked that work, but it was thrilling to be part of something “important”, so I felt like I liked it. Eventually I had my first child, and 9 months later I had a depression caused by stress so severe I spent a night in a psychward. Long story short I was diagnosed with ADHD at almost 40, and told that I needed to figure out how I wanted to live my life.
Turns out I like problem solving and that I hate project management. So I quit the public sector and found a job in a company where I could be a programmer again, I made sure to find a company where I wouldn’t have to deal with a whole lot of the Atlassian sort bureaucracies surrounding programming and it’s frankly been a bliss.
I’ve gone from not thinking I could ever work more than 30 hours a week until my children left our house to back to full time.
So chances are you probably already know what kind of work you like, but it’s just really hard to figure it out. One thing that I thought I would miss was feeling “important” but the truth is that I was never actually “important”. If it hadn’t been me someone else would’ve done it.
(For reference I’m Danish, having a break down here gets you 6 months sick leave with pay and costs you basically nothing out of your own pocket. This made things easier to say the least.)
Re: Ask HN: Have you found something you love to do? If yes how?
#7Not sure it will "solve it"... yet following Adam's (Douglas?) suggestion to become top-25% in three fields. Then merge those fields. That has worked awesome for me. I merged technolgy (software dev/sys adm) with motor sports and with management. Love it so far. Good luck and Merry Christmas!!
Too bad there's no good payable intersection of software dev, video games, and three position bullseye rifle. Hah :(
Sounds like VR is the answer!
Re: Ask HN: Have you found something you love to do? If yes how?
#8Love to do? No. But I’ve found some things I’m good at that are useful and I don’t seem to get sick of, and after that what seems to matter more is the people you work with.
Ultimately even if you like a job it’s still a job, and the widely promoted notion of passion rarely holds up.
Re: Ask HN: Have you found something you love to do? If yes how?
#9What do you do for fun? Any hobbies?
Re: Ask HN: Have you found something you love to do? If yes how?
#10After 15 years as a freelance developer I’ve started a rural wireless ISP. It hasn’t entirely displaced my freelance work, but allows me to help people in a way that being a developer didn’t (tangibly, at least). Now I install internet access for people, on infrastructure I have built, and I see how happy they are when they go from 2 to 100mbps (this is often in a field in the middle of nowhere). This means they can…
What an awesome and fascinating thing you're doing! Could you possibly explain at a high level what you had to do to start the ISP and make it accessible in these areas?