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Ask HN: What should I do when I'm bored with my career?

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Re: Ask HN: What should I do when I'm bored with my career?

#31

Post by GuiA »

phkahler wrote: post #24

You may want to change your attitude toward work. There's a reason it's called "work" and not playtime. There's a reason they pay you to do it. I like to think about the guy stuck in a shit town, working in a coal mine. Maybe they all drink themselves to oblivion and I'm delusional, but I envision at least some of them this way: Guy goes down there and busts his ass all day in the dark, getting dirty as fuck, probabl…

While it might feel good to admonish people and tell them that they have to get tough and suck it up and pull themselves by their bootstraps, it typically does not do anything to help them; particularly if they are taking the initiative to ask for help in the first place.

OP more likely than not realizes that they are in a situation of privilege compared to someone working in the mines to sustain their family; if they are posting here, then clearly that insight alone has not sufficed to help them deal with what they are feeling.

All we know from OP is 3 paragraphs of text they wrote, asking for help; telling them to stop “acting like an entitled little child” is downright rude and not what HN is about.

Re: Ask HN: What should I do when I'm bored with my career?

#33

Post by mapcars »

SheinhardtWigCo wrote: post #21
mapcars wrote: post #19

Boredom is caused by a lack of attention. You can change your activity as much as you want but after some time it will become boring again. The only solution is to realize the scale of this Grand Happening which we call as life or existence. That every day comes fresh and new, not a single atom is the same as it was a moment ago. But if you don't have this much attention it feels "the same", "boring". And it's not ab…

> That every day comes fresh and new, not a single atom is the same as it was a moment ago. So what? What difference does that make to OP?

It should show him that the world is alright and he should focus on developing his sense of attention, not changing the activity (which is just temporary "workaround").

Re: Ask HN: What should I do when I'm bored with my career?

#34

Post by westonplatter0 »

smoqadam wrote: post #25
fecak wrote: post #14

I do career consulting (and resume writing) mostly for clients from tech. I think some arrangement where you had multiple forms of income (or potential income) might be a good solution for you. What might that look like? - Freelance software development - This would give you some control over what types of projects you work on, and you could focus on areas that really interest you. Maybe it would be projects that ena…

interesting about writing, could you please mention some of the tech sites that pay money for content?

digitalocean.com, and other nich tech websites. it usually helps to have a couple example essays/posts before asking to be paid for content.

Re: Ask HN: What should I do when I'm bored with my career?

#35

Post by mapcars »

dagoat wrote: post #22
mapcars wrote: post #19

Boredom is caused by a lack of attention. You can change your activity as much as you want but after some time it will become boring again. The only solution is to realize the scale of this Grand Happening which we call as life or existence. That every day comes fresh and new, not a single atom is the same as it was a moment ago. But if you don't have this much attention it feels "the same", "boring". And it's not ab…

Not sure if trolling. But unless you elaborate, very few people are going to read this and comprehend what you are on about

He asked a question, I gave my best answer. Whether it will work for him or anybody is not in my control. If you have any specific questions - ask.

Re: Ask HN: What should I do when I'm bored with my career?

#36

Post by barry0079 »

mapcars wrote: post #19

Boredom is caused by a lack of attention. You can change your activity as much as you want but after some time it will become boring again. The only solution is to realize the scale of this Grand Happening which we call as life or existence. That every day comes fresh and new, not a single atom is the same as it was a moment ago. But if you don't have this much attention it feels "the same", "boring". And it's not ab…

I'd love it if you could share some more information or materials on this. It's something I've been trying to comprehend and understand in my own way.

Re: Ask HN: What should I do when I'm bored with my career?

#37

Post by awinder »

phkahler wrote: post #24

You may want to change your attitude toward work. There's a reason it's called "work" and not playtime. There's a reason they pay you to do it. I like to think about the guy stuck in a shit town, working in a coal mine. Maybe they all drink themselves to oblivion and I'm delusional, but I envision at least some of them this way: Guy goes down there and busts his ass all day in the dark, getting dirty as fuck, probabl…

Although there’s a certain segment who would/could react positively to that kind of approach in the second half, I’d just caution anyone reading who finds it demotivating to not get down on yourself about it. I’d personally offer two observations:

1. At micro, any job will have good times and bad times. Times when you’re super engaged and times when you’re slogging through it. Try to push through a bad time, there’s a feeling of accomplishment in coming over the hump. Try to find change when the hump is insurmountable over a long period with no chance of change.

2. At macro, everything in life is like this too. Some periods will just be about showing up, and that’s okay. Showing up is something you can build on. If all you’re doing is showing up and it ends up not being a period but a new normal, seek change.

Entitlement has become this derogatory term over the last several decades, but every person is entitled to pursuing greater levels of happiness. Good on you for not settling.

Re: Ask HN: What should I do when I'm bored with my career?

#38

Post by andersonmvd »

People used to say that opportunity is everywhere, you just need to pay attention. Fun is the same thing.

Some things that make every day fun

- trying to know for who you are building your software for, talk to this end user, get to know how useful (or useless) your construction is actually solving something or not. I'm 100% sure that if you see many people using and feeling thankful from what you made, that would make you feel great. Nothing less!

- improving the environment of your company. Look, everyone has a big problem. They are also coming to work with some problem on the back of their heads. If we could just light this a bit, it is immensely rewarding. We're going to die anyway, so why not make our existence a noble one? :D

- find a topic that you like and present it to your boss, try to find together a way to combine both. He may have some idea, or the boss of your boss. Everyone wins when you are motivated

- plan your big escape: if your goal is to only study, consider making some money, moving to a cheap place (Thailand?), and with a leeway for a few years, you can try to experiment some ideas. Why not put some courses on udemy for example? Teach all you could, in the best way possible and learn how to promote what you do

Have fun!

Re: Ask HN: What should I do when I'm bored with my career?

#39

Post by Insanity »

smoqadam wrote: post #25
fecak wrote: post #14

I do career consulting (and resume writing) mostly for clients from tech. I think some arrangement where you had multiple forms of income (or potential income) might be a good solution for you. What might that look like? - Freelance software development - This would give you some control over what types of projects you work on, and you could focus on areas that really interest you. Maybe it would be projects that ena…

interesting about writing, could you please mention some of the tech sites that pay money for content?

Auth0 at least used to pay for blog content.

I am not sure if they still do that though - last time I did that was about 2 years ago.

I wrote about their tech and how to integrate it in a different stack. I believe they paid about 200 USD for it.

I'd look it up but I am on mobile atm so it's not convenient. Might be worth to look up their website if it interests you.

Re: Ask HN: What should I do when I'm bored with my career?

#40

Post by deepaksurti »

Most of us , whether we realise it or agree or not, work for income which in turn allows us to work on more interesting things. Some may save up some money which lasts for a duration and go do the interesting things. You are doing it right!

However what will help is doing it differently. Can you do time blocking? I assume that while you are doing interesting things at work, no one notices or cares. That is a great job! So why not block your 1st half to do the necessary boring work, and the second half the interesting work. Win Win! I agree this may need some discipline but think of it as a daily ritual! Btw, many greats [1] have had rituals like this, so who knows? :-)

The other aspect you might be missing is 'when interesting things turn boring'. Usually that happens when you want to ship the product and you hit the long tail of shipping. Try replacing 'doing interesting' vs 'doing interesting and shipping'. But we don't want to give up the idea of doing only interesting? That happens when you can work through the boring parts of shipping an interesting piece of work. Keep trying and you will find it, then find a job in that domain or do your startup in that domain and you are set. I realised 3D graphics was my calling the same way, so I am saying from experience.

[1] : https://www.amazon.com/Daily-Rituals-How-Artists-Work/dp/030...

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