Why I Quit Tech and Became a Therapist
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Why I Quit Tech and Became a Therapist
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Re: Why I Quit Tech and Became a Therapist
#2Correction: "Decided to become a therapist".
>Shortly after beginning my Hakomi training, I applied and was accepted to the professional mental health counseling masters program at Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where I'm studying and training through 2020 to get my licensure.
Going through schooling is not the same as becoming something. The title implies that there was success found here, but so far it's just aspirations.
Re: Why I Quit Tech and Became a Therapist
#3And from the other side of the aisle, "Why I Quit Being a Therapist":
Re: Why I Quit Tech and Became a Therapist
#4I knew there would be some relation with drugs in the text.
People who think psychedelic drugs (even Cannabis) are just about 'having fun' or 'getting high' are skipping past the biggest ability these compounds have: to make you change some already hardcoded aspects of your life.
Someone who isn't me started working out and eating properly after having an epiphany on cannabis which prompted him to openly evaluate his relationship with food. After seeing truly how he ate, it disgusted him. This person is now 50kg slimmer and away from obesity BMI.
Re: Why I Quit Tech and Became a Therapist
#5Wow! Can I ever see some parallels with the inverse correlation of my own inward search for meaning and my lack of contentment with life.
They say that happiness is found within, but the more time I spend looking inward, the more and more sure I become that it's not.
Happiness, at least for me, is found in friendships and relationships, in human connection. The search inward may lead to many profound and philosophical insights, but so far, happiness has not been one of them.
Re: Why I Quit Tech and Became a Therapist
#6I knew there would be some relation with drugs in the text. People who think psychedelic drugs (even Cannabis) are just about 'having fun' or 'getting high' are skipping past the biggest ability these compounds have: to make you change some already hardcoded aspects of your life. Someone who isn't me started working out and eating properly after having an epiphany on cannabis which prompted him to openly evaluate his…
Please congratulate that person on my behalf. Even though it may be the result of an epiphany, self-restraint is still hard to achieve and a noble goal in itself :-)
Re: Why I Quit Tech and Became a Therapist
#7I'm so jealous he got to work with Bret Victor on Dynamicland! (in a positive sense, I suppose envious is a better word)
I've met 2 types of computer science students at uni: (1) the ones that love programming and love the mechanics of it. (2) The ones that love making music or similar forms of media.
The reason the second type gets into computer science is because they love media and they love it so much they're willing to go through the ordeal of learning how to program in order to create it. In my experience, I like programming, but I love the end to end process of empathizing with the user, designing the media/app and then implementing it.
It is these people that I call "Bret Victor" type of people. I'm one of them.
I am absolutely jealous. If anyone knows "Bret Victor" type of workplaces, let me know.
Re: Why I Quit Tech and Became a Therapist
#8I have an MSW and quit therapy (though to be fair I was mostly doing policy-level and community-level work, not individual counseling type work) to become a programmer, but occasionally I think about going back. Good read, thanks!
I definitely think nearly anyone could benefit from therapy (and a lot of people could benefit from a few strong psychedelic sessions where they are willing to ask themselves what they really want to do with this one precious and fleeting lifetime) and I applaud the courage it takes to listen deeply to oneself and strike out on that path.
We could for sure benefit from a lot more humans asking deeply and honestly "Does this make me deeply happy and what effects (if any) do I want my work to have on other people's lives?"
Re: Why I Quit Tech and Became a Therapist
#9There is a severe workplace burnout problem in IT(especially MSPs); which when not addressed grows into bigger mental health issues and even literal sicknesses.
There just isn't enough skilled IT people. The industry is immature and is bottom heavy. The top performers and seniors, are then overwhelmed with work and the business is unable to hire more senior people to reduce workload. Then the business keeps growing and eventually you get a death spiral of people quitting and making the situation worse.
>I started asking myself questions like — "Even if the projects I'm doing succeeded beyond my wildest expectations, how would it affect people?
IT is so inherently negative as well. In my last job 1 person and myself were the only people trying to stay positive. The other people in the office had succumb to the negativity and would even attack us for being 'mr happy'. They were literally so negative that they just attacked positivity.
I had places where I would go onsite to resolve an emergency. I never caused the outage, I was there to help. I would still get death threats from clients. "The accounting files are the server, if you lost them I'm going to go to your office and kill everyone." My employer wasn't even their IT, their IT person quit upon discovered 2 drives dead on the raid 5 array and no backups.
Re: Why I Quit Tech and Became a Therapist
#10Interesting.
I quit psychology/counseling and work in tech now and the thought of my work being absolutely meaningless gives me a lot of anxiety, I hope I'll come to terms with it one day.
Correction, I'm sure I'll come to terms with it but the transition is far from being smooth and takes longer than I expected.