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What happens when your career becomes your whole identity

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Re: What happens when your career becomes your whole identity

#71

Post by incompleteness »

cryptica wrote: post #57
nugget wrote: post #7

In my experience extreme workaholism can often be a way to avoid or defer major life decisions that someone doesn't want to make or even consciously recognize. High status careers are often structured, full of positive feedback loops, and well compensated, all of which can strengthen the urge to defer existential questions about meaning, purpose, community, and identity until some unspecified future date, even (perha…

For me work is what I enjoy the most about life. I would do it for free - In fact I worked on open source projects for free for almost a decade. Including some successful/popular ones. That said I still feel burned out. I've come to realize that not only did the work I do for free not give me any financial advantage (which I expected), but the people who've hired me over the past few years don't seem to recognize tha…

You expect them to spontaneously have a spiritual epiphany about your "old soul"?

Please man, stand up for yourself and learn the measures of business ethics.

Re: What happens when your career becomes your whole identity

#72

Post by romanhn »

quotemstr wrote: post #30
mjr00 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This really depends on how you define success. If success means creating something unique, new, and amazing that is known and loved by millions, whether that be a company, piece of art, or scientific innovation, then yes, it's unlikely you'll get there without an enormous amount of hard work, and unlikely you'll get there even if you put in that work. If success means happily living with your partner in the suburbs o…

People born with talent have an opportunity to both themselves and the world to make use of this talent to do great things. When you replace a drive for greatness with contentment with mediocrity, you make us all worse off.

Guess what, nobody owes you, or the world at large, a thing. We only have one life and everyone's priorities are different. Want to spend your life chasing greatness? Be my guest. But if one would rather define happiness through friends and family, they have every right to do so. And plenty of people will be better off for that, themselves included.

Re: What happens when your career becomes your whole identity

#73

Post by WalterBright »

JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #31

My pursuit of financial independence consequently led to my career becoming my identity. I've optimized for raising my income and savings to reduce "time to FI", that by the time I get there -- about 4 years, give or take -- that I've become the thing I explicitly set out to remove from my life. It's not that I don't like working, but I wish to do so on my own terms. Maybe that means short-term contracts a few months…

> I've optimized for raising my income

I've had a lot of behaviors that would save money. One day I realized that the time I spent saving money was much less productive than time spent making money. I.e. by spending more time making money I had more free time.

Re: What happens when your career becomes your whole identity

#75

Post by turk73 »

momokoko wrote: post #45
samstave wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me, as I got older, lost passion for what I had been doing for 20 years - and being on the old end of the ageism-specrum-stick... it is hard to deal with. I have left 'Silicon Valley Tech' -- as I am no longer interested in any of the things I did before and seek positions which are more fulfilling in other industries and pay about 25% of what I used to make...

I am in exactly the same boat. Could not have said it better myself.

Me too, but I need help. I have been working on ideas for my "2nd career," well, really it will be my 3rd, but that's beside the point. I need a way out of tech. I have enough money already, I just need a freaking path to another kind of work. It's not been easy. It's either I do what I am doing or it's $15/hr Target cashier type of job. Not bashing the Target cashiers, just making a point.

Re: What happens when your career becomes your whole identity

#76

Post by JMTQp8lwXL »

PopeDotNinja wrote: post #68
JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$1M, or $40k annually. My rent is about half of my expenses, but I could downsize to a cheaper place and allocate the freed money for travel and leisure. I don't think I'll stop working once I reach $1M. I'd be more open to alternative work arrangements (e.g., temp contracting gigs) closer to $1.5M, to build in wiggle room. Some costs I haven't accounted for (currently subsidized by my employer), like health care, ma…

Will that cover health insurance & expenses? That stuff gets pricey fast.

I went to my state's health insurance site. It took me about 3 minutes to pull a quote. If my income was $40k/year, I could get a gold plan ($0 deductible) for $4,300/year in premiums (about $350/mo). Bronze plans had $3,200/year premiums but a $6,300 annual deductible. To keep costs predictable, I'd choose the gold plan.

If I chose to live fully off investments in early retirement, my taxable income would be lower since than $40k since I would be spending some from after-tax accounts (which doesn't count as income). The lower income could mean higher subsidies, and lower health care costs.

Re: What happens when your career becomes your whole identity

#77

Post by k__ »

noonespecial wrote: post #40
k__ wrote: post #39

I always feel a bit sad when I see people who are younger than me and much more successful with their career. But on the other hand I don't work much (<20h/week) so it's probably okay.

People tell me that I didn't "live up to my full potential". I say, "I know. That would have been exhausting."

Good point.

It's a bit sad about the missed opportunities, but my privat life is awesome, so it's okay.

Re: What happens when your career becomes your whole identity

#78

Post by tomc1985 »

alexpetralia wrote: post #44
nugget wrote: post #7

In my experience extreme workaholism can often be a way to avoid or defer major life decisions that someone doesn't want to make or even consciously recognize. High status careers are often structured, full of positive feedback loops, and well compensated, all of which can strengthen the urge to defer existential questions about meaning, purpose, community, and identity until some unspecified future date, even (perha…

To play devil's advocate, what is to come of deliberating on existential meaning at great length? Do you think you'll find an answer, rationally speaking (that is, using the tools of reason and logic)? Notably, Godel's incompleteness theorems suggest these tools may be insufficient. More specifically, if you try to rationally "justify" what you ought to be doing, you will always be able to - legitimately! - impugn it…

In my own attempts at reasoning this stuff the only meaning that I've been able to find is that life is meaningless. Therefore the only thing to do is be comfortable with that null of an answer, and live as you see fit.

Re: What happens when your career becomes your whole identity

#79

Post by codingdave »

alexpetralia wrote: post #44
nugget wrote: post #7

In my experience extreme workaholism can often be a way to avoid or defer major life decisions that someone doesn't want to make or even consciously recognize. High status careers are often structured, full of positive feedback loops, and well compensated, all of which can strengthen the urge to defer existential questions about meaning, purpose, community, and identity until some unspecified future date, even (perha…

To play devil's advocate, what is to come of deliberating on existential meaning at great length? Do you think you'll find an answer, rationally speaking (that is, using the tools of reason and logic)? Notably, Godel's incompleteness theorems suggest these tools may be insufficient. More specifically, if you try to rationally "justify" what you ought to be doing, you will always be able to - legitimately! - impugn it…

Have you not met anyone who went through a period of questioned assumptions, got to their answers, and consciously chose a path that fulfills them? Those seem to be the happiest people around. Many people who have gone through this process do end up at the answers of family, or helping others. I'm unclear from your writing if you accept those answers as valid, or if you are being dismissive of those answers and assuming that anyone focused on family must not have gone through a self-discovery process in their youth.

The older I get, the more I find that almost everyone battles through the questions of who they are and what they are doing with their lives. Most people question their values and purpose. I disagree wholeheartedly that content people don't ponder their lives. On the contrary, they are content because they are past that phase of life, and content because they are living a well-considered path. We are not deferring anything - we completed the process, made our choices, and are living them.

Re: What happens when your career becomes your whole identity

#80

Post by cryptica »

incompleteness wrote: post #71
cryptica wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me work is what I enjoy the most about life. I would do it for free - In fact I worked on open source projects for free for almost a decade. Including some successful/popular ones. That said I still feel burned out. I've come to realize that not only did the work I do for free not give me any financial advantage (which I expected), but the people who've hired me over the past few years don't seem to recognize tha…

You expect them to spontaneously have a spiritual epiphany about your "old soul"? Please man, stand up for yourself and learn the measures of business ethics.

You're jumping to conclusions. I often asked for raises and tried to negotiate. I quit companies several times after they failed to promote me or they failed to give me a raise. I'm pretty sure it has nothing to do with business skills. Just bad luck.

My last boss was so upset when I told him I was thinking of quitting that, in front of the whole company, he threatened to throw me out of the window but then he apologized multiple times and asked me to come back after he regained his composure (I had a lot of leverage at the time)... But I quit the next day to save face and find better opportunities. This company had tons of money (millions to spend on development) but they wouldn't give me a 10% modest salary increase after 2 years of excellent work. That's the kind of irrational people I worked for. There was no indication they were going to be like this when I joined. You only find out about this stuff after several years and then you already wasted your time and have to start again at a new company and hope that your next employer will be fair or rational at the very least.

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