What happens when your career becomes your whole identity • Hacker News Board

Re: What happens when your career becomes your whole identity

#261

Post by friendlybus » Mon, Dec 30, 2019, 12:03 AM UTC

imtringued wrote: post #255

friendlybus wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article repeatedly leans on nihilism as it's counterpoint to order and meaning. Time is infinite therefore we are meaningless is nilihism. You can fill in time with what means something to you, it need not be empty. >The thirst for more sounds comically absurd when you zoom out and see that nothing matters, so it’s about going deep into the zoomed-in life you already lead. Your health, your loved ones, your work,…

Life having meaning is like life having a door. There is only one way to advance and for a lot of people that door is locked. If you instead think that the door does not exist then you are free to choose any path.

It's not clear what specifically is the problem that defines the door as locked in your comment. I'm going to assume it's life circumstances. The problems you have to overcome or sacrifices you have to make to unlock and open the door are part of what makes the corridor behind the door meaningful.

In the lock itself resides the conflict needed to be solved, maybe the non-door path includes things you find valuable and you really are conflicted between two corridors of different values. Maybe family is more important to you than a purposeful career or whatever.

Re: What happens when your career becomes your whole identity

#262

Post by Bootwizard » Mon, Dec 30, 2019, 12:22 AM UTC

grecy wrote: post #128

0kl wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is your takeaway? What did you mine from really thinking about the meaning and direction you want to take with your life? *clarification: I mean it earnestly, as I have not done anything that you have.

My takeaway is that I must make decisions and take action if I am to live the life I want, in a manner that makes me happy. Nobody else will do that for me, and if I live my life on autopilot I will be extraordinarily disappointed when I look back over my life and see that I never took life by the horns and charted my own course. It's on me, and that is equal measures exciting and (some days) terrifying. I lost my Mu…

Absolutely agree! I'm 11 years younger than you and I realized this myself recently after having 2 unfulfilling jobs out of college. I'm absolutely tired of making other people rich d ppl ing something I don't enjoy.

I really just need enough to survive, and more free to time to actually pursue my passions and dreams. I think that's the true way to live.

My coworkers are obsessed with working as hard as they can, putting it all into their 401k so they can retire in 30 years. What an awful way to think about life.

"I'm only a slave for 40 years then I can do what I want".

No, do what you want now!

Re: What happens when your career becomes your whole identity

#263

Post by tempsy » Mon, Dec 30, 2019, 1:56 AM UTC

trevyn wrote: post #237

tempsy wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The key difference is responsibility. You can leave an unfulfilling job for another form of responsibility in life that is more fulfilling. Endless travel is really just life without responsibility. Having zero responsibility actually does not make most people happy in the long term. It’s an unnatural human state, particularly for grown men, and most will wake up eventually (perhaps once it’s too late) and realize th…

These are the traditional conservative values and beliefs, yes. A lot of us think it’s time to design new values and beliefs.

It’s not conservative so much as innately human. A society made of individuals who feel no shared responsibility to contribute to society is literal anarchy

Re: What happens when your career becomes your whole identity

#264

Post by WalterBright » Mon, Dec 30, 2019, 2:26 AM UTC

ip26 wrote: post #246

WalterBright wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Depending on the behavior, you can get some fun out of it. I enjoy snooping around the house looking for leaks & thin spots in the insulation.

If you enjoy doing it, that's another thing entirely.

Re: What happens when your career becomes your whole identity

#265

Post by wutbrodo » Mon, Dec 30, 2019, 2:36 AM UTC

tempsy wrote: post #263

trevyn wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are the traditional conservative values and beliefs, yes. A lot of us think it’s time to design new values and beliefs.

It’s not conservative so much as innately human. A society made of individuals who feel no shared responsibility to contribute to society is literal anarchy

As you point out, someone begging to fund travel certainly fits the description of non-contributor to society.

But many (most?) self-fund their ongoing travel, whether through odd jobs while traveling, savings from a previous stable employment, or "digital nomad" work on the road[1]. In that sense, they're just shifting a portion of their contributions from time period B to time period A, in the same way that spending during retirement works. I don't see how this can be described as "feel[ing] no shared responsibility to contribute to society" any more than someone who spreads their contributions more evenly over time: it's just describing the use of money as a store of value.

Re: What happens when your career becomes your whole identity

#266

Post by wutbrodo » Mon, Dec 30, 2019, 2:43 AM UTC

alisonatwork wrote: post #206

blueboo wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All very impressive -- hope this guy is as happy as his scrupulously cultivated brand requires and celebrates. But I wonder if this represents a cautionary tale -- someone who took their non-"desk job" and assiduously commoditized their adventures. The 110% workaholism never stopped. Click here to buy the book, follow the instagram, subscribe to the YouTube. Or maybe this is what can happen if you don't indulge your…

This is how i see travel bloggers too. Constantly updating the world about your whereabouts, framing every experience as something to be shared, it sounds exhausting to me - just like work! I don't begrudge them, though. If this person ever needs to go back to work "in the real world", they've kept a brand going that proves they have a work ethic. And if they don't, then presumably at least they've found a way to ear…

> This is how i see travel bloggers too. Constantly updating the world about your whereabouts, framing every experience as something to be shared, it sounds exhausting to me - just like work!

A few years back, I took a ~yearlong backpacking trip which gave me a lot of exposure to travel bloggers, both personally and when doing research for my travels. The impression I got from many of them was that they didn't consider the blogging work, but rather a natural outgrowth of the journaling practice that many people do privately anyway, for the ostensible personal benefits. Once they had already gone through the work of framing and articulating their experiences, polishing it and sharing it with others wasn't a lot of marginal work (and added an extra layer of fun).

I'm sure there are people who treat it like a daily grind, but my impression is that, for most travel bloggers, it grows pretty naturally out of something they were doing anyway.

Re: What happens when your career becomes your whole identity

#267

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Dec 30, 2019, 6:29 AM UTC

esotericn wrote: post #251

bosie wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Growing up simply with not much money isn't that hard to get out of. I might be misunderstanding but are you saying that upwards class mobility is easy, specifically from the lowest end?

Not at all. Upwards class mobility, in the true sense, is essentially impossible within a single generation. Speaking from a British perspective, a child with a poor upbringing is unlikely to be able to convince others, at least on close inspection, that they aren't actually a prole. (How might I know that?) I am specifically talking about, as I say, "growing up without much money". A poor individual getting from the…

[deleted]

Re: What happens when your career becomes your whole identity

#268

Post by 38932ur98u » Mon, Dec 30, 2019, 9:23 AM UTC

locacorten wrote: post #92

mmsimanga wrote: post #91

We have a saying back home that goes, "umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu" which literally translates to a person is a person because of other people. So in effect in Africa we care more about people than our jobs. Trouble is when your job is managing national electricity company it isn't a good approach because we tend to put our relationships above our jobs. Result is patchy electricity supply. It is one (just one not the ma…

All drawings, paintings, and art I saw in Africa, all of them depict people in a group. There is never a single person depicted in any imagery. You won't find any Mona Lisa in African art. :-)

This is a fascinating difference. I never really stopped to consider how individualistic a lot of western art is.

Re: What happens when your career becomes your whole identity

#269

Post by grecy » Mon, Dec 30, 2019, 12:36 PM UTC

7thaccount wrote: post #239

grecy wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> all of which can strengthen the urge to defer existential questions about meaning, purpose, community, and identity until some unspecified future date I've quit my Software Engineering job twice now to spend years of my life doing whatever I want. First time I spent two years driving from Alaska to Argentina [1] and second time I just spent three years driving right around Africa [2]. Both times I had no job, no bo…

If you don't mind my asking, what is your Myers-Briggs if you know it (Ex: INTJ)? I would guess it takes a rare personality type to leave behind the security of career to do what you have done.

Actually I have no idea, I have not done of those tests in maybe 15 years, and I can't remember the result.

I just view it the other way around. I don't think I'm leaving behind security now, I think I'm choosing to live my life now rather than wait for the possibility of living it later.

Re: What happens when your career becomes your whole identity

#270

Post by Cougher » Mon, Dec 30, 2019, 12:54 PM UTC

quotemstr wrote: post #13

This anti-work ethic you see crop up once in a while is delusion. Success comes from perseverance, not idleness or detachment. A few days ago, there was an article from some CEO claiming that you don't need to work hard to succeed. Today, we have an article from HBR cautioning about becoming too invested in one's work. This sentiment is dangerous. It's harmful to teach young people to be cynical, indifferent, and laz…

You ought to try to not think in extremes and false dichotomies. Suggesting that we refrain from fully identifying and enmeshing ourselves in our work is not advocating an "anti-work ethic".

"Success comes from perseverance, not idleness or detachment."

Beyond the false dichotomy, how are you defining success? By discovering/developing breakthroughs that earn a place in history? Given how few those people really are, it's a pretty good argument against not bothering to even try.