Ask HN: Not smart enough to a programmer, where to take my life from here?

If you like to work by your hands, there are vast amount of opportunities out there. And it's perfectly fine to pursue a career as an electrician or a cook et cetera. It may not be rocket science but with the satisfaction of getting things done and having satisfied customers and good co-workers, it can be fun.

But if you really can't think of anything that suits you or motivates you, then I think the problem is your own behavior and thinking patterns, that you need to change. You seem to have gotten stuck in a rut, so a nice break from it in a form of say school doesn't seem like a bad idea.

Don't however, let the fallacy of sunk cost misguide you. Just because you have been doing software development doesn't mean you can't switch to manual labour. Or that your next job has to be somehow related to your current. Listen to your own emotions and thoughts, don't let the past weight you down.

For example, that one very good programmer and Youtuber, bisqwit, actually works as a bus driver. Which I think is really encouraging in showing that even if you are really good at something (or you like to do as your hobby), doesn't mean you have to pursue it as your career.

Have you looked into computer networking and other IT-type topics? I’ve often found that networking specifically uses different skills and is suited for different people than programming. It’s more about systems, rather than logic, which (personally) I find more in-tune with my mental makeup.

Yeah the good news is that if you find CRUD apps mind numbing then you are definitely smart enough to be a programmer.

Sooo... right now thanks to covid19 basically every class at your local community college is online try a GIS class, it's a little bit python, a little bit SQL, a little bit data science-y and sometimes you go fly a drone around.

Or you know something else, the point is there's plenty of fields that aren't explicitly tech adjacent that the ability to program at all gives you a somewhere between a head start and superpowers.

BUT also I'm with the other guys too, maybe talk to a therapist.

It sounds like you're looking for growth and significance but need direction. Listen to the Ken Coleman podcast.

I'm going to buck the trend here and say that if intelligence is approximately normally distributed, there will always be some proportion of the population that doesn't meet the minimum in the necessary dimensions.

The point is not to demoralize someone, but to prevent them from spending a lifetime of angst and anguish in a field that is not totally beyond their grasp but always just far enough above their head to keep them questioning themselves constantly.

OP, it sounds like you've given this a shot and it didn't quite stick. Maybe it's time to try something else. For what it's worth, I felt the same for much of my education, studying physics and passing curved tests but never really feeling like I understood mathematics - and it's a terrible feeling to be somewhere where everyone presumes that anyone is capable of anything while you're here struggling.

I did manage to complete my degree but I ended up specializing in something where I could leverage the mathematical intuition I developed without having to fake my way through actual math, and I'm fairly successful. Perhaps you can do something similar.

The way the entire thread bends over backwards to find something "wrong" with OP, some external, fixable explanation, is counterproductive. These sorts of expectations are good to have but if they are not grounded in the reality of individual ability, they can lead to serious mental health problems.