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Competition and Quarter-Life Crises

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Re: Competition and Quarter-Life Crises

#61

Post by [deleted] »

Scalestein wrote: post #55
rconti wrote: post #19

Part of becoming an adult is learning how to (be able to) do what you want. It's not an easy transition, from one of having your identity and goals shaped by others (family), and being released into a world where you define your own identity and goals. Maybe you'll be happy with your achievement graduating from a good college, and use that education to do satisfactory work and earn a satisfactory living, and pursue y…

The challenge I've found is finding the balance between professional ambition and personal hobby/passions. I've recently lost much of my professional ambition and now feel a bit more of the competition aspect. I'm clocking out at 5pm and ignoring after hours requests and anything that would impeded on my personal time. However I know there are so many of my peers who are putting in that extra effort and when it comes…

[deleted]

Re: Competition and Quarter-Life Crises

#62

Post by arbitrary_name »

Scalestein wrote: post #55
rconti wrote: post #19

Part of becoming an adult is learning how to (be able to) do what you want. It's not an easy transition, from one of having your identity and goals shaped by others (family), and being released into a world where you define your own identity and goals. Maybe you'll be happy with your achievement graduating from a good college, and use that education to do satisfactory work and earn a satisfactory living, and pursue y…

The challenge I've found is finding the balance between professional ambition and personal hobby/passions. I've recently lost much of my professional ambition and now feel a bit more of the competition aspect. I'm clocking out at 5pm and ignoring after hours requests and anything that would impeded on my personal time. However I know there are so many of my peers who are putting in that extra effort and when it comes…

great question - I'm in that position myself. Prior to covid, one of my hobbies really took over and became all I wanted to do. I scaled back my ambitions at work and basically have taken steps to put myself in 'auto-pilot' roles where I can meet/barely exceed expectations while focusing on my hobby. Now I have a ton of flexibility to pursue my passion (at least for now) while still getting great feedback from my leads.

A key part of achieving that was 1) Being honest with myself about what I wanted and the sacrifices it entailed, such as slower promotion or salary growth

2) Showing my employer that I am committed to doing well and performing - but with an expectation that they respect my priorities and accommodate them.

3) Demonstrating that allowing me to prioritize my passions actually makes me better at my job - I am happy, relaxed and focused when I come to work - and that 35 hours a week of happy me is better than 45 hours of cranky, unsatisfied me.

Re: Competition and Quarter-Life Crises

#64

Post by shortandsweet »

sweetcheekz wrote: post #51
pritovido wrote: post #26

I do not believe for a moment that this has anything to do with competition. I have lived in China and kids there are booked fully. Their parents sacrifice everything for their only child but at the same time they put a very high burden on them booking every space of their lives. Just letting the kids fool around, experience what interest them, play and make mistakes is inadmissible. Usually the parents work all day…

There are a lot of pretty grand overgeneralizations here. Black and white thinking at best, racist at worst.

I value the input, speaking from their experience. A comment on a post from a blog. How you infer racism is beyond me.

Re: Competition and Quarter-Life Crises

#65

Post by ZephyrBlu »

disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #4
blobbers wrote: post #2

There's not much here. He decided to compete against himself and made a list of self-improvement items? He complained about being directionless yet had some clear choices he could make. Cat? Grad School? Girlfriend? Sounds like this person needs a role-model and a mentor.

And that's ok. Like, he's in his early twenties. I upvoted this because the atmosphere of constant competition he describes is a relatively new thing (certainly I didn't experience it) and I'm interested to hear if other people of a similar age agree or have thoughts on this.

What he describes to me is competition for the sake of competition, and not having any goals.

I'm also 22 like the author, and I realized a long time ago that I had no interest in competing in things I didn't care about.

I was in the top class at my secondary school (High school for you Americans) and easily got above average marks while doing work 1yr ahead with not much effort. I really didn't see the point in grinding for top marks when they were meaningless, but I put in a little effort because I felt like it's what I should be doing.

At uni, I managed to scrape by for a couple of years doing little work and getting C- to B- marks mostly. Again, doing it because it's what I thought I should be doing and I felt obligated to go to university and get an engineering degree since that's what smart people are supposed to do.

I dropped out when I realized that I had been following the path I was "supposed" to take rather than what I wanted to do.

It sounds like OP finally chose a path instead of just following the one that was laid out for him.

Note: I don't live in the US

Re: Competition and Quarter-Life Crises

#66

Post by shortandsweet »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #44

That was an interesting read. I enjoy it when folks write about things other than the technical. We're human; first and foremost. For myself, I won't get into it, but I have spent the last 40 years living a life of rigorous self-honesty, and self-evaluation. I take daily personal inventory, and often immediately admit wrong and move to correct any errors. I'm not very competitive. In order to compete, one must win, a…

I totally vibe with this. I've never been super competitive either, I always wondered if it hindered me in some way. Even today we had a breakdown in between teams at work, pointing fingers at each other. I just finally said, ok my fault, and recommended how I could have prevented the issue to begin with. Technically not my responsibility but the competition between the two teams was maddening.

Re: Competition and Quarter-Life Crises

#67

Post by dsaavy »

magneticnorth wrote: post #60
georgewsinger wrote: post #56

I recommend reading Peter Thiel's writings/speeches on his quarter-life crisis, and how it resolved him to "avoid competition"/tracked career paths. I remember reading his content when I was 27, and it completely changed the course of my life.

Do you have any links to the specific writings you remember being really impactful?

The only thing I could find it this interview where Thiel talks about a quarter-life crisis: https://conversationswithbillkristol.org/video/peter-thiel/

Re: Competition and Quarter-Life Crises

#68

Post by unemphysbro »

I don't know man.

I just turned 31 and I feel like my life is just starting.

I'm not the smartest dude, but I try really hard. It took me a few tries to get into grad school after working a series of shitty jobs. Now that've finished my PhD (a mixture of computational fluidics and material dynamics), I've been trying to enter the job market in tech (close to family in the bay area) and it's just not happening (like almost no interviews).

I guess it's just managing expectations. Our local police department is hiring so I might give that a shot. It's a bit of a blow to the ego but that doesn't matter.

The one thing I regret was neglecting my relationships (fiancee left me, didn't keep up with close friends/family, even one that passed away) and hobbies for the sake of work during grad school. That's something I won't compromise again.

Re: Competition and Quarter-Life Crises

#69

Post by curiousllama »

pritovido wrote: post #26

I do not believe for a moment that this has anything to do with competition. I have lived in China and kids there are booked fully. Their parents sacrifice everything for their only child but at the same time they put a very high burden on them booking every space of their lives. Just letting the kids fool around, experience what interest them, play and make mistakes is inadmissible. Usually the parents work all day…

I agree with your points, but would just point out that the upbringing - ennui connection you make isn’t as firm as you imply. I had a very laissez-faire, American upbringing and identify with this blog post. A friend with the opposite upbringing (Indian, IIT, only child) never did - she was immediately freed and happy when hitting the same points that left me listless.

I think this has much more to do with internalization if external reward systems, which is tremendously complex.

Re: Competition and Quarter-Life Crises

#70

Post by j4nt4b »

tafox wrote: post #59
j4nt4b wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don't hate yourself. Do you think the lie-flat seats bring joy? Do you know the plane's destination? In this example, I'd rather be the guy who skipped the airport and went fishing. If anything, you have a head start on understanding this. The others may feel as you do when they're 30, 40, 50 or older, and feel tremendous heartache for wasted time. There is a ceiling everybody reaches in competition, and the b…

Thanks for this comment. Needed to read something like this today :)

It is 64 degrees outside and cloudy. The young man energy is raw and overpowering! Air quality 24 with very little wind. Good day for a bike ride or a spell of right inaction.
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