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Ask HN: How to optimize your career for happiness?

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Re: Ask HN: How to optimize your career for happiness?

#171

Post by MeinBlutIstBlau »

larrymyers wrote: post #85
thanatos519 wrote: post #35

Use your career/job to support your life, then get a life. Become an artist, author, clown, or build some awesome technical system because you want it to exist. GPL it. Don't ask for anything, especially not happiness, from your "career". I put it in quotes because it's conceptually bankrupt. https://www.roystonguest.com/blog/why-happiness-is-not-a-des...

Good podcast on the idea that it's scam that people are expecting happiness from their job: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/19/opinion/ezra-klein-podcas...

I'm happy at my job. Although I've worked every bottom of the barrel awful job there is to know that what I have is not only easy and rewarding, but people believe it's difficult, which helps keep me employed :)

Re: Ask HN: How to optimize your career for happiness?

#172

Post by hyperpallium2 »

> stress and sedentarism

Exercise. Choose an activity you enjoy, and do it in a way you enjoy. e.g. Don't cycle to pace other cyclists; cycle for scenery. Swim for the aerodynamic sensation. Don't aim to run further every day; aim to run closer (so any extra is a bonus). Key is turning up consistently... making it enjoyable makes you look forward to it.

This directly addresses stress and sedentarism... and indirectly, by building familiarity with what you enjoy. Know thyself. This can extend into career choices - which I agree sound pretty good already in themselves. What may be missing is self knowledge.

Re: Ask HN: How to optimize your career for happiness?

#174

Post by pmorici »

lucb1e wrote: post #51
pmorici wrote: post #26

Get a gym membership and go every day. If you have trouble going routinely sign up for classes or a personal trainer so you feel more obligated to go on a regular basis.

Heh, that sounds like a nightmare for me personally. If going to an artificial place to get tired every day works for you, that's great, but this is not generally good advice. If it's purely about physical fitness (I'm really not quite sure what your goal with this method is, perhaps you could edit to clarify), going into nature to cycle or jog is much better due to the nature-happiness correlation (e.g. https://jour…

Op said he had a problem with being sedentary. That is largely a problem of habit. If you are already in the habit of jogging or cycling regularly good for you but if you aren't you almost certainly need some kind of structure (ie: scheduled time and place someone is counting on you to be there) to get to a place where you are doing it on a regular basis and not regularly rationalizing reasons to skip a day.

Re: Ask HN: How to optimize your career for happiness?

#175

Post by thanatos519 »

bitlax wrote: post #59
thanatos519 wrote: post #35

Use your career/job to support your life, then get a life. Become an artist, author, clown, or build some awesome technical system because you want it to exist. GPL it. Don't ask for anything, especially not happiness, from your "career". I put it in quotes because it's conceptually bankrupt. https://www.roystonguest.com/blog/why-happiness-is-not-a-des...

And for those who are able, getting married and having children will tend to bring even more fulfillment than becoming a clown.

I did that, and I agree in principle, but I regret that my child will experience the collapse of civilization before he knows what it means.

I don't think it's a good idea to make more humans right now, because they will not have a very good life.

Re: Ask HN: How to optimize your career for happiness?

#176

Post by beaker52 »

toddm wrote: post #111

For me, the special part is truly viewing any job as just that: a job. I no longer assess my worth as a person as a function of job title, salary, or anything else. I take contracting work primarily and expect absolutely nothing more than a paycheck. Work is a transaction and I deliver what I can and am not a jerk. Almost every disposable penny goes toward physical fitness. My spouse happens to be cut from the same c…

I've always thought that a job worth doing was a job worth doing well. It's put me through a lot of pain and stress because almost no-one else feels the same way.

I'm coming to terms with the realisation that for most people, a job is just a job. To others, a job is a ladder to climb in the pursuit of wealth. Neither of those are me, but I need to find a way to be content in an environment full of people like that. It's a struggle, but I'll work it out.

It seems a shame to spend the majority of one's life doing a job that's just a job, and being too tired to apply oneself to other endeavours. But that's what it appears at least I am faced with. And contentedness lies in the acceptance of it.

Re: Ask HN: How to optimize your career for happiness?

#177

Post by akdor1154 »

sjtindell wrote: post #160
mattgreenrocks wrote: post #11

The special thing I’ve done is mostly being willing to sit with hard questions like “who am I” and “what do I really want out of life and a job?”, sometimes for years at a time (low-key). The answer is always the same, and will probably always the same: I am motivated by mastery and autonomy. Thus I put lots of time into finding work that is interesting and has a lot to dig into. I routinely annoy the institutions I…

Digging the overall message but honestly people who say “I don’t like titles” come off as so pretentious to me. People care about titles by necessity. If you’re in a position to not, you’re lucky, not uniquely cool or smart.

You might be able to make your point in a less antagonistic way..

Re: Ask HN: How to optimize your career for happiness?

#178

Post by dinkleberg »

yodsanklai wrote: post #168
enobrev wrote: post #161

Some excellent advice in this thread. One thing that I was fortunate to learn early on, as I've been working from home for 20 years, that many should consider now that they are as well, is that it's ok to befriend people at work if you like them, but you don't have to be friends with people at work. You have to work with them, and that requires some sort of relationship involving politeness, trust, and honesty, but t…

> that it's ok to befriend people at work if you like them It's something I regret having done in the past. I'm a little more cautious about this now. I don't think it's necessarily wrong to befriend colleagues, but think twice before sharing too much.

Why?

Re: Ask HN: How to optimize your career for happiness?

#179

Post by [deleted] »

bluishgreen wrote: post #170

I will just add one point regarding health and sedentarism. Going completely remote saved about 2 hours a day from commute. This is big. This is not just 2 hours, but at the end of those 2 hours you won't be in a mood to do pretty much anything. I ended up working out for 30 mins and going on a long 90 min walk everyday. People tend to think 2 hours of physical activity is a lot and 'too much', but given how sitting…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: How to optimize your career for happiness?

#180

Post by james_s_tayler »

rodrigosetti wrote: post #28

My two cents: being happy most of the time in your career is an impossible goal. Everyone struggles. Sometimes they are miserable, bored, frustrated, burned out, overwhelmed, confused, tired, etc. no matter what career you choose, how lucky or skilled you are. This is not to say that attempts to improve are futile, but it’s better to dispel the illusion that career heaven exists, so we have a sober and liberating exp…

I'm OK with not being in career heaven, so long as I'm not in career hell.
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