I'm addicted to being useful
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I'm addicted to being useful
1–10 of 322 posts
Re: I'm addicted to being useful
#2I can relate to this. I find that I have the same issue.
Re: I'm addicted to being useful
#3If this resonates with you, I highly recommend picking up a copy of Tracy Kidder's 1981 novel The Soul of a New Machine. You'll be hooked by the end of the introduction.
Re: I'm addicted to being useful
#4Can definitely relate to this. But I have found that, when running a team, it can be very counter productive.
If you constantly solve all the problems that come it can be stifling for the people you manage.
Re: I'm addicted to being useful
#5Help is the sunny side of control.
Re: I'm addicted to being useful
#6Can definitely relate to this. But I have found that, when running a team, it can be very counter productive. If you constantly solve all the problems that come it can be stifling for the people you manage.
Strongly agree with this. It may sound good in theory, but in practice, especially with real people, it can come across as overbearing, stifling, and exhausting for others. This isn’t meant as a dig at the OP. it’s just an observation based on personal experience with someone like that in my own family.
edit: I am not critiquing enthusiasm itself, but a compulsion that can be productive and unhealthy.
Re: I'm addicted to being useful
#7> I don’t mind the ways in which my job is dysfunctional, because it matches the ways in which I myself am dysfunctional
As a fellow traveller, I offer one caution: learn to turn this down in personal relationships as it can be counterproductive. It took decades for my wife to finally get through and explain not every problem she voices is something that needs a solution. Some times people just want to be heard. It bugs the hell out of me because I tend to need to solve All The Problems before I can do any self-care, but rather than seem heroic, I think this attitude can seem transactional or uncaring as though everyone is just a screw that needed a bit of tightening, etc.
Re: I'm addicted to being useful
#8If this resonates with you, I highly recommend picking up a copy of Tracy Kidder's 1981 novel The Soul of a New Machine . You'll be hooked by the end of the introduction.
And if you like that, the good news is you will probably like most every Kidder book. Or at least House. His works tend to be inquiries into how systems work, just at different scales.
Re: I'm addicted to being useful
#9> I don’t mind the ways in which my job is dysfunctional, because it matches the ways in which I myself am dysfunctional As a fellow traveller, I offer one caution: learn to turn this down in personal relationships as it can be counterproductive. It took decades for my wife to finally get through and explain not every problem she voices is something that needs a solution. Some times people just want to be heard. It b…
Yeah, I am still learning to not be logical and fix whatever ails her. Often she really just wants to be heard, not solutions.
I am ~30 years old, hopefully I will be able to just hear, without offering any solutions. It bothers me too. I am a SWE because I love solving problems!
Re: I'm addicted to being useful
#10> I don’t mind the ways in which my job is dysfunctional, because it matches the ways in which I myself am dysfunctional As a fellow traveller, I offer one caution: learn to turn this down in personal relationships as it can be counterproductive. It took decades for my wife to finally get through and explain not every problem she voices is something that needs a solution. Some times people just want to be heard. It b…
Good point.
Tangentially, you could ask: Are you addicted to being useful or to being recognized as useful.
One is your own need, the other often a covered contract where you lash out or silently resign if you don't get the recognition that you think you deserve.