111–120 of 460 posts
You can't, so don't bother thinking about it. You can make changes today that will pay dividends in 10 years, so maybe focus on that instead. I was widowed pretty young (as widowers go), so I have done my share of playing the what-if game with the past. Ultimately it is not a productive exercise, and I try not to do it. If I catch myself dwelling in unlived lives, I try to refocus on the one still in front of me.
Definitely not be a software engineer. No one told me how incredibly low the social status is. EDIT: I guess it was suspicious that 99% of my high school circle picked law or finance or business courses instead.
I'd recommend talking with your friends, and asking them if they find their work fulfilling. If it falls short of their expectations, ask which dimensions contribute the most to the diff.
This might give you some perspective on what life would be like in another vertical. It probably isn't as rosy as you imagine, but you might have done this already.
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I would recommend to younger people, that they shouldn't make their career choice through the lens of prestige, because time has demonstrated that social standing is flimsy and unpredictable.
A profession's relative prestige varies regionally, temporally, socioeconomically, and in the eye of the beholder. These are mutable dimensions for the duration of a normal career.
It's kind of like the old advice: if you're interested in marrying someone for life, don't marry based on one dimension alone (looks, money, health, personality, family). Any of these can invert completely.
In finance terms, it's like betting your financial portfoilo on the 40-year performance of a single ETF: not outright stupid because some people will be successful, but it's not super wise.
If this doesn't help you feel better, maybe you should consider changing careers? As a SWE, you have enough intellectual capital, time and domain-specific education is the only thing standing in your way.
It's a popular fantasy. See "Replay" by Ken Grimwood. Or all those endless movies where someone gets to do high school over again, like "Peggy Sue Got Married". Or even "Groundhog Day". "A Christmas Carol". "It's a Wonderful Life". And on and on.
Definitely not be a software engineer. No one told me how incredibly low the social status is. EDIT: I guess it was suspicious that 99% of my high school circle picked law or finance or business courses instead.
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The nice thing about a culture that exalts “I raised kids and they turned out well” as a “life well lived metric” is that its broadly accessible. You can be born below average in intelligence and creativity and still be a good dad or mom, participate in local civic organizations, etc.
What if your kids reject you and want nothing to do with you?
Definitely not be a software engineer. No one told me how incredibly low the social status is. EDIT: I guess it was suspicious that 99% of my high school circle picked law or finance or business courses instead.
Haha do 500 hours of leetcode and go work for FAANG. It's a totally different level of social status than regular engineers and the only qualifications needed is leetcode mediums in 20 mins
I work at a FAANG and the people that I work with aren't terribly different social status from the ones I worked with during my first internship, they're just ~20 years younger.
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I recently became acquainted with the teachings of Epicurus. He advocated living a simple life of simple pleasures surrounded by friends. It's almost a truism that seeking fame and fortune is a route to unhappiness. Not necessarily because these are bad things, but because the desires that drive these choices seem to be insatiable.
For me, (very) modest fortune and essentially zero fame seems to be the ideal situation. Like a paid off house, a nest egg that throws off $10K/month, and only family/friends know who I am.
This reminds me of “The Bell Jar” by Sylvia Plath, which has a quote Aziz Ansari used in his series “Master of None”: > "I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor,…
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Haha do 500 hours of leetcode and go work for FAANG. It's a totally different level of social status than regular engineers and the only qualifications needed is leetcode mediums in 20 mins
Er, I work for a FAANG, but I'll never reach investment banking status.