Ask HN: How did you decide what problems to solve in your lifetime?

1. You have to consider earning a living unless you’re wealthy or intend only to be responsible for yourself. 2. What you’re actually good at may be much different than what you’re “interested” in. Interested has quotes because a lot of people have extensive fantasies. 3. What you’re actually good at may be somewhat different than what you think you should be doing. 4. At some point, you must have the self-discipline to choose, accepting some limitations by the necessary decision. 5. There is no path to happiness. Rather, when you accomplish something you notice it in passing.

I would like to get more info on this. Can you please post more resources?

Find a problem that you are interested in and have the capacity to make progress and enjoy at least most of the grind (and it will be a grind). If you choose something simply because it's a big problem but not something you have a natural affinity for, you may not end up making a difference because you won't be effective. If you're not effective, it'll be really hard to find someone to pay you to work on it, regardless of the problem.

Given the options that you have stated, progress with energy will produce progress on a wide variety of other problems because it's a physical and economic limiting factor for almost all activities. Creating cheaper, cleaner and/or more available energy will have an impact on human health and well-being, because it makes society more affluent and able to channel more resources into healthcare. Making progress on healthcare doesn't itself produce the same sort of spillover effects into as many other sectors, though it is undoubtedly beneficial. It also seems that many of the biggest challenges in healthcare are regulatory or policy-oriented and not necessarily technical, whereas many fundamental problems in the energy field are technical in nature.

I, personally, am a geologist and work for a seismic hazard and risk nonprofit that works with governments, insurance companies and other parties to better assess and ameliorate earthquake risk. My training is in more fundamental geologic research (not societally oriented at all) but I have veered towards earthquake hazards in my career because I find it to be more satisfying, both in terms of the societal benefit and in terms of my day to day effort and existence.

Earthquakes aren't anywhere as dangerous as cancer or heart disease or drunk driving, but I don't think I'd be nearly as good at solving any problems with those things. I deeply love the earth and think it's beautiful, and this motivates me to work hard at understanding it better and translating that understanding into useful information for people who want to make safer buildings and communities.

Try as many things as you can, seriously try them. The things you like go back for more. School is actually pretty good at doing this, modulo teacher quality.

Then, in the course of living your life you may find that you've discovered something new. This is very rare. More often your identity becomes a unique combination of preferences across a (surprisingly short) list of trade-offs in your field. Then again, finding something new is as much a burden as a blessing, so you can reasonably count yourself lucky if you do discover something AND if you don't.

Remember that as a technologist you have an inherent amplifier to your ideas, and so it's good you're being careful here. One thing I would recommend is selecting an "Enough Number", which is the amount of money that would be enough for you to earn in your lifetime, and you should make a solemn vow to give away anything above and beyond that, or even better, resign and let others have a chance to earn wealth.

Good luck! And may you discover a way to help yourself and others in the best possible way!