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I'm addicted to being useful

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Re: I'm addicted to being useful

#271

Post by venturecruelty »

WalterBright wrote: post #252
pclalv wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have similar reservations that this expresses, and it leaves me wondering as to what kind of person is suited for this kind of environment. Perhaps that's a pointless question, although I think that there is at least one useful answer to it: I'm not the kind of person who's suited to those environment. I'm not well-suited to take such a huge chunk of my life and basically throwing it away by creating a barrier betw…

Throughout the vast arc of human existence, you worked or you died. Nature does not hand you food, shelter, clothing, and flush toilets for free. Most of us, if dropped naked into the wilderness, will die within 24 hours. Bone evidence from colonial America is the colonists worked like dogs and died young. Bone evidence from the Indians showed repeated famines.

Please tell me who is going to die if I don't push my employer-mandated vibeslop up to GitHub. I'm genuinely curious.

Re: I'm addicted to being useful

#272

Post by venturecruelty »

WalterBright wrote: post #249
spicyusername wrote: post #198

Nothing wrong on the surface with this, and the author explicitly acknowledges this risk, but it bears repeating: Corporate environments are almost always toxic places to fulfill your emotional needs. It is true that finding a job that "resonates" with your personality is key to living a fulfilling life, and that software engineering is the kind of profession that is really going to fit certain personality types extr…

> Corporate environments are almost always toxic places to fulfill your emotional needs. A job (corporate or government) is exchanging labor for money. Generally, people tend to be good at jobs they enjoy doing. The idea is to get educated in something you enjoy, and make that your career.

Famously, the world doesn't need people to farm or clean toilets. We can all become "coders".

Re: I'm addicted to being useful

#273

Post by venturecruelty »

WalterBright wrote: post #246
spicyusername wrote: post #198

Nothing wrong on the surface with this, and the author explicitly acknowledges this risk, but it bears repeating: Corporate environments are almost always toxic places to fulfill your emotional needs. It is true that finding a job that "resonates" with your personality is key to living a fulfilling life, and that software engineering is the kind of profession that is really going to fit certain personality types extr…

Old Soviet joke: Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under socialism, it's the other way around!

[flagged]

Re: I'm addicted to being useful

#274

Post by ryukoposting »

tclancy wrote: post #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 b…

I've been with my wife for almost 4 years, and we both have the same problem. But, we both like having systems and routines, so now we have a system: lead with "I don't need help, I just need to vent." YMMV of course.

Re: I'm addicted to being useful

#275

Post by tombert »

muzani wrote: post #266
tombert wrote: post #232

Ever since Lowtax killed himself and I felt a lot of undeserved guilt over it [1] [2] I have developed a sort of "savior complex". I always liked being helpful, but at this point I've sort of become "aggressively helpful", which ironically probably isn't helping. I feel a constant need to take care of people and help people, and I think it's in no small part because a tiny part of me is afraid they're going to do som…

I think having friends suicide does that. It sucks because you also see the patterns repeat and it feels like something solvable with intervention. A friend put it well - sometimes people are sick, and you can help them heal. And sometimes it's just terminal. First, do no harm.

The weird part to me (and a lot of people) is that I barely knew the guy. I had exchanged a few messages, we joked around a bit, and arranged to meet. This wasn't a close friend killing himself, this was effectively a Z-list celebrity that I liked.

What bothers me more than the actual suicide (though that's very sad too) is the fact that I chose to do nothing. I saw signs, I debated doing something, and I prioritized meeting my man-crush more than trying to do the right thing. I know that me doing something wouldn't have changed anything, I have no idea what I would even do. It just bothers me that I actively decided to not do anything.

Everyone thinks they're a good person, and everyone thinks they'll do the right thing when it matters. I certainly thought that, and ultimately I guess that's not strictly true, or at least it wasn't in 2021. I let being a coward and selfish stop me from trying to help someone, and in my mind it stopped me from doing the right thing.

I don't really believe in anything supernatural, but it feels like this was some kind of important cosmic test that I failed. Metaphorically speaking.

And I think at this point, I overcompensate; I treat people as surrogates to try and assuage some of the guilt that I have over that. If something bad happens, I can at least tell myself that I did what I could.

I realize that this kind of thinking is not healthy for me. Guilt isn't inherently bad, it's important to have guilt to learn from your mistakes and to make yourself as good of a person as you can be, but carrying this kind of guilt for someone I barely knew and aggressively trying to "fix it" by over-helping everyone is probably bad for my mental health.

At this point, and I'm a little embarrassed it took me until my 30's to reach this conclusion, but I've started living by the motto of "don't let being a coward stop you from doing the right thing". Taken to the extreme I'm not sure that's healthy either.

Re: I'm addicted to being useful

#276

Post by lcnPylGDnU4H9OF »

danielmarkbruce wrote: post #264
lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That said, I think your definition highlights the problem: By telling someone it's okay to feel the emotion, you've implicitly endorsed the response. This tells me that you've not understood my meaning. One is not condoning or endorsing any behavioral response when they say the emotional response (which motivated the behavior) is valid and natural. They are distinct things and one does not necessarily follow or pre…

>> emotional response (which motivated the behavior) is valid and natural. This is obviously nonsense. If an old woman falls over and breaks her knee, and one's emotional response is happiness - they have real problems - it's not natural or valid to feel that. If the idea of choking women to death makes one feel excited - no it's not natural or valid to feel that emotion, they have serious problems. One could go on.…

I guess I should make explicit my general assumption that we are not talking about psychopaths given the overwhelming odds that a given individual is not a psychopath. That said...

> If the idea of choking women to death makes one feel excited - no it's not natural or valid to feel that emotion, they have serious problems.

I disagree. That is surely a natural and valid emotional response for whatever reason this hypotheticals individual feels it. Yes, they also surely have serious problems but I contend that said problems are obviously what lead to this "very strange" emotional response. Their problems are also valid, regardless of the personal damage (read: devoid of outward violence) they cause.

In this case, the response might affect their behavior such that they actually do it and that would obviously be tragic; that behavior is not valid regardless of the emotions (or lack thereof) which motivate it. Otherwise, speaking of their emotional response, I don't see a reason to condemn them for a reaction they have such little control over.

Re: I'm addicted to being useful

#277

Post by lr4444lr »

tclancy wrote: post #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 b…

Counterpoint - she should have known what she was getting into marrying an engineer. It cones with the territory.

Re: I'm addicted to being useful

#278

Post by lurking_swe »

pclalv wrote: post #209
spicyusername wrote: post #198

Nothing wrong on the surface with this, and the author explicitly acknowledges this risk, but it bears repeating: Corporate environments are almost always toxic places to fulfill your emotional needs. It is true that finding a job that "resonates" with your personality is key to living a fulfilling life, and that software engineering is the kind of profession that is really going to fit certain personality types extr…

I have similar reservations that this expresses, and it leaves me wondering as to what kind of person is suited for this kind of environment. Perhaps that's a pointless question, although I think that there is at least one useful answer to it: I'm not the kind of person who's suited to those environment. I'm not well-suited to take such a huge chunk of my life and basically throwing it away by creating a barrier betw…

you might enjoy the tv series Severance.

On a more serious note, i personally enjoy it. Why? I find software engineering intellectually stimulating and i enjoy the _process_, but i don’t (usually) enjoy the _people_. There are really only a couple former colleagues I actually keep in touch with. You know - the “real” friends so to speak.

My outside-of-work friends are not nerdy like myself and that’s why i love them. Keeps me out of my work bubble and also gives me interesting things to do and talk about on the weekends. :)

Everyone is different though. Some people genuinely enjoy going to the pub with their work mates lol. I’d rather do anything else.

Re: I'm addicted to being useful

#279

Post by exographicskip »

codelikeawolf wrote: post #159
tclancy wrote: post #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 b…

I've been in therapy for over a year and one of the most valuable things I've learned as a fellow "problem solver" is to run through the "three H's" when something comes up: 1. Do you want to be Helped? 2. Do you want to be Heard? 3. Do you want to be Hugged? I'm still trying to get in the habit of using this approach more often with my partner, and as I do, it has noticeably improved our relationship. It turns out m…

I've also used "do you need affirmation or advice."

I like your 3 H's though!

Re: I'm addicted to being useful

#280

Post by Nevermark »

WalterBright wrote: post #269
Nevermark wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally speaking, the clan you worked to survive with generally didn't cancel you because a seashell currency accountant saw some tangential benefit for a moment. Which might just be their own survival need to look busy or be a perforative hard ass, to avoid the same thing. The loyalty you are dismissing as unnatural, was painstakingly discovered by our genes, precisely because it maximized survival in our natural…

If you didn't find your work in the clan to be emotionally fulfilling, and stopped working, the clan would not be likely to share the food with you.

Yes, that would be an expected and natural outcome.
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