281–290 of 339 posts
The second is to find purpose. AvE, a hilariously non-PC Canadian youtuber, actually has quite a deep video on this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7RgtMGL7CA&t
And I'd be remiss if I didn't say, my wife did a lot of the work on this realization. Always good to have someone you can talk to.
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...
Work contract. You can pick and choose the projects you want to work on. You are paid day rate and much higher than permanent staff. You can choose when to work. Spend the free time working on other things or travelling, relaxing. Much higher levels of independence and freedom. I spent a decade contracting and it was fantastic. I had the best life-work balance out of any one I know.
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Imagine what happens when it doesn't go right with children and you're in this situation. I have a daughter who caught bacterial meningitis at birth and had to have a brain surgery to solve the infection. Her existence is tragic, she is with us but she is going to have a lifetime of challenges and we've already been through the ringer. Now ever day is like waking up with a mortal wound, and to have other kids who nee…
Thanks for expressing this. I think it gets left out of the conversation due to stigma. People are expected to say how happy they are to have disabled children because anything less is, I suppose, considered inhumane. However, it's very humane to bring to other people's attention that their prospective children might not be healthy.
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> why take on responsibility through having children? Why not pickup any other type of responsibilty? like, community service, tutoring/helping kids from less fortunate places or in the worst case even Picking up more responsibility from work? The other day I was flicking through my notepad in my home office and found hand written notes from my 6 year old daughter saying how much she loved me. Yes kids are a massive…
I'm not sure you'd get quite the same from the things you listed, perhaps a little...? The note from your daughter, while sweet, can also come from those you help. For example, sponsoring a childrens school in India, or mentoring an orphan through a Big Brother program. I think the main point here is you are in service by helping others, instead of focusing on yourself.
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Major issue is Community service and tutoring/helping kids lack involvement. If you can be fully invested and involved then that's definitely better way to do. But most people can get much more involved easily when it's thier own children.
But having kids is all-in: there is no turning back and no flexibility I would feel so much more limited and bounded in what I can do in the world, because my own financial future and my own mortality would be way more relevant with dependents.
A related question: what type of software engineering work is the most relaxed? So far I have only worked in live services and while I don't feel overworked, I often have background anxiety that I will break something and cause a huge impact. Are there any product areas found at FAANGs that don't cause this anxiety?
Corporate, project and product based work. I was used to working slowly, lots of testing involved etc. No real stressful deadlines. (UK based).
When I was working for software companies, understanding the core business of our clients wasn't really that important, at least not at my position - just bunch of APIs around RDBMS, that sort of stuff.
Now I get to talk to end users and they get to talk to me, resulting in me learning a lot of stuff completely unrelated to software development (which is often exciting) and them getting something they actually want.
Also, for some reason, SCRUM was very stressful for me. No matter the actual deadlines, the everyday standups, all the organizational meetings and constant surveillance made me think that all the issues are urgent, which was rarely the case.
I have found that there are two types of people who are happy in their work. 1. Those that help others, like teachers and nurses. Their jobs can be stressful and not very financially rewarding. But they take satisfaction from seeing patients get healthy or students learn. The other type are people who create things. If you are not of the first type I highly suggest that you find a career where you make things. Creati…
I found it to be helpful, and OP may find value as well…