NPC's have no agency. They're lines in the main character's story and otherwise forgotten. There is a negative karma to putting this kind of nihilistic message out into the world. Obviously everyone should shoot for the stars, not the dirt. The goal is to give one's life meaning and purpose. If the job is a snooze, adjust your aim. Treasure your family and start your own if you are able. Life will be infinitely more…
Starting a family has its rewards but it greatly limits your choices, the risks you're willing to take, and the things you're able to try when you don't have responsibility for anyone else. Life becomes pretty narrowly defined and predictable when you have a family, not infinitely more interesting.
I know, you're on Hacker News, you gotta ship code and sell your startups, but hear me out.
Starting a family in your 40's really sucks. Fertility is waning by then, and kids are f'ing exhausting. There us so little energy left at 40. I think much of the sourness of raising kids is because so many of us start in our late 30's and 40's, and we're tired.
Nature set us up to make babies in our teens and twenties and then be _done_. I say go to college, make it your mission to find your sweetheart there and then get married and have however many kids you want through your twenties. Stop at 30, vasectomy time if she's a champ at baby making.
You are only on the hook for 18 years after final baby is born. That is the plan at least, obviously some kiddos need more supports than that. That is a major risk you run - but a risk that only increases with geriatric pregnancies. The vast majority of babies are healthy.
Here is the beauty of this system. You're done and free at 50, they're probably out of college and starting their own family if you got going early enough.
How many startup entrepreneurs only have a hit in their 50's and later? The vast majority of them.
Here is how you win at life: find your niche/passion as a kid, get your skills and networking built out in your twenties, thirties and forties, and then execute your plans for businesses after the kids are out of the house. If you can do it while they're in the house, great, but don't be an absentee parent because that's dickish.
Having business success is nice and purpose is what gets people out of bed in the morning. But you're going to die and you wont get to take it with you. Time is always very fleeting.
Building a great family gives you purpose too - men grow up quick when the first baby comes, a chemical switch gets flipped. Starting a family creates a kind of rabid survival mode. Legacy is a treasure and family history can start with you.