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What If You Could Do It All Over?

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Re: What If You Could Do It All Over?

#411

Post by spidey1 »

fy20 wrote: post #271

Last year I had my first kid, and it has really got me thinking about a lot of things in life including whether I want to continue my career in software developer. Sure the pay is good, it's a pretty cushy job (compared to something like a labourer), and I feel I'm pretty good at what I do... but I wish for something more fulfilling. I just feel that in my career path, all my jobs have been about making other people…

I, very fortunately, landed a small NGO as my first dev job out of boot camp. We're a team of 3 with full autonomy over how we structure ourselves and the tools we use. Also, the bureaucracy is little to none.

Based on what I've read here, other sites, friends and colleagues, I should have changed jobs at least a couple of times by now but I've been here almost 4 years now and don't regret it. If you've found a place that you find fulfilling then I don't think I need to follow conventional advice. The downsides are less exposure to different project types and not working with a bigger team of experienced devs. I need to compensate for this by putting in extra effort on my side but I still think I've made the right choice for now.

I think if I ended up in a commercial dev job, I would have started looking at other options as well. It makes a real difference when you see you work being used for a greater good.

While you're considering other options, maybe also consider joining a smaller dev team where you have more autonomy and less red tape.

Re: What If You Could Do It All Over?

#412

Post by redisman »

bonoboTP wrote: post #50
spacechild1 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many software developers actually get a chance to “add to the world's treasures“? Building yet another CRUD web app doesn't meet the definition in my book. I'm not saying it's not possible, but you have to be rather lucky.

How many normal people get a chance to work at a top law firm in a fancy position just because they graduated from some law school? Better jobs are competed for strongly. Good stuff is never free and never available by default.

How would working at a top law firm do anything “beautiful” or meaningful in the world anyway? You’ll basically be some oligarchs lackey

Re: What If You Could Do It All Over?

#413

Post by icebergonfire »

prawn wrote: post #242
war1025 wrote: post #148

My dad got brain cancer when I was 25. That event accelerated our decision to have kids, and as a result our first daughter was born a few days after I turned 27. The reasoning I came to is that given the probabilities of how children are conceived, if my dad didn't have cancer, our first child would have been someone else than our daughter. So basically wishing anything different for my dad would be wishing that my…

You might appreciate the film About Time. Ignore the cover image which sells it short. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2194499/ The cover and premise push it as a rom com, but I enjoyed the relationship between the son and father much more.

Seconding this recommendation, under the dressing of a rom-com it thoroughly explores the _what-if_ aspect we are discussing here.

Re: What If You Could Do It All Over?

#414

Post by Retric »

indigochill wrote: post #175
Retric wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

with your God is a rather major point you just ignored from that line. No offense intended, I simply thought it was quite interesting.

In my mental model it's implied, since people are the image of God and so being humble towards them is being humble towards God (and I'm not sure there's a context where humility exists independently of other people).

For a different perspective.

Humility is also useful when alone. I think X is true but let me double check can easily save your life irrespective of a belief in god or the presence of other people. Using a checklist before flying for example is an important recognition of your imperfection. Measure twice cut once is again the same idea.

Re: What If You Could Do It All Over?

#415

Post by victorronin »

shortandsweet wrote: post #293
victorronin wrote: post #227

This is a fascinating subject. It looks like many people are commenting about alternative realities and that exploring them is a fool's game (BTW. I concur with that). The thing which bothers me is upbeat comments about living here and now and planting the seeds for future changes. It feels like current problems (and desire to wish them away via woulda/counda/shoulda) didn't happen entirely randomly. These problems a…

You're almost there. You're on the cusp. If you're really drawn to something you'll sacrifice everything before 9pm to make that thing happen. It might not work, it might not be a good idea from other perspectives, but if your desire drives you to what you think the world needs, you'll make time anyway possible.

Well.. I chose the simplest possible example. It has obvious benefits, and the only thing you have to figure out is to sacrifice some unknown other activity.

I wonder why "Less than 5% of adults participate in 30 minutes of physical activity each day; only one in three adults receive the recommended amount of physical activity each week." (https://www.hhs.gov/fitness/resource-center/facts-and-statis....) happens?

The answer is that there are so many other things that can stand between "desire drives you" and reality. Just to give you several examples: financial needs, physical or mental health issues, other priorities (kids, family, friendship, etc).

BTW. I am not saying that change is impossible. However, I am not buying "You're on the cusp". Over time you accumulate priorities, which you got by sacrificing a lot 5-10-15-20 years ago. These priorities are dear to your hard. Sacrificing (or even chipping away) from them is way harder than when you are a blank slate.

Re: What If You Could Do It All Over?

#416

Post by eeZah7Ux »

tomrod wrote: post #375
imposter wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also the same guy who bashes established disorders like ADHD publicly and the whole field of psychiatry(calling them engineers) saying the disorder has deep psychological roots, while himself taking anti-depressants to treat his depression isn't someone worth listening to for anything substantial. This dude thinks a disorder like ADHD is just bad conscientiousness that can be fixed by reading his 12 step book.

Perhaps for some the placebo effect is enough, and Peterson becomes their savior with devotees. I don't know, I've listened to some of his stuff and what doesn't come across as simplistic platitudes has baked in assumptions that seem unnecessary, like defining truth to be an evolutionarily useful principle. That he inspires people doesn't surprise me, the religion of my youth did the same and was more hokum than Pete…

If you add all the dog whistles he's even worse than that.

He's good at manipulating the crowds - the amount of downvotes that you are getting say a lot.

Re: What If You Could Do It All Over?

#417

Post by victorronin »

alltakendamned wrote: post #233
victorronin wrote: post #227

This is a fascinating subject. It looks like many people are commenting about alternative realities and that exploring them is a fool's game (BTW. I concur with that). The thing which bothers me is upbeat comments about living here and now and planting the seeds for future changes. It feels like current problems (and desire to wish them away via woulda/counda/shoulda) didn't happen entirely randomly. These problems a…

If everything is a priority, nothing is. For me it's been helpful to understand who benefits from my actions in that particular moment, and then prioritized the ones where I benefit too. In personal finance context they say to pay yourself first. I think this also applies when e.g. prioritizing health. And when paying yourself first, this also means doing things when most energy is available and leaving other things…

>If everything is a priority, nothing is.

Other things could be a _higher_ priority than a new thing. Just to give you an example (for huge amount of people priority to earn money to be able to have food on the table trumps almost everything else).

I answered below. I chose sport activity, because it's so simple and clearly benefits everybody and still only 30% of adults do it.

If you go to more complex things and on the opposite side of scales put a lot of complex and tangled priorities, it becomes very unclear what benefits most and how to pay yourself first.

Re: What If You Could Do It All Over?

#418

Post by abnercoimbre »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #378
matthewdgreen wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can tell you that you’re way more prepared to be a parent a decade later. Bodies be damned.

Also a good point, trade offs all around to consider! I had mine in 30 to 35 range, but if I could go back in time and had found my spouse, I think I would have opted to have them in 25 to 30 range. However, no one in my social circles has kids in their 20s and barely anyone is married by 30 so we also may have been socially isolated if we had chosen to do that. But I try to think back to what I did in my 25 to 30 ra…

So it would seem the trend is very much to settle and stabilize in your 30's. I do hope we figure out even better and safer ways to allow women to give birth a little later, if they so choose.

It also seems useful to become a parent with that extra decade of life experience. And if we incentivize exercise in the later years, it could offset the "feeling tired at 70" thing? My fiancé's grandpa runs marathons and honestly has more energy than I do!

Re: What If You Could Do It All Over?

#419

Post by creature_x »

This article is a somber reminder of the evanescent and translucent nature of potential. As I was reading it, I was reminded of a stanza from Woolsworth's Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood.

There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,

The earth, and every common sight,

To me did seem

Apparelled in celestial light,

The glory and the freshness of a dream.

It is not now as it hath been of yore;—

Turn wheresoe'er I may,

By night or day.

The things which I have seen I now can see no more.

Re: What If You Could Do It All Over?

#420

Post by war1025 »

srean wrote: post #388
war1025 wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Youtube has been recommending a lot of Jordan Peterson to me lately. I know there are people who hate on him for basically misinterpretations of things he has said regarding transgender issues. But then on top of that, there are right wing people that hate him equally much and think he's basically a nonsense-spouting sycophant. I guess listening to the things he has to say, I think they are on par with the more usefu…

He often uses false dichotomies to advocate his views, for example, the left is against freedom and liberty, you have to decide if you are for the Gulag Archipelago society or a capitalistic society etc; as if they were the only two possible options. I can possibly sift through YouTube to get to the videos where he claims these things, but it will not be the most palatable of chores.

Having just gone through and looked up a bunch of articles criticizing Jordan Peterson (Most of them seem to be written by Matt McManus, so I guess he's trying to make some sort of name for himself by association), it seems to me that basically the people who like Peterson like him for his life advice and the people that don't like him don't like him because of his political and philosophical views.

I guess it seems completely unremarkable that someone would have useful things to say in one regard while having less useful things to say in another.

Also I guess I view him in the context of a university professor who wrote a book and has some lectures online, not in the context of the mega-celebrity he became. I think being catapulted to fame like that is bound to mess up pretty well everyone and probably also muddy their message quite a bit.

I mean, at its core none of the things Peterson has to say are really all that revolutionary, they are pretty basic life advice. "Take responsibility for your life", etc.

Obviously there is an unmet need for that basic life advice because people (particularly young men) ate it up.

One article complained about him relaying a story of getting a kid to eat. My only conclusion is the person that was complaining doesn't have kids, because his story was extremely relatable, and I'd guess basically universal among parents.

Anyway, yes if you try putting Jordan Peterson up on a pedestal, he'll probably fall off it. If you view him as someone that maybe could give some good advice while you'd otherwise just be killing time anyway, I guess I think he holds up to that metric pretty well.

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