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Maybe too many people are trying to find all their meaning in life through their work. It's not a recipe for success for most people, I think the media plays i

Maybe too many people are trying to find all their meaning in life through their work. It's not a recipe for success for most people, I think the media plays it up a bit too much. They're only covering the success stories in terms of people who are single minded and who make their work everything. The author of the article doesn't mention any relationships or other interests in life, no passion for anything but work. Maybe that wasn't the case but you can't tell from the article. Lots of people do something in the arts, music, physical fitness, etc.. on the side along with family & relationships or faith/religion to find meaning. If you're happy from that aspect work becomes just something you do to pay the bills. It doesn't mean you're not passionate about work but the other things can make up for times when work isn't so great.

Glench 8y ago
This is a good point. Our culture places a lot of emphasis on work. And I think there's something important there — that if we're going to spend most of our time doing something (work), it should be something we enjoy, find meaningful, and helps others. But if we lose perspective and forget the other things in life we'll surely become unhappy. Since leaving tech my life has also become more balanced in other areas of life such as relationships and physical health, which I didn't mention in the article. Thanks for pointing that out!
filozof900 8y ago
I see it the same way, that's a real problem. People often don't do anything apart from work, also don't feel like the belong anywhere. Corporate life make it even worse.
slfnflctd 8y ago
The problem with the workplace is you have a limited amount of control over it. Companies change strategy, get sold, have turnover... and sometimes even though you're sitting at the same desk, you find yourself holding a different job. As I've gotten older I've found that what type of work I'm doing matters less and less. It can be the most interesting project in the world, but if your teammates are all assholes you'll be miserable. Meanwhile, the cleaning crew has a solid working relationship with each other and are having a great time.
pavel_lishin 8y ago
> Maybe too many people are trying to find all their meaning in life through their work. Funny, someone at work just shared this article: https://www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/583441/ https://www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/583441/
genezeta 8y ago
> Maybe too many people are trying to find all their meaning in life through their work. You probably shouldn't make your "meaning in life" reside completely in your work. But then again, you can't work at a job that is completely meaningless to you. The problem with burnout generally comes from the feeling of pointlessness. And IT excels at that feeling. We've built an industry that is accustomed -almost to the point of being a fraud to society- to such things as: - Extremely low productivity in the large. While workers may be fully occupied, and even over-worked sometimes, in the large, a lot of productivity is simply wasted in projects which never take off, are discarded, scratched, changed, etc. - Low accountability. Current trends like #NoEstimates #NoTesting #NoProductOwners etc, while may or may not have valid points all lead to a larger #NoAccountability "ideal" where developers seem to want no accountability at all for whatever they do. Not having any responsibilities in what you do is actually not the good idea some think it is. - The pervasive idea that it's all horrible but that's alright. That you don't really need to know how to do stuff, you can just copy-paste it from SO or whatever you find on Google. That programmers just don't know what they are doing but haha I change this line here and it works and I don't know why but it works and that's what matters so I'm going to sarcastically twit about it because everyone will understand and concur. That everything could just crash and burn in microseconds but that won't really happen, right? - The masterful move of claiming that anyone can program with just good will and disposition. That a degree doesn't matter, that experience doesn't matter, that actual knowledge is secondary to "passion". All this ends up producing the result that a lot -most? probably so- of jobs in the industry and a large part of every job in the industry is mostly pointless, or at least feels so. And this pointlessness in turn is what produces the burnout. And I don't really know, but I would tend to think that no matter how much meaning you find outside your job, if that job doesn't at least give you a minimum meaning, you will have a very hard time fighting burnout.
- NeoBasilisk 8y ago
  >you can't work at a job that is completely meaningless to you You absolutely can, and millions of people do every day.
  - loganfrederick 8y ago
asdfman123 8y ago
To me, this guy sounds like he's suffering from classic burnout. I know because I could have written the exact same thing when I burnt out in undergrad: "I tried prioritizing my work, focusing on the things I felt the most passionately about, but when I tried to work on the projects at the top of this list I couldn't summon any energy. Yet I spent hours and hours thinking obsessively about the ultimate point of my work." I mean, heck, the guy said he was reading 50 (no doubt challenging) books a year on his work. That's insane. It's pretty simple: you can't work at an insane pace forever, and eventually your subconscious will rebel and stop working with you. In my case, it felt like my intentions and actions were connected by a plastic gear, and I had spent so many years jamming that gear as hard as I could that it stripped the teeth off of it. My intentions could spin as hard as they wanted to, but eventually I just found it impossible to do anything.
- retsibsi 8y ago
  If you're comfortable sharing, what did you do to get out of that state?
- mlthoughts2018 8y ago
  > “It's pretty simple: you can't work at an insane pace forever, and eventually your subconscious will rebel and stop working with you.” I think there are versions of this where the issue is not pace or volume of work, but rather “meaning” or greater societal impact. I used to work at a place that gathers a ton of location data on its users, and then packages it into data products & advertising products. It wasn’t the pace of work that burnt me out there, but instead the lack of meaningful impact. Even a light workload at such a place was already heavy enough to create burnout. Just as you need rest from volume of work, you also need rest from work that exploits others or work that does not appear to have a constructive purpose.
- Grangar 8y ago
  The plastic gear thing sounds incredibly familiar. (How) did you fix it?
cryptozeus 8y ago
Your hobbies are not always in your control. Let's say you have a very busy month at work and at the same time a big music festival is happening which you would like to attend. Work will always mess up your personal lifestyle. All your hobbies are always secondary.
- wolco 8y ago
  You choose to put importance where you deem best. Some will risk a job to keep up with outside hobbies. Others will drop hobbies. If you set your priorties you will usually get your most desired outcome.
ljm 8y ago
I’ve done some studies in Transactional Analysis, and what strikes me the most is that you have one group of people who need to be recognised for what they do, and another group of people who need to be recognised for who they are. Plenty of people will get all their meaning from work, and they’ll burn out trying to prove who they are. Plenty of people hate being defined by their work and want to be recognised for their self.
lowken10 8y ago
I so agree with you. One thing I will add. If you commit to excellence in something you will most likely fall in love with it.
rdiddly 8y ago
"...work becomes just something you do to pay the bills." And the flipside of separating things like that, is that when activities you enjoy are freed completely from having to be a source of money, they sometimes can start to be more fun and meaningful in their own right.
notduncansmith 8y ago
I think the problem many people find in seeking this balance is that, when it comes to skilled/creative labor, it takes a combination of natural talent and deliberate skill-building to break through the plateau of mediocrity. Many are not comfortable making the conscious choice to be mediocre at their trade, despite the fact that being good or great at their trade may not actually bring them happiness.

Glench 8y ago

This is a good point. Our culture places a lot of emphasis on work. And I think there's something important there — that if we're going to spend most of our time doing something (work), it should be something we enjoy, find meaningful, and helps others. But if we lose perspective and forget the other things in life we'll surely become unhappy. Since leaving tech my life has also become more balanced in other areas of life such as relationships and physical health, which I didn't mention in the article. Thanks for pointing that out!

filozof900 8y ago

I see it the same way, that's a real problem. People often don't do anything apart from work, also don't feel like the belong anywhere. Corporate life make it even worse.

slfnflctd 8y ago

The problem with the workplace is you have a limited amount of control over it. Companies change strategy, get sold, have turnover... and sometimes even though you're sitting at the same desk, you find yourself holding a different job. As I've gotten older I've found that what type of work I'm doing matters less and less. It can be the most interesting project in the world, but if your teammates are all assholes you'll be miserable. Meanwhile, the cleaning crew has a solid working relationship with each other and are having a great time.

pavel_lishin 8y ago

> Maybe too many people are trying to find all their meaning in life through their work. Funny, someone at work just shared this article: https://www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/583441/ https://www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/583441/

genezeta 8y ago

> Maybe too many people are trying to find all their meaning in life through their work. You probably shouldn't make your "meaning in life" reside completely in your work. But then again, you can't work at a job that is completely meaningless to you. The problem with burnout generally comes from the feeling of pointlessness. And IT excels at that feeling. We've built an industry that is accustomed -almost to the point of being a fraud to society- to such things as: - Extremely low productivity in the large. While workers may be fully occupied, and even over-worked sometimes, in the large, a lot of productivity is simply wasted in projects which never take off, are discarded, scratched, changed, etc. - Low accountability. Current trends like #NoEstimates #NoTesting #NoProductOwners etc, while may or may not have valid points all lead to a larger #NoAccountability "ideal" where developers seem to want no accountability at all for whatever they do. Not having any responsibilities in what you do is actually not the good idea some think it is. - The pervasive idea that it's all horrible but that's alright. That you don't really need to know how to do stuff, you can just copy-paste it from SO or whatever you find on Google. That programmers just don't know what they are doing but haha I change this line here and it works and I don't know why but it works and that's what matters so I'm going to sarcastically twit about it because everyone will understand and concur. That everything could just crash and burn in microseconds but that won't really happen, right? - The masterful move of claiming that anyone can program with just good will and disposition. That a degree doesn't matter, that experience doesn't matter, that actual knowledge is secondary to "passion". All this ends up producing the result that a lot -most? probably so- of jobs in the industry and a large part of every job in the industry is mostly pointless, or at least feels so. And this pointlessness in turn is what produces the burnout. And I don't really know, but I would tend to think that no matter how much meaning you find outside your job, if that job doesn't at least give you a minimum meaning, you will have a very hard time fighting burnout.

NeoBasilisk 8y ago
>you can't work at a job that is completely meaningless to you You absolutely can, and millions of people do every day.
- loganfrederick 8y ago

asdfman123 8y ago

To me, this guy sounds like he's suffering from classic burnout. I know because I could have written the exact same thing when I burnt out in undergrad: "I tried prioritizing my work, focusing on the things I felt the most passionately about, but when I tried to work on the projects at the top of this list I couldn't summon any energy. Yet I spent hours and hours thinking obsessively about the ultimate point of my work." I mean, heck, the guy said he was reading 50 (no doubt challenging) books a year on his work. That's insane. It's pretty simple: you can't work at an insane pace forever, and eventually your subconscious will rebel and stop working with you. In my case, it felt like my intentions and actions were connected by a plastic gear, and I had spent so many years jamming that gear as hard as I could that it stripped the teeth off of it. My intentions could spin as hard as they wanted to, but eventually I just found it impossible to do anything.

retsibsi 8y ago
If you're comfortable sharing, what did you do to get out of that state?
mlthoughts2018 8y ago
> “It's pretty simple: you can't work at an insane pace forever, and eventually your subconscious will rebel and stop working with you.” I think there are versions of this where the issue is not pace or volume of work, but rather “meaning” or greater societal impact. I used to work at a place that gathers a ton of location data on its users, and then packages it into data products & advertising products. It wasn’t the pace of work that burnt me out there, but instead the lack of meaningful impact. Even a light workload at such a place was already heavy enough to create burnout. Just as you need rest from volume of work, you also need rest from work that exploits others or work that does not appear to have a constructive purpose.
Grangar 8y ago
The plastic gear thing sounds incredibly familiar. (How) did you fix it?

cryptozeus 8y ago

Your hobbies are not always in your control. Let's say you have a very busy month at work and at the same time a big music festival is happening which you would like to attend. Work will always mess up your personal lifestyle. All your hobbies are always secondary.

wolco 8y ago
You choose to put importance where you deem best. Some will risk a job to keep up with outside hobbies. Others will drop hobbies. If you set your priorties you will usually get your most desired outcome.

ljm 8y ago

I’ve done some studies in Transactional Analysis, and what strikes me the most is that you have one group of people who need to be recognised for what they do, and another group of people who need to be recognised for who they are. Plenty of people will get all their meaning from work, and they’ll burn out trying to prove who they are. Plenty of people hate being defined by their work and want to be recognised for their self.

lowken10 8y ago

I so agree with you. One thing I will add. If you commit to excellence in something you will most likely fall in love with it.

rdiddly 8y ago

"...work becomes just something you do to pay the bills." And the flipside of separating things like that, is that when activities you enjoy are freed completely from having to be a source of money, they sometimes can start to be more fun and meaningful in their own right.

notduncansmith 8y ago

I think the problem many people find in seeking this balance is that, when it comes to skilled/creative labor, it takes a combination of natural talent and deliberate skill-building to break through the plateau of mediocrity. Many are not comfortable making the conscious choice to be mediocre at their trade, despite the fact that being good or great at their trade may not actually bring them happiness.