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In my experience extreme workaholism can often be a way to avoid or defer major life decisions that someone doesn't want to make or even consciously recognize.

by nugget 7y ago

In my experience extreme workaholism can often be a way to avoid or defer major life decisions that someone doesn't want to make or even consciously recognize. High status careers are often structured, full of positive feedback loops, and well compensated, all of which can strengthen the urge to defer existential questions about meaning, purpose, community, and identity until some unspecified future date, even (perhaps especially) in highly rational or analytical thinkers. Eventually the debt comes due but sometimes not until many decades later.

Winterflow3r 7y ago
Boy, did I learn this the hard way.
- marnett 7y ago
  How so?
  - samstave 7y ago
    For me, as I got older, lost passion for what I had been doing for 20 years - and being on the old end of the ageism-specrum-stick... it is hard to deal with. I have left 'Silicon Valley Tech' -- as I am no longer interested in any of the things I did before and seek positions which are more fulfilling in other industries and pay about 25% of what I used to make...
    - momokoko 7y ago
      I am in exactly the same boat. Could not have said it better myself.
      - turk73 7y ago
        Me too, but I need help. I have been working on ideas for my "2nd career," well, really it will be my 3rd, but that's beside the point. I need a way out of tech. I have enough money already, I just need a freaking path to another kind of work. It's not been easy. It's either I do what I am doing or it's $15/hr Target cashier type of job. Not bashing the Target cashiers, just making a point.
        AlexCoventry 7y ago
        If you have enough money, why restrict yourself to gainful employment?
        cerberusss 7y ago
        Have you thought about entrepreneurship? Building a product? That's normally fairly risky, but it seems to me that it's entirely worth a shot if your wealth provides the basic necessities.
    - beyondkaoru 7y ago
      What sorts of industries or positions are you currently working in or seeking?
      - momokoko 7y ago
        There is a comment that replied to mine that is now dead but is fairy accurate for me as I do not have a college degree. I’ve been able to some what transition to a technician/mechanic path but I make barely enough to support myself without kids or any other expenses. I have found myself in many ways much happier with my work, but the instability and low wages definitely add stress at times. Unfortunately, I have found few opportunities where my many years of software development experience mean much to potential employers outside of the industry. Of course this is very anecdotal.
    - 2sk21 7y ago
      I have a PhD in machine learning and have had a fairly productive career now spanning almost thirty years. Even a few years ago, I used think that I would keep at it indefinitely. Lately however, I'm finding that the field simply just does not interest me as much as it used to. Contributing to this is the knowledge that I am financially independent - I just don't need to work at this point. I'm planning to quit later this year and spend more time on hobbies and studying cognitive science on my own.
      - Winterflow3r 7y ago
        Can I ask why you are not interested in the field anymore? It seems to be having a major, major renaissance at the moment.
        2sk21 7y ago
        Gary Marcus has articulated it much better than I could in his new book with Ernie Davis: https://www.amazon.com/Rebooting-AI-Building-Artificial-Intelligence/dp/1524748250/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2WCI49LDM5A62&keywords=gary+marcus+rebooting+ai&qid=1578057821&sprefix=gary+marcus%2Caps%2C129&sr=8-1 https://www.amazon.com/Rebooting-AI-Building-Artificial-Inte... I really dislike the single minded focus on deep learning to the exclusion of everything else.
    - kerng 7y ago
      What I struggle with is the issue of health insurance. What are really the options of safety when chasing your post-tech dreams? That risk and uncertainty is what keeps me from moving on with just taking a few years to try something else. Just the other day I met an artist, 50 years old, he currently plans take multiple years of to travel the world and make and display art - just like that.
      - war1025 7y ago
        If you have very little income, health insurance actually becomes affordable. The trouble comes when you make enough not to qualify for subsidies but work for an employer that isn't large enough to negotiate good rates.
  - Winterflow3r 7y ago
    Threw myself head first into 80+ hour weeks of work, career climbing etc to avoid dealing with issues (incl. some trauma) I had since childhood. Told myself I'd be "married to my work", because while people leave you, money lasts longer. Gained some modest success, but woke up after 5+ years to the realisation that no matter how much I worked, none of the success, money or appreciation from peers would ever feel whatever void/emotional avoidance I had inside and was trying to mask by marrying myself to my work. By this time, I had a severe eating disorder and probably some sort of severe burnout.
    - abj 7y ago
      Thank you for sharing. If you don't mind me asking, what helped after you had the realization?
quotemstr 7y ago
A lot of those "major life decisions" end up being meaningless anyway. There are two things that survive you: your children and your work. Other pursuits are entertainment --- fine in small doses, paralyzing as objectives. There is no such thing as "meaning", and your "identity" is your value to society. Wasting time on a pursuit of "meaning" is masturbatory.
Jeema101 7y ago
It's because when you're young, you're just happy to be making it on your own. But I'm not sure everyone does reach the second stage. Some people seem to be content just living their lives and enjoying themselves without really wondering if they could have done more or whether they need to leave the world a better place than when they arrived. I think maybe it depends on how much exposure to death one has had. Death tends to make one reevaluate ones own life, at least in my own experience.
- AQuantized 7y ago
  That implies they are not really content so much as ignorant about the realities of their mortality.
- draw_down 7y ago
  I think the desire to make a mark on the world, leave behind some “legacy”, etc is itself a denial of mortality, and in some cases/to some degree a desire for validation from others. If you can put down that desire for validation, and come to accept that we’ll all soon be dust, you can focus on living a life that works for you. I think society expects individuals to “live for some higher purpose” because that’s what produces beneficial outcomes for the society. Hard to argue with that. But I have found that the times I lived my life in accordance with those expectations were the times I felt most trapped and resentful. And conversely, when I focused on doing what I wanted, I encountered resentment from others for not “sticking to the script” (living for their benefit). But I’ve found that to be a heckuva lot easier to live with. I still help others in my life quite a bit, but it’s on my terms, rather than a structural obligation built into my lifestyle. Of course, I wouldn’t deny that some who attempt to impact the world succeed. And some of those impacts have benefited those who come after. And I doubt the world would be a better place if everyone were like me, but then that is true of anyone.
viburnum 7y ago
No, that’s just the human condition. Having an outlet for it is good!
alexpetralia 7y ago
To play devil's advocate, what is to come of deliberating on existential meaning at great length? Do you think you'll find an answer, rationally speaking (that is, using the tools of reason and logic)? Notably, Godel's incompleteness theorems suggest these tools may be insufficient. More specifically, if you try to rationally "justify" what you ought to be doing, you will always be able to - legitimately! - impugn its logical foundation. This suggests that consciously reasoning about what someone's fundamental purpose is may not be the best way to go about things. Rather, just as how we make most decisions, an intuitive and heuristical approach may be better. In other words, "do what feels right." What feels right may materialize as a family, as charity, as building a business, or even building a career. My point is that all of these can be challenged as "deferring existential questions" - again legitimately - because they cannot be justified rationally. (All of these, equally, can be criticized in hindsight as being "wrong": wrong marriage decision, wrong way to raise children, wrong work-life balance, wrong charitable/activist cause.) As a result, I don't think the criticism that a career - even an all-consuming one (as a family may be) - is somehow less justified. This is not to invite pure relativism: some things do seem to be more meaningful than others. But! It is precisely that this "seems to be" is intuitive, and not rational, which constitutes the foundation of our belief. And so if a career-focus seems "intuitive", then I think it's meaningful enough. --- EDIT: One other thing to note is that people who are fairly content with their lives don't often ponder _why_ their life is meaningful. They've specified a priori assumptions for what makes it meaningful (e.g. charitable giving, helping others), or intuitively feel what is meaningful (e.g. family, friends, happiness), and that is that. It's precisely the people who end up endlessly questioning these assumptions - facing the meaning of their life head on - that seem to be most depressed. This is because it's an intellectual deadend - it cannot be deduced rationally. One way, then, to answer this existential question is to simply defer: don't question, do what feels right, and avoid what doesn't.
- james-mcelwain 7y ago
  I don't think OP is referring to meaning in an existential or epistemological sense, but rather discussing workaholism as a "practical" avoidant behavior for those who put off dealing with some kind of dysfunction or trauma.
- deleted 7y ago
yibg 7y ago
I think it doesn’t need to be due to deferring major life decisions, but rather just youth and inexperience. I spent a few years of my life working 80+ hour weeks, advancing my career. It wasn’t due to deferring some life decisions but rather was just something I felt I needed to do to prove myself and get ahead. I’ve since grown out of this, but I notice this in other younger people around me. Super enthusiastic, always on and available and ready to jump in to work on anything.
- bsanr2 7y ago
  So the question is then if that phase is truly necessary for success or not. A lot of people say, "They grew out of it," but then to look at people who "know their worth and limits" early, they're not nearly as successful, on average. Part of that is that if you're not seen to be working hard, no matter how effective you are, you will not be seen to be effective, and will not reap the rewards of that effectiveness; the people calling the shots will not have it. So, if the expectation is overwork, and it is necessary to advance, is that something untenable to how work in America should be? Or, on some level, do we like it or view it as serving a purpose?
cryptica 7y ago
For me work is what I enjoy the most about life. I would do it for free - In fact I worked on open source projects for free for almost a decade. Including some successful/popular ones. That said I still feel burned out. I've come to realize that not only did the work I do for free not give me any financial advantage (which I expected), but the people who've hired me over the past few years don't seem to recognize that work as being valid work experience. I'm 30 years old but what I've found over and over again is that managers will give promotions to 35 year olds who spent most of their lives playing video games. From my perspective, the people described in this article sound like they have it pretty good. What I need is merely for people to realize that I'm actually a 40 year old work-machine trapped in the body of a 30 year old human... Maybe if I can achieve that, then I will eventually reach a high point in my life when I can afford to have problems with self-actualization like those described in the article.
- incompleteness 7y ago
  You expect them to spontaneously have a spiritual epiphany about your "old soul"? Please man, stand up for yourself and learn the measures of business ethics.
  - cryptica 7y ago
    You're jumping to conclusions. I often asked for raises and tried to negotiate. I quit companies several times after they failed to promote me or they failed to give me a raise. I'm pretty sure it has nothing to do with business skills. Just bad luck. My last boss was so upset when I told him I was thinking of quitting that, in front of the whole company, he threatened to throw me out of the window but then he apologized multiple times and asked me to come back after he regained his composure (I had a lot of leverage at the time)... But I quit the next day to save face and find better opportunities. This company had tons of money (millions to spend on development) but they wouldn't give me a 10% modest salary increase after 2 years of excellent work. That's the kind of irrational people I worked for. There was no indication they were going to be like this when I joined. You only find out about this stuff after several years and then you already wasted your time and have to start again at a new company and hope that your next employer will be fair or rational at the very least.
lesdeuxmagots 7y ago
That positive feedback loop is one of the key things to watch out for. Work tends to have many mechanisms which directly links what you put in with positive feedback in a relatively short amount of time, which leads people to optimize for that short term maxima. Putting in more effort, more hours, etc for a positive outcome on a project, a promotion, etc is an easy decision to make, can be almost addicting for many high performers. However, the neglect that one does to long-term feedback cycles, like not spending enough time with your spouse, children, friends, family, personal hobbies, only manifest negatively in the long run. The investments on the positive side also play out mostly in the long run as well, so the direct feedback cycle isn't quite there. Using work to get those satisfying consistent wins can have its costs if you aren't deliberate about balancing against investments towards the long term maxima.
gist 7y ago
> High status careers are often structured, full of positive feedback loops, and well compensated Problem is when people are in 'high status careers' that can't take the pressure or the heat of the high status career. And try to keep up with those who do. I am not sure you find many athletes who once they make it complain that they wish they had chosen another path. My guess on why that is? Less luck involved (sure luck with everything). Less luck means more likely the strong or talented survive and they are appreciative for what they have and less likely to crumble and complain.
grecy 7y ago
> all of which can strengthen the urge to defer existential questions about meaning, purpose, community, and identity until some unspecified future date I've quit my Software Engineering job twice now to spend years of my life doing whatever I want. First time I spent two years driving from Alaska to Argentina [1] and second time I just spent three years driving right around Africa [2]. Both times I had no job, no boss, no timeline and I did whatever I wanted every single day. Hiking, camping, taking photos, cooking food, learning a new language, writing when I wanted to, etc. etc. I had ultimate freedom, living off my savings. Without a doubt, the "freedom" life is much harder for me than the "desk job" life for exactly the reasons you listed above. After about six months for me I started to really, really think about the meaning of my life, what direction I want my life to take and a ton of other things that simply don't enter my mind when my life is on autopilot (i.e. going to work every day). Going to work everyday is easy, because it means you don't have to decide the direction of your own life if you don't want to. [1] http://theroadchoseme.com/expedition-overview http://theroadchoseme.com/expedition-overview [2] http://theroadchoseme.com/africa-expedition-overview http://theroadchoseme.com/africa-expedition-overview. & http://instagram.com/theroadchoseme http://instagram.com/theroadchoseme
- brookside 7y ago
  You are sure are doing a whole lot of book promotion on here and on reddit! This may come across as harsh, but driving on highways, pan-american or not, doesn't strike me as much of an adventure in the current era.
  - Hnrobert42 7y ago
    Wow. I would offer this comment does come across as unnecessarily antagonistic. Other than the links, the poster didn’t mention their book at all. Further, they didn’t claim to be adventurous as much as contemplative.
  - grecy 7y ago
    > This may come across as harsh, but driving on highways, pan-american or not, doesn't strike me as much of an adventure in the current era. No worries, I totally understand where you're coming from. I don't disagree with you either - sticking to the beaten path can be very easy, especially in countries that are more developed and have lots of tourists. It can certainly get very difficult and adventurous if you wish. From your comment I take it you've never been to West Africa. Driving across Nigeria, Mali, the DRC, Angola most certainly is an adventure, even in 2019. When I went looking for it I was right in it up to my neck, often wondering if I'd bitten off more than I can chew. I crossed a border where the border guard who had been working there for three years had never seen a foreigner in his life. Plenty of times kids ran away from me because they had never seen a white person. Yes, even today you can go and do that, in West Africa, if you go remote enough. I got malaria twice. I rolled my Jeep. I got stuck in the mud alone. I drove through water that came over the hood many times. It was 100F and 99% humidity for months on end, even at night I was pouring sweat trying to sleep. It's easily the hardest and most rewarding thing I've ever done in my life, and to be honest I wonder if I'll never find that level of being truly alive ever again. If you genuinely want to know what I'm talking about, here's a video of me driving across the DRC, easily the 5 biggest days of adventure in my life. I'm happy to answer any questions you have about the DRC crossing, or anything else for that matter. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OV8V3GdOcPU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OV8V3GdOcPU
grawprog 7y ago
I just left a job I'd built an identity around. I was good at it, it was fulfilling and paid decently, but I spent all my time there and not much on anything else. Quitting was really hard. It felt a lot like breaking up with someone. It really does feel like leaving a part of myself behind. I've been working somewhere else with less hours and far less responsibility so far. The first week or two was kind of a shock. Going back to the bottom of a place where I don't really have any kind of responsibility or even really knowledge of everything thats going on has been pretty tough. But it's refreshing in a way, i've gone back to a few hobbies and other things I haven't worked on for a while now and it's kinda nice just show up, do things I get told to do and leave without worrying about what I need to get done for tomorrow and stuff.
LatteLazy 7y ago
I'm 35, I have been trying to turn the boat around on this for 2 years now. You're exactly right.
ljm 7y ago
I agree with much of this, both out of personal experience and that of my friend. Work is a distraction from what is really gnawing at your ankles. Even if you start to burn out it still feels preferable to the alternative, if you're even aware of that in the first place. And to be honest, it's valid even though it's massively unhealthy. Facing your underlying issues, whatever they are, is hard work but also, it's ultimately the most rewarding work. I've a lot to share about the matter, but it's a bit much and a little too personal for a public response here.
0kl 7y ago
I don’t know if this is fair to say. The trope exists, certainly, but I don’t know if we can pass judgement on a way someone has chosen to live their life just because it would not fulfill us. It’s absolutely true that many people regret prioritizing their career later, but there are also quite a few people regret not investing in their career as well. My takeaway watching many people regret, and having regrets my own - or as you put it, my “debt coming due,” is that it is up to each of us to do our best to predict what our future selves will want. That’s all there is to it, and it’s unproductive to say “careers are bad,” or, alternatively, “focusing on family is bad,” or any variation of the above.
tempsy 7y ago
I see it more as a way to fill gaps in someone’s life that they’ve either consciously or subconsciously rejected e.g. having a family. This might be extremely controversial but does anyone else find it fitting that so many of the high profile Silicon Valley elite are single childless gay men?
sjg007 7y ago
Existentialism is a trap. Camus pretty much nailed it but here it is in comic/essay form: https://moretothat.com/the-meaning-of-life-is-absurd/ https://moretothat.com/the-meaning-of-life-is-absurd/
- friendlybus 7y ago
  Absurd nihilism is not a get out of jail free card for existentialism. It's a structure to answer the existential question in the same way Nietzsche's answers are a structure or any of the other philosophers. It has a fundamental axiom at the bottom and a logic that blossoms out of it. Saying there is 'no meaning' is to answer the question with avoiding the question to begin with. Writer's block / drawer's block happens when you don't have a structure for your ideas. Nearly any structure you can think of can be useful for starting work. Hero's journey can be used to prop up your ideas like a tack weld until you get something better. The character in the article cannot get their ideas out because they do not have a structure for their work, their ideas and their existence. One answer is to lump your existence into the "nothing" category and another answer is to see how deep the rabbit hole of existence goes and come out with your own thoughts, structures and opinions. The point of reading philosophers is not to become them, but to develop your own perspective. It's not a trap, it's a necessity.
  - sjg007 7y ago
    The absurd is the tension between the search for meaning and the inability to find any. It doesn’t mean there is no meaning as a nihilist would argue. Nor does it imply destruction. Camus’s absurd is more akin to Gödel incompleteness than nihilism.
    - friendlybus 7y ago
      The article repeatedly leans on nihilism as it's counterpoint to order and meaning. Time is infinite therefore we are meaningless is nilihism. You can fill in time with what means something to you, it need not be empty. >The thirst for more sounds comically absurd when you zoom out and see that nothing matters, so it’s about going deep into the zoomed-in life you already lead. Your health, your loved ones, your work, your interests, your desire to help others, your values, your existence. >What could be more meaningful than that? This quote from the article sums it up, to have a meaningful life you must accept that there isn't any meaning in some points of the world. That worldview leaves a massive gaping black hole of meaning in time and space around you. That black hole where there is no meaning is nihilistic. It clears out the greater story above you that could actually be an expression of what you find meaningful as a human, with which you could fill the universe and replaces it with a pre-determined story, absurdism that includes nothing. Godel's incompleteness can be used for any argument. Mathematical and computational logic is not the basis of all philosophy, nor is anything we know or the field would be dead. Defining your axioms is part of the game. Defining a world view that includes meaning in all places is a far more sympathetic perspective than to rob the reader's worldview of it's potential to apply in most places, by defining that the vast majority of external existence is non-meaning. Asking the reader to read more is a more healthy perspective. Arguing that absurdism gives a valuable middle ground between meaning and non-meaning is something I'd heartily disagree with. The reader is more than capable of finding their own middle ground and becoming their own person in the process.
lettergram 7y ago
It’s interesting you say that... arguably I am an extreme workaholic, I work 70+ hours every week. I learn all I can on top of that. I get satisfaction from it, but it’s not my identity. If I was a janitor, I’d try to be the best janitor, because that’s what I like doing, I like being good at my job. I also plan 2 years out and intend to have $X wealth by specific deadlines. I’ll work harder to reach it. For me, as I’m only 27 (but have been doing this since I was 14) my goal is to be able to “retire” by 35. That means I need lots of money in the bank. After that I can choose what I want to do, but before that you’re right, I don’t want to think about life choices. It’s hard to work when everyone else is having fun. But I’m also on track to be financially free (I.e. high enough passive income for lifestyle) by 35. So I can have a much more fulfilled life for 50 years or so. Remember investments grow exponentially- meaning you want to invest as much as you can while you’re young(er)
- DaiPlusPlus 7y ago
  > Remember investments grow exponentially- meaning you want to invest as much as you can while you’re young(er) *grow geometrically (with apologies, am pedant)
  - alecbenzer 7y ago
    Per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exponential_growth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exponential_growth, geometric growth is exponential growth.
- amoorthy 7y ago
  A former boss of mine told me once: "if you think you need X before you do Y you will forever find Xs". He went on to be a very successful CEO of a F500 company so his advice likely has merit. The takeaway I had was that you shouldn't wait to live your life by first toiling away at something. Live your life today because who knows about tomorrow. And work is part of life. Find a way to enjoy that too even if it's a means to an end.
memn0nis 7y ago
This. It's so easy to escape in workaholism and ignore the "hard" things in life (relationships, health, purpose, etc). It's easy (for me at least) to fall into this trap.
csomar 7y ago
> Eventually the debt comes due but sometimes not until many decades later. It's a dangerous path if you don't have things to follow on through (like a family, kids, grown kids university, new wife, etc...). There is no meaning to life and it makes more sense to end your life right now. (at least with the info/data we have available).

by nugget 7y ago

Winterflow3r 7y ago

Boy, did I learn this the hard way.

marnett 7y ago
How so?
- samstave 7y ago
  For me, as I got older, lost passion for what I had been doing for 20 years - and being on the old end of the ageism-specrum-stick... it is hard to deal with. I have left 'Silicon Valley Tech' -- as I am no longer interested in any of the things I did before and seek positions which are more fulfilling in other industries and pay about 25% of what I used to make...
  - momokoko 7y ago
    I am in exactly the same boat. Could not have said it better myself.
    - turk73 7y ago
      Me too, but I need help. I have been working on ideas for my "2nd career," well, really it will be my 3rd, but that's beside the point. I need a way out of tech. I have enough money already, I just need a freaking path to another kind of work. It's not been easy. It's either I do what I am doing or it's $15/hr Target cashier type of job. Not bashing the Target cashiers, just making a point.
      - AlexCoventry 7y ago
        If you have enough money, why restrict yourself to gainful employment?
      - cerberusss 7y ago
        Have you thought about entrepreneurship? Building a product? That's normally fairly risky, but it seems to me that it's entirely worth a shot if your wealth provides the basic necessities.
  - beyondkaoru 7y ago
    What sorts of industries or positions are you currently working in or seeking?
    - momokoko 7y ago
      There is a comment that replied to mine that is now dead but is fairy accurate for me as I do not have a college degree. I’ve been able to some what transition to a technician/mechanic path but I make barely enough to support myself without kids or any other expenses. I have found myself in many ways much happier with my work, but the instability and low wages definitely add stress at times. Unfortunately, I have found few opportunities where my many years of software development experience mean much to potential employers outside of the industry. Of course this is very anecdotal.
  - 2sk21 7y ago
    I have a PhD in machine learning and have had a fairly productive career now spanning almost thirty years. Even a few years ago, I used think that I would keep at it indefinitely. Lately however, I'm finding that the field simply just does not interest me as much as it used to. Contributing to this is the knowledge that I am financially independent - I just don't need to work at this point. I'm planning to quit later this year and spend more time on hobbies and studying cognitive science on my own.
    - Winterflow3r 7y ago
      Can I ask why you are not interested in the field anymore? It seems to be having a major, major renaissance at the moment.
      - 2sk21 7y ago
        Gary Marcus has articulated it much better than I could in his new book with Ernie Davis: https://www.amazon.com/Rebooting-AI-Building-Artificial-Intelligence/dp/1524748250/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2WCI49LDM5A62&keywords=gary+marcus+rebooting+ai&qid=1578057821&sprefix=gary+marcus%2Caps%2C129&sr=8-1 https://www.amazon.com/Rebooting-AI-Building-Artificial-Inte... I really dislike the single minded focus on deep learning to the exclusion of everything else.
  - kerng 7y ago
    What I struggle with is the issue of health insurance. What are really the options of safety when chasing your post-tech dreams? That risk and uncertainty is what keeps me from moving on with just taking a few years to try something else. Just the other day I met an artist, 50 years old, he currently plans take multiple years of to travel the world and make and display art - just like that.
    - war1025 7y ago
      If you have very little income, health insurance actually becomes affordable. The trouble comes when you make enough not to qualify for subsidies but work for an employer that isn't large enough to negotiate good rates.
- Winterflow3r 7y ago
  Threw myself head first into 80+ hour weeks of work, career climbing etc to avoid dealing with issues (incl. some trauma) I had since childhood. Told myself I'd be "married to my work", because while people leave you, money lasts longer. Gained some modest success, but woke up after 5+ years to the realisation that no matter how much I worked, none of the success, money or appreciation from peers would ever feel whatever void/emotional avoidance I had inside and was trying to mask by marrying myself to my work. By this time, I had a severe eating disorder and probably some sort of severe burnout.
  - abj 7y ago
    Thank you for sharing. If you don't mind me asking, what helped after you had the realization?

quotemstr 7y ago

A lot of those "major life decisions" end up being meaningless anyway. There are two things that survive you: your children and your work. Other pursuits are entertainment --- fine in small doses, paralyzing as objectives. There is no such thing as "meaning", and your "identity" is your value to society. Wasting time on a pursuit of "meaning" is masturbatory.

Jeema101 7y ago

It's because when you're young, you're just happy to be making it on your own. But I'm not sure everyone does reach the second stage. Some people seem to be content just living their lives and enjoying themselves without really wondering if they could have done more or whether they need to leave the world a better place than when they arrived. I think maybe it depends on how much exposure to death one has had. Death tends to make one reevaluate ones own life, at least in my own experience.

AQuantized 7y ago
That implies they are not really content so much as ignorant about the realities of their mortality.
draw_down 7y ago
I think the desire to make a mark on the world, leave behind some “legacy”, etc is itself a denial of mortality, and in some cases/to some degree a desire for validation from others. If you can put down that desire for validation, and come to accept that we’ll all soon be dust, you can focus on living a life that works for you. I think society expects individuals to “live for some higher purpose” because that’s what produces beneficial outcomes for the society. Hard to argue with that. But I have found that the times I lived my life in accordance with those expectations were the times I felt most trapped and resentful. And conversely, when I focused on doing what I wanted, I encountered resentment from others for not “sticking to the script” (living for their benefit). But I’ve found that to be a heckuva lot easier to live with. I still help others in my life quite a bit, but it’s on my terms, rather than a structural obligation built into my lifestyle. Of course, I wouldn’t deny that some who attempt to impact the world succeed. And some of those impacts have benefited those who come after. And I doubt the world would be a better place if everyone were like me, but then that is true of anyone.

viburnum 7y ago

No, that’s just the human condition. Having an outlet for it is good!

alexpetralia 7y ago

To play devil's advocate, what is to come of deliberating on existential meaning at great length? Do you think you'll find an answer, rationally speaking (that is, using the tools of reason and logic)? Notably, Godel's incompleteness theorems suggest these tools may be insufficient. More specifically, if you try to rationally "justify" what you ought to be doing, you will always be able to - legitimately! - impugn its logical foundation. This suggests that consciously reasoning about what someone's fundamental purpose is may not be the best way to go about things. Rather, just as how we make most decisions, an intuitive and heuristical approach may be better. In other words, "do what feels right." What feels right may materialize as a family, as charity, as building a business, or even building a career. My point is that all of these can be challenged as "deferring existential questions" - again legitimately - because they cannot be justified rationally. (All of these, equally, can be criticized in hindsight as being "wrong": wrong marriage decision, wrong way to raise children, wrong work-life balance, wrong charitable/activist cause.) As a result, I don't think the criticism that a career - even an all-consuming one (as a family may be) - is somehow less justified. This is not to invite pure relativism: some things do seem to be more meaningful than others. But! It is precisely that this "seems to be" is intuitive, and not rational, which constitutes the foundation of our belief. And so if a career-focus seems "intuitive", then I think it's meaningful enough. --- EDIT: One other thing to note is that people who are fairly content with their lives don't often ponder _why_ their life is meaningful. They've specified a priori assumptions for what makes it meaningful (e.g. charitable giving, helping others), or intuitively feel what is meaningful (e.g. family, friends, happiness), and that is that. It's precisely the people who end up endlessly questioning these assumptions - facing the meaning of their life head on - that seem to be most depressed. This is because it's an intellectual deadend - it cannot be deduced rationally. One way, then, to answer this existential question is to simply defer: don't question, do what feels right, and avoid what doesn't.

james-mcelwain 7y ago
I don't think OP is referring to meaning in an existential or epistemological sense, but rather discussing workaholism as a "practical" avoidant behavior for those who put off dealing with some kind of dysfunction or trauma.
deleted 7y ago

yibg 7y ago

I think it doesn’t need to be due to deferring major life decisions, but rather just youth and inexperience. I spent a few years of my life working 80+ hour weeks, advancing my career. It wasn’t due to deferring some life decisions but rather was just something I felt I needed to do to prove myself and get ahead. I’ve since grown out of this, but I notice this in other younger people around me. Super enthusiastic, always on and available and ready to jump in to work on anything.

bsanr2 7y ago
So the question is then if that phase is truly necessary for success or not. A lot of people say, "They grew out of it," but then to look at people who "know their worth and limits" early, they're not nearly as successful, on average. Part of that is that if you're not seen to be working hard, no matter how effective you are, you will not be seen to be effective, and will not reap the rewards of that effectiveness; the people calling the shots will not have it. So, if the expectation is overwork, and it is necessary to advance, is that something untenable to how work in America should be? Or, on some level, do we like it or view it as serving a purpose?

cryptica 7y ago

For me work is what I enjoy the most about life. I would do it for free - In fact I worked on open source projects for free for almost a decade. Including some successful/popular ones. That said I still feel burned out. I've come to realize that not only did the work I do for free not give me any financial advantage (which I expected), but the people who've hired me over the past few years don't seem to recognize that work as being valid work experience. I'm 30 years old but what I've found over and over again is that managers will give promotions to 35 year olds who spent most of their lives playing video games. From my perspective, the people described in this article sound like they have it pretty good. What I need is merely for people to realize that I'm actually a 40 year old work-machine trapped in the body of a 30 year old human... Maybe if I can achieve that, then I will eventually reach a high point in my life when I can afford to have problems with self-actualization like those described in the article.

incompleteness 7y ago
You expect them to spontaneously have a spiritual epiphany about your "old soul"? Please man, stand up for yourself and learn the measures of business ethics.
- cryptica 7y ago
  You're jumping to conclusions. I often asked for raises and tried to negotiate. I quit companies several times after they failed to promote me or they failed to give me a raise. I'm pretty sure it has nothing to do with business skills. Just bad luck. My last boss was so upset when I told him I was thinking of quitting that, in front of the whole company, he threatened to throw me out of the window but then he apologized multiple times and asked me to come back after he regained his composure (I had a lot of leverage at the time)... But I quit the next day to save face and find better opportunities. This company had tons of money (millions to spend on development) but they wouldn't give me a 10% modest salary increase after 2 years of excellent work. That's the kind of irrational people I worked for. There was no indication they were going to be like this when I joined. You only find out about this stuff after several years and then you already wasted your time and have to start again at a new company and hope that your next employer will be fair or rational at the very least.

lesdeuxmagots 7y ago

That positive feedback loop is one of the key things to watch out for. Work tends to have many mechanisms which directly links what you put in with positive feedback in a relatively short amount of time, which leads people to optimize for that short term maxima. Putting in more effort, more hours, etc for a positive outcome on a project, a promotion, etc is an easy decision to make, can be almost addicting for many high performers. However, the neglect that one does to long-term feedback cycles, like not spending enough time with your spouse, children, friends, family, personal hobbies, only manifest negatively in the long run. The investments on the positive side also play out mostly in the long run as well, so the direct feedback cycle isn't quite there. Using work to get those satisfying consistent wins can have its costs if you aren't deliberate about balancing against investments towards the long term maxima.

gist 7y ago

> High status careers are often structured, full of positive feedback loops, and well compensated Problem is when people are in 'high status careers' that can't take the pressure or the heat of the high status career. And try to keep up with those who do. I am not sure you find many athletes who once they make it complain that they wish they had chosen another path. My guess on why that is? Less luck involved (sure luck with everything). Less luck means more likely the strong or talented survive and they are appreciative for what they have and less likely to crumble and complain.

grecy 7y ago

> all of which can strengthen the urge to defer existential questions about meaning, purpose, community, and identity until some unspecified future date I've quit my Software Engineering job twice now to spend years of my life doing whatever I want. First time I spent two years driving from Alaska to Argentina [1] and second time I just spent three years driving right around Africa [2]. Both times I had no job, no boss, no timeline and I did whatever I wanted every single day. Hiking, camping, taking photos, cooking food, learning a new language, writing when I wanted to, etc. etc. I had ultimate freedom, living off my savings. Without a doubt, the "freedom" life is much harder for me than the "desk job" life for exactly the reasons you listed above. After about six months for me I started to really, really think about the meaning of my life, what direction I want my life to take and a ton of other things that simply don't enter my mind when my life is on autopilot (i.e. going to work every day). Going to work everyday is easy, because it means you don't have to decide the direction of your own life if you don't want to. [1] http://theroadchoseme.com/expedition-overview http://theroadchoseme.com/expedition-overview [2] http://theroadchoseme.com/africa-expedition-overview http://theroadchoseme.com/africa-expedition-overview. & http://instagram.com/theroadchoseme http://instagram.com/theroadchoseme

brookside 7y ago
You are sure are doing a whole lot of book promotion on here and on reddit! This may come across as harsh, but driving on highways, pan-american or not, doesn't strike me as much of an adventure in the current era.
- Hnrobert42 7y ago
  Wow. I would offer this comment does come across as unnecessarily antagonistic. Other than the links, the poster didn’t mention their book at all. Further, they didn’t claim to be adventurous as much as contemplative.
- grecy 7y ago
  > This may come across as harsh, but driving on highways, pan-american or not, doesn't strike me as much of an adventure in the current era. No worries, I totally understand where you're coming from. I don't disagree with you either - sticking to the beaten path can be very easy, especially in countries that are more developed and have lots of tourists. It can certainly get very difficult and adventurous if you wish. From your comment I take it you've never been to West Africa. Driving across Nigeria, Mali, the DRC, Angola most certainly is an adventure, even in 2019. When I went looking for it I was right in it up to my neck, often wondering if I'd bitten off more than I can chew. I crossed a border where the border guard who had been working there for three years had never seen a foreigner in his life. Plenty of times kids ran away from me because they had never seen a white person. Yes, even today you can go and do that, in West Africa, if you go remote enough. I got malaria twice. I rolled my Jeep. I got stuck in the mud alone. I drove through water that came over the hood many times. It was 100F and 99% humidity for months on end, even at night I was pouring sweat trying to sleep. It's easily the hardest and most rewarding thing I've ever done in my life, and to be honest I wonder if I'll never find that level of being truly alive ever again. If you genuinely want to know what I'm talking about, here's a video of me driving across the DRC, easily the 5 biggest days of adventure in my life. I'm happy to answer any questions you have about the DRC crossing, or anything else for that matter. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OV8V3GdOcPU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OV8V3GdOcPU

grawprog 7y ago

I just left a job I'd built an identity around. I was good at it, it was fulfilling and paid decently, but I spent all my time there and not much on anything else. Quitting was really hard. It felt a lot like breaking up with someone. It really does feel like leaving a part of myself behind. I've been working somewhere else with less hours and far less responsibility so far. The first week or two was kind of a shock. Going back to the bottom of a place where I don't really have any kind of responsibility or even really knowledge of everything thats going on has been pretty tough. But it's refreshing in a way, i've gone back to a few hobbies and other things I haven't worked on for a while now and it's kinda nice just show up, do things I get told to do and leave without worrying about what I need to get done for tomorrow and stuff.

LatteLazy 7y ago

I'm 35, I have been trying to turn the boat around on this for 2 years now. You're exactly right.

ljm 7y ago

I agree with much of this, both out of personal experience and that of my friend. Work is a distraction from what is really gnawing at your ankles. Even if you start to burn out it still feels preferable to the alternative, if you're even aware of that in the first place. And to be honest, it's valid even though it's massively unhealthy. Facing your underlying issues, whatever they are, is hard work but also, it's ultimately the most rewarding work. I've a lot to share about the matter, but it's a bit much and a little too personal for a public response here.

0kl 7y ago

I don’t know if this is fair to say. The trope exists, certainly, but I don’t know if we can pass judgement on a way someone has chosen to live their life just because it would not fulfill us. It’s absolutely true that many people regret prioritizing their career later, but there are also quite a few people regret not investing in their career as well. My takeaway watching many people regret, and having regrets my own - or as you put it, my “debt coming due,” is that it is up to each of us to do our best to predict what our future selves will want. That’s all there is to it, and it’s unproductive to say “careers are bad,” or, alternatively, “focusing on family is bad,” or any variation of the above.

tempsy 7y ago

I see it more as a way to fill gaps in someone’s life that they’ve either consciously or subconsciously rejected e.g. having a family. This might be extremely controversial but does anyone else find it fitting that so many of the high profile Silicon Valley elite are single childless gay men?

sjg007 7y ago

Existentialism is a trap. Camus pretty much nailed it but here it is in comic/essay form: https://moretothat.com/the-meaning-of-life-is-absurd/ https://moretothat.com/the-meaning-of-life-is-absurd/

friendlybus 7y ago
Absurd nihilism is not a get out of jail free card for existentialism. It's a structure to answer the existential question in the same way Nietzsche's answers are a structure or any of the other philosophers. It has a fundamental axiom at the bottom and a logic that blossoms out of it. Saying there is 'no meaning' is to answer the question with avoiding the question to begin with. Writer's block / drawer's block happens when you don't have a structure for your ideas. Nearly any structure you can think of can be useful for starting work. Hero's journey can be used to prop up your ideas like a tack weld until you get something better. The character in the article cannot get their ideas out because they do not have a structure for their work, their ideas and their existence. One answer is to lump your existence into the "nothing" category and another answer is to see how deep the rabbit hole of existence goes and come out with your own thoughts, structures and opinions. The point of reading philosophers is not to become them, but to develop your own perspective. It's not a trap, it's a necessity.
- sjg007 7y ago
  The absurd is the tension between the search for meaning and the inability to find any. It doesn’t mean there is no meaning as a nihilist would argue. Nor does it imply destruction. Camus’s absurd is more akin to Gödel incompleteness than nihilism.
  - friendlybus 7y ago
    The article repeatedly leans on nihilism as it's counterpoint to order and meaning. Time is infinite therefore we are meaningless is nilihism. You can fill in time with what means something to you, it need not be empty. >The thirst for more sounds comically absurd when you zoom out and see that nothing matters, so it’s about going deep into the zoomed-in life you already lead. Your health, your loved ones, your work, your interests, your desire to help others, your values, your existence. >What could be more meaningful than that? This quote from the article sums it up, to have a meaningful life you must accept that there isn't any meaning in some points of the world. That worldview leaves a massive gaping black hole of meaning in time and space around you. That black hole where there is no meaning is nihilistic. It clears out the greater story above you that could actually be an expression of what you find meaningful as a human, with which you could fill the universe and replaces it with a pre-determined story, absurdism that includes nothing. Godel's incompleteness can be used for any argument. Mathematical and computational logic is not the basis of all philosophy, nor is anything we know or the field would be dead. Defining your axioms is part of the game. Defining a world view that includes meaning in all places is a far more sympathetic perspective than to rob the reader's worldview of it's potential to apply in most places, by defining that the vast majority of external existence is non-meaning. Asking the reader to read more is a more healthy perspective. Arguing that absurdism gives a valuable middle ground between meaning and non-meaning is something I'd heartily disagree with. The reader is more than capable of finding their own middle ground and becoming their own person in the process.

lettergram 7y ago

It’s interesting you say that... arguably I am an extreme workaholic, I work 70+ hours every week. I learn all I can on top of that. I get satisfaction from it, but it’s not my identity. If I was a janitor, I’d try to be the best janitor, because that’s what I like doing, I like being good at my job. I also plan 2 years out and intend to have $X wealth by specific deadlines. I’ll work harder to reach it. For me, as I’m only 27 (but have been doing this since I was 14) my goal is to be able to “retire” by 35. That means I need lots of money in the bank. After that I can choose what I want to do, but before that you’re right, I don’t want to think about life choices. It’s hard to work when everyone else is having fun. But I’m also on track to be financially free (I.e. high enough passive income for lifestyle) by 35. So I can have a much more fulfilled life for 50 years or so. Remember investments grow exponentially- meaning you want to invest as much as you can while you’re young(er)

DaiPlusPlus 7y ago
> Remember investments grow exponentially- meaning you want to invest as much as you can while you’re young(er) *grow geometrically (with apologies, am pedant)
- alecbenzer 7y ago
  Per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exponential_growth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exponential_growth, geometric growth is exponential growth.
amoorthy 7y ago
A former boss of mine told me once: "if you think you need X before you do Y you will forever find Xs". He went on to be a very successful CEO of a F500 company so his advice likely has merit. The takeaway I had was that you shouldn't wait to live your life by first toiling away at something. Live your life today because who knows about tomorrow. And work is part of life. Find a way to enjoy that too even if it's a means to an end.

memn0nis 7y ago

This. It's so easy to escape in workaholism and ignore the "hard" things in life (relationships, health, purpose, etc). It's easy (for me at least) to fall into this trap.

csomar 7y ago

> Eventually the debt comes due but sometimes not until many decades later. It's a dangerous path if you don't have things to follow on through (like a family, kids, grown kids university, new wife, etc...). There is no meaning to life and it makes more sense to end your life right now. (at least with the info/data we have available).