Freedom, respect, and the ability to understand things. Freedom - I want a life where I am not burdened by pedantic obligations. I want to do what I want, when

Freedom, respect, and the ability to understand things. Freedom - I want a life where I am not burdened by pedantic obligations. I want to do what I want, whenever I want, on a whim. Easier said than done, but it seems being a software engineer gets me closer to this ideal than any other job. Respect - I want people to treat me with respect and just be decent to me. Understanding - I get a lot of joy out of understanding things. I get goosebumps, the warm fuzzy feeling, shivers down my spine, etc. This can come from work (recently happened while debugging and realizing a huge problem), or reading, or conversation, or even from video games (Outer Wilds recently scratched this itch for me in an awesome way). If I can live a relatively free life where people are decent to me and I can continue to build my understanding of life, society, and the universe, I'll be very happy. Unfortunately the "respect" portion is probably the toughest for me, as to get respect from certain folks you have to have external markers of success, like good job, house, pretty wife, kids, etc. I personally don't care too much about any of that shit, but it really gets me down when people are assholes to me, so I do strive to do well in these areas, if only to shut the haters up. I'm also only 25 so who the hell knows what I'll think even a few years from now.