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I am a software engineer. I struggled to find meaning in my work for the first few years of my career. I used to lie (unknowingly) to myself "I love my job", "

by ksd482 3y ago

I am a software engineer. I struggled to find meaning in my work for the first few years of my career. I used to lie (unknowingly) to myself "I love my job", "I am passionate about my job", "It's my passion" and I was always disappointed. That is until one day, after many years and barring many details, I decided to tell myself that "I push buttons on a company laptop in exchange for money and I happen to somewhat like it from time to time". I immediately became better at my job as it improved my mental health. I started seeing my work for what it was. As for "passion", I started looking elsewhere for it and eventually found it. I can't make living from it, but that's another story.

gdsdfe 3y ago
where did you find your passion? just curious
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- tilne 3y ago
  On the advice of a commenter in a different HN thread I recently read Cal Newport’s book, “So Good They Can’t Ignore You.” The main premise is that passion results from valuable skills built via hard work over years of deliberate practice. Only after you have those valuable skills, the book argues, do you have the leverage to dictate your life in a way many people find necessary for satisfaction. Passion follows from there. The book is a fun read, but that’s basically the entire takeaway. And I find it to be a compelling argument. Passion does need to be found, but it seems logical that your skills will lead you to the passion, rather than the other way around.
  - pdimitar 3y ago
    That seems like a load of crap, I have a few passions ever since 13 year old and 30 years later they're still in me even though I barely ever practiced them. If that's the core idea of the entire book then I'm glad I'll save my money and time not to read it. Generalizations are dumb.
  - adave 3y ago
    What do you drink in the morning for working years for a skill only to hope passion shows up. Imo, if you actually listen to yourself(if you can hear) its easy to find out if you are passionate about certain things. No need to spend 10 years hating woodworking only to find no passion for it lol.Self help authors these days.
  - LandR 3y ago
    I'm not sure I follow, it sounds like do something long enough to get good and it will become a passion... That almost sounds like a sort of Stockholm syndrome...
- ksd482 3y ago
  Mathematics. Learning and doing pure (proof based) Mathematics. I was really good at it in high school and college, and it was the only thing I truly enjoyed. So I got curious, picked up a book from undergrad curriculum and started learning myself. Got more curious, and I enrolled in a Masters program and got a Masters. I don't have much time these days, but eventually I will get back to it and continue learning more. Perhaps one day, after I have retired or scaled down in my current job, I will pursue a PhD in it. If you are curious about how I was able to accurately pinpoint "Mathematics" as my passion, then read on... I was very disappointed by the lack of "scienciness" in software engineering. It wasn't even true engineering in my eyes as in, there were no calculations I needed to do, no statistics to keep in mind. It was just pure coding until something works. That wasn't intelecutally satisfying to me. So I signed up for Andrew Ng's "Machine Learning" course. I really enjoyed it because he is an excellent teacher. But during the course I noticed something peculiar. I would skim through the reading material about AI/ML but would SLOW DOWN during the Math part of it. I would obsess about the PDEs, think deeply about them, even try to prove/derive them which was totally unnecessary for the purpose of the course and learning AI/ML's applications. Combine this with my conversations with my colleague about AI/ML. He is really passionate about AI/ML and its applications and how to use it to solve real world problems. As far as I am concerned, I don't care about that at all. I ONLY care about the underlying mathematical objects used in it. He would talk about using an prebuilt library or a model and to just apply it to solve something and it would make him happy. Not me. I want to talk about what degree of the PDEs being used. What theorem is used to prove a certain equation. This is when I realized that I didn't care about applications all that much. This was further validated when I got curious about the undergrad curriculum and picked up the book "The book of proof", and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I LOVED proving theorem and staring at the mathematical symbols on my notepad/whiteboard/chalkboard (yes, eventually I got a HUGE chalkboard installed in my study). And, that is how I met Mathematics. Thank you for reading :)
pdimitar 3y ago
How does realization address the fact that a lot of us hate showing up for work and even doing it at all? Simple -- it doesn't. Strange how you frame it: "the entire problem was that I was thinking wrongly about my job". No, that's not the problem at all for many people.
- ricardobeat 3y ago
  That sounds like being in the wrong career, doesn't it? I'm not a fan of the 'if you work on what you love, then you're not working at all' philosophy, but surely people can find something they at least enjoy doing (or the rewards) a little.
  - pdimitar 3y ago
    Nope, nothing like that is on the horizon. Not one bit. Nothing pays even close to 30% of my programming salary. We're seriously and indisputably talking about losing at least 2/3rd of my income if I get the next best offer in another profession. And no, I still love programming but the commercial one I now hate. Not sure how can that be remedied. I am taking a hiatus currently but let's be real, that won't solve anything; it's a way to just hate it little less for the first 3-4 months after you're back. I know it also STRONGLY depends on who you're working for (and the colleagues) but I've sucked at networking all my life and when I finally woke up about it I have nearly zero possibilities to get hired after an informal chat because somebody else already knows me. I got like 3-4 of these bullets and will shoot them soon enough but my faith in the result is low. So no, I am fairly doubtful that I'll find "something I at least enjoy doing", sadly. Anything I enjoy wouldn't even pay my rent, let alone everything else after it.
    - ricardobeat 3y ago
      Good luck with the search. A lot of good jobs come from networking, but you can still find something great out of shooting cold applications, I know several people who did. It takes a ton of work and perseverance but is achievable.

by ksd482 3y ago

gdsdfe 3y ago

where did you find your passion? just curious

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
tilne 3y ago
On the advice of a commenter in a different HN thread I recently read Cal Newport’s book, “So Good They Can’t Ignore You.” The main premise is that passion results from valuable skills built via hard work over years of deliberate practice. Only after you have those valuable skills, the book argues, do you have the leverage to dictate your life in a way many people find necessary for satisfaction. Passion follows from there. The book is a fun read, but that’s basically the entire takeaway. And I find it to be a compelling argument. Passion does need to be found, but it seems logical that your skills will lead you to the passion, rather than the other way around.
- pdimitar 3y ago
  That seems like a load of crap, I have a few passions ever since 13 year old and 30 years later they're still in me even though I barely ever practiced them. If that's the core idea of the entire book then I'm glad I'll save my money and time not to read it. Generalizations are dumb.
- adave 3y ago
  What do you drink in the morning for working years for a skill only to hope passion shows up. Imo, if you actually listen to yourself(if you can hear) its easy to find out if you are passionate about certain things. No need to spend 10 years hating woodworking only to find no passion for it lol.Self help authors these days.
- LandR 3y ago
  I'm not sure I follow, it sounds like do something long enough to get good and it will become a passion... That almost sounds like a sort of Stockholm syndrome...
ksd482 3y ago
Mathematics. Learning and doing pure (proof based) Mathematics. I was really good at it in high school and college, and it was the only thing I truly enjoyed. So I got curious, picked up a book from undergrad curriculum and started learning myself. Got more curious, and I enrolled in a Masters program and got a Masters. I don't have much time these days, but eventually I will get back to it and continue learning more. Perhaps one day, after I have retired or scaled down in my current job, I will pursue a PhD in it. If you are curious about how I was able to accurately pinpoint "Mathematics" as my passion, then read on... I was very disappointed by the lack of "scienciness" in software engineering. It wasn't even true engineering in my eyes as in, there were no calculations I needed to do, no statistics to keep in mind. It was just pure coding until something works. That wasn't intelecutally satisfying to me. So I signed up for Andrew Ng's "Machine Learning" course. I really enjoyed it because he is an excellent teacher. But during the course I noticed something peculiar. I would skim through the reading material about AI/ML but would SLOW DOWN during the Math part of it. I would obsess about the PDEs, think deeply about them, even try to prove/derive them which was totally unnecessary for the purpose of the course and learning AI/ML's applications. Combine this with my conversations with my colleague about AI/ML. He is really passionate about AI/ML and its applications and how to use it to solve real world problems. As far as I am concerned, I don't care about that at all. I ONLY care about the underlying mathematical objects used in it. He would talk about using an prebuilt library or a model and to just apply it to solve something and it would make him happy. Not me. I want to talk about what degree of the PDEs being used. What theorem is used to prove a certain equation. This is when I realized that I didn't care about applications all that much. This was further validated when I got curious about the undergrad curriculum and picked up the book "The book of proof", and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I LOVED proving theorem and staring at the mathematical symbols on my notepad/whiteboard/chalkboard (yes, eventually I got a HUGE chalkboard installed in my study). And, that is how I met Mathematics. Thank you for reading :)

pdimitar 3y ago

How does realization address the fact that a lot of us hate showing up for work and even doing it at all? Simple -- it doesn't. Strange how you frame it: "the entire problem was that I was thinking wrongly about my job". No, that's not the problem at all for many people.

ricardobeat 3y ago
That sounds like being in the wrong career, doesn't it? I'm not a fan of the 'if you work on what you love, then you're not working at all' philosophy, but surely people can find something they at least enjoy doing (or the rewards) a little.
- pdimitar 3y ago
  Nope, nothing like that is on the horizon. Not one bit. Nothing pays even close to 30% of my programming salary. We're seriously and indisputably talking about losing at least 2/3rd of my income if I get the next best offer in another profession. And no, I still love programming but the commercial one I now hate. Not sure how can that be remedied. I am taking a hiatus currently but let's be real, that won't solve anything; it's a way to just hate it little less for the first 3-4 months after you're back. I know it also STRONGLY depends on who you're working for (and the colleagues) but I've sucked at networking all my life and when I finally woke up about it I have nearly zero possibilities to get hired after an informal chat because somebody else already knows me. I got like 3-4 of these bullets and will shoot them soon enough but my faith in the result is low. So no, I am fairly doubtful that I'll find "something I at least enjoy doing", sadly. Anything I enjoy wouldn't even pay my rent, let alone everything else after it.
  - ricardobeat 3y ago
    Good luck with the search. A lot of good jobs come from networking, but you can still find something great out of shooting cold applications, I know several people who did. It takes a ton of work and perseverance but is achievable.