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> life advice Can't help you with this; I'll just say life is a lot more than your job. So any "life advice" would be unrelated to being a software engineer or

> life advice Can't help you with this; I'll just say life is a lot more than your job. So any "life advice" would be unrelated to being a software engineer or whatever. > helping people by writing software "Software" itself is just kind of like a building material; there's a very large number of ways you can apply it and things you can build with it. If you're more interested in "doing something meaningful/useful by writing software" than in "writing software to do something meaningful/useful", then you'll have to change the perspective a bit and actively look for it. > happy I wouldn't really know. Maybe the instances where I found something I wrote being used and liked by a user and being helpful to them, even if in a small way. There have also been a couple of times where I built something which had some element of "fun" in the code itself. These do bring a certain happiness, but it's temporary, usually brief, and looking back it tends to sound silly and pointless. Some silliness and inconsequential fun is probably very good for your life, but it won't provide long term satisfaction on its own. > regret Yeah, some. But don't let regrets guide your life. They'll make you miserable.

mrbirddev 2y ago
> These do bring a certain happiness, but it's temporary, usually brief, and looking back it tends to sound silly and pointless This is something that bugs me. I still enjoy coding and making but I know that I'd eventually be leaving what I'm currently working on or selling them. It happened and it will happen again. what is "long term satisfaction" and how to find it?
- genezeta 2y ago
  > what is "long term satisfaction" and how to find it? The problem with that question is that it usually requires time travelling ;) You need to first experience things and then look back and see if they felt fulfilling or satisfactory to know for sure. There's an approximation you can have. You can now look back at you currently accumulated history of various things you have tried already. Find ones which you remember liking (like as in being satisfactory) then and still like now. Try to sketch patterns out of those experiences. (You can do the same with stuff you don't like, obviously) From that, extrapolate and "guesstimate" what activities you find meaningful and fulfilling. Try pursuing those and seeing how it goes. Rinse and repeat in a few years and correct your assumptions.

mrbirddev 2y ago

> These do bring a certain happiness, but it's temporary, usually brief, and looking back it tends to sound silly and pointless This is something that bugs me. I still enjoy coding and making but I know that I'd eventually be leaving what I'm currently working on or selling them. It happened and it will happen again. what is "long term satisfaction" and how to find it?

genezeta 2y ago
> what is "long term satisfaction" and how to find it? The problem with that question is that it usually requires time travelling ;) You need to first experience things and then look back and see if they felt fulfilling or satisfactory to know for sure. There's an approximation you can have. You can now look back at you currently accumulated history of various things you have tried already. Find ones which you remember liking (like as in being satisfactory) then and still like now. Try to sketch patterns out of those experiences. (You can do the same with stuff you don't like, obviously) From that, extrapolate and "guesstimate" what activities you find meaningful and fulfilling. Try pursuing those and seeing how it goes. Rinse and repeat in a few years and correct your assumptions.