Wow, this is a coincidence. I've been languishing as a developer for 8 years, and languishing in the existential crisis of what to do with myself for many months. This is literally all I've been thinking about today, after recently having been rejected after 6 interviews. I don't know why I continued to pursue frontend/SWE as a career despite being terminated from every position I've held in the industry and repeated burnouts. The pay increases every time, and I dodge questions about my former positions as much as possible, but of the last decade I really only have about 3.5 years (generously) of experience. If I think about it, there's never really been any clear indication that I'd be good at the job, aside from being a capable programmer. It's really sad, and I don't really know how to pivot, because I don't really know why I'm not suited to it, or why I would be to something else. When I got my last job, I joked to my family that hopefully I'll be able to bank some of the salary before I get fired in 6 months. 6 months later, and now 8 months ago, I was. Now what? That's a tough question to answer, but maybe just letting go of being a software engineer would give me the clarity to find out.
Would love to learn more. Are you struggling because of the frontend duties? FE is not for everyone, and the low barrier to entry can be deceptive. Or perhaps writing code, per se, isn't where you should focus. Have you thought about focusing on pipelines or infrastructure (databases, networking, storage, compute, GPUs, cloud, etc)? Or, as other commenter asks, is there more of a non-tech-related issue at play that you might be comfortable talking about?
Not to be rude, but do you have any problems at work? Like communication or interpersonal? Surely there has to be some reason given when fired, or you can at least guess why.
"despite being terminated from every position I've held"
Holy shit what?
I mean i don't hired on every interview myself as probably everyone does in their lives but i have never been terminated ever. That has to be some kind of a very clear red flag that you are doing something significanly wrong.
> I mean i don't hired on every interview myself as probably everyone does in their lives but i have never been terminated ever.
It's worth getting terminated once to get a peek behind the scenes on how these things work :-)
It likely depends on the company, but it's not that hard to get terminated. Just have a manager that is ruthlessly pursuing his career, and wants you to be a pawn in his quest. When he suggests something that is wrong/suboptimal, then disagree with him. Repeat about 10 times and he'll find ways for you to underperform and fire you.
Have you been working on any side projects? If you can finish and launch a software project, then you are OK. The consensus seems to be that interviews are bad at identifying capable people.
I think JK Rowling's Harry Potter books were rejected by 10 publishers, so fuck other people's judgement.
>If you can finish and launch a software project, then you are OK.
In what way would he be OK? Tons of developers launch software projects, but most don't go anywhere...
>The consensus seems to be that interviews are bad at identifying capable people.
Perhaps, but self-selection is even worse...
>I think JK Rowling's Harry Potter books were rejected by 10 publishers, so fuck other people's judgement.
Well, the books of some authors were rejected by ALL publishers though, and the books of other authors were accepted by sold nothing, so there's that too...
If they can launch, they can develop. Regardless of whether something comes off or, it’s a confidence booster and reinforces belief in their skill sets.
There has been nothing more awkward in my life than achieving all of my lifelong goals. It is a rather wonderful problem to have, but still a problem. I'm not going to brag about the details, but in practice I set out to achieve some difficult goals as a teenager, and dedicated my life to them. It worked. I have everything I wanted. Now what? I've spent the last few years unsure of what to do with the rest of my life, and it is like being a teenager again as I flirt with new narratives. I'm only now just starting to settle into what I see as a "decade long effort" on a new set of goals.
I’ve seen this with models, by the time they’re 22 they have lived in multiple countries, travelled on their own, in all the most classic and “romantic” places that they and other people have aspired to merely visit, and also been around all designers and shows that they dreamed of.
They’re not even at the place where they’re worried about needing to pivot professions, they’ve just done their aspirations - other people’s aspirations - and are left wondering whats next.
They pivot, go back to school. Find something new to be passionate about. Take the office job they thought they would hate but suddenly find it fulfilling.
For us obviously these are the basics: an “office job” lol.
But the concept is similar, adjusting learning something new. Its not just about aspiring for new experiences for yourself, there can be other fulfilling things that are repetitive where you dont really have to one-up yourself, just do it differently. Like art, festivals.
I've read something quite similar in a "where are they now?" article about a team that won the soccer world cup 30 years earlier.
These guys had bagged the highest possible achievement in their field, most in their 20s. Now what?
Most tried to stay in the field and go the coach/management route. One actually managed to get to a second world cup as head coach and place second. Several languished as coaches of lower league teams, clearly unhappy (or at least the article portrayed them so). Some became TV commentators.
Only one left the sport behind completely, invested his money and lived in the USA.
It seems like this is a pretty normal reaction. I listened to an interview with a shot-putter who originally won silver in the Olympics, but then years later was given the gold medal when the original winner was discovered to have used steroids. He met the official in a food court at the mall and handed them his silver, and they gave him his new gold, and then he left. And after years of single-minded work, suddenly he had reached his goal, and there was no happily ever after waiting for him.
For me it would be about the ceremony and recognition of getting the medal not getting the medal in and of itself so it would be a sour result for me to experience that.
I hope the fact that I can recognize this about myself helps me avoid pitfalls in choosing goals.
I'm pretty sure that if you wanted to, you could create a media splash out of this event. It wouldn't be as big as the original Olympics, but it's pretty newsworthy.
Exactly the same for me. I had a bunch of goals; I fulfilled most of them, and the ones I didn't/couldn't I god much better alternatives for. I have not created any new goals; a lot of changes have happened recently, and fulfillment of my previous ambitions is just keeping me in some sort of skewed confidence that I just need to react to whatever life throws at me now.
Although, I'm thoroughly fed up of what I liked to do earlier; now I'm looking for a new career path. Let's see how it goes.
> There has been nothing more awkward in my life than achieving all of my lifelong goals.
This is why I lament the realities of the path of some who achieved success at too early an age, especially if they delayed coming of age in order to do so. Its not uncommon to hear about the teenage bitcoin millionaire or a really young founder that got lucky on his first shot, but when one of those kids enter your life you're shocked at how miserable and depressed they are. They seem to lack purpose entirely and seem to get in the way of what you would think would be 'happiness.'
Peaking so early in life has to be less about awkwardness and more about the fear knowing it will likely all just be downhill from that high and you're just filling the void until death; many would think (myself included) that you'd enjoy the luxuries it affords all while still having your youth and the excitement that creates but the reality is most just languish in that situation and are aimless if they never saw anything worth pursuing beside those goals from an early age.
I'm guilty of sacrificing far too much to achieve my goals: youth, social life, relationships, stability, money, (mental and physical) health etc... but it took me until my mid 30s to see why that tired cliche about it being 'more about ride than the destination' to realize why its true.
I learned so much about myself from all of the painful mistakes, the struggle and the resilience you create to cope with it and came to value the relationships I made along the way that made any of it possible more than what a 'fat exit' from a startup ever could. I only recently realized I came out a better person: I'm far from perfect, but I noticed I'm a much more compassionate, empathetic, and genuinely kind person, one that people actually enjoy being around and spending time with even with all my 'baggage.'
Whereas my younger self idealized a cunning, scheming, cut-throat opportunist who could thrive in any situation whatever the cost. Essentially it made be re-evaluate the value of People, Community and Humanity in general; instead of just succumbing to the nihilist, reductionist that feels that the height of one's existence could somehow elevate them to a fabricated position and even allow them to take pleasure in seeing the World burn from an ivory tower because at least 'I made it.'
> This is why I lament the realities of the path of some who achieved success at too early an age, especially if they delayed coming of age in order to do so. Its not uncommon to hear about the teenage bitcoin millionaire or a really young founder that got lucky on his first shot, but when one of those kids enter your life you're shocked at how miserable and depressed they are. They seem to lack purpose entirely and seem to get in the way of what you would think would be 'happiness.'
To watch it unfold live, just go through Notch's twitter feed...
I wanted to be a software engineer, make interesting things and a lot of money.
At 28 I had a PhD in computer science, worked for Google, and was basically as far along in my career as I had the passion to do. I was a TL (happily not one now). I've moved to a smaller company and I'm liking that. I have accumulated about half of my retirement fund (I'm not expecting to live much past 60 due to health issues, so I need retire early or die working). My goal for the next 10 years is to establish the "retirement" phase of my life. Accumulate enough money, lower my CoL and build infrastructure to keep me fed and entertained for the next 30 years. I have a backlog of "things I really want to do to but nobody will pay me for" that I hope to be free to work on until I die.
> and it is like being a teenager again as I flirt with new narratives.
That's an interesting way to see it! So is your overall take on life now a positive or a negative one? Or is it somewhere in between?
> I'm only now just starting to settle into what I see as a "decade long effort" on a new set of goals.
Goals can lead you astray, though. Sometimes you don't actually want to achieve them[0] or you do want to achieve them but don't and end up frustrated because you keep on measuring yourself against them. Or, well, you do achieve them and still end up being miserable.
Years ago I read this blog post[1] and it resonated a lot with me. Now I prefer to view my life through the problems I have or don't have, instead of the goals I have achieved or have not achieved.
What about setting the goal as a "routine" instead of an end result? e.g. Every week, jog 3 times, each for 10 km. Instead of running a full marathon by year 2021. That way the process itself is the pursuit and you can only achieve more and more. For me, coding itself falls in this category that I have yet to grow tired of
That is how you win. You achieve the "big goals" via obsessive habits. But those things are not the same as "I've reached as far into my career, education, relationships, and economic gains as I ever had a passion to do". I'm not tired of coding, I do it every day and it is still rewarding. But that isn't a life goal.
You get there, only to find out that there's no there there.
Don't worry, there are more things to do than there are years in your life. Try something else. Go visit some tall mountains, learn to drive/pilot something new, make an art, volunteer somewhere new, or just live differently than you have in the past.
It might not be fulfilling, but at least it'll be less boring. There's nothing worse than getting stuck in a rut, and telling yourself that you're only trying something for a few months is a good way to find interests that you never knew you had.
> You get there, only to find out that there's no there there.
There's the saying "wherever you go, there you are." At some point I ran across the idea that them emphasis should be on the "you;" wherever you go, there you are.
I have so much I want to do, I can't see ever retiring until I'm forced to or they carry me out in a box. I work most every day on various projects. Vacations are dull, there's only so much running around and looking at things until I just want to get back to work.
I have the opposite problem. I keep moving the goal post. My goals seem to change as my perspective changes. To a point where I feel like I will never accomplish everything I want to.
In the medical school and education field, there have been a number of suicides with generally high-achieving individuals. Although I'm speculating for the others, one student's inability to match to a residency has directly led to his suicide, with a suicide letter detailing the reasons. [1]
Several suicides have occurred during the past few years in the Canadian medical school/residency community, but they do not make the news.
It makes you wonder if the information in this article could have helped them.
> A second general solution to the problem of cooling the mark out consists of offering him a status which differs from the one he has lost or failed to gain but which provides at least a something or a somebody for him to become. Usually the alternative presented to the mark is a compromise of some kind, providing him with some of the trappings of his lost status as well as some of its spirit. A lover may be asked to become a friend; a student of medicine may be asked to switch to the study of dentistry; a boxer may become a trainer; a dying person may be asked to broaden and empty his worldly loves so as to embrace the All-Father that is about to receive him. Sometimes the mark is allowed to retain his status but is required to fulfill it in a different environment: the honest policeman is transferred to a lonely beat; the too zealous priest is encouraged to enter a monastery; an unsatisfactory plant manager is shipped off to another branch. Sometimes the mark is "kicked upstairs" and given a courtesy status such as "Vice President." In the game for social roles, transfer up, down, or away may all be consolation prizes.
> [...] Where roles are ranked and somewhat related, persons who have been rejected from the one above may be difficult to distinguish from persons who have risen from the one below. For example, in America, upper class women who fail to make a marriage in their own circle may follow the recognized route of marrying an upper middle class professional. Successful lower middle class women may arrive at the same station in life, coming from the other direction. Similarly, among those who mingle with one another as colleagues in
the profession of dentistry, it is possible to find some who have failed to become physicians and others who have succeeded at not becoming pharmacists or optometrists. No doubt there are few positions in life that do not throw together some persons who are there by virtue of failure and other persons who are there by virtue of success. In this sense, the dead are sorted but not segregated, and continue to walk
among the living.
On Cooling the Mark Out:
Some Aspects of Adaptation to Failure -- Erving Goffman
Psychiatry: Journal of Interpersonal Relations 1952
In that case, change in system that makes people study hard for years and then guarantees a number of them wont be able to proceed despite being able to would be necessary.
It is not just failed dream, it is also massive sunk cost.
I've never had this particular problem because I've never had the necessary focus for a dream to be "life-long"; I've got the opposite problem, a bazzillion "for-now" dreams. Unfortunately that lack of long-term focus can really slow your stride, but on the plus side, pivoting is easy (too easy) and you never look back.
I've certainly been disappointed to find certain paths were unexpectedly difficult and "not worth it" for me, but I can't say I regret leaving them; usually part of what made the path difficult was the lure of another path.
I also wonder if having dreams involving physical stamina make them harder to let go of. Ballet, for instance, is very physically demanding, and aging will cost you; you can't just take a 10 year break. Whereas if I dream of building a certain piece of software, it actually gets easier because the tools get better and age gives me experience.
I've also always been weary of dreams that depend on something too beyond your control, such as winning a certain award. You can do your best, but you can't force others to do worse.
(ETA: On a spiritual note, I don't think the achievement of any dream should be the foundation of the worth of one's life. That is, your existence in and of itself has more intrinsic value to the world than the achievement of any personal dream.)
There's nothing wrong with letting go of a dream. People often judge by the outcome while the value lies in the journey. The point of dreaming of something and trying to reach it is what you learn and realise about yourself while doing that. It doesn't matter if you choose to abandon your dream because you've found a new direction, new vision while working on it, you know more now and you've come to the conclusion that achieving that dream really wouldn't buy you anything worth what you've already gained by going through the process. Conversely, if you set your dream, work for it and finally achieve it but really learn nothing new of yourself to give you a clearer, better vision of your life, have you just wasted all the time on what was supposed to be the pretense for forcing yourself to go through stuff?
Probably. There are a lot of fields without any growth opportunity, we call it just a job. If you look at fields with growth opportunity they tend to warp into a pattern where a few participants are highly successful and everyone else is competing to do work for free.
When I started CS it was not yet approaching that pattern, it was still collecting burn outs from other STEM fields who liked to mess with complex systems. They pretty much all lived well because they were in the right place at the right time since they were done with any dream BS and just looked for something interesting that payed.
I think that we are actually happy in the process of achieving our goals, not after achieving them. Yet our mindsets are guided to the idea that if you have ahcieved everything - we become happy. Just an endless circle of goals and meaningless achievments
This is a very sensitive, pointed topic for me now.
I've achieved many of the goals I set myself, but my career has operated at a lower scale than what I can confidently describe as successful. I’m an artist & designer.
The biggest issue for me is being a parent. Being a parent puts a huge damper on my time, as well as my capacity for immersion and risk. My work necessitates being freelance in a fiercely competitive environment, there are no paid positions in my niche. It’s essential to have continuous periods of total absorption in order to perform at a high level. It is very hard to keep within 40 hours per week.
All of this is sharply at odds with my responsibilities as a parent. Yet I feel deeply committed to being a responsible parent.
But if that were true, I would've quit already. This inconsistency has created an unresolvable split internally, whereby I fall short at my standards of parenting, yet also at work. Worse, I increasingly hold back at seizing prized opportunities in my career, because I worry about the effect on my family. Such opportunities keep being offered, although fewer every year.
I realize I'm in a terminal spin. Yet everyone I know, even the two therapists I've seen, encourage me to commit to chasing this dream, albeit in a responsible way.
I’ve tried diluting what do into very commercial service, ie working for advertising agencies. I found decent clients, yet felt like shit about it. The working conditions are only marginally improved, but the output is massively less unrewarding.
What I’ve learned:
- A drastic change to another field would likely have been better strategy over the long haul, than a middling compromise.
- Competition and proximate opportunity keep you trapped in the game. It’s very hard to disengage from a game you feel involved in, either as player or observer. Other people’s ambitions are infectious, and you model their moves.
- When chasing a risky dream, the introduction of a dependent hugely decreases appetite for risk. You need to have reached a relatively comfortable position, above the messy middle, in order to keep playing.
If I was childless, if it was only my welfare on the line, there is no question as to what I would do. I would chase the dream relentlessly and recklessly.
The fact is, it was time to let go of it, years ago. I'm just amazed at my own and society's illusions of romantic perseverance when it comes to following your passions.
Did you know this junkyard slave
Isn't even old enough to shave
But he can use the Force, they say
Ahh, do you see him hitting on the queen
Though he's just nine and she's fourteen
Yeah, he's probably gonna marry her someday
Well, I know he built C-3PO
And I've heard how fast his pod can go
And we were broke, it's true
So we made a wager or two
He was a pre-pubescent flyin' ace
And the minute Jabba started off that race
Well, I knew who would win first place
Oh yes, it was our boy
We started singin'
My my this here Anakin guy
May be Vader someday later - now he's just a small fry
And he left his home and kissed his mommy goodbye
Sayin' "Soon I'm gonna be a Jedi, soon I'm gonna be a Jedi"
In my understanding, the unhappiness expressed by the singer comes from failing to achieve his lifelong dream; that's why I posted the stretch above on "How to let go of a lifelong dream".
I find that near-final couplet - Always said I'd be famous / I guess that I lied - to pack an extraordinary amount of tragic punch for 11 words. Sometimes it can cost a lot to admit something, even something that everyone knows.
That said, I saw an interview with Weird Al in which he was asked about reactions to the song, and said that theme park guides tended to like it. After all, the song depicts them as responsible people who pay the rent. The people who really hate the song (according to the interview) are actors.
I am (in my middle age) at the biggest crossroads in my life right now, and I found this YouTube video by a Buddhist monk helpful in learning how to let go. Maybe it can help others.
"Four Ways of Letting Go | Ajahn Brahm | 09-04-2010"
Hopefully I won’t have to. One of my dreams is that we will cure all diseases and eventually see all fellow humans as family with no need for religion, war or politics, then explore the universe as ageless peaceful beings.
I like how they made the article skimmable (summaries, topic sentences).
I might be helpful to consider goals as not coming first.
In my own thinking, I often/deeply use the acronum PVSGEER, for things like having Purpose, Vision, Strategy, Goals, Empowerment, Execution, Review/Report/Revise/Repeat. I've written more elsewhere, but having purpose in life can drive so many other things, and give one a direction that supports changes in goals. A late university president & former US solicitor general (Rex Lee) said he had given up on setting goals because...something like...life changed in unexpected ways, and he was grateful and accepted opportunities that arose. But having purpose first of all would give us a way to navigate that.
Vision is what the outcome looks like (and can also change as we learn & mature). Strategy is like a map of the terrain (per S.R. Covey, IIRC). I don't think of "SMART" Goals because too often there are things that (should? or must) change short-term plans, but there might be something to learn there, but I do have plans & careful priorities as goals, and try to enjoy working on them and making constant progress. And so on.
But it starts with purpose, which in my view/experience/beliefs solves many, many problems (for me and all I have observed, which I tend to do much of). If one's religion does not provide that purpose, one might consider helping to lift humanity, finding joy through both growth (learning, improvement) and unselfish service to others, employing always honesty and treating others as oneself would want to be treated.
(Edit: and it seems loosely relevant: Tolstoy said something like "All happy families are alike, and all miserable families are miserable in their own way". I think there is much to that: multigenerational unselfish service in a widening circle brings greater sustainability and peace. Seeing what families' and/or cultures' traits allow them to persist over time is interesting.)
Edit2: having an honest job that is not dream-related, to support a family or help others, is very honorable and can bring happiness with great fulfillments over time. Many very grateful people (such as in my extended family) are alive and educated and functioning because someone honest and diligent went to work every day, and/or diligently cared for, taught, and encouraged them every day! And if those parents ever need things like a place to stay or basic resources, multiple of those grateful people would certainly strive to provide it. (That's another big subject I've written about, more for another time...)
"Goal adjustment capacity... encapsulates two key components: the ability to disengage from fruitless goals and the ability to reengage in new, more productive goals. You could see it as knowing when and how to switch from one dream to another."
I think the point of the article is that people sometimes have difficulty deciding to pivot, and then have difficulty pivoting toward a new passion.
In this instance, I think it's used in parellel with "pivot towards a new passion" to demonstrate an absence of meaning. They both sound nice but don't convey practical information that a person could usefully act on.
More broadly, "time is a flat circle" was popularized in the first series of True Detective, but it originates in Neitzsche's doctrine of eternal recurrence, which was itself influenced by various western and eastern thinkers.
I think suicide is justified if a lifelong dream is unattainable. Specifically if the dream is what makes life worth living for the person with the dream. Basically, I don't necessarily agree with the mentality of others assuming one should be able to just let go of a lifelong dream.
I think you're giving deams a pathological importance, unless you're using the term very creatively (e.g. the wish to not live in unbearable pain or something).
The ability to be able to pursue a lifelong dream may become impossible and I wouldn't hold it against a person ending their life. Unbearable pain could be psychological pain from no longer being able to pursue a lifelong dream. I'm actually surprised I was downvoted for this opinion on here with only your response. Of course not everyone should end their life because there is a lot in life that one can do but I still wouldn't hold it against someone that did.
I wouldn't hold anything against a person wanting to end their own life as I haven't been in their shoes. Barring that caveat, coupling your life to a dream does seem pathological - I would worry that someone ending their life for something like that are throwing away a decent chance to still end up with a overall good, fully lived life.
It's important to consider that you can have rough patches in live but recover well. The largest tragedies are when people react on short term mental pain by giving up, where they would have changed their mind if just holding out for just a bit longer. The person who might feel like there's nothing to live for after having to give up their dream might just have their true love around the corner or maybe just a few session with a therapist would have given them a new perspective, finding joy in the moment, etc.
While I didn't downvote - my guess would be that your message was received as support towards the idea that suicide would be a reasonable and healthy reaction to not reaching your dreams - an idea that in itself could make someone consider the option.
The idea that someone should live a certain way is narcissistic though. Also it feels inherently about forcing one's personal belief of death upon another. True love may be the meaning of life for someone while the dream one couldn't pursue anymore for the person that committed suicide was the meaning of his/her life. Oh, I just think people are to quick to react nowadays without much thought.
