No, I understand that. What I'm saying is that I have no "calling" and do not expect to ever have a calling. I do development work because it makes me money, I am very good at it, and solving solvable problems feels nice, but if you dropped 10 million in my lap I doubt I would ever touch a line of code again.
Barring the vicissitudes of fortune, I'd spend the rest of my life relaxing, spending time with people I like, going about reading the same kinds of books I do now, perhaps traveling a bit, and perhaps if I was really bored I'd sit down and write a book of insights unlikely to be interesting or original. I wouldn't feel called to do anything.
Heck, if someone offered me 10k more to do some other non-development job and it wasn't more strenuous and didn't require more time out of my day, I'd do that. If they paid me to go to school and learn something I know next-to-nothing about like, I don't know, biochemistry, that'd be fine and I'd be just as happy.
I look around me and I really don't think most other people have a calling either. Maybe I'm wrong. They work because they have to get by, not because they love their work. The HN community (and therefore I assume much of SV in general) seems to me to extraordinary in that regard. Of course there are other people, professions, and communities with a disproportionate amount of those who feel they're called to their profession. But overall I think it's the exception rather than the rule.
So if I said I'd pay you x more amount than what you're currently making, to don a rubber smock and pack pickles for a living for the rest of your life, is it just a question of what x is?
Yes, absolutely. Indeed I was slightly happier back when I was doing menial physical labor, since it left my mind free to think, and when I got home, I was physically tired but not mentally exhausted like I am from days of coding binges and context switches.
But since X is probably about ~25k (which is what I'm shooting for as a developer anyway within the next 5 years), and I already make more than the average pickle-packer, I don't think that's going to happen. :)
Thanks for that clarification. Yeah I could never do it. Having a job like that would kill my spirit no matter how much money I made. It would be the ultimate "take the blue pill" decision I could make.
Barring the vicissitudes of fortune, I'd spend the rest of my life relaxing, spending time with people I like, going about reading the same kinds of books I do now, perhaps traveling a bit, and perhaps if I was really bored I'd sit down and write a book of insights unlikely to be interesting or original. I wouldn't feel called to do anything.
Heck, if someone offered me 10k more to do some other non-development job and it wasn't more strenuous and didn't require more time out of my day, I'd do that. If they paid me to go to school and learn something I know next-to-nothing about like, I don't know, biochemistry, that'd be fine and I'd be just as happy.
I look around me and I really don't think most other people have a calling either. Maybe I'm wrong. They work because they have to get by, not because they love their work. The HN community (and therefore I assume much of SV in general) seems to me to extraordinary in that regard. Of course there are other people, professions, and communities with a disproportionate amount of those who feel they're called to their profession. But overall I think it's the exception rather than the rule.