
Ask HN: Mid 20s, reached goals and still unhappy - ta28838
(throwaway for obvious reasons)<p>Hey crowd!<p>I&#x27;m writing as I need advice. I am mid 20s and thought I already reached my career goals only to find out I am still unhappy with the need for a change.<p>I am coding since I&#x27;m 10. I love(d) it. I was working in tech ever since. This year I had the chance to co-found a company with very nice conditions for me. I always wanted to have a team of good engineers to &quot;make it better than all the other guys doing so much stuff wrong&quot;. This I got now and after only a few months I realized this doesn&#x27;t make me happy at all.<p>I have a decent apartment, a good working relationship with my SO and a way above-average salary and freedom at work for being CTO of that company. Basically everything I always thought are my career goals. Still, unhappy, thinking every morning to skip going to work today. It should be the other way around: being excited and love going to work to manage my team and do a bit of coding.<p>I always loved being around with friends, engineers and people I really respect due to their cleverness, loyalty and intelligence. I probably thought I will get this situation by hiring great people to have an environment I like 24&#x2F;7. Reality is that I quickly realized that employees are not friends and that only because they are good engineers this does not mean at the same time that they have the characteristics I love to be around with all day long. To even make the situation worse I continuously lost my drive to code. It got boring for some reason. I cannot motivate myself to start a new project or getting a module done way quicker as I do currently.<p>How can I even motivate a team when I&#x27;m not even self motivated?<p>I really think I&#x27;m just a stupid idiot not realizing what I have here or could it be that my goals are actually different to what I originally thought they are?<p>Can someone recommend ways to actually find out about these? Is someone in a similar situation and can give advice?<p>Thank you!
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tgb29
Our circumstances are different, but I'm going through a similar phase, and
the last few weeks I've thought mostly on the idea of self-motivation. I'm
asking myself what does this really mean and what makes it sustainable? Seeing
that you're doing this too reassures me, and it shows me that you've also
identified the issue.

The question I'm asking today is: how do I define my purpose in life?

It may be that your true goals in life are different than the ones you set
when you were 20. You're not a stupid idiot by any means, and it seems like if
wanted to coast the rest of your life you're setup to do so. Be proud of
getting to this point because most never will. But if you're looking for
deeper fulfillment, you'll need to either set new goals or redefine the
purpose for the next phase of your life.

My hypothesis is that when I resolve my purpose, I'll have stronger incentives
for self-motivation.

Defining purpose is hard and it's interwoven with your world view, thoughts on
religion, death, etc., but you have to start somewhere.

~~~
ta28838
The "purpose of life" question is maybe a bit too deep for me, but in general
I agree with this kind of questions. It's like I do not have a challenge
anymore because, for whatever reason, everything I'm doing seems to turn out
well even without me putting much effort into it. I'm just lucky in this
regard I think which caused me to lose my self motivation very deeply.

I can also observe this very often in other aspects of life: I find a new
technology, buy stuff for it and when the stuff arrives at home to start
playing around with it, I do not even open the package because in the end I'm
thinking "not worth it to waste time on"... which actually ends up in really
wasting time by just sitting on the couch and doing nothing. This exact same
feeling I have when I have an idea for a new project but then I don't even
start it.

It goes that far that even start to watch a new good movie, which was one of
my biggest hobbies once, seems to be a too big barrier for me.

My life goals once were to have a family, a nice house and a healthy life.
They are still there too, but somehow the "I need to do new things all the
time" added up to the list, and this is contrary to the family and house goal.
Maybe this confuses me, driving myself into two different directions at the
same time?

The "start somewhere" is probably actually the question. Where?

~~~
tgb29
I don't have a good answer, but if I were to restart the internal dialogue
now, it would be: if I were to die tomorrow, would I be ok with this? I remind
myself that every human is statistically insignificant, meaning, I could
achieve the highest success and still be forgotten within a few years,
decades, or centuries later: life has been around for billions of years,
humans for a couple hundred thousand (still debatable). In short, my purpose
could end tomorrow, or I can fulfill my purpose and never get recognized for
it. If this is the case, why set goals and be ambitious?

What's been motivating me recently is the thought of all the people who ever
cared about me. Would making all these people proud when I achieve my goals be
enough to push me further?

I haven't figured out the personal part, but learning more about the potential
of computers has been inspiring. To be able to understand and contribute to
their advancement has made me excited.

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jstewartmobile
That is what agency tastes like to just about everyone who is being honest.
Power through it. Everything else is McDonalds in comparison.

~~~
ta28838
Hey, thanks for your comment. As I am no native speaker, I don't understand
your comment. Can you explain a bit better?

~~~
jstewartmobile
This is what most people feel when confronted with a new blank canvas.

If you retreat, embark on a different journey, and _succeed_ , you will end up
staring into the same abyss--just from a different angle.

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ta28838
(just adding as a comment because the original text was too long)

Maybe I reached my goals too quick and without much hassle at all and
therefore can't really value what I have.

Changing my life circumstances again would probably not solve it. I always
loved and needed to do new things. If I would quit now, I feel like I would
lose all credibility. I mean, who wants to hire someone who even leaves his
own company only because he is not happy? If there would be at least a
reason... But there isn't. Even financials are working fine.

Sorry. Just spitting out what is in my head, unsorted and unstructured. I'm
not even sure what I'm asking for with this post.

What's wrong with me?

~~~
haburka
There’s nothing wrong with you. People often feel terribly depressed when they
meet their decade long goals. This is because striving is so satisfying and
full of novelty.

Basically, the top of the mountain is beautiful but it’s also lonely. It also
means you have to start walking down the mountain or find another goal in
life. I assure you, there are aspects of your life that you could improve and
refine still, but you focused on other aspects for so long.

Try to find something that you want to achieve that’s not work related - maybe
run a marathon. That might help refresh yourself.

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auslegung
Feel free to reach out to me, all my contact info is in my profile. I’ve had a
similar experience recently, I’m a software engineer, plus I have experience
in counseling/life coaching.

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badpun
Being a CTO (and doing it right) is extremely hard and draining work. I think
only a specific kind of personality can stomach it, let alone enjoy it.

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thecupisblue
What do you do except write code?

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jacobwilliamroy
> It should be the other way around

> I really think I'm just a stupid idiot

> I cannot motivate myself

> If there would be at least a reason... but there isn't

I very recently had to pass through a similar ordeal. Mine lasted for a very
long time and eventually evolved into full-on self-sabotage. I would go
through cycles where I would work very hard to establish an easy status-quo,
just to suddenly become completely uninterested and let everything fall apart.
It was really hard for me to figure out how to get out of the rut-cycle, and
the path I took was very specific to who I am and where I came from. I can't
give you step-by-step instructions, but I can outline the general idea and
approach that got me started down the right path.

I'm about to get really psuedo-scientifical. Buckle up.

You should forget all this business about what you think you should be
feeling. Here is how (I believe) human experiences work:

    
    
        Step 1: you experience real-world stimuli (the touch of a significant other; the sound of waves crashing)
        Step 2: you have feelings
        Step 3: you have thoughts
    

You cannot control your feelings by simply thinking "I ought to feel happy" or
"Stuff makes me happy and I have stuff; therefore I am happy." If your
feelings are truly a barrier to your work, then you need to examine them. Most
importantly you need to acknowledge them without shame or judgement. If you're
having some emotional response which does not line up with how you think you
should feel, you need to let go of how you think you should feel and just
accept your feeling. Don't call it "good" or "bad", just let it happen.

Observe your feelings in a neutral manner. That means you shouldn't wish to
dispel or possess any emotions which you may or may not have. Just pay
attention to them when they pop-up. Try to understand what real-world stimuli
is triggering your emotions. Very often our emotional triggers stem from
childhood. If you pay attention, you'll notice that a lot of people seek to
mate with men or women who resemble their parents; recreating childhood
memories is a very common pattern of unconscious behavior.

The key thing is to allow your mind to be a safe space. Your thoughts and
feelings are completely private. No one is going to judge or hurt you for
having them, so it's completely safe to just notice each and every one -
especially the unwanted ones. I assure you, acknowledging your unwanted
thoughts and feelings will not cause you to act on them. Based on what I've
seen, I'd say the opposite is true: If you try to suppress unwanted thoughts
or feelings you will unconsciously fulfill them in your real life.

