
Ask HN: How to feel work not like work? - raobit
Front End Dev:- React Native
1.5 yr exp
Working in startup,worked in service based.<p>Feeling stuck, i do like programming and want to be in developer zone and building things,but working and developing as per requirements and as per orders for others just doesn&#x27;t feel right for me, feels like endless loops where i am just doing things which needs to be done within particular time and deliver and not taking time,enjoying,learning and doesn&#x27;t feel like it is something that i have to do, but just complete tasks
There is no feeling of connection to the idea, no control, thats what is missing for me<p>Do you guys facing any of this?How do you go about it and any advice,suggestion for me?<p>Thanks
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hackermailman
I had the same problem and took up a past time learning about complexity
theory. Eventually it landed me working in a research programming role at a
university (because student's didn't bother applying, they were chasing highly
paid internships) and then my work was no longer work it was research, even if
all I was doing was designing a dashboard for post-doc's to look at data at
first. If this doesn't interest you then look on Angel List for some startup
you can be interested in instead of where you currently are or better yet
teach what you know, make some youtube videos.

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raobit
Thanks for you response.I might consider taking break and doing something that
i want to work on my ideas maybe small projects like indie projects, because
working again for some startup which feels like interesting and exciting from
outside is going to again come down to feel like work that needs to be done as
per requirements on others ideas and not something that i want to do, though
problem solving is i like, but still i feel it is going to be the same way
like escaping from one cage to going to another :(

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user_agent
Yeah, look, it's called purpose, not a "zone".

A book recommendation: "If Life Is a Game, How Come I'm Not Having Fun?: A
Guide to Life's Challenges", Paul Brenner. Another one: "Man's Search for
Meaning", Viktor Frankl. Regarding the "zone": everything written by Mihaly
Csikszentmihalyi.

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raobit
Hey Thanks for your response. Will definitely check out and thanks for
recommendation, checked your profile as you mentioned can mail you there is no
mail-id,Can you give if i might need just in case for queries or for
questions?

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user_agent
I'm not sure you're referring to me, because I both didn't refer you back to
my profile for anything, nor I miss the email address there ;)

You're welcome. But I have something I'd like to ask you in return. Think
about it - what's the point of gathering people's contact details if there's
no prof that what they can offer even in terms of an advice is of any
meaningful value? So, first read the books I've mentioned, or at least those
you find interesting from that pool, then you can make your decision about how
persistent you're ready to be in order to get to someone based on the real
value that person can deliver. People are busy. Almost all of them. And a
chance that a reasonable person is going to have more time than a regular Joe,
who'd be thrilled to misguide you with his retarded ideas, is, well, not very
reasonable. I'm sure you get it. Moreover, it's perfectly logical.

Regarding building your own healthy life philosophy your own work is crucial.
Only rarely someone can point you toward a reasonable direction, which will
mostly come down to a book recommendation. A back-an-forth Q-and-A ping pong
game via email or anything else has no chance to work. I'd like life to be
that simple, though! One needs to think for oneself, and there's no way to
pass understanding from one person to another. Again, I wish it could be
possible.

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raobit
Yes thanks,i think i needed that kind of rough answer to stop validating
myself on someone else's opinion and understand my inner-self better to
improve myself.

I understand your point very well,i have started journalling to understand
things better,the reason i asked because i find this community very helpful
and they really are and regarding the email i guess it doesn't gets visible
unless you explicitly add in about section and not just in email section of
your profile,sorry for the trouble and its ok..

Anyway thanks for getting back :)

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user_agent
If you really can distinguish a BS advice from a brilliant one, you're almost
there. I consider what you do very important. There's no way one can do
anything of substantial value in life, whether performed on oneself or others,
without understanding oneself first (what is reality and what's it mean to be
human, and what are logical extensions of these answers? -- are the oldest
questions in philosophy; they're also considered the obvious common ground in
terms of what people consider interesting among intelligent individuals).
Making notes, creating written feedback loops with yourself, is probably the
best way to get to bottom of what's really going on with almost everything. I
know it changed my life. Decades passed by and I only do more of that. I knew
you get it :-) I'm so happy. The world is going to have one more reasonable
individual. So keep going!

Beware of HN and similar communities, though. Although often one can meet
exceptional people here, the HN also suffers from usual: social-media-ish
mobs, cargo cults, herd thinking. I wouldn't be for instance particularly
eager to take life advises from techies. A lot of them are let's say not very
much grounded in reality ;) But every person who can reasonably answer the
previously mentioned "what is reality and what's it mean to be human, and what
are logical extensions of these answers?" is truly a good candidate for
asking. One must have a framework in which one interprets reality. Gödel's
incompleteness theorems are all about that (that might be the most important
conclusion in the philosophy of science ever made). Our problems, even if just
trivial ones, are definitely a part of reality, therefore one must know
reality top to bottom in order to efficiently maneuver in it. The only other
wisdom one can stumble upon is how to efficiently deal with this or that (I
mean technical, not necessarily technological, problems). I must say that HN
is great for that.

Also, consider learning about biases typical for human beings. Among them the
most crucial one might be the survivorship bias. Knowing what kind of
cognitive errors people make tremendously helps in our own reasoning,
especially in keeping oneself vigilant in regard to that kind of stuff. It
might save you life one day.

PS: Regarding "sorry for the trouble" \- to me our discussion is far from
that. It's a pleasure to help others, especially if that person is going to
really apply the advice. It's like having 1000 children all over the world.
Good ones. Also, thanks for pointing that email visibility issue. Now I get
it. I was pretty sure the email address is available for registered user,
which isn't the case. Howk!

PS2: Surely, we can only validate ourselves using logic. Then we can take
other people's words and put them thru the filter of logic. If something is
going to remain intact during that process, it's worth to think about it.
Usually it isn't going to be the case. There's a well known phenomena in
psychology called "crabs in the barrel" problem. Take a look on that. Let's
not be like that kind of individuals, also let's not listen to what they say.
Otherwise we'd be left with no time at our hands to do the real work, only
confusion which crabs are eager to share with others to make themselves feel
better.

PS3: From my experience and to the best of my knowledge, there's only one kind
of successful individual this planet can deliver. A self-directed, self-
managing, hungry for truth one. Again, you seem to be on a good way toward
that.

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raobit
Thanks for the response again :)

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giantg2
I feel exactly the same way!

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raobit
Hey, thanks for you reply How are you coping with it, how you go about it?

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giantg2
I just try to do one day at a time. I put in my required 8 hours and hate my
life for every minute of it. I look forward to signing off for the day and
dream, unrealistically, of early retirement.

