This is a bit of a cliché. Many people have the option to stop working, they don't because they love what they do. How would that be less worth pursuing than other things? not everybody feel like spending their time on hobbies or family.
Why not? if some people think that work is the most meaningful pursuit of their life, why not. I knew people like that, my dentist for instance, he was working all the time because that's what he liked to do.
Of course, not everybody has the luxury to have a fulfilling job, and some people work more than what they'd like. But saying things like that on your deathbed you'll be full of regrets because they worked too much is a bit naive.
But do consider the implications. I’d argue that the compensation you need to seek changes. Working for others in such a context is throwing away the only autonomy you have (having discarded other avenues), so if work is your life, you really need to work for yourself, or at least own and control your working conditions to some extent. Otherwise you’re just a hamster in a wheel. Clearly money is of little value once you decide to forgo any real use of money. The only thing you can trade for your work is ownership of the product you produce.
shit even if you love coding that =/= working on other people's projects.
mostly inertia and dont know what to do with themselves because they never developed any other part of their personality.
Most people don't pick one thing and put all of their time into it. They balance priorities.
You don't pick one and ignore the others.
Even the most family-minded people I know enjoy having something to work on outside of family time.
It's a balance of risk and reward, you might work hard and never get lucky enough to retire early, but more recently we've seen how a balanced life can backfire @ FAANG layoffs.
"Don't work hard, work smart". Often there's an inverse relationship between how hard the work is and how well it pays. Picking crops is famously the worst. But even in software, the hardest work I did was a 10-day stretch of 10-hour days in one of the lowest paid positions I had: between my €1k-ish/month passive income and the imputed income due to no longer needing to pay rent, I get more sitting on my arse than that job paid.
Same applies to expenses. Software is (or was) one of the few forms of labour that lent themselves to remote work, and remote works allows people to lower what are often the two biggest expenses: rent, and transport.
In some way ways, that’s what smart working does. Being at the right place, at the right time, because you were smart enough to realize you should hang around that place.
You can equip rings of +1 to dice rolls but most of us don't get weighted dice.
Playing the odds is fine in poker if your pile of chips is big enough to ride out the bad dice rolls, but this doesn't always work in life. There are too many decisions where you're forced to go all in.
I do still largely agree with you, that our decisions influence our future options. But I feel many people who just say "we make our own luck" fail to realize just how much luck played a role in their lives. Survivorship bias and all that.
Working smart, living smart, also makes a huge difference. Every 83/month you save off your expenses (rent, more efficient transport, better utility deals) is the same as earning 1k/year more after tax. At lower income levels (but not the lowest because at the very lowest people don't have a choice), investing that over a lifetime turns "just about making ends meet" into "retire 4 years early".
Best things in life are free, or at minimum, very cheap.
The same exact forums are super engaged with "loneliness epidemic we are all lonely" topic, where everyone other person describes difficulty in that area. Well, yeah, if you work all the time, you wont have real friends. And yeah, if all you focus on is competition, all you will have are competitors and frenemies. And no, friends will not magically pop out of nothing the moment you wish them to.
"Everyone who does not spend whole weekends and evenings coding/vibing/working/writing is lazy. Also it is society fault that I do not have friends and cant find a partner".
Note: I worry if I am virtue-signalling or larping here because there are immense flaws and inconsistencies within me. I sometimes feel like there are just these thoughts that come in me but acting on them (consistently) is hard. Not too much time has passed for me to comment if it has become part of my identity or not but commenting it can help solidify it further and help others get to know me (which feels my need to be understood) or more importantly, perhaps can help a single person out there.
When otherwise I would think of competition and stop, I now DO try to speak the thing out loud which can help the other person. We all have our biases and if I as a person can help see the other bias and try to help them provided I try to not cross boundary or be pushy but just for the sake of helping. Then yeah, it is good.
Paraphrasing my brother here: "You can genuinely change people's (friends) lives within college. It's genuinely so powerful"
Also, I see many spirits of kindness from people of all walks of life and the world has been aside from a few occassions still a kind place to me in terms of giving me chances. It's cruel and kind at the same time but it's my world and I can try to make it a little better for my friends.
In that sense, "The world is a generous place", as Minhyong Kim said[0]
I sincerely believe that "How to measure your life" is a great book which has a piece of logical advice which did change my interpretation of it (so much so that I wrote the entire page and pasted it on my front desk). I highly recommend reading that book [Along with How to win friends and influence people and Deep work, I wish to read em all and moreso act on them now]
Here's what the page said:
I genuinely believe that relationships with family and friends are one of the greatest sources of happiness in life. It sounds simple but like any important investment, these relationships need constant attention and care (...)
You'll be tempted to invest your resources elsewhere but if you don't nurture these relationships, they won't be there to support you in hardships or as one of the most important sources of happiness in your life.
My interpretation: Balance is necessary and understand the important of family and friends as the society around us is underweighing the genuine importance of it and as the culture around it is focused on not paying importance to it (and rewarding that behaviour).
Appreciate your family and friends and don't take for granted.
Take an Action (Knowledge means fundamentally nothing if you don't act on it): Try to do something which can show the appreciation that you have for friends and family and show it within words and tell it to them.
If it can help you take some action, I have messaged two of my brothers while writing this comment appreciating them.
I think the idea is that devs find meaning in "the mission". You grind for a higher goal, not just a paycheck. That works for some places, like Musk's companies or academic research, where people actually believe in what they're building. But most software engineers are just cogs building the next app to make ads more efficient. The grindset just makes them better-oiled cogs until they burn out.
Those people are literally cogs in the machine. They dont do anything to make the world better, they are closer to what Enron guys were - people locked in self reinforcing system that is slowly changing them.
When I was young and poor(but smart, beautiful and tall) I gave some women I was interested on too much time and attention and it looked like they were not interested t all. The women I gave the less attention (that I was not that interested in) usually got deeply in love with me and I had great time with them.
I am European, it is different from living in the US or Asia(I have also lived there). In the US you have way more opportunities professionally but people live isolated from each other. They don't have so many common spaces like in Europe.
Later when I got more money and status the women that ignored me came after me. They only valued my time and attention after it was zero. When I ignored them as I was genuinely busy they got in love as well.
I also made friends around the world easily and probably the best reason is because I already had friends and I did not need new ones.
The best way to make friends and lovers is not to need them at all. You make friends or lover when you don't try to make friends and people just have a great time with you.
So beware about thinking about idealistic ideas about life that have been never tested. There are things about humans that were decided when we were living in tribes.
I'm not sure how much I actually agree with attachment style theory, but I do observe the pattern parent points out in some people, that they chase people who are distant or unavailable. But its often unhealthy for both people
I hope being wrong for your sake, but I've met such folks, brilliant in 1 very narrow direction but socials are lacking pretty badly.
Just 1 nitpick - women who care about you suddenly once you have some wealth and/or show off you have are not good partners, not even short term. Its obvious common knowledge yet when looking around its surprisingly often ignored.
Parent's claim are as old as human civilization, we are still just a bit better apes and what he wrote is still valid for 100% of the humans. It doesn't mean 100% will admit it, far from it.
All of these go vice versa too - not many men want women to be constantly by their hip. Too much attention from a woman is offputting to men too.
And still, if you work 60 hours a week and spend weekends coding/working/writing, you will break up, divorce or never find the partner in the first place. Because no woman will miraculously suddenly appear in your bed room. Which is what I was talking about.
Neither will my co-workers lol, but atleast work will buy me a comfier deathbed. Co-workers prob want me to die sooner so I drain less benefits.
Nobody is arguing against just getting more money (well it gets philosophical at least) but how much you lose of your most precious item you have in this world to attain it and if its worth it.
Or to put it in other way, just check by far the biggest regret of many dying people. If you think you can behave the same but somehow avoid ending up in same situation well... good luck I guess, you'll need it.
Even if you get plenty satisfaction from work, I think its important to invest in other parts of your life (family, health, hobbies).
Been satisfied with what you have is a good thing. But should not stop you of seeking better things.