There have been a lot of post floating around the internet with various solutions, the most popular being Stoicism > Positive Psychology / Happiness research > Buddhism / Meditation. I've dabbled a little in all of them and they all have something to offer.

Essentially, you are experiencing a disconnect between how it feels to be you and how you expected to feel. As someone only a little older than yourself, I would say this: your job will never love you back, and especially in the software realm, it may not be as fulfilling as something like woodworking or therapy. It does pay the bills, though.

The above mentioned happiness research / positive psychology suggests that having multiple, meaningful social roles that you can fulfill outside of work will allow you to shoulder more responsibility and find meaning in your life.

What I'm trying say is that in the second half of life, it is our job to give back. So start there.

Also, this is in my morning bookmarks to revisit: https://old.reddit.com/r/AskEngineers/comments/so6e8h/engine...

Anecdote: As I deployed to Afghanistan from my duty station on Okinawa things got progressively shitty. Okinawa -> Manas: Living conditions suck but they have a decent chow hall. Manas -> Camp Leatherneck: Crappy living, crappy chow. Camp Leatherneck -> FOB: wow this sucks. FOB -> combat outpost: holy shit this sucks! How am I gonna do 7 months of this?!

I did. Got used to it. Was actually kind of fun after awhile. Then after deployment you do it in reverse and feels like being upgraded to better and better luxury.

Soon enough you're used to it and living in the barracks on Okinawa sucks again.

Point being that you adjust to living conditions- good or bad. Don't derive purpose from chasing more because you'll always adjust to whatever you attain.

I'd rephrase this, or at least maybe this is what the intent was: it's not that bad to derive purpose from chasing more but it's probably bad to derive purpose from attaining. There's nothing wrong with being ambitious as long as the journey is how you derive purpose.

I honestly think Leatherneck may have been the worst out of that experience. Some of the best times were having nothing on a PB for 10+ months (we were there for an extended period).

Correct. I saw none. :)

What he meant was some "possibly enjoyable" state which was different from the "bored comfortable tedium" into which he had settled in.

We all have had similar experiences. When you have too much of the same routine however comfortable, your mind craves some "new" stimulus which will break the tedium.

Reminded me of https://github.com/docker/cli/issues/267#issuecomment-695149...

> I no longer build software; I now make furniture out of wood. The hours are long, the pay sucks, and there's always the opportunity to remove my finger with a table saw, but nobody asks me if I can add an RSS feed to a DBMS, so there's that :-)

Relevant discussion of that thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24541964

I think you summarized it well :)

Maybe that’s your beef, maybe not.

My take on it is slightly different: It could very well be that instead of burnout, you are just missing purpose and meaning in your life. What is the legacy that you want to build for your kids?

Don’t despair. It’s all good. Give yourself props for mastering all but the highest layer of Maslow‘s pyramid. You’ve achieved something most people on this planet never will.

Onto the last one. Good luck with that!

I think for some it's worth challenging the need for a "legacy" in the first place. This certainly is what helped my well-being, not feeling like I had to accomplish X or achieve Y for life to have been "worth it." I want to be kind, stay fed, and help others feel like things are OK which can be done through service both big and small. I guess it's about finding larger meaning in the smaller interactions vs. larger artifacts of legacy.

I'm not entirely in love with how I've represented my thoughts on this, but hopefully the meaning is conveyed.

I don't have any issue with legacy, but I do with purpose. What's the point of it all? That's my core struggle.

1) Why does your existence need a "point"? Is the need to define such a thing coming from something innate, or is it a reaction to the world and expectations around you?

2) Define your own purpose, that's all anyone has ever done. There is nothing inherent. You almost certainly can't go wrong by giving your time to others, but even less "high-minded" pursuits - such as just consuming, appreciating culture - are valid paths. I think people fall into the trap of believing the only valid purpose is one that leaves a mark. It's a miracle any of exist, it's a valid purpose to just experience that miracle (hopefully in a way that doesn't preclude, or perhaps even enables, others to do the same).

But I'm not particularly informed, just relaying my own journey with this question.

There's also a somewhat therapeutic thought pattern that goes something like this:

Would I even want to live in a world where someone, or some thing, has pre-determined my purpose?

... I think it's relatively easy to say 'eek! No!'

So then, define your own purpose (2)!

Ok... I can do that. My purpose in life is to just get through it, not give up, and try when possible to improve the lives of others, especially children and young adults.

I guess the secret is in finding peace with that purpose. It's not grandiose, it's not going to leave a mark, but it's probably the most realistic based on my aspirations and drive. Of course I'd love to say that my purpose is eradicating some childhood illness, or starting a business empire, or discovering a new form of energy... but yea, those aren't realistic and are likely to make me feel worse if I try to adopt them as my purpose in life.

Anyways, just my thoughts as I digest your post. Thanks.

I personally think their is beauty in simplicity, including in this purpose. Though I'd perhaps maybe add something around "finding some joy" beyond "just getting through it", but that is coming from my own values/worldview, not from any sort of informed wisdom.

I've always wondered, if "god" made us, then who made "god"? And why? What am I doing here? Work, eat, sex, get old, get sick, die?

But I do still dream of also starting a chicken rescue farm.

Grass is always greener, but we have it easy in software and it's good to remember that.

All that said, I've been through the types of discontent that OP mentions. I've worked many interesting software jobs, started multiple businesses, failed many times, succeeded, made lots of money, shipped an indie game that was an expression of myself -- a dream come true, and at the end of it all... emptiness and a feeling of not-enough-ness (not depression!).

If one does not find a philosophy that accepts this as reality at its core, you'll be chasing your tail until the day you die. I personally prefer Buddhism without the ceremonial pomp, and in that vein I'd recommend Noah Levine: https://www.againstthestream.com/dharma-talk-and-meditation-...

Edit: 100% agree though that giving back to people is wonderful. Some of my best experiences have been the happiness in helping someone else succeed.

I've been trying to find games that are personal to the developer (I'm actually trying to make one now). What's the name of your game?

1. Backpacking for a 1 week time period or longer. Living out of a backpack is a great way to help rest your brain terms of its standard perspective on what it thinks it needs to be happy in day to day life. Also, there are some nice places you can walk to with a backpack on that you can not drive to.

2. A Therapeutic mushroom trip - read how to change your mind by that hippy Berkley professor. This is not for everyone though. So proceed with caution.

>A Therapeutic mushroom trip - read how to change your mind by that hippy Berkley professor. This is not for everyone though. So proceed with caution.

Mushrooms are way, way, way safer than what people believe. For people who are sane (i.e not suffering from psychosis) it is perfectly safe to do an entry level 2-3.5 gram shroom trip with a trip sitter. You can read all the studies, the negative effects are pretty much non existent, the only stuff that gets mentioned is the meta-effects from things like being disoriented and tripping and falling - thus the trip sitter.

If however you're comparing the relative pain of writing documentation to lifting a 40lbs bag of building materials, holding a position in yoga/martial arts class, running a half marathon, riding a century, hiking for six hours in a cold rain, then documentation really isn't so bad.

I'm in my 50's now, and when I was in my 40's, my life-situation allowed me to pursue a lot more outside interests and hobbies. I had a lot of different outside activities, and would go out after work 4 nights a week with something different.

A mass-layoff 5 years ago changed my circumstances in a lot of ways. I have another job - one that I love probably much more. But I relocated, and where I live now just doesn't have many of the same opportunities to do all the different things I used to do. And it's causing a lot of feelings of emptiness and burnout.

Since I work remote, I'm planning on another relocation.

Are these major cities or more rural?

I am thinking of a relocation to a less city-like environment but worry about the loneliness factor. The cities offer people, but less hobbies I'm interested in. City hobbies are mostly social and drinking oriented.

https://old.reddit.com/r/AskEngineers/comments/so6e8h/commen...

(The main site goes to great lengths to force registration, even hiding the content after a few seconds (!) when a mobile user-agent is detected)

1: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/reddit-fixer/boahh...

I've struggled with the same thoughts above, and giving back is helpful. I've tried to document it (https://www.codekindly.org/) with these principles of giving back by coding kindly:

Be Kind to the Earth: reduce code waste, utilize green infra

Be Kind to Community: donate code, give to charity

Be Kind to Users: protect privacy, provide joyful experiences

Be Kind to Yourself: physical + mental health, cultivate relationships

It's a shift in mindset to find fulfillment in your current job

perfectjob (the author) never said the current job is making the world a better place.

Which is similar to what happened in the rat utopia experiment: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/how-mouse-utopias-...

* If you want to try something, try it! Save up some runway, do your own thing. Try some other projects right now, don't wait. (You won't be able to devote full time effort to them, but can still make progress.) You may find that what you dream about isn't all that, or maybe it is. Either way you can take steps forward.

* I learned to be happy with my life after I'd taken a few alternative paths. Nothing like jumping to a situation, realizing it wasn't what you thought it was, and then jumping to a different situation, then realizing it wasn't all that great, then jumping to a different situation... After I did this a few times, I learned that I needed to create happiness where I was, not try to find it elsewhere. YMMV.

* It is a cliche, but kids are only young once. Enjoy that time.

This. So many times over. Everything else can be done later or slowly. Don't miss the good bits!

I don't know if I'm wired differently, but my oldest kid is in HS and my youngest is halfway through elementary school, and while I didn't hate the time I spent with my kids, I don't feel like I derived a whole lot of personal enjoyment out of it.

I still would make the same decision -- feeling loved and cared for rather than abandoned is a great gift to any child -- but with a lot of the "milestones" in life it seems to me that a lot of the benefit to doing these things is not staying up late at night wondering if things would have been better had I not missed out...

As a good quote I heard once said "No success can compensate for failure in the home"

jobs come and go, achievements are eventually forgotten, and wealth doesn't last forever, but your family will be pretty constant.

No? There's divorces and death and all kinds of bad things...

> I learned that I needed to create happiness where I was, not try to find it elsewhere

I fully agree, but it's really hard to do so even if you know that's the right way.

Yes! I agree it isn't easy to do this and I struggle daily, but haven't found a better path.

Certainly alcohol, partying, entrepreneurship, clubs, sports, travel, and adventure (the main paths I've tried) haven't succeeded in providing immediate happiness without effort on my part. (They all had their good aspects, don't get me wrong, but nothing intrinsically made me happy all the time and I was always left wondering "what's over there".)

YES. Not "this weekend" or "when things open up a bit," do it now. The river won't part for the stone voluntarily, you need to jam it in the water …

Also, if you can: merge bullet 1 & 3. Try something new with your kids. Learning and exploring together is an amazing experience.

If you want a laundry list of things to start getting into:

- Becoming handy, teach your kids as you do it so they have that life skill. Being considered handy simply is a mindset - do you have the confidence to figure something out via some google searching etc....

- Martial arts - I took Ju-jitsu for 4-5 years and I can tell you martial arts appeals to software engineers - its highly technical which engages your brain, yet very physical which is an area we swe's hardly ever get to use.

- strength training - will increase your energy - physique - and some other passive benefits for your relationship - also something you can get into with your kids and help teach them healthy habits.

- cooking - save money and eat some tasty food - a good cookbook I swear by is America's Test Kitchen Cookbook - they cook things 20 different ways and explain why they settled on a particular approach - along with good explanations of cooking techniques

One of the best things I did was started a "family game night" every week. Bought a handful of board games and each Saturday we'd sit down with pizza and games. No cellphones at the table. It was a huge success for us. It allowed us to learn new things together and it helped build a foundation for us all to grow from. Even now with all but one of my kids grown, when we get together games are brought out and we have a blast. Nowadays I'm teaching my grandson to play some simple ones and can't wait for him to join in.

I quit my job, travelled to some bucket list destinations like Japan, Fiji, Galapagos, machu piccu, then went on a 5 month backpacking trip across both islands of New Zealand with my (ridiculously) supportive wife. I immersed myself the whole time in zen philosophy and tried to lose my egocentric placement in the universe.

It was a great reset for my depression, but did nothing to erase the fundamental feeling that all of reality and my actions within it are pointless.

For the first year I took my passion projects seriously, devoting almost a full work week of attention to them. At a certain point, I stopped those too. I realized I was merely creating my own flavor of the distractions I'd tired of.

Now the only things that bring me real joy are improving my home environment, the health of my family, and getting out in the sun and playing sports. That kind of "out there, just around the corner" abstract life satisfaction I was chasing seem as ridiculous to me now as participating in US politics. It is all ephemeral.

Bam. Right in the kisser. This is the essence of it.

There may not be some cosmic teleology for your life, but that doesn't mean it's pointless; it just means you have a clean slate for deciding what you want that point to be.

I think embracing the absurdity of existence can be liberating.

The passionate college runner dreams of making the Olympic team -- just to be on the team would be enough. The first-time Olympian dreams of standing on the podium -- bronze would be enough. The bronze medalist is upset he lost to silver by .1 sec. The silver medalist rages that he came so close -- so close! to having it all. The gold medalist wonders if he'll ever win gold again.

No one is ever satisfied. (fine, there are some exceptions -- I tip my hat to them).

All the advice below of quitting to do your own thing is (most likely) baloney. Down that path is just loss of wages and all the associated stress and opportunity costs. Again, there are exceptions, and congrats to them.

Here's my advice: You're doing great -- stop whining! I mean that in the friendliest way possible. This is what winning at life feels like. It doesn't feel like winning.

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/thoughtful-animal/why-b...

That's a good one, and I might steal it one day :) And you are right.

I should start working on my gratitude because I genuinely have everything you could ever wish for.

"But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that."

1 Timothy 1:6-8

Dedicating oneself to something you want to accomplish, be better at, have fun with is always the answer. The answer, on the contrary, very rarely (never?) comes from deep introspection that inevitably ends with meaning-of-life question.

Some combination of suggestion & things that've worked for me:

1) getting a therapist. They will be able to help you work through the feelings a lot better than anyone on HN.

2) don't try to be happy. You can't directly control how you feel like it were a light switch. Aim for contentment and create an environment where you're more likely to be happy. the harder you try to be happy the less likely it is to happen.

3) reduce your focus on work. work is a means to create an environment for you to be happy in. find things outside of work to pour your love and ambition into. Find other sources of validation than work

4) meditate -- and start with guided meditation of some form. do it regularly. it will help you cultivate yourself

absolutely great stuff

It's an ancient problem. (I'm not suggesting that you embrace religion. Just an example.)

In my experience, no matter how much I want a job, after about five years I'm ready to quit.

Lately, I've been reading a book on resilience and one of the things it teaches is the Stoic-based idea of valued living. Basically, you list out your values and live your life in the service of those values and try not to focus too much on any external goals. (You can't control the outcome of those goals, but you can control your own behavior.)

Whether you succeed or fail, it doesn't matter. What matters is living your values. Maybe that means crafting the best software you can, or being most helpful to others, or being a really great parent and partner. What it doesn't mean is "I will get 1st place in this race" or "I will get promoted" or "This product will make a lot of money".

In the context of work, I also get bored after a couple of years at a job, and to be honest, a lot of that is based on external goals, either I've met them, or I just can't find any more.

It's definitely hard not to think in terms of external goals in a corporate job, though, as the company will ask you to list goals for yourself for the year and the business itself requires meeting specific ones to succeed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6-Dt1g2E18

This sounds cliche and obvious, but it made a big difference for me:

I found myself dreaming of shipping a project, or writing a book - whatever. But, then I would stay in the dream or possibility of what could happen if I did those things - but I wasn't actually doing enough to make them happen.

So, I sat down on a Saturday morning, and wrote down what I would feel "unfulfilled" with in life if I didn't try them. Then, I wrote down a tangible plan to try them. It will takes years, but I will give them a go.

I found that for me, it was the "what if" that was killing me, so I am eliminating that element and will let the chips fall where they may.

If your job lacks any avenue towards creativity or path towards self-actualization professionally (like being "known" in tech, building a widely used thing, writing a tech book, etc.) then you seek out other avenues towards self-actualization.

My problem is having these ideas of things that I want to do, like an idea for a novel as an example, but not knowing how/where to start or just plain ignoring the sheer amount of work that is required and day-dreaming about it. That's not at the top of my list but that idea keeps percolating up at times. I like your approach about writing down a plan to fulfill those self-actualization types of things.

An example where I've realized its a lot more work is building a desk top out of walnut for a sit/stand desk. From roughly cut boards to a finished top looks easy on youtube videos. Squaring a board to join with other boards without pro tools is a lot of work. So much work, much more than I thought. Some of the work is part of the process of learning.

I know that one too well :) What do you have on your list? Just different things in areas of life or mainly productive-related stuff?

The most satisfying job I had as an software engineer had me working side by side with other amazing engineers, the types of people who have Wikipedia articles about the stuff they've accomplished in life.

Plenty of people work jobs earning less $ if they have an amazing group of people to work with. Sitting side by side with someone who is a catalyst for brilliance is worth a lot, because it adds a lot to your level of personal fulfillment.

> I work from home. My job is technically interesting, and I still learn/improve.

How much do you improve? How hard have you stretched yourself? I've worked with people who made me go far beyond what I thought I could ever do. That was technically interesting. Learning how to read clock diagrams and calculate memory access latencies to see if my algorithms could even run, that was technically interesting.

Working until 11pm at night listening to metal music sitting side by side with another engineer as we tried to write gesture recognition algorithms on a capacitive touch sensor that only had 6 pads (lol), that was interesting (and frustrating).

Do I enjoy my 9-5 now? Sure. But it isn't satisfying. Pushing the industry forward is satisfying. Building foundational technologies is satisfying. Fighting tooth and nail to make technology do the impossible, that is satisfying.

I'd always felt bad that I didn't practice and become a great guitar player in my teens and play in bands, like the guys I admired (and let's not even talk about the famous rock stars). So around age 40 I started singing, and then I took piano lessons. I got to be in choruses in some operas and operettas. Was this exactly my fantasy? No, but I at least got some proficiency, and got to perform in front of people who paid for it.

I found it wasn't all that great, for me, which I probably would have discovered in my 20s. But now I don't have that regret anymore. I did it.

Same for traveling: I've been to 26 countries. Coincidentally, travel sucks with COVID, so I couldn't do that now even if I wanted to. People who say "we'll travel when we retire" are kidding themselves. When you're in your late 60s, all you'll be up for is a cruise with other 60-somethings. Boring! And that's if you're even healthy enough.

I won't comment on all the other suggestions: therapy, meditation, helping others, your kids. Not that there's anything wrong with them, but hey -- I don't have all the answers for you.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Withers

However, it's impossible to watch without paying a rental fee. Sorry, but IMHO music biopics about (relatively) obscure artists should be free. You can watch "The Quiet One" about Bill Wyman for free on Kanopy: a really excellent film.

I have found satisfaction in helping others. The less personal time I have, the more I value it and the more satisfying life generally is. Also, this is very likely temporary, as your kids get older your life will change with them. They will have more and more adult and complicated life needs.

I found that forcing myself to do things differently based on other people's advice (especially when I didn't feel like it) often brought extremely unexpected results. But there is a massive inertia with changing who you are and the day to day choices you make.

You can accept that this feeling is normal - that your hunger for something more is insatiable, that this is just how things are and to accept it. That's one way to view it, sure, but do you really want to package that feeling up, box it, and push it away? You might push it so far down you lose sight of it and forget about it entirely. This can work for some, but these things have a habit of popping back up later in life with much more veracity. It can fester like a splinter in your mind.

What so many people are suggesting is foreclosing[1] on figuring out what you want. What gives your life meaning is completely aligned with figuring out what you want and who you are. You're in a great position to do just that - many people in recent years have found themselves in exactly the same position and reëvaluated their lives.

To do so, understand that finding your own meaning involves both a high degree of exploration and a low degree of certainty. When you find it, you'll know because you will feel a low degree of exploration and a high degree of certainty. Exploring what you need is a process of making hypotheses, trying them out, and evaluating their effects on yourself. Do they make you feel satisfied with your life, or do they leave you wanting more? If they leave you wanting more, keep exploring. You don't have to foreclose.

1. Marcia, J. E. (1980).

My dad stacked boxes of pickles for 30 years. I don't remember him complaining about work to my mom, or to us. I don't think he even ever looked for another job. He just went to work and came home at the end of the day.

You're at the top of a mountain. You're in a great place. You can feel proud of this.

You now get to choose a new thing(s!) to conquer … as others have mentioned, maybe it's getting involved in an organization you believe in, maybe it's starting a project, heck maybe it's making pottery every day.

The feeling of satisfaction/"enough" is important to feel: you're becoming aware that you have more ambition/ability in the tank … but don't let it boss you around: use it to apply your attention to something you care about.

There's an unlimited amount of "more" to want. You'll never be satisfied with it. It's not about "settling down" … it's just that you've "solved" one part of your life well enough to be able to not worry about it for a while.

People who have not realized this or do not want to realize this will be stuck restless going from one thing to another. As St. Augustine famously put it: "You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you."

As for practical advice I cant offer much exept that you should build an awarness of how much is given in your life. Your job, your wealth, your wife, your kids are all given to you and can be taken from you again at any moment. Especially your life is something you did not merit by your own actions at all, life was given to you and it will be taken from you without you having much of a choice in it.

Obviously I recommend finding God, but there is no set "algorithm" for finding him. For some people its enough to be convinced intellectually, for some its not. I dont know you so I dont know what you would respond to. The only general thing I could say is that you should try to keep yourself open to God.

I, personally, have a ton of different interests, yet have to spend most of my time doing only one (my job). I also help around the house, spend time with my wife and kids, etc. But that means very little time to pursue most of my interests (and when I have time, I don't always have the energy). I don't think you're wanting "more" in general, just more freedom to do other projects that interest you.

I know I personally yearn for the day I can retire and work on whatever I want. Unfortunately I won't be retiring early, so I'm doing all I can now to make sure I can retire comfortably and have the money I need to allow me to pursue my interests. To help in the meantime, I'm acknowledging each little victory towards that goal and also trying to organize/automate other things in my life to allow me to have more time now.

The important things I’ve done to make myself feel more satisfied in my life are:

- Be grateful for the things you have. Write about them in a journal, talk about them with your spouse, etc. - Give back. Donate money to a cause you care about, get your hands dirty volunteering, do something to make the world a little better. - Recognize that you’ll never be 100% satisfied and that’s OK. Continue moving up in your career, invest in keeping your relationships strong, etc. Don’t get lazy.

- https://www.calnewport.com/blog/2020/04/20/cultivating-a-dee...

- https://www.calnewport.com/blog/2020/03/17/the-deep-life-som...

He talks about building a life of your own choosing around the things that matter in some key buckets:

- Craft: usually your day job - Community: volunteering, religion, family, whatever it is for you - Constitution: mental, physical health - Contemplation: matters of the soul (reading philosophy, following a religion if that's relevant, reflecting, etc)

Also as many people have pointed out, the hedonic treadmill is real! There's nothing wrong with wanting to grow 1% in the core aspects of your life for the rest of your life. That seems like a life well lived to be honest!

But if you can wake up every day, look at your deep life playbook that you defined, internalize your own definitions of the 4 C's and then abide by those definitions ... then you can end each day knowing that you're living a "deep life" and hopefully gain some internal silence and gratitude!

Of course this is easier said than done :]

1. body - food, water, shelter, sleep. check 2. safety - freedom, stability. check 3. love and belonging: friends & family. check 4. self realization: prestige, respect, achievements.. ???? that's your next step. 5. the dream: full complete realization of ones potential.

read up on this thing, check it out.

also maybe useful questions to ask:

1. how is my last month going to look like - how do I wanna die. invision it. 2. maybe think. what would you do if you only had week, month, year to live? maybe go do it? is it realy impossibly to do while paying mortgage? chances are it isnt.

also, maybe list things you like about yourself and things you dont like. wanna work on those you dont like?

A perfect job does not prevent or cure depression.

>A former user of cocaine, heroin, and LSD, Bourdain wrote in Kitchen Confidential of his experience in a SoHo restaurant in 1981, where he and his friends were often high. Bourdain said drugs influenced his decisions, and that he sent a busboy to Alphabet City to obtain cannabis, methaqualone, cocaine, LSD, psilocybin mushrooms, secobarbital, tuinal, amphetamine, codeine, and heroin.[125]

Well, a complex enough person, he was.

> Well, a complex enough person, he was.

I read Kitchen Confidential in 2008 when I was an undergrad and while working in catering; the truth is that that kitchens is where you will find some of the most broken and subsequently some of the most interesting people you will ever encounter. That sad reality is that substance abuse is often just a coping mechanism/self medication for unaddressed mental health issues.

I felt Bourdain was suicidal when I read KC back then, and to be honest when he killed himself I was on my last tour in kitchens and I was the only one not entirely shocked or surprised.

His life was marred with lots of demons, and his success was enviable for anyone who has ever worked line, but he could never get away from that simple fact. Roadrunner was interesting, but sadly entirely woeful because it reminded me how much progress was lost because the entire culinary industry was riding on just him and all the media attention he could garner. There were many lost projects that will never come to fruition, and to me that is was I feel was the real loss.

He as a person probably wanted to die this way his whole life, so I can't see why anyone would feel sorry for him.

You should always be taking small steps towards the "next thing". Many people are perfectly happy not reaching for more or trying new things. They show up at work, do their 8 hours, and repeat for 30 years. That's totally fine, but I don't think you'd ask this question if that was your outlook.

You’re still in debt. You still owe society a lot of work. You want to finish paying the mortgage, send your kids to uni and start something without putting everything at risk.

Keep working. Keep working.

This is the american dream. Work does not liberate you from work. It allows you to set enough aside to retire all right.

The only way to get more is to risk more. These are the rules of the game. You could have had family money, but sadly you don’t so you have to risk that comfy situation to try and gain your financial independance.

It’s effed up

At no point in human history, anywhere, has a life if easy idleness been a part of the deal.

The way I see it there's two choices. You can either work in a comfortable society with food at the supermarket, water in your pipes, and a roof over your head, or you can work in a harsh society struggling against nature every single day for food, water, and shelter.

Yes there are people in our society who basically don't work because they have so much money. It's unfair that some people have to labour physically while others can do nothing and claim the value of the people who work for them.

Even if we did create a society where everyone could afford to be idle every day, someone would have to produce the food. Someone would have to mine the resources to produce the luxuries we enjoy. Someone would have to produce the luxuries... You see where I'm going.

Idle, easy lives are not the baseline to compare against.

They are the absolute ceiling of privilege.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgKWNcs_20g

Never in history the world had the wealth and technology that exists now.

And yet your average work from home "yuppie" still has to work 40 hours a week doing SEO or fiddling with YAML to make some billionaire more rich.

"door dash" does not give meaning to your life and ultimately you'll not be happy if you feel you live as a cog in an unnecessary company making an unnecessary product.

And if that's not enough, feudal society was not destroying the planet.

So no, having video games and online dating are not enough. But the technoptimism of HN seems to be an untreatable disease at this point.

Again, the option to "not work" isn't real. That's an illusion you have been given. That 40 hours a week fixing YAML is not to make a billionaire richer (although it does), it's to have something that you can trade with people who produce your food. If you don't want to do the YAML, then grow the food yourself I guess? It will be a lot more than 40 hours a week and a lot harder work.

> "door dash" does not give meaning to your life and ultimately you'll not be happy if you feel you live as a cog in an unnecessary company making an unnecessary product

Idleness doesn't give meaning to your life either and ultimately you'll not be happy if you feel you've accomplished nothing in your life.

Being freed from working a job does not mean you will suddenly do something important. If it is important you will find the time in and among your 40-hour workweeks, or you will take big risks by not having a job so you can start it.

If you spend your weekends idle while working full time, you'll probably spend all of your time idle if you're unemployed. Seen this way too much to think otherwise. The people who are driven to do great things don't let employment stop them.

It kind of sounds like you are coming from a baseline assumption that your job should be the most important thing in your life, the thing that gives you fulfillment. That can be true for some people but it isn't true for all people, perhaps not even most people, as much as HN would have you believe that it is.

You have to make your own happiness. All of this shit is fundamentally meaningless anyway, so start from there and figure out how you want to spend your time.

No one here can solve your ennui for you. Only advice I can give is start trying things, throwing shit at the wall and see what sticks.

I was somewhat surprised, because for me and my family it was normal to be very heavy driven with the “next thing” and not something that’s obtained even though, similarly as you, I am I very good position in my life.

And yet, constant struggle to get more filled my life with junk and made my almost split with my wife (I suppose you can imagine how “constant improvement” affects partnership especially in context of one partner being fine with position they’re in).

So, yeah, my guess would be - go talk to the specialist about it. It’s not “normal” and if it’s ADHD it can be managed to some degree.

Edit: If you want advice on how to do that, share details of what you want to work on and I'll try to help.

Edit: You might not need to leave your job even once your thing is making as much money as you need.

Sometimes just starting something new helps. I changed jobs last year after a successful decade+ run at my old job. My boss, trying to retain me said "you know there will be problems over there, too." My response was "yes, but at least they'll be new problems."

I think it is harder to choose between good choices for yourself then bad choices - choosing between a day taking the kids to the zoo versus making a significant work accomplishment is hard, you constantly wonder what you gave up to commit to the choice you did. Choosing between having to do an 8h drive in Arizona with no air conditioning versus having to go 3 days without food is easy - you don't look back at the end and wonder if you made the right choice, you know they were both miserable. It helps to get comfortable with owning your decisions - For example, I choose to spend more time with my kids because that's what I believe is right based on the information I have now. Being able to saw "I don't love this job, but I choose it because it empowers me to do other things" is empowering and helps me be more content overall.

I guess it depends. I'm sort of in the situation you're in now. I think the question about the hedonic treadmill would be -- do you, in this happy house/wife/kids imagine another job where you'd be happier, a certain amount of money, a bigger house, a certain job title.

Or on the other hand, do you just have dreams? I'm sort of in your position, good wife, good job, good salary, good house, kiddo on the way. And I am happy with all those things. And I dream about the same thing as you. Doing my own thing or retiring early to do other projects.

I'm off the hedonic treadmill. I don't think a bigger house/more kids/more money will make me happier, but. Is "stability" really the only dream? I hope I never stop fantasizing about what could be in those real dreams I have. Making music, starting a company, traveling the world. There's a difference between having drive, and being dissatisfied with the good things in your life and wanting just a little bit more. If it's the latter. Well then yeah. I guess you're stuck, go listen to someone else :-P

I have noticed that I am, eventually, not very interesting to myself, but the world is, and being "involved in mankind" has much to recommend it.

Other people have made such observations.

David Foster Wallace:

the so-called real world will not discourage you from operating on your default settings, because the so-called real world of men and money and power hums merrily along in a pool of fear and anger and frustration and craving and worship of self. Our own present culture has harnessed these forces in ways that have yielded extraordinary wealth and comfort and personal freedom. The freedom all to be lords of our tiny skull-sized kingdoms, alone at the centre of all creation. This kind of freedom has much to recommend it. But of course there are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talk about much in the great outside world of wanting and achieving.

The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day.

That is real freedom. That is being educated, and understanding how to think. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default setting, the rat race, the constant gnawing sense of having had, and lost, some infinite thing.

Isaiah:

What I’m interested in seeing you do is: sharing your food with the hungry, inviting the homeless poor into your homes, putting clothes on the shivering ill-clad, being available to your own families.

Do this and the lights will turn on, and your lives will turn around at once.

I would suggest to you that you are feeling a call to service. It's worth answering not because it's "what you owe" or "because you have to", but because it keeps you alive and human. It's good in and of itself. It will delight and surprise you.

And if you're anything like me, it'll keep you out of your head all the time. And then the light can come in.

As within so without

As above so below

It is through a greater discovery of your physical manifestation that you gain deeper Insight into the fabrics of reality

What a wonder it is to be alive

The present is a gift from the world

Time is ephemeral. We all leave eventually. Before that, bring gifts into this world the way the world has upon you!

https://www.effectivealtruism.org/

For over 10 years I've been giving at least 10% of my income to cost-effective charities (see GiveWell for recommendations https://www.givewell.org ). There are thousands of people doing the same, you should join in:

https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/

Finally, on the topic of happiness, read up on Positive Psychology to learn how to extract more enjoyment / eudaemonia out of life. Start by reading books by Ph.D. researchers (e.g. The How of Happiness, Stumbling on Happiness, etc).

One way to conceptualize things is that you are a consciousness that has won the birth lottery - being born into a well-off family, or at least a family in a rich country. I don't believe in souls - this is just a way of thinking; a hypothetical to imagine, akin to "what if I was born a minority, or a member of some persecuted group". The realization that you could have been unlucky may help empathize with those less fortunate.

Branko Milanovic, a world economist focusing on income (inequality) points out that 3 of the biggest contributors to one's income are (a) the country you are born into, (b) the income/wealth of the family you are born into, and (c) the gender. Note that all three are not something one can choose. So the "lottery" of life I describe isn't just metaphorical.

I don't think I would be willing to give 10% of my income if I didn't learn about how cost-effective charity can be. For example, with a $0.50 donation to SCI a child will be provided an anti-worm pill - curing and preventing parasitic worm infections for about a year (see GiveWell to learn more).

I recommend reading the short but super-influential essay "Famine, Affluence, and Morality" by Peter Singer. And after that, read some books by him too.

https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/get-involved/videos-books-an...

I did that listing everything that I wanted that would make me and my wife happy, calculating the yearly cost of those things, and dividing that by the average yearly rate of return for a plain old index fund portfolio, which was 4% at the time.

When I did this six years ago, my number was $5M. Which is a lot, but is also not very much. I can't find the spreadsheet now, but it included things like:

- A $700,000 house in Highland Park, Dallas (houses are >$1M now, which is still a bargain if you're coming from the Bay)

- Two cars totaling about $150,000

- $30,000/year in vacations

- A large spending budget

I knew that short of starting a startup and it getting an exit (and me not getting screwed by my investors or partners), the only way I'd be able to hit this is to get as close to where the money is made as I can and being ruthless about comp negotiation.

Tracking all of my expenses has helped me visually see where the lifestyle inflation is happening and determine what things I should invest more into or cut out of my life. It has also made forecasting big future purchases much easier, as I can see how the purchase will impact me with a very high degree of confidence. This somehow makes me attaining that thing more real, which helps drive me towards taking opportunities that will yield more comp.

I don't believe in "be happy with what you have." That's what those with say to those without to make them "feel better" that they didn't win the life lottery. I say "always chase more, but know what 'more' is so that you know where to stop!"

I was fortunate to be able to work from home when my boys were young, and I learned a lot (See https://www.skmurphy.com/blog/2014/07/27/things-i-have-learn... ) and have good relationships with them now that they are in their late 20's. I have acquaintances who did not put in the time and now regret it. Their children and grandchildren are not in their lives.

It doesn't mean they are bad things, and it doesn't mean you need to uproot your whole life to make yourself happy. But maybe you need to look around you, ser what you enjoy, what you think is important now.. What are your real values, and then your decisions in the future can help you lead a fulfilling life.

Everyday I make a point of being thankful for something or someone. Maybe someone put extra effort in at work, maybe my kids were really well behaved, maybe I really enjoyed dinner, maybe my wife told me a really funny story. Whatever it is, big or small, I try to show my gratitude to people around me and to myself. At first I started by writing them down in a log, then at the end of the week I would look through them. This turned out to be really important to me, seeing the concrete instead of the abstract really changed my outlook.

“A ship in harbour is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.” John A Shedd 1928

I quit.

I felt unfulfilled with the excitement and possibility, because life for me lacked meaning. I studied how to be a yoga teacher, focussed on my body and not my mind. I changed my diet to be a lot more veg and I moved out of London.

I have less money, less power, but feel happier. I just worked out that the grind wasn't for me and I enjoyed doing different simple things. I now work as a consultant 6 months of the year and take 6 months off.

Do what feels right for you. Everything feels the way it does for a reason.

All this while making north of $300k, and I still am not satisfied and looking for more. I grew up poor on food stamps and busted myself for minimum wage and was happy. Now I'm here with almost no work, lots of respect at work, great pay, big house with pool, and I just feel like I want more.

@perfectjob This job sounds great; good for you! I have felt many times what you have felt...and some people close to me have wondered if maybe in my case it was some sort of mild depression. Have you considered speaking with a professional? I should emphasize that this might not be any sort of mild depression but the "American way", as others have eluded, where reaching a partocular level makes one feel like it might noe be "enough" (whatever that means).

By the way, may i ask if you wouldn't mind sharing a bit more what your job entails? I'm a little older, and admittedly at a different stage of life, but your role sounds like what i might like...maybe, depending on what you actually do for your living. If you don't want to share here, feel free to email me privately. (My address can be obtained by viewing my HN profile.) Thanks, and I hope that you feel better! As others tell me: life isn't as bad or as boring or as unfulfilling as you might think! :-)

Things you considered fantastic when you where younger are, of course, still fantastic (if not to you then certainly to somebody else). Once you achieved these things, you realized that many of these things are still very important but more similar to carrying a responsibility than providing a sense of fulfillment beyond this responsibility.

It is probably fine to not have any meetings, but how many meaningful conversation do you have with people you care outside of your family (at the job, while enjoying a hobby, when talking to people in your neighborhood) on a regular basis?

What is certainly human is to reflect on paths taken, to think about possibilities, to think about what could have been. This is natural but not necessarily very helpful. The key is not to live in the past or to live in the future... the key is to live in the present and learn to see and enjoy the good moments in life while they last.

You wrote you have a good relationship with your wife and that you have healthy kids. Congratulations! You are blessed with something you can`t buy with money or status. Make the most out of it.

Most opportunities will come again - that one won't.

However when I read your post it sounds to me like perhaps the issue is not a failure to be sufficiently grateful for what you have. It sounds like there is some desire, deep within you, that is going unmet. You have checked off everything from your list of Stuff You Thought You Wanted and yet something is still missing. It seems likely to me that that something is in fact missing.

You say "it's never enough", you "want more". But what exactly is it that you're wanting? What's the "enough" that it isn't? If you can look closely at that feeling with real curiosity and some gentleness...maybe there's a clue there as to what's going on. What's the reality that is going on (eg. "I'm often feeling deep failure and shame", a fact) vs. what's the narrative you're telling yourself ("Nothing is ever enough for me", a judgement you're making)?

Or that is: in theory, to exactly what you are most interested in after all -- or a close proxy to it.

How did you settle and slow down and become happy with the way it is without always wanting more?

Others posting here seem to have better answers on the broader philosophical front. But raw in raw practical terms, you can start by acknowledging, every day, just how lucky you are that you (1) have a family and (2) unlike many in this industry, genuinely don't seem to give a flying F that you are making merely "over 100k" (when we are told we all should be making 300k after a few years, and shouldn't be working at all after 10 years or so in this industry).

Very lucky indeed.

So tell your company that you're leaving them for a while to spend time with your family. Go do stuff and see if you can find what's important to you.

Leave on good terms, wrap up any projects, in the hopes they'd have you back in the future. People will 100% understand if you say you want to spend time with young kids, but it can actually be about "retiring early to do other projects".

That's probably the most pragmatic way to satisfy your "why".

> It is probably human to always want more.

I think people are most happy when they are wanting more, ideally striving to be the best at something they care about. Most great artists and athletes are like that.

I have a theory that our employment system hijacks this by providing a small salary for distraction and artificial challenges and rewards for retention.

Many of us learn that we need to "slow down and become happy" once we've achieved enough career challenges. Somehow we should be content in our positions and pay, but paradoxically fearful of unemployment.

If that's the space you occupy, you're simply underfunded and may actually need to "speed up".

Also, if you have children, and you don't want their lives to be difficult, you may want to consider expanding your safety net to include future generations. You may need to really start hustling if you think about your family's long term goals.

> If I knew I could have a job like this ten years ago, I would have thought that's it, the dream.

At the risk of challenging your dreams, it may not be an accident that we are taught to dream of labor.

I became happy when I realised none of that shit has remotely anything to do with happiness, which is a state of mind and to some extent a choice.

I’m still a relentless optimiser and just as driven (maybe more so). But when it comes to happiness, rather than allow myself to believe I’ll be unhappy until I achieve X or solve problem Y, I now optimise for finding the path and the narrative[1] I can tell myself that will make me happy with things as they are.

The bonus is it’s easier to do more and optimise the crap out of anything when you’re happy doing it.

Good luck! I sincerely hope you get past this, whatever the solution.

P.S. similar to how others have commented, I’ve also found focusing on others to be incredibly helping in framing that narrative and thinking about my life

[1] to me this has been super key— it is all about framing, and the stories I repeatedly tell myself about my situation and the world around me.

As long as you are not giving up your health or your family in the process, I think career wise it's always a good idea to be looking for more. Either an even better job, or to create passive income to not have to work anymore. But many of us feel the "happiest" when we are working towards a specific goal for a brighter future.

Whether we reach or don't reach the goal doesn't matter as much as just feeling the struggle and the improvement. You are just currently in such a comfort zone that feel like this is the "end", but it isn't. You can aim for more and it is ok. And paradoxically you will feel better in your current situation, when you know it's temporary and when you are already working towards a different/better future.

One thing I found that really helped was working on my own projects. The level of satisfaction you feel after directly helping someone (or multiple folks) solve a problem that's been bothering them (either in business or personal) can't be replicated from any job.

Some people will say settle, or bring up hedonic treadmills or w/e but i would encourage you to start scratching that itch to do your own thing. Find folks who have a problem you think/know you can help them solve and then do it. Take the plunge and experience how it feels to help someone with something you built of your own effort and time.

I have found that different types of activities bring me joy/energy/fulfillment, and others do not. Identifying which activities do this for me took a few years of thought, coupled with asking people who know me well about what they observe. I realized about 10 years ago that I'm most fulfilled when I'm teaching - literally leading a formal learning session with students. I find opportunities to do some of this in my work (I'm a co-founder with tons of autonomy in my role), but ultimately I've decided that my job is the means to open up more doors to teach. I'm getting an MBA to open the door to be an adjunct professor in business.

I share this because once you know what activities bring you joy/energy/fulfillment, you can rearrange your life to maximize how much time you spend doing those things.

1) Know that this is a completely normal feeling, especially in more individualistic/atomized cultures where status competitions are more pronounced.

2) YOU have the answer to your question, it's just a matter of uncovering it. I would recommend writing/journaling. Spend a lot of quiet time exploring your thoughts, and asking probing questions of yourself. "Why do I want to do more? What do I think will happen once I do those projects? How will that feel? etc." If I were to guess, some of the story may be around the drive for increased social status. But I can only speculate.

3) Remember you are a human with a physical body/needs, stay attuned to it. Move your body, exercise, go outside and breathe in fresh air, eat well, play with your kids/family/friends. Working remote and on a computer is incredibly convenient, but sometimes it removes our attention from the physical world.

4) Be BIG in your very SMALL world, forget about trying to be BIG in the BIG world - If there's any part of you that thinks about how what you accomplish looks to others and how it'll reflect on your relative status/legacy, I'd recommend making your world smaller/more local. The internet/media shows us what outliers are doing all around the world at all times, and it can make whatever we're doing feel so miniscule in comparison. You'll never 'Win' the global status games, nobody can really. Focus on your very small part of the world, your family, your friends, your local community. How can you be the best parent/spouse/neighbor to them? Being good here has the highest ROI once you've let go of the global status games (which you'll be forced to let go of at some point). For creative projects - what will bring YOU or those closest to you joy? Forget about thinking about how anything you build will scale broadly/globally.

You achieved the job and relationships you want, and you expect that to "take care of" your happiness.

You'll have to unlearn this. It certainly doesn't hurt. In fact, it really sets you up to have all the resources you need to learn what really does satisfy you in life. You have the needs met, and the support group you care about, and that cares about you.

But there's always new projects to try, new skills to develop, new areas of knowledge to learn.

Try things, and see if they give you short-term joy and longer term satisfaction. See if there are activities you're happy to do over and over, so that you're not bound to the rewards of novelty. See if certain active hobbies require a long time to master, and if you enjoy that process.

I quit to join a startup. Huge mistake. I quit the startup to take time off, its been 2 months.

Now I am spending my time exercising, doing yoga, studying things I want to study and hanging out at cafes and travelling. But I was happier in the job.

I don't have a solution, sorry. My best guess is understanding the hedonic treadmill, focusing on appreciating what you have and meditation (the mind illuminated is a good book). But hey thats just a guess. Maybe there is no solution, maybe evolution fucked us.

1) the pay was $100k, much less than i was previously making. Made me change my spending habits and reduced my quality of life 2) the office was depressing and dark 3) the ability to socialize at my office was greatly diminished due to a small team. I'm on the same wavelength as 10% of ppl so if there are only 20ppl at a company its slim pickings especially since most people are working from home. 4) I stopped believing in the product pretty quickly after joining as I learned more about it and the competitive landscape. Belief in the product was the only thing keeping me there and once that was dead i had no reason to stay 5) the CEO turned out to be an idiot and i did not want to put my future in his hands.

If you can work at a FAANG-like company it's a REALLY good deal. A startup can't offer the same perks, security, work-life-balance and freedom that FAANG can.

My new thinking is that if you are unhappy working on something, switching to something else that is similar is only a temporary fix. Maybe switching to really different career that helps other people will provide a long term solution, but i doubt it. Most likely the issue is your attitude, perspective and personality.

What are you really craving? What emotional state are you craving that you are not getting? Excitement, Love, Fame, Appreciation? Dig in and think if you really will be able to get that state sustainably at a different place.

You want changes in order to change your emotional state but what you really need to do is learn how to control your emotional state. That is what you should be working on.

But maybe don't listen to me, I have not figured it out yet, I am still not happy :)

It's also important not to beat yourself up. It's normal to think about how things could be, and it's not easy to appreciate the things you have. These are normal human emotions and behaviors, and they are perfectly ok.

I will mention, I think for the majority of people what you do for work is not the primary driver of life fulfillment. Work is a responsibility we take on, our societal contract to fulfill the needs of ourselves and our loved ones.

---

You can't, but you don't have to "want more" in the same "direction".

I think this article by Nathaniel Travis gives a lot of insight into the human condition with a remarkably simple premise:

[1] https://nathanieltravis.com/2022/01/17/is-human-behavior-jus...

The reason we can't ever be entirely satisfied is our fundamental control loop cannot consider scale (and for good reason if you think about it for a few minutes). So no matter how good things are, you will always sensibly consider how things could be better, no matter how little it would actually improve your day to day (if at all).

Fortunately, it does seem we have some control over what it is we expect to gain, so I would suggest you start "tumbling" vigorously in ways that are not detrimental to your current life and you may come upon something that really sparks an interest (at least enough of one).

I suspect there's also a darker parallel with these systems and give-up-itis, in which a lack of dopamine from the prefrontal cortex seems to cause stasis and eventually death or suicide as the basal ganglia loses the ability to perform self-directed activity (the control loop has shut down) [2]. This isn't entirely different from a bacteria failing to find a gradient and simply waiting out the situation. But from our highly derived perspective, waiting out a situation when we are the only thing that can create situations is not a useful feedback loop.

[2] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030698771...

It’s easy to know if you're there or not by asking a single question - Do you find purpose in what you do? You can be a software engineer and work in cloud computing for example. But deep inside you know that you never cared about clouds and always wanted to help people to get to space.

I personally know that no matter how good the work conditions would be, I would not be satisfied until I would work in the game industry. Until I know that my input helped to put smile on thousands of faces.

All the things you do, you want to do.

There's nothing inherently positive about this, given our evolutionary history.

Start doing more things you don't want to do.

Stop allowing yourself to be comfortable by default.

Your list sounds like a greatest hit of things people on HN, at dinner parties or elsewhere would comment as being dream scenario. But although it may objectively be a priviledged and dream scenario to be in, then that does not automatically make it the optimal scenario for you.

Some of it could sound like you arguing with yourself about not being happy or content about a situation others would dream of. But if it is not YOUR dream scenario then it does not matter what other people think.

I may be way off. But the other interpretations of your comment seems to be well discussed.

The question instantly reminded me of "Warum werde ich nicht satt?" [1] by Die toten Hosen. It really sounds like a perfect match to me.

Tellingly, the song also just asks the same question, rather aggressively, without providing an answer. I always thought of this as a way of criticizing the mentality of many better-off people, but I had never thought about how one should approach the question when one really is in this situation. Thanks for asking it here! :)

[1]: https://youtu.be/H2WNeyfftVA

Pretty much everything in this life is a means towards the end.

We were created to know and love God which is our ultimate end that will satisfy all our desires. Without him you will always feel something is missing.

Step 2: Consider taking the science of well-being course. https://www.coursera.org/learn/the-science-of-well-being

Step 3: Find (or geek out in) a hobby that you can obsess about and that your friends and family can accept.

Step 4: If you can't find out a path toward self-actualization, ask your employer or boss about ways that you can improve the business mission goals. In that path, you should find a path toward self-actualization and go for it.

Step 5: Accept the excellent result you get because outcomes are very dependent on luck.

Edit: flip side of this is the desire to hold onto things. Not easy to let go. Something bad could happen to a person anytime.

What are your actual life goals? Do they go beyond "have a happy family and die as late as possible"? If so, you may not be meeting your spiritual quota, though your physical (assets), mental (interesting problems), and emotional (healthy family and friend relationships) cups runneth over. Perhaps you could find some time to volunteer somewhere that you feel you can make an impact.

I quit.

I felt unfulfilled with the excitement and possiblity, because life for me lacked meaning. I studied how to be a yoga teacher, focussed on my body and not my mind. I changed my diet to be a lot more veg and I moved out of London.

I have less money, less power, but feel happier. I just worked out that the grind wasn't for me and I enjoyed doing different simple things. I now work as a consultant 6 months of the year and take 6 months off.

Do what feels right for you. Everything feels the way it does for a reason.

Certainly the easy path, if you can stomach it, is to satisfy yourself with personal material success. But you might need something else. Congrats, you're human.

Plenty of people have some level of need to be part of a group of people beyond the nuclear family. Some of those people don’t seem to be very aware of the side effects of not having a group. Do you remember looking forward to going to school so you could be with your friends? (Cue tribal argument).

The group itself probably doesn’t matter so long as it is more than a couple of hours a week and not socially shallow - since you have kids perhaps something linked in with them?

I think it would be worth the effort to try an experiment and see how you respond.

You say that like it's a good thing. You may want to reconsider.

Also, always have a project. Something to aim for for a couple of years that stands out from the rest of your life. It can be anything. Building a house, raising a small child, starting a company, diving deep into a hobby, switching to an entirely different line of work for some time (I enjoyed teaching!), etc.

This may keep your inner adventurer happy, and makes for an interesting life to look back on.

I think you're spot on with humans always wanting more. More money, more freedom, more relationships, etc.

If you consider a buddhist idea of suffering being the attachment to that idea, you will always be feeling this way. Could you perhaps flip your attachment to become one of detachment where having less fills you up with immense joy and gratitude? What if you looked inward and realized that you are enough and always have been?

Having a job that makes sense to you isn't a bulletproof answer to your problems. But I think that it can help.

I picked up a side project which has been a bit of a double-edged sword. Something that as yet has no value consistently tugs at my attention throughout the day.

My calling in life is to be a disciple of Jesus. In this I look after my family, serve my church, take part in society/community, and do my vocation/work.

I would suggest you may be missing an element of community in your story. I have learned to look to all these areas and not only focus on some.

Do you already do your "own thing" now after work and on weekends? If not, then it probably is a case of thinking the grass is greener.

Speaking only for myself, I would come home from work and pursue my passions everyday, night, and weekend until exhaustion. I quit my job two years ago to pursue my passions full time and - although I'm not making money yet - I am consistently happy and fulfilled with my work.

You might even end up in situations which will untangle you from work or as you call it "the perfect job", and I can say from experience it is extremely liberating.

And you will meet a lot of people along the way, too.

This sounds like the perfect solution for you also as you said you work from home.

> why not try solo travel in a remote region? South America and places in Southeast Asia can be really fun to do alone.

Sounds like the risky solo intercontinental travel portion of this guy's life has elapsed. Doing this when you're single and 25 is adventurous. Doing this when you're married with kids and a homeowner is a midlife crisis, even if being 35 makes it an early one. Leaving the responsibility of raising the children and running the household to his wife while he goes on adventures to sate his restlessness would be pretty self-absorbed.

Just get some chickens: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/business/wp/2018/03/02/f...

IMO the insight, self-awareness, or revelation you may be seeking would most likely come from a conversation where you have space to think, reflect, be asked a lot of "Why" questions, and so on.

Being happy with the way it is has very little to do with your external circumstances and more to do with your internal disposition. That’s why you can find people in all different kinds of circumstances that are happy.

How to get there is a much longer discussion, but focusing on what’s good and feeling grateful for those things is a start.

Oof, this is a pretty profound statement!

> “If a direct report is coasting or is a low performer, they are not who we need; they are failing this company,” Saba wrote. “As a manager, you cannot allow someone to be net neutral or negative for Meta.”

Companies exist, after all, to generate a profit for their owners.. One may or may not agree with the ethics of that being the case, but that is why they exist at this moment in time.

Up until this point in your life, meaning has been a projection – a goal ahead of you. You have now reached this goal, realised the projection, and must find a new projection, a new project. You must find an I beyond the self, a goal that encompasses but is larger than yourself.

I recommend the book "What is Existentialism?" by Simone de Beauvoir as a starting point.

A robust web of relationships at varying levels of intimacy certainly correlates with fulfillment.

see what your body can do, it is clear that your mind has accomplished a lot

the contentment of a great workout is hard to beat

Though I do feel I need to see what my mind can accomplish. I'm a DS Manager (was an air traffic controller) but the role isn't technically difficult.

pet theory of mine, the "wanting self" is a flawed behavior inherited from childhood (that many, myself first, still have), it's useful to stop listening to it. Maybe focus on sharing your time with family, it may lessen the need to satisfy your inner self.

- read stoicism, start anywhere, keep reading

- check in with a counselor

- consider your relationship with "god" -- is it fake? Step up or step back.

- get a hobby; here are mine: real estate, woodworking, software projects, private pilot, ham radio

Apologizes since this is slightly off topic from the rest of the thread, but: any chance I could bounce some questions off you about the process of getting a private pilot's license? I took an "intro" flight, and have started studying towards the written test, but I have a few questions that I would love to ask.

My email is in my profile - let me know if there's a good way to reach out to you.

But show much of that progress is towards activities which transcend the work day. It is my personal deviation from “heroic materialism” that has made me a much more enlightened man.

As someone rapidly approaching my mid-30s who also has wife and young kids (and also in a similar position income wise), I feel this way as well from time to time.

You need you time, outside of work, outside of family.

Then I did my own thing, sold a business, work only on projects that interest me etc as you are aspiring to do.

Now I’m back in exactly the same situation, wanting more and being unsettled despite having a dream life on paper.

It never ends. Think it’s just the way some of us are wired!

2. find a hobby or something you're interested in and master it. then teach other people about it.

I'll let you know if I settle and slow down or become happy with the way it is without always wanting more. /s

Arriving at the goal is mildly relieving briefly then almost immediately after anxiety inducing due to sudden lack of purpose.

Your purpose is to make then world a better place.

Something to do Someone to love Something to look forward to

(I think you might be missing the last point)

Don't dislike it, don't worry about it, just embrace it.

This too is sacred.

Suggestion: read Four Thousands Weeks from Oliver Burkeman;)

What you are describing is stagnating, as a worker and as a person. Life is made so that we always want to push and grow ourselves.

You want to do your own thing ? Do it. If you don't you'll have regrets later

Everyone is searching their Self.

It won’t be enough when you are not searching your Self, no matter what you have.

It will be enough when you are searching your Self, no matter what you have.