I had a buddy, and we talked in great detail about this. I chase challenges, and am always looking for the next big puzzle to muddle my way through. He chased freedom. He just wanted to be who he was and spend his time how he wanted.
My point is people are motivated by different things. Find your thing and pursue it. Don’t worry what anyone else is doing. You don’t answer to them, and they’re not any happier than you.
The caveat is don’t conflate freedom/motivation with being a dick. Live the life that you want to live, but if that involves disparaging certain demographics for ethically and/or morally wrong reasons, then maybe live a better life than the one you really want to live. This doesn’t apply to most people, but there are some out there that should read it and take it to heart.
Mate, I’d definitely prefer loose leaf tea but can’t be arsed with the extra hassle
There are dozens of us
Dozens!
I think so anyway. I haven’t checked.
As long as you feel you want to avoid responsibilities, please do so in a responsible way. Use condoms every time, and don’t get involved with a person who wants children. Be a good support-player at work so your manager doesn’t have to be a bitch (they still might, in which case support your coworkers). And contribute in low-effort ways like donating an occasional pint of blood if you’re eligible, or offering to put someone else’s cart away at the grocery store. Just being a decent person is enough.
I am the same and find that life is enough for me as it is. I’m also on the spectrum so it’s easier to not burden myself unnecessarily.
My ADHD plays a huge part in the opposite direction. I have had hundreds of different hobbies or interests. Each hold my attention for a while and then I rotate to the next.
What I have learned to do is make hobbies or projects interrelated and each supports the next. CAD work supports my 3D printing, which supports all the rest, as an example. Tools purchased need to have multiple uses and other supplies the same. Essentially, I have constructed a huge feedback loop for my natural tendency to bounce around.
While that stuff keeps me busy, I am learning to simplify the rest of my life, so that is nice.
Wow. I think you just resolved some minor trauma for me. My mother used to berate (and sometimes beat) me for “never finishing things”, as in I’d be really interested in something and then lost interest. It drove her up the wall, but since I was a kid all I heard was “stop being interested in everything”.
I got dx’d with ADHD at 35. Slowly, and thanks to comments like yours, I’m making sense of my brain and learning to be kind to myself
I was diagnosed early, but didn’t start treatment until my 30’s. Basically, I had some really unfounded perceptions of the condition and how amphetamines worked. Whoo boy, was I wrong!
But yeah, it’s hard not to use the condition as a crutch or an excuse. It’s a legitimate condition, no doubt, but the trick is trying to learn ways to leverage it as a positive. (TBH, this only works in some cases, not all.)
The biggest challenge for me is trying to communicate how I think and operate to others. Processes that work for normal humans simply do not work for me. This poses some massive challenges in my career, for sure. By the same token, the way I think gives me unique advantages in problem solving. (I am in IT Security by trade where thinking differently is almost a requirement.)
Man, I wish I had heard this decades ago. Most of my hobbies are entirely unconnected except building guitars then playing them. I have a garage full of woodworking stuff that’s only for that, a garage full of tools for working on motorcycles that don’t overlap, a bunch of tools for cooking outdoors, a room full of entirely unconnected gear for playing pool, rock climbing, a shelf full of tabletop games, gardening equipment, fishing gear, and equipment to make a beverage that is illegal for me to make at both the federal and state level.
You have a good system.
Those sound like some pretty cool hobbies tbh.
They’re all a lot of fun. The only ones I have kept up with long term are building and playing guitars, cooking outdoors, and working on motorcycles. The rest were passing fancies.
Can you give some more examples please?
Not op, but I love making interesting furniture and light fixtures. It’s a combination of wood working, pretty lights, microcontrollers, open source projects, and stuff that normies fucking love, like epoxy desks. I always have a handful of projects at various states of completion and whenever I get bored of one I bounce to another until I finish and then just pick something from my yuge list of stuff I wanna build and keep going.
Exactly! Compared to what neurotypical people are capable of, I truly do feel disabled in some ways. However, as long as I can continue to support myself and my partner until we both die, I’ll be good without all the extra bullshit and responsibilities.
They aren’t thinking of it in terms of increasing responsibility. That is the cost of the decisions they are making, but it’s not the benefit. Each of the things you mentioned have clear benefits (pay raise, biological drive, altruism). They are simply making decisions about when the benefits outweigh the costs.
I became a manager because I worked with shitty managers who sit on their ass and promote their friends. I wanted to change that.
I take on harder projects than my peers because I can handle it. It’s easier for me to deal with the stress, than give it to a teammate who would absolutely struggle and lose 4 weekends trying to solve it.
I became a parent because I worked in the school system and taught kids without good families. I used to stay after school just to give these kids a positive influence before they get sent back to their shitty home.
I absolutely do not think about the stress of the added work, but instead focus on the results of my actions (or the results if I don’t do it).
I became a parent because I worked in the school system and taught kids without good families. I used to stay after school just to give these kids a positive influence before they get sent back to their shitty home.
Don’t take this as criticism, just trying to understand: What’s the logic here? As a teacher without kids (for now), I feel like I’d have more to give to help my pupils if I don’t have kids of my own.
Regardless, thank you both for the work that you do.
Thanks for doing what you do.
And I can see the confusion. I grew up in the ghetto, I also wasn’t raised in a good environment. I have children and I’m in the process of adopting as well.
There are a ton of negative comments on here, but i think the reality is: people value different things.
When you have certain values you will sacrifice certain things to practice those values/achieve those goals.
Some people value charity work because helping the community and people makes them feel good–even if it’s more work on their plate.
Some people sacrifice their personal lives to achieve a career goal. Sometimes that’s for financial reasons, sometimes that’s for ego reasons, sometimes it’s “meeting a challenge”.
Some people will sacrifice their career to have less stress or focus on their family. Some people value their hobbies, relationships, personal interests to the point where they’ll pick jobs that let them focus on those things–even if those jobs don’t pay as well, even if they aren’t “progressing” up the ladder.
And for what it’s worth, your values (may) shift over time. I never wanted kids for the longest time. Then I did.
I valued career progression for ego and financial reasons–and now, that’s shifted.
I sacrificed spending time with my friends when I had my kid, but now I am putting a lot of effort into those friendships because I value them and that requires work. That means I didn’t take a job offer that would have paid more, so I would have time for my family and friends.
I value those things more at this point.
I value my time playing computer games, so I sacrifice my sleep so I can do that. :)
We’ve been tricked into thinking either that hard work pays off or this specific hard work thing will pay off. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn’t. But all the time it leads to more work.
My expert psychoanalysis of your entire personality based on a one sentence post is either you’re happy where you are, or you’re afraid of change.
IDK why people become managers, either, when the pay often isn’t reflected in the increased responsibility. Plenty of jobs I had, the managers got paid the same minimum wage as everyone below them, while having to do a lot more work. I have no problem with the responsibility, as long as I’m properly compensated for it.
This is only true of “team lead” type managers.
Get more skills and experience. Get promoted. Produce more value. Get paid more. Repeat.
Not too disagree with you, or argue, but in my field your experience is not how it is here. You have to go into management of you want to make more money, and while the work is different, I’m not sure it’s harder
In my experience, at first managing is always harder than doing it yourself, because you’re usually put in charge of managing people who do what you used to do.
Have you ever been in a situation where you’ve had to do something at work, but you were hamstrung by your tools or timelines? Like, oh man this would be way easier in Python but you are only approved for MS office, so you have to struggle through some VBA. Or man, I could whip this together super fast in Ruby but for some reason this has to be in plain JavaScript. Or maybe you could make this really well, but not in the two day turnaround they need. All that is frustrating, but you usually find a way to perform given these imperfect scenarios.
Now, imagine VBA has feelings. You can’t even really complain about VBA, because it’s not malicious. It’s just bad at its job. So now instead of quickly coding a workaround in a new language (but you learn fast so not the end of the world), you have to help someone get there and do it on their own. And you can’t just do it for them because you have 4 VBAs. Oh, and by the way, JavaScript is malicious. It’s actively trying to avoid work, or maybe trying to make VBA look bad. So now you have to convince JavaScript that it’s in its best interest to work. Sometimes its a carrot, sometimes a stick, but you’re responsible for getting functionality out, and it’s more functionality than you could possibly create on your own.
That’s what managing people is like. A deep desire to do it yourself because it will be better and faster, but you don’t have time, and also you need these people to be better. So you have to learn to teach instead of do, and support emotionally and intellectually and motivate instead of just bitching to your manager when someone else isn’t getting their work done and it’s affecting your work - now you’re responsible for getting their work to be good. It’s really hard, and some people who were amazing achievers and doers can’t hack it when they have to help other people achieve and do. It’s why you have so many bad manager stories. The skillsets are nearly completely different.
The nice part though is when you get good enough at managing that you start managing people that do things you can’t do, or do things better than you ever could. Suddenly there’s some whiz kid straight out of college who knows more about data science from their degree than you did your whole career actuallydoing it, and all they really need help with is applying it. Then you start helping with vision and the “why” of things. “Yes, you could do it that way, but remember our actual end goal is X, so that’s all we really care about.” Or you help people work together to make a cohesive whole. That’s when managing gets really rewarding. It can still be harder than doing, or it might be easier if you’re a big picture thinker, but it gets different eventually.
Some people become managers because they like having control over people.
And those are the people you need to avoid being managed by.
At least for me, it’s because it was the only way to get a raise in my position.
In my industry, the difference between manager and new hire is double.
For other industries, it’s a big sadder. When I worked in a restaurant in college, the manager made $2 more. They also got some perks that I didn’t. And I absolutely did not want their job.
So I can totally understand that perspective.
But, being a manager for a year or two gives you that title that when you jump jobs, it’s def a salary bump.
For me I knew being a manager would be much harder, but my passion is mentoring others and watching them grow.
Hello, someone who went to a manager position here! I’m 100% with you, decreasing responsibility means decreasing stress and so is always a priority! However, there are a few reasons one might shoot for the moon anyway.
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Ambition. This is the obvious one, some people just want more. More money, more power, more prestige. That is a valid reason to push further but isn’t for everyone.
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Empathy. Yep you read that right! Ambition isn’t the only driving force to take on more responsibility. Empathy can lead people to see the ways to improve others’ lives, workloads, and more!
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Accidents. Especially with children but also in other areas, accidents happen and can often leave people with more on their shoulders than expected.
I personally am mostly number 2. I saw the terrible leadership that my team has had in the past and the ways I could assist my team to improve. I knew all the complaints and had ideas to fix them so I took the responsibility bullet so they don’t have to.
I hope this helps you see into the mind of someone who accepts responsibility, even if it means more stress and less freedom!
Empathy. Yep you read that right! Ambition isn’t the only driving force to take on more responsibility. Empathy can lead people to see the ways to improve others’ lives, workloads, and more!
I actually really resonate with that one. I pretty much ended up in the psudo-managment position I’m in because I kept seeing ways to improve life for those around me and it required me getting more and more involved in things outside of my specific role. It got to the point that I became the “go to” guy and ended up with a bunch of responsibilities, but at least the work is a little easier for those I work with directly on the factory floor and a few people in the office as well.
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The ability to “strive” is a learned skill that needs to be honed over years. It’s not really natural to most people — it’s easy to fall into a low-energy state and want to stay there because it’s comfortable. It takes practice and energy putting yourself out there and putting an effort into making more of your life.
If you’re happy with who you are and what you’re doing, then I’m not going to neg on your life. But are you going to spend the next ~50 years just gliding along, and not creating or building any value for yourself in this world (and that doesn’t have to be monetary value — building a family, and building up your community through volunteer works build value as well)? When you’re in the twilight of your life, do you want to look back and find you did nothing of significance with your life?
Maybe that doesn’t bother you. That’s fine. Just so long as 15 years from now you’re not some bitter middle-aged person complaining about people in the upper-middle class who get to do things you don’t get to do and who have more money and nice things that you do.
But none of that would be for me. So I put in the work, learned how to strive for the life I wanted, and got a graduate degree, built a beautiful family, got that management job (and the pay that goes with it), and spend my spare time volunteering (currently) with three different organizations. It’s a busy life and take a lot of time and energy — but it allows me to have people around me who love me, with the money to do and own nice things together, and to give back to my community to make it a better place. And when my time eventually comes, I’ll have hopefully left this world a little better off for the effort.
Maybe that doesn’t bother you. That’s fine. Just so long as 15 years from now you’re not some bitter middle-aged person complaining about people in the upper-middle class who get to do things you don’t get to do and who have more money and nice things that you do.
Statistically speaking, single people with no kids usually have more disposable income.
Meh. Your value as a human isn’t tied to your accomplishments (be it having a family or getting a high paying job) or productivity.
This whole thing of “striving as a honed skill” sounds like hustling culture and capitalist brainwashing. In fact, I would say it takes more skill to actually be content with your life and not feel the constant need to strive to be someone better or do something more.
You seem to think that unless you’ve done something, you’re worthless.
It seems that according to your view, a homeless person without a family is completely worthless.
That’s a pretty unfair characterization. He called out multiple times how it’s fine for the other guy if that’s what he wants, but that it’s not his own specific wants. And his central thesis is fine: coasting is fine as long as you’re going to be ok with where you coast to. If you want to be somewhere else then coasting is not fine - but it’s up to you where you want to go.
There as a time when you were very young that tying your shoes was impossible for you. For a time, your parents tied your shoes for you. Then you learned how, with difficulty, to do it yourself. Within a short time you mastered it and you don’t even think about it now. You simply benefit from having tied shoes without having to ask anyone. Somewhere out there is a person that doesn’t know how to tie their own shoes asking why people learned to do so for themselves, where you have that answer for yourself.
Others around you see benefits to raising children, the challenge and pay of rising in job role, or the noble contribution of doing charity work bettering others/society. For you, you don’t see any of the benefits to yourself that come from those thing. Yet those other people learned to tie their shoes themselves too. You are like them in that they had the desire to better themselves in that small way because you all saw a benefit.
It sounds like the question before you is to examine your life, decide if there is anything you want in it that you don’t have, and work a path to getting that. The one further thing I would recommend is don’t just look at your life as it is now at age 30. Imagine your life at 35,40, 50, 65, and 80. With the versions of yourself at those ages be satisfied with the person you are today with what you know and have? Will you, at some distant year, be sad that you passed on an opportunity to have something else in your life you don’t have today? If so, its up to you, today, to make the choices that will eventually make you into the person you want to be for that distant age.
Only you can answer this question and there is no wrong answer as long as you are true to yourself and have properly explored yourself and the world to properly answer this question.
I have to have a job, which means I have to work. If I have to work, I’d prefer it was challenging and stimulating. That doesn’t mean it’s good, but busy and challenged and better than bored and unstimulated for me personally.
If those things don’t make you happy then don’t do them.
I don’t want to be a manager, but did have lots of kids and went to school to get a ‘real’ job. I think to some extent people just do things because they need to be done - I wanted a house and family so easiest way to get that was to have kids and work. I like to eat good food, having money and a garden is the easiest way to get that. It’s certainly not a power trip, as someone lower down implies. More like a form of greed, if you have to look at it in a negative way. I like having a full house.
Everyone values different things. Personally, I’m not quite ready for kids (even though I’m past the age where my parents had kids and some of my friends/colleagues my age have kids, I’m about your age), but I’m ready to take on more at work. I find it rewarding and I can make more money. And although money doesn’t create happiness, it buys some dope shit. And not advancing at work just gets boring and repetitive. Ig it’s like that urban legend about sharks needing to swim…
Money doesn’t create happiness, but it definitely sets up an environment for it to thrive.
