Ask HN: How to optimize your career for happiness?

For me, the special part is truly viewing any job as just that: a job.

I no longer assess my worth as a person as a function of job title, salary, or anything else.

I take contracting work primarily and expect absolutely nothing more than a paycheck. Work is a transaction and I deliver what I can and am not a jerk.

Almost every disposable penny goes toward physical fitness. My spouse happens to be cut from the same cloth, which is a big plus.

We don't live extravagantly unless you count the money for fitness, but we consider that to be an investment and not a frivolous expense.

Satisfaction in life for me comes from every angle EXCEPT my job, and that's my secret.

Use your career/job to support your life, then get a life. Become an artist, author, clown, or build some awesome technical system because you want it to exist. GPL it.

Don't ask for anything, especially not happiness, from your "career". I put it in quotes because it's conceptually bankrupt.

https://www.roystonguest.com/blog/why-happiness-is-not-a-des...

Get a gym membership and go every day. If you have trouble going routinely sign up for classes or a personal trainer so you feel more obligated to go on a regular basis.

The special thing I’ve done is mostly being willing to sit with hard questions like “who am I” and “what do I really want out of life and a job?”, sometimes for years at a time (low-key).

The answer is always the same, and will probably always the same: I am motivated by mastery and autonomy. Thus I put lots of time into finding work that is interesting and has a lot to dig into.

I routinely annoy the institutions I work for because status and titles do not work for me. They are empty pursuits that hinge too much on the fickle perceptions of other people who may not share my values. My dream is to work for myself making software customers love. I have made some small steps[1] toward that this year, but replacing my current income will need a lot of work on the side, and that’s fine.

I’m playing a game of sorts, where I have a job I really like that is challenging and fits my goals as an individual contributor, whilst also dabbling in learning to make and sell things on the side. Both pursuits support the other, and I don’t have to win at either in order to feel “justified.”

This is just one way to approach the job issue. There are a bunch of other good ways to tackle it!

1: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/audiowrangler/id1565701763?mt=...

I simply don't work much anymore.

Below 10h a week on average.

I haven't set an alarm for years anymore and sleep 9h a night

That made me quite happy.

We live in the post-modernism era. The common theme is the maximisation of hedonism, and through that we pursue "happiness".

Happiness needs to be experienced. Explaining what it is or how it feels is of low value. The problem is that happiness is directly linked to unhappiness. It's like notes and pauses: if we remove pauses from a melody, the melody turns into a "sound" that doesn't give us any pleasure.. it's not music.

So to experience happiness, we need to experience unhappiness for long stretches of time.

All this to say that happiness shouldn't be the end-goal IMO. Meaning makes more sense as an end-goal. If we can live "meaningful" lives, happiness could be a byproduct. Being happy is easy but transient (e.g. eating ice-cream can make someone happy). Finding "meaning" is difficult but way more permanent than "happiness".

I would separate career from "meaning" though. The two rarely go along and I also like to think that myself and everyone else is more than a "career".

Lots of good advice here. One additional thing to consider: why is your mind on stress from work?

How’s your marriage? How are your parents doing? Your kids? Who are some of your best friends?

How often are you physically active? Do you often go for walks, or play tennis, or garden?

How well are you sleeping? Do you love your mattress?

Any habits you’ve struggled to kick lately? Conversely, any hobbies you’ve really gotten into?

Personally, I’ve always noticed my personal happiness correlating MUCH more closely with the above than with work. If work isn’t it, you may want to consider some other angles.

In 2019 I closed my company, middle size web-dev shop.

I used the pandemic situation to reevaluate and rearrange my life. Turns out that I want to do product design and development. And all the experience as a business owner, product manager, etc, is coming handy when crafting new products.

I have survived several burnouts in those years of pushing myself harder. Learned my lessons.

Balance is the key. Physical and mental health are most important things, everything else comes secondary.

After my first burnout, I created a simple priority checklist, which I apply every year.

It is simple:

1. Health.

2. Fulfillment / Meaning.

3. Experience.

4. Monetary reward.

5. Career development.

If something in this list changes priorities, I stop, take a vacation and reevaluate.

You cannot be happy if you are not healthy.

You cannot be healthy if you don’t have enough sleep and proper nutrition.

You cannot have enough sleep if your nervous system is on overload.

You cannot work meaningfully if you don’t “play" regularly.

I have found that there are two types of people who are happy in their work. 1. Those that help others, like teachers and nurses. Their jobs can be stressful and not very financially rewarding. But they take satisfaction from seeing patients get healthy or students learn.

The other type are people who create things. If you are not of the first type I highly suggest that you find a career where you make things. Creating a software product definitely fits the bill for some people. But if you can't see what you are making because all you do is fix bugs, or work on small components, you might not get the job satisfaction you need. Seek out work that involves making things.

I have given advice just for this case here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25509941

So far it is working out pretty well for me. To be quite honest, you don't have to have passion for your job to perform well enough in accord with your salary and incentives. I'd say even more, overworking oneself is a "grave sin" against your future.

One's time and intelligence are better spent optimizing one's family size (in upwards direction) and health.

> I thought I was already doing that but looks like I've been doing something wrong with my professional career, and there is a path more equilibrated and focused on happiness I should follow.

In addition to my advice, I recommend you to read this thread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29581125

Several things should be pretty evident by this point:

1. Software engineering sub-niches are grossly different in pay/effort ratio, overtime expectations and ageism prevalence

2. Overperforming expecting a raise is a poor strategy in most cases

3. Discrete option/bonus increase thresholds doled out according to perceived effort/visibility are a devious trick to lure a significant part of workers to invest more effort than they would otherwise (and still fail to get over the threshold to get the bonus). Don't fall for it.

And in any case: I think one of the most valuable things one can do is raise a big family, while investing into stock market and slowing down one's aging as much as possible, to reap all this compounding interest.

I've optimized for different things at different parts of my career. I've made FAANG level salaries working 7 days a week as a consultant. It was horrible.

I'm currently making a little less than you but working 20 hour weeks. It's amazing, and I spend the rest of my time usually working on side projects I hope to monetize one day. Since September I've just been traveling with my wife.

I'm very happy doing that. So my suggestion is find part time work even if it means a pay cut off you want to optimize for personal satisfaction.

I will just add one point regarding health and sedentarism. Going completely remote saved about 2 hours a day from commute. This is big. This is not just 2 hours, but at the end of those 2 hours you won't be in a mood to do pretty much anything. I ended up working out for 30 mins and going on a long 90 min walk everyday. People tend to think 2 hours of physical activity is a lot and 'too much', but given how sitting oriented our jobs are - I don't believe this is the case. I don't even walk to get a lunch, once you wear a fitbit or some such device this becomes so clear how much of a sitting oriented life we have acquired. Also when I was monitoring weight, bp and other such parameters - nothing other than 2 hours made any dent. So 2 hours it is. Just wanted to add this perspective. Hope it helps.

Happiness depends on a lot on what you truly want, as opposed to what you want to want, so I'd encourage you to get familiar with where those diverge. E.g., a lot of people want to want to get rich, but as you've discovered, more money doesn't actually leave them more fulfilled. If you're finding that hard to discover, a good therapist can help a lot, as talking with a lot of people lets them see patterns an individual can't.

Personally, I am also not great at telling when I'm stressed. So I've learned to look for obvious correlates. As an example, I am normally the sort of person who spends change. That is, I generally don't have more than $1 of coins, as I use them to make purchases. But when I'm stressed or depressed, I'm less likely to take the time to count out change, so I end up with an increasing number of coins on my dresser. That's a sign to me to ask what's wrong.

Also useful to me has been tracking the number of steps per week. I have a Garmin running watch I never take off. If I'm stressed, I'll become more sedentary. That's not just bad for my long-term health; it also decreases my resilience in the face of stress.

These things sound small, but they're useful to me as clues to the bigger things in life. If these indicators tell me I'm not doing well, I'll go down a mental checklist of things that could contribute. Am I sleeping enough? Eating well? How much alcohol am I drinking? How much sunlight am I getting? How do I feel before starting work? After the first couple of hours of work? At the end of the day? How are the important relationships in my life?

With that mindset, you can turn it into a debugging problem. E.g., if being too sedentary is one hypothesis as to why you're not happy, there's lots to experiment with there.

i quit being a programmer and now work as a janitor. it's amazing how much of a difference moving and not getting emails made for me.

that's perhaps a bit of a drastic swing.

I'm very happy with my career. We run a small website teaching advanced iOS development (objc.io). We write books and make videos. I run it with my co-founder and that's basically it. We have some really good people we work with, but 80% of the time it's just the two of us, and we're pretty aligned in what we want.

When my daughter was born (almost 4 years ago) I switched to not working a lot. Maybe 5-6 hours a day. I spend almost every afternoon with the family (after my daughter wakes up from her nap). In the early mornings I do my workouts. The combination of this makes me really happy.

We make more than enough money (we live a modest lifestyle), even though I could probably make a lot more in a real job. But having the freedom -- both in doing what we want work-wise, as well as having a lot of family time -- is pretty amazing. I have no regrets so far.

Some excellent advice in this thread. One thing that I was fortunate to learn early on, as I've been working from home for 20 years, that many should consider now that they are as well, is that it's ok to befriend people at work if you like them, but you don't have to be friends with people at work. You have to work with them, and that requires some sort of relationship involving politeness, trust, and honesty, but that's it.

Make friends with people who share your joy in things outside of work. Music interests, food interests, travel, art, comics, robots, crappy television, creating a family, making fun of people with families, whatever. Get a life and make that life with people who aren't paid to be there every day.

When you have a solid group of people who basically don't care what you do for a living, the job will matter far less and the things and relationships you share with those people will continue to matter.

Your job can give some fulfillment, of course by way of some semblance of security and accomplishment. But the long lasting stuff comes from the things you aren't paid to do - because anything you're paid to do is generally done for someone else's happiness. That's what they're paying for.

Optimize it by learning about happiness via Positive Psychology, a direction of inquiry about what makes people happy (above baseline).

One gem from the field: If Money Doesn't Make You Happy Then You Probably Aren't Spending It Right [0].

Great books from the field: Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert [1] and The How of Happiness by Sonja Lyubomirsky [2]

[0] https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/danielgilbert/files/if-mon...

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Stumbling-Happiness-Daniel-Gilbert/dp...

[2] https://www.amazon.com/How-Happiness-Approach-Getting-Life/d...

It is a curse of human condition. Never feeling 100% satisfied for any longer period of time

I have found that for me, the biggest boost to happiness is the ability to say no to things I don't want to do.

I truly enjoy working in tech, but not on every project. At first I was worried that I wouldn't find enough new projects, but now looking back, I never had much downtime after I started being much more selective. It's just that instead of SQL / Excel stuff, I now work on real time audio video processing, AI and robotics. And that makes me happy :)

Plus recently, a friend and me have been wasting a lot of time on the Gocoder Bomberland competition. Both the social aspect and the immediate feedback of video game development make that really enjoyable.

From your other answers, you do seem to acknowledge that you know the answer, but aren't motivated to do anything about it. My answer, like others, is that if you're anything like my hometown friends in their 30s, you haven't made new friends in a while, don't exercise much, and don't spend much time in nature. Tech sucks. It's boring, stressful, you don't meaningfully improve anyone's life directly, and you often don't make as much as the general contractor who fixes your drywall. Working backwards from that might be how you adjust your career accordingly, starting with a hobby where you spend at least 3 hours a week hanging out with random people in a totally neutral space.

Once you are earning so much money ten another $10k here or there makes no difference. When you hit 30+ you start to see that you're mortal and time is more important than chasing the $$$. I value my time more than doing any overtime in any job. So I don't. No overtime for me. Sack me if you want. I don't care. Time off is incredibly important as you get older.

I don't know where you live, what your budget is, or whether it's an option but if it is - try going part time for a bit. It opens up time for other things in a really significant way and almost forces your job to be relegated to "just a job". The simple act of "sorry I can't make that meeting, it's my day off" can push you do spend that time on something meaningful and put up healthy mental barriers around work.

It may not be something you want to maintain forever, but dropping down to 3-4 days a week for a year or so can be super refreshing.

The open secret to fulfillment and happiness is to help other people.

A related question: what type of software engineering work is the most relaxed? So far I have only worked in live services and while I don't feel overworked, I often have background anxiety that I will break something and cause a huge impact. Are there any product areas found at FAANGs that don't cause this anxiety?

Work contract.

You can pick and choose the projects you want to work on.

You are paid day rate and much higher than permanent staff.

You can choose when to work. Spend the free time working on other things or travelling, relaxing.

Much higher levels of independence and freedom.

I spent a decade contracting and it was fantastic. I had the best life-work balance out of any one I know.

Changing the perspective helped a lot, as others have said: treating job as just a job.

1. Remove stress - as I'm working with data, I tried to automate as much as I could, so I really don't have situations when you need to build a report very fast (reduces stress really well) 2. Have a back up plan - I found a part-time research assistant position which I actually enjoy and if I lose my main job, I'm not in the rush to find the next one (so I'm not worrying as I used to)

Then after 6pm you just do whatever that keeps you going, e.g. every day I try to see my girlfriend / friends, go to movies, cafes

I don’t remember the source of the study, but commutes are one of the most important factors in happiness at work. Optimize for short pleasant commutes on bike or train, as opposed to bus or car.

My context: 49y/o. Salary: we have a 2-person husband/wife micro-business so "it's complicated" but I pay us £5k GBP ($6.3k usd) p/m so that's ~$80k take-home p/a.

Working hours: absolute max 40 (although I'm taking a day off a week right now to do my own thing), very strict "no evenings or weekends" (apart from site launches and big deadlines of which there are about 3 a year), no work email on phone, long holidays (for example we take August off annually, and do it properly, no email, no phone, no client contact). I think probably I take 30-40 days holiday a year maybe? I don't actually count :-)

We've absolutely, 100% optimised for family. It started off as a semi-deliberate choice and then we moved to Cornwall (for a year, it made us happy so we stayed) and it became more and more clear that being in the now is the focus that makes us happiest. We have 2 teen kids, and we need to be in their lives for the short amount of time (18 years really does fly...) before they leave home and go do their own thing. I have friends who have risen through the ranks of their careers and now pull in anywhere from £150k-£1m++ but every single one of them leaves the house at 7, isn't back before 9 and does it 6 days a week. They employ people to look after their kids, they employ people to clean their houses, they don't know each other, the families are isolated from each other, the kids are fkd up, everyone drinks too much, everyone is intensely stressed all the time... There is absolutely no point, none whatsoever.

I could be dead tomorrow. It could be a speeding car, or a lump, or a mis-step or a stroke. So I try to maximise now. I'd rather have this time hanging out with my family than working (and I love my work - I just don't love it as much as my family!). I know that I'll probably be poor when I'm old, but to be able to eat a meal, sit and chat, go surfing with my kids and wife - I'd make that choice again a million times over.

So - finally - to answer your question. In my humble opinion (and yes, this is opinion, and yes, you have to have some luck - which I have had, at least so far - for these to work...):

1) There's no point in doing work that makes one unhappy. If you've got the choice (and most people do who are commanding north of $100k) then choose a lower salary which gives you more flexibility and life balance than a higher one that doesn't

2) Be in the now. It's all we've got. Sorry to be an old hippy, but it's true.

3) If you can, get a meditation practice going. If you can spare the time, extend this into a week long silent retreat every so often. These give (both) you time to recharge, to consider, to see life in context, to understand that there are bigger things at play than just you.

4) Be fit. It really helps.

5) Eat well. I'd go further with my opinion and say - be vegetarian - but at least minimise your meat consumption.

6) Be with the people you love. Maximise for this time. Everything will end - your life, your friends' lives, your social circumstance. Friends and family are literally the only thing that matters in the end, so make the most of them.

7) Do things that aren't anything to do with screens. Read. Listen to music. Be bored. Walk. Get a dog. Be away from that little rectangle of light for long periods of time.

8) Avoid debt if you possibly can. I'm not talking mortgages - they're pretty much inevitable - but if you can't afford a (luxury thing) then don't buy it, save for it. The people I know who are really, badly in trouble financially are the ones who see a thing and buy it on credit, then it bites them on the ass later.

Good luck out there.

My two cents: being happy most of the time in your career is an impossible goal.

Everyone struggles. Sometimes they are miserable, bored, frustrated, burned out, overwhelmed, confused, tired, etc. no matter what career you choose, how lucky or skilled you are.

This is not to say that attempts to improve are futile, but it’s better to dispel the illusion that career heaven exists, so we have a sober and liberating experience when dealing with its challenges.

Could that be youre anxious because youre not getting __all__ the "special" attention you think you deserve? If yes, then trying everything in terms of career to get enough attention wont help, getting "attention fix" on hn either. Are you capable of being alone or does that makes you miserable?

I dont know what it is, but its not your career. Youre telling it yourself, youve been doing everything right.

I'm currently 27, and I would really like to know where are those people who make 120k on a 40h/week job working, and how do I get there!

Forget about chasing high salaries. It's just not worth it. As long as you're earning enough to comfortably support yourself and those that depend on you, that's enough. Health and happiness come first.

Don't tolerate bullshit from anyone, especially yourself. Set high standards and meet them; the satisfaction of a job well done is a reward in itself. Take pride in what you do and approach your work as a vocation, not a job.

If you find yourself in a toxic environment, leave. After seeing my father suffer from the stress of one in my formative years, I made it a policy from the start of my career to avoid large corporate environments at all costs. Maybe some of the are good, but I don't want to take the risk.

Become an expert in something. Make a substantial original contribution to knowledge in your field that advances the state of the art. This is actually an explicit requirement if you want to get a PhD, which I've found to be a valuable way of opening up fulfilling career opportunities that would otherwise not be available to me. Caveat: The process of getting there won't necessarily be a pleasant one, and some parts of academia can be just as toxic as corporate environments. I was pretty lucky in my experience with this.

Move to a country with a low cost of living, while working remotely for a company in the west. Your income will go a lot further, and you can use that to either support a more comfortable lifestyle or work only part time while still being able to support yourself.

Do something you're passionate about. I know this one is a cliche and lots of people will tell you it's unrealistic, but they're wrong.

Stay away from circumstances that cause you to descend into cynicism. It's very easy to become negative and give up hope when you're in a toxic environment, and if you find yourself in one than you need to escape. There are good companies out there run by people who have a clue and are genuinely nice to work with. Don't settle until you've found one.

Most people usually suggest making your children a priority, and not let your career get in the way of a healthy family life. Generally speaking they're correct. However if you don't already have kids, be aware that when the time comes you might suddenly discover that for medical reasons you are not going to be able to have them. If this happens to you, and you suddenly realise that all you have left is your career, you better be damn sure you've prepared in advance for this so you've got something to fall back on. It softens the blow, a bit.

Find good people to work with. This is probably the single most important thing, from my experience. A good manager and good colleagues are worth their weight in gold. Treat them with respect and loyalty, and they'll do the same for you.

Strive to leave a legacy. We all have a short time on this planet, and there's a lot to be said for leaving the place a little better off than the state you found it in.

Know your worth. Don’t hustle out of constant fear you’ll be fired. Don’t answer the phone after 5. Work 40 hours or less. Work is a distraction from life; It isn’t life. Do as little of it as you need to, to achieve your financial goals. Have concrete financial goals. Don’t listen to fearmongering coworkers who have put themselves perpetually on call. If the company loses a customer because you don’t answer your phone, that’s on them not you. And they need to correct their staffing and expectations. Don’t be afraid to ask for more money. Don’t be afraid to quit and find another job. The overwhelming majority of your raises will come from changing jobs. Your company doesn’t care about you. It’s not a family. You’re there because they pay you to be. HR isn’t your advocate. Stock options are a lottery ticket, not a proper form of compensation. Practice being tolerant of some louder, younger engineer having loud opinions about how to do something because ultimately the way they do it wrong probably won’t matter much. Don’t obsess over software purity. If you need your code to be beautiful and elegant at all times, take up a side hobby instead. At least one person will have different opinions on each one of these points.

Don't listen to the naysayers who are telling you to give up on finding fulfillment in work. It is possible, but you need to be intentional about it.

Step back and find a worthy goal, something that you believe will advance humanity and make the world a better place. Take some time to think hard about this -- there is such abundance in our field that it can be easy to bounce from one opportunity to the next without stopping to think about what it is that you want to accomplish over the long term.

Once you've decided on your goal, figure out what you can be doing to advance that goal. Optimize career decisions toward reaching that goal. Maybe this means changing jobs to work with experts in a particular area. Maybe it means finding a startup that is doing interesting work in that area, or starting a company of your own. You mentioned that you're able to work for a lower salary. Take advantage of this, and realize how lucky you are to be able to do so.

There will be some (perhaps many) days that are frustrating and draining. Accept that this is part of the process. Anything worth doing is hard. And don't give up. This won't guarantee success or fulfillment, but it raises the odds. Realize that progress comes from lots of people working hard on things that are important. Some will succeed individually, others won't, but collectively they will move things forward.

Finally, get some exercise. It really does help with health and mood!

Welcome to the thirties, I am in my late thirties, and recently I retired after 14 years of short career.

Here is what I think, Pretty much what you explained, is some what on the lines of burn out and mid life career crises. It happens, our priorities does not remain same as it was when we were 20 or 25. Over the time, priorities changes, definition of happiness changes, and I believe you are in that changing phase.

In my short career of 14 years, I worked with many startups and did two- three of my own also, and It takes a toll on our mental health and life. Throughout these 14 years, I could not gain even a single KG of weight, and since I took retirement, I gained 5 KG (I was underweight), My quality of sleep has improved a lot.

Mind needs a break, it needs some healthy exercises, one of the ways to do is to indulge in creating activities like art, helping out at an NGO, spending time in activities which means nothing like binge watching etc. Spending time with family, kids also add to the happiness quotient. Instead of 5 days a week, working only 4 days a week and spending rest of the time in other things usually calm down the mind and help to relax, Most significantly keeping the work in the work time frame i.e. 9 to 5.

I always wonder about one thing, why do we keep on running, running behind promotions, running behind money, running behind almost everything except the small things which brings happiness.

Evaluate your priorities once, may be re-prioritising the things will bring change.

IME working less itself doesn't solve the problem, it's more about how you organize your time. I had free Fridays and I would still end up sitting in front of computer all Friday, just doing something else not work... and back when I was freelancing "because that way I can work from anywhere", I've still spent like 99% of days sitting in my home office. In order to change the lifestyle one needs a bit of self-discipline to actually use the chances that they have instead of falling for the routine. If you don't want to live a sedentary lifestyle that just come up with things you can do to change it, like use a standing desk, make small breaks during the day to exercise, go to gym after work. Sticking to it is far harder than finding the time to do it.

For me the key was to stop trying to find fulfillment in work. It’s a myth that your work needs to provide a deep sense of fulfillment or satisfaction.

It’s important to not hate your job or be in a toxic environment, but work should not be the locus of your happiness.

If you don’t have a hobby try and find one you like!

For me learning to appreciate beauty in the small things (even something simple like a pleasant interaction with a cashier or watering my garden) helped me gain a new outlook on life.

I'm a weirdo: I've been doing web dev since the 90s and made a very conscious decision NOT to go into the tech industry, primarily for my own happiness.

It sounds like what you've liked in your previous jobs are the ability to learn, and that your current goals aren't scratching that itch. I'm the same way: If I'm not learning and challenging myself intellectually on a regular basis, I end up depressed. Which isn't something society is very well set up for in my experience.

There are a couple of ways to proceed:

1.) Try to focus on career paths that allow you to learn/be happy. Going into research, returning to working at startups and accepting the stability limitations, etc. To do this, you want to look for positions where you learning directly helps the company. That way your interests are aligned.

2.) Decouple your intellectual life/happiness from your career path; whether this is possible depends on how much work demands from you. This is mostly what I do: I only work 20-30 hours a week in a non-tech job, so I have time to build terrible tech projects in my spare time + no pressure to learn or build for the sake of my career. I can just do whatever I want. It's very freeing, but of course, this has its downsides as well: I'm not well integrated into the tech community, for example.

Also consider that some of the stress may stem from your reliance on your career as well: Any situation where a single mistake/firing has devastating consequences results in stress. Minimizing this would involve building incomes, networks, etc. so you have a safety net.

Sedentarism, I can't help you, I'm reading the advice along with you, but that's my advice for happiness as somebody who prioritized doing work I like + makes the world better over money.

I think the key for me is working for good people. They're "hard" bosses, but equitable.

The second is to find purpose. AvE, a hilariously non-PC Canadian youtuber, actually has quite a deep video on this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7RgtMGL7CA&t

Surround yourself with people who you like. Or find something else to do beside your job that makes you happy. I think one needs some big event to make you realize your priorities and to find what you truly care about.

I, for example, have grown bit weary of programming. Emotionally I think it brings mostly numbness and you become over-focused on abstract things, at the expense of your true emotions. I don't want to become a robot.

In my spare time I now try to avoid conversing too much abstract things and rather ask how people feel or intrigue them to analyze emotions rather than go on lectures. But certainly doesn't work for every person I interact with.

I found a company where the people are lovely, it's pretty small (45 people) and we make enough money to pay everyone and give raises. The leadership don't force you to eat shit and they actively back you up when you need help, advice, or the client needs a reality check.

I've never been happier and I'd stay even if my pay stagnates.

Sadly it's an unhealthy profession. Spending 8 hours a day sitting on a chair with your neck fixed in the same position watching a screen harms your body a lot, even if you try to keep a good posture and do stretches from time to time. If you add stress to it, which tenses your muscles unconsciously, it just gets worse.

I don't have any good advice other than try to reduce that time as much as possible. Your body will feel better and hopefully your mind too.

I'm just looking for an interesting low-stress job that pays well. I suspect the rest of my happiness will come from other sources.

Specifically: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow's_hierarchy_of_needs

How about a different perspective? Forget happiness. Period.

Think in terms of satisfaction, satisfaction for a job (as in a project) well done, and then continue on to another project; all the while enjoying the work, the process of doing and making and shipping, including the failures, and not the outcomes/results?

And forget a life-work balance, but integrating both.

“The master in the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his information and his recreation, his love and his religion. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence at whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing. To him he's always doing both. ”

If you have not already done so, consider orienting your work and home location such that you can walk or bike to work, or have a very short commute.

There are several studies that suggest long commutes are terrible for your health and happiness.

> A Swedish study found that people who endure more than a 45-minute commute were 40% more likely to divorce.

> Stutzer and Frey found that a person with a one-hour commute has to earn 40% more money to be as satisfied with life as someone who walks to the office.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/nov/01/secrets-worl...

My first programming job was unionized and the hours were strictly from 8:30-4. With breaks, that worked out to be about 6-6.5 hours per day. I would leave work with lots of energy and be energized to start the next day. I left that job for another one but needed to work 1 hour more per day. It was a pretty similar office environment. I was amazed at how much just one hour a day changed my mood. After a few weeks I no longer had that energetic feeling anymore when leaving work or when waking up.

If you're optimizing for happiness, I think a 30 hour work week is ideal. 10 hours a week is too little to feel happiness and fulfillment from that.

> stress and sedentarism

Exercise. Choose an activity you enjoy, and do it in a way you enjoy. e.g. Don't cycle to pace other cyclists; cycle for scenery. Swim for the aerodynamic sensation. Don't aim to run further every day; aim to run closer (so any extra is a bonus). Key is turning up consistently... making it enjoyable makes you look forward to it.

This directly addresses stress and sedentarism... and indirectly, by building familiarity with what you enjoy. Know thyself. This can extend into career choices - which I agree sound pretty good already in themselves. What may be missing is self knowledge.

I agree with a lot of what people have said here about a job being a job. However, my personal experience on this subject is — start with defining what happiness means for you!

This is a LOT harder than you think and in trying to answer the question you will hopefully (as I did) get in touch with yourself, your emotions, your identity, etc.

As you continually evaluate these things in trying to understand what happiness is for _you_, you will automatically have an answer to your question.

At one point my life turned upside down, imposter syndrome wasn't bearable anymore and trying to find motivation again directly pulled me into burnout.

I was working with a super small team, in my favourite coding languages, was earning really well, very low stress on job and I never witnessed a better company culture. It didn't help.

I quit everything and went travelling, I learned that making some money as a coder is kinda easy so I just did just enough of that to have food and some luxury on the table.

Over time I would just invest more and more time into things I care most about and managed to earn more and more money with it.

It took a while but today I work when I want to and earn enough to don't worry and be able to execute new ideas whenever I want. This is where I found happiness in my life. Less in form of being happy all day, but rather so low stress that I enjoy every moment. May I start farming this spring? Because why not :)

That said my partner isn't there (yet?) She needs validation for her doings, for her low stress means high security also in forms of income. Everyone is different I guess

Edit:// I still code, sometimes sell what I created. But I don't code for others anymore.

Is there something that you enjoy or love doing? And is there a career to be made out of that even if it means taking. Pay cut? I quit programming because I didn’t enjoy it any more. I switched to a career in film /tv development and I am much happier. I make 1/4 the salary I used to make but I am not complaining.

The only way to be happy from your career is to get paid for what brings you joy. If your current job doesn't bring you joy, ask yourself what brings you joy, and make that your job. Maybe it's music. Maybe it's dance. Maybe it's walking in nature. Maybe it's painting Warhammer figures. Whatever it is, just figure out how you can get paid enough to do it that you can live off that. That may not lead to a big fat retirement account, or a boat, or even a house, but it will certainly get you on a path to happiness. It's the things we do and the relationships we cultivate that bring happiness. Not the things we have or can get.

This is probably the best time in history to be connected to people around the world who will pay you to do whatever it is you love to do. All you have to do is connect the dots.

I have had to make these choice(s) before. Here are some of my thoughts:

Do what make you happy. A caustic workplace is not worth it. The levels at work to me are meaningless. Don't worry what other people think.

Your health (physical and mental) & happiness is priority 1. You can always save money and work with it intelligently - if you need help -- get an investment advisor.

Stress and being sedentary are two different things. Getting out of being sedentary does reduce the stress. Walking is a great way to start and it is often underrated. Have the implicit belief that it does.

Stress and anxiety is complicated. Different people (genetics etc.) react to stress and pressure in different ways. I would seek out a therapist who can help you on this.

Remember -- we are in a pandemic -- so it all adds up

Addressing this point of yours…

> Every single situation had pros and cons, and none of them made me feel completely full-filled.

…I wanted to share this piece of experience that resonated with me back then.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15107818

[Maybe we all need a little less balance — NYT]

The point being: I‘ve found that simply accepting no single way living my career has been able to strike a perfect balance _all at once_ already was a key piece that let me feel more at ease.

Your way of trying out a few different things at different times seems to not be the worst strategy in that regard.

I‘d say I‘m 80% happy now with my job, but I know there will always be parts I dread. And doing something different will simply trade them for others.

Health becomes more important as you get older. Start investing now and it will compound.

I like to walk/hike before work each day. I think this helps with circulation and thinking.

Intermittent fasting is something I have also been applying. I managed to lose a little weight.

One thing I've noticed about these quandaries: there's very little consideration for what one owes their society. Doing something in service to others may not bring an immediate 'happiness' but if you're looking for satisfaction in life, it's worth including in the balance equation.

And perhaps that's what the work you're doing can provide, if viewed from that perspective. Too many people seem to just automatically view work as soulless BS, to which I might suggest those people are simply in the wrong career.

My answer might be the opposite of what's expected, but I realized what I wanted was not actually to just coast on something easy and found my way into a more engaging and challenging environment. No, I don't want to put in a gazillion hours, but I also don't want to essentially watch a clock for 40 hours a week.

And I'd be remiss if I didn't say, my wife did a lot of the work on this realization. Always good to have someone you can talk to.

Set personal goals - not necessarily salaried-career related. And then start going after them as much as you can!

For instance, want to be an indie gamedev? Do a Ludum Dare.

I am trying to optimize for what I want to do in these eight hours of work. I mostly want to lead a technical front end team, have most of the "dirty" work done by lower grade engineers and be able to focus on a mixture of harder work, refactors, texting while trying to give my engineers one day a week for experimenting or studying.

This is what I can consider fun and engaging.

I think that happiness is the feeling of progress toward a goal.

we need a goal + we need progress.

One you attain a goal, the whole reward system collapse and you need something else.

People used to have religion and have ultimate unattainable goal (be the best version of themselves) so they always had something to work toward.

I think that we need something similar at this point, a hero’s journey that is worthwhile.

Start having kids in your twenties. After the second one, you or your spouse stops working. The person who works, works from home at a project based company, where you do at most a stand up per day for set meetings. Start work early enough to be done at 3:30 or 4 pm. Raise your kids yourself, with your spouse. Coach youth sports.

That’s my recipe for happiness.

Find a language you LOVE. To not mince words I mean something like APL, Haskell, F#, prolog, LISP etc. Life is too short to live in a state of tolerance of your language. Finding a place that will employ you using LOVE language is the next step towards happiness optimization. Note this does not preclude a startup!

Have a sense of who you want to become, your values, what you aspire to be. Make decisions that bring you closer to that identity, instead of closer to more money or status.

Also, pick jobs that have some mission focus. Jobs where people are attracted by money only can result in toxic cultures (at my least so far in my career).

I guess it is part of our evolutionary heritage not to be satisfied with what we have. Our ancestors that were, probably had happier lives, but less offspring, and so eventually disappeared from the gene pool. But, as long as we are mindful where this dissatisfaction comes from, we can fight it.

Wanted to add a different thought on this topic. I started working for a mental health company this year that practices what they preach and it seems like something you might look into. Everyone odds always talking about mental health and psychology which is helpful and fascinating.

Read some good classics regarding Buddhist perspective of happiness. For instance, https://www.amazon.com/Joy-Living-Unlocking-Science-Happines...

Happiness has not that much to do with a career, or anything external for that matter, once your basic needs are met.

It has everything to do with how well you understand yourself and can manage your mind.

Unfortunately, people are always looking for prescriptions for happiness, and ignoring this simple fact.

I guess no. I've trying to jump through a linked list of job positions to reach the ultimate objective but so far I'm pretty far. I agree with a fellow commenter that a job is just a job but I recommend you seek what you really love and turn it into a career.

Are you trying to optimise for your own satisfaction, or sacrifically trying to serve and love your neighbour more than yourself?

The most satisfying times for me are when I'm part of a solution that helps someone, even if it's painful - it's for a good cause.

You cannot optimize for happiness :) happiness is open to everyone on every moment, but it cannot be achieved by force. What's happening is that you're approaching the midlife crisis, so try to learn about it. It's a spiritual crisis.

> I've been through health issues and every single doctor/therapist is pointing out to stress and sedentarism.

I'm in the exact same position right now. Can you elaborate on the symptoms your seeing?

The software industry is designed by nature to be an absolutely soul sucking experience. Operating off the premise that most people get into computer science and programming because of the control, and general artistry, involved:

0. You are a cost center as a software engineer even if you produce value well outsized relative to your salary. You will always be a cost center because some party school MBA can't factor you into an excel sheet.

1. Sprints are way to reduce you to a set of numbers and a stupid jira photo.

2. PMs exist only to justify their own existence. They are middle managers and the modern adaptation of "agile" is some combination of Office Space and Idiocracy. From (1) the tool they use to justify their existence is some meaningless "burn down" chart they show the executives. The formalization of the process works for actual engineering (Toyota) but does not translate well to an industry that only values half-baked solutions "we'll fix at launch". It's a joke, and so are PMs.

From these points we reach the most important point

3. The industry does not value the beauty, the art, the talent, and the critical thinking required to develop good software. Room temperature IQ CEOs, VPs, and middle managers either don't understand you or are intimidated by you.

Since most of us get into this industry for that my solution to this emotionally draining and bankrupt industry is to use it to fund my own things. I went back to school, bought 3d printers and other physical-tech, and used my money to fund adventures elsewhere where creativity and problem solving is valued. I go to my job, work my 40 (or less) hours, meet EXACTLY the requirements of my title, and go home with a clear conscience. I take 5 weeks of vacation per year and don't feel bad about it for even a nanosecond. I hardly program outside of work and I've, to be honest, never felt better.

Once you realize you're just a cog in a very expensive machine, a cost center to the people who decide raises, and the (especially if you're senior+) the first to get fired and replaced with foreign contractors, it becomes obvious the only solution is to use the industry to fund your talents rather than view it as a source of anything other suffering. I would estimate 70% of engineers say they enjoy their job. 10% of those engineers work for "fun" companies, and the other 90% are lying. So find something fun to do and never try to find some semblance of meaning to your job. There isn't any.

I used to work long weeks. 50-60+ hours "for the company". I rose to nearly staff engineer level before I was let go after so many empty promises. This happened several more times in my career. I come off bitter, not because I hate the software, but I hate the tacit manipulation and "family" style gaslighting the modern tech company does.

Are you happy with the area of work you are working on or is it just a job? Working someplace where you feel like you have an impact on something meaningful can also help a lot with happiness.

Do things you enjoy, automate or delegate things you don't enjoy.

I highly recommend watching this video by fasterthanlime:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52pdPQHDKho

It sounds like you just spend too much time sitting down and reading/computing, which is a major reason why I'm still not sure if I want my career to be coding.

I would suggest reading ‘so good they can’t ignore you’ very inspiring about building a career that makes you happy.

Basically look for - autonomy - meaningful goal - good coworkers

I'm not particularly happy but I do know that pursing happiness as a goal is a bad idea. It's worth trying to set a different goal (health, career, family, whatever) and pursue that. Once you feel like you're making progress toward something meaningful happiness usually shows up as an ancillary benefit.

Check out number 39: https://gist.github.com/hcgatewood/dfcd27127cd977762ea038a75...

I'm sorry OP nothing to advice your becasue of lack of experience, but can you please share your? What tech stack do you work with?

I share with you a bit about what I have learned. I've struggled a lot. Everything is like broken. I'm still struggling right now. However, I'm still working on something to make our situation better. I do several research and experiments on Happiness, psychology, neuroscience and here are something I'm want to share.

+ Hedonic adaption: Hedonic adaption is special psychological effects that explains about how we perceive about happiness. Even after a big happy moment, our level of happiness do down quickly. We adapt our perception to our current situations. So it's like nothing will last forever. Hedonic adaption is both good and bad. It makes us adapt quickly with any situations. It keeps us safe. So we should appreciate it and learn how to make use of this effect rather than blaming it. Learns to attend with everything you do even it's bad, explore something news. It will help you deal with bad effects of hedonic adaptation.

+ Mindfulness: Do some mindfulness exercise. We feel stress because our mind think we're having problems. Our mind made up our feelings to keep us safe [7]. It's good for us. Mindfulness help us understand more about feeling and more enjoy the moment.

+ Mind body connection: Your health affects your mental, and your mental will affect your health. To me, it's not because some spiritual belief, but it's how systems work [3] [4]. Our body, our mind are systems. They are part of bigger system. They connect each others and interact with each other, sending some feedback. So try to improve both your health and your mental. Try to improve your health diet, do exercises and taking care of our thoughts and feelings.

+ We aren't rational. Our thinking system is optimal but it has limitations [3]. It has a lot of problems (cognitive biases). Learn to appreciate and find a way to make it better. For example, we can adapt. We update our belief overtime. Try to make new better habits[5]. Make small steps.

+ There isn't perfect things. Every systems aren't perfect. Our immune system, our cognitive system, organizations, data structures, design patterns,... Appreciate what works, what not and improve it.

Some interesting books, articles you might interest:

[1] https://www.plantinghappiness.co.uk/hedonic-adaptation/

[2] https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Fast-Slow-Daniel-Kahneman/dp...

[3] https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Systems-Donella-H-Meadows/dp...

[4] https://www.amazon.com/Mindbody-Prescription-Healing-Body-Pa...

[5] https://jamesclear.com/atomic-habits

[6] https://www.coursera.org/learn/the-science-of-well-being

[7] https://www.amazon.com/Wisdom-Insecurity-Message-Age-Anxiety...

What made me happy is more money. The more I have, the more security (for the future) I could provide to my family.

I go for a run everyday after work. When it is raining or too cold I do 15-20 minutes weight training at home.

It really sounds like you don't know what would fulfill you, especially outside the context of a job. For me, that was a sign that I hadn't experienced or done enough different things to know what was missing from my life.

After my first startup job flamed out after going through several different roles and having similar feelings about feeling unfulfilled, I left, spent some of my savings _not_ working, and tried out tasks (some for myself, some for others; some paid, some not) in other fields that I thought I'd enjoy. When I hit on one, I pursued it as a career, at least briefly.

The end result wasn't me landing on my dream job, though over time I did apply and even get an offer for a couple, neither of which fully worked out either. What I learned was that a job in the definition of having a time when you come in and a time when you leave, a boss, a salary, benefits, none of that was fulfilling as a structure for my life.

Unfortunately, from where I'm born and live, and circumstances and consequences of my life, it's more difficult and expensive for me to live in a place where it's feasible ot escape that structure and survive. I make up for it by, unfortunately, working more — but by doing things I enjoy, for others, outside of that structure. I do those things on weekends or by taking PTO or even unpaid leaves to do it while retaining work that I don't love, but at least makes sure I can continue doing what I do if I get sick or need to support someone else.

I don't want to get into what that special fulfilling work is to me, because one thing I've learned about career advice is that each person's dream of labor is at some level nobody else's dream. And I want to emphasize that this is what worked FOR ME; some people ARE fulfilled by the structure, but not their tasks in it; some people aren't fulfilled by labor at all, and won't feel genuine fulfillment until they are no longer required to work. Even in my case, some people are fulfilled by freelance work where the structure is designed by you, others by entrepreneurship where your structure has to constantly adapt, others even by gig work some people consider to be too menial to justify any structure.

So for a "path more equilibrated and focused on happiness I should follow", to me at least, it's something that each person has to discover, and that it takes resources and privileges not everyone can afford. If you can, it also requires time and a willingness to be without a compass, a manager, or even any specific direction while you experience new things, meet new people, and learn about new opportunities and forms of creativity until you come across something that ignites that fulfillment in you.

wrong framing.

what do you need to do to be happy is better.

what do you need to do to not be sad is best.

then what work should be becomes obvious.

Get to a place where you have to work as little as possible, but do it honestly.

Easy.

Maximise salary. Minimise work.

We all die in the end, no one ever wishes they worked longer or harder.

Had this problem. Started hitting the gym daily. Fixed it.

People chase a higher salary so that the work they do now through clenched teeth will seem worthwhile one day. So what's the solution for those people? They need to make sure today is good. Not tomorrow.