People's happiness at work usually dips mid career

http://bps-research-digest.blogspot.com/2014/07/peoples-happiness-at-work-usually-dips.html

by lmg643 • 12 years ago

95 31 12 years ago

bps-research-digest.blogspot.com

I think "in their remaining tenure" is a key phrase here. For me, 36 now, even owning my own profitable company and making neat software for a living can suffer downward pressure, because I'm starting to deal with feelings that I should be much further along by now - money wise, job wise, stability wise.

It's very mental - I should be the happiest kid on the block, but this is when you start to look back at time wasted, and wonder if your incredibly lofty goals will ever come to fruition.

Everyone thinks they're meant for greatness - so few reach it, and right around now is when we start admitting to ourselves that we may not be all that extraordinary.

Hopefully, I'll be able to get past all of these mental roadblocks before my 50s!

callmeed• 12 years ago

I know what you mean. In the same place and have those feels too.

Snhr3• 12 years ago

I'm 21 now trying to plan out my life and this is one of the major things for me. What do I want to do in life that is important to me and can I accomplish this within the timeframe I have. I don't have a second chance so I don't want to spend time doing something that I'll lose interest in, or end up being stagnant in some job that I can barely stand. I'd rather do all that worrying now then when it could mean finishing something on time. At least now I can plan accordingly (do this before I'm x years old) to how much time I've wasted, instead of wasting time and not accomplishing a part of it before I need to.

Also trying to figure out how "great" I am, or what I am "great" at. So I'm not disappointed at myself . I've already gone through that once on several levels when I went from being an old teenager to a young adult. One time is enough, and I bet it's so much worse when you're at the point where you can't accomplish the goal because you're not good enough (or even just questioning if its feasible, that has to drop you farther than where you should be and end up doing worse because of it.)

Or I may be just wasting time now and I should just jump in. I don't know, maybe I'll figure that out. I don't need much in life, just to feel like I've done the best that I can at whatever I end up choosing. Not even in an idealistic way really, I want to give back what people have given to me (knowledge, ideas, materialistic things if any) so at most I don't leave the world knowing that I did less than nothing. If I leave doing more than I have taken then I can be happy in the fact that I've made the world a little bit better. Not a lot but it wasn't a waste being alive.

Maybe I should just get a job.

cfallin• 12 years ago

I can totally relate to the instinct to plan things, and "do it right" the first time. Life is short; your 20s are shorter; don't waste them!

At the 'wise old' age of 26, though, after changing paths twice (PhD dropout->job 1->current job) and swallowing many earlier words, I've started to accept that we just can't know everything in advance, and it's OK to be wrong and "waste" time. And furthermore that it's not really a waste, because it teaches you.

Journey rather than destination, and all that.

I guess what I'm saying is, yes, be introspective, know yourself, do things for the 'right' reasons (because you want to do them and are passionate, not because others expect you to do so) BUT give yourself permission to change your mind, and to try different things! If your standard is "live life perfectly the first time", you're bound to have regrets. If your standard is "let's see what happens" then you'll be fine :-)

walterbell• 12 years ago

Reading material:

1) You and Your Research, by Richard Hamming

http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/YouAndYourResearch.html

---

"There's another trait on the side which I want to talk about; that trait is ambiguity. It took me a while to discover its importance. Most people like to believe something is or is not true. Great scientists tolerate ambiguity very well. They believe the theory enough to go ahead; they doubt it enough to notice the errors and faults so they can step forward and create the new replacement theory. If you believe too much you'll never notice the flaws; if you doubt too much you won't get started. It requires a lovely balance. But most great scientists are well aware of why their theories are true and they are also well aware of some slight misfits which don't quite fit and they don't forget it. "

---

2) By definition, what "you" are uniquely good at cannot be represented by logic, mathematics or reason. Otherwise, "you" could be duplicated, cloned, automated. The unique properties of you exist at the boundary of possibility, in the space historically occupied by philosophy/magic/religion, now supplemented by scientific research and metaphysics. A good starting point is understanding the history of the number zero. See also Heinz von Foerster on the subject of ethics and free will, http://web.stanford.edu/group/SHR/4-2/text/foerster.html

---

"Only those questions that are in principle undecidable, we can decide.

Why?

Simply because the decidable questions are already decided by the choice of the framework in which they are asked, and by the choice of rules of how to connect what we call "the question" with what we may take for an "answer." In some cases it may go fast, in others it may take a long, long time, but ultimately we will arrive, after a sequence of compelling logical steps, at an irrefutable answer: a definite Yes, or a definite No.

But we are under no compulsion, not even under that of logic, when we decide upon in principle undecidable questions. There is no external necessity that forces us to answer such questions one way or another. We are free! The complement to necessity is not chance, it is choice! We can choose who we wish to become when we have decided on in principle undecidable questions.

This is the good news, American journalists would say. Now comes the bad news.

With this freedom of choice we are now responsible for whatever we choose! For some this freedom of choice is a gift from heaven. For others such responsibility is an unbearable burden: How can one escape it? How can one avoid it? How can one pass it on to somebody else?"

---

3) Tactical Office Politics

http://www.manager-tools.com/2013/04/politics-101-chapter-3-...

http://www.manager-tools.com/2013/05/politics-101-chapter-3-...

---

"This guidance probably should have been Chapter 1 of our Politics 101 series. It’s foundational. It’s a HUGE problem for many professionals, particularly young – and dare we say it, naïve – professionals. So many young people say, “I don’t ‘play politics.’” The more savvy folks around them think, that’s good, because this isn’t a ‘game’ you can ‘play.’ "

---

4) The biographical stories in Plutarch's Lives of "Noble Grecians and Romans" were preserved for several centuries by people who believed those lives were memorable, back when books were non-trivial to produce. These lessons cross platforms, time and space.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutarch%27s_Lives

ePub/Kindle: http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/p/plutarch/lives/

CmonDev• 12 years ago

"give back what people have given to me (knowledge, ideas, materialistic things if any)"

It's very easy: always pay taxes and avoid tax optimisation.

jmspring• 12 years ago

Live in the moment. Save. If work isn't fulfilling, move on to the next thing. That said, keep on top of the skills you deem important for your next thing or future direction.

swalsh• 12 years ago

Is the median age of HN aging with the site?

bzalasky• 12 years ago

That's an interesting question. If it is, where are all the kids? Thinking about that reminded me of 'Losing My Edge' by LCD Soundsystem... http://rock.rapgenius.com/Lcd-soundsystem-losing-my-edge-lyr...

edpichler• 12 years ago

This is happening to me and I have no children. I just think I'm not surrounded by the right people and I'm not also in the right environment.

acconrad• 12 years ago

This scares me so much. I'm 28 and I'm upset that I haven't done anything notable yet. I just haven't found my magnum opus yet, and I don't know how to.

blakestein• 12 years ago

I'm 28 and I was relieved to read that things may be at their best at ages 40-60. I haven't done anything notable but I'm still learning every day so maybe it will click eventually. At the same time I'm trying to save like I might be unemployable in my 40s.

michaelochurch2• 12 years ago

I'm 28 and I'm upset that I haven't done anything notable yet. I just haven't found my magnum opus yet, and I don't know how to.

The "wunderkinds" aren't the norm. Most people do their best work in their 50s. Even though poetry and mathematics are skewed younger than most disciplines; in those, people tend to peak in the 40s.

idibidiart• 12 years ago

doing notable stuff is not as fulfilling as it may sound ... I have a brother who made tens of millions doing notable (not noble) stuff in business but has otherwise become an empty shell of his former self ... finding inner peace is so much more relevant ...

noonespecial• 12 years ago

"Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what you want to do with your life… The most interesting people I know didn’t know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives, some of the most interesting 40 year olds I know still don’t."

AznHisoka• 12 years ago

I rather be rich than interesting, to be honest...

ChuckFrank2• 12 years ago

These articles drive me nuts. Every year they say the same thing. 20 year olds feel this, 30 something experience that.

What they don't explain is that there are fundamental shifts happening with regards to work, age, education, income, etc.

Those changing statistics are everywhere. People are having children later, people are having more jobs throughout their lifetime. Tenured jobs are being eliminated.

So for me, the now is so very different from what it was that I was moving towards. Most all my jobs have been contract based / project based / entrepreneurial and start up based. My peers who have excelled have done so in the civil service and in the creative industries, but not in more traditional areas such as finance, business, law and medicine. Why? Because there is a boat load of dead wood up ahead of them. What used to be tiny steps professionally for people in their twenties are coming to people later and later in life.

Work is changing. Work expectations are changing.

But here's the thing, it's always been changing. It changed during the Wars, when millions of people died. It changed in the post-war period. And it's been changing ever since.

Work is bad in your 30s for the reasons that this article outlines, but for many it's worse now than it has been for several generations. But it's clearly better than it was 100 years ago.

All I ask is that culturally we have those expectations in line with what it actually happening. For many people, highly trained, highly skilled, and highly educated, it's a tougher row than it has been for a while. Sure there are winners, but the bread and butter, working and middle class jobs have been crushed.

And I believe it's going to get harder and harder. For this I hope that our kids don't have to read this articles about how things are for people in their 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s. Because for one thing, it's going to be so very different.

I know people who say to their kids that they've got it easy. I'm telling the kids that I know that they've got it hard. We are over the high point in terms of employment and per capita income. And if we don't make some radical adjustments to our economic distribution policies, it's going to get worse.

Besides, isn't 40 the new 30. (Or was that 50?)

ps. I'm currently looking for better work opportunities myself and I'm in my 40s.

ekanes• 12 years ago

I know people who say to their kids that they've got it easy. I'm telling the kids that I know that they've got it hard.

You might be right, but that advice may not be helpful or actionable. It might be better to say their world is different, but there are all kinds of opportunities in it. In almost any situation in life (work, marriage, prison, anything) it's almost NEVER the right influence/move to remove or reduce hope.

ChuckFrank2• 12 years ago

Your point is well taken. I think the important thing is to readjust expectations to a more likely/reasonable outcome. Aiming for the stars is great, but crashing to the ground, which is the likely outcome, isn't. Instead, aiming for the moon and hitting it is pretty awesome considering.

I hope I don't remove or reduce hope, but instead adjust their sights better - with actionable advice.

patmcguire• 12 years ago

Has anyone done sentiment analysis on HN comments by day of the week? Seen a lot of "work's a bummer" articles on Thursdays.

declan• 12 years ago

This was a survey of 771 Australians, almost all men, working in construction[1]. Also "coworker support" is a big factor[2], the authors concluded.

It's entirely unclear to me whether the results have any applicability to the types of technology jobs that the largely (I speculate) Silicon Valley HN audience holds.

For one, software engineering isn't exactly hard physical labor, where getting a promotion to foreman in your 40s may mean a lot less hauling concrete. Second, women are present in greater numbers in white-collar jobs than in construction. Third, relationships with your coworkers are likely going to be different in an office environment. Fourth, there may be cultural differences between Australian construction workers and the rest of the world, even U.S. construction workers. Fifth, there's likely not the same (alleged, at least) age discrimination in construction, where you gain more skills over time and aren't expected to know the latest inane web JSRubyPythonGolangMartiniNodeDjangoErlangLuaRailsExpressConnectHaskellRestMVCController framework du jour.

So in other words the NYMag.com article this HN thread links to could have been written exactly the opposite way -- by concluding that the study's results have no proven applicability except to, well, Australian male construction workers.

[1] http://bps-research-digest.blogspot.com/2014/07/peoples-happ... [2] http://psycnet.apa.org/index.cfm?fa=search.displayRecord&id=...

dang• 12 years ago

Url changed from http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2014/07/work-is-the-worst-when-..., which points to this.

quakershake• 12 years ago

I think tech "work place suck" can also come from experience. Things are no longer shiny, unexplored, or hacky. Just old hat stuff that needs to get done and not that interesting. And sometimes you just get tired of the FOTM languages that come out. It's a rat race that causes burnout.

jameshart• 12 years ago

30s is 'mid-life'? and 'mid-career'? If you plan to retire at 50 and die at 70, maybe...

poopsintub• 12 years ago

I don't plan to retire at 50, but dying at 70 is somewhat realistic. 30's is definitely not mid-career though.

michaelochurch2• 12 years ago

31. Howdy.

In your early 20s, you're like a girl in college. It's very easy to get "activity" (for college girls, sex; for young nerds, jobs with minor but impressive perks) but it's really hard to find respect. (I stopped being indignant about gender disparities in dating when I realized that, in terms of getting respect, it was equally hard for men and women.)

Your late 20s is when you learn that most employers-- and especially the "prestigious" ones-- never much respected you. You may have been right that you had the right idea or were the smartest one in the room (whilst ignored). It didn't matter. You didn't have a chance. That enlightenment can be a bit painful.

This "mid-career blues" period seems to be the stretch in which a person has learned a few things about what people really are when there's enough at stake, but before having enough life experience (or, for the apolitical or fortunate who are able to focus on the work more than the politics, domain mastery) to avoid the obvious pitfalls, deal with obnoxious personalities, and still play the game to a win. The 27-40 period seems to be when people learn their hardest lessons-- first firing or layoff, first non-paying client, first lawsuit, first truly unethical employer. (My friend started consulting and is dealing with his first non-paying client.)

The problem, in the US, is that we're practically not allowed to talk about what is really going on. The fact that I've been open with some rather vanilla details of my Google experience has made me into some sort of +3-sigma outlier "bad-mouther". We live in this culture where we're supposed to pretend that these negative experiences just don't happen. Everyone pretends to be "crushing it" and getting $150,000 signing bonuses and all that bullshit. The result is that the painful experiences of that mid-career spell become isolating, because people are shamed into silence. And that's a fucking crime.

photorized• 12 years ago

You start to value time more than anything.

emperorcezar• 12 years ago

The situation about having young children and being in a time crunch couldn't be more right.

There's nothing like walking out the door to "Daddy, I miss you!".

The you feel bad for laying the long day on your spouse so you can "crush it".

oceanstone• 12 years ago

You define your own life.

People's happiness at work usually dips mid career

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