htanirs

More than teaching I discuss various aspects of life with my elder kid.

Introspection, philosophies, why we do what we do, what we struggle to cope with, death, governments, wealth, consumerism, corruption, business, summary of books I read, movie details.

There is no teaching or schedule. It is a casual talk whenever he gets curious about something. So when he questions or wants to know more the discussion continues.

And it makes me happy when he is able to recollect or relate something discussed in a different event.

Startups have their own way of creating burn out and since it takes a toll on finances as well, the impact is much higher. It is not all fun and motivation. Also there are non tech problems one need to solve in a startup.

IMO, avoiding burnout might not be a best motivator for starting up. Maybe moving to a startup might help you decide along with reducing zoom calls hopefully :). Also it gives time to think about what is that you want to create.

Another option is to talk to friends who started up, to understand the practical challenges.

My suggestion, take some time and decide. It is more about making an informed decision. And when we are lost, sometimes we take decisions more on hope.

Have two kids. They have been my antidote so far. There are tough moments, additional responsibility and finance one needs to account for. But overall I feel grateful I have them.

Also I don't have a purpose based on parenting. I am just happy to be around them and try to be a good parent. It is nice to share things that I wish I had known from young age. Things that help you deal with life but are never taught.

Also I feel other relationships do not compensate the love we give and get from our children. It is very unique.

All being said I think it is good to be open minded about expectations. Children are unique and the relationship may flourish or take a sour turn depending on circumstances.

On whether one decides to have kids or not, I think there are no wrong decisions here.

If you have already decided, then best not to discuss this. Just do it. New Inputs might add to the confusion.

My 2 cents,

If you are still contemplating, think about how you might feel, say after a week or a month. Because the state of mind then would be different. The relief of leaving a job one does not like is temporary and then the anxiety of future takes over, generally. Now with the current situation, it can add to the stress. Side projects enthusiasm is good but again anxiety about future can bring it down.

If it is possible to push taking the decision, talking to your manager, having clear work timings / notifications might help. Also since you have decided to move on anyway, maybe it is an opportunity to be assertive in asking for some changes you might want.

Look for what else you would want to do, take a look at other openings, talk to friends all these can add some objectivity to the decision and their consequence.

While the immediate pain has to be addressed, looking for a long term solution helps one make better decisions.

Good luck and stay safe.

Yes, Entrepreneurship is lonely. Have felt the same.

In this online world sharing knowledge is so much easier. Blogging, Professional forums can be used to share knowledge. It is baby steps but eventually can lead to teaching, workshops which could be fulfilling.

Helping, mentoring budding Entrepreneurs is one area. They would be glad to use all the wisdom.

Spending time with family. Connecting with old friends do help. I found, reaching out just to say hello opens the door.

Also meeting people with similar hobby or interests also helps. People are glad to share their knowledge.

I think when we are stuck, looking at avenues where we can give provides us the opportunity to connect with like minded people.

Not sure if HN allows one to post their professional offering. If not, would be happy to delete this comment.

OP, I have such an individual based program since I struggled with these as well and could not find help. The program has been going reasonably well. There is no upfront payment and it is value based. Which means if there is no progress, there is no payment to be made and we do not continue the program.

But it requires the participant to be serious about their goals.

If you want to know more, please share your email and we can see if this is relevant for you or not.

I think you might want to look at assertiveness rather than aggressiveness. Being calm when things go bad is an amazing trait to have. Many get carried away and being aggressive does not help. It seems to win an argument but that's about it. Hollow points. Whenever I have dealt aggressiveness with aggressiveness, I felt bad later.

Just like you speak up uncomfortable truths in normal situations, being assertive during tough situations helps. Then the assertive person becomes the voice of reason, instead of raising the voice, they are calm, empathise and talk objectively. The argument may be lost if the other person is unreasonable. But people will know whom to support. Not easy to start with but over time it becomes the default state.

We have enough aggressive people already :).

Yes, it has happened to me. For some reason, I totally lost interest and people who knew me were surprised I moved away from technology.

This phase is generally difficult to deal with. Somehow we have a strong identity with our career and leaving that feels bad for whatever reason. And when people are surprised, it almost makes you feel guilty. But when I got over that I realised if we take these temporary emotions out of equation it makes sense to move on and start over. Our analytical mind would always come handy in whatever we do.

In my case what helped me was while I was clear I lost interest in technology I had to do some soul searching to find out on what I wanted to do instead. This took some time for me to figure out. And some more time to figure out on how to monetise it. But the effort is worth it.

But I think it would be difficult for anybody to tell you what direction you need to take. It depends on what actually you want to do.It could be managing, consulting on domain, freelancing, taking up a different route, anything else you always liked but were not thinking as a career choice.It also depends on the compromises you can make.

Some deep introspection helps. Maybe this phase goes away as well. Give it sometime and watch what you think about often. That might give a clue. If it is a new journey, talk to people who have done that, chart out a plan before taking a plunge. All the best.

Yes, I could not understand why they were mandatory. They are not "fun" for some and actually builds anxiety. And the experience in turn creates an uncomfortable environment later.

Corp and Managers need to consider this when having these activities.

It was Excellent. Sometimes I feel the other way. I am the only human and everything else is made up.

Yeah I got that as well. Password hashed / unhashed in logs?? I really do not understand why should passwords be stored in logs or other systems.

Also it does not say it was not misused, simply there is no evidence. we live in interesting times.

I am emotional for sure. We are supposed to be emotional. When I hire, I am conscious I am hiring people not a replaceable resource. When I have 10 devs, I see each are unique and bring something to the team. And we take time to just speak about things other than coding. And it has gone a long way for all of us.

Sadly in this fast paced world, human interaction is not the highest priority unless some study points out attrition is less when teams are emotionally engaged. We are zooming past human - human communication. Just like we have apps that control screen time, probably we need something to remind us to look past business objectives. But then just like those apps it would not be effective or natural.

I can relate to what you are going through. Depression sucks. And not everybody can understand what it feels like.

I was in a situation where depression messed up my career and I had to open up. But what helped me was opening up to people who are not very close. There was no fear of judgement and they were also going out of the way to help out. There were so many who reached out to offer help. While it did not improve my personal situation, it did provide me the hope when I needed it badly. And over time, the situation gets better.

Also when I started looking at my depression as an illness rather than a reflection on myself, it made things slightly better.

Would suggest you to hang in there. Please talk to folks who have reached out in this forum and outside, support groups.

Maybe reaching out to old employers, ex-colleagues, taking up part time or related work might open some doors till you can get things right.

Please know that situations do get better, you have held up so far and give it some more time. When in doubt, think of the days prior to the illness, it will help you to bounce back.

> From time to time, I feel like that. Just leave software dev behind, and become a truck driver.

I have the exact thoughts sometimes. And I ask myself why truck driver.

Maybe it represents the opposite of software career.

More work in real world vs virtual.

Be outside vs stuck in cubicle.

Perceived freedom and independence vs managing self / team / customer.

Work is restricted to a day vs work piling up.

Not carrying the work home vs being switched on always.

Less expectation vs imposter syndrome

casual interactions vs formal communication

Truck driving as a career has its own challenges. But my mind perceives it to be a better choice. Grass always looks greener on the other side.

I think the best thing about this was the children understood. They acknowledged it was for the better.

I think a gift we have is not knowing when or how we are going to go.

If there is nothing I can do about it, Not sure if I would want to know the number of days my parents have, even if they are aged. Same way not sure if I would want my kids to know how much time I have.

We all are unique. Each family is unique. And it is also natural for humans to judge openly or subconsciously. But we do what we think is best for family.

I dread the day, science is going to put a number on a child as soon as it is born. I feel it would make our life miserable for everyone.

My take, having managed dev and worked closely with Support, for a growing company.

During Initial days, Initial Dev team is involved in support. And it is amazing. You get real feedback and good insights into how user uses the system. This pays off immensely.

Once the product and team grows, the real need of exclusive support becomes evident. And it becomes quite clear, just like not all support folks can code, not all devs can support. It requires some unique skill set.

Not all requests from customers are critical and even if there are issues, hot fixes need not be necessary. Apart from devs becoming anxious, they may be too eager to comply with requests immediately. Also support requires the team to talk the language user is comfortable with, too much technical communication may not be relevant.

But what has worked for us in growing stage, dev some spending time with support. They can (only) listen to important calls and sharing information between the two teams regularly.

1) Are you married? 2) Do you have kids? 3) If you do have kids, are they in K-12 or are they older?

If strangers ask personal details online we think twice or become concerned. If someone then proceeds to ask where are your kids now, it would become creepy as hell.

But if a corporate can do that by looking at photos and possibly sell that data to ad agencies, it is even more scary. The 3rd party can share it with anyone or the data can be hacked. All the corporate would do is update their policy. Maybe much more info is already being collected which has not yet come out and we have no clue. We are just pushing the "how bad can it get" line. Humans have messed up real bad.

I did not intend to mean it that way. I agree, we all need to aspire for better life and sour grapes / self pity does not help.

My point is, there are good number of people living below poverty line. Usually poverty has many friends like unemployment, violence, long term health issues (sometimes terminal illness), self inflicted and external abuse. While they also need to aspire to do better, they start their life with a bigger handicap and hostile environment. They need higher amount of courage, conviction and persistence to make things better.

Since the question was based on comparison, wanted to put it in context.

I think life is more uncertain than unfair, there are so many variables we do not have control over. A small event can turn life upside down. Fairness is subjective, what one means by fair could be shaped by the environment and how we react to society.

We humans, generally look at people above us in terms of wealth / relationship / fame and think we are not fortunate enough. But there is significant number of folks who can only dream of basic needs. For them we are the fortunate ones.

Also the rich / celebrities / people who we envy, may not have perfect life. They have their own problems. Maybe if we know them completely we may not envy them as much. And they have their own yardstick for what is unfair.

What has worked for me, especially when I feel down, is counting the blessings and being grateful for things I don't have to worry about. Life could be so much more worse. From what I have seen, happiness does not seem to correlate proportionally with wealth / relationship / fame.

IMO, looking at people below us might help to give a balanced perspective. Hope we all find that elusive happiness within.

I found sonic pi documentation engaging, easy to understand and comprehensive, https://sonic-pi.net/tutorial.html