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Ask HN: What do you enjoy working hard at?

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I've always loved this quote from Robert Heinlein and am in some ways still searching for it. Curious to hear what your answer is?

Happiness lies in being privileged to work hard for long hours in doing whatever you think is worth doing. One man may find happiness in supporting a wife and children. Another may find it in robbing banks. Still another may labor mightily for years in pursuing pure research with no discernible result. Note the individual and subjective nature of each case. No two are alike and there is no reason to expect them to be. Each man or woman must find for himself or herself that occupation in which hard work and long hours make him or her happy. Contrariwise, if you are looking for shorter hours and longer vacations and early retirement, you are in the wrong job. Perhaps you need to take up bank robbing. Or geeking in a sideshow. Or even politics. Robert Heinlein

8 comments

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smt88
This isn't going to be a direct answer, but I don't know that I totally agree with the quote. For example, some people find deep happiness only from traveling, but it's hard to consider that to be work.

I think what the quote is really getting at is this: can you find a way to be paid to do something you enjoy doing anyway?

EugeneOZ
I think it's a very important question for every adult human, and each year answer can be different.

Few years ago for me it was mutexes, RAII and similar things. This year it's changing country of living.

[dead] locateflow
Another way of putting this is to say that life IS work. Embrace it don't avoid it. Biologically speaking, if you are not expending energy then you are dead. So the question becomes "How will you choose to spend your energy? Will it be fulfilling?" Everyone living is constantly working, whether they want to or not, so why not make that work worthwhile?
vinceyuan
For money, honor, power.
kleer001
Conan! What is best in life?

Conan: Crush your enemies. See them driven before you. Hear the lamentations of their women.

eecks
A project that has momentum
codegeek
"may find happiness in supporting a wife and children"

This is me ever since I had my kids. But to achieve this, I am working towards building a life where I have enough financial freedom that I can choose to spend my time however I want. If I want 2 months off, I should be able to take that without worrying about asking a boss or taking unpaid leave.

So I enjoy working hard at building the life that I envision.

kleer001
Finding good porn.

No, really, hear me out. The industry has such a high turnover rate, talent and technicians alike. The barrier to entry is very low, almost non existent. This means the market place is constantly flooded with poor quality product.

I have studied and worked in the movie industry, so I have a bit of inside knowledge about the craft. Certainly the same things annoy me that annoy everyone else with bad porn, shit lighting, over acting, bad sound, etc.

Now, don't get me wrong sometimes poor quality work will do, but I'm going on about the search for good stuff.

Maybe it's the synergy of titillation and craft that lights up my happy circuits. But I think the real key here is as soon as I've ingested the work in question, well, the thrill is gone. I won't make any excuses, that's just how the ol' libido runs.