Ask HN: How do you fight through the monotony of daily life?

I also am at a job with unlimited vacation and took 8 weeks PTO last year. So I make up for the days that are boring with my vacations.

I don't feel the urge to "change the world" and I'm perfectly happy working hard at work on interesting problems, and coming home to my family and just being happy, which is the benefit of being almost 50.

I work in IT, and I'm the IT guy when I go home, and when I'm on vacation. Apparently it's also my hobby, since I keep doing it decade after decade.

Some inherited them, some build them from the bottom of a terrible hole. Nobody alive has been able to create a new one from scratch.

Personally I found my purpose through lots of lectures and research into the ground truth of physical and metaphorical reality that all humans are subject to here on earth. Hint, lots of the solutions I 'discovered' and understood have been well established for millennia, a.k.a. there's no secret. Still, just as an addict has to want to change we have to find that purpose for ourselves.

Cycling, music and meditation keep me sane. And enjoying culture - great film, etc...

(You can negotiate for a short workweek, as this person did: https://codewithoutrules.com/2018/01/08/part-time-programmer...)

If your out of ideas on what to do, try the dreamline activity from the 4 Hour Work week

or even consider reading How to Get Rich by Felix Dennis.

For the latter, it's mind blowing to ask this question in this day and age. There are so many interesting things to try out and do today, you could last 10 life times and not run out.

For example, I love video games. There are endless number of amazing games on PC and console. And enough variety to never really end. You could try that. Sometimes I get FOMO thinking about all the amazing games I will never be able to play due to lack of time. There is a game for every person type and it always keeps life exciting.

You could learn a zillion skills or engage in creative pursuits. Music, rubik cube, programming projects, start a reddit community or participate in one. You catch my drift.

Having kids changed this a lot for me, but I don't of course recommend having kids because 'you are bored'. An alternative would be to go live and work in a different country, especially that isn't too touristy or western. I guess anything that completely uproots your life and takes you out of your comfort zone will do it.

Another thing I do is some side hussle but with more of a structured plan than I have before. This supplies hope that one day I can make an income without needing a job.

This gives purpose to my life. In some sense, having kids is pretty much the meaning of life. Live would be pretty pointless without the kids. People are meant to have kids, and you can conclude this from your choice of evolution or creation. There is an instinct to be satisfied.

I'm only sort of in the tech industry, so maybe that helps. Government contracting rules put a limit on some kinds of insanity. The stuff that goes on in the game industry would never fly. Actually, I have it better than that minimum. My normal work week is 40 hours, and I get paid if I work more. I get more vacation (due to seniority) and flex time, letting me spend more time with the kids.

So I spend the morning with kids, walk or drive to work depending on weather, do stuff to support my country, come home, skip the gym, spend more time with kids, and repeat for 40+ years until retirement.

There is never a perfect time to start having kids, so you won't have any if you wait for that. Just get on it. I got started before I graduated from college.

Here's what I did about it:

1. I asked the most attractive & wonderful girl out on a date. Mind you, I am a geeky programmer and nobody's going to mistake me for a sex icon anytime soon. Nevertheless, she was impressed by my boldness and said yes. Now we're married with three kids.

2. I started a company as CEO. It failed. But being CEO stretched me into a new role and I grew immensely.

3. I'm now working on a project that I think has a huge potential for positive impact on the world. I'm not motivated by money or glory this time around, but just want to see if I can grow and pull it off.

I guess to sum it up: know what you want out of life and then be bold and take risks.

http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-sim...

You can move towards a life designed the way you like it. Good luck.

Otherwise, the bullshit of life will be too much...but doing meaningful things seems to dampen the blow of the natural tragedy and suckiness of life.

If the job you currently do can't deliver this, then find something else.

(Plus, of course, what everyone else says about finding a satisfying family life, hobbies, work-life balance, etc)

- If you find that for extended periods of time, you have a persistent feeling of "everything is meaningless" and you fail to find joy or meaning in any activity, please see if talking to a counsellor/therapist could help you.

At some point I read a lot about climate change -- not sure if I recommend doing this, but it certainly helps to put things in perspective. What will the world be like in 30 years? What do you want to be doing then?

I found in my late 20s I started to take a much longer term perspective on things. I've re-thought my relationship with work: previously work was kind of a thing i did by default, without really thinking why. Now it's something I do to generate money to invest toward things on a 5-10-20+ year time horizon. Maybe I need to grind away at work for 5 years. So what? Not that long. I did contract work for a couple of years and got a large pay rise out of it, which has stuck in subsequent permanent jobs. Work can still be a grind but it pays more than enough and I largely firewall work away from the rest of my life. If you start trying to save money when you haven't really focused on that before, that in itself can become a bit of a game. What's a good "move" to make? Move house to somewhere cheaper. Ride a bike instead of taking the train. Learn to repair your bike when it breaks. Prepare your lunch instead of buying it. Don't spend money on travel. Don't buy things, borrow library books. Don't pay for the gym, go for a run. Don't pay for a new thing, learn how to fix the old thing.

Some of my colleagues who are in their 40s just work part time, either so they can spend more time with family, or just because a couple of days work a week provides them with enough money, and they're far more motivated by having more free time.

Anyway, enough rambling from me. I'm also reminded of an essay I read a while back:

  > My dad went through a period of removal when he
  > was my age and working as a technician in the
  > Bay Area. He got fed up with his job, and figured
  > he had enough saved up to quit and live extremely
  > cheaply for a while. That ended up being two years.
  > I recently asked him how he spent that time, and
  > his answer was that he read a lot, rode his bike,
  > studied math and electronics, went fishing, had
  > long chats with his friend and roommate, and sat
  > in the hills, where he taught himself the flute.

  > After a while, he says, he realized that a lot of
  > his anger about his job and outside circumstances
  > had more to do with him than he realized. As he
  > put it, “it’s just you with yourself and your own
  > crap, so you have to deal with it.” But that time
  > also taught my dad about creativity, and the state
  > of openness, nothing, maybe even boredom, that it
  > requires. 

https://medium.com/@the_jennitaur/how-to-do-nothing-57e100f5...

If you're just doing an assembly factory job, you can assemble it faster.

If you just deal with lots of boring code, you can grind refactoring books and techniques.

If it's a generic tech job, there are new programming languages to learn, frameworks, algorithms, plenty of things to do and enjoy.

If you're a manager who has nothing to do, you can find a way to make your colleagues' day more interesting and fun. You can train juniors, get them to do better.

Heck, even in the worst, most mundane days, I just visualize text and systems into images and try to move them around. There's a lot to play with.

Work life is a lot more interesting than even the vacation periods.