Ask HN: How much does “purpose” matter in a job?
I am at a point in my career where I don’t really care about my work that much. I am successful, have full autonomy, get recognition, make more money than I need, I work on things that are intellectually stimulating, in a field that has some direct benefit to humanity. But still feel unsatisfied…
Many others in my field (aerospace) have a lifelong passion for it, but I don’t particularly care for it either way. I am envious of the enthusiasm they have for our work, that I cannot muster up.
There are other areas outside of my chosen profession that I feel more strongly about, and wondering if I should pursue those.
I feel like I have ascended up Maslow’s hierarchy of job needs, and now am faced with a lack of purpose in my work. So I am curious, has anyone changed jobs/careers to align with a greater sense of purpose? How has that gone for you?
20 comments
[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 56.2 ms ] threadI suppose I am looking toward my job to provide that level of fulfillment, when it could conceivably come from elsewhere.
Hit the nail right on the head.
My boss is a boy scout troop leader, he regularly goes out to the gatherings, and I can relate his mood to how their last meetup went. His job has 0 impact on it.
Keep looking, something will fill that void soon.
I, myself, found that making bread for community kitchens sorta did it, not the act of making it but seeing people eat it, and taste it, was very fulfilling. You don't have to do it for charity, there may be other things that tickle your fancy.
If you work for, say, a for-profit restaurant, you might be working for a rich person but you are satisfying a real need in an ordinary person.
In a non-profit you might be working for
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/buffett-kin...
If you have a rich understanding of 'meaning' you should be maximizing that, and if that includes the accumulation of economic free energy (money), then do that. I urge people to make sure they are taking the proper time to analyze what they want out of life, and not just defaulting to dollar-maxxing because its what your parents told you to do.
In current society, if you have a house and an education, things are so easily available, then you can live a beautiful life on 15k a year (I do this right now, paying $950/m in LA). You could rightfully claim that housing is very essential, and is hugely expensive. However, houses are not actually expensive or difficult to make. Having a property in a certain desirable areas (which have been purposely prevented from expanding naturally) is the limiting factor. Also, IMO, a lot of property in desirable areas is in a bubble.
Regarding education, high level educations are increasingly becoming democratized through the internet. I have very high hopes for the future of education, where skilled teachers are able to make the highest quality content, made available for very low costs to millions. Having professors with doctorates was cool, because they meme-plexed information, but they were often limited on bandwidth. Search engines are making it increasingly easy to memeplex a field of knowledge without a hugely skilled person's assistance.
The more you have, the less relevant getting more is.
At least for me, once I was makimg 'enough' per year, earning more was nice, but I didn't actively seek it out. Finding work that made me feel good was more important (but, when I was starting out, getting a paycheck made me feel good, so the particular work wasn't as important). For me, enough was maxing 401k, making some extra mortgage payments, having a decent and growing emergency fund, and not worrying about regular expenses.
Unless the job is too boring or too long. A job you don’t love or even like is acceptable, but a job you hate isn’t worth it. Or you really think you have a better opportunity.
> The bible hiehueheuhei omg im tired of spamming threads in the hopes of getting bannes why cant they just add an option to delete too ur acc
— that apparently explains why all your recent comments are worthless at best. Write to the mods at hn@ycombinator.com asking nicely and they will be glad to remove you.
At the same time, you have to find what makes you tick. If you want to keep making lots of money, I believe you don't get a lot of do-overs when it comes to switching careers. If you simply don't care about money, then you can keep switching and starting again from a junior position and work up to a senior/IC type role. That gets sorta tough when you have a family/mortgage (yada yada). If you have the freedom to explore alternate paths then go for it. Be sure to build a few bridges before you leave your industry though!
You are unlikely to discover what you truly want if you are in a position where you can't help but define it in terms of what you a moving away from.
Then it's time to investigate other models of human personality, behaviour, and priorities for inspiration.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HEXACO_model_of_personality_st...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_five_model_of_pers...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_foundations_theory
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonviolent_Communication
https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/why-you-are-who-you-...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-factor_theory
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-factor_theory_of_emotion
Probably your motivation is/was not to fulfill your needs, but to get external approval (of parents, friends, important people etc), to reach some ideal picture you created for yourself etc.
Even now you’re asking for different pictures of other people in similar circumstances - to get external validation of possible solutions.
This is not the way to find internal drive.
Work this out with a good therapist. It’s helping me so far.