Ask HN: Getting old and boring – What can I do about it?

This is very normal. Your kids won't need nearly as much of your time in a few years and you'll have time for hobbies again. Enjoy how much time you're spending with them now and have faith that you'll be "interesting" again when you have fewer demands from family life.

Why don't you do some shit with your family, like go on a vacation or go hiking or go sailing or go to museum. You'll spend time with your family and have something to talk about.

You're boring to everyone else? Fine. Don't be boring to your kids. Be there for them. "Dad spent time with me" will matter to your kids far more than being able to tell some rando about your hobby will matter to said rando.

(Don't be boring to your wife, either.)

In fact, don't be boring to the neighbor kids. You want your house to be the place they hang out, rather than your kids hanging out at the neighbor's house. That way you find out what's going on in your kids' lives sooner, when you can do something about it, rather than later when you maybe can't.

Coaching your kids' sports teams is a pretty mainstream social activity for a father of young kids. By age 7, my dad was involving me at least a bit in home repair & home improvement projects.

BTW - are you regularly reading to your kids? That also checks a lot of your boxes.

What are you reading at the moment?

In general, I've found that making one's focus of curiosity less about 'how' and more about 'why' opens a lot of new doors, both introspectively and socially.

Why being boring (the way you described it) is a bad thing?

There a millions of "cool" people who would give anything for a chance to live a "boring" life you describe.

At the current place in my life I'm as boring as you (with kids, chores etc.), and I'm pretty happy about it.

The social pressure to "be interesting" is one of the factors that I think leads to a lot of our collective misery. I think the problem is one of scale - if you're not engaging with other people because they don't share your interests, you may be hanging out with the wrong people, but you may not have a choice. You may be required to hang out with them because they are co-workers, neighbors, etc. - members of communities to which you may belong but may not have willingly chosen (i.e. if you're lucky enough to have been able to choose your job and your position and the team you work with, you are in a very fortunate minority).

So much of our self worth is wrapped up in "being important" or "being interesting". We don't ask the question enough, "To whom"? As someone else mentioned here, you should be important to the communities you have explicitly chosen and built - your wife and kids, the friends you choose to keep in your life, etc. If they find you interesting and important, that really ought to be enough for just about all of us. I do feel like an awful lot of this pressure to be interesting stems from people who have not cultivated such communities of choice and are left with a dire need to feel important to anyone who will pay attention to them. It's a sickness that I think a lot of people have been able to muster into the wrong kind of attention building, which makes it seems better than it is (e.g. parasocial relationships through social media, etc.)

All of this is to say: Are you happy? Do the people who matter to you find you interesting and fun to be around? Focus on them and be happy. Our lives are enriched by the people we let into them. So long as everyone in our circles are well fed, well loved, and well rested - ourselves included - we can find peace and happiness. Excitement means different things to different people - you'll never catch me bungee jumping, but I get a rush when a delicious meal I had planned turns out exactly as I intended. Find what excites you, surround yourself with people who love and appreciate you - and whom you love and appreciate in return - and work toward your own sense of happiness without the judgement of the chattering classes.

It sounds like reading is your hobby. Maybe join some book clubs, participate in online communities, etc.

With kids of 3 and 7 I have to think that you have plenty to occupy you. Your kids school or extra-curricular activities will probably get you new acquaintances soon. (We are in touch still with some people we met through our son's school or school activities, and he is older than you are.)

You could try volunteer activities I suppose.

And let me also say that 33 is hardly even "getting middle aged".

quit your job. too many people remain in a job for far too long. unless you are in a trajectory to become the vp of the company by 43, quit and start your own thing.

most people think of a job as a lifetime thing whereas it is a short paid bootstrapping session to learn how the adult world works.

after that you should be finding edges and exploiting them on your own.

"I am generally happy", good for you. That in itself is a huge accomplishment. Not everyone can say that.

My suggestion is to try different things even if you have to force yourself with the hope that you'll find something you enjoy and can share. There will be many things that you can share with your kids or as a family that will get you there. It's just a matter of trying. I know time is limited but you can carve out some time as a goal especially if you can do it with your family. Start with a family home evening where do the activities with your family.

> I have a great remote job which pays well without being too demanding

Do you mind disclosing your employer or at least how you obtained your job? Some of us are having "trouble finding employment"[1]

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38999485

You will have more time as your children get older and will probably gravitate towards finding new interests naturally.

I've taken great pleasure in cooking and strobist portrait photography. For cooking, I'm naturally terrible but even I can follow America's Test Kitchen recipes and my family has really appreciated the results! Cooking is an opportunity to have a hobby that also improves your family's quality of life. For photography, I started out with a pretty cheap mirrorless and cheap Chinese lights (Godox), and have been getting progressively better at taking pictures (by watching YouTube and practicing a lot) for 10 years. It's a lot of fun for me and at the same time creates memorable photos that my family go back to again and again.

Have you considered starting a book club? I love to read and I found a few people that like to read in the same genre and we have a lot of fun.

At least for me, a lot of people don't really care about my hobbies, other than the people you share them with.

I play a sport in a club. When I hang out with those people... yea it's all we talk about almost. Nobody in my family or friends play this sport, nor do they care to talk about it.

So I just would not expect whatever it is you pick up to be broadly interesting to other people either.

Dont be interesting. Just do for yourself and your own enjoyment.

You've gotta get a hobby or multiple hobbies. Also, you chose a family/kids. That's your hobby/direction. This is all normal for your age/choices. Weird that you don't think it is?

> I'm 33 and I am becoming terminally boring.

Are you boring or bored? Big difference.

One thing I've heard from many retired people is that they're bored. And I was always like...how can you be bored?! You have all the time in the world to do all the things you want but never had time for because of work! What did you do all day with your time off before retirement?

I read your post and wonder if you're going to end up one of those people.

> Outside of reading I have no hobbies, I am not part of any groups, I don't have any ambitions outside of home & work, and I don't drink or play video games or watch very much TV/movies. [...] Should I try to cultivate new interests? How do I find the time?

You absolutely should try to cultivate new interests.

I'm a big PC gamer, playing things from all genres. FPS, turn-based strategy, real-time strategy, factory building, city building, colony sim, puzzle, RPG (action, MMO, and single-player), racing...I play so many games that when people ask me "What do you play?", I never know how to answer! Though my favorites are typically the city builders, colony sims, and factory builders.

But I recently got into RC cars after digging out the ones I inherited from my dad. He had some stuff from the late 80s, like a Traxxas Bullet and a Kyosho Optima Mid. I upgraded the motors and electronics, but eventually decided to get myself a modern Traxxas Rustler 4x4 VXL. Out of the box, it'll go 45 mph, and if I swap the pinion gear out on the motor, it'll go ~70 mph (at the expensive of some acceleration).

There are so many hobbies and interests to get into. You just gotta find what you like to do! Just don't let anyone tell you that any hobby that doesn't lead to something useful is a waste of time. There are some poor souls, even here on HN, that think anything that doesn't produce value beyond just being entertaining is a waste of time. Fuck 'em. They're going to be on their death beds wishing that they had allowed themselves to have more fun.

Finding time...I don't really know how to answer that one, since I'm not a parent, though I am married, but my wife is a PC gamer as well, so I have plenty of free time outside of work.

I am 23, just getting started with the corporate/working world. The way you describe yourself sounds a bit like my Dad. He was a software engineer. So am I. I remember growing up and occasionally getting frustrated with his lack of interests and hobbies (past a certain point), especially when he started developing major chronic illnesses and we stopped going on as many weekend trips.

I lost him 2 years ago.

This comment is the first time I've even remembered that old frustration in many, many years. The moments I think about, and the types of conversations I wish I could still have, have nothing to do with "interesting" hobbies or being "cool".

He passed on his love of reading and we would frequently discuss ideas from his favorite authors. He loved the scorpions and many similar classic rock bands. Some of my favorite memories are us just chatting about those subjects, or things that were important in my life at the time, or current events, or about nothing at all, while doing something else. I wouldn't trade a single one of those for having a "cooler" or more interesting Dad. Now that I am also in the software industry, I wish we could complain (or celebrate the good) about work together. If anything, I wish he was more open about the boring things that went on in his day to day.

If pushing yourself to try new things is a journey you want to go on for yourself, by all means, do so. Your kids would probably find that interesting in and of itself. But don't do it just to "have something to talk about." They will love you for who you are (...eventually, if not now), and be much more interested in what's in your head and what you care about, than seeing that you check off some amorphous checkbook of "still having cool hobbies." If anything, it will probably be more rewarding for them as they grow up to know more and have more access to the person you already are and the things you already care about. You can buy travel and lessons and "interestingness" or get those things from someone else-- but once you're gone, you're gone forever.

It sounds like you're a caring father. You already got it, man. Just show them who you are.

Wishing you and your family well.

I don't share the feeling of being boring but then again I don't have kids.

That little jab aside, I recently bought a nice bike during autumn sales and equipped myself with a wahoo Kickr smart trainer and cycling shoes / bibs etc.

I didn't think that the gamified zwift interface could be this much fun but I'm addicted and never had better cardio than I do right now. I'm even skipping weightlifting workouts to bike more ..

So yeah get this as a new hobby and then once you figure out all the awesome stuff about it get the rest of your family into it. It's healthy af and there's a huge community of people.

I never really enjoyed running, rowing was much better but biking is on another level. What's awesome during winter is the smart trainer, once you test your fitness level the workouts are adapted to you perfectly.

It feels boring because your life has no real problems. Either you could be glad about that, or give yourself some real challenges. When I felt that way in my early 30’s, I decided to break 3 hours in the marathon, which rejuvenated my lifestyle.

I have a few random thoughts:

- Everything you wrote sounds perfectly fine to me. And I'm often more interested in talking about changing diapers than about Amazing Spectacular Things.

- This might be over the top, in which case just discard it, but if you feel something is missing, and you like reading, maybe check some practical philosophy? It might as well turn out you already have everything you need, or that what you need is not what you think you need.

- I'm a bit over 40 and last year I started doing karaoke, completely by accident (someone suggested it, I went, and stayed). I don't have "musical genes", so you probably wouldn't like to get my signed record :))--but I really enjoy the whole thing. At some point I noticed that some songs sounded better than before, and it gave me some motivation to work on them. And suddenly I have a completely unexpected hobby. My point here is that a hobby can emerge in a completely unexpected way, at any time in your life.

Counter take: Being 'interesting' is over rated ..

At 50+, I'm actually glad how 'boring' my life has become. When I was younger, 'interesting' was generally code for drama...

Now my son is grown, the bills are paid, my health is decent .. I'm happy to just be 'boring' and relax.