Comment by an0malous
1 day ago
This is conflated by the fact that most people start to enjoy things that give them a lot of money and prestige. Otherwise everyone would be in playing sports and making art, the things kids do before they care about money and prestige
I started programming at 5, making it do what I wanted it to provided dopamine. I never found a sport I enjoyed. I do like painting though. I doubt very many people get into sanitation because they love making toilets clean, but even there I'm sure a few do. Before 2000 I think it was pretty normal for people to select software as a career without considering the compensation as a factor. It wasn't excessively better than other similar choices for one.
> Before 2000
The salary expectations exploded when the VC/PE-bobos went into the space and started "build-and-sell-high".
Sure there were Billionairs made before tech & internet, but public was not aware of most such transactions.
And that never changed salaries nearly as much in games, embedded, or outside the us. I never worked in any software position adjacent to the online economy, so I never saw any of those wacky salaries.
I think they enjoy the money and prestige; not the work, itself.
I get a real joy out of developing software. I have, for all my adult life. The fact that it paid well, was gravy.
I do feel that I was incredibly fortunate to have landed into a field that I already loved. I guess that my loving it, made me much better at it.
Of course, there were lots of "friction points," along the way. Working for myself, in retirement, has removed all of them. The one thing that I miss, is working in a team.
Yeah, maybe a test could be: How much do you enjoy the time actually working on something vs the time going home and enjoying the things your wage enables you to have.
Or as the sibling comment said, do you enjoy the vocation or the vacation more?
(Everything in moderation of course: Even the most interesting and meaningful project will turn into drudgery to some degree, simply due to the amounts of time involved. Also we're in the attention economy, so there are lots of things specifically designed to feel more rewarding in the short term than to work on a long-term project. Maybe the difference is how much meaning and reward there still stays besides the day-to-day drudgery)
I don't think he meant that you should enjoy your vocation more than your vacation. But life is very different if you actually enjoy going to work each day, rather than dreading it.