Stop chasing dreams instead. Life is not a Hollywood movie. Not everyone is going to get a famous billionaire. Adjust your expectations to reality, and stop thinking so highly of yourself, stop judging others.
Assume the responsibility for the things that happen in your life. It is kind of annoying to read your text, it is always some external thing that "happened" to you, and it is always other people who are not up to your standards. At some moment you even declare with despair: "(...)at this point I had just become like everyone else". And guess what? This is true and false at the same time, in a fundamental level most people are not remarkable, and you probably aren't too. But at the same time, nobody is the same, you have worth just by being, and other people have too.
I don't care about your engineering skills, while they are good enough to warrant you a job at a FAANG company, by 40, it is clear that you are not some John Carmack, a Dave Cutler, or a Linus Torvalds. So stop this bullshit about wanting to work with people who "care as much as I do", as if you are some hero descended from Olympus forced to work with those lowly mortals.
The impression I get is that you must be someone incredibly annoying to work with, and that your performance is not even nearly close to what you think it is, and that you really need to come down to earth.
Stop looking outside, work on yourself instead. You'll never be satisfied just by changing jobs. Do therapy if you wish, become acquainted with stoicism, be a volunteer in some poor country, whatever, but do something to regain control of your life, to get some perspective, and to adjust your expectations to reality.
I wrote a crappy but working LangChain script to make comments like this less spicy.
This was one of the outputs it stopped on:
"I see your perspective, though I view things differently. Life often doesn’t meet our hopes and expectations. Rather than judging yourself or others harshly, try understanding differing life experiences. We all face difficulties, but together can support each other.
Finding purpose and meaning brings more fulfillment than chasing dreams alone. Reflect on what matters most to you – what gives you inner peace. Make choices each day to be your best self. None are perfect, so avoid harsh self-judgement.
Life presents challenges for all. Focus on what you can influence; together we navigate them. Stop looking outside yourself for answers or blame. We share this difficult world, so take responsibility for yourself through reflection and accepting life as it is – not by changing external factors but by understanding ourselves and reality.
Adjust your expectations to what’s actually possible. While life may not meet our hopes, find meaning by better understanding yourself and what you can control.
We can’t change what’s happened or always get what we want. But we choose how we respond to difficulties and support each other through compassion."
Hmm I guess what I said can come off as condescending. But I was trying to condense all of my experience in less than 4k words, and I guess I came out sounding a bit like an asshole based on your comment.
Trust me, I don't think that highly of myself. Even when I was getting good perf reviews, I constantly was critical of myself as not doing a good enough job. I had bad burn out for several years and it made me feel like I couldn't do my job anymore. My self confidence was very bad, and I still struggle with imposter syndrome in my current role.
Many of the things I described above, I used to blame myself for as if they were entirely my fault. It was only after working with a therapist I was able to reframe these events as being out of my control. Which helped me get out of the hole I was in. So I disagree it's bad to blame external events - I actually think that's a very healthy way to look at the bad things that happen to us.
By saying I want to work with people that care like I do, I mean people who are passionate about engineering and want to do a good job. I've found that incredibly hard to find. Morale in general just seems to be poor.
I probably just need to be realistic. It seems the kind of dream team I want to be on is very rare. I had it once in my career so far, and didn't even realize what I had at the time.
> The impression I get is that you must be someone incredibly annoying to work with
I'm actually a pushover, which is a problem. I go out of my way to make everyone I work with happy, at my own expense. Despite being an introvert, I'm the person organising social events, checking in on my team members who seem down, and trying to help everyone to get along. But I guess my inner dialogue makes me sound like an asshole, which is fair enough. I think I can be overly critical of others (and myself, first of all).
> Stop looking outside, work on yourself instead.
Yes, this is a good point and what I'm trying. I find my FAANG job very stressful, and it makes it hard for me to relax outside of work. Maybe my next challenge is just learning to disconnect from work as much as possible. Easier said then done.
I am glad to hear that. I was hard with you because I've seen too many good people enter into similar cycles and some of them never come back.
Yeah, I don't know if this at-your-face style of communication could help you, but if everyone was just parroting feel-good stuff at you, I had to try the intervention style.
That said, maybe this particular company is not good for you. I once worked in an ad-tech company and my life was miserable because I could not come to terms with what I was helping to build. Maybe you despise the product you helping build, idk. Do some soul-searching, and if that's the case, changing jobs can help a bit, as long as you don't see it as a miracle potion. Generally, the stuff you do can produce mostly marginal improvements, don't expect giant improvements on any single change you do. And above all, tread lightly. Maybe change teams first?
But man, please, just take a breath, and care less about stuff that actually doesn't matter that much in the great scheme of things.
I really don't know what will help you, but just try a lot of stuff till something works, and all the while try to see the big picture. Man, we are just another animal on this small rock in a very non-remarkable planetary system, orbiting a very average star. Life is fucking short, try to enjoy it.
Money is good, but it is only as good as the use you make of it, and you have to be careful because overly indulging in material desires gets old fast, and then you see yourself surrounded by junk that just depresses you. Try to avoid that trap.
Well, if it was possible I would kinda both - upvote and downvote you here !
I think you are absolutely right about the responsibility. Although you seem to argue that he should lower his expectations, I would rather say that he can choose - he can also take the responsibility for the 'I just want a job where I can flex my engineering skills without BS' part - it's not going to just happen magically, but it's totally possible. But it does have a price that one must be willing to pay.
Assume the responsibility for the things that happen in your life. It is kind of annoying to read your text, it is always some external thing that "happened" to you, and it is always other people who are not up to your standards. At some moment you even declare with despair: "(...)at this point I had just become like everyone else". And guess what? This is true and false at the same time, in a fundamental level most people are not remarkable, and you probably aren't too. But at the same time, nobody is the same, you have worth just by being, and other people have too.
I don't care about your engineering skills, while they are good enough to warrant you a job at a FAANG company, by 40, it is clear that you are not some John Carmack, a Dave Cutler, or a Linus Torvalds. So stop this bullshit about wanting to work with people who "care as much as I do", as if you are some hero descended from Olympus forced to work with those lowly mortals.
The impression I get is that you must be someone incredibly annoying to work with, and that your performance is not even nearly close to what you think it is, and that you really need to come down to earth.
Stop looking outside, work on yourself instead. You'll never be satisfied just by changing jobs. Do therapy if you wish, become acquainted with stoicism, be a volunteer in some poor country, whatever, but do something to regain control of your life, to get some perspective, and to adjust your expectations to reality.