For career path, you probably have little to no control over it. Life is full of people who pretend otherwise. Working your way up a ladder is largely a fantasy, especially in I.T. Too many people, not enough roles. Just go with the flow and try to find something that pays well and doesn’t suck 100% of the time.

Personal goals are mostly bullshit too. You’re not in control of life. Maybe it’ll look that way for a while but it can be taken away in a second.

Probably the only life goal you really need is to be happy after you figure out what that means.

Look for careers where the daily work is something that seems interesting. Don't get too distracted focusing on salaries or impressing other people with your job. The more you enjoy the work, the easier it is to be happy and successful.

Your other priority should be to find people you enjoy working with. Finding people you enjoy being around. If you get stuck with toxic people who drain your energy or make you feel bad at the end of every day, you need to move to another job or even new city. Stay away from very negative people and don't get pulled into online cynicism spirals (Reddit, Twitter, even HN are full of this). Gravitate toward people who are happy in their own lives and spend less time with people (or internet comments) from people who are unhappy.

Don't get attached to an idea that there's one perfect career for you. Learn to enjoy doing work with people you like to be around and you will find that you can be happy doing a lot of different things.

I haven't.

I'm 45 and I still don't know what I want to do when I grow up. I have had 2 distinct successful "career paths" up till now, and am at a point in life where I can do pretty much anything but not everything.

Essentially, you pick a path that in this moment a) you feel like doing, b) you have access to, and c) aligns sufficiently with your values, expectations and life needs. You can be very strategic about it, or you can wing it, there are no correct answers.

Then when you get older and are in a different place in life, chances are you become ready for something new, and then you go do that.

Careers and goals don't need to be forever, change is guaranteed and "life" is an awfully long time to decide on when you're young.

I turned a hobby into a career. I wouldn't recommend it. You lose the love for the hobby and the career doesn't match the hobby since you're mostly doing what other people need to do, not what you want.

I follow things that interested me and figured out what makes me happy - it's a process.

Nobody does.

"Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans" John Lennon

"Yesterday is history, Tomorrow is a mystery, But today is a gift. That is why it is called the present."

Sometimes you don't know what you want to do with your life, but you know what you don't like or want in life, that helps narrow down your choices.

I, like most people, have never figured this out.

ikigai

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ikigai

I have heard, but have not read, 'What color is my parachute' is a great book for that.

There are a bunch of psychology based tests you can take to help decide on general career paths. I remember taking one 20 years ago. It had questions like: Do you enjoy working on your own. Does fame get you excited. Writing out direction cause you anxiety. Surprise surprise Software Engineer... Just what I love doing.

As someone in their late-30s, I'll let you know when I figure out what I want to do with my life.

The good old "guess and check" method is really the only option for most people. It's unfortunate that if you guess wrong you could ruin your life, but that's the way our society is structured, at least in the USA. I'm about 15 years into a web-dev career that has worked out well so far, but is very likely going to be eaten by AI over the next 15 years. I have no idea what I'm going to do if that happens.

As the saying goes: predictions are hard, especially about the future.

I'd argue that your life isn't a thing at you "do" something with. To think that it is seems like a category error to me. This doesn't preclude healthy ambition - but above all try to enjoy your brief time in the light, and be kind.

----

    Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy’s Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota

    by James Wright

    Over my head, I see the bronze butterfly,
    Asleep on the black trunk,
    Blowing like a leaf in green shadow.
    Down the ravine behind the empty house,
    The cowbells follow one another
    Into the distances of the afternoon.
    To my right,
    In a field of sunlight between two pines,
    The droppings of last year’s horses
    Blaze up into golden stones.
    I lean back, as the evening darkens and comes on.
    A chicken hawk floats over, looking for home.
    I have wasted my life.

It’s easy and hard at the same time.

Eady because you derive that directly from your hierarchy of values.

Hard because you can’t just “decide” what your hierarchy of values is. There is a significant transcendental part to it that critically depends on other people, on your environment, even God.

This is why many stuck in a limbo of analyzing and rationality justifying their goals.

So eventually all people do the same thing - they just pick whatever their intuition tells them from available options. That’s the framework.

The meaning of life lies in death. Death is the boundary of life.

What matters after death? What matters before it?

Avoiding death is impractical. The lifehack is to propagate a bit of your life forwards, i.e. children. Make sure they end up with all the advantage you can give them. Many can't do this, so the other trick is to propagate similar cells - family, humanity, earth creatures.

I'm a believer in occasionalism though. The philosophy/theology takes a few years to click, but in the end I think all that matters is patience and perseverance.

Patience for the trials and temptations of life. Perseverance is the struggle. Some call it a journey, but I think the anime Berserk captures it perfectly. To struggle as if you're branded for death and all odds are stacked against you.

If you believe in a judgement day, then these virtues will be rewarded. If you do not, then throwing yourself into whatever gets in your way is a more enjoyable way of living life than being passive. And in engineering terms, if you channel a lot of energy somewhere, something happens.

Some people think aiming at goals is the most important thing you can do. Sam Altman is one of those people. You can spend a lifetime aiming and still miss.

My principle is to stay with people I feel comfortable with and do things that can give me true pleasure.

I'm 62, and I never had huge goals. I wanted to be a programmer back in the 1980s, but I was ready to swear on a stack of Bibles that there was NO money to be made in software, in the 1980s, so I studied Electrical Engineering instead, then dropped out.

I have learned that there is no straight career path. Your best bet is to have a large group of friends and acquainted, and keep in touch with all of them. They will present you with opportunities all the time, if you're open to them. I was interested in machining after decades in IT, and I got a job making gears. It was really rewarding, but the pay and commute sucked. I still miss it, even though I got yeeted out of the work force with Long Covid.

Don't wait to do the things you enjoy, take photos, write stories, visit with friends now, while they're all still here. Work is what you do to pay for your life, not the other way around.

My biggest regret is not keeping a journal. I really appreciate the huge number of photos I took between 1997 and about 2016, recording my life with abandon. Now I'm mostly too tired to do anything sustained.

In college I took several tests that were supposed to tell me what would be a good career for me. All of them were inconclusive, with aptitude and interest pretty equal across the board.

I ended up falling into a computer related major when my first choice became problematic due to the failings of my high school curriculum and the policies at the college left me in a kind of purgatory.

After graduation I put my resume online and waited about 8-12 months until someone called me about a contract job. That lasted a couple months, then I got another call. I’ve been working at that 2nd call for 20 years.

I still don’t know what I want to do. I’ve thought about quitting or completely changing careers almost everyday, but nothing really calls to me.

Considering I mostly left things up to chance, things worked out fairly well when I look at it objectively.

I’ve worked with other people who have had dozens of careers for one reason or another. You don’t necessarily need something that will work out for 40 years, especially if you have a personality that likes some variety. You just need something that works for you right now.

tl;dr: Take risks, try new stuff often, change directions if you want to

I wanted to study business, but a software dev booth at my college convinced me otherwise. I loved computers and already paid rent by making websites.

A few years later, I'm studying software engineering in university. Some senior convinces me to go abroad while it's easy. I find an internship in Germany.

A few months later, it's time to go back to Canada, and I don't want to. I love Berlin, Germany, Europe and a girl. I have a job offer. I love the team, have a good salary and get more time off than my parents combined. I drop out, sell my stuff and settle here.

Meanwhile, I get frustrated with German bureaucracy, so I start writing simple guides on a simple website about it. Traffic picks up, then revenue. Meanwhile, my second job at a big corp kills my passion for coding or waking up. I'm single again. I quit the job and ride a motorcycle from Berlin into the side of a car in Tajikistan. While waiting for repairs in Kazakhstan, the website's income meets my cost of living.

My passion for motorcycles died before I did, but the website is still going strong. It gave me purpose, a relaxed life and a grateful audience. I am still excited about it; the code, the content, the marketing challenges. AI is upsetting that balance, but even if it ended tomorrow, I'd be forever grateful for the last few years.

I'm not clever or hard-working. I just rolled the dice more often than many. I tried stuff and fully committed to my silly ideas. I have my fingers in many pies and leave a lot of half-finished projects in my wake, but at least I'm not afraid of trying things out. It could have worked any other way, but after experiencing a few months in a cubicle farm, I'd rather off myself than go back to that.