First, tell your wife exactly what you've written here. What you're about to do will scare the snot out of her if she doesn't understand your motivation.

The fact that you've posted something like this just about guarantees you've already decided to make a major course correction. Many people can work a lousy job they hate for 4 decades, get a gold watch at the end, and have as little to show for it at the end as you feel you have now. Looks like you're not one of them.

I wasn't one of them either. I told my wife almost exactly what you wrote up there. She asked me why it took so long, she'd know I was like that when she married me. We sold our house to be free of the mortgage, even though it was a bad time, moved into a rental and I've been working only on projects that interest me ever since. It was (is) scary. We've had to reduce our standard of living, but the days have turned from drudgery to adventure. Even if we end up living in a van down by the river, it will have been well worth it.

Only you can know whats best for you, but as someone who has walked this path, I encourage you to follow your heart. Poverty is uncomfortable, but regret is excruciating.

Edit: I'm serious about the tell your wife part. It instantly transforms her from hapless dependent (and one more worry on your mind) to co-conspirator and confidant. I just can't overstate what a difference this made for me.

I cannot upmod you enough for writing that. It's exactly the kind of feeling I've been having for the past few years but haven't been able to put it into words. Sometimes being poor can be one of your largest assets because it makes you more nimble and forces you to make better decisions--both in startup world and life outside. But you're right, regret is excruciating. You only get one chance (as far as I know) at life. You absolutely have to follow your heart.

a) Fewer expensive toys, a smaller/no TV, a small house, cheap clothes, and public school?

b) A father and husband so busy repressing his pain, so trapped in the anguish of seeing his identity drowned, that he cannot express his true love and strength to them?

His family will benefit infinitely more from the joy of his liberation, and his children from the example of a father fully passionate about his life and theirs. Anything less is a disservice - and the money is utterly inconsequential in comparison.

And going the entrepreneurial route isn't exactly a way to spend more time with your kids.

I agree that escaping the rat race is a good thing overall for the family, I just disagree with the dichotomy you're presenting here.

How is that not pain?

If anything, our original poster should consider psychiatric care. This kind of seething misery isn't often fixed by dickering around your professional life.

But you are right, the OP is in a lot of pain right now. And I myself have the same fears as the OP, and even taken the route that the poster wonders about, of taking time off to do some wildly impractical and creative things. It taught me a lot about myself.

I don't have a family at the moment, so it's a lot easier for me. I'm not sure what the solution is, for him, but it could just be downshifting rather than a clean break. Or, maybe he thinks he needs to do something radical.

I'm not as accomplished as the OP, but he may be in a similar financial state. Another big difference is that I don't have a difficult boss, and my commute and working hours do allow me a couple hours with my kids in the evening, along with weekends mostly free. So I'm definitely, definitely, definitely not saying he shouldn't feel this way, or suggesting that he's complaining. I'm just saying, I get it, I understand why his situation is a very difficult one.

If you compare yourself to your peers in SF you'll never feel good about that. Too many kids who got lucky in this town walking around with zillions.

What if you moved to one of the more decent parts of the East Bay? Easily cut your rent in half, or if you prefer, you could have twice the space.

Kids aren't as dumb as adults think they are. Treat them with respect, explain things to them, and they will understand. Treat them as dumb consumers, and what do you get?

It's more a matter of perceived fragility, both in the physical sense (safety hysteria) and the emotional and psychological sense (provider hysteria). This is constantly reinforced by other people behaving as though their children are fragile, and falling into the hysteria themselves.

No one wants to be at the bottom of this pile. It would be the same, in a coarse sense, as being at the bottom of the pile in a high school or in a clique of society wifes. Social ostracism, harassment with and by child protective services, and honest to goodness psychological damage of everyone involves can result from such petty bullshit. That you have to deal with such pettiness is a sign not that you should try to win harder, but that perhaps you should just stop playing the game.

In all of this squabbling, it is possible that, in an absolute sense, the child's life could be awesome. They could be comfortable, psychologically stable, and totally happy with life. But it doesn't matter, because all of this social in-fighting is a local phenomena, and being on the bottom in any locality makes you a "bad parent" almost by axiom.

BTW, not arguing at you so much as using your thoughts as a basis for my own. :-)

Having a family changes all the goalposts.

My family was completely nomadic growing up. While it was kind of a constant uncertain adventure, I see, as an adult, how it made me a better and stronger person.

Look at people with a small zone of comfort, people who are so incredibly attached to their physical manifestations of "success" and they are some of the most unhappy people ever. Living the nomadic existence more or less teaches people to value their relationships with people over things or those things that 9-5 drudgery provides.

Besides, children are resilient. I would never trade the memory of the time with my parents & family -- moving, camping, learning and adapting all over the freaking place -- for memories of what most adults would call a "stable" childhood.

As I've commented on here before, I and a lot of the people I know seem to have gone through childhoods where the parents believed this trade-off was really binary. I got it less than many people, but I still would have liked to see my parents, and their parents as well, not suffer through existence so much because of "needs" they thought we had. The only reason they thought we had those needs is because all the other parents in the neighborhood reinforced that children have those needs by catering to their own children thusly. It almost seems like the same force that drives parents to obsess about the safety of their children. They don't want to seem like the parent who cares the least.

The problem is that the goalposts you allude to in a higher-level comment are defined by this mechanism. I agree that goals will change -- any life change will result in resetting of goals --, but I think we absolutely suck as a collective on evaluating where those goals ought to reset to, and just let blind oneupmanship against other families guide us to local maxima.

- I should clarify that we didn't live anywhere near poverty. My father wasn't putting us in a bad situation to keep the job he loved. We were just significantly lower than the people around us, and as a result he didn't have many friends among his peers (by that I mean parents in our suburb) because they looked down on him. So that situation may not have any real bearing on this discussion since he didn't seem to be facing a hard decision: give up the respect of a bunch of career pushing suits or hate his life and his job, hmmm.

You have no duty to provide "stuff" and failing to give them stuff is not deprivation.

If you can't buy your kids lots of fancy things, maybe you can teach them to be entrepreneurial early on.

If you can't buy them expensive education, maybe they can try to win grants. Besides, if you are struggling now, you probably can not buy them good education anyway.

Follow your heart! I did that and led me to a low maintenance but very happy life. The less you have to more you gain.

Happiness == Success

I was a military brat. I went to 10 public schools in 18 years, mostly in poorer areas. By all accounts my education should have been terrible. It wasn't.

I got a lot out of my education, not because I went to the 'best' schools.. but rather because my parents instilled in me a love of learning. They laid down an expectation (not a demand) that I learn and continue learning throughout my life.

I didn't go to an Ivy league school (we simply didn't have the means). I went to a division II school in central Arkansas. None of that matters. I still learn something new everyday. I've parlayed my love of learning into an entrepreneurs life. I'm on my third startup. One has been wildly successful, one not so much. The third is going well so far:)

More importantly I have a great wife and live in a place I absolutely love (Denver). We have a nice house, but not too nice. We have great friends. Really, at 30 years old I just couldn't ask for more.

All of this not because I had fancy toys, private school, or even much stability growing up (moving around every year or two impedes that). Nope, I've been blessed by having parents who where adventurous and chose not to live life in a conventional way. They freed me to walk my unconventional path to happiness. That's a far greater gift than money can buy.

To the OP: Don't be afraid to step out and find your happiness. Your kids need a role model just as I had.

From about the time my son was three years old or so, my reply to "can I have $shiny_thing_on_TV?" was "don't ask for stuff you see on TV, it's mostly junk." That simple!

Now he's nine and asks for stuff on TV, but he understands that there's a very high probability he won't get it, so he knows better than to whine about it. Instead it's "maybe I can get it for my birthday" or "how long do I have to save so I can buy that with my own money?" Either of which I think is infinitely better than the kids who nag their parents until they get what they want!

(Ironically, I think channels like Cartoon Network I would recommend more for adults, both for the creativity of some of the shows and for the nostalgia of the old stuff. But I don't think the irony of many of these cartoons translates for many children, who are still naive enough to take them at face value.)

I don't care for new TV shows, but I sometimes wonder about cutting kids off from a source of pop-culture for their generation. It may not seem like it to us, but for them, the crap that's on now will be the stuff they watch on Cartoon Network in 20 years and laugh about or turn into surreal parodies.

Maybe moderation is a better solution?

BTW, like someone else said, I hate to have thousands of episodes of tv trash like Gilligan's Island in my head.

We don't have video games either, and I'm starting to think that's where I would "compromise" first (although I would have to convince my wife). In general, though, I think it's easier to take a pretty hard line to start and then find points to compromise on. We have Netflix, too, so there's lots to choose from as far as things to watch. But we know some of their peers can turn the TV on at any time and watch whatever they want, which I find to be pretty scary. That whole "turn the TV to a 'kids' channel and mindlessly absorb whatever comes on for hours everyday" is the scenario we really want to avoid.

Or it might turn out that there is some third option between continuing the current drudgery or pushing everything into the pile on some new venture. Again, there's little to be lost and much to gain from starting the conversation.

Seriously, take noonespecials hint and talk to your s.o., it will make a world of a difference to know that you're in it together.

And for the lost sheep, it sound like you really need a different job. I have a job with a long commute, but a great boss and that's hard enough. In my opinion, it's just not worth the stress.

I'm not sure how to answer the money part. At least you've recognized there is a problem and can now try to address it through savings, lifestyle change, etc.

When I wanted to quit my job and start working as a freelancer my s.o. was very supportive, a friend who has been freelancing for a long time provided insight on what I was getting myself into, and another friend who I worked with a lot was kind enough to point out my related weaknesses.

He told me something interesting, something that has stuck with me. He said that "...a good man will always be a good soldier; but a good soldier will not always be a good man. It's more important to be a good man." Or some shit like that. But it helped me.

Focus on that: Being a good man. Be a good father. Be a good husband. And don't get all caught up in some kind of false choice: The idea that you can only a) continue commuting for hours to work for a dickwad boss on a project you hate or b) stop working. There's probably some middle ground you can find, that might allow you a shorter commute, a boss who's less of a dick, a project that's slightly more satisfying.

Just don't be that guy who quits his job to work on his novel and then, six months later, is waking up at noon with saliva-Cheeto stains on his laptop, his underwear, and his remote control. Trust me man, I've been there, too.

Namaste,

Fred

Excellent advice. I think often times when we feel 'stuck' there are a world of other options we are not considering. If things are truely that bad on all perspectives, it shouldn't be hard to find a partial solution that improves them.

It's also a form of creativity and problem solving to open up other options for yourself. The world is more pregnant with possibility than we imagine until we've seen other people get themselves out of a mess by opening up options.

So the advice I can give is - find another programming job, which is closer to your home, and chances are your boss will be better. That can solve the problem with money, boss, and time for your child.

Regarding the more existential questions (meaning of life, etc.), I personally would not looking for the solution in the work I do.

Never forget that someone else's ambition is what allows for your relative stability.

Totally agree. But these values are so often a societal default, and so often never thought about except in how to extrapolate with those values as a basis.

Making a point like this can result in one of three things: the reader already though of this, and acknowledges it as such; the reader discards the insight as irrelevant or wrong; or, the reader feels a sense of cognitive dissonance, and starts to analyze the statement in the context of their core values.

The statement itself was just matter of fact. I didn't pick up any sense of judgment; more of making the point that A implies B, and that the original commenter should make sure he's comfortable accepting both premises. I don't see anything wrong with making sure that people are consciously aware of what their values imply.

This is a good way of looking at it - it's a form of self-delusion, if you ask me.

I'm not trying to be cruel, I'm reminding him that his (salaried) labor is making someone else wealthy. For those of us who have well developed senses of self-esteem, this is a wholly unacceptable situation.

There is no "good" or "bad" in recognizing your particular comfort zone. The only issue arises in you continuing to do something outside of your comfort zone, and that's as true as being an entrepreneur when you hate it as much as it is being an employee when you hate it.

If you should happen to feel, "I am utterly unhappy with my life" at any time, it might not hurt to at least darken the door of a trusted mental health professional just to be sure that there is not a clinical element to your feelings of malaise as well as circumstantial ones.

Even mild mental illness still carries a certain stigma so its hard to do sometimes, but we've lost one too many of the good ones, even in this community, not to take it seriously.

Gender and race discrimination have mostly been tackled, sexual orientation is on it's way. Mental disorders will be the next milestone IMO.

All the best to the lost sheep :-)

It's not just a matter of pride; for my sake is a certain amount of skepticism in what all has been pathologized. Regardless of what motives, or who's, you might believe is a result of this, we seem hasty in pinning on conditions and prescribing meds. That behaviors may be off the norm seems a priori evidence that they are bad behaviors, and need to be corrected, and our triggering deviation from the norm seems to be narrowing. But then, this could be because I tend to become friends with all of the outliers, and I have a sampling bias. :-)

I have thought about chatting with one or two mental professionals myself, but more out of a sense of curiosity than a sense that I need to be chemically renormalized. I'd like to first figure out what I might potentially be diagnosed with, and then begin the much more interesting discussion of where it becomes a problem, and whether it matters as more than just a label I could potentially exploit for preferential treatment.

But before I darken the mood too much - I can only second the advice of seeing a therapist. And if you don't feel you can connect with the one you see, switch. No point in toughing it out.

I've done it, and let me just say that both the opportunity to speak openly about issues and the proper treatment have improved my life tremendously.

I think if you're not actually going crazy, I'd advise against this. Talk to any kindly outsider. If you do actual controlled studies - scientific evidence, can you dig it? - they show that if you're not organically crazy, talking to professors works just as well as talking to mental health professionals. And professors won't take all your money or get you committed or subject you to the psychoanalytic flavor-of-the-week etcetera.

Yes, there are good mental health professionals, but just going out at random is really risky.

I can only tell you what I am doing. I told my wife how I feel. I told my boss how I feel. Strangely, my boss had a lot more power to improve my situation than my wife did. Admittedly, he is a good boss. I'm working from home about one day a week, and I've been able to control more of my projects.

But my wife is 20 weeks pregnant with unexpected twins. So I cannot change anything right now. I cannot pack up and take risks. I need to maintain my job no matter how bad it gets, as I need the insurance and the steady paycheck.

Internal acceptance of what you can and cannot control goes a long way to resolving inner turmoil. I spent a few months dealing with the fact that I must lower my expectations of my life. I'm not pleased about it, but that is the way it rolls.

Ultimately, the act that fixed it for me was when I sat down and laid out my priorities in life. My #1 priority is taking care of my family. I wish I saw my kids more, too. But they have a stable home. Seeing them more, but being without a home isn't a good compromise. So I accept the fact that I am stuck at a job that I don't like, working on technology that I do not like, and getting farther behind the curve on new technologies, so it is even harder to move elsewhere. But -- my kids are cared for. My wife is cared for.

I just had to accept that my self-identity needs to change into "Dad", not "technology expert who happens to have a family".

It is hard, yes, believe me, I know.

And if you can change it, I'll cheer you on.

But if you cannot change it, for your own sanity, embrace it.

You're a brave guy, that takes guts.

  --  Saint Francis of Assisi

Do not stop working. That might be the answer for single, childless people, but not to put too fine a point on it, you have greater responsibilities than your own happiness.

Further, you have to consider the possibility that the problem isn't your job, it's you. The many suggestions to see a therapist are good ones.

Make small changes toward what you think might help, that do not disrupt your family too badly. Get a 40 hour a week job closer to home. Spend more time with your family and friends. Try on some hobbies. Find activities that you find rewarding that aren't tied to your job.

Finally, it's common for people our age to have a mortgage and not a lot of savings. I'm in the same situation, as I suspect the majority of people in their early 40's are.

Good luck.

Depression can be a physical malady, rather than merely an emotional response to your current situation, and if it is, then altering your lifestyle might not help; physical ailments, including long-term depression, generally need medical attention. One way to possibly self-diagnose whether this is the case is if you feel trapped and wanting to escape to anywhere else, or if you feel hopeful and excited (even if a little uncertain) by the thought of doing something else. Surprisingly, there hasn't been much talk of it in this thread, but this feeling is common enough to have a name: Mid-life crisis. You're not abnormal for looking around when you reach your late 30s or 40s and wondering, "WTF? How did I get here?" But, you're lucky enough to be introspective enough to consider the causes and solutions with care, and respond to them intellectually rather than childishly by buying a sports car, cheating on your wife with a teenager, damaging your family with irresponsible behavior, and trying to be cool like you were when you were 20.

Anyway, I'm not saying the advice in all the other comments aren't right, and that you shouldn't change jobs, start a company, give the finger to the establishment, etc. I am saying that you should do so only if that is actually what you want, and not merely jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire. I am of the opinion that entrepreneurship and being ones own boss is a more fulfilling lifestyle than most others I can think of, but I'm pretty sure it's not for everyone. The risk and stress is much higher, the discomfort level in the early days (which sometimes take years; I'm three years into my current company, and it's just now starting to make me a decent living; it took five with my previous company) can be too much for folks accustomed to being able to buy new things (like clothes, TVs, entertainment, cars, etc.) with regularity. But, if it's what you've always known you wanted to do, but never did, then maybe this little bout of feeling lost will be enough to send you in the right direction.

It's not for everybody, it almost certainly will mess up your chances with 'striking it rich' because inevitably you'll be starting from 0 up again. I've been very lucky in always having the backing of those around me whenever I do this.

I cannot find power in myself to break those chains. How do you trick yourself to get rid of money-addictive soul sucking job?

But here is my take on it: I'd rather be poor and happy than secure any day, and I live my life accordingly.

I take risks, sometimes I win, sometimes I lose, on balance it seems to come out roughly even.

Case in point, a bunch of people in Canada wanted to start their own business, a local gas station was teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, I put together a package to be able to buy it, invested a whole bunch of money and turned it over to them.

It failed spectacularly, which is a real pity.

But the flip side of that is that I met some guy in a waiting room somewhere, invested some money in to his business, strong armed some other investors into ponying up and he's well into 6 figure territory now and will probably strike it big.

Security is illusionary, who would you rather be dependent on, your boss or your own wits ?

How about all those people that got laid off in the last year, how secure were they before ?

Right now I'm (almost) 45 and I am not scared of doing this, I trust in my own ability to survive and make myself useful to others, directly or indirectly and I expect to pluck the rewards from that.

The satisfaction from doing this under my own power is so much larger than what a paycheck could get me. Any size paycheck.

There is no net though, maybe one day I'll mess up once too many and land on my butt.

But even that doesn't scare me, maybe it should :)

Fortunately I have been lucky to have ppl back me up too when I turned life upside down. I am much younger but would probably lead a life just like you.

I don't think you know just how right you are...I'm planning to quit my job at the end of the month do some 'hustling.' I trust my ability to innovate WAY more than my boss' ability to make money. I've always had an entrepreneurial spirit.

I actually got up at 4 this morning to plan how I am gonna make some money over the Christmas. Sure they can fail, but they can also succeed. It's 50-50

People always say "Well, it could be worse." I say it could be better.

Carpe Diem!

I think the root value here, however, is that of intentionally pushing yourself outside your comfort zone. This can be done every 5 years, or every day, or somewhere in between. It's something I swear by because it keeps my mind fresh and stimulated. Taking a class unrelated to anything I've ever done is a nice example of something that can be done every few months or so.

Or, since Wear Sunscreen was mentioned here....Do something every day that scares you.

Change your line of business (I went in to alternative energy for 5 years)

Learn a new trade (for me: metal working, Cad-Cam)

Right now I'm again going through such a phase of change, I have absolutely no idea what it is leading to but so far it has been extremely interesting.

Life is all about the journey.

Security in life is worth absolutely nothing, as soon as you feel that you are becoming 'secure' that's an excellent opportunity to kill that before it becomes a habit.

The flip side of that is of course that the freedom to do as you please (within the limits of the socially acceptable) is just as addictive or even more so.

I am sorry I didn't quote the name of the author at the first place. I couldn't recall where I had read it. I searched around for a while and couldn't find it so I just posted without the author's name but in quotes to show it was from someone other than me.

Thank you for finding the book title, it helped me find the the site where I originally read this.

I disagree about security though. All you need to have an adventure that entirely rocks your world is some peace and quiet.

- Are you just a freakish genius,

- or do you not consider the feeling of mastery to be essential to happiness,

- or do you continue to build up existing skills AND turn your life upside-down at the same time?

I'd love to be able to turn my life upside-down, but I'm addicted to getting better at certain things and would hate to stagnate..

It's hard work (make that very hard work) but as you get more basic knowledge it becomes easier to integrate stuff that you are learning.

The only thing I would say I've ever truely 'mastered' is C programming, other than that I have lots of things where I can get by and learn from people that really know their stuff.

It is inevitable that it works like a spotlight, you turn it on an area of interest and go all out to learn what you can about it, then as your return-on-investment in time drops off you can decide to continue or quit, usually I quit when I get to the level where I'd have to go 'full-time' in order to advance.

There is just too much interesting stuff to do, no way to be an expert in more than one field.

One of the most interesting things that I've found is that as you do this you keep running in to domain specific knowledge that can fairly easily be translated in to other domains that haven't picked up on that trick yet.

This is a fairly good way to make a living.

As for doing the turning things upside-down and learning at the same time, usually it coincides, but that is not a necessity.

For me it is just a way to keep living fun.

Ok, that cracked me up.

+1, "talk to your wife". +1, "talk to other people as well, like a therapist, a priest, or a career counselor".

Don't try to solve all your problems at once. "I hate my current job", "I have no savings", "I barely see my children", "I think I want to work for myself", and "I want to create something new/challenging/interesting" are all separate problems, and the odds are really, really poor that you can solve them all at once, particularly when you add in the too-vital-to-mention underlying goals, like "my kids deserve to eat".

I'm not you, but if I were I'd work on the "get a different job", "see more of my kids", and/or "get some savings" problems first. Work on your expenses. Life sure does look better when your expenses are smaller than your income.

Reading between the lines of your post, it sounds like you may already know this far too well, but for the benefit of others: "I don't own my home" is not a sign of dishonor. Don't be in a rush to own a home. Most of the people who bought homes four or five years ago are now underwater; many have been foreclosed on. That process is not over -- many mortgages will reset their rates over the next few years, creating more foreclosures and prolonging the glut of inventory. Thus, though the market is apparently better than it was last year, and we may even be approaching the point in some markets where the rent-vs-mortgage calculation is approaching parity again, homes are still rather illiquid, which is another way of saying "your home may make it difficult to change jobs or reduce expenses, because they can be hard to sell when you want to sell them, especially if you can't afford to take a loss."

1. It is okay to feel rotten, isolated

Feeling glum and lost is part of life, and you should not add to it by presuming that you are some freak because you are experiencing these things. Life sucks sometimes and you may feel low when everything on paper says you should be happy.

2. Trusted Friends

No one is laughing at you, or looking down at how successful they have been compared to you. Seek counsel from trusted friends, and if they urge you to seek professional help... please do so.

3. Definition of Success

In your case you have identified some bad elements in your life, but on paper you have a Wife and Kids. You love your kids and wish to spend more time with them. At 40 you have all life's laughter and tears and wrinkles as acheivements... hardly "nothing to show"

4. Advice on the Interwebs

HN is a caring community, but only relatively. Please ignore offhand and illconsidered remarks from other commentators. The advice can be overly sacharin and not yield the concrete improvement you seek. Or they can be overtly callous, ignoring your concerns.

Hopefully you will also seek advice from Trusted Friends

5. What to do now?

Do a family budget. Work out what you can get by on, and what you could earn in more rewarding, closer employment. Can you quit your job and move?

Consider buying a franchise, or start your own business like a Cafe or Restaurant. It's bloody hard work, as my Wife owns a successful Cafe. But it is rewarding.

There are lots of options, and GOOD LUCK!!

All of us at one point or another feel lost and connecting with your friends and family helps a lot but its most important to connect back to yourself.

Best of luck.

... his book, Full Catastrophe Living is a good read as well.

6 weeks ago I walked into the bosses office and resigned. He tried all manner of stuff to get me to stay. I wouldn't do it. Previous to me walking in there I had been thinking about in my own head. "If they would pay me BIG $$ would I stay on for this latest disaster project, and get my bonus for this year?" The answer was NOPE. So by the time I walked in there the ship was already sunk and my boss couldn't save it. I had no job to go to. Interestingly my boss gave up after a few minutes and told me good luck, and he felt his job sucked to and shook my hand. My co workers also congratulated me and I left on good terms.

6 weeks later. I have some savings, my house is nearly paid for and my payment is small anyway. I can make it for a while without doing anything different to our monthly budget. I will need to figure out health insurance soon. That is the biggest thing on my plate. Something else happened. I slowly realized that the pain at work had crept up on me a little at time for about 2 or 3 years. I was like the frog in the slowly heated pot, I was dying there. I feel 100% better now. I can't even tell you how much. I have all sorts of ideas that I might try and do. In the spring I will find some sort of job just to buy the groceries. You couldn't drag me back to where I was with a team of horses and I was making north of 100k base, plus bonuses, and nobody was really telling me what to do. Yet still it was not worth it.

The time with ones kids and family are worth way more than the money. Being able to sit and decide what I might do is exciting. I mean I feel the best I have felt in some years, and I am unemployed with no prospects. I am a happy man.

Don't do anything crazy just because of me, but I am you 6 weeks later...

Anyway, you probably have different dreams, but forget about the house and money. I know sometimes it can sting to see others who seemingly earned more in the same time, but in the end, it was never what I personally cared for. I would say having published books is something to show for, for example.

Also remember the law of sunk costs...

Besides of all the practical advice, there is also a philosophical aspect, isn't there? The meaning of life... It helps to think about death, and what will really matter in the end. Granted, children might be happier about inheriting a large lump of money than having a cool dad with interesting war stories. I don't know - but I personally find the thought very depressing that building a house and raising a family should be the completion of life. Nothing against raising a family, I just don't know yet what to tell my kids: I don't want to tell them "build a house and raise family and your life will be fulfilled" (infinite circle).

What a strange comment. First, the meaning of life (or the closest that life has to an intrinsic meaning coded in genes) is exactly the infinite circle that you point out. Just ask a fish or a tree :-) Second, if you go searching for some kind of meaning in life, it had better be temporally infinite! So why would you complain about that?

It is irrelevant that our genes/life "wants" to reproduce. We have to make up our mind as to what we want to do with life. Actually our genes/life does not want anything. It just so happens that historically reproducing was a good strategy for genes to survive (might not always be true in the future, or for all kinds of genes).

Or actually we don't have to - nothing really matters. But to me it matters. Other people are probably different, in fact I know several whose lifelong dream is exactly to own a nice house and a family. But for me to simply reproduce biologically is not enough.

Edit: of course my kids will still have to find their own answers. I just don't want them to be burdened by having to be my fulfilment in life.

You can do this.

Find a job that lets you work near home. Your kids grow up fast, and frankly, kids are like computers. Garbage in,garbage out. They are your long term project that has the potential to reap some serious happiness and satisfaction. I love my work, but it was easy to loose site of the big picture.

Start exercising, if you're not already. Exercise will help you manage depression and give you new confidence.

Did I mention you can do this? :)

Hang in there brother, you might be in a tunnel now, but it will end.

Just post under your real account that you're looking for contract work, line some stuff up at a high per hour rate, save for a few months, and then quit your job.

The real question is if you think your experience is really that good- this is anonymous so there's nothing for anyone to go off of. If you have a great reputation here then this road has already been paved for you, comment by comment.

There's nothing wrong with cashing in on reputation :)

I would just like to give you an encouraging word: If you have written books and have a high karma score here, then you are a giving person, and you should feel good about yourself. No amount of money can buy happiness although it can sometimes buy less stress.

I think nearly everyone here will support your desire to create something where you can work from home; I have that dream too, however, with a mortgage and family, your options seem limited. If you are a good programmer, you should be able to find a new job quickly, even in a bad economy. Don't settle for a crappy boss.

I have a friend that started a software company in college and is doing quite well. He wants to start a self-sustaining community where families like yours can come live (cheaply) and work for a year or two, while they disengage from the grind, and start a new independent career. I wish he had it going already.

My only real piece of advice is: I think our biggest burden in life is to be nice to others. Try to smile and talk to everyone around you, love then, give to them, and to your family, and this selflessness will make you happy.

However you mention you don't have lots of savings but you want to stop working and work on something for yourself. You might want to research moving out of the country for a year or two with your family. I've lived in a few countries where $500 a month goes a long way for one person. You might be able to rent out your home as well to get income.

Moving to a place with a low cost of living would give you time to build a business or work on an idea that interests you. When I was living in China, I started doing freelance work through oDesk. I only needed to work 30 hours per MONTH to cover my expenses because I was earning US dollars.

On the other hand, if you are 40 and haven't saved much, you might want to look into budgetting and personal finance first to control your expenses. While the cost of living is cheaper, if you want to live the American lifestyle overseas abroad you will definitely pay for it.

If it's a long commute, one option might be moving closer to work so you have more family time and more time to think about what to do next with your life. Alternately, try to find a means to use that commute time constructively in a way that will help move you out of the current miserable situation and into something better -- books on tape, hanging on the cell phone with the wife, or even just using that time to think on your priorities and try to dream up some solution.

This is HN, so I'm pretty sure everyone will advocate this option.

Whenever I've found myself in a similar position of unhappiness and frustration, I just followed my gut instinct, and it worked out great. It sounds like you have a lot to contribute and the rat race you've ended up in is stifling that.

Good luck with it. :-)

First decide who you would be, and then do what you must do.

Men shut up tame lions in a cage, and bring them up, and feed them, and some take them around with them. And yet who will call such a lion free? Is it not true that the more softly the lion lives the more slavishly he lives? And what lion, were he to get sense and reason, would care to be one of these lions? Why, yes, and the birds yonder, when they are caught and brought up in cages, what do they suffer in their efforts to escape? And some of them starve to death rather than endure such a life, while even such as live, barely do so, and suffer and pine away, and if ever they find any opening, make their escape. Such is their desire for physical freedom, and a life of independence and freedom from restraint. And what is wrong with you here in your cage? "What a question! My nature is to fly where I please, to live in the open air, to sing when I please. You rob me of all this, and then ask, 'What is wrong with you?'"

More: http://www.archive.org/details/epictetusthedisc010837mbp http://www.archive.org/details/epictetusthedisc010384mbp

It sounds like your first step though is to find a better job - better boss/more interesting work/closer to home/ less travel etc.) That will give you more time away from your family. This alone can have a massive impact.

I commuted 4 hours a day to a client's site almost every working day for close to 2 years on a single project and at the end of that - when I returned back to the office - 30 minutes from my house - I felt like I was on holiday! Even with a new project underway the de-stress was enormous.

You may have to take a financial drop in take home pay but it will give you space for you to evaluate your longer term options more calmly, under less mental stress and away from a work relationship that is clearly not pleasant for you.

I think it's pretty common for these feelings but at least you've recognised them, some people aren't even able to do that.

I think it's also pretty common during your 40s to feel like this - I did and still do - and I know a LOT of people in a similar position.

I think noonespecial's advice about sharing these feelings with your family is good and also about seeking mental health advice.

Sometimes when your stuck in a job that is really wrong it poisons your mind and absolutely everything looks bleak. Try and think back to the times you were having fun and either change your current job to fit that ideal (believe me, you may have more power to do that than you think), find a new, better job (sounds like you have some good job hunting ammo in your books, code and HN karma) or start up on your own.

If you do the latter, just be aware that being your own boss isn't for everyone - if you read HN too much it may seem that it's the only thing worth doing but that's very far from the truth. If what fulfils you is hard-core coding then spending a large percentage of your time looking for clients/jobs, doing accounts, sales & marketing etc. etc. etc. etc. may just make your situation worse.

However if you've got a family that depends on you that's not only nearly impossible but also a very scary proposition.

I would suggest using your real name here and try to link up with an entrepreneur or an investor who could maybe help fund your dream to create something new.

I stayed among some of the the most poor people, I stayed with most astute people. I slept on railway platforms, traveled in bull carts, I stayed with tribal and I visited different temples.

I realized that there is nothing in this world that can make me feel complete except my inner desire. In this journey i was only with myself and hence discovered what that inner desire was. The journey also gave me strength to go with it.

For example my dad had lots of debt and it was a burden to the whole family. You know what, instead of him working himself to pieces and me watching, perhaps I would have preferred to move to Africa or whatever. I think there are almost always possible ways out, you just have to allow yourself to see them.

My personal experience is the converse: that I start by being unhappy, then I find reasons for them. I suspect it's happening to you too. You think you'd be happier if you saw your children more, but reality can be rather different and surprising. Until you work out your unhappiness, better not to be surrounded by people you genuinely care about. Unhappiness can be rather contagious.

I'm over in Australia, and I can't tell you much about finances, but you need to work out how to own your own home. Once you are secure that way, you'd be able to go out on your own.

You are probably the best judge of whether the time is right to strike out on your own, and whether you have the necessary skills.

In the meantime, here is a mind hack: if you are being hit by depression - make sure you smile at yourself in the mirror several minutes a day (See the guy who wrote the Shangri-La diet). Also, exercise those facial muscles and wear a smile. It will do your mental state a whole lot of good. I wish I could point you to the study. There were some police people who were practising snarls and other microexpressions in order to learn to predict aggression - but they noticed that simply practising those facial expressions made them aggressive. So the converse has to be true too. Smile. For your own wellbeing.

We don't care when, where or how people work, as long as they kick ass. We have employees that have families, and they usually work while the kids are at school and then late at night. I'm sure there's a lot more like us around.

who exactly is "we"? (might help the original poster if people could reccomend specific companies with enlightened policies wrt working from wherever and so on)

i walked away from a $100k-a-year job a little over a year ago -- and i live in tennessee, where $100k goes a lot farther than in the bay area -- because it was killing me. i've tried various things since then, none of them very lucrative.

i am now once again dependent on the generosity of my relatives to get along. but i don't regret quitting. i always manage to come back from the dead somehow, usually into an even better situation than the one i left.

Now I'd like to have a following point, assuming you live in the US: You are very lucky as your country makes it very easy to grow your own business. I live in the EU in some post-communist country and believe me, there's lot of bureaucracy you have to deal with, which distracts you from achieving your goals. I know from some friends in the US that there such things are really near-to-zero when compared to ours. It's not about my political views or the economic situation at the moment, it's about how law is constructed in a particular country (and law changes quite slowly).

So, we do the biz on our own. Surely you can do it as well living in a system which makes it easier.

Good luck! :-)

The unemployment rate for people like you (at least in the US) is ~4%. There are tons of opportunities out there, go find yourself a better one!

If you really try you can probably find 3-4 job opportunities in 1-2 months. I imagine you have some vacation time; take some to hang out and enjoy life w/ your family, and some more to interview/find jobs.

As per the other posts, don't be too dismayed. With a little bit of effort you can find a job at a company that you can get behind and in a matter of months your entire view will change. Better work, better boss, less stress.

It's not an ideal lifestyle, and I'm sure you're aware of the drawbacks (insurance, security, travel, uncertainty etc.), but it offers considerably more freedom than a 9-5 (you can always turn down projects if you want more time to yourself, though I'd recommend that instead of saying "No" straight away you do so implicitly by pumping up your rate to the point where you'd be thrilled to take the job if they agreed) without a lot of the risk involved in a startup, and it could allow for a much easier transition towards starting your own business if you decide to take the plunge.

You'll find that Real Job offers emerge on occasion from contracts that you complete, and you may even stumble upon something that's lucrative and interesting enough to take, if you're not loving the hired gun lifestyle...

Your life is like a house - you can't just pick up the whole thing and move it without destroying it. You have to tear it down and rebuild it carefully, piece by piece. So my vague, generic advice is as follows: figure out what you're passionate about. If you had 10 million dollars and didn't have to work, what would you spend your time on? If you could choose a life out of all possible lives, what would it look like? Once you've figured that out, take small steps everyday to move yourself there.

Figure out what new responsibilities you can take on, and which ones you have that you can drop. Look for a new job. Go back to school. Start a side-business. Write a novel. It sounds like you have all the tools available to do whatever you want with your life, provided you're willing to put in the nights and weekends to make it happen while still taking care of the responsibilities you already have.

We only get one life - there's no excuse for not making it as fantastic as possible. Good luck.

2. you're a family man with a job. do more of what you need to, and less of what you want to.

3. you need to gracefully step off the corporate boat, and not break your fucking neck in the process. only then in the opportune time, can you do much more of what you want to. you have it backwards.

4. disconnect all the inter-tube and its chatter, it's obvious you have time, ground yourself in something truly rewarding, not a popularity contest. do it while you're working. most importantly, involve the family to some degree.

5. don't ask for your wife's permission, it's an enormous guilt trip. ask for her advise. remember, women seek security and rightfully so.

6. don't let twits give you the impression you're somehow broken, i stopped counting how many times I had to send checks out to the "rock stars" on the net.

7. get your manager involved in design details - always give her options and tradeoffs, don't shield her from the process, you're dumbing her down. while working on your rapport with her, look for a job closer to home.

8. moving forward, don't advertise yourself as a rockstar programmer and always involve the manager in the decision process. missed deadlines are tolerable when it's a group fuckup.

Being 10 years younger than you makes it just difficult to give you an advise. See, I would expect you to give me advise based on your rich experience.

All I can do is share with you some general thoughts that come across in my mind from time to time, being at work, whether spending time coding, or writing some documents, assisting the marketing and sales guys or dreaming about my $32 Million startup.

In my opinion, your loving wife and children are a startup. being happy with them and maintaining decent family and quality life is a great success these days.

I think, by now, understanding this point, you should get up from your chair and start dancing with joy and happiness for being such lucky bustard.

If I was finding myself in such frustrating position this is what I was might be doing, finding myself a long term contract (as self employed), securing my financial state and then, after a while in the freedom, not being abused by a stupid fat ass boos, the muse would probably be back. Ideas will pop up and the way to the startup is short.

If you can do it, get some savings together, or find a plan to do so. With those, spend a nice long stretch of time, six months to a year, away from the "working world" (not necessarily "work," but you want to have plenty of freedom and a minimum of scheduling and responsibility) so that you can return to sanity and sort out whatever bothers you about your life and plan how you want your life to feel - small things, big things, relationships, work, children, etc. Having the longer timespan is important because your own perceptions change gradually, and what you think you want now turns out to be illusory later.

Regardless of what specifically happens, what you think or do, what projects you start, whether you're well on the way to a new career or you have to take your old job again, by the end of the period of freedom, you'll have a better idea of what you're passionate about in life and can refocus around that.

That said, I agree that you should tell your wife and try to work out a work-from-home situation.

I also think "totally lost" and "utterly unhappy" are exaggerations once you count your numerous blessings. :)

I think the best approach is to make a list of goals and start knocking them off one by one. Keep in mind that the economy isn't the greatest at the moment, so it might not be the best time to make huge risks (although that can work out to, just depends on your style).

Sounds to me like the following would be a good place to start with your goals:

1) Reduce or completely remove your commute time. Do this by finding a job closer to where you live, or move closer to where you work (or where you can find a new job). Or work from home even, although working from home isn't suited to all of us since you might really miss the day to day social interaction (if so, try working from various coffee shops etc.).

2) Solve the boss problem. There are a few things to try here. You can try speaking to him and letting him know how unhappy you are and that your relationship with him is impacting your happiness and that it needs to change. You never know, he might turn out to be a reasonable guy and you can figure something out together. If he values your work enough then he'll help you to make the changes required to keep you happy. Of course if that doesn't work, you can start shopping for a new job.

3) Get a hobby you're passionate about. This will reduce the impact that a crappy day at work will have on you. Obviously you still want to solve the job problem, but even if you have the perfect job there will still be days that depress you. Diversify your happiness.

4) Put together a financial plan. You've expressed unhappiness with your financial situation, so start small and put together a plan that will evolve as you learn and save more.

Give yourself some deadlines for your goals. Really focus on them to the exclusion of less important (but seemingly more immediate) tasks.

You'll be much happier within 6 months guaranteed.

given what you tell us about yourself, you could off course just go ahead and totally change your life from one day to the other and "create something new that will be challenging and interesting [...]", that you can do from home.

Sometimes though, if you don't know what "that thing" is that you wanna do, it helps to take a step back and look at the situation.

If i were in your position, i would start a list with all the things that make me unhappy. Be honest, take your time and try to dig deep. The goal here is to fully understand why you are unhappy. It is a lot easier to understand what you want to do next, once you figured out what is wrong right now. Let me give you an example. If you don't feel respected in your job, it might help to start writing a blog or start another side project that gives you the respect and the appreciation that is difficult to get in your current job.

Once you've analysed why you're unhappy you already made a huge step forward. You're now in the know and a second step from here could be to create something like a change log. What i mean is, that you could try to find a solution for the biggest things that make you unhappy. You could have a chat with your boss, check your finances to see if you could work less, have a couple of interviews to validate your options etc. Work on the change log and try to find solutions for more and more things that make you unhappy. Give yourself a realistic timeline, work against it and measure the progress. [It helps a lot if you have someone on your side to give you feedback btw].

Sometimes it also helps to make a list of all your achievements. Write down every single thing you every did. I'm pretty sure it will be an impressive list and you can use it to determine what you really want to do next.

Finally, go ahead and tell yourself that you love the long hours at work, and the commute, and your difficult boss, and the fact that you still try to figure out what to do with your life, and that you still pay off your mortgage, because this is your life, it is all there is! :)

I'm in my early 20s, and I'm just starting graduate school. I think you're exactly who I'm aiming to be in 20 years. So it makes me nervous that it's not working out for you.

Where should I turn? And what would you do?

Normally, that's what I'd ask somebody like you - someone successful, who gives to his peer group.

But since you're asking me (us), what I would do (have done), in order:

- Read the research: http://www.trendfollowing.com/whitepaper/happiness.pdf . The research says that exercise, sex, sleep, lots of time devoted to meaningful relationships, engagement in work, enjoying the moment, and regularly achieving goals are the main correlates of happiness. People overestimate the potential effects of big changes in their lives (lottery winners / paraplegics).

- Start with: Sleep, exercise & meditate. They're easy and you can do all three today. I replaced the SSRIs my health professional gave me with these habits, and feel much better than I did (indeed, research shows they're more effective than most of the medication).

- Take a week. Breathe. Tell your wife and kids that you're going away a few days to think about being happy and making them happy. Find a forest or a quiet room somewhere and just sit and think for a week, about how to be happy and make them happy. Don't watch TV or read books or write code. Just sit and breathe and think.

- Ask your family what to do. They know you better than I do. Especially your kids - kids have a way of totally ignoring the bullshit they're supposed to see, and just seeing instead. Your parents will know you too.

- Make a plan. Doesn't have to be detailed, just has to have steps, in order, that you think will mostly solve this problem if they are executed properly.

- Do the plan.

- Consider spirituality. By that I just mean how you really feel about the Big Questions, about who you are, your place in the world.

A final note: I discovered fairly early on in life that I'm fundamentally unhappy. With absolutely no good external reasons, when logically everything in my life is going great, I still tend to emotionally feel unhappy.

My default dopamine-ostat is too low, basically. This has made it very clear that, for me, happiness is a fundamentally internal thing. Your outside circumstances (within reason) have only marginal effects on happiness.

My solution is to continuously practice mentally relaxing. Releasing tension in my diaphragm, my face, neck & shoulders, breathing, and then eventually my mind - running through all the reasons why I'm basically OK. This eventually makes me smile, and feel happy. Repeating this practice regularly has made it almost a subconscious habit. For me, this did more than getting a girlfriend, being admitted to prestigious schools, or anything else.

You mean the correlates? Yes, you're right. But it probably helps the 2-sigma people too. More importantly, it's immediate, and depends on nobody else's aid or acquiescence.

Personally, I get 70% of my happiness from making a difference in the world and building great stuff

I'd be really interested to know how you figured this out. If I knew something like that about myself with as much certainty as you seem to, I think it would change everything.

I agree with your take on happiness; it is fundamentally a matter of frame of mind.

However, the inputs to one's frame of mind evaluates can have a significant effect on happiness. It depends partly on how your brain was/is wired, and a significant amount on deciding which inputs to take seriously and how to relatively weight them.

I haven't spent a full week at a strength in quiet deep uninterrupted thought, but I probably do over the course of a year or two (approximately, I don't really keep track of time when I'm thinking). Part of this thinking is looking into my frame of mind, seeing how things are wired together based on snap judgments I've made in the past, and seeing if there are places where I am weighting things wrong, or even places where I should just start discarding input entirely. I guess, in a sense, you could say I'm performing back-propagation on my mind. :-)

kids have a way of totally ignoring the bullshit they're supposed to see, and just seeing instead.

My wife is the same way, and it is absolutely wonderful. She's a great source of insight when my frequent introspection runs into a difficult, deep problem. That she does the same sort of mental self-analysis often means she and I have non-overlapping insights about things. It helps me spend less time in a state of confusion.

Really good advice overall, though. Kudos.

I know people that had radically new ideas, made them happen with a hardworking and talented team, are beloved by people that use their creations, have appeared on covers of magazines, can be said to have changed the world just a bit, and eventually became rich.

They're still not happy. Their success hasn't even made them slightly happier. At the end of the day, if your wife doesn't respect you, or you aren't there as a parent, or you can't regulate your own emotional fuckups, it doesn't matter how many zeroes are in your bank account -- you're not much better off than someone doing a more traditional middle class lifestyle.

The best you can say is that they have a bit more free time and have visited a few more places, and know a few more interesting people. But you can do that for practically no money today anyway, just drop out and backpack for six months.

I don't have any answers yet, so this is a useful thread for me too.

Maybe it's just the time of year/state of the economy/etc?

Its risky, but not doing it is ruining your life, so you know you have to do it.

It really sounds like your strong on HN because you've known this for a while, and have been considering a startup, and this is a way to explore the idea before you jump in.

You could just assume from now on that you will launch a startup, build a product and give it one hell of a shot.

It takes courage - but you have this immense anger at having wasted parts of your life working for idiots..so take that and use it to propel you forward into the new venture.

Great great post.. Id been getting so bored with all the crap on HN lately, but this made my week.

Build that thing.

Note that at the end of the movie, the people in the movie have grown up a little bit, and realized that all the stuff they did was unnecessary. They can do anything they want with their lives, because the world is full of possibility. So, sure, watch Office Space, but take away that ending message rather than an insane plan for wreaking havoc on your boss and coworkers.

Take a big breath nothing is lost better days are comming. Your curriculum shows you are capable to do things good now you'll have to find the new reason for your life to guide your doings

One thing is very important: stay clean, let the new goal arise from inside, from your heart not your mind. People like us reach imbalance in the favour of the brain now the heart is aiming for a little attention to become equal with your realist part. And then the equilibrum will bring the peace

Your in a rut - you want to do something but you are afraid - I say go do it, and jump right in! Even if your startup fails, you'll land on your feet somewhere and will be a lot happier than where you are right now.

First off, as other people have said, talk to your wife. Trusting her to be your partner and a source of strength when you need it is a tremendous compliment to her, and shows your relationship is solid.

Second, assess your situation rationally. Compile a budget of what you've actually been spending; you'll be surprised to find out how much of it is discretionary. Got a Netflix account? Cancel it and watch things you already own; better yet, play board- and card-games with the family.

Read the entries on http://sandratayler.livejournal.com/tag/frugal+living to get some tips on living on a budget. Sandra and Howard Tayler (of Schlock Mercenary fame) have done a good job of raising, IIRC, 5 kids and done it on a monthly budget that is less than many New Yorkers spend on a "special occasion" steak dinner.

Third, whatever venture you pursue, build it around a business model so that there is or will eventually be income. Then, make sure you don't slack, but don't go nuts either--treat it like a job with defined working hours but set aside specific time to be with your family. It's important that neither you nor your wife feel that you (lostsheep) are contributing to the family and not just lazing around letting her do all the work. It's also important that you don't trade one workaholic addiction for another.

Good luck, and I hope some of this helps.

- Start a new project with a simple output, meaning you can see results quickly.

- Buy a new video game, left 4 dead is great after the long commute home for me OR start a new show to watch and veg once in a while.

- Learn a new platform OR take on a hobby outside programming with your kids.

Also you might be feeling the weight of the 40 yr old programmer. Well think of it this way... programming and especially web development/game development/app development is fairly new. Really our field didn't start out until the late 70s and the web mid 90s. So programmers will get older and older, you are nowhere near the end. It was a moment in time when all developers were young. I am in my early 30's and all my web/gamedev friends are around the same age but I also work with some 40 and 50 yr old developers in gamedev.

Maybe even start something of your own on the side and slowly build it to something that can take out your dayjob.

Also, remember this, sometimes we psychologically or even biologically create drama in our lives. Teenagers go through it heavily as biologically they are changing and it does spawn some depression bouts. Same with older people who might feel it closing in, but you can be depressed and do nothing or understand it is a phase and find a way through.

Nobody can answer that question but you. Asking HN is not going to amount to anything.

EDIT: Your question seems to boil down to "I'm lost!" to which the appropriate reply is "Where are you going?"

1) Exercise 30 minutes 3 times per week.

2) Spend at least 1 hour per day playing and interacting with each child, individually, without distractions.

3) Work on startup ideas at least 10 hours per week.

4) Spend at least 3 hours per week participating in your favorite hobby.

5) Only say fuck 5 times per day. ;)

6) Meet one new person each week.

7) Don't tell a single lie for one day each week.

etc...

You get the idea. The key is to force yourself to meet your goals, learn which ones are really important to your happiness and then focus on those. Obviously you can't go nuts and try to do everything all at once, but just making small changes and trying to accomplish something every day can make a difference.

For more practical advice, eliminate the things in your life that cause you pain/stress with extreme prejudice. You have to be really honest with yourself and willing to make tough decisions, but this was the thing that has helped me the most. For me, these things were mostly people.

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/a2485/iama_top_coder_a...

Why? Because there aren't just we and our users. There are customers, investors, and a lot of other people that are between our work and our users. This "third parties" manage to make us working for 80% on pointless stuff, write emails with time lines, and so on.

Because of this I'm changing my two companies in the next years, we are moving into web and mobile development without investors nor customers nor partnerships, just users. Even if this will mean to get into financial troubles it's worth it.

If you are not happy with your work and you think in some way you'll continue to survive if you leave it, LEAVE IT NOW.

Long story short; make some space for you, research, think, reflect, reinvent. I am about half way to a new place optimistically speaking.

"What Color is Your Parachute" is a great career-change guide; in particular, on evaluating skills based on what you enjoy. It's enjoyment both in the doing and the having done. i.e. happy in the process of it, and proud of/satisfied with the outcome. Not suffering for a great outcome; nor blissing away for nothing - instead, bliss for a great outcome. I belabour the point because it can be elusive to achievement focussed types like myself.

This exercise puts me back in contact with what is actually fulfilling and meaningful to me. Without this information, it's hard for me to carve out a job that I like, even if I'm the one creating a job for myself (which I am).

Like the old guy said, "know thyself". Good advice for the lost.

The main difference is that I've tried a couple things to change course, and have met with some failures already. This has been discouraging, and I think I need to step back and re-assess some more. Some of the discouragement I feel is due to some misplaced priorities, I'm starting to realize. I should value time with my family, health, and just appreciating what life has to offer more than some outward notions of "success." I'm not the best in the world at what I do to make money, and I'm definitely better than some other people, and that's OK. But it is not the only important part of who I am. My wife has been trying to point this out to me, and it is slowly starting to sink in.

Needing to have something to show is letting an external power guide you. Needing to owna house and having savings is the same. You're effectively expecting something of yourself that you think other people expect of you in order to consider you good.

Forget that. You are already good.

Don't think in terms of what you should do, what you can't do, what you must you, what you ought not to do, and open a fresh viewpoint about simply what you want.

Any issue it is, it comes down to that you either want it or you don't want it.

Even if your family asked you do drag on and suffer because of security, it would eventually be your own choice based on whether you want to do that crap or not. Nobody can't force you.

That's all. No should, no can, no must, and other externalities but cherish your internal power instead and decide what you want.

Sounds like you're more experienced than me, but FWIW, in your place, I would start by looking for another job, closer to home.

Five years ago, I got imported into the Valley from a distant land, and I jumped at the chance because I thought I'd be doing something significant. As of today, nothing like that has ever materialized at the workplace. I'm not totally embarrassed about the things I've worked on, but I'm not really proud either.

Instead I found real satisfaction in side projects and in things which were utterly terrifying for me (building physical objects, also leading a project doing same). It did teach me something about myself and set me on a modified path. But it's still a huge struggle.

I have no formula, but I have a partial method.

Try to get yourself in a state where you can listen to the little voices in your head which want to do certain things. No matter how impractical. Your frustration is, in part, being caused by your automatic rejection of these ideas before they even become fully conscious. Use long showers, Bach, favorite ingestibles, whatever it takes. This might take years if you do it on your own; maybe someone else can help with this process. Guided meditation or something.

Wait for the ideas and visions to present themselves.

Consider, without passion, the reasons why you could never, ever do those things.

Then figure out the thing you're most terrified of and try to do that. It can be something limited in scope, but you have to hit the essential problem head on.

For me it worked like this. I had always defined myself as a geek who could not lead or inspire others. I'm not charismatic at all, quite the opposite. So I naturally shelved any plans which I couldn't do on my own. But I found other ways to lead a project. It turns out that at least some people are willing to get on board with a good idea, as long as you're executing well, even if you aren't Brad Pitt.

That was my mental block, fear of social inadequacy. What's yours?

If I was you I would do the following : - Take a short vacation. A change will help you think fresh. No matter what you decide to do with your life, take a vacation first.

- Quit your job. You certainly don't like the way things are, probably tired of being taken advantage of. Show your company the finger and see how things start falling in line. You will be surprised to see how they propose things getting better at your company. You may then decide to stay back.

You may also choose to go into Freelance/Consulting mode, but with a family to support that may be a bit hard.

You have infinite number of options and many of them can be better in terms of lifestyle. Don't limit yourself to anything that is artificially imposed on you. Such as society rules, industry rules, etc. There are other societies, other locations, other industries, other people on this planet. You don't have to take anything for granted. Think about that. Take it easy for now. Don't take immediate action. Try to be wise. Slowly come up with a plan.

Start research and planning for your own business when you are at home. Sure, this is supposed to be "family time" but you'll still be near them and at the least, be building the exploratory building blocks for a potential business that, if successful, could give you a whole lot more time w/ your family than you can ever get with your present job.

You should set an income goal (how much you need per month to take care of your family comfortably) and then try and plan a business that can help you reach that goal quickly and consistently.

My guess is you already have a lot of skills you can bank on to start a number of profitable businesses. You only need one.

Every once in a while I think about it...

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For me happiness comes from two things: making interesting stuff, and intense social interaction. If you're in your 40s and married, you probably don't get enough of the latter either, correct?

I felt the same way two years ago, so I'm starting a company.

It's called The Fireworks Project, and it is a member owned and member managed corporation. We're formed under the Vermont Project (http://lawlab.org/digital-institutions/vermont-project/) as a digital corporation.

I work from home, I'm married, I'm 31 years old, I have a 6 month old son, and I'm really excited about what The Fireworks Project is building.

Check it out (http://www.fireworksproject.com)

This does not seem to be an unusual position, a lot of people are in the exact same boat.

The simple and somewhat contrite answer is, stick it out while looking for a better opportunity. The better opportunity could be working for yourself or for a great boss, it doesn't matter. The key point I'm trying to make is that you're not unusual and it's very common to be in exactly your situation.

Try going to http://www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu/Default.aspx and taking the VIA Strengths Survey.

Positive Psychologists have found that focusing on your top strengths better promotes happiness. This is kind of an obvious finding, but it is good to know what those character strengths are.

I have a friend who is undergoing a job change that has caused him to question which direction to go, and taking this test helped add some perspective.

BTW great feedback HN peeps

http://www.amazon.ca/Money-Gravy-John-Clark/dp/0446692689/re...

It may sound trite to suggest a self-help book but trust me - this book is different. My story is not that different from yours - I am in my early 40s, 3 kids, family depends on me financially, I have gone through some rough patches in my IT career. This book is a good starting point.

Cheers

Read the "The New Earth" by Eckhart Tolle. It'll explain to you what you need to know. Based on that you can make your decision.

The best part about that book is that you will be able to make your decision from a place which is not fear.

watch this video: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1424079446171087119..., it's only :45 or so.

read these - take the day off and read them if you need to:

http://www.amazon.com/Full-Catastrophe-Living-Wisdom-Illness...

http://www.amazon.com/Mindful-Way-through-Depression-Unhappi...

I've worked solo for 5 years, and it has been a mistake. I'm currently seeking a partner, and I couldn't be happier about it.

That doesn't sound lost to me. Scared, sure. Risky, you bet. But lost? Hell no. You know exactly what you want to do, it's just hard for you to do it.

The solution happened naturally as I grew up a bit. I would hop on my bike and go down and see him at his machine shop after school or in the middle of the day in the summer. Yes, he was busy, it's not like we were playing catch in the office, but the opportunity was there for me to tag-along and watch what he did.

I was extremely proud of him. He was the boss at his own company. I don't know what it would be like to have a dad that worked for other people, but I doubt I would have been as proud.

My mom started her own retail business too. I often would go and spend time with her during the day while she worked. There were plenty of slow times to have a chat about this or that.

In my own life, I don't yet have the privilege of working for myself, but I want to get to this point both for myself and for my kids, so not only will they have a guaranteed summer job :), but also so they can understand the value of independence.

Try finding what local gangs are looking for new members. Not literally.

Call everyone in your address book and ask them to have a cup of coffee with you. Tell them you're ripe for a change and see what comes out of it.

Get a job in Singapore and see whether any startup ideas/opportunities result from it.

Granted the formulation "leave immediately" was probably too harsh. I would think it is worth trying to talk about things. But one can't assume that staying together is always the best solution.

My opinion is that if he ponders such important matters and feels unable to talk about it with his spouse then it's not a relationship worth having. I would go so far as to say it would be unfair _not_ to quit a relationship if I felt unable to talk about things like this.

I stand by that in all its harshness.

However, it may be a mistake to talk about these things in a do this, do that kind of style. I know I'm not very diplomatic but I think he's smart enough to parse it and maybe dismiss it, and if I'm voted down so be it.

That is never responsible, not matter what your mental hangups are. If you have kids you would understand this completely.

http://wildtenderness.heroku.com/articles

Maybe it wouldn't be unreasonable to ask for fewer hours, or some telecommuting time to be around your children?

Not only because what lostsheep posted, but the quality of the responses people on here(HN) are replying back with.

Just unreal. I'm so that lostsheep posted this.

Trying to get by with a single income (wife and 2 young kids) in an expensive metro area. In a job which I like because it has been my first job working in an almost purely Linux sysadmin - but with difficulties not to enumerate as I am using my real name... For various reasons, there is nowhere for me to go in the company, the jobmarket keeps me in place and reinforces the slavish notion that I am lucky to even have a job.

The things that motivate me at this point are embarrassingly simple. On the train this morning, I figured out how to run SLIME and worked through the examples in PG's short "History of Lisp". It made me happy because I had been reding about LISP and related things for some time on HN and other places but had no idea for a while how to start investigating the subject. Such initiatives do not have much legs because I get drawn into everyday responsibilities and the (hopefully) minor crises that come with having small children.

These trivial discoveries make me happy in the short term and I muddle though. Long term thinking fills me with dread.

I know I have started this all late in life - sometimes it feels too late.

Anyway to reiterate - I can say that I empathize in a minor way as I have not achieved a fraction of what you have. What follows is a personal reaction.

In what feels like another life, I was a grad student in literature. Your post reminded me of 3 things that I had read over the years. Not so much the pieces themselves but a situation described. Your post is full of frustration and dread. The accumulation of energy before a lightning strike. I would love to convey this too you as the energy in your post makes me feel like you might be closer to a solution than you think. My attempt:

A bit of critique (not criticism mind you) - look at the 2 questions in the 2nd to last paragraph.

The contrast in the questions made me think of a mistake endemic to our time - one that great and small minds make. A movement from the concrete to the abstract. A movement from within to without. What Blake refers to as a 'roofed horror'

The question:

"Where should I turn..." reminded me of the first piece of literature- have you read any DesCartes? If you are interested in the History of Science read his early life and an event known as the dream in the 'poele'. The same question occurred to him (in Latin).

The next question "And what would you do?" is a detour.

A natural one because the way seems blind and a deadend. And this (HN) is a community of people who likely understand where this question is coming from better than most. But the answer is not here or anywhere external.

Looking at your brief eloquent post this is a point at which you probably have to turn within.

The last paragraph is abstract where the previous ones are personal and direct. And of course it is a valid answer but the impetus is reactive and negative. By negative I do not mean 'wrong' or misguided. I mean in the sense that it is defined as against something else. The "something new" that is NOT your current life and does NOT involve yr difficult boss.

But to break free in a meaningful way this has to be transcended. 2nd piece of literature - the introduction to Hegel's "Phaenomenology of Geist". Negation is a moment in the process. Acorn --> tree. Lightning revealing a crumbling structure at the moment of its collapse.

And 3rd TS Eliot's WasteLand. Part 3 or 4. "What the thunder said". Images from an Sanskrit text. World in a drought, groups of people gather and pray to discover the reasons for the drought. A terrific thunderclap which each group hears as a different word. That word is a key.

Hopefully this does not sound too hokey.

I wish you the best.

Simplistic, but true nonetheless.

The sum of your life isn't working for you, so you should definitely act and change something. Don't think "I should be happy because I have these things or because others like me look happy." You're not happy. Change something. You have zero responsibilities beyond the well being of yourself and your family.

Change the job, deliberately, carefully, and as quickly as possible. Even if a heart-to-heart with your difficult boss improves that relationship, there's still the commute and your desire to spend more time with your kids.

A job is just a job, and they don't care (much) about you. You're more or less pluggable. Your kids are the world, and you're losing them everyday, even when you're with them 24/7. My son is eleven and I love him exactly the way he is today, but I ache from the fact that I will never again be able to talk to the four year old he once was. Max your time and quality with your kids, they're good for you and you're good for them.

If you have trouble figuring out what to do "from now on," then just try to figure out what you can do "for awhile." Give yourself some space and time to look around. You're smart enough and disciplined enough to write a book, so you can probably work remotely. Get a contract or permanent-but-remote job with someone on the other side of the country, or New Zealand, so that there's no question about the work from home thing. You don't have to save the world with your first change, you just have to push the world back a bit, so you can see what's possible.

Downshift. If you have more than 12 (or N) payments on a car, sell it and buy a good enough cheap car that serves your needs. If you're not commuting then you don't need much car. Get rid of cable/dish (but keep the broadband). Sell your house and buy a smaller one in an older neighborhood (assuming the economics work for that). Get rid of as much out-flow as possible, and save it instead.

Take a hard look at money expenses and psychic expenses, and realize that most of our "have tos" are merely "want tos." If you're doing something that sucks (like your job) because you "have to" live in a certain neighborhood or in a certain way, then think about what those supposed "have tos" are doing to you.

You do have to take care of yourself. As they say at the beginning of an airline flight, if you're traveling with children (which you are), in the event of an emergency place your own oxygen mask first, so that you are then able to help your kids with their oxygen. Point, don't suffer in a field of suck because you think it's good for your kids. Take care of your needs within the bounds of responsibility and propriety, and you'll be better able to take care of your kids.

Much good advice in the other comments. Look at it all with slightly unfocused eyes and see what it all suggests that will work for you. Talk to a trusted friend and a close relative. Don't feel obligated to take any specific advice.

As a parent of a 2 1/2 year old and a four month old, I'm saddened that there will be a point in my life - deity willing - that I'll be saying the exact same thing you are.

We decided to marry and try to create a site by ourselves. We believe in simple life and try to be frugal. Downshifting. No more commutes and stupid meetings; no more work on something we don't believe in.

We have spent more money than we got in return. But, you know, we don't need lots of money to live more than comfortably. We don't own a car and don't spend a lot of money in things like taxis or buying stuff. We buy a few things that have quality and try to increase their life span. In clothes, but also in computers, etc.

Our website is light and uses AWS-EC2. Even in there we want to be frugal.

Maybe, just maybe, our site will become profitable. If not, we are creative and love to stay together, so we'll figure it out.

Isn't it wonderful to feel one is owner of his/her plans?

I came up with some answers (time at home, time with family, a feeling that my work does more than make a few wealthy men slightly wealthier.)

From there, I started working on a business plan, for a startup where the primary goal was to find a way to monetize the activities that bring me happiness.

I can't say that this startup is currently profitable. It's not. But I'm executing on the vision, and so far things are very close to the plan. And I'm much, much happier than I used to be.

It makes you look brave, and perhaps counterintuitively, it makes people admire you more. And it gives you so many more options to seek assistance and advice.

By treating it as something shameful that you have to hide, you are only reinforcing it for yourself that it is something shameful that you have to hide.

Eventually You will feel that You are among friends, that they glad to see You each time they meet You, and finally You will feel that money is not everything.

This is a difficult decision, but You can always come back after year or two.

I'll separate this next thought from the previous because I think you can take the previous suggestion will still work good in your life without taking the next suggestion, although they work best in combination.

Take some time to look at nature and your body. Ask yourself if it takes more faith to believe that it all happened by chance or to believe that there is a God that designed it all and created it. I'm not going to try to say anything else to try to convince since I know the HN crowd and I know no amount of debate will accomplish anything.

I hear in you a hungry heart for something to meet the deepest desire of your heart. I believe we were created by God and for Him and until we find Him we will never be satisfied. Being the owner of Google, Facebook, or anything does not satisfy that need. Having a wonderful wife and great kids doesn't. Having a challenging and interesting job won't do it. Money definitely won't -- look at the depravity you see in some of the world's richest people.

You ask "Where should I turn?". My answer: if what I have said rings true at all in your heart, turn to Jesus. Start by reading the Gospel of John in the Bible. Turn to your Creator to find the answers as to why you were created. He is real, and He is very interested in meeting the deepest desires of your heart.

And whether you take my advice or not, I truly hope you find answers to your questions.

May I suggest the Flying Sphagetti Monster instead? Just as valid as some "man in the sky" mythology, from a "turn to X" point of view.

Please, take your religious preaching elsewhere and don't prey on someone's confusion/depression, at least on this forum.

Thanks in advance.

As of this writing the grandparent is voted down, so maybe the change is already happening. But I felt the grandparent was at least a good faith attempt toward something readable and interesting, whereas the parent is the sort of post that made me stop reading Slashdot threads about religion: insulting and meaningless.

There are better arguments that could be posted against why you should turn to Jesus, but I'm not ashamed to downvote the original comment. It's not good advice.

I wonder... if I'd posted a comment saying "Get involved with transhumanism" or "sign up for cryonics", and someone had posted a sarcastic reply saying "Where's the science?" (not that this isn't a perfectly legitimate question with I-should-hope legitimate answers), would you be working so hard to defend me?

That guy gave lots of secular advice and ended with the word. This post is all "Go to Jesus." There's a difference.

And I shudder at the thought of HN turning into a place where appeals for advice are met by "Turn to $Diety, who watcheth over us all". That something may be believed with high conviction is not a measure of its truth or validity or appropriateness.

wrt

" any genuine religious feeling or discussion"

But that is the point. HN isn't the place for religious discussion or proselytizing, no matter how heartfelt or (subjectively) genuine the belief in its tenets is.

As with politics, these circle endlessly and go nowhere. There are plenty of other forums on the intertubez where people of specific convictions can exchange their beliefs (or delusions) to their hearts content.

Theology of any kind is a bad topic to bring up on HN. And any organized religion's theological minutiae are just as valid (or invalid) as discussion of the FSM, which is a device contrived to expose the subjective nature of such strongly held beliefs.

I have my beliefs about the nature of the Universe (it is irrelevant whether I am agnostic, atheist or religious), but I don't proselytize them here or try to gain converts by pivoting off peoples misery.

So no matter how "genuinely felt" your religious belief is, please don't pollute HN with it.

"On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity."

I'm sorry if religion does not gratify your intellectual curiosity, but the grandparent post was genuinely on topic and may gratify the curiosity of any hacker who is interested in religious feelings.

Notice that I didn't say anything about my religious beliefs, or whether I even have them, yet you seem to be making assumptions about what they are. Furthermore, though you claim you don't want HN to have religious debates, there was no religious argument until you started posting.

It looks as though you define a forum free of endless religious flames as a forum where everyone believes the same way you do, or else is silent about it. I say "looks as though" because I would hesitate to accuse anyone directly of holding such a deplorable position--and it should be obvious to any of what pg called the "intellectually curious" why such a position is so deplorable.

If HN is to be free of religion-targeted flames, why are you posting religion-targeted flames? If you want HN discussions not to be motivated by religious conviction, why do you try to effect its presence?

You keep saying this, but on what authority?

(I honestly can't seem to find the site discussion guidelines, is there such a thing?)

Has religious discussion been permanently banned on HN? This discussion naturally led in to questions about "the meaning of it all," and it is pretty much impossible for a religious person to honestly address those questions without invoking their religion at some point.

"I have my beliefs about the nature of the Universe (it is irrelevant whether I am agnostic, atheist or religious), but I don't proselytize them here or try to gain converts by pivoting off peoples misery."

I do think that some of the discussion has already veered into "beliefs about the universe" in some ways, and I do not see clearly where that line is drawn.