I've been feeling this way since middle school.
I didn't really have any bad subjects in school, so I figured I could do whatever interested me professionally, but nothing really strongly appealed to me other than a paycheck large enough to eat out whenever I wanted. I discovered programming was pretty fun, now I'm a software engineer, and I'm just saving money for.....something. I don't know what.
I've been trying to figure out what I'm moving towards for years. I just don't know where it's going. Marry, have children, buy house, continue office job? I want to really care. I see so much wrong with the world and I don't have any clever ideas on how to fix it.
I don't want to make an app, something that adds a little convenience but doesn't truly make anyone's lives better. I want to fix something that's manifestly broken. I envy Elon Musk above all others, because he's seen terribly important things that were very broken, and had what it took to break all barriers to fixing them. Needless to say I'm not Elon Musk. Most people aren't.
I'd like to fix something social more than technological. I'd like to fix something societal that's broken, like the fact that Congress is literally a joke among Americans, that people feel so detached and isolated from the people creating policy that we don't bother to vote because we don't think it'll change anything.
But I don't know how to fix those things, so I keep working conventional jobs, but I can barely bring myself to do them, because my heart isn't in it, and I feel the years passing.
I didn't really have any bad subjects in school, so I figured I could do whatever interested me professionally, but nothing really strongly appealed to me other than a paycheck large enough to eat out whenever I wanted. I discovered programming was pretty fun, now I'm a software engineer, and I'm just saving money for.....something. I don't know what.
I've been trying to figure out what I'm moving towards for years. I just don't know where it's going. Marry, have children, buy house, continue office job? I want to really care. I see so much wrong with the world and I don't have any clever ideas on how to fix it.
I don't want to make an app, something that adds a little convenience but doesn't truly make anyone's lives better. I want to fix something that's manifestly broken. I envy Elon Musk above all others, because he's seen terribly important things that were very broken, and had what it took to break all barriers to fixing them. Needless to say I'm not Elon Musk. Most people aren't.
I'd like to fix something social more than technological. I'd like to fix something societal that's broken, like the fact that Congress is literally a joke among Americans, that people feel so detached and isolated from the people creating policy that we don't bother to vote because we don't think it'll change anything.
But I don't know how to fix those things, so I keep working conventional jobs, but I can barely bring myself to do them, because my heart isn't in it, and I feel the years passing.