Having no problems is a problem
For a while now, work hasn't felt meaningful. I used to love software engineering, but a lot has changed in the last few years, and somewhere in there the joy went out of it. Maybe I've changed too. Either way, I've caught myself mourning my chosen profession, trying to work out whether it's still salvageable.
When people are not satisfied with their work, they usually want something concrete. More money. Maybe a promotion. But that's not what I'm after right now. Neither would fix it. What I'm after is harder to name. I want work that's engaging and interesting. I want it to mean something.
"Meaning" is a slippery word. Everyone wants it, but I'm not sure any two people share the same definition. I think you have to define it for yourself.
For me, meaning is something you make rather than find, and you make most of it by solving problems and helping people.
In talking with someone about this conundrum, they asked me a pointed question.
"What problems do you have?"
It's a good question. If that's where meaning comes from, then naming mine should point me toward what I've been missing.
I couldn't come up with a single one. At least not one that felt worth saying out loud.
I thought I'd feel proud of that.
I felt ashamed.
For a long time I've believed most of our problems are of our own making. We solve one, and the solution creates two more, until we've lost sight of the one we started with. Complex fixes that breed new problems, making everything worse. Take human connection, and the "solution" of social media.
So I made it a rule. Minimize the problems I take on. Ask whether a problem is worth solving, and if it isn't, find a way around it.
And I was good at it. Maybe too good.
Because I only ever trained one half of that skill. I got very good at eliminating problems. I never got good at telling which ones were worth giving a fuck about.
Here's how you actually end up with no problems. You close yourself off. You deal only with what you absolutely have to. If someone asks for help, I'll help. But I don't go looking for people to help. That would just be adding problems that aren't mine.
And that's the part I'm most ashamed of. Because if meaning comes from solving problems and helping people, then closing myself off to both means I spent years optimizing away the exact thing I was looking for.
It worked, too. The optimizing bought me time and resources. The freedom most people say they want. And I don't know what to do with it. I engineered my way into a kind of privilege and now I'm squandering it.
The strange part is that none of this leaves a mark. Avoidance doesn't leave a trace. You can't point to the friendships you didn't make, or the problems you never took on. So it's not that I had no problems. I'd lost the ability to see them — this one included. Which is probably why it took someone else's question to show me.
That's not the person I want to be.
My problem is not having a problem. And it's a pretty big fucking problem.
I don't think the old idea was wrong. Most self-made problems really can be let go. I'd just aimed it inward, at my own life, until I'd cleared it of nearly everything. Aimed outward, it isn't withdrawal at all. Helping someone see that a problem isn't one they need to carry is one of the better things you can do for a person. Same idea. Opposite direction. Completely different result.
I don't have it all worked out. But the shift is clear enough: to stop eliminating, and start looking.
So if you've got a problem you think I might be able to help with, let me know.