When I was young and poor(but smart, beautiful and tall) I gave some women I was interested on too much time and attention and it looked like they were not interested t all. The women I gave the less attention (that I was not that interested in) usually got deeply in love with me and I had great time with them.

I am European, it is different from living in the US or Asia(I have also lived there). In the US you have way more opportunities professionally but people live isolated from each other. They don't have so many common spaces like in Europe.

Later when I got more money and status the women that ignored me came after me. They only valued my time and attention after it was zero. When I ignored them as I was genuinely busy they got in love as well.

I also made friends around the world easily and probably the best reason is because I already had friends and I did not need new ones.

The best way to make friends and lovers is not to need them at all. You make friends or lover when you don't try to make friends and people just have a great time with you.

So beware about thinking about idealistic ideas about life that have been never tested. There are things about humans that were decided when we were living in tribes.

I think the idea is that devs find meaning in "the mission". You grind for a higher goal, not just a paycheck. That works for some places, like Musk's companies or academic research, where people actually believe in what they're building. But most software engineers are just cogs building the next app to make ads more efficient. The grindset just makes them better-oiled cogs until they burn out.

Note: I worry if I am virtue-signalling or larping here because there are immense flaws and inconsistencies within me. I sometimes feel like there are just these thoughts that come in me but acting on them (consistently) is hard. Not too much time has passed for me to comment if it has become part of my identity or not but commenting it can help solidify it further and help others get to know me (which feels my need to be understood) or more importantly, perhaps can help a single person out there.

When otherwise I would think of competition and stop, I now DO try to speak the thing out loud which can help the other person. We all have our biases and if I as a person can help see the other bias and try to help them provided I try to not cross boundary or be pushy but just for the sake of helping. Then yeah, it is good.

Paraphrasing my brother here: "You can genuinely change people's (friends) lives within college. It's genuinely so powerful"

Also, I see many spirits of kindness from people of all walks of life and the world has been aside from a few occassions still a kind place to me in terms of giving me chances. It's cruel and kind at the same time but it's my world and I can try to make it a little better for my friends.

In that sense, "The world is a generous place", as Minhyong Kim said[0]

I sincerely believe that "How to measure your life" is a great book which has a piece of logical advice which did change my interpretation of it (so much so that I wrote the entire page and pasted it on my front desk). I highly recommend reading that book [Along with How to win friends and influence people and Deep work, I wish to read em all and moreso act on them now]

Here's what the page said:

I genuinely believe that relationships with family and friends are one of the greatest sources of happiness in life. It sounds simple but like any important investment, these relationships need constant attention and care (...)

You'll be tempted to invest your resources elsewhere but if you don't nurture these relationships, they won't be there to support you in hardships or as one of the most important sources of happiness in your life.

My interpretation: Balance is necessary and understand the important of family and friends as the society around us is underweighing the genuine importance of it and as the culture around it is focused on not paying importance to it (and rewarding that behaviour).

Appreciate your family and friends and don't take for granted.

Take an Action (Knowledge means fundamentally nothing if you don't act on it): Try to do something which can show the appreciation that you have for friends and family and show it within words and tell it to them.

If it can help you take some action, I have messaged two of my brothers while writing this comment appreciating them.

[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lH_UM9TDJ-c&t=588s

Most people don't pick one thing and put all of their time into it. They balance priorities.

You don't pick one and ignore the others.

Even the most family-minded people I know enjoy having something to work on outside of family time.

mostly inertia and dont know what to do with themselves because they never developed any other part of their personality.

shit even if you love coding that =/= working on other people's projects.

"Don't work hard, work smart". Often there's an inverse relationship between how hard the work is and how well it pays. Picking crops is famously the worst. But even in software, the hardest work I did was a 10-day stretch of 10-hour days in one of the lowest paid positions I had: between my €1k-ish/month passive income and the imputed income due to no longer needing to pay rent, I get more sitting on my arse than that job paid.

Same applies to expenses. Software is (or was) one of the few forms of labour that lent themselves to remote work, and remote works allows people to lower what are often the two biggest expenses: rent, and transport.

Nobody is arguing against just getting more money (well it gets philosophical at least) but how much you lose of your most precious item you have in this world to attain it and if its worth it.

Or to put it in other way, just check by far the biggest regret of many dying people. If you think you can behave the same but somehow avoid ending up in same situation well... good luck I guess, you'll need it.

Even if you get plenty satisfaction from work, I think its important to invest in other parts of your life (family, health, hobbies).

Been satisfied with what you have is a good thing. But should not stop you of seeking better things.