
Ask HN: Why you do what you do? - lnalx
Hi Hackers,<p>We all have project and reasons&#x2F;motivations why we are on it. For some people it’s just money, but is it sustainable on the long term ? 
For others it’s charity project, to see people going better.<p>On what project are you right now and what is fueling you ?
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mikekchar
A quote from George Mallory about climbing Mt. Everest:

People ask me, 'What is the use of climbing Mount Everest?' and my answer must
at once be, 'It is of no use.'There is not the slightest prospect of any gain
whatsoever. Oh, we may learn a little about the behaviour of the human body at
high altitudes, and possibly medical men may turn our observation to some
account for the purposes of aviation. But otherwise nothing will come of it.
We shall not bring back a single bit of gold or silver, not a gem, nor any
coal or iron... If you cannot understand that there is something in man which
responds to the challenge of this mountain and goes out to meet it, that the
struggle is the struggle of life itself upward and forever upward, then you
won't see why we go. What we get from this adventure is just sheer joy. And
joy is, after all, the end of life. We do not live to eat and make money. We
eat and make money to be able to live. That is what life means and what life
is for.

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muzani
I just try to do good.

My long game is the afterlife. Every philosophy and religion says that if you
do good in this life, the next life will be better. If there is no afterlife,
I will have lived a good life at least.

It's also really practical; doing good and helping people costs little and
gives you the best deals and connections. It highlights the parasites in your
life. It brings you closer to other generous people and pushes away the
selfish ones.

Wealth is also a really odd thing - most people with wealth choose to invest
it rather than enjoy it. Those who enjoy their wealth, whether it's buying a
better car or a gold toilet seat, they mostly enjoy the purchase, but not the
state of having the thing they bought.

Spending wealth to help others gives you more of a buyer's high, and you don't
have to deal with say, the payments of the more expensive car or the guilt of
having a gold toilet seat.

Wealth isn't just cash, but also energy and time. Spending my time and energy
on vices feels bad. Whereas spending it to help others - teaching, mentoring,
assisting, learning, blogging, these are all good life experiences, whether or
not there's a return on investment.

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skrtskrt
Software is a field where I can just create something out of nothing,
virtually in my own. Even at a non-senior level I can make the vast majority
of design and implementation decisions for a project - it just might not be as
ambitious or complex of a project as someone senior.

Most weeks I leave work, something exists that did not before. Bonus points if
I’m proud of the design and execution.

Eventually I would love to work on open source software like OS’s or
languages/compilers. The idea of making even a tiny contribution to something
that helps build and run the world and will be used for decades or longer is
amazing.

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yulaow
Honestly I like to learn and I love the feeling of "yeah, now I get it"

~~~
skrtskrt
Seriously the feeling when something _clicks_ is a giddy rush that never gets
old

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gitgud
I like programming, because programming is the fundamental essence of
automation.

Automation reduces the work humans have to do, which is generally good for
everyone.

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polishdude20
Since I'm not getting paid for writing software, at first glance someone would
say I do it so that I get a job in software at some company. But now that I
think of it, I don't start software projects with getting hired in mind. I do
them because I enjoy the satisfaction of putting together a complex system and
turning on the big red switch and seeing it all work together. Why do I enjoy
that? Now I can only guess at such a deep question but maybe it's to do with
my need for order. I get enough chaotic things happening in my life and
personality that I feel programming balances it out. Also, since I'm still
pretty new to this, software feels like a new frontier with loads of
possibilities. I get this feeling of there being gold at the end of every
tunnel of knowledge.

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ekr
I don't think you can get useful answers or of this thread simply because most
humans don't have metacognitive introspective awareness; it's not something we
evolved to have, in fact it is something that would bring negative
reproductive fitness, given that the brain has mechanisms to actually hide the
root motivation for our urges.

The best way would be to study the neuroscience of human motivation. There's a
specific brain circuit involved. But from another perspective, we do what we
do to fulfill various needs, mostly security and belonging. That can result in
things as complex as status games.

Things are a lot more complex than that, if you consider the evolutionary
history of the brain stem, limbic system and the cortex, each newer system is
able to override the older one, resulting in completely different behaviour.

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burntoutfire
Make money -> retire. Should achieve it in a about a year from now, a bit
under forties. The project is relatively undemanding if you know how to deal
with the stress of corporate misery (nothing works as it should, the
requirements are shit etc.). After that, who knows, make an indie game? The
underlying goal is to strive for mastery, autonomy and balance in life, none
of which I think I can achieve while in a career.

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austincheney
I love building things and software pays more than carpentry, so there I love
writing software and do so full time.

The corporate software culture with all of its incompetence and false
expectations grates on the soul like sewage flooding your bedroom. As a result
I maintain a lower paying employment in the US Army Reserves, because
sometimes a year long vacation to a foreign nation doing real work under real
leadership recharges the soul.

~~~
gitgud
Interesting, I wonder how big the cross-over is between wood working and
programming among HN readers, anecdotally I think it's a lot...

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dilap
I'm working on a game for phones. It's defnly a mix of $ and stuff I like; if
cash were no object, I'd like to be spending my time doing some mix of trying
to make a replacement for emacs, trying to make a better language learning
app, and learning more about art. (Though I'm not sure I actually _would_;
unfortunately, I can be lazy w/o an external motivation.)

I'm not as passionate about games, but it's still pretty interesting to work
on, and I can get paid...which, I need. :-)

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diablo1
> For some people it’s just money

Money is a terrible motivator, because when you reach certain monetary events,
it doesn't matter how much it is, how you feel internally will decide how you
feel about the money.

That's why you should always find something that makes you feel really alive,
and the money should follow naturally. If it doesn't follow naturally, then
find ways to make it follow naturally. Charge money for whatever it is that
makes you feel alive.

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Jeremy1026
Because there is someone willing to give me a sum of money to use a skill that
I have worked on over the years, and I need that sum of money to afford
housing and nourishment for myself and my family. I have no "change the world"
mentality. I'm just doing what I need to do to continue my way of life.

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dorkinspace
The simple and blunt answer is that software dev is easy, the hours are lax,
and it pays well.

By easy, I mean my most challenging days are those in which I have to solve a
hard code/architecture/etc problem and solving hard problems inside a simple
defined space is fun.

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nunez
I love being able to automate things that I hate doing and being paid very
well for knowing how to do it

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apple2ta
Money.

But in your head hear that as "Moooonneeeeeeyy" from the Pink Floyd track.

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bedhesd
I am a technical writer and I am physically disabled. At my point in life I
work to survive. Technology is my single source of income potential.

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rcharpentier
I’m currently building a user feedback tool for SaaS companies. I do it
because I need freedom. Freedom from working from someone else, from having an
employer decide my fate. I need to create, to achieve.

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k00b
I feel compelled express myself. I'm pretty bad at "succeeding" with
independent projects but I suspect - like with anything - I'll get better
incrementally at least.

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non-entity
For my personal / side projects?

Sure I'd love to make money doing the type of stuff I do there, but I'm
initially driven by curiosity.

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zubairq
I am building stepping stones for a future in which AI and small robots can
help to heal our bodies and other useful tasks ...

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RajSinghLA
Working on a hotel concierge AI. Goal is to make a billion people's lives
easier.

Have helped 10,000,000+ hotel guests already.

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rl3
> _On what project are you right now and what is fueling you ?_

I don't know anymore.

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mortivore
Fun, money, and work/life balance.

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quickthrower2
Side project? To make money of course :-)

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rolph
an archive to facilitate a rebuilding after im dead and gone and people
reemerge from the chaos

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gcheong
I got nowhere else to go.

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a3n
They were hiring.

