Thoughts?

I mean how do you start trusting people again? Most of the people that I have around me turned out to be an ass. I could never fill the social void. My heart keeps yearning for social validation (I am not in the mood of hearing that happiness should stem from within etc etc, afterall humans are social beings, we need people to survive. We thrive on trust. Being alone never helps in the long run, I have learnt this the hard way) Its so easy to confuse politeness with kindness. I know it comes through practice but I have been extremely paitent. I cant filter people. I know its a plain rhetoric. But would love to know your perspectives.

Please mention your mistakes you've done in your preparation period for companies as a fresher. As I am a fresher, so that I can avoid those problems at first.

Have you felt that the conversations with your work buddies and away from office buddies are not that fulfilling? Like you might be passionate about so many stuffs but you just don’t have that passion in anyone around you and you end up being yourself, overtime becoming very lonely while still consuming content at high pace. Do you feel lonely? If yes how are you dealing it?

Context: I am a software engineer with 4 years of experience. Everytime I work with a bunch of engineers (Especially Indian Startups). Most of them are workaholics. They are just working for some company full-time. They are interested in learning more about technology, making jokes about technology, following technology news, etc. That is it. No social life. (Especially after Covid). No skills in any other part of life. Their comfort zone is so small that they have developed a lifestyle of working, sleeping & watching something on laptops and that's it. They make an excellent salary but don't do anything else. Every time I meet a 35-40-year-old software engineer, it is just a physically unfit guy with an arranged marriage who is boring as a brick.

26M, avg looking introvert, I have worked hard and only focused on my career, so consider 0 pro-dating skills. Shy to open conversation/first move to a girl. but confident that I hold the conversation after building the rapo... looking for genuine advice, that's why I have opened up to the community! tried few dating apps but bad experience mostly fake or i dind freak girls or girls chatting for timepass or scams. but sadly, it looks like arranged marriage might be the default option for me... but I like to have a love marriage

I have recently stopped smoking and I never liked drinking anyways. Do you think there’s a way to hang out and network with people without doing these things?

Folks in the age group of 32 and above. What significant change you saw in your life post 30 both in terms of health and work? What do you wish you had done better or a piece of advice for the ones in 20’s. I understand good workouts, healthy eating and financial discipline are top of the list. Would love to get some perspectives beyond that.

Excuse me for being all philosophical and emo but surely this isn’t what life is all about! Waiting for weekends, sleep deprived weekdays, questioning “what am I doing” every second week? Like what are we even solving for? The governments and corporates control it all while we work like puppets. Does having something of your own (a business for the lack of a better example) make things better? Thoughts?

Background: I work in a D2C consumer product startup, we have an in-house website and a growing tech team of 7 people. The whole business team is 100+. I'm a '23 grad from a tier 1 engineering college. I joined the company back in September when the job market was at the bottom and I had to take a 40% pay cut (21LPA to 12LPA) (while switching (the last company ran out of funding). I was at a higher than avg base in my previous role but the current role is 20% below the average. (15LPA) The company is in a growth stage and lots of processes are yet to be defined which leads to a lot of chaos but I get a lot of freedom as well. My manager is aware of the whole situation and we had also negotiated a 6-month review for ESOP allotment. My monthly reviews have been going well and we have shipped some good improvements and features over the last few months.

Your opinion matters, I want you(Yes, You!) to tell us about your view. Would you choose to work at the top companies for the rest of your life in the same domain and continue to climb up the ranks? Maybe, you switch every 3-4 years to other top companies and have the perfect resume. It looks something like: Google ➡️ Meta ➡️ Amazon ➡️ Microsoft ➡️ Uber ➡️ Netflix etc. Or, Do you go for the unconventional path which shows a life well lived and an interesting story? Maybe, you worked for a few years as an SDE and then joined a smaller company as an MLE. Then, maybe a few years down the line you decided to start your own company in the AI/ML space. You fail but it’s okay. You decide to use this experience to become a consultant at a BigCo. to gather capital. Then, you exit and go run an entire vertical at a Series B+ Tech Company. It may look something like this, but can have any variation: Niche#1(big co.) ➡️ Niche#1(small co.) ➡️ Experimental Bet(running a co.) ➡️ Leverage Experimental bet(if fails) ➡️ Senior Leadership Here’s my question to you, the reader: What do you think? Which approach would you prefer? Do you think it sounds good here but real life is different?