How would someone go about figuring out what they like?
I am 26. I have no idea what I am passionate about and no idea on what things I am inherently good at. Of course, when one spends enough time on something, they do get good at it eventually.
I have been in DevOps field for the last 3 years or so and I didn't know anything about it when I entered it. I became a devOps engineer as this was the only company ready to give me a chance of internship at that time based on my then skillset. Hence, I took it and worked crazy hard to be good at it.
But, if I spend 12 hours a day on it, at the end of the week, I still would see that I gave 60 hours to it. I believe if I was passionate about it, hours could go by and I would never realise it, because it would be fun for me to do it, I would do it even on weekends for free as well. But I dont do it.
Also, some of my peers inherently understand things for which I had to take Taro membership and be in the community /QnA to get and it bothers me that I don't have the intuition in lot of such things that seems obvious to them.
Is it a signal that I am not right for this? Because I should've figured out what I want to do in my career by now?
Has anyone ever been in this conundrum? While my peers are moving ahead in ranks and pay, i wish to spend my 20s figuring out whats fun for me and building resilience. Does that even make sense or am I just wasting my life being directionless?
If it does make sense, how does one go about doing that? Assuming that I am not inherently good at anything and we mostly hate things we don't understand, isn't the only way to know if something is fun for me is to explore different fields and spend some time to learn the craft and see if its fun across the field's highs and lows?
I feel I should explore different aspects of software engineering before I explore other careers. Hence, I am focusing on getting into SDE role. I am learning DSA to get over my fear of it and train myself to do hard things.
Discussion
(1 comment)- 0a day agoEng @ Taro
Also, some of my peers inherently understand things for which I had to take Taro membership and be in the community /QnA to get and it bothers me that I don't have the intuition in lot of such things that seems obvious to them.
This is totally okay. I do believe that curiosity can get you in the same position as someone with natural intuition. It may take longer, but curiosity will keep you in the game and learning. Maybe there's a lack of intuition, now, but it sounds like you are resourceful and curious enough to make up for the lack of intuition.
Also, it's not a worthwhile exercise to compare yourself to your peers. It's possible that they could have had a wildly different background than you where they developed that intuition that seemed like it was natural. They might have been involved in activities that are adjacent to what they are working on now that made it easier for them to develop that intuition.
isn't the only way to know if something is fun for me is to explore different fields and spend some time to learn the craft and see if its fun across the field's highs and lows?
I think it is worth it to try out different parts of software engineering to see if it's worth it. One way is building rapport with different teams and managers. Since you are in DevOps, you probably have warm connections with different teams. You can ask your manager to see if it's possible for you to do 50% work on other teams or if you can even switch teams.
