I save more than half of my income after tax so I am hoping for an early retirement but I can't guarantee it.
I try to constantly solve problems in my life and post them to GitHub. I have many many many projects on the go but none of which are really sellable. I'm trying to constantly produce as much as I can in hopes that I'll develop something that someone else might find worth using.
I'd like to be an entrepreneur but it's a lot more work than creating a startup and getting passive income; it's highly risky and there's a high chance I'll lose my entire investment. I posted an idea to reddit which got significant attention (thousands of votes, hundreds of comments) and a lot of good questions and answers for my business idea but nobody outside of reddit finds it interesting.
I want to work in security but I don't have the credentials. I found a bug in Facebook's email-code two factor authentication many years ago which allowed the user to enter at least 30 codes incorrectly before entering in the right one. I reported it, they said it was not an issue but then fixed it a month later and I could only enter in three before getting locked out. Found vulnerabilities in other websites that exposed enough info to file a tax return for some.
I don't really see the point of doing things anymore. I'm super tired all of the time but my nutrition macros are ok according to some apps. Doctor says I'm fine so I'm probably just lazy.
What would you suggest that I do to get unstuck?
I've been in your position before. What changed for me was when I stopped finding motivation and passion at work. I instead chose to spend time giving back to my community, taking up a sport (Jiu Jitsu) and really spending the time to create a life that I'm genuinely proud of.
I recommend trying a bunch of shit out of work and see what you enjoy and see what sticks! Find your source of fulfillment outside of your work and that will give you the energy to push through your work.
Follow my trades for the next year while you work. Trade it while working if you can. When you turn the $50K into $250K you can quit your job and trade full time and work as a white-hat and control what you do.
Okay that was the easy way out. Now the hard way.
Get certifications. Security is hot right now. Everyone needs a security person. A cert or experience signal that right now.
Network. How many meetings have you scheduled with someone in security at your current company in the last month? What are you waiting for. Message everyone at your company and ask for 10 minutes to talk about how they got where they are. The more senior their role the better it is.
Also find another job for now that won't make you hate life. Start applying. Ever heard of informal interviews? Try it out.
Well, you got to start somewhere! I burnt out from front-end development last year and decided to pivot into security. There are plenty of entry-level certifications you can start looking at if you want to explore this area more:
- Security+ from CompTIA
- eJPT from eLearnSecurity
- OSCP from Offensive Security
> I reported it, they said it was not an issue but then fixed it a month later and I could only enter in three before getting locked out.
Don't let your past outcomes with vulnerability disclosure dissuade you from continuing if this field really interests you. Many people have received the short end of the stick through public disclosure programs. But it's a drop in the bucket compared to many of the other amazing things you can do here.
One trap I've personally struggled with at times in the past is becoming over-invested in my job, and then getting frustrated with or depressed about work. Usually this has happened when I haven't had much else going on in my life outside work to focus on, leading me to focus on and then over emphasise work frustrations. As I've gotten a bit more perspective over time I've come to expect less from work, it's a way to pay the bills and that's why I'm there. Still worth looking for a better job every now and again, especially if you've ended up in a role where you have stopped learning.
There's a bit of research that backs this kind of pattern up: people who are younger, unmarried, don't have children are more likely to experience burnout:
> To me, the most beguiling data to emerge from burnout research are the profiles of the people who experience it most acutely. In her early work, for instance, Maslach found that younger people burn out more often than older people, a finding that turns up again and again both here and abroad. (In fact, that study from the University of Michigan explicitly said that younger surgeons burn out more quickly than older ones.) This conclusion may seem counterintuitive, because we associate burning out somehow with midlife disillusionment. But not if we think of burnout as the gap between expectations and rewards. Older workers, as it turns out, have more perspective and more experience; it’s the young idealists who go flying into a profession, plumped full of high hopes, and run full-speed into a wall. Maslach also found that married people burn out less often than single people, as long as their marriages are good, because they don’t depend as much on their jobs for fulfillment. And childless people, though unburdened by the daily strains of parenting, tend to burn out far more than people with kids. (This, too, has been found across cultures; in the Netherlands, a recent survey by the Bureau of Statistics showed that twice as many working women without children showed symptoms of burnout as did working women with underage children.) It’s much easier to disproportionately invest emotional and physical capital in the office if you have nowhere else to put it. And the office seldom loves you back.
A successful company requires execution on sales, marketing, market research, messaging, positioning and product, among others.
You're taking a standard "engineer" approach to the problem, which is to build stuff, but you need to focus on other things as well. They're just as interesting as engineering if you give it a chance.
Get a hobby that involves the real world, preferably around trees, animals, or other people.
Exercise. Anything, walks, runs, jogs, swimming, hikes, biking. Anything that gets you OUTSIDE.
you can also go for a new hobby.
finally, I could be wrong, but maybe work on personal relationships? family and friends.