It's a balance of risk and reward, you might work hard and never get lucky enough to retire early, but more recently we've seen how a balanced life can backfire @ FAANG layoffs.
"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.
Even if you get plenty satisfaction from work, I think its important to invest in other parts of your life (family, health, hobbies).
The same exact forums are super engaged with "loneliness epidemic we are all lonely" topic, where everyone other person describes difficulty in that area. Well, yeah, if you work all the time, you wont have real friends. And yeah, if all you focus on is competition, all you will have are competitors and frenemies. And no, friends will not magically pop out of nothing the moment you wish them to.
"Everyone who does not spend whole weekends and evenings coding/vibing/working/writing is lazy. Also it is society fault that I do not have friends and cant find a partner".
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.