When it comes to things like this, as cliche as it may sound, your best bet is to probably bring up those fears with your psychiatrist to evaluate the pros/cons with them.
Like most things, there is most likely a tradeoff - but your doctor also most likely prescribed the dosages based on the pros outweighing the cons, but only you can bring up how you feel about specific cons to the doctor.
I think of it more from the perspective that, there are likely people with far less material wealth than him who have achieved much greater heights happiness and lead a more fulfilling life.
All that wealth, power, and influence, and for what - if you can't even be happy about it?
Experienced Generalist SWE | 5 YoE at top-tier HFT and Bloomberg | Product-driven engineering
I’m an experienced generalist software engineer, skilled across full-stack development, data, and infrastructure. I bring high-impact engineering to drive large-scale products from 0 to 1, directly supporting business needs, working across functions/tech stacks/business verticals.
I don't mind the commute if I live close enough that I can just walk 30-40 minutes to the office, because then it serves as a good exercise (okay, fine. Grass-touching) that I don't have to do separately in the day.
But I realize that this is NOT a luxury most people have. Most people's commute looks like being stuck in the subway, or driving in traffic, for up to several hours every single day, and I just can't think of anything that would justify that type of commute.
The single-occupant driving commute is the most common way to get to work in the US, by far. [1] That’s just miserable: it’s stressful, lonely, expensive, prone to risks like car problems. I feel like we can do better, even incrementally. Why isn’t slugging [2] more common, for instance?
No one slugs where I am now because we all have kids that also have to be shuttled around by parents. I grew up using school buses most of the time. These days, at least where I live, those don't exist. We've had to rearrange our personal and professional lives left, right, up and down to deal with the fact that we have 1 kid in preschool and 2 in elementary school and dealing with school hours and after-school care programs, etc.
My mom slugged for decades of her working life. I really wish it were an option.
I use to love slugging (aka “casual carpool”) here in the Bay Area in the Before Times. There was a conveniently nearby bus stop where drivers would routinely offer rides into SF so they could use the carpool lane and get to work more quickly. It was a fun way to meet neighbors.
After a high intensity job with a short, city commute, I moved away and had a new job with an ~hour, drive commute. For a few years, that drive was amazing for being able to mentally prepare and decompress from work. It made it so easy to leave work at work and there was a long separation between them. I really needed that at that time.
It's tough to imagine slugging culture becoming prominent enough that it could be a reliable and timely mode of transport, and HOV lanes aren't always available to provide an incentive to drivers.
I have a feeling almost all of the pro-WFH types are exactly that: 1) American 2) single-occupant driver commute 3) live in big car-centric city. 4) have ridiculously long commute time.
Slugging isn't common because the capitalist system would rather everyone buy a car. Selling cars is big business.
So the big car companies are forcing me to buy their product? It does not feel that way. Seems more like it is people in their capacity as voters and consumers which are driving things this way.
Not 'forced' like at the tip of a gun, but the big car companies (and others) pushed to redesign cities (probably before you were born) to service the automobile. Neighbourhoods we razed to build roads, roads were widened, sidewalks shrunk or removed, public transport systematically attacked, etc. The history is well documented if you want to read about it.
I'd argue it has less to do with the "capitalist systems" and more to do with how obnoxious "slugging" sounds. Commuting in your own car guarantees (a) you have a ride and (b) you have flexibility. You can change you plans, stop by the store, run errands, anything your heart desires (plus, not deal with strangers everyday. Ugh.)
This isn't a pro-car thing. I've haven't driven a car to work in 8 years (I pay out the ass to live downtown so that I'm close enough to walk / bike). It just seems like "Well, that sounds like a pain in the ass" is a simpler possible explanation to why slugging isn't popular in the US compared to Big Business not wanting it to be.
Long commute is indeed a pain. My way of coping it is listening to audio books and podcast, and in the meantime cut as much screen time on my phone. Listening to good books improves commute immensely.
Experienced Generalist SWE | 5 YoE at top-tier HFT and Bloomberg | Business-first engineering solutions
I’m a generalist software engineer with a business-driven approach, skilled across full-stack development, data, and infrastructure. I bring high-impact product engineering to directly support business needs, working across functions, tech stacks, business verticals, and customer interactions.
I bring product-focused engineering to directly support business needs, whether it’s optimizing data infrastructures, building full-stack applications, or integrating business services. I’m open to roles across various technologies, industries, and functions - as long as the team fit is right. Open to remote and on-site opportunities.
Is it just me or is the new embeddings model (v3 small) insanely cheap? It's coming out to be ~$0.02/mil tokens (if I'm mathing right), whereas other "embeddings API" services are typically charging at around $0.1/mil tokens
I've honestly been surprised by how fast these "AIaaS" companies are competing to bring performance up and prices down. It really feels good to wake up the next morning to find out your stuff is better and cheaper automatically.
Trying to get funding and exposure by jumping on the AI bandwagon doesn't seem weird to me. Much like during the peak of the dot-com bubble, companies and orgs are shifting towards generative AI, whether it's related to their core business/competencies or not.
I'll go further and say we're all nerds here... Generative AI is incredibly fun to work on because it feels like charting unknown territory instead of just making Another CRUD Web App.
Yeah, the flip side of this is that a lot of projects and companies are suddenly abandoning their roadmap and alienating their userbase, who in some cases have invested into the project in one way or another. And this often comes with gaslighting.
I'm seeing this a lot in my professional work and I think it's wrong. It's one thing for an engineer to want to switch jobs, it's another for a company to hoodwink its users.
I mean, AWS seems to be doing fine with that business model.