Published 2026-09-15
Tags: #life-reflection
A friend and I were talking about non-monetary motivations for “working”. Here is a scattered list of the ideas that were mentioned, and my personal reflections on how emotionally resonant these ideas are to me.
A caveat: I use the word “work” in a very loose sense. It can be something that’s unpaid, or something that you do in the 7-9 am before your normal 9-5. The most interesting qualifier for me is that you chose to put in the effort towards this “work” endeavor.
What. I work to do things I haven’t done before
Personal assessment: Yep. If I look back at some of the things I have done in the past, I don’t think I would care too much if I had released 5 APIs vs just 2 APIs. When there is a goal that matches my sense of beauty and diversifies the list of things I have done in my life, I get super motivated. E.g. right now: Doing a video game jazz music gig in a bar.
What. I work to create artifacts that are beautiful to me.
Personal assessment: Hard yes. Sometimes you just have an idea that gives you goosebumps and you’re like: “Whoa! I want to build this well so other people can feel the same thing.” I mainly get this through music, but in normal workplaces, through giving tech talks or writing documents (technical designs, or even retrospective docs)
What. I have a vision of a future that is good, and I exert my will to move the world in that direction. Some related thoughts:
Personal assessment: Yes, more feeling-based rather than number-based. Across mission statements like “end world hunger”, “save X lives”, “democratize X”, I find myself being drawn to the conceptual ones like “democratize education (or other beautiful concept X)”. I.. don’t know if I actually emotionally resonate with the numerical implications of the mission. Like, if someone were to say: “Hey the expected increase of good-ness if you do X is +100, but if you do Y, it’s just +10”, if I find Y to be something that emotionally resonates with me more, I would choose Y any day. So, I don’t know if I’m being driven by some kind of quantifiable impact per se, but more so by the idea of working on a beautiful concept.
Self-flagellation re: impact. Sometimes I reflect and ask: with the decade I spent in the industry, how “impactful” was I, really? I.. don’t know. I just worked on projects that I find interesting or beautiful, or feel meaningful, then the impact kind of follows (if any), but that’s a side-effect, not something that I actively optimized for. Should I not have “optimized for impact” at the outset, so I could do the most good? Ugh, even typing this out makes me feel dead inside – I’m not sure if my psyche is built like that. I like optimizing yes, but I think I just start with: what’s beautiful to me, and only after that requisite first step does my analytical brain take over and say: cool, now be excellent and optimize.
Side-thought: taking bets. A trick for assuaging my guilt on having projects that failed to launch / not make an impact is to think of the expected return of my effort. When I chose to make an effort toward something, I could succeed (or fail) at varying magnitudes, with varying probabilities. It is optimal to choose and act based on the expected values. If I didn’t luck out, I still would have chosen the same when presented with the same options. I deserve to pay myself the expected reward, even when I fail. –> This can also be seen as loser talk / a cop out to actually working hard to make things succeed, so use this sparingly as a mental bandaid to recover.
What. I work to gain status. To establish a reputation in society.
Personal assessment: Yes in the past, less so now. Early on in my career, I was pretty driven by promotion. I wanted to get this shiny new title as fast as I could. I.. don’t think this was a mistake. The said status exposed me to more interesting work opportunities and excellent colleagues, and eventually, friends who also like to do things excellently. Nowadays, not so much. I built enough status and trust such that I don’t think trust / status is the bottleneck for me to produce more meaning in my life.
What. I work to feel challenged, and grow as I overcome the challenges.
Personal assessment: Byproduct, not something I optimize for. I like being challenged and feeling like I’m growing, and work provides an ecosystem of problems, and resources to help you succeed. I don’t think I actively optimize for this, though. It’s more that I’m excited by an idea, then as I go deep enough to execute on it, the challenge naturally comes.
What. I work to advance humanity’s understanding of itself.
Personal assessment: Past yes, now not so much. I used to resonate a lot with this when I decided to quit work to do neuroscience. Something about the statement: “In my limited time being conscious, I want to learn as much as I can about this universe, and myself” tugged at me. Nowadays, I’m more driven by the “I want to create X” kinds of statements though. Reflecting back, those months I spent learning about random subjects (e.g. re-learning physics, quantum algos, …) … I wonder if they were a worthwhile use of my time. Over time, I just became more pragmatic: I start with a vision of what I want to create first, then do the learnings that are necessary for that creative process.
What. I work to build connections with other humans
Personal assessment: Yes. At the end of the day, my favorite memories always have people tied to them. By doing things excellently, you build connections and trust with other excellent humans. As a nice bonus, they help expose you to greater opportunities (because they trust you! – or because other people who trust them will trust you).
On the flip side, when my work setup is such that I work mostly alone, I miss having colleagues who care about and understand my daily work output. Monetary compensation is a pretty good way of ensuring you have stable colleagues who would show up 9-5 multiple times a week to work with you.
What. I work to perfect my soul
Personal assessment: Yes in retrospect. This is new to me. It’s something that I feel to be somewhat true in retrospect. In work, you get exposed to mental and intellectual challenges, on top of having to be a good coworker. There’s a lot of maturing - through tense meetings where you and folks from another team are trying to reach a compromise, through you receiving support from colleagues who noticed you were going through a lot, and then you being inspired to do the same to others, through you hurting others then you apologizing and swearing to do better next time. I get to learn to be a better human through my experience at work.