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Feeling lost and with no direction, what skill should I learn? (lemmy.world)

submitted 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Hi everyone. I am feeling like I've lost any direction after getting laid off earlier this year (was working as an analyst in telecom and very recently landed a much lower position in healthcare data entry due to necessity). I already have several hobbies but I am either burnt out on them or they have lost their luster (similar to how life has lost its luster for me this past 6 months).

I would really love to learn a new skill, preferably using my hands to create something while challenging my brain. I'm willing to take classes, study, practice, and buy some equipment required for the skill.

Please tell me about your skill/hobby that gives you purpose. I've kind of exhausted google search which always returns the same 20 or so craft suggestions like "make custom invitations for weddings", and while that sounds good for someone, it may not be good for me.

Current hobbies: Music composition and gardening,

EDIT: trying to move away from hobbies that involve me sitting in front of a computer. I already do that way too much.

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Programming. Challenging and creative in a way that is different than art & music but still somehow similar. I find it almost relaxing sometimes. Python is a great first language and you can go from no knowledge whatsoever to a working program that does something genuinely useful in an hour, like scraping a website and showing you some data from it. Mastery takes years.

If you genuinely enjoy programming, you can legitimately change the world with your knowledge. There are tons of open source projects out there which benefit humanity yet don't have enough development talent. It's one thing to volunteer your time and see a good outcome from it, it's another to volunteer your time to build a system which guarantees good outcomes for many people over long time periods and get to see that system grow and get used by people.