HACKER Q&A
📣 clmetaa0

Is this FOMO or passion? How to fix it?


I am a software engineer with a Ph.D. in CS and am mainly working on ML infrastructure and performance optimization of model training. Generally speaking, my personal passion and interest lies at the intersection of linux kernel and performance optimization (think of the area around eBPF and the work that Brendan Gregg does). Therefore, naturally I spent most of time on reading and think about linux kernel and performance in general. However, I have this habit that every time I see a topic that don't know much about have a FOMO-like feeling and start reading about it. This takes a short period of time and then I jump to the next topic. The result is, I read about a wide range of topics and but I don't much about any of them to have an opinion. To give a concrete example, while I know a fair amount of ML frameworks and can implement basic ML pipelines and do performance optimizations (as part of my job), still when I see advance topics like transformers or newer model architectures, I feel terrified that I don't know about them and have an urgent feeling that I have to learn. Learning means spending time, which I don't have for it as I need to do my job as well as read other topics that can help me with my job. At this point this habit, which I don't know whether it's stemming from FOMO or passion, is ruining my confidence and my mental health and I don't know how to fix it. What is your advice here? should I keep reading about whatever topic I come across or focus on the area that It truly love?


  👤 thensome Accepted Answer ✓
When i had a situation like this, I started trying to determine a few things.

A: is the information useful or helpful to something I'm actually doing? (Vs useful or helpful to a theoretical future plan)

B: do i already have enough information on this topic?

C: is the acquisition of this information causing me stress or taking too much time away from other things?

I did decide to stop reading psychology articles bc of this process. I have enough information about psychology to make reasonable decisions for myself, and continuing to read about it gets me into emotional states about the accuracy and uses of the information. After a while i realized that I'm no longer gaining anything from new information on this topic, and it would be more productive to spend time writing and working on my own ideas relating to the information i already have.


👤 RayFrankenstein
No human brain can learn everything; one of the most harmful parts of tech culture is that we are gaslighted and shamed into believing otherwise.