I'm 26 years old, living in US so I don't know if I have the best experience as we're probably in similar boats career wise. I don't know if I have the best advice to give but maybe you can find some wisdom in some of my experiences.
I was really frustrated earlier this year, left my job, got a new one that I was really excited about. It's a remote software job in game dev. It's a good job and I'm excited, but what I realized is that it wasn't some magical bullet for all my frustrations. Life is complex and I think I'm starting to realize that it can't all be boiled down into one thing. I'm not just interested in doing one thing. I want to work on cool things, I want to become really good at my job and pick up skills and experience, I want to get married, I want to waste time playing games and doing other experiences I enjoy, I want to pick up random skills that won't really benefit me in any meaningful way but I would enjoy having. And the list goes on. I don't think I can distill what I want or who I am into one thing or one goal. That said I'm very aspirational, just like a lot of engineers/geeks/nerds. I think a common path for many engineers in life is to try and reach some technical peak. There's the idea that if I could just get good enough, if I could be really competent at my job or some skill then I would derive satisfaction from it. I think I would if I reached that peak. But I think reaching that peak would be a bit like this new job I got; it wouldn't be the answer for everything. That doesn't mean I'm not going to go for that peak, I am, it's just I no longer have the illusion that it will profoundly change who I am. So I think I maybe see some parallels with what you want. You're looking to get into FAANG, ML, or even looking into moving to a different city/country. I don't think any of these things are going to profoundly change who you are or how you feel. I'm not saying don't do them, pursuing those things could be some of the greatest things you do in your life.
Again not to try and be annoyingly profound, but try to find out who you are instead of defining yourself through your aspirations. Little things can end up having a large effect on you as well, not just huge life changing decisions, which I'm guessing you're hoping will get you out of this malaise. I don't think working at facebook or moving to London, will change your mindset. They might faciliate that change, but the change ultimately will be internal to you.
I read one of the linked articles in the article, the one that said men who take steroids and don’t exercise gain more muscle mass than men who don’t take steroids but do exercise. I should admit that I’m personally biased against the conclusion but I find the results interesting. I had a few nitpicks however:
1. I question how optimal the training stimulus was. They said it was controlled and they worked out 3 times a week and for the squat/bench press they started out at 4 sets of 6 reps varying between 70/80/90 % initial one rep max and then increased weights after 5 weeks and increased the number of sets to 5. I think it’s obvious that more exercise would result in more muscle mass gain up to a certain point and I think the amount of volume they’re doing is really suboptimal even for a more average weight lifter. I didn’t see them go into more detail about the workout routine which would’ve been nice.
2. With such a minimal routine, muscle mass gain is going to be limited to the areas that are being exercised. Taking steroids is going to increase all muscle mass throughout the body. The placebo + exercise group had a slightly higher increase in strength, very slight, but still higher than the steroid + no exercise group. If they wanted, a weight lifter could change the routine to maximize overall muscle mass gain. Presumably they weren’t really hitting some muscle groups (shoulders, hamstrings, calves, back, core). They weren’t doing deadlifts. So it makes sense that the steroid + no exercise group had higher muscle mass gain because they were experiencing a full body stimulus whereas the exercise + placebo were not (even if they were I question how optimal the routine was since as far as I could tell they didn’t release detailed workout routine).
3. This is even more nitpicky, but there is going to be a limited ceiling with no external stimulus (exercise). In the long run the steroid + no-ex group will plateau whereas the placebo + ex group will be able to increase muscle for much longer.
So I guess I disagree with the conclusion “men who take steroids but don’t exercise gain more muscle mass than no steroids + exercise” despite the results supporting it.
I was really frustrated earlier this year, left my job, got a new one that I was really excited about. It's a remote software job in game dev. It's a good job and I'm excited, but what I realized is that it wasn't some magical bullet for all my frustrations. Life is complex and I think I'm starting to realize that it can't all be boiled down into one thing. I'm not just interested in doing one thing. I want to work on cool things, I want to become really good at my job and pick up skills and experience, I want to get married, I want to waste time playing games and doing other experiences I enjoy, I want to pick up random skills that won't really benefit me in any meaningful way but I would enjoy having. And the list goes on. I don't think I can distill what I want or who I am into one thing or one goal. That said I'm very aspirational, just like a lot of engineers/geeks/nerds. I think a common path for many engineers in life is to try and reach some technical peak. There's the idea that if I could just get good enough, if I could be really competent at my job or some skill then I would derive satisfaction from it. I think I would if I reached that peak. But I think reaching that peak would be a bit like this new job I got; it wouldn't be the answer for everything. That doesn't mean I'm not going to go for that peak, I am, it's just I no longer have the illusion that it will profoundly change who I am. So I think I maybe see some parallels with what you want. You're looking to get into FAANG, ML, or even looking into moving to a different city/country. I don't think any of these things are going to profoundly change who you are or how you feel. I'm not saying don't do them, pursuing those things could be some of the greatest things you do in your life.
Again not to try and be annoyingly profound, but try to find out who you are instead of defining yourself through your aspirations. Little things can end up having a large effect on you as well, not just huge life changing decisions, which I'm guessing you're hoping will get you out of this malaise. I don't think working at facebook or moving to London, will change your mindset. They might faciliate that change, but the change ultimately will be internal to you.