I am doing great! I am planning the early stages of a company with a good colleague, lets see how it goes. I am already 29 pages down the novel I am writing, doing my daily training, eating healthy and having fun with my wife playing boardgames. In here the lockdown has been largely lifted off so we enjoy casual park stroll as well.
Ask HN: How are you holding up?
141–150 of 398 posts
Re: Ask HN: How are you holding up?
#142On track to getting expelled. Received the warning email three weeks ago. Was ice age permafrost stiff before, now approaching 0K stiff.
I'm a foreign student in Beijing. Living off campus. Xenophobic landlord kicked me out and I discovered there was nothing I could do to get rent or deposit back. Been bouncing between places, very painful as a person of colour in this otherwise normally incredible city.
Oddly, the isolation was initially great. Wasn't so productive in March, but having the pause was magic for every other aspect of my life. Got into incredible shape thanks to eating well, sleeping well, and a light but consistent calisthenics routine. But still missed by first deadline for thesis. Struggled to ask for help. Then asked and found it the university didn't care. Cue total collapse.
Everyday I wake up and try to make progress on a thesis but just end up frozen behind my computer. This has been soul destroying. Showing up each morning but failing to move forward. Anxious beyond imagination. Quit caffeine (coffee, green tea) for a month, then restarted in spectacular fashion.
Visa expires soon. Back to home country in a worse state than China and with ability to right itself. Feeling very doomed, lost, and annoyed to not have been able to capitalise on all this free time. About to throw an entire master's degree program down the drain because I can't stop panicking about it.
Just afraid of the future. Post lockdown, looking back and wishing I did more. It's hard to lose a grip on the world and to operate without a sense of meaning.
Re: Ask HN: How are you holding up?
#143Earlier quoted context omitted.
Anecdotally, cutting my coffee intake to near-zero levels has allowed my anxiety to simmer down. Perhaps this may help in your situation.
Contrapoint, research shows that coffee seems to act as a fairly effective antidepressant[1]. [1] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/000486741560313...
This abstract says that depression risk decreased by ~8%, but I still think this is an amazing finding.
I also wish I was scientifically literate enough to understand how good the study is :P
Re: Ask HN: How are you holding up?
#144Really badly, but could be worse. I am entirely sure that I have moderate-serious depression since the lock down started. I rely entirely on external structure and physical separation of spaces to keep myself sane. So WFH has been disastrous for me. I have been eating worse, not working out, stopped pursuing hobbies/side projects and have been incredibly unproductive at work. Thankfully, a year of good results prior…
It never ceases to amaze me how different people are. For me, all effects have been the exact opposite. Less going out, so more cooking and healthier eating. Less tired from open office noise, so more energy for sports. More free time without commute, so I picked up some long forgotten hobbies again. This means my advice might not apply to you, but if I may still recommend one thing: ignore most of the news for a whi…
I don't think theres that much of a difference. Most of the people who're doing well are staying at home with a partner or family and have a healthy relationship.
I can't imagine anyone in my situation of being cut off from almost all human contact (young+single+alone) for 4 months being "better than ever".
Re: Ask HN: How are you holding up?
#145My self-discipline, motivation and focus have been blown to shit.
I still don’t know why - I don’t even have a hypothesis. Lack of fresh air, social contact, exercise?
Luckily I think everything’s coming back. I’ve been doing Pomodoros to work on my focus, and gyms re-opened yesterday here which is a godsend.
I trust that by working on discipline, motivation will follow in time.
Re: Ask HN: How are you holding up?
#146Really badly, but could be worse. I am entirely sure that I have moderate-serious depression since the lock down started. I rely entirely on external structure and physical separation of spaces to keep myself sane. So WFH has been disastrous for me. I have been eating worse, not working out, stopped pursuing hobbies/side projects and have been incredibly unproductive at work. Thankfully, a year of good results prior…
Anecdotally, cutting my coffee intake to near-zero levels has allowed my anxiety to simmer down. Perhaps this may help in your situation.
I kinda detoxed on coffe because my activity level went down and I didn't even notice it. Just realised I didn't drink coffee at home anymore...
Re: Ask HN: How are you holding up?
#147Contrary to what I imagined, better than ever. Work: Incredibly smooth, even if I'm confined to a 13 inch laptop as opposed to 2x 26 inch screens (OK, I occasionally hook up my TV for extra help). Peace, quiet, fully able to focus on my tasks. Physical health: Several years ago I decided to dedicate a portion of my spare time to sports and I got into my best shape ever by end of last year(body fat ~10%, down from 20+…
>Peace, quiet, fully able to focus on my tasks. So no kids, lol. The hardest part of this is how I think it works this way for everyone else on my team at work. They are (normal work + 100%). I'm (normal work - 80%). Got my first negative performance review ever a couple weeks ago. It's rough.
Yes, no kids. And personally I'm __way__ above my 100%. 3 weeks in we did our largest release by a considerable margin(double digit larger than the second largest). Which is mind boggling still, considering the project itself is composed of +6.2 million lines of code and we make releases once a month.
Re: Ask HN: How are you holding up?
#148I'm at rock bottom. I got laid off unexpectedly, right at the beginning of the coronavirus. Severance package was terrible and I'm pretty much broke. Plus, the FMV of my options cratered, so the equity I worked hard for is already underwater. Hit the interview trail hard and have received nothing but rejections. Despite getting referrals from current engineers, I don't even make it past the tech recruiter phone scree…
Sounds like you might need to take something other than tech to make do. Maybe even consider out of town jobs, WordPress, or even PHP. Or try remote jobs outside your country - normally the US has the best jobs, but it really turned around this year.
The interview gauntlet can be tough and demoralising, and extremely depressing. I've been there. After months of rejections, I ended up at a company where the last guy quit with minimal notice and they needed to replace him ASAP. It helped that I was out of a job and didn't have any notice period. They ended up offering me double what the average engineer got and they haven't fired me yet, so it might not be you, just the job market.
My best tip would be to find and stabilize your life somehow so that it's not a race against time at least with regards to living costs. Find some small victories in your life like exercise or a productive non-addictive hobby like updating wikis or drawing. When applying for jobs with failure for too long, your confidence and willpower drops significantly, and this might show in your interviews.
Re: Ask HN: How are you holding up?
#149Really badly, but could be worse. I am entirely sure that I have moderate-serious depression since the lock down started. I rely entirely on external structure and physical separation of spaces to keep myself sane. So WFH has been disastrous for me. I have been eating worse, not working out, stopped pursuing hobbies/side projects and have been incredibly unproductive at work. Thankfully, a year of good results prior…
> I rely entirely on external structure and physical separation of spaces to keep myself sane. I think this will resonate with a significant subset of the HN crowd. I really thrive on externally-enforced structure (didn't take long to discover I made a terrible entrepreneur, but found a good niche as a startup employee). I've set my life up around having different events and places I need to be: classes at my gym, to…
I hear you. I feel the exact same way.
Re: Ask HN: How are you holding up?
#150Some stressors here and there, but I'm doing better than most. I'm glad I'm out of college now so I'm not strictly beholden to the whims of a college admin. Allows me to make my choices for myself instead of the existential threat of not graduating. Its given me more time to read.