Ask HN: How do you deal with loss of motivation?

This very thing struck me when I was watching a video recently about Ph.D.s at Google [1]. You would think, well, a Ph.D. working at Google - what could possibly be a more fun job? Apparently, to conduct even smallish experiments, they need to make sure that the code runs on infrastructure which is basically created to handle huge scale. I couldn't locate the exact place in the video again, but couldn't help but feel that this takes away so much of the fun of working on research problems in the first place.

Obviously, if you disagree with my view, then you would thrive in that environment! Given how many times the research problems I tackle (as side projects, for fun) end up going absolutely nowhere, I would absolutely not want to invest any effort in things like readable and scalable code and such.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJ-IwnnjBy0

This has the added side affect of indicating your ability as a leader, which may in turn lead to satisfying your desired leadership and decision making criterion.

Many years ago (1999), I was working in L.A. for a fast-growing media startup. My job was okay but my social life was just miserable. It's tough to be a guy from a small town in Texas and be single in a place like Los Angeles. I lived in a shitty apartment in Pasadena and knew no one. I listed to Adam Carolla's Loveline radio show obsessively at night for comfort and that motivated me to go to a shrink. The guy listened to my story and then looked at me and said, "If you're miserable, why are you still here? Move to where you want to be." Two days later, I gave my employer notice and soon after, I was packing my things and moving back to Texas.

My point is, like the poster above says, forget about yesterday's negativity and the future's worry and start living in the present. Do what you need to make yourself motivated and happy again.