Ask HN: Tips to relearn how to care about my job?

Ding ding ding! We have a winner!

You’re beginning that existential question of what matters to you and what you want to spend your time doing. As soon as you do that, uncertainty will creep into far more than just your work.

You chased the golden dream, now you “have it” and are near the top given your nice high salary. You’re not at the absolute tippy top, but you’re closer to the summit than at the base of the mountain.

Congrats, your Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is mostly met and now you’re getting mildly philosophical about your life and work.

It sounds like you’re in a state where you’ve learned to grind. It paid off, now you’re trying to keep up the pace by continuing learning to eek out that last bit of performance from your engine as you speed along.

I was there too. Voracious learning felt like I was building, finding my niche, but I was bored with what I did at work.

The solution is to go to therapy and discuss this problem directly with them. Explain how what you have put all this time into is now boring you, you feel the need to change, but are unsure how to. You want to stay motivated.

Get ready for a big change. You’re about to uncover topics like burn out, depression, expectations for life, building meaningful and fulfilling relationships… this is the meaning of life stuff.

Possibly, you’re putting too much weight of importance on your job. You may be letting it define you.

You’ll need to process all this and more. It’s going to take time. I suggest therapy so you don’t end up in the deep pot holes I did before I decided to eventually start talking to someone about the uncertainties in my life and how I handle them.

Good luck, this is a big topic you’ve just opened up for yourself.

I have never, in my entire life, seen someone who is unhappy with their job somehow find happiness without changing jobs. And it's not good enough to find hobbies or devote time to family -- if you don't like your job, you don't like 1/3 of your waking hours and you should really do something about that. If the job is the source of unhappiness, staying in the job will perpetuate the problem.

Furthermore, the OP is in a very privileged position and has many options available, as does anyone else who works at a large California tech company.

Not as a specific reaction to burnout but in the past I've taken 3 to 4 week trips (often group trips) where I've largely disconnected. Takes more discipline to do that now most places than it used to be but can be a total change of pace. What type of trip of course depends on what sort of thing interests you. Take a look at something like the Wilderness Travel catalog to get an idea for the options out there. (Are many such companies but I've had good luck with them.)

What I’ve come to believe is that responsibility is the meaning of life, so try adding responsibility to your life.