Burnout caused by chronic stress is widespread

stoic philosophy is no good for the mind. actually feeling your emotions is healthy. it's stuffing them down that makes people crazy or likewise numbed out. this is a difficult truth to understand.

vaping is a poison - clearly. addictions just keep you on the cycle.

real acceptance is powerful but it comes from a place of being connected to yourself which means your emotions. trying to suppress them isn't living since you are suppressing your very nature.

> Working longer hours for 4 days, avoiding some of that peak commute stress ...

You're spot on here. The option to travel before/after the rush makes a world of difference.

I'm a freelancer/consultant and I've found that when I'm working as a "vendor", as opposed to a "temporary employee" working on-site during normal business hours, and only need to be on-site for meetings and such, I don't mind commuting at all and actually look forward to heading into the city. Novelty aside, I'm sure this is because I'm usually traveling before (heading to a cafe to prepare for an early meeting) or after (late meeting) the rush and can find a seat, have room to breath, etc. However, when I'm stuck doing the 8/9/10-5/6/7 commute, I find the train/subway ride (and myself) miserable.

As far as I can tell, media never says the bald truth that everyone knows in the back of their heads -

We live in an extremely competitive world where we must fight for our livelihoods. The majority of non-white-collar jobs are worse than whatever crap we have to put up with in the good jobs - they get treated worse, paid less, and have less prospects to escape their situation. So every high-paying becomes increasingly competitive, and you cannot realistically spend too little time working or push back too much because you will be replaced. Employers have always been tyrannical to the greatest degree they can get away with, and they will always do so. They don't care, they will squeeze everything they can out of you. Only reason some programmers have it good for now is extremely short supply, and thats quickly changing as more people rush into the field.

That entire structure makes things very convenient for the rich people at the top. As long as there are enough people stuck in dead-end situations, they can simply pay a little better and have a supply of people willing to do anything - program weapons or junk ads, work 80 hours/week whatever. Its a question of power plain & simple and its frankly ridiculous how many hoops people collectively jump through to avoid facing that fact.

I'm reminded of this great quote from "Soul of a new machine": He went away from the basement of Building 14 that day, and left this note in his cubicle, on top of his computer terminal: "I'm going to a commune in Vermont and will deal with no unit of time shorter than a season."

Phone interviews and going through "the front door" of most companies is a soul-crushing experience, in my opinion, most of the time. Don't let the reality of just how difficult going about getting a job that way can be, override your sense of confidence in yourself. I have the same feeling, often. People like you and I need to remind each other, when we feel this way, that it is just hard to go that way.

If I had some real paying work to give you I'd do it in a heartbeat. Your HN name is RandomInteger4 on HN. That says enough for me.

Let me tell you a story...

I was working for a startup over 10 years ago. We started in the back of the owner's house, a glass-enclosed greenhouse (no kidding) that got up to 90+ degrees during the summer, and housed our servers and ourselves. It was a crazy experience - the stories I could tell.

I went through a divorce, while working there, stress, burnout and eventually fell out of the place (it was a bad experience), when they sold the company for a huge amount (tens of millions), and I pretty much got nothing out of it compared to what I put in (other than a lot of experience). I learned a lot but it took a huge amount out of me.

I was depressed. I went through a long period of depression and aimlessness.

A previous boss I had worked for, as an intern, who was kind of a family friend, just told me, "come and do some stuff for me". He gave me a chance, didn't have crazy expectations for me, paid me enough to get by, and I was very lucky - I worked hard and did as much as I could, because I was grateful. It helped me get over the state I was in, and back into the workforce and groove.

It sounds to me like you just need somebody to give you that. I would do it. Can anybody on HN help?

I'm starting to believe that one of my life's goals might be to find a way to help people like you (and once me). You just need to find a space, in which to do some work, without crazy expectations, make some money, make some new connections and get things going again. Sometimes it's just finding the right person or connection to talk to, which implies some degree of social interactions.

I wish you all the best. You will make it through this. Hang in there and if you can, perhaps you will also get lucky and find that opportunity to just get back into it. I really wish for you that you will.

I hope this helps, or somebody else reads this and helps you.