Stay off the orange site.
Walk out side smell the fresh air.
Say hello to a stranger walking on the street.
Ask your elderly neighbors if they need help with groceries or an errand.
Ask HN: Are we all burned out?
91–100 of 158 posts
Re: Ask HN: Are we all burned out?
#92Yes. For me it's not so much distractions as how everything has become difficult. In the old days I had a PC and a Compiler. I would use an editor to write programs and compile them with the compiler. We shared source code and binaries via floppy disks. Then we got a LAN and we started using PVCS (an ancient version control system I can't really recommend) and life got slightly more complicated, but the benefits were well worth the increase in complexity. Fast forward to the 90s where we had better compilers, better version control and distributed software mostly over the intarwebs. We ran our software in our own data centers. There was a lot more complexity, but it was manageable. Everyone used programming languages that maintained reverse compatibility and operating systems whose interface between the kernel and the app code didn't change very often. Then we got Python. Programs I wrote in 2005 wouldn't run in 2007. So I had to update the code. Then in 2009 it stopped working again. And then in 2013 it stopped working again. Totally fine, management just added a couple weeks per year for language maintenance. Then we moved everything to AWS. It's fine, it wasn't too hard to figure it out. But then people started complaining about CloudFormation. Half our teams started using TerraForm. Then we made TerraForm our corporate standard, which meant corporate wouldn't pay for the CloudFormation training class. But only half of our projects had migrated to TerraForm, so every team had to teach incoming engineers "just enough" CloudFormation to get them moving forward. And then we decided JIRA was a useful tool. And then we decided Confluence was a useful tool. (The problem with Wikis isn't that it's hard to find information, it's that there's no way to figure out if the information you're looking at is current.) And then half of our projects started using Pulumi. Totally fine, but to understand my app stack, I now have to grok CF, TF & Pulumi. And it still doesn't do what we need it to do, so we wrote some scripts that call into the Cloud Development Kit. And then someone decided we should have a central DevOps group deploy new code, but the pipeline from release candidate in QA to production release takes 3 months. That's fine, I'll use that 3 months to rewrite / test third party packages that were EoL'd with their Python 3.6 release. And of course they don't run under 3.8 because it's Python. And my boss wants me to make accurate estimates for how long things will take.
Re: Ask HN: Are we all burned out?
#93In all seriousness, you need to put a block on national and international news. Cut it out 100% for at least a month. You are consuming poison and it is killing your mental health. Just stop. You can’t affect it and your attention does nothing positive.
These news companies have gone into overdrive over the past few years and their business models have mutated around the user engagement they got from Trump and Covid. They must now keep that tempo or their ad revenue will crash. You do not need to participate in this dumpster fire.
After you have cut out the news, you’ll be in a much better position to evaluate your overall mental health and if you need to work on it further.
Re: Ask HN: Are we all burned out?
#94Life is not a pony farm. Get used to it. As long kids and you are healthy and there is some food on your table it’s alright. Turn off your damn phone. It’s draining your mental health. Leave all your social networks. Leave all your friends and coworkers. There is no reason to be burned out. Find some positive people. A bit is sadness is far from burn out. Recessions come and go. At some age you will attend funeral of…
Overall this is good advice but don't leave your friends! Continuity of friendships for multiple decades can be really really good for both of you.
Re: Ask HN: Are we all burned out?
#95Well, I'm feeling the same, but I have an excuse. My father died, and I am his executor, and I got slammed with months of extra work, which I'm trying to do while still doing my regular job 40 hours a week. It's burning me out.
But about having a kid: Yes, it's a ton of work. Yes, it's mentally draining. Yes, it cuts into your "me" time. (My estimate was that it cut four times as hard as being married did.)
But you didn't just lose. You also won. One of my biggest failures (and regrets) was looking too much at what I was losing and not noticing what I was gaining. It was unpleasant for me, and not fair to my kids and my wife.
One thing that helped me was, on my way home from work, to just stop for maybe 5 minutes as I came into my suburb, to just stop for a moment. (And pray, because that's how I roll.)
Your kid needs you to not disappear into your phone. Put it down, and take the kid for a walk. There's a real world out there that's pretty nice sometimes. As a side bonus (presuming that you're married or live with your partner) you'll be a hero to your SO, who is probably desperate for a break from the kid.
Re: Ask HN: Are we all burned out?
#96Too be honestly, I feel like society at large causes burnout. I read a very complete account of my grandfathers early life (before he joined the military during WW2) and the kinda shit he did living of a farm is stuff of fairytales. When someone in the 20 mile radius needed a barn built, LITERALLY EVERYONE came to help. When you were off work for the night, you would sit with your whole family and read the newspaper…
OP here . Thank you . I feel stuck here in the US too since my family lives in a different country but I cannot move back because spouse and her family live here and the US has better prospects for kids . But I feel stuck in my career since I have become pigeonholed into support engineering roles , no strong friend group having grown up abroad and nothing to do apart from look at stuff on my phone and feeling left behind in pay and career.
Re: Ask HN: Are we all burned out?
#97lack of decent and affordable housing is the greatest source of stress in my life, so i wonder what the housing situation is for those in this thread saying everything is fine. i too make a “good” tech salary of ~$200k/yr, but still can’t afford a house in the modest neighborhood in southern california where i grew up, let alone any safe neighborhood within commuting distance of my employer in the bay area. i suspect those saying everything is fine and ignore the news are just being boiled slowly with the rest of us and/or enjoy affordable housing.
also, lack of community is perhaps equally important to housing. seems like meaningful social relationships are much harder to cultivate than a decade ago. but if i ever happen to be fortunate enough to live in a space that can accommodate, you all are welcome to come over and kick it.
Re: Ask HN: Are we all burned out?
#98I really fell this right now. I'm totally burnt out. I accepted a fully remote role a year and some ago and I realize that it was a mistake. I really need the time with people face to face, not for my work efficiency, but for my happiness.
I'm looking for a new opportunity that has a hybrid or in-person aspect and I'm hoping the change would start to spin that positive fly-wheel.
Re: Ask HN: Are we all burned out?
#99Too be honestly, I feel like society at large causes burnout. I read a very complete account of my grandfathers early life (before he joined the military during WW2) and the kinda shit he did living of a farm is stuff of fairytales. When someone in the 20 mile radius needed a barn built, LITERALLY EVERYONE came to help. When you were off work for the night, you would sit with your whole family and read the newspaper…
The problem with in person community is typically not that we cannot become part of one, the problem is that we don't want to sacrifice our individualistic urges as we would have to, if we seriously became part of a collective.
To many of us believe we can live the individualistic dream and be part of a collective without subtracting from either one. This is not possible. Being part of a collective often means we cannot do what we want, the way we want, when we want and with whom we want. Being part of a collective can be messy, challenging and uncomfortable. But it can also be fulfilling, cosy, safe and home.
To become collective we need to carefully look into ourselves and ask us: What is it that makes individualism our comfort zone, what are we afraid of, what makes us insecure?
On top of that finding the actual collective might be harder than ot was back then. In the past you had no choice, you were thrown into the world and into a collective. That could be good or very, very bad. My mother had 6 silblings and she hated it, she was never happier then when she got a distance. In times of the internet we could potentially even choose our collectives. But who is willing to do that in this day and age beyond hippies, squatters, artists and similar people?
The thing is, nothing stops any of us to build a community of actual people right now. Living together might even reduce rent.
Re: Ask HN: Are we all burned out?
#100Too be honestly, I feel like society at large causes burnout. I read a very complete account of my grandfathers early life (before he joined the military during WW2) and the kinda shit he did living of a farm is stuff of fairytales. When someone in the 20 mile radius needed a barn built, LITERALLY EVERYONE came to help. When you were off work for the night, you would sit with your whole family and read the newspaper…
If you aren't already familiar with the concept of the 'third place' [1] it might be an interesting thing to learn more about.
There has been for a while (20+ years) a decline in enforced third places (e.g. declining religiosity/church attendance) in many parts of the Western world with little else taking that space. I know Sunday Assembly [2] exists in some places and I hope works for the communities it supports.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_place [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunday_Assembly