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Ask HN: Are we all burned out?

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111–120 of 158 posts

Re: Ask HN: Are we all burned out?

#111

Too 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…

> My friends would rather play video games on discord than go and play cards in person. I hear that. I was born in '88, and although I played plenty of video games growing up, I remember playing a ton of card games with friends and family as a kid. After college, I pretty much stopped playing video games entirely and did all of my socializing in person. 10 years later COVID happened, and facing the prospect of being…

I think we all do, to some extent, feel the comfort of being instantly accessible to games and the internet (or whatever online community and hobby we have).

Part of the problem is that internet isn’t not a full substitute for in person. It never well be.

This is coming from someone that is chronically online and has more friends that live in different states than in person. It isn’t healthy to be online as much as I am.

Does anyone else remember the days of playing Halo with your 3 friends in your living room? That was way better than “Thursday night warzone” that we have nowadays, and I believe it is in part because of the fact that the couch coop was far closer to a real community (like what humans have had for thousands of years) than something as wildly intangible as being online

Re: Ask HN: Are we all burned out?

#112
For me, my mental state feels less like burnout, and more like recovering from a traumatic physiological event, like a major surgery. My ability to be creative was suddenly cut off by the social effects of the response to the pandemic. I limped through the interceding years, but when I review work from just before the pandemic, I find that it is more nuanced, better developed, and more meaningful than the work I do at present. My creative powers were weakened, and I have to take a long view on recuperation.

Re: Ask HN: Are we all burned out?

#115

I am of the opinion that if all techies just learned ansible and used postgres, we could take more time off and chill a bit.

Proselytize Ansible for me

State. Known good state. If it aint in the state you left it, damn juniors getting handy again..

Re: Ask HN: Are we all burned out?

#116
> All I want to do is look at my phone and consume more content.

I found myself in a slump recently. One day I noticed I'd spent a few hours just gawping at Stories, Shorts, Reels, etc. And I'd done it for days in a row, staying up later and later as my mood disintegrated.

As I got more tired, I noticed my interactions with people suffered. I consider myself an introvert, but actual hermitage eats at your soul. It's much easier to feel happiness with someone.

I have willpower issues, and I have the same problems as everyone else, but I think bottomless pits of meaningless "content" are an absolute negative in my life. They seem omnipresent now but I try to avoid them.

Re: Ask HN: Are we all burned out?

#117
I think both are true. Therapy will help you get sorted out, you can go once or twice, there's no rule saying it has to be ongoing. Many many people feel the way you do. Covid pushed a lot of people into the darkest moments of their life.

There was a 1 month waitlist to see a new therapist and 2 month to see a psychiatrist. That's in a densely populated state like NJ, usa.

There are many more things today that are able to more easily exhaust your emotional battery. News has gone from click bait to concern baiting in order to keep your attention. Every other news story is "breaking news". It's not.

I have been feeling burned out too and it's more severe than I have felt it in the past. I can't speak about pre 2010, I was too young. But in 2010s it was so much easier to figure out what needed my attention and what didn't.

There have been, what feels like, back to back world changing events. The reality is there always were. Covid is the first one that managed to touch every single person in the world's life. There's state and country level events like the war. The impact of those events spread it out to continents.

But in my lifetime and maybe most people's, there hasn't been a world effecting event like covid since, maybe WWII. Age is a factor for the previous one I think of, it's not the same for everyone.

Phone and content consumption are things that help me make it through the day. Tiktok is seen as "bad" but to me it's nice to spend a half hour watching random people do funny things. My timeline is tuned to show me cute animals and funny videos. No drama, no news, no stress.

My advice to you is find a hobby with a small local community. If you can't, find somewhere to volunteer. For me, there's an archery shooting range that has Friday night shoots at indoor targets. I see people from different age brackets. I can invite a close friend or two to come and hang out and talk about nothing in particular.

Like this lady tried to argue that she had dibs on a specific box of fruit because her hand touched it first. I just gave it to her but it was funny in retrospect. There were 30 other boxes.

I don't care about getting good enough at archery to make be competitive or go hunting. I feel happy about getting 9s and 10s. I don't feel bad about myself if I don't.

I would say go back to some root. Make a book club with your friends, or join the one at the local library. Volunteer at the local senior center or whenever. Get into 3d printing. Local open intramural sport. I know some of my friends do basketball game tournaments.

Do something you have done already so it's not new. Something you put down and forgot about or just didn't have time for.

Video games are decent, especially if you focus on single player games and not online multi-player.

I love my phone. I have friends I stay in touch with across time zones because of my phone. I am in many discords. There's never a moment in time where I can't pick up my phone, find people talking about a show I like or about some tech project I also like and just talk. They're strangers but we start with something in common. Specific communities talk about drama but I just go to a different discord channel.

Having a community you have a shared interest with gives you something to look forward to. I am in the stable diffusion community and it's pretty nice. Interesting projects and technical discussions.

Other people advising you to use your phone less don't understand the root of the issue. Whether or not you get therapy is up to you. Maybe a heart to heart with a friend you really really trust is enough.

Re: Ask HN: Are we all burned out?

#118

lack 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…

Debt driven speculation on housing is like speculating on drinking water - Its just wrong and ultimately negatively impacts the social fabric.

Thankfully debt wont be affordable for much longer, I hope interest rates don't fall any time soon.

Re: Ask HN: Are we all burned out?

#119
post #75

Get off your phone. Get off the news. They're doing nothing for you. Jump in some cold water. Feel reality for what it is. Don't use any products that simulate dopamine (phone, tv, video games, junk food), they're killing you from the inside.

The war is affecting my friends. My friends and family are all entering different stages of their life. It's been hard to meet new people. Office friends are even more removed and many moved away because of covid and work from home. I see how expensive my grocery bill has gotten every other weekend. Phones and technology are some of the only escapes left. This is bad advice, even worse than saying use the phone more…

I'm sorry to hear about your situation. It's a hard time for everyone, and there are many factors contributing to mental health decline in our society. However, I don't think your view on using phones as an escape is a correct one. Using social media, porn, or games as an escape are not a healthy response to difficult times in one's life. Getting in touch with reality, being in nature, and spending time with quality people are better ways to live a healthy life outside of work. Everything in moderation.

Re: Ask HN: Are we all burned out?

#120

No, I don’t want to sound cold but I’m sorry to say… this is called “life.” Our parents had tough times, and their parents had tough times, and so on throughout history. People have dealt with famines, wars, oppression, economic struggles, disease and death for thousands of years. I’m not suggesting the feelings of burnout aren’t real. I’m just saying that every generation experiences some level of hardship and it’s…

> Our parents had tough times, and their parents had tough times, and so on throughout history. US baby boomers had the best luck to be born in a time of massive prosperity, and opportunities have been steadily declining since then. My father didn't go to college and worked construction. He didn't own the company, just manual labor. He could pay the mortgage on a nice house in the suburbs and support a family on one…

My parents were not “US boomers”

Not everyone on HN is from the US.

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