Ask HN: Why can't I learn anymore?

Good comments here about the work itself, but I note you haven't mentioned anything about your personal life. Has anything changed? Just a thing to think about, it may well be that it's purely a work issue.

I left the industry and just can't make myself look back. Shooting my shot at solo gamedev, because at least I can be happy and hungry instead of miserable and hungry. Never could quite keep my footing in the industry, anyway, despite my experience, because of multiple contributing factors leaving resources I need out of reach (no degree, lifelong mental health issues = jobs with the benefits and pay I need just aren't there). Late 30s.

I have no advice to give, because none of it seems to really work for me. Just letting you know you aren't alone in your feelings, because they mirror mine.

This sounds like burnout to me. I am in my mid-40s and used to have spells like this, but no more. I needed some kind of large change, back then, to get myself sorted out, but this could be pretty destructive because if I waited too long, the change I'd need wouldn't really be conducive to staying on whatever project I was on.

The key to not having to deal with this problem anymore, for me, was starting to proactively switch things around to break the routine of consecutive work-weeks. One of my tricks was to do some kind of mini-vacation every 6-8 weeks, go somewhere new, leave work behind for 3-4 days. Even smaller things like regular social events can work wonders - anything that breaks the weekly routine.

Back when I'd get myself into burnout periods the most effective way to recover enthusiasm was to pick up a new skill, work-related or not. I was in my mid-30s in the late aughts and not entirely sure I wanted to keep coding - so I signed myself up for an 18 month "executive MBA" program to find out if I might want to do something else, and instead came out of that with a whole new outlook on how and why to write code.

Then around 5 years later I started writing code on the side, for myself, to gradually improve over the long term, and this can be absolutely therapeutic.

Try to switch things around a little bit, do something new, see if that helps?

For what it's worth, as a 34yo who has also been doing this for ~15 years professionally, are you me? Because I probably could've written this post.

Don't feel alone. Just remember to take advantage of your strengths. You may not be able to keep up with the 24yo's, but the 24yo's really suck at "choosing the right problems to work on." You know, the most important thing.

It's very natural to feel overwhelmed, even 5 months into a project. I'm also at the 5 month mark, and it surprises me how much other people around me know.

One important point -- I have a lot of experienced people to lean on. Do you?

It sounds like they may have yeeted you into the deep end alone and said "go write Vue." If you have no colleagues, and (most importantly) no intellectual curiosity about Vue (which is a totally valid way to feel!), then that sounds miserable.

So my point is, the difference in our situation is that even though I feel overwhelmed, I don't feel demotivated (yet), because whenever I'm stuck on something, I have a colleague who loves to pair program and is happy to hop on Google Meet at 10pm, and a different colleague who basically designed and wrote most of the entire infrastructure that we use day-to-day. Coworkers like that make it super easy to look forward to the next day, because their enthusiasm is so infectious.

If you don't have anyone like that, don't worry -- it just means you're in the wrong gig. It happens. The solution is to remember that you are not your job. Downshift mentally. Treat your professional requirements as exactly that: a 9-to-5, and be sure to have side hobbies and a life outside work. During work, force yourself to focus on the simplest possible next step, and do that (and only that) until it's done. Repeat.

Best of luck friendo. Feel free to DM me on twitter (https://twitter.com/theshawwn) if you ever want to vent. Happy to listen.

I've been in this situation for a few years. Tried changing jobs, took on new responsibilities, just to conclude that I am dead tired of the SpringBoot/Angular mononculture and teams devoid of the sense of ownership.

Around me, SpringBoot and Angular are the default choice, accompanied with Spring Cloud (or AWS for hipster companies). This means that you tend to work with people who do not care what they do and how.

Finally, I just quit and started building a sauna in the basement, doing some long due repairs in the house, learning a language and happily coding in Go at night.

Life is good, again. I am now applying to new gigs, trying to steer away from the kind of projects I used to do before.

P.S. Vue is actually great, I used Angular and React but could only grasp Vue at the end. That's one only humanly sized framework out of the three, IMO.