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Recovering from Burnout and Depression

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Re: Recovering from Burnout and Depression

#171

Post by theparanoid »

twfarland wrote: post #119
convolvatron wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

how is that? i find that chaos and bad leadership still has a huge impact on my perception of my job and my ability to make progress as a contractor. its just alot easier to shrug and cash the check. and spend as much of the rest of your time doing things you think are worthwhile. ideally as a contractor i could choose to apply myself at places which were better organized and more engaging, its just they aren't as in…

For me, contracting works because you can go in, provide value, get paid, and get out, before getting too involved in some inevitably quixotic adventure. Of course, you have to pick your clients/jobs. It's more pleasant to work on greenfield stuff or for clients where one of the founders is technical. And define clear end-points up-front. Otherwise, it will be a pain. Pickiness is a privilege that should be used to t…

For me, the key is to "get out". Avoid personal investment. It's an exchange of time for money. Nothing more.

Re: Recovering from Burnout and Depression

#172

Post by Thrillington »

cortesoft wrote: post #166
55555 wrote: post #15

I think a big factor in burnout is that most work is ultimately meaningless, or even morally wrong, and on a deep level, we're aware of that. Why is it so hard to make yourself work? Probably because you actually should be doing something else with your life. If someone paid you money to kick a dog, you'd feel a strong urge to do something else. That's because you shouldn't kick dogs. But when we feel the same urge t…

I feel like this is more about how you see life in general than about your job and work. Quite simply, I love life. I know this isn't true for everyone, but it is for me. I find a lot of things meaningful and exciting. I love watching people on youtube excel at their random hobbies, I love seeing people compete in sports, I love talking about random things with friends and coworkers. I love the feeling I get when I s…

    In short, things are fucking amazing. Life is pretty awesome, if you choose to focus on the awesome things.
That only works when you have the luxury of making that choice.

I recently rejoined the workforce after taking about 18 months off due to burnout. I had the luxury to do so. During that downtime I gained a roommate who is doing facilities work at a gym. She does not have the luxury to focus on the good things in life.

Re: Recovering from Burnout and Depression

#173

Post by cpncrunch »

gmfawcett wrote: post #5
cpncrunch wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a pretty big problem for healthcare workers: http://journals.lww.com/co-criticalcare/Abstract/2007/10000/...

Also see Christina Maslach's books on burnout. She doesn't focus exclusively on health workers, but they are noted as a group which is particularly prone to burnout. (Edit: I just read the article, and see that the author cited Maslach already.)

Yes, Maslach is one of the experts/pioneers in burnout research. She created the Maslach Burnout Inventory, and is highly cited.

Re: Recovering from Burnout and Depression

#174

Post by cortesoft »

Thrillington wrote: post #172
cortesoft wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like this is more about how you see life in general than about your job and work. Quite simply, I love life. I know this isn't true for everyone, but it is for me. I find a lot of things meaningful and exciting. I love watching people on youtube excel at their random hobbies, I love seeing people compete in sports, I love talking about random things with friends and coworkers. I love the feeling I get when I s…

In short, things are fucking amazing. Life is pretty awesome, if you choose to focus on the awesome things. That only works when you have the luxury of making that choice. I recently rejoined the workforce after taking about 18 months off due to burnout. I had the luxury to do so. During that downtime I gained a roommate who is doing facilities work at a gym. She does not have the luxury to focus on the good things i…

I think everyone has the luxury to focus on the good things. I have known VERY poor people who are happy. I have known very sick people who are happy. I have known people who have suffered horrific loss, and are happy.

Everyone can make the most out of their own current situation. Sure, it is easier when your situation is objectively better, but there is no cutoff where you HAVE to focus on the negative.

Re: Recovering from Burnout and Depression

#175

Post by projektir »

biot wrote: post #167
crush-n-spread wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I concur that resistance to burnout depends on having a broader context to your life and humanity as a whole. If you understand your own life within the perspective of the billions of humans that have lived and died before you, and that will live after you, it adds a very resilient drive and resistance to small setbacks. Personally, I was able to achieve this using the recursive why, or chained why, which is a t…

Eventually the last "why" you get to has the answer: "The biological machinery that comprises my body receives incoming stimuli and the laws of physics causes a cascading chain reaction which changes my internal state. Thus, I'm basically a series of recursive analog state machines and free will is but an illusion." At that point, you lose all motivation for asking any further "why" questions.

Last I checked, the free will question wasn't shut, and I wouldn't suggest basing your entire model of the world on something that pretty much nobody has a good understanding of right now. O.o

It sounds like you've simply bought modern "nihilism", i.e., the "everything is meaningless and nothing matters" philosophy that a lot of logical types seem to believe but none actually live (since it's not workable).

Digging down to whys requires actually answering them, not throwing your arms in the air and saying that the question is unanswerable. It's answerable, there's a reason that you do things, otherwise you wouldn't even be able to exist. "I do things because that's what my machinery does" is avoiding the question. Well, duh. That doesn't mean there aren't reasons as to why you do or do not eat that donut.

It's like if someone approached you asking how a given piece of software works, and instead of explaining the structure and the business logic, you say that it's a bunch of machine code. Wrong level of abstraction, you just dodged the question.

Re: Recovering from Burnout and Depression

#176

Post by malkia »

cortesoft wrote: post #166
55555 wrote: post #15

I think a big factor in burnout is that most work is ultimately meaningless, or even morally wrong, and on a deep level, we're aware of that. Why is it so hard to make yourself work? Probably because you actually should be doing something else with your life. If someone paid you money to kick a dog, you'd feel a strong urge to do something else. That's because you shouldn't kick dogs. But when we feel the same urge t…

I feel like this is more about how you see life in general than about your job and work. Quite simply, I love life. I know this isn't true for everyone, but it is for me. I find a lot of things meaningful and exciting. I love watching people on youtube excel at their random hobbies, I love seeing people compete in sports, I love talking about random things with friends and coworkers. I love the feeling I get when I s…

There was a Game Designer Book (or collection of interviews) where someone (forgive me, I forget the name) classified games into two categories: one with goal (game-like), and the other ones without (toy-like).

For example Mario Bros is about saving the Princess (Goal), while Age Of Empires is not (toyette).

Wondering if this applies back to life. Some people put goals, others just like to play with life, to experience it, to see what's about.

Nah... probably wrong re-analogy here, but made me think about it this way... After all there are no save games in life...

Thank you for sharing your experience!

Re: Recovering from Burnout and Depression

#177

Post by theseadroid »

cortesoft wrote: post #166
55555 wrote: post #15

I think a big factor in burnout is that most work is ultimately meaningless, or even morally wrong, and on a deep level, we're aware of that. Why is it so hard to make yourself work? Probably because you actually should be doing something else with your life. If someone paid you money to kick a dog, you'd feel a strong urge to do something else. That's because you shouldn't kick dogs. But when we feel the same urge t…

I feel like this is more about how you see life in general than about your job and work. Quite simply, I love life. I know this isn't true for everyone, but it is for me. I find a lot of things meaningful and exciting. I love watching people on youtube excel at their random hobbies, I love seeing people compete in sports, I love talking about random things with friends and coworkers. I love the feeling I get when I s…

You think your job is making the world a little better place isn't it? Do you think all or most people can think the same way? That everyday the 8 hours of their lives are making the world better/not wasted? The comment you replied to used the imaginary job of 'dog kicker' to say that's not always the case. In real life, there are jobs who are censoring internet, who are profiling teenage to find better advertisement opportunities, who are monitoring regular citizens' communications. The list goes on. And there are programmers that develop those tools to enable those jobs. Do you think people working those jobs can be confident saying they are making the world at least a little bit better?

Re: Recovering from Burnout and Depression

#178

Post by theparanoid »

tannerc wrote: post #101
rubicon33 wrote: post #96

I want to highlight something that the article touched on, which for me, was a big source of burnout. "Breakdown of community" This can happen if you work remotely, or work in-office with a team that isn't collaborating effectively. If the work you do is isolating and you rarely collaborate with others, you may suffer burnout. At our core we all want to feel like we're part of something bigger than ourselves. Being p…

Poor collaboration within a small team is something I'm experiencing now, and it's devastating. Would be curious to hear if you found a way out, or a way to improve collaboration within a currently flawed group.

Leave. It doesn't get better.

Re: Recovering from Burnout and Depression

#179

Post by cortesoft »

malkia wrote: post #176
cortesoft wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like this is more about how you see life in general than about your job and work. Quite simply, I love life. I know this isn't true for everyone, but it is for me. I find a lot of things meaningful and exciting. I love watching people on youtube excel at their random hobbies, I love seeing people compete in sports, I love talking about random things with friends and coworkers. I love the feeling I get when I s…

There was a Game Designer Book (or collection of interviews) where someone (forgive me, I forget the name) classified games into two categories: one with goal (game-like), and the other ones without (toy-like). For example Mario Bros is about saving the Princess (Goal), while Age Of Empires is not (toyette). Wondering if this applies back to life. Some people put goals, others just like to play with life, to experien…

I think you are on to something. I have always thought of the things we value as having either intrinsic value or extrinsic value; do we value the thing because it itself is good, or because it allows us to get something else that is good? Money, for example, has extrinsic value, because we only value it for what we can buy with it (unless you are coin collector, I suppose). Eating ice cream, on the other hand, has intrinsic value because we enjoy the sensation for itself.

I feel like a lot of very goal oriented people never get to the intrinsic value part, which is where the real purpose in life is. If you are always doing something in order to get something else, you are going to feel like you are on a treadmill. You have to eventually arrive at something you find intrinsically valuable.

Personally, I find a whole lot of things intrinsically valuable, which is probably why I am such a genuinely happy person.

Re: Recovering from Burnout and Depression

#180

Post by [deleted] »

jansho wrote: post #144
graphitezepp wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup exhausting to have this world view isn't it? And rising depression rates suggest, to me at least, that people that think this way are becoming more common.

When you find yourself in this situation, it's a good idea to "zoom out" a little and get closer to nature and real people. I took long walks, trying to soak up the sun, trees, insects everything. I also walked all over the city and watched different people getting on with their lives; commuting, serving, sweeping, chatting ... and all the while paying attention to their facial expressions and language. And finally I…

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