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How is everyone's mental health at the moment?

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Re: How is everyone's mental health at the moment?

#21

Post by user_agent »

yhavr wrote: post #9

Well, surprisingly good. Assuming I have no job, stuck alone in an asocial country, miss my home, and had a much worse mental state before entering pandemics. TL;DR: stoicism rocks. the best thing I've adopted ever. Secret? First of all, stoicism. When COVID started, I got into and quickly merged into my philosophy. I still have a lot to learn, read and internalize (finish the big 3 stoics, yudkovsky, taleb, kahneman…

This. Being prepared and thinking clearly is the cornerstone of being able to practice indifference to fate.

I'm also in a good shape thanks to that philosophy, and moreover - thanks to a life I've managed to generate for myself. One can't work without the other.

And I'm not a kind of lucky and happy-face hipster taking success in life for granted. Life has been throwing enormous problems at me. I have no idea what I would do without a proper philosophical backbone in order to deal with that.

Re: How is everyone's mental health at the moment?

#22

Post by user_agent »

nscmnto wrote: post #2

I’ve transitioned to working full time as a software engineer after running two startups, right before the lockdowns started (February). While I’m extremely lucky, I’m also at a very uncertain period in my life - as I assume most of us are. Working from home (not being able to go to a coffee shop or co-working space) makes it hard to transition in and out of work, so days just feel a bit of a blur. I know there are p…

Sometimes it's just harder to appreciate and enjoy freedom we've generated for ourselves than actually to make all that work leading to that freedom.

It's a self-resolving paradox though. Later in life we're wiser, and most of us can better understand our life thru complex layers of abstract models. Like how good are we with diminishing risks and what kind of and how many options we can generate for ourselves. Life is good after that. You trust yourself, you have control. For now just enjoy the ride!

Re: How is everyone's mental health at the moment?

#23

Post by pestaa »

dyingkneepad wrote: post #7

Horrible! Even before Covid I was already going through a bad phase, I think I will never be as good as I once was in my job. I make stupid mistakes, I have a hard time focusing, I used to be one of the top performers of the team and now I struggle to do basic tasks without making mistakes. I stop and check my phone or the news every 15 minutes. I have a partner, a baby and a small kid and absolutely no family member…

Hang in there, buddy! Once the fire burns again, you'll be cranking out code like a freshman. Do you have a separate room for home office? Changing it a bit might help. Ask your kid to make a painting to put on the wall (actually, I should do this too!).

I think switching jobs does not help because it's the not thing demotivating us.

It's so hard to break the spell called daily routine. I know because I'm in the same spot you're in.

Re: How is everyone's mental health at the moment?

#24

Post by mettamage »

shahbaby wrote: post #14
mettamage wrote: post #12

I was looking for a job for 12+ months as I am bad at interviewing. I found one during the height of covid at a startup that seems to be unaffected. Finally got a chance to prove myself which is going well. The lockdown gave me time to reflect and reset my habits. I am much more into exercise and yoga. I got more time to talk to my grandparents as I moved in with them during my miserable job hunt. So yea, pretty good…

I'm currently in the job hunt and also starting to question why I got a degree. I definitely learned some useful stuff but no one cares. Instead of 4 years on a degree I could have spent 1 year learning on my own. I wouldn't be as well prepared but everyone is looking for shallow signals anyway. Spending a few weeks following a tutorial to build some crappy web app will look more impressive to a recruiter than spendi…

I feel like I'm reading my own words right now. Since I currently have a job at a company that pays slightly below average, but other than that is pretty amazing (I have no stress there and partially get to work on open-source), I'll give you some pro's as to why you have your degree:

1. It's easy to get up to speed. This has 2 consequences (see 2 and 3).

2. It doesn't feel particurlarly challenging, so you can focus on having a chill life.

An aside: if you live in a country where you're taxed highly, then I definitely recommend taking a 4 day work week as free days don't get taxed. To me, it almost strikes the right balance. I'm learning that I want a mix between a 4 day work weeks and 8 to 12 week vacations per year. I'd get there if I'd go to 3.5 days per week and use 26 free days as vacation days. For me, being able to work 3.5 days per week is similar to being rich and doing whatever the hell you want. Career progress is tougher (depending on what you do in your free time), but you're living life right now instead of later.

3. If it does feel challenging (had this with a previous gig before the 12 months), you have the confidence of having been through something much more grueling before.

Is that worth 4 years of your life? Probably not, but it's better than the psychology degree that I also happen to have :P

Re: How is everyone's mental health at the moment?

#26

Post by giantg2 »

maps7 wrote: post #25
giantg2 wrote: post #6

I hate my job, but that was existing before all this stuff started.

What is it and do you have an option to change jobs?

Software engineer for a large financial company.

I don't really have the option to change. I became an expert (acting tech lead) in our Filenet based application, then they outsourced it. Then I worked with a Neoxam application including ASC work for a couple years (terrible management). I'm on an AWS team working with Python (sort of). The work is boring, the business can't describe their business process well, and we spend more time doing reports or troubleshooting than building anything.

The company doesn't follow it's own policies. I see people get promoted because they meet diversity metrics and work 12 hour days (policy is 7.5 hours). I put in extra hours as an acting tech lead, got my masters, and I'm still a mid level after 8 years. I feel this same sort of stuff will happen at other big companies as the one I'm at is ranked in the top 20 Computerworld best places to work. I'm a mid level developer and would need to find an entry level position. I have a kid now, so I can't afford to take a lower salary. I'm stuck.

Re: How is everyone's mental health at the moment?

#27

Post by maps7 »

giantg2 wrote: post #26
maps7 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is it and do you have an option to change jobs?

Software engineer for a large financial company. I don't really have the option to change. I became an expert (acting tech lead) in our Filenet based application, then they outsourced it. Then I worked with a Neoxam application including ASC work for a couple years (terrible management). I'm on an AWS team working with Python (sort of). The work is boring, the business can't describe their business process well, and…

I expect you're not alone in your position. Since it sounds like you can't do anything in work, is there anything outside work that can make it better?

Re: How is everyone's mental health at the moment?

#28

Post by giantg2 »

maps7 wrote: post #27
giantg2 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Software engineer for a large financial company. I don't really have the option to change. I became an expert (acting tech lead) in our Filenet based application, then they outsourced it. Then I worked with a Neoxam application including ASC work for a couple years (terrible management). I'm on an AWS team working with Python (sort of). The work is boring, the business can't describe their business process well, and…

I expect you're not alone in your position. Since it sounds like you can't do anything in work, is there anything outside work that can make it better?

Not that I've been able to think of.

Re: How is everyone's mental health at the moment?

#29

Post by kleer001 »

dondawest wrote: post #16
kleer001 wrote: post #10

Fan-fing-tastic. Coming to the table with low inherent trait extroversion and even lower trait neuroticism I was primed to do just fine. Mix in a decent home office space coincidentally already setup, a job that lets me work from home, a great wage, absurdly low rent, decent savings, a caring partner also fine working from home, and top it all off with living in a country with a more help-others than individualistic…

Where u at bro

I'm in the pacific northwest in the entertainment industry. There's a bit of footage we're milking and it seems like things are going to slowly turn back on with higher restrictions of on set production. But long term? I think we'll keep working.

Re: How is everyone's mental health at the moment?

#30

Post by dondawest »

user_agent wrote: post #20
dondawest wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I almost spit out my coffee when you mentioned TALEB as a stoic, much less a member of the “big three” He’s as far from stoic as I can possibly imagine. His hairtrigger easily offended argumentative twitter presence is maybe even more sensitive and reactive and thin skinned than trump.

The most basic definition of stoicism is "indifference to fate". In that scope Taleb definitely is a stoic. His approach toward stoicism, though, is less philosophy focused and more (that's kind of unique) targeted toward statistics. Ancient stoics don't write about their philosophy in such a way, but the logic remains similar. The whole concept of antifragility Taleb has promoted is pure "opportunistic" stoicism. Ta…

He reminds me of Ayn Rand hating on government handouts while taking them. He promotes stoicism while practicing the opposite.

You can say he’s promoting “logical stoicism” just like Ayn Rand fans can say that “it’s okay to be ideologically against handouts while taking them,” but we both know deep down that these people aren’t practicing what they preach.

I like Taleb a lot but it took me a little while to understand that he was writing an idealized version of himself and his philosophy that is frankly fictional but still has great value.

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