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You’re not burnt out, you’re existentially starving

neilthanedar.com

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Re: You’re not burnt out, you’re existentially starving

#401

Post by asdff »

lovich wrote: post #145
asdff wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't want just a house though. They want a house in a "cool" area. Look at median home prices in rust belt cities. Mortgages around $2k a month or so. Very doable for a lot of people but you never hear a drum beat about this. You never hear about people moving to these cities unless they have family there already to remind them that, hey, this is in fact a great deal.

Are there jobs in those cities who sit in an area named after their economic collapse? Do student loan costs go down if you move to a low cost of living area? We had some movement in the direction of people immigrating to low cost areas like that with the rise of remote work, but then execs decided they didn’t like not having control over their workers live and did RTO. To their offices in the cities with high rent a…

Of course there are jobs in these places. Some of these metro areas have 2 million people. They aren't just digging though the mud in the midwest like peasants in monty python. Student loans aren't so high if you went in state.

Re: You’re not burnt out, you’re existentially starving

#402

Post by asdff »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #255
lovich wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are there jobs in those cities who sit in an area named after their economic collapse? Do student loan costs go down if you move to a low cost of living area? We had some movement in the direction of people immigrating to low cost areas like that with the rise of remote work, but then execs decided they didn’t like not having control over their workers live and did RTO. To their offices in the cities with high rent a…

It's very rich when people who are likely 15-20+ years in their career in San Franscisco are telling the modern youth to just "move to Alabama". As if they can just find a cushy tech job in a market that is using RTO's to force layoffs. People this detached really need to spend a few days on linkedIn applying to jobs. Not with their connection, but through those horrible workday portals and thousands of apps turned i…

I didn't say move to Alabama. Try Shaker Heights, Ohio. Believe it or not, there are jobs in a metro area with 2 million people in a variety of industries.

Re: You’re not burnt out, you’re existentially starving

#403

Post by asdff »

cosmic_cheese wrote: post #184
lovich wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are there jobs in those cities who sit in an area named after their economic collapse? Do student loan costs go down if you move to a low cost of living area? We had some movement in the direction of people immigrating to low cost areas like that with the rise of remote work, but then execs decided they didn’t like not having control over their workers live and did RTO. To their offices in the cities with high rent a…

Exactly. Do people want to live in desirable areas? Absolutely. The much bigger draw to expensive metros, however, are the vastly more robust job prospects that come with those areas. In a city, you have both much better chances of finding employment suited to your skills specifically, better chances of being paid well for it, and better chances of upwards mobility. Plus, should it become necessary you're more likely…

70k goes a lot further in these places than 170k does in a high cost of living area that is for sure. And 70k jobs aren't so hard to find in these places if you are college educated. You can easily pull that in sales. In management. There are consulting offices in these places. Yes, some tech. Jobs where you can make a whole lot more than 70k. Healthcare. Law. Consulting. Real estate. Finance. Accounting. Yes even manufacturing is still present at a certain scale. There are still a few steel mills and these days they employ mostly high skilled engineers. Still a need for pretty much all disciplines of engineering in these places in various sectors.

People think all there is to do is work in a waffle house in the shadow of a closed steel mill, but really these are cities that by definition need a somewhat diversified economy to even function as a city at all. They have all the various pieces that make a city a city and a region a region. Sorry, not much startups, but that's about the only exception, truly, and may not even be the case adjacent to the state flagship universities.

Re: You’re not burnt out, you’re existentially starving

#404

Post by raveren »

phil21 wrote: post #360
raveren wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> even meaningful work becomes mundane once your brain adjusts to it. Not to demean your experience, but for me (5+ years now of daily grind for one purpose) that statement is very VERY real. My thinking is - it's just another one of the struggles of doing real meaningful change - there's recurring, long and arduous timespans where no observable/exciting results manifest and one has to trudge forward. If you know how…

Perhaps it’s also the definition of meaningful work changes for an individual over time? What I once found meaningful 20 years ago largely no longer feels that way. Both due to a lack of novelty and personal growth, and seeing how I was so naive regarding the outcomes and future I was supposedly building. Those daily grinds back then for purpose were great - but sometimes the purpose never materializes since others (…

Well in my personal opinion, there's extremely few material goals that have any purpose whatsoever, life is short, matter is ephermal.

Usually, I find, one has to invest an enormous effort to just find that purpose in the first place. And trying out paths/goals is part of that journey too.

I know I did a lot of soulsearching, in fact I was privilledged enough to save up for a couple of years to do JUST that, and I can report that it was a resounding success (with a sample size of one!).

However, as we're discussing this in the context of burnout, it's obvious that having a higher meaning did not take me out of my suffering. I still experience life as any other human being, I just feel like my life is not wasted - and the side effects of always striving for a goal - like focus and discipline - and other virtues - are a pleasant bonus. So I do sincerely think, that having a crystalized idea of my purpose creates a happy life for me.

There's nothing wrong with NOT having a goal, I just couldn't do it, even though matter IS ephermal, I believe that every action that we take, ultimately does have meaning.

Re: You’re not burnt out, you’re existentially starving

#405

Post by heyjamesknight »

thanedar wrote: post #212
yoan9224 wrote: post #196

The premise is interesting but feels incomplete. The "Monday morning excitement test" doesn't account for the hedonic treadmill - even meaningful work becomes mundane once your brain adjusts to it. Also, many people are genuinely burnt out from overwork, not just existential malaise. When you're juggling demanding work, family responsibilities, and barely have time for basic self-care, the problem isn't finding your…

You get off the hedonic treadmill by getting into something deeper like politics. I do feel like I'm an example of someone who's juggled marriage, kids, startups, etc. where how I finally got a clean source of sustainable energy was having a part of my life to truly chase my highest potential. And to me that's politics, and specifically anticorruption and Positive Politics. Glad that the "go into politics" ideas piqu…

I love your “clean source of sustainable energy” metaphor. This is a great example of “eudaimonic” well-being, or the idea of “doing well.”

Re: You’re not burnt out, you’re existentially starving

#406

Post by heyjamesknight »

raveren wrote: post #353
johnfn wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> even meaningful work becomes mundane once your brain adjusts to it. This seems quite wrong in my experience. Meaningful work stays meaningful and exciting, every single day.

> even meaningful work becomes mundane once your brain adjusts to it. Not to demean your experience, but for me (5+ years now of daily grind for one purpose) that statement is very VERY real. My thinking is - it's just another one of the struggles of doing real meaningful change - there's recurring, long and arduous timespans where no observable/exciting results manifest and one has to trudge forward. If you know how…

In Positive Psychology, the science of meaning in life (not of life) breaks meaning down into three dimensions: coherence, significance, and purpose. If your job isn’t affording you significance (because your actions don’t “matter” in your organization) then your ability to find meaning in that work is threatened.

Your work may have coherence and purpose, but if it doesn’t have significance then it isn’t the source of meaning you thought it was.

Re: You’re not burnt out, you’re existentially starving

#408

Post by loglog »

GMoromisato wrote: post #279
loglog wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are we talking about the middle of World War II in the US? A war that resulted in exactly 6 civilian deaths in the continental US and destroyed all serious competition for US industry for decades to come? That was one of the economically most advantageous positions in history.

I find this almost comically revisionist. 400,000 US soldiers/marines never came home. Another 600,000 came back wounded. That's at least a million families affected. And by 1950, only five years after the end of the war, millions of men were sent overseas again for the Korean War. And after that, the children of the returned WWII soldiers were sent off to Vietnam, unleashing the greatest civil unrest in the US since…

All problems that you've listed seem pretty minor compared to what was happening in the rest of the world at that time, reinforcing my point.

Re: You’re not burnt out, you’re existentially starving

#410

Post by sdeframond »

thatfrenchguy wrote: post #266
nnutter wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a pretty short period in the grand scheme of things. Before you know it they'll be driving and just a year or two from leaving the nest and you'll wish you could have had more time with them.

Yup, but when you’re sleep deprived the months feel like years, and if unlucky and you got a bad sleeper the years can feel like decades

Sometimes the years feel like ... decades. Some bad sleepers are bad sleepers for a longer time than others.
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