Ask HN: How do you know if you're burnt out or just being lazy?

If you actually thought about what you write, I could belive you. Or even bothered to read what you just wrote. Depression isn't normal.

Have you heard of saying that path to hell is paved with good intentions?

I have seen two major categories of "asshole bosses":

1. The ones who don't care. These are in it only for the paycheck and maybe they want to see how far they can take it before they get sacked.

2. The ones who care too much. They want to be successful, they need to be seen as good example and will work themselves to madness trying to prove a point. They are also trying to achieve some ideal of their own, for which they feel it should not imposed on others. They think that they are running the show, but they rarely realize they are riding the wheel. Until they just cant take it anymore and drive everyone away.

There have been many people in your shoes. Arguably everyone who is in charge of other people has to face this situation sometimes in their career/life.

Perhaps you have read this essay from Derek Sivers, if you have not it might help you open your eyes and he even offers a pretty good strategy for dealing with your situation (http://sivers.org/delegate).

You say that you don't want to impose on your colleagues. What if there are some that want to be imposed? Who will leave you just because you didn't give them a chance to go through what you are going through now?

There might be people among them, probably most of them, who are willing to help you and have no need to see you suffering. For mutual benefit. They might help you if you are willing to admit the situation you are in.

I really hope you will be able to work it out. Go take a break. The world can do without you. Really. It will have to deal with you leaving one way or another.

Anyways if you make it a communal affair everybody is going to like participating in it. People are inherently team players to the extent that we die or go mad alone.

I was in a team that was terribly overworked and there was shitloads of stuff needed to be done, which nobody did - since it wasn't anyone's job.

Here's what we did - everybody got a slice of work nobody wanted to do. A chore if you will. The system used to assign chores was simple - the guy complaining about some shit not being done, got to be the chief of this "department". He would set the standard, keep track of what is going on, report to the rest of the team and enforce the rules that we agreed upon collectively. We also collectively created a penalty system.

This the made certain that the shit that needed to be done, got done. The shit that didn't need to get done, didn't get done. Everybody got to participate in organization and got some hands on experience with how sausages get done, this is pretty important in engineering environments since a lot of people haven't really been in charge of anything in their lives.

What happens when you Win. I mean you're working on a project/business right. So heres the key question.

What was the person embarking on the journey after, what were her ambitions and aspirations. And should you manage to get there, what is next. Will there even be a next step for this new person. Or has the goal consumed the person?

One of the most important lessons I have learned from Nejc Zaplotnik, who was at the time of his death tied with Reinhold Messner in Alpinism.

"The Path is the Goal. There is nothing more important in life than the Path. Goals are mere means, since once you reach a peak its never over, you take a look around and pick a new Goal. Therefore Goals are meaningless. The only thing that matters is the Path."

So if the pain you are enduring is a vital part of your path, then it is actually good. But if this pain is not the path - then get hell out now. Don't loose the sight of your path by looking at the goal.