I dont mean depression or anxiety (this feels different), I mean feeling like you never really recharge, like youve never gotten time off ever. Which I think is partly due to a tendency to put literally 100% into something until you feel fried, move on to the next thing rinse repeat. Even “down time” doesnt really feel like down time because I am stuck between either boredom, working on yet another thing or thinking about things in general.
Even “down time” doesnt really feel like down time because I am stuck between either boredom, working on yet another thing or thinking about things in general.
Oh man, I feel this so much. Most of my hobbies are somewhat work-like so while I enjoy them, they’re not really relaxing. And I can’t really “do nothing”
Yep. I’m a programmer and have felt like I’m in a perpetual state of burnout for years. The work doesn’t interest me much these days, and I haven’t done a side project in ages. Being laid off for 3 months didn’t help, nor does feeling like all of the work is pointless. Im basically a prisoner to my work because the alternative is going broke and becoming homeless. Ain’t capitalism grand??
You can change jobs. You can start an entirely diffetent career. I know a guy who quit teaching high school science because he was so burned out on it and became a plumber. It only took a year of training, and pays great.
If you get a job that doesn’t pay as much as programming, you can downsize your life. You don’t have to keep grinding at your current level to maintain a life that makes you miserable.
It’s definitely something I’ve been thinking about. It’s just daunting, especially when you’re in your 40s. My dad followed a similar path. Was an electrical engineer working on NASA stuff, hated it, became a carpenter.
I’ve been thinking of things that are programming-adjacent too, like technical writing.
Yup. After jumping between full-time jobs and unemployment for many years. It wasn’t until I had studied fun things at the university for over three years that I finally started to recover. Eventually I think I recovered fully, only to then end up in unemployment and here we go again…
Yes, off and on for the past several years. I’ve been a software developer for 11 years at the same company. But I also do game dev in my spare time, so it does start to feel like I don’t have down time.
I did for many years. I don’t have that as much now and the big change was ditching abusive family. I had a strong drive to solve problems and please people which was absolutely great for my parents and siblings. They used me a lot and got a lot of free labor out of me. Now that I don’t see any of them any more I have a much tighter relationship between trying to do something and seeing a result. If it goes poorly it is probably because of something I did or an identifiable factor and I can own it. If it goes well I can recognise the role of luck and own my effort. Everything was so confusing and empty with those people creating drama and now I feel free.
Also, making sure I didn’t have to abandon things because of other people’s demands has been helpful. I have completed my first significant electronics project recently and it is very addictive. I would never have managed that before because someone would have been asking for progress updates and going on about how it wouldn’t be a skill that made any money etc.
Yes, and at least in my case, it’s because I feel like I can either be passionate about my work at the risk of some entitled asshole swooping in and destroying everything I’ve worked so hard to build, or I can just put in the absolute minimum and try to be indifferent. Neither option is attractive or motivating.
And then on top of that, entitled assholes aren’t just destroying my work, they seem to be determined to destroy anything and everything that matters. And for what??? So yeah, I’m maybe a little burnt out.
I found passive activitys can help with that. Just sit down and watch a good show that is engaging. Even going to bed early but listening to an audio book or podcast.
While some amount of that can be cool, I've found that trying too hard to get rest via passive activities can make the described symptoms worse. I think one should strive for am mix of passive and active recreation.
The thing that solved this for me was actually scheduling time to do it.
If I set aside a couple hours for audiobook time, I can trick myself into actually engaging without thinking about all the other stuff I need to do because this is scheduled and equally important.
Whenever I’ve gotten a fun hobby I just think about it all the time and it becomes so hard to focus on my job and even harder to force myself to do the same boring shit every day. Can’t wait to get home too finally do something fun and interesting with my life.
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