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Comment by aragorn2 | Hacker News Reader

Your second point has made me realize that not having identity outside of work is the biggest source of my anxiety. Thanks!

I also can’t seem to stop thinking about work. Maybe it’s related to that point. I can’t enjoy anything since there is always “but you should be solving problem X” in the back of my mind. Maybe it’s the type of personality I have - if there is a problem, I can’t stop ruminating about it. It’s mostly work related since that’s why I do 95% of the time, but other problems too, especially when dealing with people.

I know I am not adding any value to the discussion - just wanted to thank you for your insights and to the person that asked the question.

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I've had this problem too. It really does help to find other interests outside work - running or yoga, bowling, poker, video games, art, family time, whatever it is. For me, it was hard to feel okay doing something else. For some reason, I felt like I should always be thinking about work. But that's just not true - having a multi-faceted identity makes everything better.

It also has helped my mental toughness - if I have a bad day (or week, month, year) at work, I still have other things to fall back on, things that bring me joy and help define who I am as a person. Before, if something went wrong at work, it crushed me. Now I have more perspective, and work issues don't have as much weight as they used to.

Only took me a few decades to figure it out! Hope yours works out more quickly.

I get that feeling too that I can't enjoy anything until I get a problem done. Then I do that big thing, and for a few days I feel relief until another issue comes up that I have to do, but don't want to do or its hard and scary.

I get what you’re saying. I wish it were like that for me. I can’t get anything done. Maybe it’s the type of work. Upper management is always uhappy, users are hostile (for a reason), enormous technological debt paralizing all development. I am simply incompetent to deal with people, juggle the requests and politics. It’s been like this for more then ten years. I am sick to my stomack when thinking about our software product. I’m taking anxiety medication, have stress related heart condition. I don’t know why am writing this. I’m venting I guess. Not a place for that. I will stop now.

And my spelling sucks!

I think talking to a therapist is one way to deal with issues like this. Feeling overly anxious about your job doesn't help anything. Course it's easy to say that, harder to deal with it.

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