It would be nice to not have worry so much and work so hard to just pay rent and cover basic expenses.
I've been doing this for (what seems like) a long time and I'm really kinda burnt out at the moment.
I have been burnt out myself in the past and it was not a pleasure to be in that state of mind. Do you have hope that this might become better in the future? Do you see "light at the end of the tunnel" so to say or are you more like trodding ahead in the dark?
I'd be so happy with just enough to cover rent, food, utilities and my pets' (minimal) expenses. Nothing extravagant, nothing for splurging.
I try not to talk about personal stuff on HN, but I guess today is an exception, here's a bunch of context you didn't ask for:
I moved out of a bad home environment at a very young age, while I was still a student. Juggling being a full-time student and being a full-time employee at the same time took a serious toll on me. And then I never got to take a break or vacation, never had time to 'reset', because rent is always due in a few weeks, I just had to keep working and working and working. Hence the burn out.
To make matters worse, I like to work as a generalist. I do development, graphic design, web design, writing, marketing, and a bunch of other stuff. I love this, but it's really hard to find people who are willing to bring on relatively young people for such a role.
Startups are open to it sometimes, but I've had some not great experiences where they've been borderline/outright exploitative.
The cost of living is very high where I live, and it's generally hard to find companies willing to pay someone my age a proper salary on which they can live alone, unfortunately. :/
It's not all bad though. Luckily I have some amazing people as friends, and they're a great support system. And last year I found an amazing therapist, and I think that has helped me a lot.
> Do you see "light at the end of the tunnel"?
I think I do, yeah. (But it's a tiny speck, faaaaaar away!) I've been though worse, and I always do find a way to get through it, it's not like I have a choice, right? :D
I would also not say I'm particularly depressed at the moment. I kinda just feel exhausted a lot lately, I would really just love a break, honestly.
I very recently started trying to find work as a PHP backend engineer. It's never something I've done full-time, but it's a language I've used extensively since I was a tween, and I have a lot of fun with it, so I think that would be pretty awesome if it works out :)
Anyway, yeah, sorry for the huge wall of text, dunno if it's something that interests you, haha. Thanks for asking this question though, I've had fun going through the other responses.
Also, it's heart-warming for me to read that you have hope and a path forward and I wish you all the strength to get ahead and ... to ... keep ... moving.
Just like in the poem https://poets.org/poem/do-not-go-gentle-good-night
And I hope that every now and then you find something pleasureable in life as well! (A notion which I miss in the poem - maybe there is a better one? :D)
And I am glad you enjoy reading the other responses! Thank you for mentioning this!
> And I hope that every now and then you find something pleasurable in life as well!
Here's a poem I like to read to remind myself that there are some really beautiful things in life that we don't notice: https://englishverse.com/poems/leisure