Having a kid, covid , war in Ukraine and now recession and layoffs have left me fatigued and I can barely learn anything new or look forward to anything .
All I want to do is look at my phone and consume more content.And I look back fondly to 2001-2007 and also 2010-2017. Do I need therapy or is everyone feeling the same ?
I read a very complete account of my grandfathers early life (before he joined the military during WW2) and the kinda shit he did living of a farm is stuff of fairytales.
When someone in the 20 mile radius needed a barn built, LITERALLY EVERYONE came to help. When you were off work for the night, you would sit with your whole family and read the newspaper or play cards, or travel to your grandmas house 3 blocks away.
Now the whole world is split up. My nearest family is over 600 miles away. My friends would rather play video games on discord than go and play cards in person. Work is a 9-5 and then you forget about it.
It seems like there is no community anymore outside of online spaces, and that just isn’t the same. In my opinion, burnout is synonymous with lack of real world, in person community.
We as people in modern society have spent our whole life around the idea that we need to have fun and enjoy everything, if not directly than indirectly.
I made some friends by hitting up some people I went to high school with like 6 years after graduation. They love offroading. So we now take turns taking out the big jeep and mudding. Once a month we bring a bunch of alcohol and have one person be the DD and drive around a bunch of drunk people in the thick mud, rough terrain, and underbrush.
Is that my idea of fun? Hell no. But because I’m doing something with people that I can get along with, I can enjoy aspects of it. And that led me to be ingrained in part of “their group”, so I have a small community.
Break out of your shell in ways that you think are dumb or weird, and try and make it fun despite the “weirdness”. You might find that it helps you feel community!
To many of us believe we can live the individualistic dream and be part of a collective without subtracting from either one. This is not possible. Being part of a collective often means we cannot do what we want, the way we want, when we want and with whom we want. Being part of a collective can be messy, challenging and uncomfortable. But it can also be fulfilling, cosy, safe and home.
To become collective we need to carefully look into ourselves and ask us: What is it that makes individualism our comfort zone, what are we afraid of, what makes us insecure?
On top of that finding the actual collective might be harder than ot was back then. In the past you had no choice, you were thrown into the world and into a collective. That could be good or very, very bad. My mother had 6 silblings and she hated it, she was never happier then when she got a distance. In times of the internet we could potentially even choose our collectives. But who is willing to do that in this day and age beyond hippies, squatters, artists and similar people?
The thing is, nothing stops any of us to build a community of actual people right now. Living together might even reduce rent.
While I agree with you on some parts[1], I somewhat doubt that distant relationships (not necessarily romantic ones) work out well.
The lockdown measures took a heavy toll on my mental wellbeing. I imagine other people had similar experiences.
1. https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2017/04/over-nearly-8...
I'd think the relationship will be less strained when they do not see each other every day because they live next to each other. At least one of them will feel bad. They may not show it, especially back in times when it would have been hard to get away, they may 'keep it all in' but they won't be happy.
It seems like in your parent poster's case, not being together and having a close relationship allowed both sides to be happier. Potentially to the point where meeting each other for like 3 or 4 holidays per year was tolerable and they could work it out but where seeing each other every day would have been miserable for at least one side or potentially openly hostile for a very long time.
It doesn't mean not having any relationships but just because you're family doesn't mean you have to be constantly present in each other's lives.
> It doesn't mean not having any relationships but just because you're family doesn't mean you have to be constantly present in each other's lives.
You have a point, for sure. I can imagine being this the case for people who can socialize well.
Say you have only 2 options between living in a dysfunctional family environment and living completely by yourself with no friends, what then?
It appears that solitary confinement, damages your brain[1]. I wonder if that applies to social isolation as well.
It seems to be the case in prisons that you need to be around rapists and murderers to keep your brain somewhat engaged. (If you don't have any other option.)
So maybe it is wrong to equate solitary confinement as "loneliness". Solitary confinement is much more taxing, I imagine. However, I think it is better to be around people in a physical sense. (Even if that means living with some unpleasant circumstances.)
Gabor Mate implies that modern society is sick, and therefore we get sick. But it is the only society we have, I suppose. So it might be better than nothing.
I am not disagreeing with you at all here. I can see your point. Nevertheless, I just wanted to bring up the case where people have social difficulties and if the family stress is somewhat manageable, then maybe it is better to be around them. And also keep in mind that I have no clue if the prison context is applicable to "free individuals".
1. https://academic.oup.com/book/35060/chapter-abstract/2989955...
Just because you are not close with your birth family does not mean you do not have friends or your own family. You can hate being with your brothers, sisters and parents and want to be as far away from them as you can and have a loving relationship with your spouse, two or three kids or your own, maybe you are actually on good terms with your in laws and like being around them better ;)
But you still can tolerate x-mas, Easter and Thanksgiving with your birth family well enough.
This was not my point. We can use the Internet to find offline communities as well. I grew up on the country side and without the Internet I would have had to settle with the type of people I had in my vicinity and those people were definitly depressing me. With the web I could not only find out something else exists, I could also get to know different people and form an image of the kind of people I could imagine spending more time with. So the Internet must not be the connection, it can be the tool that brings people together in a literal, geographic sense. So instead of having it only be for communication, it can also be for discovery.
But to your original point: I also happen to live with a women that I had 4 years of (changing) long distance relationship with, we are happily together now for more than a decade¹. One of my best friends I got to know each other on a musicians forum. I first met him after having known him for 4 years. We are still besties despite him living in a different country now². Next year I am invited to the wedding of yet another person I am only in contact with online.
The Internet is not (or should not be) the end goal for your own personal community, but it can help to build and sustain relationships despite physical distances. If you are young it can help you figure out
-- ¹ I agree however that long distance relationships are not for everybody and it is crucial to know why you are having one. Many people e.g. have long distance relationships because they are secretly afraid of the real deal. Most have that kind of relationship out of necessity and there are few who can make it work. A long distance relationship can be a stress test for a relationship, and some relationships will not survive that test. Arguably these relationships might have fallen apart on a different occasion for a different reason just as likely tho.
² It would still be better to see him in the flesh more than once every two years or so tho, but it does not hurt the friendship one bit, we have enough shared memories for a lifetime.
Why has this changed?
So leaving that community was not something people easily did. But they did, because of resources and money, people migrated from their rural communities into the cities, families torn apart, the industrialization brought with it a faster flow of information. People got to know the world outside of their communities and realized that they liked it more. So instead of huge family clans we had small atomic families now, with grandparents living in their own atomic household, often somewhere else. Young people who went to find themselves in the cities lived alone or in loose collectives or flat shares with strangers (usually with the goal to get your own thing as quick as possible).
In western societies that new freedom and individualism then (like so much else) got hijacked by capitalism. Ten people living together only need one hairdrier, ten people living seperated need ten hairdriers (insert any other appliance/product you can think of here). People living alone is good for capitalism, which is why it has been marketed as a dream. Be yourself! Fuck the others! Get your own hairdrier! Live alone and die alone!
Like fish in water we internalized these values so much, that we don't question them. In the US especially those values have become architecture to a degree, your literal world took the shape of this individualism [insert suburbia.gif] – how to start living a collective life in a individualistic environment, where without your personal movable 8m² of space you are cut off from any meaningful function society provides you with?
Especially in the US people live in spaces that favour individualism to such an degree it is the simple comfortable default. If you want to change that you have to work against the forces that exist.
There has been for a while (20+ years) a decline in enforced third places (e.g. declining religiosity/church attendance) in many parts of the Western world with little else taking that space. I know Sunday Assembly [2] exists in some places and I hope works for the communities it supports.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_place [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunday_Assembly
I hear that. I was born in '88, and although I played plenty of video games growing up, I remember playing a ton of card games with friends and family as a kid. After college, I pretty much stopped playing video games entirely and did all of my socializing in person. 10 years later COVID happened, and facing the prospect of being locked in my house indefinitely, I decided to get my very first gaming computer. It's honestly been a wonderful distraction from the stress of life, but a part of me feels dirty about playing video games so frequently. Although COVID is effectively over and everything is open again, I still find myself preferring the comfort and convenience of Discord + games over doing things physically in the world.
Part of the problem is that internet isn’t not a full substitute for in person. It never well be.
This is coming from someone that is chronically online and has more friends that live in different states than in person. It isn’t healthy to be online as much as I am.
Does anyone else remember the days of playing Halo with your 3 friends in your living room? That was way better than “Thursday night warzone” that we have nowadays, and I believe it is in part because of the fact that the couch coop was far closer to a real community (like what humans have had for thousands of years) than something as wildly intangible as being online
The “metaverse” is no more healthy to humans than Discord+Gaming. It is literally the same thing: the illusion of community.
Our attention used to be on each other, now it predominantly rests on pieces of plastic, glass and metal.
When we do the same thing we did yesterday, we will see that option more clearly tomorrow, and other options less clearly. Our agency narrows.
When our options have narrowed too much, it can be hard to get unstuck. Hard to get out of the rut. Wake up, go to work, consume content, go to bed. Every day. Sometimes we might dream of other options, but they don't seem attainable, they're just too distant.
I think the only way to expand your options is to actually do new things. The new thing becomes more salient, and the next day you might see more than one option. Build up more ways to be.
Some activities are worse than others about further narrowing your options, and some can help expand your options beyond just becoming more salient themselves.
Scrolling endless content never lets me get bored, never lets me think of something else to do, and doing something else is always a bit harder than continuing to scroll. There's a clear similarity to drug addiction, where options narrow until to just doing that drug all the time, and being wasted on the drug doesn't do anything to expand your options.
Going for a run expands my options. I get a bit bored on the run, and my mind can wander. I can reflect, and may choose to do something new tomorrow. Journaling expands my options. Practicing gratitude can expand my options. Meditating can expand my options. Talking to a therapist can expand my options. All that mental health stuff shares something in common here, it lets me break the cycle of narrowing options and narrowing agency, and instead widen my options a little.
Running especially is useful for me too in this respect and I feel like you’re right about the root of the problems being how easy it is to avoid being bored.
I also wonder if deep thinking encourages us to live too much of a worry-driven internal life, and we avoid boredom for fear of overthinking.
Perhaps I should go for a run.
Your ideas? Or inspired from somewhere/somebody which you can share?
It's kind of daunting to recommend a 50 part lecture series, so maybe just try the first episode and see if it grabs you. Or if you do wanna try out of order, I'm thinking episode 13 is probably what you're looking for.
Worst times in the US are still way better than best times in Russia in Ukraine. That may be true for entire time period of US existence BTW. Some people/countries are just more lucky than others.
By that measure, Russia history should result in it being at least somewhat reasonable soon though, so not sure that's how it works.
What are we all doing?
To flip it around, if we're all spending our time making things we believe contribute to harming people, yeah I think that would burn you out.
The best I can recommend you would be to start dealing with handcrafting chores.
Try to avoid social media and news, reduce your internet usage in general and pay close attention to little things that you let go unnoticed in the past.
You know, things like how wind blows through trees and leaves, observe the sky, the birds, anything that can let your mind go free without thinking pretty much anything negative.
I have been doing this for a while now and have noticed tremendous difference; it could work with you too, why not?
Just hold on tight, you are not alone in this mess.
What I've learned in the several decades of life I've lived so far is that your mood day to day is almost entirely dependent on how you interpret the narrative of your life, not what is actually happening.
You mention "having a kid, covid, war, etc."
But what else is happening in your life? It's impossible that every waking moment is 100% consumed by kids/wars/disease/economic collapse/etc. That's the narrative you are telling yourself. So change it! Tell yourself how lovely that flower is on the path over there. Tell yourself how nice the breeze is that wafts over your face. Tell yourself the color of the painting that hangs in your room is a lovely shade of orange. Tell yourself the smell of the soda in your cup is amazing and nourishing.
You may think I sound rather bananas right now, but this is all part of mindfulness training. I had to learn this, because years ago I was falling into a deep depression and consumed by panic attacks. I had gone on and off to therapy in the past, but this time I ended up reading a bunch of materials about mindfulness including the book Mindsight. It changed my life.
We tend to spend most of our lives on autopilot, nearly oblivious to the world around us and instead living in a fantasy we've constructed in our heads—sometimes a very dark fantasy. The way out of that is to become mindful: mindful of breathing, walking on a street, talking to a friend, writing a comment on Hacker News. =) It's not just about "living in the moment" — we're always living in the moment. The question is, do we notice that moment is even there? Are we able to slow/quiet down our inner cross-talk in order to perceive the world right in front of us?
Our powers of observation can be an incredible tool of rejuvenation and inspiration. We just need to focus on the right stuff. Needless to say, scrolling through social media is probably not the best destination for mindfulness. Informative, sometimes, entertaining, sometimes…but most certainly not where we should derive any real sense of meaning or purpose.
Anyway, apologies for the lengthy soapbox—this is just a topic I've thought long and hard about over many moons. Hope you are feeling better soon. :)
This will contribute to and/or perpetuate your burnout.
If you're overwhelmed and burned out, the last thing you need is to spend more time in front of screens and more time consuming endless streams of content. News content and outrage bait is especially bad at burning people out. It's easy to spend 30 minutes on Reddit or Twitter and feel like the world is collapsing around you.
Put down the phone. Do literally anything else. Meditate with your eyes closed in a quiet room, or go outside and go for a walk. The more often you do this, the better you'll feel.
And to answer your question: No, we're not all burned out. I have noticed that burnout-prone people tend to cluster together in bubbles where everyone amplifies each others' cynicism and pessimism. The rest of us prefer to build some distance between the chronically cynical people so we don't get brought down, too. Make a point to break out of your bubble and find people who are more like how you want to be.
Get offline. Step outside. It's fine.
Unplug from the 24/7 news cycle. They get you hooked with constant fear and outrage. If it's taking a toll on your well-being, you must disconnect. You can't influence any of the hypothetical things you're talking about by yourself anyway.
I mean that sincerely, but it sounds snarky. Nuclear weapons has been around for like 80 years and influenced global peace. News optimization function is for you to want more of it. The world is constantly changing. If you want to worry about things you have close to zero chance to influence you have so many better options - singulary, bio engineering, self replicating nano bots, great filter, windows 11, climate.
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Harari is a fun read, much better than news (which btw, are really hard to come by if you would like to get some insight about what's happening and not just be fed propaganda - kind of disappointing how much there is of it on our side)
(Some limited time catching up on the news before voting is both acceptable and sufficient.)
- Join a gym
- Buy a bycicle
- Move to another city
- Get a new job with 20% salary increase
- City services finally covered that hole in my street after 3 months
(ie anything)
(Or maybe this isn't "another way". Maybe this is just repeating what the parent said.)
Walking is great for exercise, the physical world still matters. But if you want something in-between, a video game with its ups and downs might work as well. Anything you have to stick with will help.
I found myself in a slump recently. One day I noticed I'd spent a few hours just gawping at Stories, Shorts, Reels, etc. And I'd done it for days in a row, staying up later and later as my mood disintegrated.
As I got more tired, I noticed my interactions with people suffered. I consider myself an introvert, but actual hermitage eats at your soul. It's much easier to feel happiness with someone.
I have willpower issues, and I have the same problems as everyone else, but I think bottomless pits of meaningless "content" are an absolute negative in my life. They seem omnipresent now but I try to avoid them.
But no, it's not everyone.
Get outside. Exercise. Do activities that require focus for tens-of-minutes or hours, rather than batches-of-seconds or minutes.
Look away from things you have no direct control over, no matter how much (synthetic) social-proof that some manipulative media presents suggesting "everyone" or "most people" or "good people" or "with-it people" obsess over such events.
The person who is most sullen over "the world" is not at all the most virtuous, even though large assemblages of depressive people tend to unconsciously advance that idea, and wind up in a destructive competition over who is most (fake-)caring.
I don’t know about you, but for me it is very slowly starting to lift. My kids are at school (sometimes), and I’m able to focus on things a little bit longer than I used to be able to. Maybe it’s just returning back to a non-chaotic rhythm that will get us out of this burnout.
- Covid has a nearly 100% survival rate. Have you or someone close to you been mortally affected? Most people I know have not been affected at all.
- The war in Ukraine is happening in Ukraine. Are you near Ukraine?
- Employment rates are very high and the job market is still hot. Are you actually affected by the macroeconomic factors?
Focus on your kid. Focus on yourself. Don’t worry about the world.
Not sure about that survival rate, but do know 1 in 5 people with covid get long covid which can include loss of taste, smell, and neurological effects very bad for knowledge workers.
also, lack of community is perhaps equally important to housing. seems like meaningful social relationships are much harder to cultivate than a decade ago. but if i ever happen to be fortunate enough to live in a space that can accommodate, you all are welcome to come over and kick it.
Thankfully debt wont be affordable for much longer, I hope interest rates don't fall any time soon.
We muddled through all that and got to the financial crash of 2008. Again many people lost their jobs, lost their homes and pretty much lost hope. Then things went well for quite a while and now here we are again.
Notice a pattern? You can bank on things going tits up every 10-15 years or so. The maddening thing is people overall seem content with this situation.
Do you need therapy? It never hurts. Really. Even if you're A-OK it never hurts to have some therapy. Think of your therapist as being your wingman to help you deal with the shit of modern life. Group therapy is even better because you get to hear other people struggling with the same things you are. I know they say misery loves company but it's really more than that - it's the realization you're not alone and you're not the only one feeling like this and struggling with these issues. It's actually very uplifting.
Good luck!
Consuming more content isn't going to have an impact on layoffs, Ukraine, recession, etc.
What it will have an impact on is your mental health, as you are experiencing now.
Things that have worked for me:
- Get out into nature as often as possible. Trees and streams have been shown to reduce stress.
- Meditate
- Do physical activities, like lifting weights, yoga, and hiking.
- Pick up a hobby.
- Have dedicated blocks of times to not checking work messages, news, etc.
Our parents had tough times, and their parents had tough times, and so on throughout history.
People have dealt with famines, wars, oppression, economic struggles, disease and death for thousands of years.
I’m not suggesting the feelings of burnout aren’t real. I’m just saying that every generation experiences some level of hardship and it’s OK.
That’s not burnout. It’s just life.
US baby boomers had the best luck to be born in a time of massive prosperity, and opportunities have been steadily declining since then. My father didn't go to college and worked construction. He didn't own the company, just manual labor. He could pay the mortgage on a nice house in the suburbs and support a family on one working class salary.
Today, if they sold their house at current market value, I could not afford to buy it with the tech worker salary I make.
The only difference is that this new level of connectivity also is showing (if you're looking) how everyone else is doing and allowing you to constantly make quantitative comparisons. Now you're aware of what everyone house on your street is worth and where all your rich friends are taking vacations. But you don't have to buy into it. Stop counting other peoples' money and you'll be much happier.
Not everyone on HN is from the US.
The difference now is that we all just get too much information about what's going on in the world, we have access to information about ALL of the world's problems all the time. It's just too much and is difficult to deal with for many people.
It takes real self-discipline and self-awareness to tune it out.
Now it just feels completely chaotic, with everyone trying to dismantle the system and structures that made life more “cohesive”.
The result is increased anarchy, and its pretty frightening
All the hardships we experience on different parts of the world. We enable it.
We are distancing ourselves from a natural way of life. Gabor Mate implies that indigenous people had a fulfilling life, as they followed their instincts (their needs).
Some of us can afford to benefit from the fruits of cheap labor. We first worlders are aristocrats in a sense, as we are of the "ruling class" to an extent. We don't see the suffering there. Out of sight, out of mind.
When I look at the US and other first world countries, it is an open secret that those who appease the ruling class, will get a pass in their elections[1]. It is really strange that people like Mario Draghi and other ex-Goldman Sachsers get influential positions in state institutions.
The one thing I keep in mind is that, most of us (if not all) have the potential for evil. See also a couple of talks and lectures from Robert Sapolsky.
I don't doubt, for a second, that I would be a Nazi too, if I lived at that time. I am a sheep. Likewise, I have my biases. It is hard to see all of your biases and understand yourself 100%. Let alone understand the thing what we call "reality". We even assume things (e.g., in math, physics), since we can't be 100% sure on anything, it seems. We assume that our experience is "real", and we can't prove it. However, we hold on to that, since it appears sensible and the (current) alternative seems to lead to nowhere. I think, therefore I am. A sensible assumption, I suppose.
However, we exploit not only people from other parts of the world, but we also exploit our own. People working for you in stressful jobs for very low salaries. This happens even in Germany.
Cheap bananas, coffees and labor. We get a taste of aristocracy. Thinking of Naval Ravikant stating that we're relatively well off compared to medieval peasants. However, this is at the expense of other people. It isn't fair. But no one cares, really. Neither do I, which is horrible. I am therefore evil. I am no better than American/European (Goldman Sachsers, Time Warner Company etc.) or Russian oligarchs.
So who am I to criticize others, when I should be criticizing myself?
Really, if they want to nuke the Northern Hemisphere away, what can we do against it? They have the power, we really can't have a significant impact on these decisions[1]. Therefore, out of control, out of mind (i.e., stoicism).
1) https://obrag.org/2015/01/princeton-study-u-s-no-longer-an-a...
I think about this regularly to remind myself that at the current moment, life is pretty good.
> It's oh so sad to be happy all the time.
> Autolux - Selectallcopy (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vth-n34LK8E)
Society, in general, is a mirage. Most people are insane and insanity is contagious. After 2.5 years of non-stop insanity and some variant of psychological abuse, it's not only okay to feel how you do, but should be expected.
A short read that helped me to realize and accept this is Awareness by Anthony DeMello [1]
FWIW: Don't let the world get you down. Look at your desire to consume content as a phase that needs to pass like a thunderstorm and enjoy the rain.
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Awareness-Opportunities-Reality-Antho...
Hnews is not different, I come here for the same dopamine hit
And I often got some valuable tools/libs out of it.
Reddit is infinite, as well as much other social media
It can also be to do with your own mental filter... HN has submissions that are both on the pessimistic doomsday side at one end and hyper over optimistic side at the other end, but orthogonally there are also purely fun submissions - and these can be quite uplifting, a happy reminder to many of us of why we originally ended up doing what we do.
I don’t think blissful ignorance is the right way to think of it. I think the news (and social media) today is the same as it’s always been. Don’t cut yourself off but don’t take any of it too seriously.
Been great for my mental health.
Phones and technology are some of the only escapes left.
This is bad advice, even worse than saying use the phone more because it's dismissive of the larger issues I am facing in life. The phone isn't the thing doing the killing, it's the governments of countries like Iran, Russia, and Ukraine. There's are good and bad guys in war, but both countries experience a loss in souls.
That's also not how dopamine works.
Mine fell in the water months ago and changed my life. Now when I close the computer and walk out the door I'm completely unplugged for a few hours (FitBit for health though of course).
I started to avoid looking at any sort of news and felt better. I know that we need to have a positive outlook, but the level of disturbances seem to get me these days. I urge you to try it out as well
More recently on the mental health front, I've been drawing more. I'm not great at it, but it is relaxing and distracting.
Also ambient or jazz--opinion-free, story-free music.
So I am still feeling burnt out, but it is a slower burn.
Find someone or some cause/purpose and fully surrender to this person and/or cause. Then you won't think about burnout and you will experience happiness as a side-effect of your surrender.
I wrote a book about this feeling of ennui. I thought it was linked with technology addiction given my consumption habits. I think we’re desperately looking for community but the facade of always being connected plays these tricks on us. I think talking about these things openly will do just as much as therapy will.
In such cases, the most important thing is to realize the locality of the problem, & the potential to move to a new niche, or organization.
There is extreme variety in the world; when in a bad place, move (literally or metaphorically).
But about having a kid: Yes, it's a ton of work. Yes, it's mentally draining. Yes, it cuts into your "me" time. (My estimate was that it cut four times as hard as being married did.)
But you didn't just lose. You also won. One of my biggest failures (and regrets) was looking too much at what I was losing and not noticing what I was gaining. It was unpleasant for me, and not fair to my kids and my wife.
One thing that helped me was, on my way home from work, to just stop for maybe 5 minutes as I came into my suburb, to just stop for a moment. (And pray, because that's how I roll.)
Your kid needs you to not disappear into your phone. Put it down, and take the kid for a walk. There's a real world out there that's pretty nice sometimes. As a side bonus (presuming that you're married or live with your partner) you'll be a hero to your SO, who is probably desperate for a break from the kid.
I find so much more time in the day for activities and I have to witness ridiculous American politics, Elon, Zuckerberg, and world events far less.
I just, gasp read the CBC and NPR once a day like I’m my dad or something.
I'm looking for a new opportunity that has a hybrid or in-person aspect and I'm hoping the change would start to spin that positive fly-wheel.
That's not to say there's not a war nor layoffs coming. But your phone just fills you with bad vibes 24/7. You need to lay off it to re-energize.
You don't need a therapist to charge you hundreds of $$$ to tell you that.
But yeah, some therapy couldn't hurt.
While we're all prone to "rosy retrospection" as indicated by one of the comments, I feel that we indeed live in tougher world than our parents (maybe others don't share this feeling).
One thing that has helped me is to take up sports. Specifically I play a racquet sport at a club. After doing my daily work, chores and Dad duties, I drive the club around 8:30 PM and play until 10:30. For those two hours, my mind is fixed on the ball. I don't check my phone or kids, regret the past or worry about the future. I look forward to these two hours.
If you play a sport, or want to take something up, it might help you get over the burnout.
That being said, yes, there certainly are some particularly hard things going on right now. However, I wouldn't use external factors as an excuse to not address the legitimate feeling of burnout that you are experiencing. [I think it is a dangerous trap people fall in to say "I feel bad because of X external factor" rather than taking control of what they can control to make themselves feel better].
Personally, I think arming yourself with tools to better cope with that life stuff in general is useful no matter what. CBT therapy, in particular, I find can be helpful.
Putting our lives on the internet will either bring some crazy socio-economic change that makes everything better or it will go down in history as one of the dumbest things we’ve ever done.
Do your best to take back the short time you have on this planet away from this weird worry network we have all built and spend time with people, do things that make you happy and healthy, ignore the ad revenue machine and it can’t fuck with you.
The phone is an easy input to pickup. Make it easy to pickup something else to occupy that time to create something tangible (an output). Other comments mention "real world" and it is so true. Do something that rewards yourself in the real world. It'll be great for your kid too.
I found it to be pretty relatable, no answers though
Im taking time off work, just doing what i want to for the most part and attempting to recover from work and life burn out
I see a lot of suggestions about therapy, in theory it sounds nice. in practice im skeptical. to hard to find a good one ime
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They go about it just like about another purchase to make — just give me a solution, be it a pill, therapist, magic technique, enlightened guru or teaching to follow...
And it doesn't work this way in the realm of one's deepest mind and soul mechanisms.
I noticed one thing — people with genuine faith tend to overcome such major global downtimes much better.
If you have a mountain or hill nearby, go bike, walk, hike, run, climb up it. Just you (or and some friends), some good feeling pain, and nature.
Now I am the founder of a non-profit and despite taking a much lower salary, working many more hours and feeling much more stress, I have become a very happy and fulfilled person.
Once the center of your life revolves around helping others, rather than yourself, it becomes a lot easier to endure all the crap life throws at you.
I think I see the problem here ....
(and I am not being flippant - I gave up 99% of social media almost a year ago: no twitter, no facebook, no instagram, no tiktok etc - and I hardly read the news at all except for stories of local importance - my life is better for it, give it a try - you don't have anything to lose.
But if you need therapy, get it. No problem there, everyone could probably stand a tune up.
Forgive me if I’m taking you more literally than you intended, but I’m genuinely curious what is prompting this perspective (not adversarially). Wondering if I can’t learn something. Already using pgres.
When I'm feeling stuck with tech work, I go take a moderately brisk walk for 30-60 minutes while I think about the problem, sometimes with a buddy. It works very well for getting me unstuck.
You might enjoy the book Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman.
I would say we all would burn out constantly and taking breaks is only way out
every time I find myself in such a situation, I find the best way out in training and sports. physical activity best heals the mind. running, push-ups, swimming
It probably helps that I got fed up with the low SNR on my Twitter and Facebook ages ago and stopped bothering to check them.
Crazy story maybe, but I had a dream where someone close to me died. After that day, I decided to focus on enjoying life more.
I started to think about what I would want to do when I only had a few months left, and just started doing these.
I also started focusing more on personal care and health, dieting, eating better, and doing a little bit of exercise.
Both changes, although minor in practice, had enormous effect on my mood in a positive way.
Of course me and the person close to me are perfectly healthy.
Cut the news completely, avoiding social media is not a bad idea either.
Walk out side smell the fresh air.
Say hello to a stranger walking on the street.
Ask your elderly neighbors if they need help with groceries or an errand.
Definitely not. Get off social/news sites for a bit.
> All I want to do is look at my phone and consume more content.
with
- Lift weights
- Run a marathon
- Bike a century
- Write a story
- Paint a picture
Change your relationship with the things you cannot control.
But there were two things that I loved as a kid and decided to pick them up at the peak of COVID pandemic, as I was experiencing burnout. I took racquet sports and calligraphy. It has materially enhanced my life quality and I can just say "why didn't I think to do this earlier?"
Here's my little bit of help I can offer. I haven't had a kid, yet, but I know what you are going through. I've been lucky enough to have been able to fall back on things like employment insurance here in Canada to be able to take some time to myself to let my inner angst out and deal with it constructively. You probably don't have that available, so here's my advice for in the meantime.
1. Find at least 3 hours in a day that you can dedicate to yourself, nothing else. This will not be easy since you have a kid now, but I believe everyone needs to have at least 10% of the day dedicated to themselves, otherwise burn out is very possible for anyone.
2. Ignore people saying this is 'just how life is'. It's not. There are plenty of people out there living perfectly content lives still having to deal with all the same things you are, and possibly more. My parents had to drop everything and move us kids (4 of us til 5th was born) out to the bush just to make ends meet once upon a time ago. There were hard days, and plenty of tough times, but I never heard my mother or father complain about burn out or anything like that. Not because they were tough as nails or anything like that, but because they were able to do what they needed to without interference from every joe dick jane and jerry. So my advice here is to just do what YOU think you need to do, provided its not going to harm anyone else or yourself. That's liberty. That's freedom. You're burning out because you are lacking these things (IMHO).
3. Find something you truly enjoy doing that isn't just consuming more content. The internet can sometimes lead to worse burn out for some, due to the nature of how we use it. If you must be on the internet for whatever it is you enjoy doing, just at least avoid social media. That will drain a person faster than a lot of anything else. (Again IMHO)
4. You don't need therapy via some specialist. You just need someone who will listen when you need to vent. Just remember to be there for that person too when its their turn to unleash their troubles. That's what we're here for, for each other.
5. In regards to learning something new. In the words of Shia Labeouf "Just Do IT". I know its hard, I struggle with it too. I have 3 books on different aspects of computer sciences just waiting to be used. Haven't touched them. Can't be damned to. Not because of burn out, but because there is always something else that I want to do instead. So I really should take my own advice here.
6. In tandem with avoiding social media... do the same with the news. We need to stay informed, but the informers aren't always really doing what they do to inform us, but to keep us scared of what we can do nothing about except worry.
So just do whatever it is you want/need to do instead of wasting time trying to stay informed. A large degree of it is pure unadulterated bullshit anyways.
7. Listen to Donkey Kong Music. Or whatever music you find enjoyable and relaxing. I find Donkey Kong tunes to be very much this.
8. Again, ignore the people who say "this is just how life is". It's not. It's just how life is right now because people have consigned themselves to it. Yes, there are plenty of things that can make life terrible, but that doesn't mean we need to dwell on them, or even accept them. Our greatest achievement as a species on this planet has been our ability to transcend these issues; or at the very least withstand them until we can transcend them.
9. I leave this here for future edits if I decide to add more.
I suggest going out for a hike or a run.
These news companies have gone into overdrive over the past few years and their business models have mutated around the user engagement they got from Trump and Covid. They must now keep that tempo or their ad revenue will crash. You do not need to participate in this dumpster fire.
After you have cut out the news, you’ll be in a much better position to evaluate your overall mental health and if you need to work on it further.
https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/386:_Duty_Calls
that can explain burnout, as the internet is an endless source of errors.
There was a 1 month waitlist to see a new therapist and 2 month to see a psychiatrist. That's in a densely populated state like NJ, usa.
There are many more things today that are able to more easily exhaust your emotional battery. News has gone from click bait to concern baiting in order to keep your attention. Every other news story is "breaking news". It's not.
I have been feeling burned out too and it's more severe than I have felt it in the past. I can't speak about pre 2010, I was too young. But in 2010s it was so much easier to figure out what needed my attention and what didn't.
There have been, what feels like, back to back world changing events. The reality is there always were. Covid is the first one that managed to touch every single person in the world's life. There's state and country level events like the war. The impact of those events spread it out to continents.
But in my lifetime and maybe most people's, there hasn't been a world effecting event like covid since, maybe WWII. Age is a factor for the previous one I think of, it's not the same for everyone.
Phone and content consumption are things that help me make it through the day. Tiktok is seen as "bad" but to me it's nice to spend a half hour watching random people do funny things. My timeline is tuned to show me cute animals and funny videos. No drama, no news, no stress.
My advice to you is find a hobby with a small local community. If you can't, find somewhere to volunteer. For me, there's an archery shooting range that has Friday night shoots at indoor targets. I see people from different age brackets. I can invite a close friend or two to come and hang out and talk about nothing in particular.
Like this lady tried to argue that she had dibs on a specific box of fruit because her hand touched it first. I just gave it to her but it was funny in retrospect. There were 30 other boxes.
I don't care about getting good enough at archery to make be competitive or go hunting. I feel happy about getting 9s and 10s. I don't feel bad about myself if I don't.
I would say go back to some root. Make a book club with your friends, or join the one at the local library. Volunteer at the local senior center or whenever. Get into 3d printing. Local open intramural sport. I know some of my friends do basketball game tournaments.
Do something you have done already so it's not new. Something you put down and forgot about or just didn't have time for.
Video games are decent, especially if you focus on single player games and not online multi-player.
I love my phone. I have friends I stay in touch with across time zones because of my phone. I am in many discords. There's never a moment in time where I can't pick up my phone, find people talking about a show I like or about some tech project I also like and just talk. They're strangers but we start with something in common. Specific communities talk about drama but I just go to a different discord channel.
Having a community you have a shared interest with gives you something to look forward to. I am in the stable diffusion community and it's pretty nice. Interesting projects and technical discussions.
Other people advising you to use your phone less don't understand the root of the issue. Whether or not you get therapy is up to you. Maybe a heart to heart with a friend you really really trust is enough.