Comment by BenoitP | Hacker News Reader

Comment by BenoitP | Hacker News Reader

First, the physical: sleep well, eat well, practice sports

Second, the surroundings: analyse your immediate surroundings, and what/who is causing stress. Toxic friends, too much alcohol, etc.

Third: find a higher peace-bringing meaning. Wether it is a goal, or friendship/love, or even religion.

Also: work on redundancy of your mental health. Have your 3 pillars of strength in a healthy state: work, belonging (love/friendship), hobby. If 2/3 are good, then you have the strength to work on the third. Don't put all your eggs in one basket. 100% work-driven is not healthy, and actually counter-productive! Eg if works goes bad, then you have a crushing nothing going on for you. Then good luck improving your work situation while feeling crushed. Make your mental health resilient.

I also highly recommend you seek professional helpers: sport coach, psychologist, or just talking it out with friends regularly.

Another great helper is having habits. Take the habit of scheduling a meeting with a friend once a week. Take the habit of running on Sunday evenings. Habits can be the autopilot of your mental health.

Good advice, however I find myself quite struggling with the third point.

I recentyl turned fifty, with a decent career up to now: software engineer, sold a company I co-owned some time ago. My daughter spent years figthing cancer, so that was also a big part of my life in the last ten years.

Now things are better and I cannot seem to find decent interest in anything. I still love to code from time to time, but I am more in CTO or managing roles. I exercise on a regular basis, I eat quite well (vegetables a lot, fish, a little bit of meat, everything home made), I try to pursue some hobby like playing music, which I enjoy, but it is quite hard to find the time to do more than half an hour per day. I am also trying to take care of friendships as much as I can.

Despite all this I have a very hard time to find anything that motivates me, and I really wonder how I will go on in my professional life for another 10 years. Clearly I need some peace-bringing meaning, but it is very hard to find, and I do not even know how to start looking for it. So yes I think a meaning is paramount in a good mental health, but it is quite difficult to find!

> Clearly I need some peace-bringing meaning, but it is very hard to find, and I do not even know how to start looking for it.

there is almost no way to say this without sounding preachy, at least to my american english ear. But. it’s true nonetheless.

that meaning? it’s in your neighbors, and you find it in direct, human service to them. There are many, many ways to serve, and one of them fits you. It doesn’t have to be some huge thing, and i’ve found that it helps not to talk about it, just do and be open to the moment.

I would like to argue that this painful state of seeking meaning is a good thing.

For most of human history we have been stuck in a Stockholm syndrome, a cozy state of delusion, that has been perpetuated by each generation.

The more people find that old mental systems (religions, woo, etc.) are fraudulent and are confronted with this issue the higher the chances someone discovers/creates a paradigm shifting philosophy.

Many people got excited in the past two decades for something like this, yet I feel the wave has dissipated without achieving much, and many have fallen prey to charismatic charlatans.

The (and i mean this seriously) delightful part of your response is that it’s as old as written history.

Personally, I choose to find that reassuring.

Maybe. That is how many of humanities advancements have been realized. People being unsatisfied and believing there can be a better way, believing there can be a better explanation, etc..

Even so, I do worry about the future. I fear, for multiple reasons, that we risk entering a new kind of dark age.

The combination of the power of the internet to propagate disinformation and quackery at greater speed and scale than it is debunked. The development of language model AI's which enable at scale the hallucination of meaningless content masquerading as legitimate content.

The article here captures some of my thoughts: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34126450

All good advice. I especially agree with the first line as a solid foundation. As long as you don't sleep well, forget the rest. And as long as you don't exercise regularly, the regular sleep will be much harder.

One thing I'd add though is: A tidy mind. Clean up your thoughts. If there is something you don't understand or that seems inconsistent, seek understanding instead of just ignoring it. Of course you need some tradeoff, but too many people just live with constant chaos in their heads and BS-tting they way through life. By extension, your surroundings shape your thoughts. A somewhat tidied up apartment, clean kitchen sink and bathroom/toilet, fridge, desk, hard disk, inbox, those things work wonders. Doesn't have to be spotless, but chaos just distracts and creates overhead that can make you miserable.

(Obviously, some chaos sparks creativity, but there is a difference it a big box with assorted "creative" items versus not finding things on your desk because of all the crap on it.)

> Also: work on redundancy of your mental health.

Wow, great idea that I've never really thought about. Right now I am mostly work with a little bit of hobby and relationships and you're absolutely right that problems at work can give a disproportionate bit of mental anguish. Thanks a ton for that insight!

Great advice overall !

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