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Comment by bluefirebrand | Hacker News Reader

I think what stresses me out most right now is the idea that my life may be more than half over and I have a lot of stuff I want to do.

I really struggle with energy levels. I work hard at my job and I find myself unable to work effectively on the things I want to do after work and on my weekends. I waste a lot of time.

I've been in this holding pattern for years and I mostly cope by telling myself that I still have more time.

But recently realized my time is still passing. I'm trying not to fall into the mid-life crisis traps, doing some dramatic rash stuff because of this. But I wish I could find a way to break this holding pattern and do the work I want to do.

It's challenging. I hear about people who died early with super tragic cancer or heart attacks really young and I worry like hell that could be me without ever even starting the stuff I want to accomplish.

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"For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?"

Mark 8:36

I'm sorry to hear you're dealing with this. When I was suffering from low energy levels and brain fog, these are the things that helped me. I don't know anything about your situation other than what you've written above, so apologies if you're already doing these things.

- I was overweight, so I started eating a healthier diet and exercising. I also tried cutting out some common food allergens and found that a couple of them were causing some consistent brain-fog issues.

- I started to ease off working quite as hard as I had been. For example, keeping my work time to while I was at work, padding in a little extra time in project timelines for some extra breathing room, and taking a lunch break just for myself. While at lunch I would read, or take a Coursera class ,go for a walk, or something else to get myself into a better mood.

- YMMV, but I did not find it helpful (from a mental health POV) to try to force accountability on the things I wanted to do by telling friends or family about them - that just increased my levels of stress.

Best of luck!

I am working on all of these things at the moment.

Thank you for the advice, and also just thank you for the encouragement. It's nice to know that I'm probably on the right track. :)

Have you ever tried to seriously pursue what you want to pursue? I ask because I was in the same situation, and now, when I'm financially independent and don't work, I found that I actually don't want to pursue my supposed interests anymore. It seems that they were just escapist daydreams that helped me cope working the job.

I've thought that it's just escapist fantasy before, and in fact there was a period of a few years where I firmly told myself "I don't actually want to make games anymore, I will never do it" but I keep coming back to the idea.

The truth is that making games is what I want to do, but I don't want to sacrifice to do it. The industry is notoriously brutal to get into and have a career progression in, so I avoided it after university.

So really the only way I would make games is either solo or on an indie team, but those paths are similarly brutal.

So it remains a dream. But maybe if I weren't so tired all the time, working a bit in my evenings and weekends wouldn't feel like such a sacrifice.

I identify strongly with this, including how it's written.

Are you "into" "startup stuff"? Willing to post a contact in your bio?

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