I don't know who I am anymore and I can't tell anyone

When was the last time you spent all day hanging out with your girlfriend, doing nothing but wasting time? I think a lot of us at HN have a hard time "wasting time" by doing nothing. I know I personally feel very unproductive spending an entire weekend not working on personal projects.

But it's important. My girlfriend and I just spent all Saturday walking around downtown Boston window shopping because the weather was so lovely. It was a great, relaxing day - it felt like vacation.

So do that. Hell, use up some of your vacation days. Your company will survive without you for a week or three.

And stop working so much. Seriously. Set a time and go home regardless of if you have "finished" your stuff for the day. It's a hamster wheel of work and you'll never go home if you have just one more thing to finish.

Man, use some of that vacation time. And during it cut all tech ties. Take a bunch of books -- good books (not tech ones, although science is OK), can even be eBooks (if on a device without Net access!) -- and do nothing but relax and read and think. Look, the human mind needs time for reflection, for expansion. Without it, you get caught up in the cycle you're in right now, with seeming no way out. It's not just your back that's aching, it's your mind. You just don't recognize it.

Starting a business is not the solution, since all of the problems you describe apply equally well to a lot of founders, and especially founders without funding for whom you can add "poor" and "lonely" to the list of adjectives you use to describe your own insane lifestyle. Would you be happy working for yourself, but stuck at home all the time?

So fix the problem... scale yourself back to eight hours a day. Make it a point to leave the office by 6:30. After a month of this shift this up to normal closing time. There is no need to ask permission: if someone asks say you have something in the evenings after work. If this is a problem waltz into a more reasonable position.

That said, one practical suggestion is that if you're changing your work hours, you need to get into the office at or before 9:00am, since it is common for managers to perceive staff as coming in late, but very rare for them to recognize the sheer amount of time put in working late. You also don't want to spend a lot of time at the office talking about your new evening activities while you're getting people conditioned to your working non-insane hours. You want the only noticeable shift in your behavior to be the fact you leave at a reasonable hour. After a month or two you won't need to worry about this, but if you give into the temptation it might be perceived as flaunting authority.

Spolsky would advise a sabbatical.

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000076.html

I've considered taking a "normal-job-as-sabbatical" several times (e.g., being a welder for a year).

(also, consider that humans tend to adjust their problem-severity-sensitivity knob to their current level of input. e.g., the bus driver in your home town is probably really stressed out about this "problems". this puts you in the rare position of possibly being able to truly achieve 0-stress in one of those "normal" jobs, as long as you can keep your current perspective on what "real" stress is).

The problem is not your job.

The problem is your relationship with your job.

While others will suggest that you take a vacation (and I do agree), it wont fix the underlying problem which will just re-occur when you resume work (or another type of work).

You need to learn to be still even when your external circumstances are chaotic.

For this reason, I would highly recommend you take up meditation.

Start with 10-30 minutes per day in the morning where you still your mind. It will be difficult at first, but after 2-3 few weeks you'll get the hang of it and you'll notice that your mind will start to go back to the quiet space in your developed during the morning meditation.

You don't mention which city you are in, but I can personally vouch for Kadampa Buddhist centers as good teachers where the general classes are very light on doctrine and heavy on practical skills. You should be able to find them by searching for "Kadampa <your city>". You may also find other teachers, but I wouldn't be able to give you any idea of the quality. That said, it's likely that any class will be better than no class.

In a practical way, this will enable you to make better decisions and see the bigger picture. After a shorter time that you would think, you'll start to feel like you are the driver, rather than just a passenger stumbling from one chaotic and intense situation to the next.

Good luck!

I totally understand where you're coming from. I'm not as successful as you, but I can relate. I'm single, 26yo, sr front end engineer at a company that was just acquired as a direct result of a project I pitched and worked on. I used to spend 12+ hours working every day convincing myself that I was passionate about the project and didn't care too much about it eating into my personal time.

I'm still lost and fairly unhappy on most days so obviously I don't have much figured out. The only thing I can suggest is that you need to discover your hobbies, and it cannot be anything work related. I love to draw, design, sculpt, etc; I even got a full ride for art which I gave up and paid for an engineering degree. After working for a year, I managed to convince myself that programming was my hobby and left no time for anything else.

Recently I have committed to an 8-9 hour work day. I give myself time to draw and to read and I've been happier since. The hardest part is to allow yourself to work less and take those vacations, to recognize the little things you've always wanted to do and actually follow up with it... like work remotely for a month in a random city, take a glass-blowing session with your girlfriend.

You probably don't nee d a permanent break from your career, just a better balance in life.

I read into this that you have no idea where you're going to. You're running this race and suddenly you're asking yourself why you are running at all.

This is going to sound cliché, but honestly I think it's your age. I remember at your age calling a friend once and telling him how great my life should be - I was wealthy, single, living in foreign lands, doing the best job, known in my industry, yet totally lonely. I felt guilty too about everything I had.

Sometime, I don't know when exactly, I just realised, you really have no control over your life. What happens happens, there is no reason for your life or mine so don't search for one.

When you get that, you realise that everyone is is in the same boat. Some people get different results by chance. It helps that you have skills, but don't try and run the race, if actually you don't feel like running it. Who really cares who wins anyway?

I'll tell you the thing that puts me straight: I think of Mark Zuckerberg. he has everything yet, could he really just go back-packing in India like others his age? Could he just decide to pack up and move to Paris for the kicks? The point I want to make is that success has it's limitations, it's responsabilities too.

If it's going to happen to you it will, but if it doesn't well that's just fine too.

Hey, I've totally been there, done that, although i've never been productive on the scale that you are.

I really did give up my life, leave the city and try to go do something else. Let me tell you - everyone has a stressful job, even the bus driver or the photographer (imagine dealing with screaming kids or bridezillas for a job- that's where most photographers income comes from).

You mention writing this hung over and I have an observation, with no judgement attached - drinking on a regular basis screws up a lot of stuff in your life, and often causes depression. This part of your life might warrant some deep self-examination?

In the end, I got a job I absolutely love (no longer self employed, and happy about that), in a place I love. I don't love every minute of it, nobody ever does, but on whole there's more love than hate. I've also deeply examined and changed my drinking habbits, and that has literally changed my life.

My email is in my profile. Feel free to contact me if you ever want to talk.

[edit]Others have talked about vacation. Vacation is good and important, especially if you travel, but if you don't change your life you're just coming back to the same crap you left.

Should I give up everything to be a bus driver, a photographer, and move to a quiet town...

Anyone recognizes this?

I do recognize this, though not anywhere near as severe.

I keep telling myself that if I ever were to get so bad that my non-work life and health quality drop significantly, I'll drop everything and become an Alpaca farmer (that was a running joke when I was in uni, but nowadays I feel like perhaps someday I'd like to do that for real).

I don't have as much experience with high pressure work and burn out as you do, but a few years ago, before I quit my job to work on startups and contract stuff, I was getting pretty burnt out working in telecoms. Similar deal, though not as severe (I didn't work as long hours, for example, but I rarely used my holiday time). Also, some personal stuff made the burnout all the worse. I quit my job and took a month to relax before starting contract work and other projects. Looking back, I think its very important to make sure you use your holiday time and to disconnect yourself completely from anything work related (which for me means to stay away from the computer altogether as much as I can).

It's hard to give advice here because you state what you're doing, but not why.

Why do you work so much? Do you need the money? Are you too timid to say no? Are you looking for a promotion? Do you love the game?

On top of all that work, why do you spend even more time on open source projects? Do you still have something to prove? Is this a source of entertainment or anxiety?

The fact is, you're extremely talented and could create almost any work arrangement you fancy. There's no need to quit IT and become a bus driver.

But again, what you should do now depends entirely on why you're currently working so much.

For what it's worth, I've been there before. I almost sold everything and moved to Costa Rica. Instead, I sold everything and made less radical changes.

One of the reasons I worked so much was because everything I owned had monthly payments. Selling everything solved that. Once you don't need to make a lot of money to pay your bills the world opens up for you.

Suddenly you can walk into your boss's office and say, "look, this is how it's going to be...". If she says no, then you walk. I really can't express enough the difference not needing money makes. Most people are desperate for money and it shows. The confidence you get from not needing a paycheck for the next year shows even louder because it's so unusual.

Now, I typically do consulting work 4 days per week and work on my start-up at nights and on Fridays. On the weekend I hang out with friends, surf, snow board, skate, and sometimes do more work (if nothing else is available). I also take a ridiculous amount of vacations, some just a few days and some for a week, but typically about every 3 months. That's what keeps me going.

You've got a valid point. I've neglected to say why.. In my case, I rose up from the slums; I used to steal internet (56k modem time), that's why I needed to be a hacker. I used to steal software for realizing my dreams of becoming a programmer; that's why I needed to become a cracker. I told myself that one day I'll give back - that's one of the reasons I'm doing open source. If I look down, there is no safety net. If I let go, I fall down hard. That's how economy looks like for me.

On the other side of the coin, I am competitive, I like to do things right and I hate when things go wrong. I also love to help other people and contribute (remembering where I come from). I also am obsessive about not letting anyone down. So yea, I guess many geeks have these traits, don't they?

> That's how economy looks like for me.

So fix your the economy.

Periodically sacrificing open source work in favor of building a small online business that would provide you perceivable passive income—the safety net—seems like an option.

This also can be given back in numerous ways—as open-sourcing software you'll employ for you business, as writing about what you did to help others get less financially dependent as well.

First of all, I can certainly empathize with you, and very I'm sorry to hear you're going through this difficult time. Most of the advice offered in this thread is quite practical, and it's great to see such a close-knit support group here at Hacker News.

My advice is simple; as cliche as it may seem, take the time to read The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss. This book addresses most of the psychology behind your discontent and offers a slew of energizing solutions that should help get you out of the proverbial rut.

If I may, here's a great poem a wise man once shared with me:

Take time to think...It is the source of all power Take time to read...It is the foundation of all wisdom Take time to play...It is the source of perpetual youth Take time to be aware...It is the opportunity to help others Take time to love and be loved...It is life's greatest gift Take time to laugh...It is the music of the soul Take time to be friendly...It is the road to happiness Take time to dream...It is what the future is made of Take time to give...It is too short a day to be selfish Take time to work...It is the price of success*

*in healthy doses

http://www.amazon.com/The-4-Hour-Workweek-Anywhere-Expanded/...

Great suggestion in regards to 4HWW, it definitely adds perspective and the concept of the mini-retirements is great.

oh shit, you have to allocate an hour to your girlfriend, that right there is a problem.

You have no down time, I dont mean time working on your open source pojects, i mean time when you watch movie, read a book, walk the dog, go to the cinema or for a meal or soemthing. 3 hours in the evening is barely enough time to wind down from a day at work and get ready to sleep.

hope you get good advice that helps you. All i can say is try to re-prioritise your life rather than your work.

I commented earlier about 4HWW from Tim Ferris, but one post from the his blog has continued to resonate and help me through the ups and downs, especially when you feel like you have hit the wall.

It is actually about a letter written by Seneca a famous Stoic philosopher. Take 30mins to read, will be worth it. Stoic philosophy in general has really helped me build a framework/value system.

Excerpt: "It is not that we have a short space of time, but that we waste much of it. Life is long enough, and it has been given in sufficiently generous measure to allow the accomplishment of the very greatest things if the whole of it is well invested."

http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2009/04/24/on-the-short...

I am 26/running my own distribution company + working full time sales/bus dev for enterprise tech company/side FB game project - applying for YC/Working PT as Crossfit instructor and training (exercise is a great break)/Living in Norway on my own (away from family/friends but still stay in touch online as I can).

Hope it helps!

Your hours make me cringe. Is it possible for you to get to work earlier and get off earlier? I personally find myself much happier when I am arriving in the office between 7:30 - 8:30. Other than that trust me, giving up your life wouldn't help anything. People in small towns have 'loads' of stress. Those bus-drivers and photographers barely make ends-meat and they work just as many, if not more hours than you do. The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence; until you realize you just stepped in a cow-pie.

You mention having a bad back; try finding a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu studio; it will definitely help your strength and is more low-impact at the beginning grappling stages (look for a smaller studio). Make sure you tell them about your back and they should help you work on it and will make sure you aren't being hurt more.

Give up open source; at-least scale it back for awhile. You need to be worrying more about you when you're this worn out.

-Don't- give up that girlfriend.

"I still have most of my vacation quota unused"

I'm not a doc, and so if someone here thinks this is horrible advice please let it be known.

I think several members here have suggested taking a vacation. Take one, a long one, go see fam, spend it traveling with your GF, or both or neither...whatever you want. Take one as long as you can 4wks, even if a week is unpaid, if you have the option.

Start with that, it doesn't rewrite your life, and let your mind calm down and then start evaluating what you think might work. Talk to people who care, talk to your parents, girlfriend, a buddy, me if you need an ear. Get it out first, then look for a ideas to make your life happier.

Maybe you need better hours and need to tell your employer, maybe a new 9-5 job, and hack away on some side project, or just maybe that bus driver job and to hell with this all, but being hunger-over, crying, stressed, you are in reactionary mode. I've been there for one reason or another, don't make an extreme change in this state.

Are you being scapegoated for stuff or bullied in some other way at work? I've seen that burnout usually stems from some injustice that you are unable to avoid or otherwise control - leaving you feeling hopeless and burned out. My wife and I worked for Microsoft (at the headquarters in Redmond) for years and we became extremely burned out. Even after we were no longer employeed we had to write a book about it to sort out what really happened to us and what the causes for our burnout were. Just know that you are not alone and you're not crazy! Typically those that are scapegoated, or at least subjected to situations leading to burnout, typically have a talent that others are jealous of. You'll make it through this - do your own research into burnout and bullying it may help. Find someone that you can talk to about your situation to help you sort it out emotionally. I had my wife for support.

"typically have a talent that others are jealous of": This is truly a problem not just for the gifted but often for anyone who actually gives a shit.

Another consideration is that often when you are helping someone get what they want, they can feel inferior and/or powerless (i.e they are not programmers, tech is a black hole to them etc). On top of that often internally they feel unworthy and so strike out at the very person helping their success. Weird but it's happened to me.

We (my wife and I) read your reply and completely agree with your point! We have both experienced this ourselves.

I've had to grow a thick skin and focus on being the person I want to be, without getting caught up in outcomes. And learn empathy.

Of course!

Well, the quiet town bit and the no stress bit, anyway. I like what I do, I just don't feel like doing it every waking hour of my life. I have years where I just want to move to someplace quiet and slow-paced and spend as much time as possible with my wife. (And when we have kids, that's exactly what we'll do.)

Your skill set is so sought after these days. My current company would surely jump at the chance to give you some contract work.

If I were you, I would leave the job, take a year, and rent a place in that quiet town. I would line up a little contract work, which frankly, won't be hard. I would bill by the hour and work less than eight hour days. I would drink beers with my friends and hang out in backyards. After the year, I would reevaluate - quiet towns have their pros, but they also have their cons.

It's not your skills that are causing you pain here, it's what you're doing with them. Your abilities can be used to make you happy.

You'll feel better if your work has a purpose. Find a big problem and help solve it. But focus on one problem to solve, dont spread yourself too thin. And give your brain a little time to decompress.

Its hard to discern your goals from your post. I'm guessing that you are striving for recognition as a great developer (could explain pouring all your spare time into open source, and corroborated by your self description). If so, thats a painful goal that won't be satisfied.

Any time you spend to benefit others will feel rewarding. A bus driver directly sees who he benefits, but you can too. Maybe the problems you're solving are too arcane. Maybe you'd feel more rewarded being more involved with end users.

I know what you mean, but keep in mind the grass is always greener on the other side. It might sound idealistic now to be the bus driver but as a smart guy, which I assume you are, you will go insane doing something like that. You weren't meant to do that.

It sounds like you need more human connection, and for that I recommend time off as well as equal effort into personal relationships. Human interaction is one of the deepest needs for even introverts and I think that will go a long way in helping you discover who you are. After all, how much can you know about yourself when you are constantly focusing on other things?

I don't know you, but I feel similarly. I think ambition drives us to stay up late and arise early. It's not a common trait in mankind I'm finding.

This may be silly, but are you keeping up with the basics? Do you make time to exercise? To write down your day in a journal? To recreate somehow daily? Simple things like this I've found are essential for my personal mental well-being.

Another point a prof taught me--take time to celebrate small accomplishments. Fix a particularly nasty bug? Go for a short walk, or shoot some hoops in the hallway trashcan. That way you aren't deluded with problems like a bad day of rain.

Good luck, friend.

Thank you, your advise sounds great. Going to basics is always good.

By deluded, I meant inundated!

Seriously, take a vacation. Take your girlfriend. Go someplace far away and relaxing, and stay off the internet. I only get five days of vacation a year, but I damn sure take them. Vacation is my reset button.

Most of the advice seems very sound.

I just wanted to add that, since you seem very commited to the company you work for, why not try to learn to delegate?

I'm sure there are some very bright and ambitious younger professionals in your company you could take under your wing (or ask for staffing) and delegate some non-critical work (or even critical if under your supervision).

It might be more work short term, but it'll be better long term. And it always pays to get backup - if you're indispensable, you can't make career choices, scale down on work as suggested or go on vacations.

joedoe,

I do:

After a really crappy end (for me) at a start-up in 2005, I took a look: Divorced, burnt, stressed, unresolved personal problems. I quit, dropped out, threw in the trowel. Studied yoga, learnt green home building, bought ground in Arizona and Baja, Mexico to create eco-villages. Deliberately did NOTHING in IT.

Well, the Housing collapse killed my eco-villages, at least for now. And I found that my brain, which was used to full-stack one-man-army development, was succumbing to the "devil will find work for idle minds to do" paradigm. Which was mostly dwell on what I missed working 70 hr weeks. All bad.

Now I'm getting back in the game, albeit slowly (my brains, they is a mush; and the tools are way diff than 2005). It's hard but exhilarating. My advice, which I am implementing, is:

May I suggest a long walk? Like a month? The Appalachian trail, or that walk in Spain featured in "The Way" movie.

Then go back to work on something YOU CARE ABOUT, and do your work using the eight hour burn. Forget about being a hero - no one remembers and no one pays for it. Do more than your fair share, and do it with integrity.

You'll need to schedule activities that will make you put down the mouse and get out of the house.

Life is a marathon - you will die trying to sprint the whole way. Maybe not if you're a skinny Kenyan.

I found I was in a similar situation and I recently decided to go back to school. I have a MS already but now I want to do soomething I find fun and cool again. That is why I went to Uni. in the first place. So I signed up for another MS program. Find a program near you and actually take two or more years off the rat race and become a person that is discovering new ideas and fun again. Hell get a phd...

You need to need break; from your job, from hacking. Take a vacation and engage in something that doesn't involve code. Go bowling, or fishing, or to Italy. Whatever.

When you return, you will probably feel a lot better about all those things that feel tired right now. And no, you probably won't be happy driving a bus (for long anyways), but don't be afraid to try that too ;-)

Did you get into the run of startups because it was fun and you enjoyed it and you were good at it?

Now you're doing it because a)you have the skills b)people are pleased with your work.

Sounds like the level of excitement has faded to zero.

Make your own dream come true for a change

Should I give up everything to be a bus driver, a photographer, and move to a quiet town, leave the city and all of my skills and knowledge?

If you like what you do just take a less demanding job in your field.

Get out of the company. Find yourself something laid back where you can see your family as much as you would like. Sounds like you have the resume to push telecommuting during hiring negotiations.

Should I give up everything to be a bus driver, a photographer, and move to a quiet town, leave the city and all of my skills and knowledge?

Nah, just take a really long vacation. Like a year or two.

> I'm a single, 30yo, systems architect at a quite known and popular Web company (top 30).

but then you say:

> Of that I allocate 1 hour to my girlfriend daily.

...?

I allow myself to be honest. Single as in "not married". I spend an hour of quality time with my girlfriend, out of the 3 or 4 hours I get a day.

you know, the formal definition of single, I thought was to be not married. In forms, they ask if you're single or married.

Do what I always contemplate doing in these situations: go work on a kibbutz for 6 months until your head is clear.

* Where am I? where is the _exquisite_ systems architect? yes, I solve crazy problems (over 100M users), scalability and performance is my motto, but still struggling with a couple hours of free time per day, making my employer's dream come true*

How did you went from thinking that solving problems is nice and fun (ok), to thinking that the way to go about it is to work as a expandable human slave to your bosses benefit (not ok)?

Even the problems you get to solve are not that much impressive in the grand scheme of things. Scaling some service to 100M users != solving cancer. Yours and 1000 other companies already do it.

Don't get tricked into the whole company culture --except if you have a share of the company. And even then, your life is worth more.

Where would you be in 50 years? Exactly.

I think that you accomplished everything already and it´s time to think broader...Something like build a rocket to conquer Mars or finished starvation or know every country in this world....Our brain is selfish and angry, they need more and more challenges, they like to go out and discovery (until die)...Do it, or he will not stops to bother you.

(PS: no native english, help me and correct my writing)

You need to get some religion, Seriously!