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Comment by samtho | Hacker News Reader

This feels a little tone deaf and a bit useless.

OP does not have a job and, especially in a the crumby market that we’re in for tech work, they just need anything they can get. You’re speaking from a place way higher on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs than where OP is currently.

It’s hard to imagine yourself in a position where you can casually choose who you want to work for if you are not even getting interviews or offers in the first place. This is therefore not a strategy that leads to very motivational results.

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They are trying to tell OP to figure out what motivates them in the first place. Getting into a programming career via non traditional routes, including working non programming jobs to scrape by, is not at all unusual. The main asset you have is your desire to learn and to code. The people I've met who made it non traditionally all code constantly and are hungry for whatever they can get. The people I've met who don't make it don't seem to code all that much; I can only surmise they don't like it very much. And if that's the case, how are you going to motivate yourself to grind not just leet code but all the other crap you have to learn. The job has lots of ups and downs and enjoying coding is what seems to make it sustainable. It seems like a pre-requisite not only for getting that first job, but for keeping it long term.

You have a point, the OP did say that they were having mental health difficulties. So the interview process can definitely make this worse given where this person is at.

But think Addaon also has a point. Yeah, the interview process can often be horrible. It can be demoralizing, especially after what the OP has gone through with their health (I have major health problems too, so can sympathize). For me at least, my solution was to treat a tough job search like a job. And in this way, you don't take all the rejection so personally (it's just apart of the interviewing).

Think this requires more context then what's possible in a post, but the OP may benefit from learning techniques for handling rejection? (I use them myself)

Well said.

Approaching the challenge of looking for a job is similar to the psychology required by salespeople, who face many more “No” responses than “Yes”es.

On podcasts I’ve heard salespeople talking about the need to invert your thnking if looking at success. To treat every “no” as a win. Count the nos, focus on that. The inner game of sales requires different strategies than other parts of your working life.

It is as if, for the sake of professionalism, they deliberately inhabit an impenetrable optimism, but remain detached enough, at a deeper level, that the rejections are understood as just part of a game.

Easier said than done, of course… I wish you luck, and urge you to take one tiny step at a time, even without motivation, as motivation is something that builds up — “motive” being derived from the same roots as “motion” — as those tiny difficult steps at the start, create motion that brings about momentum and motivation all by itself.

Agreed. Rejection and struggle is fundamental to attaining anything worthwhile, and gaining the right mindset is a key to this.

Hoping for the best for this person too.

Was the OP edited? I don't see anything about having gone mental in it.

ah, think you're right, the OP didn't mention mental health directly. although, the OP does mention, after a very tough struggle for many years, and not wanting to compete in the job market because it is "demoralizing and messing with my head."

But you're right, OP didn't mention it directly:)

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