Comment by dirtybirdnj | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dirtybirdnj | Hacker News Reader

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> First you have to make space in your life for it. You need long blocks of time for deep work.

This is the obstacle to EVERYTHING in my life. It's very chaotic, which causes a lot of stress and has led to decreasing performance.

I try so hard to clean up, to improve things. To try to proactively get ahead of stuff. It never seems to be enough. Something happens I cannot prepare for, or in trying to save and be efficient something goes wrong I cannot afford. My whole plan, saving AND getting things done has now blown up. I no longer have one, I now have three problems and I have also lost/wasted a day. Tomorrow I have four problems, plus I am aware of this dynamic and unable to escape it so technically 5?

This compounds over time.

How do you escape this failure loop?

tl;dr: the "being poor is expensive" trap, how escape when so burned out you are struggling to tread water?

It's not just money, it's attention span. It's the ability to set my mind to something and accomplish what I set out. Having that muscle atrophy and tear has been traumatic and I am struggling to find emotional or medical interventions worth the effort.

It really depends on the specifics of your life. I get a lot of mileage out of imagining what a more functional adult would do, then doing that (stupid example: <FUNCTIONAL ADULT> doesn't buy the cheapest shoes available and try to make them last 5 years while enduring back pain). It's hard to change quickly; sometimes decisions I made years ago (or that someone in my family made decades ago) throw a wrench in the works. I also took a big step back from various forms of ambition, in favor of building a solid, enjoyable life. I hope it gets better for you too.

> I also took a big step back from various forms of ambition, in favor of building a solid, enjoyable life.

I think you are onto something here, but there's no way to keep my current situation sustainable let alone live on less. The financial thing I can't do much about but the psychological maybe. It's hard when I feel like there is nobody to help me and I have to do everything alone.

From this and your other comments life sucks for you right now. There's no magic bullet. Religion might help or it might mess you up worse. Sometimes life sucks for a while then gets better. Keep your head up - find one thing you can still enjoy and savor it.

Of course, I know nothing about your particular situation, but one strategy is to simplify life as much as you can. This could be lowering living costs by moving and getting rid of expensive habits. Lower overhead can be huge factor in reducing distraction and stress. Other strategies are reducing the number of activities, avoid using phones and other distractions during work periods, avoid social media and political discussion and encourage focus on your goals, setting boundaries with family and friends, saying “no” more often to requests, avoiding triggers that distract you or cause stress, create a dedicated and quiet workspace with few distractions, and generally focus on fewer goals at a time.

> focus on fewer goals at a time

Beyond this very specific thing, I think its also a struggle with trusting myself. I don't trust myself to finish anything. I can try as hard as I want but my locus of control is completely external. I am tired of being lied to about agency and ability. If it was easy as putting effort in I'd be there already.

So I work harder and harder in an effort to MAYBE be enough for society / work etc and I am STILL not enough. How can you believe in yourself when you are the source of all failure, lack of consistency, inability to change or adapt. It's me. I'm the problem. I try to be better but at some point I am just masking who I am, which is a WHOLE other problem that is not mutually exclusive. It's another one of those "can't follow the issue because it's too complicated" problems that's destroying my life. Nobody undertands, everyone tells me I'm not alone (they are wrong) and nobdody has any reasonable or actionable suggestions because nobody I have talked to yet even remotely grasps what I am going through. My therapist is really the only person who gets it.

So many times I have tried to do the "right" thing only for it to backfire and make everything worse. It's textbook learned helplessness, but I also have a proverbial textbook of evidence to support my reasons why things won't work. Nobody will listen to me, and then when the thing I tell them won't work FAILS it's my fault for pointing out the laws of physics or nature. I am tired of being the scapegoat for sociopaths and Machiavellian cancer.

I accept that I need to accept failure. I am trying, but it's demoralizing and only seems to cause pain not growth. I can usually maintain optimism for a week or more but inevitably the reality of life creeps back in and I can't lie to myself any longer.

What works for me: Goal setting (e.g. OKR), taking baby steps and autopiloting. Can't manage to do X for 30mins a day? I'll go down to as low as 5mins to do thing X if that is required to still do it consistently. If I manage to go to work for 8hrs every day, I'll manage to wake up 5mins earlier and do X as well. Granted, you need to be reasonably convinced that it's a good investment of your time.

Edit: Just saw your other response. Now is certainly not the right time to push yourself, which is fine. Hope you'll get out of that hole soon, best of luck!

I’m sorry that you feel alone and that no one understands. I’m assuming that it’s important for you to find people that do understand, but people don’t always understand especially when someone has unorthodox methods that are likely correct but go against the normal path. This particular issue has frustrated me many times.

I’m speaking for myself of course, but maybe it’s not about accepting the failure itself, but accepting that failure or disappointment is a learning opportunity providing feedback. Failure is a strong term while in reality results are somewhere between success and failure, and recognizing it is not a binary. Usually there are successes and failures in a project with the key observation being what you as an individual can do to improve the environment (e.g. avoiding sociopathic, coworkers, Machiavellian corporate practices, poor work environments, etc). Anyway, I apologize if my attempt to understand is off the mark and wish you luck navigating to an endeavor where you can find more satisfaction.

Sounds like you need to first make your life less chaotic. This could mean making some hard choices.

This is usually possible to some degree but the life circumstances creating the chaos may not be things they can realistically get rid of.

Nail on the head. Lost wife / family (cat) / house over the summer. Mom in and out of hospital starting in November. I'm a cat locked in the dryer and there are no door handles on the inside.

My deepest sympathies. Find a way to spend some time and money on therapy if you can. It will help stop the problem making itself worse.

I kinda figured. Sorry bro. No easy answers, unfortunately.

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