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Comment by thraw | Hacker News Reader

16 hours in front of a computer (mostly) working 6 days a week

This is not sustainable no matter how much you love it. There is simply not enough time left to live healthy life - rest, exercise, be in a good relationship. Please do not do the same mistakes I made. I used to say what you say and I used to love my work. But I burned out. Love turned into hate. I had to quit - I just could not do it anymore. And I was left with severe depression, anxiety attacks, health problems and worst of all - loneliness. I did not have time for social life and now I have no love in my life, no sex, no intimacy, no meaning, nothing worth living for. I wasted few years of my youth that I will never get back and I just hope that somehow (with a lot of help from my therapist) I will be able to recover and enjoy life again... but it seems almost impossible now. I am in a really bad place right now... and I see you going there as well and loving it.

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Sorry to hear that you feel this way. I can guarantee you that you can change your life by 360 degrees if you set your mind to get where you want to be. Your startup didn't turn out to be the next billion dollar idea? Guess what, life goes on. There is many better things you can experience in life. Forget the past, just forget about it. The moment you remember something bad from your past, remind yourself that it's not helping you and you have a future life to live. Are you 200000 pounds over the weight you want to be at? Guess what, YOU can change that if you set your mind to do it. Are you socially awkward? YOU can change that too. Go out, don't limit yourself on what others think about you. Who cares, it's your life and you can live however you want to. Just do the things that you always wanted to do and thought were impossible. Change your mindset, set your goals, and work hard to get there. I promise you they will come much faster than you think. I joined HN just to post this and encourage you ;)

I fear becoming what you described, I'm feeling what you described 3-4 months of of the year and it seems to increase a bit each year. Trying to force myself a bit less work, and more of the enriching things in life - it helps, just need to be consistent.

The good news for you is that your'e still breathing, so your opportunities to find love and fun exist. Be well...

"This is not sustainable no matter how much you love it"

Agreed, I went through the burn out too.

Got out of it by starting my work day with a 1 to 2 hour walk in the morning. It serves two purposes at once : first your body recovers gently from the hours spent sitting on a chair, second you go to sleep before midnight and can start over the next day.

I completely agree. I'm just 23 and I burned out, last year I decided going on my own, freelancing and launching own products. That was a hard year, a lot of stress, anxiety attacks. I made a huge mistake. Hopefully I'll try to change this.

This thread hits home with me. Its been a year since I went all into building my product. Its taken some time since I'm a solo founder and I am willing to accept that. It sucks. Sometimes you start questioning what you're doing. I started getting sudden anxiety attacks late last year. Abnormally long work/coding hours take a toll on your health. My most recent anxiety attack lasted 3 hours. Anyway, if any of you are in the sf/bay and want to hang out talk about product or whatever, I think there's a lot we can relate to. There needs to be more positive encouragement in our community.

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