Developer Anxiety, we’re not alone
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As developers we see deeper into problems, we have a 'ground truth' of the state of the code base that no one else can see, and often gets ignored, because they can't see.
When requirements aren't detailed enough, people get frustrated with us because we're asking "stupid questions" about details that they don't believe matter, but that they would be upset about if we don't get them right.
When the code base is a mess, it's not on the restaurant floor, where everything seems fine, it's back in the kitchen behind closed doors where they never go. But it's hard to work in a messy kitchen, but everyone needs their food right now! Just get out one more appetizer, one more entree, as fast as possible, don't "waste time" cleaning up.
Some problems come from unknowns that we can't get help dealing with because other can't see them. Some come from know problems, that we can't get permission to address, because other can't see them. We're not hallucinating, but from an outside perspective we might as well be. It can be tough when others smile and nod, but you can tell by their actions that they don't really believe you. It feels like they don't trust you. And that can hurt.
All we can do is ask for that trust and try to communicate about those hallucinations as best as we can.
This works for a lot of people, right up until it doesn't.
The bottom line though is that if your primary stakeholders are listening attentively to the developers concerns about the underlying integrity of the product then you've got much larger problems than just a messy codebase and it might be time to abandon ship.
Take the discussion the first time it comes up. Speak your mind as soon as you are given a chance. Keep repeating yourself in meetings and stick with it. Fight for the things that you find important.
It sucks that you have to keep babbling with all these people around you in order to avoid everything collapsing on your head, but the sooner you realise this fact the better. And if you figure out that you are the only one at your job who actually care about your job and the quality of the stuff you produce, then good on you. It'll motivate you to find a better one.
I had been at the company for several years and felt like I was just wandering -- pretty much self taught in a lot of things, for better or worse, so I didn't understand a lot of things still. Pretty much everyone else on the team was/is a senior engineer, and when we would have discussions, I would be quite lost... but I was too afraid/proud to ask for help to understand. I would always feel anxiety during meetings especially, because everyone gave input and I had nothing to say.
I decided that instead of boiling myself in my own anxiety about not knowing how things worked, I would go ask another engineer to help me understand. Reaching out and asking for help (and deciding not to care what people thought of me) helped me realize that it's "ok" (to some extent) to have imposter syndrome.
Yet.... here you are. Open your eyes. Open your lungs and breathe. This moment is all there is. There is no other. We can't deny it. The fact of being conscious. The cellular joy of existing. The rest is just imagination. There. Have a little more perspective? Ok. Good. Now go get back to work. We have deadlines.
I can remember the first time I had one at the age of 22. I was traveling home from an internship in Silicon Valley. I'm now 40 and have been going through a significant episode. Most of my attacks occur around major life changes, or events I feel that I have no control over. I suspect many of us go into technology because the machine is an environment we can control, and many of us don't like (or can't cope with) being out of control of our environments.
My anxiety attacks have centered around:
- Fear of economic collapse
- Fear of personal financial collapse
- Fear of terminal health problem
- Fear of being alone
- Fear of not being able to provide for family (which prevented me from having one)
To name a few.
Wall Street maybe driven by fear and greed, but I am driven primarily by fear, and occasionally greed. But fear in many ways has treated me well, and has forced me to take action.
There are many situations in life where you are faced with a major decision for which there is no right or wrong answer (marriage, moving, changing jobs, buying a house, starting a company, etc.). Personally, and I suspect many of us are like this, I want to know what the right answer is. I'm frustrated that I cannot see the future. This frustration leads to a mental infinite loop which prevents me from functioning.
I don't think I have been treated properly for my problems. There are folks who I think have far less anxiety who get far more treatment. This might be because I have a fear of treatment.
So yeah, you aren't alone. It definitely sucks. But also doesn't have to prevent you from being successful, but I wish there was less stigma around it.
Personally, I plan on transitioning out of Software development as a means of avoiding the associated stress.
While being self employed will introduce it's own stresses, I'm excited to work and pursue a craft that changes much less dramatically and quickly as software development does.
After trying many things to relax and cut out as much stress as possible, I finally found that trigger point therapy helps to resolve the issue. It turns out that years of sitting at a desk causes your chest muscles to become tight over time, and when that happens your back and shoulders work harder. Add in stress which causes muscle tension and you end up with chronic trigger points, also known as knots.
You can read up on it, but depending on which trigger points you have activated they can cause a range of symptoms from pain to anxiety. If you treat the trigger points to release them (which might take a while if you're like me), you'll feel really good.
* It got so bad that twice I day I'd think I was having a heart attack.
* I wasn't sleeping (like not even a little bit) (I watched like all of Colombo during this time)
* Couldn't walk home without freaking out all the time (that person is staring at me, do they hate me, I don't even know them, are they following me, etc)
In the end I quit my job, and moved town, so I was lots closer to friends. This got me about half way to being normal. Later started my transition, which got rid of /so/ many issues, and got me more or less the rest of the way.
Looking back I wonder how I managed to live with my mind being that messed up.
A lot of people recommend getting medical help. However, just a warning, GPs (in the UK at least) aren't all brilliant with mental health. I got medical help for what I thought was heart attacks, and while my GP suggested it may be stress, they never recommended a therapist. (I have since been told that if you ask, you will get one though, I didn't really know to ask.)
The reason I wanted to post was to point out how it can creep up on you. I certainly didn't notice becoming more and more stressed out, I felt normal. It just felt like life was harder.
So watch out for the things you read in these posts, and be sure know that this can happen to you too.
Early this year a full-on panic attack hit me. The first time in 10 years. A recent divorce and changing jobs were probably the stressors. And ironically I was actually in a very happy place in my life. The divorce had been done with for several months and I was at a job where I can really have an impact and don't feel like I needed to look over my shoulder constantly. My boss's incredible understanding during this difficult time for me is testament to that.
But the panic doesn't much care about those things. It has a sneaky ability to strike when you least expect it.
Thankfully I found a great doctor whose therapy is evidence based. If you suffer from panic/anxiety and seek treatment (which I HIGHLY suggest you do!) then be sure they're trained in an evidence based technique. I also recommend reading "Hope And Help For Your Nerves" or listening to "Pass Through Panic" by Claire Weekes.
What I've learned in the months since is that in order to overcome the panic and anxiety you have to do something very simple yet seemingly incredibly difficult; you have to let it happen. Let the panic wash over you. Don't run. Don't distract yourself. Close your eyes and focus on breathing from your belly--deep breaths from the belly rather than shallow breaths from the chest. And then pay attention to where the panic is and what it feels like. Just observe whats happening and let it happen.
You have an upper-boundary to how bad it can get because your body can only produce so much adrenaline. So let it. It'll spend itself out and calm down automatically. The more you let it happen the faster you'll calm down because you're reworking those neural pathways. Literally retraining your brain that no, in fact, you're not being attacked by a lion. You might feel like you just got hit by a car afterwards and, interestingly, to your body its the same thing, but the significant bit here is you're not going to die!. You're not going to go crazy[1]!. You're going to be ok.
This time it might be a 10 on a scale of 1-10 but the next time, as long as you let it happen, it'll probably be an 8/9. Then the next time maybe a 5/6. And on and on until pretty soon it'll happen and you'll say, "Oh, hello old friend. Shall we do some work?"
[1]: "Going crazy" as a loose term for something like schizophrenia which the science is showing you will have a genetic predisposition towards. If you don't have a direct blood family member who suffers from it then you probably don't have it either.
EDIT: For clarification; I had stopped taking the medication a little over a year prior that first-in-10-years panic attack.
> What I've learned in the months since is that in order
> to overcome the panic and anxiety you have to do
> something very simple yet seemingly incredibly
> difficult; you have to let it happen.
(Caveat: I assume those chanting videos are part of an age-old tradition, because the people in them say so, but they may not be the most reliable source of information.)
> A basic concept in some CBT treatments... a technique
> where the patient is gradually exposed to the actual,
> feared stimulus.
For example, the military has been experimenting with using virtual reality to "expose" soldiers suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) to a combat-like experience, since it's too dangerous to expose them to actual combat during therapy: http://www.nami.org/Content/NavigationMenu/Top_Story/Using_V...
Had I followed what is taught in meditation I'm sure I would have eventually had the same result. But as a very technical, science-oriented person its nice to know that there is research behind what our ancestors realized a few thousand years ago.
If you haven't experienced a panic attack, it could be difficult understand why some people are unable to act rationally and control their anxiety. However, this is one of the symptoms. Immense fear is disabling. Depending on the severity, one may just need to remove themselves from the situation, fast. I have left meetings, presentations, and other importance face-to-face appointments, because of anxiety. Sometimes, it's just not worth the internal torture.
CBT is not syntactic sugar for meditation. Well trained therapists work carefully to control the stimulus, testing slight attitude changes vs. physical response. Think optimization in the presence of singularities. The average meditation coach is not required to steer a client away from paths to delusion, expose akrasia, or recognize more serious mental illnesses. Insufficient treatment frequently results in depression, mania, schizophrenia, and suicide. These are important problems, and presently, state of the art is well beyond a 'reinventing of the wheel', despite the simplified view of that Wikipedia article.
DISCLAIMER; OF COURSE the scientific method is great. But if you swear by not believing anything that hasn't been peer reviewed, you might come late to the party. In this case, a millennia or two late to the practice of meditation because there wasn't enough research on it, and because it was "too mystical", shivers. Who would have thought that sitting and quieting the mind could be so scary?
Dismissing it as simply a lack of exercise, in my opinion, is reason to find a new GP. That said, getting more exercise is always a good thing. As is eating healthier. Cut back on the sodas and caffeine. Though, as my therapist said, unless you're unusually sensitive to caffeine you shouldn't have to cut it out completely in order to stop panic attacks.
Another thing I did was had my GP test my vitamin B, D, and magnesium levels. I was low on all and being low may be a contributor to anxiety so I started taking supplements. I'm trying to identify foods I like that are high in them so that I can get them more naturally.
Also, and this is another key point that I should've mentioned before, fear can only exist in a vacuum. So talk about it! Lets get rid of this "I'm a fearless American MAYUN!" bullshit. We're ALL afraid. We're ALL vulnerable. Its ok. It doesn't make us weak.
"I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings
total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn
the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing
....only I will remain"
-- Frank Herbert, "Dune"
I certainly recommend seeking treatment with any illness that is bad enough that it causes problems in daily life -- I'm sure I would have needed treatment if it didn't just pass "on its own".
I didn't come up with the tasks on my own. I learned them while working with my therapist. What seems to work for me is to run up and down a flight of stairs a 3-4 times and then breathe through a straw for about 45 seconds while holding my nostrils closed.
I'm getting plenty of air but my brain's reaction is to flash panic. The first flash is around a 6 for about a second or two. Very easy to manage. But I stay present for those few seconds and even try to make it last. Try to have the panic.
I do this for about 20-25 minutes every other day. In this way I expose myself to little bits of panic consciously. When an actual panic attack happens now (which it still does on occasion) its increasingly less severe than the last time. And each time I recover more quickly.
But most importantly, I now know a part of me I never really knew. I have and have always had a strength I wasn't even aware of. All I had to do was look fear in the eye and watch it shirk away.
I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain
https://37signals.com/remote/ weworkremote.com
There were just as many opportunities for personality conflicts with that arrangement. I joined a company with a better-aligned corporate culture and an expectation to be in the office every day because I decided they are healthier. I mention that, because it was the people, not the policy, that made the first gig ultimately unsustainable.
I think that going to the office every day jobs are definitely healthier than sitting alone in front of your keyboard with no social contact at all slaving away on a codebase. You need a social life I'm just advising that for me it's nice to keep that social life completely decoupled from my financial situation, and that is really hard to do in a normal office environment.
The first 5 people you hire are all early to mid 30s white guys who go out drinking together, get together to play paintball every few weeks, etc. Then the 6th person you need to hire is a Bangladeshi woman aged 42 who doesn't drink at all and of course doesn't play paintball. Well it's not a big deal at all, the team welcomes her, is very professional around her, recognizes the difference in culture and age so they don't give her a hard time for not participating in the drinking and paintball culture. So far no problems..
The 7th hire is another white guy, aged 31, but the difference is that this 7th hire also doesn't want to drink socially or play paintball. Unlike the Bangladeshi woman he has no convenient excuse to not want to do those things, so therefor even if he's very friendly, professional, and competent on the job he is ultimately labeled as "distant" by the other coworkers his age, and over time the rest of the team will grow to resent him for not "trying harder" to become friends outside of the office. People will assume that he thinks he's "too good for us", but those same people will not make such assumptions about the attitude of the Bangladeshi woman.
The Bangladeshi woman's choice to not try to become close personal friends with her coworkers is well respected and is not a problem at all, she is given all the space she could ever want socially and is only judged based on her contributions to the company. The young white guy on the other hand is held to a different set of standards, for him to not actively try to become personal friends (outside of work hours) is something that could cause him to be perceived as not a good cultural fit and possibly cost him his job in the long run all due to a hidden expectation linked to his skin color and age.
This is the kind of drama that can crop up in a real office which just completely disappears once a company "goes remote".
I refused pills from day one and found that, by training my mind to say "bring it on! is this the best you can do" tends to stop the anxiety on it's ascension. I go to gym 3 times a week now to to some actual exercise and calm the body a bit. I now am panic free for almost 2 years but I still have the symptoms. What changed is my attitude when the symptoms arrive, it's already in my subconscious and my body does it automatically.
I blame our jobs just like OP and I blame the fact that our job is a whole brainstorm from start to finish. No physical challenge at all and our bodies are not used to it. Our bodies need some physical activity to do it's chemistry and release new stuff periodically so we can function properly otherwise some glands get messed up (this is my own conclusion I didn't hear it from anywhere) so our bodies get unbalanced and stressed. Too much of something is called an addiction and no addiction is left unpunished. We really need to take a break from time to time and just work out or meditate a bit for our body to adjust or at least recover.
No past generation was so technical and multi tasked and so stressed from morning till dawn. We're probably at the border of evolution right now and nature is adjusting us/itself. Future generations will probably deal with this entirely different than us but our bodies are like an old motherboard with a super chip plugged in right now. It's getting burnt. We need some better cooling.
The worst thing about panic attacks is that you have nobody to talk to that can really understand what you're going through apart from others who had it. You can't explain it to someone who didn't because you can even see them smiling..."so...basically you're afraid huh?". They can't comprehend the feeling that you're going to die, right now; that you're probably so certain you're going to die that you probably even said your last words and good byes in your mind. Just don't complain to people any more because you will get a new addiction out of it.
Tl;DR: Do sports (swimming is good), less work (you van find yourself even more productive because productivity has few to do with how much we work), confront your demon when he comes to visit and don't try to explain to people who never dealt with such a thing...they might make things worse.
Sorry, just because he personally doesn't have an answer does not mean everyone else does not.
This will likely be unpopular here, but I used to struggle plenty with anxiety and occasional panic attacks until I learned it was better to pray about these things daily (or even as they come) and intimately discuss and honestly trust these burdens to God. ("Cast all your cares on him, for he cares for you...")
All that advice merely snips at the branches of fear/anxiety without uprooting the tree. That's not to say all fear/anxiety will be uprooted, but simply that knowing and experiencing the love of God daily has continued to weed out many of those fear-based anxious roots and replace them with saplings of peace, joy, and confidence.
Anxiety tends to wear one down and make one feel hopeless ("there is no answer"), but there is indeed an Answer who works through us in time, and can lead us to still waters if we ask Him to show us the way. Life won't always feel perfect or anxiety-free, but at least I know to whom I can confidently entrust my troubles.
At what point would a rational person conclude, "Hmm, maybe their answer may also apply to me?" I at least figured I could say "OK, God, if you might be the Answer, then show me the way..."
Nothing against people trying things, and if it's not harmfull and may help them, I'm all for it. But you wouldn't convince me with tens of millions of badly selected data points.
What if that anecdote is about Lord Krishna? What will you say?
It seems the court of Christianity is not any more open-minded than the court of reason.
Faith and reason may both have value, and they may be compatible, but you can't rest the former on the latter.
Religion itself isn't even a single answer - it's a personal decision that applies to someone however they choose to apply it in their lives. You may see it as a "relationship with god," but the next person may see it as a set of teachings to live by.
There's not "the" way, there's many ways to find balance or self-enlightenment (even the goals can vary from person to person!) A 'rational person' would never conclude that "their answer may also apply to me," a rational person would find their own answer, whether that answer incorporate 16th century teachings or modern-age psychiatric evaluation.
The validity is not in the source material. It is in the effectiveness. Something that's "effective for thousand" or "a million" guarantees effectiveness for the next person as much as flipping a coin 99 times and getting all heads guarantees the next flip yields heads - with each new person, you get a new mind, and whether or not that mind is compatible with those beliefs is a toss-up.
"Sorry, just because he personally doesn't have an answer does not mean everyone else does not."
He's not talking about a solution for your problem. He's talking about solving the problem for everyone. You don't have the answer that will work for everyone. You have an answer that works for you. That's it. It might work for others.
Claiming that you have the answer might do real harm to others as well. So be careful with what you say, because the way you are saying it is harmful and discouraged by professionals.
And I'm an atheist. Chew on that for a bit.
After all, if you trust yourself to do something, if you trust your subconscious, shouldn't you be able to tell it just once what it needs to do, then not worry about it?
Anyhow that's what I was thinking a couple days ago.
[0] http://io9.com/5687282/letting-your-mind-wander-is-a-major-c...
There are actionable suggestions, but you would need to take the time to seek understanding. I hope I haven't made it sound simple and easy.
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2012/10/22/this-is-how-your-...
You've answered your own question. The fact that it's personally changed you makes the need for humbleness apparent - your spirituality _yours_. It's something that helps you find balance, but it clearly doesn't work its wonders on everyone. Meanwhile, other methods - meditation being one example - help others find balance, but not everyone as well. Truly, to each their own.
To assume that your answer is "the answer that will work for everyone, if only they find it" spits in the face of their beliefs, which is everything they stand for - the same way someone telling you your relationship with God is merely a "solution that works for you." You have no problems doing this, as you feel that your answer is singularly "correct." However, this is in fact not the case - there are many others who find their balance doing other things, as users have pointed out.
Some people just aren't wired to be religious, but find equally effective means for finding balance in their lives. To answer as though the solution is a trivial "accepting of religion into one's life" just because it was trivial _for you_ to do demonstrates a clear lack of empathy and understanding for others' positions and beliefs.
Suddenly it's every man for himself, isolated in his own tiny world that (supposedly) has absolutely zero crossover to another man's world. Somehow, gravity in one man's world pulls things up, and in another it pushes all objects to the sky.
But does that even make sense? It's really just hogwash, and a convenient easy-exit from having to wrestle with a challenging state of affairs. We all have the same fundamental needs, and we even live in a world where the very fundamental building blocks of the universe can be explained in distinct formulas with distinct "right" answers.
Unfortunately if that really were the case -- that spirituality really only applied to a single man alone -- then the message of grace from God would have stopped at Christ himself and never spread to another man's life. But it has not, and will continue to affect each man who discovers the spiritual wonders of a grace-filled life. Grace, does, in fact, present a freeing answer to all those who seek it.
The religion best represented on HN, and that to which hew most commenters here, includes among its basic doctrines the tenet that all spiritual beliefs are equally invalid, and therefore equally meaningless, save only that religion's own such beliefs, which are believed to be empirical rather than spiritual. This makes it trivial for believers to produce public displays of simultaneous tolerance ("whatever works for you") and superiority ("but you can't claim it's The Answer because there is no one answer"), something which they find both personally satisfying and socially beneficial.
Of course, their beliefs are no more empirically demonstrable than those of any other religion, nor are they derived from pure reason as their adherents prefer to believe. For example, believers in this faith universally misunderstand the nature of religion, so as to imagine that no system of beliefs can be called religious save that it involve at least one deity; indeed, this misunderstanding constitutes a crucial slab in the foundation of their dogma, for on it rests the belief that they are virtuous skeptics who can't be fooled by mere religious faith, and are thus apart from and above (all other sorts of) believers:
> Some people [like my own worthy self] just aren't wired to be religious
Which leads us to a popular explanation, among atheists, for the vexatious popularity of other religions: that the human nervous system is so wired as to produce religious experience entirely by accident, and thus meaninglessly. [1]
Well, everyone else's nervous system, anyway; they themselves "aren't wired to be religious", obviously, because if they were, they'd have a religion, and atheism isn't a religion -- it can't be! It has no deity! -- so atheists aren't religious, so they must be "[not] wired to be religious", which must mean they're necessarily smarter and/or "more evolved" [2].
The former belief is hardly limited to atheists, of course, and is merely smug and pretentious. The latter, though, rests in a fundamental misunderstanding of the workings of evolution, and is thus utterly senseless; it is every bit as much a matter of faith as, for example, the idea of divine providence.
(How marvelous it is that these fellows presume to offer counsel on the subject of humility!)
The truth of the matter, of course, is that, if any of us are "wired to be religious", then all of us are. (All of us are.) The only remaining question, which applies equally well to all the many other filters inherent in our perceptual mechanisms, is whether we recognize it as such and attempt to account for its effect, or instead fail so to do and believe its input to be a reliable representation of reality.
That latter category is shared by theists and atheists alike -- each believing, however he represent himself in public, that he has found The Answer, and that those in the other camp must just not really understand the world, because if they did, they wouldn't be in the other camp.
The former category is sparsely populated by comparison, and, would-be bodhisattvas excepted, most of us in it tend to keep our mouths pretty well shut on the subject; neither a theist nor an atheist is often well equipped to comprehend an areligious perspective on anything, and to detail one thus rarely has any effect save to start a pointless gunfight. (Besides, being a member of neither camp makes it very easy to get along with those in both, and why not do so?)
I break my habit of silence on this occasion not because I have any hope of unusually productive discussion on the matter, but instead simply in order to place myself outside the argument which will probably ensue from my observation that I'm favorably impressed, sir, by your bravery and courage in contravening publicly the popular faith, and by the altruistic impulse which motivated you to do so. Irrespective of the reception you encounter in doing so, the act itself speaks well of your honorable character, and that's something I'm always glad to see.
[1] An apparently popular work of atheology on the matter: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_Explained
[2] Think I'm kidding? http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/03/100303-liber...
This of course says nothing about the objective truth of the beliefs, but that doesn't affect the brain; the connections being created or broken (or whatever scientifically happens) are what matter, not why it's occurring.
Wouldn't it provide about the same mental relief to just accept that all is not in our hands, and leave it at that? I think it does, and I reduce stress that way.
Whatever works for you. There's nothing wrong with religion or spirituality as long as it serves you well. Of course, this could be said about anything, but I don't see any legitimate reason for naysayers to single out religion as a crutch or something.
Your approach sounds like some kind of meditation, to me. Certainly that has proven to be beneficial to a lot of people. I'm not one to dismiss the spiritual side of meditation, either.
As scientists and engineers we like to dissect and explain things in terms of our extremely limited body of knowledge. We set up structures and frameworks and rules for living and whatnot. But in the end, it's not an "approach". The best relationships have no one-way approach, they're fluid and you're authentic and vulnerable with each other. And sometimes there really are no words to explain that connection, just the inexplicable shared bond of emotion in the quietest moments.
And so is the same with a relationship with God. To attempt to squeeze something so incredibly dynamic into the limited confines of the knowledge of this world / science would merely rob it of its power. Nor is it self-serving, nor was the focus/goal to reduce fear/anxiety... which can only be described as a side effect.
If I had spiritual beliefs and practices, I would still call that an approach. I could have a really personal and deep relationship with god, or whatever it is, and that is still and approach that works for me. Maybe that diminishes it? Well, I meant more to say that there are many roads to Rome. Some people find the answer in a Christian god, other people find the answer in a god that is more akin to a universal mind. Other people don't think the notion of a god/gods useful or truthful. Some people, and religions, will call this viewpoint heresy.
Do I look at spirituality as a sort of means-to-an-end? Yes. If you find a way that makes you a good person and makes you lead a full/happy/whatever criteria life, then that in itself is a big reward. Is it self-serving? Yes, but I don't view that as a bad thing.
An important factor, I guess, is that my beliefs around spirituality don't involve some struggle against evil, or saving others, or some eternal and final scoreboard, which many religions have. I don't think this life makes or breaks anything. In that sense, I am more curious about how to live a good life, because that's all I have right now, or might ever have.
You may feel as though the previous sentence is belittling your beliefs. However, saying the answer that works for you would work for everyone else is just as belittling to other's beliefs. It's an intractable stalemate that has only one logical conclusion - that no one can (or should!) assert their beliefs as being the only way to go. I wholly acknowledge that your beliefs are what work for you - but I do not recognize them as "the answers" the OP is talking about.
For something to be "the answer," singular, would require it to be the _psychological_ answer to stressors. The reason the article is so psychology-oriented is because "the" answer would by necessity have to be a psychological one, not a personal one. Something that works for one person (like establishing a relationship) but may not work for the next can never be "the answer" that a better psychological understanding of the problem would reach.
In spite of how much religion has done for you, it isn't an answer that works for everyone, and so is obviously not "the answers" OP is referring to. It's still your answer, but that doesn't mean it's the answer. Psychology is the only commonality between all human beings, so that's where "the answers" lie.
I think developers, anyone who writes software that really matters, are particularly susceptible. I’m not talking about someone who codes a pretty website for a small company, I’m talking about people working on core systems that people RELY on for things like accessing their money, security systems, and engine control systems in their car. These are the projects that will keep you up at night worrying about whether you left any bugs in the code.
The rub is that the general public have NO idea how thin the line is that these developers walk. If they do their job properly, thoroughly, then the product costs too much and nobody buys it. Or it misses time to market and the company slips behind its competitors.
The majority of code is pushed out in barely working state. That’s why we hear of problems like cars that suddenly stop on a freeway. If developers were given more time to finish their work, higher quality of code was prized over speed of development, then a whole industry would be less stressed and society would benefit as a whole. But everyone just wants the newest gadget faster and faster, and we are not patient.
1) Its vocabulary appeals to those who like me appreciate science. 2) It tackles concepts that are common in zen and Buddhism but with solid, perhaps even more grounded, explanations. 3) It helps the analytical minded to understand that there is a separation between what the brain experiences and the self. This can help others in understanding through logic and reasoning how to take control of stress and anxiety.
Just though I would share in case anyone needing help with anxiety wants to read something new and helpful.
To stay zen, I frequently remind myself that everything is a lot better (and a lot worse) than it appears.
:P
1. Am I doing something that's worth doing?
2. Am I having to deliberately build the wrong thing (legacy reasons, etc.)?
3. Do I have the power to fix things?
Part of the problem with 2 is that there is usually a sound business reason (i.e., customer wants it that way) which forces our hand. Part of the problem with 3 is that it can take enormous effort, resolve, and ultimately conflict to get at the root of what's broken and fix it--and in some cases, such as launching a new product, you can do everything technically correct and still fail.
How long until I have to integrate with their code? Refactor their code? Be managed by one of the PMs that allowed such repulsive work to be produced? Be forced to buddy code with someone who conned their way into their job to begin with?
And then sitting atop all that -- the realization that I would leave for a community of more solid engineers, if not for the fact that I will have to swim through an army of recruiters/HR reps who are just as bad as the con-artists around me.
Business people in the IT industry seem to have very sharp teeth but are always sinking them into the wrong targets, are skeptical of all the wrong people. I wonder why that is. I have a master's degree in a technical discipline and have actually been told to my face by an HR rep that my "coding skills aren't strong enough" because I didn't know a particular API that their company uses.
It's an awfully confused & disrespectful industry, full of phonies.
Also, it seems as though every time I find a company that is competently managed and an otherwise decent place to work, it gets purchased and course is immediately altered to a controlled descent into terrain, if not an immediate disintegration.
Developers might not jibe well with unions, but we could at least have some form of professional standards body willing to certify, decertify, and rate employers on their adherence to the practices that we find important.
I don't particularly feel the need to raise my pay by artificially limiting the number of developers on the job market, but I would like to stop the race to the bottom wherein each corporate employer of developers seems to act like a bigger asshat than the previous one. Do you think that if any employer wants to have us re-enter every line of our resumes into their custom web form and then dump the results into an automatic filter looking for keywords, we simply agree to not do that? Or agree not to work for an employer that won't spend anything on relevant books or CE tuition? Or blacklist employers that advertise 40 hour workweeks, but apply pressure to work more?
And then, you'd be forced to write bad software (or write software badly), or be decertified.
Of course, if you have the same three worries, your real major worry should be whether you can get a better job before you burn out. And that leads to a corollary worry about whether companies that try to provide a healthy, sane work environment have a competitive disadvantage versus companies that are dysfunctional. And that makes me worry about whether I even want to live on this planet any more.
So I guess my 3 are these:
1. Is this as good as it gets?
2. Can anything that's better endure?
3. Would starting over somewhere else improve anything?
:P
I also thought about your 'dysfunctional == competitive advantage' question. I watched an hour long talk by John Wooden [it's on netflix streaming] about his success pyramid. It seemed quite sane, and obviously he was quite successful. So no, I don't think dysfunctional companies would have an advantage. (They might be equal, though).
The economics of software certainly are a bitch (can copy for free, obsolete upon release), although SAAS certainly changes things. And speaking of economics, this may cheer you up or depress you more: http://knowmore.washingtonpost.com/2014/02/10/the-long-agoni...
That's median income for men in the USA. Not because I'm sexist, but because posting household income is quite misleading - why do you think government economists use it all the time.
I must admit that I am somewhat curious to see how the IRS deals with planetary emigrants. If you live on Mars, is breathable air considered income?
I got my cortisol levels tested a few times. It was all out of whack. I did some stuff to calibrate it.
Now I'm ridiculously relaxed, easy going, more able to let go of bad thoughts, cheerful, etc.
I have no idea how or why this worked. But I like it.
http://www.integrativepro.com/Products/Stress-Sleep-Manageme...
After a few months, I had my cortisol levels retested and it's now "normal", peaking in the morning instead of at night.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cortisol#Patterns
I went without for a week, just to see before v after. Seems to help.
Programmers are like soldiers, fighting in the battle we didn't choose.
I imagine that the reason the article is on the front page is that many here have experienced similar things.