
Ask HN: Is life/success a game of who can handle burnout the longest/best? - perpetualBurnt
I wonder how many of you are in the same boat as me:  I can&#x27;t do what I want in life because I can&#x27;t save enough money due to cost of living&#x2F;student loans&#x2F;etc.<p>So, I&#x27;m essentially stuck in a field that I&#x27;ve grown tired of.  Yet, the best way forward is to save money so I can perhaps buy a year of my own life to do what I want (in the most modest of senses: no traveling, just me waking up in the morning and not being told what to do).<p>I just wonder if the people who are successful got that way because they are really good at sucking it up and pushing through years of hating life, or, if the thing that made them successful was an obvious next step in their life, and they didn&#x27;t have to put up with as much mental&#x2F;emotional stress as I am.  Frankly, I don&#x27;t see how to make big success happen for myself, and continually being locked in a burnout state makes me think its even less likely.
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csmdev
Yes, success comes to those who sacrifice themselves the most. And no, not
just any sacrifice. You have to work for yourself instead of working for
others. And it's usually excruciating.

Establish a huge goal that would satisfy you. Most choose world domination.
But it can be a million bucks for now. And start working towards it. Day by
day, month by month, year by year. During the day you make money from a job,
during evenings and weekends you work towards your goal.

You constantly borrow happiness from the present and pile it up in the future.
And burnout is always at the door and you constantly have to fight against it.
Exercise, hobbies, outdoor activities etc. They are all weapons for a fight.
Not solutions to health problems.

Start working for yourself today. On a startup, freelancing, book, side
project or anything of value owned by you. And in a couple of years you will
see if it works or not. If it doesn't, rinse and repeat, using the new things
you learned. And if you're lucky, after doing this a couple of times you might
obtain financial independence. After that it's either exponential growth or
you fall back to your current state.

The universe likes balance. So success is always paid with suffering, one way
or another. This is why children born into wealth usually end up badly. So if
you were born poor like pretty much everyone else, you need to suffer if you
want success. It's just how life works.

~~~
ramblerman
"The universe likes balance. So success is always paid with suffering, one way
or another. This is why children born into wealth usually end up badly."

I'm suprised to read this kind of crap on HN. The universe has no tab on you
or your existence.

~~~
csmdev
Who said it does?

------
jasonkester
I've always viewed adult life as maximizing the time/money problem. Or rather,
solving the problem where it's relatively easy to get either free time or
money at any point, but relatively hard to get both at the same time.

As developers, we have the advantage of being able to attack it from the Money
side. You can spend your early career ramping up your bill rate so that you
don't have to work 52 week years just to pay the bills. And you can also build
product stuff that keeps paying dividends long after the heavy work of
building it is done.

Combine those two things during the "burnout" phase you mention, and it
shouldn't take too long to get out in front of the problem if you work it
right.

Took me until about age 30 before I could start taking entire years off, but I
bet a kid fresh out of school could do it a lot faster these days. There's
really never been a better time to be in Tech.

------
orasis
High cortisol levels make you stupid. Its not about who can handle burnout the
longest, its about creating a healthy life rhythm that is sustainable and
fueled by passion, not obligation.

One of the big things people overlook is getting enough sleep. They think they
need to sleep less to get more done, but this only works in the short term. I
sleep at least 9 hours a night and I try to turn off the screens at least an
hour before I go to sleep. This has made a huge difference in my life.

~~~
osconfused
Great advice. I also noticed a positive impact of the quality of my work when
I started following similar behavior. I started by forcing myself to rise with
the sun, instead of trying to stay up all night.

------
josephschmoe
Get a side-project with someone else who is working on that project full time.
This will give you better skills/connections outside of corporate, even if it
doesn't pay off immediately.

That's what I'm doing. The first two gave me big fat goose eggs (my first
project I was alone at first), but #3 is looking like it could very do well
for me and #4 is a guaranteed paycheck that will likely be double my hourly
rate.

The problem with this: 1\. 50-60 hour weeks every week. 2\. You need to be in
a very good position at work. No sudden rush of 60 hour weeks from work. 3\.
You will burn out after three months of this. You can do two of these a year
max.

Try to find a side-project related to what you want to do in life. Focusing on
what you don't want to do is a sure road to failure - but if you find things
you do want to do, you could even use this as a way to transition into those
things. Maybe you could work on those things 20 hours a week and spend the
rest doing...whatever it is you do want out of life.

Just my 2 cents. Not everyone can handle 60 hour weeks over and over again. It
is not a lifestyle I would recommend and I hate that it is a necessity in this
world without taking on tremendous risk.

~~~
perpetualBurnt
We are of the same mind. I do have a side project, and it even earns me money.

Your comment: "It is not a lifestyle I would recommend and I hate that it is a
necessity in this world without taking on tremendous risk" basically sums up
my thoughts... My original question was asking if life has to be like this. I
don't know anyone directly who grew up rich or went to an elite school (I did
neither), and I just sort of wonder if that segment of society doesn't have to
struggle as much.

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Mz
_I just wonder if the people who are successful got that way because they are
really good at sucking it up and pushing through years of hating life_

Well, to some extent, the answer will be different for everyone, but I think
most successful people are decently good at figuring out how to get some of
their own needs met regardless of what life circumstances swirl chaotically
around them. Money per se does not take care of anything. (Example: If you
have an incurable deadly disease and are ridiculously wealthy, your money
can't buy your way out of it because there is no "off the shelf" solution
already available for purchase.)

Einstein said that you can't solve a problem from the same mental space that
created it (or something along those lines). But, other than suggesting that
instead of looking for different answers to the same question, you need to ask
different questions entirely, I don't really know how to help you. There isn't
enough detail here for me even begin speculating as to why you are stuck and
what you might do to get unstuck.

Best of luck.

------
benblu
"I can't do what I want in life" \-- What do you want to do?

~~~
perpetualBurnt
I want to write a book, and work on 3 medium to large scale software projects
(not all at once, of course). 'A couple hours in the evenings' hasn't proven
enough time to focus on this. In fact, getting up at 3 AM and working on these
before work has also not proven to be sustainable.

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AnEro
A large amount of it is managing the delay of gratification; I believe that is
what you mean here. It is a discussion in psychology, and you can find a bunch
of research on it for instance the marshmallow test.

I would challenge you to do some meditation- like just stopping and relaxing
and focus on just your breath, once a thought pops into your head just come
back to the focus on your breath. Try it for 2 weeks 5-10 minutes a day record
your results.

~~~
perpetualBurnt
Thanks for your reply! Yes, the delay of gratification thing is what I've been
practicing. Thinking "It will get better" has been keeping me going. However,
after repeating that for a couple years one starts thinking "Well, _when_ is
it going to get better?"

Meditation seems like flossing to me: something that everyone says you should
do more of, but, hardly anyone does it. It seems like a good idea that I will
try again. I wonder: do you practice regularly, and, does it work for you?

~~~
AnEro
I am just getting into it, so I am very much still learning but I'd like to
explain it as like a loop of thought. Where you focus on your breathing how
your body is moving with the breathing then your mind will start to wander. In
this wandering you add steps and make the loop larger and larger, so the goal
is to catch yourself as you find you are wandering whether its right away or
if its 20 seconds later. By catching yourself you shorten the loop, the over
all goal is to have to loop as shot as possible.

I do it to help combat my depression and ADHD

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weddpros
Of the many decisions I've made in my life, I don't regret the foolish ones. I
only regret the decisions others made for me.

~~~
perpetualBurnt
I don't regret foolish decisions I made before I knew it was foolish - I think
thats being too hard on one's self. However, I would have a tough time
knowingly making a foolish decision. Which category do your foolish decisions
fall in to?

I've noticed I feel better when I create opportunity for myself. For example,
I'd probably feel very bad if I spent money on short-term enjoyment because
that money would be gone forever. However, if I can consistently put in hours
towards a project, I can reflect on those hours with pride.

~~~
colanderman
_I 'd probably feel very bad if I spent money on short-term enjoyment because
that money would be gone forever_

You can't buy happiness, but you _can_ buy happy memories, and those memories
can last forever.

Trips, classes, concerts… all sincere ways to turn money into memories.

(BTW, I'm in much the same boat as you. Already changed jobs once looking to
find new meaning. Hasn't worked yet.)

------
Sindrome
Interesting how often life and success are grouped together as if the two are
inseparable.

------
silverlake
IME, successful people are smart enough, take career risks, and are lucky.

------
angersock
What field are you in, and how stuck are you?

~~~
perpetualBurnt
I'm a software engineer. I can move to a different company, and I have done
this in the past, but I don't think that I'll be content. I can't remember the
last time I got excited about something, or, was so interested in something
that it kept me up late at night (and not just work: anything). I'm assuming
that my general lack of enjoyment of _everything_ stems from burnout.

I've lost a lot of friends during the course of this, and when I think back to
the time I've lost from only half-heartedly being involved in my code, I get
frustrated.

~~~
PeterWhittaker
Do you have hobbies? Do you exercise?

If not, especially the latter, start. I'm not saying you are going to enjoy
it. In fact, you might hate it. But do it anyway. Find an intense exercise
that gets you sweaty and gets your heart rate up a little, without requiring a
lot of investment and without putting you at risk.

Be disciplined about, even if you hate doing it at first. I suggest making it
part of your morning routine.

What do I think the end result will be? Well, not that you will enjoy either
your work or the exercise, in fact, you may have no emotional involvement in
either. But I expect that neither will bother you as much and that eventually
you will smile at a bird or sunset or an attractive person, then you will sign
up for a course that you've always been curious about.

If you are stressed, there are two basic ways of dealing: Reducing the stress
Vs increasing your tolerance for stress. Exercise intensely regularly, as part
of a routine set of habits from which you rarely deviate, and you may increase
your tolerance, and with any luck will eventually getting to the point where
you give a job a glowing "meh".

It becomes the thing you do to afford the things you want, you neither like it
nor dislike it, and eventually you find something else, about which you are
excited.

(I recommend squats. They are easy to do, intense, require no equipment, and
you can self-regulate easily. Start with one, every 30 minutes while you get
ready in the morning, neither too deep nor too shallow. Aim for adequacy, not
perfection. Then make it two. Then three. Slowly get to where you are doing
more. Then eventually add more. Today was a no-exercise day for me, so I did
50, as fast as I could. Sweaty and out of breath and ready for anything. (I
started with 5-10 a few months ago, slow and steady.))

~~~
perpetualBurnt
I do exercise, every day. I am in good shape, and stay that way.

I do not have hobbies, because I don't really like anything. Trust me, I've
tried quite a lot of things... but nothing seems enjoyable enough to stick
with it. And I could force myself to stick with it, but, at that point its
just work.

~~~
chanachor
Ever consider that you may like to be someone else's personal trainer or maybe
partner with a few trainers and open up a cross-fit place?

I was in the same boat a few years back, I had an amazing job with great pay
but wasn't happy. I had to force myself to give up on certain fun/costly
activities so I could save even a little bit at a time. At some point for me,
it was more about trying different things while I still had money coming. You
seem to be having an early mid-life crisis! Might want to consider a career
coach or a life coach, sounds strange but, there are some sites that offer
great options like
[https://www.pivotplanet.com/](https://www.pivotplanet.com/)

Good Luck!

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rthomas6
I am stealing from William B. Irvine's book here... There are 3 categories of
things:

1\. Those over which we have control.

2\. Those over which we have no control.

3\. Those over which we have partial but not complete control.

It is foolish and detrimental to spend _any_ effort thinking or worrying about
things over which we have no control. These things include:

* The past

* The present

First, learn to accept the past, and internalize that it is fixed and not able
to be altered. Therefore it is not worth fretting over. Then embrace the
present-- love every moment as it happens to you. You might as well, because
once it's here you can't change it. This is my definition of mindfulness. In
practice, this will look like you noticing what's around you and feeling
grateful for all of it. Your breath, your fingers, the daylight, that you have
food to eat... look at this machine that lets you connect to anywhere in the
world in an instant! (you get the idea). There are many techniques to aid in
this, among which is mindfulness meditation. Another is called "negative
visualization", in which you imagine life without something, and ideally
accept the hypothetical situation as still liveable, in order to better
appreciate whatever amazing luxury you happen to have. A common example is
imagining yourself without vision.

The point of all of this is so that you no longer need to commit any of your
precious energy just trying to make yourself happy with your life in the
present. All of that energy expenditure is a distraction (and our culture is
geared top to bottom toward trying to make you spend your time, money, and
energy this way!). To be blunt, needing something specific to be content is a
personal weakness. Once you really, truly embrace your present circumstances,
you can focus all your energy on what you _do_ have control over, which is
actually quite a lot.

You have control over:

* Your goals and plans

* Your actions

* Your reactions to circumstances and other people

So what I think you're missing is that people who are successful "suck it up"
but they don't push through years of hating life, because they don't hate
their life. They love their life, and then proceed to make it even better. To
put more a Buddhist spin, there are 2 ways to feel content: One is to satisfy
_every_ desire you ever have. This will never happen, because no matter what
you get, it will never be enough. The other way is to eliminate the desire
itself... and then achieve some of those things anyway, at which point they're
pure gravy. You could think of it as a charity in which you're giving to a
stranger: your future self.

Tl;dr: Right now you hate life unless you achieve X, Y and Z, at which point
you'll feel satisfied (for a while). Instead, teach yourself to feel satisfied
right now, and then throw yourself into whatever it is that you feel
passionate about, as you are able.

