
Ask HN: I feel like I should be working all the time and its killing me - ubertoop
Hi HN,<p>I&#x27;m a software dev with almost 10 years experience, and not a single day in the last 10 years has gone by without me feeling the pressure to work, learn something new, or build something.  I feel like I should be programming all the time, and if I&#x27;m not, I&#x27;m wasting my time &#x2F; missing out &#x2F; not progressing.<p>It&#x27;s driving me insane.  It is sucking the joy out of life.<p>I need to learn how to truly disconnect from work, so that I can recharge.  I need to learn how to drop this feeling, this heavy weight on my shoulders, that I&#x27;m not a good developer, and that I need to work more to get better.<p>The problem is that the reality of our field is such that:<p>a)  There is a lot of opportunity
b)  There are a lot of really smart people, doing very cool things, capturing that opportunity.
c)  If you aren&#x27;t learning, or getting better at the craft, then you&#x27;re falling behind, becoming irrelevant, and certainly you aren&#x27;t going to make anything of significance.<p>How do you return to the joy of the craft?  How do you forget about the outcome, and learn to love programming again?
======
sgentle
The feeling you're describing is called anxiety. Some anxiety is normal, but
constant anxiety that interferes with your life is a problem. I think it'd be
worth trying that label on: call it anxiety, and ask "how do I reduce my
anxiety?". About 1 in 4 people experience an anxiety disorder at some point in
their lives, so there's a lot of research and good approaches out there.

One thing that stands out to me is that you've made some pretty big and scary
claims without a lot of evidence to back them up. Are you actually not a good
developer? Are smart people really "capturing" the opportunity (ie there is
less opportunity over time)? Do people who aren't working all the time fall
behind and never make anything of significance?

If so, prove it! Figure out what evidence you would need to definitively
answer these questions, and research or experiment until you have that
evidence. Anxious thoughts are like dreams: they seem perfectly reasonable in
your head, but when you try to bring them into the real world they fall apart.

As far as evidence goes, I'd point you in the direction of two of my favourite
Richards. The one who did Clojure:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f84n5oFoZBc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f84n5oFoZBc)
and the one who got a Nobel for Quantum Electrodynamics:
[https://www.asc.ohio-
state.edu/kilcup.1/262/feynman.html](https://www.asc.ohio-
state.edu/kilcup.1/262/feynman.html)

~~~
twox2
This is right on. FWIW, my anxiety went away almost completely a few weeks
after I quit coffee.

~~~
sciencewolf
This. It is unbelievable how much cutting down on caffeine helps with monkey-
brain! I switched from coffee to tea with honey and have a much smoother
energy than before.

~~~
sergiotapia
Tea has more caffeine than coffee

~~~
PascLeRasc
Ounce for ounce coffee has more caffeine, but tea also has L-Theanine which
calms caffeine's effects. I have anxiety like the OP describes and L-Theanine
has been life-changing for me. I'd highly recommend trying it either as a high
amount of green tea or a supplement.

------
anigbrowl
What's your idea of significant, op? Improving upon a fundamental algorithm?
Building a billion-dollar company? Creating a ubiquitous open-source tool that
makes programming easier for everyone?

You're probably not going to do any of those by being a diligent model
employee; it might be you don't really know what you want and are waiting for
A Vision that will inspire you, and in the meantime your employer/clients
occupy that place temporarily, in addition to providing you with a paycheck.
Of course, waiting for the right wave to pick you up and sweep you into the
future isn't really satisfying and so you're starting to feel burnout.

In short, it might be worth reviewing your idea of success and then looking at
the things you've worked on so far and assessing which ones brought you closer
or farther away from that. It could be your anxiety is rooted in uncertainty
about where you're going and the feeling of futility that accompanies just
swimming along with the current and never arriving anywhere in particular.

~~~
ubertoop
> you don't really know what you want and are waiting for A Vision that will
> inspire you

I think this is true, to an extent.

I want to become an expert at SOMETHING in programming but I have a hard time
committing to one domain. Constantly plagued by FOMO. For example, if I were
to deep dive into machine learning, I'd feel FOMO that I am not a robotics
engineer, and couldn't code firmware well. Or If I became an expert at mobile
development, I'd feel FOMO that I stumble to create a beautiful web app, etc.
So yes, I don't really know what I want, and I'm waiting for a vision to
inspire me.... Just as you put it.

> waiting for the right wave to pick you up and sweep you into the future
> isn't really satisfying and so you're starting to feel burnout

true.

> your anxiety is rooted in uncertainty about where you're going and the
> feeling of futility that accompanies just swimming along with the current
> and never arriving anywhere in particular.

There's a ton of truth in this statement. No doubt, it's the source of or a
major contributor to, my angst.

~~~
crysis2917
Even the best mathematicians are only experts in 1 or 2 areas. You just can't
be an expert in every programming domain without revising your definition of
expert. Also, are you pursuing being an expert at "something" in programming
just to be an expert, or are you actually interested in what you want to
become an expert in?

------
mattbgates
Our society has drilled into us that in order to be successful, we have to go
to college, we need to make money, have money in our 401ks, fund our
retirement accounts, take on mortgages, take on loans, use our credit cards,
buy a new car every few years, have kids, all while realizing how much you're
barely just breaking even to afford the lifestyle that you chose.

I fear the day when my reality sets in.. and I have no memories of anyone or
anything I ever did because I was staring at a computer screen all day. I'm in
the same boat: working for multiple companies as full-time to part-time to
freelance to contract. I can't sleep because I don't feel productive. And the
little sleep I get is enough that I'm okay to get up and get going again.

I do not even drink coffee. I try to swim at least an hour a day, and bike for
at least a half hour to keep the muscles going and strong. Sitting at a desk
all day and then coming home and sitting more... mentally and physically
exhausting.

I am addicted to tech and the Internet and my addiction is fed by my skills to
keep feeding my visions to life. Rick and Morty moment. Rick has no meaning as
a scientist because he knows the truth about the universe and everything in
it. Joker moment. When you're good at something, never do it for free. Do what
you do best to live the life you want.

~~~
mensetmanusman
Unsolicited advice:

Try to stand at work as much as possible. Arrange your working environment so
that you can comfortably be on your feet as much as possible. Your body can
not recover from sitting all day in 1 or 2 hours of exercise. It took me over
a year to transition to standing so much, but I find it is easier to move now
(and it is nice being tired at the end of a day).

Also, find someone to play a game with every once in a while during lunch.
Keeps you sane :)

------
he11ow
Your pain really comes across.

I don't know that cool new tech is the way value is created. Airbnb's first
'tech' was an Excel spreadsheet. Observe, on the one hand, the person recently
open-sourcing the e-commerce platform they built after their startup folded,
and on the other, the person recently asking what's changed in tech since
2017, only to hear "not that much":

Value comes from solving real problems that real people have. The good ideas
aren't incubated in front of a screen, they start with people, and
conversations, and a whimsical approach to what the future can be. So in a
way, the best thing you could do for yourself is to make a concerted effort to
spend time NOT developing.

Your A and B are true, but not your C. The FOMO is eating you up, but your
belief in it doesn't make it real.

I don't know that it's really about forgetting the outcome...the outcome DOES
matter, but not as it's measured in money made/feedback on PH or whatever
external validation.

If you do one thing that solves a problem for you, even if it's you alone,
there's a quiet joy in that. And the more attuned you are to thins kind of
joy, the more attuned you become to where you and software connect, and all
the other stuff falls by the wayside.

What would you build for a person you love? What are the people around you
complaining about? What would you build for yourself to make your life better?

------
gitgud
Something I'm dealing with too. I've found that to enjoy programming you
really need to:

\- Stop comparing yourself to other people,

\- Shut yourself off from new tech and _" Show HN"_ every now and then, to
focus on what you want.

\- Have a project which isn't too serious and doesn't stress you out
financially or burn you out (a game, invention or experimental project is
usually good for this)

\- Lastly try other forms of work/exercise to help you switch-off. When you
come back to your work you'll have a little more appreciation for the craft
you've dedicated a decade too.

Remember that these points are easier said then done... I'm still struggling
to remember the joy of programming...

------
downerending
> If you aren't learning, or getting better at the craft, then you're falling
> behind, becoming irrelevant, and certainly you aren't going to make anything
> of significance.

Disagree. For starters, it might not be glamorous or high-paying, but we need
a lot of people to fix and support the wonderful messes that those "really
smart people" make. If you have a reasonably solid technical base, you can do
that. You don't have to be studying every night for hours.

More broadly, keep it firmly in your mind that we'll all be dead rather soon.
Everything and everyone you see in tech will be forgotten, also rather soon.

If you want to program for love, pick some small side project to putter on.
But don't forget to stop and smell the non-tech roses.

------
Kaze404
I sympathize with this but to be completely honest the only advice I can give
is to seek therapy / professional help if you can. These are people who
studied their entire lives to treat exactly these types of issues, and will
give you better feedback than anyone on HN or any other forum.

~~~
afarrell
And be willing to find a different person if you don’t mesh well with the
first therapist.

------
GreenJelloShot
> It's driving me insane. It is sucking the joy out of life.

Seek therapy.

> If you aren't learning, or getting better at the craft, then you're falling
> behind, becoming irrelevant, and certainly you aren't going to make anything
> of significance.

This is such an unhealthy attitude. You seriously need to take a step back and
reevaluate your priorities.

------
mc3
I think it is a case of treating the job like a job. You do a solid days work
then go home. Don't worry if you didn't do it as well as the next guy or girl.
There are people that know a lot of stuff, and HN in aggregate knows a hellova
lot of stuff, but the main concern in a job is being productive, being able to
find solutions to their problems. I think an occasional course to refresh on
something is fine, but there is no pressure to code at home. There are plenty
of people doing valuable work using the C# or python or php skills they have
been using for years. Many systems will use frameworks from the 2000s.

------
kleer001
Sounds like you might need some kind of existential experience. Not too get
too mystical, but it is a practical matter, the fourth dimension of time might
help. I can help to see and feel your life from beginning to end as a single
thing. It sounds to me that you're hyper focused on a single aspect of your
life and that some perspective will help immeasurably. And if that all sounds
like gibberish then I'm totally on the side with everyone else that advised
therapy. It'll basically do what I suggested, get perspective.

Also, this shit ain't easy. Life is the most difficult thing any of us will
do.

------
fbrncci
Make an effort to not be productive most of the time and draw a clear
distinction between work and leisure. Even if it feels counterproductive, not
being productive and just enjoying yourself with non-tech hobbies or non-
growth activities, likely will refresh your mind. I used to be like this; work
40hrs, then work another 20-30hrs from home. It used to work, and damn was I
productive and enjoying it. But over the years that was no longer the case.
Working on a better work/life balance and drawing that distinction did help me
get back to that state of joy though.

------
playing_colours
We start from the surface. If you want to make something significant, focusing
on constantly learning new shiny techs is not the best strategy. You need to
find a niche, a personal direction, something that you feel a sustainable
passion about - and dive into it, study, find connections, build. Life is
luck, but at least you are prepared for your chance.

But if we go deeper inside the cause of your anxiety - and you need to go that
way - I guess your problem is in self-acceptance. Do you have a courage to be
normal, can you accept and love yourself if you are mediocre, a regular person
who will not known for anything significant? Who said that you should, must be
a top performer? Can you imagine the exact achievement you need to get in
order to stop worrying and say that you fulfilled your goal?

I understand your anxiety, and suggest to:

1\. read about self-acceptance and ideally go through CBT with a good
psychotherapist,

2\. spend half an hour per day sitting and reflecting, meditating, slowing
down yourself,

3\. I do not want to recommend any book as they have different effect on
different people, but maybe look at “The Courage to Be Disliked”,

4\. different experiences and bigger picture: try hobbies, gym, again
meditation, maybe some other ways to introspect and expand your conscious.

Good luck!

------
theonemind
> I need to learn how to truly disconnect from work, so that I can recharge. I
> need to learn how to drop this feeling, this heavy weight on my shoulders,
> that I'm not a good developer, and that I need to work more to get better.

Well, I can only really think of two angles about this. Your belief system,
and your actions.

Your belief system will influence what actions you take, or thoughts you have,
in general. Then, you have the action/habit/thinking itself.

I'd say if you identified that you want to do this, you just have to do it.
But, that requires introspection, self-monitoring, and time. When you catch
yourself thinking about work during some time you've decided to relax, then
stop. Repeat as necessary. A few weeks disconnected can help weaken the habit,
if you make it a point to do that persistently for the whole two weeks. But,
that all takes mental control and introspection, for which I'd recommend
meditation. After that, you almost have to run your mind in debugging mode,
continuously. Habits thrive on auto-pilot. You can only reprogram your auto-
pilot by conscious attention. Which means paying attention to every thought,
constantly.

You need to examine and fill out your belief system to support that. Like, you
listed the problems of the reality of the field.. but, you didn't list some of
the flip side, beliefs you can have there, like, "I can become more effective
if I can disconnect". You'll want to make sure that you have a set of beliefs
set up to support the change you want to make in your actions/patterns of
thought.

I don't think there's a magic bullet. It's hard paying attention to your
thoughts all of the time and eliminating auto-pilot from your life. Most
people never do for any period of time, but most people have vices,
destructive habits, personality defects, etc.

------
afarrell
What you are describing sounds to me like a struggle with managing where you
put your attention — that you are drawn to focus on things to a degree you
find detrimental.

This is also a trait of ADHD (inattentive subtype), so you may find some of
the techniques people use to handle it to be useful in your journey.

------
heldrida
I feel the same. The reason why I started coding was at the end of 90s and I
dreamed about building a "personal web page". For fun!

Recently started looking for a new role and even though I have so many open
source projects in my GitHub profile, I'm asked to do tech challenges. I spent
4 days in one, and at least a few hours for each other company I've applied
to. There were two days last week I haven't slept.

Even though I put so much effort, dev teams seem to take the piss and take
ages to provide feedback: someone is on holidays, there's a workshop, the job
position opening was paused, etc. I find it immensely disrespectful towards
the candidate. The company that I took 4 days to build their challenge only
got back to me 8 days later, I got demotivated and won't accept their next
stage interview. I've checked some of their Devs GitHub accounts and are empty
and have no contributions.

One tech challenge was a cards game; I built something similar 6 years ago,
vanilla JavaScript. Unfortunately, with having to build with trendy
typescript, react it took way longer; I also do a lot of animations etc so
takes more time of course, but still, is just a waste of time.

I think it'll just keep getting worse and there are way better and interesting
things to do in life. I'd rather have used the time to help a charity for
example.

This is also related with anxiety. After all, at the end of the month the
landlord will knock the door and people like me have to pay rent. Time is
worth way more then money, I know that. But there's no option regarding the
tech tests etc and the time is wasted... and just gets worse if you apply to
several positions.

The last challenge I wrote was for a bank. They said it'll take max 2 or 3
hours. But having to write all the tests, a reverse proxy because of CORS etc
and typescript, plus the actual business logic, took 12 hours.

Regardless how much money they pay, I'll never get that time back and it's not
that I own a house, a car and stuff like that.

Why can't Dev teams ask the candidate to go through an open source project
they might have available publicly and explain what they did?

~~~
cyberpip
That does sound stressful and annoying but I'd have to assume the tests given
are given because the interviewers are extremely familiar with the problem and
can read into every choice you make and form opinions (be they right or wrong)
about how you work, face problems, overcome them, etc.

------
jgraeupner
I meditate and go to the gym every day. Would go nuts if I didn't... Did
management consulting before jumped into the startup world. Strongly recommend
it! :)

~~~
jackgolding
Completely agree with this - changed my life!

------
EliRivers
_The problem is that the reality of our field is such that_

I suspect that point (c) in your list there is actually _not_ reality. Does
that make any difference? If you could realise that it's not true, would that
help?

Anyway, I suspect your problems are nothing to do with the field, nothing to
do with software engineering per se. See a professional; your field of work is
not the problem and a professional will have seen this in people across a
great many fields.

------
badpun
> a) There is a lot of opportunity b) There are a lot of really smart people,
> doing very cool things, capturing that opportunity.

Can you elaborate? Ie. do you mean the opportunity to work on rare projects
which do cool tech, such as ex. VR at Occulus/Valve etc.? Or do you mean just
startups which get people rich?

------
uberman
In my experience, 1 and 2 are true and while you may feel that 3 is as well,
in practice it is not. Certainly not to the extent that a two week vacation
would compromise your career. It might be the case that working less might
allow you to work more efficiently.

------
okaleniuk
a), b), and c) are all true for any craft. Ars longa, vita brevis. Writers,
musicians, and athletes all feel that and that's ok. That's part of being
alive.

It's just you're getting older and it's time for you to find better balance in
your life. Relax, you will not fall behind since we're all getting older. It's
an even field.

And it's even worse with athletes. In engineering you're supposed to hit your
prime at about 35-40. That's when an average footballer career is over. We're
kind of privileged in that regard.

------
biql
Not sure how C is related to A and B. Learning tech and doing is not the same.
Plenty of actually useful things are made with old boring tech that was around
for decades.

------
babycake
Honestly I know exactly where you are coming from. While everyone here has
given some great advice, including therapy, it really only treats the symptoms
of an environment that you can't easily change on your own.

Interviews will only get worse, on-the-job performance will be even more
demanding than the year before, and we're going to be expected to work insane
amount of hours since we're classified as exempt employees. We might even move
fully towards a gig economy, where the standard will be contract based
employment instead of full-time work. We can already see trends happening:

\- politically, unions have lost a lot of bargaining power, having been eroded
throughout the years through various ways

\- workers in general (non-tech included) are being put under tremendous
strain. We still have it somewhat good for now, but it's gonna catch up to
tech very soon, if it hasn't already (ridiculous ip/non-compete contracts,
non-paid overtime at night and weekends, agile micromanagement, stack ranking,
etc).

\- We can see our responsibilities increase as a techie, but not very much our
pay relative to upper management (again, same for non-techies too): we went
from separated roles of backend/frontend/devops/database engineer -> full
stack engineer -> cloud/aws engineers. We now need to know 10x more and manage
basically entire product pipelines individually as the starting point of an
engineer.

\- Discrimination gets a free pass in all industries, just see all the sexual
harassment, ageism, 'cultural fit' based environment that has become
standardized.

\- Losing your job with no safety net means no income, no health insurance.
Not good for your overall well-being to have this implicit threat hovering
over you constantly.

\- Free time is decreasing, and we feel it. Weekends are no longer about
relaxing or exploring new places, it's catching up on more work like chores
around the house. And because of this, we're pretty much stuck in our place of
residence since there isn't much time to do anything else. And on those 3 day
weekends, prices for everything (hotels, flights, etc) are insane and very
busy, making your exploration time kinda negative and increasing your anxiety
even more.

\- Employees getting screwed out of startup valuations or stocks with
financial trickery, or just outright theft (because it's costly for us to sue
individually and class-actions are not very effective in dishing out
punishments).

And so on... The real answer to the constant anxiety like you and many others
(including me) experience is from the overall environment that we are all in;
it's getting worse and the reality is we can't escape it. Our politicians
don't really care for us, even our own techie brethren don't care (just see
how divided we are on unions if a single construct of it is corrupt, despite
the situation we are in now which is total power to the employer).

I feel like if we solved our environment, all our anxieties will be lifted, as
a permanent solution. That, or just be really rich by having the right
connections or just use all your free time and joy studying to become the best
of all of us (latter not guaranteed if you don't have the right social skills
to climb the latter). All we can do is wait for a martyr to initiate the
process of improvement and we help back them up. But for now we can seek
whatever tiny joys is in our lives and use it to drown out the truth of the
environment we are in. We have to lie to ourselves.

~~~
shubb
Babycakes writes of the Silicon Valley cyber libertarian vision eating its
children, I like it.

Of course for now, devs still have enough leverage that you can reduce your
hours, either formally or by going freelance, while still having a good
lifestyle. You can work your hours without getting fired. Maybe not in 10
years, but for now.

From a practical perspective what you are talking about is like the weather
forecast. We know it's coming, there isn't much we can do about it, just enjoy
what we can for now or save up for the bad times to come.

------
gshdg
What are you afraid will happen if you take a day off?

------
cartercole
#meToo

