
Ask HN: How are you holding up? - BruceOxenford
It&#x27;s been the most toughest times that&#x27;ve ever faced.
======
dang
Would you please stop the karma-farming spam schemes? You're wasting your
time. We ban such accounts and the sites that they try to promote here, and
karma doesn't help.

The comments in this thread are fine.

~~~
tandr
Dang, I feel like I am missing something and cannot make much sense out of
your comment even after rereading it multiple times. Is this about the
submission itself? Or something else? Would you be kind and expand a bit on
it?

~~~
dang
There's a ring of spammers posting things like this. It's pointless because we
just ban their shit anyway. Does that answer your question?

~~~
PostPlummer
Most surprising thing it: users on HN seem to love this "Facebook kinda
content", counting the replies.

~~~
dang
There's a bit of survivorship bias in there because a lot of such posts go
nowhere. But the community does respond strongly to opportunities to
personally share. The main reason it works, though, is that it's relatively
uncommon. If it were a big slice of the pie people would get bored and
complain.

~~~
PostPlummer
> survivorship bias

Makes a lot of sense, thanks.

------
screye
Really badly, but could be worse.

I am entirely sure that I have moderate-serious depression since the lock down
started. I rely entirely on external structure and physical separation of
spaces to keep myself sane. So WFH has been disastrous for me.

I have been eating worse, not working out, stopped pursuing hobbies/side
projects and have been incredibly unproductive at work. Thankfully, a year of
good results prior to this, has helped build a lot of goodwill I can burn
through.

For the first time the current social climate has affected me severely too. My
parents city is among the worst affected by Covid, and both my 80 yr old
grandparents stay there. My anti-tribal-free-speech-absolutist and pro-
equality-altruistic self have put me in a moral crisis as the BLM movement has
picked up. Then today morning my favorite blog closed because of an attack by
cancel-police. My country is on the cusp of actual war. I also spilled my
coffee twice in the last 2 days and that makes me irrationally frustrated.

On the bright side, I have no suicidal thoughts. None of my relationships have
been destroyed (yet). I still have my job and I know the cause of my current
state is temporary. I've started therapy, which should start helping any
moment now. Covid has affected people in worse ways, so I'm quietly trudging
along.

Worst 3 month period of my life outside the one time I was depressed + alone .
Now I am just depressed.

~~~
jaynetics
It never ceases to amaze me how different people are. For me, all effects have
been the exact opposite. Less going out, so more cooking and healthier eating.
Less tired from open office noise, so more energy for sports. More free time
without commute, so I picked up some long forgotten hobbies again.

This means my advice might not apply to you, but if I may still recommend one
thing: ignore most of the news for a while. The sensationalism can get
infectious. There won't be anything deserving of the name war in your country
(the US, I assume).

~~~
mech422
I actually feel a lil guilty about how well things are going for me. Its not
really been any change for me, same schedule - same job. I think the key is as
you said, mostly avoiding the news. Every day or two, I skim over the
headlines on CNN but mostly I avoid it. I do check the stock market in the
mornings - I swear the DJIA is just a yo-yo. But it's just out of curiosity as
I still have 15+ years before I can retire...So not stressing about it even on
bad days.

I think previously, I was just way too wrapped up in the news cycles.

~~~
shireboy
Agree 100%. I've felt a little guilty too. I started working from home full
time about 4 months before covid landed in US. I'd built a nice above garage
office. Kids homeschooled already. Planted a garden that's doing well, had
more time for home projects, etc. I have friends not doing so well. I have
donated to individuals and organizations since I feel I have an obligation to
help people in need.

News is the biggest drag on my mental well being. It is important to be
informed, but I genuinely feel that media is so driven by ad revenue and has
optimized itself into being as negative and outrageous and _loud_ as possible,
to the detriment of sane balanced information and opinion. I need to know the
sides of current issues, but not loudly 24x7 with as much vitriol on all
sides. I blocked several news sites and social media I habitually check in my
hosts file, but somehow my browser still resolves the names. I need to fix
that.

HackerNews is really one of the few sites I can expect to find calm reasoned
discussion and information.

~~~
mech422
>I blocked several news sites and social media I habitually check in my hosts
file, but somehow my browser still resolves the names. I need to fix that.

DNS over HTTPS maybe ?

~~~
priyaranjan
For macOS dscacheutil --flushdns

------
iMark
Years ago, I visited the zoo in Central Park in NYC and watched a polar bear,
as it swam around and around in a pool. It swam in a triangle, touching the
three same points on the wall of the enclosure as it made each circuit.

Last month I walked around Greenwich Park in London 125 times, each time
following exactly the same route. I thought about that polar bear a lot as I
walked.

~~~
bredren
Not to take too dark a turn here, but human zoos were not uncommon at the turn
of the century.

The Bronx Zoo had people, in cages, on display in 1906.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_zoo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_zoo)

~~~
JNRowe
The Infantorium was also a thing. People paid a quarter to gaze upon the
wonder of premature babies displayed in incubators¹.

While an infantorium still feels awful as a general concept, it did provide
genuine medical care to very vulnerable babies. Eventually saving the lives of
thousands of premature babies. The linked wikipedia article probably allows
you to consider the morality more than my first paragraph ;)

1\.
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_A._Couney](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_A._Couney)

~~~
evan_
> Couney’s reputation suffered after the 1911 Coney Island Fire. Despite all
> of the infants being rescued, the incident highlighted the dangers of caring
> for infants in amusement parks.

------
thom
Keep expecting it to get easier but being stuck with a toddler and two older
kids with 1.5 jobs between me and my wife has been tough. It's exhausting,
there's basically no downtime, and we end up in spirals of shame and guilt at
being terrible parents, partners, employees. All of this to a constant
backdrop of fear and uncertainty, trying to balance sanity with following the
rules and the science, trying to mediate when family and friends have blowups
about the science and ethics of lockdown, family members literally crying
because someone posted mean Dominic Cummings memes, trying to hide all this
from the kids but at the same time being honest and open with them about
feelings, trying to ignore everyone's amazing and enriching family activities
posted in photo albums on Facebook when our kids are sat in pyjamas on the
Nintendo Switch at 2pm, trying not to think too much that if I was on my own
and furloughed this might actually be bliss.

Keep finding it weird that 10 years ago I was trapped in San Francisco (after
Twitter's Chirp conference) when the Icelandic volcano erupted. I remember the
combination of excitement, despair and camaraderie that developed over the 2-3
weeks it affected me. But then it was over and it was a fun anecdote ever
after. This, though, I dunno. Hopefully the kids remember we were here and we
never stopped trying (even though a couple of times we probably did).

~~~
virtue3
I recommend detoxing on the FB poison. It's not real life. It's all pretend.

That shit is basically guaranteed to make you feel worse about yourself. <3

Take care of yourself so you can take care of your kids!

~~~
z3le
Once I limited my time on FB I felt better, it is really affecting your mental
state. Unfortunately I have friends that I will forever lost contact with so I
can't delete my profile. I deleted the app from my phone and logged out from
everywhere except from 1 pc that I usually don't use. Now I am going on FB at
most once a week for 10 mins. It has improved my life a lot.

~~~
zo1
Tip to surviving Facebook: If you _must_ go through your feed, immediately
start "hiding" toxic/hateful individuals that post nothing but bad content. If
an individual _only sometimes_ does so, start hiding their sources. E.g. If
you see some friend that happens to post bad stuff from CNN or Breitbart and
the content from that source upsets you but you want to see that friend's
other content, then hide the page they're "sharing" from.

Most of the time, people don't post original links/content, so it's a "share"
from an existing page that you can hide.

------
mgr86
I feel a touch of shame considering the tenor of this thread, but amazing. I
just said to my wife I don’t want to go back. And I have a pretty spacious
private office.

We had our first child on Halloween and we both had only returned to work for
a month before being forced to wfh. We both still are. It’s great watching my
son every day grow. My wife’s job leaves her twiddling her thumbs a lot so she
gets to spend a lot of time with our son. She does not understand the amount
of focus necessary for my job as a SE. but we have never been happier and more
sleep deprived.

I could imagine if we were out of work or had older children I’d be singing a
different tune.

~~~
BlackjackCF
I feel a little guilty too enjoying quarantine. My partner and I are both
homebodies, and so we've enjoyed the extra time we have together.

It's also been doing wonders for my stress since we recently relocated to
another country (can't avoid packing and doing stuff to get set up for another
country if you're stuck at home.)

I definitely don't miss the traffic from my old commute at all.

I can see how if you're single and unemployed how the quarantine would be
terrible for your mental health.

~~~
emerged
I was single and unemployed during quarantine, it was awesome. But then I got
a job which is much better than my previous job and now things are even more
awesome. But I've never had issues with handling stress, for me life is great
even during great challenges. Big part of thriving right now is to resist
going with the constant stream of panic-porn on social and mainstream media.

------
axegon_
Contrary to what I imagined, better than ever.

Work: Incredibly smooth, even if I'm confined to a 13 inch laptop as opposed
to 2x 26 inch screens (OK, I occasionally hook up my TV for extra help).
Peace, quiet, fully able to focus on my tasks.

Physical health: Several years ago I decided to dedicate a portion of my spare
time to sports and I got into my best shape ever by end of last year(body fat
~10%, down from 20+). Which initially got me worried given that gyms were
closed and whatnot. So I ended up ordering some weights for exercising at home
and I started doing it every day just to make sure I stay in that shape. End
result is I've gained a lot of muscle without changing my weight. Body fat
probably in the lower to mid 7%.

Mental health: Again - a lot of improvements: I'm not fond of real life
interactions and I operate significantly better on my own. I do get mildly
pissed off when my phone rings, more so than I used to. On the downside, I
constantly run out of books which is becoming incredibly annoying.

Finances: Not dealing with eating out for lunch and dinner anymore. Though my
bills have gone up now that I'm home all day long as opposed to just coming in
the evening, crashing on the bed and leaving first thing when I open my eyes.
I.E. my water bill has gone up 5 times, electricity about 3 times.

Summer: I had some plans, one fell through completely (still unsure if that's
good or bad) and the other is almost at the same stage but it might be for the
better(it's complicated).

~~~
dccoolgai
>Peace, quiet, fully able to focus on my tasks.

So no kids, lol. The hardest part of this is how I think it works this way for
everyone else on my team at work. They are (normal work + 100%). I'm (normal
work - 80%). Got my first negative performance review ever a couple weeks ago.
It's rough.

~~~
conductr
Feeling this. We have a 1.5 yo, not potty trained, the infinite loop of food
in/out is a suck on productivity. He also doesn't understand why we can't play
with him. Before Covid, we were pretty firmly against screens for him. Now
he's a straight up couch potato, first thing in the morning he looks for the
remote instead of wanting breakfast :( Yesterday, with much covid related
hesitation, we put him back in day care. His original day care still is closed
so we had to find a new one, luckily only 2 minutes from home.

The flip side is, I feel blessed to have spent a ton of quality time with him
and realized how little time we spent with him in a pre-covid hustle and
bustle world. I've been wanting to downsize our lifestyle for a while and now
my wife is finally seeing why and possibly on board. I'd like to sell our real
assets and move to the beach somewhere and basically retire early / maybe do
low volume consulting. I don't know if I can totally sell her on leaving the
US, but getting closer. I really love this place, but it's freaking toxic. I
do a good job of ignoring new media, but lately it's been impossible. I know
the upcoming election is going to be a last straw that makes me say F this
place, but I have to convince the fam too.

I don't work remote very well. For above mentioned reasons, home =
family/life, office = work, and I have partitioned my life this way for ever
and it's very hard to make the change to WFH. Luckily, I'm a little older have
saved enough and could likely retire now. But not by our normal QOL standards
so best part of this thing is getting my wife to stop shopping and we aren't
eating $100 meals on weekends. Hanging out at the park, swimming pool, etc.
has been fun to have lowkey entertainment.

~~~
dccoolgai
Yeah, I've been trying to compensate by working till 2/3 am but it's
destroying my health.

------
MivLives
Not great.

I spend 22 hours of my day in the same room, split between ten hours laying in
my bed and twelve in my chair.

I had just moved to a new city before everything, started a new job. I don't
know anyone, it's impossible to really meet new people.

My roommates all disappeared to larger living spaces in the middle of March.
They're paying rent but I'm alone, and even when they were here I have nothing
in common with them.

It's hard to find projects to do because I have no space to do them. I stopped
watching tv because doing so in a deskchair sucks. I go through spurts of
playing large amounts of video games. I spend most of my time either trying
and failing to work, trying and succeeding to work, or aimlessly cycling
between Hacker News, Reddit, rss feeds, youtube, and discord.

The only thing keeping me sane is taking 1 to 2 hour electric skateboard rides
around my area and listening to podcasts but I'm starting to get bored of it.

There are a lot of underlying problems to my current life that I'm not
addressing, and existed before all this started. The excuse of covid has only
made justifications against self improvement easier. I'm stuck in a loop, I'm
depressed, and I'm not sure what to do.

My company doesn't really have a good time line for going back. I'd love to
work remote, it'd mean I can move to somewhere with more space. But until I
get an OK from my company I'm stuck in the limbo of a place not really meant
for remote work with no where to really go to.

~~~
CaptArmchair
> I had just moved to a new city before everything, started a new job. I don't
> know anyone, it's impossible to really meet new people.

Meeting new people seems impossible, but it doesn't have. It helps to connect
with others over a common interest or hobby. Boardgames, hacking for fun,
volunteering, writing, photography, art, music, radio making, astronomy,
movies, sports, gardening, museums, libraries, animals, cooking,... There's
plenty out there to bond over.

Instead of trying to meet new people, try to look into something which is a
bit outside of your comfort zone, but has piqued your interest. Look into
activities like workshops, classes, courses, initiations,... Every city has
plenty of small non-profits with really interesting offerings who do outreach
to local communities.

It's up to you to figure out what you want. So, I just gave you a few
examples. Well, try this: sit yourself down with a piece of paper and take 10
minutes to jot down every activity which pops up in your mind and is doable.
Okay, you do that exercise every day for the next 5 days, refining your list.
Meanwhile, you start to do some research about the things you've jotted down.
Find out if they are interesting. You don't have to work on that 24/24\. But
keep things in the back of your mind and scribble down what you think. After 5
days, you should already have an inkling of things that might be interesting
to do while getting you out of the door.

As for meeting people: that happens as you start going to those social
activities. Sure, it's a lot like your first day of school and you don't know
anybody. But that's literally how everyone starts out. At the same time,
you're an adult now, and the people you'll meet are adults as well. And the
vast majority will understand that you're new around their parts.

Yes, the quarantine has shut down a lot of activities, but that doesn't mean
you can't shoot an e-mail to whatever initiative you stumble across, finding
out if they would welcome you shortly, right?

~~~
MivLives
Thank you for taking the time to write all this out.

I'm hoping that when covid becomes less of an issue that people are going to
be eager to get out and meet people.

------
gqxhoqvpnb
Pretty terrible. I have no prospects, my startups all failed, I've lost most
of my money (lost about $2m that I saved over 10 years and earned from
previous startups which I managed to cash out). I tried to go the VC route,
but no investors wanted to talk to me, so I spent my own money instead and now
I'm broke.

I need to find a job, but because I'm highly experienced and older (35 y/o),
most companies see me as expensive and difficult, thus don't want to hire me.
Plus, I'm unlikely to put up with BS. I suck at interviews/coding challenges
so I can't get hired at something like Google/FB in spite of having a stellar
resume and long list of popular GitHub projects I created myself with
thousands of happy users. Experience is a double edged sword: I can get things
done much faster than most people, and I've pretty much done it all in
computers by now, but I'm also jaded and can see through all the BS.

I'm seriously considering suicide. I'll run out of money soon, I own nothing,
have no family, can't afford rent, and am not eligible for any government
assistance because of the stupidity of the laws. I've read a lot of philosophy
over the years, and I've decided that suicide is really not a bad option.

I'm so tired of being a peasant and working hard while someone else gets rich.
I don't want to be someone's little worker bee anymore. I think the good
opportunities are gone, and I don't want to contribute to bad companies doing
bad things (i.e., most of big tech, and big cos in general).

~~~
bargl
Hey, Reach out to some consultancies. I really like AIM consulting. I know
it's tough right now, but the nice thing about consulting is they bring in
experts they want to teach them and kick ass.

Opinionated, well spoken people tend to do really well in consultancies. Find
companies that do cool things and be part of them. You can also gain
experience while moving around and helping non-tech companies come up to
speed. It can be PAINFUL but it can also be SUPER duper fun. When you find
someone going the wrong direction, offer advice and they listen to and improve
from your suggestions.

~~~
y-c-o-m-b
Is this remote? I've considered consulting in the past, but most positions
require considerable amounts of travel.

> It can be PAINFUL

Can you provide some examples?

~~~
bargl
I've had 100% on-site. I've had one where they let me do remote 2 days a week.
My current company (I went FTE) allows full time remote for Consultants. You
just have to look harder to find these.

As a consultant, you aren't a stakeholder technically. You are a coder-for-
hire. You aren't typically going to maintain the application so you're more of
an advisor. This is awesome because as an advisor, you can make some great
suggestions, but in the end you do it how they tell you to or you find another
gig. What I've found is, if they don't listen to me or accept input for change
I'm not interested. Those are typically painful but short consultancies. If
they do take advice, then I frequently convert to see the project all the way
through.

I've had situations where I can't wait for the contract to be over, and as
you've guessed ones that are awesome and I convert over, or extend to stay on
longer.

You can also get into consulting to the point that you're part of a team which
is hired to build something for the company. These can be awesome because then
you're a stakeholder and yet free of some of the internal politics of a
company.

Anyway, I love consulting, but I also love the stability of FTE. I've found
that consulting has been a great way for me to find FTE opportunities that I
prefer over just interviewing.

EDIT: The most pain happens when the consultancy you're working with doesn't
communicate well with the client, so you get put in the middle and have to
server two bosses who are in opposition. The best cases you have one clear
boss, but another clear tasking manager at the client. In these cases positive
feedback flows to your manager and negative feedback should be minimal but
direct.

~~~
y-c-o-m-b
Thanks for taking the time to answer. Sounds like it's been mostly a medium
for finding desirable FTE positions for you. I think I just have the wrong
idea of consulting. I've thought of it as guiding clients towards a specific
tech stack and not so much writing code, but doesn't seem like that's a
realistic view of it judging by what you've told me.

~~~
bargl
I mean that can totally be what consulting is. The nice thing about consulting
is when you're doing your own business with it, it is what you want it to be.
If listened to people who do this kind of consulting but you've got to be
pretty setup to get to this point.

------
o_bigodes
Hey friend.

Long time lurker around here, created an account to reply here.

I don't know. It's hard man. I know there are people in worse situations than
me but it's hard anyway.

Working from home since March.

I spend all my day alone at home (with my cats). My GF arrives late and leaves
early. She has to go to work everyday.

I feel unmotivated. I'm not socializing, I'm getting fat, I'm slacking on my
work.

The worse part is that the effort that I and others have been making are
worthless because a couple people can and will destroy it.

I'm living in Portugal and "we" thought everything was going back to normal.
Of course not. The cases are ramping back up again. Today we have new and
harder rules to follow once again.

I know that I won't be back into the office this year.

My summer festivals are cancelled.

I couldn't celebrate my birthday with my friend and family.

I miss hugs from my mother.

This shit sucks.

~~~
jrumbut
It was funny (a sad funny!) to read this post since the summer festival I'm
going to miss the most was the one put on by the local Portuguese/Azoran
community.

Hopefully it is ready for next year:
[http://feastoftheblessedsacramentcom.ning.com/](http://feastoftheblessedsacramentcom.ning.com/)

~~~
o_bigodes
Azores and Madeira are different archipelagos!

But either way, it's so cool to see portuguese communities outside here.
Thanks for sharing! Hope you can be there next year :D

------
reallyinthepits
I'm at rock bottom.

I got laid off unexpectedly, right at the beginning of the coronavirus.
Severance package was terrible and I'm pretty much broke. Plus, the FMV of my
options cratered, so the equity I worked hard for is already underwater.

Hit the interview trail hard and have received nothing but rejections. Despite
getting referrals from current engineers, I don't even make it past the tech
recruiter phone screen stage. And of course, no one is willing to offer
feedback so I'm left with my worst thoughts of self-doubt and imposter
syndrome.

Sitting here with no money, nothing to do, watching all my friends take
advantage of the remote work by going to cool places. I'm going insane and all
signs point to the continuation of this shitty status quo for the next year at
least. I don't know what I'm going to do.

~~~
muzani
Sounds like you might need to take something other than tech to make do. Maybe
even consider out of town jobs, WordPress, or even PHP. Or try remote jobs
outside your country - normally the US has the best jobs, but it really turned
around this year.

The interview gauntlet can be tough and demoralising, and extremely
depressing. I've been there. After months of rejections, I ended up at a
company where the last guy quit with minimal notice and they needed to replace
him ASAP. It helped that I was out of a job and didn't have any notice period.
They ended up offering me double what the average engineer got and they
haven't fired me yet, so it might not be you, just the job market.

My best tip would be to find and stabilize your life somehow so that it's not
a race against time at least with regards to living costs. Find some small
victories in your life like exercise or a productive non-addictive hobby like
updating wikis or drawing. When applying for jobs with failure for too long,
your confidence and willpower drops significantly, and this might show in your
interviews.

------
allarm
I was let go by my company 2 months ago. I stuck in a small country on the
other side of the world. There’s no flights to my country (and there’s
unlikely going to be any at least until winter). My temporary visa is expiring
in 2 weeks, I don’t have any evidence that they are going to extend it. The
day before I was let go I moved to another apartment with a 2 years lease
contract. I don’t have any broadband connection here (long story short -
because covvid). I can’t find a job. I’ve no idea what’s going to happen with
me, my wife and our two cats in a month from now.

On the bright side, I have got a lot of free time. I’m learning lisp, doing
excercises from SICP, jogging and cycling long distances. I don’t feel bad
about what’s happened, I am re-evaluating my life now and I know that it’s
going to work out one way or another.

~~~
sbmthakur
It's inspiring to see that you are still taking time out for exercising and
learning in such a situation, and are optimistic about the future. I hope
things work out for you.

------
nyc4today
Thanks for asking and hope you are doing well! I unfortunately got dumped by a
girl I was dating, lost my job and a (non-nuclear) family member while living
in Manhattan, NYC. I thought I was holding up okay but once my gym shut down
and social events shut down (before later transitioning to videoconference) my
mental state and diet declined fast. The lack of human contact was mitigated
to an extent by virtual social events but i feel exhausted by them after a
short while. All but a couple people I know my age (mid 20s) are still in the
city. Since my landlord offered no help and my lease is up, I’ll be
contributing to my building’s overwhelming vacancies next week when I move
back in with my folks out West.

~~~
eplanit
You have my sympathy re: the breakup. Why is it "Since my landlord offered no
help and my lease is up" instead of " my rent is due, but I can't afford it".
You make it sound like the landlord is at fault.

~~~
exdsq
In the UK we have a rent/mortgage holiday to protect us from these
unprecedented times. I'd probably blame everything other than myself if I went
from being a professional living in Manhattan to unemployed and unable to pay
rent. Sometimes the carpet can just be pulled out from under us and it sucks.

~~~
eplanit
It was pulled out from under the landlord, too.

~~~
BoiledCabbage
Financial investments are inherently risky. It amazes me how people are such
huge proponents of upside gains, but find unpalatable the idea of downside
risk.

------
thewhitetulip
Okayish. I am a 'nerd' who loves 'staying indoors' and doesn't like to go in
crowded areas.

Until I was forced to stay indoors for months.

I used to exercise regulary, gym/yoga/skipping/running before the lockdown.

But during the lockdown, it has all gone to hell. I eat, work and sleep. I
used to watch a lot of tv shows but I cancelled all subscriptions.

But, on the other hand, I have begun writing stories. I had abandoned writing
them for over a year now. In fact, I published my short story on Kindle last
week. I am editing the 4 unpublished novels which I wrote and am trying to
finish the 5th one right now. But it is difficult. Getting motivation is
difficult.

At times, I feel anxious. And I totally understand the irony. It had never
happened that I had 'gone out' in the last five years during a weekend. But
now, I want to go out every other day.

Our government has started to ignore corona and they've begun opening up the
country. The puppet TV news of the regime doesn't freak out people on Corona,
which they did when the govt took corona seriously.

I miss cycling and going to the gym though. Yoga is a good alternative to the
gym as it builds all possible muscles.

~~~
shoes_for_thee
tell me more about your skipping-for-exercise routine

~~~
thewhitetulip
Buy a good skipping rope, should be heavy.

Do maximum sets of skipping that you can.

I started with 100. Because I used to do Yoga for 40min daoly, used to cycle
72km once a week, so I had built that stamina.

You can start with sets. Sets of 10/30 whatever suits you.

Weekly, either increase the set count or the speed of jumping

For eg, I used to do 100 in 1min. Yesterday I did 100 in 29seconds!

I am also doing skipping based on minutes now. Yesterday, I skipped for 3min
45seconds. My goal is to skip for 5 to 10 min nonstop.

They say x min skipping burns twice calories as x min running!

~~~
shoes_for_thee
Thanks for the deets :)

I was under the impression you were using skipping-locomotion as exercise,
rather than running or skipping rope. I was wondering if that was a thing...
skipping for exercise.

~~~
thewhitetulip
Oh no. I didn't even know we could do that :D

------
taylortrusty
It’s okay. I live in New York City and am a very social person. Our company is
all WFH but I was going into a coworking space each day. I went to tech and
social events every night. I did a lot of happy hours. I saw friends every
day, pretty much.

March / April I saw no one other than my girlfriend a couple times a week.
Time became slow. I became a lot less motivated. I was cooking more than ever
and saving more money than ever. I felt depression coming on. I live in a
giant building and even leaving the apartment felt like a big production - can
I trust the elevator? My doorman? People on the elevators? Why are they out
too?!

By late April I realized I was going crazy without human interaction and no
changes in my routine. Started organizing sidewalk happy hours with friends,
where we distanced and drank and walked around the empty city. I think I’ll
really cherish those memories for many years.

I used to travel a lot and missed that stimulation. Me and my girlfriend
decided to drive NY - Los Angeles and stay on the west coast for the month of
June. Stopped in national parks, saw some beaches, a lot of hiking, got a
haircut in Manhattan Beach. Restaurants are open out west. Then ten of us
rented a house in Lake Tahoe and had the most amazing time. Currently heading
to San Diego to see family.

It’s turning around. My work motivation is back and work is now going better
than ever. Working from new locations most days is fun. I feel great again.
Interested to see how much NYC has changed when I go back July 1.

~~~
TimSchumann
A cost to coast drive in the US is something everyone should do at least once.

I was able to drive the AlCan highway with a friend last spring, great
memories.

~~~
tasuki
> A cost to coast drive in the US is something everyone should do at least
> once.

Why?

~~~
TimSchumann
Puts things into perspective. There’s so much space, even on this planet, and
we occupy so little of it.

It’s also very beautiful.

~~~
tasuki
There's so much space: why be closed in a little metal box?

I've done long distance bike rides (couple months), they're vastly more
enjoyable for me than being stuck in a car: the smells and sounds, people and
animals around, the wind and the rain. A car is more comfortable, sterile, and
boring.

~~~
tasuki
And since you mentioned "perspective" \- I find walking or cycling both
provide much more perspective than a car: the distance covered is earned. A
car is just a comfortable teleportation device.

------
scarface74
These past three months have been amazingly good for me.

1\. I was able to get out of the hellhole of my loud noisy open office that
was a mix of developers, QA, project managers and customer facing pre-sales
and post sales implementation managers.

2\. We had a pay cut that caused me to run a Hail Mary and apply for a fully
remote job at $BigTech in the cloud consulting division. I now don’t have to
worry about an open office for a few years.

3\. My relationship with my spouse has gotten even closer. We’ve found a
balance between time together and our alone time. Luckily, we have enough
space in our house to go to our own corners.

4\. My wife was a part time fitness instructor before Covid and had a full
time role in the local school system. During Covid, she turned her study into
studio and she is now teaching classes online making pretty decent pocket
money.

5\. Because of Covid, I really didn’t want her back working in public again.
Now with my new job we can easily afford for her to stop working and with her
side business she will still keep herself busy.

6\. Completely separate: we already converted another bedroom to a gym, our
workouts didn’t miss a beat.

------
piercebot
The hardest thing for us has been the loss of public spaces -- not being able
to take my 3yo son the Air and Space Museum (his favorite place), to ride the
metro, or even over to Grandma's house for the afternoon is tough.

What _I_ miss the most is being able to sit down at a Korean restaurant with
friends and just EAT for two hours.

Overall, though, things are going really well. The transition to working from
home was easy (half the team was already remote), I've had more time to
exercise, and our company has been advocating good work-life balance
throughout this whole ordeal. I have the efforts of my champion wife to thank
for keeping a 3yo distracted all day while I'm at work, and that is not lost
on me, either -- I'm in a good place now because I am with good people,
surrounded by love.

Wishing you all the best, HN :)

------
patio11
(Offered in the hopes that this helps someone.)

After struggling with it for about twenty years and dealing with a
particularly bad episode, exacerbated by 2020 things, I was diagnosed with
major clinical depression and started treatment today.

Socially distanced Internet fistbump to anyone else having a rough go of it.
Some subset of the problems are within the purview of medical science;
consider asking.

------
jaeming
I thought I would love working at home but it turns out the office was my
primary source for social interactions and now is not a great time to go out
and make new friends for obvious reasons. Before this, going to work was
something I was always looked forward to and I really liked my job.

Now I just kind of roll out of bed, slump over to the computer desk in the
corner of my bedroom and sit there all day, wondering why I feel so "meh". I
realized I'm missing the in-office collaboration more than I thought but I
also started looking at the work with a predominantly more negative outlook,
thinking thoughts like, "Isn't this all kind of pointless anyway? We just
churn code and go around in circles endlessly." I've also started drinking
almost nightly to the point of excess. Also, the world is going to hell in a
hand-basket and apparently most of my family and friends from my home-town
turned out to be a lot more racists than I ever knew.

On the positive side:

\- I still have a good paying job that has allowed me to work remote through
out all of this and even gives me an extra $200 per month allowance for WFH
costs.

\- I bought a treadmill and finally started to excercise.

\- When I feel a lack of motivation I often turn on some course or tutorial
and I actually started learning a lot of new stuff as a result.

\- I started saving a lot more money since I don't eat out and cancelled all
my vacation plans.

------
klodolph
Started a new software engineering job just before stay-at-home orders. Joined
the team in March. Nobody is training me. My teammates don’t like meetings so
I never see them in video calls. I haven’t been getting any work done. Manager
is asking me why I haven’t been getting any work done. I don’t even know where
to begin.

The documentation is garbage but that’s not so unusual. What’s unusual is that
I have to ask questions in writing or schedule video calls with teammates if I
want to learn anything that’s not in the documentation.

I know what onboarding is supposed to look like and this isn’t it. I’ve
expressed these problems to my manager but I feel like I’m not being heard.
Stress levels are through the roof.

~~~
eyerony
Hey, it's me a couple months ago! With a side dose of "we may or may not fire
you, we dunno yet" for several weeks (they did, abruptly, the day after once
again saying they maybe wouldn't, and I guess I'll never know exactly why).
Confusing as hell and unlike anything I'd experienced in my not-short career.
I guess some managers/teams are straight-up incompetent at onboarding and
blind to how hostile-to-new-hires their codebase(s) and docs are. Oh and
useless, god-awful justify-your-existence-to-your-manager (then tune out
because nothing anyone else says matters) standups every day adding to the
stress. And no planning process to speak of. It's the second time in my life
I've felt actually-mentally-ill and the other involved a sick newborn, so.
That's impressive for them to have achieved, I guess.

Save money if you can and look for cheap/free credit lines, is my advice. If
you can get a few months' worth of bills in the bank or available on super-
cheap credit then the worst-case (shit, best-case, for me—I felt _so_ much
better after) scenario won't really be that bad. Hit up your network if you
can and see if anyone needs some contract work, if things don't work out. It's
pretty easy to scare up a few hours here and there, maybe enough to at least
cover bills.

~~~
klodolph
I have savings but I’d rather see the problems with my current job fixed
rather than bailing out. I don’t think they’re intractable, just that the
experience is a bit painful.

------
irrational
Great. Frankly this has been one of the high points of my life. No commuting
has been great. I get to spend a ton more time with my wife and kids. Before
the pandemic I rarely went out to eat and rarely went to stores, so really
little of my life has changed. I've been spending a lot more time on projects
around the house. Before the pandemic I had started working on redoing the
three bathrooms in my house. I thought it would take a long time, but I'm
getting it done much faster than expected. The pandemic came at an ideal time
for me. My work is such that I can do it from home no problem. I'm not sure
when or if I'll ever move back to working on campus. I've even received a 15%
raise during the pandemic. I don't personally know anyone that has been sick,
much less died. Our governor shut things down very quickly so we have had very
very few cases in our state. All in all this has been a wonderful experience.

------
pizza234
Very good, "with fine print".

The lockdown improved the focus on myself, since there are less things to take
care of.

Some work of mine ended up gathering attention from "VIP"s in my field. I've
started a systematic study of new areas that I'll use for a future, major,
project of mine.

Fitness is very important for me; I was able to do a reasonable, minimalist,
workout at home with some equipment, therefore, although I lost some shape,
I've been in an acceptable fitness state.

I suffered mostly at the beginning. It wasn't suffering in a strict sense,
rather, I was unsettled. Small things, like having to mind what to touch and
what not, or people's fear of the future, were definitely taxing at the
beginning. Now, I don't mind anymore - I got used to, in the good, and in the
bad.

"Fine print" follows.

1\. I'm certainly a person who doesn't strictly need social contact, so I
didn't suffer for the lack of it.

2\. I also have a certain discipline. Discipline in itself is (I suppose)
always hard work even for people perceived as disciplined, but I guess that
for some, guidance from somebody is, at least, a soft requirement.

3\. Job uncertainty is a given. I'm in a good position now, but nobody knows
what will happen [to my position] in 6/12 months from now.

------
e_goldstein
I'm a compsci undergrad with no social life. My daily social exchanges were
limited to my colleages at university and room mates, and for the past five
months I've been sitting alone at my desk procrastinating, scrolling down
reddit and HN numbed of my senses. I've since discovered that these people
don't really care about me, as no one bothers to even send me the occasional
message or call.

I've been dodging bullets at college, yet still receiving praises and
oportunities from my professors and actually every real and functioning adult
(unlike me) regarding my "skills" on programming and music. Opportunities
which, interestingly enough, actually make me feel worthless because I always
feel like a fraud and that I'm not good enough for anything.

I have no job, no income, no dreams or aspirations and being trapped here,
unable to do anything to distract myself (talk to colleages, Grindr hookups),
has me constantly thinking of how empty and devoid of personality and life I
am.

My mother is every day more verbal about wanting me out of the house (despite
me paying the bills using the government grant intended to pay for college),
and in the midst of it all I've been trying to fix my relationship with my
father to find he only wants me as a tool for legal benefits (due to my
parents' divorce).

I keep myself fantasizing about suicide, but it's okay because at least I'm
confident enough I'm not (that) stupid. Also, my "problems" are just part of a
temporary state of mind and don't even compare to real problems many people
are going through everywhere.

Thanks for asking, op. Writing all these things down actually clears up my
mind a bit.

[edit: formatting]

~~~
gentryb
Sometimes writing this helps for me as well. I'm truly glad it cleared your
mind a bit.

Please don't ever consider suicide seriously. It's not a way out - but a way
to hurt many more than you will ever realize. I've already posted plenty in
this thread, and don't want to repeat my own situation.

Please look into the suicide hotline, or feel free to reach out (you can
likely find me in my profile) if only to talk.

This is difficult for us all, and I empathize with your situation.

------
gentryb
Ultimately, worse than being isolated at home in a wheelchair.

For nearly half of the last 12 months, because of a severely broken foot, I
learned life in a wheelchair. It was confirmed I would need a second surgery,
and within a week I was fired. That was Sept. of last year. My doctors
expected me to be fully walking in January - that unfortunately didn't turn
out to be the case - it took a few more months.

Just as I was finally able to drive again, and seriously look at work again,
this pandemic struck. All events and interviews canceled.

I decided to do health assessment and triage volunteering at our local
homeless shelter for over 2 months, which was quite helpful for the time I
could tolerate it.

Living alone in a metro area feels almost more suffocating than being in a
less populated area. When everything shut down, I was actually happy to be
able to volunteer and help those without a home to go to. When things opened
up in my state, and some people's sentiment's changed about the seriousness of
this virus, I've sort of sunk into a bit of a hole.

I'm continuing to be positive when I can, and it is a struggle. Plenty of
financial woes exist, but I'm still here. Depression is an absolute for me
lately, although I've been working to lift myself out in part trying to
indirectly help others, and by focusing more on my own mental health.

So, I'm holding up, but not well. Being alone is one of the biggest factors
(no pets, no family in area, few friends), but so is the situation we all find
ourselves in constantly changing in terms of the right/wrong. I focus on data
quite a bit and it's hard to reconcile.

Hope this didn't seem too much of a ramble.

------
fullstop
We've been doing great. It's been awesome to spend more time with my children
since I WFH most of the time, and I no longer have to spend time commuting.
I'm lucky enough to have a yard where they can get outside and play without
being around other people.

Since we are all home and not traveling we got in touch with the animal
sanctuary again and have been fostering another round of kittens. These four
bring our total to 18 since we started doing this. This is great because they
are adorable, my children love caring for them.

It has also given me time to teach my children some basic microcontroller
programming / electronics, which I think will benefit them immensely in the
long run.

My wife and I have been walking a bit, ~5 miles a day. This does help me to
stay in shape, although excess weight has never been a problem for either of
us.

It's not all rosy, though. I miss my friends and family. Family is not as
difficult as friends since my family is scattered around the country and we do
not see each other on a regular basis.

------
qqj
Started off wonderful, went into nose dive, now picking up again.

It's hard living with someone during lockdown, especially when you're used to
getting "alone time". You start feeling trapped. But that's something you can
resolve with your own self, and talking about it with your SO helps a lot.

Additionally, I realized just how much work depresses me. What I enjoyed were
the lunches and the laughs, not the daily meaningless grind and annoying
people. And when you WFH it's so easy to just immerse yourself in stuff you
actually care about and interests you, and forget all about that stupid 3rd
party service you need to integrate into your system. But then, of course, you
need to make up for lost time which creates a certain amount of pressure. And
the urge to tell people to fuck off over video is so much greater than in
person, maybe because they are too less polite and understanding because of
w\e they are dealing with.

------
dbrueck
Personally doing great but also recognizing that many have had a difference
experience with it. These things have helped me a ton:

(1) Limit time reading "news" and social media - it's not inherently bad, but
there's enough of a gloom glut to depress anyone. Set a timer if you need to.
(2) Force yourself to have good daily routines (especially the big 3: eating,
sleeping, and exercise - don't have to go extreme on any of them, just don't
let them get too out of whack) (3) Brighten someone's day, every day. A small
act of service, a phone call, etc. - doesn't have to be big. (4) Go outside,
anywhere will do, though time in a forest or in the mountains is hyper
therapeutic. (5) Pray. Even if you don't consider yourself religious, you
might be surprised what it does to you. If you can't bring yourself to pray
per se, at least try to still your mind and meditate for a bit each day.

~~~
jjice
I very much agree with all of this. Number 1 and number 5 stand out to me the
most because they are things I've had to work on the most. For number 5, I
don't pray, but I've begun keeping a journal, and that lets me vent to myself
and keep an archive of my thoughts, which has been incredible. Just turning
thoughts into real words is extremely helpful for understand a situation and
also a great way to blow off steam.

------
throwAwayAcc88
I love getting to spend extra time with my SO. And I love not having a
commute. My quality of life has gone up immensely.

But I live in a tiny, 1 bedroom, city-center apartment. The desk I work at all
day, is the desk that I also would come home to after work, and unwind/relax
at.

There is no other space available in this apartment where I can put up an
"office". It is simply too small. The best option I have is to sit at the
"kitchen" table 4 feet away, but then i can't use my monitor.

The end result is I am having a horrific time at work.

On my best days, I think I can manage 80% of what I used to do workwise, at
the office. On the worst days, its maybe 5%.

I think its compounded by the fact that I relatively recently became a
manager.

There are many aspects of my job that I do not like anymore. I have been
largely removed from real engineering. My PM was cut for budget/political
reasons, so the amount of rote PM work that lands on my desk has gone up
significantly, etc. But I was okay with this all regardless, because I derived
satisfaction from managing my team well, and learning how to do so.

Now that we are entirely wfh, from a business perspective little has changed
(besides the layoffs we just went through). I am capable of managing remotely.
But personally, any positive feedback that came with management has
evaporated. Where I could previously watch my team interact throughout the
day, and see the impact I was making on company/team culture, or at least have
a physical/visual reaffirmation that I have created a positive environment for
my people (its a small company), I now have no positive social feedback, just
lots of 1:1 video calls, which quite frankly, don't cut it on a personal
level.

The combination of these two things has been awful and I am genuinely having
an extremely hard time with it.

I really need help

~~~
markm248
Transition to managing a team is difficult in normal times! I've been doing it
for 10+ years and still suffer from the lack of direct feedback and a feeling
of being unproductive. Be sure to remind yourself that your ability to impact
is broader now and the results are longer term. Even when it doesn't feel like
it, your team needs the leadership you are providing.

~~~
throwAwayAcc88
My company did a round of layoffs as quickly as possible last March. I managed
to get my team through that, and am still trying to help the people I had to
let go find new positions on the side. I've seen the impact I've had,
legitimately keeping my people sane.

One of my devs actually caught the virus, and broke down to me in the hospital
when he tried to explain why he might not be able to come back to work, ever.

I know I have had an impact.

But now that we're through the looking glass, and the adrenaline has worn off,
and this is just the new day to day normal, its just frigging hard.

------
spodek
I've posted a bunch on inspiration during lockdown. For example, I did an
episode on Nelson Mandela. Here's the audio:
[https://shows.acast.com/leadership-and-the-
environment/episo...](https://shows.acast.com/leadership-and-the-
environment/episodes/330-lockdown-inspiration-from-nelson-mandela).

Here's the text:

\----

Many of us are struggling living in lockdown.

Nelson Mandela has inspired me in many ways. Going beyond subsisting in
captivity, he emerged from 27 years imprisoned on Robben Island---South
Africa's Alcatraz---to become President.

Today's episode shares part of what I believe helped him, which I believe can
help us. First, he endured 27 years. We're only a few months in, and not in a
small cement prison cell with a bucket for a toilet.

More, he practiced daily habits. We can too. I describe his in this episode, I
hope in ways we can learn from.

Here are a couple quotes I read in the recording, both from his autobiography:

“I attempted to follow my old boxing routine of doing roadwork and muscle-
building from Monday through Thursday and then resting for the next three
days. On Monday through Thursday, I would do stationary running in my cell in
the morning for up to forty-five minutes. I would also perform one hundred
fingertip push-ups, two hundred sit-ups, fifty deep knee-bends, and various
other calisthenics.”

“I awoke on the day of my release after only a few hours’ sleep at 4:30am.
February 11 was a cloudless, end-of-summer Cape Town day. I did a shortened
version of my usual exercise regimen, washed, and ate breakfast. … As so often
happens in life, the momentousness of an occasion is lost in the welter of a
thousand details.”

For more on Mandela and daily habits, see my post, Nelson Mandela on sidchas
[https://joshuaspodek.com/nelson-mandela-on-
sidchas](https://joshuaspodek.com/nelson-mandela-on-sidchas).

\----

Beside that post, I've found acting in service of others gives more meaning,
purpose, and inspiration beyond any self-care.

Whatever your situation, others can use your help. For me, my podcast costs
almost nothing, but drives me to help on the environment. There is no shortage
of people who could use help, in person or virtually.

"To serve is to live." \-- Frances Hesselbein

------
Agentlien
Better than expected. And I feel really weird about it.

I live in Sweden and I started a new job half a year ago. In many ways it's
much better than my previous one. The only real drawback was not being allowed
to work from home. For the first few months, that didn't bother me since I had
a lot of fun socializing with my colleagues. Then, the pandemic hit and we
were encouraged to work from home. My wife and kids are also home, since my
wife was on parental leave.

I don't get out as much as I'd want to, haven't been outside the small town I
live in for months. I used to take the commuter train to the big city each
morning. I do miss friends and colleagues, but I'm surrounded by my family
every day, do precisely the work I want and win so much time by skipping the
two hours of daily commute. My son misses his grandparents, at first he had
trouble understanding the reason for our new routines, and he has said he
misses grocery shopping. I get that. Personally, I'm really happy we've been
able to order online from our local grocery store.

I do have friends who were infected. Friends of friends who have passed away.
But all in all it feels like I'm living in this weird shielded bubble with
zero social contact outside of my family. It's surreal and I feel almost
guilty for having been so spared from any real consequences of this pandemic.
I was talking to a friend and we concluded that we both feel that this change
has been primarily positive to our daily lives, and that we're so lucky to
work in tech.

~~~
Agentlien
We have had a lot of plans which were cancelled, unfortunately. My in-laws
live in Belgium. Since April they were supposed to come visit us twice, we
were supposed to visit them once and we had rented an apartment by the sea
which we were to spend a week in together. So, lots of trips were cancelled
and now we haven't seen each other in ages.

------
danielski
On track to getting expelled. Received the warning email three weeks ago. Was
ice age permafrost stiff before, now approaching 0K stiff.

I'm a foreign student in Beijing. Living off campus. Xenophobic landlord
kicked me out and I discovered there was nothing I could do to get rent or
deposit back. Been bouncing between places, very painful as a person of colour
in this otherwise normally incredible city.

Oddly, the isolation was initially great. Wasn't so productive in March, but
having the pause was magic for every other aspect of my life. Got into
incredible shape thanks to eating well, sleeping well, and a light but
consistent calisthenics routine. But still missed by first deadline for
thesis. Struggled to ask for help. Then asked and found it the university
didn't care. Cue total collapse.

Everyday I wake up and try to make progress on a thesis but just end up frozen
behind my computer. This has been soul destroying. Showing up each morning but
failing to move forward. Anxious beyond imagination. Quit caffeine (coffee,
green tea) for a month, then restarted in spectacular fashion.

Visa expires soon. Back to home country in a worse state than China and with
ability to right itself. Feeling very doomed, lost, and annoyed to not have
been able to capitalise on all this free time. About to throw an entire
master's degree program down the drain because I can't stop panicking about
it.

Just afraid of the future. Post lockdown, looking back and wishing I did more.
It's hard to lose a grip on the world and to operate without a sense of
meaning.

~~~
victorpascu
I don't know if it would help you to hear this from a stranger, but try to
calm down and clear your mind through meditation. Before going to sleep, set
clearly achievable goals for the next day. Wake up early, meditate, work out.
Obtaining a lucid state of mind is the best thing you can do for yourself
right now. If it helps, go somewhere you normally wouldn't go where you can be
very in-the-moment for a time, to snap you out of your current environment and
allow you to reset.

If you assume the outcome of your thesis is a foregone conclusion, this can
enable you to work without hesitation. Many fighting chances have been born
during last-minute, no-hope efforts, and if yours doesn't come along, treat
that as a bridge to cross when you get there.

I know, easy to say when everything feels like it's doomed. I took a shot at
building a MVP for a product to start a company with and failed because I
spent over half the time messing around, working on what wasn't important.

Six months in, running out of time and money, I started these habits even
though I thought to myself that it would be too late for them to matter. I
became very productive especially towards the end as a result, and I could
keep to my new routine since I figured "at least I'll be getting something out
of the whole ordeal".

At the same time, I felt like the situation was beyond salvaging, and the
product indeed never saw the light of day. The silver lining is that the
habits I picked up when I set myself straight, both professionally and
personally, have been immensely useful in the years that followed.

Give it your best. I hope things work out for you.

------
x87678r
The WFH novelty has worn off and now it just sucks. Living in an apt that
feels like a prison. I realize my only real friends I see are colleagues so
now I see no one except for family. At the same time I really wish I had some
time by myself away from the family. School holidays are making this worse as
kids have nothing to do and I'm too busy working to help. Putting on weight,
losing fitness. Can't visit extended family because they're all in other
countries. Uncle diagnosed with terminal cancer, can't see him either. My
employer is slowly failing. I wanted a new job this year but have put it off
until the job market recovers.

The worst thing is it looks like it'll be like this for another year, ugh.

------
toyg
Hang in there, bud. It will get better, or the world will change enough to
make our lives more tolerable somehow.

I joke that I barely noticed covid19: I was already socially-isolated enough
(have been working from home for almost a decade, and in many ways I was/am
already depressed for my own reasons) that the only change was my hair getting
pretty long and my kids getting bored at home. I know I cannot complain - got
a steady job just before the lockdown, my financial situation is not terrible,
I have a garden to milk any ray of sunshine that Northern England might grant
us...

BUT

I've given up on therapy, as there is no way for me to make any progress on my
personal problems in these circumstances. I was supposed to spend a couple of
weeks on a beach for the first time in years - it didn't happen and it might
not happen for many more months. My parents can only see their grandkids every
few months and now we're well overdue. I live in fear that my new employer
will eventually feel the hurt and they'll have to cut, with LIFO putting a big
target on my back. Even if I keep this job, my dreams of independence were
shattered last year and there is no way to try again in these circumstances.

So it's shit really, but what can we do? Sometimes the planet just tries to
kills us and all we can do is endure.

------
Grimm1
I went from being alone for 9 weeks to not being a lone at all for the last 6
weeks at my parents. Different but more tolerable downsides. I'm doing mostly
fine and still grinding away on work but wake up finding that I'm more and
more angry about everything being disrupted from covid at an age where I
should be out kicking ass and taking names and angrier still that I think I'm
doing the rational and community focused thing by staying inside minimizing
trips to the store and then watching people shirk and go on like nothing is
happening.

I know it's temporary but how things have gone during lockdown have changed my
opinion on my country and a lot of the people in it and that's not temporary.

------
ljf
On some levels is has been good, my work is incredibly caring and supportive
and I've found great connections with my boss and the team.

But in a personal level is has been terrible - my wife had covid for 2 weeks -
which was rough but not life threatening. Then she got post viral syndrome and
has been laid up for the last 90 days - even just going up the stairs wipes
her out for a couple of hours. She is a fit and healthy 40yo who normally does
yoga each day and exercises far more than I do. So having to watch her go
through this has been terrible, at least we've had our kids to keep me going
and busy, but it has been damn busy. As I said very lucky to have a flexible
and welcoming employer who has given me all the space I need - but I'm still
feeling in a personal level like I'm failing.

To top it off my son (who had no covid symptoms) has had an on and off bladder
infection for weeks which they are now wondering is linked to covid and some
possible kidney damage. The guilt as I was the last of us to leave the house
before we locked down is huge.

Just so sad for my wife right now and no clear end in sight - some people on
her long term covid group get better, other regress. It is similar to ME - so
terrified it may be with her for life.

------
ikpomtdk
Well. Okay, I think. Thanks for asking. My partner and I were fortunate enough
to switch to full remote work right as the pandemic started in NYC early
March. We were even more fortunate to have a family's 2nd home upstate to flee
to for some fresh air and space.

Work has been manageable. As some mentioned, definitely a lot more hectic
dealing with varying WFH personalities across the organization. Not every day
is a productive day but it doesn't feel too far off pre-pandemic productivity
levels (including all the time lost in commutes/meetings/etc.

Personally, my partner and I have had some challenges: -Cancelled and
postponed our wedding to 2021 -Nearly lost a family member to COVID -Lost 2
grandparents to non-COVID related illness But ultimately, spirits are better
than expected. Our biggest challenge now is deciding whether to re-sign our
lease in NYC and start spending more meaningful time there this fall. To be
honest, I can't see the COVID risk being all too much different there vs.
other parts of the tri-state and major populated areas. I think it might come
down to how much is open and what sort of quality of life that provides
outside of our small, but not unmanageable, apartment.

------
rsrx
I broke up with a girlfriend shortly before whole hell broke loose, so
February to April lockdown has been the loneliest time in my life, but I
powered through it by working a lot (two fulltime jobs + startup) and having
few close friends that I hung out with. Also started doing yoga and meditation
which immensely alleviated anxiety and loneliness.

All in all, I held up pretty well, but I don't think I would be able to power
through another lockdown. I'm from Belgrade, Serbia and looking to fly
somewhere warm and remote for the fall and winter (Thailand/Bali/Mexico) where
I'd have more freedom than being locked down in an apartment.

------
viewer5
An anxious wreck. Working from home, staying isolated because I'm taking care
of someone with no immune system. The isolation is killing me. In the last few
weeks I've stopped being able to fall asleep half the nights.

------
UnpossibleJim
It's weird is an understatement. On the one hand, the remote work is great. I
don't commute, so I see my 5 year old all day even though I'm working. I don't
have to go into the city. My lunch breaks are in the backyard with the dog and
my kid and my mom who watches my son. I've switched to 4 tens, which I love.

On the other hand, the news cycle is an ever present anxiety machine. Even
when I don't tune into it, it filters in through texts and my wife. I worry
that the medical supply lines are going to become unstable and that will be
that, and there's only so long a type I diabetic will last without medical
supply. It's odd that everyone else seems to be excited for some Mad Max style
revolution, and I just want some kind of normality. I feel like the kid at the
house party worrying about people scratching the table and breaking dishes
while everyone else is having fun.

It's a strange dichotomy, this time we live in.

------
mcv
I'm holding up quite well. I'm still working from home, but my kids are going
to school again, which helps a lot. Our holiday to Sweden was cancelled, so
we're renting a campervan and touring around our own country (Netherland)
instead. We're well aware we've got it relatively easy compared to many other
people.

But if these times are so hard on you, why don't you share a bit more about
your situation?

(I'm assuming this is still about the Corona crisis. Or is it about the unrest
in the US instead?)

~~~
jacobush
The US thing scares me _way_ more. Not in a surprised way, the worlds
superpower has been in freefall for some time now, I hope it does what it has
been good at throughout its history and reinvents itself into something
better. If not, we're all in for a world of hurt.

~~~
mcv
The US scares me both in Corona terms (cases seem to be moving up whereas in
most of the world they've been going down a lot), and in terms of what looks
to me like extreme entitlement of the police forces, literally demanding the
right to kill people, rejecting any attempt at accountability, and attacking
peaceful protesters against police violence.

Several US police forces make it look like the only way forward is to
completely abandon existing police forces and start over. I really hope the
protesters win this, otherwise it seems to me you're basically accepting a
police state.

~~~
jacobush
The Police thing is just a symptom of deeper ills. But I think if these ills
can be remedied, the rest of the patient has a greater chance of surviving.

------
k__
Pretty good.

Things went pretty well in Germany and since I already worked from home since
2014, my work wasn't affected. I started a lecturer gig at a local university,
but they gave me total freedom to do it remote.

I was lucky in many ways.

I moved in a new flat end of January, where I could have a dedicated home
office and home gym.

Because I'm not a very social person, I was okay with not going to events
anymore.

I'm also polyamor, so I had 4 partners I could met in that time, which helped
a lot.

------
Jetroid
I'm doing well. Ironically I think I'm doing better now than I would have been
if the pandemic didn't happen; but still not in a particularly good position.
Optimistic, though!

If you're struggling, it's probably because the systems that you put in place
at the start of the pandemic have broken down. (Kinda like how we eventually
forget/give up on New Years Resolutions...)

I'd recommend these[1] two[2] videos from CGP Grey to help. The first talks
about the kind of things that you might be doing that are making you
miserable, and the second about specific ways in which we can cope with the
pandemic (and specifically a lockdown, if you are still in one).

Brief notes:

Avoid doing any of these things:

* Staying still, avoiding exercise

* Having an irregular sleep schedule

* Maximizing screen time; going to sleep looking at your phone, and using it as soon as you wake up

* Encouraging negative emotions, eg: by looking at the news

* Setting unmeasurable or unachievable goals. Waiting for motivation to strike.

* Obsessing over trying to be happy.

* Following your self-destructive impulses

Partition your house/space into the following spaces, and try to obey these
rules about the spaces:

* A space for exercise. If you don't have equipment, you can do body weight exercises. If you have access to safe outdoor spaces, make sure to use that too. Make sure you set a minimum amount of time, and stick to it.

* A space for sleep. Do not use your phone here. Do not eat here. Do not linger here. It's just for sleep. If you're failing to sleep, leave and try again later. Setting an alarm to wake up is important to maintaining a consistent sleep schedule. It doesn't matter when you wake up - so long as the time is consistent.

* A recreation zone. Go here to do activities that you actually enjoy. Only do these activities if you intend to give them your full attention. Keep an eye on the quality of the recreation, and make sure you set a maximum time limit.

* A creation zone. Somewhere to work, study, or develop skills. Crafts, coding, cooking. Make sure this space is dedicated; so do not consume entertainment here, do not eat here.

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LO1mTELoj6o](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LO1mTELoj6o)
[2]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snAhsXyO3Ck](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snAhsXyO3Ck)

~~~
randomsearch
If you have room for all those spaces in your house, you’re extremely luck. I
work, sleep, and exercise in the same room. I’m not unusual in that respect.

~~~
Jetroid
Hence why I said house/space. I currently live in a single (small) room, too.

Every room has four walls.

My room is dedicated like this:

Northern wall: Desk with laptop. Go here for work/creativity.

Southern wall: My bed is here. Sleep only.

Eastern wall: My worktop is here for cooking.

Western wall: I drag my chair over here when I want to read or watch
something.

Floor in the middle: Exercises.

You don't need to have a lot of space to make dedicated spaces. It's more of a
mental thing.

~~~
kieckerjan
If you have only one desk that you use for work and recreation, here is a
little hack: switch chairs. I have a work chair and a "lazy" chair. Same desk,
different feeling. Works for me.

------
philjohn
Not too bad - my commute was 1h15m each way so I've got lots of extra time,
I'm fortunate to have a dedicated office at home and a garden to relax in - I
know I'm somewhat of an outlier though, and appreciate just how lucky I am.

I'm also moving jobs and it's going to be interesting ramping up remotely.

------
EnderMB
Surprisingly well, given the circumstances.

Before lockdown, I had already been looking for jobs. Since then, I've been
rejected pre-interview by a handful of companies, and have bombed out of a
handful of interviews at the final stage.

I was also made redundant a few weeks ago, so I'm nearing the point where I
need to find myself a new job.

Despite that, it's been weirdly nice to sit at home, on my own, and simply
learn again. Obviously, I'm freaking out about being out of work soon, but I'm
hopeful that the stars will align and at least one company will offer me
something.

------
ketanmaheshwari
Personally, I am doing OK. But worried about the folks that I know are not
doing OK and have a sense of helplessness about the situation.

I have high hopes that the world is going to be better only from here. These
hopes are backed up by seeing signs of empathy among so many online and
offline communities.

------
cafemachiavelli
I am not having a great time and I'm not entirely sure why. A broad list of
factors:

I'm slowly passing the this-is-mostly-easy threshold in University. I expected
that, but it's still somewhat sad. Before, I could put in the time and finish
any homework on my own, now I get stuck on exercises or lecture notes fairly
frequently. I've noticed that I easily obsess over the meta ("I should have
read the notes vs watched the recording, that cost so much time") and I'm
making some progress as far as not feeling guilty for not performing
perfectly.

I'm also not sure what I actually want to do. I was cautiously eyeing academia
because I like the idea of intellectual freedom (in CS, so not as concerned
about the culture war) and enjoy teaching, but I haven't really found a field
that fully interests me yet. Both theoretical CS and technical CS sound
intriguing, but I haven't found a sweet spot that is a) easy enough to be
tractable and b) significant enough to be rewarding. I think this is mostly
hitting me right now because of a lowered sense of self-efficacy and mild
burnout that makes any problem look uninteresting, but I still yearn for some
long-term goal that excites me and I can't find one.

I had surgery last week and have been mostly tuning that out. I'm not in any
pain, but do have to wear a compression vest that gives my breathing issues if
I use my ADD medication. So I'm a bit more foggy and unfocused then usual,
which to be fair is still much better than having to gasp for air all day.

------
justaguyhere
Not good. What is really depressing is this is going to last a lot longer than
I had hoped. Even more depressing is so many people just don't seem to care -
all they have to do is wear masks and gloves and take some super simple
precautions. People with great reach like Joe Rogan aren't helping either, not
to mention dumb politicians and leaders.

For now I have a job, but nothing is certain. Also feel helpless seeing so
many people suffering and not being able to help ...

------
exdsq
It's been quite tough but also a blessing in disguise. I've managed to stop
drinking (I was a regular "party goer" on the Weekends - I blame English
culture) and feel a lot healthier for it. I wouldn't have managed cutting it
out as my social circles built around the pub/clubs so being forced to stay
home really helped curb that habit. I just need to work on the diet and
exercise now but feeling 10x better than I was four months ago.

------
redleggedfrog
Well, seems like we're living in interesting times, but as a curse, doesn't
seem so bad.

Having a relatively secure job makes a _lot_ of difference I think. Mine has
stayed consistent, with a few months of working at home, and now back in the
office with a skeleton crew.

Thing is, I never swung for the fences. I've stayed in jobs that didn't pay as
much as I might have left for, but they were secure, and allowed me to build
up, so now in my early 50's I make at least 1/2 as much from investments each
year as salary (total 200K+ a year living outside of a major metropolitan
area). My spouse did the same, so together we're doing fine financially, and I
think that security helps our piece of mind a lot. We've always been saving
for the rainy day, and now that it's here, we're coasting a bit.

So we do what we did before anyway - head out to the woods, bike, hike, play
board games, the random video game, and keep up our garden and yard. We're
simple people with simple needs so we're easy to please. Probably the only
thing we miss is travel - we used to head south to Mexico or South America
every two years, and that's on hold, of course.

Oh, and zero, zero, zero social media and mainstream news. I mean _none_. I
think that helps me a lot. I don't even enjoy NPR. If it's not something in
depth and reasoned, I don't even bother. The world at large really holds very
little for me, except places like here (HN) where there is technically
interesting ideas to explore.

I feel for the folks that are struggling, though. I can completely see the
"There but by the grace of God go I." I really like seeing people step up to
help in this thread. You're my heroes for the day. Thank you.

------
Loughla
Right now - really good. WFH has been amazing for myself and my staff's
productivity and teamwork. Everyone is comfortable. Everyone feels more at
ease to 'bring themselves to their work' and it's having a definite positive
impact on our outcomes.

In about a week - terrible. As I have stated in other threads, my work has
banned all remote work once we're forced back next week. Banned. Outright. So
those of us with children and no childcare, or those with comorbidities are
just screwed. The anxiety about that is building. Luckily, I have a neighbor
that can watch my child until school is back in session. But I honestly don't
know what I'm going to do in August. Our daycare has been and will remain
limited in the number of kids it can take. The school is looking at a 2
day/week schedule to reduce the number of kids in the building. If that
happens, I have a 7 year old with zero options for daytime care. I do not have
enough PTO to take those days off, nor could I and keep my job, even if I had
the time.

Hopelessness is starting to creep in.

------
offbynull
It was a serious low point for me when all of this started. No friends or
family in this city, long distance relationship collapsed, and my only sources
of interaction with people (our physical office and my gym across the street)
closed down.

Since then I've done a few things to help pull back some sanity...

* I took up running. Every day I try to run a little farther and take a new path. Last Saturday I was able to do a 20k fasted AM run. It was the first time in my life I was able to run that far without stopping.

* I filled my duffel bag with jugs of water and used that for weight training instead. It doesn't really take the place the gym but it's better than nothing.

* I started taking flights to the bay area to visit my family in 2 week cycles.

I'm physically fine right now, but like some of the other people here I wish I
had some friends / co-workers / general people to hang around and talk with.
If you're in a similar situation, in your 30s, and live around Boston, feel
free to drop me a line at this username at gmail. I would be more than happy
to come out and chill.

------
m0xte
Best time for me in a while. Have focused on productivity, organisation and
both mental and physical health over everything because I have the time now
I’m not doing things I thought I should be doing but didn’t need to do.
Achieved more in the last three months than the last three years.

Insanely perhaps, I sold nearly everything I own on eBay as well. This was
liberating too.

------
cipher_314159
I've been better.

I just lost my drivers license due to a medical issue (my "controlled"
epilepsy ain't so much any more). My partner left for a six-week trip
recently. I'm working from home because my office still can't open up. Most of
the stuff near me is still shut down. I'm effectively restricted to a
relatively small radius around my house.

I'm trying to get out as much as I can, and go as far as I can. I'm taking the
opportunity to get more cycling in-- which is my hobby anyway, but it feels
odd in light of the fact that now it's my ONLY reasonable option for, say,
getting to the grocery store.

I think if my partner were home, I'd be okay. I think if I had my license and
could just go around and take a drive somewhere, I'd be okay. I think if work
were back to normal and I could spend the days working with people in close
proximity, I'd be okay.

But it's _everything_ together that's just screwing me up. I feel isolated. I
feel trapped. I'm losing weight because I'm not bothering to cook or eat
beyond the occasional slice of toast or handful of trail mix. I'm not sleeping
well, which is making my seizures worse, which is going to make the wait for
my license reinstatement take that much longer. All the stuff reinforces all
the other stuff, which makes it difficult to break out of it.

I don't know. I'm lucky that my seizure are not, comparatively speaking, all
that bad. I'm lucky that I have a job, and that I can work from home-- plenty
of my neighbors and friends are out of work. I'm SUPREMELY lucky to have the
love of an incredible woman whom I love dearly, and who makes me want to be a
better person. I'm lucky to be able-bodied enough to go cycling, and I'm
definitely lucky to have the money to afford my groceries.

All in all, I don't have it bad at all. But everything just feels like shit
right now.

~~~
GaryNumanVevo
Hey, that really sucks about the license issue! Tooling around in my car is
one of the few things keeping me sane. Hopefully you live somewhere nice
enough to bike consistently. My SO and I have been walking and cycling a ton.

I understand that feeling lucky but everything feels like shit. I hope you
start to feel better!

------
yibg
Really strange. In some aspects it's been great, in others terrible.

On the plus side, not having to commute, cooking more at home and generally
having more time (because a lot of things we used to do we can't any more) has
been great. Also fortunately I am employed and my company is doing well.

On the other hand, monotony has really set in, where each day feels the same.
Despite cooking more I'm less healthy now than before, because I sit in the
same chair most of the day and have been exercising a lot less than before
(used to play group sports). I really miss traveling and exploring new places.
And lastly haven't really interacted socially with anyone besides my
girlfriend since this thing started. I've also been spending a lot more time
than I should on news and social media, I guess as a way to feel connected to
the world.

All in all it's been an interesting ride but I want off now.

------
mark-ruwt
"Spaceship You" by CGP Grey has been a really powerful re-calibration tool for
me whenever I feel unbalanced:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snAhsXyO3Ck](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snAhsXyO3Ck)

------
LeonM
I'm happy to say that things are going better now.

Since I'm not in a relationship and I live alone, loneliness kicked in hard.
Dating is also very impractical right now, so all I've done is just working 7
days a week.

Luckily in my country (Netherlands) the COVID counter-measures are now slowly
being relaxed. Social live is slowly picking up again.

I have returned to my office a couple of weeks ago already. I have a private
office in a shared building, so I can keep distance. This helped tremendously,
I am happy to have people around me again. Since 2 weeks bars and restaurants
are also allowed to open, I noticed that the ability to go out for a drink
(although alone) tremendously helps my well-being.

------
N1H1L
Parts of my company have come back onsite, while other parts are still WFH.
There really has been no rubric for bringing people back to work, but rather
how political or aggressive different division heads have been.

But you know what? It could be a lot, lot worse. I still have a job - the hit
to my productivity is manageable, and my wife also has her job too. Every day
I see on Linkedin, people posting about how they have been laid off. These are
people with 5-10 years of work experience post-MBA (often from prestigious
schools) and I am still really grateful to not face any financial hurdles
_yet_.

------
DoubleGlazing
Not great, but others are having it much worse.

For me it's the fact that all our normal stress relief outlets are shut that
is the big issue. The children can't go to scouts, my daughter can't do her
ballet classes and my son can't see his friends. My wife leads a few choirs
which were very social, but now she has to run rehearsals over Zoom which is a
pain. I'd love to go fishing or camping, but I can't. I am a radio ham, but
having just one hobby available to you can get a bit dull after a while.

The biggest issue for us is our work schedules. For a few months before it all
went a bit weird I had been gradually setting up my own business. A mixed bag
of IT consultancy jobs and app development. I was happy with it and I had to
the time to put in to it when the kids were at school. The lockdown messed all
that up as my wife is a speech therapist and now has to do teletherapy from
home. Unfortunately that is something she has to do during the day - thus I
have to look after the children during the day. That includes homeschooling,
cooking cleaning etc.

My wife has to put in a full 9 to 5 shift. It's not just a few Zoom meetings,
but also note and report writing. So after she finishes work, we have dinner,
a bit of family time and then if I'm lucky I might have an hour or two to work
on my own things - I'm not a great evening coder.

When it all kicked off I had some plans to learn and achieve new things that I
thought the lockdown would give me time to do. Stuff like learn welding, do
some redecorating and learning Unity. In reality this has been the busiest
period I've had since having children. Plus I've put on a fair bit of weight
so that is one more thing to deal with.

That being said, we still have a good income. My wife's work is secure, in
fact she is earning more with the teletherapy model. But, her employer has
given up the lease on their office as they can't see a return to face-to-face
working for quite some time. I have a few passive income streams. We have good
family whom we can keep in tough with via Zoom etc. Putting it all into
perspective we are Okay compared to some others who must really be struggling.

Edit: Plus our children's sleep schedules have gone completely bonkers.

------
woohoo7676
I've worked remotely for the past several years, so that part has
unfortunately not been a benefit for me.

Not being able to go to coffee shops/coworking spaces for socialization, as
well as not seeing friends in person has really started taking a toll in terms
of depression. I am an introvert, however people often confuse that for not
wanting any social interaction. I do prefer to have social interaction, just
with close friends and usually in smaller groups (followed by rest after).

I do realize that I am lucky to still have a job and be healthy. Still, it has
been a tough time.

------
dec0dedab0de
Surprisingly well, especially since I was diagnosed with lymphoma a week
before they made the stay at home order. I already work from home, so that was
no change. One thing that has been an improvement is the freedom to do nothing
without feeling bad about it. I used to feel like I was letting myself down if
I stayed home for a month straight, but now it's like I have permission.

For unrelated reasons, I had decided in December I would be sober all of 2020.
I have a feeling that things would be much worse if I were drinking during all
of this.

------
saltminer
I'm doing an internship this summer, so getting on-boarded and getting up to
speed remotely has been...difficult, to say the least. I'm basically on-
boarded now, with the one exception of edit access to Confluence (2 weeks of
our managers escalating has done nothing thus far, apparently the other
interns are in the same boat). I've found that the best way to decrease
distraction, despite sitting right next to my desktop, is to use a KVM switch.
For some reason, having to wait 2 seconds for it to switch to my desktop
(instead of having a separate KB/M for each) makes it a lot easier to ignore
it, even though my desktop and laptop are hooked up to separate monitors
(decent KB/M/VGA KVMs are expensive enough, I'm not shelling out for an HDMI
one).

Since I'm remote, I went home. Staying with my mom has been really enjoyable.
I've gotten a lot closer with her, and gotten to enjoy her cooking again. If
this had happened a year ago I probably would have hated it, but things are
much better now. My vacation plans got cancelled, but I am happy to spend time
here.

When my school sent everyone home after spring break, the first few weeks were
rough (dealing with loneliness), but I have basically gotten used to it now. I
have old high school friends I could visit, but since my mom is a doctor, it
is best that I minimize exposure lest I get infected, pass it to her, and she
transmit it to dozens of patients before finding out.

------
barrucadu
Honestly it's pretty great.

I think the lack of commuting has been a real benefit to my life. I've got
back into reading regularly, back into the habit of cooking healthily almost
every day (well, except for one or two takeaways a month if I'm feeling lazy),
and I've smashed through a lot of stuff on my to-do list which had been
lingering there for months or years. I've also had the time to start up a
second weekly game group, so I'm now in 4 RPG sessions a fortnight (done over
Discord and roll20). And finally I've been getting more sleep, I'm
consistently getting >8 hours a night for the first time in years.

I like my own space a lot. Since moving away from home to start university,
I've hated living with people. So having almost no in-person contact since
late March hasn't bothered me at all.

Regarding work, I have a very stable job and absolutely no worries about being
let go, so no concerns there. I've been less productive, but not to the extent
that anyone has commented on it. So, no less productive than anyone else has
been. It's been very nice getting away from the open office, though.

Recently I took a week off work. I couldn't go anywhere, of course, but just
having a week to myself with no commitments at all, just being able to sleep
in, read books, do some programming... it was great.

I wouldn't mind things remaining this way for the rest of the year.

------
golergka
I was okay-ish for the first couple of months, but now it all came crashing
down.

About a month ago, I ended a serious relationship, and since gf moved out and
I started quarantining alone, it became so much harder. I still stand by that
decision, but it couldn't been worse time to become isolated. Got into one of
the worst depressive episodes I've ever had. Lost my job, and then couldn't
keep a sweet, high-paying remote gig that was supposed to be the next one.
Fucked up responsibilities and ended things badly, fully guilty and feeling
it. Sleeping 16 hours a day, spending waking hours completely aimlessly. My
amazing friends and family try to pull me out of it, and I'm okay while I'm
around them, but then I either go home tired and alone, or a quiet friendly
get-together turns into a wild party with lots of booze and coke and hard
depressive hangover for the next few days. My chronic health problems (blood
flow to the brain) got much worse, and I even got myself to see the doctor and
get some pills, but still can't change my life in a serious way to prevent it;
it looks like I have a very high risk of having a stroke in the next month or
two, but I just can't bring myself to care about it.

And the worst part of it is, I see myself climbing out of this hole, again,
getting a good job, looking after my health, being a productive member of
society, all that – and I see nothing to be inspired about. In my previous
life, and in my possible future life, that looks just the same, there's just
nothing worth of all that effort of living.

------
CalRobert
It's over 100 degrees Fahrenheit in the Arctic Circle. Vast amounts of methane
are wait in the permafrost.

Despots and tyrants are gaining power. The world's most powerful nation has a
billion people and no concern for ethics. Everyday people - myself included! -
live in a system where fighting to improve these things means risking your
kids' home, healthcare, and well being.

I'm a nervous wreck and when I look at my beautiful daughters, who are the
most loving creatures I've ever met, my joy at their existence is filled with
horror at the idea they will witness the end of civilization, perhaps the
species.

Worst, perhaps, is that normally this kind of fear subsides after study. Most
of the things we worry about are not, really, that big a deal, in a species-
wide sense.

Climate breakdown is the one topic I know where the experts are more scared
than regular people, not less.

I have been trying to find liberal democracies with arable land in cool
climates with a credible national defence, and have found none.

[https://twitter.com/solar_chase/status/1021686779093680128](https://twitter.com/solar_chase/status/1021686779093680128)
puts it well.

"Honestly, I fear my daughter will have to kill innocent people or be killed
in the struggle over the earth's shrinking habitable places."

~~~
jmnicolas
> I have been trying to find liberal democracies with arable land in cool
> climates with a credible national defence, and have found none.

I think Switzerland checks all your points.

IMO you're way over dramatic about the climate. But even if you're right, why
worry for something you can't change ?

~~~
CalRobert
Could they repel China? Russia? I think the best hope is NATO becoming
meaningful again.

~~~
jmnicolas
Fwiw even Hitler didn't dare to invade Switzerland.

But China and Russia don't have the will nor the capacity to invade Europe
anyway.

NATO is the one threatening, bombing and invading countries (Yugoslavia,
Libya, Syria etc).

------
dgellow
What about you? How are you doing? I expect that if you’re asking, you have
something to share.

------
cddotdotslash
Fairly well, all things considered. I've been using the forced isolation time
to set (and try to achieve) several personal goals that I didn't have time for
previously. I've been contributing to open source and writing more, which has
had a surprisingly good impact for career prospects (after publishing an
article that got a good amount of traction I had a 5x increase in recruiters
reaching out, even though I'm not actively looking).

I also got accepted to speak at a (now virtual) industry conference which
checked another goal I had set for the year.

Outside of work I've also reconnected with a number of friends from college
who live in different places. Lately I've seen a lot more people reconnecting
this way; I suppose the forced quarantine changes the dynamics of who is "easy
to hang out with" since everyone is confined.

My wife and I have been taking evening walks a lot more, which has been good
for our physical and mental health.

The only things that have been difficult are not being able to visit older
family members, not being able to enjoy the typical NYC activities, or hang
out in person with friends, and traveling. We used to travel 6-8 times a year
and are really itching to get out of the apartment these days.

------
austincheney
Ok. I was in forced quarantine for two weeks starting at the beginning of May
at Fort Hood. I spent that two weeks with some wonderful people from an
Alabama transportation unit. Then I was isolated for a month awaiting a flight
to Kuwait.

I got here, to Kuwait, last week and was forced into quarantine again because
some people on the flight had not gone through quarantine yet. It’s been a
little lonely. After four or five days I was able to get a hold of an electric
socket adapter so that I can recharge my phone and laptop. Life was a little
rough without electricity for my personal devices while locked into this
quarantine camp. In this forced quarantine area we cannot access any form of
shopping and I really need some laundry detergent. This morning a cute little
mouse tickled my foot and that spooked me a bit. After about 2 to 3 days here
we started getting some cooked meals. I have gained a new appreciation for
MREs.

Since I have separated from my corporate job and family I have gotten a lot of
programming complete on a personal project. This morning I completed a major
milestone on secure software routing for this decentralized file transfer
project that executes with a fast GUI in the browser.

------
throw-927d987
I'm sorry, I don't wanna complain. Neither me nor any of my loved ones have
been made sick by the virus. Very few have lost their jobs, and I and they
live in a country where the social safety net is strong. I shouldn't complain.

But since you asked. I'm not holding up. I was already pretty deep in a semi-
regular depression valley, triggered by some bad decisions regarding
relocation and leaving a line of work. In hindsight, I was stupid. Then covid
took away the little social life I had in my new location. And made the future
so damn uncertain. And showed me how brittle everything is, how even if you do
everything just right, it can all come crumbling down at any time. I'm not
even doing anything right. I've managed to build up a good skillset and a good
degree and an OK CV, but only through sheer luck. I now have none of the drive
that made me able to obtain those things. Nothing pushes me anymore. If I
could get back on track, this whole covid and the crumbling of liberal
democracy situation has shown that it can still all come crashing down at any
point.

What's the point. If I could barely "make it" when I was younger, had a fire
lit in me, a large social circle, etc., how am I going to have a chance when I
get older every day, there's barely an ember in my soul, my poor decisions
have physically distanced me from my close friends (and hell, we all know
those things disintegrate with age anyway, it was all existing on loaned time,
making younger and younger friends to compensate). I'm so close to giving up.
Don't take it the wrong way. Life isn't pain yet, so I'll go on slogging, but
I'm close to stopping struggling and just let it slide into a gray monotony.
The longing for a fire and a desire is so painful that it's better to just
forget about it. To just go with safe. Lock it down. Time to grow up, I guess.
In my mid-30s. I don't like this, one bit. I really don't fit in in society.
Which would be charming if I were a risk-taking adventurer who "lived life to
its fullest". But no, I'm deeply risk-averse at heart. Luck and great people
put me into niches where I blossomed. It's all charming when you're in your
mid 20s and you're "promising".

And yes, I am going to therapy. I'm learning a lot, but it's not "helping".

I'm so tired.

Thanks for listening.

------
throwaway131313
Not too great.

Have been working on a startup idea as a solo developer for some time and
everything was on track. MVP was almost complete and had a verbal agreement
with an investor for a pre-seed investment which was going to allow me to fund
a solid team (the team was ready to go as well). Then the pandemic hit.
Investor bailed out, my personal savings got dried up as I've been funding
myself for some time and bills started piling up.

Still pushed forward, got the MVP ready and collected some solid leads to
reach out to. Yet, beyond this it's all pitch black as I got to find freelance
gigs to pay the rent - which is not going well either - meanwhile pursuing
clients, doing development, doing marketing, fixing bugs and a whole bunch of
other things for my startup. It's a constant stream of fires that are waiting
to be put out.

Have never been one to quit and don't think I will this time either but just
giving up, giving up everything looks way too attractive.

Throwaway, because I don't really feel comfortable talking about these issues
publicly. Thank you OP for asking, had been looking for an opportunity to
vent. Hope we'll all pull through these terrible times.

------
anthony_r
Pissed off at work. The workload is up since pre-Corona, management says "do
more with less". All of this in addition to the work-unrelated stress.

------
CM30
Honestly, quite poorly overall. It's a tad surprising given how much I usually
enjoy working from home and what not, and how much time I now have for hobbies
and what not... but I guess the repetition and lack of any real routine has
actually got to me here.

I'd also say the following three factors hurt it too:

1\. The feeling you're wasting your time. If you go by Hacker
News/Reddit/Product Hunt/other sites, you'd think everyone and their dog has
built some world changing product or service in this lockdown period, and that
you're a complete failure for not having managed to do the same.

2\. The lack of alternatives. Previously, working remotely was fun because
there were other things you could do, and other entertainment you could enjoy
if you were burnt out. In this lockdown, you basically can't go on holiday,
visit any interesting places, buy things in most shops, eat in any
restaurants, etc. There's nothing except 'do work' and 'work on your side
projects'

That's left me in a situation where I feel like I'm just not able to do
anything, and have little to no motivation to even try to do anything.

------
Kiro
I'm in a country where there hasn't been any lockdown but I've taken the
opportunity to go into voluntarily isolation anyway. I don't like people so it
has been a blessing to finally be able to just bail on all social activities
with a good reason and help the society at the same time.

I could continue like this for the rest of my life so very happy about my
personal situation. Still worried about the world though.

~~~
thewhitetulip
You at least have an option. Here, we were not allowed to step out of the
house even inside the apartment complex. Just sit at home.

From the outside, it feels great. We get to spend time at home. But it causes
anxiety and mild depression, if I am using the terms correctly.

Also, lockdowns can't continue forever. Almost every country is now opening up
their lockdown.

------
ryandrake
Very bimodal range of responses! People are either loving this or are having
the worst experiences of their lives. Seems that the key driver of whether
people are enjoying this or not is 1. whether they are still employed and 2.
whether they have a life outside of work. The people whose only friends are
co-workers and who wrap their entire identity up in their work are probably in
a pretty bad place right now.

Personally, I'm in the "love" camp. I have gotten ~5 hours of my each day back
due to not having to commute, which is 5 more hours for my family, my hobbies,
outdoor activity, etc. It's great. I'm getting so many things done and fixed
around the house. Making a lot of progress on wood working and metal working
hobbies. Taking time to exercise and get outside more. My work schedule has
remained pretty much the same but minus the commute it's like I have a second
life to fill with things to do! I'm an extrovert, so I thought WFH would be a
real bummer and drag, but the benefits are vastly outweighing the drawbacks of
fewer human interactions.

------
_bxg1
Great in some ways and terribly in other ways.

I started off by discovering that social obligations were a huge stressor for
me: I often wanted to do things by myself, but I nearly always felt guilty
about it, dwelling on all the friendships I wasn't investing in, imagining
myself becoming isolated and truly alone. Now I can schedule a couple of
FaceTime calls a week, text a couple other people occasionally, and have my
social obligations met. And I'm fortunate to live with my partner so we can
give each other a baseline level of human contact. This has freed me to really
dive in and embrace a couple of hobbies I had been robbing myself of.

On the other hand: I'm incredibly stressed about the state of the world and
the future of our society. I feel powerless, I feel cognitive dissonance about
how _wrong_ so many things seem, I feel like things are falling apart around
me. These feelings are probably exaggerated by generalized anxiety and
secondary information sources, but it's hard to shake them off without being
able to go out into the world and see some degree of normalcy- that some
things, at least where I live, are a semblance of okay. It also wouldn't hurt
to have the option of distracting myself with a movie, or some tacos and a
margarita, every once in a while.

And then there's all the little stressors: sanitizing grocery deliveries one
item at a time every week, not being able to properly go to the doctor for
non-emergencies without risking exposure to a deadly disease. Even taking
walks is a bit stressful, having to constantly navigate around other walkers
in our neighborhood to make sure we're all keeping our distance. These things
were terrifying for the first couple weeks, then they became normal, and now
they've become grating. Part of me definitely just feels tired.

------
baud147258
I can't stand WFH and it's been extended until end of September. WFH doesn't
even save me any commute time since I live 10 min on foot of my office. But
apart from that, everything's mostly peachy for me and my family (though one
uncle had an heart surgery, it went fine) and close relationships. Though
living in Western Europe might make some things easier compared to Americans.

------
mclovinit
I've always been a fairly private person. My kids see me every other week and
we communicate via Telegram with random memes or silliness.

My personal projects are sort of stagnant but I'll occassionally try to tinker
with Rust, hone my front end skills or just dump more hours into real work.

My guitars probably annoy my neighbors as I slowly start to increase the
volume on my amp that much closer to 11.

I saw my brother after 2 months and a friend after 3. Dating just stopped in
all forms (e.g. virtual).

I'm reading The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham and taking "stock" in
my overall investment strategy and just trying to be more aware.

Been asking myself what I really want as a dude with over 23 years of IT
exposure, living by himself. The life questions really have become more
prominent during this time.

Lost my ex-brother in law who I really got along with. He died suddenly of
cardiac arrest due to stress. He was 33 yrs old. 10 yrs old when he came to
the US. It hurts a great deal thinking about that, but it forces me to ask
some serious questions about what I'm doing with my life.

------
rayraegah
[Work]: I switched jobs in November 2019 and I've been busy with the
transition from SDE to PM. I began working from home in February and I will
continue to do so till next year. I had to turn one of the spare bedrooms into
an office and discipline myself to stick to a 09:00 to 17:00 work schedule (So
far failed 90% of the time. I work till 20:00 everyday).

[Health]: With commute out of the picture, I take long walks at 23:00 every
night. Tokyo is a crowded city and the night time walks lets me avoid
crowds/people. I escape into the woods and off the beaten path during
weekends.

[Finance]: Financially secure for now since my new job is stable. I made the
right call at the end of last year. The startup I worked at previously is
going through a very rough time right now. The acquisition wasn't favourable,
they downsized and pivoted into an entirely different product.

[Play]: Keeping myself busy with gardening and video games.

Overall quality of life hasn't changed. I'm not an extrovert so I'm quite
comfortable with the stay home logic.

------
y-c-o-m-b
Depressed, but not because of the virus. I'm disillusioned with tech. I don't
want to write software anymore. I don't even want to look at a screen anymore.
I'm doing the bare minimum to make sure I don't get fired, but most days even
doing that is a struggle. When I get a notification on my phone, I want to
take a hammer and smash my phone into pieces.

The only things keeping me sane at the moment are camping (which I've been
doing every chance I get), yard-work, or sitting in my backyard and watching
bees gather nectar.

I'm the only one making a salary in my household which supports my wife and
kids. We have health issues also, so must have health insurance. With the
price of housing and groceries continuing to skyrocket - and one of my kids
approaching college age soon - it only re-enforces the idea that I have to
stay in this occupation for much longer. I want a simple work-to-live not
live-to-work life on some acreage, but I'm trapped in this suburban life-
style.

------
notagoodidea
Better now.

I was in the process of moving in Netherlands when the lockdown happened most
of my day-to-day stuff were already there when the borders closed with me on
the wrong side. I had to live with my mother during two months in my teenager
clothes doing remote working and my job as a TA with a 13" Fedora laptop
remotely connected to a Windows workstation and screen sharing through Teams.
It was painfull and very hard.

I managed to cross the borders last month and now, I am finishing my contract
in Belgium before going back to Netherlands and finding a job (and an
appartment) there.

I managed to put more money on the side during that time but it was the only
positive thing that happened the last three months. My focus was off, I was
highly unproductive. I have already WFH in the last year and it was good
because I was able to balance it with a active social life. Being stuck at
home with the space as a working desk, a sleeping roam and the only part of
the appartment where I could be alone was... well not a good time.

------
SamWhited
I'm definitely not doing well, but I suppose it could be worse. Between the
pandemic and the company I liked working for selling half the staff to another
company that I don't like working for (at the worst possible time to find a
new job), it's been a tough few months. My performance is down the tube, which
probably would have resulted in the new company firing me ages ago except that
I'm one of the only people left who knows the product (everyone else quit when
they cut our pay by 20% even though they don't seem to have been affected by
the pandemic and are just using it as an excuse to reduce expenses).

I've been trying to stay sane by working in my garden, cooking more elaborate
meals than I normally do, biking to the farmers market instead of driving to
the grocery store (more expensive, but it makes for a pleasant day out whereas
the grocery store is just a chore), and playing soccer on the weekends with my
COVID bubble.

------
hliyan
On March 15th, I landed in Sydney for what I thought was a quick, 14 day
business trip. Little did I know that for the next three months I'll have to
perform an already tough job from the confines of a room, barely meeting any
human beings, away from my family. There were days I thought I was going to
lose it. I managed to basically distract myself by working nonstop. Finally
back in my home country.

On the plus side, the experience made me realize that the human brain, much
like modern commercial aircraft, has a lot of excess/untapped capacity that
can be called upon in an emergency. I wrote this based on my experience:
[https://medium.com/@h_liyan/finding-time-
db449c8f8c10](https://medium.com/@h_liyan/finding-time-db449c8f8c10)

Overall, I think in the very long run, COVID-19 was good for the world's soul,
so to speak. I think we realized some things, both as individuals and as a
species.

------
mathattack
I have an unusually high tolerance for ambiguity and stress - yet I’m feeling
the anxiety too. A lot of it is the delicate balance between “when will this
end?”, “what’s the new normal?” and “what can I uniquely enjoy” all in the
context of both the disease and social unrest and awakening. If I am feeling
the anxiety, most people are.

------
ezimonbizkit
Up to now it’s been rough. But I’ve been worse.

I’m able to WFH and I’m in a spacious sunny place which helps a lot. Also, I’m
not alone as I live with my partner. However, provided that lots of startups
are laying off people, there’s be a slight chance that I would be laid off
too. That’s OK as I am a staunch believer that job security does not exist.

But It’s really hard to be calm with all that’s happening all over the world,
and with some family members living abroad, in countries where the pandemic is
hitting very hard. That’s the worst part.

Also, coping that your stack of choice is rather undervalued and rather "old",
makes it appealing to learn new stacks/languages, but hard to land jobs using
these new ones. Adding up the fact that there's no such thing as job security,
and that maybe I would be fired given the situation, puts the stress up.

I'll keep up anyhow, because I enjoy my work, and I'm willing to get better.

------
arcturus17
My self-discipline, motivation and focus have been blown to shit.

I still don’t know why - I don’t even have a hypothesis. Lack of fresh air,
social contact, exercise?

Luckily I think everything’s coming back. I’ve been doing Pomodoros to work on
my focus, and gyms re-opened yesterday here which is a godsend.

I trust that by working on discipline, motivation will follow in time.

------
gguevaraa
Having the time of my life. Yeah, there's a lot of stuff going on (BLM, The
Last of Us 2 being DOGSHIT, sensationalist news, etc.) but I've decided to
avoid that stuff cause "why would I do that my brain" (Bill Burr)?

I just spend my days coding, reading, and playing muh games. Gotta admit, I'm
loving 2020.

------
DarrenDev
Pretty good, all things considered.

We elected to stay in Lanzarote for the duration of the lock downs, working
remotely. It’s been great here, with good weather and very few cases, though
the Spanish lockdown was very extreme compared to Ireland’s. Working remotely
played out better than anticipated — an island far from home is no different
to home when the whole company is working remotely. Bit of an eye opener there
for sure!

We’re Leaving in four weeks to return to Dublin. Lost a lot of weight due to
healthy eating and a lack of junk food and processed food. Cut out the alcohol
almost entirely, and the stress levels dropped off a cliff after the first
week of lockdown.

The whole experience has raised a lot of questions about where and how we live
and work. The first thing I'll be doing when I get home is handing in my
notice on my over priced apartment in Dublin.

------
malstdec
It's ok in some senses and terrible in others. Being in a relatively small
apartment with a dog, and a fiance also working remotely is a huge pain.
There's days where we're both super busy and we feel more like roommates than
SOs. I love my dog, but he's young and needs to get his energy out, and some
days the monotony of taking him to the same park for exercise so he's content
while we both work really gets to me. Productivity is hard some days. I've
been getting stuff done in general, but there's days where nothing happens. I
don't worry for my job, but I feel a sense of guilt like I should be doing
more - after all, I have no distractions, right? I miss visiting my family -
window visits are nigh-impossible when with grandparents who are hard of
hearing.

------
falcolas
I’m angry.

I got screwed over by a re-org that went against previous (unwritten) company
policy, and now I’m just angry every time I see the exec talk about how well
they treat their employees.

I’m still not sure what to do about it. I had really liked the duties I had
there, but it sounds like the role I enjoyed no longer exists.

------
sodafountan
My girlfriend and I of 3 1/2 years broke up last month. I do partially blame
the virus for showing us that maybe we weren't as compatible as I thought. I'm
not great right now but I'm channeling my energy into self improvement, being
active again, work, and being more social.

------
maerF0x0
I'm not where I'd like to be, but I also am hopeful I'm on the way.

I was buried in "I'm the victim" mindset for most of the past 4 months. Most
opportunities were squandered because of fixed solution mindset (ie, I cant
work out because the gym is closed). In taking ownership of the situation
(instead of leaving it in Gavin Newsom's power hungry hands), I have been able
to begin moving forward utilising what is available to me.

Whereas I previously was skipping workouts because I was fixed on how to do
that, was medicating the pain/confusion of how to pivot with video games and
junk food, was not taking ownership of the situation. Now I am taking
ownership of what value can still be derived, ensuring I am doing the work
required of where I want to be.

------
WillDaSilva
Pretty fantastically. Despite not having a separate office I've found working
from home to be a blessing. I feel less stressed when in the comfort of my
home, and I can work on my own schedule. This results in me working when I
_feel_ like working, rather than when I happen to be at the office (which I
don't have a great deal of control over because I carpool). I can exercise all
throughout the day, which leads to me being more awake while working. No
longer do I have to stress over what others will think of my lunches, or what
I should wear to work that day. The time saved by not commuting is massive.
Not having to leave my social cats home alone every work day is nice too. I
hope I always have the option to work from home from now on.

------
erchwe
The virus came around as I was finishing my last semester of undergrad. I
began with a surprising boost in productivity and an elevated enjoyment in my
coursework, but as I began applying for jobs the situation became a little
more real to me. The lack of a graduation ceremony, virtual or in-person,
didn't help either.

My drive certainly isn't what it was a few months ago, but I'm thankful to
have reasonable social and emotional health and to be working part-time while
I look for something full-time, and I may be entering grad school for mech eng
this fall if nothing comes through. I'd welcome any comments or suggestions
from those of you who have been through grad school or job searching during
recessions.

------
rotexo
I'm lucky in that I work at an essential business, so I have been coming into
work this whole time, which gives me social interaction. I have a 1/2 hour
bike commute, so the commute part isn't an issue.

Downside: my girlfriend still lives with her parents (who have pre-existing
risk factors), so we have only been able to go on walks for the past several
months.

I have been avoiding my feelings by spending quite a bit of time after work in
Hyrule (Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild).

EDIT: I should say that I am overall very fortunate. Still employed doing
something that I like, safe and healthy, and my family is the same. My family
doesn't live near me, so I miss them and am not sure when I will next be able
to see them.

------
leashless
Seems less bad to me than the year or so that followed 9/11\. Bad and bad
enough though.

~~~
anonu
This pandemic is probably the worst human catastrophe since ww2.

~~~
jholman
What? Less than half a million deaths so far. Pretty serious, but definitely
not the worst human catastrophe since WW2.

There are a few dozen wars, civil wars, and genocides over the last 70 years
that resulted in more than half a million deaths. Plus of course much non-
death related suffering. Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran-Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Rwanda,
Ethiopia, Congo.

Plus some real stand-outs, like the Korean War (2M - 3M?), the Vietnam War (1M
- 4M?), the Khmer Rouge mass killings (1.5M - 2.5M?), Nigerian Civil War (1M -
3M?), the Bangladesh genocide of '71 (500k - 3M?),

In the natural world, cyclone Bhola (and subsequent flooding) is blamed for
over half a million deaths.

As it stands, COVID-19 isn't even in the top 20 yet (er, bottom 20?), though
unfortunately it is on track to perhaps hit top-10.

For reference, WW2 is still two orders of magnitude worse than any of the
above. Yikes.

~~~
Trasmatta
There's also something that seems mentally different about a pandemic rather
than a war. Diseases are horrific and it's one of the great tragedies that we
weren't able to contain this one. But something about deaths from a natural
cause like a virus just feels different from a death caused by the human
hatred or greed of a war.

------
Venkatesh10
Not so great. \- No physical activities or exercises. \- Sometimes great
efficiency at work, sometimes not so much. \- Too much stress in work, due to
project timelines. \- Unable to pursue hobbies because I'm feeling low all the
time.

------
joncrane
I'm doing OK.

At first I loved the isolation, lack of traffic, and lack of commute and
having to be at work. I realized I have strong social anxiety and the part of
my brain that has to work extra hard to get along with people finally got a
well deserved break. I put about 10,000 miles on my car during the pandemic--I
live in the Washington DC area and the lack of traffic was one of the best
feelings ever, especially since I had just bought my first real sports car
last year. I started doing Geohashing again (the game invented by Randall
Monroe:
[https://geohashing.site/geohashing/Main_Page](https://geohashing.site/geohashing/Main_Page))
Under the auspices of geohashing I hiked every mountain, lake, river, and dale
I could find within a 2 hour radius of my house. At one point I used cruise
control for 65 miles continuously on one of the most notoriously congested
highways in the area (I-66). That may have been the highlight of the pandemic
for me. I now have an intimate understanding of the terrain from Southeastern
PA to western MD to all of Northern VA and even much of WVA and learned a lot
of history in the process.

However there were some down sides. I have gained a TON of weight. The long
drives and medium-to-long hikes didn't make up for the physical activity I was
getting from going to the gym every day. I discovered many new delicious
restaurants in the area in the name of "supporting local business."

Also, finally, in the last few weeks, my social batteries finally recharged,
and I'm starting to get lonely again.

Also, traffic is back, so no more long rides.

Also, I caught Lyme disease due to all the deep woods hiking. It's resolving
well and my knee feels slightly better each day (I did make the mistake of
continuing to hike strenuously on it when it first swelled up and even now try
to push it a little too far either with exercise or bike rides)

The good news is, gyms just opened back up.

Overall I would say my mental health is better than it was before the
pandemic, and my physical health is worse.

My job has remained steady and engaging.

------
setgree
I'm hanging in there, thanks for asking.

In mid-March, after a messy parting from a startup, I left Manhattan for my
parents' place in the suburbs, intending to stay for a few weeks; three months
later, here I am.

I had blue periods where I got nothing done and just scrolled through reddit
all day. Today I am enjoying running barefoot, the 16 hours of daylight, and
the sheer luck of getting along well with my parents.

That last point is the big one, to me. I guess if I had any general advice, it
would be to put energy into having good relationships with your parents, if
you can. They won't be here forever.

------
rootusrootus
I am doing really well. Normally I do not like remote work at all, but since
my wife & kids are stuck at home with me, I'm enjoying it a lot. When the kids
go back to school and my wife (presumably) goes back to her office, then I
will probably go back to spending most days at the office myself.

I did start to gain a few pounds due to the convenient proximity of the
fridge, but overall I am actually down a few pounds now. I can take a pause in
the middle of the day and go for a walk, or even do more intense cardio, then
go back to work for a few hours in the afternoon.

------
anonu
If you are a knowledge worker with a family - your quality of life may have
gone up.

If your job cannot be WFH, you are single and/or you are living in a big city
- the quality of life may have gone down.

Can you share more details?

------
chooseaname
I'm doing well, thanks for asking. I have been full-time WFH for over half a
decade so I had plenty of time to accommodate. My SO was forced to return to
work recently, however, so I worry about that. And I think people have just
given up on social distancing/facial coverings if grocery shopping is any
indication. I also worry just how political people have made wearing facial
coverings. I think it sets a precedent that we just don't have to listen to
what science is telling us.

------
cableshaft
Pretty sure I'm doing fine personally. Other than going out less and seeing
less people this doesn't feel too much different than what I was doing
already, since I was working at home to begin with. Financially we are in
worse shape, but we're still doing better than most people.

But I got a sudden and serious reminder yesterday that even if I'm doing fine,
other people in my family aren't doing so well at coping. So I should be
putting in more of an effort to help others through this.

------
codingdave
Honestly, I feel like I'm living a blessed life - I have remote work for a
good salary while many other people are unemployed, sick and dying, or
fighting systemic racism. Personally, I am suffering from PTSD and depression,
and still feel that I'm in a better place than many others. So I'm working
through my own problems, wishing everyone else the best with theirs, helping
where I can, and just accepting the difficult time the whole world is going
through.

------
wycy
Fantastic. I've moved to a consistent sleep schedule for the first time in a
decade, where my weekday and weekend wake times are only different by an hour
or so (vs. 4 hours pre-covid). I've bought back a good chunk of my life from
commute. The pace of life is slower and more leisurely now.

The major downside is I can't lift anymore having no access to a gym, and I
know I've lost noticeable muscle mass as a result. I'm running now, but it's
just not the same.

------
scrooched_moose
Starting to crack.

All things considered I'm in a good spot - stable job that has allowed WFH
since the beginning.

But, the lack of looking forward to anything is really wearing on me. Work
ends at 5? Nothing to do. Weekend rolls around? Nothing to do. Looking at my
calendar? Nothing for the next year.

I fill the time with random projects, biking, reading, or video games; but
it's really just become "filling the time", not getting any enjoyment out of
them.

------
ninjamayo
Watching Starship on NASASpaceFlight getting built bit by bit everyday
actually really helps.

Joking aside, I've been working from home with my wife for years but not being
able to plan or have any holidays has been the biggest problem for us. I know,
I know, 1st world problems and all but still feels crap. From a different
perspective though, this situation gave us more opportunities to find our more
about ourselves and our partners.

------
eqdw
Very, very poorly. I do not feel safe talking about it in this forum, as I am
sure I will get yelled at by dozens of people for at least 4 different
reasons.

------
gorgoiler
Scared of upcoming school holidays. My days would be far worse if I didn’t
have 50 curious little voices asking about _.split()_ etc every day.

------
throwawayyayyay
Is New York tech just fundamentally broken or is the whole industry going that
way? In my time in San Francisco, companies seemed to recognize happy
employees were productive ones.

Since moving here a few years ago, and passing through several jobs, I'm
beginning to think there aren't any worth working for. There's so much broken:

\- office-first culture

\- heavy big design up front

\- fealty to waterfall and middle-management

\- nepotism and corruption \- relatively poor pay

------
tomerbd
Been Never better. Saved on commute time, can work and see family, managing to
be much more focused than noisy work env open space, Going jogging midday.
Cooking my own meals (very simple mostly vegetables so really healthy! ). At
evening, I do some bike and tennis class, then at night when all are back to
sleep I'm back to work, finish the day watching a lecture, sleep, wake up,
repeat!

------
d0m
Highly recommend going outside, maybe hiking for a day.

------
jjice
I've been an intern in a new state since January, and I work here til August,
then I finish my last year at school. It's been tough. I'm in a new state
where I knew no one besides my coworkers, and I rent a room in a house with a
few other people (a few have left, now it's just me and one other). Even prior
to COVID, it was a bit lonely, but I'd go to a rock climbing gym a few times a
week, go to coffee shows, and I had been on a hand full of dates. Then COVID
hit.

I've never been one to get homesick, and I still don't think I am, but holy
cow is it easy to get lonely when you don't see anyone besides other passer
bys in the grocery store once a week. At the beginning, my only real
interaction with people beside the occasional call with family were my morning
stand ups. 10 minutes of human interaction with people I knew, and I needed
it. Some days my boss's schedule would fill up and we wouldn't have stand up,
and those days were awful. My motivation had plummeted, but I spent a bit more
time with some friends from high school on Discord.

With all that said, that was at the beginning. Now, I'm going quite a bit
better. I've gotten used to being able to be alone a lot longer, and as my
state has opened up, I've been able to see some coworkers/friends outside of
work, which has been a huge help. My motivation is still pretty lacking, and
I'm much less productive from home than I am in the office. I can't wait to
get back into the office so I can have a good environment again. I live in a
170sq ft room, and share a kitchen and bathroom with my roommate. 170sq ft
that I sleep in, work in, eat in, entertain myself in, pursue free lance
development in, make coffee in, etc. I do everything in this ratty beaten up
room that has peeling paint in a drab white color. I'm someone who has always
preached the value of separation of spaces, and here I am, confined in one
space.

All in all, I really can't complain though. I'm very lucky that I haven't
really felt depressed at all (sometimes a bit sad, but nothing serious), mt
expenses are low and I can save a lot, I have a lot of great friends and
family I can talk to regularly now that their classes are over, and I'm taking
some classes this Summer to ease my last year at Uni, so that makes my time
feel a bit more productive. I'm very fortunate to have what I do, and it looks
like things are getting better right now. With that said, this year blows.

------
7thaccount
I'm fairly extroverted, so not being around people for so long has been rough,
but my company is amazing and doing WFH until September to keep us safe. I'm a
bit more distracted, but have been fairly productive. I need to eat better
though and excercise more though. I think I'll be able to adapt in the near
future though and get back to full productivity again.

------
xwdv
I’m in love. With someone I can never really be with, whom had always shown me
affection and was never shy about her feelings for me, but I think I always
refused to accept I was in love until she started seeing someone new. I’m not
jealous, more like heartbroken. It’s one less person in the world that will
love me now, and those kinds of people are in short supply.

------
mud_dauber
Not working, so I walk outside every morning and tell myself: "I'm on
vacation." That helps. Nobody in my family is sick. I have a roof & 3 simple
square meals a day. That REALLY helps. Not being able to visit friends or go
to the gym really sucks, but I'm getting by.

It could be better. But I know how good I've got it, and I'm grateful for
that.

------
davemateer
Thank you for asking BruceOxenford. Very kind. Good luck to us all in keeping
safe and well - physically and emotionally. Don’t Panic!

------
sova
Wishing I was more into yoga and meditation at this time like I was 3-5 years
ago, but last night I stepped barefoot onto the lawn and did some Tai-chi-ish
moves. Dolphins are bringing gifts to shores to try and lure humans back. The
natural world misses us. Our sterile environments are not the optimal. Get
barefoot on the lawn, it really helps.

------
loulou24
I lost a friend because I lost hope that we could have normal conversations
without frustrating or even hostile arguments over politics.

I banged my head on this for months and finally had to acknowledge (on my
birthday, to make it even more depressing) that there was no hope.

And that's really painful.

Plus the circumstances don't make it easy to deal with this extra feeling of
loneliness.

------
mensetmanusman
The time has been a blessing in disguise.

In February we started caring for a family member suffering from psychosis.
This time has allowed me to take daily walks with them to help with recovery
and keep track of mental health (every service is closed due to covid, so have
to take it into my own hands).

This has made the transition to living with us much more tenable I believe.

------
ainiriand
I am doing great! I am planning the early stages of a company with a good
colleague, lets see how it goes. I am already 29 pages down the novel I am
writing, doing my daily training, eating healthy and having fun with my wife
playing boardgames. In here the lockdown has been largely lifted off so we
enjoy casual park stroll as well.

------
lost_n_agency
Remote work has put a spotlight on all of the issues at my company. I'm
working more hours for less pay and all I can think about is how to get out.
It's painful and I'm struggling to keep my sanity.

Pro: I'm more motivated than ever to work toward finding a new job.

Con: The job market is terrible for someone trying to change careers.

------
Taylor_OD
Mentally I'm doing much better. The business is suffering which directly
impacts income and financial goals for this year but it could certainly be
worse. One of my larger fears is that I will not be able to readjust to being
in an office once asked to go back in. I have founds I do very well working
from home.

------
willemojnr
It has been an incredibly tough time, but I've been forced to grow a lot. I
think all in all myself and my family are in a better place. We're closer than
we've ever been before, and we have a good idea of where we want to go in
life. A real plan, not just "surviving from day to day".

------
HelloFellowDevs
Some stressors here and there, but I'm doing better than most. I'm glad I'm
out of college now so I'm not strictly beholden to the whims of a college
admin. Allows me to make my choices for myself instead of the existential
threat of not graduating. Its given me more time to read.

------
machinehermit
I don't remember where I read it or if it is even true but I just remind
myself that people had to resort to eating bird shit during the black death.

People had no idea what was killing their loved ones and we had the entire
genome sequenced for covid in a few weeks.

In the grand scheme of things I am doing absolutely fantastic.

------
pgt
One of the best things I did right before lockdown was to buy an Olympic Bar
and learn how to slow-cook cheap cuts of meat. Despite being mostly sedentary
(and broke), I'm in the best shape of my life simply from eating once or twice
a day and doing ~10x 50kg squats every 2nd or 3rd day.

------
tluyben2
The state of the world isn't great, but I have never been more productive and
more relaxed and fit at the same time. Time to read, write, build businesses,
develop software and do a lot of exercise. Even though mandatory quarantine
here ended, we are making it more permanent.

------
goutham2688
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snAhsXyO3Ck](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snAhsXyO3Ck)
i found the above inked CGP Grey video to be helpful i watch it once a week to
keep things in perspective. hope this helps others too

------
mensetmanusman
Have an uncle in prison. Part of me hopes this time helps people empathize
with those essentially in solitary confinement and how it is the opposite of
helpful in terms of recalibrating behavior toward what society wants/needs. We
should ban solitary confinement at least...

------
bane
I feel very fortunate and luck. I do well in a WFH situation as do most of my
coworkers, and nobody I know has taken sick. I've taken to cooking, learned
tons of new recipes and virtually eliminated a lingering health condition
because I finally have time to exercise.

------
cmdshiftf4
In terms of work, career, the team etc. things are going very well. Have
really enjoyed working from home and the balanced life style it has brought
with it, am eating well, exercising regularly, etc. and so hope to remain
_mainly_ WFH going forward.

The last few weeks have been pretty tough though. I understand myself to be
prone to becoming over-stimulated from following the news too closely and so
generally heavily moderate my intake of it. The last few weeks really de-
railed that though, a severe escalation in craziness in what has already been
a crazy year, and I've found myself glued to keeping up with what's going on
and what's being said by both sides of the current argument.

The hit to my personal, non-work productivity has been one area affected but
I'm not too concerned as I can play catch-up on some of that. The larger hit
the past few weeks has taken is that it has essentially confirmed my concerns
that America is not, and will not ever be, home for me.

Watching Marxism grip America by the throat, after seeing the damage it has
wrought in the past, and the sheer level of support for it now, has been
incredibly demoralizing. Consequentially I'm now placed in the position
whereby I've to start looking at packing up and moving my family's entire life
yet again which is... not great.

------
TomGullen
Fine overall, but weight coming back on as not playing football (soccer) 3
times a week like I was! Dreading going back to it, as every time I don't play
for months and health/fitness suffer it takes a good 6 weeks to get back to
where I was.

------
themikesanto
I'm doing wonderful. There's no way I'm ever going back to the office. My work
feels more consistent and enjoyable. I'm exercising and being active more than
I ever have in my life.

Life feels richer and less complicated.

------
fernandotakai
myself? ok. i've been handling the quarantine well enough because me and my
wife don't go out a lot.

my family? not really. two deaths because of covid-19. we are in shock because
we couldn't even go to the wake/burial.

------
throwaway062320
Gained weight, lost money on stock market, got expelled for poor grades.

------
JoeAltmaier
Putting on weight; working less each day; finding it harder to start on home
projects as time goes on.

Positive: my garden benefits from my weeding-therapy sessions. Its mindless
and physical, which I need.

------
mD5pPxMcS6fVWKE
Lol, snowflakes, coffee doesn't taste the same ... try living in poverty, in
war, like hundreds of millions of people live every day of their life.

------
tobyhinloopen
I’m fine, thanks.

Working from home is great, but I already did that. It kinda sucks to be
somewhat locked at home, but I just focus on my job and wait for this to pass.

------
fastball
My relationship of five years couldn't handle the stress so now I'm crashing
with my best friend / co-founder.

Could be worse I guess.

------
3ace
on one side, not much has changed on my work situation since I've been working
from home since 2018 as a freelancer.

but yeah, some projects that has been agreed on with future client previously
is either canceled or pending until further notice. and that has forced me to
tighten my family expenses while I'm struggling to find another job or
projects.

------
maximum_stress
Astoundingly poorly. I'm (as far as I can tell) older than the median HN
poster, which means I've had more time to make good decisions or poor ones and
have the cumulative weight of them bear down on my life.

Career-wise as I've posted previously my job is in peril. Finding another role
that pays as well at 50+ can be a challenge in IT, I believe the current
economic strife will amplify the difficulty.

Personally things are far worse.

------
jressey
I just have to say thanks for asking. I don't know if folks outside of a given
field understand the particular insanity one in that field suffers.

TL;DR: on paper I have a perfect job/damn good life but I legit cannot force
myself to do any work.

Let's look at the brass tacks for me and why I should be so happy: 1\. 5+
years salary in the bank. 2. Several rental properties, all operating
normally, covering all of our monthly expenses. 3. A high-paying remote job
with infinite autonomy. 4. 10-month old baby, our first. My mom provides free
childcare.

This person has it all, right? Oh my god no I have never been this miserable.
Our partners are insurance companies, and they are always slow to work with.
With COVID they are effectively non-operational when it comes to implementing
new software. This means we just spin our wheels.

Life have never been so meaningless from 9-5. There are days when I don't even
open my editor or attend meetings. There is just this incredible detachment
amongst the whole team.

When I clock out, life is perfect. I never liked going out or anything
anyways, so it's just the perfect excuse to sit and home and work on my
creative projects.

I am currently working on a plan to take a leave of absence because the
alternative is that I just resign. Sitting so close to the life I've always
wanted (being a couch potato) and having my beautiful son to be with all day
has made it impossible to contribute to my team and the guilt of that is
gutting me.

------
non-entity
Poorly. I have too much damn time to think and not enough things to do to
distract me from my thoughrs..

------
heyflyguy
You are loved.

~~~
EasyTiger_
By whom?

~~~
yobi-ponti
God, whom sent His only son to die for your sins

------
Havoc
Starting a new job remotely and it’s quite high pressure. So stressed but
overall OK

------
Artur96
You have to learn to see the future beyond your current pain.

------
Mister_Snuggles
Things are pretty decent for me.

When the decision was made to work-from-home, I just used my work laptop. A
few days later I drove to the office and grabbed my monitors, keyboard, mouse,
and various other odds-and-ends. I now have the same setup at home as I did at
work. I already had a home-office set up, so all I really had to do was
shuffle things around to make room for all of my work stuff.

I did have to buy some stuff to make the home office more usable though. I've
added a keyboard tray, cheap portable air conditioner (my home office is west-
facing, so afternoons can get quite toasty), and a cat hammock for the window.
Of all of those, the cat hammock was the biggest boost to my productivity
since it keeps the cat off my lap/keyboard.

I went from an open plan office with 250 people (across probably a dozen
departments) to my own private office with a window that opens. My commute
went from about 2 hours per day on public transit to about 1 minute per day. I
haven't had to buy lunch (or been tempted by vending machines) in over three
months. I can open a window and smell freshly cut grass and hear birds
chirping.

Socially, I'm actually keeping in touch with friends slightly better than I
was pre-lockdown. On the other hand, I'm not seeing friends in person as much
as I used to and I'm not walking nearly as much as I used to - these things
are slowly taking a toll. My volunteer gig also completely shut down, I really
miss that.

I'm not looking forward to going back to the office. I'm not looking forward
to wasting 10 hours per week sitting on a bus. Actually, the chances of me
being willing to take the bus when there isn't a vaccine available are pretty
slim, so that will turn into about 8 hours per week of driving, not to mention
the added costs of gas, maintenance, insurance, and possibly parking - none of
which I'm looking forward to. My current car is a pig on gas, which is fine
since I'm not using it for commuting, so I may need to replace it to make
driving to work even a little bit reasonable.

------
uniqueid
Not great, but I can always switch to Elementary.

------
TimSchumann
Extended fasting again. Great opportunity for it.

------
_curious_
Strong to quite strong, thanks for asking!

------
qbaqbaqba
Don't use Twitter nor reddit.

------
ralusek
In regards to the quarantine: I actually don't mind at all. But I understand
that by already having been working from home, as well as being rather
introverted, I am less affected than most.

In regards to everything else: Heartbroken. Liberalism is being replaced with
racial collectivization, something with which you cannot build a stable or
just society.

------
stronglikedan
Fine, thanks.

How about _you_?

------
wondringaloud
Fantastic!

------
kerkeslager
I was working remotely before Covid hit, so little has changed with my work--
the biggest change is that I have _more_ work. Some of my friends have lost
family members to Covid, but no one in my family or friends has died yet.

I've had to make some big adjustments to my life plan due to Covid, though. In
February I was planning to move into a van, because I wanted to own my own
living space, but didn't want to commit to any of the locations I found where
I could afford to buy property. Part of this plan was to shower in rock
climbing gyms, but all these closed down, and even though some in the South
are reopening now, I don't think the pandemic risks are worth it. In late May
I finally bought the van and I'm showering at a friend's place until I can
build a shower in the van. Frankly, I'm terrified of this whole process--it's
hard to sleep at night sometimes because I tend to ruminate on all the ways
things could go wrong. But I'm doing it, and so far I've made it through all
the challenges.

Three years and nine months ago, I stopped drinking and started consciously
trying to build real coping mechanisms, and today I'm seeing my efforts from
those years pay off a lot. Here are some things that have been helping me:

1\. Exercise: I'm fortunate enough to live in an area where I can rock climb,
which I love. But almost anyone can run, and cardio arguably works better than
anything for improving ones health and mood. Years ago I used a plan similar
to this one[1] to run a marathon, and it was not as hard as I thought it would
be. I would encourage anyone who is having trouble staying fit right now to
pick up this plan and start. You don't need an official marathon event to run
a marathon--there are plenty of 26.2-mile loops in the world. Do it for
yourself not for the medal.

2\. Gratitude: one thing I've been trying to do is spend some time each day
thinking of what I'm grateful for. This has helped immensely: as a problem-
solver my tendency is to focus on problems in my life because things that are
going well don't require any action, but the end result of that is that I only
ever see the problems in life. If nothing else, I can hear, I can see, I can
walk--these are all _incredible_ things and they are _not_ guaranteed--many
people can't do these things. And indeed I'm much more fortunate than just
these basics.

3\. Let love guide my actions, not fear. It's easy to let fear run away with
my thoughts, but when I'm doing well, I can act out of love. Earlier in my
life I thought I needed fear to keep me safe, but I've learned in the past few
years that all the things I did out of fear to keep myself safe, I can do out
of love for myself and others. Sometimes that means doing the same things--
wearing a mask, washing my hands, being politically active--but doing these
things out of love for myself and others _feels_ different than doing them out
of fear. I'm far from perfect here (as anyone can see in my post history) but
I've made a lot of progress.

4\. Meditation: setting aside time to actually think about 2 and 3 and refocus
is key.

5\. Diet: eating well has been really hard for me, but recently I've been
focusing on eating healthy, low-calorie things (vegetables, fruits, lean
meats) rather than focusing on _not_ eating unhealthy things. It's a subtle
difference but it seems to be helping.

6\. Going easy on myself: I have trouble with consistency and motivation on
all these things, and can judge myself really harshly when I go days without
meditating or exercising or eating well.

7\. Understanding my own limitations: I have a lot of strong feelings about
systemic police racism, brutality and murder, the mass death being caused by
irresponsible handling of Covid, etc. But ultimately, I'm a white guy who
can't speak for black people, I'm a web developer whose skills are unsuited
for helping with Covid, and I've got enough problems and responsibilities in
my own life that I can't take on the totalitarianism which is rising on _both_
sides of the political spectrum. It's not within my abilities to save the
world. I try to create the change I'm capable of, but at the end of the day
I'm no use to humanity if I can't take care of myself.

8\. Staying connected: I've been making a concerted effort to show my face on
Zoom calls, call people I'm close with, and spend time in person with people
(6 feet apart and wearing masks). I've even met new people during the
pandemic, and I've kept in contact with some elderly people in my community
which has been incredibly rewarding--these are the people most at risk from
the pandemic and the dangers of isolation and with the most experience to
offer you.

This is just what has been working for me. I hope something here helps
someone.

[1] [https://www.halhigdon.com/training-programs/marathon-
trainin...](https://www.halhigdon.com/training-programs/marathon-
training/novice-1-marathon/)

------
known
food/alcohol

------
Press2forEN
We live in a dark time. Before I had a family I was on track for FIRE so I
could exit society and live in peace. But now that I have kids I'm drawn back
in and its heartbreaking to see how much worse it is now than when I first
decided to opt out.

I don't know how I'm going to guide my children through this new dark age.

------
greenhatglack
I don't think I' going to make it honestly, I don't see a future where I am
still alive, which sucks because I got obligations.

------
mlang23
I disagree with the statement "most toughest times". Be careful with
superlatives. As a child, I underwent chemotherapy. These three months of
lockdown were an anoyance, but far from "most toughest times". Really. Put
things in perspective, before exaggregating like this.

