
I am burning out - saurabh
https://medium.com/this-happened-to-me/eb7b4584fff7
======
DigitalSea
To me being burnt out is feeling like you've been increasingly doing more and
more for the same reward. I feel like I am burning out slowly as well, I'll
eventually probably have a nervous breakdown but I have no choice but to keep
on going to provide an income to my family, I can't stop what I am doing. I
have to keep working, keep taking on freelance projects, keep spending time on
the computer not because I want too, but because not having money and a crappy
life isn't something I want for my family.

We live in an economy where if you're not putting in those extra unpaid hours
you're not considered an asset to your employer and you will be disposed of.
An economy where 17 old kids can not only flip burgers, they can code and code
for a hell of a lot cheaper/are more willing to sleep at work to meet a
deadline.

Burning out is when you go to work, come home to freelance, go to work 7 days
of the week with inconsistent hours, not getting to spend time with your
family, not getting to go to the farmers markets or watch movies with your
wife. It's going to bed at 2am working and waking at 6am to go to work, it's
feeling like you're constantly working, constantly checking emails all for the
same salary.

If your work is comprised of open source, you at least have a way out. Me? I
have no way out. I work on my personal projects in between freelancing and my
actual job hoping that maybe, just maybe, all of this stress, finishing work
at 10pm, having to come in for weekends without being paid extra and work will
mean something one day. Hoping that all of this effort will mean that one day
I too, can hire multiple people to do the work currently I as one person am
doing.

You don't sound burnt out, you sound bitter that nobody is using your work,
that's entitlement, not feeling like you're so deep in work you have no way
out which is being burnt out. I am sorry to sound so aggressive and angry, but
I am burning out and there's nothing I can do about it.

~~~
jbrooksuk
I can relate to this. Although there is only my fiancee and myself,I still
have to provide an income to pay our rent, our bills and do my best to give
her the nice things she wants. I'm working a 9-6 job, come home, sit back down
and freelance to get more money than my salary brings in, just to pay off our
bills. We don't even have anything on finance between us, we live on basics
yet we struggle.

~~~
circlefavshape
> do my best to give her the nice things she wants

Whoa.

She wants _you_ , not "nice things". Neglecting her in order to make money to
buy her things is a Very Bad Idea, because you've made yourself fungible

~~~
jbrooksuk
She works as a carer, 6 out of 7 days a week she's up at 5AM and home by 10PM.
It's rare we get to spend time together anyway, but when we do, I'd like to
make it a nice day and give her something nice.

Plus, she _does_ have expensive taste...

------
jacquesm
> I’m hurt you don’t use my website platform.

> I’m hurt you didn’t use my journal tool.

> I’m hurt (so few of) you use my plugin loading library.

This is entitlement, not burn-out.

~~~
derrida
Entitlement to recognition? Everybody should be entitled to that. IDK if you
are in the FOSS community but I talk to people who just want to write software
that is used for nothing other than some minor recognition from some geeks
that matter to them, who want to suicide.

Everybody is entitled to be recognized and respected.

Your comment made me angry that you missed so clearly the likelihood of this
person being in a fragile situation. Hey, I have Aspergers too you know, there
is no excuse to tell other people how they think they feel. It makes them feel
ignored and under recognized. Basic human dignity: you recognize the efforts
of others.

I'd say recognition for minor things is the lifeblood of society without
money. Everybody is _entitled_ to recognition.

~~~
notacoward
Sometimes it's not even about minor recognition. Sometimes it's about
believing that there's really something fundamentally better about the way
your app/library solves the problem at hand. It's frustrating to see people
continue doing things the "broken" way when a better way has actually been
demonstrated and made easily available.

Is everyone who believes that correct? Certainly not, but that's not the
point. The point is that sometimes it's about idealism, not ego. People like
Jacques might deny others the privilege of reinventing the wheel (even as they
gained their own notoriety by exercising that privilege themselves) but that's
really how every superior alternative has to start. Linux, HTML/HTTP, every
database (SQL or otherwise) of the last twenty years, Hadoop - all are or
contain reinvented wheels, and IMO at least one of those suffers by comparison
to "reinvented" alternatives. The literal wheel itself has been reinvented a
couple of times, from rolling logs to axles and bearings and differentials and
aerodynamic shapes designed in wind tunnels.

One man's reinvention is another's creative destruction, and it often has
nothing to do with ego. It's not entitlement to feel pain from banging your
mind against some mad buggers' walls.

~~~
jacquesm
I'm fine with people re-inventing the wheel. I just don't get why the world
should be expected to use your wheel. I've re-invented the wheel more often
than not (all but once or so), yet if the world doesn't use whatever I make
that doesn't upset me because I recognize that was my own choice rather than
that the world now owes me.

~~~
notacoward
Why should the world be expected to use your wheel?

 _Because it's better._ That belief might be incorrect the vast majority of
the time and/or in this specific case, but I for one am reluctant to quash
that kind of enthusiasm. It's the fuel of progress, even if some (most?) of it
is wasted. The disappointment and frustration of seeing "inferior"
alternatives prevail are inseparable from the drive to create a better one.
It's not about "owing" anything. For many people, it's about wanting to make
the (technical) world a better place, being thwarted, and seeing the community
as a whole diminished as a result.

Maybe some people don't feel that kind of passion themselves. Maybe they think
emotion and idealism have no place in computing, though if that were the case
I doubt we'd see so many flame wars. Maybe they've never had an idea worth
getting that attached to, though I doubt that's a common factor in a forum for
entrepreneurs. Maybe some people are in it for the ego boost themselves, and
can't imagine others being in it for another reason. Whatever the explanation,
the fact remains that some people do get invested in an idea for reasons
besides ego, and it's good for them to do so.

~~~
jacquesm
Easier beats better, cheaper beats better, sharper looking beats better and so
on. Better only matters if all other things are equal and if the perception of
all other things is (at least) equal. It's pretty rare to see better be the
major reason for adoption for some chunk of open source.

Community, documentation are other metrics that matter a lot when choosing an
open source solution.

If it weren't for that then everybody would be using Haskell or Clojure, those
are so much better (at least, so I keep hearing) and yet the reality is
different.

~~~
notacoward
"Easier beats better, cheaper beats better, sharper looking beats better and
so on."

Beside the point. If your goal is to "beat" others (revealing choice of words)
and either make more money or gain more recognition then sure, but not every
piece of software is motivated by those goals. Somebody has to make the
"better" even if they're not the ones to benefit, and many are fine with that.
That's particularly true in open source.

Assuming a particular motivation for the OP, and then insulting them based on
that assumption, is just wrong. In fact, I think some might even see it as
hitting someone when they're down - i.e. bullying. People who've gained some
prominence in the community should try to do better.

~~~
jacquesm
I don't think I've insulted anybody. As for bullying, you're doing just fine.

If your motivation is to improve the world the world does not owe you
anything.

------
Nursie
_"And some days, when a weekend passes and I played at the park with my son,
helped him in his first programming project on the RaspberryPi, enjoyed a
movie at home with my wife and a bright spring Saturday morning at the
farmers’ market… but I end that weekend just kicking myself for the code I
didn’t finish?"_

Did you not just pretty much describe the perfect weekend? I'm not sure you're
burning out, I think you're realising what life is really about.

~~~
lucian1900
I always feel bad and lazy for not finishing projects I've been thinking of
for a long time, regardless of how nice my weekends are.

I totally understand Calvin.

~~~
Nursie
I certainly understand to some extent, I'd always like to make more progress
on personal projects and side projects and the like, but I don't feel sad when
life gets in the way. Hopefully he won't either after a while.

------
anupj
There is a shloka in Hinduism that might be relevant to this post. As stated
in Mahabharata, when Arjun wonders about the futility of his efforts on the
battlefields of Kurukshetra, this is what Lord Krishna says to him:

"कर्मण्येवाधिकारस्ते मा फलेषु कदाचन। मा कर्मफलहेतुर्भूर्मा ते
संगोऽस्त्वकर्मणि॥"

(You have the right to perform your actions, but you are not entitled to the
fruits of the actions. Do not let the fruit be the purpose of your actions,
and therefore you won’t be attached to not doing your duty.)

------
omegote
Well if you feel burnt out now, you'd have had a really bad time some years
ago, when open-source was nothing about web development and more about the
GNU/Linux environment.

Nowadays we have github, anyone can link to your Yet-Another-Something library
written in javascript and boom, at least you have one user. But in the past
there was nothing like that. We'd have to pray for someone to find the
download link in our sourceforge project, get to download and compile it.

At the end of the day, however, you have a job, a wife and a son. Unknown
people using your open-source software should be the least of your concerns.

~~~
Surio
I've been through those times, and I think you gave an excellent data
counterpoint. :)

>> At the end of the day, however, you have a job, a wife and a son. Unknown
people using your open-source software should be the least of your concerns.

++10.

------
xradionut
When I originally saw this posting linked from on another site, I reached out
to the author with a constructive comment that he work with other people. Now
the comments are not visible.

So is the author wallowing in pity or depression?

As a long time coder, most of my work is no longer in use. Many of my current
internal projects at work are only in use by me or a small group of people,
enough though they could help hundreds of others (clients, coworkers).

And code is never done. I have dozens of projects in various states of
completeness. Even the code in production isn't "truly finished", but it works
well enough and has passed review.

I'm going to work on a few other OSS projects that may never be seen by a
handful of folks. That's fine. I don't want fame, I like solving problems and
helping others.

~~~
jacquesm
If you are a long time programmer the really depressing thing is that your
life's work will probably comfortably fit on a single DVD or even a micro sd
card.

~~~
xr09
So all Shakespeare's work and yet is awesome somehow. ;)

------
navs
I feel burnt out. I don't write open source software. I just make sites for
select clients. I try to make their wacky ideas a reality. But there's no
appreciation in it. End of the day you're just another drone. Between this and
trying to keep up with the changing tech environment, battling depression and
trying to finish my university degree, I've grown to despise computers and
related products.

Deciding to leave my computer at work and spend a few days without a computer
at home, I've started reading again. I look forward to those free hours where
I can be away from a computer and reading a book in bed.

Sometimes it's good to just take a break from the glowing box. I've got a
general rule: If I have time to chat on irc, I have time to read a book and
relax away from a computer.

~~~
xradionut
Computers have been my hobby and career for almost 3 decades. Sometimes you
need to take a break and do something different.

So here's a small list of activities that have kept me semi-sane through the
years: Body building, hiking, reading, gardening, ren fairs, martial arts,
shooting sports, cooking, ham radio, traveling, writing, robotics, public
service, building, boating and dinner parties.

------
richo
Ignoring the self-involvement inherent in the article, if you want to
contribute to something big (There's nothing wrong with wanting that sense of
"I helped build this"); go contribute to a big FOSS project!

Fix a bug in rails[1] or django[2] (Pretty sure I saw you're a python guy).

Fix some of the hilarious problems with Bower[3] (Saw some js too).

There's an entire world of awesome problems to solve. Go solve them.

[1]: <https://github.com/rails/rails/issues> [2]:
<https://github.com/django/django/issues> [3]:
<https://github.com/twitter/bower/issues>

~~~
stefantalpalaru
Contributing to Django might not be a good idea:
<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5476431>

~~~
richo
I see your point (and in my view- screw contributing if it means interacting
with trac), but reading over that issue it does look like his patch wasn't
backwards compatible.

The issue was reopened 5 weeks ago so hopefully it resolves well :/

------
DocG
take six months off, if you can.

rearrange life, priorities things you like to do. Fuck the other stuff. Say no
to people, say no to "must do" things.

Stop coding, building whatever. Help your son, go traveling, read a fantasy
book, whatever.

And this is how you avoid burning out and improve your life quality.

Some relatives of mine, in Europe, have taken sick days, up to six months from
work stress. They were on verge of burning out. They still got income. Also,
employee don't need to know, why are you sick. It is private matter between
you and your doctor.

------
mattchamb
I haven't written code outside of work for nearly a year, when it used to be
all I did.

I find myself resentful of my company that got us into a death march project
that ended months ago.

When I write code, I don't feel any of the passion that I used to feel.

I try to improve the quality of codebase, but always give up in the face of
the poorly written mass of code we sell as a product.

I find it hard to care about the product.

I think I am burned out.

~~~
Volpe
Just remember, there is always a worse code base than the one you are working
on, and on the flip side no matter how good you make your code base, someone
will encounter it, and think it's a "poorly written mass of code".

:-)

------
vy8vWJlco
Links to software at the bottom would have been helpful.

~~~
bobbarnes1981
There is a related site: <http://www.ironfroggy.com/projects/index>

and a github account: <https://github.com/ironfroggy>

------
kjhughes
A different context may prove to be more satisfying to you. Rather than
working harder and harder on providing software to what you currently see as
the ideal group to use your efforts, try targeting a completely different
group. There are those who would appreciate your talent and even be amazed at
what you can do. Consider helping them rather than pushing your current
boulder up yet another hill.

------
ak39
Value propositions battling it out here. I don't know if the OP is an
entrepreneur or not, but bartering time and skills for an ego payoff is not
healthy. I could never fully appreciate this about talented folks sacrificing
their time with families to do open source projects (if it was not for the
learning experience). I can see how an ego trip reason quickly turns into the
sort of burnout he talks of.

If he's an entrepreneur then it's even more dire than burnout. His business is
most likely in trouble too.

Entrepreneurs have to walk a fine line between being local optimisers or
opportunity creators. Unfortunately, many technical entrepreneurs find it
comforting to hunker down and code within strict given parameters - often
ignoring the bigger picture with questions like "is it worth it?". As long as
geeks are given a problem to solve, they remain focused. This is deadly if
you're the geek running your own business.

Heck, even if you're not an entrepreneur, it's always good to ask the "is it
worth it" questions regularly.

~~~
dclowd9901
When it comes to being popular in our community, it's a race to the bottom,
where the bottom is living alone with nothing depending on you for its
survival.

Once I realized that, I stopped worrying and just decided to build stuff for
me. And if anyone else wanted it, neat.

------
mtrimpe
Go get help. If you're in a European country take a few days sick leave and go
talk with a doctor.

Burn-out is what happens when

a) you keep pushing yourself, you've approached your limits but want more so
keep pushing further

b) you've been operating at your limit for a long time and something happens
that multiplies the amount of effort required to get those results
(downsizing, personal illness, illness in the family, hostile work
atmosphere.)

In general it's about having reached your limits and not accepting them.

If you're afraid about your long term prospects ... it'll actually teach you
to work smarter, not harder, possible making you orders of magnitude more
efficient.

~~~
marvin
With the fear of stepping on the toes of someone important (and I'm sorry if
this is rude, but I'm going to say it), I think it's a disgrace that the top
comment to this story is a dismissive remark about how the author is just
"feeling entitled" while this excellent piece of health advice is far down the
page.

I was burned out/severely depressed at one point, and it's obvious that the
author needs to talk to a professional about the way he's coping with stress
and expectations. If you're feeling like the author of this blog post, you
need to take a good look at your goals in life. I've experienced this myself,
and it's a tough situation to be in. Seems like a lot of hacker types are
blind to this.

[Edit: Bonus point about your remark about working smarter. I get better
results now than when I pushed myself to the beaking point, while using what
feels like half the effort. It took some years to get there, though].

~~~
gte910h
Indeed. Many times "burnout" is really depression. Talk do a doctor.

------
natecavanaugh
Perhaps he is doing all of this work with the wrong goal in mind. If you start
out building something for other people, you're always going to gamble that
other people may not need it.

But if you're building tools for yourself, and documenting for yourself,
because you have an actual need for these things, then regardless of what
others do with them, you'll be happy because you have tools that make your
life easier.

Do the bare minimum for yourself that makes your life easier. If other people
want to use it, then start building from there. But don't kill yourself trying
to build stuff you think will stroke your ego. Programming is probably the
worst tool you could use to solve that problem ;)

------
harel
It comes down to why you code. There are more website/journal platforms that I
can count (Sesame Street didn't prepare me for large numbers). There are even
more libraries for various languages. There are more open source projects out
there than there are coding fingers. There are more hurt feelings related to
those projects than there are content ones. If you're coding so that people
will use it, get ready for disappointment. Even if your's is the best tool of
its kind, adoption has a very high luck/right place/right time factor to it.

------
quaffapint
While it might be nice to be the next wordpress or jquery, if the sole reason
you develop is for the 'glory' of course you're going to end up where you are.
If you don't find it as a nice way to relax and solve the puzzle, then what's
the point?

Like the other comment mentioned, go be with your family and find a hobby that
you actually want to do and not worry about what some other random person does
or does not do.

------
xr09
Damn, you sure have some ego boy, I write lots of crap but I wouldn't consider
all of it to be worth it of being used by the crowd, some of it may get to the
masses but that is a delicate process of FOSS-Darwinian selection, you can't
rush it.

------
rtrocc
"Know one uses much of what I write, and in this community, that fucking
hurts."

I can tell your grammar comprehension is starting to burn out already...

~~~
ky3
Grammar doesn't come into this. A phonetic reading renders intended meaning
without grammar flaws.

------
groundCode
Please, please, please get someone to sub-edit medium. This is not a quality
piece of writing.

------
danso
Creating reusable code is hard and there's no shame in if not everyone needs
the same tools you do. Why not put more energy into building content with your
development skills? Maybe you'll have more success there

