Over the last few weeks though I haven't been feeling very motivated. Doing something of my own sounds tough and finding a job just seems so much easier. There's some framework that exists and you purely have to execute.
I have come to realize that for a very long time I haven't worked on hard problems consistently. Sure I have had spikes where I had to work hard and a lot but those spikes would die out after a few weeks. I was very competitive till the first few years at school and then it somehow dropped.
I also feel that the reward mechanisms in my head have been short circuited. A high paying relatively easy tech job, doom scrolling on social media, getting food delivered in a few minutes and the easy supply of porn on the internet have made delayed gratification tough and have made instant gratification the default state.
What sucks more is that ambition has now been replaced with envy. I see someone doing something like "getting a promotion" and I become envious and I wonder how do I do that / what am I doing but lack the will to execute.
I am hoping(envy & big lack of ambition) this is just these last couple weeks and I snap out of it.
1. How do I fix this? Is this burnout or depression?
2. How do I get ambition back and get rid of the envy?
3. How do I retrain the delayed gratification & work on hard things muscle? I think I'll start going to the gym and lift weights.
> How do I fix this? Is this burnout or depression?
Probably a little bit of both. The bright side is that you’ve taken some time off and recognize this, whereas many people don’t recognize it!
> 2. How do I get ambition back and get rid of the envy? 3. How do I retrain the delayed gratification & work on hard things muscle? I think I'll start going to the gym and lift weights.
Since you have a bit of time, really figure out your own needs.
1. What’s important to you? Make a prioritized list of those.
2. What things would you be willing to give up over other things on that list? Ex: Health over money, money over health? Love over family (parents & siblings?)
3. Act on that list. Do it even if it’s hard. If you “regress”, your list probably isn’t aligned with your core values.
It’s ok to say, for next 10 years, I’m going to make money that I’ll retire off of. Or maybe try to get a 6pack, see if you can “program your mind and body”. At the end of the day, it’s your life, think and do what you feel makes it worthwhile. There’s always something worthwhile ~ enjoy it cause those handed a worse hand have other people decide their life for them.
This will make you understand yourself better, especially when noone you know is around you judging you.
Don't be the person that is scared to travel by itself, if you're always with people you'll never know yourself and right now you need some time to think about your life.
Keep in mind traveling by yourself give you more opportunity to meet people and get closer to the culture, moreover if you go to Hostel you'll meet many people doing the same and you can tag along.
A change in environment is what you need to change all your Toxic Routine habits you're stuck into.
Let's assume you do a 2 weeks trek to Everest Base Camp (super easy), you'll sure won't care about any IT crap and you'll be damn right, this may help you realise life is about doing the things you like, work to live and not the opposite.
If you're in no position to travel, try to get out of your confort zone, break your routine.
I'm following a routine called Stronglifts 5x5[0] and it's dead simple, but yet incredibly fun and easy to gamify - You're progressively adding weight and seeing results almost immediately. I use an open source app called Track and Graph[1] to track, and you guessed it.. graph my results - It's a rewarding feedback loop!
[1]: https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.samco.trackandgraph/
Thankfully at the time I was seeing a therapist, she suggested I might have untreated ADHD, got diagnosed and my life _literally_ changed over the next 2 months. I've recently told my therapist I'm pretty sure my life long depression is in remission.
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Do you feel there's an infinite abyss inside of you that needs more and more stimulation yet nothing seems to satisfy it? Do you feel that focus and motivation is totally outside your control? Do you wake up every morning, unsure if today is going to be a good productive day or with no energy to do anything except ingest food/porn/video games/social media? Do you feel that you "just need to try harder" even though it's been decades of managing a debilitating mood disturbance?
If all of that resonates with you, consider getting an ADHD diagnosis. If it is, know that mainstream ADHD treatment is _extremely_ effective.
This experience cemented in me the realization of how lucky I am to be so well off in a world of tremendous inequity. And helping others (effectively -- knowing that my contributions are doing a tremendous amount of good) is arguably one of the best things in life. https://www.effectivealtruism.org/
If your career isn't satisfying, it may be because you don't see it as helping anyone. Consider a high-impact career (see 80,000 Hours) https://80000hours.org/
As for delayed gratification, a book may be a good fit - you can pace yourself (set goals of reading for X minutes without getting distracted) and build up that skill of focus. Find a genre you like; for me, high school has spoiled interest in books, until I realized nonfiction is a better fit for me, and that there are amazing fiction books as well.
Best wishes; and I'll be happy to comment more.
Your innate drive for a better romantic partner is being replaced with porn. The dull emptiness could be a space for envy to grow in you.
To your specific questions, I've had some similar experiences and find that it's helpful to think in smaller terms. Find small things that interest you and explore them without threat or promise or waiting. Also follow the RAIN framework with feelings of envy: recognize, accept, investigate, nurture.
A) is, imo, most certainly something that you need to get rid, it's way too damaging and you initially don't notice this until many years into it. And yes, it can become an addiction. I'd also consider C) looking for professional diagnostics targeted at ADHD.
Now that I know myself better, I realize I need to be integrated in a community with similar objectives, even when doing individual work. Otherwise, creative and/or research work is too demanding. However, everyone is different.
I find from my experience that happiness and satisfaction, sadness and envy rises and falls in peaks and troughs.
I too am prone to focussing on the negativity of my experience, but I realise it leaves me detached from everyone close to me, forgetting why it is I live and work.
It’s very easy to wall one’s self in, to become narrow in focus on the things you have, what you want to have and what you’re doing.
It’s worth considering broadening your worldview or perspective.
Take a step back and look at the life you’ve built, as you said yourself - you’re in a high paying job where you’re not so frequently challenged. You are fortunate and even if you do not see it you have opportunity to shape things to your needs. You can challenge yourself in your free time. Your work doesn’t have to be your whole life.
Outside of your work do you have other hobbies? Do you know people who work in a different field? Or perhaps come from a different culture?
From this differing perspective comes a better view of your own life.
Different things work for different people. Some find inner joy in creating art, writing, music, cooking. For others it’s experiencing nature, and physical exertion. If you’re more gregarious, taking up a new language, and speaking to others from a different country.
I channel my negativity towards writing, offline, physically in a notebook, I enjoy intense music and I’m learning the basics of how to use a physical synthesiser/sequencer.
Quite by chance I met someone through a friend and at spontaneously at their invite I went to Portugal from the UK to meet them again in person. The break from my life has been tremendously valuable and it was even better being able to share it with someone I care about
The only way to escape is to break the cycle and learn to say no to yourself. If you're anything like me it's hard. Very hard.
If you're like me, your mind will come up with fantastical ways to stop you from getting in the way of it's pleasure seeking and difficulty aversion tendancies. For example, I went on a meditation retreat and my mind spent the whole time convincing I was going to die and should leave.
Meditation is a good way to first witness the power and control your mind has over you, and then to renegotiate the relationship between your wanting and rejecting mind, and you - and ultimately what you _really_ want from your life.
Discipline is the answer. That involves saying no and doing difficult things, like learning to cook, and getting out of bed to sit in silence for an hour, or putting your phone down and doing what you should be doing.
It's standard feeling among many engineers (even more so among non-software engs.). I think it can be remedied to a point - in FAANGS, you can find teams working on very hard things built from first principles (such as no-sql databases). The day-to-day is still filled with a lot of BS and boring work though, and is never going to be as fun as studying maths or physics on your own from a textbook. Such is life. If you want to do interesting things all the time, you need to live your life in a radical way, as the standard path in our culture definitely is not optimized for that. It's much easier and probably wiser to just accept the status quo.
Edit: The proper term is chrysalis and not cocoon.
While in School I was easily impressed by startups and there missions but I find it tough to get impressed now. Stuff short of getting humans on Mars or extending our biological lifetimes (longevity). It's tougher to find jobs in these fields, achieve what ones set out to do or make SaaS / consumer tech money. Someone suggested doing an exercise on values, will do this.
Learning has generally become difficult since School - I think this comes from the broken reward circuit & inability to focus. I suppose working on meditation, physical health, detoxing from my phone and just exercising the learning muscle should help.
Working out is great - find something you enjoy doing for fitness or get a trainer.
Honestly, I found regular breaks from the internet to be really helpful. Intentionally shutting things off to keep me from doom-scrolling for an hour when I wake up in the morning, and reaching for a book instead has helped my focus and mood.
Move (gym and weights yes! also anything physical you liked doing as a kid)
Breathe - learn to meditate. There are tons of methods. Find the one that's right for you
2. Express gratitude - openly and with journaling
Focus on being a better you tomorrow than you are today. Define "better" in a healthy and meaningful way
3. Do a digital detox for 3 weeks. Read a book. In your first sitting read for as long as you can. Then add a page a day or a couple of pages a week.
Meditation
Learn to cook one meal better than anything you could get at a restaurant.
I'd also recommend reading Marcus Aurelius, Mediations. Sometimes you cannot make a change to your schedule or whatever, but just have to deal with things in place. Marcus was an emperor with absolute power over the largest society (to date), but fond great solace not in instant gratification but in hard work.
Right now I have a puppy, 8 months, and he gets me out of the house for about 2-3 hours everyday. I'm not saying get a dog, that's a life changing decision you cannot back away from without consequence, but find something you like or want to learn about, and do it every day. Maybe it's a destination vacation to visit ancient ritual sites in the Southern US, I don't know, but just make it something that's piques your interest and you can pour your self into.
You have money, you have time: use these to your advantage.
Otherwise, tech can eat you alive. Working in the industry is not a program for a balanced life. It's just a job, and even if you're passionate about it, your job will still burn you out if you let it.
Same feeling (with computer science, especially security related)
> I am hoping(envy & big lack of ambition) this is just these last couple weeks and I snap out of it.
I am European. I'm envious on anyone who even had the chance to interview for a US company. I once got invited by Google and then they emailed me with that I couldn't interview because I wasn't American. Anywho, how to suppress such envy?
In my case: I work 4 days per week and live life right now. While I "only" earn 3000 euro's net (between quotes because there are people earning half), it is way more than I actually need. And I only need to work 4 days for it! Also, 4 days working is accepted in the culture I'm in. Moreover, I can work remote for months on end (in Europe), or I can go to the office. I'm planning a Euro trip real soon. Every evening is going to be awesome since I have the ability to travel wherever I want to be.
If I can't make money, then I'm just going to do what I wanted to do when I have a lot of money. I'm going to live life.
That's how I suppress all that envy :)
I also recommend books 'Deep Work' and 'Atomic Habits' if you struggle with staying away from instant gratification. We humans tend to follow the path of least resistance, which means you should make instant gratification as difficult as possible compared to more useful tasks.
Lifting weights is generally a good plan and good for the mind.
Also keep in mind money is merely information. It doesn’t make sense to be envious of information, all it is is society putting a price on how it measures the quality of your head. There are flaws both in that notion itself and in the process of measurement.
Also learning the mathematical basis of music, and then applying it by learning an instrument.
The funny thing is that when I reach a reasonable level at something, I usually want to try something else. So what I really enjoy is the learning process.
What will be next? Who knows? May be sports? [Ah ah, no thanks...]
And you're in a space right now where you are probably ready to try to take that on and seek maturity from it, without aiming to go compete or even make it a longer term journey. The point is to get in a space where you are confronted with losing and practical ways of dealing with it, and that's something that carries over easily to other activities and allows you to understand what you want out of them with some clarity and perspective.
As for the rest, it's both burnout and boredom.
I hit the wall with my career ages ago and have mostly been going through the motions.
It's just not hard or interesting anymore, so I'm working on a pivot.
1. How do I fix this? Is this burnout or depression?
This is adulthood and you need to get a life beyond your job. Find hobbies, meet people etc. Learn to cook and do things yourself. I would never befriend somebody that just order foods, works and waste their time in social media.
Also visit a therapist. You need it very badly. Do it before you waste all your life not even knowing what you want.
2. How do I get ambition back and get rid of the envy?
Why do you need even more ambition?
3. How do I retrain the delayed gratification & work on hard things muscle? I think I'll start going to the gym and lift weights.
Don't buy this Jordan Peterson or Youtube motivation crap. You are thinking of that solution because you spend a lot of time in social media.
It is all a lie. Yes, you should exercise regularly, but there are at least thousands of sports. Why do the one that is the most efficient on improving your looks, rather than having some good mobility and agility? Or learn to swim properly? And the list goes on.
That's just you trying to be more and more competitive. You'll just waste your whole life on self-improvement. Find something that isn't about winning or growing bigger.
Look for a psychologist, you look very lost.
It either comes in excess from non-tech people, so we discard it. Or it comes from a peer, that will probably not be validation and more critical feedback, which tastes wildly different
Next, there's nothing better than a long hike to clear the mind. Would also cut myself off from most if not all of the internet/tv for a while to allow your own thoughts to return.
Good luck.
Please stay away from this garbage advice and seek a good therapist.
Totally out of the reach of instant gratification. Give your brain a bit of a reset.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRHJkKTt0mY#t=8m30s
> After I graduated Berkeley as an undergrad in 2006 I worked at Industrial Light and Magic for about a year and a half. I met so many amazing, super talented, literally genius people there, but after a year at ILM, where they were doing movies like _Transformers_ and _Pirates of the Caribbean_, and doing all kinds of innovative motion capture research and simulation research, I found I was meeting too many people who were there since _Return of the Jedi_, who still wanted to make their feature film or wanted to make a sculpture, and that the creative burden of being at such a creative place took something out of them.
> I made a very seemingly irrational decision at the time -- it seems rational now -- that I really wanted to find a way to choose *my own problems*. And so I moved to New York - I went to Columbia for grad school - and for those of you who are in grad school here, I can tell you now that I didn't do *anything* in grad school. I was totally lost, I checked my email for two years. I didn't make anything and there were people who were making prolific amounts of work -- so much work that it filled the hallways, I couldn't get into my own studio. My studio at Columbia had black mold in it, so I was kinda getting drowsy all the time.
> It was only afterwards where I encountered a second set of mentors - I started working for two artists, one called Paul Chan, another called Pierre Huyghe, who both -- besides me -- really loving their work, I really learned what it felt like to live and be an artist, because I was around them so often and I really understood their "metabolism" -- that sounds weird -- but I understood, like, when they ate, when they exercised, how they needed the time in the morning to be away from people, that that was a really fertile time to make creative decisions. And I came to admire how they structured their time and their day. This became a real cornerstone and model for me for figuring out how it is I would want to make work myself.
You mention that a job provides a "framework that exists and you purely have to execute". And that is exactly what we're talking about here but for personal work not a job. It's a common message -- see Twyla Tharp's "The Creative Habit" or Stephen King's "On Writing" or even Steven Pressfield's "The War of Art" -- a personal work routine provides the framework.
However, even when I understood this consciously, for a long time I didn't have enough exemplars to internalize it.
Eventually what did the trick were other routines that I had been able to incorporate into my life: writing in a journal, cooking, and daily training for long-distance treks. Every time I had a question, I just had to look at those examples for analogous answers.
There were other steps involved too. Feel free to email me (contact info in profile) and/or read other comments I've made on similar AskHN posts.
2. Envy and other mind traps can be cured with having the right mindset. Look into stoicism
3. It's all about building habits and routine. You are your habits
Although controversial, Jordan Peterson's advice helped me when I was in a similar stage as you.
Look to form relationships and focus on something meaningful, the bad habits will disappear as you won't have time for them. Good luck
You have probably earned enough money for the past six years in order to be financially stable and you have likely filled the empty void that is your life with fancy bs that ultimately won't make you happy. This is neither burnout nor depression, this is boredom. Want to get ambition back? Put your body into survival mode, do something new that terrifies you. Change what you do for living or start your own company. Move to a different country. Take on an adventure. The accomplishment from that will be much more rewarding than anything the armchair shrinks on here (including myself that is) could come up with.