I'm paying myself a small salary compared to what I earn and I invest everything else.
Given my income and my economic situation I shouldn't feel anxious, yet I can't relax thinking every hour spent watching netflix is in a way costing me ~110$.
So when I don't have any more work for the week, I work on my hard and soft skills through certifications so I can up even more my hourly rate.
It's a never ending race, I've been playing this game since 2016, finding new ways to earn more, not because I'm passionate about it, but because I'm anxious everything could come crashing down in a couple of years and I'll need the money.
I feel like we are destroying our planet, destroying our economy, we make poor people poorer, stir political extremes, we alienate the younger generation with social medias, there is war in Europe, everything is about politics when it should be about science and people...
I've tried not caring, going to bars and restaurants and beautiful places in vacation, getting a new car, finding hobbies... but I can't pretend, I don't know how to cope anymore.
So I work, always, because I'm anxious I won't be able to provide for the people around me, my sister won't earn enough to feed her family, my mom won't be able to retire even though her work is killing her, my dad's small business will be ruined if the economy collapses...
I think my opinion is unpopular, but it shouldn't be, and perhaps the fact that it's unpopular is part of the reason why so many people find themselves in this situation.
It sounds like you need to speak to a professional and go to therapy. You're putting too much pressure into things that are completely outside of your control, and part of living a healthy live is accepting that you cannot control the universe and learning how to detach yourself from these issues.
Times always seem uncertain to those living in them, especially if you pay close attention to all the various problems in the world almost exclusively (of which there has always, and will always be a long list of). Instead focus on what’s in front of you and in your control in the here and now. Be grateful for the immensely wonderful and comfortable amenities around you. When was the last time you were hungry and couldn’t find food? Or even more when was the last time you couldn’t eat virtually anything you wanted to within an hour?
This is not the sign of a civilization on the verge of collapse. We’ve got some things to sort, and may not get there, but enjoy the immense privilege it is to try while you have the faculties to do so.
This is the fate of very talented AND moral/just/fair people – who work in a social environment where there is no social equality.
For reference: I worked in India where the average monthly salary is much lower than what you said. Curse of being talented/rewarded, when you walk/bike through the streets where everyone is struggling to live, and the government doesn't care and all your tax dollars go to waste.
Do any of the following. It will make you feel better:
* Donate, small but regularly. Know a school for disadvantaged kids nearby, or a facility for elderly? Donate them $250/month. You will immediately feel better. You don't neeed to spend time for this, just do it.
* Or volunteer. Spend a few months in a country more desperate than your current country. Contact your local UNICEF or Red Cross and volunteer as a consultant. You don't need any special skills. If you can take care of your own expenses (food, travel) – they will be happy to fit you in any of their programmes. You will need to invest time for this.
* Or last but contentious: Move to a country where your tax dollars are properly used and you can personally see it in your eyes as society being more equitable and harmonious. I'm talking about Europe. You won't feel the urge to correct an imbalance when your tax dollars already work for society.
You feel morally repugnant to be rich in a poor society. There is nothing wrong about feeling that way. It makes you a real human. Don't try to cure yourself out of it. Just act on it. Do what can be reasonably done within your individual reach.
Edit: minor grammar.
Depending on the diagnosis, eventually they might tell you to contact a psychiatrist to try some drugs. In my case, that helped. That’ll take time though. The therapist will probably start with the basics: sleep, food, social interaction, family, couple, exercise.
WRT the state of the world: you first have to accept that you are not going to be able to fix the whole world on your own. The cpu cycles you spend thinking about that is wasted energy. Concentrate on what you can do. That depends on your circumstances and your motivation. Donate money to charities or political parties. Teach children in the local school. Plant threes. Investigate and write to motivate others. Whatever you think will improve things.
Then (very important, but also difficult) transform those thoughts into action - don’t just them just fester inside your head. Take a piece of paper and a calendar and make a plan, and commit to it.
Also, beware that there’ll be setbacks and problems. Don’t be hard on yourself when those arrive. It’s part of the process.
Good luck!
I’ve heard about people among my circle die during the pandemic because they were careless. Here i am not even having been infected. I hear about people struggling to pay for gas yet here i am driving my 10mpg two seater just for fun. I hear about people struggling to pay bills yet here i am with savings in my account to last for a decent number of years. All of those people used to tell me i worry too much, i am too anxious yet somehow they ask me to find them jobs or come looking for advice.
Like you i work my ass off, i invest in courses, i do consulting and do side gigs. I invest my little money in various things and i keep an eye on events around me.
My “anxiety” pays off. I accepted it as part of who i am and i am no longer looking at it in a negative way. If i watch a netflix movie and my mind tells me i should do something useful then thats what i do.
In my view its a matter of perspective. Clinical anxiety is not great, and one should seek professional help. But when anxiety tells you you should keep building and investing in yourself then you should listen to it. Of course one should be careful with not burning out and one should dose the amount of effort put into things, but to me you sound like someone who is responsible and the type of person that pulls others up and that is a good thing. But remember, you need to let your body and mind rest from time to time so you can focus better.
Once one accepts this then the anxiety you describe will become a normal thing and you will even be able to enjoy things knowing that you are still in control where possible. At least thats how it works in my case.
If anything happens, you will have a way better position than anyone else.
If you want to prepare for the most likely things to happen, care about your health, because neglecting it WILL come back to you. Learn to relax, exercise, eat healthy, spend quality time with loved ones.
Any apocalyptical event is extremely unlikely. Even the pandemic is, after all, handled pretty well and did not turn out to be the end of civilization.
And remember, news site live from ad impressions these days News have to be scary to be clicked, bad news are repeated and exaggerated. Nobody wants to read "all is fine today", and a lot of news is " because of X, Y might happen", although it barely happens. Deal with it like with engineering: It's a problem, when it's a problem. Otherwise move on.
Like others are suggesting, I'd consider spending time finding a counselor who is a good fit for you (may need to do some shopping around), or read up on books about anxiety, how to let go of things outside of your sphere of influence and control, and etc.
Those are more "inner" stuff (vs the "external" things, such as work, hobbies, vacay, food, people, etc.). Inner stuff is huge, because it basically impacts every single relationship we have, with anyone, anywhere, no matter the degree of closeness or not.
Some folks will settle for managing the symptoms of anxiety, but others try to go after the roots of the causes and see if they can even replace the roots with entire new paradigms.
Either way, it's kind of a long-haul commitment, a lifestyle, if you will. Just some food for thought to consider. Glad you're doing well with your work. Hope you can find that inner equilibrium no matter what's happening around us (because we're learning to manage what is within us, so to speak).
I'm an anxious personality and a pessimist through and through, but I'm super optimistic in the long run. Humanity is resilient and beautiful as heck.
If you stop reading the news and discover that you and the people around you are mostly happy and you are able to ease their suffering and help them find joy, them you've found the way to live. The nagging feeling that we must each, individually, fix the world is masochistic arrogance. It's a shame that there's so much money to be made promoting it.
Nobody says we can't do something useful with our time, but spending one's sparetime working won't help.
I've heard the phrase "chop wood, carry water" here on HN a few times. It's not a bad concept and if you have the option then I'd suggest trying. It's far more rewarding than watching Netflix.
But no one wants to say that so they make up stuff about “providing for their family”.
I can also relate to the feeling of losing money when not working. Basically I've come to terms with the fact that, yes, a day off is expensive, but it's worth it to spend time with my family and taking care of myself.
Of course so many people are experiencing anxiety these days. Our lizard brains are screaming at us that we need to be doing something, but pretty much all of us are powerless to stop the worst things going on and it's perfectly normal to not know what we're supposed to be doing right now. "Prepare" is a very sensible instinct and money really can solve, or at least ease, a lot of problems so it makes sense to want more in times of uncertainty. Sounds like you know you're in a pretty good place there already though.
I would suggest (as others have) talking with therapist, but I'd also suggest that you spend time examining the specific issues that worry you to try to think of things you can do to help or at least prepare for what's likely to happen in ways besides just making more money. Listen to your body which is telling you this isn't the time to be idle, but make sure you're devoting that energy where it can do the most good without making yourself miserable.
The idea is not far from the stoic ones - try your best and stop worrying. It's like an idea from this classic debate on TDD [0]: Unit tests make you confident. You write it, you forget it. It makes you sleep at night.
In my first few years of my career, I was constantly and unconsciously thinking about the code, the business requirement, the team, even outside the working hours. That stressed and drained me a lot. In the end I realized I shouldn't have done that. If I am to worry about those things, I just book myself a calendar and go over those things within the time-box. If I need more time, I book another time block for the next day - as simple as that.
Now write that "unit test", forget it, and sleep well at night.
If you really need to worry about them, you should have a "quarterly/monthly worrying day" to reflect about your life, your career, strategies and all that. Outside that day, you just live your happy life.
If you don't really analyse these things, it can become easy to only think a slightly bad thing is likely, but feel the fear of some catastrophic impossible worst-case scenario happening, just because you haven't disentangled the two.
Also, I don't agree with your money-centric analysis. It's great that you're saving up all this money, but money is also transitory, and the things you're investing your savings in might collapse. It sounds like you instead have something much more valuable. Based on your salary, you probably have skills valued by society and are a hard worker. This probably means that even if you had $0 in the bank and had to start from scratch, you'd manage.
Therapy will help with these things. If it does, perfect. If you go and it doesn't, you can just stop going. You can definitely afford it.
Good luck! :)
Edit: Oh, and stop reading the news and focus on your work. It's obviously incredibly easy to get a doomsday perspective by reading about all the bad things happening all the time. This does not mean only bad things happen, plenty of good things do as well.
I also had a normal job + an hourly gig in the evenings + studying for a master degree. I'm not exactly sure what changed but I stopped caring about that race of needing to be productive 100% of the time. It's a fallacy, I think at some point I realised I'll be alright even if I lose everything, I just need food and shelter and I should be able to afford that in most scenarios. I think it had an ego component as well, at least for me, it was about being "successful" as external validation. As I matured I felt naturally more confortable with my situation and it passed ... I hope it will for you as well.
As for the feeling of doom, my only recomendation is to step back from the news and the constant bombardment of "bad things". No need to become a hermit, but come back from the world stage and look at your neighbourhood, maybe read local news instead and reconect to your actual surroundings. Reading and talking about the new park they're opening next door instead of what's going on miles away has helped me a bit.
It seems everyone thinks they are living in uniquely scary times.
Like other people have said: OP needs to try therapy
It sounds like you've had good financial habits during the good times and have a good chunk of money saved and invested. That's a great place to be. If you lost all of your income sources tomorrow, would it take you long to find another job? ANY job? There are still lots of tech jobs out there, but there is also an abundance of service work in many cities that they cannot fill. That could be enough to cover expenses, though you probably won't save.
Aside from the above, I would recommend seeing a therapist to help you navigate this time in your life.
This is an easy trap to fall into (even though most of it is factually untrue, or otherwise not interesting...war in europe is like a fact of life, for instance). And as others have said, this line is indicative of some deeper/broader issues than worrying about money during a down economy.
You have back up investments, so you did things to have a fail over plan. Just relax!
Once you're not in this race, you will probably engage yourself with other things and you will start developing a clarity in thinking about this whole feeling.
But this is definitely something you need to implore otherwise it can negatively impact your mental and physical health.
Perhaps you need a goal for your money as well?
Perhaps you already have enough to buy something which gives you the safety net to fall onto?
For me my own little farm means water storage and solar panels and wood and stuff.
But it also means creating a garden for more biodiversity and building the soil up and trying to build it sustainable.
The farm could also have enough space to provide shelter for the rest of your family if they desire to join you.
The grand existential worries are further away, and the birds still sing each morning. Of course the worries are still there, but I have enough real, imminent, and perfectly solvable worries right here to keep me occupied and feeling adequately in control of my environment.
I suppose one can choose to try to persist in the mechanised world, and if you can make it work, power to you — or you can reject it and walk away into the bushes. There’s nothing wrong with choosing a different path. Some folks will try to talk you out of it, but they speak from their fears. Now more than ever, what with all-spanning connectivity, if you need to work for a living, you can, from anywhere.
Keep investing, is all I’d say - the markets are depressed and are likely to become moreso, so it’s an excellent time to think about accruing - it’s how I’ve afforded to do what I do, and work only because I want to.
For what it’s worth, my living expenses out here are so low that it’s put me in a position to better help those who need it, be it family, friends, or just a local villager who’s struggling to put food on the table, than I ever was in while I worked in a city for a living.
Then covid happened. I hit a point that I could no longer handle my anxiety on my own. Partially since I lost my outlets, but also just the added anxiety around covid. So I caved and finally talked to my doctor about medication. This was something I resisted for a while because I am not anti medicine by any means, but I am very cautious of being over medicated. But I did it, and honestly it was one of the best decisions I have made in a long time.
Now it took a few tries to find the right medicine, we had one particularly bad experience. But we started on a very low dose for all of this. Just a week ago we added an antidepressant to the mix and... I feel like I did when I was 18/19. I feel like myself again that I never thought I would. A change that I just chalked up to "being an adult". I am getting enjoyment out of things that... I really missed.
So I don't want to say you should dive head first into being medicated. But with what you are describing, it might be worth talking to your doctor about a very low dose of something just to help you while you talk to a therapist.
Mental Health is horribly stigmatized, we need to take care of ourselves.
On the note of therapy, don't be afraid to try a few therapists at first. It may take you a few tries to find someone you click with.
Because it seems like you need to reframe things. There is enough uncertainty in the world as it is. You are doing a commendable job it seems for yourself and your family, but you can't control everything. A little less thinking in opposites would go a long way. You seem to be chasing certainty.
Why not allocate some time to work on a social cause? Don't worry about optimization, just start with doing something. Also nothing wrong with 'just' taking care of your own family, they are an important part of this world too!
Whatever site you're getting these ideas from, cut that out of your life. Especially if its coming from opinions of random crazy people in the comments.
You can't control everything (actually there are very few things you CAN control). But there is one thing that is in your control, and that is you. If you feel like you are losing control, go and talk to someone - after all, what is the money good for if you are not well.
It won't slow down. The future is an imaginary reality based on artificial souls and imagination. You don't want to go through life being blown about in the wind you need to discover your base-truth; To not be tricked into thinking you are less than these things.
Luke 9:58 - Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”
https://mullikine.github.io/posts/the-tapestry-of-truth/
External so-called truth is the issue. Anxiety is caused by being manipulated and being blown about without rest, I believe.
Consensus truth, pragmatic truth, coherence truth (or incoherence truth: Justin Trudeau), constructivist truth - these truths do not take into consideration what is your personal truth.
-- you have to also take care of your health. It will be a costly and absurd mistake to neglect it, and consequently end up right in the situation you seem to be trying to avoid, of hindering your income. If you plan carefully, you also plan to preserve your abilities - which means, treating your health with the highest care - and ALL of it, not just bits, not picking between body and nerves, nutrition and rest. Manage yourself optimally, do not leave holes;
-- allocate time to assess your concerns properly. You cannot get out of a bad (apparently, cognitively passive) approach towards the frankly dire situation humanity is in, if you "feel" it instead of "considering" it lucidly: if something is a concern to you, examine it. Reasonably, you cannot swamp yourself in the fear of so general ideas: study your enemy properly, if you want to be prepared.
The key here is learning to enjoy living relatively frugally, if you haven't already. If you like living large, you'll be slave to tech jobs for a long time.
Just this week a client told me that despite the external world crashing down around them, crypto vaporzing the majority of their net worth, and major uncertainty, our work together has in just a few sessions given them a deep sense of calm and confidence and capacity to take on these new challenges.
Here is a frame that has been helpful for me and my clients (I’m the personal coach to some of the most interesting and kind hearted Unicorn technical Founders in the world).
What if what you’re calling “feelings” are actually exiled parts of yourself that are returning now exactly because you have the space and resources (internally and externally) to integrate them back into who you are?
What if it’s like you’ve reached a stage in your personal heros journey that requires you pickup these capacities before you can move on to the next challenges?
What if instead of trying to “get rid of them”, which is mirroring what culture did to these parts of you previously, you were to WELCOME and invite in the feelings like old friends, wise teachers or gurus?
Could you breathe into the feelings, journal, ask them what they are here to teach you or what they need?
Could you give them voice?
Could you take them into a Breathwork practice?
And ideally, could you get support of a mentor who can help guide your integration?
Is it possible that on the other side is a much more whole, loving compassionate version of you?
Could doing this work also put you in the best position to be able to help solve the challenges you see around you?
- Happy to drop in with you for 15 minutes sometime and share other tools and resources more deeply.
http://AnthonyDavidAdams.com/15 if you want to book a call.
So I would suggest, as others have, seeing a trained Therapist and trying to get to the root of the fears that drive your anxiety. I personally got over some very deep-rooted insecurities that were mainly related to trying to please people because my dad was never "pleased". I didn't think I had a problem and had the therapy because of opportunity, not need. Changed by life. The outside stuff didn't change but my ability to deal with it did.
Good luck!
Some random ideas: Build/buy a perfect house, have enough money for X years runaway but no more, create a local organization, spend X amount to help locals in Y, travel for Z months, live in place Y for Z months, create a self sustaining organization on any topic, address climate change in your area by doing X, create something that is bigger than you ever could do alone, or destroy something big.
I got the following from "Zen and the art of saving the planet" by thich nhat hanh. It helped me, perhaps it helps you too. I recommend the book, but please give therapy a shot. You're not broken, but it's important to get a good perspective on the situation. That can help you shift from feeling overwhelmed and helpless to feeling empowered and inspired to help (in whatever way works best for you).
The tnh part: Realize that in nature everything has a beginning and an end. Even things we consider to be permanent/static. The grand canyon wasn't always there. It was formed, and it will not last forever.
The same applies to our society and to humanity in general. Reflect on that. If humanity ceases to exist in its current form, perhaps it will make place for something better.
Do these things and realize that if bad things nevertheless happen, they were always beyond your control. Work on not stressing about that which is beyond your control. Don't suffer tragedies twice over.
If providing for you and yours does not leave enough room for happiness, you are in Crisis Mode. Happiness will not be achievable in this time. In this mode, your highest priority after doing what needs doing is to exit the crisis situation.
Disclaimer: this is somewhat tongue in cheek. I do believe this is the right way to live, but it's very much easier said than done.
Take a month or two off your day job and side gig, don't read anything about current events, log off social media and learn something that's not related to software engineering at all.
Try woodworking, sowing or gardening/farming, maybe buy a cheap car that barely runs and fix it to pass inspection.
You'll get out of the wheel of anxiety AND learn skills you may need if "everything comes crashing down".
Oh, and like everyone else has already said: get a therapist. You seem like you're going round in circles in your own head and spiraling to a dark(er) place. Having someone who just listens and doesn't have a stake in the game themselves is REALLY helpful.
Consider therapy. Other things might help as well. Sleep more. Rest more. Work less. Find time for some physical activity. But at least in my case, finding and addressing the root cause(s) was the key (followed by years of un-learning of some unhealthy mental patterns).
You need a new perpective on life. Watch Ed Helm's Cornell speech and internalize it's message. You need to be foolish. Not irresponsible, but foolish. It involves disengaging your analytical mind from time to time, and letting go of your paranoid predictions of the future.
What's the finite set of universal human needs? How can we show this? One way is to compile a list from all the lists online and see what needs you're not meeting. Work on getting those met. Sounds like you've got some acceptance going unmet, as well as some mourning. Do you have effective grieving strategies? Have you cried through envisioning the death of the last human? What about extinction by asteroid? There's a whole world of death to explore and accept! This is why we're starting a traveling circus meant for healing, grieving, and more.
Anxiety is normal for any beliefs out of alignment with reality/nature like "There's nothing we can do about it" or "I'm but one person." And no matter what your beliefs, if you have a chronically unmet need for something and you're making plans that continue to deny it, the parts of the body needing that thing may naturally get anxious.
Money literally isn't a human need, so if you think a collapse is coming and you don't know how to live without money, part of you is probably aware you can get pretty screwed pretty quick in that scenario. So go learn that. Consider a change in career. Have you considered running away to a weird traveling donation-driven circus, becoming a death clown, and learning what it's like to have 0 money and not feel anxious? Cause that's where I'm at and I wish this peace for all. The Caravan Stage Company has also been rolling this way for decades. Maybe check them out? If you do this kind of work on yourself, you may become a person who's equipped to help family through anything. That's the journey I'm on, or so I hope. I suspect I can show it works mathematically.
Sleeping 6 hours will cost you a lot more, but you're fine with that, right?
> everything could come crashing down in a couple of years and I'll need the money
If everything comes crashing down, your money will be useless. It will be inflated away. You dont really need the money though, you earn 10x what your neighbour earns and they are 10x less worried... maybe you should re-evaluate the value of money in life, you give it too much importance.
I think most people are like this. It's the religion of the modern age. It is a meditation, that takes us away from our underlying fears. And there's plenty of reasons to be afraid. We are all poor fragile monkeys here, any one of us could get wiped out randomly at any moment. How can you be ok with that? You can't. And so we search for a release. For most of us it is work. Of course there's many other things people try: money, food, sex, drugs...
Diversify in more areas than finance. Work on yourself. Get healthy, physically, mentally, and spiritually. Turn off the news and get off the devices begetting your anxiety and stress. Don’t worry, be happy.
Worrying about the past or future gets you stuck. Focus on the present, this moment in time. Believe in your own thoughts and you’ll find your own genius.
Edit: Therapy as suggested by others also. Still, turning off the news and social media can have positive effects at little to no costs.
If you like watching Netflix 24/7, by all means, do it. If you want to make a change in the world, just begin. If you feel you're in a work treadmill, quit.
Find out who you are and what you want to do with your time. Don't just get lazy and build a skill tree that lets you win the game others have made for you. That's boring and hollow, and you're right to be anxious about it.
And maybe talk to a financial advisor, if you’re anxious about money maybe they can reassure you.
Have you considered seeing a therapist?
"Life is a bitch and then you die." - anonymous
Take a look at game theory and the prisoner dilemma if you haven't already. The "me first" mentality is killing us. The textbook example is gun ownership. You may feel personally safer by owning a gun but places with more guns have more shootings. So in reality by owning a gun you're actually increasing your chances of getting shot.
The digital economy is at the epicenter of the issues you've listed. It's a resource sink generating a lot of pollution, has always been closely linked to the war industry and is a factor of increased inequality and mental health issues.
My recommendation would be that instead of trying to escape through consumerism, you include activities in your life that try to address the problems you've identified. Support local organic food supply, join non-profit organizations helping the poor, host war refugees, spread knowledge about environmental destruction, corruption of your political leaders, digital alienation, etc. These are just examples, do what every floats your boat. By starting to fight against problems that make you anxious instead of trying to flee from them, you will feel better. It's also important that you team up with other people that have similar concerns.
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ecclesiastes%20...
Ignore all medical advice on this site.
Then read Shoe Dog by Phil Knight and go running again.
If you have gotten unfit the book will have you laughing with the guy at all he had thrown at him and then you'll find that you get over yourself the next run you take.
Any other books that people know about this positive?
I've been totally kicked up my rear by Knight's book, in the best possible way.
Loving-kindness or Thonglen meditation might help.
All your concerns are valid, but they shouldn't prevent you from living your life. So when you're ready to start the (other) work, consider seeking professional help and start therapy.
> So I work, always, because I'm anxious I won't be able to provide for the people around me, my sister won't earn enough to feed her family, my mom won't be able to retire even though her work is killing her, my dad's small business will be ruined if the economy collapses...
This indicates a great attitude. You have a massive sense of personal responsibility, not only over your own life, but of your loved ones. You are what high-performing, generous cultures are made of.
So, perhaps some appropriate advice for you, whose sense of responsibility for everything is overwhelming, is to limit your intake of news. News is becoming more extreme in order to pull attention from digital alternatives. I don't have a good news source to recommend, other than perhaps the Financial Times, that won't exacerbate this trait of yours.
And although some things are tough - we need to get on to sustainable energy and packaging; ongoing wars are still just as nightmarish as they always were - what is considered poor in the 21st century is beyond the dreams of people in the past. Every step of progress, even while it makes some people rich, enhances the lives of millions and (occasionally) billions. The great threat of Facebook is so easy to turn off we could all do it tomorrow by uninstalling it. Compare that to the pre-polio vaccine era, before dentistry and analgesics, the constant real violence of the past, both in war and domestically in pre-police times, the pre-GMO food sources that would've meant a billion starving.
Now a single violent incident can get national attention in some countries, when it was a way of life less than 200 years ago.
So it's not perfect, but if you think things are getting worse, I have to disagree with your news sources. Choose them carefully.
If your hope relies on humanity figuring it out and working together, your anxieties are only going to get worse over time.
Two suggestions:
a) Read Matt Ridley's Rational optimist : This shows the arc of progress and provides strong arguments on how our future will be better
b) https://thomasjbevan.substack.com/p/all-news-is-bad-news : Basically asks you not to read the news at all, unless there is something that you can use a year from now.
Really, if you find time to reflect on your anxiousness — consider yourself in a very privileged situation.
Do you kn ow what feeding a declining asset is? It's not just buying such things as Cars then paying the sunk operational costs. It happens when you charge hourly and form business models with that feature.
First step is to find some way to package something that is zero costs in copying as a service.
Second step is to market that new product.
Third, mediation helps with anxiety
My biases:
1. Recovered ADHD sufferer 2. Former hourly gig person now working on a service style model of software business models
you should be less anxious if you hold more cash
The above paragraph isn't intended to assure you that all problems are trivial or can be safely ignored. Just because we survived the Cold War doesn't mean that whatever upcoming international conflicts face us will end as benignly as that one did. As they say "Past Performance Is No Guarantee of Future Results."
However, the important message is that you can live your life despite the ongoing problems in the world. You can appreciate the time with your family, a good meal, a beautiful sunset. You owe it to yourself to enjoy those things, and not take the burden of the entire world on yourself. It requires confidence to believe that you'll face future challenges when they come, not before. It requires some discipline to compartmentalize your immediate, day-to-day existence away from what we read about in the news or on Twitter, but I think it's worthwhile. Meditation may help. Talking about your feelings may help.
-- hi OP. Hey i am 66 (I still can't believe that number, haha. Luckily I am still super healthy). I was in 2nd grade when president Kennedy was shot in the head, live on national television. His brain flew out into his wife's lap. It set off a wave of assassinations (president's brother, MLK, etc). I grew up knowing that the yellow and black triangles symbol meant "fallout shelter" and we were supposed to go there in case of nuclear attack. We did "duck and cover" drills in elementary school. Hide under your desks. Once, they sent us home with pamphlets about nuclear attack preparation. OK don't laugh, the pamphlet said "wear loose white clothing in case of nuclear detonation. Don't look directly at the explosion." They flew warplanes overhead once per week after bedtime, faster than the speed of sound, and we would hear the "sonic boom" which scared the crap out of me. It rattled the windows, shook the house. People were truly panicked, using their life savings to dig holes in their backyard, and building and equipping "bomb shelters" to try to survive nuclear fallout. It didn't feel like that stuff was ever resolved, it just faded from attention, it was buried by other distractions both negative and positive. Wasn't too much later the government had a giant meltdown that scared the crap out of everyone. It was right as I came of voting age, haha! Oh my god. Watergate, it was called. Huge corruption scandal, everyone was just breathless with shock and disgust and fear. At that time people around me trusted the government to be solid enough to remain (seemingly) just, and we learned it could seemingly recover, at least back then. Around this time we were also in a totally illegal war, and we had a freaking lottery to decide which 18-year-olds would be forced to go fight the Viet Cong in the jungles of southeast asia. High school grads coming back in body bags, kids running away to Canada to avoid getting roped into the army. And hippies happened, communes, free love, weed -- all of which caused the older ones to lose their minds because society looked to them to be coming apart. Some of us died. Most of us lived. You are living the stories you will tell young people, when its your turn to comfort them. None of this is to minimize what you are sensing around you! You are awake and aware, you are not overreacting. I am so sorry. I wish I could just listen to you for a couple hours. You are having one of those wakeup moments. We all will be each having our own wakeup moments. Our job is to comfort each other when we feel like this. We will all adapt and do our human best to cope with whats coming. Help each other not freeze in place, but take the most intelligent and resourceful steps we can muster. The system is unable to help, its unreliable --
[1] https://old.reddit.com/r/NoStupidQuestions/comments/v9l0j6/i...
> Given my income and my economic situation I shouldn't feel anxious, yet I can't relax thinking every hour spent watching netflix is in a way costing me ~110$.
I make about $3000 net per month. I work 4 days per week. Currently working remote, I'm also currently single (since very recent). I'm in another country. I take long walks, I meet people, I chill hardcore, it's nice. I spend about $2500 by not even thinking about money and making very unoptimized decisions. The way I view it, life is good, especially because the place I work for also provides a pension and there is a small state pension. If the market goes completely sideways, I'm a software developer! I'll get by. I'll teach high schoolers math (or any other subject) if I have to.
My life feels like a vacation. I need the 4 day work week in order to stay mentally sharp. I don't want to mentally decline, it's a health thing. I happen to make money with it as well. I don't fully like doing it (software engineering), but I don't hate it either. IMO that's the sweet spot, it constantly reminds me to have something of a work ethic. Quite frankly, I love the whole situation.
> So when I don't have any more work for the week, I work on my hard and soft skills through certifications so I can up even more my hourly rate.
I also work on my soft skills! I do it through dating. I meet people while sitting remote working in a cafe, or when I go on my daily walks. People come from all walks of life. I guess you learn totally different soft skills though ;-)
Hard skills? I learn it when the time requires me to. I've seen so many languages, while there's a lot to learn for me, there is at the same time nothing new under the sun. When I started out in my computer science bachelor it felt I was too stupid. I had a very hard time wrapping my head around programming. I've never had those difficulties since, learning stuff now simply takes time.
How can I live like this you might ask? Well, it's better for me to be chill than to be all riled up. I provide a bigger benefit by being relaxed, positive and helpful to other people. I know the world is falling apart (just a bit, not too much IMO, read Factfulness, it's written by a Norwegian economist, he has an awesome ted talk too [1]).
I agree to a large extent with the rest, can't provide a counter point to that. Feel free to email me if you want someone to talk to, as a curious fellow HN'er that is :)
Email is in my profile.
[1] https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_the_best_stats_you_ve...
It doesn't work this way.
Money is a fiction we created, a way to measure debts and legal liabilities. (Barter economies never existed; money emerges very quickly, and is used for this purpose.) Time is real, and it's yours. You deserve time to relax. If you spend every hour optimizing for work productivity, you'll burn yourself out and have "unplanned downtime"... trust me, that's not what you want. Better to work at a reasonable pace--in the long run, no one does more than ~1500 hours per year of meaningful work anyway--and avoid the stochasticity of unplanned downtime.
I work on my hard and soft skills through certifications so I can up even more my hourly rate.
There's nothing wrong with that. You've got to do what's best for you. No one eles will.
It's a never ending race, I've been playing this game since 2016, finding new ways to earn more, not because I'm passionate about it, but because I'm anxious everything could come crashing down in a couple of years and I'll need the money.
I hate saying this, but it could. Disaster can happen to any of us, whether personal in scale (sickness) or global (sickness again, because COVID-19 isn't necessarily over). Everyone is in the same boat, even the very rich (Bezos or Musk could get cancer). The negative outliers are dreadful. An air conditioner could fall on you tomorrow. The probability of each of your atoms quantum tunneling into the far reaches of the universe, although so infinitesimally small it's ridiculous, is technically nonzero.
This is probably an unpopular suggestion, but studying religion (don't feel pushed to pick one; study many) often helps. For my part, I think Buddhism has the most accurate model of mind and impermanence, Judaism has the strongest theology and ethics, and Christianity has a great model in Jesus (even if I don't consider him to be messiah, nor believe he considered himself such) of how to live in the world. The ancients were smarter than we give them credit for.
I feel like we are destroying our planet, destroying our economy, we make poor people poorer, stir political extremes, we alienate the younger generation with social medias, there is war in Europe, everything is about politics when it should be about science and people...
This is all true, but if you're not directly making it worse, then you shouldn't feel bad about it. If you're mining Bitcoin, you have something to feel bad about. If you're building websites for restaurants, you shouldn't feel guilty, because even though you are technically participating in capitalism--an objectively immoral system--you're also helping people (who, like you, need to eat) better their lives.
No one can predict the future. Will capitalism throw humanity off the rails? Or will it be overthrown? (And will such overthrow be a good thing, or will it be replaced by something worse?) No one knows the answers. All you can hold yourself responsible for is living one day at a time.
I've tried not caring, going to bars and restaurants and beautiful places in vacation, getting a new car, finding hobbies... but I can't pretend, I don't know how to cope anymore.
This never helps as much as it should. Hedonic adaptation happens fast. Read more, learn more, and while it's good to stay aware of the world and your role in it, this too can be overdone. You're not killing the planet every time you drive to the grocery store--at least, no more than lightning kills the planet when it starts a forest fire, as it has done for hundreds of millions of years--it's far, far more complicated than that and you can't hold yourself responsible for decisions made by others.
You've already succeeded in working hard - you are earning a lot(relatively) and studying a lot. The way to think about it now, and to position yourself in a way that makes you calmer and more able to help those around you, is to start to live towards studying a problem. The problem is not a work or business problem, or an exam question, or even academic research. The problem is how to live well going forward. What an esteemed person would be in the society of 2035. What does their day look like? How do they spend time? What do they commute with? How do they stay involved with friends and family? Do they know their neighbors? And so on. And the answers you should give are not the cynical ones critiquing this moment, but answers you like and want to aspire to. Many things in life are age-old but are reshaped by the times. The times change what "right answers" look like. What is unique to these times is that those answers are no longer clearly defined: there is a fight everywhere you look. Disruption up and down.
When you go through these questions, and apply technology trends and emerging new norms on top as a guiding force, it stops being a money thing in any direct sense, but it also leads to money questions: "if this is the norm going forward, then that business won't make sense anymore, but these other ones will take its place." OK. But you don't have to feel compelled to be the person building it or investing in it or otherwise taking all the credit. You can aim for that, but credit is ultimately just the parts you find a way to get paid for; but even a passive, consumptive role is a way of voting towards the future you want, and you can vote for way more things in a passive way by doing or not doing them, leading by example.
For example, I decided that I am interested in micromobility after looking at the converging nature of EV tech, growing interest in expanding urban bike infrastructure, the growth of smartphone-based rental apps and the potential for AI tech to further refine and add more options to these services. What I did to act on this, after reading things about this industry and all that it's doing to change urban transit, was the most basic act: I subscribed to the local bikeshare service, got a cheap helmet, and started learning to ride a bike - today.
The benefit of that is that I become a changed person - I'm adapting to a future where it gets easier to ride around town on a bike or scooter. I can discuss the topic with confidence and introduce it to others. This prepares them for the future as well, and therefore - it calms me down; it puts everyone on a slightly safer and healthier trajectory if I add to the demand for these new options for getting around, instead of aspiring to luxury cars etc. I don't have to use it to "build wealth" in the abstract, because the literal stuff of wealth is in one's character by having agency over events, being in good health, being treated well, etc. Virtue ethics, as Aristotle taught.