AE's Journal Round 4

[Frita]

Each season had a new duty, each day had many opportunities for varied work.

Variety is not a feature of most modern employment in the US. People specialize. Those who don’t tend to be marginalized. I don’t know that being creative, having a wider skill base, and not neatly sliding into a round hole is appreciated.

I'm sure they seemed more like work when the feudal lord sent the knights after you for not passing on the requested amount of grain

The key here is exploitation imo, defined as the power of another to make you do a task and fork over (part of) the value you generated.

Are people exploited by employers, governments, and/or other systems now? These days we actually have more of a choice in how to live, especially if born into relative privilege, yet tolerate it nonetheless.

Like it should be enough for me to acknowledge that I'm not happy in my career without feeling bad about myself for it. I think when your personality/desired lifestyle is not "average," it can be easy to feel alienated, and those feelings of alienation can turn into resentment, depression, or guilt. But in reality, the healthy response is to go "okay, this isn't for me, and it doesn't really matter if other people do or do not enjoy their jobs because I am not other people."

Regardless, this does have me thinking now that I need to make a more dramatic shift than merely finding another tech job. I'm going to have to give some thought into what that looks like and how it aligns with my other goals.

There seems to be plenty of societal pressure to play along with the careerism game even when it’s so unhealthy. The World Health Organization predicts that depressive disorders will be the leading cause of illness by 2030 (It is currently third.). Kudos, AE, for having the courage to look at your situation and choose something better. I find it inspirational!

[AxelHeyst]

@c_L dropped this gem in my journal yesterday, copying here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YH07l10BbZY

There might be a decent return on time invested for you in spending some time with media (books, videos) that encourage the notion that most of society is fundamentally sick, in helping you "undo" that cultural narrative that you're a loser if you don't love the particular way you've chosen you sacrifice your best years to The Man. In particular, books about people who had some very non-status-quo idea for something to do, and then did it. Thoreau, To Shake the Sleeping Self (bike to patagonia), Swell (solo sail across the Pacific), vandwell, or just decide to hobo for a few years. And then anything you can find that is critical of The Way Things Are (lots of suggestions around here).

The reason for the suggestion is that if you absorb enough of that kind of narrative, I think it'll help flip the story in your head. A danger in reading about people's Weird and Grand Adventures is that you just go to the flip side of the coin and feel bad about yourself for not riding a unicycle across the Arctic while busking or whatever. I find it helpful to read about a wide variety of different alt lifestyles, so I don't get too distracted with the specifics of any one person's path, and grok the larger point that I don't have to choose from A B or C life paths.

[ertyu]

Are people exploited by employers, governments, and/or other systems now? These days we actually have more of a choice in how to live, especially if born into relative privilege, yet tolerate it nonetheless.

This is quite a derail in poor AEs journal, but people are indeed exploited by employers according to the formal definition of exploitation. The colloquial use implies that you're being mistreated and taken advantage of, but you don't have to feel taken advantage of to be exploited in the technical sense of the word. You might indeed be treated wonderfully -- provided with a pool table, a soda cooler, allowed to bring your dog to work, etc -- and you might also feel very lucky to work for this particular employer. You might also already be financially independent and technically not need to work for this employer. According to the technical definition of the term, you are exploited as long as you receive in compensation less than the value of the output you generate for your employer, and as long as those exploiting you decide what you will be working on. And if you think about it, that would always be true or else your employer wouldn't be making a profit. The difference between this very happy employee and an amazon warehouse worker in this theoretical framework is one of intensity of exploitation rather than whether exploitation exists. It is recognized that many factors constellate such that different people might have very different experiences working for others. But working for others is always by definition exploitation (even the happy employee, for instance, is not fully self-directed in their work but must complete tasks set to them by the goals of the organization -- even if they are meeting their own goals of acquiring a given skill in the process).

The response to this, of course, is that the profit is actually your employer's due for having the brilliant idea to set up a business and for putting their capital at risk by starting that business.

In general, this is interesting only in a theoretical sense. I think it would be too much of a derail to go into all the yes-buts. Makes for fun debate, but ultimately, what really matters is how a given person runs their life. Considering the intensity of one's own exploitation and deciding how to cope with it (regardless of what terms you actually use) is much more important. I personally am a sucker for using the correct terms in social science [also see the privilege derail i got up in arms about] because it helps me personally. Understanding that whenever I am under the conditions of paid employment I am inherently in the condition of exploitation helps me be able to name my own experience and deal with it. While the "being paid less than the value of what you produce" might be more important to those who hope to argue for increased social programs etc., the "not self directed" piece is the one that is central to me and my understanding of my own experience.

[AnalyticalEngine]

When I graduated from college, I actually was pretty caught up in the "society is sick" mindset. Because there are honestly many things about society that are indeed objectively troubling. The problem was, though, this mindset was ultimately holding me back. It made me quit at almost everything before I had even tried, and it enabled me to dedicate way too much time and energy to fantasy/video games. My logic was that modern work was "bullshit" and so why not do the bare minimum and just play video games? It was a form of nihilism that crept into my entire life. It also alienated me from others. It became too easy to view myself as "enlightened" and other people as drones.

Which isn't to say those resources don't have their uses. It can be inspiring to see how other people live alternative lifestyles, and it does indeed help if one is feeling too bad about themselves for not fitting the traditional mold. I think they are incredibly useful to people who are stepping outside the Overton Window for the first time. I just know that I personally need to be careful to not develop a "poor enlightened me vs insane majority" persecution complex because that's something that's happened to me before and will lead to me feeling even more alienated. Other people may be more immune to this problem than I was. (More on my personal experiences in my FIRE as an information hazard post)

This being said, I do think it would help to read about more people who have pulled off alternate lifestyles as a self-esteem boost. I've been meaning to read "The Way Home: Life Without Technology," so I will prioritize that higher on my list. Thanks for your suggestion @AxelHeyst!

One component of CBT/depression therapy is trying to view things in non-normative terms. So I try to think less that society is sick and more that society is set up in a way that isn't always a match for my personality and interests. Therefore I shouldn't let the fact I don't find happiness in what other people do because I don't know other people's experiences and it's okay for me to be different. This is really hard to do though, and I still struggle with making snap, normative judgements about other people and situations, as well as myself and my experiences.

@Frita - Thank you, I'm glad you find my insight/experiences useful. Hating one's work and becoming depressed about it does seem to be an endemic problem. The unfortunate thing is that finding a way out requires navigating a difficult and increasingly complicated world. Everyone's situation is unique, and sometimes there are no clear answers.

[classical_Liberal]

@AE
Viewing something as sick or broken and choosing to minimize your exposure to the sick/broken parts, doesn't have to lead to a view of superiority or aloneness. Rather, you can instead view those caught up in it with empathy if they are experiencing the effects of long term exposure. IOW, One can choose to feel superior to the smoker who gets COPD, they should have known better, smoking is bad. Or you can choose to empathize with that person, they got caught up/addicted to something that was bad for their health. One view lends to judgement, isolation and nihilism. The other lends to helpfulness and community. Yet it's the same situation.

I've also noticed personally, people who tend to be hardest on others, are often, internally, very hard on themselves. Learning empathy for others opens up the possibility to empathy for oneself. Acting on the empathy we feel for ourselves and others leads to feelings of agency. I believe it can be a self reinforcing cycle.

[jacob]

One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds. Much of the damage inflicted on land is quite invisible to laymen. An ecologist must either harden his shell and make believe that the consequences of science are none of his business, or he must be the doctor who sees the marks of death in a community that believes itself well and does not want to be told otherwise.

Is there a third way? An alternative?

[horsewoman]

I've always felt empowered by Jiddu Krishnamurtis Quote "It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.".
In my view society is sick, as evidenced by how humans treat each other, animals and the environment. But apparently, this is human nature since it has been like this forever, only now it is all in overdrive since there are so many of us.

The third way is (IMO) what @AH described - being compassionate to yourself and to others, while arranging you life to contribute as little as possible to those aspects you consider sick.
In my case or is factory farming animals and waste - eating a vegetarian/vegan diet makes perfect sense in this case, and instantly my life is a little less "sick".

Giving up the hamster wheel of full time work is another. DH and me were both a lot more stressed and unpleasant people while working FT, so I suppose we are making our small part of society better by being in general well-balanced, individuals going to the beat of their own drum.

So I don't think that seeing society as sick turns one into an nihilist necessarily. If I can take that feeling and make my own sphere of influence just a tiny little bit less sick, it is a win.
This is after all what @jacob did, and look at us all here now :)

[AnalyticalEngine]

Thanks for your feedback, everyone. Finding the third way is definitely something to spend time pondering and considering. I don't think there's an easy answer. Because it is true that we modern humans live unbalanced lives, but I sometimes wonder if it could even have been another way. There's not a creature on Earth that holds back its own consumption for the sake of others. Why would humans be any other way? And it's not even a matter of ethics. It's simply a fact that creatures that consume are a more stable solution than creatures that don't, because anything that withholds its own consumption will get out-competed by an organism that doesn't. Hence the tragic cycle of population boom and busts that you see in nature when the ecological balance gets upset. Unfortunately, this cycle has been turned up to 11 in our own lifetimes, and yet it's also not the first mass extinction the world has ever seen.

I suppose one does have to accept the tragedy for what it is while also not letting it overwhelm you. To reject the impact humans have had on the world is to live in ignorance, and to live ignorance leads you to being trapped in the salaryman mindset and subjected to the worst impacts of crises (see how CV19 took everyone by surprise). So the real key is to accept your own feelings/the evidence about what is wrong while still managing to turn that into something actionable.

[AxelHeyst]

This might seem like a nerd quibble, but I think it's important to a healthy wordview about this stuff.

>>There's no such thing as an organism that doesn't consume.<<

The whole of nature is a conjugation of the verb to eat, in the active and passive.

Biologically modern humans lived a basically evolutionarily stable way for tens of thousands of years before getting on the path of planetarily unstable methods of living. Daniel Quinn, in The Story of B, refutes the idea that our current trajectory was or is inevitable. It is *not* the case that humans have been on this path since the beginning; we were doing just fine* until a certain point, and then things started going off the rails when we changed our culture in such a way as to attempt to live in ignorance of how reality works. He claims that getting on this trajectory was a fluke, an accident, *not* pre-ordained.

This to me is a way to avoid the trap of getting too down on humans as a species - yes populations consume and all that you said is perhaps true, but the scale and *quality* at which modern humans are consuming is not how things have to be. Our current cultural arrangement has us trained to consume even past the point of satiety, at *all* scales you can think of consumption, which is different than how most species simply eat to satiety. Population booms and busts are a part of ecological stability, not a sign of its failure - it's called "dynamic equilibrium" with an emphasis on "dynamic".

So in short, if we think that humans are inherently, biologically foredoomed to wreck absolutely everything, there's no way to have a healthy worldview.

But if we can realize that that narrative is just an inversion of the Myth of Progress, that humans are *not* predestined to be either brain-in-a-computer Singularity Gods on the one hand or world-wreckers on the other, and that instead we simply stumbled across an evolutionarily unstable cultural adaptation... well, to me there's hope in that, because it suggests it's possible for the error to be corrected, and furthermore for my life to be part of that correction.

*(I'm not suggesting pre-Civ humans were angels, never caused megafaunal extinctions, or were doing what they were doing "on purpose" because they were in communion with Mother Gaia. I'm also not suggesting that the Neolithic/Paleolithic lifestyle is the only possible solution going forward.)

[classical_Liberal]

Daniel Quinn, in The Story of B, refutes the idea that our current trajectory was or is inevitable. It is *not* the case that humans have been on this path since the beginning; we were doing just fine

So herein lies cognitive dissonance that eats up so many people in so many ways. Believing in determinization takes away our agency, hence our hope that anything we do matters for the future. OTOH believing in free will takes away our ability to empathize with individuals, groups and humanity as a whole. Because we choose our fate. Self hate individually and disgust with other's "choices" ensue.

I think the "third way" is to a understand that there is a huge degree of determinism in the world. I mean, just where I was born, when I was born, and to which parents I was born, immediately, in the first seconds of life, decreased the possible outcomes from nearly infinite to a much lower number. Based on this, in many ways it's OK to cut oneself, groups, and the human race some slack. Not everything was a choice. OTOH, it's important to believe that the choices we do have provide us with some lasting agency with ourselves and the world around us. We need to cherish and protect those arenas in which we feel some agency, whether real or imagined.

I'm not suggesting pre-Civ humans were angels

hahaha, you don't have to walk on eggshells here, I've said my peace.

[AnalyticalEngine]

I actually do agree with both of you. My point is a little more about ecology than anything unique to humanity. It was more that ecological conditions were set up to create the predicament we're in now. Namely, cheap energy in the form of fossil fuels is what's enabling all this. Those fossil fuels were an enormous source of potential energy. If it hadn't been humanity that tapped into it, some other species in the future may have instead.

It's a similar set up with our current culture of hyperconsumption. There were many cultures throughout all of human history, some less exploitative than our current set up. Yet the less exploitative cultures had to compete with ones that were more exploitative, and so they lost out. Thus our current situation is what was stable. In the future, when resources are depleted, a new culture (or species?) will emerge that's best suited to the new ecology. But the difficulty of our age is that we find ourselves in a confusing, liminal space between the long history of humanity and the planet. Navigating the liminal space into something that's stable (and more personally fulfilling!) in the new era is thus the goal.

I'll check out The Story of B. It sounds interesting.

[AnalyticalEngine]

Re-prioritizing and Strategy

Right now, I think there are two big problems holding me back. Those problems are:

1. Persistent low energy/mild depression
2. I hate my career

These are actually kind of the same problem, but I'm separating them out because I don't know what is causing what.

Now one struggle I've had is not using my time effectively/not pursuing goals strategically. It's easy to get distracted by the Internet/pets/going out with friends/whatever to the point I'm not making the dramatic progress I need to see in order to escape these two problems. So I'm going to try and break these problems out into actionable steps and try to work on them piecemeal by day. This has been hard to do because it's difficult to break "I hate my career" into problems you can solve on a daily basis, but there's really no other way out of this.

So I'm going to use the to do list on my planner more, as well as try to avoid using the Internet before 4pm.

As far as what to do about these problems, this is roughly what I have:

1. Persistent low energy
a. Use mood tracker to figure out what helps
b. Get proper exercise
c. Eat healthful diet
d. Try to do more things with others (difficult due to CV19)
e. Remind myself that I am indeed making progress on goals
f. Avoid social media/99% of the Internet

2. I hate my career
This one is harder to solve because I can't figure out what career I want to do while I'm struggling with low energy/mild depression. Fulfilling career is the top of Maslow's hierarchy, and mild depression is in the middle. But being in the wrong career is causing mild depression, and so we have circular problem. I think the only way to fix this is to take a break from work.

But salaryman mindset is making it impossible for me to take a break. It keeps triggering this sense of scarcity because I know quitting now will just lead to me eventually having to take another programming job later because I'm not at my FI number.

So what I am considering doing is selling my condo and moving. I have enough money that I can buy a house outright if I just sell this condo and move. Where I live now is stupidly expensive and not a great place for me to meet people due to being so suburban. Plus there's some weird stuff going on in the HOA where someone is suing the HOA while also running for HOA board member. So now is a good time for me to get out. I also would rather live in a house than a condo. Plus this condo is too big and I need to downsize.

However, selling the condo and moving is hard because I need to downsize all my junk/stuff, fix up the rough edges of the condo, then find a new house (difficult in the ever hot Colorado housing market). I'm thinking I will move to Colorado Springs because it's a lot cheaper there while still being a big enough city that there's stuff to do. I need to do more research.

Regardless, getting rid of clutter is something I need to do anyway, so fixing up the condo/preparing to move is something that I basically can't go wrong with.

[5ts]

Too suburban? What neighborhood are you in? Don't answer if you are uncomfortable at all. I'm asking because I might have some specific recommendations to meet people. I'm telling you being near a decent sized park is a great way to meet people. Not so much people alone who are just relaxing, because they sometimes get weirded out when you approach, but if there is an open grassy area where people are playing volleyball or soccer or any game, it's easy to ask to join and then you made a giant group of friends. Open spaces, which are great and everywhere there, not so much. That's an in and out sort of thing.

Are you sure you're ok with the political leanings of Co Springs? And I haven't lived there but it seems like mostly suburban sprawl.

What do you hate about your career? Do you have an alternative in mind? So you're going to move and quit your job for a while?

[AnalyticalEngine]

Too suburban? What neighborhood are you in?

I actually currently live in Douglas County, not Denver proper. I'm all for suggestions though if you know better places to live in. I've been planning to leave Douglas County for awhile now because it's ridiculously expensive to live in this county. I suppose there is Centennial or Lakewood to consider too.

Are you sure you're ok with the political leanings of Co Springs? And I haven't lived there but it seems like mostly suburban sprawl.

Colorado Springs does have a certain...reputation that is well earned. But Douglas County is actually more conservative, believe it or not. Anyway, I'm not 100% set on Colorado Springs but the main appeal is the cheaper housing and larger city. So while it is a pretty conservative place, the politics have changed a little in the more recent years due to the size of the city. I would say it is probably more conservative than I prefer.

Colorado Springs does have a lot of sprawl, but the difference is there are still older neighborhoods with cheaper houses. Douglas County was basically built in the past 5 years, and is therefore all new development. The new development is both super expensive and super sprawl.

What do you hate about your career? Do you have an alternative in mind? So you're going to move and quit your job for a while?

I don't have an alternative in mind, and that's one thing I need to figure out. The biggest thing I hate about my career is that I literally cannot make myself care about any of the problems I am supposed to be solving. I know this sounds petty, and maybe it is, but the stuff I'm working on is so tedious and so pointless that psyching myself up to work on them takes a tremendous amount of energy. The problems are hard enough that I can't get them over with quickly, but tedious enough that I never feel challenged. Plus it feels like software development methodology goes in a giant circle of self-inflicted problems where yesterday's solution is tomorrow's technical debt. All of this leaves me feeling incredibly drained, and then I don't have the energy I need in order to solve the problem of hating my job. My hope was that by moving somewhere where I can buy a house with cash, I can decompress enough to figure out what I want to do.

[jacob]

I don't have an alternative in mind, and that's one thing I need to figure out. The biggest thing I hate about my career is that I literally cannot make myself care about any of the problems I am supposed to be solving. I know this sounds petty, and maybe it is, but the stuff I'm working on is so tedious and so pointless that psyching myself up to work on them takes a tremendous amount of energy. The problems are hard enough that I can't get them over with quickly, but tedious enough that I never feel challenged.

All this sounds incredibly familiar. Also see flowchart posted previously. I suppose a distinction between myField and SE might be in terms of how much you believe in your profession. In my case, it was on the mission level so beyond "just a job and an income". This also meant that feeling like the above was the equivalent of losing faith. Losing faith is how I see burnout. So if this is a matter of burning out, I don't know how to fix it. In my case, I've tended to go way past my limit and subsequently lost ALL interest in the field. I'd strongly recommend leaving sooner rather than later unless the plan is to extract the $$$ and never return.

Exercise does provide a temporary bandaid on the bleeding. However, it's not a solution. It needs to be the kind of exercise that takes the mind off work.

In my case, it's clear that the problem is innate. (Again, see flow chart.) I've experienced burnout a few times in very separate fields. I don't think the problem is in the field itself as much as my approach to it. I tend to burn the candle from both ends. I, therefore, require "lots of candle" to stay with it including regular reminders as to why the work isn't entirely pointless relative to the effort I put in.

Plus it feels like software development methodology goes in a giant circle of self-inflicted problems where yesterday's solution is tomorrow's technical debt.

As they say in the military (or so I've heard): "Shit rolls downhill". It's the same in scientific research.

[5ts]

Douglas County, gotcha. Parker is sort of suburban utopia for those types. Ok, that area is kind of depressing. Now a better place, I'm not so sure, because I never could come up with a perfect area. Around Cheesman is nice with access to the park but that's mega bucks or renting an apartment. Maybe deep into Lakewood? It feels most like a real neighborhood to me. It has strip malls and all of that crap, but the side streets feel like actual people live there and housing could be cheaper there, for reasons you would know. Maybe not too far into Aurora? But it's turning into sprawl out there. Co Springs could be great, I am admittedly ignorant of that area.

Not to discourage you, but I am dealing with pretty much the same problems you are and haven't figured it out. I just move every year or two to keep my mind off of it and keep chugging along. But I have never quit my job, so maybe that will help. We're rooting for you regardless.

[classical_Liberal]

Losing faith is how I see burnout. So if this is a matter of burning out, I don't know how to fix it. In my case, I've tended to go way past my limit and subsequently lost ALL interest in the field. I'd strongly recommend leaving sooner rather than later unless the plan is to extract the $$$ and never return.

Personal anecdote. I got to very high levels of "brown-out", maybe call it a crisis of faith with nursing. After 5 months off I was able to tackle it again with a pretty upbeat attitude, but my fuse was much, much shorter. After 1-2 months of FT I got right back to where I was.

If you think you can use SE in a more palatable form after recovery time, then it is very important to quit sooner rather than later. If you think you're already past that point, well, all you really have to think about is your mental health. Because you'll not be able to make yourself go back once you cross over. That's a good thing though. If you're fried, your fried.

I do think freeing up some extra cash in your net worth will be helpful in your endeavours though. No one wants to sell hard earned FI assets to fund cashflow for decompression. If you can work a few years of cash into your portfolio it really does change your attitude. Have you thought about renting for awhile? This way you can try a few places out before deciding where to buy? I mean, even Colorado Springs seems expensive to me. Are you sure there aren't other places that will have what you need for 75 or 50 cents on the dollar? or is there something other than work tethering you to the Denver area?

[AnalyticalEngine]

Douglas County, gotcha. Parker is sort of suburban utopia for those types. Ok, that area is kind of depressing.

Depressing is definitely one way to put it! It is why I was planning on moving anyway. The sprawl here has gotten so bad. All down south Parker Road has turned into McMansion development, all the way to Castle Rock. It's even invading Elbert County now. Plus culturally, Douglas County is not a good fit for me. So yeah, I do not recommend this area to live in.

It's such a shame because I've lived in Denver since 2008. It's just this area has changed so much and gotten so expensive. Traffic congestion is a real problem, and the sprawl is taking over everywhere. Anywhere good to live in the Denver area tends to be so pricey. But I guess that's how the cookie crumbles.

Not to discourage you, but I am dealing with pretty much the same problems you are and haven't figured it out. I just move every year or two to keep my mind off of it and keep chugging along. But I have never quit my job, so maybe that will help. We're rooting for you regardless.

Thanks for your kind words, and good luck to you as well. Moving every few years does help. If one is going down the 5-10 years of salaryman path, moving is not a bad strategy. It's definitely something I am considering to make the grind more bearable.

@c_L - Thanks for sharing your experience. Having an ever-shortening fuse is something that's happened to me in software as well. I think it's why trying to rely on willpower or "surviving the grind" is not always a good strategy because you can only do that so much before you go insane. As for what's keeping me in Denver, it was largely work. Now that I'm working from home, I have a little more flexibility in where I live. Allegedly we go back to the office some day, but given that we're in a worse outbreak now than when we started, I seriously doubt that will be any time soon. So it is a good opportunity for me to explore other areas. Colorado overall is a pretty expensive state. There are alternatives, but I need to do more research. Anyway getting the condo ready to sell will take time, so hopefully at least having this smaller goal will help distract me.

@Jacob - Thanks too for sharing your experience. That sounds pretty similar to what I've experienced. Scientific research was one thing I was considering going into, but it sounds like the recycled knowledge problem exists everywhere. From my limited experience in CS research, this was also true. Pretty much all the significant breakthroughs were done in the 70s, and research nowadays consists of tiny incremental improvements or rediscovering what happened in the 70s. (The field of AI is especially bad about this.)

I'll have to give it some thought if extract the $$$ and escaping is the best way forward or if I should attempt to salvage my career in SE. For one, I do think my higher expenses is holding me back. I'm about $200k away from MMM-level FI. So it's either find a way to cut expenses, take a break from SE with the knowledge I will go back, endure 2-3 more years to get $200k, or switch careers.

[classical_Liberal]

So it's either find a way to cut expenses, take a break from SE with the knowledge I will go back, endure 2-3 more years to get $200k, or switch careers.

Third option, earn that money in a variety of ways, slowly or intermittently, over the next 10-20 years. Which will probably happen anyway once you RE whether you intended to or not. You just need to be a bit more liquid to make that work.

A benefit in the third option is that your fear of ending up wasting away your days playing video games is mitigated. Because you will have a bit of hormesis type stress, and will have to earn some income, at some point. This incentivizes value-adding activities when all things are equal.

[AnalyticalEngine]

Overthinking Things
I've come to the conclusion that my problem is as simple as the fact I am burned out working on something that doesn't interest me any more. Working from home has made this worse because there's not even office perks (happy hours etc) to counteract the suck. It's just suck 24/7. And when I'm already struggling with mild depression, having to maintain my own routine in order to do something I hate is even more difficult without the external structure of the office.

When something sucks, I think the normal, human response is to try and compensate with something else. This is why people have vices such as binge eating, drinking, consumerism, etc. The dopamine from those activities is an attempt to offset the stress. But for me, I tend to be very hard on myself and not let myself partake in anything that's a "vice" because I expect myself to be above all that. But brain chemistry is brain chemistry, and if you're forcing yourself to do something you hate all the time with nothing positive to offset it, then of course you're going to be miserable.

Now obviously, one doesn't want to engage in counterproductive vices either, as that derails your goals/other parts of your life. But it is, at least, a more simple explanation for why things seem particularly hard right now.

So I think my problems are burnout and mild depression, and any attempts to analyzing the "true meaning" of this is merely just overthinking/ruminating.

The conclusion here is that I need to be less hard on myself and less expecting myself to be perfect. It's also okay for me to enjoy some "fun." The key is to ensure the "fun" is not depleting/counteracting other goals.

Long term, though, I need to address the burnout/depression, otherwise the "fun" is just a mindless distraction.

More on grocery spending
I've managed to get my monthly spending down from $500+ to just under $300 so far. This is pretty decent progress, and attempting it has highlighted ways in which my food budget has inflated. For example, it's really easy to spend $50 a month on snacks. But if your goal is $200/month on food, then $50 on snacks is nearly a fourth of your budget. Suddenly $50 is actually a lot of money. Of course, this gets worse the lower your food spending. If you manage to spend only $50/mo on food, then $50 for snacks is downright insane. The same is true of social restaurant spending. $20 out of a $200 budget is nothing to sneeze at.

So this gives me an idea of how to adjust my budget even further next month. And I have pretty much eliminated my desire to eat out as a compensation for feeling bored/miserable, so that's good progress too.

Exercise and organization
The other two big goals I need to address right now are organizing all my stuff and working out. These two are a challenge, but I'm trying to remind myself I was trying to focus on my grocery budget first. I know I would feel better if I worked out and had my house all clean, but it's proving a challenge to do this because I use up all my "do stuff I don't want to do" willpower forcing myself to work. I suppose one small thing at a time is key here to snowball. Maybe trying to do just 1 thing a day toward these goals would be enough?

Lifestyle as Destination
I've wrote about this before, but one thing holding me back before was just assuming that all this "ERE skill stuff" would "magically" happen once I reached my FI number. That's obviously not true, and now I'm confronted with actually figuring out how to actually do things. This is a lot harder than dumping software engineer salary into index funds, but I suppose that's also the point. And for someone stuck in salaryman mindset like me, I think learning all these other skills is actually more useful to me than saving money.

Which is another way of saying "FIRE" is an illusion and the real goal is to have a sustainable lifestyle you enjoy based on many skills because skills create opportunity.

I've read a few stories of salary(wo)men who manage to lean FIRE but then end up even more bored/depressed in a few years because they find themselves disconnected and with relatively few skills. So this lifestyle/skill stuff is something I need to confront and not let FIRE Dreamland lull me into complacency.

@c_L - I agree with you, and working PT is something I might plan into my ERE plans for that very reason. I'm going to read a few career changing books and put some real thought into this. It is something I want to do, but I need to figure out what that looks like first, especially in the somewhat volatile and uncertain world we live in right now.