Thank you all for the advice, questions, and well wishes. It is much appreciated and I'll mull it over even after responding here.
I feel much better now after walking 8 miles on a beautifully sunny day and touching plastic rocks at the gym this weekend. That almost never fails to make me feel better; I also didn't exercise for the better part of a week due to illness, which is a known factor. It also made me realize that there are still many ways for me to improve how I use my free time w.r.t. feeling good. I don't work evenings or weekends, heavens forbid, and I don't have coding projects on the side either. But I still reach for passive entertainment a lot. With the days getting longer and temps going up I plan to be a lot more consistent with time outside, especially walks, and the journaling I mentioned before. They bring me back to a good spot. I'm also known to indulge in a brownie every now and then, which makes me feel worse, and procrastinating also makes me feel anxious – deep down, I think I know that I don't have much of an excuse to be avoiding work except that I don't feel like it (if I
do have an excuse, then I feel fine
). there's no need for work to be involved in how I can address these factors.
ertyu wrote: ↑Sun Jan 26, 2025 6:25 am
Here's a youtube link to a song to soothe the soul called
I Quit. Greatly satisfying regardless of whether one knows German or actually plans to quit or not.
Thank you, that was a beautiful song. It is now the ringtone for my boss.
I talked to my friend who had gone through a similar mild case before, and she said how even getting bored again has helped. Well, to be honest, I don't feel bored much anymore. There's lots of interesting stuff to do (am also kinda distracted/impulsive in this regard) and at times it's easy to bounce around unfocused-ly. it also means that when I do something, my attention often drifts elsewhere. when I pick the "right" things to do instead of just the first thing that pops in my mind, I stop running in the red so much and I feel more smooth and buoyant. and CBT actually helps me here, since when I recognize the urge to do X as irrational or unfounded, I go "oh. that's interesting. I don't have to do that, even though I was thinking like I do" and it just kinda falls away. or I'll see that my mind is instantly going to this thing and I can make a prediction, "how do I think I will feel after doing this for one hour? how else might I spend this time? how do I think I will feel with <this other activity>?" (I wrote down a big list of nice offline activities for myself to reference). even just paying more careful attention to which parts of work give energy and which parts take energy - like person X tends to always ask for help but also present it like it's highly urgent (it's not), give no context, send lots of messages, etc. it's useful to know which parts I love so that I can incorporate that into future arrangements. I note each part and how they might relate to how i'm feeling in that moment and then I just keep breathing (I also catch myself holding my breath and I'm sure that's not helping).
I'm certainly not at screeching banshee batshit level of burnout, and I seem to have most of my cognitive function. Still, I think being intentional about what I want out of job is fitting. At the very least I'll have a smooth exit, but I think I can get a lot more out of it too. So I'll squeeze this baby dry. In the past, I've mostly asked what I can get out of job X in the context of careerism – getting raises or promotions or future-friendly tech skills. To some extent, it wasn't particularly motivating since I didn't really care about raises or promotions or tech stacks as much as some other people seemed to. I lived below my means, didn't want to be a manager, and felt like the person who knew a lot about all those frameworks people talk about on linkedin was either a big loser or had 20 years of experience (or both). But if I think about it in terms of practicing broader interpersonal skills like delegating, asking for help, having difficult conversations, etc, it feels more rewarding. those are useful things to practice. it sounds a bit silly reading it back to myself, like I should have thought about that before now, but here we are and maybe I just needed some reframing.
NewBlood wrote: ↑Sun Jan 26, 2025 8:24 am
I keep thinking about doing this too, on and off
If you do decide to do it, I'll be reading with great interest.
Good luck with work and decision making! If your manager is cool, you could maybe try a sabbatical type of thing? A few months of leave without pay with the possibility to go back to your position afterwards, so you can catch a breath and test the waters.
Haha let's do it? It's certainly come up a few times in my freedom-to daydreaming.
And thank you. Yeah, I think a sabbatical could be arranged and a good way to test the waters before pulling the trigger. Thinking about it, I have quite a few levers at my disposal so I need not make any rash, drastic decisions. there's enough all-or-nothing thinking in the world without me contributing to it.
- Change up out-of-work activities
- Change perspective on in-work activities
- Change my actual in-work activities (ask boss to reshuffle)
- Change work - transfer to another team (not really any other teams doing anything interesting, but it could give me some new challenges for at least a handful of months while I save up a couple years' expenses. also, my team is only a little social so other teams might have more fun.)
- Change work - interview and find another job (gross, but the novelty can help extend the life of my cushy salary)
- Take PTO (short)
- Take PTO (long)
- Take sabbatical (unpaid, perhaps with benefits? not sure how it works)
- Go part-time
The trouble is, I don't hear too much about people in my company doing some of these things. it's not really advertised (except for transferring) - might be good to start gathering some intel. part-time has crossed my mind before but I have also met zero people doing it, so not sure if corp is open to it.
Scott 2 wrote: ↑Sun Jan 26, 2025 11:33 am
The big question with work problems, is if the pattern will repeat in life, beyond that job. If so, do you treat it as a chance for paid skill development, or decide it's a skill you're not currently interested in.
This is the big question indeed. Thank you Scott, it is a good question to ask myself. I'm certainly not the first person to get tired of their programming job, but the difference between burnout and escapism is important to clarify [to myself]. I have the energy to make changes, which is useful and important in itself, but less interest in the projects and broader goals to which I contribute at work (can get more specific but probably not publicly) or the amount of time that it requires. Like I mentioned above, I have a lot of control over other lifestyle factors that are independent of work status - it only makes sense to start with those ones. skills I am interested in: communicating better, being able to ask for help, practicing mindfulness, having healthy coping mechanisms, etc. skills I am not interested in: knowing the ins and outs of all the major cloud vendors, anything generative AI, coding bubble sort from scratch.
Thank you for the health insurance tips here. I spent some time this month reading up on it, but evidently missed that the Medicaid window is monthly and that is very good to know. at my spending either one could potentially work, so I think even setting up a little spreadsheet for tracking my income will be helpful, whenever I come to need it. what a country we live in. but given that it is what it is, me learning the system improves my ability to use it to create the life that I want
Hard agree on the search being difficult and that the accountability is great. Something for me to keep in mind.
