I strongly agree with the comments about doing your own projects and going to meetups. When I began to just submit applications and then stop thinking about the

I strongly agree with the comments about doing your own projects and going to meetups. When I began to just submit applications and then stop thinking about them, it freed up much more time to actually do programming. This in turn made me feel more productive and allowed me to learn new things, which is a big source of happiness for me. The compounding positive effects from sort of tuning out the noisy signals from HR staff and recruiters and putting energy into what I love (programming and math) has made me feel much more positive about my job search overall. Any time I have a day where there's just nothing good to apply to, or I don't hear back from anyone, I just tune it all out and write some code and it helps me feel much better.