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Ask HN: What do you struggle with?

• mrhappyunhappy 8y ago
  I am mostly struggling with losimg weight. I have always been around 200lbs with highest at 204lbs. Recently I went on a low carb diet and cut out most sugar except from fruit and I got down to 194 lbs but according to an app I have I am still at the extreme end of obese. I'm 5'11 with a body day of 26.4% though I don't look that fat. I do have somewhat of a gut but it's been shrinking on my new diet. Recently I started lifting and i put on some muscle mass around arms and core but I have now plateaued in weight loss at around 193. I have never been able to get to 180 in my life except when I passed that number on the way up. My ultimate goal is 175 with 10% body fat but I have a feeling I need to go on an extremely controlled diet with a ton of exercise, lifting and cardio. I feel demotivated and defeated so this is what I struggle with most.
• n0tme 8y ago
  I am 35 and I am lonely and it's not getting any better + my job is getting boring (DBA), since I am pretty familiar with everything, and there's no chance for me to switch to programming, even though I know JS and many other languages, but my resume says: 10+ years DBA.
  • exikyut 8y ago
    Does improving query optimizers or other internal stages sound interesting? If you've been a DBA for 10 years then you're going to know a few things about the way databases work internally, even if you specifically only have experience with say SQL Server or Oracle. You could very probably pivot around into database development/maintenance and the transition (including the job-hunt bit) may be less bumpy than you expect. The process of figuring out if this is a worthwhile idea might also be able to squash the loneliness bit: go tinker on open-source database systems for a while, in your spare time. I've heard Redis is very clean C code and very easy to hack on, so that might be an interesting starting point. On the other hand Redis isn't quite SQL, it's a key/value store, so perhaps it wouldn't be a good fit. MySQL and PostgreSQL are so part of the furniture one's initial thought on poking those might be "why would I even dive in", which is totally valid if nothing's on fire and there are no critical money-eating bugs or whatever. But the chances are a decade's DBA experience might come in handy. I've no idea what languages you know, how much experience you have with what, and (most importantly) what random technical things will leap out at you as especially interesting when you see them.
    • anarazel 8y ago
      > Does improving query optimizers or other internal stages sound interesting? If you've been a DBA for 10 years then you're going to know a few things about the way databases work internally, even if you specifically only have experience with say SQL Server or Oracle. > You could very probably pivot around into database development/maintenance and the transition (including the job-hunt bit) may be less bumpy than you expect. Yes, that's totally doable in the PG world. Send a few small patches, proof that you can work with the community, and you'll likely start to get job offers. You won't get close 100% open source work immediately, of course, but there's several places that hire where you can have growth potential.
      • n0tme 8y ago
        Hey, guys, thanks for answers. Didn't think anyone would even notice my comment! I really like the idea of helping the community even for free. The problem here is I have no idea how to start. For me to dig deeper (and I am working with Oracle on a daily basis) the problem has to occure and be repetable, so how can I get into fixing problems if I am not even using PG? I could, probably, install it on my PC/notebook, but it won't be a production use, so I probably won't face any problems.. It's always been a puzzle for me: how do people start with open source projects.
        • exikyut 8y ago
          Ah, this is why I scroll through my threads view repeatedly... Well, putting fires out is one thing, but that's not everything. It sounds like you've basically dug a hole inside Oracle and lived in it for 10 years. That certainly works, but as you've found, can be very insular. So, spinning up a different database, or even databases plural, so you can learn difference between Oracle and what else is out there, would generally be a good idea. Understanding how to set up a new database installation and tune it would also be good. If the above point refers to having a broad understanding of different systems, this point covers having some level of depth with each system, particularly configuration. (The thing that popped into my head was the possibility that... maybe... one day you'd get the opportunity to go "actually, I know of a faster way to solve this database problem - if we use this free database over here types for 4 seconds and suddenly a new PG installation is running we can just import the data types for 2 more seconds and the data is imported and then writes query on first try in 8 seconds get the result we need." "...Can you move this off your laptop?" "Sure! :D" Okay, I have no idea if the above would ever happen where you currently are :) but it's of course a good idea to be confident with configuration, setup, optimization, how things can fall apart and explode, etc. One idea: when confronted with a real-world issue, if you're in an environment that will let you clip out bits of production data and play with them on your own machine for testing, it might be useful/interesting to figure out how to solve a given problem on multiple databases. (Translation: if you follow the path you're on, it's possible you'll be using something other than Oracle. You could use your current prod data as homework on "but how do I do X for Y DB?", and save the boredom of using synthetic lorem ipsum. You might find certain databases work faster for certain queries than Oracle does, which wouldn't surprise me at all.) To get at the question you asked - figuring out how to get started - this is very context-specific and not something I can effectively answer; IRC could be a good starting point: I found https://www.postgresql.org/community/irc/ https://www.postgresql.org/community/irc/, and also https://postgres-slack.herokuapp.com/ https://postgres-slack.herokuapp.com/. Also, on https://www.postgresql.org/community/ https://www.postgresql.org/community/, I found the link to the https://www.postgresql.org/list/pgsql-jobs/ https://www.postgresql.org/list/pgsql-jobs/ mailinglist; this is basically a "Who is hiring?" specifically for PG-related stuff. This immediately makes me wonder: what should someone who's stared at Oracle for 10 years focus on with PG, so they could competently pick something up from here and run with it? (Might be a question for IRC, Slack or the mailinglists.) Thanks very much for mentioning that you are in Russia in a previous comment :) this gave me more bits of entropy to throw at Google and found some potentially interesting results. First is https://www.postgresql.org/message-id/CANNMO++6tPiwBv2OKcy-HhiYmByhL+XSSUH3NDvOs3G1VVg++g@mail.gmail.com https://www.postgresql.org/message-id/CANNMO++6tPiwBv2OKcy-H..., which suggests that Oracle is losing its ground there, with people switching to alternatives like PG. Indeed Yandex switched recently, and it hit the front page of HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12489055 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12489055 So... this brought up a new idea that could be very interesting: you could specialize in Oracle-to-PostgreSQL migrations! This may well be a very worthwhile investment of time; large installations that need Everything And Especially All The Details® to Just Work And Simply Never Ever Fall Over™ are naturally going to be more than happy throwing you piles of money. I imagine that even in an assistant or entry-level position (being pragmatic; no insult intended) the associated portions allocated to you from said piles of money may still be appreciable. (Something I think about a lot is "where does everything scale so much it leaks tons of money?" :D) Other resources that may be relevant: http://postgresql.ru.net/ http://postgresql.ru.net/ https://www.meetup.com/postgresqlrussia/ https://www.meetup.com/postgresqlrussia/ https://www.meetup.com/postgresqlrussia/events/past/ https://www.meetup.com/postgresqlrussia/events/past/ NB, the Russian link at https://www.postgresql.org/community/international/ https://www.postgresql.org/community/international/ is broken and appears to have been made redundant by the meetup links above.
• openfuture 8y ago
  Discipline, time management, fear of commitment, money to some extent and then occasionally my self-image. Reading the responses here makes me feel blessed for my problems. Also I am making progress on them (these are long term things that I will be dealing with in some form my whole life, hopefully the money one will be gone by the time I add health to the list).
• throwaway6388 8y ago
  Controlling my thoughts, I have really despecible thoughts going in my mind, I tried meditation, trying to think about something else, etc., but it's really hard to stop them.
• unixhero 8y ago
  Answering questions from a top down thinking, bordering on the existential, but still tangible: - What am I doing with my life - Why am I an employee - What is the point of this? - What is my plan? - What is my strategy?
• ratsimihah 8y ago
  LAZINESS! There's so much I can do, yet I'm not doing it all! Spiderman said that with great power comes great responsilibity, and it's been haunting my all my life! Currently juggling with 2 projects, and I got 2 more ideas I barely started implementing. https://twitter.com/ratsimihah/status/1035164159632199682 https://twitter.com/ratsimihah/status/1035164159632199682
• ok_coo 8y ago
  I struggle with deciding whether or not to stay at a job that's close to home, one in which I really like my team and the work I do, but the pay is way below market rate. The pay normally doesn't bother me unless certain bills or other things come up, but when it does, I always think about my pay rate and where I probably should be at. My issue is that the _only_ thing I don't like about the job is the pay but everything else keeps me here and I don't know what to do.
• alexitosrv 8y ago
  A friend and coworker committed suicide last night.
• gido5731 8y ago
  As a non-adult, doing programming, cyberpatriot, and school...
• schappim 8y ago
  Wife an I working on our startup whilst raising 3 kids. We never have enough time!
• 24tracks 8y ago
  Finding reasons to go on with life.
• webyacusa 8y ago
  Immigration. I came to the US (specifically to Indianapolis) about 12 years ago. I acquired citizenship in 2016. And yet, I have failed to integrate to this community. I have no friends, just co-workers. And I feel like I already tried everything: meetup, book clubs, bar trivia, you name it. It does not help the current political climate, in which we are guilty of all the disgraces that occur here. I am contemplating going back to Colombia, but the career prospects look real bad. Career wise I am doing terrific, I make good money, own a house, have no debt. But I am so fucking alone.
• stackola 8y ago
  Sleep. Specifically, going to bed early enough regularly. Feels like my day has 24.5 hours, so each day shifts back by 30 minutes
  • informatimago 8y ago
    Yeah. Same here. 24 h 37 m 22.663 s more precisely. The only explanation I have is that we come from Mars.
    • drakonka 8y ago
      Not really! This is actually normal and documented, most people's circadian rhythms are on a slightly longer than 24 hour clock: http://science.sciencemag.org/content/284/5423/2177 http://science.sciencemag.org/content/284/5423/2177
  • e1g 8y ago
    It might help you to know that you're in good company. For many people, the natural circadian rhythm is slightly longer than the standard 24 hours, so without conscious effort the daily cycle actually would shift back by 10-30 minutes vs clock time, e.g. https://www.howsleepworks.com/how_circadian.html https://www.howsleepworks.com/how_circadian.html
  • taway_1212 8y ago
    I was like that in my twenties in well, now it's no longer an issue. I dunno if it's because I got my life in order (much more excercise now) or if it has just changed with age.
  • currymj 8y ago
    you may enjoy this article: http://slatestarcodex.com/2018/07/10/melatonin-much-more-than-you-wanted-to-know/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2018/07/10/melatonin-much-more-tha... if you scroll towards the bottom it talks about how you can use melatonin to deal with a weird sleep cycle like this.
• quickthrower2 8y ago
  More recent jobs I have been told I am not coding quick enough, and being grilled because something took 2X or 3X that they expected done in X. Not sure if I am slow, have slowed down, or remained the same speed and now expectations are a lot faster, or it is more transparent with time logging in JIRA being a big thing now. What I do different to other coders I have noticed when doing code reviews is I do a lot less copy/paste and like to think about how to put code together in a better way. I also find it hard to do boring work fast, I get distracted. I also find it hard to focus in a noisy office so that can slow me down too. Some joker comes up and makes some jokes and all the state I have built up in my head is lost.
  • stackola 8y ago
    Relevant https://www.monkeyuser.com/assets/images/2018/79-focus.png https://www.monkeyuser.com/assets/images/2018/79-focus.png
    • awshepard 8y ago
      I also like a similar version: https://heeris.id.au/trinkets/ProgrammerInterrupted.png https://heeris.id.au/trinkets/ProgrammerInterrupted.png
  • brown-dragon 8y ago
    One trick I've learned is to write out, (in a structured comment), what I am going to do an how I'm going to do it _before_ actually writing the code. It seems redundant but it actually forces me to do a quick think-through of what's happening. Plus distractions get a lot easier to handle: I just need to read what I've written down to reload the context. Paradoxically, I've found that this method of typing out _more stuff_ actually helps me finish much faster.
    • TeMPOraL 8y ago
      I second this. Over time and struggling with concentration in bullshit jobs, I've learned following tricks when I feel stuck and/or stressed out: - I have an org-mode document with a TODO list and project notes always open. Whenever I'm stuck, I'll start decomposing the task into smaller and smaller TODO items, simultaneously with doing a written brainstorm. Sometimes I'll write out a hundred lines of text, but it does help me get unstuck. - Similar to what you mention, I frequently write a TODO list in comment as a scaffolding in the file I work on, and I then proceed to fill the space between TODO items with appropriate code.
• drakonka 8y ago
  I struggle with feeling like I never know enough. The more I learn the more it feels there is to know. As a result even as I learn more and more, I feel dumber and dumber :D
  • phakding 8y ago
    Dunning-Kruger.
    • mateo411 8y ago
      I think that's the opposite of Dunning-Kruger. The Dunning-Kruger effect describes people who don't know very much, but think they know a lot.
      • cimmanom 8y ago
        Dunning-Kruger also has a flip side where the people who are most capable consider themselves far less capable than they are (possibly because of this very effect where the more you know, the more aware you are of the things you don't know).
      • sloaken 8y ago
        Oh you have met my Mother in Law. I did not know she had the nick name of Dunning-Kruger.
  • Kagerjay 8y ago
    I feel this way everyday :)
  • 8bitsrule 8y ago
    And with that realization - there is no end to learning - you have entered the company of The Wise! Which qualifies you to sit back, quit struggling, and chuckle at that dilemma you were (and so many are still) caught in.
• deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
• rooam-dev 8y ago
  Estimations...
• frnkshin 8y ago
  Coordinating multiple tasks..
• Odenwaelder 8y ago
  I struggle with the question whether to have children or not. I'm surrounded by new fathers who struggle with their children, whose wives have turned from attractive women into unattractive moms. I read witty comments all the time suggesting how much of a burden kids are. This struggle burns me out.
  • collyw 8y ago
    The answer sounds obvious to me, don't bother. The planet seems to be overpopulated and we are using up resources far faster than the earth can replenish the, is it really going to be a great future for kids to be born into?
  • EADGBE 8y ago
    If one's worried about an attractive wife turning into an unattractive mom; then yeah, it's probably not right for them. Here's to hoping we all age perfectly!
  • snikeris 8y ago
    Don't feel bad about struggling with the question. It's only with the recent advent of birth control that it's become a decision we have to make. Children used to just happen.
  • deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  • throwaway8610 8y ago
    I don't think anyone can definitively say whether having kids will make your life overall better or worse though we are culturally programmed to think it's always positive but the reality is not always that way. Though there will always be a bit of a what if question in my mind, I don't regret not having kids but if it were a matter of regret I would rather regret not having them than regret having them.
  • runjake 8y ago
    I have 8 year old triplets. It's tough work, but very rewarding. On the attractiveness front, I have a still very attractive wife that takes care of herself. I think a lot of your worries are in the selection of a partner. And of course, you must keep up your end of the bargain, so lead by example, stay fit. It's a partnership, after all. At the time I met my wife, I was dating quite a bit and had many options, but she just clicked with me immediately. She was gorgeous, and a genuinely-compassionate person. We don't post lovey #YOLO posts to each other on Instagram. We argue a lot, that's fine, we work through it. We stay committed. I guess my point here is that nothing comes easy. It takes nurturing and humility. Sometimes, when I'm alone and introspecting and my thoughts venture a little dark, I ask myself if I could turn back time would I do it again, or would I stay a swinging bachelor? And so far, my answer has always been "Hell yes, I would do it again".
• Crazyontap 8y ago
  I struggle with scaling up my business. I have been working from home for the past 10 years and I have websites that generate ok money ($100K/y). My struggle is I just can't get myself to hire my first full time employee. I tried it many years ago but after facing the headache of hiring, dealing with attrition, training, etc, it took away all my focus from work. I feel management is a skill I just don't have. Also working from home, staying with my family i now lack the motivation to get up on time and commute, go to an office, etc. Yet my business is as is for the last many years. I've tried hiring freelancers and VAs but that too never lasts for more that 2 months. Hiring freelance programmers has also never worked for me and in the end I always think it would have been easier if I had done it in the first place. So that is my biggest struggle for many years now :(
  • tinktank 8y ago
    Get a partner who is just as invested as you (deferred equity over a number of years works well) and lean on them for some of the management functions.
    • dhruvkar 8y ago
      Finding a partner is just as hard (if not harder) than finding and managing a reliable employee. This advice gets thrown around a lot, and while it's helpful as an option to consider, it often doesn't solve the posed issue.
  • grizzles 8y ago
    I can relate to this. Try to find someone part time who you can trust and will stick around for awhile. Look outside your bubble of hackernews etc, might be a mom or a retired guy, whatever. Baby steps.
    • ksdale 8y ago
      This, the people you think wouldn't have the relevant skills can surprise you! My wife went through a couple professional VAs who were... set in their ways and expensive for what they were delivering and then hired a recent college grad with absolutely no experience and she's been a total lifesaver.
• CM30 8y ago
  Overambitiousness. Or more precisely, actually getting stuff finished because of overambitiousness. I really need to remember the idea of a minimum viable product and not get sidetracked with 'wouldn't it be cool if' type features that slow everything down.
  • nwsm 8y ago
    It's okay if they don't all get made. Just try to learn something from the experience, whether that be new technical skills, best practices, how to identify problems you ran into beforehand, etc.
  • flatfilefan 8y ago
    Set goals to have something done as in „delivered“ not „developed“. Even if you work on a fun hobby project.
  • tluyben2 8y ago
    I have struggled with this ss long as I can remember (programming since 8, I am in my 40s now). The way I combat it is by setting another ambitious goal at the start of a new project; to make at least some money with it as early as possible. That fights with new features; you actually just want to sell instead of adding new features. Now for hobby things that do not make money, I still am overambitious, I guess that is just something I will not get over as I have nothing really to combat it. Even setting goals to really finish something do not matter; my finished product looks like the Taj Mahal in my mind while I am building the garden shed. I have not found the ‘make money’ that applies to hobbies. Even with physical things; when I go hiking, I always go way too far and end up getting ‘lost’ (never lost, I have google maps, but always thinking; I can go just this path as it takes me deeper!) for a day on a mountain coming out completely physically broken. Luckily I usually have my voice of reason in this case; my wife, who says she is turning back after an hour.
• androidgirl 8y ago
  Depression. I have a lot of social anxiety and I feel really isolated, my best friend passed two years ago which didn't make anything better. Isolation makes depression into a feedback loop, and it feels like you keep sinking deeper and deeper.
  • r3n 8y ago
    I read "Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy" recently and think this book can help you.
  • whamlastxmas 8y ago
    I used to have a lot of social anxiety. For me the cure was forcing myself to go out. I started with really geeky meetups where I didn't find anyone intimidating and we all shared common interests. It was really hard, I felt like I had so many failures, I had anxiety every single time I went, I had times when I felt I was improving then times when I felt I was reverting backwards. Accept that there will be failures, but know that you're making progress because of those failures. Force yourself out and get social exposure. It will eventually almost entirely fade away.
  • 24tracks 8y ago
    I can so specifically relate to this struggle. I One year ago I lost my best friend of 32 years, and while I have struggled with depression on and off my whole life, it has now become turbo charged. There is something particularly sobering in the context of one's mortality when you lose someone close, and whose life mirrors your's in many ways. I just wanted to say to hang in there, and when at all possible, if someone invites you somewhere, make yourself go, even if you really don't want to. Sometimes, the body needs the physical activities of non-depressed behavior to kick itself out of it's rut. Such delicate beings we are- electrical and chemical. The pain of loss never goes away, but you will adapt to it and thrive again.
  • ratsimihah 8y ago
    Have you tried yoga? It's kinda like Apple, but instead of just working, it just solves (almost) everything. If you can find a good studio and hang on to it, that might help. Also, I'd recommend Vinyasa, or Ashtanga, or any dynamic variant. Not slow yoga, I feel like it doesn't help letting go as much. Hang in there!
• tmaly 8y ago
  Having enough time to do things. After you have a kid, you can only have one hobby. After you have two kids, it seems you can only have one hobby once in a blue moon.
  • roryisok 8y ago
    Try four :*( I sleep five hours a night and get up at 4 to start work so that i can spend the day with my family and not feel guilty about spending a measly one hour hobby coding or writing (and it kills me to choose) For the record, love my kids, wouldn't change a thing. I just wish I didn't need those five hours sleep
    • deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
• etatoby 8y ago
  Long-term: dating/relationships. I'm very outgoing, but I have love shyness or something like that. I basically don't date. I find the entire thing extremely stressful and unbearable. I've always been alone. Short-term: not much! I recently dropped everything and moved to the other side of the globe (Japan) on a student visa. I'm studying a very interesting language and culture and making friends with people from all over the world that are on average 15 years my junior. I'm also brushing up on technology, learning new programming languages and stacks. This is a sort of sabbatical for me, so I plan on picking up creative hobbies (drawing, making music) as time permits.
  • shatobi 8y ago
    Somewhat similar situation, though living in Tokyo already for quite a while. It would be lovely if we could hang out once.
    • etatoby 8y ago
      I'd love to! Can you contact me at username at gmail? This also goes for anybody else who would like to meet for a drink, or for whatever question about studying / moving to Japan.
      • shatobi 8y ago
        sent
  • kotrunga 8y ago
    Are you at a language school? I started learning Japanese recently, and would love to move there one day.
    • etatoby 8y ago
      Yes, Intercultural Institute of Japan. Awesome school, from all points of view. You need someone to work out the papers and details for you. That can be your local language school, if you have one, or an international service such as Go Go Nihon. I strongly recommend getting good at hiragana, katakana, and learning the writing (not the reading) of all 2,200 common kanji before coming here. It will make a huge difference in your rate of learning. I would focus on that, because they already cover grammar and vocabulary at a reasonable pace here at school. I used Heisig's book and the excellent Kanji Koohii website/progressive app. It's a long business, but not hard at all. It just takes time and dedication, say 1–2 hours every day for several months. But you can and should split that time into small chunks all throughout the day. Basically, whenever you're not actively working, sleeping, or driving, take out your phone and use that app. Also, if English is your 1st language, get a pronunciation coach. The vowels and many consonants are completely different. If you happen to be Italian, then you're in luck, because we have 99% the same sounds as Japanese. (Only the U is slightly different.)
• meguest 8y ago
  OCD. Lately I've been struggling with what they call inflated responsibility. I typically ruminate that something I said, something I did, or something I did not say or do will have some large negative effect on some or something and that I will be responsible for it. It's immensely stressful to worry about. I'm seeing a therapist to work on my issues.
  • Insanity 8y ago
    I also struggle with OCD. Have for 2 decades now. It's easily the #1 thing I struggle with more than anything (repetitive thoughts to be precise) and it's a pain in the *.
  • patient_zero 8y ago
    if you live in one of the states that allow it, consider looking at CBD oil. my co-worker who describes symptoms like yours and has been taking anxiety medication for years due to a TBI discovered it recently and called it a revelation.
• 80386 8y ago
  I make <$15/hr doing grunt work. I've been working on a code portfolio, but I don't think it's good enough yet to let me start applying for tech jobs, and I'm not great at algorithms or JS frameworks anyway. So I haven't been. I try to get at least one Git commit every day, but my job is pretty draining, so that doesn't happen. And sometimes all my projects get blocked on hard stuff that I don't have the energy to solve. For all I know, I might look alright on paper. I've co-authored a paper in a respectable journal, written a few Rails apps, a few desktop apps, and a crappy interpreter for an old language - which doesn't really use any compiler theory stuff except a simple hand-rolled lexer/parser, so that's probably a strike against me more than anything else. I'd delete it except I want there to be something that lets me step through programs in this thing so when my Project Euler problem attempts in this language fail I can figure out why, which is why I wrote it in the first place. But I keep revising my goals downward. I've been thinking I ought to go get an A+ cert and become an IT grunt - the pay would be a little better than what I'm doing now, I'd be able to afford the occasional steak...
  • exikyut 8y ago
    All the other comments are very nice-looking hiring offers, which is awesome. But so far nobody's expressed interest in the interpreter for the old language. What language was it? I'm very curious!
  • wmeredith 8y ago
    Dude start applying for jobs. Let the companies decide whether your good enough or not.
  • cimmanom 8y ago
    Have you tried applying? You sound at least as qualified as most of the entry-level candidates we get. Maybe send out a dozen resumes and see what sort of response you get before you decide you're not qualified yet!
  • jklein11 8y ago
    I can imagine that there are senior engineers that couldn't explain to me what a lexer/parser does let alone elaborate on the trade offs of a specific implementation. I'm not in the position to hire but send me an email if you want to connect.
• mrdependable 8y ago
  I've been struggling with adulthood ever since turning 30 and starting a family. I have this image in my head of what life after 30 looks like from seeing my parents and all their friends doing basically the same thing as each other. It's not a life I want for myself, but every decision I make pushes me further and further in that direction. My mind has been programmed to think and act in a way that eventually lands me in the same life as my father. In order to buck that trend, I've decided to try doing something that goes against my better judgement and pushes me out of my comfort zone. I'm hoping I'll learn a thing or two about forging my own path.
  • jackallis 8y ago
    specifics. specifics. specifics.
  • x220 8y ago
    When you are young, you have a lot of potential. You really have the potential to be anything. As you get older, you lose that potential by making choices that limit your choices in the future. In exchange, you actually become something or do something worthwhile, instead of doing nothing worthwhile but having the potential to do anything.
  • dhruvkar 8y ago
    mann.. completely relate to this. my understanding is that trying to buck the trend will still keep my attention on the trend I'm trying to buck. As when riding a motorcycle, keep your attention on the place you're trying to move to rather than the one you're trying to avoid. so instead my focus should be on things that truly move me. good luck on this journey, I definitely feel ya. edit: for me, making the world better (however minutely), and community are important. I now stop & help/talk with homeless people and also started this site: https://www.spane.org https://www.spane.org
    • taneq 8y ago
      > my understanding is that trying to buck the trend will still keep my attention on the trend I'm trying to buck. As when riding a motorcycle, keep your attention on the place you're trying to move to rather than the one you're trying to avoid. > so instead my focus should be on things that truly move me. This is so very true. You'll do much better off doing a (useful) thing that you care about than trying to force yourself to do a lucrative thing that you don't care about.
• deletethis 8y ago
  figuring out how to be a good partner to my boyfriend who just admitted he was molested as a child. he says he doesn't want to talk about it but he's also the one who's brought it up on multiple occasions. we both have very bad past experiences with counseling and medication, so it is unlikely he'd be very receptive to going down that road again. he's the most loving and beautiful person i've ever known & i want nothing more than to show him that he can still be loved by not treating him any differently than i would otherwise but is that really and different from repression? there's also the fear that he's becoming very dependent upon me while my own mental illness is still very much unresolved. he still lives with his abuser and i really want to get him out of that situation but if i take him in, it'll create a situation where he is both emotionally and financially reliant. any advice would be deeply appreciated
  • detcader 8y ago
    There's a lot of ways to help besides getting someone set up with medication or a therapist. One thing I can advise is that it's important to (continue to) have patience. Patience is a really powerful thing. I know this suggestion sounds hilarious but look into the book Cognitive Behavioural Therapy Workbook for Dummies. I've seen it recommended on mental health forums, for anyone, including with no clinical diagnoses. From what I understand, CBT is not a process that is just for people with a specific set of disorders, but for everyone, and the usual setting of the therapist's office isn't the sole way to go about exploring it. I don't have many more specific actionable ideas but I would look at forums (Reddit or maybe somewhere else) for people with similar positions who have been given advice. Just know that if you and him can't do one-on-one therapist visits or medication there is not nothing you can do. Being there to listen to him and communicating with him every day is better infinitely better than nothing.
  • _ah 8y ago
    Don't take him in. People grow, and you can encourage/assist, but each person ultimately has to choose for themself. If he needed to get out from his abuser he could presumably do it on his own, with varying levels of difficulty / pain. The fact that he hasn't done so means you would be "saving" him, a terrible choice. Unless he takes the step himself to become a fully self-reliant adult he is very unlikely to become that person under your protection. Alternatively you could help him escape and provide a safe place for him to grow, while realizing that your relationship will probably be doomed in the process. I don't recommend this path.
• meatyapp 8y ago
  I'm trying to do 3 things at once: 1. Work my job 2. Get a better job (leetcode.com) 3. Build my own app Besides #1 where I don't have much of a choice, I struggle to make progress towards both #2 and #3 sometimes. I feel like maybe I should just focus on one or the other at a time e.g. I'm not even 1 year into my new job, so perhaps I don't already be practicing for another, and should just concentrate on my app after work.
• gubsz 8y ago
  I struggle with cronic injuries. Over the years I've accumulated a few different injuries to my shoulder, back and knee which put me in a constant state of pain. It's not debilitating but it is relentless. I'm always around a 3/10 on my pain scale, which just means I'm always uncomfortable. I can manage with stretching and some targeted exercises, but generally my injuries do not subside.
  • VMG 8y ago
    Fucked up shoulder here too! pained high-five
• ld00d 8y ago
  Focus. That's why I'm here right now instead of GTD.
• h0p3 8y ago
  I struggle with myself and the world: https://philosopher.life/ https://philosopher.life/
• JDazzle 8y ago
  Finding a programming job. I've taken classes, done simple stuff, talk about it with friends who are coders, but I just can't seem to get a job. I've tried making a move to a programmer position in my last two jobs, but I either blow the interview, or my department holds me back cause they need me, or in my current job they tell me that they only hire level 3 engineers... I can't find junior software engineer positions that would even interview me and it's become a thing that all I'll be good for is application support, no matter how much knowledge I show about programming and logic edit: Thanks for the down vote!
  • sloaken 8y ago
    To get some credentials you need a body of work or a degree. Volunteer program, either for a charity or an open source project. Then you can reference that. A number of years ago, a friend of mine did some work on an open source C++ library. Google called him.
• billybolton 8y ago
  Narcism. I'm like the smartest guy in the world, and I can't believe how mediocre everyone else is.
  • shawn 8y ago
    One way to deal with this is to meet up with some people who are much smarter than you. That'll quickly cure this illusion.
    • olooney 8y ago
      Or simply read their work. For example, some of Einstein's original papers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annus_Mirabilis_papers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annus_Mirabilis_papers
  • olooney 8y ago
    I can help you overcome the first part of that, right now: it's spelled "narcissism." :)
    • patient_zero 8y ago
      perhaps op meant he has sold out all his drug abusing idiot friends to the police?
    • billybolton 8y ago
      Do you know how to overcome autism?
      • dang 8y ago
        Would you please stop posting uncivil and/or unsubstantive comments to Hacker News? That's not what this site is for, and we've asked you already. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
• haskellandchill 8y ago
  Insomnia, it's a fun one. I have learned patience, and through the buddhist approach to non-self a way to deal with my suffering. I'm tired, a lot, but sometimes I'm not! I've learned to appreciate those times immensely instead of focusing on wanting to be in a state that is unattainable. I'm not fully in control, and that's ok, I do what I can, when I can.
• Ramiuz 8y ago
  I want to leave my country for work/ study reasons, but I don't know how to start or where to look. I'm a EE graduated from a university here in South America (Chile) and currently working as a SW lead in IoT / fullstack projects. Every time I look outside (linkedin, /cscareerquestions, HN), there are people with far more experience or qualifications. It makes me feel my ideas are all wishful thinking. That the success that I have attained here is just because "it's a shallow pond" and nothing else. And when I look at grad programs (master); they require far more money that I have with me right now. I would love to get a master in SWE (part of the reason for going abroad), but I don't feel good enough for a scholarship/financial aid.
  • xaranke 8y ago
    If you'd like to move, my company is always hiring every kind of developer. Most roles are in the US, but there are others elsewhere. We also sponsor visas. If you're interested, my email is in my bio.
  • isseu 8y ago
    Intenta conseguir trabajo en Estados Unidos. Para los chilenos es mas facil que incluso un Europeo conseguir trabajo en Estados Unidos por la visa H1B1. Pero ojo que solo las empresas grandes estan dispuestas a hacer la pega que implica (Abogados y esas cosas). Ademas a los SW les pagan mucho mejor aqui que en cualquier parte del mundo. Source: Chileno en USA
    • kgthegreat 8y ago
      translation Try to get a job in the United States. It is easier for Chileans than even a European to get work in the United States for the H1B1 visa. But beware that only large companies are willing to make the implication (Lawyers and those things). In addition to the SW they pay much better here than anywhere in the world. Source: Chilean in the USA From google translate: https://goo.gl/N57zNf https://goo.gl/N57zNf
  • cambalache 8y ago
    Dont short sell Chile/South America/ Yourself. I understand you are free to look for options and I think it can be a great experience personally , career-wise and financially , but dont get frustrated if it does not happen overnight. Your brain power, imagination, work-ethic , ambitions will be the same in Oakland than in Penalolen (Ceteris Paribus). Creo que lo que te quiero decir es que estando en Chile tambien puedes hacer muchas cosas interesantes, incluso tan buenas que no necesites emigrar. Estamos en un mundo globalizado. Mucha suerte. PS. This is for jobs, if you want to study by all means prepare yourself, apply to top schools and hit it out of the park.
• newfie_bullet 8y ago
  Procrastination - wanting to accomplish things (technical things - learn new language, stack, technology) in my head but not actually starting/completing them. I've tried to minimize my hobbies and whatnot so that I'm not being torn in too many directions but I guess I just aspire to do more software dev-type activities (in my head) but after a day job related to that I can't quite muster up the energy (default to FO4, Youtube or guitar).
  • C1ph3rL0ck 8y ago
    I had been dealing with this myself. It took a lot of work but I managed to break out of my rut of self fulfilling procrastination. I always let myself be overworked until I had no time for the things I wanted to do. So it wasn't my fault I didn't do any of things I wanted to do. But I managed to get myself straitened out at the end of last year and into this year. I got myself back on track, I've been reading a book a month, I study and passed my GRE, and I got into Grad School (classes just started a couple of weeks ago). You can pull yourself out of what ever is stopping you, I believe in you.
  • chrisshroba 8y ago
    I also noticed that after a day at work, I don't really feel like doing anything other than browsing the internet or reading. What's worked for me is recognizing that and moving things I want to do to the morning instead. I'll go to bed at 9 or 10 and get up at 5 or 6, spend a couple hours in the morning working on whatever project is currently interesting to me, and then go to work. I do find that by the end of the work day I'm not as motivated/productive, but that's a trade-off I've accepted. Something like this could work for you too! Also, I find that I am 1000% more likely to do something if I tell someone else that I'm going to do it and ask them to hold me to it (and ask about my progress every so often). I wonder if this could help you to make more progress towards your goals? Feel free to respond to this or send me an email at my username @gmail if you want to chat more about this... I'm also looking for ways to conquer procrastination and get more done!
    • newfie_bullet 8y ago
      Accountability is huge - don't have that for any of my projects so that's a great idea. Early mornings are a great idea too, but my default body clock is night owl, not morning person so I find it very tough to get up and do anything intensive in the morning. I'm sure that can be changed with time/effort, but it's a tough one (especially with a kid that might get up at 5 or 6 any given day)
• xaranke 8y ago
  Struggling to find out what the right next step in my career is.
• ian_jeiner 8y ago
  I can't stop to underestimate myself on my programming level so that I'm not applying to some cool jobs because I think that I wouldn't make it, while knowing in my deep mind that I could totally do it. I've been programming since ten years, I'm 23 now, I've finished my Msc in embedded software engineering. Programming is my biggest passion. I've created and sold websites for companies of my city and cities around mainly when I was ~16yo and even from time to time until now. I've made and sold multiple mobile apps, some that have currently thousands of clients by subscription. And I have always since 13yo at least a project in my hands. I'm really not good at selling myself for companies where I'm applying for a job, it's terrible
• joelurker 8y ago
  I struggle with imagining the second act of my life. In my first act - my 20s - I got more exciting jobs than I could hope for, started two organizations I am proud of, made friends for life, was popular enough that people knew who I was before I knew who they were. For various reasons, I left this first act - both mentally and geographically. Today I have a family, emotional and financial stability, and job prospects I didn't have before. Yet whenever I talk to people about what who I am and what I've done, I always refer to things from my first act, all 4+ years in the past. Nothing happening in my life professionally or creatively now betters what I've achieved already. Being still in my early 30s, this worries me.
  • Spakman 8y ago
    I hear you! I'm in my late 30s and, although I don't have a family, I'm in a similar sounding situation myself. My first act sounds pretty similar to your own and, for one reason or another, in the last few years I've undergone a similar sounding shift. Although it's all for the good, I've found the shifting identity tough (I've always had a very clear self identity). When talking to others, any description of myself or something in my life that I've come out with has been accurate but several years out of date. Very recently (last month or two) I've started to notice a little bit of change around this. I suppose enough things have happened to this version of myself that I'm starting to build some identity around that, as well as just being more comfortable with the new situation in general. I have also been reading and thinking about a lot of Buddhist philosophy, which I think has helped give me some perspective. I hope you're able to find whatever viewpoint you need to move through this situation. I'm sure that you will - life has such a broad and deep variety of experiences and there are many different avenues for adventure and reward.
    • JimboOmega 8y ago
      I'm in my mid 30's and if anything I'm in the opposite boat, most of my accomplishments are in the last 5 years, and the last year in particular. My identity was very tenuous for most of my life, and has only come into focus quite recently. I spent most of my life trying not to be transgender, in particular, and transitioned over the last year. A lot of the things I do and am now would have been wild fantasy even a few years ago. It is going well, and it feels nearly complete. I do worry what I will do with my life now. Transitioning has been an all consuming thing in all kinds of senses, but the end is in sight at this point. Being the correct gender frees up a tremendous amount of emotional and mental energy - but I don't know what to do with that energy. I've overcome something tremendous but it's left me about where most other people are. I definitely want my life to be about more than gender. I could very easily stagnate where I am.
• tequila_shot 8y ago
  Thanks for asking this question. I was reflecting on this lately: I specifically struggle with 2 things: -- With adulthood and family. I'm not really sure how my parents did it, I feel I'm still not an adult ( married 2 years ago). -- I did my undergrad in CS, got hired into an IT consultant company, and started working as a developer implementing tool platforms. ( imagine SalesForce, AWS etc., ) for customers. Now I'm working doing the same thing in one of the top 5 companies in the world. I don't like this anymore. I want to branch out and do full stack development, ML, AI OR ANYTHING ELSE EXCEPT THIS. As I mentioned it's becoming impossible to change my career because 1/ I'm on a visa 2/ I'm married and my wife's doing her graduate courses in the location I live in. I'm doing my masters on the side, but really at the end of the day I don' have enough patience / will power to do anything else apart from my current work and that's killing me everyday.
  • xaranke 8y ago
    Which city are you in? What visa are you on?
    • tequila_shot 8y ago
      SF, H1B
      • xaranke 8y ago
        If you're on H1B you can change employers, SF would definitely have a lot of companies willing to make this happen.
        • tequila_shot 8y ago
          Yes, I know. I'm in my last years of my H1B, meaning my GC application is underway, and I'm ....But more than that, it's the very thing that I'm unable to spend time on items that I love to work with, and even if I did there are >10,000s of folks with the exact same experience, so I'm not sure how I'd land a job in those areas. . .
• kadabra9 8y ago
  Imposter Syndrome. I've worked in various technical roles at startups, huge public companies, and have received offers from FAANG companies. I still sometimes feel like a complete fraud, like I don't deserve to be in the position I am in. It really bothers me. Maybe its related to the incredibly smart people I work around. Maybe its because I am self taught, so didn't have a "formal" education in CS or Statistics. Maybe its the destructive tendency to compare what I've built or accomplished to others around me or those I read about. I've heard that this is somewhat common in our industry. So it helps to look back on where I was 5-10 years ago, and think about what I've done since and how far along I've come. If anyone out there has had similar feelings or experiences, focus more on what you have done as opposed to what you have not (yet) done. It's too easy to sell yourself short. You belong.
  • EADGBE 8y ago
    > I've heard that this is somewhat common in our industry. FWIW, if you have this, you have it. It doesn't care what you do for a living.
  • Aloha 8y ago
    Impostor Syndrome. I spent a bunch of my childhood in borderline abusive situations being told I was useless or stupid. I also spent much of my childhood on the outside looking in, as the fat weird kid. Like you, further complimenting this is being completely self taught, so I'm certain that I'm less valued than peers with a formal degree, and on some level I feel looked down upon by those with a degree. The more accolades I get, the more certain that its all gonna disappear one day, and I'm going to wake up poor again working a dead end job, like I was at 18.
• 01100011 8y ago
  Being tired most of the day. I have sleep apnea, but it's controlled with a CPAP. My numbers are good and I've felt better since I started using it, but I still like I need a nap most of the time. I exercise, eat right, take vitamins and supplements, but I just can't escape the fatigue. --- Money. I got a divorce a few years ago and now I'm paying 1/3 of my income in alimony. Combine that with having taken a lower paying job a year ago. My old job slowed down and I hastily took a defense contractor job so I could pay alimony. Now I have to work a side job just to make what I used to. I'm trying to land a FANG job which will boost my income enough not to worry about it, but that's tough to do when you're tired all the time.
  • DenisM 8y ago
    Ask your sleep doc about modafinil, it will set you straight wrt excessive sleepiness. Check for anxiety too, that can mess up your sleep.
    • 01100011 8y ago
      Got a supply of armodafinil but I weaned myself off when I got the CPAP. I did OK for a couple months but now I'm sluggish again. I have essential tremor, which is made worse by armodafinil so I'm trying not to rely on it. Good stuff though.
      • DenisM 8y ago
        So, you have to pick your poison now, eh? Sorry to hear that. Don't give up though, there might be a combination of drugs that will reduce the side effect. It might be a lot of work to find the right combo, but the stakes are high too.
• username77 8y ago
  I’m 30 and haven’t really had much dating experience. It boggles my mind how people are already married by 30. How does dating work? Serious question.
  • throwaway39 8y ago
    Get a tinder account (pro version). Then chat with people you like. If you like the chat, ask her to have lunch. It's not rocket science. Do it as a job (go through 1000 a day), I assure you you'll have dates within 30 days. Marriage is very cultural. Either way life is not a race.
  • cableshaft 8y ago
    I'm in my late 30s, and getting married sometime next year. I didn't really start dating anyone until my mid twenties, and didn't really start getting the hang of how to act around women until my early 30s, and I attribute most of that to going to a variety of meetups with different meetup groups on Meetup.com and just trying to talk to people a little at a time and showing up to enough things that eventually we knew each other well enough that I started getting invited to things outside of the meetup groups. I mainly went to board/video game nights, on hikes, movie nights, group dinners, museums, beach outings, and various one-off activities like scavenger hunts and mini-golf. Eventually I became more comfortable being around women and stopped being quite so awkward around them. I got a few dates through meetup, but ultimately I met my fiancee through OKCupid. However, I don't think I would have been comfortable around her without the two years of going to as many social events that I could handle in anything that looked remotely interesting to me. One thing I had to get over, also, is there are a lot of women in their twenties that aren't really emotionally available, for various reasons. Focused on their career, trying to figure out who they are and what they want in life, have their own struggles they're dealing with, etc. I would spend a ton of time and energy on certain women that I really fancied but they weren't really in the dating pool, even if they said they were. More like they were looking at it, and toying with the idea, but weren't serious about it. When I did date people like this, it always felt like a struggle to keep things going, like they weren't trying very hard to keep in touch or communicate their needs or I had to keep making larger and larger gestures just to watch things fall through my fingers. It wasn't until I happened upon some relationships that were actually pretty easy to keep going and the other person made a real effort that I realized that the former was actually not the norm, and not the best I could hope for. So I would recommend not putting too much energy into people that don't make an effort back. Just because they agree to dates doesn't mean that they're going to reciprocate your efforts. If you don't see them try to meet you at least 40% of the way (i.e. don't ever offer to pay for anything, don't come up with date ideas, don't initiate conversations, etc) after a month or two, it's probably not worth pursuing further, at least in my opinion.
• waterphone 8y ago
  Getting freelance web development work. Maybe the markets are just changing, but in the past couple years my opportunities for new clients and projects have dropped off significantly and it's become very hard to sustain myself anymore.
• acconrad 8y ago
  My relationship with money. I make more than like 98% of the population but my parents grew up middle/lower class so I'm just constantly worried about having enough for retirement, and having enough money for kids, and having enough money for their education, AND any possible illnesses/issues having seen families with health insurance crippled by things like cancer treatments. It seems like no matter what, I find myself cutting my own hair, using grocery bags for trash bags, and generally being a bit crazy in the frugal dept while also socking away 85% of my paycheck because it just feels like there is not enough.
  • EADGBE 8y ago
    Just imagine how the people who didn't save 85% of their paycheck feel! I think we all worry about this; some are more frugal than others. However, I know I didn't really worry about this the way I do now until I started having a family.
  • flatfilefan 8y ago
    Move to a country like Norway or Germany where it doesn’t matter how much you make. Social security covers the basic and medical needs. Problem solved.
    • dewey 8y ago
      Living on the minimum amount of pension isn't as easy as it sounds, especially if you never had a well paying job. There are a lot of very poor old people that have to be supported by their families if possible or by smaller side incomes.
      • tluyben2 8y ago
        Nor is living on wellfare in one of those places, however, OP has a job and will have one there too. If is just the feeling of safety that if everything goes wrong, you and your family are covered no matter what. That takes away the healthcare and pension strssses. In the meanwhile nothing changes and he would be in the 95% there too; big pension. But no stress for ‘what if’ while getting there. It helps, I know, I am from the Netherlands and just the thought that you have a safety net is all that matters even though I will never use it.
• AJRF 8y ago
  Finishing things. I've started countless projects all with a wave of optimism on how its going to be different this time, how this will be the side project that earns me enough recurring revenue to leave my job and start making things I want to build full time, but I never can finish them. I am in awe at people who can work on things for 4+ years without getting large scale feedback or revenue from them. My attention span for a side project lasts a month at most.
  • tjungblut 8y ago
    I suffer very much from the same issue, although I'm not motivated by recurring revenue. I also figured out that I'm only motivated on a couple of evenings a month to really contribute to side projects. What helped me in the past was to write down a single thing that I want to add the next time I feel motivated again and then spend the whole evening focussed on shipping that particular thing. Because I always feel motivated and focussed I can keep my attention span up for several months, previously I would totally get bored after a couple of days.
    • nerform 8y ago
      This worked for me too, but only for a while. Now I can't find motivation to even open the projects or start something new. I have way too many responsibilities in my life. I think I gave up on my hopes on building my own business alone. I'm thinking of hiring other people to do my side projects.
      • exikyut 8y ago
        Heh, I've been thinking of the hiring thing myself too, although more as a moonshot idea since I certainly don't have the resources to actually hire anybody at this point. But reading your comment got me thinking... what about, hiring someone to work on your idea, and then pair-programming with that person? The (perhaps implicit) idea would be that the person/team would be leading, and you'd be given a clear path to focus on the bits you wanted to and/or had time+energy for. Squinting at this from the right angles, you could interpret such an idea as a race-to-the-bottom toward project management. But... perhaps that's a direction you could go in? In any case, what side projects were there?
• harlanji 8y ago
  I struggle to get respect in the workplace. New in the last 5 years. Have been a programmer since high school, now early-30’s. Am now homeless in Silicon Valley because coworkers at each job profile me wrong and bully me out. Recently I was wrongly identified as a Trumper and fired while on berevement leave via bogus HR reports. Later I had my Christmas days off revoked while boss was laughing in Hawaii at next employer, and had the final employer do an illegal reference check and refuse to officially acknowledge it—walked off these two. My network abandonded me in doubt, so options are worse than ever and confidence is hard to muster/maintain. Seems like there is no way to get on track beyond luck/good will, and I am so skeptical of nice gestures that it can be offputting for all involved.
• claudiug 8y ago
  german language. And I'm living in Berlin.
  • dewey 8y ago
    Where in Berlin do you really need to speak German?
    • yitchelle 8y ago
      I guess it is OK if you are in the inner city of Berlin. But if you go beyond Berlin a little bit, German language is needed to have a bit of a social life.
  • ajaxaddicted 8y ago
    I can relate. Have been living in Berlin for 2.5 years now and my German is still at a relatively basic level
• sikim 8y ago
  Feeling always behind the others. I've recently completed my master in CS while working full time. I still feel that I'm vastly behind other people in terms of compensation and knowledge. I can never be motivated at my current work when I know there are new grads making double or triple of my current salary.
• fandango 8y ago
  Lack of (career) ambition. Because of a workaholic dad I sworn to myself to always choose an easy worklife. Take the easy path. Currently in a family with kids and a nice job, but I lack the motivation to really make a career. Sure it's a fun (programming) job with a lot of freedom. But I only do what is necessary, nothing more. Money is not an issue or driver for me. People may see me as lazy. Will I regret this? Also, is playing videogames in your thirties considered childish? I sometimes get the impression that people do. Not sure how to respond to that.
  • patient_zero 8y ago
    I firmly believe that society puts too much emphasis on the wrong aspect of our lives today. The fact you feel vaguely guilty for not being more driven to achieve at work is a symptom of this imho. You have a family, a job you like, and a a work\home balance that allows time for videogames? sounds like you've won at life, friend. people have ambitions to get where you ARE.
    • fandango 8y ago
      Thank you for the kind words. I realize that all "problems" are relative, so I guess when you state it like that it doesn't seem so bad.
• cg-enterprise 8y ago
  Keeping the amount of opened tabs in my browser below ten...
• toss0987 8y ago
  Echoing a few other posts, being myself and achieving my goals while also providing for a family. Addiction to pornography. Off and on depression.
• mo1ok 8y ago
  Energy/productivity. I have the time to work on things, but after a day of work and an hour at the gym my brain just wants to go straight to reading, videogames, or laying down and relaxing. I'm struggling to consistently use those 5+ hours of free time every day for something that will move me further in life.
  • drum 8y ago
    Maybe you're being too hard on yourself and expecting drastic results too soon. Day of meaningful work + gym consistently over an extended period of time will help further you in life. Reading can help further you in life (obviously pending what you read). Only thing I see up there that I'd consider as a time waster would be video games... but even then a few hours a week to unwind can't be all that bad. I think Steven Spielberg and Elon Musk are known to game from time to time
• _sword 8y ago
  Pivoting my career and figuring out how to enjoy life again. I’ve been working on Wall Street for the past 4-5 years in a front office role and am apparently good at what I do, though I don’t find the work fulfilling or interesting. I’m strongly considering going back to school to focus on more technical fields where I believe my passion lies, but it’s a daunting task when I also have career prospects with my current role that would likely pay more but at the cost of less time, happiness, and fulfillment.
  • phyalow 8y ago
    I was in a very similar spot last year. I pivoted back to school and have 0 regrets, good luck.
    • _sword 8y ago
      Would you mind giving some more context around your age or relative career maturity when you went back to school? I’m recently 27 and aiming for grad school next year, accelerating my plans after a really bad summer grind in my role.
      • phyalow 8y ago
        Im exactly the same age. Emails in my bio.
      • cableshaft 8y ago
        I went back to school when I was 28 and graduated when I turned 30. The cost of school is insane now, but otherwise I have no regrets. I actually could have conversations with my professors based on my professional experience, so it felt a bit more engaging to me. But I also always felt like I was behind, because it was kind of assumed that I still had knowledge from when I took classes years ago fresh in my head, and that was far from the case, so I generally felt like I was playing catch-up the whole time. This was undergrad by the way. Due to not being willing to take student loans I dropped out of college after my first couple of years because I couldn't afford to keep going. If I knew now what I knew then, I would have just taken the loans. Tuition shot up like crazy after 8 years away.
• CNJ7654 8y ago
  Benching 225 for reps mostly
• frenchman_in_ny 8y ago
  I feel like it's "everything" right now. Finding happiness. Impending divorce, possibly losing my kids, fighting with my soon-to-be-ex-spouse with regards to the kids education & where to live, how to make ends meet, etc. Being miserable with my career... It's a long list.
  • iamthirsty 8y ago
    I know how you feel man — I'm in the same state. Not the same circumstances, but the struggle is all the same. The only way out is through.
    • thorin 8y ago
      When you're going through hell, keep going!
• draw_down 8y ago
  I find it very difficult to care about the shit that needs shoveling every day in the bowels of a tech company (or really anywhere in corporate America). I remember when I used to be able to convince myself of the value of what my employer was doing and my contribution to that. Not only all that, but there is so much about tech companies now that I find distasteful. The underplayed arrogance of engineers, the cliquishness of who gets to make decisions and who gets the good work, being on a team starving for resources while others get every blessing available, the pervasive self-serious belief that we are changing the world instead of making a bit of lucre (nothing wrong with that really, but call it what it is). I don't have any drive for any of it. I just want to read and think about things that are interesting to me. I'm hoping I can cash out and stop the madness, but as we all know, options are lottery tickets until they aren't.
• adamc 8y ago
  Depression, particularly since my wife of 28 years divorced me. It has gotten a lot better in recent months, but it's almost two years since she asked for the divorce. And as I have turned to spiritual and mental health work to alleviate my depression, staying interesting in tech stuff. Although Racket and Rust look kind of fun.
  • johnsonjo 8y ago
    Just recently started using a website for learning languages called exercism [0] yesterday that has tons of programming language exercises (including Rust and Racket). You might try that, although it doesn't teach you the language (you have to search for language specifics yourself) it gives you mentors that can comment on your particular submissions to exercises. I'm learning bash right now and submitted an incomplete exercise last night with a question and literally just got my first message from a mentor telling me how to print unsigned ints using printf as that was the last thing I needed to solve my exercise. Of course chat channels are helpful for getting aid too. [0]: https://exercism.io https://exercism.io
  • xutopia 8y ago
    It's been less than a year for me and I struggle with it too. I suspect from talking to people who went through the same thing that it is totally normal. Honestly a lot of the recommendations of people were to do work on myself or activities that are easier to do when not depressed. I decided to indulge in massages, vacation, audio books while taking nice walks and watching movies of genres I could never watch next to my ex.
  • brown-dragon 8y ago
    28 years! It frightens me and boggles my mind how something like this can happen after being married for so long. Looking back do you have any idea why? I'm sorry for your loss and I hope it'll get better for you soon. As others have said it's perfectly normal to feel depressed at such a life altering event and it probably does take a year or two to recover.
    • adamc 8y ago
• 11235813213455 8y ago
  I hate cigarette smoke, since at least 8 years, at the point of vomiting if I inhale it. My treatment against it is facing it, I do everything by bike, and hold my breath when needed (country=France) My mom got a lung cancer recently, that won't really change my mind (she used to smoke)
• JimboOmega 8y ago
  Getting excited about my career. I keep getting in a loop where I feel like I can't grow and the challenges aren't there, so my work performance starts to slacken, which in turn is used to justify giving me the same tasks again. Eventually I burn out and get a new job, which I'm excited about for about a year, before it becomes clear that what was promised me in terms of opportunity and advancement isn't going materialize any time soon. Then I start to slack again. I do average work and remain in the same spot. Someone else gets the promotion I thought I was going to, I get more bitter, and try even less. Then the loop repeats. Some of this is cultural, but a lot of it is me. I really struggle to maintain motivation and it shows. Especially when someone junior to me (in terms of experience overall, though usually at the company longer) who hates managing gets promoted to leading the team. At that point, I kind of check out. As a result I never establish myself enough to be in the position to actually get promoted, and just seem to cycle every 2 years.
  • Nevermark 8y ago
    Maybe start taking on as much responsibility as you can for the role you want before you have it. Obviously that has to be done respectfully and in a genuinely helpful manner relative to however has the role now. But if you focus on the idea that anyone in a company can have a CEO type impact (or other role impact) if they learn how to manage themselves and others well, then you may be more motivated by the challenge and progress toward your goal. And you will be 100% more qualified than you need to be when you officially get the role you want. So think beyond just the next step.
    • JimboOmega 8y ago
      That's been my go to the last couple cycles. It hasn't worked. For instance, at my previous job, I wound up as essentially the only person on a team. In addition to performing the technical functions, I worked to build it back into a team. I created (and communicated) what my vision for that team was supposed to be, mapping out what we would do when it was reconstituted, and started training other people to do some of the functions. After 6 months of what I was told was very impressive work, the reorg came. They decided to have another person lead that team, and swap somebody new in to the on paper non-lead role I had been filling. They put me in a different part of the team underneath somebody more junior who had no interest in managing as part of a general reorg. That person also had no interest in working for the company even after the promotion, and left (part of an ongoing exoducs at that time). You'd think that would finally leave me as a team lead, but instead our team was explicitly left leaderless, with the next level (and architect of the reorg) theoretically picking up the slack. This created a bit of a nightmare, because everyone expected me to be leading that team, but I was explicitly forbidden from doing so. I went from setting the direction for my own work to getting arbitrary tasks given to me. I wasn't looped in on or consulted about the general direction of the team, and it was far away from where I'd been so I didn't have any idea what the team (which had only recently been created) was supposed to be doing. It was chaos and frustrating - people kept coming to me assuming I was leading, and I kept having to defer. I really don't understand what the point was of not allowing me to lead the team (and it was a very explicit choice), other than out of spite or some kind of built in bias. I really stopped caring at that point. When I left a couple months later my boss reminisced how my work had been so good but had dropped precipitously. What's sad is the same thing happened at the previous job in a lot of ways. I did get made the team lead eventually, but at that point there literally was no team since the exodus was larger (all the non-contractor developers had left). Once again, I was the tail end of the exodus. I keep at it. I'm always evangelizing improvements, trying to create a better environment for other employees, trying to work with the new ones, trying to find those places where there is opportunity to grow. A lot of time, my suggestions get ignored, but I keep making them. I implement them anyway, they are well received. I get a pat on the back and told to work on something very different. I can't get excited about that something different and can only view it as an obstacle to be overcome before I can go back to pushing on the things I care about, and the loop begins. I do only okay work on the things I don't care about, which is used to justify me staying in my position. I stop doing things that are beyond my role, because it seems pointless. I care less and less. There's something about somebody getting promoted to the position you wanted and then using your 1 on 1s to complain about how much they hate the position that just kills me. At some point the job starts to become entirely managing visibility, be it keeping meaningful projects under the radar so that they don't yoinked away, or promoting them mercilessly. I've been in one on ones where my boss tried to show me a list of things they wanted to see for me to get promoted, then realized they were describing exactly what I was doing, yoinked it away, and had to spend 6 months "refining" it. If they do that enough times - if I spend enough time just playing these games trying to find some way to sneak through the cracks and do some actual refactoring or whatever it is, eventually I stop caring entirely. It starts to feel like it's all politics anyway, so why bother. I get into an Office Space state - work my ass off, get a pat on the back, but make any mistakes and 5 people are asking why I didn't have test coverage for that case, why I copy pasted this code carelessly, whatever mistake I made when I was slacking. I don't know how to break out of that state in any sense. I don't know how to recognize if the environment really IS discriminating against me, or I'm just letting laziness get the better of me. If I decide the latter I don't how to motivate myself to care like I used to.
• screaminghawk 8y ago
  People around me are stressed and burnt out and I don't know what to do to help. I simply don't have this problem, so can't relate. My wife is constantly asking when is the next time we can "have a break" but I'm actually happier with the status quo than when we go away. I'm not sure what to do. I'm genuinely interested in advice if anyone has any to share.
  • curiousity 8y ago
    When people are stressed and burnt out and come to talk to you about it, you don't need to relate. You just need to listen and be supportive. In my experience, most people don't want advice or stories of related experiences - they just want to talk through their problems and figure it out for themselves. Just ask questions, or listen. As for the second point, you should probably listen to your wife. The status quo will be here when you get back from your break. That is assuming, you mean break to mean something like "holiday" or "vacation".
• Neff 8y ago
  1. Finding things that drive and recharge me. I feel like I tend to mindlessly go through motions but I am not getting much value out of my day-to-day and find after a while I am worn out and tend to blow up at some part of my life. 2. Ensuring I build time for myself and not lose my personal identity while being in a relationship. I tend to put my personal needs on the back burner and go out of my way to please my partner, which leads to resentment. The two feed in to each other.. I only seem to gain value from 2, which leads to problems, and when I have time to myself I have no idea what to do with my time to make me feel like I am enjoying myself so I choose to have less time for myself.
  • 100kg 8y ago
    I made an account to let you know that I'm also facing these very same issues. If you'd ever like to talk about it let me know.
• anon1253 8y ago
  Good one to vent a bit. I'm 30 now, living in the Netherlands, and dropped out of a PhD in epidemiology/bioinformatics to work remotely for a company in the US. This has been great. Pay is wonderful, approx 130k/year. My official title is something like Senior Data Scientist. I work mostly on the application of machine learning and natural language processing to clinical study data. Between the day to day ops and management, I sometimes put together neat little ML prototypes. And, in the past 3 years I managed a team that I personally put together through hiring and firing. The company I work for gives me a lot of autonomy, and I think we've delivered truly amazing things in that time span. We've literally build a state-of-the-art medical search engine from scratch, from the design, to the Clojure programming, down to the nuts and bolts of putting the machines in the racks. Since things were seemingly going well, I thought "good moment to buy a house". So I bought a house, approx 400k (coming down to 2000/month roughly). But ... I've recently become aware of some changes to the company structure that may or may not play out well. I think they will, but they might not. So there's a reasonable risk that I might be unemployed soon-ish. This scares me. Being in the far North of the Netherlands, there aren't a lot of job opportunities for a drop-out like me. And, finding a company that is willing to take the risk of hiring me remotely ... yeah I'd even be hesitant in hiring myself at that pay-rate. The thing is, I might have to sell the house and all that shitty adult stuff if that happens, just to cut monthly costs. That scares me. On top of that ... I'm not even sure I /want/ to work anymore. I would love to work on things like climate change, but that being underfunded (and not having a degree) I don't see happening. The only openings I see for a Senior Data Scientist position usually require a PhD (which I dropped out of sigh), or are in the ad space. And, for as long as I have a say in the matter I will never work in the ad space. I've been thinking of doing my own thing, bootstrap something. But I literally don't know what. Cynicism maybe. You hear all these stories of bozos pitching some idea but can't get the people to build it; I guess I'm the opposite: I think, given time and resources, I can build a lot of things ... but seriously, I wouldn't have a clue what to work on. Except maybe multi-stage flash desalination using concentrated (heliostat) solar power to green deserts as a carbon sink ... but yeah, not a civil engineer. The thing is ... through life choices I think I've made myself unemployable. I need the autonomy to do stuff, or I'll go mad (also, don't make me get out of bed before 10AM ... just not going to happen). But on the other hand, man it's been a productive 3 years ... and I learned /so/ much. I wish I just knew what to work on next. But my dysthymia prevents me from seeing that stuff clearly. If someone with a cool idea comes around, I'd love to sink my teeth into stuff; on my own, all I think of is the impending climate change disaster. Fun fun fun.
• jimmy1 8y ago
  A vicious cycle of procrastination and being easily distracted. When I finally sit down to do something I am unable to complete meaningful progress (meaningful to me). I have a laundry list of things I wanted to accomplish by now, and haven't, and it's a growing weight on me.
  • deft 8y ago
    Have the same problem and basically have my whole life. When I do finally get in the zone I get a lot done but getting there is nearly impossible. I've thought of trying some nootropics to help because its probably my biggest issue and I've tried most other things, and drugs sound easier if they work.
  • stsmith816 8y ago
    Have you considered that maybe you simply aren't as interested in the things you want to accomplish as you think you are? I ask because I struggle with the same thing and that question is really what I'm asking myself now too. I'm a mechanical engineer and I generally like building and designing things...to a point. I enjoy it at work but by the end of the day, I just don't have the motivation to keep trying to build things even if I'm superficially interested in it at a high level. I'm probably just not as into as I thought I was. At least not enough to do it at work and then at home.
    • jimmy1 8y ago
      I thought that, but those thoughts are invalidated by the few memories I do have of being extremely productive, completing that project or task and feeling wonderful as a result. No, for me, I spent about a year reading books about adult ADHD. After getting a couple of opinions, it appears that I am. However, I didn't fully believe it until I got to talking to other ADHD adults, and I recognized some of the quirky, fidgety, talking over others things that I always tend to do and I was like "yup." However I don't like how the stimulants make me feel and I already am a heavy coffee drinker, so I am experimenting other ways I can cope: earplugs and headphones with white noise, blocking visual distractions, letting my manager know of my condition (big positive, at least for me), and I am now experimenting cutting sugar completely out of my diet.
• paulintrognon 8y ago
  I feel that I live in a lie: the lie that we can keep on living with such high standarts without destroying our planet (our more exaclty, our future selves). I feel like we have to change radically the way we live to fight climate change and all coming ecological disasters... Yet I don't do anything, because it is to hard to give up all the comfort modern life can buy... But I know it will have to end one day...
  • detcader 8y ago
    You can do something, with ideas like starting locally, experimenting with your habits, setting a good example. Do you have time to practice cooking? Try out some meatless/meat-substituting recipes. You don't have to give up meat, it's not a black or white deal but can be any way works for you, with exceptions or specific days. Do you feel you have persuasive writing skills? You could write to local and state stakeholders about environmental sub-issues you feel confident about. There's always a little to do. Did you know the last U.S. marital rape exemptions were withdrawn in 1993? The world rarely changes radically.
• throwwwaw482 8y ago
  Money.... no matter what I do, I'm always living paycheck to paycheck. Even when I budget carefully, it just flies out the door. I am not sure how to get things under control and I'm worried that I'm just going to keep going further into debt. I've been working for years and don't have anything to show for it except for a bunch of debt and a credit card that's starting to fill up again.
• honkycat 8y ago
  I'm about to turn 30. I spend my 20's in college for a CS degree and developing my career after that. It went GREAT and my life is pretty fantastic. I've made really excellent decisions consistently. But, the work is never over. Currently I'm struggling with: - Getting healthy. I'm not obese but I'm not fit and if I don't have a habit of regular exercise now it's going to just get harder in the future. - Working towards what I really want to do: game development. I paid off my student loans by hustling and being an office drone. Now I want to get back to what I got into programming for and get out of web development. - Become a more well-rounded person in general. I don't want to be a TV / youtube / social media slave. I want to make art and explore and have a good life. So I guess overall I do an excellent job with the day-to-day job grind, but I struggle to set goals for myself and follow through with those goals.
• starpilot 8y ago
  I struggle with crippling social anxiety and shyness that has affected every aspect of my life. I'm 33. It's made job interviews awkward/uncomfortable, and even made it hard to find rock climbing partners because I'm not really fun to be around. I don't know what to do. Therapists haven't helped.
  • k4ch0w 8y ago
    Read how to win friends and influence people. I used to have similar issues and you just need to understand what people want out of an interaction. My crippling social anxiety is put at bay by constantly pushing past my comfort zone. It's a slow process but eventually it kinda just stops.
  • teddyknox 8y ago
    Did vorinostat do anything for this? One of your comments on this 6 months ago got indexed by a search engine and I just found it.
  • abledon 8y ago
    Improv classes ,, and find some actors in classic films or television series , try to emulate them and incorporate their quirks into your style and mannerisms basically you will fake it until it actually becomes a part of you because the grooves in the neurons will finally be beaten down. Also helps to do lots of exercise - work up to 1000 push-ups per day (with breaks) over maybe 2 year training period but since u rock climb ur probably fit conscious already . If you think a situation is embarrassing or something , reframe it as an opportunity to collect a funny story to tell, think stand up comedian , so underneath all the chaos of the situation there’s the shining gem of ‘what a f’ing funny - curb your enthusiasm - Essie uncomfortable situation I’m in , this will be a great story to tell later on .
• Kluny 8y ago
  I'm struggling to get away from being a developer. I left a comfortable, but low-paying job because there was no future and no promotions or job changes in sight. I want to work with people, not code. I hate being by myself in front of a computer all day. That led to my current job, where I'm paid twice as much but not really measuring up to their expectations. I'm still by myself in front of a computer all day. I can't see myself getting promoted given how unimpressed they are with my performance. I had a chance to get some experience doing something other than programming, so I took it - a 20-hours-a-week contract as volunteer coordinator on a political campaign, which I absolutely love, but now I'm stressed and running for my life all the time because I'm working every hour that I'm awake (and sometimes waking up in the middle of the night to add more stuff to my todo list). I'm in trouble at my day job because my performance there has gotten worse, and expect to be fired soon. And now I'm worried that I'm doing badly at the second job as well, because I keep on forgetting things and making mistakes. It's too much and I'm miserable.
  • cityzen 8y ago
    Let me ask you this... what would you do if your employer fired you right now? Would you be homeless? What's really at stake here? You will NEVER have the time to put towards the work you love if you spend the majority of your time doing work you don't care about. It's really a disservice to you and your employer to be in this situation. Have you tried to communicate with them? Do they do any kind of employee reviews? Not being funny, but are you scared to stir the pot a bit and tell them you're just not happy? Why not talk to your non-profit client and tell them you're leaving your job and want to get involved on a bigger scale. Ask if they know people that could use your talents. Life is short, sitting in front of a computer being miserable is no way to spend that precious time.
    • Kluny 8y ago
      I need the last paycheck. So I'm sticking it out to the end of the month. But if I don't get fired, I'm going to ask for a leave of absence, or quit. But I'm still worried about what happens next. Rent in my city is expensive, and salaries are comparatively low. The political job pays decently, for the city, but even if I can find a similar full time job after election season, I'll be paying a little over half my salary in rent. So that tells me that I'm probably going to be leaving town soon, leaving my local network, and facing more instability and turmoil... no matter where I look, I don't see a peaceful settled life in my future for a long time.
• gf263 8y ago
  tinnitus
  • tluyben2 8y ago
    Ditto. What an annoying thing. To fall asleep (and I sleep extremely well) I have mp3s of comedy playing otherwise I only hear the sounds of my ears and cannot get to sleep. It tried muziek, nature noises, white noise, other noise; nothing really seems to work besides something that fluctuates enough but somehow not music. The stuff I play I know by heart so it does not interest me per se but it all still makes me laugh and is never annoying; cannot put on audio books as then I would not sleep but listen to them. I cannot do speech conference calls mostly as I will hear nothing and real meetings need to be in quiet rooms or I hear nothing of what was said. Chat rooms are a godsend. Not sure what I would have done if I lived currently in the 80s. Because I have had this for a long while I recognise people who have a similar or the same affliction; in business especially men are ashamed or something of it; many times in meetings when there is persistent background noise, I see people in the room who clearly understand absolutely nothing of what is said but act like they do. I just ask if we can move somewhere else or that they will need to start talking louder and while looking at me. Besides the tinnitus my hearing is good; in hearing tests I score well and aids do not help with this.
• erobbins 8y ago
  Motivation. I'd like to retire ASAP, but I'm already old (45) and I've just let so many opportunities slip by because I can't get off my ass.
• cimmanom 8y ago
  Making big life changes. I just don't know where to start, and even after breaking them down into tiny tasks, I procrastinate on them... probably because I'm a little bit scared. Or a lot scared. The current project is moving overseas. The next step is to find a recruiter in the country I'm looking to move to, since I'll need a job offer and visa sponsorship, and it's really difficult to job search internationally. But it's so difficult even to identify reputable recruiters locally, where you have a network and can ask for recommendations from people you know. How do you find someone to trust in a totally new location? So I've been putting that off for (checks calendar) 6 months now.
  • davnicwil 8y ago
    I have done this. The simple answer is just look up some recruiters on LinkedIn and fire some emails to them with a brief summary of what you're looking for and your CV. Then, view the rest as an interview process for the right recruiter. Lots just won't reply. For those that do, set a high bar for filtering the initial replies, then from that filtered group set up some calls. In the call, really take the time to get to know them a bit. Ensure they know what they are doing. Ask probing questions. Interview them! Once you've done the first call, you're in a pretty good position to judge who you'll be happy working with. It's really that simple, not exactly fun but not exactly that painful either, and it all starts by sending some emails. Do it now :-) On a side note, despite all the bad stuff (taking a slice of your salary, not always offering the most relevant jobs, etc) recruiters really do work very well when you are first looking in a completely new place. It's not the only way, but I would recommend it. On a further side note, it is completely normal to be scared by something as massive as moving to a new country. You will be changing your life in a big way! So don't do yourself down over that. At the same time, just get the ball rolling, push through it and get it done. There are quite a few things to do, some hard, some annoying, some boring, some fun, but all individually small and achieveable. At the end you'll look back and think, yeah, that wasn't all that bad!
    • cimmanom 8y ago
      Thank you for the advice and encouragement!
• benzini 8y ago
  I struggle with the management of my life, honestly. Dealing with a chronic health condition, working full time, exercise (which often doesn't happen), spending time with friends and family (whom I've been neglecting in favor of a project), and finding time for the absurdly long list of projects I want to work on (which never gets shorter as I rarely get to work on them). The health and work thing really take up all of my time. It's kind of a bummer, really.
• AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
  Everything worth doing and about half of the things that aren't. If I had to pick one thing, it'd be my weight. I've lost 150lbs and have been keeping it off for years. People who've never lost a significant amount of weight (north of 50lbs) probably can't understand what it is like to have to fight your body every day of your life. I have to avoid temptation as much as possible, which means keeping only enough food in the house to survive for a week and avoiding social functions, among other things. If I know there's food somewhere nearby, I'll be distracted thinking about it until I either eat it or go somewhere else. I have to meticulously track my caloric intake and keep it under 1600/day average just to maintain, even with 6+ hours of the gym each week. They never tell you that part about losing weight, that the damage to your metabolism is already done and will never function normally again. Do you have any idea what it is like to be compelled to eat? To be unable to stop yourself? to hate that you can't stop yourself? I'm going to guess not, it's awful. And you know what the worst part of it is? How easy everyone seems to think it is. Oh, you're having trouble with overeating? Here, let me parrot some bullshit clickbait nonsense from the internet.
  • icc97 8y ago
    > I've lost 150lbs and have been keeping it off for years. Congratulations for keeping it off. Losing weight is hard enough, but keeping it off year after year seems almost impossible. I wonder what proportion of people who follow each diet have lost weight and kept it off for more than (say) 10 years.
  • madeuptempacct 8y ago
    I thought your stomach eventually shrunk and the fat cells died. I.e. re-gaining weight would be easy in the short term, but would eventually get to "normal levels"? And I doubt too many people think it's easy - even losing a couple of pounds is a pain in the ass.
    • jmcgough 8y ago
      The fat cells never die unless you get liposuction, they just shrink. Your body is primed to regain that weight if your diet or activity level changes.
• cryoshon 8y ago
  finding a realistic way forward for myself in light of my talents and shortcomings. with great effort i have produced stability that is comfortable enough, but it isn't anything that i could ever be proud of.
• neillyons 8y ago
  Explaining things to non technical people can be challenging.
• headcanon 8y ago
  I'd say I struggle with a few things, but I'll pick one. I overcomplicate and overthink things. If I get into something, like a new hobby, I go in to "engineer mode" and think about all the complexities of what I'm trying to do, and end up going nowhere. Or other times, I will purchase a slew of materials I don't initally need because "I'll need them later" and end up getting bored with the hobby before they ever get used. Recently I've been trying to keep things simple and iterate. On that note, I also struggle with maintaining interest in new hobbies after the first "hump", and go away from it for several months or years. By the time I work up interest in it and get back into it I start from square one essentially. I feel like I've been getting better at it with age, my mind has "slowed down" a bit in a good way and I find focusing on things has become easier.
  • allenu 8y ago
    I use to have this problem. I'd plan out everything in a side project and figure out the optimal structure for where files go even. After a while I realized just going back to a "just build something" strategy is way more optimal as it keeps me engaged in the project and allows me to focus on things that matter. It's hard to make progress when you're just planning, especially since you just don't know all the details when you start... so you're planning is often not based on reality.
  • citrablue 8y ago
    I can empathize with this. Add in the fact that the older I get, the more impressive my project needs to be in order to impress myself. It's a form of self-sabotage, but by realizing that I don't have to build something great in 1 day, it helps. What are your strategies to cope with this?
    • headcanon 8y ago
      That seems like a symptom of comparing yourself with some ultimate, unrealistic version of what you think you should be. Kind of like learning guitar in your 30's and getting discouraged when you see talented 16-year-olds on youtube getting famous. I cope with that by 1) realizing that everyone's journey is different, and 2) realizing that even though I'm not a famous artist or whatever, I have a unique background that can bring value to people in the way I'm comfortable with. Also as you get older you recognize what's really valuable in life (friends, happiness, etc.), and the things you thought were important when you were younger (getting rich/famous) are actually really shallow.
• mud_dauber 8y ago
  Struggling with the idea that I'm no longer valuable to the tech industry - purely due to age.
• seancoleman 8y ago
  Caffeine addiction, physiological dependence and psychological addiction, where the caffeine plays a major factor in ill health effects (sleep loss, anxiety, depression, etc.)
  • collyw 8y ago
    Jittery enough to submit this twice.... (Not sure if it will help, but l-theanine gets rid of the jittery effects when I have had too much, though I am pretty sensitive to caffeine).
• gnulinux 8y ago
  I'm incredibly absent minded. I constantly keep forgetting/losing my cards, my wallet, my phone, bags, random stuff; somehow I break things in ways I don't understand... I just graduated from college, my life was fine so far, but I'm currently getting kicked out by my landlord because he was sick of me making trivial, small mistakes 10000 times a day. They're things like forgetting a plate on the table, forgetting toothbrush in the sink, a towel on the dust cabinet, a shirt on the couch, my laptop on a desk etc... In fact, it's getting so bad if this persists a few more months I'll get an MRI because for all I know this might be a brain tumor. What's worse is I have absolutely no idea how to improve this since most of the time I can't remember the moment of incidence. Today I realized I lost my debit card. I went to my bank account and it seems like I used it last 2 days ago, but it's not in my wallet now... I have absolutely no idea where it is. This is the 3rd time this is happening this year... This is affecting my work too, but not significantly. Sometimes I push print statements with my code, can't even see them until people point them out (I do review my code before committing, `git diff`). One time I merged two branches that should never ever ever be merged and spent half a day trying to fix git. These are mostly minor things and afaik my manager is happy with my performance and I consider myself an ok software engineer. But still all these small mistakes are driving me crazy! I also worry it'll affect my career as an engineer.
  • derefr 8y ago
    This is a (less talked about, but very diagnostic) symptom of ADHD.
    • gnulinux 8y ago
      See, yes my friends told me I might have ADHD. But I was extremely good at school (I graduated from UC Berkeley with near 4.0) and never had a problem focusing at work/school. If I sit to study, I can do so pretty efficiently. I can also do work without much trouble. Also, I tried Adderall a couple times when I was a freshman, and its effects were almost unnoticeable to me since I usually don't have hard time focusing anyway. I might have ADHD, but it just doesn't make any sense to me...
      • 8y ago
• legohead 8y ago
  I don't like the new way of doing things. Kubernetes, node, react, terraform... Everything is more complicated and also more fragile. I feel like the software world is collectively mad and I'm sitting on the outside asking "wtf is going on?" Or maybe I'm the crazy one.
  • amorphous 8y ago
    Certainly not crazy. I started programming on a VC-20 doing basic and later assembler. Just this for years. Glorious times. What helps a little is to go deep into the history of computer programming and see the big picture. The fundamental problems defined in the 30s ~ 50s are still very much relevant. Kubernates, node, react etc are just ripples.
  • tonyedgecombe 8y ago
    Or maybe I'm the crazy one. If you are then you aren't the only one. A lot of this stuff seems to spill out of companies like Google or Facebook and I'm sure it makes sense at their scale. For most of us we just don't have the same problems and are probably better off avoiding it.
  • Tade0 8y ago
    Less than two days ago lerna left-padded out of being FLOSS and since Babel uses lerna we're having this conversation now: https://github.com/babel/babel/issues/8579#issuecomment-416968197 https://github.com/babel/babel/issues/8579#issuecomment-4169... I pine for the times when we could just place a few <script> tags here and there and call it a day.
    • exikyut 8y ago
      Whoa, this is awesome. (I mean that half-sarcastically in a "you must go and see, you won't believe it" kind of way.) I'll cherry-pick these comments, which I think have the best signal/flame ratio: > ... > this doesn't seem safe anymore. this stack has too many individuals with no oversight in charge > i really wish the javascript community would start seeing unnecessary tooling as a vulnerability > this happens so often in this language IMO you could totally s/the javascript community/everyone/ here, obviously not for universal values of "everyone" but certainly for many.
• kc10 8y ago
  I am 35 and do active software development. Most of my peers transitioned into management, but I don't like management. But I fear aging out, not able to keep up with technology changes, not be able to blend with young team over time etc.
• nbardy 8y ago
  Interviewing. I'm good at my good. My portfolio is at least decent, and I get a lot of responses on my resume, but I consistently can't close the deal. I also have a very hard time bettering myself with the lack of feedback. I've gotten better at all the stuff you can read about online and often made it to the final round, but I can't make it to an offer.
  • sushisource 8y ago
    IMO, software interviewing is pretty heavily broken. I struggled with this and I decided (rightly or wrongly) that the problem wasn't me, it really was the process. Whiteboard coding is nonsense for any other purpose than weeding out the truly incompetent. Past that point, it's a crapshoot. I think homework / portfolio are the most reasonable evaluative tools, but there are some legitimate downsides there around the bias it can introduce into your process, and the potential candidates who may be turned off by it. Things worked out for me, but not before I had some serious self doubt. So, stick too it. You (probably, I don't actually know) are good at your job - don't let the nonsense process convince you otherwise. Look for companies that share your viewpoints.
    • ccajas 8y ago
      To be honest I am surprised of the tolerance levels between quality of work and quality of the interviewing. In some engineering fields, I'd expect that such inconsistency in hiring practices would result in hiring someone that causes a huge accident. Dark version: software interviewing would not be this broken if most bugs or mistakes would directly result in a person's serious injury or death.
    • qwerty456127 8y ago
      > Whiteboard coding is nonsense Absolutely. Asking a person to produce correct code with just a whiteboard/pen/notepad is like asking a surgeon to do with just a kitchen knife. An intelligent code-completing&checking IDE, a debugger and the Internet should be considered parts of a developer's body nowadays, restricting usage of these makes just as much sense as restricting usage of glasses for reading or requiring people to get to the office without using personal/public transport vehicles.
• lol_jono 8y ago
  everything
• ChuckMcM 8y ago
  I have a very wide area of interests, and doing things takes time. But while I'm doing thing 'A', I think about the fact that I'm making no progress on 'B', 'C', ... 'n' and it distracts me both from thinking as deeply as I need to on thing 'A' and the enjoyment I get from getting something done. So I struggle with letting go of the desire to get everything done that I can imagine would be fun and interesting to do.
  • amorphous 8y ago
    Yes yes yes We live in an age where the ability to say "no" has become more important than saying "yes". It used to be the other way around. I grew up in the 80s and all I had was my VC-20 learning basic and later assembler. That's it. Then there was the library or bookshop, where I would find once in a while something really interesting. Nowadays, the possibilities are endless. On top of that, I have realized that my brain has changed over the years. Feeding it constantly with new stuff is not healthy. The good news is that this process is reversible. Things like practising meditation can help a lot.
  • amrx431 8y ago
    Dude are you me? I have the same problem. Cant decide to fixate on one. Hell react seems cool so does fast.ai. Damn, there are so many options.
    • puranjay 8y ago
      Exactly my problem. Worse, my interests often have nothing in common. I like development. But I also like SEO side projects. I love making music, but I also love writing This year I finally told myself that I'll focus on only one thing for 6 months and see the results. I actively push away all thoughts of working on B while I'm working on A
  • Kagerjay 8y ago
    I dont think this is a bad thing actually. This describes me perfectly. You gain a lot more wisdom being familiar with many topics What I do divide split different cycles out. -dev cycle -I only focus on development only or 1 specific project. I limit myself to working on 2 projects max/day -exploratory cycle -I let my mind wander. I realize how potentially unproductive it can be, so i limit this time to a few hours at most/day. Normally I do this when Im constantly distracted by clients / coworkers at work. Or when I get tired on my dev cycle. What helps is I write what I wish to accomplish everyday. Its 1 to 3 things that take at least a few hours to do. At the end of the week, i look back to see what I accomplished. What did I accompish for work, personally, and what major events transpired? How do I feel about this weeks productivity vs the last 2 weeks? Am i getting shit done?
• allenu 8y ago
  For me, it's being obsessed with productivity and getting things done, as well as constantly having some side project going (for fun). It's not extreme (i.e. I'm not losing sleep over it), but it does take the joy out of things sometimes because I feel like I have to be producing something to be of value. It's hard to just sit still and enjoy quiet because I feel like I need to be working on something. On top of this, because I've been working on getting more efficient and smart at getting things done, I get impatient when people don't aspire to the same level. I find it alienating.
• Tade0 8y ago
  I might have lost a second friend to suicide even though the last time this happened I promised myself that I would do something before it's too late. Problem is I have no way of knowing for sure, because the only means of contact I had with him was through facebook and his account is currently gone. He's been openly contemplating taking his life for a year now or so. Normally whenever he did this I would try to be there for him but apparently that was to little, to late. I'm still hoping he'll resurface eventually.
  • TallGuyShort 8y ago
    >> I would do something before it's too late >> apparently that was to little, to late You can't take that all on yourself. The way people reach out is a factor in suicide but it's absolutely not the only one. I hope you find out what happened to your friend and that it was nothing too final, but please don't make the mistake of carrying that burden. It would be as big a mistake for you to do that as it would've been for your friend to feel like death was the only way to deal with their problems.
• TeMPOraL 8y ago
  Lack of discipline and motivation. Just having an obligation to do something causes huge amounts of stress (sometimes to the point of physical pain), so I get easily distracted by anything that is not the task at hand. Ending up burning midnight oil to catch up.
• deleted 8y ago
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• dabockster 8y ago
  I just got diagnosed with ADHD combined type. Looking back, my entire life was a total mess before starting treatment. Little to no concentration abilities make you lose focus on your surroundings so much that it can affect your ability to eat and sleep on a consistent basis (not to mention employability). You sort of just sit there mentally screaming at your body to get up and move. Or you mentally scream at your body to stop moving and sit down. Bottom line is that you have almost no control over your attention in every way. Your head is also in a constant fog because you aren't able to maintain focus on what's going on in front of you. If you see yourself with constant attention issues even in an optimal environment, please see a doctor. ADHD and other associated conditions can ruin your life if left untreated.
  • Shanedora 8y ago
    I was diagnosed with that when I was younger. I am 31 and still find myself suffering from it. One has to eventually discipline their daily habbits to overcome it and that takes time, patience and effort.
• hmart 8y ago
  Procrastination
• seancoleman 8y ago
  Caffeine addiction, physiological and psychological dependence with a substance causing ill health effect (disturbed sleep, depression anxiety).
• truebosko 8y ago
  The never ending drive to feel qualified. Extreme swings from excitement to depression / anxiety that I seem to hide very well at work.
• mlthoughts2018 8y ago
  I struggle with avoiding desensitization or the status quo feeling one should just focus on one’s own life and not let external sources of moral or ethical outrage affect you. It is so critical to be outraged by an ever-increasing number of things that truly, sincerely deserve to evoke outrage. Any solution that proposes to somehow not be outraged just cannot be considered. Yet at the same time, nobody has the bandwidth to be so outraged, let alone to try to have a happy life. I think this is a non-trivial problem of modern philosophy. Is it ethically OK to short-circuit your moral outrage because pragmatically there are too many issues to be able to process, or it would be socially offputting to be “on” all the time? Shouldn’t you take great pains to boycott products or services from bad actors, protest abuses of power and corruption, never ever become exhausted of talking about or listening to discussions of these issues, even unto whatever toll it takes on your personal life? I’m very skeptical of people who quickly say no. What a struggle this problem is!
• bigbang 8y ago
  Getting up early.
• Aeolun 8y ago
  I think I care too much. I want to hit the deadlines, I want to make boss and the client happy, and have a fulfilling personal life on top of that. There’s too much, and something has to give eventually.
• sremani 8y ago
  Focus.
• deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
• ravenstine 8y ago
  I struggle to code in a timely manner, and I'm often wondering whether I'm too slow or the world is too fast. I don't think I'm an incompetent coder, and I don't believe I'm stupid, but I'm convinced that it takes me a lot longer to build something than other people I know. It's not that I'm not trying, but I'd rather not rush into problems. It's unclear whether this makes me a bad software engineer since I've been both rewarded and punished for this trait.
  • linkregister 8y ago
    It sounds like a lack of years of experience in a given specialization. When I graduated university and finished internships, I was fast at coding OOP enterprise-type applications and systems-level C programs. Now that I've spent so much of my career doing other things, e.g. reverse engineering and infra work, my coding is less than a quarter as fast. There are also considerations as to how productive you are at working for hours straight, and also whether the "fast" people are creating durable architecture.
• samueldavid 8y ago
  health issues and keeping up with tech.
• deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
• deleted 8y ago
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• Sukotto 8y ago
  Every day is a struggle. For several years I've struggled to learn enough Japanese for daily living. (Spouse is Japanese and we moved to Japan a few years ago with our 3 school-aged kids). Very little success on this. しょうがないね My wife is out of town anywhere between 3 days to 2 weeks each month for her job. While she is gone, we rely heavily on her parents (with whom I cannot communicate directly). They take care of laundry and dinner for the kids. I take care of all the other housework and breakfast. I work at a large corp (English speaking technology department, Japanese company) with very little career progression without business-level Japanese skill. My dev skills feel rusted and I try not to despair about my career. So what do you do? Do you double down on Japanese and try to get some level of fluency and let your dev skill rot? Or do you focus on polishing those dev skills and push the language learning back even farther? You get maybe an hour a day for this purpose. Unfortunately I own a house where the mortgage exceeds the value of the property. So I am not in a position to move to greener pastures. As an added bonus, I've hit mid-forty now and my body is starting to go. Exercise and diet help, but ifaik there is no cure for aging/degrading biologic systems. ... But here's the thing: As a man -- and especially as a white, English-speaking, North American man -- nobody gives a shit about my problems. Sure, family and old friends care that I have troubles, but from the perspective that they hope the problems go away. (to be clear, I mean this as a general case, not specific to this country) I painting myself into a corner, and just have to keep working to make things better. It's simple, but not easy -> Keep working hard. Do whatever you can to improve yourself and your situation. Ask for help when you can. Don't complain. --- Edit to add: Thank you everyone for your kind comments. I appreciate it very much and will carefully consider your suggestions.
  • mrhappyunhappy 8y ago
    I'm in a similar position. Maybe we should get in touch and figure out a way to hold each other accountable to learning the language.
  • zo1 8y ago
    What were your motivations to move to Japan in the first place?
  • oceanman888 8y ago
• procedural_love 8y ago
  My health. The past several years have been a journey of finding a diet and lifestyle that minimizes the pain and discomfort. The other half of that is, when genetics and circumstance have such a crippling impact on one's ability to live a "normal life", how do you cope with it emotionally and spiritually? That's the more challenging half of what I struggle with.
• abootstrapper 8y ago
  Making new friends, me being in my late 30's with young kids.
• Shanedora 8y ago
  I have a learning disability that I overcome by being methodical towards approaching and solving complex problems. As a result, I require more time over the average person for the simple requirement of being organized before I can move on through a process. This has been a challenge that I'm still learning to overcome. Lastly, I have a difficult time accepting and allowing room for failure which is a necessary outcome or experience in engineering disciplines.
• rasengan0 8y ago
  Continued tribalism and polarization of group think facilitating exploitation by state and corporate actors to the detriment of all. And impunity from data breaches from said negligent irresponsible parties.
• firemelt 8y ago
  Focus and self discipline, anyone can help me with this?
• throwythrow 8y ago
  Work. I'm 30. I've never held down a full-time job. I've been in 4 software companies over the years and I've only lasted a few months at each one. I've also tried contact programming so I have a similar string of failures. I've been to doctors, career advisors and so on but I don't really have any answers.
• sanderjd 8y ago
  Machine learning. It seems like an extremely important skillet to remain relevant in my career, but I'm not willing to become qualified to do fundamental research (that is, I don't want to commit the time and effort for a phd), and the higher level sk-learn / tensorflow type work seems like it's largely a bunch of data cleaning plus guesswork finding good models and hyperparameters, which I don't find very satisfying. My current thought is that I'll need to be more excited about the application I'm using it for in order to enjoy it, whereas I've always enjoyed "normal" programming just for its own sake.
• codinghorror 8y ago
  At this point? Sanity.
• fatboy93 8y ago
  To be really honest, I struggle with python, perl. This frankly sucks, because most of my field is made up of those two. R feels like home just like bash. Perl feels too cryptic and python too verbose and everything feels that I have to google. Having no programming buddy to help learn with, it's an uphill task.
• michakirschbaum 8y ago
  Testing with stubs/mocks, particularly in JS.
• cosmie 8y ago
  I'm struggling with how to market myself. I'd like to take what I do as a full time employee and pivot into doing it as an independent consultant. Yet have been struggling to find enough side income to support making that jump full time, because I can't find an "elevator pitch" that articulates what I do and what value I provide. The vast majority of side gigs I've gotten have come from previous bosses who have firsthand experience working with me, but the work is too sporadic to rely on. In case anyone here has any advice in how I can position myself: I'm a generalist that specializes in getting shit done. Whether that's strategy/advisory support, execution of exploratory initiatives until they show enough ROI for a full time hire, or filling skill gaps that are too sporadic to justify an FTE. I've worked directly under CMOs, CEOs, COOs, CTOs, business owners, as well as client-facing agency work. And in essentially all cases, have been the guy you go to when you don't know who to go to. I generally "seed" efforts, working end to end until it scales to the point of supporting specialists. I've been a one-person data/analytics team (fully owned from maintaining the databases to coding the ETL to writing SQL queries that support the analytics/dashboards for the business) that I've scaled to an entire operations and decision support department. I've managed advertising campaigns and created an entire conversion rate optimization infrastructure to support getting the most out of my campaigns. I've also worked with technical teams to adjust development processes so that they incorporate best practices that drastically improve the ease of marketing/analytics efforts. And most of all, I end up getting pulled into meetings to resolve confusion between business teams and technical teams. Ideally, I'd like to provide those same type of "catch all" services as a consultant. For a monthly retainer, I can fill whatever strategy or tactical level gap you have. If you're a technical person/team struggling with sales or marketing, I can provide that guidance along with initial implementation/execution to prove it out. For business people/teams, I can either provide technical points of view to ease communication with your tech team, or provide actual execution services if needed.
• serhadiletir 8y ago
  I am definitely having a struggle about focusing.
• thatguy1527 8y ago
  Anxiety about the future of artificial intelligence. I feel like human intelligence is constant and AI is ever-increasing. Eventually we’ll be way behind and I don’t know how to think about a world where humans are second tier. It’s honestly made me less happy and affects my day-to-day life.
• BooneJS 8y ago
  Reading HN for 10 minutes when compiles only take 2.
• throwaway2356 8y ago
  I struggle with the fact that I'm going to have to quit academia and get a data science job (probably). I love academia. But I am too slow, and personal life means I am geographically constrained. My plan is to choose a topic and work at that as an academic side project, with the aim to still publish either alone or with seated academic friends.
• estevaovix 8y ago
  Try to use the Pomodoro Technique[1]... believe me, it helps. It organizes your tasks in rounds of deep focus with intervals and the results are very good, specially if you are dealing with multiple things at once. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomodoro_Technique?wprov=sfti1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomodoro_Technique?wprov=sfti1
• m1573rp34130dy 8y ago
  ...I dont have any friends, and i always have to do extremely physical things solo to stay warm, dry and fed...
• _struggling_dev 8y ago
  I am struggling to find steady work. I had a fabulous job after my Masters in US, which I left to move overseas with family. Was young and decided to start a company with a friend which was shut down after quite a bit of coasting aimlessly. Tried another startup but didn't market it much hoping people will find it themselves since the product was good. (Lesson learnt !) In the meanwhile, I developed a paranoia of flying which meant I could not go back to my old job, not to mention the visa hassles. Been freelancing for last two-three years and its just enough to put some food on the table and largess from parents is seeing me and my family through. All this took a toll on my health and I started developing classical anxiety symptoms (learnt about it later) and started worrying that something is seriously wrong with me medically. Still living with these although the frequency has gone down a bit. Not enough money from a promising career guy (me) took a toll on all my relationships especially my spouse. I haven't really spent on any hobbies or have effectively killed all my interests as they all require money. I am still trying to keep myself updated with latest technologies but since I do not have regular work to show of to potential employers and probably little big of ageism, its not getting easy to get any interview calls. Thinking of trying to get into teaching as it might be something I can possibly be hired for.
• benvineyard 8y ago
  Inspiration. I constantly seek new forms of thereof.