7 ms·

After our second daughter was born with a disability and we didn’t know if she’d make it to her first birthday I threw myself into my new job utterly. I was wor

by wincy 6y ago

After our second daughter was born with a disability and we didn’t know if she’d make it to her first birthday I threw myself into my new job utterly. I was working 7-7 almost every day, took every opportunity to travel, and in general was absent from the situation as much as my “very important job” would allow. For me I felt completely powerless at the hospital. At work I got to solve “important” problems that were trivial in comparison to the things I had no control over, and was rewarded for doing so. It felt good to be useful when my life felt in complete chaos outside of work. At one point I stayed up all night to wrap up a project that wasn’t even that important. My boss, rather than being happy with me, sat me down and said I needed to make sure to sleep and take care of myself, that I was going to burn myself out. I really appreciate him saying that in retrospect, even though I felt a little offended at the time. I try to balance work and home life, and have developed a great relationship with my daughter, now two. In retrospect I wish I’d had the emotional stability to spend more time at the hospital, and to provide more emotional support for my wife who was saddled with going to the hospital almost every day. Things are better now, our daughter is doing very well, but the workaholism can be because of external factors, as overworking made me able to ignore the other, more depressing parts of my life where I lacked control.

vmception 6y ago
I was most focused on my career after a breakup. The structure of the work environment coupled with the reward is pretty unparalleled. Other things I can think of with structure usually have a kind of endless goal that can't be spent at your discretion. Rehab, fitness, organized religion. I've never done rehab, but it seems to overlap with fitness where even if you gamify it with achievements, its not like a game at all because you have to do the same achievement the next day and forever. The earnings, advancement, structure and distraction do have their place especially when your personal relationships and life isn't going the way you want it.
- trianglem 6y ago
  I find all of this so hard to relate with. I’ve worked for a decade, have a high paying job and have been promoted multiple times but to me none of it is enjoyable. I don’t think I could ever be happy in a situation where I’m required to do something for 9 hours everyday. I can’t get around the idea that all of this a weak abstraction to make money and care very little for approval from authority figures.
  - xur17 6y ago
    I think it depends upon the environment. What the GP said definitely resonates with me, but only at places where I had a large amount of control over what I worked on, and felt like my decisions / work affected the outcome of the company. I've noticed this mostly at smaller companies, and I imagine it could be similar in certain leadership roles.
  - indigochill 6y ago
    I like my job but only for the contractual 8 hours a day. Nevertheless, I had a "this sucks and it's completely out of my control" moment recently and threw a bunch more time (and money) into making music. In part making music's always been an emotional regulator for me, but this time it was a very deliberate escape to fill my mind with composing so I don't leave myself space to think about the thing I don't want to think about. So I think escapist workaholism needn't necessarily be for the boss man. Anything will do the job as long as it's sufficiently consuming.
  - whatshisface 6y ago
    What's common among the rest of the commenters is that the rest of their life was rendered emotionally uninhabitable. If you had nothing positive outside of work, maybe you would see it the same way they did.
    - jolmg 6y ago
      > If you had nothing positive outside of work Rather than having nothing positive, I think it's having negatives that they can't otherwise control.
      - jdsalaro 6y ago
        > Rather than having nothing positive, I think it's having negatives that they can't otherwise control. Not OP, but this critique revolves mostly around semantics and I don't find it useful or accurate. If, big if, they had something positive to look up to outside of work, they'd be less inclined to put all their energy into work. That'd be the case even with multiple negatives they couldn't control. In other words, it's the total lack of any and all upside outside of work rather than the existence of downsides that makes people feel powerless and depressed.
fairity 6y ago
I'd try not to beat yourself up over this too much. As you've described, you had little to no control over the situation. In cases like this, I think it's often actually healthy to focus on things you do control (so long as it's not at the detriment to your overall health/well-being).
- pertymcpert 6y ago
  I understand where he's coming from, I've felt that desire to just escape into work too. But what he did was not healthy, because it also hurt his wife who was left to deal with something extremely difficult alone. That was selfish.
offtop5 6y ago
While not nearly as serious, I found myself more focused on work after a breakup back in 2019 . This focus was very good for me though and neeted a 80k pay increase. However , I find myself not particularly wanting to get into a relationship again. Felt like a very painful experience. I'd rather make music instead .
- robbyking 6y ago
  I know we're drifting further and further away from the subject of the original article, but when I quit drinking I threw myself into music pretty hard. I had a nightly practice routine that I did to a metronome's ever increasing tempo, until one day I realized I had just traded one obsession for another and was starting to resent playing my guitar. Once I recognized the pattern it was easy to break, so when I find myself working longer hours or getting too emotionally involved in my work I take a step back and try to figure out why I'm behaving in this manner in hopes of preventing future burn out.
- noir_lord 6y ago
  > However , I find myself not particularly wanting to get into a relationship again. Felt like a very painful experience. I'd rather make music instead . Totally normal and healthy, I felt like that when my relationship fell apart in 2014, didn't start dating again for about a year, met the woman I'm still (and plan to spend the rest of my life with) the year after that, the societal pressure to be in a relationship is real. Just remember to take stock occasionally and seek professional help if you feel like something is wrong, otherwise enjoy your music.
  - offtop5 6y ago
    >societal pressure to be in a relationship is real. Thanks for saying this. I had a partner who was divorced in 2019 as well, she really made it seem like she stayed in multiple crappy marriages to look good. I'm grateful for a safe place to sleep and food, which is much more than I expected to have in my youth.
fatnoah 6y ago
>For me I felt completely powerless at the hospital. At work I got to solve “important” problems that were trivial in comparison to the things I had no control over, and was rewarded for doing so. It felt good to be useful when my life felt in complete chaos outside of work. Wow, did this resonate with me. In my case, I was suffering from depression, though I didn't realize it at the time. The extreme focus required by work distracted me from how miserable I was. I dreaded going home and constantly came up with excuses to go to the office on weekends.
- bitbuilder 6y ago
  I'm sure a lot of us can relate. One of my best memories from my career: I was sitting at my desk at 8pm "working" because I had "so much to do". When in reality I was just dreading going home. A coworker that I barely new dropped by my desk and said "Things aren't going well at home, are they? Me either." We proceeded to head across the street to a bar to share stories. It helped immensely at that time. I make an effort to pay it forward. If you see someone in the office at all hours, especially when wfh is an option, odds are good things aren't going great for them. Even just a simple "How are things going with you?" over the water cooler can go a long ways.
  - agumonkey 6y ago
    I wonder if other cultures or other eras knew how to deal with that better. Ignoring and distracting problems through side gigs...
    - rodgerd 6y ago
      Once again I find myself recommending Bullshit Jobs. But beyond that, I'd add Bertrand Russell's In Praise of Idleness and Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie's Montaillou: Cathars and Catholics in a French Village 1294-1324. While all of them are tremendous food for thought, the third was the most stunning for me: it is remarkable to see the degree to which a medieval peasant, while having less access to technology than we do today, enjoyed in many ways a better lifestyle than we do in terms of holidays, working hours that meshed with actual human rythyms. As Russell spells out, the industrial revolution, which provided many material advancement, could have done so with a great improvement in everyone's lifestyle, but instead most of its benefits have been captured upwards.
ThisIsTheWay 6y ago
Just wanted to say thank you for sharing this. It's not easy to be vulnerable, especially when it comes to emotional intelligence and what you could have done better. I'm happy to hear your family is doing well.
stroz 6y ago
Glad to hear your daughter is doing well! Your story really captures a lot about the experience of attempting to find some sense of control in a situation where you feel powerless. What do you think it would have taken to develop the emotional stability to approach this differently (i.e. being able to show up at the hospital) or do you believe that experience is the only way to learn some of these lessons?
- wincy 6y ago
  I don’t really know. I have a few ideas though based on my experience. Our friends and extended family disappeared as soon as our daughter was born. I don’t know if it’s American culture or what, but people get extremely uncomfortable around people who are mourning or going through trials in their lives. People sort of blank out then don’t hang out with you anymore, or even invite you to things. After all, you’re going through a lot, we’ll just give you plenty of space. The hospitals do their absolute best to isolate you too, unless you wanna go talk to the psychiatrist and get some medication. Groups would come to volunteer and make food for the parents of the patients (Taco Tuesday every day, it was kind of awful), and they’d laugh and joke around and high five each other for being so great volunteering (or at least that’s how it felt), while interacting with us people eating as much as possible. Somehow it made me feel worse. My wife got “tattled on” a few times by medical staff when she’d cry, such as when they said our daughter was terminal. It was infuriating that perfectly healthy grief gets you immediately referred to a psychiatrist. Honestly being at work was nice because I could do normal stuff and have normal social interactions. At the hospital they constantly cycle the staff through, so you don’t have the same doctor more than two weeks, or the same nurse more than a couple days. I guess the trauma of being around dying babies is just too much. With a couple of notable exceptions on my wife’s side of the family, we felt completely isolated and alone. I can’t say for sure but I think having a strong network of people who actually gave a shit (or even acted like they do) would have done wonders for my mental health. Then again I have a sneaking suspicion that would solve most mental health issues for a lot of people. The whole ordeal has made me much more distant from my brothers and sisters and mother, unfortunately.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
zaczekadam 6y ago
Wow, that feels relatable. Glad your family is doing better now!
jolmg 6y ago
I don't know the specifics, but if the extra work meant more money, that might've been a good way help the situation by ensuring there was more money to address the medical costs or allow more availability for your wife to attend to your daughter.
- wincy 6y ago
  At least in Kansas, because she’s permanently disabled she’ll have Medicaid as secondary insurance until she’s an adult. It covers the nightly nursing care, she has central sleep apnea and can’t yet tolerate a full mask so someone has to watch her at night to make sure she doesn’t forget to breathe. We don’t even have to pay copays for her doctors visits. We get the EOB with the costs paid sometimes and my eyes about pop out of my head at how expensive a week at the children’s hospital is. Surprisingly enough, because I was unemployed the day she was born, even if she hadn’t been disabled the birth would have been “free” (no out of pocket costs to me or my wife) because neither parent was employed when she was born.
ct0 6y ago
Reminds me a lot of this document : http://www.structuredprocrastination.com/ http://www.structuredprocrastination.com/
thedmstdmstdmst 6y ago
Thank you for sharing that story.
agumonkey 6y ago
We all learn lessons as we go. Working probably saved you some bits too, it's a compromise. Your boss was very empathetic. Best wishes for the rest.
dredmorbius 6y ago
A sense of agency, justfied or false, seems to be a major factor in person's sense of control, autonomy, and self. Agency is the opposite of stressors. Agency is the capacity to act with effect on one's environment. Sstress is the inability, whether through mental or physsical ability, excessive or nonsensical information, inability to manipulate or maneuver, or nonresponsiveness on the part of the environment, whether inanimate, animate, or sentient. When faced with domains of no comtrol, individuals often seek domains of some control. This may be career, hobby, volunteering, sport, art, intellectual activities --- positive adaptations. Or "kick the dog" (or spouse, children, neighbour, scapegoat...) responses.
simplestman 6y ago
This describes me, sort of. I feel more and more lack of control over my personal life. My parents have become demanding and mean as they have gotten old. My wife wants to get a bigger home while I don't think we can afford it. But I am too tired of arguing, so just giving in and going to get whatever she wants. My son loves and I love him more than anything, but when I am not working, he wants to do everything with me. Which is great but also very tiring. Simple tasks become super long. So I was spending longer hours in the office and now longer hours doing work from home. Also I am starting different business ventures that take me out of home. Those are the only things where I feel like I have some control. I can push back against my boss a lot easier than against my parents or wife.
- climb_stealth 6y ago
  FWIW I found couple therapy very helpful. Especially around the feeling of lack of control in the relationship and not being able to fulfill my needs or being able to ask for them. It really helps to have someone independent who has both parties' interests in mind and who can a) see what is healthy in the relationship and what isn't, b) help with talking about invidivual needs, c) bridge the gap between the two people in the relationship. Couple therapy is often portrayed as a weird thing for broken people in movies and shows. In reality it can be really empowering and rewarding for everyone involved even when it is not about impending doom. But, it requires being honest with yourself or being willing to learn to be honest with yourself. That shit is hard. As in seriously hard.
  - bitcoinmoney 6y ago
    How do you find a therapist?
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - mdocherty 6y ago
      You can Google around, generally there are good review sites out there (no one specifically is better than the other). I can give you a recommend for Seattle if your looking for it.
hypervisorxxx 6y ago
Cool. So basically you left your wife with an incredibly intense emotional burden alone to struggle with your daughter by herself. I hear this story all too often. This is not an anecdote about work life balance, this is an anecdote about how men take it for granted that women will inherit and take care of all the chaos in life and men can take a relative vacation at the office. It's not ok.
- mdocherty 6y ago
  Go easy. Don't shame someone's escapism in the face of something life altering. You don't know his suffering, but try and come across more empathetic.
  - wincy 6y ago
    My wife and I had a little chat about this yesterday when my comment got popular, with me expressing some regret for working so much. She told me she doesn’t really remember much of anything about the first year. Then she shrugged and said that’s probably the most useful thing I could have done.
- dang 6y ago
  Personal attacks will get you banned here. You can't post like this on HN, regardless of how wrong someone is or you feel their life choices about intimate matters have been. Please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and don't post like this again.

by wincy 6y ago

vmception 6y ago

I was most focused on my career after a breakup. The structure of the work environment coupled with the reward is pretty unparalleled. Other things I can think of with structure usually have a kind of endless goal that can't be spent at your discretion. Rehab, fitness, organized religion. I've never done rehab, but it seems to overlap with fitness where even if you gamify it with achievements, its not like a game at all because you have to do the same achievement the next day and forever. The earnings, advancement, structure and distraction do have their place especially when your personal relationships and life isn't going the way you want it.

trianglem 6y ago
I find all of this so hard to relate with. I’ve worked for a decade, have a high paying job and have been promoted multiple times but to me none of it is enjoyable. I don’t think I could ever be happy in a situation where I’m required to do something for 9 hours everyday. I can’t get around the idea that all of this a weak abstraction to make money and care very little for approval from authority figures.
- xur17 6y ago
  I think it depends upon the environment. What the GP said definitely resonates with me, but only at places where I had a large amount of control over what I worked on, and felt like my decisions / work affected the outcome of the company. I've noticed this mostly at smaller companies, and I imagine it could be similar in certain leadership roles.
- indigochill 6y ago
  I like my job but only for the contractual 8 hours a day. Nevertheless, I had a "this sucks and it's completely out of my control" moment recently and threw a bunch more time (and money) into making music. In part making music's always been an emotional regulator for me, but this time it was a very deliberate escape to fill my mind with composing so I don't leave myself space to think about the thing I don't want to think about. So I think escapist workaholism needn't necessarily be for the boss man. Anything will do the job as long as it's sufficiently consuming.
- whatshisface 6y ago
  What's common among the rest of the commenters is that the rest of their life was rendered emotionally uninhabitable. If you had nothing positive outside of work, maybe you would see it the same way they did.
  - jolmg 6y ago
    > If you had nothing positive outside of work Rather than having nothing positive, I think it's having negatives that they can't otherwise control.
    - jdsalaro 6y ago
      > Rather than having nothing positive, I think it's having negatives that they can't otherwise control. Not OP, but this critique revolves mostly around semantics and I don't find it useful or accurate. If, big if, they had something positive to look up to outside of work, they'd be less inclined to put all their energy into work. That'd be the case even with multiple negatives they couldn't control. In other words, it's the total lack of any and all upside outside of work rather than the existence of downsides that makes people feel powerless and depressed.

fairity 6y ago

I'd try not to beat yourself up over this too much. As you've described, you had little to no control over the situation. In cases like this, I think it's often actually healthy to focus on things you do control (so long as it's not at the detriment to your overall health/well-being).

pertymcpert 6y ago
I understand where he's coming from, I've felt that desire to just escape into work too. But what he did was not healthy, because it also hurt his wife who was left to deal with something extremely difficult alone. That was selfish.

offtop5 6y ago

While not nearly as serious, I found myself more focused on work after a breakup back in 2019 . This focus was very good for me though and neeted a 80k pay increase. However , I find myself not particularly wanting to get into a relationship again. Felt like a very painful experience. I'd rather make music instead .

robbyking 6y ago
I know we're drifting further and further away from the subject of the original article, but when I quit drinking I threw myself into music pretty hard. I had a nightly practice routine that I did to a metronome's ever increasing tempo, until one day I realized I had just traded one obsession for another and was starting to resent playing my guitar. Once I recognized the pattern it was easy to break, so when I find myself working longer hours or getting too emotionally involved in my work I take a step back and try to figure out why I'm behaving in this manner in hopes of preventing future burn out.
noir_lord 6y ago
> However , I find myself not particularly wanting to get into a relationship again. Felt like a very painful experience. I'd rather make music instead . Totally normal and healthy, I felt like that when my relationship fell apart in 2014, didn't start dating again for about a year, met the woman I'm still (and plan to spend the rest of my life with) the year after that, the societal pressure to be in a relationship is real. Just remember to take stock occasionally and seek professional help if you feel like something is wrong, otherwise enjoy your music.
- offtop5 6y ago
  >societal pressure to be in a relationship is real. Thanks for saying this. I had a partner who was divorced in 2019 as well, she really made it seem like she stayed in multiple crappy marriages to look good. I'm grateful for a safe place to sleep and food, which is much more than I expected to have in my youth.

fatnoah 6y ago

>For me I felt completely powerless at the hospital. At work I got to solve “important” problems that were trivial in comparison to the things I had no control over, and was rewarded for doing so. It felt good to be useful when my life felt in complete chaos outside of work. Wow, did this resonate with me. In my case, I was suffering from depression, though I didn't realize it at the time. The extreme focus required by work distracted me from how miserable I was. I dreaded going home and constantly came up with excuses to go to the office on weekends.

bitbuilder 6y ago
I'm sure a lot of us can relate. One of my best memories from my career: I was sitting at my desk at 8pm "working" because I had "so much to do". When in reality I was just dreading going home. A coworker that I barely new dropped by my desk and said "Things aren't going well at home, are they? Me either." We proceeded to head across the street to a bar to share stories. It helped immensely at that time. I make an effort to pay it forward. If you see someone in the office at all hours, especially when wfh is an option, odds are good things aren't going great for them. Even just a simple "How are things going with you?" over the water cooler can go a long ways.
- agumonkey 6y ago
  I wonder if other cultures or other eras knew how to deal with that better. Ignoring and distracting problems through side gigs...
  - rodgerd 6y ago
    Once again I find myself recommending Bullshit Jobs. But beyond that, I'd add Bertrand Russell's In Praise of Idleness and Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie's Montaillou: Cathars and Catholics in a French Village 1294-1324. While all of them are tremendous food for thought, the third was the most stunning for me: it is remarkable to see the degree to which a medieval peasant, while having less access to technology than we do today, enjoyed in many ways a better lifestyle than we do in terms of holidays, working hours that meshed with actual human rythyms. As Russell spells out, the industrial revolution, which provided many material advancement, could have done so with a great improvement in everyone's lifestyle, but instead most of its benefits have been captured upwards.

ThisIsTheWay 6y ago

Just wanted to say thank you for sharing this. It's not easy to be vulnerable, especially when it comes to emotional intelligence and what you could have done better. I'm happy to hear your family is doing well.

stroz 6y ago

Glad to hear your daughter is doing well! Your story really captures a lot about the experience of attempting to find some sense of control in a situation where you feel powerless. What do you think it would have taken to develop the emotional stability to approach this differently (i.e. being able to show up at the hospital) or do you believe that experience is the only way to learn some of these lessons?

wincy 6y ago
I don’t really know. I have a few ideas though based on my experience. Our friends and extended family disappeared as soon as our daughter was born. I don’t know if it’s American culture or what, but people get extremely uncomfortable around people who are mourning or going through trials in their lives. People sort of blank out then don’t hang out with you anymore, or even invite you to things. After all, you’re going through a lot, we’ll just give you plenty of space. The hospitals do their absolute best to isolate you too, unless you wanna go talk to the psychiatrist and get some medication. Groups would come to volunteer and make food for the parents of the patients (Taco Tuesday every day, it was kind of awful), and they’d laugh and joke around and high five each other for being so great volunteering (or at least that’s how it felt), while interacting with us people eating as much as possible. Somehow it made me feel worse. My wife got “tattled on” a few times by medical staff when she’d cry, such as when they said our daughter was terminal. It was infuriating that perfectly healthy grief gets you immediately referred to a psychiatrist. Honestly being at work was nice because I could do normal stuff and have normal social interactions. At the hospital they constantly cycle the staff through, so you don’t have the same doctor more than two weeks, or the same nurse more than a couple days. I guess the trauma of being around dying babies is just too much. With a couple of notable exceptions on my wife’s side of the family, we felt completely isolated and alone. I can’t say for sure but I think having a strong network of people who actually gave a shit (or even acted like they do) would have done wonders for my mental health. Then again I have a sneaking suspicion that would solve most mental health issues for a lot of people. The whole ordeal has made me much more distant from my brothers and sisters and mother, unfortunately.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

zaczekadam 6y ago

Wow, that feels relatable. Glad your family is doing better now!

jolmg 6y ago

I don't know the specifics, but if the extra work meant more money, that might've been a good way help the situation by ensuring there was more money to address the medical costs or allow more availability for your wife to attend to your daughter.

wincy 6y ago
At least in Kansas, because she’s permanently disabled she’ll have Medicaid as secondary insurance until she’s an adult. It covers the nightly nursing care, she has central sleep apnea and can’t yet tolerate a full mask so someone has to watch her at night to make sure she doesn’t forget to breathe. We don’t even have to pay copays for her doctors visits. We get the EOB with the costs paid sometimes and my eyes about pop out of my head at how expensive a week at the children’s hospital is. Surprisingly enough, because I was unemployed the day she was born, even if she hadn’t been disabled the birth would have been “free” (no out of pocket costs to me or my wife) because neither parent was employed when she was born.

ct0 6y ago

Reminds me a lot of this document : http://www.structuredprocrastination.com/ http://www.structuredprocrastination.com/

thedmstdmstdmst 6y ago

Thank you for sharing that story.

agumonkey 6y ago

We all learn lessons as we go. Working probably saved you some bits too, it's a compromise. Your boss was very empathetic. Best wishes for the rest.

dredmorbius 6y ago

A sense of agency, justfied or false, seems to be a major factor in person's sense of control, autonomy, and self. Agency is the opposite of stressors. Agency is the capacity to act with effect on one's environment. Sstress is the inability, whether through mental or physsical ability, excessive or nonsensical information, inability to manipulate or maneuver, or nonresponsiveness on the part of the environment, whether inanimate, animate, or sentient. When faced with domains of no comtrol, individuals often seek domains of some control. This may be career, hobby, volunteering, sport, art, intellectual activities --- positive adaptations. Or "kick the dog" (or spouse, children, neighbour, scapegoat...) responses.

simplestman 6y ago

This describes me, sort of. I feel more and more lack of control over my personal life. My parents have become demanding and mean as they have gotten old. My wife wants to get a bigger home while I don't think we can afford it. But I am too tired of arguing, so just giving in and going to get whatever she wants. My son loves and I love him more than anything, but when I am not working, he wants to do everything with me. Which is great but also very tiring. Simple tasks become super long. So I was spending longer hours in the office and now longer hours doing work from home. Also I am starting different business ventures that take me out of home. Those are the only things where I feel like I have some control. I can push back against my boss a lot easier than against my parents or wife.

climb_stealth 6y ago
FWIW I found couple therapy very helpful. Especially around the feeling of lack of control in the relationship and not being able to fulfill my needs or being able to ask for them. It really helps to have someone independent who has both parties' interests in mind and who can a) see what is healthy in the relationship and what isn't, b) help with talking about invidivual needs, c) bridge the gap between the two people in the relationship. Couple therapy is often portrayed as a weird thing for broken people in movies and shows. In reality it can be really empowering and rewarding for everyone involved even when it is not about impending doom. But, it requires being honest with yourself or being willing to learn to be honest with yourself. That shit is hard. As in seriously hard.
- bitcoinmoney 6y ago
  How do you find a therapist?
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - mdocherty 6y ago
    You can Google around, generally there are good review sites out there (no one specifically is better than the other). I can give you a recommend for Seattle if your looking for it.

hypervisorxxx 6y ago

Cool. So basically you left your wife with an incredibly intense emotional burden alone to struggle with your daughter by herself. I hear this story all too often. This is not an anecdote about work life balance, this is an anecdote about how men take it for granted that women will inherit and take care of all the chaos in life and men can take a relative vacation at the office. It's not ok.

mdocherty 6y ago
Go easy. Don't shame someone's escapism in the face of something life altering. You don't know his suffering, but try and come across more empathetic.
- wincy 6y ago
  My wife and I had a little chat about this yesterday when my comment got popular, with me expressing some regret for working so much. She told me she doesn’t really remember much of anything about the first year. Then she shrugged and said that’s probably the most useful thing I could have done.
dang 6y ago
Personal attacks will get you banned here. You can't post like this on HN, regardless of how wrong someone is or you feel their life choices about intimate matters have been. Please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and don't post like this again.