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Lessons learnedExperience excerpt · English

Maybe you are just expending your willpower on things you really don't want to do? …

Maybe you are just expending your willpower on things you really don't want to do? Maybe you don't want to be a programmer? Maybe go do something else. I don't know your financial situation or goals but if you can make less money maybe find something entry level in another totally unrelated field. I took a 65% paycut once because I was in the same situation as you, completely burned on my career. I took an unrelated office job and was able to thrive because I had an existing skill set (technology) that made me standout. I was able to apply programming to speed up and automate processes at my new job. A lot of this was simple MS Office macros. I started to like programming again because I was doing it out of my own choice, no one expected it. I was quickly promoted becuase of this and got raises swiftly. This eventually led to the company allowing me to start my own company and build them a saas that they paid me for every month for a decade even after I left. I found I enjoyed development again. …

Original discussionLife is a game, this is your strategy guide (2014)112 source comments · at import
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BR

Feels like my entire life my "willpower" stat has been near zero. I find it so unbelievably difficult to do things I "have" to do. And yet for things that for some reason I have intrinsic motivation for, I will stay up past 4am without effort to do more of it. No, ritalin or whatever don't help, they just turn me into a zombie with a dry mouth and a headache. I recently had to quit my job because I wasn't performing well. I could see the writing on the wall and decided to leave before getting fired. I just could never be assed to pick up the stupid tickets. I don't care about php, I don't care about their legacy codebase, I don't care about their bugs. Literally couldn't bring myself to do these tasks.

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BR

> I just enjoy developing for myself That seems to be the main issue. I tried sysadmin for a while, it was more varied than a swe role and I enjoyed it more, but after a while it still became "boring" and mentally unbearable. I like writing software for myself however. I've had this issue since school. And as soon as a subject is done with, and the pressure of "have to" is relieved, I actually start to give a shit about it. By then however, I had already gotten a bad grade on the exam. I'm probably some kind of neurodivergent. Not sure what exactly is "wrong" with me, although I've had plenty of "professional" help.

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RU

How did you find the courage to take a 65% pay cut? I'm in a very similar position to what you were probably in and honestly taking a random office job does feel like the "right" choice here. I could never stomach a 65% pay cut though because I have dreams/goals of someday not working at all. I save a significant portion of my income and live well within my means all toward a goal of retiring hopefully around 50 or 55. One could reasonably ask why I am delaying pleasure now for pleasure then, but my answer is simple. While I am burned out and while I am struggling, I'm not sure I am struggling as much as I would be at 50/55, potentially battling some horrible illness, and unable to stop working or even cut back because I had saved so little.

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