You're burning out because you're thinking the world works the same way that you experience it through lenses like Hacker News, tech blogs and the like.
Stop reading them. Seriously, they are damaging your world view - ESPECIALLY HACKER NEWS. If you can't read these things with a critical eye, you will end up in a death spiral where you feel constantly inadaquate. I speak from some personal experience here...
Turn off the computer and go outside. Go for a walk. Go for a run. Go to a local tech meetup. Meet other people. Talk to other people. THIS is where you will learn how to do what you want to do.
You will not change the world with a web app. No one changes the world with a web app. Or an android app. Or an iPhone app.
The world is vast and has many places that need smart people. Find those places, adapt to what they need and start solving problems in the way you can - not by what you think the tech world would do.
Start small, think long term. Build something every day (even if it's trivial). Think of life as a long hike. Each moment feels short, meaningless, but after a while you will turn around and look back at how far you have gone and will be absolutely astonished.
You will not change the world with a web app. No one changes the world with a web app. Or an android app. Or an iPhone app.
There's no need to lie. The advice is otherwise good.
The world is vast and has many places that need smart people. Find those places, adapt to what they need and start solving problems in the way you can
The world is built to exploit smart people. I personally think they should focus on themselves and stop caring what other people want out of them, but I don't know whether that'd be best.
I don't think it's a lie. Most web apps will not change the world. As a community, I think we should be okay with that.
Mike Judd was interviewed recently about Silicon Valley, his new show, and he remarks about the difference between Hollywood and the valley:
Silicon Valley, more even now than when I was there, they’re always talking about how they’re making the world a better place. And maybe in some ways they are, but it’s just funny. Like the richest, most successful people in our business, in Hollywood — just picking an example, J.J. Abrams or [producer] Joel Silver — they’re like, you know, "I want to make really cool stuff. I love what I do." They’re not saying "I’m saving the world through my movies."
While I don't think the comparison to Hollywood of all places is apt I do understand the spirit of what he's saying. Why can't we just enjoy what we do instead of kill ourselves trying so desperately to impress everybody else?
Perhaps that fact alone is enough to lead to serious burnout.
My point is that no one will ever change the world with a bit of software. Software is not revolutionary. The processes it describes, and the people it influences, THOSE are what is revolutionary.
The printing press was NOT revolutionary. It enabled revolution, sure, but the tool or the tech itself was not the important part in the grand scheme.
Too much of what I see on this site focuses passion for the tech (which I am all for), mixed with blind ignorance for it's actual importance outside of the very narrow world that is Silicon Valley.
This is wonderful advice and feedback. I agree with kirklove that is sheer wisdom. I know that "right on!" feedback like I'm giving here is adding nothing, but an up-vote is not enough. Thank you blindhippo.
So true. On one side you have tech blogs & hackers launching successful (or not) start ups. But one should not forget that on the other side you still have many people in big companies dealing with pre 90' databases or applications, interacting with their unhelpful computer guy, struggling with ie6 or ie7. You can bring some joy to them one application at a time.
100% yes. Being a hacker is a tool. It's a tricky one because you are not facing the real world, the world you're building for.
At the end of the day the objective of any life should be happiness, giving or obtaining it, ideally both. Always take a step back if you're not getting there.
I concur with this comment. Few years ago I was in a similar situation. I was not in a mission to change the world, though. All I wanted was to be a programmer, good enough to earn enough money. Along the way, I burned out. I have not achieved any of my set goals.
But it was easier for me to move on - or, my situation forced me to move on. You see, I have a wife and 2 kids. I need to continue to work. I didn't become a programmer, but life goes on.
I have other goals I wanted to pursue. Damn, I failed to reach those goals again. And life goes on again.
I want to get better and I fail each time I try. But, I am a better person after every failure. I become a better person because of my failures.
Life is not that complicated if you know when to pick up the pieces and move on.
Like you, I also have "world changing" ideas to make people's lives easier and healthier
I hear that a lot in the startup scene where I live. It's bullshit.
First and foremost, an idea is never world-changing. It's the execution of the idea that changes things. Until it has been executed successfully and actually changed the world, all it is is an idea. The impact can only be assessed later.
Secondly, most people don't have ideas that will make "other people's" lives better for some nebulous concept of "other people". Ideas that work are born from problems you see every day - usually pains that you suffer yourself, but equally pains that you see your loved ones or co-workers struggling with over and over again. Unless you have direct, first-hand experience of something it's very difficult to see a way to solve it because you don't know what will make it better.
It sounds very much like you're putting yourself under a huge amount of pressure. Find a way to stop doing that. Find something that you think will be interesting, fun, and will also contribute to the social good and make the world a better place for a few people. If you're working on something that has real potential, other people will soon start to put the pressure on for you.
I would add to your excellent points that the important breakthrough for me was to stop worrying about world-changing ideas and focus on getting the small libraries right.
Often times the ideas that really make a difference are not the big ones but the little ones executed well.
"First and foremost, an idea is never world-changing. It's the execution of the idea that changes things. Until it has been executed successfully and actually changed the world, all it is is an idea. The impact can only be assessed later."
Frankly, I believe ideas can be quite impactful. Think of any math concept. Weren't they ideas? Where's the execution? Or more philosophical terms, such as panta rei, "The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.", "communism" etc, aren't those ideas?
My point is that I think boundaries are not as defined.
Unless we spend some time defining "idea".
but on the general "stop whining, start doing" underlying message I do agree 100%.
I very nearly added a caveat about ideas in philosophy, politics, etc. The reason I didn't is because, really, those ideas don't actually change the world. People acting on them is how the world changes. In maths the discovery of something leads people to work on further discoveries - standing on the shoulders of giants as it were - so again it's the work that changes things. Ideas can definitely be a catalyst, but of themselves all that can be said is that they motivate people to change the world rather than change the world themselves.
Although, all that said, I've not given it a huge amount of thought. I could be wrong.
And even in math, its not as if the idea is all there is, and then boom, done. New math concepts take a significant amount of work as well, and the execution can be a significant factor as to whether the idea lays in obscurity, or is picked up and used by the wider body of the math community. There have been plenty of groundbreaking math concepts that were thought of, but nobody followed through to see whether they worked, what the implication were, or how they could be applied.
Feel free to disagree, but think of it this way: ideas are possibilities. Until they are attempted, sometimes repeatedly, they are in-flux.
It's the same as the concept of "desire" vs. "intention" vs. "goal" vs. "reality". Ideas without work put into their execution are still in the "intention" phase. Yes, they are boundless, but practically aren't worth anything until they are actualized... that takes a lot of hard work.
Stop reading entreporn (blogs and forums celebrating the entrepreneurial lifestyle). It's an echo chamber. It gives you a warped view of success and what it takes to get there. Actionable content is remarkably thin. You are not learning from reading Techcrunch articles, you are procrastinating with the delusion of learning about business. It's entertainment.
Start meditating or exercising. You need something to take your mind of things or regain balance. Try 20 minute exercises.
And for the medical symptoms. Talk to a medical professional and listen. When they say: Sleep more and keep a healthy schedule, then do so.
I bought a PC 5 years back with obsession to create cartoons
What happened to cartooning? Do you do it at all anymore? As much as you might love what you're doing, you can't have just one thing in your life.
I managed to burn myself out on programming/hacking at 15 years old. It had been my only obsession since I first got my hands on a computer. One day I realized I was sick of it. My eyes were always bloodshot. I wasn't sleeping. I had no friends. I didn't even go to school.
I did my best not to look at a computer screen for six years. I picked up a guitar and played obsessively. I explored new career paths when it came time for college. I almost went in to the medical field. I exhausted my options, and finally came back to tech.
Everything was new and amazing. I felt so inspired. I had never seen a SATA connector before. I had never played with virtualization. It was like living in the future. It pained me a little to know I'd missed so much development, but I caught up quickly.
Now I have two things in my life: tech and music. When feelings of failure, inadequacy, and burnout arise, I pick up my guitar and go do an open mic night. It's my ego's failover.
Go back to cartooning. Switch your obsession for a while. It's still okay to obsess, just do it over something else. Become confident in your skills and sell drawings on the street for $5; do anything to boost your ego a little. You'll come back to hacking. There's time.
From your text it's clear to me that you're not "burned out", you are depressed. Social isolation triggered it, and now you feel like a failure because your thinking habits are diseased.
Usually when we fail at something we make excuses such as "I wasn't prepared for this" or "I just needed more time". Most of the time these excuses are reasonable, other times they are delusional. No matter the validity, excuses protect your self-esteem and psychological well-being.
When you put yourself in an environment where there are simply no excuses you are in full responsibility of your actions. When you fail, the only logical conclusion is that you're stupid, not fit for the job, a deluded loser.
An environment where you have full control over the variables implies that there is no other person meddling with it. Control requires isolation, but us human beings were never meant to be completely isolated and it takes a heavy toll on our well-being.
I personally worked myself out of this hole by giving my depression some meaning. Before I was proud of my skills, fiercely independent, even a bit arrogant. Going through this allowed me to really appreciate the value of my friendships and family. It allowed me to see the importance of relaxing, enjoying and exploring life. It made me humble and sympathetic towards other peoples struggles. Had you written this one year ago I would have told you "man up and get your shit together".
Above all, it allowed me to deeply explore my inner self and feel at ease with my short-comings. I am much more lenient towards myself and others. I feel more "in reality".
I think the process of healing is deeply personal, your demons are surely not the same as mine. Just rest assured that the end of the journey is a world brighter than it was before.
I'm still working on getting myself out of a similar hole, but what you've said resonates with me.
It is difficult to see how isolation can have a negative impact on your life, given (in my case) that the social isolation was part of the plan to control all the variables.
Anyway it was only obvious to me in retrospect that I was doing myself a disservice by refusing invitations to hang out and seeing long calls with my friends and family something that were "taking away" from my precious time.
Stoic literature might also be of interest to the OP if you are reading this still.
I also seeked medical help but got disappointed by suggestions like "sleep a lot and eat well". That helps but not in the long run; neither can prevent this situation from happening in future.
Your body is not just the carrying case for your brain. Your brain is an integral part of your body. Taking care of your body is taking care of your brain.
Depression often follows not taking care of yourself. If your body is suffering your brain (emotions, intellect) suffer along with it.
Sleeping enough, eating well, exercise is necessary for healthy emotions as well as healthy body. May seem boring but I think of it as fundamental background work to keep the entire system working well.
Yes! The key to convincing yourself of this is to admit to yourself how little productivity you get out of staying up and how much productivity you get out of feeling halfway decent because you've had sleep. If you don't know this to be true, measure it. Make a spreadsheet in google docs. Three columns:
You're 22. You're not going to change the world. You know almost nothing and have almost no experience. You must first acquire knowledge and experience. Either finish school or find a real job. Stop believing in the "20-year old dropout entrepreneur" bullshit. These things don't happen. Sorry if this is a bit harsh, but since you asked for advice, I'm giving it.
Well, they do happen, but they are like a lottery. You cannot decide to be the next mark zuckerberg, you have to luck into it (and have good connections, and be in new york or silicon valley). You're right that the odds of a lone developer without a deep social network into the tech sphere supporting him and living in the right geographical location will not become that entrepreneur.
Weird. When I think of young world changers I think of people like Newton, not that guy who helped the mindless masses spew whatever nonsense they feel like spewing in front of a large audience.
It sounds like you are trying too hard to feel validated and you want immediate success. You have written a very long piece including your entire background, the success of your peers compared to yourself, the positions and awards you have gotten in various competitions (for better or worse). You sound entirely focused on accolades and achievements yet you have only been going at this for at most 1/2 years.
You need to calm down and slow down. You are only 22/23. You have so much time ahead of you and you have to walk before you can run. You have burned yourself out by too high expectations. It's not as easy as having an idea, hacking away at it for a few months and then reaping the reward.
I would suggest lowering your expectations over the short term and trying to come up with some realistic goals for the next few months. Not "launch great project in 6 months" but "talk to 5 people about the validity of feature X in the 7 days" etc.
You've already helped yourself by acknowledging the problem, writing about it and telling your family and friends.
Dont worry, you dont actually feel it when you hit 30. But I get the feeling you are talking about.
I started programming relatively late, mid-twenties, and started as a CS student when I was 28. For the first two years I had this idea that I had to be faster and better than the younger students, to have a chance. But the world doesnt work that way. What matters is to try and figure out what you actually want to do, and then spend the time it takes to do it.
Oh man, that's what I seen so many times among younger devs with "passion" — it easily gets derailed by overly high expectations of reality and the crash of this misconception and the reality as it is, where nobody really cares and each compliment whisper is followed by 3 discouraging shouts :(
I think young generation (well I'm actually one of you, being 28) needs to learn that work is not everything; We must learn that work is not the aim itself and saying "I'm a developer" does NOT define you anyhow. You just happen to be a developer, no matter how much you would like to identify with this symbol.
I was exactly like you at some point of my life. I considered dropping out of school (never did) and started (failed) my startup. And I learnt something. Identifying yourself through the work was killing me. I was a developer and I hated myself. My head hurt and my back was killing me for these hours spent on the chair. I felt like I am cheating myself when not working, everyone I knew almost left.
And then epiphany — I just happen to make websites and software. It's my way to earn money, I like doing that, but I'm not 100% developer. Over last few years I started thinking that maybe I'm not even 10% developer. I'm a cook, I'm a dog owner, I'm a movie fan and music person. Saying that I am anything is like saying "I'm finished". I'm not.
And you're not finished even though it feels like that. You're in your early 20', you're basically still a child. Embrace it. Being undefined is freedom.
Being you I would make a full stop. Rethink. Make a short break to win everything back — go back to school, do a fixer-uper with your close ones. If you loose them now you will never get them back.
Be brave and take a step back to make a leap forward, good luck mate! :)
"Even the concept of Prolog seems hard for me to understand."
Don't let that little item discourage you. I've been in the software business since 1974. The concept of Prolog is hard to understand. There's a lot of concepts in our business that are hard to understand...and that's not a failing on your part. Learning to live with what you don't know, and developing strategies for selecting what (and how much) to try to learn is key.
I’ve found the explanation in SICP the most helpful one. It took several weeks until I could think in the basics of this language sufficiently fluently.
Well, you took a swing at it and you missed. You can give yourself credit for that at least.
Everything else is managing your expectations. There's something about being 22 that's tough -- lots of people are advancing in their careers, and you're just starting out.
So don't drink the Kool-Aid. Forget about the valley. Don't be greedy. Once you learn to enjoy your life again and have confidence that you can be a positive contributing member of society, reconsider the mantle. Emotional stability is like muscle power -- you must build it over time with care. And you need an abnormal amount of emotional stability to handle SV startups.
Your early 20s are all about feeling pressure to make your mark on the world, but not necessarily knowing how. I think a lot of people struggle with that.
But, barring medical or unforeseen tragedy, you've got a Lon ways to go.
5 years seems like a lot of time when you're 22. But less so when you're 30, and even less when you're older.
I second the suggestion that you might want to talk all this out with a therapist who's objective and can spend some good time wih you.
But at least for me, the best advice I got in my early 20s was "don't worry so much, life has a way of finding you"
The best news in this situation is that you are able to articulate it and that you have done so to your peers here and to your friends and family. You are far from having all hope being lost.
Your symptoms sound very much like a combination of anxiety disorder and depression or dysthymia. I dealt with / deal with these things too. I'm 36 now and life is pretty interesting and good, but I remember being right where you are when I was in my early twenties. It's especially difficult for smart, introspective, creative people because you think that you should be able to "fix yourself". While it can be possible to pull yourself up out of a depressed state, it sounds like you are too far down to do that. You really should seek help from a psychiatrist who can determine if you would benefit from medication. The medication is hopefully a tool to give you the mental space to get up and stay up. I don't know what the access to mental health care is like where you are or if there is a big stigma with being diagnosed with a mental illness; I hope that's not the case.
One thing that I did not see you mention was exercise. It's so damn important. You must force yourself to be active, ideally early in the morning - I know from my experience and the experience of others that even a half hour of exercise can help with your mood for the rest of the day. For me it takes the "immediacy" of anxiety down a notch.
Aside from exercise, establish a daily routine and stick with it. Get up at the same time of day, eat at the same times, exercise, sleep, etc. - the consistency can also help with anxiety and becomes a framework into which you can fit all of the other "things" like learning and coding.
I wish you well. I'm sure that a lot of us wish you well - from all over the world. Every human is beautiful, precious, and worthy of being happy and not suffering.
This is one of the most grounded and realistic responses at the moment, and I would like to add a bit from my experiences with anxiety and depression.
While my symptoms weren't as severe when I went to see a psychiatrist he stated future sessions would be less about therapy and more focused on how the medication was working. This may have been poor luck on my part but I instead found a PhD level Psychologist instead because their focus is on perspective and providing you with mental tools you can use over and over again.
That said, I'm not discouraging medication, simply ask your psychiatrist about how much therapy you can expect in addition to the medication, and considered also using a psychologist to help provide mental tools.
I dropped out of CS, moved to another city nearby and started to live and hack to build things I always wanted to, all in isolation for 2 months. After that point I found myself getting quite unproductive, eventually leading to physical symptoms of depression and stress.
Why do this? You're not a robot and you don't have all the answers. You need experience and you need social stimulus, especially at your age. Go back to school, slowly hack away at something all the while meeting different people, getting experience and trying to enjoy life.
You won't be a millionaire in your 20s or retire in your 30s so forget about that nonsense and don't let that be your benchmark.
I get the impression you've created and become fixated on some notion about what you're "supposed" to know / do based on and relative to what you see online.
Basically, A tech-centric version of Facebook angst - "Everyone is hackier than me!" in place of "Everyone is happier than me!"
Understand that in either case you're getting a carefully curated version of the best and most interesting outcomes with all the countless failures and mundane daily struggles neatly cropped out.
Stop reading the news, keep learning and keep iterating.
I get this feeling constantly, deeply crippling. Both facebook angst and the tech versions actually. I guess that's a problem when you single yourself out and lose touch with reality.
I think its important to realize that is can take years to reach a goal, maybe 10, maybe 15. Many people work to change or better the world for their entire lives while only viewing change in the smallest ways. It's not a realistic expectation that you will generate something world changing in the span of a year, or even two. So to be happier you need to learn how to enjoy yourself while you work and learn, whatever it takes.
Learning how to manage yourself and your life is one of the greatest keys to completing a project. If you are successful in your world changing idea, but you have not learned to manage yourself, how are you going to manage other people? Start out by training yourself as a manager with your first employee - yourself. You would not want a boss that worked you night and day with unrealistic expectations. So - don't be that boss. You can be hard, but reward yourself too. And give yourself the time it takes to really learn.
Personally happiness for me includes going to the gym daily, sleeping well, eating well, and seeing family. And I'm getting closer to some of my goals than ever before. When I worked myself late into the night and didn't eat well, I actually saw my goals slipping away since I was no longer managing myself in a direction that would actually bring about the goals I had set. Maybe I was chasing after short term deadlines, but not really striving toward life goals. Now after 14 years of programming I am coming back to some of my original ideas with a totally different perspective that actually holds a lot more real world value.
It sounds like you are struggling with a fairly serious combination of stress / anxiety / depression / disappointment. I know that you have dreams of turning your big ideas into reality, but the more important thing now is to stabilize your life, deepen your knowledge about the world and subjects that interest you, and create a clear path where you can see yourself succeeding in the next few years.
The reality may be that now isn't the time to be out of school and working on a startup on your own. I would seriously consider going back to college, learning everything you can while there, and then making your next move once you are feeling more stable. While there, focus on not putting too much pressure on yourself to change the world. If you want to stand a chance at "changing the world", you will first need to spend some time in a stable place where you can learn to manage your psychological state.
College also comes with the opportunity to deepen your knowledge base so you have more to offer the world. Once you have managed to get your life and emotional state under control, you will in a better place to figure out how to turn your big ideas into reality.
Some loved ones guilt-tripped me into taking sessions with a career coach about 2 years ago. They bought the sessions as my "Christmas present", despite them knowing I wasn't going to appreciate being told I was broken and needed someone to fix me.
I resolved I was going to be "the best damned career coach's student ever". I wanted to give them no possibility of blaming me for not working hard enough. I was going to "prove this shit doesn't work".
I was wrong. I was wrong about a lot of things. It literally turned my life around.
It was all self directed, with the coach being a sounding board and a target. It was easier to do things when it felt like coach was telling me to do it, even though they were all things I had determined and assigned to myself.
That was one of my problems. I would prioritize other people's issues before my own. "Go to the doctor for a wicked cough in the middle of a work day? Hell no! That's a personal problem! You do that on your own time!" If it were just me, I would have sloughed it off, creatively procrastinated it away, like I did all of my other life chores. I ultimately knew everything that was wrong with me, but I wouldn't do it because I had this one problem.
"One weird trick to fixing your life". I should write for BuzzFeed.
Burnout is a symptom of not taking care of yourself. It's not a symptom of overworking. If you're happy and working on something you love, you'll do it 120 hours a week, it'll always feel like play. But you'll still get burnt out because you're not nourishing yourself, sleeping enough, exercising, etc.
Message me if you want a recommendation for a great one. Email address in my profile description.
I can't speak personally to your culture, but the symptoms here sound like very strong social pressure to avoid failure. Couple this with a strong cultural emphasis on the importance of family (and not disappointing them), and I can see this resulting in extreme stress.
To succeed as an entrepreneur requires coping with fear of failure. In the US we are lucky enough to see failure as part of the process of learning, and we are also a very individualistic society, which of course comes with its own downsides, but at least it makes it much easier for most people to reject familial pressure to do things a certain way.
I'm not sure what the solution is, but you are young and have plenty of time to figure this stuff out. I hope you can find a support system within your friends or family that will listen and understand what you are trying to accomplish. A little bit of such support can go a long way, it's very hard to do it alone.
I did quit my phd project half a year ago, and quite a bit of what you are writing reminds me of the time before I did quit. So first of all, you are not alone with this experience. Others were there before, and sadly others will encounter that dark place in the future. On the bright side, the half year since I quit was a really great time.
So it sounds, like you are making mistakes, because you made mistakes. The advice stop that is probably not really helpful, but you need to stop it somehow. For me it was a long struggle to first understand why nothing is working like it should, followed by a long struggle to pull myself together again and finally taking control of my situation, which meant quitting in my case.
Like you, I also have "world changing" ideas to make people's
lives easier and healthier, [...]
Frankly, comparing your accomplishments to the HN front page is a recipe for disaster. Thing is, most people will never get to the front page with a Show HN post, and even those who do worked a long time on these projects. There is simply no one who gets to the front page week after week on the strength of quick hacks.
More than that I repeatedly had to tell lie to family
and girlfriend about my college- that I am still going classes.
Stop that, apologize for lying and tell them the situation you are in. The situation will not improve if you do not have a good social safety net. On the other hand, they care for you, they will try to help you.
Looking again through your text, it seems to me that you hope for a quick fix. Unfortunately there is no such thing, never. It is a struggle day after day and accomplishments can only be evaluated in hindsight, sometimes you underestimate the time a project will take usually you overestimate and the roads not taken only look good because you never encountered the roadblocks on them. My advice would be, take two or three weeks of, try to understand your situation, and try to start getting better. Do not finish anything in this time frame.
If you need someone to talk to, feel free to send me an email. My email address is in my profile.
The Hacker looks at the 'general public', and believes their ways are somehow dumb, and inadequate. His own eyes, however, have been opened, when he understood the power that the Computer holds. His kind – the Hackers – are the only ones who understand how the Computer works, and he believes his mission is to use this power for good – rather than evil. His mission, hence, is to use the weird, esoteric ways of the Compiler to deliver his tribe – his 'general public' – to an upgraded way of living. If he does this, he would have vindicated his sin of possessing forbidden knowledge. The tale goes that the Gods of the tech world – Google, Facebook, eBay or PayPal – may become interested in the Hacker's work and his courage, and hence acquire his start up. Then, the Hacker may finally be given permission to rejoin humanity, as a Prince of the tech world; and he may then do anything he wants.
This is the 'Hacker Script', and it is one script of the many that people have lived. This script's directive is: "Build something great, and then you may have permission to rejoin humanity." The script blocker, as it is generally the case, comes through an insurgency against the authority that tries to tell you what to do. Do what you want, be independent, don't let someone tell you you've failed. Be creative, be independent, be spontaneous, be aware. Good luck.
I'd vote with the doctors. Sleep a lot and eat well. All your physical symptoms just sound like stress and sleep deprivation. You can ask the doctors for some stress medication, although I find it makes me just stare out bus windows dully and not sit coding wildly the entire bus ride, for example, so it will hurt your productivity.
I don't think you should be so concerned about what other people think or what happens at hackathon and startup events. If you go to an event and code all weekend and are nice to everyone, you profited from the event even if you didn't win. There's always going to be luck involved and there's always going to be people better than you and worse than you. You can't judge yourself by event performance.
I feel for you wanting to do the whole startup thing and work on your own projects and quit school and whatnot. But honestly, I think you should just finish school, take an internship, and sock away some money and some experience first. Think of that first job or internship as someone paying you to learn technology that you will use to write your own stuff.
Maybe at first you'll just write one commit of your own stuff each night, but later on you can quit if you want to and you are more stable and ready. Don't quit to go learn stuff, though, that's a waste of time. You want to focus on doing stuff and just learn what you need to do what you want. Anyone can waste their whole life learning and reading blogs and not accomplishing something.
I can imagine in what a position you are in, you see all the potential in the world, a lot of these world problems unresolved and you want to make a lot of money quickly.
Just realise yourself that becoming a billionnaire overnight is impossible, it seems like you want to do too much in too short time. When you have the feeling that you can't get anything done and that you aren't performing of what you should be performing at that time, you're stuck in an inner circle of dissappointment for yourself, whatever you are doing it will never be good enough. The best thing you can do is to take a step back and just do nothing for a while, it just doesn't seem best to put this much pressure on yourself. Maybe it's not for you but it helped for me, start to meditate and just know that you can't do x amount of things at the same time.
Being a hacker is good and all but a good product just takes a lot of time and effort. The design has to fit, the functionality has to just be right, these are things that you really can't handle on your own or in a short period of time. I would really advise you to study or work a day to day job and try to earn money with making things that you like to make until you regain mental stability. It's also a good way to come in contact with interesting people.
When you would find a day to day job, try to make a living and save up for when you want to make a product.
I'm sorry that I cannot read your letter more thoroughly right now, but I'll give you one little piece of advice after reading the first couple of paragraphs. A word of warning, basically:
Remember what inspired you down your path, and where that path took you. You got your inspiration in the same place you are asking for advice now. So, please take all the advice you will get here with a grain of salt.
Nobody practices what they preach.
If you know who your friends are, and who loves you - those are the people you should listen to.
It sounds like you're depressed and blocked. It doesn't seem very popular advice over here, but here I go again: go visit a psychologist. That doesn't mean you shouldn't adopt other measures. Exercise, sleeping, etc. are good. But help in forums have big disadvantages. We're not seeing you. We might have experimented similar situations, but not exactly the same. We can't follow through the steps you take. Not talking we're not pros.
Having gone through many burn-out and plateau periods, here's what I'd suggest:
- Get regular acupuncture. There's a reason it's first on my list. Yes, I realize it's hippy dippy. Yes, I realize it might not be proven. But regular acupuncture and chinese herbal medicine is life changing.
- Do something silly and out of the norm. Go lay on a beach for a week. Visit somewhere new. Forget your goals. Changing things up can give you a huge jump start.
- Cultivate the right habits. Oscillating between 45 minutes of work and 15 minute breaks can help. Meditation can help. Drinking enough water can help. Eliminate caffeine and soda. Use sunlamps and Vitamin D in the winter. Sleep with buckwheat pillows, earplugs, and blackout curtains.
- Get tested for Pernicious Anemia. This was a big one for me, because I'm of northern European / Scandinavian descent. Started supplementing with B12 and all my complaints of lethargy went away.
- Be OK burning out. You don't need to be push push pushing all the time. Sometimes what my body and psyche needs most is crappy TV and junk food (in moderation).
I had to create an account for this because it was too funny. This is some of the best advice on the thread, and it is being downvoted.
I suspect since traditional Chinese medicine is over 2500 years old, and doesn't have the quantifiable street cred modern science needs, it is tossed into the advice garbage can. Shame! Under the tcm umbrella, Kungfu/QiGong/TaiChi are great exercise routines to combat OP's burnout symptoms, and can be practiced safely until you die (unlike hard sports --->Hockey/Marathons etc..)
goodluck, keep an open mind to all the possible paths in life!
It's all been said by the other commentators, but I'd just like to add something: it's true you're not a "Mark Zuckerberg" or "Steve Jobs", but you must realise that little did they know themselves they would achieve such success.
People who succeed at any level (Zuckerberg or Jobs included, but perhaps even the baker down the street, or a teacher, or an actor) rarely let complicated life goals get in their way; on the contrary, they just have their ideas and begin implementing them because they let the ideas themselves motivate them -- not the goals they'd like to achieve in the long run.
It is a sort of a mental cancer to let yourself be ruled by your expectations rather than your desires. The good thing is: you already know how to change it. Talk to other people, don't be afraid to disappoint them (and absolutely do that if you must), trust your intellect and respect your feelings.
I read your story there and one thing immediately leaped out to me. Isolation. You isolated yourself from your family and your friends. You removed your emotional support structure and then went full burn in a high stress endeavor for an extended period of time.
Nobody not even extreme introverts can survive emotionally without a social support structure. You're feeling the aftermath now. The good news is it looks like you've reconnected with that support structure. You aren't going to start feeling better overnight though. Give it some time and learn from this experience. You need your family and friends support and you need to go at a pace that your health can support.
Right now you need to heal and that might takes months. Don't despair when it looks like the healing is going slowly. You will heal and then you can try the entrepreneur thing again once you've recovered.
I'll reiterate what everyone here has said: you're not going to change the world right now, and putting yourself under that kind of pressure is bad for you. If you enjoy coding and building things, then find a company to work for where you can hone your skills and make decent money doing what you love. The best part of that is after your work day is done, so are you, you can then spend some time chilling and living your life. It's not sustainable to spend your entire waking day working and learning, you need to balance it or you'll lose it.
Being an entrepreneur isn't for everyone. There's no shame in admitting that it isn't for you. There's plenty of great work out there that doesn't require you putting it all on your shoulders.
don't try to change the world, change the market, change the way people buy carrots or whatever... Don't try to get millions of customers. These are not personally fulfilling goals, and in some cases these are careful what you wish for.
your goal is to find out what you truly enjoy doing for the sake of the art of it, not the commerce, but the art. Maybe it doesn't involve computers at all.
some people are very successful entrepreneurs because they enjoy practicing the art of business. You may not enjoy that so much. Figure out what you enjoy and don't attach a business or wealth goal to it. Just do it.
Get a team! Seriously, it sounds you're basically working alone most of the time. This doesn't work for most people (including me) - find a small, "doable" project, doesn't have to be world changing, that you and some other people can complete (complete = getting to measurable result) in a month or two. Even if it fails, you're still in a mentally & emotionally better situation than before. Don't put too much pressure on yourself, you've got time for those world-changing projects later on.
What I can tell you is that you are not alone. The startup/coding world, and even just the world in general can be very stressful. Many of us have gone through similar things as you.
It is important to figure out yourself first, and move on from there. You may sometimes try to handle everything internally and it is just impossible to do that all of the time. If you reach out to your friends and family I think they will be more supportive and understanding than you may think.
Feel free to reach out to me if you need someone to talk to - its my user @gmail.
But I bet you will benefit more from getting out of the box you're stuck in now. You've allowed yourself to get hemmed in by one or more false assumptions about yourself and the world. Find those and destroy them. You've got unique strengths. Use those, not the ones Everybody Else wants you to have.
This too shall pass. It sounds like you ordered the CS smorgasbord and are now feeling the fatigue of all the effort expended to wrap your mind around it. Like someone else said, meditate. Recognize that changing the world is a noble goal, but meaningful change is an incremental thing, and really, those that change that world rarely end up doing so because that was their intention, but rather because they followed a path they found interesting that just happened to lead them there.
Keep doing what you're doing now: taking a break. You evidenced some initial interest in drawing or modelling, perhaps go back to doing that for a hobby. Reconnect with your friends, as you are. Perhaps go on a trip. You're burned out because you've been pushing yourself too hard.
Give your mind some time to relax. Take all the time that you need. Maybe a few months. Maybe a year or more. The time will come when you know you're ready to get back to changing the world.
I pasted on Pastebin because of 2000 characters limit. Thanks a lot to everyone who took time to hear me and thought of helping me out with kind words and motivation.
If you're in Kathmandu, consider going to Delhi and seeing a Psychologist (I recommend Apollo; Dr Rakhi Aanand there is awesome). You'll be better sooner that you think.
Oh, and make sure to get your diet, exercise, and sleep game dialed. High cortisol levels destroy your brain and make you stupid. It happened to me and took almost 5 years to heal.
This is very relatable. I find this to be a common problem among a huge number of people. Is there any way to come out of it?
For me personally, I see that people with mentors tend to do a lot better. Or at least a group of like minded people. Maybe there is something that can be built to help people like you or me?
Something to gets rid of the constant superiority complex of programmers and instead helps in passing knowledge down from expert to amateur.
My humble suggestion: Go another route. Switch careers.
.
I've done it and it will do WONDERS to your wellbeing.
It helped me with depression A LOT.
Also having a routine, I watched a comedy exactly after dinner, have a routine, that helps a lot too because even if you don't feel like doint it, you still do it, and it helps you in the long run.
.
And I agree 1000% on what others have said:
Turn OFF the computer.
Exercise.
Read Zero news.
(Yes, Facebook counts too).
Exercise.
Been there 20 years ago. Almost dropped out of CS on my last year, average dropped from 3.8 to 1.5 at the time.
Your mentor has my vote. Drop out, rebuild yourself first and foremost. You have successfully learned to work, but you haven't learned to live. Your work has become an obstacle, so no'w the time to relearn to live, love and laugh. Then you can think of working and building on what you know.
If you look to external sources for validation, you will always be 'behind, not enough, etc'. Just find what makes you happy. Don't stay up all night. Take care of yourself and you will be just fine. And if things get worse, go talk to someone qualified to help. And don't lie to everyone about what you are doing. That compounds the problem.
Stop reading Hacker News, stop trying to cram knowledge in, take 6 months and go work in a bar. The problem is you've burnt yourself out and you're not going to be able to get back into it until you've taken some time for yourself to evaluate whether it's the right path.
Don't worry about tech, you're 22, the world isn't going away.
I think it is a matter of perspective. People still die of starvation and lack basic health care, there are still slaves in the world, and you are devastated for reasons that are absurd. Take a look at this picture:
I agree. School is a great way to learn about things and where mistakes are forgiven. You learn through mistakes.
Successful companies will all have you believe they started out in garages, out of cafes, etc.
1. Don't believe them
2. Don't think that you are not the exception, aka Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerberg. You are NOT the smartest person in the world, you do NOT have original ideas and you are NOT someone everyone has been waiting for in a long while. You have to find out what you like being good at and what you like becoming better at and just do that. I know what it feels like to see all this cool technology and you want to do a little bit of everything of it, but there are not jobs and in the end no satisfaction in the field of little-bit-of-everything.
3. Also, sleeping and eating healthy actually is long term advice as well as short term. Even better; you are probably more productive if you spend less time on projects, work, etc than you are 'burning the midnight oil'. Again, you are not the exception here. I used to say "I am a night person, I don't need to sleep as much". Bullshit. Everybody needs sleep.
Yes. This happens. I am 35 and have a similar background to you; the identical thing has happened to me five times that I can count offhand and probably more. (Dropped out of CS, shut down a startup and laid off 2 employees including someone who is now BIG in the open source PHP community...)
The core life lesson I have learned (repeatedly): If what you're doing isn't working, change what you're doing. The HN world calls this "pivoting" ... it's not just a business term, it's something that you should constantly do as a technologist and a member of the generation you were born to.
You have done the following things that are not healthy:
- You have isolated yourself.
- You have given up on achieving something.
- You have apparently given up attempting to maintain good hygiene habits; hygiene is not just taking a shower and brushing your teeth.
As a result, you are suffering from depression and burnout. In an effort to get over the physical symptoms of burnout, you are consuming excessive amounts of stimulants, which help in the short term, but after the stimulants burn out, you're lower than you were before. You're actually burning yourself at both ends.
Fun fact: The physical/mental symptoms, like memory loss, inability to focus, dependence on stimulants to make up for cognitive deficits, and lack of ambitions are similar to what athletes (specifically, NFL football players) experience after repeated head traumas. You are literally beating your head against a brick wall.
Thankfully, you can probably recover from this. At least, I've managed it five times and counting, so that seems to be reasonable.
1. The first thing you have to do is quit your startup idea. Just drop it. Admit you've failed (at least for now), drop the mic, flip the table, and go in a different direction.
2. The second thing you should do is make arrangements to start taking college classes again. If you can, take classes at community college that will count towards ("transfer") a bachelor's degree. Don't go back towards computer science, though. Study a different engineering discipline if you can hack the math. I couldn't, so I headed for a business school and got a degree in operations -- we studied business logistics, supply chain, and industrial distribution among other things. (Go read "The Goal" by Eliyahu Goldratt. If it appeals to you, you belong in that discipline.) This is an example of fixing failing to achieve something by going a different direction. You're pivoting to being a student.
3. The third thing you should do is start keeping good personal hygiene. That means going to sleep at a set time every night (sleep hygiene). That means going for walks in the sun (fitness hygiene). Leave your cell phone at home. You don't have to go out at night, and you don't have to stop learning about web technologies, but you should make time to do other things with other people and with things that are physically present. (I have a dog, so we walk several miles twice a week and go to dog parks.) Role Playing Games (pen and paper kind) are excellent for this purpose. Clean the hell out of your personal space (apartment or whatever) and then keep it spotless -- this will ease your mind to an incredible degree. Start telling the truth to your girlfriend and parents. Admit, to yourself and everyone else, that you screwed up, but that you're going to make good on it. Ask for their support. Communicate with them; answer email even if you don't want to. Just don't lie to them or shade the truth.
(Hint: Your parents probably already know you're lying to them, and they're just waiting for you to come around.)
FTR - I'm a failed starter-upper, failed CS student, I've failed at being a boyfriend more times than I have fingers and toes to count on, I've failed to renovate a house, I've failed at my job a couple times, I've had a few scary mental experiences when I left myself alone too long with me, and I was failing at being a fiancée until a few months ago when I realized it was time for a change. New city, new place to live, new ways to spend my time, and suddenly I'm able to knock out my tasks for a week.
I am a Sysadmin/DevOps guy and an IT Generalist (I don't know it, but I can learn it), I am getting married this year, and I am buying a new house in a nicer city this year. I have three wonderful dogs and a fiancée I don't deserve. I would not have or be any of these things unless I had failed as many times as I did.
I wish you the best. Take a turn at the next intersection and see where it takes you.
Sorry to hear about your plight.
From what I understand recovering from burnout takes time. Are you prepared to put other things aside and focus on getting well again?
There is an account of how Richard Feynman dealt with his burnout that I find is well worth reading. It's available in the later part of the chapter "The Dignified Professor" of "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman". Excerpt here:
http://just.thinkofit.com/feynman-on-work-and-play/
While disappointing in a way, the advice to eat and sleep well really is important, and it would be easy to underestimate to what extent.
I have it anecdotally from a very competent physiologist in the field of sleep research that when they were studying burnout they have found no exceptions to disturbed sleep in the sufferers. Sleeping well is about more than just getting your hours in. The quality of sleep can be very low without the person subjectively noticing micro-awakenings and disproportionate time spent in shallow sleep phases. If your conditions permit I would suggest getting in touch with a sleep laboratory and request their help to evaluate the quality of your sleep and if necessary their help to improve it. In many cases these would in any case be people with much knowledge about stress and hormonal systems; well worth talking to. If you can't get access to such a place, maybe you could get an indication from DIY approach.
About the food: I don't expect this to be a popular opinion with you or with much of the community in the Valley, but I'm of the opinion that a vegetarian diet, unless incredibly well conducted, does not help, but is detrimental.
I say this as someone who is a tentative proponent for "evolutionary nutrition"/"paleolithic diet" or whatever you may want to call it. My suggestion would be reading up on that and trying it for a few weeks. At a glance it would involve dropping intake of grains, dairy products, refined carbohydrates (especially sugar), legumes, and keeping salt íntake much lower than most westerners. Switching diets, especially from vegetarianism is a step most people would not accept, so my respect if you try it, and you have my understanding if not.
It's becoming increasingly clear that states like depression have a strong connection to inflammation. That's relevant for both the food and sleep components, but it may also be worth trying to suppress inflammation a bit and see if that helps. Preferably get medical professionals help setting the regime, but an easy one would be trying paracetamol with ibuprofen or acetylsalicylic acid for a week or two (check their instructions, I can't remember the upper time limit for continuous intake without special measures)
If you have a hard time with sunlight, I would advice trying to change that. At the very least, make sure your vitamin D levels are sufficient. You may wish to consider supplementing.
Strong light also helps setting and maintaining the circadian rhythm, which is of importance in this context.
For many people, physical touch may help. If it suits you, seek out activities that promote that.
You mention you spend much time thinking of negative past events, and I think that may be an important and insightful observation. If you're not already aware of it, please look into the research on psychological time perspective pioneered by Philip Zimbardo and John Boyd ( see e.g. http://www.thetimeparadox.com/ , http://fora.tv/2008/11/12/Philip_Zimbardo_The_Time_Paradox). The interventions they suggest to change the proportions of use of time perspectives might be helpful.
Not directly related to you symptoms, I might add that I think there should be no end to the "learning phase", so if you're doing it right, that's the only time possible to get burned out. There is no deadline. You never need to stop learning.
I had a nervous breakdown around your age. I know, for myself, I needed to slow down, and realize the world is
hypocritical, unvirturious, and there are no simple answers.
The "successful" people around you have usually been coddled, and helped out greatly by family members. I put
successful in quotes because I'm not sure what it means
anymore. The only advise I have is slow down. You have
you whole life ahead of you. I know the thought of having
your whole life ahead of you is daunting because you don't
want a mediocre life, but don't beat yourself up you will
find many people are going through the same symptomology
as youself, but don't tell anyone. One other thing, I
don't know where you got the idead that people in tech are
here to make the world a better pace. They're here because
they want a comfortable lifestyle, and hopeing to find the
golden app, game, website, etc. In other speak, they are
trying to make money, attract the right girl(tech groupies
should be watched carefully. They can be pretty shrewd, and
use the Nerd persona to their financial advantage) and just live. Some people in this industry are so myopic they believe tech is the only way; it's not. It might not even be a viable career in a few years.
My final advise, from someone who still struggles with many
aspects of life is it gets better as you age. Your physical
sysptoms will get better. Oh yea, try to not let societies
norms, or usually misconceptions get in the way of your
happiness.
I went through burn out. During that time I learned what it must feel like to be stupid. I would look at code that I had written and stare blankly at it, unable to comprehend any of it.
For a time I couldn't even be in the same room as my computer. Being close to it would make me physically ill.
I took a year off. I'm still catching up on news that happened in 2012.
Some thoughts from skimming your post:
- You said you would lie to people about still being in school. Don't do that. Don't lie unless there's an imminent threat to your safety or that of others. Lying only adds to your mental and emotional burden, which will also take a physical toll on you. In your case, it probably also makes it more difficult for others to help you (by putting distance between you and those close to you, and feeding them false information).
- Don't act alone. Think of others. You can't do a startup by yourself. I learned that the hard way. While I was able to pull it off for a few years, it was at large expense, and ultimately resulted in burn out.
- Get rest. If you're at the point where learning new things is difficult because of burn out, it means you need a lot of rest. It could take months, even a year. Take a break, and reflect on the lessons your burnout taught you.
I am currently completing my CS studies in a small country on the European periphery, that is currently undergoing self-imposed austerity cuts. Banks aren't lending any money to business, and very few companies are hiring.
Our education system mandates that students must complete a mandatory two month apprenticeship at the end of their studies. The problem is that very few companies are willing to take on students, even for free. So I am in a kind of Catch-22 position.
Stop reading them. Seriously, they are damaging your world view - ESPECIALLY HACKER NEWS. If you can't read these things with a critical eye, you will end up in a death spiral where you feel constantly inadaquate. I speak from some personal experience here...
Turn off the computer and go outside. Go for a walk. Go for a run. Go to a local tech meetup. Meet other people. Talk to other people. THIS is where you will learn how to do what you want to do.
You will not change the world with a web app. No one changes the world with a web app. Or an android app. Or an iPhone app.
The world is vast and has many places that need smart people. Find those places, adapt to what they need and start solving problems in the way you can - not by what you think the tech world would do.
Start small, think long term. Build something every day (even if it's trivial). Think of life as a long hike. Each moment feels short, meaningless, but after a while you will turn around and look back at how far you have gone and will be absolutely astonished.