Comment by corytheboyd
9 hours ago
> untreated ADD causing repeated failures, repeated failures causing depression
realized this one about myself earlier this year, it really helped to boil it down to something besides “I am just inherently bad at things.” that attitude worked as a dumb single kid, but it was harming my adult life and relationships.
therapy helped me get there. I have been on bupropion for about a year, and recently started on methylphenidate. it might not be the right one for me, or maybe too small of a dosage. I’m taking it slow and being deliberate with the drugs.
working with a personal trainer to get in shape and lose weight, as well as quitting my fully vested tech job to fuck off and be a cook for a while has also done wonders for me here. it’s cliche, but you really can’t replace fitness with anything else, and that took me 35 years to internalize.
> quitting my fully vested tech job to fuck off and be a cook for a while
I am also fantasizing about this and am only holding off from doing it because of the social stigma (what idiot would quit a well paid full-time job). My biggest issue with the software industry is the feverish shiny-new-thing syndrome that AI is causing (and my current company is all in on this, with "Hyper-Velocity Engineering" panels). Maybe I don't want to move at light speed and would rather stop and smell the roses.
pretty much every day I feel that tickling of “what the hell did I just do?”
but I don’t care. I put 15 years into my tech career. I am good at building software, and I will not let this ridiculous “resume gap” problem stop me from taking a break for my mental health. any tech employer that wouldn’t want me because of it is a place I wouldn’t want to work anyway.
also, to be honest, I’m writing more code now than I ever did in the last year of my tech job… working on a full CMS and custom website combo for my friends bar, such that I can copy that template over for future projects (want to help local businesses escape the bullshit machine). also building a cool web development desktop app. and more! I’m having a great time
We won't need many software developers in another few years time anyway. Cooks are nowhere close to being replaced by technology.
> Maybe I don't want to move at light speed and would rather stop and smell the roses.
This really struck a chord with me. I've spent the last 15+ years building up a craftperson's skillset (IMO) akin to a carpenter's or mechanic's. Yet, people still seem surprised when I tell them I'm not willing to run a slop cannon and excrete software which is _good enough_. I actually enjoy the nuts and bolts of writing and debugging software and using AI feels like cheating (if only myself). I'm really not sure where I go from here. I wish I had a work situation like yours to complain about but I know I'd have hit the eject button the minute someone started mandating anything about my workflow, so it's kind of moot.
> Yet, people still seem surprised when I tell them I'm not willing to run a slop cannon and excrete software which is _good enough_.
Cue the usual propaganda: "Oh but that's just real life," "it's the nature of our industry," "I'll agree things aren't perfect, but {nothing must change}," "I understand, but the true problem lies with {mistake we'll gladly keep making}," "it's bad, but at least we're not {killing babies}."
It's become almost automatic to associate pondering with perfectionism, and perfectionism with flaw.
Fitness also contributes to most common physical tasks becoming trivial, you can literally jump out of bed in the morning if it strikes your fancy.
yeah! it's pretty cool when I start doing something that used to be difficult and now it's just... not. weird how long your old form sticks with you in your head like that.
>quitting my fully vested tech job to fuck off and be a cook
Are you doing entry level line cook work or something?
yeah, at a local pizza/taproom place. they share tips with cooks, works out to ~$35/hr. I'm not expecting it to replace a tech salary, but it helps offset the savings burn (which was specifically set aside for this). engaging with real people in real life about real things is also an indreeeedibly nice change of pace (even the stressful/tense moments of shit hitting the fan).
I'll re-enter tech later... maybe.
Oh interesting,that doesn't seem to bad.
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