Still figuring it out. I’m dipping my toes back in to programming a little learning Rust and embedded programming and it’s nice to feel the thrill (and frustration) of being clueless. I’m trying to get in touch with my creative side more with music. But mostly just taking it a day at a time, hiking a lot, cooking, and trying to find peace in the day-to-day rather than trying to push myself to be “productive” (whatever that means).
Having been in your position, I know sometimes all you can do is hang in there and not much else.
You can never predict when the upturn will come...but it sounds like with some restorative activities (your hiking, cooking, music) you are on the right track even if it doesn’t feel like it.
most people who are suffering have no clue how badly they have it.
I felt very similarly. My wife and I were both VERY burnt out. Quit work and just lived on savings for far too long. We just couldn't find _any_ desire to do the hobbies we loved for like 7 months. Even then it was just _barely_ beginning to get the spark again.
Burnout sucks.
Do you consider this to be a good thing? Doing the same now, and wondering if it’s okay.
Like I say though, often you won't really know if what you are doing is a good thing until you look back on it and you see that the person you helped has moved forward. Some people just don't want to be helped and no matter how much effort you put it, you're not helping. But it's really difficult to see that while you're in the midst of it.
Just keep doing what you're doing while you have the motivation to do something. Get what you can out of the experience - the energy I got from helping other people even just to find their smile in the midst of something they felt they couldn't get out from under was enough to say that today I did good.
And take it day by day.
It probably does, but not in the way you might expect - takes you out of despair, but not out of the burnout.
I keep this cartoon in my bookmarks, because it says it better.
How good it is depends on a person and their ability to understand help as opposed to owning other peoples problems. It can be easy to get sucked into all that and make things worse.
Assuming all that is reasonable, I find helping others energizing. And it exercises skills that may be getting dull or increasingly hard to relate to.
FWIW
Really if I think about it, the movie Office Space nailed it. Go do something else, coding will always be here.
I'm nothing close to a trained psychologist or counselor, but maybe a good first step is to determine if it's only programming that excites you, or seemingly unrelated parts of life as well.
I suspect that finding a worthwhile path forward depends a lot on that detail.
I went through this for about 3 years after my divorce. I couldn't find motivation or joy in anything. I turned to helping other people solve their problems because at least I was helping others to get through what I couldn't figure out how to get through myself. There was a lot of time spent in reflection and introspection and about a million cups of tea drank while looking out of the window trying to will myself to do something, anything. It was a tough run, I was just dragging myself out of it when COVID hit and kicked me while I was already down. I think I'm just beginning to be back on the rise again now. I can't promise I've got any advice that can help, but it certainly sounds like you are where I've been.