Ask HN: I am lost in life. How do I fix this?

I have been feeling similarly lately. Sorry don’t have any solutions atm.

This can help you think through things: https://www.selfauthoring.com/

There are no easy answers or guarantees unfortunately. For ambition, I would suggest thinking hard about what you actually value. What do you think other people should be doing but aren’t? What is broken about the world to you?

Also keep in mind money is merely information. It doesn’t make sense to be envious of information, all it is is society putting a price on how it measures the quality of your head. There are flaws both in that notion itself and in the process of measurement.

How about finding a (parttime) job again and doing a challenging side project? Maybe something you saw at your job that could be improved on/automated but was considered too hard/expensive?

Lifting weights is generally a good plan and good for the mind.

In general, I strongly recommend finding a good therapist. It can take a few tries to find one that works for you, so don't give up if it takes awhile.

To your specific questions, I've had some similar experiences and find that it's helpful to think in smaller terms. Find small things that interest you and explore them without threat or promise or waiting. Also follow the RAIN framework with feelings of envy: recognize, accept, investigate, nurture.

Sounds like you are taking some time off, that's good.

Next, there's nothing better than a long hike to clear the mind. Would also cut myself off from most if not all of the internet/tv for a while to allow your own thoughts to return.

- Going to the gym and generally keeping the focus on removing your own limits rather than the limits of our world is a great way to grow. People perceive limitations in the world, but really they are accepting their own limitations.

Perhaps you need to put some focus onto the non-work aspects of your life - hobbies, family, social life.

Welcome to the beginning of a thinking human’s real life, not the extension of college dorm and class assignments!

> How do I fix this? Is this burnout or depression?

Probably a little bit of both. The bright side is that you’ve taken some time off and recognize this, whereas many people don’t recognize it!

> 2. How do I get ambition back and get rid of the envy? 3. How do I retrain the delayed gratification & work on hard things muscle? I think I'll start going to the gym and lift weights.

Since you have a bit of time, really figure out your own needs.

1. What’s important to you? Make a prioritized list of those.

2. What things would you be willing to give up over other things on that list? Ex: Health over money, money over health? Love over family (parents & siblings?)

3. Act on that list. Do it even if it’s hard. If you “regress”, your list probably isn’t aligned with your core values.

It’s ok to say, for next 10 years, I’m going to make money that I’ll retire off of. Or maybe try to get a 6pack, see if you can “program your mind and body”. At the end of the day, it’s your life, think and do what you feel makes it worthwhile. There’s always something worthwhile ~ enjoy it cause those handed a worse hand have other people decide their life for them.

Fitness is a good idea, but I would suggest specifically to try martial arts, particularly anything with grappling. Because that literalizes envy: you have to be face to armpit with someone who might be better than you, and it's not a video game or something where you kind of stay detached in your chair and dismiss it like every online troll: like, you can still make excuses like "well they're just stronger than me" some of the time, but sooner or later you face the guy who still smashes you despite being too small or too fat to be threatening on paper. And then you have to say "thank you" and go at it again, because if you're always causing a scene around your sparring partners and pulling risky shit you'll probably be kicked out. So there's an affordance of respect that you don't really see in other competitive spaces until you reach a very high level. Often the worst people in martial arts aren't really training, they just show up to a tournament thinking they can pull some kind of "gotcha", and while they do sometimes succeed in injuring someone, the system as a whole catches them quickly.

And you're in a space right now where you are probably ready to try to take that on and seek maturity from it, without aiming to go compete or even make it a longer term journey. The point is to get in a space where you are confronted with losing and practical ways of dealing with it, and that's something that carries over easily to other activities and allows you to understand what you want out of them with some clarity and perspective.

You're not alone, your story is similar to mine. I was feeling the same as you last summer and also quit my big tech job. I tried my own thing for two months and realized more work wasn't the solution. I ended up moving out of NYC into my hometown, getting a remote job, and picking up some new hobbies like golf and tennis. I feel better but still haven't fixed everything. It will take time.

It's hard to go sober when the internet can turn any computer with a browser into the liquor store. I find that I'm a lot more productive in embedded RS-232 land--not needing a browser open, enticing me with its time-wasters.

I’d suggest a personal trainer so you can start pumping iron. Get some muscle on you and good things will follow.

1. Rest

Move (gym and weights yes! also anything physical you liked doing as a kid)

Breathe - learn to meditate. There are tons of methods. Find the one that's right for you

2. Express gratitude - openly and with journaling

Focus on being a better you tomorrow than you are today. Define "better" in a healthy and meaningful way

3. Do a digital detox for 3 weeks. Read a book. In your first sitting read for as long as you can. Then add a page a day or a couple of pages a week.

Meditation

Learn to cook one meal better than anything you could get at a restaurant.

Having a break between jobs to analyze things can be really helpful. I don't know the details of your life, but I'd really recommend getting a therapist - a good one is worth their weight in goal.

Working out is great - find something you enjoy doing for fitness or get a trainer.

Honestly, I found regular breaks from the internet to be really helpful. Intentionally shutting things off to keep me from doom-scrolling for an hour when I wake up in the morning, and reaching for a book instead has helped my focus and mood.

Porn dulls people. It dulls the personality, the soul and relating to people.

Your innate drive for a better romantic partner is being replaced with porn. The dull emptiness could be a space for envy to grow in you.

Reading this reminded me of myself so here's what I did (not a doctor so keep in mind that this may or may not apply to you): A) Kick porn out of your life, B) Seek a good psychiatrist or psychotherapist.

A) is, imo, most certainly something that you need to get rid, it's way too damaging and you initially don't notice this until many years into it. And yes, it can become an addiction. I'd also consider C) looking for professional diagnostics targeted at ADHD.

I know exactly what you are talking about. Before I say any further, how about if you listen to a story from Ian Cheng, a successful artist, who talks about how he got out of this same situation. It's the 2 min 15 sec starting at 8m30s (transcript below):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRHJkKTt0mY#t=8m30s

   > After I graduated Berkeley as an undergrad in 2006 I worked at Industrial Light and Magic for about a year and a half. I met so many amazing, super talented, literally genius people there, but after a year at ILM, where they were doing movies like _Transformers_ and _Pirates of the Caribbean_, and doing all kinds of innovative motion capture research and simulation research, I found I was meeting too many people who were there since _Return of the Jedi_, who still wanted to make their feature film or wanted to make a sculpture, and that the creative burden of being at such a creative place took something out of them.

   > I made a very seemingly irrational decision at the time -- it seems rational now -- that I really wanted to find a way to choose *my own problems*. And so I moved to New York - I went to Columbia for grad school - and for those of you who are in grad school here, I can tell you now that I didn't do *anything* in grad school. I was totally lost, I checked my email for two years. I didn't make anything and there were people who were making prolific amounts of work -- so much work that it filled the hallways, I couldn't get into my own studio. My studio at Columbia had black mold in it, so I was kinda getting drowsy all the time.

   > It was only afterwards where I encountered a second set of mentors - I started working for two artists, one called Paul Chan, another called Pierre Huyghe, who both -- besides me -- really loving their work, I really learned what it felt like to live and be an artist, because I was around them so often and I really understood their "metabolism" -- that sounds weird -- but I understood, like, when they ate, when they exercised, how they needed the time in the morning to be away from people, that that was a really fertile time to make creative decisions. And I came to admire how they structured their time and their day. This became a real cornerstone and model for me for figuring out how it is I would want to make work myself. 

There are a few super interesting points about this story, but the bit we're focusing on now is that he was able to internalize a self-driven "artist's schedule" by working for other artists who were doing the same sort of thing that he wanted to do. I'm not suggesting that you necessarily find a mentor and imitate their schedule -- that's just cargo culting -- but that you have to find a way to internalize what they do.

You mention that a job provides a "framework that exists and you purely have to execute". And that is exactly what we're talking about here but for personal work not a job. It's a common message -- see Twyla Tharp's "The Creative Habit" or Stephen King's "On Writing" or even Steven Pressfield's "The War of Art" -- a personal work routine provides the framework.

However, even when I understood this consciously, for a long time I didn't have enough exemplars to internalize it.

Eventually what did the trick were other routines that I had been able to incorporate into my life: writing in a journal, cooking, and daily training for long-distance treks. Every time I had a question, I just had to look at those examples for analogous answers.

There were other steps involved too. Feel free to email me (contact info in profile) and/or read other comments I've made on similar AskHN posts.

I highly recommend to start frequently exercising - Build discipline and initiate a heartbeat to act as a foundation for future habits.

I'm following a routine called Stronglifts 5x5[0] and it's dead simple, but yet incredibly fun and easy to gamify - You're progressively adding weight and seeing results almost immediately. I use an open source app called Track and Graph[1] to track, and you guessed it.. graph my results - It's a rewarding feedback loop!

[0]: https://stronglifts.com/

[1]: https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.samco.trackandgraph/

I read "What Should I Do With My Life" and also used the Strengths Finder system, both of which confirmed things I knew about myself and have me the evidence I needed to make a radical change.

Good luck.

> I generally had very good feedback while I worked but I think I solved harder problems when I was doing advanced physics or calculus in University.

It's standard feeling among many engineers (even more so among non-software engs.). I think it can be remedied to a point - in FAANGS, you can find teams working on very hard things built from first principles (such as no-sql databases). The day-to-day is still filled with a lot of BS and boring work though, and is never going to be as fun as studying maths or physics on your own from a textbook. Such is life. If you want to do interesting things all the time, you need to live your life in a radical way, as the standard path in our culture definitely is not optimized for that. It's much easier and probably wiser to just accept the status quo.

OP Here: Had edited out a few things (don't know why), that I thought I'd add again in case others can identify with this

While in School I was easily impressed by startups and there missions but I find it tough to get impressed now. Stuff short of getting humans on Mars or extending our biological lifetimes (longevity). It's tougher to find jobs in these fields, achieve what ones set out to do or make SaaS / consumer tech money. Someone suggested doing an exercise on values, will do this.

Learning has generally become difficult since School - I think this comes from the broken reward circuit & inability to focus. I suppose working on meditation, physical health, detoxing from my phone and just exercising the learning muscle should help.