BugsBunny1991

I would hang in there and get in touch with a therapist or a friend that you know to have good judgment before you take action. Hopefully they will be able to assess your thinking and point out any blind spots.

I would advise even more caution when considering actions that are not easily reversed like quitting.

Lastly, I would try to get some distance from your thoughts and feelings, to get out of them temporarily so you can view them with some skepticism. It could help you see other causes that are feeding into your situation. Hard physical exercise might help here.

This is timely and beneficial. Most of the posts I see on HN about job changes focus on the external conditions of a job that cause misery. However, as you've pointed out, these situations also have a positive side—they offer opportunities to develop inner virtues: truth, endurance, persistence, and others.

Had you posted this just two months ago (and had I managed to take it to heart), I might have saved myself from disappointment and regret. I quit my job after going through a six-month stretch of burnout. I thought I had nothing left to give, and that staying would do more harm than good—for both myself and my team. When you've been in that kind of negative mental state for an extended period, your decision-making skills become compromised. I began to believe my negative thoughts and feelings, and I couldn’t see a way past them. When I left, I used words different from "leaving to do what I love," but the sentiment was similar.

I'm now considering asking for my job back, though I’m unsure whether it will succeed. I was told I left on good terms, but I wonder if that was simply a reflection of good business etiquette from my boss and coworkers. I’m afraid I may have shown myself to be unreliable, despite a solid four-year track record of consistent performance. I also don’t know if I’ve learned enough to keep myself from relapsing.

Another thing often left out of these kinds of posts: what supporting factors help a person persevere? Friends, family, hobbies, religion—pursuits they can turn to for some respite? One of the thought patterns that contributed to my burnout was dwelling on the amount of competition and dishonesty in the world, when perhaps I should have made more room for gratitude.

What's the difference in risk between the S&P and BTC? I'm all in on S&P and it feels as if BTC is an even bigger gamble.

What about those very capable engineers that do not read books? I'm talking about the independent and original thinkers that solve problems their own way. They exist and I'd prefer to be them, actually. I haven't quite figured out how to engage with the craft at that deeper level so, instead, I read books...

Is there still no easy way to use it as a target display? I'd consider an iMac as my personal computing device, but I'd like to use the display to plug into my work Macbook.

What was your path to becoming competent? I've been a software engineer for over a decade now and I'm middling at best. I've been studying algorithms in my free time as my energy permits and am hoping to branch out into other areas, but I feel as though I'm always behind my more talented colleagues who can immediately "see" the solutions while I have to puzzle them out.

How smart are you really if you're going to let society's idea of "gifted" hang over you?

What part of you says it's a lot of money? I'd indulge some of the commenters here and try an experiment: tell yourself that it's not much--at least not enough to call yourself "wealthy" or "rich"--and see if it changes your perspective on the problem. Find a way to unburden yourself from the money by not identifying with it.

Can you name other careers that are deeply satisfying and pay just as well?

An honest, rational, and intelligent way to approach our working lives and it runs counter to much of the advice you'd get elsewhere.

I think it's possible to be disillusioned with work and yet still do a good job and find satisfaction in it. Maybe it's just a matter of finding the proper distance between you and your work.

I think I see where you're coming from. I was recently thinking of starting up a technical blog as a form of self-promotion and to have something to show to potential employers. But I also wanted to do something that I felt was good and worthwhile to readers. So I thought about the sorts of programming blogs I'd read in the past that I could maybe emulate or use as a standard. And then it occurred to me that, for the most part, they're either a waste of time, not terribly interesting, or even harmful. I've had better luck with reading textbooks, though maybe I just prefer to try and learn a subject in some depth. But when what you're really selling is your knowledge and expertise, I can see why people do it.

I think it's easier to do if you work up to it gradually. I read Logic by Wilfrid Hodges a few years back on a whim from some recommendation on HN. I didn't think much of the book at the time, though I recently picked up Benjamin Pierce's Types and Programming Languages. Having seen notation like that before made digesting the book much easier (along with starting with other introductory texts like Friedman and Wand's Essentials of Programming Languages).

How long have you been at Google, if you don't mind? I'm sort of curious about tenure and how long people typically stay. A recruiter reached out to me for an engineering position in their Chicago office. I'm considering interviewing, but since it'll require a good amount of preparation on my part, I've put it off. I've basically worked at start ups for my entire career so far (10 years) and I'm thinking it would be good to switch, both for pay and work life balance.

My parents were taken in as refugees by the US when they were in their early twenties and now, over forty years later, they still wonder if it was the right decision to stay here. They've made it to the middle-class and that's a pretty amazing thing, but they know this isn't their home. To go back, even for a visit, is too painful. So much time has past that it's hard to say what there is to even return to.