Establish a huge goal that would satisfy you. Most choose world domination. But it can be a million bucks for now. And start working towards it. Day by day, month by month, year by year. During the day you make money from a job, during evenings and weekends you work towards your goal.

You constantly borrow happiness from the present and pile it up in the future. And burnout is always at the door and you constantly have to fight against it. Exercise, hobbies, outdoor activities etc. They are all weapons for a fight. Not solutions to health problems.

Start working for yourself today. On a startup, freelancing, book, side project or anything of value owned by you. And in a couple of years you will see if it works or not. If it doesn't, rinse and repeat, using the new things you learned. And if you're lucky, after doing this a couple of times you might obtain financial independence. After that it's either exponential growth or you fall back to your current state.

The universe likes balance. So success is always paid with suffering, one way or another. This is why children born into wealth usually end up badly. So if you were born poor like pretty much everyone else, you need to suffer if you want success. It's just how life works.

I'm suprised to read this kind of crap on HN. The universe has no tab on you or your existence.

As developers, we have the advantage of being able to attack it from the Money side. You can spend your early career ramping up your bill rate so that you don't have to work 52 week years just to pay the bills. And you can also build product stuff that keeps paying dividends long after the heavy work of building it is done.

Combine those two things during the "burnout" phase you mention, and it shouldn't take too long to get out in front of the problem if you work it right.

Took me until about age 30 before I could start taking entire years off, but I bet a kid fresh out of school could do it a lot faster these days. There's really never been a better time to be in Tech.

One of the big things people overlook is getting enough sleep. They think they need to sleep less to get more done, but this only works in the short term. I sleep at least 9 hours a night and I try to turn off the screens at least an hour before I go to sleep. This has made a huge difference in my life.

That's what I'm doing. The first two gave me big fat goose eggs (my first project I was alone at first), but #3 is looking like it could very do well for me and #4 is a guaranteed paycheck that will likely be double my hourly rate.

The problem with this: 1. 50-60 hour weeks every week. 2. You need to be in a very good position at work. No sudden rush of 60 hour weeks from work. 3. You will burn out after three months of this. You can do two of these a year max.

Try to find a side-project related to what you want to do in life. Focusing on what you don't want to do is a sure road to failure - but if you find things you do want to do, you could even use this as a way to transition into those things. Maybe you could work on those things 20 hours a week and spend the rest doing...whatever it is you do want out of life.

Just my 2 cents. Not everyone can handle 60 hour weeks over and over again. It is not a lifestyle I would recommend and I hate that it is a necessity in this world without taking on tremendous risk.

Your comment: "It is not a lifestyle I would recommend and I hate that it is a necessity in this world without taking on tremendous risk" basically sums up my thoughts... My original question was asking if life has to be like this. I don't know anyone directly who grew up rich or went to an elite school (I did neither), and I just sort of wonder if that segment of society doesn't have to struggle as much.

Well, to some extent, the answer will be different for everyone, but I think most successful people are decently good at figuring out how to get some of their own needs met regardless of what life circumstances swirl chaotically around them. Money per se does not take care of anything. (Example: If you have an incurable deadly disease and are ridiculously wealthy, your money can't buy your way out of it because there is no "off the shelf" solution already available for purchase.)

Einstein said that you can't solve a problem from the same mental space that created it (or something along those lines). But, other than suggesting that instead of looking for different answers to the same question, you need to ask different questions entirely, I don't really know how to help you. There isn't enough detail here for me even begin speculating as to why you are stuck and what you might do to get unstuck.

Best of luck.

I would challenge you to do some meditation- like just stopping and relaxing and focus on just your breath, once a thought pops into your head just come back to the focus on your breath. Try it for 2 weeks 5-10 minutes a day record your results.

Meditation seems like flossing to me: something that everyone says you should do more of, but, hardly anyone does it. It seems like a good idea that I will try again. I wonder: do you practice regularly, and, does it work for you?

I do it to help combat my depression and ADHD

I've noticed I feel better when I create opportunity for myself. For example, I'd probably feel very bad if I spent money on short-term enjoyment because that money would be gone forever. However, if I can consistently put in hours towards a project, I can reflect on those hours with pride.

You can't buy happiness, but you can buy happy memories, and those memories can last forever.

Trips, classes, concerts… all sincere ways to turn money into memories.

(BTW, I'm in much the same boat as you. Already changed jobs once looking to find new meaning. Hasn't worked yet.)

Moving abroad for my first job.

Quitting my extremely well paying engineer job to become a pro photographer ("how can you quit???"). I earned approximately 8 times less, for 8 years.

Asking the amazing woman out... We're happy together, it was 3.5 years ago.

Returning to a better paying job, in spite of some success and reputation as photographer ("how can you quit???"). It was in february.

Deciding to move abroad again... in october this year if all goes as planned, I'll start a digital nomad life, working remotely for a startup.

Also I had a cerebral infarct when I was 32. It was 10 years ago. Please don't wait for such an event before you realize it's time to take your life where you want it.

One thing that might help you: recently, I heard a Ted talk about intelligence. In a word: the clever choice is often the one which will maximize the choices you have further down the road.

When you feel like you're stuck, almost any move will do. Standing still will not.

I've lost a lot of friends during the course of this, and when I think back to the time I've lost from only half-heartedly being involved in my code, I get frustrated.

If not, especially the latter, start. I'm not saying you are going to enjoy it. In fact, you might hate it. But do it anyway. Find an intense exercise that gets you sweaty and gets your heart rate up a little, without requiring a lot of investment and without putting you at risk.

Be disciplined about, even if you hate doing it at first. I suggest making it part of your morning routine.

What do I think the end result will be? Well, not that you will enjoy either your work or the exercise, in fact, you may have no emotional involvement in either. But I expect that neither will bother you as much and that eventually you will smile at a bird or sunset or an attractive person, then you will sign up for a course that you've always been curious about.

If you are stressed, there are two basic ways of dealing: Reducing the stress Vs increasing your tolerance for stress. Exercise intensely regularly, as part of a routine set of habits from which you rarely deviate, and you may increase your tolerance, and with any luck will eventually getting to the point where you give a job a glowing "meh".

It becomes the thing you do to afford the things you want, you neither like it nor dislike it, and eventually you find something else, about which you are excited.

(I recommend squats. They are easy to do, intense, require no equipment, and you can self-regulate easily. Start with one, every 30 minutes while you get ready in the morning, neither too deep nor too shallow. Aim for adequacy, not perfection. Then make it two. Then three. Slowly get to where you are doing more. Then eventually add more. Today was a no-exercise day for me, so I did 50, as fast as I could. Sweaty and out of breath and ready for anything. (I started with 5-10 a few months ago, slow and steady.))

I do not have hobbies, because I don't really like anything. Trust me, I've tried quite a lot of things... but nothing seems enjoyable enough to stick with it. And I could force myself to stick with it, but, at that point its just work.

I was in the same boat a few years back, I had an amazing job with great pay but wasn't happy. I had to force myself to give up on certain fun/costly activities so I could save even a little bit at a time. At some point for me, it was more about trying different things while I still had money coming. You seem to be having an early mid-life crisis! Might want to consider a career coach or a life coach, sounds strange but, there are some sites that offer great options like https://www.pivotplanet.com/

Good Luck!

Please forgive me if I'm brutal...

"I do not have hobbies": you're on HN... some call it a hobby!

"I don't really like anything": you probably like talking (you're here), software (who can write code without passion?), exercise (you do it every day!)...

"Trust me, I've tried quite a lot of things": the world has something for you. Find it.

"nothing seems enjoyable enough to stick with it": what would you do if... if you had that money, if you could do anything you want, if you could do something knowing you'll succeed anyway?

Have you considered that you may be depressed?

1. Those over which we have control.

2. Those over which we have no control.

3. Those over which we have partial but not complete control.

It is foolish and detrimental to spend any effort thinking or worrying about things over which we have no control. These things include:

* The past

* The present

First, learn to accept the past, and internalize that it is fixed and not able to be altered. Therefore it is not worth fretting over. Then embrace the present-- love every moment as it happens to you. You might as well, because once it's here you can't change it. This is my definition of mindfulness. In practice, this will look like you noticing what's around you and feeling grateful for all of it. Your breath, your fingers, the daylight, that you have food to eat... look at this machine that lets you connect to anywhere in the world in an instant! (you get the idea). There are many techniques to aid in this, among which is mindfulness meditation. Another is called "negative visualization", in which you imagine life without something, and ideally accept the hypothetical situation as still liveable, in order to better appreciate whatever amazing luxury you happen to have. A common example is imagining yourself without vision.

The point of all of this is so that you no longer need to commit any of your precious energy just trying to make yourself happy with your life in the present. All of that energy expenditure is a distraction (and our culture is geared top to bottom toward trying to make you spend your time, money, and energy this way!). To be blunt, needing something specific to be content is a personal weakness. Once you really, truly embrace your present circumstances, you can focus all your energy on what you do have control over, which is actually quite a lot.

You have control over:

* Your goals and plans

* Your actions

* Your reactions to circumstances and other people

So what I think you're missing is that people who are successful "suck it up" but they don't push through years of hating life, because they don't hate their life. They love their life, and then proceed to make it even better. To put more a Buddhist spin, there are 2 ways to feel content: One is to satisfy every desire you ever have. This will never happen, because no matter what you get, it will never be enough. The other way is to eliminate the desire itself... and then achieve some of those things anyway, at which point they're pure gravy. You could think of it as a charity in which you're giving to a stranger: your future self.

Tl;dr: Right now you hate life unless you achieve X, Y and Z, at which point you'll feel satisfied (for a while). Instead, teach yourself to feel satisfied right now, and then throw yourself into whatever it is that you feel passionate about, as you are able.