| This is a touchy subject, and I want to start by saying that everyone is going to have their own answer. My answer, when I've been in a situation like this, is to literally talk out loud to myself about what I value and what I care about. We only get upset about things that we care about. And we only get the most upset about the things that we care about the most. I had a much more angry, frustrated life when I was a professional violinist than I've ever had as a software developer. When I would play some bad gig for a few bucks and some clown conductor would show up and ruin this piece of music that I spent my life studying, it would make me rage. Or if one of the other violinists in the orchestra I was sitting next to was fucking up and ruining things. . . again, rage. WHY ARE YOU RUINING MY ART, YOU SICK, IRRESPONSIBLE FUCK?! Or if I was playing a solo with an orchestra that wasn't so hot. Ugh. Why are you doing this to Brahms? It's genuinely hard to figure this out when you really care about something. I ended up quitting music as a profession and going into software. I care about the companies that I've worked for, and I care about my role in that and the quality of the code I write. But it's not my life. And I still play my violin with a few groups in NYC. That's not my life either. I think it boils down to understanding the difference between the means to an end and the end itself. If you love software the way I love Brahms, great. But don't expect to get that love expressed or respected at work. Recognize the role that work has in your life. It's a means to an end. It's not the end itself. It's a way to get to do the things you love to do with your family. I decided a long time ago that doing the things that I love the way they should (in my opinion) be done, was up to me. For me that was music. And to a certain extent it has become writing software. In my mind, a job is a thing that you do, and do well and passionately, for the purpose of supporting the things that you really care about. Maybe it's family, maybe it's writing a novel, maybe it's being a dancer. Who knows. Again, I want to be careful about the way that I phrase this, but it sounds to me that you have a priority issue. You need to decide what's really important to you. When you figure that out, I suspect everything else will fall into place. I'm sorry you are going though this, and I hope you come out of it in a better place. I could be totally and completely wrong, but I don't think there's any little ritual that's going to fix this. You just have to make decisions about what is worth caring about. Is it your current job, or is it your family? |