[prophesi]

Not the OP, but I also got into meditation a while ago, and it helped a lot with my seasonal depression. I followed the instructions from John Yates' "The Mind Illuminated" book, which I actually found from someone on Hacker News raving about it. It's really straightforward with describing the goals and techniques for each stage.

[strangegecko]

I'm wondering if I've been depressed for too long for things to reach me. I've bought that same book, probably after reading the same post about it, but I have at most read a few pages, and managed to meditate maybe a few times since then.

The world is complete information overload for me. I currently urgently need to:

1) learn a new language

2) practice meditation

3) learn react / unit testing / ML / distributed systems stuff

4) learn basic social skills

5) actually live life a little

6) ...

I say "currently", but this has been true for years.

[olingern]

I've suffered and still suffer from a lot same in the past. I hope sharing what's helped me can help someone else who feels like theirs so much to do / learn, but starting never happens.

For me, it's often been a result of procrastination but, just in the past couple of years, have I began to understand the source of the procrastination. My issue was fear. Fear that I would fail learning [_whatever new thing_], or not reach a deep enough state of meditation. So, my fear was compounded with some judgement of my ability.

At the moment, I'm practicing what I call "lowering the barrier to entry" and shelving perfectionism. I used to dream of progress as the grandiose "a-ha" moments; however, the reality is that progress is made up of many small moments over time.

As much as it pains me to suggest "agile for your life," I have found some success in having a personal backlog and trying to determine what matters to me most. It's the kind of thing life coaches charge you a lot of money to tackle, but most engineers / tech workers are accustomed to:

- Decide the project's top 10 priorities

- Place a value on each

- Determine their effort

- Break each down into subtasks

- Plan a chunk of work

- Start

I would also ask yourself where your motivation lies. Is it extrinsic or intrinsic. What inspires you to learn ML or React? I struggled with learning music for a long time because it always felt like something I was "supposed" to do. I still want to, but I have to come to terms with the source of that motivation.

Living is as easy as being "here," yet that's paradoxically hard for our stimulus driven brains. I've found slowing down, tasting things, feeling textures, and listening more have made me more aware and present. If you ever feel dead inside, deploy on Friday at 5.

Finally, I'll add all of this is easier to type and intellectualize than it is to live. To me, it often feels like a constant fight of putting time into the things I value to grow as I envision myself X months / years into the future.

[strangegecko]

Thanks for the response.

I'm already prioritizing / cutting things that aren't absolutely necessary. I have a long backlog and it's just discouraging to see how long the items have been on there. The truth is probably that I have largely given up on myself, gradually over many years, and it feels like it has reached a point of no return.

There's just too much negative and not enough positive. I have really fought my way through life, always with the vague hope that I could turn things around. Now that I'm getting old, things are getting even harder. Seeing more and more white hair in the mirror, skin starting to sag. And I'm still plagued by terrible anxiety and depression and an overwhelming lack of self confidence. The isolation is scaring the hell out of me. It's nothing new for me, but at my age it's just much more difficult to fix.

When I slow down, I notice how damaged I am and how little I pay attention to that and to getting better. Of course this happens because I don't believe I can fix it. I don't want to pay attention because that just hurts.

I actually started reading the book about meditation and meditated for a good bit. What I read also made perfect sense to me. My brain is super reactive and scattered all over the place, and I believe it's part of the reason why I don't manage to change. I just can't focus on anything long enough because there are burning fires everywhere, and my mind is pushed around and locks onto whatever is making the most noise.

I have random jolts of anxiety and adrenaline that get triggered by thoughts, many of them repetitive. I don't even notice usually because it's so normal and everything has been bad for so long. Many repetitive toxic memories / beliefs about myself. Basically all the bad stuff that in theory you can work on with CBT and all other approaches.

Anyway, on a positive note, I have also spent some time on pluralsight and enjoyed it. You're right about questioning the motivation - it's not really me. It's mostly fear. I'm worried what happens if I lose my current job. I feel insecure about my technical skills, and the idea about ML is mostly about proving something to myself, dispelling the self doubt. My interviewing skills are...well, abysmal. I'm basically not employable through a standard hiring process even though I think I'm one of the more valuable employees where I'm at now.

[olingern]

There's an amazing interview with Gabor Mate on Tim Ferriss's podcast [1] where he frames early trauma and its effect on people in later life in a really succinct way.

I've listened to it 3 - 4 times, because he has a really interesting frame of mind that depression is an adaptation to trauma we've experienced at some point when emotions where too much to digest. The psychedelic bit is interesting, but I would say less say than the content before.

> I don't want to pay attention because that just hurts.

~5 years of cognitive behavioral therapy really helped me and I cannot say enough about it. It provided me with all the tools to make emotions and life manageable.

> I have random jolts of anxiety and adrenaline that get triggered by thoughts, many of them repetitive

I think a lot of people have these. It's even been linked to lack of sleep [2]. I think with mindfulness / meditation you begin to observe the thoughts and question where did they come from, and why here and now.

> I feel insecure about my technical skills, and the idea about ML is mostly about proving something to myself, dispelling the self doubt. My interviewing skills are...well, abysmal. I'm basically not employable through a standard hiring process ...

I have multiple friends who feel the same way. Of the past 7 or 8 interviews I've had for front-end and backend work, there's only been 2 or 3 where a difficult "Google style of problem" was involved. They're out there and solvable, but do take some practice. Before I 'studied' for interviews years ago, I thought the solutions people came up with were these magical, on-the-spot sort of things. Mostly, it's just practice and pattern recognition.

I began working my way through leetcode easy problems, and worked up to solving medium. I would solve the way I was acquainted with, and then go see if there was a solution with a better optimization. If there was -- I would re-do the problem and log everywhere to understand the better solution.

What I did to get better at interviews:

- Practiced my "2-3 minute spill" ... the intro where you tell the interviewer your entire career in not enough time

- Took interviews for jobs I had no interest in (Be careful though! I took one of those because I ended up liking the team / place)

- Worked on mastering the language / environment I work in

- Did 1 - 2 leetcode problems a day, often repeating one that I just barely grasped.

I hope this helps. I feel like I was in your exact shoes just a few years ago, and still don the same shoe strings and soles now.

1 - https://tim.blog/2018/02/20/gabor-mate/

2 - https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/01/180104152947.h...

3 - https://leetcode.com/problems/two-sum/

[polalavik]

whoa absolutely in the same boat. So fickle and can't pin down an interest - but now I've lost most motivation to even take up interest in anything altogether.

[strangegecko]

Well, tbh I don't experience it as lack of interest, I just struggle to keep up with everything. I prioritize work because not earning money isn't an option yet.

That combined with my general depression and lack of support pretty much takes all my energy. I have a little bit left here and there, but it's simply not enough to get far with anything. It's very discouraging to start anything because it instantly feels overwhelming and I know I have more must do queued up that I'm deprioritizing to get this technically optional thing done. How can I read for hours in a day if I need to do house keeping stuff, send bills to insurance for reimbursement that are a year old, get that health checkup done, ... and so on. So much stuff to do. I don't know why I experience life like this. Everyone seems to have so much discretionary time to spend, especially if they do as little as I do.

[justinpombrio]

> I followed the instructions from John Yates' "The Mind Illuminated" book

Can confirm: this is a very clearly written book. It reads like a reference manual for meditation.

[toomanybeersies]

Maybe I'll try meditation for my Seasonal Affective Disorder this winter.

It would probably be a lot healthier than substance abuse. Cheaper, too.