[tobmlt]

“Winning” at this work is not worth “dying” at life. But that is just “words words words” and I cannot make it mean for you what it means for me. Self introspection is nonlinear and non-rational to a real extent. Love letter to hacker news: neither of those things is bad. Just different than engineering thinking. Do not seek to engineer your mind’s thinking, if you seek lasting happiness. Instead work to find your innermost workings (feelings fears ideals etc) and integrate them into your conscious day. Integrate fear? Why yes. Do not push it down…

Back to the task at hand. More linearly now: Why do you love this work you do? Ask the hardest questions and seek the hardest answers. Maybe you are on the right path for yourself. I don’t think you would have posted this if you really believed it.

I love my work too, and something about it is killing me. It is not the thing I love (the science, the math, the physics, the code) that is killing me, but the toxic nature of the environment in which I seem to have to practice it in order to make a living.

For me, there is a riddle to be solved. The things i love are not toxic, but they are mixed with things that are. My workaday life is heavy with toxicity. Can the good be separated from the toxic? Or do I have to go and become a river guide, bum, or base jumper? Perhaps I just need to meditate on these things. (I’ve turned my comment intentionally at myself, because I cannot be so hubristic as to know what specific advice to offer you) I will say, if you have to work in an environment of toxic stress, the first fear to root out is the fear of failure. Make peace with that fear in the strongest way. Your fear blocks your success. Find this way, if you can: Work as one who is at play. Otherwise quit and make another way to work on the things you love which is more healthy.