Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by inglor_cz 1603 days ago
TBH I know people who really only code and have no other life. Seven, rather than six days a week.

I am not entirely sure what is wrong with them. Only one case can be attributed to money. The rest looks like a weird psychological addiction.
2 comments
treszkai 1603 days ago
Sometimes it's easier to code all day long than how easy it feels to improve your life. Especially if one excels at work and lacks a social network in life.
link
tardigr8 1603 days ago
100% agree.

If you are good at coding, then you code for a day and create something you are proud of. +1 to self worth.

You send it for code review or deploy and you get positive feedback. +2 to self worth.

A junior dev in house or browsing your open source project loves your code and asks for advice. +3 to self worth.

Compared to.

Go out to a social event for lunch, struggle through the social interactions.

Maybe drink a bit too much because you are stressed.

Get caught in a difficult spot when you tell someone they are wrong (which they were, but you were being rude).

Hang around for the whole afternoon / evening because you told yourself you have to make this work and get a life.

End your day without any self worth reward and struggle the next day due to the alcohol or paranoia of reliving the previous day.

This is the life of a few socially awkward (and usually high iq) people I have had the pleasure of meeting. And myself.

I think it is healthy to take the second option, get a life, learn to make relationships.

But it’s the hard option. Sitting at the IDE and being good at what you are good at, is much easier.

link
heurisko 1603 days ago
> End your day without any self worth reward and struggle the next day due to the alcohol or paranoia of reliving the previous day.

There are definitely ways to mitigate this way of thinking, one being understanding the "spot light effect" the "phenomenon where people tend to overestimate how much others notice aspects of one's appearance or behavior."

Also to do more structured based social activities.

link
redisman 1603 days ago
If it’s so painful to hang out then you could do something else. Go for a run/bike/hike, woodworking, gardening, gym, learn a new skill, etc. heck so drugs and play video games. It’s good to have something other than work in your life or one day you’ll have a crisis when things go poorly with work
link
tardigr8 1603 days ago
“Weird psychological addiction” that’s where I would place it too.
link