| 5 months ago, I was depressed about my work and feeling like a failure. Both in career and life. I thought I was going through midlife crisis. And my inability to make FAANG money was the cause of my problems. I posted about it here [1]. My job was not bad, I worked 30 hours or so. Had excellent benefits. My team was great and my manager was super flexible. So I thought it cannot be work that was causing me feel depressed. But I decided that I need to get into FAANG and started studying LeetCode. Also my backup plan was to move into management in my current company. I worked longer hours, and studied late into night. However, my happiness increased, I was motivated. About a month ago, I gave my 2 weeks notice. I didn't get into FAANG or got FAANG salary but still got a decent bump in pay raise. More importantly, I cannot remember when was last time I felt this relaxed. My average HRV increased from 40ms to 100ms. I realized that I was not going through midlife crisis but rather feeling burned out because in my cushy job, I had no actual freedom. We were doing checkmark driven development. I could not use my best judgement to do anything but most trivial things. It wasn't the money that was the issue also. At my new job, I believe in company's overall mission. My last company is known for being backward and surviving by financial engineering. My new company is a smaller company, so it seems I can actually make important decisions. And most importantly I feel I am in control of my career now. However, my default will be to leave after every 1 year, unless company and work convinces me to stay for another year. And yes I realize that I am feeling excited because of my new job and may settle back into my low state. If that happen then I will focus on moving into management or different career. But I guess to answer your question, work has a great influence on you. If you are not feeling good about it or life, then change work now! I say that because I almost thought about divorce because I thought my wife was giving me stress. EDIT: Thank you, HN! 1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29709273 |