[softfalcon]

No matter how much you love it, 12 hours a day will never be healthy long term. This is what pro level athletes do to compete and get into the Olympics and they regularly burn out after a few years of it.

I strongly urge you to take the time to establish a long term pace that will allow you to regularly decompress from work, learning, and stress every single day as well as whole “step-away” moments for weeks at a time to allow you to completely disconnect at regular intervals throughout the year.

Based on your description, you’re young and your youth is powering this ability to keep going. Even if you take perfect care of your health, this energy will decline with age, more health complications will arise merely by being older, life will put more expectations on you, or conversely, a lack of life due to grinding too hard professionally will bring depression and loneliness.

Think carefully about how maintainable your perspective on work and life is for what will be at minimum the next 20 years.

Stay safe and take care of yourself.

[badpun]

> This is what pro level athletes do to compete and get into the Olympics and they regularly burn out after a few years of it.

I believe this is a myth. Excercising for 12 hours a day is not the best strategy to get your body and mind in shape for the Olympics. Internet sources claim that Olympics athletes train 5-7 hours a day. Pro football (soccer) players at top level, with absolutely insane amount of competition constantly breathing down their necks, usually train from morning till lunch and that's it. Doing more would only do harm.

[softfalcon]

Oh I know it’s a myth, you’re not wrong. I was simply using the myth we keep hearing as a foil for how bad an idea this is. It’s a perfect example of imbalance that results in burn out.

I do appreciate you pointing out that this is a myth. It’s important people don’t think this is somehow manageable, even for “just a few years”.

All that being said… you’re still going to keep hearing it on the news, in books, from movie stars, etc…

[fasterik]

I agree that pacing and breaks are important and I didn't mean to imply otherwise. I was offering an alternative perspective to the claim that "most people only have 4 hours of work in them". I just don't think that's true for people who are working on things they find intrinsically motivating. I'm also skeptical of the claim that that 60 hours a week isn't healthy long term, assuming you have the right habits in place. But I'll admit that I haven't really looked into the research on this, if it exists.