<story><title>Ask HN: I&apos;m in a rut. How did you get out of yours?</title><text>I&amp;#x27;m a technical writer in his late 20&amp;#x27;s working remotely for a company based in New York. My background is in software development, but I took this job because at the time it was easier for me to find work as a technical writer than as a software engineer (and because I saw technical writing as close enough in spirit). I started the job this past fall.&lt;p&gt;In a nutshell, I&amp;#x27;m dissatisfied with how my life is going. I can&amp;#x27;t galvanize myself to do anything. I&amp;#x27;m on the clock right now, and here I am complaining about my life instead.&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t give a damn about my employer, or the product it makes. I can&amp;#x27;t get interested in it. I can&amp;#x27;t get excited about the tedious parts of my work, and I can&amp;#x27;t even get excited about _automating and eliminating_ the tedious parts of my work.&lt;p&gt;And it&amp;#x27;s not just my day job. I&amp;#x27;m ostensibly working on a game on the side, but I haven&amp;#x27;t touched it in months. I&amp;#x27;m not even sure I want to continue it, as I&amp;#x27;ve been working on it for years without being able to fulfill my goals for it. And this is coming from someone who got into computer science _because_ of video games.&lt;p&gt;Things that used to bring me joy...don&amp;#x27;t, any more. All I really look forward to these days is getting high and playing video games or watching Seinfeld reruns each weekend. And even that barely tickles my fancy these days! There&amp;#x27;s a game coming out this week that I &lt;i&gt;should&lt;/i&gt; be excited for (because I love the series it&amp;#x27;s part of), yet I can&amp;#x27;t even galvanize myself to purchase it.&lt;p&gt;I can barely even open my IDE at work, as it greets me with dread where I once found joy and ambition.&lt;p&gt;Also, I have ADHD. This is probably relevant, but I haven&amp;#x27;t quite figured out how.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m pretty sure I&amp;#x27;m not the only person here who&amp;#x27;s ever felt like this, so my question is this: *if you&amp;#x27;ve ever been in this kind of rut, what was the nature of that rut and what did you do about it?*&lt;p&gt;Also, one thing I&amp;#x27;d like to clarify: I&amp;#x27;m not suicidal.</text></story><parent_chain><item><author>nicoburns</author><text>&amp;gt; All I really look forward to these days is getting high and playing video games or watching Seinfeld reruns each weekend&lt;p&gt;Not saying it&amp;#x27;s the only cause of your problems, but you shouldn&amp;#x27;t underestimate the affect that getting high can have on how you feel when you&amp;#x27;re not high (especially if it&amp;#x27;s an every day or most days thing). Consider a (say 3-6 month) detox.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>asauce</author><text>I really recommend everyone to listen to Andrew Huberman&amp;#x27;s podcast [0] on Dopamine and how it affects motivation, focus, and satisfaction.&lt;p&gt;Many people see Dopamine as just a pleasure chemical, but it actually directly influences motivation and focus. We also all have a somewhat set amount of dopamine in a day, so participating in activities that release a short peak of dopamine (drugs, masturbation, etc) means that we have less dopamine, and therefore less motivation for the rest of the day.&lt;p&gt;I was also recently in a low motivation rut, however after making some lifestyle changes I feel much more motivated throughout the day. I stopped getting high, cut out all porn, and added 2 min of a cold water at the end of my regular shower. It was tough to start, but 100% worth it.&lt;p&gt;[0] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.youtube.com&amp;#x2F;watch?v=QmOF0crdyRU&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.youtube.com&amp;#x2F;watch?v=QmOF0crdyRU&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>Ask HN: I&apos;m in a rut. How did you get out of yours?</title><text>I&amp;#x27;m a technical writer in his late 20&amp;#x27;s working remotely for a company based in New York. My background is in software development, but I took this job because at the time it was easier for me to find work as a technical writer than as a software engineer (and because I saw technical writing as close enough in spirit). I started the job this past fall.&lt;p&gt;In a nutshell, I&amp;#x27;m dissatisfied with how my life is going. I can&amp;#x27;t galvanize myself to do anything. I&amp;#x27;m on the clock right now, and here I am complaining about my life instead.&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t give a damn about my employer, or the product it makes. I can&amp;#x27;t get interested in it. I can&amp;#x27;t get excited about the tedious parts of my work, and I can&amp;#x27;t even get excited about _automating and eliminating_ the tedious parts of my work.&lt;p&gt;And it&amp;#x27;s not just my day job. I&amp;#x27;m ostensibly working on a game on the side, but I haven&amp;#x27;t touched it in months. I&amp;#x27;m not even sure I want to continue it, as I&amp;#x27;ve been working on it for years without being able to fulfill my goals for it. And this is coming from someone who got into computer science _because_ of video games.&lt;p&gt;Things that used to bring me joy...don&amp;#x27;t, any more. All I really look forward to these days is getting high and playing video games or watching Seinfeld reruns each weekend. And even that barely tickles my fancy these days! There&amp;#x27;s a game coming out this week that I &lt;i&gt;should&lt;/i&gt; be excited for (because I love the series it&amp;#x27;s part of), yet I can&amp;#x27;t even galvanize myself to purchase it.&lt;p&gt;I can barely even open my IDE at work, as it greets me with dread where I once found joy and ambition.&lt;p&gt;Also, I have ADHD. This is probably relevant, but I haven&amp;#x27;t quite figured out how.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m pretty sure I&amp;#x27;m not the only person here who&amp;#x27;s ever felt like this, so my question is this: *if you&amp;#x27;ve ever been in this kind of rut, what was the nature of that rut and what did you do about it?*&lt;p&gt;Also, one thing I&amp;#x27;d like to clarify: I&amp;#x27;m not suicidal.</text></story><parent_chain><item><author>nicoburns</author><text>&amp;gt; All I really look forward to these days is getting high and playing video games or watching Seinfeld reruns each weekend&lt;p&gt;Not saying it&amp;#x27;s the only cause of your problems, but you shouldn&amp;#x27;t underestimate the affect that getting high can have on how you feel when you&amp;#x27;re not high (especially if it&amp;#x27;s an every day or most days thing). Consider a (say 3-6 month) detox.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>gedy</author><text>Yeah it&amp;#x27;s interesting to me how little this gets talked about now days, but back in the 80s teenagers called it &amp;quot;antimotivational syndrome&amp;quot;[0] to describe what happens to stoners.&lt;p&gt;[0] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Amotivational_syndrome&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Amotivational_syndrome&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>