Comment by bunderbunder | Hacker News Reader

Comment by bunderbunder | Hacker News Reader

A harsh reality that I didn't come to terms with until I was in my late 30s is that many things I enjoy doing still cost spoons to do. Which means I can also burn myself out doing things I enjoy. Programming is one of those things, so programming in my free time was still burning me out even though I found it rewarding.

My mental health improved quite a bit when I realized I needed to identify and prioritize more restorative forms of play. That did mean allowing my childhood passion to become just a day job. But that's OK. I honestly wish I had let it happen sooner. What got me to where I am now won't necessarily get me to where I want to go next.

If that's not how things work for you and programming for fun is genuinely restorative, great. I just wanted to put my own experience out there because tech's hustle culture can make it hard to realize that advice like this isn't for everybody. Especially for those of us who might have a touch of alexithymia. Which seems to be pretty common among professional programmers.

I found I get a similar level of joy if I just sketch out my idea, sometimes just in words/text docs and sometimes with pencil and paper. Once I have the creative outlet satisfied, I can visualize what code roughly needs to get written for the thing to come to life. This is usually where I stop now, I know the level of effort to build is much higher[0] and utility of the thing existing is usually quite low. So I throw it in an ideas folder and typically don’t revisit it unless it’s something that just keeps getting into my mind. This is a sign I might want to build it. However, there tends to also be an entrepreneurial aspect to my projects and so I have to further consider if I actually have any interest in being the founder, or spending any time on it after development, and the answer is usually no.

[0] effort can be low with ai now but I find no joy or sense of accomplishment in developing with that tooling

> Which means I can also burn myself out doing things I enjoy. Programming is one of those things, so programming in my free time was still burning me out even though I found it rewarding.

I reached the same conclusion earlier this year at mid-40s. I'll probably work another 10 years, retire early in mid 50s, and commit to full-time recreational programming.

Same thing happened to me. I forced myself to take ~ a year off any recreational programming and can now do small projects here and there but I limit myself. I focus more on music and reading now. I find making games the least taxing programming project I think because it mixes in art, design, and music and programming is a smaller part of the process.

> cost spoons to do

Is this a typo? I don't understand it.

Search for spoon theory.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoon_theory

Similarly, I would avoid Factorio then if hobby programming is burning you out.

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