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Comment by misterjangles | Hacker News Reader

I have similar work habit and, though I wouldn't say it was due to depression, I will become guilty and/or anxious when I'm in one of my low-productivity phases.

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Not sure if you'll see my reply (17 hours is an eternity in internet discourse time) but I found your comment interesting. I've also struggled with this guilt/anxiety over low productivity (I think a lot of people do), but I can't decide whether the solution should be trying harder to be productive or letting go of that guilt. Or, to look at it another way: I can't figure out if the anxiety comes from a fundamental psychological need for accomplishment, or if it's a socially conditioned guilt trip imposed by a culture that stresses "reaching your potential."

I mean, what is my potential, really? What is that word actually referring to? Is it a real feature of the world? Does it simply refer to whatever the outcome is of me trying as hard as possible to develop my capabilities in some domain? And if so, is that intrinsically good, or is it just instrumental to some other thing?

Of course, when we die there are no bonus points for how many code commits we made or projects we built or companies we started. So I wonder: should I feel guilty for doing nothing? If I was able to not feel guilty about doing nothing, would that be okay too?

Threads view! Yea, I think I just get anxious that I'm simply not being productive or earning my salary. Sometimes I worry that I won't get back into the zone or be able to pull off something to make up for all the downtime.

I'm trying to just handle it by not worrying as much and accepting that I just work in spurts.

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