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I had a major melt down years ago and I just walked away from a high paying prestigious job and started working in the construction field. Working outside and with my hands was very therapeutic!
I still do programming but I may get hot on a project and spend night and day on it for anywhere from a week to a couple of months then I may not touch it for months. Last time I opened VS2010 was about a year ago, I also love embedded and haven't touched it in about 6 months.
I have to admit though one of the reasons I've been so lax at programming is I've been traveling a lot and am a budding photographer and spend a lot of time with that.
I learned a long time ago; "If you keep doing what you've been doing, you'll keep getting what you've been getting"
Good luck Bjorn
As I grow older I've found that pleasing everyone is impossible but pissing everyone off is a piece of cake.
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Mike Hankey wrote: I learned a long time ago; "If you keep doing what you've been doing, you'll keep getting what you've been getting"
That's one of the problems really - you get used to it, so you don't notice how much stress you are under until either you crack or are forced away from the source by other events. And because you are "coping" and doing the work you get more pressure put on you...
I've never burnt out, but I didn't really how much stress I was working under all the time until I was forced not to work for four years by an accident. Now I monitor how much I'm doing and I am pretty much stress free. As a result, I gave up smoking, and hardly drink at all - where I was a 20~30 a day / wine box a night person when I was working for others.
Those who fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it. --- George Santayana (December 16, 1863 – September 26, 1952)
Those who fail to clear history are doomed to explain it. --- OriginalGriff (February 24, 1959 – ∞)
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One of the reason for my leaving programming was that I was going through a VERY rough divorce and I thought if I gotta start over with nothing then I'm going to try to start out without the stress of the job. It still took me another 8 years to totally get away from my ex.
About 4 years ago I just quit drinking, rarely drink now and quit smoking, also stopped chasing fat girls. 
Been a long road but I don't worry about much any more and live a fairly stress free life. I always knew I was a bit of a loner but in the past few years have become self sufficient and prefer to be alone.
As I grow older I've found that pleasing everyone is impossible but pissing everyone off is a piece of cake.
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Mike Hankey wrote: also stopped chasing fat girls
I never started: always worried I might catch 'em, and then what? 
Those who fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it. --- George Santayana (December 16, 1863 – September 26, 1952)
Those who fail to clear history are doomed to explain it. --- OriginalGriff (February 24, 1959 – ∞)
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OriginalGriff wrote: I never started: always worried I might catch 'em, and then what?
I was always to drunk to catch them so didn't worry about that.
As I grow older I've found that pleasing everyone is impossible but pissing everyone off is a piece of cake.
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Oooh! Beer goggles![^] Nasty... 
That's...bad news...very bad news[^] (NSF anyone with a working oesophagus  )
Those who fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it. --- George Santayana (December 16, 1863 – September 26, 1952)
Those who fail to clear history are doomed to explain it. --- OriginalGriff (February 24, 1959 – ∞)
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Beer goggles, makes a butt disappear don' it? 
It's amazing how much better they look after a 12 pack.
As I grow older I've found that pleasing everyone is impossible but pissing everyone off is a piece of cake.
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Amen brother, still got both arms though.
As I grow older I've found that pleasing everyone is impossible but pissing everyone off is a piece of cake.
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Mike Hankey wrote: It's amazing how much better they look after a 12 pack.
I was going to say after 12 o'clock. Then again that would have been after a 12 pack.
They all look better at closing time. 
Once you lose your pride the rest is easy.
I would agree with you but then we both would be wrong.
The report of my death was an exaggeration - Mark Twain
Simply Elegant Designs JimmyRopes Designs
I'm on-line therefore I am.
JimmyRopes
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JimmyRopes wrote:
I was going to say after 12 o'clock. Then again that would have been after a 12 pack.
They all look better at closing time.
Agreed
As I grow older I've found that pleasing everyone is impossible but pissing everyone off is a piece of cake.
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Mike Hankey wrote: About 4 years ago I just quit drinking ... and quit smoking, also stopped chasing fat girls.
If it weren't for drunk fat girls I wouldn't have had much of a sex life! 
Once you lose your pride the rest is easy.
I would agree with you but then we both would be wrong.
The report of my death was an exaggeration - Mark Twain
Simply Elegant Designs JimmyRopes Designs
I'm on-line therefore I am.
JimmyRopes
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JimmyRopes wrote: If it weren't for drunk fat girls I wouldn't have had much of a sex life!
I've had my quota too!
As I grow older I've found that pleasing everyone is impossible but pissing everyone off is a piece of cake.
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Thanks Mike.
I did something similar. I took three years off and built a farm in the country side. It was a very rewarding experience and I also felt a lot better, so obviously this is what I should continue doing. But I have no passion for it as I have with software development. It's a tough choice. Farming makes me healthy but bored, programming makes me unhealthy but stimulated.
Bjorn
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I completely understand, it gets in your blood. I will never quite programming but am doing it for myself now, no deadlines, no bosses.
Good luck to ya!
As I grow older I've found that pleasing everyone is impossible but pissing everyone off is a piece of cake.
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bjoernen wrote: Farming makes me healthy but bored, programming makes me unhealthy but stimulated.
This is exactly what I'm going through right now. Not with farming, but general physical activity as well. It's a tough paradox to be intelligent, we want mental stimulation, but we can't reach our full intellectual height without taking care of the body as well since that's what helps give us the intelligence in the first place.
Jeremy Falcon
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That's my dream. Have my own farm, work with soil out there; have my office inside and work in it other times. I may be wrong but I expect to have enough free time from both of them to satisfy the other.
You already have the experience, so what do you think? Would that be an alternative for you or am I dreaming too much?
"The primary trait of a good programmer is laziness. Nobody works harder to do nothing than a good programmer." - MehGerbil
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It depends on how practical of a person you are. Farming is a lot less glamorous than most people think. Its a lot about digging ditches and being out in the rain. And it is time consuming, so I'm not sure if you can manage software development at the same time. Plus if you want to do it commercially you will be competing with lots of people who don't have a choice but be farmers, and they usually settle for less pay. If I were you I would keep my job in the software business, and buy a cottage in the country side, and do a little gardening in the weekends.
Bjorn
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That's a tough question and no easy answer.
Some things I noticed about myself:
Getting tired very quickly turned out to be due to eye strain - glasses are helping with that problem.
Cloudy mind - I discovered a while back that drinking soy smoothies was affecting my mental clarity. That led to some other interesting self-diagnosis such as paying attention to pollen counts. My mood and clarity is also highly affected by B vitamins. It's amazing how much better I feel with some B vitamin supplements. BTW, B vitamin deficiency is definitely linked to nerve damage / issues.
Psychologically, I find it really helpful to step back from my work and ask myself what is rewarding about it and what is making me miserable. A lot of times, the misery part can actually be improved by simply improving a process. I also have at least one interesting personal side project that keeps my mind and soul happy, especially when faced with the understandable occurrences of drudge work. For misery that can't be improved, I try to work with it in healthy ways -- prioritize it, confront it, deal with it first. Funny thing is, it always seems more miserable than it actually is: my mind creates a lot more suffering just thinking about doing some drudge work than the drudge work actually warrants.
I have a cat. Provides a lot of entertainment and fun (so does the gf, but not in the same way as the cat.)
That's my 2c.
Marc
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Marc Clifton wrote: I also have at least one interesting personal side project that keeps my mind and soul happy
Same here. I've got two roles at work: principal UI developer on our products, and the DSJB: Departmental Sh*t-Job Boy. My side project, however, is an in-house tracing tool we use. I keep a list of new features, bug fixes, and so on for it. Whenever I need a break from the day-to-day grind, I work on the tracing tool a bit.Marc Clifton wrote: I have a cat. Provides a lot of entertainment and fun (so does the gf, but not in the same way as the cat.)
I will forego the obvious and puerile pun for this observation: cats are  .
Software Zen: delete this;
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Gary R. Wheeler wrote: Whenever I need a break from the day-to-day grind, I work on the tracing tool a bit
Ah so that is what my code generator is, a side project for when I need a break from drudgery.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity
RAH
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Thanks Marc,
I've experimented with staying away from different foods, but it doesn't seem to matter. I wish there was a safe drug that just zapped away the metal clouds. I rarely ever drink alcohol by the way, because I hate how it makes the mental clouds even thicker. Uppers like caffeine doesn't help either, except cocaine, but that would ruin my health pretty quickly.
It's very clear that I should get out of software development, but I just don't know of anything that is as exciting.
Bjorn
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Hi Bjorn,
If you have mental cloudiness and found that cocaine helped then you might want to check out adrenal fatigue and how to fix it.
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I'm very suspicious of stuff that's not accepted by science, and adrenal fatigue one of those things. But thanks for the concern.
Bjorn
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Marc Clifton wrote: Cloudy mind - I discovered a while back that drinking soy smoothies was affecting my mental clarity.
Not having a clean source of *healthy* carbs will do that. That's why the b vitamins help, so will some starchy veggies like carrots and potatoes. Just don't overdo it.
Also, one of the things that really helped me was to give up caffeine. That sh*t is pure evil.
Jeremy Falcon
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