Sorry to hear about it. It sucks but doing this new personal-values work you're doing is probably going to have to feel like a grind for a little while, until you find your new groove, new passions, and so on.

In case it helps, I built a productivity system that aims at assisting in work conditions where this kind of balance is needed (profile).

One other thing to pay attention to during this period is the big-picture / little-picture divide. Sometimes burnout and finding-meaning processes respond best to focusing on one of those at a time, or both.

For the big-picture items, usually that includes words like "meaning" and "reconnecting" and talking about general plans, strategies, and so on. But to satisfy the little-picture focus, it's important to have access to & try out little-picture terms like "today's podcast choice," "today's donut of choice," "today's list of things that suck" (to process them faster, restoring access to good feels), and so on.

Personally I went through a lot of different burnout phases before I found the kind of life that works best for me (i.e. no more burnout, etc.), and I find that an almost rhythmic cycle between big and little picture is very useful. The different perspectives can support each other very well.

Anyway, just some thoughts, good luck with everything.

It's super confusing and does feel like a grind. I don't think I ever had to self-evaluate myself to this degree. I'll give your suggestion a try. Appreciate the kind words.

Start your own company. There is nothing as fulfilling as that.

It’s the best decision I’ve made career wise.

What about finding meaning outside of work? Your career doesn't have to be the (only) focus of your life.

Maybe try something new once or twice a month. Check out your local meetups, visit museums or art galleries, read books of a different genre, go to random cultural events in your local newspaper, invite some friends to karaoke, plan a long backpacking trip, talk to new people, take classes at your local community college... keep exploring until you find yourself either passionate about something new, or maybe you've met more interesting people who provide fulfilling relationships, or at the very least you find yourself too distracted and busy with random shit to be depressed.

Also, on a personal/emotional level... maybe it would help to learn peaceful acceptance in addition to the ceaseless pursuit of hedonism? You can burn out on excitement and adrenaline too, and learning to be ok in the in-between moments, when things aren't great or terrible but ust OK, is a useful life skill in and of itself. "This too will pass" -- both the good and the bad.

I mean, really, let's face it, tech bros aren't generally known for being happy, well-balanced people... and if you fit that stereotype, well, it's in your power to branch out and start to absorb other personas into your life. It's not really "faking it until you make it", IMO, more like "trying new roles on until you find one, or a combination of several, that fit you".

Oh! Also, maybe exercise more and eat better if you're not already doing that... a LOT of our mood is just controlled by microbes and hormones and shit, not necessarily anything going on in the conscious mind that you can actively re-imagine.

Branch out, find other good things in life, then when you feel ready, you can always circle back and adjust your work to better suit your newfound interests and networks, maybe doing software for some other vertical you find more interesting than pure tech or moving to a different career altogether.

As a SRE you have waaaaaay more ability to tweak your life than most people (because you can financially afford to explore things), might as well make use of it! Especially while you're childless and (presumably, it's not clear from your post) "relatively" single.

If so, your 30s could be a golden age for you... you have (hopefully) the maturity to be able to take big risks for yourself, the financial wherewithal to chase at least some of your dreams, relative good health, and unburdened by Big Life Things like kids, marriages, divorces, mortgages, retirement, whatever. Just take it easy and keep looking instead of doubling-down on a dead-end tech job.

At the end of your life you won't care how many lines of code you've written or how big your bank account got. Nobody will. Stop chasing empty dreams of "success" defined by a ruthless ultracapitalist society and find your own meaning!

As a father of two, I would like to add that even with kids, your 30s can be a golden-age. They were for me at least.

The stress and FOMO of my twenties was gone. A certain Danny Glover quote regularly comes to mind.

Things and thoughts in my head are for the most part sorted out and now it’s time to play.

Sure, it’s different with certain responsibilities, but in the end you are yourself either way. The main point of your post, as I understood and agree with is true with it without kids. Because, as you said, success is measured in effort, not in lines of code or numbers on your watch.

We should be competing WITH each other, not AGAINST.

Now, I’m done with my thirties and the platinum age of my forties is dawning. Can’t wait.

The family/marriage FOMO bug is definitely a thing for sure. I think that's one venue I'll try to explore a bit more. How do you keep such positive outlook at the next decade?

It really is a question of preference. Kids are awesome, but that is not to say that one can’t be happy without them. I firmly believe that no one should have kids if they don’t really want to. There are enough of us. We will need to reproduce, but not everyone has to. Contraceptives are a blessing and they should be freely available to anyone that wants them.

I find it difficult to put this in a precise statement.

At the same time, for me, kids and a partner who wouldn’t take my BS, where the push for me to get my stuff together. Otherwise I might have been one of those cardiacs arrest cases due to drug overuse.

That’s why I’m happily living with a family.

So, after getting sober at the end of my twenties, cleaning up things in my thirties (getting stable employment as a self taught, career changing web dev) and stopping to be a product of circumstances (thanks therapy) and my kids being old enough to have deeper conversations with (they are in the middle of their school age) I am now looking forward to actively design and realize the life I am living.

This is such a great story. Thanks for sharing!

I wore my job like an armor and it was super disorienting to find something... that wasn't attached to my job. School, travel (in the form of conferences), etc were all for career.

You're right about career prospects. I'm hoping I can find the one and settle down. I do feel like it's difficult to do it in 30's than 20's though. Thanks for the perspective.

> Also, on a personal/emotional level... maybe it would help to learn peaceful acceptance in addition to the ceaseless pursuit of hedonism? Y

I think this is the one I struggle the most with.

For what it's worth, I was a very late bloomer (held back by severe depression and isolation, etc. all through my teens and twenties), going between throwaway jobs and wasting time in school.

Only in my very late 20s and early 30s did I start to seriously reevaluate my life and career, and made a series of major life changes (moving, practicing social skills, exercising more, developing new interests), etc. In the process, through my 30s, I ended up moving jobs and locations many times, nearly moved to another country at one point, picked up a bunch of new hobbies and friendships along the way... it's never too late to start (or keep) growing in novel ways. Nearly 40 now, and the happiest (and most balanced) I've ever been.

I think it also gave me a lot of perspective in terms of seeing what other people struggle with, whether they're working retail in their 30s, or maybe materially successful but going through a tragic divorce, or too self-absorbed to realize how much they push people away, or fighting severe drug and alcohol addiction... and so forth. Each person's story is their own and your journey doesn't need to be measured by any timeline but your own.

> I think this (peaceful acceptance) is the one I struggle the most with.

Yeah, that's a hard one for sure! For some people, meditation and/or mindfulness can help. Or yoga. Or religion. For me, none of that really did much good personally (too skeptical/agnostic for most of it), but what really helped me was spending time in nature, purposely without electronics and frequently without books, etc. Just hiking or swimming or biking or whatever, both for the exercise and the time for observation and self-reflection.

Anyway, I'm not going to do the whole "do what I did and it'll work" spiel lol. It never works like that... people are way too different, and our backgrounds and dreams are likely too different.

But I will say this: You're searching. That's a HUGE part of it. It might take you a while to find what you're looking for, but at least you've started looking and are preparing yourself for the journey. A lot of people just kinda... drift... into life situations without much intent, living moment to moment for better or worse. To live an intentional, purposeful life is a much more difficult (but arguably more rewarding) pursuit, IMHO. It's going to be uphill for a bit, but you'll feel a lot better once you've started the climb and can see where you came up from...

I believe in you :)