I've got a few things to share that are very personal, but I find them very important for myself but, I am sure they are very important for others too.
This story is about my recent burnout.
I find this important because while you're going through burnout it feels very lonely.
People should know that it doesn't have to be lonely; others are also going through this. You're not as lonely as you think you are
I do think that while you're recovering from burnout isolation is useful, it should not be absolute.
You still need people around you, but you need people outside of crypto.
People are very understanding of burnouts, but you're not comfortable making this public. At least for some time.
π₯ My burnout phase started in May of this year 2022.
It took me a while to figure out I was burned out.
But once I realized this, I knew I had to take a break.
I bet many people rode the wave recently and it was very difficult to take real breaks while the market was this hot. While the market is going strong it's hard to even realize you might be burning out.
After notifying my team, I knew I had to break all ties to crypto, at least for a while.
1οΈβ£ I stopped using Twitter
2οΈβ£ I tried to stop coding
3οΈβ£ I had to find other activities non-crypto related
1οΈβ£ Twitter is the only social network I use.
This is the only connection I have with the outside world. I don't have cable TV, I don't use Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, or TikTok, and I don't read news websites.
It became very important for me to severely limit the amount of information fed to me without my express approval.
I rely a lot on friends and what they find important.
If something happens and it's relevant, they will talk about that. I don't have to digest heavy amounts of information in hopes that 1% will be useful.
I also don't feel fomo for possibly missing some important piece of news.
I created a pretty good network of friends that will tell me or just want to talk about an important, relevant contemporary topic.
I might sound weird for saying all of this, in the "information age". But you have to realize that too much information IS TOXIC.
We are all human, and exposing ourselves to everything and anything will have some effect.
That effect can very well be negative.
There's this great scene in Pulp Fiction where Vincent Vega wants to ask Mia Wallace something, but first, he asks her to promise that she won't be offended.
She replies that one can't promise not to be offended. She has no idea what he's going to ask her.
He has to say what he has to say and her natural response could be to get offended. Then, through no fault of her own she would break her own promise.
It's the same with news and information pushed to us (and not pulled).
We can't control how the information affects us, thus we will have a natural response.
I control this by limiting exposure to information, especially unfiltered information.
I can't control how the information affects me, but I can control how much information I ingest and the quality of it.
That's why I remove most of the information channels and curate the people I spend time with.
2οΈβ£ I stopped coding or doing audits because it was important to stop doing things that generate money.
It might sound weird, but throughout my burnout recovery, I was allowed to work on open source, but not things that would bring me any kind of direct financial incentive.
I removed a very powerful stress factor by not doing any work that leads to payment or people depending on the quality of my work.
When you do security, there's immense stress and pressure you feel. ALL THE TIME.
You finish an audit, but until the end of time, you don't know if you actually did a good job.
When you build a new protocol you feel a very similar type of pressure.
We, as builders and security people, have immense stress we have to deal daily.
3οΈβ£ I had to find activities to do that are not crypto related.
This is harder than it sounds because all my friends are in crypto or have some relation to crypto.
I found solace in a few things:
π I learned how to make burgers
π¬ I started working on a short movie script
πΆ I spent time with my dog
π The burger thing was very fun, honestly.
The weather was nice, so I started organizing barbeques at my place with friends. But I learned how to make burgers myself.
I started by making the patties from bought ground meat.
The next time we did a barbeque a friend helped with making the fire.
I specialized in making the patties.
The next time another friend started to make the buns.
Soon enough, by the 3rd iteration, we had a pretty nice operation going there.
By the end of the summer, we were a well-oiled machine for
- setting up the π₯ fire,
- making the buns,
- grinding the meat,
- making the π patties,
- making π¨ desert,
- π
veggies,
- π mushrooms,
- π₯ salads.
A real feast.
I had people around and it felt really good spending time with friends working together on something.
We barely discussed any crypto-related news. And that's not easy.
π¬ I like movies, and I wanted to shadow a movie director I know.
But he actually encouraged me to try to write a script.
So I did that. It was very interesting. I found the process surprisingly similar to writing code.
A small change would either need a complete rewrite or could change how the whole story worked and how you perceive the main character.
It forced me to learn a new syntax and structure, get familiar with the lingo and think differently.
πΆ The 3rd big thing was spending time with my dog.
It's very nice to have something depend on you so much.
It gives you purpose and pushes other problems down the priority scale.
This is Finney.
His full name is Harold Thomas Finney the 2nd.
You might have heard of him en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hal_Finney_(computer_scientist)
I am glad I was able to share my latest burnout experience. Unfortunately, it wasn't my first one, which is why I kinda knew what I had to do to get through it.
I hope this helps anyone out there.
Feel free to ask any question and I will try to respond and help any of you.
My DMs are open.