How do you find the strength to go on, day in day out at work? I get up at 6:30 AM. I have a little over an hour commute each day. I work my 8 to 17 job. by the time I get home its around 18:15 so overall I am giving close to 12 hours of my day to work and coming back home I am tired and beaten all I do is shower, cook dinner, eat it, and then laze around on youtube like a zombie until I fall asleep around 21 only to start the race anew tomorrow Half of my weekend is spent on house keeping chores (living alone, I get the pleasure of doing all of them alone) the latter half is spent mostly lazing online because I neither have the strength, nor the time, to seriously indulge any hobbies at best I mindlessly play some video game but I cant say I really enjoy it because I am zoned out with the fatigue of the past week and the stress of the new work week ahead. Next week will be my 3rd year in my current job and honestly I have no idea how I survived that long, or how long I can survive in this state. Whatever this is, this aint living its being a zombie.
I’m hungry and hate being homeless.
I find this to be sufficient motivation.
“A fan of roof over head and food on the plate”
To be honest, if you got a routine with exercise, it would give you more energy to do things instead of not having enough.
I started with a bike commute in the morning that was 10 minutes that ended up being 1+hr, then running in the winter when it got too cold. I started with the mentality that “it was judt a commute” and not exercise…and the tedt just built up slowly.
I work as a chef and had more energy through the day and on my days off, and even did a couple triathlons.
My doc thought it also was a great "coping mechanism " for my stress and i gotta tell you it gave me time in the morning to organize my thoughts & prepare for the day.
When I was a chef, I would run 3 miles after work every day. My wife thought I was nuts when I told her that, but as active as that job was, it was much more standing and thinking than running. The run was like opening a flood gate to just get it all out. Your way of exercising before work probably works much better, but I was deeply of the mindset of not waking up any earlier than absolutely necessary. Now when I’m on day shift, I have to get up at 3am, so I don’t think I’d exercise before work now either lol. On night shift, there’s plenty of time before work, but I gotta be ready to work until like 4:30am, so it’s still tough. 12 hour shifts are rough. But I usually get pretty good exercise at work, so I think that’s covered okay.
The stress of being a chef is real. Inventory, ordering, scheduling, difficult customers, unreliable staff, equipment breaking down, etc. I’m still passionate about food, but I’m not ashamed to admit that the stress was too much for me and the pay too little. I’m glad you found a way to keep going. You’re a stronger person than me for that. It took years, but I think I’m getting the hang of cooking for two instead of like forty haha.
Only thing that saved me is moving to Spain and opening our own BBQ joint, lol, now my stress is way less (by myself in the kitchen instead of 6 sous/outlets and 65 cooks) I hardly exercise anymore, occasionally hiking & mountain biking now instead of road.
Definitely better than company work! Cheers!
What are the odds?! My wife and I just landed in Madrid at 6am for a vacation. Never been to Europe. Well, I lived in Germany as a kid, but I don’t remember much of that.
We’re literally just wandering and killing time until our hotel room is ready for check-in.
Madrid is Hot AF right now…hope you get a room with AC!
Try to reduce your commute time. Ideally, switch to a job where you can work from home. Try to reduce your fixed costs as much as possible. Consume as little as possible. Become as self-sufficient as possible, so you are less dependent, which in turn reduces the pressure.
As much as I want, I couldn’t. I already commute by rail which is there fastest possibility. And I couldn’t find a closer tech job nor a remote job in the 2 years I’ve been searching (still searching) Most tech jobs are hybrid at most and 90% of then are in another town an additional 2h by rail and rent is crazy all around that town.
I live in this town specifically so I could be free of financial pressure and be actually able to save money for life goals like buying a home instead of renter hell.
Spam your resume on whatever job searching sites you can, if you haven’t already. The best way to get work is via networking or recruiters hitting you up. You’re gonna have to shift through a lot of shitty recruiters with shitty positions but good stuff does show up every once in a while.
Could you hire someone to clean so then you get some of your free time back?
I used to be in a similar situation with a 1.5-2 hour commute each way and I totally understand where you are coming from. It’s not worth moving to have a short commute if you will hate where you live. You just need to be annoying and tell everyone and their mom you’re looking for remote work.
I had a very similar schedule and commute that I did for 15 years when the pandemic hit. I remote work a possibility for you? One thing I was able to get my managers to agree on during that time was working from home on Fridays. That one day at home and that it was on a Friday made the rest of the work week a little more tolerable
Unfortunately no. I worked in office even during the lockdown.
Easy, we don’t commute 2.5 hours a day. Get it down to 40 minutes or less and it becomes bearable.
Also, if walking/biking/public transit is available it reduces the cost and can make the commute a
funless shitty part of your day if it’s around the same amount of time.
I eventually changed some shit. Changed careers a couple times. Found one that isn’t so bad. Don’t get me wrong I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t need money, but as far as jobs go it’s fine.
You could find remote or work closer to home. Find home closer to work. Change careers completely (although while doing it, I made less and it was harder, it paid off eventually and now that it’s done, I’m glad I did it).
You change jobs until you find one where you aren’t miserable. That’s it. That’s the whole thing. I don’t work even remotely close to my educational skillset or previous work experience would suggest. But you know what? It’s all still helpful. I learned to be a better communicator, salesman, etc at the other jobs and they all come in handy now.
My job is 12 hour shifts, and I flip between day shift and night shift frequently. There’s also weekend and holiday work. The nice side of that is 7 days off in a row every 4 weeks, plus I’m paid quite well. I’m actually at the airport, about to go to Spain with my wife for a little more than a week. But I know that there are many like me working these long hours without the pay or time off I am able to enjoy. So I like to come here to make sure people know about things like the prevalence of wage theft. I didn’t know any better for a long time, and now I do. I also like to say that if my schedule doesn’t sound unbearable, I’m working in-house at a commercial power plant, and although it requires a background test and drug test, it doesn’t require more than a HS diploma, and it pays 6 figures. So definitely brush up on high school level physics and see what you can find if it’s interesting to you.
After a shift, I’m also feeling like a zombie. I find that doing a little housework frequently makes for much less of it encroaching on my “weekend” time. The stuff I do on time off is more passive if I can help it. Laundry and running the dishwasher take passive time. In the meantime, I’ll play video games or watch a movie or whatever.
Spite.
Same, there are so many people that I must enjoy the satisfaction of outliving.
My time between jobs gives me strength.
I usually live stupid frugally (live in a car, eat vegan) and save up so I can work for a year and take off a few years
Zombies are cool I guess. But seriously I have no idea, I kinda struggle every second of my existence.
