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Wellness Wednesday for August 30, 2023

The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:

  • Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.

  • Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.

  • Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.

  • Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).

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I would appreciate tips on managing stress and becoming a better programmer and things of that sort.

There are a million ways to manage stress, at bottom that's what many of the fun activities we do help with. Sounds like you're meditating which is a good start.

Really the best way to manage stress is to have a well rounded life. Find some activities that you enjoy like dancing, yoga, BJJ, running, hell even tabletop gaming or something. Make sure to spend time for socializing, and find a few people you can really relate to and start to build deeper relationships with. Even if you plan to move on later in life, it's irreplaceable to have that experience and understanding of how to relate to others.

Stress management and proper rest should help me live a better life and work better, work more.

This framing is not going to serve you in the end my friend. If you continue to focus on managing stress as a way to work more, you'll find your ends defeat all of the means you try. I'd recommend finding a higher goal that encompasses more. There's a reason 'saving the world' is such a cliched goal, but it's effective. Serving God is another route. For some it seems that a sort of Nietzchean self-improvement due to the Will to Power works, but I haven't found it very useful.

Figure out what sort of deep motivation works out for you, and keep your eyes on that. Not on working harder just to work harder. And you may need to try out a few different worldviews, lord knows I did. But hey if you only believe in one thing your whole life and never switch it up, you've led a boring life.