Ask HN: What kept you at your job through the great resignation?
I too faced extreme pressure through the pandemic but I decided to stay with it for 3 reasons.
1 - Beat Saber. I worked out every morning through the pandemic playing beat saber and became very good in the process. It was a much needed outlet during that time.
2 - my small company has historically done right by me. Despite growing pains from a 15 person company to a 30 person company and being fired from an enormous job that same year in 2021, I knew that there wasn’t a company in my construction consulting field that would have my back better than this one. The pay is a bit lower too, but I’m senior there and I barely have justify my asks. That’s worth a lot.
3 - psychedelic medicine. I journeyed for the first time in December 2021 and I’ve modestly continued to explore that space. It’s given me a tool to reinvent myself. A lot of thinking about my work had become entangled in unhelpful patterns. A lot of problems at work can have simple solutions but it’s even easier to tell stories about how I can’t change it. The archetypal story of salvation from outside your circumstances. The American dream is more or less “fuck this shit - I’m going to America”. My family has been here for generations but that remains a very seductive narrative. The alternative I’m discovering is “I’m going be here even when it gets bad because I belong here”. I’m getting plugged into botany and wild food sources around me which deeply connects me to the land and plants like a community. Psychedelic medicine is probably the most important thing that kept me at my job. However, it’s a double edged sword - you can get the opposite result.