Yes, there is more.

You sound like you are experiencing burnout and as a result anhedonia and depression.

Burnout is a very real clinical condition caused by the demands you are operating under being dysfunctional in some way. It is very real and can lead to a dangerous depression.

Anhedonia is the loss of enjoyment in things you previously enjoyed. For example, when I had anhedonia video games because uninteresting, boring even, and the effort required to play was too much and there was no reward to playing.

You need to deal with this before it escalates into full blown depression and burnout. It can take much longer to fix than it will take to stop now, so get started ASAP. Starting an antidepressant may be helpful, it may not, but it is just one tool and I personally would avoid it having done it before.

The other steps for managing burnout are largely about changing the demands on you, the level of connection to other people, and what you do to relax. Exercise is a really helpful tool and honestly is what makes me resilient against another bout of burnout now.

Good luck

I was a chef for over a decade and worked in Michelin kitchens where I gave myself up for next to nothing. When I made it to two stars, I began vomiting repeatedly every shift, working at a loss of $100 dollars a day. Eventually, I broke down and tried to kill myself by the city river, but regrettably I failed.

If you live in America, all I can say is that if you are a man and you don’t work, and you are alone and have no one to support you, you will eventually be killed. If you aren’t killed on the street, you’re killed in lock up because it’s illegal to exist here without employment. Mental facilities funnel into jails where the bodies pass daily. At my city’s coroner’s, there are 400+ deaths unaccounted for, 100+ murders per year. I was sent there as a warning in California’s HAM program. I was forced to watch people die and watch their autopsies as well as tour the whole facility, examining all the corpses. All the corpses whose genitals have catheters in them are people who died with no one to claim them, their organs are placed in hefty bags which are then sewed haphazardly back into their torso. The working class bodies are all Mexican, all under 60.

When I was homeless, on two occasions people tried to murder me and they only stopped because they thought I was dead. My medical debt in my twenties reached over ten million from all the hospital stays. I’ve learned that there are fates WAY worse than death, and you should always have the materials for an exit bag or an LD of insulin. In our society, if you are an extremely poor man, your agency amounts to, “will I continue to suffer another day? Or will I do what everyone wants and liquidate myself.”

The reason I say all this is, when you don’t want to work, remember it’s not just money you lose but also the good will of others, including family members. The people you respect most put clown makeup on every day and freak out when you don’t. I know this because I made a small fortune on the gamespot/and squeezes and my fortunes literally changed overnight. The money literally solved all my problems and I’m left disgusted. It also showed me how hard I was working for so little. I know now I’d rather die fighting breathlessly, as I always have, fighting for myself and my life. My life in the street was FAR more meaningful than the ones I’ve lived according to cowardice, constantly learning to cope with cowardice. The bottom line: make sure you know you’re ready to leave the beaten path before you do because I promise you, life outside the social contract is indeed nasty, brutal and short.

That’s why we need to strive toward working less hours in general. Full time hours take up most of your waking hours when you factor in prep time, commute etc

What you do with your free time can make a world of difference of course but the math just doesn’t work out when you get home and have like 4 hours to do everything you need to do before you have to go to sleep.