Hello comrades and welcome to the first improvement megathread of December!
The thread is one day late this time, sorry about that.
Some discussion ideas:
+ How was your week?
+ Do you have any plans for next week?
Poster caption: To grow is our change!
roll call
@SeventyTwoTrillion@hexbear.net
@TraschcanOfIdeology@hexbear.net
@LGOrcStreetSamurai@hexbear.net
@Tomorrow_Farewell@hexbear.net
@anarchoilluminati@hexbear.net

If anybody else wants to be added to the roll call, just let me know

Stickied good luck.
I’ve been trying to enjoy the process, so even when a brand new bug just decided to appear out of nowhere and I had to spend over a day to diagnose and debug it, I still got to expand my horizons and become a better coder. But now I have a sinus infection so severe I can’t fucking think straight holy shit
Some disappointing news. That job I think I interviewed really well for? They turned me down. Did some “but we have so many great applicants” bullshit. This caused a relapse in my mental health over the weekend.
For anyone that was in this situation where you had a period of unemployability, not just unemployment. How did you get employers to trust you? Either way. I want to message some professors at this kind of reach university for some possible grad programs, what skills I might mesh well with and what I might be good at learning.
Interesting podcasts I listened to this week:
Finding Mastery - Robert Waldinger - Interview with the director of the world’s longest-running scientific study (85 years) on happiness. Spoiler alert: turns out that hanging out is very important
How to Be a Better Human - best of 2025 - Check out this podcast if you are interested in a self-improvement podcast that isn’t techbro bullshit. This is a “best of” episode where they look back on the best episodes of the year so it is a great place to start
Ive always thought of myself as a lazy and unproductive person, but I realised that all I’ve done this year is work. I’ve constantly missed out on social gatherings with my friends because of work. I hate my job and in the new year i am desperate to find a new one.
But aside from that, in my free time I read, write, draw, I make YouTube videos, I’m a scout leader, I go rock climbing. I have a lot going on, and I’m really a very productive person. Ive just internalised the idea that I’m lazy
But speaking of looking for a new job, I applied for one a while ago and was told that I’m their 284th pick despite being massively overqualified. So that fucking sucks





