how to not care so much?

I’m 25, a guy, and I only recently got my first real IT job, like actual badge, actual standups, actual tickets, actual “can you jump on a quick call?” stuff. I should feel lucky, and I do, but I also feel weirdly on edge all the time becuase of AI. Every week there’s some new post, some “thought leader,” some dude on LinkedIn saying junior devs are cooked, help desks are done, entry level is dead, learn ten tools by friday or get left behind!! It gets in my head bad. I’ll be fixing a small bug or writing docs and then suddenly I’m thinking, wow, a bot could probably do half of this faster than me??? Then I spiral and start looking at job boards, salary threads, videos, and “the future of work” takes at 1 a.m. like that is somehow helping. It isn’t. It just makes me more tired and more jumpy at work the next day. One of the seniors told me, “AI is a tool, not your replacement, unless you stop learning,” and that helped for like two hours. Then my brain went right back to, okay but what if he’s just trying to be nice?? I know fear can be useful in small doses. It can push you to learn. I’ve used it to study more, ask better questions, and stop pretending I know stuff I don’t know. But too much fear is just noise. It makes me check Slack like I’m waiting for a breakup text. It makes every small mistake feel like proof I’m done for. Last month I messed up a config in a test env and nothing major happened, but my hands were legit shaking. My manager was chill about it, said “that’s why we have review,” and moved on. I did not move on!!! I was still replaying it in my head on the train home, thinking, great, first I make mistakes, then AI gets better, then I’m gone. That’s what I mean by caring too much. Not caring in a healthy way. Caring in a “my chest feels tight over a Jira ticket” way. And I keep asking myself, how do normal people not let this stuff eat them alive? Do you ever feel embarrased by how much your brain can turn one small worry into a whole fake disaster??? I try to be polite, do my work, learn fast, and not complain too much. I’m not anti-AI either. Some of it is honestly useful. It helps me understand code quicker, summarize logs, and get unstuck. But the same thing helping me also scares me, and that contradiction is frying me a bit 😅

What I’m trying now is maybe less “how do I stop caring” and more “how do I care the normal amount??” Maybe that’s the real question. Becuase zero care would be dumb. I don’t want to coast and wake up obsolete in two years. But max care is also dumb. It turns life into this constant background panic where even a decent day feels fake, like doom is just loading in the background. A friend of mine, not in tech, said something simple: “you are borrowing stress from a future that has not invoiced you yet.” Corny?? Yeah, a little. But also true. I noticed the days I feel least insane are the boring days. I do my tasks. I write down what I learned. I ask one good question. I log off. I cook something basic. I go outside. I stop reading “AI will replace everyone!!!” posts written by people who make money from saying wild stuff!!! That part matters alot. The internet rewards certainty, and the truth is nobody fully knows how this plays out. Some jobs will change hard. Some roles will shrink. Some new ones will pop up. A lot of regular work will probably become “use tools well and check the output.” That sounds more realistic to me than either extreme. I also try to remember what companies still need: someone reliable, someone calm, someone who can talk to humans, notice context, own mistakes, and keep learning. Bots can generate, sure. But workplaces are messy. People are messy. Systems are messy. There is still value in a person who can sit in the mess and not make it worse; I’m trying to believe that counts for something. My personal opinion is that fear should be a signal, not a lifestyle. Learn the tools. Keep your basics strong. Save a bit of money if you can. Be kind to coworkers. Touch grass, seriously. And maybe stop treating every headline like prophecy??? I’m saying this to myself as much as anyone reading. If you’re in the same spot, how do you stop doom-thinking all day?? Do you set limits, mute certain words, talk to people, pray, work out, what?? I’d really like to know, because I’m tired of giving so much emotional energy to a future that may not even happen the way I picture it. I want to keep caring, just less wildly, less personally, less like every update in tech is a direct threat to my right to exist. That seems fair, right???

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