The meta-topic is about disillusionment, which in this profession comes from having to learn new libraries and knowledge that you know will soon become obsolete. Reduce the risk by focusing on learning what interests you (language & industry), and accept only interesting work if possible (or create your own fascinating projects, if you're the entrepreneurial type) -- or work as a contractor, where you pick your projects, focusing on your favorite language.

Don't let yourself become a cog in the machine, learning one company's proprietary library after another; to me, this is what leads to programmer burnout.

One of the challenges of a programmer (among other professions) is leading a balanced life; do not let your work define you too strongly.

Actually, learning all the cool new stuff that comes out is what I like the most about programming. I love taking apart new stuff, watching communities rise and fall, and dissecting the philosophies that come out of it all.

It sounds like you've learned a rule that applies to you: to become productive again, go for a short walk.

These authors may seem to prescribe general rules since they write in an authoritative style, but we generally know to take them as considerations

This whole subject is so subjective. I once had the same views as the author, i.e. read a lot, use your time to be as productive as possible. Now I take a much different view. For example I would advocate not "diving into a book world" while commuting but instead be aware of other people, watch them, listen to their talks and try to understand their situations. The same with his 100 pages a day: I think this is also very much arguable. For most mainstream books it seems smarter to just read the summaries, for more demanding literature rushing through them makes only sense if the mission is to "hunt" some specific information down. Reading less but thinking more(critical) about it makes in my option much more sense.

I run a business and could relate so strongly, I registered for HN just to comment: this is why I find it so difficult to hire locally in the U.S. - the incentives make it so much easier to offshore work.