By 
Two years ago, I joined the cybersecurity field. I began on my own, but then pursued it as a career change, coming from development and tech lead role. What I completely did not foresee was how this decision would reshape my daily life.
Not through the technical challenges, they were easy to predict, but through the constant stream of threat intelligence that now fills my days.
Let me share how this journey has affected my mental landscape, for better but also worse.
The Daily Digest – A New Reality
My routine has eventually developed into a pattern: workdays begin with security digests, weekends bring deeper dives into incidents, and only during holidays do I truly disconnect from the constant flow of cyber threats.
The threat intelligence could be either one of this category: security incidents and alerts, innovations, cybercrime, research breakthroughs, career developments, and attack vector guides.
Unlike learning a new framework or mastering pentesting tools, skills that are tangible and measurable, this constant awareness has created a more subtle but profound impact on my mental state, one that doesn’t end with the workday.
The clock never stops ticking, you are falling behind on information!
This journey has revealed a rarely discussed aspect of cybersecurity careers and that is the emotional labor of constant vigilance. We often get lost in developing technical skills and certifications, neglecting the mental strength needed to maintain health threat awareness.
But first.
Positive Transformations
My approach to technology has fundamentally shifted as safety now precedes features in every decision, from IoT devices to everyday applications.
This awareness has created a ripple effect, empowering friends and family to understand modern threats. Cyberattacks can be both simple targeted operations and sophisticated, large-scale campaigns performed by state actors.
The knowledge has made me a more conscientious tech enthusiast. Investing in poper security infrastructure, from robust routers to Raspberry Pi-powered home VPN solutions, backup solutions. In general, turning theoretical knowledge into practical protection.
Most importantly, I’ve gained a deeper understanding of the real costs of security breaches. Leaked data is still something that no one really wants to experience. Identity theft, as damaging as it is, is only a part of the full picture. The financial aspects when an attack is successful can be devastating as well, for the individual or company.
The Mental Burden
The constant exposure to threat intelligence has subtly darkened my worldview. In my daily digest, for every hundred stories, roughly half detail incidents, almost another half describe new threats, and barely a few innovations or positive developments occur. And when researching a threat actor, you bet you find nothing positive of any kind.
Sometimes, it feels like tilting at windmills.
Quoting Don Quixote is a great anecdote of how I feel fighting an endless battle against increasingly sophisticated adversaries. Increase in numbers as well.
Learning to distinguish between necessary caution and excessive paranoia, especially when evaluating security, is a skill in by itself. With this dark worldview, I often feel a need to step back. Is this going too far in security paranoia? Because I rarely feel going too far. This may be a deeper subject than it appears at its surface, and it may be also linked with contracts and wanting to do ‘good’ on your own part.
Lessons learned
What I learned, but sometimes still struggle to apply, is to first take care of mental health.
Professional growth and personal goals are important, but with a healthier brain, jogging can be transformed into a marathon. But with an unhealthy brain, or an exhausted one, a sprint can be detrimental to future growth. Sounds pretentious at the time of writing.
So, lessons learned:
- Structured information intake. While I still want to be updated with any recent developments in this field to better understand how threat actors plan and execute, I’ve drastically removed several sources. I did manually reshape my feeds so that news about innovation and technical improvements in cybersecurity and development appears more often, even though most news still covers incidents or security alerts.
- Accepting that zero risk is impossible. Focusing on meaningful impact rather than perfect protection.
- Knowledge sharing as therapy. I find it comforting, in both writing and discussing. Writing as therapy is underrated, I highly recommend it!
Photo by Dustin Belt on Unsplash.