This is such an interesting thread and I feel I should share my story since it's on the other end of the spectrum.
I had a poor relationship with work about a decade ago. I struggled with very bad health, both physical and mental. I went through a slow journey of recovery that made me unplug from work a lot. I traveled quite a bit, cheap backpacking. I invested in friendships, good food, and very simple life.
In the last couple years I have moved to a village in eastern Himalayas. I gained my anchor: nature. I started a co-living hostel here. I started working in software again but I have no expectations of a traditional career. My passion came back slowly. I have been able to invest in learning new languages, create passion projects, do daily physical chores of running a nomad space.
I have even started learning drums. I have kept investing in people, learning how to build bonds. I also feed animals around me daily. Now I have come around to finally focus on software work full-time again. I'm building a product, but without big financial expectations. I realise this isn't standard, but: software product is about impact to me, not about becoming rich. And I'm deeply content with this.
I have been inspired a lot by Pieter Levels, the founder of nomadlist and have even connected on how I wanted to build things like him. For me, I feel I'm here now since building is not about making tons of money to me. I haven't had as much fun writing code daily as in the last couple years. And I'm 40 years old. Hope it helps.
I had a poor relationship with work about a decade ago. I struggled with very bad health, both physical and mental. I went through a slow journey of recovery that made me unplug from work a lot. I traveled quite a bit, cheap backpacking. I invested in friendships, good food, and very simple life.
In the last couple years I have moved to a village in eastern Himalayas. I gained my anchor: nature. I started a co-living hostel here. I started working in software again but I have no expectations of a traditional career. My passion came back slowly. I have been able to invest in learning new languages, create passion projects, do daily physical chores of running a nomad space.
I have even started learning drums. I have kept investing in people, learning how to build bonds. I also feed animals around me daily. Now I have come around to finally focus on software work full-time again. I'm building a product, but without big financial expectations. I realise this isn't standard, but: software product is about impact to me, not about becoming rich. And I'm deeply content with this.
I have been inspired a lot by Pieter Levels, the founder of nomadlist and have even connected on how I wanted to build things like him. For me, I feel I'm here now since building is not about making tons of money to me. I haven't had as much fun writing code daily as in the last couple years. And I'm 40 years old. Hope it helps.