"I never get the opportunity to properly engineer something and learn from what works well and what doesn't work well as a result of my own design decisions."

"I never get the opportunity to properly engineer something and learn from what works well and what doesn't work well as a result of my own design decisions." Sure you do, it is called what you spend your free time on. In your case, you aren't devoting any of it toward what you loathe you aren't doing. That's fine, but everyone is equal in the fact that they get 24 hours per day, what they do with it is up to them. -Scott