the author has clearly been taken advantage of by her work as many people have been both in the software industry and outside of it. The biggest problem, is ou

the author has clearly been taken advantage of by her work as many people have been both in the software industry and outside of it. The biggest problem, is our need for money. If we only needed 1/3 as much money to live, then you wouldn't need to work nearly as much. You could work for 5 years and then take several years off. And, if everyone else did the same, the labor supply would shrink to amount that forces employers to treat labor with more respect. At that point, I don't think they'll mind you have a 3 year gap, as long as your skills are up to date. But, reducing your need for money to 1/3 is hard, partly due to our financial decisions: but this part can be changed. It's pretty easy to cut spending on the frivolous parts. The hardest part is taxes. In the US, on average, 1/3 of every dollar you earn gets taken by the Gov and it's much much more than that if you're in an expensive area like the bay area. If you find this surprising, take a good look at gov spend of GDP. Housing cost is probably the next biggest area that's hard to reduce, mainly due to laws that prevent land supply and zoning from increasing and lots of other political factors. Anyways, I think it's not reasonable to expect everyone's work to be fun 100% of the time. We just have to expect that some of the work will be interesting and some of it won't and reduce the total amount of work done in a lifetime accordingly.