I'd suggest taking a look around you and maybe ask that question to people you know in person. I know this feeling myself, especially when starting out with wor

I'd suggest taking a look around you and maybe ask that question to people you know in person. I know this feeling myself, especially when starting out with work after college. Always beating myself up over how I don't have any side-projects, if I'm going to cut it at work and basically why I'm not on the same level as Linus Torvalds, or some other genius programmer already. I think the truth is that I was heavily influenced by e.g. sites like HN, where it's always touted as the ultimate virtues to have these side-gigs and basically be working all the time. When I looked around though I realized that this is just not the reality for the overwhelming majority of people. Most people are happy just working their 8 hours and then _do something else_ So, my advice would be to 'stop trying so hard'