I am 38. I am sort of being pushed into management, both by the company and by my family. But I am finding management is not something I enjoy. I am not a bad l

I am 38. I am sort of being pushed into management, both by the company and by my family. But I am finding management is not something I enjoy. I am not a bad leader but I feel drained at the end of day. That feeling of runner’s high or in the zone is rarely achieved in meetings or while making reports. After a few hours of programming, I feel more energized than when I had started. Now I am looking to go back to purely programming positions but I think in long run it will be harder to get paid decently while competing with more and more fresh graduates. So my plan is to create my own business. Running your own business means a lot of not programming but I want a business that simply give me freedom to choose my projects, when I want to do those, and from where. These freedoms should make up for boring tasks. One non-tech business idea is real estate investments. I think flipping would be fun or maybe I watched too much HGTV. I enjoy fixing stuff at home though. It gives me same runner’s high feeling. For now I am slowly working on my real estate license. I figured that is the best way to learn market and if nothing else I ll save on commission on my next home.