Totally relate. What I've always loved about programming was the satisfaction of creating something that people like and find useful, the craft of great design

Totally relate. What I've always loved about programming was the satisfaction of creating something that people like and find useful, the craft of great design and implementation, and the time I spent in flow. After lot of learning and practice, I've gotten my writing skills to that point as well -- which means a lot less time trying to understand obscure error messages, fighting tools, working around bugs. So I still enjoy programming when I do it, but spend much much more time writing these days. And I'm a lot happier, too!