I can easily see how someone could end up in such a mental trap despite having chosen a career that is arguably one of the best paid one for something that's no

I can easily see how someone could end up in such a mental trap despite having chosen a career that is arguably one of the best paid one for something that's not requiring a top level education. My first employer was a service company selling programmers to big companies to do routine maintenance and evolution job. They would staff you in really boring departments, doing really uninteresting job, and would happily keep you in that same situation for years if the client was ready to pay. I could have stayed there, learning nothing, being employed to the minimum of my abilities, and wake up ten years later once the end customer didn't have any need for that particular skill anymore. It's one of the most dangerous situation to be in, as a developer. You feel comfortable, you earn a decent pay, and then wake up one day in a state of crisis, realizing you're now completely obsolete and on a precarious situation. Luckily for me, people close to me had warned me of that kind of trap very early, and so I stayed there only for a year then moved on to a start up (where i could work on great tech and great problems with great people, and being paid for that).