I feel you on this. It's weird having to balance things between passion and necessity. Sometimes, I feel completely disconnected from what I work on as a care

I feel you on this. It's weird having to balance things between passion and necessity. Sometimes, I feel completely disconnected from what I work on as a career; I then contemplate what I'd like to do, and I'm either up against much lower pay or not caring about anything enough to want to do it. In my case, I probably need a solid, real vacation. Usually when I get some rest I can find some passion. It's a struggle, and I think very few make it to the place where they can say the old "I love what I do, so I never work a day in my life!" For me, I take joy from the fact that I'm providing for my family, and this really helps get me through the slumps. I also do different things in my spare time, some of which are completely orthogonal to my career (other than the problem solving aspect), and this gives me joy. All the best in contemplating things! You'll make it.