I'm in a similar situation; worked in a lucrative salary startup job with same "heading towards profitability and okay" and felt like that's not the destination

I'm in a similar situation; worked in a lucrative salary startup job with same "heading towards profitability and okay" and felt like that's not the destination I wanted to be; and now I'm working as a researcher in research-oriented startup toward consciousness research, with more freedom (but less than half the original salary). While it's not related to COVID and remote work that much, not being able to spend the earned money on fun activities for sure put an extra question-mark in the "why am I doing this again?"