The aversion to getting one's hands dirty I've found is common in software engineering as well. It just takes the form of nobody wanting to inherit someone els

The aversion to getting one's hands dirty I've found is common in software engineering as well. It just takes the form of nobody wanting to inherit someone else's project. Nobody wants maintenance tasks, everyone wants to do green-field development or if they must inherit some existing product they quickly conclude a rewrite from scratch is necessary. I too have a scrappy hands-dirty DIY IRL history starting with childhood. When I entered the software industry after years of sysadminning, it became very clear my enthusiasm for facing existing complexities head-on was somewhat unique among my peers as well. But I think this is a more general struggle everyone encounters in life; it's always more attractive to create new problems than solve existing ones. (I'm pretty sure that's a quote I've heard/read at some point, but its origin escapes me) Some examples from other domains: Relationships (my mate and I are arguing and I've been sleeping on the couch, my OkCupid profile just notified me; cheat) Automobiles (my car needs tires, brakes, a paint job, and thorough cleaning, the car dealership down the road is having a sale; new car loan) Living spaces and projects/hobbies (the closet is an unmitigated disaster area, I can't even open its door anymore, but the spare bedroom is empty and I need to start a new project rather than finish any of the dozen abandoned ones occupying said closet; new projects in spare room until it too overflows) This starts to look like hoarding, but it's really just backing down from solving existing problems in favor of making new ones. The list goes on, I'm sure you can come up with a bunch of examples yourself. Starting anew is an immediate gratification, anything else, not so much until you make forward progress which almost certainly will be a slog since the immediate gratification low hanging fruit phase was already burned by either past you or someone else altogether. Personally I find it far more rewarding to resolve existing difficult problems, especially now that I have so much experience that whenever I start anew I'm fully aware that I'm likely making problems future me will have to deal with. Existing problems usually have a bunch of evidence to scrutinize and inform what you're doing to make meaningful progress. Real problem solving. Creating from scratch is problem making. Honestly I suspect it comes down to a sort of anxiety about failure.