I felt the same way until I had an epiphany recently, not a smart new idea kind of epiphany, but one where the obvious came back into clarity. Years in industr

I felt the same way until I had an epiphany recently, not a smart new idea kind of epiphany, but one where the obvious came back into clarity. Years in industry had conditioned me to seek validation from my peers in the form of completing projects quickly, positive code reviews and just generally being thought of as a "smart" programmer. That isn't really my job though, my job is to create something. If I don't suck I will understand the essence of what I am creating, whether it should be pretty, easy to use, flexible, fast, or whatever and make sure it embodies all those qualities. I know it is a really obvious thing but realizing it brought back a bit of my passion. We as engineers are so often called upon to assess feasibility and make estimations around projects, but it is really important to take a second and forget about coding entirely and picture why a user would be impressed with what you made, and then making sure you deliver that.