For what it's worth, I had the same growing concerns over my tech career though I have to be honest, I wasn't as down on it as you seem to be. I totally get the

For what it's worth, I had the same growing concerns over my tech career though I have to be honest, I wasn't as down on it as you seem to be. I totally get the idea of doing something to make yours (and maybe someone elses) universe a little better, I started in tech in the late 90's making websites, that lead into design and development, I ran a company for a bit doing consultancy from 2007 to 2013 and then took at job at a start up as the first technical and design person. I stayed there for nine years, moved into the CTO role, then the CIO role and then last year I quit the industry to go back to a local rural college and study arboriculture and forestry. I now spend my days learning about trees and doing chainsaw work. By the time summer comes around I'll have all the qualifications I need to actually work as a climber who can use a chainsaw up a a tree or as a forester to go into plantations and fell timber stock. I also got pretty interested in woodworking in 2018 and I've spent a few years slowly self renovating my (very small) garage into a workshop capable of small scale production of "craft" items. Between the tree work and the creative sales I'm hoping to get a modest income up and running by the end of the year. It'll never be a tech salary, but that's fine because I'm out in the woods and in nature and that's a price tech could never pay. Even when the weather is cold, wet and grey there's still something to being outside and working (though I'm sure that will wear off after a few years) People often congratulate me on quitting to get "my dream job", or because I'm "following my passion" and neither of those things are true. My dream job is to work on whatever I want without having to worry about money. What I'm doing now is something I'm prepared to do for money because a) it is great fun and b) I'm doing something that at the end of the day leaves the planet in a slightly better state than it was at the start of the day. My unsolicited advice to you is to turn some of that cynicism into harnessable energy. It's not easy for sure, but that's kind of the point. If you stay with that easy pay check everything will be hard because you don't want to be there. Turn that around and do the hard thing of finding or up-skilling into something else and then you'll find most things will be easy because the simple act of changing your life will give you some wind in your sails. If it's important - I'm in the UK. Northumberland to be precise.