Awe man I know exactly how you feel. A lot of the time I feel stuck because I need to earn a living and support my family. No other industry will pay like the s

Awe man I know exactly how you feel. A lot of the time I feel stuck because I need to earn a living and support my family. No other industry will pay like the software industry. I too used to wait for Mondays and get excited about going to work. I used to relish that feeling of solving a big hard problem. Now having gone through enough rounds of corporate BS, layoffs, reorgs, incompetence, greed, and the like you wonder “what’s it all for”. You also look at the world and see more pressing problems than adding an AI chatbot to a photo sharing app. Much of it is how the industry has changed. I don’t dislike software engineering. In fact i love it. I dislike all the BS - especially in the last few years. Previously it felt like we were on the “same team” pushing for big change with the big tech companies. Increasingly they’re just pale images of their former self. “Don’t be evil” is far far gone from the ethos of these companies that have no qualms sacrificing values once core to Silicon Valley and the project of an open internet. Now it just seems they rode those “values” to a certain level of profitability and discarded them to get to the next level of making money. Now their is a strong feeling amongst management engineers are entitled babies, and a corresponding distrust of increasingly, and disconnected, narcissistic tech executives. I would recommend taking breaks and leaving any and all laptops at home. Establish an identity away from work be it as a dad, husband, with hobbies or otherwise. You can also find ways to volunteer in your community. And don’t discount seeing a mental health professional! Professionally my most fulfilling days involve mentoring and being of service to others. Helping someone else have a fulfilling career leaves me feeling better than solving a big hairy tech problem these days.