Life: Giving up the entire notion of a proper job being a 9 to 5 daily grind in the office. Have not had a 'proper job' for a while and instead I have been doi

Life: Giving up the entire notion of a proper job being a 9 to 5 daily grind in the office. Have not had a 'proper job' for a while and instead I have been doing freelancing/contracting which gives me more time to try out and learn new things. Also, like the OP, taking good care of my body which means quitting cigarettes, 2-mile runs every day and watching what I eat. Programming: I'm lucky enough at this point of my life to be able to choose the projects that I take on. These few years have thought me never again will I compromise on my promise to deliver quality projects to people. It really stresses me out when bosses change deadlines on a whim and expect you to meet it. Now that I'm older, I would tell them respectfully to get someone else if they really need to meet that target that bad. In my experience, 90% of the time, nothing good ever came out of imposing stupid/unrealistic deadline. All you get are burnt out programmers, code which resembles a travesty rather than a working application and a mountain of technical debt. At the end of the day, some people measure themselves from the car they drive, the houses they live in, how much money they make and to me, that's perfectly fine(whatever motivates you, man). For me, just being able to help people with projects that are meaningful to me, and not having to stay at a job because I needed the money is to me, the best thing in the world right now.