Passion is a luxury. Discipline is our bread and butter.
When I started, there was 40 hours worth of work every week. By the end, I would show up and wait for things to break. We had an in-house database, written in Access 97, then 2000... called Smiley. I tried 3 different times to re-write it in a manner to make everything flow better, and save a lot of people a lot of grief. Each time, there was an absolute terror that something would go wrong, and somehow it would crash the business. I had mechanisms figured out by the 3rd version to keep everything in sync across the old and the new versions... to no avail.
It completely broke my spirit. I've been afraid to start any major projects, even personal ones, ever since.
I'm basically waiting to die of old age at this point.
Today, new technology is not exciting to me. Crypto was a big flop, and most AI applications I see are just pinging API requests to OpenAI so there's really nothing innovative in the technology behind such applications. I've spent my career in adtech and it seems like 90% of the money in this industry goes to data applications focused on advertising. By my estimate, consumer information technology peaked in usefulness around 2008 or 2009 and it's just been downhill and degrading user experience from there.
It’s all about perspective.
Life could have been way worse…
I realized that passion requires financial support, so I drew a line between what I love and what I need. Now, I dedicate weekends to hobby projects and weekdays to work-related tasks.
It comes and goes in waves. At 29 I was so burned out it was pretty horrible. You might just need a change of scenery.
Also, maintaining healthy lifestyle will also help.
I used to enjoy working on side projects (whether software engineering related or otherwise), but now it's just going through the motions there too.
It just all feels so pointless now, and my motivation is shot to pieces as a result of that.
an indie game renaissance is underway, and it’s fantastic.
Coding wasn't for me.
So I let it go and my life got better.
The caveat: it was mostly age that made it turn out that way. More or less more than three decades of experience as an adult. My adult experience includes adult lows. My experience includes adult highs. [0]
They come. They go. Such is my experience.
But the-world-is-as-it-is acceptance lessens lows that stick. It would have been better if things were otherwise. They aren't. Wishing they had been won't change that.
And more importantly my life's long term highs are long term highs. They are sticky and persist despite lows.
Good luck.
[0] Another caveat, coding isn't the only thing or the most significant professional pursuit I let go of because it wasn't for me.