I used to genuinely love programming.
To me, programming felt like a form of creation — almost like design or art. Back in college, I could spend hours exploring random technologies, building things that were completely useless, just because I wanted to see if I could make them work.
Some of my happiest memories were actually helping classmates with their graduation projects or taking on small freelance jobs. The money was usually tiny, especially by professional standards, but as a college student, being able to make some money on my own felt incredibly rewarding.
But after I started working, something gradually changed.
Programming stopped feeling like something I created and started feeling like a way to make a living.
Day after day, I'm writing business logic. Then more business logic. Then more of the same. There always seems to be another feature to implement, another requirement to deal with, another task waiting in the queue.
And somewhere along the way, I feel like I lost the passion I used to have.
Sometimes I wonder: Was I ever really passionate about programming in the first place? Or was that passion just a product of having more freedom and curiosity when I was younger?
What makes this even more frustrating is that the work doesn't seem to be bringing me much wealth either. I'm spending most of my time doing things that don't make me particularly happy, and I don't feel like I'm getting closer to the kind of financial freedom I imagined.
So lately, I've been feeling pretty lost.
How do you guys deal with this?
How do you separate "programming as a job" from "programming as something you genuinely enjoy"?
And if you've been through something similar, how did you find your way back to that curiosity and excitement you had when you first started coding?
I don't necessarily want to quit my job. I just want to figure out how to feel like myself again.
