[maratd]

> As a result I have numerous half baked personal projects.

Every decent developer has dozens of half-baked personal projects. Some get finished, some don't. All eventually get abandoned.

They are never a waste.

If you go through your codebase, you will find that you re-use code and techniques that you learned on your next project. This is how we learn.

[freestockoption]

I second this! I have never done a project that I fully regretted or gone to a job wishing I had stayed at a previous job. While I have gone to a job that I hated almost immediately, I still didn't see returning to the previous job as a viable option.

Every new venture I take, I feel I couldn't have done without the accumulation of all my past experiences (both professional and nonprofessional).

Where you are is also a function of where you've been, which can be hard as the human mind sometimes likes to dwell on regret.