[allenu]

At some point in your career, I think you realize that you have to separate yourself and your passion from your work, especially if you are working for someone else[1]. There needs to be a clear delineation between what you believe is the right thing from a "passionate developer" standpoint and what is appropriate for a business. Often, what is appropriate for a business, and your survival in said business, is to go along with what the business wants to do, even if it's not what is ideal. If you don't, I think you'll always be at odds with something and will probably get burnt out trying to fight political battles. There are battles here and there worth fighting, of course, but you have to be okay with non-ideal solutions.

To me, that has been a challenge over my career and I've finally come to terms with it and I find my mood has improved quite a bit in the workplace as a result, albeit with a small death of my youthful idealism. However, now I try to use my passion in side projects, not to improve my CV, but just for fun. Interestingly enough, even idealism doesn't always work out there.

[1] I suppose it's possible to maintain your passion in the workplace and keep pushing ahead and doing even bigger and bigger things within a business (leveling up in the process, I'm sure), but I think to do so requires a lot of strength and endurance that a lot of us just don't have.