[syntheweave]

You've been out of school long enough to have a different perspective on it if you go back. You don't have to do a degree, in fact it's better to just bounce around the local CC or online courses doing one "fun" extracurricular at a time. Taking the class makes a little commitment and the structured environment gives it more weight so that you have a "thing to wake up to in the morning".

Some good courses to try that you probably missed while aiming for the software career: philosophy, the arts, history, physical sciences, shop classes, sports/dance/martial arts.

Ultimately the goal is to find the thing you can study forever, or some kind of stewardship role that you're comfortable with. When you solve a lower order of struggle in life that frees you up to work on a higher one. But you have to grow into that kind of thing. Life never really gets easy.