[jeanvaljean2463]

In my own experience there was a precipitous decline in my job performance related critical thinking around 32-34 ( I'm 36 now ) that I chalk up to a variety of factors:

    - Stress 
    - Family obligations
    - Not enjoying the work I do anymore
    - Solving the same problems over and over because I can't fix the org that produces them.
    - Solving the above problems in a new technology.
    - Crappy co-workers that I don't want to interact with
    - Giving my best to people and projects that never give back.
    - Making creative solutions that the client doesn't use because the clients are broken beyond my paygrade to solve them.

I burned out really badly around 5-6 years ago and it took a long time to recover. I feel better now mainly because I've stopped working on software projects in my spare time and now do manual labor on large project on some land I bought in my spare time. It's insanely satisfying to see the fruits of my labor add up over time without deprecation or having to do work every time an upstream project changes things or feeling "less than" about my work. My work speaks for itself on the land and it pleases me, no one else's approval required. ( Something I never felt about the software projects I worked on. ) It's also fun to talk to non-tech folks about the work because they usually have good suggestions about how to do something better that, for the most part, they give constructively.

My only advice/thoughts would be maybe take a step back. Do you TRULY enjoy what you are doing? In my own experience, it's hard to motivate yourself to work on things that you don't truly care about as you get older. Solving other people's problems was fun until I realized the entire world ( including the billionaires that have "made it" ) are mostly just people getting along and aren't necessarily more capable or knowledgeable than me. Some people get lucky with timing, tenaciousness, and talent... it's probably too late for me, but that's okay.

[sleepdreamy]

Too late for what? The fact you own land should be cherished in itself. A lot of people suffer or go through life with much less than you probably have now. You worked hard, don't diminish your accomplishments.

[jeanvaljean2463]

Too late to "make it" via SV/tech world.. I definitely am incredibly fortunate and much more grateful about what I do have as I have gotten older. It's one of the reasons that I don't give so much to my job anymore.

[sleepdreamy]

'Make it' is subjective though. I work in IT, own a modest home and I would say I've made it although many commenters on this forum would say I am broke by their standards. Everything is relative - I hope you are able to find joy, peace and rest in your well-deserved accomplishments

[13of40]

> Solving the same problems over and over

Years ago I was a manager on a (software) test team, and I can definitely relate to this. We were locked into a cycle of ...

"The test pass ran and one of the test cases failed."

"Which test case and what does it mean? Who owns it?"

"Well, Joe wrote it but he went to Amazon two years ago and it's assigned to Bob."

"What does Bob say?"

"He doesn't fucking know, there's no metadata and the test case is called FunctionTest27."

"Maybe we should just delete the test then?"

"But what if it's 'valuable'?"

[tumetab1]

> "But what if it's 'valuable'?"

That hit me hard... yes, that takes energy from a person.